Category: Public square

The news that Poole council used surveillance powers designed to track down terrorists to spy on an ordinary middle-class family they suspected of not living in the correct catchment area for their chosen school is not as surprising as it first seems. The government is, after all, fully aware that there exists in this country an organised group that propagates an infectious ideology which considers government officials to be mere obstacles to their goals. Arranged in tightly knit ‘cells’ (usually of two senior operators and one or more younger members), the group as a whole communicates via an informal network of personal contacts, workplace colleagues and Internet forums.

Despite their minority status, they have highly placed members in all the major professions: medicine, law, teaching, business, even politics. The senior members tend to be radicalised while at university. Their main purpose of communication is to target vulnerabilities in the state, and share knowledge of resources that will allow them to pursue their fanatical goal that they are willing to sacrifice all to achieve: the education of their children. The government’s greatest fear is that their ideology, of self-improvement, responsibility and working hard for the future, could spread round the whole of the UK, making much of government obsolete and without a client group to control.

Civitas – blog

The heart of the problem lies with the prominence given to what are seen to be the supreme values of today, liberty and equality. These are not the supreme values. Truth and goodness are the supreme values. Liberty is seen as the absence of restraint, rather than the freedom to do what is right, with equality being transformed into a justification of the sameness of social institutions. That is why I went to war with the Labour Governments in Westminster and Holyrood last year, due to what is called political correctness, as they made liberty and equality the supreme moral values for the agenda that they wanted to introduce.

In effect, what they were doing was introducing a new kind of morality, a kind of morality that was bou nd to result in moral mayhem, as it was not based on truth and goodness. That is what happened. We now have a kind of state sponsored morality that is at war with our Christian tradition. Mark me well when I tell you why this is so. It is because liberty and equality have replaced truth and goodness. This is the heart of the problem. When liberty and equality are made the supreme values, not truth and goodness, then we have an agenda that is no longer answerable to what is true and what is good. This is by far the most important thing that I am going to say tonight. So write it down. I will repeat if for all of you. When liberty and equality are made the supreme values, not truth and goodness, we have an agenda that is no longer answerable to what is true and good.

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I remind you that the greatest obstacle to halting the advance of the secularist culture has been our failure to recognise the ambition of the protagonists of that agenda. In seven years there has been a massive transformation in our understanding of family life. The plan for that transformation taking place at the time were not widely known and were so ambitious that, even for those in the know, they were not taken seriously.

Bishop Joseph Devine (Motherwell, Scotland) Saying No to Secularism – Gonzaga Lecture, Glasgow

So write it down. I will repeat it for all of you

This is how a bishop speaks

Thanks to the Hermeneutic of Continuity

In his Easter Sunday message, given at Durham Cathedral, Rt Rev Tom Wright issued a rallying call to all faiths to object to the “1984-style” proposals.

As pressure from religious leaders mounted on prime minister Gordon Brown to allow a free vote on the issue of embryo research in the Commons, Bishop Wright warned that society was in danger of learning nothing from the “dark tyrannies” of the last century.

He told his congregation: “Our present government has been pushing through, hard and fast, legislation that comes from a militantly atheist and secularist lobby. “In this 1984-style world, we create our own utopia by our own efforts, particularly our science and technology.

“The irony is that this secular utopianism is based on a belief in an unstoppable human ability to make a better world, while at the same time it believes that we have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people, and to play games with the humanity of those in between.

“Gender-bending was so last century; we now do species-bending.

“It shouldn’t just be Roman Catholics who are objecting. It ought to be Anglicans and Presbyterians and Baptists and Russian Orthodox and Pentecostals and all other Christians, and Jews and Muslims as well.”

BBC report of Bishop Tom Wright’s Easter Day sermon

Dear bishops, get your sermons out on your own diocesan websites.

How do we know that this is an accurate report of what you said? A bishop who relies on the BBC to communicate with his people cannot wonder at the hurt and confusion that flock experiences when the BBC’s interpretation introduces distortions. We want to read the whole sermon in order to see how all this ethics fits within the theology, that is, how the resurrection frees us from the fears of which this legislation is the expression. Sermons of this sort should be simultaneously pastoral letters read from every pulpit at each mass on the Sunday they are issued.

Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster is my hero. In Fit for Mission? he has produced the single most evangelical document that I have seen from any bishop in Britain. Every page is quotable. Here is his Introduction.

. . .

As you will be aware, the diocese is undertaking the ‘Fit for Mission’ review, the overall aim of which is to strengthen the sacramental and missionary life of each area of the diocese so that this and future generations, can have a rich and living encounter with our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is the mission of the Church, this is why we exist – to proclaim the Gospel of Christ and bring each person closer to our loving Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have come to the conclusion that our hopes to strengthen and deepen the missionary and sacramental life of the Church in this diocese depend largely on the engagement and commitment of our schools and colleges. For many pupils and parents the local Catholic school is their only experience of Church – our schools are at the cutting edge of the new evangelisation, called to make Christ known and loved in our communities.

As your bishop, it is my responsibility to help you create and deepen this authentic Catholic ethos in our schools and colleges. My answer to the question is this – I encourage everyone to unite their energy, creativity, and gifts in this threefold service for their pupils:

1. To share the Father’s passion to liberate His children from the slavery of sin, into the freedom and dignity of being created in the ‘image and likeness of God’.


How do we enable our pupils to experience the wonder and richness of possessing the freedom and dignity of being made in God’s image? How do we allow the Father to free those pupils who suffer the slavery of materialism, pre-marital sexual activity, alcohol, and substance abuse, the slavery of violence and bullying?

2. To follow the Son’s loving service of impoverished and suffering humanity, through advocating and establishing a culture of justice that originates in the purpose, will, and character of God.


How do we encourage our pupils to live in the transforming grace of Christ’s power and promises? How do we allow the Son to heal those pupils who are impoverished by neglect, social exclusion, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse?

3. To be exemplars of the freedom and dignity in intellectual, social, and moral life that comes from being transformed by the Holy Spirit.

How do we empower our pupils with the absolute truth of Catholic doctrinal and moral teaching? How do we allow the Holy Spirit to inspire those pupils imprisoned by doubt, cynicism, atheism, and nihilism?

These may appear to some as abstract, even impractical, but they express the heart of the Gospel, which is God’s development plan for each one of us! Throughout this document I will propose practical ways of realising this threefold service.

Fit for Mission? (67 page PDF) You can find the build-up to Fit for Mission? here

Bishop O’Donoghue’s Four Pillars?

The Profession of Faith – devotion to the Apostles’ teaching
Sacraments – devotion to the breaking of bread
The Moral Life – devotion to the fellowship
Prayer – devotion to prayer

I am in awe. You’ll find intelligent comment on Bishop O’Donoghue’s initiative from Archbishop Cranmer and from the Hermeneutic of Continuity

We believe the issues raised in this Bill are among the most important we will confront politically in our lifetime.

Catholic cabinet ministers, such as Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, Defence Secretary Des Browne and Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, are finding themselves in a difficult position over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Their religious beliefs mean they would have conscience problems voting in support of parts of this Government Bill, such as the creation of animal-human hybrids, removal of the need for a father, and further experimentation on embryos.

Christian Concern for our Nation has produced a briefing paper on the Bill and there’s a Time to Draw the Line video

MPs have expressed “dismay” that the fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, granted licences to researchers to create animal-human hybrid embryos before the House of Commons has voted on whether the creation of these embryos is legal. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the MPs said the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authorityâ??s decision â??makes a mockery of Parliamentâ??.

Douglas Farrow Nation of Bastards: Essays on the End of Marriage

“Erudite and impassioned – an act of faith and of resistance to the insidious claims of the post-Christian and post-liberal state.” F. C. Decoste, Professor of Law, University of Alberta

A brilliant exposé of the implications of same-sex marriage – and a compelling analysis of what it will take for society to reclaim the birthright of freedom it has lost in a reckless social experiment.

To some, same-sex marriage is evidence that society has finally come of age. To others, it is yesterday’s issue, posing no danger to traditional marriage. To still others – McGill University’s Douglas Farrow among them – it has turned civil society on its ear, creating a new political situation in which several things are no longer clear:

Is the state the property of the citizenry? Or are citizens, with their cherished personal associations, including marriage, now the property of the state?

Who “owns” the children, now that natural parenthood had been replaced by legal parenthood?

Is the family still “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims? Or is the concept of the “natural” moribund?

See McGill’s Pluralism, Religion and Public Policy. Farrow’s first and colossal book was Ascension and Ecclesia. Ten years on I am still living out of it.

And an equally wonderful work that takes a long look at the theological history of marriage is

Christopher C Roberts Creation and Covenant:The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage

R. R. Reno, Creighton University
“Sexual ethics and gay marriage — Creation and Covenant is essential reading for anyone who wants to think about these issues in light of the Western Christian tradition. Roberts helps us see and resist the Gnostic temptation that so dominates the moral imagination of modern culture….A very fine book – just the sort of patient survey of the classical tradition we need, and absolutely on target as far as the core theological issue is concerned. It’s the sort of book that will be very helpful for teaching a seminar on sexual ethics.”

-Timothy Radcliffe, OP
“The question of the significance of sexual difference is at the heart of many divisions within contemporary society. …Roberts’ contribution to the debate is forceful and scholarly, while always charitable. This powerfully argued case for the abiding importance of our sexual identity shows how rich can be the contribution of the Christian tradition to our society’s present search to understand the meaning of our lives. …It will help us all in our journey towards understanding who we are in Christ.”

This is the first time that church-going has been adduced as a reason for declaring a couple to be unsuitable for fostering.

Cranmer

It has become fashionable for politicians to extol the virtues of the family. Yet, in this economic analysis of family policy, Patricia Morgan shows how politicians have been at war with the family over at least the last 25 years. The family is an important vehicle for welfare provision and for income transfers to the most needy and dependent members of society. Yet the state, by providing extensive welfare provision, by financing child-care services and by taxing families on an ever-greater proportion of their income, provides strong incentives for families to break up rather than to hold together, and to form family relationships that are hidden from the authorities. Government policy has crowded out voluntary welfare within families and caused otherwise law-abiding people to commit fraud on a very extensive scale.

The author begins by showing the economic benefit of self-sustaining families. She then shows how government policy has increasingly taken over the role of the family in supporting children. It is clear from the evidence presented here that government policy has caused the breakdown of families: policy has not simply responded to autonomous changes in social behaviour. Patricia Morgan then examines changes to divorce laws and to tax and benefit systems that should help reverse the trend and once again make the family the building block of a welfare society.

The willingness of the state to take on the responsibilities of paying for the upbringing of children where parents choose not to take on those responsibilities themselves is at least partly responsible for undermining self-supporting family structures.

The tax and benefits systems have helped to determine family behaviour â?? the tax and benefits systems do not simply respond benignly to changes in social trends. Individuals within families are rational agents and have responded predictably to the tax and benefits systems in the UK, which are particularly hostile to families by international standards.

ï? Because individuals and families are rational agents who have adjusted their behaviour to perverse government policies, it is clear that policy changes can bring about a reduction in welfare dependency and a strengthening of the family as the primary vehicle for the provision of welfare. The family does not have to be favoured but discrimination against it must end.

Patricia Morgan The War Between the State and the Family – Summary

Since the 1950s most tax increases have fallen upon married couples with children, effectively driving women out of the home and into the work force. In the 1950s income tax would not be levied until a manâ??s income had reached half the average income, the assumption being that this was a â??family wageâ??. Now income tax is levied at a third of average income. A man can receive only one tax allowance even if his wife is at home full time caring for their children, while a couple, both of whom work outside the home, will receive two tax allowances.

thanks to Greg Gardner, Jane de Villalobos, Jackie Parkes and the Hermeneutic of Continuity

The absence of peace exacerbates the many long-standing problems as well as the poverty afflicting the region of the Holy Places. We must recognize that Christians who reside there are a priority for the attention of the entire Catholic Church, together with that of all other Churches and ecclesial communities. For even in their need, they embody the “living charism of Christianity’s origins.”

In this way, the Latin community openly supports the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Franciscans who are Custodians of the Holy Land, and all those belonging to the Eastern Catholic Churches. The desire of the Holy See is that the charitable outreach by all Catholics will not simply be viewed as occasional, but as so continuous and profound that the future may be welcomed with hope. Nor is this program of charitable distribution based upon religious, cultural or political distinctions. Rather, it seeks especially to equip the younger generations to take their place in society in a manner which renders them competent and able to transmit the worth of their Catholic education and formation.

We cannot overlook, however, those numerous other challenges which are serious and urgent. For example, there is the ever present matter of immigration, bringing with it the risk that Christian communities can be deprived of their most important human resources. We must seek to safeguard Christianity’s historic legacy by striving to preserve those ‘living communities’ in which the Mystery of Christ, our Peace, is cherished and celebrated.

Leonardo Sandri Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches Collection for the Holy Land

Europe’s Man of Destiny is Geert Wilders, the 35-year-old leader of Holland’s tiny Freedom Party. He has provoked the world Muslim community in order to draw the violent jihadists out of the tall grass, and he seems to be succeeding. Call what Wilders has done nasty but necessary, and blame Europe’s so-called mainstream leaders for abandoning their posts, and leaving the standard in the hands of a young man with the courage to grasp it. At the moment the Dutch government is quaking over the consequences of a 10-minute film that Wilders plans to release in April denouncing the Koran.

Strictly speaking, I do not quite agree with Wilders that the Koran should be banned along with Hitler’s Mein Kampf as an incitement to violence. Nonetheless, he is doing precisely the right thing. A house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln
quoted the Gospels as he made ready to tear down the half that was misbehaving. No civilized state can abide a rival from within who contests the monopoly of violence of legitimate government. If governments refuse to act, the optimal course of action is pre-emptive: bring matters to a decision as fast as possible before the rot destroys the entire house.

Wilders has succeeded in getting the world’s attention. “Should it come to riots, bloodshed and violence after broadcasting the Koran movie by PVV leader Geert Wilders, then Wilders will be responsible,” the visiting Grand Mufti of Syria threatened the European Parliament in January.

Wilders lives under constant police protection. The courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali, co-maker of the film that cost Theo van Gogh his life in 2004 and the author of a bestselling tract against Islam, remains in constant danger of assassination. Her predicament sets in relief the moral bankruptcy of Europe’s governments.

Spengler Blessed are the pre-emptors