After “Protect The Pope”: Some Suggestions

After the announcement of the blog’s closure, some fast brainstorming: 

1.

Mrs Donnelly can certainly create a new blog, if she so wishes; and tell the bishop to mind his own business if he object to this, too.

A similar name, and news around to friendly blogs would be enough: in a few weeks, the old readership would be at the new destination.

Not for me to decide, though. Just an idea. To close the present blog is obedient enough. But no bishop has the right to go around with corks for deacons’ wives.

2.

We (the other blogger) could take the blog posts about ACTA and reblog all of them. A deluge of ACTA posts. Exactly the contrary of what the Bishop wants to achieve. Oh, the irony! Then we could sit with a tea and scone, and wait for th eemail of the bishop ordering us to close our blog, or to wash our car, or to pray in the direction of the mecca. 

3.

The blog could be given to a good soul, who is known as orthodox and reliable and can profit of the bigger audience of the “PTP” blog. Something similar is happening in Austria, with “Kreuz-net.info” as the successor of sorts of the lamented “Kreuz.net”. Not the same name, but in a way the same audience.

—-

Just some ideas.

Very late now.

Good night.

Mundabor

Bishop Campbell Shuts Down “Protect The Pope”.

Poisoned soup.

 

“It is with sorrow that I am writing to let you know that Bishop Campbell, the Bishop of Lancaster, has refused Nick’s request to resume news posting on Protect the Pope.  Bishop Campbell has also stated that he does not want anyone posting on Protect the Pope on Nick’s behalf.

Although I have been news posting on my own behalf on the site, I now feel unable to continue.

Protect the Pope will close as a news service on Sunday 4^th May, the Feast of the English Martyrs to allow a short period for readers of Protect the Pope to say goodbye to each other.

Thank you (on my own behalf) for all the prayers, support and help we have received.

Please continue to pray for our Bishop.”

With these words, Deacon Nick’s wife announced the closure of the blog on the 4th May, and left no doubt as to who is responsible for it.

Deacon Nick is a deacon and he would obey. Deacon Nick’s wife is not a deacon but she has chosen – wisely, I think – to obey, too.

“Protect the Pope” has been an orthodox, courageous voice for Catholicism. Bishop Campbell will have to answer to heaven for his decision.It is truly indicative of the time that as Catholicism in Britain sinks in a pool of common places and is headed toward irrelevance, the Bishops are busy with shutting down the sincere Catholic voices out there. The ways of Satan are also very numerous.

Deacon Nick can be proud. He and his wife have done a sterling job. He can stop blogging in the serene knowledge that he is obedient, and the responsibility of the closure of the blog rest on the shoulder of the man to whom he owes obedience. Pray for him and his wife today if you can.  And pray for the bishop, poor soul.

—————

The closure of this blog could be only the first of many.

From today, every priestly or deacon’s blog – particularly in England, where there is a precedent – can be closed par ordre du mufti  whenever leftist bitches say it is “divisive”.

Bishop Campbell’s religion is clearly harmony, not Catholicism, and I wonder how many are like him, and how many more will follow in this “age of mercy” that has no mercy only for orthodoxy. 

This will happen, I think, quietly and slowly, one blog at a time, and waiting for the usual,useful controversy. If, in fact, the blogger or deacon priest is good, controversies will not be awaited for long, and if the blogger priest neuters his blog to prevent closure the effect will be the same as if it had been closed.

What happened with “Protect the Pope” is very grave. It is another demonstration that Catholics are now the only legitimate enemy of Catholic bishops. The same bishop who shut down this blog will, no doubt, be engaged in various kind of ecumenical dialogue with people whose blog – mutatis mutandis – he would have shut down after three hours. But you see, they aren’t Catholics, so all is fine.

In the coming years, I was saying, we might well see the closure of many priestly blogs. But I can imagine a good number of anonymous blogs run by priests being written. Anonymous blogging is not difficult, and if done with some intelligence it is rather safe; not from the police of course; but from a nosy bishop, most certainly.

As an aside, I have written just hours ago about Father John X. It appears the man goes around threatening various blogger priests, and writing to their bishop asking that they be silenced. Now, people like him are the perfect pretext (as in: pretext; or you might say: pretext) for a bishop to silence a blog. The blog can, after the bitching, be safely described as “uncharitable, and fomenting division”. Father John X might, in fact, have been the pretext – or one of them – used by Bishop Campbell to shut down “Protect the Pope”. 

The bishop should be ashamed of himself, but I doubt there are many bishops in England who still know what shame means, or how it feels. Worse, his action offers a dangerous precedent for other equally shameless bishops, and let us hope there are not too many of them around.

I repeat here what I have already written: the more moderate priestly blogs are closed, the more Catholics will read less moderate blogs like this one. And if a bishop thinks lay bloggers cannot be very effective in exposing the shame of the modern church, a smart bishop he ain’t. This, beside the fact that many lay bloggers might be, in fact, priests.

Catholics do not browse the Internet for Catholic blogs because they do not know what to do with their time. They do it because they are fed up with the Bishop Campbells of the world, and have decided to seek some sound Catholicism on the net. And yes, Catholicism is divisive.

Christ came with a sword.

Bishop Campbell came with a tomato soup can.

Enriched with hemlock.

Mundabor

 

 

Baptism And Waterboarding: In Defence Of Sarah Palin

 

 

 

Water is good for terrorists.

 

Sarah Palin has said some words to the extent that if she were in charge she would put some “fear of the Lord” into terrorists and show them that waterboarding is how we baptise them. Shock and horror ensued. I think they are both vastly exaggerated.

The use of the word “baptism” outside of the sacramental context is very old, and certainly perfectly well liked even in times more Christian than ours. The Italian expression battesimo del fuoco (“baptism of fire”) indicates the first time a soldier faces a combat situation, and I have never heard of anyone, Catholic or Protestant, Christian or Heathen, ever complaining for its use. The word “battesimo” is also used, without any evil meaning, by “first time” situations, often unpleasant ones. A fall from the bicycle, say, would have people say to you “oh well, you have been baptised”, meaning sooner or later you would have to fall from the bicycle, and now you are a better cyclist for it. No disrespect to the Baptism is meant. On the contrary, you would rather find these expressions in Countries where pretty much everyone is baptised. I am rather sure many other languages of Christian countries have the same expressions, or similar ones. To complain about such expressions would in my eyes be, ahem, very Protestant.

Sarah Palin is, alas, a Heretic, but I think no reasonable person can have doubts about her Christian faith. I always write that words and phrases must be understood in the context, because isolating single words is often a misleading exercise. For example, we understand Francis’ questionable or heretical statements in the light of his countless other questionableor heretical statements; we do this, because they give the context for what he wants to say.

The same should, I think, apply to Mrs Palin. It is obvious she had no intention of belittling or banalising Baptism; rather, her was a robust way of saying that Christians can show Muslims terrorists they aren’t all daisy pickers, and can be as tough as it is needed. Which is good. Very good.

As to the waterboarding, I will not insult my readers’ intelligence telling them where I am on the matter. But this post is not about waterboarding, either.

Was Palin’s expression robust? Yes, it was. Could it have been avoided? Yes, pretty much everything apart from “good morning” could probably be avoided, but I honestly do not think she should have done it. Unless, that is, I should suddenly decide that “baptism of fire” is impious, too. Certainly, though, no reasonable person can say Palin wanted to belittle or disrespect Baptism, more than the Italian man using the words battesimo del fuoco would.

Look at the person, and understand the person as she speaks. If she’s a sincere Christian, do her the courtesy of recognising it. If you recognise it there can be no outrage, because we worship God, not words. There are discusdions at times that remind me of the stoning scene in “Life of Brian”.

But note this: in the same phrase, Palin mentioned the “fear of the Lord”. This is an expression I think I have never, ever heard from a high-rank politician in the UK, lest they offend the sensibilities of some heathen. Therefore, my deal is this: let Palin show Christian faith in her speeches and actions, and she can use the word “baptism” in whatever comparison she wants.

Some closing observations:

1. This kind of outrage is used often by neocons to isolate real conservatives. Conservatives are more robust in their expression, and it is easy to take – or fake – outrage at them. If Palin is damaged, cui prodest? The critics of Obama should think hard about this.

2. This “sensitive” mentality is what has allowed the Republicans to be screwed with McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012 and, no doubt, will allow them to be screwed with some other PC daisy in 2016. No divisive people, no divisive messages, only neutral words. The daisies would never use such phrases, you see, so you can happily lose the next election, safe in the knowledge that your losing candidate will only express himself in the appropriate way, will always say “gay” instead of “faggot”, and will allow you to see Hillary at the White House with the serene conscience that no Christian word has been used in less than the perfectly appropriate way.

I am not a US citizen, though obviously what happens in the US impacts us all too. But an awful lot of Americans will soon have to decide if their Country should continue to go down the drain because they can never pick anyone with a functioning brain and a robust spine, or whether they should rather decide that you pick a candidate because of his message and outlook on life, not his score in the PC electoral contest.

Mundabor

 

Inequality, Evil, And Worldly Thinking

Never one to let a potential headline go to waste, the Destroyer has tweeted a new world philosophy. We are now informed that the cause of “social evil” evil is… inequality.

The implications of this applause-seeking, inane thinking are huge; and they are, as is to be slowly expected from the character, nothing to do with Christianity.

Christianity teaches us that evil – and, with an inevitable consequence, any kind of social evil, like poverty or social hatred – is the result of the imperfection of this world, which in turn is the result of the Fall. The rebellion to God's law of our first Ancestors – a rebellion we all carry within ourselves, and which is at the very root of man's sinfulness – has caused the world to be afflicted by war, famine, pestilence, poverty, perverts, communists, V II priests, and Jorge Bergoglios. The Christian message has always been clear.

Inequality has, in all this, never played any role. On the contrary, it is evident to the dumbest tambourine player around that inequality is in the very fabric of Creation, as people are born with hugely different gifts and qualities and graces, which are all extremely multiform in their appearance, but also extremely inequal in their quality and quantity.

A girl is born beautiful but poor; another beautiful but rich too; a third both poor and ugly; a fourth gentle and smart. A boy is born strong, another weak; a third brave, a fourth stupid; some are deformed, some are handsome, some witty and some dull, & Co.

It goes on. Some are born in Catholic families, some in Proddie, some in heathenish, some in atheist ones. How is this “equal”? (at least if Catholicism, or at least Christianity, is of any importance to you?).

Some, God loves more; some, God loves less. Some are predestined to be saved and will profit from God's efficacious grace; some will only get sufficient grace and, being rebellious, will end up in hell. Does this sound like “equality” to you?

It goes on still. Were Christians, then, sleeping the past two thousand years, when huge inequality in wealth – and I mean here wealth born in, not acquired – and talents were considered as a god-given state of affairs? Why has Jesus not demanded that, say, Zacchaeus be not wealthier than his average follower, or even countryman? Or did he not do so, because he did not have the privilege of a smartphone, with which to access Francis' astonishingly senseless statements and new-age-cum-communism philosophy?

All this seems obvious enough. Obvious, I mean, if you believe in the Fall, in sin, in judgment, in evil, in the devil, and in all that stuff.

But you see, the problem with the Destroyer is that he seems not to believe in any of those; or at least he seems to be so intellectually lazy, or else so brutally dumb, that he does not even understand that he is denying pretty much all of them.

If you don't believe in the Fall, then you will look for your answers outside of human nature: in social end economic systems, changing which “social evil” will be magically overcome. If you don't believe in sin, people will not be really responsible or culpable for anything; rather, they will merely react to an unfavourable environment. If you don't believe in judgment – which you must do, if you don't believe in sin – there will be no personal reproach linked to human behaviour: if everyone is saved, the problem must lie outside of this huge mass of saints. If you don't believe in evil, you will never think that the devil actually tempts, and men actually yield to it, and will have to answer for their actions.

Blaming inequality for “social evil” is at the same time a universal justification, an abolition of sin, and a denial of Christian thinking. But it sounds good, and it will go down very well among the leftist smoke sellers of this world, of whom Francis is now the undisputed leader. It condones the theft of the thief, the prostitution of the tranny, the envy of the envious. They all derive fron inequality, you see.

Once again, Francis reveals how worldly his thinking is. There is in his (simple) mind no space for supernatural factors in the human journey, much less for individual responsibility. Francis' examination of the world's problems begins and ends with the way the world is structured; so much so, that he sees in the structure – not in the Fall – the cause of all its problems. He would, if asked, probably answer that he believes we can “make poverty history”. Purest, unadulterated secular thinking.

Now, let us be clear about a fundamental concept: if a Pope or a Saint of the past had warned, say, about poverty as a fuel for corruption and sinfulness, this would have been not only acceptable, but obvious. The world is imperfect, and the devil will use whatever tool he can find. But in the Popes, or the saints, of the past the fundamental Christian truths of sin and individual responsibility for it would have been extremely evident even if, perhaps, implicit.

Not so, not so for this disgraceful, scandalous man, who employs every second at his disposal to eradicate from his sheep the very idea that they could – unless they are, perhaps, mafia bosses – actually send themselves to hell.

This thinking is so evident in Francis, so obviously and insistently repeated, that the simple tweet perfectly matches the messages, and allows no other interpretation than the one Francis is shoving down the faithful's throat all the time. It is no less than astonishing that Francis looks like he has been making dots all the time since that evening on the balcony, but still only very few connect the dots and looks at the picture that emerges by doing it; perhaps, in part because the picture is a frightful sight, and in part because Francis also makes dots around the real picture, so that those who are not alert will not see what he has been doing all the time.

And so the game of destruction goes on. Like all false prophets, Francis claims solutions he cannot have, because he cannot change the way God has decreed that the world would look after the Fall. His simple slogan of social structures at the root of “social evil” is pure communist tosh. He is a wordly man, a revolutionary man, and possibly a man dumb and confused enough that he believes in the rubbish he goes around saying, writing, and tweeting.

This man would be astonishingly bad even as a so-called Archbishop of Canterbury. His forma mentis is, when you look at it without the pink “but he is the Pope”-glasses, so Christianity-free, so soaked in secular thinking, that I doubt every half-believing Anglican – not many left of them, admittedly – would swallow half of the drivel with which the man has been regaling us for now thirteen months.

We are being punished so spectacularly, so obviously, so much under the sun that it is not clear to me how can there still be a honest soul around that does not get this: God is chastising us with the same means with which we have offended Him, giving us an overdose of that unspeakable stupidity the V II generation thought so good for us, so convenient, and to be had for free.

Big mistake.

Mundabor

 

Father John X, Or: Don’t Drink And Type.

Standard denied every responsibility for Father John's email.

It is very bad that anyone should ever get drunk. Drunkenness is, as people in Anglo-Saxon countries should be reminded far more often, a grave matter and can, given the circumstances, lead a soul to perdition. Notice that no traditional Catholic country has a culture of drunkenness (no, not even Bavaria; merriment yes, drunkenness for the sake of drunkenness, certainly not). This seems to be – together with his opposite, the alcohol Puritanism – rather a speciality of prevalently Protestant countries.

It is, I was saying, bad enough that anyone should get drunk. It is even worse if a priest does it. But it is truly the worst when a drunken priest goes to his keyboard and types a long list of insults to a blogging priest, whom he knows personally for being (the blogger priest) an ex pupil of his (the drunken typist).

Visit the blog and read for yourself. Savour the pleasant sound of the tambourines; the joy of Vatican II; the tolerance, the love of “dialogue”, and the “charitable”, “non-judgmental” attitude of Father John X, a true son of the Church Spring; a man now on his way – and a Spring now on its way – to a hateful autumn before winter, and a sad and sorry death, and (for the priest) judgment.

Pray for Father John X, that he may stay away from the bottle.

Pray that his soul may come out from such spiritual darkness that the reading of a decent blog causes in him drunken rants filled with a hatred that leaves one breathless. A hatred, mind, directed at a former pupil of him; at one for whom Father John X should have been an example. Pray, as you are there, that Father's rant may not have been written whilst drunk, but in a sober state; which seems not credible to me but, if confirmed, could open an horrifying view into a truly dark pit of hatred.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the Spring has given us. A generation of angry, bitchy, self-righteous old Sixty-Eighters unable to recognise the failure of their entire life, and the danger for their soul.

To them, God was always wrong and they were always right. They now see with dismay the contempt with which the young generations look at their pathetic, wasted lives. Therefore, they get angry. This chap here says it explicitly only because he is very drunk, or uncommonly evil. But many others think in exactly the same way when they are sober, though they are smarter than to write such emails; which, among other things, could bring the police in their homes and cost them a nice sum to boot.

Father John X reminds me of the angry communists of old, who grew more resentful as Communism was looking, even to them, more and more like the losing side, and a stupid one at that.

In the end, Communism went down so spectacularly that even the resentful old Commies were silenced. We must hope, for the sake of this man, that the same happens to V II before he dies.

M