Homos Are The Real Bigots

Cheesy poofs.

Cheesy poofs.

Brilliant piece of sober, reasoned thinking from Frank Turek on TownHall.com.

Telling about the usual homo calling him – as usual for homos – “bigot”, he says among other things (emphases always mine):

That’s the central fallacy in virtually every argument for homosexuality—if you don’t agree with homosexual behavior, you are somehow bigoted against people who want to engage in that behavior. How does that follow? If conservatives and Christians are “bigots” for opposing homosexual behavior, then why aren’t homosexual activists bigots for opposing Christian behavior? And if we are bigots for opposing same-sex marriage, then why aren’t homosexual activists bigots for opposing polygamous or incestuous marriage?

And in fact it never persuaded me how you can have boundaries, but I can’t. How you can claim to have a moral compass, but I cannot. How you can have a sexual perversion, and say that the ill person – the homophobic one – am I.

Then comes the debunking of the idea of having to be sympathetic to sodomites:

According to the latest data from the Center for Disease Control, homosexual men comprise more than 80 percent of sexually transmitted HIV cases despite comprising less than 2 percent of the population. The FDA says that men who have sex with men have an HIV infection rate 60 times higher than the general population. Why should we be encouraging behavior that results in such tragic outcomes? If I have good reason to think you are on the road to destruction—if a truck is about to run over you—the only way to love you is to urge you to get out of the street. If I tell you to keep walking down that road—that I celebrate the road you’re on—how could I hate you more?

I like the argument, but I personally do not think that medical behaviour should be the reason for condemning homosexuality. Homosexuality is wrong because – besides being utterly disgusting, in such a way that only a depraved generation can choose to overlook the sheer horror of such a behaviour – it’s forbidden by God in a very special way. It has made it into an extremely exclusive list of sins – that countless generations have learned by heart and many contemporary “Christians” wouldn’t even know what it is about – and it has been explicitly been condemned by Christ Himself, who used Sodom as the epitome and paragon of evildoing when condemning the inhabitants of Capernaum.

“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day”.  Matthew 11:23

It needs a very, very thick reader not to comprehend that here Jesus is saying “even those perverts who were so astonishingly bad that they had to be destroyed in their entirety might have seen the light in time, if they had had the privilege of seeing me accomplishing such mighty works as I did for you”.

But no, nowadays people prefer to believe that “Jesus does not take position on homosexuality” (no? Really? So he did came to subvert the Law after all? Or am I missing something here?), as yours truly had the adrenaline-laden privilege of reading in that oh so balanced loudspeaker of modern faggotry, the “Daily Telegraph”.

Turek’s treatment of the “born that way” is highly entertaining, and I will report it in its entirety:

First, after many years of intense research, a genetic component to homosexual desires has not been discovered. Twin studies show that identical twins do not consistently have the same sexual orientation. In fact, genetics probably explains very little about homosexual desires. How would a homosexual “gene” be passed on? Homosexuals don’t pass on anything because homosexual unions don’t reproduce.

Second, while desires are not a choice, sexual behavior always is. So regardless of the source of sexual desires, people are certainly capable of controlling their sexual behavior. If you claim that they are not—that sexual behavior is somehow uncontrollable—then you have made the absurd contention that no one can be morally responsible for any sexual crime, including rape, incest, and pedophilia.

Third, the “born-that-way” claim is an argument from design— “since God designed me with these desires, I ought to act on them.” But the people who say this overlook something far more obvious and important— they were also born with a specific anatomy. We can’t know if our desires are inborn since we can’t remember anything from birth, but we are 100 percent certain that we were born with our anatomy. So why do homosexual activists choose to follow their desires rather than their anatomy? Ignoring your desires may be uncomfortable, but ignoring the natural design of your body is often fatal.

Fourth, being born a certain way is irrelevant to what the law should be. Laws are concerned with behaviors not desires, and we all have desires we ought not act on. In fact, all of us were born with an “orientation” to bad behavior, but those desires don’t justify the behaviors. If you are born with a genetic predisposition to alcohol, does that mean you should be an alcoholic? If you have a genetic attraction to children does that mean you should be a pedophile? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to anger justifies gay-bashing? (Don’t blame me—I was born with the anti-gay gene!) Certainly, those that oppose alcoholism, pedophilia and gay bashing are not “bigots”—they are wise.

I liked that with the “don’t blame me” as in fact could be used to justify every kind of behaviour, ever the one homos define as “homophobic”.

The author concludes with two very perceptive statements:

a) in nowadays political climate, calling your opponent ” bigot” might win the day even if you don’t have any argument at all. The senseless and ceaseless whining of the homos is proof of that. Play the victim, and you’ll look good even if you are the real nazi.

b) In order to put an end to this circus, the only thing that must happen is that people start thinking again, getting rid of the politically correct blinkers and starting to apply simple logic to life’s situations.

We are not there yet, but something is starting to move.

Mundabor

War Cry, Not False Compassion!

Absolutely brilliant blog post from the “Little Catholic Bubble” about misguided compassion.

The author of the blog first describes her observation that

The culture has quickly moved from complete aversion to gay “marriage” (which was unthinkable even fifteen years ago) to the beginnings of real acceptance. I’ve noticed that most who have moved towards acceptance have done so out of a misguided sense of compassion.

We see here the poisoned fruits of a culture that has substituted Christianity with a wooly “let us feel good” mentality, where too many believe that, provided one “doesn’t harm anyone” (I didn’t know sodomy doesn’t harm, by the way), then it is all fine because we are oh sooo charitable.

When you have to explain to anyone that a sin is harmful because it offends God, you know that Christianity is in trouble.

But the fact is, the author continues, that such misguided compassion harms Christianity (and Catholicism) in a very direct way, by being used as a weapon to attack Catholic institutions: this is what we are seeing in several American states regarding adoption agencies, a story seen in similar ways in the United Kingdom and that has relevance for everyone of us in his daily life (try being a bad-and-breakfast owner and have to accept pervert in the house you live, and then tell me….).

A second, but crucial issue is the one of “discrimination”: if it is accepted that perversion is all right, then calling perversion as it is suddenly becomes discrimination, and hate speech; and the person must be very stupid who believes that liberals will be anywhere near “liberal” with everyone disagreeing with them. The author puts it, again, brilliantly:

when grave sin is re-categorized as a societal virtue and a civil right, then you and your Church are suddenly the ones in violation and will be penalized for speaking or acting in opposition.

The fact is, very simply, that the liberal is the enemy of the Church. To try to appease him is a feat of Chamberlain-like stupidity. It is the foolish idea that you can live together with those who want to get rid of you, and will have them as friends if you help them to do so. To say it again with the words of the author:

And so I implore you, fellow Catholics: Stop trying to “get along” with the world. The world hates you as it hated Christ, an assurance we have from Our Lord Himself. The new age of secularism is upon us, and its endless drone of “tolerance” does not apply to you.

It is time to wake up and realise that we are living a new, if not less dramatic than the old one, clash of civilisations: the Christian world against the new secular/liberal Nazism. This Nazism has already made vast inroads into our Christian societies, with abortion, euthanasia, and sexual perversions being just some example. Having being allowed to go as far, it is now moving toward the destruction of Christianity, which they – make no mistake on this, or you’ll pay the price – rightly see as in total opposition to their ideology and world vision.

It is perfectly coherent for a secularist to want to destroy Christianity. But it is perfectly stupid for a Christian to help them do so and feel good in the process.

We need a war cry to get out loud and clear from the Christian ranks. We need to realise that this is not about tolerance, or compassion. This is about the survival of Christian civilisation or its transformation in a world dominated by Nazi poofs. The cry that should go up from the Christian world is the one you hear above, courtesy of the genius of Giuseppe Verdi:

Guerra! Guerra! Guerra, guerra, guerra!

Mundabor

 

The Pope, The Head and The Duce

Renato Bertelli, "Profilo Continuo"

The photo you see above depicts Renato Bertelli’s Profilo Continuo, a then extremely celebrated and, still today, rather admired work of modern art.

The work represents, as the name suggests, the profile of the Duce over a 360 degree rotation.

Whilst the profile of the Duce is very marked and, so to speak, fitting for the role, what counts here is the impression of strenght, daring innovation, and even speed suggested by the work.

Bertelli’s inspiration didn’t go unnoticed. Mussolini was so pleased with it that he allowed its use as official portrait, and the work gave birth to reproduction that lovers of art (and, presumably, of Fascism) could install in their own reception rooms.

You see here, if I may say so, modern art at its best. You see what the work is aimed at, you visually and instinctively “get” the message of the work: the representation of Mussolini’s traits as the embodiment of a new era, a brave and daring, but breathtakingly modern one. Whilst very modern and with the Duce almost not recognisable, it still defines him in a brilliant way.

Fast forward to 2011. A new statue is revealed in Piazza dei Cinquecento, in Rome. The statue represents the late Pope, John Paul II.

It is, undoubtedly, a piece of modern art. There is a huge cavity, strongly resembling a device for the relief of gentlemen’s bladder urges and therefore fittingly called, by the vox populi, orinale. Apparently, said urinal-shaped cavity represents the desire of the late Pope to be inclusive, and accept everyone. It still looks like a urinal, though.

Over this strange device, a head is placed. A heavy, square, hard one. A head which, coincidentally, looks pretty much like the Duce’s head – it is astonishing how certain things remain in the collective imagination of a country – but is supposed to be the head of the late Pope instead. One looks at the “work” and thinks that whatever the artist has been smoking, it should be taken away from him at once.

Note that Bertelli didn’t need any modification to his work; and that his work actually wouldn’t have tolerated any, so beautiful it is in its purity of lines and clarity of purpose. This doesn’t seem to be the case of the artist of (degenerate) art who created the urinal, because said (degenerate) artist has now promised to modify the work so that people, at least, stop thinking that it is a monument to Mussolini with the wrong name.

One wonders what will happen, then, to this “masterwork with second thoughts”. Will the head be so modified as to make it more similar to the one of the late Pope? Will we get a profilo continuo of the said pope above the orinale? Will the Pope miraculously get things like… arms? Will the urinal be actually replaced with something at least vaguely resembling a body?

In the same weeks of the inauguration of the orinale, a statue to Ronald Reagan was unveiled in front of the American Embassy in London. It looks like – you wouldn’t believe it – Ronald Reagan. One wonders how the Americans could be so unbearably unimaginative as to commission something resembling the person it is meant to remember!

I do not know you, but I am fed up with idiots squandering public money and wanting to be cretinous at all costs, purely out of fear of not being considered intellectual and unconventional enough. Cretins is what they’ll be considered, both those who made the “work” and those who commissioned and approved it.

I am waiting to see what “modifications” are going to be unveiled. I’m afraid we haven’t stopped laughing yet.

Mundabor

How Feminism Killed Its Daughters

Now available in Asian countries.

One of the most tragic effects of the modern culture of death is being revealed in the last years: the selective abortion of girls.

As you can read here, this murderous practice has taken hold not only in China, but also in other Asian countries characterised by a strong preference for boys (curiously, then, some liberals will tell you that Catholicism is male-centered).

When in a country like China 120 boys are born for 100 girls, you know something really bad is in the making.

On the one hand, this clearly impacts public order. Males are sexually aggressive and a generalised scarcity of women is, on a collective scale, bound to cause problems of various kind. I can’t imagine that countries with a primitive legal system but vastly corrupted local structures, like China, will not have mafia organisations selling the “right to marry” in the territory they control, and killing those who marry without paying; or young women being sold to the one making the best offer; or an increase in the killing of men caused by the desire to have their wife “available” again.

On the other hand, this shows us how feminism starts to kill its daughters, with women’s “liberation” becoming the liberty to be killed in the womb because a woman. If you are looking for a form of discrimination against women, you can’t find one more cruel and cynical than this. But hey, don’t tell the feminazis, they would give the blame of all this on… men, and prefer not to see what monsters abortion has given birth to.

Besides, every Chinese/Asian man (and, make no mistake, woman: the discrimination against women has deep roots over there, and you can’t blame men for what is common mentality and custom) would be able to tell the feminazis that “reproductive health” applies to them too, and that Asian women should have no less rights than their Western counterparts.

Abortion: the gift that keeps on giving.

Mundabor

The Slow Awakening About Divorce

Too easy even for Luther.

Slowly but surely, the idea starts to enter in some non-Catholic heads.

Take the Tory propaganda, for example. The defence of the family has always been a mainstay of Tory ideology, at least in words. If you live in the UK, you might a noticed an ever so slight tendency to upheld traditional values even among the faggoty, hoodie-hugging, chameleons Tories of these days. In their confusion, they can’t even see what a family is, but at least they start to see more or less confusedly that divorce isn’t all good. I know, Cameron is an idiot who would sell his mother to whoredom for the sake of a fringe minority of voters, but at least he gets some vague glimpse of the truth.

From the University of Virginia comes now a study telling us something for which actually no study has ever been necessary: a divorce is highly expensive, highly disruptive, and the cause of high social costs. The idea would seem to start thinking about making divorce less easy: people would then feel motivated to make the step only when they are rather persuaded, and in general a more solid approach to marriage and a happier generation of children would result.

All very sound, say I. But then one wonders why what is right should be right only when taken in the half dose, and would stop to be right if things are done, well, entirely right.

Believe this Italian-born blogger: nothing creates solid families so much as the inability to divorce. When children grow up in a world where they know that they only have one go, they will mostly grow up into adults who will make responsible choices, will go into a marriage without thinking that it must be an erotic paradise (him) and endless romance (her), and most of all they will go into their new life without a huge door with “emergency exit” written over it, permanently looking at them from the kitchen. Several other things will happen, like the stigma against divorced couples. Say what you will, but this will certainly work and help couples to stay together and work on their problems rather than slam the door with “emergency exit” written over it.

It is astonishing that a country can ask a person to, say, lock himself in a deal with the Army for several years, but doesn’t even feel able to ask them to lock themselves into the matrimonial deal for, say, six or seven years. It doesn’t even square that a sovereign country can ask a person (nowadays, of both sexes in practice) to be drafted and land into a trench in a totally involuntary way, but can’t ask them to stick to the decisions that they themselves have taken.

Slowly, someone begins to open his eyes. The university of Virginia starts to say that divorce might have to be made more difficult. Granted, the taboo of individual happiness at all costs – which then leads to serial divorces and serial unhappiness, only more expensive – is not touched yet, but even Protestant should start to wonder whether – in their opinion – the Holy Ghost was being so wrong when He allowed them to divorce only in a very limited number of cases, and whether He is so right now that it allows them – or “inspires” – them to divorce so rapidly.

But the real crux of the matter is that, once again, the rightness of the Catholic truth starts to slowly filter through increasingly vaster strata of the population; in a confused way for now, but one that already starts to give the right Catholic solution to an entirely secular and Protestant-made problem.
Mundabor

Killing Me Softly: How RU486 works.

In case anyone should still think that RU486 is a contraceptive, please read here what the National Right To Life has to say on the matter:

RU 486 is an artificial steroid that interferes with the action of progesterone, a hormone crucial to the early progress of pregnancy. Progesterone stimulates the proliferation of the uterine lining which nourishes the developing child. It also suppresses normal uterine contractions which could dislodge the child implanted and growing on the wall of the mother’s womb.

RU 486 fills the chemical receptor sites normally reserved for progesterone, but does not transmit the progesterone signal. Failing to receive that signal, a woman’s body shuts down the preparation of the uterus and initiates the normal menstrual process. The child, deprived of necessary nutrients, starves to death. The baby detaches and is swept out of the body along with the decayed uterine lining.

Contraception, my aunt. Outright killing more likely.

Of course, people like Adolf Hussein Obama who don’t even have problems with leaving a child to die of cold after birth – and call it “late-term abortion” – will not see the “subtleties” between contraception and killing. But hopefully many others will, particularly among Protestants.

Mundabor

Is Apple “Catholic”?

Convert yourself!

The unfortunate resignation of Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO (he is now chairman, but clearly not with the same impact on the company and, I am very much afraid, not for long anyway) has reignited the old controversy whether Apple be Catholic and the PC world protestant.

I would, in the half-serious, half-joking spirit in which these comparisons are made, wholeheartedly agree.

I see the similarities as follows:

1) Apple is based on the leadership of one man. What made Apple such a wonderful weapon is the total commitment to what Steve Jobs thought right. Whilst you cannot make any serious comparison with a Pope, the contrast with the atomised PC-World is undoubtedly there.

2) Apple had a, as far as I know, unique product politics; that – following Steve Job’s creed again – you got an extremely limited palette of products.

There is only one iPhone. Granted, you can buy the old one, but basically your type choice is limited to the choice between the old one and the new one. Even in the choice of colour you are very much constrained. Compare with Nokia & Co., or with the PC producers.  Apple didn’t try to please you. It brought its new product on the market and shouted: “Convert  yourselves!”

The masses obliged, and believed.

3) Apple had a “love it or hate it approach”. There were no compromises. You had to accept the entire creed. Once bought an iPhone you were locked into the world of Apple apps, once again following the idea that what Jobs thinks is  right, and it must be right because it’s what Jobs thinks.  An entirely different planet from the anarchic, extremely fragmented world of, say, android.

4) Apple wasn’t easy. Jobs didn’t do things halfway, and he always did things his way. Consequently, he spent mind-boggling amounts in R&D, for which his clients were obviously called to foot the bill. And he gave the world extremely sleek products, for which the same clients were asked to separate themselves from an additional, substantial chunk of cash.  Like the Church, Apple offered you a world of uncompromising beauty and superior intelligence, for which there is a heavy price to pay. But with Apple you couldn’t even try to dodge the unpleasant bits; you couldn’t be an apple-follower” in name only”: the phone or other device you had in your hand showed which creed you subscribed to.

Yes, there are some similarities in the comparison.

It is sad to say that – Jobs’ health problem notwithstanding –  Apple seems to be in much better shape and to have a much more dedicated following than the Church. It clearly shows that the Church has no Steve Jobs around.

But on the other hand, who has…

Mundabor

P.s. and, obviously, one more thing. Steve Jobs is dying. I hope he uses what probably are his last weeks wisely. I will pray for him.

FSSPX, Bishop Williamson, and The Greeks We Should Not Fear

Rome's possible Ordinariate offer seen from Bishop Williamson's perspective. Click to enlarge

Firstly, some background information for the readers. When you have your own blog you have the possibility of seeing, from a “background page” not available to the public, which other internet pages have linked to you causing readers to land on your internet site from the site who carried the link. Every now and then, one clicks to see what is going on and is then carried directly to the internet site that has posted a link to one’s own site.

It was thus that I landed, some days ago, on this site. As you can see, this is not a very liberal site and is actually far more on the conservative site than yours truly; it appears to be either very near, or a mouthpiece of the SSPX (or FSSPX, if you prefer the abbreviation of its Latin name) itself. In particular, on this same thread another post was placed, equating the possible “peace proposals” of the Vatican to the Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (“I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts”) many of us will remember from our schooldays.

I found the comparison indelicate, as whilst I do not think that along the corridors of the Vatican everything is made in a spirit of disinterested saintliness I do believe that the attempt to reach a reconciliation with the FSPPX is a sincere one, and a great concern of the Holy Father. If memory serves, I saw this “Greeks fearing” comment (possibly also posted elsewhere) mentioned in Rorate Caeli, with reactions generally not far away from mine.

It turns out now from Messa in Latino that:

a) the Timeo Danaos comment is lifted from here and therefore clearly from Williamson himself.
b) that, coming from Williamson, this would be a clear indication that, however concrete or advanced, some form of proposal is really in preparation.

What Messa in Latino is thinking is that possibly on the 14 september we will not have the official announcement of an agreement with the FSSPX, but the presentation of a proposal, that would be examined by the SSPX in all tranquility, particularly in view of the unfortunate Assisi-III gathering still scheduled for October.

Messa in Latino finds the events momentous enough to justify the title “Rome-FSSPX: decisive moments ahead”. I am obviously pleased, but cannot avoid noticing that if no agreement is being finalised, the (mere) proposal of a structure similar to an Ordinariate for the SSPX and other traditionalists would not be anywhere near the historical moment perhaps hoped by many within the SSPX (and dreaded by the liberal troops), but rather the beginning of a painful – if hopefully salutary – phase of conflict within the SSPX itself, with the likes of Williamson refusing a priori every kind of contamination with Rome’s “Greeks” whatever the gifts, and the coming Assisi “event” not contributing at all to the serenity of the discussion.

Please also note that, in an unprecedented move, a religious sister from New Zealand has been authorised to be transferred to a convent dependent from the FSSPX. I can’t imagine such a decision unless if dictated from the persuasion that a reconciliation is not so very far away. The news relating to the sister has been published and then taken offline, but it is still available in cached version, with the link on the Messa in Latino site. Whilst I understand Messa in Latino’s reasons to publish it I prefer not to do it for obvious reasons, but take it from me.. .

From the outside, we can’t do anything else than pray of course. Still, one can’t avoid thinking that if such a proposal is on the table, it would have been perhaps wiser to wait until after the Assisi-III gathering – provided that such an event must really take place – and start the discussion, say, before Christmas or around Easter, in a different and less controversial environment.

I find some positions within the SSPX frankly difficult to digest, and the entire Danaos-attitude not helpful. But from what I have read around – on the internet, and from the leaflets-booklets I have picked from them on several occasions – the desire for reconciliation is very vivid among the majority of the members and supporters of the organisation, and the idea that Rome should be “converted to Catholicism” (rather than, say, persuaded to rephrase and reformulate questionable statements and attitudes of the past) rather in the minority.

Let us hope and pray for the best. Even if on the 14 September nothing should happen, this might be a good sign as it might – just might – indicate that a proposal for reconciliation is ready, but its official presentation wisely postponed to a less controversial time.

Mundabor

Sober Times Ahead: The End of the Altar Girl.

Less endangered than "Altar Girls".

Three cheers for Fr John Lankeit, the rector of the Cathedral of Ss. Simon and Jude, Phoenix, and also echoed by Father Z.

Father Lankeit had the lucidity and courage to say out loud that what is wrong can’t be right; not even then, when this wrong is very dear to secular minds. I wish the Conciliar fathers had had the same courage when subversive tendencies appeared in their respective diocese; but this obviously didn’t happen, seen that the subversive tendencies had been encouraged and abetted by those same bishops who should have suffocated them.

Fr Lankeit decided, then, to say what rather everyone well underway on his process of sobering – or who never got drunk in the first place – knows: there can be no place in the Church for so-called “altar girls”. He doesn’t say it with these words of course, but the message is clear enough. It was more than a mistake, it was a liturgical abuse to which Rome caved in out of sheer cowardice; a cowardice that has made incalculable damage, the rubble only in the last years being seriously, if slowly, removed. What is wrong doesn’t become right merely because it’s been approved.

Allow me to let Fr Lankeit speak:

“If you look around the Church — and I’m talking about the overall Church — if you look at dioceses, if you look at religious orders and you look at parishes where they have the clear honoring of the distinction and the complementarity of men and women, you see both vocations flourish,” Fr. Lankeit said. “And when I say both vocations, I mean to the priesthood as well as vocations to the consecrated religious life.”

Look – the man is saying – when you do things the proper way, you have more vocations among people of both sexes!

“Vocation crisis” is just another word for “liberal madness”: when you had the former you unavoidable got the latter; as the latter goes away the former will unavoidably disappear.

Fr Lankeit has others, long-forgotten or long-ignored truths to say. Try this:

“Prior to my ordination, as a single, Catholic man, I had no right whatsoever to the priesthood. And so when I went into the seminary, I was determining whether or not Jesus Christ was calling me to be a priest, but the Church was likewise discerning me and the ultimate decision was the Church’s,” Fr. Lankeit said. “Even if I felt very, very strongly at the bottom of my heart that I was called to be a priest and the Church didn’t recognize that, I had to accept that.”

I wonder how you can explain this to the modern feminazis: that there is no right to priesthood, no matter how strong you “feeeel”. No, it’s not about your feelings and no, you are not God and are not authorised to change His rules, though you may “feel” you are. I am afraid that allowing girls to become “altar boys” hasn’t helped to get this simple facts straight.

“The Church was likewise discerning me”. Thank God for Fr Lankeit, and please let your Hail Mary for him be a beautiful one.

Or try this one:

Q: Do young girls who serve at the altar become nuns?

A: “I haven’t seen that evidence”

You weren’t being inattentive, Father. The only vocation of “altar girls” which seems to work very well is the one to sanctimonious, secretly mocked, bossy old ugly feminist. No vocation crisis there I am afraid. Well, not yet; but given time and undertakers, tutto si aggiusta….

Out of tune, I must say, is the close of the article, with the mother of two siblings (one a boy, already an altar server; the other a girl, apparently aspiring to become one) who thinks that she must “understand where it’s coming from” and says “I would want to know more about the reasons for the change before having an opinion about it.” I hope that after the knowing will come the understanding, but the rather unpleasant impression remains that what counts in the journalist’s mind is what the mother thinks, rather than what the Church has done these two thousand years. I wasn’t entirely surprised in discovering that I was very interested to know what Fr Lankeit’s motives are, but really couldn’t care less of what opinion the lady will have.

Insensitive, isn’t it?

Mundabor

Italians And Riots (warning: graphic photo)

Genua, 20 July 2001. Carlo Giuliani lies dead on the ground, shot at close range whilst attempting to throw a fire extinguisher at a Carabiniere.

Shane (he of Lux Occulta) has drawn my attention to an interesting, if flawed, article appeared on the Catholic Herald and dealing with the supposed “brotherly love” of the Italians.

As so often in journalism, such “sociological” pieces are a mixture of some good observations and the most appalling common places.

The leitmotiv of the article is that in Italy you wouldn’t have had the looting because the Italians are oh so movingly good, and they don’t even profit of a huge blackout to start looting. A picture is drawn of these peaceful Italians with a good heart and full of love for their mamma, they would never loot and see her cry…..

Let us clean the air from legends here, and let us say first that the potential of Italians for violence is simply frightening. You only need to go to a football game (if you dare) to know what I am talking about. The 16,000 policemen around London during the riots pale in front of the at least 5,0000 (and up to 10,000) policemen around the stadium on the day of a big derby. The violence that goes on in the minor leagues is considered so normal that it doesn’t even make headlines.

Let us also be clear that Italians don’t loot not because they feel solidarity with the shopkeeper, which they certainly perceive as well-off (though I would agree that Italians are marvelous in their solidarity when they perceive someone as in need of it, and you see here all the power of their Catholic culture), but because of other factors that are more or less absent among the London mob:

1. Every scumbag is raised up with some form of moral value, and be that the third-rate morality of a communist. Whilst violence is compatible with this mentality if some “ideal” is at stake, the idea of looting a shop for the sake of a sweater is not among them. In short, it’s not “cool” to show up today with the sweater you have looted yesterday. And if your father – in whose house, and by whose rules, and at whose costs you still live in 95% of the cases – knows of that, you had better pray. Carlo Giuliani was a goddamn idiot, but I can’t see even him looting sweaters. Even behind his violence there was an ideology, not the total absence of one.

2. Always linked to point 1, the police is – compared with the British one – pretty brutal. I actually start to think that riot-tourism to London from Italy and elsewhere may soon develop as a reaction to the dismal show of the Metropolitan Police during the riots, basically an invitation to the hooligans and hotheads of Europe to come here and have a good time. In Italy the police charges with horses and batons when there are disturbances in the queues to buy football tickets (so happened in 1984, Champions League final, Roma vs Liverpool). When in 2001 dick hotheads from all over Europe decided to meet in Genua, Carlo Giuliani was shot in his mouth from a couple of metres’ distance; needless to say, the silent majority of the law-abiding citizens was behind the Carabinieri like a man. In the adrenaline-charged atmosphere of that obscene urban battle (the result of Berlusconi, idiot as always, wanting to play moderate and by “anglo-Saxon standards” in front of the world press instead of doing it the good old Italian way), the Land Rover of the Carabinieri drove over the body of the dead Giuliani twice, once by rehearsing and once, just for security, going forward. Mama-loving, yes; non-violent, er, well, no.

Interestingly, Italy never had such riots again in these ten years. Punirne uno per educarne cento…... Punish one, and you’ll teach one hundred.

ten years later and in England,the police can’t even decide themselves to use water cannons after four days of devastation, and four people murdered. To a hooligan, it must look like an amusement park. Guess where the next big riot will be.

3. In Italy there is something called disciplina. This is the strange idea according to which one can’t do whatever he pleases. The idea that there are rules of social behaviour that one must, volens nolens, accept. There is violence of course, but you don’t have the violence that is purely the fruit of not having any value and moral structure whatsoever. Can’t say the same for London I’m afraid. Even in the long history of Italians civil unrests of the Seventies (with Molotov bottles flying around practically every Saturday in places like Milan) looting was just not part of the picture.

The rioting in London is the fruit of a mentality and a society that provides young people with plenty of justifications for whatever they want to do, without giving them rules, discipline, values, and a spine. The solidarity in Italy is the fruit of being raised in loving environment, in intact families; with some guidance given, and good old-fashioned Christian values, and the odd punishment if needs be.

In England there would be, very often, no father in the first place; but if there was an Italian one, he’d run the risk of having a concerned social worker at the door.

Then they complain about the riots.

Mundabor