You can see this week's Catholic Herald coverage of Tuesday's Prayer Vigil at the new "Exact Editions" version of the paper. (It is free until 27 July.) I am glad to see that the photo is centred on a joyful looking Fr Michael Clifton. Fr Clifton taught me many years ago at the John Fisher School and has been a doughty defender of tradition in the various parishes in which he has since worked.
The same page has a rather scathing review of the concert by Igor Toronyi. Page 11 has a very good editorial on the question of the Motu Proprio. The Letters on the same page include one by Dame Suzi Leather protesting that the Charities Act is not secularism by the back door - good that she feels it necessary to comment but sorry, I'm not convinced. Oh, and my little article "Catholic Dilemmas" - this week on telephone salesmen and telling lies.
6 comments:
Fr. Tim,
As the Herald points out, the Blairite enthusiasm of most English bishops for “diversity” grinds to an abrupt halt when it comes to diversifying the liturgy through the liberalization of the Old Rite.
How similar this is to the fondness of the secular establishment for all things “multicultural,” except when it comes to Christianity, as exemplified by the Lydia Playfoot case.
The irony – and the ideological similarity giving rise to both attitudes – are not lost on me.
"we respect the Muslim faith" ?
Surely we should despise the muslim faith in the same way we despise abortion? We cannot respect anything which is antichrist (in that it denies the incarnation)- we must oppose it and pray for its destruction. Of course we respect and love Muslims but I think the appropriate phrase is "love the Muslim hate Islam".
On the question, that seems to be endless, of whether the Muslims and the Christians worship the same god, I am always reminded of this:
"Please," said the Lamb, "I can't understand. What have we to do with the Calormenes? We belong to Aslan. They belong to Tash ... They say he has four arms and the head of a vulture. They kill men on his altar. I don't believe there is any such person as Tash. But if there was, how could Aslan be friends with him?"
The Ape jumped up and spat at the Lamb. .."Tash is only another name for Aslan. All that old idea of us being right and the Calmormenes wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenese use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who. That's why there can never be any quarrel between them. Get that into your heads, you stupid brutes. Tash is Aslan. Aslan is Tash."
[...]
"Excuse me," said the Cat very politely, "but this interests me. "Does your friend from Calormene say the same?"
"Assuredly,"" said the Calormene. "The enlightened Ape--Man, I mean--is in the right. Aslan means neither less nor more than Tash."
"Especially, Aslan means no more than Tash?" suggested the Cat.
"No more at all," said the Carormene, looking the Cat straight in the face.
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From what I've read in the Koran, the Muslim's 'god' sounds more like Moloch.
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Or perhaps just the quick little one-liner:
What concord hath Christ with Belial?
It is important to point out that the Catholic Church has never officially sanctioned the identification of the God of Islam with a demon or with a graven image. A handy list of recent conciliar and papal pronouncements on the subject can be found here.
There is an argument (I won't go into it here, but it is based on the doctrine that God holds all his attributes necessarily) to the effect that any description of God that contains any falsehood must necessarily be a description of a non-existent, false god. This argument can be used to show not only that the Jews and the Muslims worship a false god, but also that many non-orthodox Christians (including, for example, Lutherans and Calvinists) do so, too.
But we must be cautious in applying this argument, for the simple reason that people's understandings may be skewed, through no fault of their own. (Just as one example, a traumatized abused child may never be able to accept that the All Holy Creator is "father". Those of us who are not traumatized can rightly understand this and know that it is an important, essential, truth about God. But for the traumatized child, the word "father" does not say of God what we want it to say.) Our language about God is conditioned by our experience and we cannot presume to be intelligible to those who have not had that experience. Even those who deny things about God that objectively ought to be affirmed may do so not because they misunderstand God, but because they don't understand those things that we wish to affirm about God.
It seems to me that when Catholics address the adherents of non-Catholic faiths, their principal duty should be, so far as it is possible, to give witness to the truth entrusted to us. The question is, how do we give witness most effectively?
As a matter of tradition, dating back to e.g. S. Paul in Athens (see Acts 17:22-31), Catholic apologists have seized upon the truths their audience already know, and sought to build upon them and show how they point, as all things point, to Christ.
Clearly, as a communications tactic, preaching to Jews and Moslems that the one they conceive of as most holy (even as too holy to be named, in the case of Jews) is in fact something utterly false and diabolical will make communication impossible and merely inflame hostility.
But this is not just a question of communications tactics. If we're really saying that Jews, Moslems (and perhaps Calvinists too) are unwittingly cherishing a viper in their bosom, a false image of what is holy, then what rational basis would we have for attempting to bear witness to them of what we perceive as holy? If we're saying that they are all tone-deaf, how can we rationally expect them to recognize our tunes as more tuneful than their tunes?
I will conclude by putting forward a thesis that is perhaps novel in the way that I express it, but which I think is entirely congruent with Christian orthodoxy, and which has indirect confirmation from the words of our Lord. Good and evil are not equal and opposite: there is a kind of asymmetry between them, and one way this asymmetry manifests itself is this. One most serious error is to take what is evil, and call it "good". Another is to take what is good, and call it "evil". But the second of these errors is infinitely worse. Our hatred of the first error should never entrap us into committing the second.
CPKS,
Your point is well-made and worthy of consideration. I differ from it in this respect:
St. Paul was in the process of explaining a recent event that would change the world forever. Getting this message across would require patience in both the speaker and the listener, much as was required for Copernican astronomy. The Revelation is now 2,000 years old and the literature vast. I think we are entitled to state briefly, and within earshot of the general public, that Christ is the Redeemer (and that He founded the Catholic Church), just as we say, without apology, that the earth revolves around the sun. Broadly speaking, I believe progress requires this.
Videos of the protest:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ww4rVPEBaXU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=elj6q3eoYgs
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lrXfCHWVU_Y
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Opuj3mLHRUo
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http://z10.invisionfree.com/ignis_ardens
You might wish to check them out (for suitable broadcast) but I do believe you are in there although we have never met.
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