Priest - Where is Thy Clerical Garb?

A fantastic post on Catholicism Pure and Simple:

One day a gentleman dressed smartly in a jacket, tie and pants was in the sacristy waiting for Padre Pio. When Padre Pio clapped eyes on this sophisticated man he said, ‘Father, you came in disguise, but you don’t have to be ashamed, next time come dressed as a priest.’

If our people saw priests, as priests, more often, it might jog their conscience and get them to make Confessions and return to Mass.

Btw - the above quote contains an Americanism. Pants means trousers. Not that the alternative would surprise me too much, especially in Soho...

Personally speaking I agree with CPandS (read the blog entry linked above), that men have as much of a duty as women - and I speak as a workingman and father who regularly wears working clothes, has a two-day stubble and regularly throws on jeans, a shirt and my DMs and think "that'll do".

All too often we see "men" in children's clothes and I especially detest clothing plastered in writing, especially if it includes barely disguised foul words.

It doesn't take much to polish one's shoes, but on a decent shirt and get to Mass.

I remember speaking to a priest many years ago when I was a little more than a bairn myself concerning a female friend (girlfriend of a best friend) who we were trying to get to "return" to Mass (her nan was a Catholic but there was little Faith in the family as far as I could tell).

I asked the priest if it would be OK to bring her to Mass because at the time she had a 'mohican' haircut, which would raise eyebrows on a man, let alone on a young lady, amidst mantilla wearing trad ladies. The priest replied "bring her to Mass, God will take care of the rest."

Why Does the Media Pander to the 20% Over the 70%?

In today's Daily Mail they say that roughly 70% of the UK's population are "Christian" and roughly 20% are "agnostic/atheist." I quote:

The Citizenship Survey showed that Christianity remains the faith of the great majority of the population. But its share dropped from 77 per cent to 70 per cent between 2005 and 2010. Over the same period the numbers who say they have no religion went up from 15 per cent to 21 per cent.

If this is the case may I ask why the atheists are always putting Christianity down, stopping Christian events, pumping out a huge proportion of anti-Christian programmes, holding sway on news and current affair programmes such as Newsnight, and so forth?

In essence we have a very vocal minority putting down the beliefs of the majority. Now when people do that against a minority, even in a sober, controlled way - e.g. against Judaism or Islam - there is uproar, often led by some of the secularist contingent who insist on defending "multi-culturalism.".

Yet Christianity is often attacked in the most shrill, blasphemous and obscene ways, discussions are often one-sided, and yet we are seen as "fair game."

It's high time the 70% asserted their rights (and the right of their Lord and God) over the minority who seem to think the media is at their beck and call.

It is the same people who try and undermine marriage at every twist and turn when every set of figures reveal that marriage is far better for society, children and couples (Melanie Philips made this point and wiped the floor with her feminist opponent, who had to affirm the figures detailed that marriage is best, on the Jeremy Vine Show earlier this week).

No doubt some atheist will pick holes in my argument. They are free to do so of course. I will counter that atheist states usually lead to organised mass murder (via gulags or abortuaries) and so it is my duty to stand up against their obscene hatred of God and man.

Adeste Fideles

Moral Relativism: Have We All Gone Gaga?

In the latest issue of Private Eye there is a review of a new "book" (I use the term lightly) "by" (ditto) "Lady" (thrice ditto) Gaga. It can come across as a form of snobbishness, but I do often wonder who watches Eastenders, and on reading that Lady Gaga has brought out a book, I found myself wondering who would hand over ready cash for such turgid offerings?

Is this the generation that has no idea of history? That misspells its way to 'better than ever before' exam results only to take Media Studies at University, only to fail to get employment thereafter? I have dealt with people in my working life whose grasp of grammar and spelling leaves one wondering how they ever got the job in the first place. Teachers' assistants who cannot spell. History-related employees who know nothing of St Thomas More, Cromwell, Bonnie Prince Charlie, William of Orange or even Montgomery and Rommel's duel in the desert (or should that be dessert? A mere trifle!)

But let's return (like a dog to his vomit) to the servant of public decency, Lady Gaga. The reviewer of the book makes it plain that as with her public shows, her stage act and her music videos, the book is full of gratuitous semi-nudity. He says that the reader (with, one suspects more than a couple of brain cells) quickly gets bored of what he terms "Bum here, bum there, bum everywhere." The very gratuitous nature of the supposedly erotic photographs becomes tedious.

As ever I was drawn to the wise insight of GK Chesterton, for he wrote that in the topsy turvey world it is the traditionalist that is revolutionary. So proved Lady Gaga's book.

In an age when nudity, sex, promiscuity, etc. etc. are the staple fare of prime time TV and the daily newspapers, this stuff simply fails to shock anymore. The question is, where will society head. It seems to me we have three choices:

1. More of the same.
2. Return to sane values.
3. Extreme nudity, pornography etc.

The first choice isn't an option really as society rarely stands still in this age of 24 hour rolling news and the constant need for something "new."

The second option is the truly revolutionary one and the one that will help heal society's wounds. Sink estates of single parent families where amorality reigns supreme are just one example of where sensible values could help (but where endless sums of money poured in by governments will achieve relatively little in comparison - as it deals with the symptoms, not the cause).

Worryingly we might say that option three is the more likely, as the modern media is run by people (including pink and rabidly atheist mafias) to whom the idea of morality, Christianity and the family are poison. And so we start to see ever more questionable and X-rated material appear on TV, from the plot-lines in (the soap opera) Eastenders, to the writhing soft-porn of the X Factor (singing competition) and I dread to think what Channels 4 and 5 are spewing out.

Chesterton, as ever, was right. Traditionalism is revolutionary because the porn, violence and swearing that litters the airwaves does fail to shock. It becomes boring. Why do the talking heads heap praise on TV shows that "push boundaries" (media-talk for promote homosexuality, drug taking and the like) yet when a popular grass-roots movement that promotes chastity until marriage comes along the usual suspects are lined up to heap bile and hatred on it, as if these people fighting the modern world are somehow assaulting them and their drug-addled "rights."

A friend of mine told me his theory on the reformation the other week. He said that Catholics who want to be more liberal, who want to "run their own lives" or who want to be free of the "restrictions" of marriage and so on, give succour to the 'reformers' and so undermine the Church and her dogmas. In his words, the first Protestants were bad Catholics. Maybe like Henry VIII they too wanted easier divorces.

Now I'm sure there were also those people who are just anti-Church, anti-Christ, anti-sanity who jump on any bandwagon too, but one only has to look at the modern world to see that as sexual norms crumble, as divorce grows, as re-married, step-children families and all the rest of it grow, the media (urged on by the pink and atheist mafias) urges these people to see the Church as "out-dated"

And so we have two realistic choices as a society. We can reject the chaos of moral relativism, of the post-family age, of the "do what thou wilt" generation, of the drugs, promiscuity and non-marriage media-led types. Or we can go further down that road which will lead to yet more crime and rioting, more rootless and "worthless" generations.

Some think David Cameron is playing to the stalls in calling for "British" Christianity and against moral relativism. Maybe he is. But it reminds me of the words of Pope Benedict in his recent visit to these isles. perhaps some of that has sunk in? Perhaps the recent riots acted us a 'wake-up call' to the Tory leader?

Lady Gaga has, like the singer Madonna before her, an Italian name, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. She studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart.

This goes to show that this kind of degenerate anti-culture can infect our own families, our own communities, and that we can still churn out 'bad Catholics' today - who will go on to fuel the enemies of the Church and provide the cultural strike force of moral relativism.

Will there be a backlash against the amorality that rules the TV screen, the music charts, and infects our cities and towns on weekend evenings? Or will we all - Catholics included - churn out yet more fodder to erode away our Christian heritage and advance the cause of those intent on creating moral chaos?

It could be a time of great hope. It could also be a time of great fear.

Our Hope is in the Lord, Who made Heaven and Earth.

From Shakespeare to Blogging: Catholicism's the Key

I know, it's a bard cartoon! Groan.

As Shakespeare was a Catholic and had such an impact on the English language, not to mention culture and literature - it's time for us Catholics to (re)claim him as one of our own.

He lived in the time of recusant priests, torture, fines, property confiscations, and brutal judicial murder for Catholics, for remaining loyal to the Faith of our Fathers - the same Faith that Elizabeth I swore to uphold before walking at of her Coronation Mass as the Host was elevated.

Our lands, England, Wales Scotland and Ireland were nourished on Catholicism and "grew up" as Catholic nations. Shakespeare's Catholicism is a reminder of that basic fact and a link for all schoolchildren, actors and writers (even single-finger tappity-tapper occasional bloggers like me!) that our heritage is Catholicism and our strength, like the strength of our forefathers, is in the Sacraments, especially in the Real Presence of Our Lord on the Altars of these lands.

I suppose it's like the Parable of the Talents: Shakespeare used his many talents, and I hope I'm using my one and a half: which doesn't include grammar, erudition or soliloquies! ;-)

Stephen Fry and the Creator of Mankind

Asimo robot on QI with Stephen Fry

I was listening to an episode of QI today, when Stephen Fry ("bless") gushed over the achievements of the computerised robot, Asimo.

Fry, a rabid atheist who seems to think that science is above God (because God doesn't exist of course), was close to tears in his lavish praise for the team who created Asimo. The great achievement of Asimo is that it can understand a few dozen greetings and instructions, that it can walk down steps, it can run and it can dance.

Funnily enough, as a (far from perfect) human being, I can do all those things and more. Even on a bad day (and it is a bad day if I'm dancing!) Yet I do not hear the secular saint Fry lavishing praise on my Creator. Nor even on the Creator of the creators of Asimo!

Isn't human pride a terrible thing?

Feast Day of St Andrew

A very happy and holy St Andrew's Day to one and all.

Let us especially pray for the conversion of that ancient country, Scotland, that it may come back to the Faith of its fathers.

St Andrew - Pray for Us
St Margaret of Scotland - Pray for Us
St Ninian - Pray for Us
St Columba - Pray for Us

The Power of the Media in Modern Britain

Er no thanks... but something is wrong.

As Catholics we all know about the "power of the media" because, sadly, it all too often follows an anti-Catholic line. Strike that. 95% of the time it is anti-Catholic (by omission or commission).

Today the landlord in the Bristol, Joanna Yeates murder case, Christopher Jeffries said he had to move from safehouse to safehouse after the media painted him as guilty of an awful murder. As The Telegraph put it:

Mr Jefferies told the inquiry how he had been forced to move between friends like a "recusant priest at the time of the Reformation."

This cannot be right. The media have overturned the age-old right of being 'innocent until proven guilty.' Indeed, it is often the case that the innocent are hounded to an awful degree, with salacious and often made-up material spread across the papers, whereas the guilty are treated with kid gloves and so we see people of the most heinous crimes (such as child abuse) let out after a few years to repeat offend.

I don't know how other Catholics feel, but I get the feeling that GK Chesterton would rip apart the topsy-turvey nature of a system that brutalises the innocent yet soft-soaps the guilty.

I just hope that in the shadow of some awful behaviour by the tabloids, real press freedoms aren't curtailed: the kind that expose the wrongdoings of the MPs, bankers and... newspapers.

In a country where the guilty have the right to Playstations but the innocents are ripped apart in the womb, it is little wonder that, as a society, we have lost all idea of what we are, of what is right and what is wrong.

And the answer, short of mass conversion and the Social Reign of Christ the King? I think we should look for the break-up of media empires, a regulatory body with some teeth, and a return to the kind of media in which the small publisher can publish and flourish - allowing some decent Catholic voices to be raised in answer to the material and spiritual concerns of a people crying out for answers.

Telegraph story and video

Why Do So Many Think They Know Better Than God Himself?

I should start this blog entry with an apology to any theologians or priests looking in, for I am neither, just a bog standard Welsh Catholic with a Comprehensive education, so if I mix my metaphors or fumble the ball a little, please do bear with me.

I love Advent. I love this time, with the approaching of Christmas, the preparation, the hymns, carols, the excitement - almost as much (sometimes more than) the great Feast itself!

The thought of the Nativity story, the Incarnation of the Word, God made man, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ... it can make one dizzy in anticipation.

When one analyses this simple fact of the Incarnation of God one realises that far from being the simple matter of a baby in a crib, we are dealing with a fathomless mystery and equally amazing example of the fathomless nature of God's Grace.

As we Catholics say the Hail Mary we repeat those wondrous words pronounced to the Mother of God:

Hail Mary the Lord is with Thee,
Blessed art Thou amongst women and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb.

After Her total submission to the Will of God, something each of us strives towards in our lives (often failing dismally), she was made the Ark of the Covenant. The Incarnation of God was made possible by the total submission of Our Lady to the Will of God. The Handmaiden of the Lord became our Co-Redemptrix, surely one of the reasons for Satan's prideful rebellion, that a mortal woman by raised higher in Heaven than the Hosts of Angels, as their (and our) Queen.

And this brings me to an issue that came up in conversation with our local priest on the issue of the Church, Confession etc. "Why do we need the church?" so many ask in the modern age. They could ask why do we need coffee, why do we need pavements, why do we need collars on shirts - for none of these has done even a tiny fraction towards advancing civilisation as Mother Church has -- yet we get this modernist, 60s, socialist, materialist (label it as you will) mantra repeated all the time in all forms of media but especially in modern fiction:

Why do we need the Church.


The modernists who would rewrite history and paint the Church as the greatest evil known to man (forgetting all the evils it replaced and all the evils it negated and strove to 'fix' - I am reminded of GK Chesterton's quote on Christianity as not found wanting, but found, and untried), forget that Our Lord Jesus Christ left us His Church.

If we did not need a Church, if we did not need the Sacraments of the Church, then Our Lord would not have created it, with St Peter as the first Pope, with the Apostles and others as the first Bishops, with the Mass and -- "This is My Body" -- the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity left in the Eucharist to strengthen the Christians. Our Lord also explicitly gave the priests the power for the forgiveness of sins, to enable us as e struggle on in our daily lives.

The modernist rebellion against the need for the Church (which reached its ideological zenith circa the French Revolution - but has reached its technological zenith today via the reach of Hollywood and the media) is flying in the face of the wishes and precise instructions left by Jesus Christ whose birthday most people in Europe are about to celebrate.

As for those Protestants of 1001 varieties of the modernist 'catholics' who say they do not need the Catholic Church, i.e. that any church will do... well they are as bad as those charlatans who say "I can confess my sins to God at home" -- because we all know that they seldom do, nor (without they guidance of Holy Church) would they know what constitutes sins in many respects.

Jesus Christ did not start the Protestant churches - men did. The Son of God did not start all the other religions men did (yes - even modern Judaism was started by the Pharisees). Are we really so proud, so insincere, so devious as men to think that we know better than Jesus Christ - the Son of God, God made man, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word Incarnate?

He left us the Church with the Pope at its head; he left us the Sacrifice of the Mass, he left us Confession to help us overcome our sins... and yet we, modern men, think that we do not need all this! We can do without His Church, we can do without His Sacrifice of the Mass, we can do without His Confessional!

How proud and sinful is modern man, that so many of us think we can pay lip service to the Son of God, yet ignore the very things He left us, in order that we may be worthy of Heaven, the gates of which He opened for us.

We are all of us sinners, we are all of us weak, we are all of us human. We All fall, many times, on our own Via Dolorosa. That is why we need the institutions left to us by Jesus Christ - especially His Sacraments.

If we think we can do without them we are sorely mistaken! We should submit ourselves to the Will of God, and that begins by availing ourselves of His Sacraments through the auspices of His Church.

To do otherwise is to join the Devil in his terrible revolt against God Himself.

Be on the side of the Angels! Go to Mass, get to Confession, partake of Communion. The Sanctifying nature of the Eucharist will give you many Graces, and in this modern(ist) world we, each and every one of us no matter our status, need all the Graces we can get!

Give GKC This Christmas

Give the Gift of Chesterton this Christmas.

GKC is the perfect gift for a non-Catholic friend. He is perhaps one of the writers most responsible for a great number of converts to the Faith (and common sense!) in 20th Century Britain (and long may that continue).

G.K. Chesterton on Sola Scriptura

He could be a little more 'rotund' and the sound is a bit computerised.... but this is glorious nonetheless.

Enjoy!

Mel Gibson: Forgive Our Trespasses

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

Fatima, WW2 and New Age White-Washed Satanism

The inventor of modern witchcraft

I was listening to an old podcast from the BBC History magazine (an Irish Catholic friend dismissed it as "Whig history" when he caught me reading a copy previously) when the subject of the "Wicca religion" came up.

I am no expert in these things, other than what common sense and sound Catholicism informs me is a great evil and wrong. Yet what I found of interest in this feature was that the gent being interviewed -- clearly someone with a softness for paganism -- had to admit that the vast majority of historians interested in Wicca (which has to be a quite specific pool to draw from) admit that the 'religion' as we know it was invented by one Gerald Gardner.

Gardner himself claims he was initiated into Wicca by a New Forest coven in 1939 (a significant date) but the historians in question generally dismiss this and think that he invented the Wicca religion himself, in 1946. Funnily enough, like Aleister Crowley, Gardner claimed to use witchcraft to defend Britain from Nazi Germany. Make of that what you will!

Gardner knew Crowley (the Satanist) and in 1947 joined his Ordo Templi Orientis. After Crowley's death Gardner became the highest ranking member of the OTO.

There are a number of interesting points here for Catholics:

• Our Lady at Fatima said WW2 would happen because of the sins of men, and here we have a degenerate man who founded modern witchcraft right after WW2, in 1946. Mankind has learnt nothing, as the Wicca movement has grown in Europe and America since then.
• The movement embraced by extreme feminism for all sorts of political, sexual and social reasons, was founded by a man who joined Aleister Crowley's highly dubious OTO in which "sexual magick" (sic) was considered important.
• Wicca is linked in with Satanism from its very beginning, despite the protestations against such links by those trying to be its public face or trying to whitewash it.
• Those Catholic feminists - even nuns in America - who flirt with Wicca need to seriously sort themselves out!
• Wicca has no roots in "ancient religions" or "pre-Christian faiths" - it was invented by a weirdo who liked nudism and sex, in 1946.
• Catholics from every nation and of every "rank" must ensure that our Shepherds do not see Wicca/Witchcraft as a "fellow religion" in this age of ecumenism and post-Assissi ecumaniacal shindigs (e.g. the Peace Mala group promoted on the front page of the Menevia News diocesan newspaper promotes Wiccan groups on its website as I previously detailed on this blog).

Wicca was invented in 1946 by Gerald Gardner, close associate of Satanist Aleister "The Beast" Crowley and leader of his Satanist group after Crowley's death.

It's modern propaganda that it is "white" witchcraft, and a feminist old religion dating back centuries, is like so much else in this day and age, just hogwash.

Catholics: arm yourselves with the Truth. Only then can we seek to expose the Wiccan lies and protect our Faith from those who think we can 'learn' from these freakish cults or who think such cults are on a par with our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Olympic Posters Point to Dead Society

Spodges, twirls, blocks and funny colours.

The LOndon 2012 official posters were unveiled today and what a cacopohony.

The con that is "modern art" is there for all to see. The Empreror is stark, staring naked.

The "art" is as shoddy, shocking and vacuous as those post-60s roller discos that double-up as Catholic Churches.

Art, like Churches, used to stir the soul. Now in this kind of vomit-inducing form it just stirs the stomach.

Oh The Guardian love them with words like "the most effective posters" and "a winner" or what about "touching idealism" and "self-conscious sentimentality."

But these are the same brand of people who loved Vatican 2 and predicted the modernisation of the Church would fill the pews (just like they promise the same with "gay marriage" or married priests).

All modernism, in art and religion, does is wreck. It ruins what it touches because its soul is basically against Truth and Beauty, it is relativism writ large.

I am not English, hence the blog name, but if I were I would love to think someone would promote something inspirational and English, traditional and English, making England and her culture and history part of the Olympic ideal (how about a Celt, Viking, Saxon and Norman reaching out for the Olympic torch, or King Alfred's statue on a stadium backdrop, or the Olympic rings floating on a 'nice cup of tea'... They could be traditional, fun, self-effacing, proud or thought-provoking.

But please someone tell me what the squiggles, lines, blocks and swirls of modern art are supposed to tell me about England in 2012 other than it is a mess.

If they wish to stop drug-taking in the athletes, was it wise to use these images, many of which I imagine drug usage had a role in!

BBC Reports on Young Women Becoming Nuns

Sister Jacinta

There's an interesting story on the BBC website on how more young women are turning to a religious vocation in a world that is giving them many problems, pressures and false hopes which quickly fade and die.

We can only hope Holy Mother Church recognises that there is a terrible spiritual vacuum in many peoples' lives. If Catholicism isn't forthright enough to offer itself, with 'the Truth that sets you free' at its core, then many youngsters will turn to any number of evils and errors which will plunge all too many souls into damnation.

There are many false worldly choices offered to the young, which is why I think Catholicism needs to stand apart from the "modern world" with its relativism, decadence and hostility to the family. By being apart from the mess of the modern world it can attract those who have seen through the half-truths and miasmas of the modern world or who have witnessed its empty promises, whatever their age.