This is the end, beautiful friend ...

Yep folks, the writing is on the wall for the Ireland that many of us once knew. Recent events are accelerating that process and a critical mass is about to be reached. The future looks decidedly grim for those of us still trying to live as we should.
 Yeh I know the inevitable chorus will start braying! Stick in the mud, reactionary, blah blah blah. Before this starts let me ask the question.  Was the old Ireland perfect? Hell no! There were loads that was wrong, it was the land of twitching curtains, of parish gossip, of a clerical caste that could do wrong and arrogantly and stupidly believed in power. Cultural Catholicism prevailed,  behaviour was governed by peer pressure and  alas, in the vast majority of cases not built on any moral or spiritual foundation.
  What was the result? Well at the first chance they threw off the perceived shackles and became uber-sophisticated modern world citizens as fast as they could. Of course if you want to prove your credentials then you will be as vehement and as spiteful as possible about what came before, the church boo hiss! You will, in a muted tone of embarassment reject your past behaviour, assert that you were always a rebel and never really believed, then prove your worth by calling for the banning of religion and lay the blame for the state of the country firmly at the feet of the Church.
    When you have demonstrated your bona fide loyalty to the modern  world, proven that you are an individual, then you can safely do exactly what the elites tell you to do, secure in the knowledge that there are millions like you, all those individuals doing the same thing. So naturally you will vote yes to the children's referendum, since the establishment asked for it and you will emote tremendously and protest loudly for a change in the laws of the state, rather than waiting for the true picture to be revealed of a tragic situation that has befallen a young couple and their child. Why? Well because it appears that everybody else is watching you and you don't want to appear uncouth or (God forbid!) backward. You've been told how beautiful and sleek and modern the rest of the world is, and you want to be seen as beautiful don't you?
      Democracy  is highly overrated, but it still is preferable to the oligarchy that is consuming the republic,  indeed soon it will become a misnomer to describe this country as a republic.  When voters and campaigners who supported the No campaign, are described by prominent people as "extremist" and that their" views should be disqualified from any future referenda", then the end of the line has been reached. Even when victorious the oligarchy are still consumed with hatred for those who would have the temerity to disagree with their superior intellect. They know what is best for you, you pleb, they have the blueprint and you are the poor sap who will build and will pay for their flawed vision.
   The end is nigh for that which made Ireland what it used to be, but what do you care?  You're too busy trying to be beautiful!
  
    

The Blind Leading the Blind (off a cliff)!!!

I have returned, apologies for my absence only I've been incredibly busy. Ok that excuse was not good enough, I was washing my hair....no? Ok i admit it I'm a lazy blogger, there I have faced my problem and admitted it. Truth be told I have been really busy, and by night the thoughts of pounding on a keyboard doesn't really appeal. Secondly I'm not the type to splatter the screen with every random thought that sluggishly meanders through my cranium, I never intended to post every single day on every single topic.

 But here's my thought for today.
 Everyone who loves their Faith knows about the problem (understatement) that is the RE congress in the LA archdiocese. This annual heresy fest has long been a very public source of great shame to the Church not only in the States but throughout the world. Not much noticed here in the Emerald Isle was the steady stream of catechetical "experts" and high ranking Irish clerics  from these shores who visited and indeed spoke at this apostasy.
    Not merely content with contributing, these eminently qualified people decided that what could be better than having an Irish version of the congress. Yours truly attended the first one, which was held in Dublin, several years ago and it was everything I hoped (and feared) it would be. From St. Patrick's Breastplate being used for stretching exercises (I kid you not) to a workshop on dreams hosted by a Jesuit ( who else) which expounded the idea that the Baptism at the Jordan was Our Lord dreaming and then he went in to the desert for forty days to work out this dream!! Another workshop euphemistically called women in scripture which wasn't about the bible, but rather a one woman (nun) rant on discrimination, women priests and the evils of men all coming from an invitee from Canada. The list goes on from a self appointed congress poet (with terrible iambic pentameter)  to a call for a pre-Christ christology???
  I came away from the congress chuckling but with a sense of foreboding. The one silver lining was that all the delusional souls present were getting on in years and the place stank of desperation. But these were the "experts" who devised and published the "Children of God" and "Alive -O" series for Catholic schools, these cretins are responsible for forty years of devastation and countless lost souls.
  But you have to give them credit the next congress they had a youth day planned so as to get more youth in their ranks. I doubt this will work, young people tend to drift to the neo-catholic/new springtime group rather than the lost generation of the council.
   Now  the next congress hoves into view hosted in the autumn in the diocese of Kerry, the shepherd of which is the head of the catechetical office of the Irish episcopal conference. Need I say more. Perhaps most significantly, the keynote speaker is one Thomas Groome, professor of theology  and religious education.
Here are a few snippets of his writings:

" One possible solution (which for this author has seemed successful with younger children) is to interchange the terms 'father' 'mother' and 'loving parent' for God. Then, when teaching a traditional prayer like the 'Our Father' , teachers can take care to explain in the catechesis which follows that Jesus intends us to approach God as a trustworthty, forgiving and loving parent."

" As for all human beings, Jesus has to be one gender or the other, and the Gospels give no indication of any particular significance in his being male. Better, then, to treat this as one aspect of the 'scandal of particularity' that was his life: as a person, Jesus was a man, a Jew, a carpenter, from Nazareth etc. It is through his divinity and hunamity, not particularly his maleness, that Jesus is our Saviour and Liberator."

 Note the words stretched to breaking point, all to make Groome's argument for inclusive language in the classroom when teaching religion. I particularly enjoy his own definition of his educational theory.

"A participative and dialogical pedagogy in which people reflect critically on their own historical agency in time and place and on their socio-cultural reality, have access together to Christian Story/Vision, and personally appropriate in their community with the creative intent of renewed praxis in Christian faith towards God's reign for all creation."

There simple, why even a five year old could understand that! Quick get me a five year old I can't make head nor tail of it!! 

Faith and Society.

"It would be a strange fatality if the great revolution by which Western man has subdued nature to his purposes should end in the loss of his own spiritual freedom, but this might well happen if an increasing technical control of the state over life and thought of its members should coincide with a qualitative decline in the standards of our culture. An ideology in the modern sense of the word is very different from a faith, although it is intended to fulfil the same sociological functions. It is the work of man, an instrument by which the conscious political will attempts to mould the social tradition to its purpose. But faith looks beyond the world of man and his works; it introduces man to a higher and more universal range of reality than the finite and temporal world to which the state and economic order belong. And thereby it introduces into human life an element of spiritual freedom which may have a creative and transforming influence on man's social culture and historical destiny as well as on his inner personal experience."
                                                                                      Christopher Dawson 1949.

Incensing the Altar at the Offertory

Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea, sicut incensum in conspectu tuo: elevatio manuum mearum sacrificium vespertinum .
Pone, Domine, custodiam ori meo, et ostium circumstantiae labiis meis.
Ut non declinet cor meum in verbo malitiae, ad excusandas excusationes in peccatis.

Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed as incense in Thy sight: the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.
Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door round about my lips.
Incline not my heart to evil words: to make excuses in sin.

What type of car would you be...?

Posting a lot recently about journey and crossroads etc so it got me thinking, what kind of cars would be on these thoroughfares?
Liberals, well I think there would be two types; the more etheral, cosmic at one with mother godess clique would have hybrids or if lucky electrical cars. You can just see it, sitting smugly behind their wheel holding all the traffic back as they hum contentedly down the road. The second type of liberal car would be a turbo charged sports car, screeching away trying somehow to attain the speed of light. But both these cars would have the same in common, they are unaware of any road users or indeed any rules of the road. " Rules are too square man!" "Red lights what a drag, I need to be free man!" " Hey I know what's best on this road man so move over baby." Of course its the rest of us poor insured rabble that have to pay for these arrogant idiots. "Hey man...  Shut up!! hippy"
Neo-cons, well lets see. Of course they would have to consult the Vatican first to see what the Holy Father's preference is, and then they would drive carefully. Every day that they drove would be a beautiful spring  morning, and life would be joyous and spirit-filled, open to every emotion and secure in the knowledge that the sat nav would speed them in the right direction. In fact they would listen and follow implicitly the directions, turn right in 200 metres, turn left now, stop at junction, continue for 2 kms over bridge. Afterwards, puzzled as they sit in their car which is slowly filling with water, they will conclude that they didn't listen carefully enough as obviously the sat nav was vatican approved and therefore perfect. ( most neo-cons use the notion of papal infallibility in the same manner that a 4 year old uses paint, liberally and without discrimination; in fact empirical data suggests that a neo-con wouldn't know the true definition of infallibility if it came up and punched them on the nose.)
As for traditionalits, well any old car will do as long as it gets you to where you are going, stopping frequently to consult the map and don't forget to display the learner plates!!!

A view from the Square.

Sunday was a strange day, in that two wings of the church diametrically opposed to each other agreed on the same thing. Namely the liberals and the traditionalists agreed that they had huge reservations about the beatification of John Paul II. This was a day for the neo-cons, those Catholics really celebrated.
  The liberals were predictable in their bleating about Vatican II being stymied by the "dictatorial" pontiff ( this is a bit rich as we shall see), they were on firmer ground in their misgivings about the handling of the abuse crisis and in particular the halting of the investigation of the antics of Maciel and the undue influence of the Legion in Rome.
  Traditionalists, well they had a long list of grievances.
But what is the problem? Well lets look at the positives.
Was JPII fearless in his struggle with communism? Yes he was.
The manner of his death and his example of witness to suffering was inspring.
Did he give an example of personal holiness and prayer? Yes he did.
Was he strong on moral issues around the sanctity of life? Yes he was.

 But with true Christian charity it must be pointed out that there was much to mourn:
The appointment of bishops unsuited to leading their flock, the supervision (or lack thereof) of these bishops to ensure that their flocks were not led astray.
Papal liturgies around the globe that were akin to rock/ pagan spectacles.
The Assisi meeting and frequent pronouncements that undermined for the faithful the belief that the One True Church was the sole means for salvation.
The Theology of the Body, JPII's own system of teaching on human sexuality and relationships, this continues to be the flavour of the month spawning conferences and seminars around the world, a rich meal ticket but shot through with humanism. At variance with the traditional teaching of the Church as regards the ends of  marriage.
His belief in the human institutions such as the UN as the means to bring about social justice etc.
 These are just a few of the concerns that could be expressed, JPII was truly a child of Vatican II, intimately involved in the council, one of the main movers and shakers behind Gaudium et Spes (a document whose ethos cannot be squared with traditional Catholic teaching  on man's place in creation and his reliance on God) a favourite of Paul VI.
  This goes some way to explain the haste of the process for beatification. Vatican II needs a saint. The neocons demand it. JohnXXIII is blessed, Paul VI's cause limps along. Now there is the strongest card to play. A consumate public figure, even the media grudgingly admired him. For the neocons he represented the best of their brand of charismatic Catholicism, namely visible, emotive and spiritual. Faith and Reason are the cornerstones of the Church, yet reason seems to have been jettisoned. This well fits in with the "cult of personality" that has become the trademark of this wing of the Church. "What? The Holy Father says that we must wear leather hats? Right I have my gun, now where did I put that cow...?"
 Even the mechanics of the process are up for questioning, the recent changes to the criteria favour speedy and less stringent  examinations of the cause. This was explained away with the notion that the judges must have enough evidence gathered to proceed with the cause, but who judges the judges and the background motivation and pressures that lead to their judgement?
John Paul the Great? No.  Blessed John Paul? ...

II Timothy

"Be sure of this, that in the world's last age there are perilous times coming. Men will be in love with self, in love with money, boastful, proud, abusive; without reverence for their parents, without gratitude, without scruple, without love, without peace; slanderers, incontinent, strangers to pity and to kindness; treacherous, reckless, full of vain conceit, thinking rather of their pleasures than of God. They will preserve all the outward form of religion, although they have long been strangers to its meaning."  3:1- 5
" The time will surely come, when men will grow tired of sound doctrine, always itching to hear something fresh; and so they will provide themselves with a continuous succession of new teachers, as the whim takes them, turning a deaf ear to the truth, bestowing their attention on fables instead." 4:3-4