The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Brendan O'Neill, whom I met recently, is an atheist who writes for Spiked online. Today he has a very good article discussing the Protest the Pope demo. Here is a flavour: This was less a coherent protest against a real problem, and more a madcap attempt to transform the pontiff into a political pin cushion, into which every group desperately seeking a sliver of purpose could then stick their particular pin. So some were protesting against paedophilia, others against AIDS; some were concerned about Holocaust denial, others about homophobia, and others still about the undermining of human rights. And apparently the pope, taking over from money, is the root of all of these problems and of evil in general, being a wicked, Prada-wearing, Bush-meeting devil and all. Some even waved placards saying ‘STOP STONING’ and ‘Religion flies planes into buildings’, which, correct me if I’m wrong, are problems that are associated with the Islamic faith rather the Catholic one. But who cares. G...

Earlier today, we witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a German who had been dragooned into the Hitler Youth and then conscripted into the army, visiting Britain as Pope, and praising our country for standing up to Nazism. He also spoke of how atheist extremists give us sobering lessons and how the exclusion of God from public life adversely affects how we view the human person. Yes, the Pope is indeed a Catholic. Here is the relevant text: Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and vir...

On the feast of the Assumption, Mark Dowd came to Blackfen with producer, Helen Grady to record our Mass at Blackfen and talk to some parishioners in the Social Club afterwards. I had a session with them some days later, talking particularly about the Mass and about Pope Benedict. This was all in preparation for the programme " The Pope's British Divisions " which was broadcast on Radio 4 this morning (it is available on iPlayer for a few days). I was at the seminary at Wonersh for a "Staff Review and Planning Day" and, unusually, found myself listening to the radio after breakfast. Naturally, only a small portion of the recorded material was actually used in the programme; it is part of the art of producing such a piece that a judicious selection is made. As any producer would expect, I would have one or two quibbles but from a media point of view, it is fascinating to see how much work is put into such projects. There were pieces from Pluscarden, Aberdeen,...

CBN (the Christian Broadcasting Network from Virginia) have compiled this report on an Islamic show of strength in Paris: Apparently this has been going on for some years every Friday between 3 and 5pm. There are some more videos at the French blog Bivouac ID . The places where the videos are taken seem to be mainly up in the 18th Arrondissement not far from Montmartre. In France, this islamisation is opposed strongly by the proponents of laicité, those who work against any influence of religion in the public square and have been vocal in opposition to the influence of Islam. This is an interesting contrast with England where the secularists seem to focus their energies much more on attacking the Catholic Church. Last year, I wrote about how the SSPX were prevented from ending their Pilgrimage from Chartres as they had often done before, in front of the Basilica of Sacré Coeur. Rorate Caeli carried the letter of Fr L Duverger in response. The authorities seem disinclined t...

It was sad to hear that there was a bomb scare at Lourdes on Sunday, the feast of the Assumption. Everyone had to be evacuated from the Domaine for three hours while the army searched the place. Not pleasant for the people there, but I suppose it is good for Lourdes to have a dry-run evacuation. With the amount of anti-Catholic hatred being whipped up in Europe it is not impossible that places like Lourdes will become real targets. Given that danger, I was irritated by the silly bits at the end of the Telegraph report Bomb scare at Lourdes . Here they are: Around 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860, and the Roman Catholic Church has recognised 67 miracle healings, the last in November 2005. Despite this, the Lourdes ( sic ) has built up enemies over the years among those who criticise its commercialism. It makes millions from tourism and souvenir selling every year. Others, including members of the Catholic Church, are deeply sceptical of its alleged healing p...

Brendan O'Neill, the atheistic libertarian, attacks the ludicrous campaign to have the Pope arrested in his article " The Secular Inquisition " in Spiked, of which he is the editor. It is a fun piece in which he talks a lot of sense. [...] despite the lack of any obvious, sensible reason why they break out in boils at the mention of the words ‘Benedict’, ‘priest’ or ‘Catholic’, the pope-hunters’ campaign has acquired a powerfully pathological, obsessive and deafeningly shrill character.

Damian Thompson today has a quotation from Richard Dawkins about the Holy Father, whom he describes as a " leering old villain in a frock ". Have a read of this section: No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice – the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution – while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears. Does that not sound a whole lot like a previous propagandist against another world religion? Just for the record, here are a couple of the comments that have been published at the Richard Dawkins website : Appeal for an anti-Catholic Kristallnacht : Until the mid 60's it was traditional for a monk to appear three times before a new pope at his coronation, to burn a taper and utter the words "sic transit gloria mundi" (thus passes the glory of the world) as a reminder...

Susanna Maiolo was more honest. An article in the Irish Independent today makes a characteristically snide attack on Pope Benedict: Sources said that Pope Benedict was considering diverting attacks on his handling of paedophile cases in Germany and France by taking strong action in Ireland. The sources added that the Pope was considering the option of seeking Cardinal Brady's resignation to prove to his critics that he was now fully determined to tackle the worldwide abuse crisis. In other words, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. If the Holy Father does ask Cardinal Brady to resign, it will now be construed as diverting attacks on himself. There is also a sly insinuation in the "now" of the second sentence quoted. Pope Benedict has long been known as tough on the "filth" of clergy sexual abuse and, as Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, introduced procedures to ensure that offenders were dismissed from the clerical state. Authors of the ar...

Damian Thompson has drawn attention to the headline in the Times erroneously and unjustifiably attacking the Holy Father. See: Catholic fury over The Times's coverage of Pope Benedict XVI . While writing this, I also received Damian's Tweet with a link to the Facebook Group Catholics Who Condemn the Times' Treatment of the Pope which you may like to join if you are on FB. The Times article has a sidebar quote from Ruth Gledhill which includes the words: The Pope is pretty unassailable. He is not elected ... The Times should not be allowed to forget that it highlighted that as an "Expert view" from its "Religion Correspondent". The mainstream media are clearly gearing up for an all-out attack on the Holy Father when he visits Britain in September. This is a good time to pray earnestly for the Pope: one way of remembering to do this is to gain as many plenary indulgences as you can, since one of the conditions is to pray for the intentions of the Ho...

Photo: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk Recently, the Government introduced an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill, allowing Faith schools to teach Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) "in a way that reflects the school’s religious character." The Catholic Education Service (CES) claimed credit for this, citing its "extensive lobbying." As we have now come to expect, according to a wearily familiar pattern, the purported concession is worthless, allowing the Government to be seen to appease Catholics, and then reassure the secularists and gays who protest loudly. Under pressure from humanist and homosexual activists (e.g. NSS and Pink News ) but focussed particularly as a response to the Accord Coalition , the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has issued a response . In a "Let's be absolutely clear" statement, the DCSF specifies that faith schools will not be able to opt of statutory PSHE and SRE (sex and rela...

Last Sunday, a group gathered outside Westminster Cathedral to protest against the visit of the Holy Father to Britain. They walked to the Italian embassy in Grosvenor Square and had a rally there. The British Humanist Association website gives some information about the event and there is a page at meetup.com . (The organisers give a figure of 200 attending so there are unlikely to have been more than that.) The demo was set up to co-ordinate with a similar one organised in Rome by the Facciamo Breccia Coalition . Speakers came from the BHA, the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, the Protest the Pope coalition, the European Humanist Federation, the National Secular Society, Outrage and others. The various groups report on the event focus on their own concerns. The humanists emphasise the secular Europe agenda while the gay groups claim that the demo was mostly LGBT. I expect it was a mixture of both. We can expect from of the same in the run-up to the Holy Father's visit,...

Here's a nugget I noted before Christmas but did not get round to posting. I think it is worth bringing to your attention. You will remember back in November that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld a complaint by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish woman with Italian citizenship, that her children had to attend a state school that displayed a crucifix in each classroom. She got an order for 5000 euro compensation to be paid by the Italian Government. It seems that this has concentrated the minds of the Italian Constitutional Court which has issued Sentenza N.311 which states that where rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) conflict with provisions of the Italian Constitution, such decrees “lack legitimacy”. See: Gerard Warner Who'd ha thunk it? Italian Constitutional Court tells ECHR to take a hike, asserts national sovereignty

H/T to Thomas Peters at American Papist for this video from a previous era of hype about "overpopulation". I cannot but agree with Thomas' observations: Never thought I'd find myself agreeing strongly with John and Yoko ... Catch the editorial comment by the show's host? Some things never change... I especially like Lennon's last line. The icy grip of the dictatorship of relativism has tightened since those days. It would be more difficult for a pop celebrity to express such opinions today, methinks.

The Oxford University Newman Society blog has a report on Monday night's debate on "The role of religion in the British constitution." The key speakers were Evan Harris MP, recently honoured as "Secularist of the Year", and Bishop John Arnold, Auxiliary in Westminster. The report speaks of a civilised exchange of views: I think this is a positive thing and the Newman Society are to be congratulated on holding such a successful high-profile debate. Bishop Arnold was a year senior to me in Rome and it is good to hear news of his taking up the challenge of debating with one of our leading secularists.

The Government has just accepted all the recommendations of last year's Annual Report of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG). I suppose it is not too surprising that the Government accepts the report since it is actually produced by the Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) on behalf of the TPIAG and is hosted at the Government's "Every Child Matters" website. First of all, let me give you a general flavour of the report. The TPIAG is predictably delighted that the Government has earmarked £26.8 million of our money to for "contraceptive services". They want condoms to be promoted on TV before the 9pm watershed and because of concerns about pornography, they want an official government portal on the internet where young people can access "approved sites on sex and relationships." How reassuring is that for all you mums and dads out there? The report gives a whistlestop tour of current Government...

The Voice carries the story of Denise Haye who was sacked from her job at Lewisham Council's legal services department after posting her Christian views on homosexuality on the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement website. She filled in an enquiry form which invited readers to give an opinion. See: Sacked christian to sue council Denise Haye is bringing an action for unfair dismissal, supported by the Christian Legal Centre .

Miguel Hayworth and his father, John, have been preaching on the street in Manchester for five years but have now been told by the Police that handing out tracts is harrassment and that reading out passages from the Bible was inciting hatred. The Police action was initiated after complaints were received from two members of the public. Although the men were threatened, they were not actually arrested.(See: Preacher threatened with arrest for reading out extracts from the Bible in public ) Miguel Hayworth's case has been taken up by the Christian Legal Centre which has written to complain to the Police.

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...

Duke Amachree, a homelessness worker for Wandsworth Council, was suspended from his job in January because he had suggested to a woman with an incurable illness who was being evicted from her home that she might try putting her faith in God. He was told in an investigatory interview in March that "God had to be kept out of the workplace". He asked whether it would be appropriate to say "God bless" and was told that it would not. On Monday he was sacked. See the full story at the Christian Legal Centre: Wandsworth Council have today sacked London Homelessness Prevention Officer after previously threatening "say 'God Bless' and we'll sack you" . The Christian Legal Centre is representing Mr Amchree who is taking Wandsworth Council to an employment tribunal. This is the latest in a series of recent cases. Some may be won, some lost, who knows? The effect of them on ordinary employers and employees will be one of intimidation. Whatever the legal o...

Recently there was another example of anti-Christian discrimination under the guise of equality legislation. David Booker, working for the Society of St James, a housing charity in Southampton, had a conversation with a colleague in which they discussed the question of homosexuality and the Church. He said that he didn't agree with same-sex marriages, didn't believe pastors or vicars should marry same-sex partners and didn't agree with practising homosexuals being a pastor or a vicar. The next evening, he was given a notice that: “On 26 March 09, whilst on shift with a female colleague, you seriously breached ECHG’s (English churches House group) Code of conduct by promoting your religious views which contained discriminatory comments regarding a person’s sexual orientation.” and formally suspended with the threat of dismissal for gross misconduct. Andrea Minichello-Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre said: This case shows that in today’s politica...