The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Neil Addison at the Religion Law Blog has an interesting post on the recent case of Singh v Singh . He summarises: Mr Hardeep Singh (Defendant) had written an article in the Sikh Times questioning the religious validity etc of His Holiness Sant Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj (Claimant), accusing him of being the leader of a Cult a Blasphemer and of engaging in religious practices which were incompatible with Sikhism. In response Jeet Singh sued Hardeep Singh for Libel. You can read the case at this link: Singh v Singh [2010] EWHC 1294 (QB) Mr Justice Eady, in his judgement, pointed out that on what was intended to be the first day of the trial, a preliminary issue has to be resolved on the second defendant's application to stay the claim, either wholly or in part, as being non-justiciable He then said: That issue was pleaded in the defence on 16th November 2007 and is founded on the well-known principle of English law to the effect that the courts will not attempt to rule upon d...

Now this could be fun. Mgr Basil Loftus, who writes a weekly column for the Catholic Times, has threatened to sue Fr Ray Blake for "suggesting that he is a heretic" if various comments are not removed from his blog within seven days. Fr Blake is standing firm by the principle of free speech for his commenters and says that he relishes the thought of a trial in a British court for heresy. (See: British Heresy Trial ~ Coming Soon! ) My guess is that the public gallery will be full. UPDATE : it seems that Fr Mildew has been threatened as well.

Having just worked out what #followfriday is on Twitter (and indeed having posted my first #FF tweet) I thought it would be good to have an hashtag for an "Anathema Saturday" post. Mulier Fortis pointed out to me that it would be better to have #anathemasiturday and so this is what I propose. (It could be shortened in Twitter to #AS) #anathemasiturday would be useful for flagging particular doctrines that have been condemned solemnly in General Council just to make sure that everyone knows that if you do in fact hold the doctrine, the Catholic Church has solemnly repudiated it. Before anyone submits silly comments, nobody is suggesting thumbscrews or boiling in oil, just the recognition that certain doctrinal positions are simply not Catholic. So here is my first #anathemasiturday choice: If any one says, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other prie...