Sometimes Sorry is the Wrong Word

I’m not a theologian but…. (yes, any sentence beginning with one’s admission of lack of expertise followed by a “but”, is not a very promising start)…I don’t think Benedict should have apologised.

No doubt God would like us all to apologise when we’ve been wrong or hurt someone (even the other “Oh wise one” sings about “Sorry seems to be the hardest word”), but there are times when we should just resist.
In this Pope-versus-Islam celebrity deathmatch type showdown, Benedict 16 should have stood his ground. Admittedly his apology doesn’t actually retract the substance of what he said, he merely expresses sorrow at being taken out of context in the middle of large scholarly speech, but he shouldn’t apologise. It may be hard to stand your ground in the face of burning effigies and angry mobs killing nuns and the like – but dialogue about religion can’t be stopped every time someone of 1 faith disagrees with someone of another.

In the age of spiritual people and candle burnings, tenets of religious life have been reduced to morsels of love, peace, forgiveness, acceptance, tolerance and deep-breathing. You can be a tepid Buddhist or a “modern” Catholic nun (or like my grand-aunt, a nun, be both) and still have a bit of “whatever you’re having yourself”. But away from our birth crystals, there exists the structured nuances of religions – the Bible for Christians, the Catechism, Councils and Crinkly Old Church Fathers of Catholicism, the Koran for Muslims etc. While the reason of the 2nd millennial babies is vastly different to the Reason of Thomas Aquinas, both exist in our hearts as part of the continual questioning of our personal faiths. And when those faiths meet head on in the public arena of the world, stark dogmas must fight it out. Islamic thought unashamedly carries a by-the-sword ideology, while Christianity, despite a robust defence/just war exception beats those swords into ploughshares. We all can’t go home crying to Mammy everytime someone challenges something about our religion. While it’s trite to say, as some Christians do, “look at me, I didn’t burn pictures of Crucifixes in Urine when my faith was defiled in museums”, there is a contrast in our experiences of perceived disrespect. Democracy is something that is fully compatible with the Christian person, the “imago Dei” notion of all us, and with the recognition of our human nature, we’re more than happy with the whole Western democracy set up. Fair enough, not enough people want to go to Mass on Sundays, but we’re not going to round them up with swords or Bazookas (most parishes attempt more lethal versions of “This little light of mine”) or even subject them to capital punishment as one London based Islamic cleric called for.

To bridge these differences, robust debate is called for, where religious voices dialogue with the confidence of their convictions, from which respect is built. Having to apologise for statements of fact or having to hide out under couch from fear of fatwas is not advancement. The onus lies not on the Christian religions, and by extension the Western world to step up to the mark, but on leading political and religious figures in the Islamic tradition, particularly in Western countries to engage without fear and quick recourse to the “you’ve to say sorry” rallies.




For a few interesting articles on the whole point of the speech – religion and rationality – Thomas Madden in NRO; the Cedar Lounge Revolution (disagreeing) and the Anchoress has a comprehensive round-up post.

Did you ever get the urge to defend an Archangel?

It's a question I never thought I'd ask, but after reading The Irish Bulletin, a new Irish blog I came across via irishblogs.ie, I suddenly have the urge to grab Saint Michael the Archangel, wrap him up in some bubble wrap and whist him away to some undisclosed location.

Their political policies encompass the Christian, the conspiracist and the cracked.
I even feel uncomfortable calling it Christian.
The Irish Family seems to serve as the newspaper of the disenchanted, nationalist Catholic who holds a hodge podge of barely formed anti-war, pro-life/pro-family, anti-EU views, with a nostalgic view for the way it was before Vatican II.
I guess this blog is attempting to serve the internet in the same barely coherent way.

It continually amazes me how this particular species of Irish Catholic holds all these things together with such anger. I have met too may of them in real life to understand - for the more you know about them, the more confused you become.
From the EU to the illegal state of Israel to the great bogey man of Freemasonry, their politics run the spectrum from shaggy haired socialist to conspiracy theorist back to your local parish priest. No one is safe from their deluded world view.

Saint Michael the Archangel is asked to bless the site as the "armour of Truth in a world full of lies". The only way the Archangel could do that is to smite the site.

Tempest in the Teapot Blues

The totally unnecessary protest at Minister McDowell’s speech at the Equality Authority’s conference causes EWI to ask the question “The Catholic Church protesting against gays or Law'n'Order? Such a dilemma!” with regard to which side Richard Waghorne will take in this debate (he also describes Richard as an uberCatholic and is on tenderhooks waiting for the answer – if only the rest of us bloggers had such a loyal following!).
Speaking for myself, as a someone who opposes gay marriage, an ordinary practising non-ultra/uber Catholic (and who once held a tendre for Michael McDowell) there is really no such question. There is no dichotomy that pits one against the other.
It’s quite simple - people who throw jugs of water, copies of the constitution and pens at anyone should not be taken seriously and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Every movement, every ideaology, every issue that inspires activism inspires some form of extremist. The kind of extremist that foams at the mouth everytime their “issue” is mentioned and somehow manages to integrate and relate their seemingly disparate crankologies in to a conversation about the weather. The anti war gang have those who attack airplanes, those who oppose gay marriage have protestors who are not only wrong in their actions, but lack the imagination to do anything else except use whatever was beside them in a conference as projectiles.
According to Suzy, who live blogged the event, it was a combination of Mother and Child and the Ancient Order of Hiberians.
Mother and Child have long been at the fringes of every single issue that they allied themselves to. While they have right to do whatever they want as Catholics and as citizens of a free democracy (even though they’ve yet to grasp the accepted democratic behavioural norms), they speak neither for the Church nor those who agree with them. Youth Defence/Mother and Child/AOH are well organised small groups of people who get a thrill out of being the martyrs persecuted for their views in, what they no doubt describe, as the “so-called liberal Ireland”. To gain the respect of their fellow travellers, no event is too small not to warrant some spotlight grabbing stunt – the more random, aggressive and utterly pointless the better. Results make no difference to this small group of activist-tourists, it’s the fight that counts. And once their little stunts are publicised, they clap each other on the back – they need do no more now. They need not actually educate themselves or anyone else properly. They need not make coherent submissions to the relevant State bodies that investigated whatever the issue of the day is. They need not discuss their concerns rationally with politicians or the media or those that disagee them. Their work is done.
I really hate how these sort of lunatics colour everyone who broadly agrees with them with the same dark shade of crazy red.
Dossing Times wonders if those who normally love to throw stuff at McDowell will stand up for him now that he is being attacked by their opposites.
I normally agree with a lot of what McDowell says – the civil partnership idea is not something that I’m going to excited about. Part of me agrees that certain rights (property, inheritance, next of kin issues etc) should be extended to all couples in long term relationships but I disagree with marriage being anything other than 1 man, 1 woman.
I have yet to throw a jug of water at anyone (I think, I’m trying to remember all the water fights I’ve been in – mainly balloons or hoses) but I doubt the quiet questioning of the many more who don’t want gay marriage will ever be described as how the “Catholic Church” thinks or acts.

(BTW, the post title is also the title of a song by Johnny Irion from his album “Unity Lodge”)

First Arab Catholic woman to be member of Israeli parliament

An interesting character. Nadia Hilou is a member of the Labor party and is a woman's rights and free education activist.
From Catholic Online.
"First woman to do X" stories normally don't interest me, but her story does.

Pope John Paul the Great

The Anchoress has a geat sum up of articles and blog posts that she says she will continue updating about his anniversary.

I just can't believe that a whole year has gone by since I stood in St Peter's Square and was blessed by JP2 in his last public appearance. I'll never forget the joyful intensity of the crowd and our heavy feet that did not allow us move from beside the fountain from where we could see his window.
We knew it was his last appearance, mainly becuase we spent the previous week hearing stories of how weak he was getting. He was weak and unable to speak, but we knew he was there. For the first time, I understood the rock of Peter. For there he stood, his body ravaged by cruel old age and Parkinson's, his back bent and his once charismatic voice, a mere whisper from a window - but he was a rock, the head of the Church, the leader of his people, Christ's vicar on earth, a mortal sinner who was waiting to go home.
When I heard the news of his death, I did not cry immediately. But I did when I heard he had said this about the young people who held vigils for him "I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you." I cried when I watched his funeral on TV and when I received text messages from Irish friends in Rome who had returned for the funeral.
We were staying in an apartment between the metro stop to the vatican and the vatican itself, so every night, no matter what time it was, we walked through St Peter's Square, just to see what was happening and to say very quick prayers. (I'm a Catholic who believes very strongly in the power of quick prayers!)
Last Easter was my 2nd Easter to spend in Rome and attend the St Peter's Easter ceremonies (I recommend them to everyone!). The 1st time, in 2001, I was selected to meet the Pope and receive his blessing at one of his private audiences. So up I went, dressed in a new suit and all made up. I knelt in front of him, his priest-aide announced my name and where I was from. He said "Ahhh, Ireland. Cailin?" and stroked my cheek. At which point I did say something. Absolutely no idea what it was. It could have been anything from "your writings have inspired me" (which I think was what I had planned to say - I know it's very original!) to " the weather's nice in Rome". He then lifted his hand from my face and proceeded to bless me. I realised, rather belatedly, that unlike everyone else who had placed their hands on the arms of his chair, I had my hands firmly on the Pope's knees!
This would not be good meeting-the-Pope-protocol.
I remember very little else about my meeting with him, and was amazed when I saw the official DVD that I was with him for nearly 3 minutes.

Like most young Catholics, JP2 formed my opinions and beliefs on the world and the church and who I am, as a woman and as a person.
My photos of my hands on JP2's knees will always be with me and will always make me smile. Because in the presence of greatness, one must kneel. And in the presence of a saint, one has to smile. And cry at what then Cardinal Ratzinger said at his funeral -
None of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi. We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Norris - paragon of liberal tolerance?

I think not.
From yesterday's Independent (I tried posting this yesterday but blogger just posted it to the archive and not the main page)....

Referring to statements from Rome, especially by Pope Benedict, Senator Norris said that "he would not take moral instructions from a man with a swastika on his arms," a reference to the Pope's membership of the Hitler Youth Movement in 1940s Germany.

Last night, Senator Norris told the Irish Independent that he knew some of his remarks against the Pope caused offence, but he felt it was his duty to continue to criticise attitudes against gays which were against the common good of society

Part of the common good of society is not to make knee jerk, offensive and bigoted comments against those who disagree with you.

Senator Norris has been granted immortal sainthood by the so-called "liberal establishment" (I sound like a conspiracy theorist now!?!) but remarks like this are not going to advance any cause, especially one that Norris will describe, as based in human rights, equality and dignity.

It's very easy for Norris to call the Pope a Nazi. It's an easy way out - he doesn't actually have to deal his exact issues with the Church's position on natural law. He doesn't have to engage anything - he simply gets away with name calling.

I'm sick of Norris's anti-Catholic bigotry which he masquerades as crusading righteousness.
Especially when such tall stories are long proven to be a little more than Norris claims -

He spent his adolescent years in Traunstein, near the Austrian border, when the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler controlled Germany.

In his memoirs, Ratzinger wrote that school officials enrolled him in the Hitler Youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941.

Membership was compulsory and the officials enrolled his entire class, acting on orders from the Nazi regime, Allen said. Ratzinger said he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood.

According to Allen, his family was quietly strongly anti-Nazi, and his father took a series of less significant jobs to stay away from what was happening in Nazi Germany.

Michael Neary is NOT a product of Catholic Medical Ethics

He’s the exact opposite of what Catholicism is all about.
I’ve been thinking about this all week since I read Sarah Carey’s article in the ST and heard Sen Mary Henry on Sunday’s This Week.
Both asserted that Neary’s gross negligence and disgusting disregard for his patients was somehow related to his hospital’s Catholic ethos.
I don’t agree. Neary continued his horrifically improper and wrong practices because the old joke “what’s difference between God and the consultant? – God doesn’t think he’s a consultant” is still unfortunately true for too many consultants in the Irish health service. What they say goes.
Lamenting Catholic influence in Irish hospitals is useless in attempting to ensure that such extraordinary malpractice will never again go unchecked. Irish patients, and Irish doctors would be better served if the Medical Council had better practices with regard to whistleblowers and continual clinical audit for all consultants. A more transparent system of promotion and a greater number of consultant positions would hopefully allow for house officers and registrars to voice their concerns about antiquated or plain wrong medical practice that their firm engages in, based on a single consultant’s opinion.
Ronan Mullen wrote about this in Wednesday’s Examiner and I have to agree with the following passages – The whole article is well worth a read.
First regarding Mary Henry -
There was no mention that the senator and ex-Rotunda Hospital physician had not been a neutral in any of the great debates about healthcare or reproductive issues over the last 20 years. Nor was there any indication that RTÉ had sought to balance the discussion by having a Catholic on the programme to discuss the Catholic ethos in hospitals. Most bizarre of all, of course, was the decision to frame a primetime discussion of the Lourdes Hospital scandal as a story about the influence of the Catholic ethos on healthcare.
And then Neary’s Catholic ethics – or patent lack thereof - The Neary saga, emphatically, is not about Catholic medical ethics. It’s about the exercise of power in the doctor-patient relationship. It’s about the unassailable authority and influence of consultants in hospitals. It’s about the lack of accountability and peer-scrutiny within the medical profession. Most crucially, it’s about abuses that could happen today in any hospital, regardless of whether that hospital has a religious ethos or not. What Neary did - performing hysterectomies on women who neither needed nor wanted them - was in violation, not just of Catholic medical ethics, but of the most elementary principles in health care. Do no harm. Do as much good as possible.

He rightly highlights the nuns unquestioning acquiescence in front of the consultant. This however is not a phenomenon restricted to religious hospitals.
Here, we do actually find a problem with the way the nuns ran things. According to Judge Harding-Clark, they “had created an aura of unquestioning respect around the consultants, who were revered.” But if this is true, it surely has nothing to do with Catholic ethos, and everything to do with the insecurity of the individual managers of that hospital in the face of the consultants. Anybody who thinks that an unquestioning attitude towards hospital consultants is the preserve of Catholic healthcare providers is badly out of touch with the problems that bedevil the Irish healthcare system to this day.

Ronan also says –
All of these contextual arguments are simply spurious when you consider that Neary only informed patients after the event of what he had done. Long after the Catholic ethos had waned in hospitals all over the country, he was still acting in an utterly unaccountable fashion in Drogheda. That some people choose to attack the Catholic Church’s role in healthcare, instead of asking the more serious and obvious questions about the accountability of doctors which this case demands, perhaps illustrates how much they actually care about this tragedy and the people who suffered because of it. It is always tawdry and tasteless when people pursue their own agendas on the back of a worthy cause.

And for Lent, Matthew, I Will Be

wearing a Weapon of Mass Destruction T-Shirt.

Think about it.

Groan.

From
AmericanPapist who says he's not an average Catholic - he really isn't - he's pretty intense, but quite funny. And obsessed with the papacy. Check out the picture he uses for his banner. And the Papist News Ticker.

And the story about the Pope saying there needs to be more dialogue on a greater role for women in the institutional church.

In highly improbable case of readers looking for a girl wearing one of these T-Shirts around Dublin - I won't be.
I don't do T-Shirts with stuff written on them - but will make an exception for this one.

Archbishop Martin soon to be a Cardinal???

He's name is mentioned in this Catholic News Service article about the rumours surrounding Pope Benedict's first batch of Cardinals.
I doubt he's all that popular in Rome - his pronouncements have remained on the safe side of wibbly wobbly wonders.
Perhaps like Jack in Father Ted, he won't get it - those Jesuits have it all sewn up.

Chocolate, Sex, Valentines and Popes

My ultimate consumerist St Valentine’s Day fantasy would be a dark chocolate Matthew McConaghey with his accent somehow being expressed in the confection (warm, melting caramel perhaps?). Or Matthew McConaughey feeding me chocolate.
This St Valentines Day I’ve a date with my surgery textbook (the chapter on stomas actually – riveting, page turning stuff) but before I do that, I’m finishing Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI’s 1st encyclical.
And the first fantasy pales into comparison with what Il Papa is saying.
You might ask, why on earth is she reading this stuff? Has she no life?
I have a thing for encyclicals about love. John Paul II started off his philosophy-ing with Love and Responsibility, a book I recommend to anyone who wants to know what the Catholic Church thinks about sex. (And please differentiate it from the Jansenist heresies that have held force here in Ireland for way to long – sex is not dirty, bad, guilty etc) I started reading it because I was quizzing my mother about it after I read Patrick Kavanagh’s Tarry Flynn and found the mission speeches on sex rather perverted and sterile. My mother, in her maternal wisdom told me that the Catholic Church believes that the joy of orgasm is akin to joy of everlasting love and the communion of saints. Needless to say, given the choice, I preferred reading about the Church’s position on orgasm than listening to my mother talk about it.
I learnt that this is not only true, but JPII, as Karol Wojtyla in Love and Responsilibity, says that husband should make whatever sacrifice necessary for his wife to orgasm. At which point, I was thinking, wow, this is rather far away from Kavanagh’s Monaghan Redemptorist mission.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about romance, love, sex and how we view and relate these things. While it hasn’t taken on here yet, in the US, St Valentine’s Day, a day of soppy poems, red roses and chocolate is being transformed by some into V-Day, a day about vaginas. I’m as fond of my vagina as the next woman, but I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t find discussion of it, either scientific or dramatic (Vagina Monologues) that romantic. I’d much rather schmaltzy red rubbish than reclaiming my vagina’s authentic voice.
Then, this week is SHAG week in Trinity – I’m all for everyone being educated about sex – but leaflets about premature ejaculation just aren’t my cup of tea. (nor do I think decorating the stall with pink hearts makes it romantic either)
I’m not saying anything particular about vaginas or sexual health, but I feel that there is a loss of romance, a loss of mystery, a loss of wonder at human sexuality. And this is lamentable. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice the awe in our desire to be responsible and educated about sexuality.
Anyway, back to B16 (Benedict), Deus Caritas Est is much more readable and accessible than JP2, and JP2 was quite accessible.
He’s pretty straightforward –
Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness…………
Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.
I guess I’m pretty unusual (certainly among my circle of friends) that I accept the above passage and reject the casual sex that is an integral part of our culture. I don’t think it’s just sex –just pleasure, just reproduction, just fun – but something more.
I feel pretty vulnerable even blogging anonymously about this – it’s something I’m kinda reticent about discussing. I don’t like the funny looks or the patronising comments that “you’ll find someone”. It’s not from lack of opportunity (wounded pride screaming out) but rather a conscious decision that I don’t have sex.
There are a lot of things that are taken for granted in terms of healthy sexuality – one is that you must have sex. The 40 year old virgin was a trip in the hilariously uncharted waters of the ultimate middle aged saddo. I guess my life could be viewed as being similarly strange. I don’t even snog randomers on a Friday or Saturday night (or any other night).
Maybe I’ve been reading too many Georgette Heyer novels recently, but I don’t get the romance of scoring. Of “being with someone”.  Of waiting for text messages from someone you’ve shared body fluids with. I don’t believe that sex with someone you barely know is the best way to start any kind of relationship.
I don’t think I’m a prude. I don’t have a problem with everyone else in the world “getting some” (even though I hate that phrase) – I don’t think young teenagers are mature enough to make fully informed and free decisions about their sexuality and should not be encouraged to have sex.
Yes, the sexual revolution brought us freedom. I’m using mine to not have sex.
I had an unusual experience a few years ago during SHAG week in college. I handed back the brown paper bag containing condoms, information and plastic gloves to the girl handing them out. She ran up to me, telling me how important it was to have safe sex. I told her I wasn’t having unsafe sex, I wasn’t having any sex. She laughed and then tried to give me back the bag, saying you never know. I told her I did know and that I would certainly not be having any consensual sex anytime soon. (Even if Matthew McConaughey came along). She then told me that being repressed is not healthy.
No, it’s not. Neither is sleeping with anything that breathes.
But there’s nothing repressed about wanting something more than just sex. There’s nothing passive about waiting for it. There’s nothing asexual about not having any. There’s nothing immature about a little self restraint.  There’s nothing prudish about believing that sexuality is God’s greatest gift to creation, as is its product – a new love, a new person. There’s nothing strange or delusional in expecting that a grand passion will someday come my way and believing that my sexuality is something sacred to me, irreducible to a fleeting encounter, will be worth it.
And there’s nothing quite as romantic as reading a white haired celibate priest on love on St Valentine’s Day!
It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God.          

What makes a good priest?

I always thought a man who strived for personal holiness in the context of a religious vocation to serve as priest in Catholic Church was what made a good priest. Bad priests are those horrible weeds of men who abuse children.
Good priests are those that struggle daily to become saintly, while helping their parishioners where they can.
The fact that they're celibate should not turn away men who can become good priests. In fact, those that truly appreciate the nature of the priestly vocation are more likely to welcome celibacy than those that don't.

The original Fr Trendy, Brian D'Arcy with well-known Manchester priest Fr Denis Maher today both backed Fr Dillane and warned the Catholic Church that it was losing its best priests because they weren't allowed to marry.

Fr Dillane had sex as consenting adult with another consenting adult. I personally find the age difference (70 to 30) a little odd but if that's what they want so be it. He can, in full personal freedom, choose to leave the church, or cease his sexual relationship and continue as a priest.
He did committ a sin in the eyes of the Church and that is something that he must deal with himself, in the same way we all must examine our consciences.

I know from personal family experience that priests who leave the priesthood to continue relationships find it an incredibly draining and emotionally wrought experience.
All we can do is not to use Fr Dillane's personal life for some ill advised and dead ended "sex for priests" campaign and let him make his own decisions and deal with them in his own conscience, as he has done so far.

More on Vatican doc on homosexuality

From Open Book blog -
Here's what's missing: a complete explanation of the motivation for this Instruction: a closer look at the landscape of Catholic priesthood and religious life. Yes, the abuse crisis brought this to the fore, but the concerns have been there for a while, as well as the knowledge, but, for fear of a failure to be pastoral, lack of will, sympathy in the episcopal ranks, typical Catholic bureaucratic creep, as well as a simple desperation for male bodies to ordain have all worked to silence concerned voices. I guess that's over.

The bigger problem is that there seems to be a consistent connection between sympathy for the secular gay agenda and ethos and a disinterest or even antipathy to traditional Catholic teaching on sexuality and family, period. And we're not talking about little points of minutiae here: we're talking about the big picture, that big picture in which the relationship between male and female is an anaology for the relationship between God and humanity, and even a template for understanding creation, period. Disconnect from that, and you are slowly, but surely, disconnecting from Catholic Christianity as you depend on your own personal revelation, rather than the public revelation of Scripture and so on, to define your faith, and the faith which you are teaching, preaching, and being guided by in your pastoral ministry.

More Catholic Stuff (Yawn!)

This blog has been hanging around Catholic arguments for the last little while. In light of the new Vatican document on homosexuality and the priesthood, I'm going to back to some Catholic stuff....
A search on Google News shows how this issue and other Catholic related stuff is handled by the "meejah".
The Independent (UK) has forcefully restated its hostility to homosexuals
From Arizona
- The Roman Catholic pastor of Mesa's Queen of Peace Church has resigned in protest of the church's tougher and what he calls "hostile" stand against gays in the priesthood.
Given the Church takes an uncompromising stance on separating the sinner from the sin, words like force and hostile perpetuate the false illusion that the Church hates all homosexuals. In the light of the meaning of priestly vocation, which includes a broad spectrum of potentially virtuous behavious including celibacy but also obedience, that priest's actions smack of an overdose of diva behaviour.
And from our own Examiner Not surprisingly, the gay community is outraged over the thrust of the document, describing it as a blatant bid to scapegoat them for the problems besetting the church.
With the aim of dissuading gay seminarians from lying about their sexual orientation, the document urges them to tell the truth and warns it would be “gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality”. If anything, gay candidates are less likely to be up-front in future.
On the vexed question of whether homosexual men should enter the priesthood in Ireland, it is telling that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin believes those who are stable and capable of celibacy can move through the system.

As an average practising Catholic I've no real problem with this document. As the quote from Diarmuid Martin above shows, those how are willing to practice the celibacy bit of their vocation are no different for heterosexualal priests.
However, the gay community are not being scapegoated for the recent paedophillia scandals - there is a considerable amount of evidence that suggests that homosexual activity in seminaries is quite widespread and this in itself has huge implications for how celibacy and indeed sexuality are viewed by priests.
As for gay candidates for the priesthood lying - psychological evaluation is part of the overall spiritual evaluation of men who feel that they are being called to the priesthood - the Church does not ordain everyone; maturity is a huge part in deciding whether or not one is able to both properly discern and answer a vocation as well as live up to its challenges. Anyone who lies about anything in this process is simply not suitable.
From the first magazine I ever subscribed to - First Things has a succinct little say about it. (Yes, I was a very intense and rather pathetic 16 year old - I don't think I was even aware that magazines like Bliss and Sugar existed then!)

More on "Mr Nice Guy"

Richard Delevan and that girl both take a similar line - disappointment is a bad word for Bertie to use when refering to the Ferns report.
I'm very disappointed in those that were given vocations in the Church fell into such horrible sins. I'm very disappointed that those who should appear as paragons of Christian virtue were actually raping little children. I'm very disappointed that the institutional Church did not serve as it should - as Christ's bride and that Bishops were blinded to the true nature of what was happening and what was needed to be done.
I'm also disappointed that as a Catholic who still goes to Mass and tries to discern a spiritual path in this materialistic world we live in, using the wisdom of 2000 years as my guide, that everytime my religion, my spirituality is discussed it is reduced to the sins of a few.
Disappointment is a good word. So is anger - I'm angry. Most ordinary Catholics in pews every Sunday are also angry. Angry that the Church didn't act quick enough. Angry that priests were allowed become so spiritually rotten that sexual expoitation of children became a reality, albeit in a small number. Angry that the vast majority of the encounters that we have with the Church and its ministers, and its schools, were on the whole positive and enriching experiences and are wholly forgotten about.
Angry that every anti-Catholic crank is using this as a platform to wallop the Chuch on every issue known to the disciples of modern liberalism.
I'm pretty sure Bertie feels the same.

Richard says But the issue of control of schools is where the Church will make its last stand for worldly power in Ireland. They will not give easily. And as today's remarks by Bertie make clear, they will have sympathetic allies at the very top.
This is all fine and well - I would much rather that the Catholic Church did not have anything with public schools. Leave religion out of schools and make it the responsibility of families and parishes to educate children in their religion. (Subsidarity, anyone?)
Saying that the Church has some power in schools is pushing it - religion is currently a fairly insipid part of education.
But what to do?
Buy the schools?
Even a FG/Labour gov't won't rise taxes enough to buy the schools. Not when people languish on A&E trolleys and spend whole days on the Red Cow roundabout.
Let's be sensible about this.
Eagle also weighs in.
I'm quite exercised by all this (as evidenced by rant below!) and will be checking in a lot about it over next few days even though I'll be studying for clinical parts of my finals next week and will have a slow dial up connection!

A Witch Hunting We Will Go

Yesterday's Dail's debate is fairly illuminating in terms of what passes for, well, modern witch hunting in Ireland.
Instead of the Salem witch trials, we have the Ferns report.
Some of this stuff is just so random, my mind is spinning.
Liz O'Donnell - The unrelenting deference, which constituted the relations between church and State, must end. It was given for many decades and expected for many decades. This special deference and relationship was extremely influential in terms of outcome, and it must end. Only then can the State act as it should, which is objectively.
I fail to see the evidence of this great Church State monolith in 2005 Dublin. Or the Midlands. Is it somewhere else? When exactly has the State been blinded by its institutional Catholicism?
Because the church in Ireland was the main interface with God, the Irish people and the State have shown deference personally and collectively over many decades. This veil of deference is the root cause of society’s failure to stop the church’s systemic maladministration and dereliction of duty to protect children as outlined in the report.
Interface with God? What planet is LOD on? Obviously some intergalactical one - interfacing with God (some people call it praying) sounds like LOD watched a few too many Star Trek episodes.
This “no more Mr. Nice Guy” approach by the State means no longer countenancing the unhealthy enmeshing of the church in the secular layers of our society. It means no more consultation between church and State on IVF, abortion services, stem cell research, Ireland’s support for family planning in the Third World, contraception or supports for single mothers, adoption, homosexuality and civil marriage. In a democracy, all views can be articulated but the special relationship must be over. The deference must be over. The cosy phone calls from All Hallows to Government Buildings must end.
Democracy to LOD means allowing all other voices a respectful platform for their opinions on various moral issues, except the Catholic Church.
By suggesting that recent years have represented a "special relationship" for the Church is disingenuous. "Cosy phone calls" from All Hallows have not impacted on the implementation of any of LOD's wishlist - the democratic process, which was encouraged by the RC church, who conducted themselves in a manner befitting citizens of civil society, was the main theme of all the issues listed. That is except, “family planning" in the third world, which was the responsibility of LOD while minister, and she conveniently disregarded the increasing evidence that the UNFPA is becoming an increasingly malignant force in the world, in many cases condoning programmes which involve forced sterilisations and abortions, including China's infamous "one child policy".
This also means, like it or not, looking at the church’s almost universal control of education in this country.
Yes, the Church owns most of the schools in Ireland. Yes, the State pays for their day-to-day running costs. Yes, LOD, do that - divide up the school system - pay off the Church. Let the State buy every school and football pitch up and down the country at the going rate. Let the religious orders demand "money back" for all the sisters and brothers who toiled for years for nothing but the fulfilment of their vocation, educating the poor and the rich alike, building the educated and wealthy society that we have today.
Then LOD goes on about money and I got bored.
There is not a single person in Ireland who would admit that the Church has acted properly with regard to its tragic and appalling history of child sex abuse. It is interesting however to note, that the Church has currently instituted a full, comprehensive and well funded child protection policy.
The State has not. They have policies and consultancy groups, but no actual child protection programme. Perhaps LOD could "interface" with the State to ensure that those inevitable cases of child abuse that will arise in this imperfect world are minimised and handled appropriately.
LOD ends however with As one who has irreconcilable differences with the institution of the church, as is probably obvious, unless it allows the laity in, including women, it is in terminal decline
Whatever happened to live and live?. Attack the Church about its appalling history. Insist that it can never ever happen again. Ensure that structures are put in to ensure it won't.
But separate the issues.
LOD, you're either a practising Catholic or you're not.
And if you’re Catholic, check out Vatican II and the laity – you will be very surprised.

Get over it, honey - you can't be a priest in the RCC but rest assured, you're a fully signed up priestess of the new Irish secularism, armed with a Fendi crozier, an Irish Times Bible and enough bile to obliterate any pretensions of a pluralistic respect toward what is simultaneously believed to be a greying impotent force of irrelevancy and a powerful enforcer of a "rigid right wing morality".

Just when I thought the female politicians of the Dail couldn't get anymore shrill and sensationalist (and apparently according to the Democracy review people, us girls need more of them to speak for us - in reality we just need to muzzle the ones we have and allow women to achieve the last bastion of equality - the right to have political opinions as people, not just as the homogenous women) Liz McManus chips in.
If this is the logic that will prevail when the idiotic quotas come in, we're in for a short ride to hell in a hand basket - she faults LOD for rewriting history as the PDs have to accept for responsibility for all the things that LOD disagreed with including taking responsibility for trying to have a referendum on abortion passed which would have created a threat to the lives of young desperate pregnant women.
How one gets from Ferns to the 2002 Abortion Referendum is beyond me. I've taken off the contacts and put on my pink tinted post feminist glasses – I still can't see it. Is feminist/female politics simply about bringing everything back to same old agenda via the uterus?
Let's conveniently disregard the evidence that Ireland is one of the safest places in the world to be pregnant and that there is absolutely no treatment for ill pregnant women that is currently illegal, or would have been made illegal in 2002.
I'm still lost. Maybe it's because I didn't vote Labour. Perhaps it's because I don't consider Liz my sister. Or maybe, just maybe, abortion has nothing to do with Ferns. Maybe Catholics are allowed a voice in the democratic and political process. Perhaps the Catholic Church, being a religion and all that, are allowed to have moral positions on moral issues. And maybe, just maybe, the Christian ideal which Catholics strive to live by is not about child sex abuse, but rather the exact opposite - it's about dignity, respect, love, equality, forgiveness, courage, self-sacrifice and falling. Falling again and again until someday you stand a little bit longer because you've got someone else to lean on.
And maybe, the real issue here is how to deal with the sins of others and how to protect the innocent from the sinful actions of others within the Church. And moving on to a healthier place when it’s all done.
The 2 Lizs aren’t contributing anything to the necessary processes of purging and slow healing. They’re just a bad advertisement for women in politics. If political life saps all reason and perspective from the female brain, quotas should not be about increasing female representation, but decreasing it. The 2 Lizs believe that high heel stamping and bitchy comments are useful political statements. If that’s the best they can offer, pass me my Bridget Jones-type Diary and my big fluffy pink pen – I’m sick of politics.

Hot Press and Catholicism

Sue Denham, in her (or is it his??) usual snappy form, comments on the Hot Press picture of a priest masturbating (don't click if you don't want to see it!) She compares the lack of outcry (on Rte's Whineline) with the situation in Denmark where a paper depicted Mohammed as a terrorist which led to street protests and death threats.
As she said, Hot Press only was "kicking a soft target when it’s down".
I don't really see the relevance in the such a picture - it's not exactly highlighting anything no one knew before and is not just insulting to Catholics but to anyone who has an imagination and doesn't need to see actual depictions of masturbation, which are just gross. I can just see Niall Stokes in his little office, surrounded by his delusions of musical prophecy and the fragmented dreams of his intellectual liberal crendentials, with his face contorted from the strain of trying to be edgy and "cool".
The Catholic Church doesn't follow up every offensive picture or bigoted comment, and most times that there's outcry over things like this it's ordinary Catholics who've just had enough and want to make their voices heard. Perhaps it's time for the hand of the Church to grab that crozier that had everyone trembling in the past and stand up for itself against juvenile attempts at cleverness.
Hot Press give the picture the caption "the good priest". How dare they judge the entire population of Catholic priests in such a bigoted fashion? (Is the golden commandment of being non-judgemental not the most important part of the liberal gospel that Hot Press has been spouting with such originality since the eighties?)
The vast majority of Catholic priests are incredibly decent men whom we rightly welcome into our lives everytime we have a life changing event (births, deaths and marriage) and struggle heroically to live a life that is not just counter-cultural, but plain hard. Last Sunday, in a North Dublin inner city church a fresh faced priest in his early thirties told the congregation that the Ferns report showed what happens when we shut God out of our lives and refuse to rise to the challenge of Christianity. He spoke of his vocation to celibacy and how it was integral part of his identity as a man, not just as a priest. But according to Hot Press, this man whose daily life is to serve the people of his parish, something he does with charity, good humour and Christian love, is a sexual pervert who is one step away from molesting the nearest child. I suppose a daily musical diet of Damien Dempsey, Glen Hansard and the Thrills would cavitate one's brain and lead to all kinds of crazy conclusions.
Hot Press is a pretty pathetic excuse for a magazine - the free Event Guide is way better. In fact, any concert that I'm at where I see Niall Stokes leads to a mini internal crisis - I like the same stuff as Niall Stokes - does that mean I'm pretentious whiny posturer? (please say no!)

Was JP2 the Greatest Mass Murderer of the 20th Century?

An excellent article from Tech Central Station by Michael Cook.
Needless to say, the answer is no despite the crazy assertions to the contrary - Cook goes through these flimsy arguments about the Catholic Church's role in the spreading of AIDS with a big stick and loads of facts. And a little bit of common sense as expressed here -
"Two doubtful ideas run through all these criticisms. The first is basically this: African Catholics are so devout that if they have sex outside of marriage, dally with prostitutes or take a third wife, they will piously refrain from using condoms because the Great White Father told them not to. Ms. Toynbee darkly invokes 'the Vatican's deeper power... its personal authority over 1.3 billion worshippers, which is strongest over the poorest, most helpless devotees.'
But she can't have it both ways: these benighted dark-skinned Catholics can't be both too goody-two-shoes to use condoms and too wicked to resist temptation. "

P.S. If Elton John actually wanted to help those with AIDS in Africa he would try to get the Church onside, not ridicule the Pope at the Live 8 press conference, simply because us Catholics don't believe in condoms....Catholicism does not spread AIDS. I like Sacrifice as much as the next person and Tiny Dancer is pretty brilliant song, but Elton John at a press conference telling the Pope is quite simply
"getting more and more absurd" as he sings himself in "Sorry is the hardest word."

Pope's New Coat of Arms

Sounds like a Mastermind specialist topic but Shrine of the Holy Whapping blog has much discussion on it. One of the things that draw me back to the Catholic Church again and again (apart from women like Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein) is the symbolism in everything. Who knew coats of arm (or is coats of armss??) could be so controversial?

Shock, horror Irish not Catholic

Irish Eagle provides a link to an article which discusses how the Irish weren't the Catholic sheep that many make them out. This of course makes sense - we would be a very different society if our Catholic forebears were thoroughly Catholic and educated...the amount of half truths that many now consider to be "official Catholic teaching" are testament to this.

Is the Pope Catholic???

The Sindo asking the pertinent question as always.
3 articles worth checking out -
Eoghan Harris, Liam Collins and Declan Lynch

Collins analyzes the Church as an organisation trying to survive in the world - "But why then do these secular/pagan/agnostic types insist on preaching to those who actually practise their faith that they need a "liberal" Pope who will abandon some of the church's basic rules.....What do they want, some sort of Fr Dougal who believes the whole charade was set up to give him a cushy number? Do they want a Garda Commissioner who doesn't believe in law and order, a Fianna Fail TD who doesn't want to be a Minister or a Kilkenny hurling manager who does not want to win the All-Ireland?.....There has also been considerable tut-tutting at Cardinal Connell's support for Pope Benedict's assertions of the "primacy" of the Catholic Church. What do they want him to do, tell people there are better religions? Would they expect Alex Ferguson of Manchester Utd or the people of Kerry to go around saying, "well, we're not really the best" when it comes to football? They wouldn't. It's the Pope's job to sell Roman Catholicism just as it's Bertie Ahern's business to tell the people that Fianna Fail is the true party....For most people, the decision is simple: you are either a Catholic and you try to abide by the teaching of the church you attend. Or you don't. Apart from those with no beliefs, we're all a-la-carte in our religious beliefs. But if you no longer patronise the restaurant, why campaign to change the menu?"

Lynch - "I was a Ratzinger man, through and through. Not for any fancy theological reasons, or even because of the Sixties, but for this perfectly simple reason: the Pope is a Catholic. Or at least, he should be.
Life is complicated enough, and if anything helps to clarify the situation, I am basically in favour of it. Ratzinger, as far as I can gather, is saying nothing that hasn't been straightforward Catholic doctrine, down through the ages........For example, if you had a teenage son, which would you prefer: to see him on a reality TV show, having drunken sex in a dark room? Or to see him live on Sky News, celebrating wildly with another young man wearing a baseball cap, going mad with joy as it is announced that Joseph Ratzinger is the new Pope? Which of these?
Just think about it."