The Hermeneutic of Continuity

I suppose some people will disagree with him but I have to say I found that Morgan Freeman made some sense in this short clip.

The Resistance Campaign has a petition against euthanasia and assisted suicide. As well as signing it yourself, please check whether your MP has signed it (or refused to do so) by using the MP database . If neither, do use the email form to urge them to sign the petition. Here is the text of the petition: We the undersigned fear that calls to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia are likely to intensify. Our concerns are heightened by the current economic climate and calls from politicians from all parties for cuts in public services. We believe that people who are disabled or terminally ill (and their families) rely upon such services to live with dignity and that quality services make the difference between a fruitful life, led independently, and mere survival. We support Not Dead Yet’s call to all MPs to sign up to the ‘Resistance’ Charter 2010 (full text here ) declaring that they will support palliative care and independent living services and maintain legal protection...

John Smeaton reports on the pro-life and pro-family victory which has been won in Parliament. Since the General Election has been called today, the Government has to negotiate with the opposition parties to get through any legislation that is outstanding. In this process known as the "wash-up", controversial clauses are dropped from some bills in order to get them through. Thankfully this has happened with the Children, Schools and Families Bill which is to be passed without the offending clauses on compulsory sex education. Congratulations to all of you who made sure that the offensive clauses were indeed controversial.

The Westminster2010 Declaration of Christian Conscience is modelled on the very successful Manhattan Declaration but an independent initiative for Great Britain. Launched on Easter Sunday, it already has well over 5000 signatures. It has been well-timed in that today the Prime Minister has just announced that the General Election will be held on 6 May. Here is the text of the Declaration: We the undersigned are Christians who believe that protecting human life, protecting marriage, and protecting freedom of conscience are foundational for creating and maintaining strong families, caring communities and a just society. In signing the Westminster 2010 Declaration of Christian Conscience we commit ourselves to worship, honour and obey God, to exercise social responsibility in working for the common good and to be subject to all governing authorities and obey them except when they require us to act unjustly. We call upon all parliamentary candidates to pledge that they will ‘resp...

Archbishop Chaput of Denver was speaking yesterday at the Houston Baptist University on the role of Christians in public life. His talk can be read in full at the Archdiocese of Denver website: The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life . The talk was hosted with the assistance of the John Paul II Center at the University of St Thomas. Sandro Magister has commented on the talk, and published it in full. As Fr Z comments, this is remarkable given that the speech was only given last night. See: Archbp. Chaput’s HOMERUN in Houston! The Archbishop refers to the speech given by John F Kennedy fifty years ago to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He says of the speech: It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely “wrong.” His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, ...

The gay magazine Attitude has recently published an interview with David Cameron in which he has tried to convince the gays that he has converted from being a diehard supporter of Section 28 to being a right-on "it's normal and harmless" guy. For what it's worth, they don't trust him: the magazine invites readers to make up their own minds about "whether his pro gay conversion is simply to win votes." The text of the interview is not available online and there is no way I am going to scandalise my devout and hard-working Hindu neighbours by buying a copy in their shop, so I am relying on quotations. Ruth Gledhill has helpfully focussed on his remarks on Christianity. (See: Cameron tells Rowan: Make your Church pro-gay ) Cameron effectively confirms that if a Conservative Government is elected there will be no change in the current drive to prevent "faith schools" from teaching Christian doctrine. In response to the loaded question 'Do...

Over the past couple of days, Stephen Hughes, Member of the European Parliament for the North East of England, has hit the headlines as a Catholic who has expressed indignant opposition to the Holy Father's comments on Equality legislation. Speaking at a meeting of socialists and democrats, Hughes said that he was appalled by what the Pope had said, and pointed to the duty of religious leaders to eradicate inequality. He protested that "Inequality is at the root of many social problems." One social problem for women in one part of the world has been that when they wanted to have a second baby, they have been forced to have an abortion. Other women in the same country have been subjected to forced sterilisation. The USA declined to continue funding programmes in countries which did this sort of thing. In 2001, the EU stepped in to make up the 33 million shortfall. In 2008, Amendment 134 to the EU budget was proposed: Community assistance shall not be given to any gove...

Nadine Dorries is annoyed that the Speaker of the House of Commons no longer wears the traditional dress. This used to include a wig, knee breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes. John Bercow wears a plain black gown over his lounge suit ("business" suit if you must.) Despite the simplifying of dress, it seems that MPs are still expected to observe the tradition of standing still with their backs to the wall and their eyes diverted when the Speaker walks down the corridor. Nadine Dorries has rebelled against this tradition, causing great annoyance to the Speaker by doing so. She writes: My response: if you want to drop the tradition of wearing the Speaker’s dress, then don’t expect me to honour the tradition of standing still in the corridor when you move along it. You don’t pick and choose traditions. If you do you begin to erode away at what brings millions of pounds into this country each year via our tourism economy. You erode the authority of the Speaker’s chair an...

In advance of the General Election, the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in Great Britain, Nick Clegg, has detailed a series of proposals regarding homosexuality. The most disturbing of these is that he considers that "Faith Schools" should be required to teach that homosexuality is "normal and harmless". He also wants gay couples to have the right to describe themselves as married, rather than in civil partnerships. It is an indication of the lack of effective opposition from Churches, from other faith groups (who largely share our moral teaching concerning homosexual activity) and in particular from the Catholic Church, that the leader of one of our mainstream parties feels that it is a politically advantageous move to threaten the persecution of "Faith Schools" and the enforcement of regulations that could not be followed in conscience by many such schools. See also the post from John Smeaton .

Back in May, I wrote about an article in L'Osservatore Romano which was astonishingly favourable to Barack Obama, saying among other things that he is not a pro-abortion president. (See: Criticism of L'Osservatore Romano builds .) Yesterday afternoon's Italian edition continues the trend with an interview with Tony Blair that even the Guardian describes as effusive. A few blogs have picked this up from the Guardian article - including John Smeaton, SPUC Director who gives the list of Tony Blair's anti-life record: voting for abortion up to birth, and personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos to give just two examples. For the full list and other links, see: Vatican newspaper should not have given Tony Blair an easy ride . The Vatican website carries the Italian text of the full interview . I expected that the question of abortion might have been ignored. In fact there is the following scarcely believable exchange ( my translation ): [Giulia Gale...

An amusing and pertinent post by Diogenes: Reading Comprehension

Fr Zuhlsdorf has a classic fisk of the TIME article exploiting the resignation of Bishop Martino of Scranton for the leftist-political and secularist agenda. See: TIME Magazine’s liberal spin of the resignation of Bp. Martino (D. Scranton) See also St John's Valdosta: A good Bishop unjustly "retired" See also Catholic Culture: Bishop Martino's departure: did he jump or was he pushed?

There have been many reactions to the funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy (may he rest in peace) and this one quoted at the excellent " The Deacon's Bench "blog is representative: "Liturgical comfort food" . Given Senator Kennedy's support for abortion, there is a real question over whether there should have been a high-profile Catholic funeral at all. As Robert Kumpel points out at St John's Valdosta , if the Archdiocese of Boston can honour a pro-abortion politician and allow a pro-abortion president to eulogise him then they perhaps owe an apology to the Mafia. Even leaving that question aside, as a "model" funeral that many people will take as an example of how to give someone a proper send-off, it leaves much to be desired. The question of praying for the dead can be tricky in today's "feel good" society but that is no reason just to leave it off all together. Someone might have pointed out that the one thing we can really do f...

Resurgence is a Catholic political party for the UK. As a priest it is not my place to urge you to join it - and I understand that some people take the view that we should work within existing parties. Nevertheless, I think that it is a most interesting initiative and deserves to be known about. The organisation was founded with a declaration made at Mount St Bernard Abbey in 2005, and was registered as a political party in 2007. It has its roots in the ProLife Party which de-registered as a political party in 2004 and is now known as the ProLife Alliance . You can read the aims, prospectus, constitution etc. at the Resurgence website.

Earlier this month, the Tablet had an editorial article on John Henry Newman, suggesting that his Catholicism would be a divisive matter both ecumenically and for the nation, and that therefore the Beatification should be principally a celebration of Newman's "Englishness." The website for the cause of Newman's canonisation offers a response that is surely a model of restraint in the circumstances. The article includes this excellent paragraph on truth and peace: Must Newman’s Catholicism in fact be divisive? ‘Challenging’ seems a better word. Whatever we call it, however, we cannot evade Newman’s conviction that the Gospel puts ‘holiness before peace’, and makes the Church independent of every worldly configuration of power. Pope Benedict has recalled this imperative in Newman, his refusal of every secularising alternative so as to (in Newman’s own words) ‘detect and to approve the principle on which … peace is grounded in Scripture; to submit to the dictation of tr...

One accessory I must get for my car is a lead to plug into the radio so that I can play mp3s through it and listen to talks on my way round the M25 and resist the temptation to listen to the news on Radio 4. On the way back from Parkminster after Vespers, this evening's 5 o'clock news was particularly nauseating as it was announced in tones rather like announcing the freeing of the Birmingham Six, that Debbie Purdy has won her appeal to the Law Lords. They found that according to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, a person has the right to choose how they die, because that is a part of their private life which must be respected. They have ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to set out a policy statement which will make it clear to the public under what circumstances anyone will be prosecuted for assisting another person to commit suicide. Since there have been over 115 cases of people committing suicide at the Swiss Dignitas clinic and nobody has yet ...

Via a note from Damian Thompson on Twitter, I found Ed West's excellent post about the National Secular Society: The National Secular Society aren't secular - they're atheist bigots . This was prompted by the NSS reaction to the Scottish Nationalist Party candidate for Glasgow North East who is associated with Opus Dei. They apparently think that this disqualifies him for office. Looking up the story, I am delighted to find that the candidate in question is David Kerr. David has worked for the BBC for many years and wrote a powerful critique of the Panorama programme "Sex and the Holy City", showing its inaccuracies and bias. This research was used by Robin Aitken in his book "Can we Trust the BBC?" The National Secular Society needs to be worried. In addition to his association with Opus Dei, David has also been a regular at events run by the Faith Movement . He is more than able to answer the expostulations of those secularists who imagine that science...

It is still just about possible to parody our nanny state. Someone sent me this spoof by email. It appeared in a message forum recently. I thought it was quite good. "Government To Introduce Improved Monitoring Of Home Cooking" An Independent Review Of Home Cooking was commissioned by the government after concerns were expressed that home cooking could be used as a cover for child neglect or even abuse. Child safeguarding agencies have long held concerns about children who are eating at home instead of the free Government Feeding Stations located in every local community. A spokesman said, 'We believe that children who are fed at home are at increased risk of malnutrition and obesity. We must protect them from this potential abuse by ensuring that home cooking is properly monitored and controlled. If this helps just one child to avoid obesity, for example, we think the increased monitoring will be worth it. Genuine home-feeders should not be alarmed.' Many home-feeder...

Graham Badman was asked by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, to review arrangements for home education in England. His report has now been published: Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England . On the same day as the publication of the review, Ed Balls wrote a letter in reply , in which he says: I accept all the recommendations in your report that call for urgent action to improve safeguards for home educated children and we will introduce these as soon as possible... (But he is, er... "issuing a consultation.") The report gives prominence to the concern raised by the British Humanist Association as follows: “some of those who choose to educate their children at home for religious reasons may not be providing schooling that is adequate, either according to the Every Child Matters agenda or the principles of Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child”. I did think at the time it was intr...

It is always a little depressing to take the ferry and train back from the beautiful Isle of Wight to the mainland and then on to The Smoke. Mulier Fortis picked me up from the station and filled me in with some of the blogging news I had missed over the past couple of days. Particularly irritating was the news that Cherie Blair was fronting the launch of this year's Sea Sunday appeal . The Apostleship of the Sea is a worthy Catholic charity, providing for seafarers who are away from home for long periods. It is therefore sad to see the choice of celebrity for the launch of their appeal. Cherie Blair, along with her husband, openly dissents from the teaching of the Catholic Church and I agree with John Smeaton that she is not a suitable person to be invited to launch a Catholic charity appeal. I rather fear that this publicity stunt will do more good for Cherie Blair than for the Apostleship of the Sea. (See British Horrors , this article and this article and some quotes .)