Sorry for the title and picture. In fact, it is not a picture of liturgical abuse in the Catholic Church (though it does look remarkably similar to some clips of the same on YouTube.) It depicts druids celebrating something at Stonehenge. I post this after reading Damian Thompson's good post about the
Utterly fawning coverage from the BBC of the pagan festival of Halloween or “Samhain”, including an interview with a chief pagan in a sheepskin. “We’ll be continuing with our coverage throughout the day, watching the celebration of the most important festival of the pagan year,” we’re promised.Here is a bland BBC history note on the Roman campaign against the Druids:
The druids were the priest-scholars of ancient Britain, but 'druid' also tended to be a 'catch all' name used by the Romans for those who resisted their rule. In order to suppress the druids in the far west of Britain, Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus subdued the island of Mona (Anglesey), but he was forced to cut short the campaign to put down the revolt of the Iceni under Boudicca in south east Britain.To be fair, further down the timeline, the BBC does acknowledge that the druids were "probably animists who practised human sacrifice." Britain Express does at least give the Romans some credit:
And to give the Romans their due, they seem to have been genuinely horrified by what they considered the grisly and uncivilized practices of the Druids.Recent evidence tends to confirm the allegations of Julius Caesar and Pliny the Elder that the Druids practised human sacrifice and cannibalism - yes, so terribly uncivilised.
3 comments:
It's not shocking at all. I have it on good authority that it's a gathering of liturgy groups from the local worshipping communities, marking the succesful completion of their annual audit by the Diocesan Director of Liturgy, in joyful and inclusive celebration of their being Church.
These poor souls. They're obviously searching for something, it's such a pity they've fallen for nonsense such as reconstructed "Druidism"!
Of course, the BBC seems to love these characters. Robert Pigott devoted a large section on the news about the "Rise of Paganism" a few months ago. It seems that the BBC took the bizarre line that Paganism = nice; Christianity = full of repressive rules!
Of course, “Samhain” is based on the Irish pagan calendar, and is therefore nothing to do with the British Druids! They would have been celebrating "Calan Gaeaf" instead, which simply means "The beginning of Winter".
It seems we're back in the 5 - 6th Centuries again, and the Church needs to get out there, bringing Christ's light to the darkness that always seems associated with paganism!
Thanks for the post, by the way!
We still have real paganism: what is procured abortion other than the sacrifing of humans to placate the cruel gods of the modern world?
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