The Pope and the Parliament: Some Highlights

Accept no substitutes

This was rather good:

“There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere,”

This was even better:

“There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none”.

But the best was probably this one:

“And there are those who argue – paradoxically, with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience.”

This being a diplomatic visit with a Head of State visiting a sovereign Parliament, I assume this obvious reference to the adoption agencies scandal has been instantly understood by anyone present.

On a different note, it was very nice to see the Pontiff honouring St. Thomas More, in the same Westminster Hall where he was tried and sentenced to a glorious death as a Martyr.

The most notable development, though, continues to be the absence of loud protest and the popular participation way above expectations. Weather continues to be fine, the Pope continues to be in form and, it seems to me, rather in high spirits.

Will be interesting to know more about the people arrested in the next hours.

Mundabor

Catholic to the death: Thomas More

Catholic to the death. Source: Wikipedia

On June 22nd the Church remembered St. Thomas More, a martyr of the faith.
Thomas More is particularly relevant to our time because besides being a scholar, philosopher and author he was a highly successful and influential politician. Born in a wealthy family, he rose to the top of the English political establishment through intelligence, competence and honesty. These virtues were also what put a premature end to his life, as he preferred to die on the scaffold rather than compromise his allegiance to Jesus and His Church.

Let us reflect on this: he who had become the most powerful man in King Henry’s government, respected and privileged, wealthy to the point of having his own zoo, freely chooses to die rather than adjust his beliefs to the political climate of the times. Granted, he had always been an extremely religious person – and had played with the idea of monastic life in his youth – and the writer does not suggest that heroic virtue to the point of self-sacrifice be taken as the ordinary standard of a politician.

Still, people like Thomas More (and Bishop John Fisher, put to death for the same reason and canonised together with him) are a sober reminder of the scale of betrayal of Christian values daily perpetrated by people like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and the multitude of other politicians calling themselves Catholic whilst trampling upon everything Catholicism represents.

Thomas More is the more relevant today, because today’s politicians are the more distant from His probity and courage. He puts the Pelosis and Bidens of this world to great and greatly deserved shame.

Mundabor