Spot The Error

The Right Stuff

“He who is able to bow before the Eucharist, who receives the Lord’s body cannot fail to be attentive, in the ordinary course of the days, to situations unworthy of man, and is able to bend down personally to attend to need, is able to break his bread with the hungry, share water with the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned,” ….

Pope Benedict XVI

Yep, you saw it right.

Pope Benedict didn’t say “bow”.

He said “kneel”

Mundabor

Rowan Williams Is On His Way

If I were Anglican, this would be worth a really good bottle.

It would appear that Rowan Williams has decided to take himself out of the embarrassing situation he had put himself in by doing what the likes of him – people unable to decide, incapable of taking a stance and constitutionally inept at leading – generally end up doing: hook it.

In future he will bore university students, we are told, and whilst I can’t envy them, I would suggest that in their tribulations they reflect that through their sacrifice a great embarrassment for Christianity has been taken away from a position of I do not say importance, but public relevance.

Like his predecessors, Rowan Williams has ceaselessly worked at making himself and his mickey-mouse church utterly and completely irrelevant. His intervention in favour of Sharia-law will be remembered as the Jimmy-Carter-moment of British Anglicanism, the point of deepest tragedy and humiliation; but one must say that during his tenure, RW has consistently worked at never deciding anything, never daring to displease anyone, and waffling around nonsense of such incomprehensible stupidity that not even his Anglican fans had the nerve to declare that he was saying anything astonishingly intelligent, but oh so difficult to grasp anymore.

Under his tenure, the Anglican Communion has all but officially imploded and within his own shop, the ambiguity about sodomites wanting to be clergymen and bishops has reached levels considered ridiculous even by Anglicans. He has failed in everything, hasn’t given a line of conduct or a guidance, hasn’t said what he stands for, hasn’t given any indication of how he wanted the so-called church of England to be. Oh, but he has  talked a lot, and written  – perhaps – even more. No doubt, he’ll be mightily pleased with himself. Now the ship is half-sunk and he takes the lifeboat, leaving others to cope with the mess he never wanted to address. Well done, skipper…

I would almost wish the Anglicans – the few serious, committed believers still out there – that his successor will be a man of strong Christian convictions, that is: something RW never allowed himself to be, because it would have been offensive to non-Christians. Almost, I say. In fact, the best thing that can happen to them is that some trendy sodomite – or friend of sodomy –  is called to succeed the Muppet Man, so that the few honest Anglicans remained may be exposed to the tragedy of heresy and secularist infiltration in one go, rather than in installments. It might do them some good after all.

Good riddance, Mister Rowan Williams: we will miss the comedy factor.

His farewell speech is at the beginning of this post. Loads of clarity and entertainment factor, as always.

Mundabor

Fr Pavone Under Fire.

Please, not again!

I had read several times about Fr Pavone and if you use the search function of this blog, you might find an entry or two about him. I liked his pro-life commitment and the way he engages to do that which too many clergymen do not want to do.

It would now appear that his Bishop has suspended him and has ordered him to come back to Amarillo, alleging that Fr Pavone has disobeyed him by not allowing the accounts of his 10-million-bucks-a-year charity to be audited.

One would say that this is (then) Father Corapi all over again (poor chap, by the way; what has happened to him? I see dark clouds there, but I digress…), but in this case the circumstances appear rather different because Fr Pavone obeys to the bishop (coming back to Amarillo as ordered) even when he is not obliged to (as he has already appealed, and the appeal allows him to wait for the decision; I am not an expert in canon law but I’d say that we have seen this in the case of bishop Nourrichard).

The matter here is rather disconcerting for a different reason: the bishop says that Fr Pavone doesn’t want to have his books audited; Fr Pavone says that the books are audited but the bishops doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are. As the matter of auditing of financial statements is heavily regulated all over the West and not much of a grey zone seems possible, I am sure that we will rather soon know who is talking without thinking here. If Fr Pavone picked his cousin to audit the financial statements because he happens to be an accountancy student, the books are not audited and I think he’s in trouble; if he had the accounts regularly audited I think the Bishop will have some explaining to do.

The other matter rather reminiscent of the Corapi affair is the bishop’s accusation about “persistent questions remained unanswered” regarding how the money is used (hence the great need for auditing, of course). Once again, either the books have been properly audited, or they haven’t. If they have, it should have been for the auditors to express concerns, if such areas of concerns had been established. If they haven’t, the problem is there irrespective of Pavone having being wasteful or not.

It is sad to see that once again, a famous priest makes headlines for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, if a scandal is really on the making (and be that one of careless administration) the Latin saying oportet ut scandala eveniant has once again deserved its excellent reputation.

As in Corapi’s case, Fr Pavone should be presumed innocent until found guilty.

I truly hope we won’t see him soon photographed in a motorcycle jacket, though.

Mundabor