Monthly Archives: December 2011
Anno Domini 2012
As one year of the Lord (or, as the BBC Solons would say, of the common era; but they are politically correct, atheist cretins, so we’ll stay by the Year of the Lord) comes to its end and a new one begins, it might be appropriate to stop a moment and look at the great picture, away from the one or other controversy of the day.
When one looks at things from a wider perspective, one becomes immediately aware that nothing is new under the sun. Corrupted priests, heretical or cowardly bishops, and halfway courageous Popes have been such a constant fixture of the Church that the times in which these features have not been so present are justly remembered as luminous parentheses in the often rather corrupted – if glorious in so many ways – prose of Church history. As to us, the laity, I can’t truly say that we as a class would score particularly well when compared with almost all the Christian generations before us, bar the most corrupted.
Still, the Church towers over a great part of the Western society today as it did for most of the past twentieth century, and her inability to do pretty much anything in a halfway decent manner is – if you ask me – far more the result of internal incompetence and cowardice than of external challenges.
I am in Rome as I write, and can’t avoid being stunned at seeing – even more so, because I see the contrast with England – how much of our Christian heritage has survived the systematic attempt of the clergy to bury it under a thick layer or senseless, but comfortable platitudes. I can report with pride that I have detected not one, but several priests going around in cassock as if this was the most normal thing on earth – and no, this was not the case when I lived in Italy -, the confession times are extremely long in all the churches I have cared to look at, the number of masses – always compared with England – rather scary and the masses I have attended to well frequented and reverently celebrated, at least if measured with the depressing standard of our times . Vespers (unknown during my youth), holy hours, processions & Co. are clearly on the increase.
What I notice in Rome is, I think and hope, a small part of a wider movement. Whilst some regions continue to be clearly deficient and some bishops continue to be barely recognisable as Catholics – I think of the Chief Scoundrel Vincent “Quisling” Nichols, or of the Oberfeigling Schoenborn, but there are many more – it seems to me the world is slowly waking up. In the United States the fight against abortion is taking momentum, and the war to legalised sodomy and other sexual perversions has at least started. More and more courageous bishops are being appointed or moved to key positions, and this will not fail to have an effect in the general tone of the discussion in 2012 and beyond. I can’t say the Church is leading the battle, but at least some of the clergy are willing to fight. The people of the tambourine are simply dying, whilst all conservative religious orders are full of seminarians, and the “worker priest” of the Seventies is now a pathetic object of well-deserved mockery.
Of course, much is still to be done. It pains me to see a papacy unable to show more than milk teeth in front of the many challenges coming from outside and – far more gravely – inside, but this is already an improvement compared with the absolute absence of any teeth in the last, say, five decades minus the thirty-tree days of Pope Luciani. It angers me to see that four and a half years after Summorum Pontificum it is still in the power of every bishop whether he wants to consider the latter a command, a suggestion, or a joke – without any fear of reproach, let alone punishment! -, but then I reflect that only five years ago we did not have Summorum Pontificum in the first place.
Not everything is fine, but then it never was. We have, I think, a clear deficit in leadership (I mean by that practical leadership: the ability to keep the shop tidy, and let the personnel behave correctly), but then we often had. We have heretics infiltrating the very core of the Church, but this wasn’t different many times in the past.
I am often accused of being a kind of Catholic Pollyanna, seeing everything through long-term pink spectacles. But you see, I am a Catholic, and cannot see any other way of seeing things and remaining orthodox. Victory is assured, as the Church will never be defeated. Victory is ours already, as we are on the side of the Almighty.
Let us start this 2012 thinking of these simple facts, enjoying the signs of Catholic awakening we see here and there and trying, in our own little way, to do our best to bring our contribution of foot soldiers – which, make no mistake, will bring us hatred, mockery, and social isolation – to this nasty, difficult, glorious but, in the end, victorious battle.
Best wishes to everyone
Mundabor
Like this:
“Triumph: The Power and Glory of the Catholic Church”
In Hoc Signo Vinces!
I am now reading (thanks to the beauty of Kindle; the Endwaffe of the book lover, and a seriously addictive tool) the above mentioned book, the fruit of the labour of a Catholic convert, H.W. Crocker, III.
You have probably understood by the title that in Mr Crocker’s Weltanschauung tambourines don’t play much of a role. On the contrary, the title itself seems to have been chosen extra to anger those ready to accuse of triumphalism everyone who is not ready to apologise for being Catholic.
A small caveat before you run and buy the book (something you should do, if you ask me): this is not a work written to academic standard like, say, the skeptical environmentalist, a book which manages to reconcile rigorous academic research with easy-to-understand writing style for the masses. This is a book meant for easy reading, a train companion so to speak, but not at par with academic standards.
I can’t say I always agreed with the approach – a bit simplistic at times – but what this book certainly does very well is providing the reader with an easy to understand, entertaining and edifying description of the workings of the Church. The problems, the corruption, or the outright scandals are never denied; rather, the motive of the book seems to explain to the reader not only what has factually happened, but how even in difficult times the Church was able to keep the right orientation, never being perfect but always being, well, infallibly guided.
The orthodoxy of the author is unquestionable: this is a convert who very well sees the variance between orthodox Catholicism and the world, past as well as present. He stresses the fact that in all important doctrinal matters, Rome was always on the right side; and he makes so in a refreshing, ironic, very Catholic way, allowing for human frailties whilst never losing sight of the bigger truth.
The Christmas season is upon us and with it, for many, the waiting time at the airport. This book can make your airport much more agreeable, and for those of you smart enough to have a Kindle 
is available.. now.
I wish there were more of these books, easy-to-understand, entertaining everyday Catholicism books going against the BBC-style of secularism.
I am only in the first quarter of it, but I think you could do worse than order this book.
Mundabor
Like this:
Hitchens, Hell, Kim Jong-Il
Same fanatical godlessness, different treatment. Kim Jong-Il.
The Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has died and, of course, his death has been saluted with regret and sadness from Catholics all over the world. Countless Catholic bloggers/ tweeters/ whatever-ers have expressed their opinion that the Korean dictator might be “surprised” and might “see the light of God”. It is easy to understand why they would say so: on the one hand there can be no doubt that the man was absolutely persuaded about the Communist ideology, and we all know by now that God likes conviction a lot and will therefore probably want the chap near Him for his celestial Afternoon Teas. On the other hand, it is clear to everyone that if there is someone for whom invincible ignorance could apply, this is a chap born and bred in North Korea and most certainly sheltered since his tenderest age from every Christian influence in the same uncompromising way as a Western child is sheltered from child rapists.
As to the opposition – which has come from some oh so uncharitable corners, who can’t even spell the word niceness - that the chap be directly responsible fro the brutal repression of his people, and indirectly responsible for the starving unintentionally, but certainly caused by his own mad ideology we – the charitable Christians, who are oh so good – can certainly reply that the chap was passionate even in that, and his government action can certainly not be counted against him, surely?! If we start to count inhuman cruelty against people who wanted to improve the lot of humanity, where will it end? We might have to criticise Che Guevara! He was also able to execute people by the dozen in perfect cold blood, and look at all the t-shirts!!
The uncharitable, ruthless Catholics may obviously say – and some of them will say, gloating in their desire for revenge – that there is something like natural law, and a chap like the unfaithful departed trampled it under his boots day in, and day out. Tsk, tsk, we reply to them, they have it all wrong! Being a blasphemer and an outspoken enemy of God goes against natural law on a much bigger scale than merely trying to make a better world! If we are therefore sooo charitable and nice with Christopher Hitchens, why shouldn’t we extend the same niceness to Kim Jong-Il? Therefore, Twitter is ablaze, and the blogosphere is awash….
No. Wait a minute. It just… just.. isn’t! Not in the least!
Why?
And why is it that whilst hordes of Catholics ran to their keyboards to express the most unbelievable theories about the – very probable – destiny of Christopher Hitchens – Christianity being too hard to them to let it be without the most improbable distinguos – the same behaviour did not apply to Kim Jong-Il, who at least has chances of invincible error infinitely higher than the ones of a chap born in a Christian country and who lived in the most Christian country of them all for more than a quarter of a century?
Where’s the army of people praying for him? Where are those saying that they will continue, yes sir, to pray for him now?
Strangely, the Catholic blogosphere appears to be utterly devoid of that wave of saddened sympathy expressed for the other deceased.
Perhaps is it so, that Christian rules are re-fashioned according to whether we liked the deceased? That our need to feel good is at a premium over the most simple rules of Catholicism, whenever we feel like it?
Questions, questions…
Mundabor
P.s. I hate commies on a scale you will rarely find. Still, I have said my three eternal rests for him too, and for the same reasons.
Par condicio, as they say in Italy…..
Like this:
Bishop Fellay On Why The Negotiations Failed
From Rorate Caeli, the most clearly formulated explanation yet of why the talks between the SSPX and the Vatican failed.
I have never read anything so movingly beautiful from the SSPX than this intervention. There is no animosity there, and no acrimony. Bishop Fellay simply explain where things stand, why the proposal is not acceptable and how things could – but probably won’t for the time being – progress further.
I have read and re-read the message and could find nothing even remotely linked to the “Taleban attitude” so often moved as accusation against the Society. Once again, they might have their fair share of nutcases in the pews, but the clergy and the top brass are not irrational or fanatical – if we except Williamson, in part – at all.
This is so beautiful that is best understood if read in its entirety. I therefore invite you to click the link and make an idea for yourself on Rorate Caeli.
Next time you pray for Hitchens, think whether at that point the SSPX doesn’t deserve the same treatment, at the very least.
Mundabor
