Monday, December 14, 2009
Euthanasia: the pro-life response?
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
New Issue of The Flock
Available here.
More on the 'Gay' Masses in Soho;
Book Reviews,
A Catechetical Summer School in Scotland.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Iveriegh replies
Austin Ivereigh has emailed a correction which we are happy to carry: he condemns Michael Moore's pro-abortion views. We are glad to hear it. It is after all entirely characteristic of The Guardian to tamper with people's words with a view to creating divisions in the Catholic world.
From Austin Ivereigh
Folks:
This is the email I sent to John Smeaton of SPUC and asked him to publish it under his post. He has ignored me. Let’s see if you have the guts and integrity to publish it.
Austen
In my piece for the Guardian which John Smeaton refers to, I never call Moore a “committed Catholic”. Those words were added by the editor in the standfirst. What I say in the piece is that Moore goes to Mass each Sunday. When I questioned whether this was true in a post for America magazine (read it here ) I received an emphatic message from his office which led me to apologise for questioning the fact (my apology is here ). As for failing to mention that Leo XIII in the same year as Rerum Novarum spoke out against abortion, mea culpa– but I don’t see anything worth apologising for. I have a strong record of speaking out against abortion, and I deplore Moore’s failure to do so.
Austen Ivereigh
Journalist and Commentator
5 Cumberland St, London SW1V 4LS
austen@austeni.org
Homeschooling consultation: last call
Everything you need is below, courtesy of Christian Concern for our Nation. The Department for Children, Schools and Families published a consultation on home schooling. Please respond in order to preserve the freedoms of those parents who wish to educate their children at home. The closing date is Monday, 19th October 2009. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children receive a “suitable” education. The Government wants to usurp the role of parents and impose more governmental control, thus intruding upon families who choose to educate their children at home. Both the Bible and the law recognise it is a parent’s responsibility to educate their children, not that of the Government. Education is compulsory, but school is not. Parents can choose either to send their children to school, or to educate them at home. The Badman Report reviewed elective home education. In our opinion, the Badman Report makes disproportionate and unreasonable recommendations for compulsory registration and invasive monitoring of those families who choose to educate at home. The point of most concern to all parents, especially Christian ones, is the proposal that those who choose to educate at home will have Government officials interview a child alone—without even a parent being present. To read the Badman Report, the Consultation, or to respond on line, click here. Please note that the Government have produced a full response to the Badman Report very recently. To read the press release or the Government’s response, both dated 9th October 2009, clickhere. To read our response click here. To watch the YouTube Response by Education Otherwise to the Report on the Review of Elective Home Education, please click here. Send your response headed “Home Education—Registration and Monitoring Proposals Consultation Response” by e-mail to:homeeducation.consultation@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk There is no need to answer all of the questions in this Consultation unless you wish to do so; you could instead send two or three points by e-mail. Please say that you reject all of Graham Badman’s recommendations and ask the Government to abandon them. We would also suggest you make some of the following points, in your own words: Interviewing Children Alone It is a violation of parental responsibility and rights to interview a child alone. Even the police do not do so. Under no circumstances should this proposal be allowed. National Register Annual registration of children will make no difference to safeguarding them. The current guidelines for local authorities already make it clear that safeguarding applies both to children who attend school and to those who are home-educated. Compulsory annual registration and inspection visits by the Local Education Authority is not welcome, as in many cases it is precisely because of the education system having failed them, that parents have chosen to educate their children at home. The suggestion of criminalising parents who educate at home for failure to register their children is totally inappropriate and disproportionate. It is the parent’s choice to send a child to school or to educate at home. It incorrectly implies that it is the Government who has the responsibility for education, not the parents. No evidence has been provided of the need for a national register. The idea of registering children who are educated at home is akin to the Government imposing a licensing scheme on home education, when it is not the Government’s responsibility to do so. Freedom of Choice Christian parents may wish to educate their children according to Christian values and should be free to do so. Undergoing a state education may result in children learning more about other religions than about Christianity. The UK is subject to international legal obligations that require it to respect the right of parents to ensure their children’s education is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions. The freedom to educate at home should not be taken from parents. The Government appears wrongly to be set on a course of eroding parents’ rights in this matter by compulsory means. Misapplying Child Protection Systems to Home Education The Badman Report and the recent DCSF press release of 9th October 2009, inappropriately apply child protection methodology to home education implying that home education can lead to child abuse. In doing this they have cast an unjustified and unfair shroud of suspicion over home educators. Home educators have been tarred as "guilty" merely because they are home educators and are feeling the need to prove their "innocence" in relation to safeguarding issues. The DCSF needs to produce a measured response rather than allowing a small number of safeguarding cases to make “bad law”. Home educators have pointed out that the most dangerous and damaging abuse of children often takes place in children too young to go to school, where children have been withdrawn from school, or where they are already known to social services. Expensive and Unnecessary The proposals are both expensive and unnecessary, because there are already powers the local authority can use to make a School Attendance Order where it appears that a child is not receiving a “suitable” education. Government Control The Government should not seek to control or to intrude on family life. The Badman Report states that, “Few would argue with the assertion that parents are the prime educator within or outside of a schooling system”. The Report then seeks totally to undermine that assertion in the recommendations made which will erode a parent’s freedom of choice over their own child’s education. The proposals reverse the correct presumption of family freedom to educate one’s own children as a matter of parental duty rather than governmental duty. Thus, the Badman recommendations should be rejected as they are founded on this incorrect principle. Children may be withdrawn from school because parents are dissatisfied with the school system for one reason or another and the last thing they would want is more Government intervention. Unjustified Government Control It is of real concern that the proposals include asking parents to provide the local authority with achievement and future attainment data. This question is indicative of the Government’s attempt to assert control over what the child is taught and is eroding the basic freedom of parents to educate their children at home. The recent Government proposal to clarify what a “suitable” and “efficient” education means, threatens the freedom of parents to devise a tailored or flexible educational approach for their children in their own homes without one being dictated to them by the Government. Procedural Concern The Department for Children, Schools and Families (“DCSF”) published their Response to the Review of Elective Home Education in England on 9th October 2009, which creates uncertainty for respondents to this Consultation. Members of the public are bound to wonder whether their responses to the present Consultation are actually going to be taken into account in the formulation of policy on home education. The correct procedure should have been either to include the Government’s Response to the Badman Report in this Consultation, so that members of the public could comment on it, or to wait until all responses to the Consultation had been considered before producing a Response. Please also click here to sign the petition to reject the Badman recommendations and retain the freedom for parents to educate at home.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Plenty of food for the World's Population: UN official
From Lifesitenews: The head of the United Nations' food agency has said that population
control is not necessary to combat food shortages. Dr. Jacques Diouf told a
synod of African bishops meeting in Rome this week that "On the earth,
there is a sufficient number of financial means, effective technologies,
natural and human resources to eliminate hunger in the world once and for
all." [LifeSiteNews.com, 13 October] Dr Diouf's position
is in marked contrast to the calls for population control frequently made
elsewhere in the UN system.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Rosary Crusade Saturday
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dissident theologians and pro-abortion politicians
The Kennedy clan is the most prominent Catholic family in the highly dynastic world of US politics, and it is firmly pro-abortion. How did this come about? The promise of money and allies from the abortion lobby was underpinned by a group of dissident Catholic theologians who actually had a formal meeting in 1964 to coach family members in the sophistical distinctions they could make to rationalise their position. What they advocated appears to have been basically the familiar claim that a politician can be 'personally opposed' to abortion but as a matter of policy various considerations, from the need to maintain public order to the 'distress' of a woman who might be refused abortion, can justify voting to make abortion easier in every possible way - as if the state's duty to defend the lives of the innocent could be set aside so easily.
Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that [AGAIN… pay attention…] "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Archbishop Chaput responds to The Tablet
Business as usual in The Tablet last week - claiming that abortion is just 'Catholic' issue and that therefore Catholics should not let it get in the way when they decide what political policies to support (er, right!). This is a central tenat of the implicitly or explicitly pro-abortion dissident network of 'Catholic' organisations which feed off the Church and neutralise her public teaching. On this occasion The Tablet was addressing not a UK issue but an American one, so Archbishop Chaput pf Denver has posted a reply. (H-t Damian Thompson) In part:
Last week a British Catholic journal, in an editorial titled “US bishops must back Obama,” claimed that America’s bishops “have so far concentrated on a specifically Catholic issue - making sure state-funded health care does not include abortion - rather than the more general principle of the common good.”
It went on to say that if US Catholic leaders would get over their parochial preoccupations, “they could play a central role in salvaging Mr Obama’s health-care programme.”
The editorial has value for several reasons. First, it proves once again that people don’t need to actually live in the United States to have unhelpful and badly informed opinions about our domestic issues. Second, some of the same pious voices that once criticized US Catholics for supporting a previous president now sound very much like acolytes of a new president. Third, abortion is not, and has never been, a “specifically Catholic issue,” and the editors know it. And fourth, the growing misuse of Catholic “common ground” and “common good” language in the current health-care debate can only stem from one of two sources: ignorance or cynicism.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Muslim question: segregation and secularisation
Those who strive to be Politically Correct have been tearing each other apart over the demands of Muslims to adhere to their own customs. Special sex-segregated sessions at public swimming pools with vastly stricter dress codes have been established by many left-wing local authorities, and have attracted criticism from other lefties. A Labour minister walked out of a Muslim wedding when he discovered men and women had separate rooms, and has been practically accused of racism by a Labour peer. Sharia courts have been recognised as legitimate forums for arbitration by the Government, to the dismay of those who think they are sexist.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A Catholic political party?
It seems that following the demise of the Pro-Life Party as a political party, a new party was formed which would be specifically Catholic. The Pro-Life Party never won any seats but it got some good publicity for life issues at election times, and won a battle with the BBC over an election broadcast. To have the BBC accused of exercising 'censorship' in a court ruling was an important acheivment.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Marriage Care caught out again
The final two modules are aimed at young people over the age of 16 and deals with methods of contraception.
There is no discussion of the morality of the methods with the focus on function and effectiveness. The manual hails condoms as 98 per cent effective in avoiding pregnancy, and the Pill, the coil and hormonal injections as 99 per cent effective, but says that NFP methods are far less reliable.
"If you have a regular menstrual cycle, it [NFP] is 80 to 98 per cent effective, but can be lower if your cycle is irregular," the manual says. "NFP is not often suggested for teenagers who might not be considering committed relationships as yet." The manual was criticised by NFP teachers who insisted that their methods were nearly 100 per cent effective.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sex Ed video from the Archdiocese of Birmingham
Warning: contains nudity.
See Catholic and Loving It for more commentary. If you don't want your 9-year old to see material like this, don't send him or her to a Catholic school where Archbishop Nichols' ideas on sex education have influence.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Overpopulation myth
The myth of overpopulation has been exploded so many times it is astonishing that you find people still banging on about it. Here's a nice video.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Bishops respond to Marriage Care on homosexual 'marriage'
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Liturgical abuses: Pottery Chalices
Reprobated, therefore, is any practice of using for the celebration of Mass common vessels, or others lacking in quality, or devoid of all artistic merit or which are mere containers, as also other vessels made from glass, earthenware, clay, or other materials that break easily. This norm is to be applied even as regards metals and other materials that easily rust or deteriorate.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Marriage Care head on homosexual unions
'A fundamental commitment to the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church, particularly as expressed by the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.'
This is explained in more detail: 'The word 'fundamental' relates to the key objectives of the organisation as formally written and as corporately pursued. It is tolerant of some variety of emphasis in expression and in operation, but not of deviation from ultimate loyalty to the Church, nationally or internationally.'
Head of Marriage Care exhorts Church to re-think the family.
Gay couples can lay equal claim to their married heterosexual counterparts when
bringing up children in stable relationships. That is one of the many
challenges laid down by Terry Prendergast, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, in
a speech to members of QUEST, the community of lesbian and gay Catholics at
their annual conference this weekend. His remarks come as a timely contribution
after many Catholic adoption agencies have, in recent months, had to agonise
about whether to fall into line with new legal arrangements which oblige such
bodies to make adoption available equally to same-sex as well as heterosexual
couples.
Mr Prendergast will address the gathering in Leicester with his wife, Kate, a
lecturer in social policy at Brunel University. The conference theme is:" We
Are Family: New Thinking for the Twenty First Century."
"Statistically, children do best in a family where the adult relationship is
steady, stable and loving, " he says. "Note that I stress adult, not married,
since there is no evidence that suggests that children do best with
heterosexual couples, " he adds.
A dominant theme of his address centres on how the Church has often built up a
romantic image of a golden age of the nuclear family which, in truth, has not
really found expression in reality, often with unwelcome consequences for those
that "do not fit." These include single parent families, and also co-habiting
and same -sex families. He says that often "those individuals.want to live good
lives according to the precepts of the Gospels. They are an advert for the
Church, an advert that the Church often ignores, or consigns to the waste bin."
He says that in all relationships, the institutional aspects are less important
than the sacramental qualities, "the presence of God mediated through
commitment, consent and covenant. The move from the institutional to
companionship, choosing for love, has been marked, possibly more deeply, in
co-habiting and same-sex couples."
Inspired by Professor Margaret Farley's book, Just Love: A Framework for
Christian Ethics, Mr Prendergast lays out seven norms or criteria for
evaluating the richness of relationships and family:
Do no unjust harm,
Free consent,
Mutuality,
Equality,
Commitment,
Fruitfulness
Social justice.
Terry Prendergast is Chief Executive of Marriage Care, formerly CMAC, and has
been in that role since 2000. He was born in West Yorkshire and joined the
Montfort Fathers in 1967. He left the Montfortians in 1970, marrying Kate. He
trained as a social worker in 1975 and as a Psychotherapist in 1980, but has
been involved in management in the charitable sector since 1989. He has an MA
in Managing Change in Community, from Bradford University. He is concerned
about long-term relationships, their management and support, as well as the
development of their spiritual and sacramental aspects
For further comment, Terry Prendergast can be contacted on the following mobile
number: 07771 768631.
Kate Prendergast's address is entitled: "Chance, Choice and Caritas," and will
also feature as part of the conference proceedings . It is hoped a full
transcript of the paper will be available soon after the conference on the
Quest website at www.questgaycatholic.org.
Sit Stephen Wall, a former adviser to both Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor and
Tony Blair, will be the after dinner speaker on the evening of Saturday July
18th. Sir Stephen has been a member of Quest since January 2008.
The 2009 Quest Conference will be the 27th in the organisation's history and
will take place between 6pm on Friday July 17th and 4pm Sunday 19th July at
John Foster Hall at the University of Leicester.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Government sexualisation initiative condemned
Fr Tim Finnigan has posted on the latest Government initiate: to promote masturbation by children. Yes, things have really got that bad. 'An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away', says the leaflet. This has now been roundly condemned by Peter Bradley, Deputy Director of Kidscape, a charity concerned with bullying, including the sexual bullying which, unsurprisingly, is on the rise in schools. His message:
Sexual bullying has become much more prevalent. On the Kidscape helpline we used to get maybe one or two calls a year. Now we are getting two or three a week. It’s probably the tip of the iceberg.I wonder what Kidscape think of the latest initiative from NHS Sheffield which has prepared a leaflet for young people telling them that it is good to have an orgasm a day, and encouraging them to masturbate. (See the promotional article in "Children and Young People Now".) The booklet is, of course, strongly endorsed by the Family Planning Association and the Brook, whose spokesman extols the value of sex education before adolescence. (See also the report from the Christian Institute: Pupils told: regular sex is good for you.)
How long will it be before feminists, child safeguarding agencies and ordinary parents begin to cotton on to the clear and present danger that this kind of explicit sex education presents to their children?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI, the Reformer
Comment: Luke Coppen makes a good case for Benedict XVI being what commentators said before his election, a man who cracks down on abuses. The Holy Father is doing it in different places and on different subject with seriousness, but no fanfare - sometimes even with a degree of necessary secrecy. As Coppen points out, this means that his reforming zeal has gone largely unnoticed; it also fails to fit the stereotype of a liberal reformer which many commentators assume is the only kind.
Investigating America's seminaries: Not long after his election Benedict XVI oversaw an apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States. The investigation was inspired by the clerical sexual abuse crisis of 2002 and covered all schools of theology as well as college-level seminaries, houses of formation, and academic institutions that form future priests.
Scrutinising American female religious orders: The Pope has also ordered a wide-ranging investigation of American women religious. The apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States, which is currently underway, covers approximately 400 apostolic religious institutes of women and approximately 59,000 women religious. It is likely to lead to a shake-up of American female religious life.
Deposing the leader of an African Church: Earlier this month Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Archbishop Paulin Pomodimo of Bangui, the most senior Catholic cleric in the Central African Republic (CAR). The resignation followed a visit to the CAR by a papal emissary, Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, in March. It is widely thought that the Pope requested the archbishop's resignation because he tolerated priests keeping mistresses.
Calling for a thorough accounting of abuse in Ireland: Also this month Pope Benedict called for a profound examination of the state of the Irish Church following a damning report into "endemic" abuse in schools run by religious orders.
Crisis talks with the Austrian bishops: And this week Pope Benedict held an emergency meeting with the leaders of the Austrian Church. The gathering followed the appointment and subsequent resignation of Gerhard Wagner as auxiliary Bishop of Linz and reports that priests in senior positions in the diocese live with mistresses. The Pope reminded the bishops of "the urgency of going deeper in the faith and the integral fidelity to the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Church" - a coded message that the Austrian Church is in serious need of reform.
These events together show the determination with which Pope Benedict is confronting the gravest scandals in the Church today. They have all had considerable publicity, but nevertheless have not created the perception that Benedict XVI is a bold reformist pope.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Focaccia
This has rendered Damian Thompson speechless and it has had the same effect on us. But focaccia was used as the host at a Mass in Linz, Austria, and under the appearance of focaccia the Blessed Sacrament was paraded around in this 'monstrance'. That's assuming focaccia is valid matter, which it probably is; it is certainly illicit.
Hat-tip to Cathcon.