Bile and vitriol.....the liberals view of orthodoxy

Is Mr Bean a liberal Catholic?

This blog has been featured, of late, on some Catholic Forum websites.

There has been an increase in my readership, in fact (hold on to your hats) I am now in double figures!

Somewhat intrigued I followed the comments made by those who read these forums.

They are a very different type of person from those who normally comment on this blog who are, for the most part courteous and charitable (I can do obsequious, no problem).

They are, it appears, what you might term 'liberal Catholics', that is, Catholics who do not employ logic based on doctrinal teaching but, instead, rely on a sort of warped emotional religious outlook that bears no resemblance to the teachings of (and here I am going to offend them) Our Blessed Lord....you see....they do not like to use reverent forms of address, they would rather speak in the woolly and rather silly language of the socialist.

I really do not mind if people object to what I have to say providing that they are polite and informed but these folk are neither.

The overriding message that comes across is that they actually 'hate' all elements of orthodoxy; the Latin Mass, the Rosary, piety in the pew, regarding priests as 'other Christs' rather than drinking mates, and much more besides.

And the thing is, it would appear that, to a man or woman, none of them have attended a Latin Mass; they all carry a rucksack crammed full of the rocks of blind emotion.

Beat me up by all means but do it from an informed base.

When I criticize the Novus Ordo with its all too frequent profane accompaniments, I do it because I have experienced the banal input from the parish gestapo who like to indulge in daft acts such as having a dustbin (trash can) on the sanctuary so that the children in the congregation may, at a given signal, place scraps of paper in it on which are written details of the things they dislike.
Positively paganistic.

I am quite certain that liberal Catholics do not read this blog but, should any stray here blown by some internet mistral (how poetic) I would just like to invite them to get on with matters concerning their own salvation and allow those of us who might be dubbed as being 'traditional Catholics', to get on with ours.



 

"How much did you steal?"

Judas the thief

One of the great mysteries of life is how so many liberal Catholics ignore the teachings of Holy Mother Church and, abandoning normal good and discerning taste, appear to enjoy banal presentations, acts and hymns as presented at many modern Masses.

I long ponder on this.

My conclusion is that there is an underlying cause; a hidden agenda that, even they, may be unaware of.

Guilt is an occupation of the conscience that may be either fully admitted or concealed in the sub consciousness of the mind.

And why should those liberal Catholics feel guilt?

Because, in many instances they have ditched the Faith of their fathers and mothers and elected to opt for a conscience driven belief subject to emotional responses rather than logic and revealed truths.

They practice contraception, they may be complicit in abortion and they often believe that homosexual acts are perfectly acceptable as 'love' is what they are all about.

They have not looked in their spiritual mirror for many, many years.

The late *Archbishop Fulton Sheen spoke of a young woman who begged him to meet with her brother who was a drug addict and whom had been diagnosed with some form of mental condition.

"If his problems are of the mind, I can do nothing for him, if his problems are spiritual, I will meet with him" Said the great man.

Archbishop Sheen met with the young man and invited him to talk about himself.

After 45 minutes, he stopped the youth and asked: "How much did you steal?"

"I haven't stolen anything" replied the young man.

"How much did you steal?" persisted the Archbishop.

"Nothing, I stole nothing" said the man.

"How much did you steal?" thundered Sheen.

"About three thousand dollars" said the young man.

Archbishop Sheen had discerned that the young man was not mentally ill per se but had a neurosis caused by some deed he had committed.

In this case the man had stolen the money from his local church and the essence of guilt had weighed him down so much that he had taken solace in drug taking and a dissolute lifestyle.

Now, I am not suggesting that liberal Catholics are all thieves in the same sense as the young man who took money from the Church but they are dishonest in their denial of Christ's teachings and in the resulting deeds that accompany disobedience.

That dishonesty is met with denial. "I stole nothing" they will cry.

And from that echoes the words of the apostles: "Not I Lord"

* This is a paraphrase of the story carried on one of ++ Sheen's CDs.

Coming off The Pill

In my formative years, when hookers were only found on rugby pitches and generals were the only people with aides, there were three main Catholic publications in church porches throughout the country.

Their readership was quite distinct in both class and character.

At the cheap and cheerful end there was The Universe, the working Catholic man's newspaper.

The Catholic middle classes read the broadsheet Catholic Herald and, as Sister Catherine Walsh OP used to say: "It's the only Catholic newspaper run by Catholics, boys". And so it was and still is.

And then the Upper Class Catholics had a rather upper class publication called The Tablet. This was and is, in magazine format and carried rather more copy than pictures; it would then have been described as  "an intellectual read".

I think this hierarchy still stands except that The Tablet, as we all know, has become the mouthpiece of  liberal crassness; somewhat left of Arthur Scargill.

But it still retains, (among Catholics of the cafeteria variety) a sort of air of pseudo intellectuality, of being unassailable as an organ of the thinking Catholic.

The once exclusive readership has drifted so that both the lower and middle classes like to be seen with a copy under their arm.

It lends them, so they believe, a sort of pew credibility; it adds an air of 'better than thou' to those who buy a copy and then, on returning home, consign it to the re-cycling bin unread.

A group of young Catholics has started a campaign aimed at closing down The Tablet, (Tabula Delenda Est) I wish them every success in their endeavours.

But we all need to challenge this false air of intellectual authority that surrounds the editorial team and their Directors at The Tablet.

We need to question those who wave their copy around as proof of their forward thinking capacity and charitably point out the truth of the matter to them.

The Tablet is not now the thinking Catholic's magazine; it has evolved into 'Pseud's Corner'.
Please inform your Bishop, Parish Priest and you fellow parishioners of this fact.

In this clip below you can see three Catholics.

Can you tell The Tablet reader from The Universe reader or The Catholic Herald reader?

There's also a final clip showing an interview believed to be with a young Clifford Longley

"I'm a Catholic priest of the 21st century........

.....I like my folk group at Sunday Mass, my team of Eucharistic Ministers, I do a great deal with my brothers and sisters in the Anglican, Methodist and United Reform churches.

We have lots of jolly get togethers, prayer meetings (but not with Catholic prayers you understand), Lent lunches and inter parish quizzes.

And we regularly share the same church for a joint service; it's all very ecumenical and pally.

What's that?

The SSPX?

I wouldn't be seen dead in one of their churches let alone share a service with them!"



Thanks to GM who prodded me on this one.

If you were arrested for being a Catholic......

......would there be enough evidence to convict you?

H/T to The Canon's Stall

The Redemptorists - beyond redemption?

Some years ago our then parish priest sent off for a batch of Redemptorist leaflets for the Lenten preparations. He did not keep them long, he returned them with a note far more charitable in tone than if I had composed it.

They were weak and missed the point completely; if they had been produced by some obscure evangelical offshoot of a non conformist faith you might have said, "Yep, sadly misguided" and shot off a prayer or two for God to remove the blindfold.

But they came from a Catholic order or, as the Redemptorists prefer; "A Roman Catholic order".

The order is in the news again at present with the spoutings of Fr Tony Flannery and, I fear, the rot is deeply rooted.

As with dry rot, to remove it you must cut deep and burn all waste (not that I am suggesting any bonfires for the priests of that order, no, no, heaven forfend! (It is a thought though).

A visit to the Redemptorist website, the launchpad for their range of literature, books, posters, CDs and DVDs, is not inspiring.

I see their posters, every so often, when I visit a parish church where the parish priest must keep his brain in neutral gear. Why, oh why, do people drape them all over the sanctuary, like some gigantic classroom project?

And why do the posters all look as if they've been designed by primary stage three on ecstasy?

                             No, it's not hell, silly, it's a sign of Confirmation

I know it appears as if I am an old curmudgeon, constantly picking up on the bad things regarding the Faith....and it's true (although I draw a crumb of comfort from Mrs L who says that if we don't condemn we condone).

But, in reality, these posters and leaflets are as bad as The Tablet; they present the Church in a way that I cannot reconcile with the Faith that I was born into.

Of course, now that we have the reform of the reform underway, such literature is looking distinctly aged, old fashioned, even.

But who controls the Reds Redemptorists? Not the Diocesan Bishop? Not the Archbishop of Westminster? Then who?

There must be somebody in authority who could exercise a little burning control?

I guess it is their own Superior General or whatever title he goes under.

But that is really like asking an alcoholic to oversee a Beer Festival.

What did you do in the Great Apostasy Daddy?

Well my child, I, um....I err.......prevaricated. That's it, I prevaricated!

In fact, I even got a medal for prevarication. You see when the changes began I decided that I should go along with all that was proposed, I was even one of the few who ripped out some beautiful old wooden communion rails in an undercover operation.

And then, after the first year or two I really got stuck in and stormed my parish church in an attempt to remove this bulky old marble altar. 

Along with a few other brave lads we managed to establish a foothold on the sanctuary where we placed this very plain wooden table affair in place of the old altar. 

Cor lummy, did we take some flak over that!

I think it's fair to say that when I was made up to lay reader, I felt that it was no more than my due and that really signalled our assault on the liturgy itself when we attacked Gregorian Chant and replaced it with some really crappy secular stuff........that showed 'em who was who.

I have to be honest and say that, at first, we had things easy, nothing could withstand our forces but then the civvy population began to catch on and then we had snipers and rockets coming at us from all directions. 

But we gave as good as we got and before long I was made up to special forces....yes, I became a Special Eucharistic Minister.

Of course, I couldn't tell you kids what was going on - all top secret stuff you understand? Me and your mother managed to keep all of that nasty hermeneutic of continuity stuff well away from you.

You've got a lot to thank my generation for; keeping schtum about the richness of the Latin Mass, making sure you never laid eyes on a catechism, keeping all the essential truths from you.

Blinding you to the fact that, without the true teachings of the Faith you could well end up in H**** (we don't use that word compris?).

I pride myself on being the main one in our household to forbid the 'sin' word. 

After the Great Apostasy I felt that we should be more tolerant so anything remotely resembling sin was banned and we began to put our lives back in order and living comfortably alongside Abortion, Contraception, IVF, Euthanasia, Homosexuality and all our other new allies.

It was me who told you that it was OK to miss Mass on Sundays and that, in no way was it a mortal sin to do so, or that, in all probability it would condemn you to hell that place. 

And you can also thank me for telling you that it was OK for you to shack up with your boyfriend and live as man and wife. After all, it's love really and that is what being a Catholic is all about. Love.

As long as you love things nothing else matters; there, that's my word on the matter, pass me my old magazine will you?......that's it, The Tablet, the best bit of propaganda we had in those dark days in the benches.

How can an army fight if it has no generals, no mission, no idea who the enemy is?

Well, it can't. It can only wander around with the various units bumping into one another with a few officers yelling "Charge!" and the bulk of them telling the troops how they should recycle their bathwater and buy fairtrade fags.

The enemy will, of course, be having a field day; taking his time, picking off the easy targets, avoiding the slightly troublesome ones and distributing leaflets saying: "You have plenty of time...."

                                          Liberal Catholics taking on the enemy

And the troops, God bless 'em, they are parading and drilling and marching except that they have forgotten the finer elements of all three so they are out of step, buttons undone on uniforms and tripping over each other.

That, in case you had not quite got there yet, is an allegory for the modern Catholic Church (I do know that most if not all of you will have made the connection, it's just that occasionally the odd liberal Catholic wanders on to this blog only to hitch up their skirts and run screaming for the delete button).

Now this post, believe it or not, is meant to be about the sensitive topic of re-evangelisation; how the Church informs and educates those within its walls to the reality of Catholic spiritual (and secular life).

Father Ray Blake had an excellent post a few days ago that provided us with an admirable hit list of that we might consider adopting for our own spiritual development but, I am speaking of educating the masses, the troops who have forgotten how to dress by the right and quick march.

Some time ago I posted on how, as Catholic bloggers, we have the nettle of evangelisation within our grasp but the problem is that most Catholics know little or nothing of the existence of Catholic blogs; it's rather like shoving a book under the nose of one who cannot read - a connection needs to take place before knowledge can be implanted.

A good friend (MC), whom I have yet to meet over a pint of Bateman's, has his own programme for reaching out to his fellow parishioners. MC has produced a series of newsheets (that hardly does them justice) in which, in short, pithy posts, he opens up topics for discussion.

For example, he covers current affairs illustrating that the 'brick by brick' progress is actually taking place and he also includes facts of Catholic life that many will have forgotten.

Here is his post titled: "Five lost Catholic practices currently being re-instated by faithful Catholics"

1. Sprinkling of Holy Water around the home
 2. Catholic home altars
 3. Once again calling our Church 'the One True Church'
 4. Kneeling for Communion
 5. Increased attendance at Pro Life vigils from all age groups

All truly excellent stuff - I just wish that I had the know how to reproduce the whole newsheet here.

Maybe, he will post it on his own blog.........he should because, the rest of the concept relies on those interested parties in printing off each newsletter and leaving them at the back of their local church avec permission from the PP, of course.

This idea has, as they say, got legs.

What it needs now is some of the blogging community to run with it.

64,000 dollar question: What happened to the Stations of the Cross?

I mean, there are only 14 of them, they are in just about every Catholic church......but no one appears to say them any more.

The path to Melbourne Cathedral

The past two weeks I have spent visiting more churches than normal during Lent due to the fact that I am not in West Wales where most of the churches are locked up during the day in case anyone decides they want to get religious.
Here in Melbourne the city churches, at any rate, are open and available but I have yet to see anyone indulging in the Stations of the Cross; I would expect that London or Cardiff would be much the same.

The 'Stations' is one of the most moving and spiritual of our prayers and may be completed without a prayer book of any kind (although I do normally use the CTS purple booklet which is excellent).

Each station automatically brings its own prayer and one only has to genuflect, remember that? And to utter the words: "We adore Thee O Christ and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world" - then say one Glory be, one Hail Mary and an Our Father before moving on to the next station. It takes about 30 minutes to complete all 14.

Today (Maundy Thursday) I completed the Stations in St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne. The Cathedral was busy with tourists, locals wishing to be shriven of their sins, people just wanting to meditate and pray, workmen and cleaners and about 10 coachloads of Chinese visitors who appeared both amused and perplexed at my attempts to pray the Stations. By now I expect photographs of me trying to focus on the Via Dolorosa to be in many a household in Beijing or Chengdu or wherever they came from. I wonder what they really thought of my efforts.

But the real point is, who does say the Stations today?

Have they gone the way of Benediction, Forty Hours Devotion, Corpus Christi Processions?

Or do hordes of parishioners descend upon their churches after dark in order to carry out this devotion in secret?

Answers on a postcard please!