When Emotions Go Wrong

It is well-known Italians are an emotional bunch, and generally a pleasantly emotional one; but what happened in Italy during the weekend is truly beyond the pale.

No less than a priest apparently dared to burn a photography of, no less, the former Pope.
In church. During the Homily.

The man (I do not know how long he will be active as a priest; perhaps at 67 he is simply looking for a way to be pensioned) is, we are told, incensed at Pope Benedict’s abdication; so much so that he compared the Pontiff Emeritus to Mr Schettino, the man in charge of the Costa Concordia and all too ready to abandon ship when the going got very, very rough. Though one wonders whether he burned in church Schettino’s effigy, too…

I must first remark that I thought that in every criticism of a Pope (or former one) one remains within the boundary of elementary decency; if not out of respect for the man, certainly out of respect for the office. That a priest of all people should recur to methods fitting for Muslim fanatics is truly more than we should ever be forced to hear.

Secondly, I cannot avoid noticing that in this day and age the suspicion is justified such stunts are put in place to attract the attention of the media, as noone in his right mind can think he can do such a thing and escape publicity. The least offensive comment that can be made is that the pulpit is evidently not enough for the unfortunate man.

The third reflection is that I have the suspicion such senseless hatred is the result of pent-up aggression towards the Church, grown to the point of fanaticism and which finds, one day, an escape valve in a broadly unrelated event, taken as excuse. This priest can’t be normal, or feel good within the Church. On the contrary, this looks like one who has a huge gripe against his tunic, and looks for a scapegoat and for a convenient (for the publicity) outlet for his rage. A normal priest might, in case, well be angry, or critical, or ironic, or even slightly sarcastic. But this is really too much.

Being this the nuChurch of Vatican II, the bishop was apparently told to “mind his own business” after criticising his rather emotional subordinate.

I do not know the age of the bishop of Ventimiglia, but I hope he never becomes Pope. Then in such a case we’d be in huge trouble.

Mundabor

Cardinal Ouellet Is Ready And Willing.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet

 

Cardinal Ouellet has given an interview (good Lord, is any Cardinal able to survive without giving interviews nowadays?) saying pretty much the same things Jim Hacker was saying in “Yes, Minister” before becoming Prime Minister: one feels there are other, more qualified candidates, and one is not desiring to candidate; but one would feel able to step in if one were required, etc.

The Cardinal also said he is “somewhat afraid”, which I think in pre-conclave parlance means “I do not want to sound arrogant, but boy, I am ready…”.

Cardinal Ouellet has, thankfully, not said how he desires to pander to feminists, or in which way the aggiornamento must be aggiornato, &Co. In this he shows himself, if you ask me, vastly more “papabile” than the recent primadonnas looking for an applause before the curtain falls, and basking in the attention given to them before all eyes are set on the new Pope.

It seems to me Cardinal Ouellet is saying: “Just ask, and I am your man”.

Good. I’d prefer one who does not give any interview in these crucial days and prepares himself with prudence and discretion for the scrutiny of the 115 who really count rather than the countless curious who don’t; but I personally like a potential Pope to be excited, not scared, at the prospective of being in charge.

In my modest opinion, not many are born leaders, and those who aren’t rarely grow to the task once they are required to lead. Personally, what I would prefer is one who feels ready for the task, and eager for battle; one who has spent years saying to himself ” If I were in charge, I’d put an end to (put here any one of the infinite problems caused by papal timidity, conciliar thinking, or straight inaction)”; one who dreams of a strong, assertive, pugnacious Church led by a strong, assertive, and pugnacious Pope.

Is Ouellet this kind of man? We can’t really know. A prudent Cardinal wanting to be a warrior Pope – or something resembling to it – would not openly advertise his intentions, but rather point out that, were he to be asked, he would, though probably not the best candidate, take the burden on himself, and so forth…

I notice in the meantime that to my knowledge neither Cardinal Scola nor Cardinal Bagnasco have given interviews directly touching their own chances; if they did, I missed it.

May it last until Monday, and then may the real decision be taken without any regard for the mood of the people, or of the press.

O Lord, please give us a strong and orthodox Pope.

Mundabor

The Child Has No Right To A Mother

A recent intervention of the Department of Justice of the Nazi States of America was commented in the press with the words “the child has no right to a mother”. I have not read the article yet and do not know what Nazi monstrosities might be read thereon, but I thought I’d expand on the general subject.

Yes, a child has no right to a mother. This has always been so in Catholic countries, and with good reason. This also saved countless lives.

In the past, raising a child was the responsibility of the parents. If the parents did not have the means or inclinations to do so – or if they were violent or abusive or neglected their children – the child was given – voluntarily or not – to an orphanage to be raised there. It still is, in fact, extremely easy in Italy to give a child to an orphanage, with a traditional “no questions asked” policy and great flexibility for the mother – who can, for example, choose whether the child may be adopted by other parents, can visit as much as she likes, & Co. -.

Again, think of the premise of this reasoning: a child is a responsibility, not a right. But the fact that the mother does not have a right to raise her own child has as a necessary corollary that the child has no right to be raised by his own mother.

This basic principle – a natural expression of the self – responsibility traditionally demanded from everyone in Catholic countries – seems to have vanished from Anglo-Saxon thinking. Where I live nothing seems more natural than the fact a girl should be maintained by the taxpayer pretty much for her entire life, and provided with accommodation and basic comforts for which others have to work very hard, simply because she was both sluttish and stupid enough to become pregnant (once the greatest shame imaginable within a family, and today reason for victimhood and entitlement).

The socialist absurdity of this thinking in turn leads to the socialist absurdity of modern Anglo-Saxon societies: an army of whining “single mums” costing astonishing amounts of money and, more tragically, an holocaust of children murdered in the womb, because the idea that a child could be born and given to an orphanage isn’t really there at a practical level, and perhaps not even at a legal one.

All this nurtures the other evils of socialist thinking: self-responsibility almost disappears in the background of a society exclusively focused on self-victimhood and entitlement; and, predictably, the lack of self-responsibility leads to an army of boys raised to be criminals or hopeless scroungers and girls raised to follow the same careers of their mothers, which they’ll soon discover is vastly preferable to cleaning toilets at £5.70/hour.

Compare this with traditional Catholic societies like Italy, where being a “single mother” is still a shame few would want to bear and even fewer would be able to afford; where many children are still raised in orphanages, which traditionally provide the children with solid guidance, proper raising and even the learning of skills; and where, as a result, youth criminality is at practically non-existent levels compared to what we see in places like London.

No, a child has no “right” to have a mother; not any more than the mother has the “right” to raise her child. A child has the right to be born and, if necessary, raised in a sound, Christian environment, surrounded by women who love children and can, to an extent, soften the blow of the absence (partial or total) of the biological mother (there are plenty of those good, loving, motherly women in Catholic countries; do not even ask why).

Socialism has distorted and even perverted traditional Catholic thinking in matter of child raising; has substituted duty with entitlement, and allowed the entitlement to subvert Christian morality. People don’t even wonder anymore whether it be right to have children outside of wedlock or without a father worthy of the name.. Children just happen, like flu, or they get murdered so that they don’t.

Tutto si tiene, the Earl of Cavour used to say. Sexual licence, social scrounging, youth criminality and staggering social(ist) costs are all caused by the same forgetfulness of basic Christian thinking and its substitution for a soppy, socialist, emotionally charged, free-meal, no-responsibility, guilt-free mentality.

It is time to go back to sound Christian thinking, and realise what our forefathers would not even have considered worthy of discussion.

Of course, the child has no right to a mother.

Mundabor