Fullness Of Faith

Dale Farm

2011-10-19T21:37:00.003+01:00

Whatever your views of the eviction of Travellers at Dale Farm (and personally I have sympathy with the Travellers) this picture has to warm the cockles of any Catholic heart!

John Stott RIP

2011-07-27T22:19:00.003+01:00

Not really my brand of Christianity (though I was much closer to it once upon a time), nevertheless the Evangelical world has lost a great leader.

May he rest in peace.

I thought this was funny...

2011-07-27T17:31:00.002+01:00

It took me a few moments to get it...

Twiiter

2011-07-27T14:41:00.003+01:00

I know "Twitter" is old news, but I have only just got around to it... Its all very exciting, though so far I only have a grand total of three "followers"... which is even worse than my blog average these days. (Once in my previous blog incarnation I got 500 views in one 24 hour period... oh the glory days!)

It does feel a bit pathetic writing tweets when only 3 people will read them... and one of those three is "The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham"... and I'm not sure that even counts.

So if you do twitter please consider humouring me and follow my tweets... I've made it really easy by adding a link on the right of this page.

I'll be honest, I still haven't really "got" what Twitter is all about... can anyone help me?

The Life of Muhammad

2011-07-21T20:01:00.006+01:00

I have just watched the second episode of the BBC's "The Life of Muhammad". This episode included the (in)famous episode in the "prophet's" life where he partakes in the slaughter of a whole Jewish tribe after they had surrendered. Rageh Omaar (the presenter) admitted that to modern ears the event seems barbaric; however, (he assured us), by the standards of the time this sort of behaviour was common.

Ah well that's OK then, Muhammad is no worse than any other minor brutal warlord of the time, so we can all rest easy...

The problem is of course that Muhammad isn't just "another" ancient historical figure... like Genghis Khan. Rather he is the one that well over a billion of the world's population revere as the ideal model for humanity for all time. We are not meant to compare Muhammad to other ancient warlords, compared to whom he may well simply be a man of his times. Rather we are meant to compare him to the great religious figures of history, against whom he doesn't stand up at all well. Can anyone imagine Jesus or Buddha being involved in such brutality... not really.

It isn't good enough to excuse Muhammad's brutality as being "of his time", while at the same time holding him up as the final messenger of God, and the perfect model for believers of all time. I'm intrigued to know how the BBC will get around the child bride issue in the next episode...

New edition of the (Ordinariate) Portal Magazine

2011-06-01T22:48:00.001+01:00

HERE

Nuns on Motorbikes

2011-05-31T18:14:00.003+01:00

In my desire to promote Evangelisation at every opportunity, I have included this picture to attract the biker community to the faith.... ;-)

Ordinariate magazine is here!

2011-01-12T23:24:00.002Z

HERE

Exciting new range of Catholic toys!

2010-10-06T13:44:00.004+01:00

Forget the X-box, Playstation, I-pod touch... the only toy any discerning Catholic child will be saying novenas for this Christmas is the above!

Should the Pope come to England?

2010-04-24T23:03:00.002+01:00

The following is taken from the BBC news website!

Foreign Office apologises for Pope 'condom' memo

The Pope is due to visit Britain in September

The Foreign Office has apologised for a "foolish" document which suggested the Pope's UK visit could be marked by the launch of "Benedict brand" condoms.

The junior civil servant responsible had been put on other duties, it said.

Called "The ideal visit would see...", the paper suggested the Pope be invited to open an abortion clinic and bless a gay marriage during September's visit.

It was obtained by the Sunday Telegraph. Foreign Secretary David Miliband is said to be "appalled".

The UK's ambassador to the Vatican, Francis Campbell, has met senior officials of the Holy See to express regret on behalf of the government.

The paper was attached as one of three "background documents" to a memo dated 5 March 2010 inviting officials in Whitehall and Downing Street to attend a meeting to discuss themes for the papal visit.

It suggested Benedict XVI could show his hard line on the sensitive issue of child abuse allegations against Roman Catholic priests by "sacking dodgy bishops" and launching a helpline for abused children.

'Deeply sorry'

The official responsible said in a cover note: "Please protect; these should not be shared externally. The 'ideal visit' paper in particular was the product of a brainstorm which took into account even the most far-fetched of ideas."

An investigation was launched after some recipients of the memo objected to its disrespectful tone.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the department was "deeply sorry" for any offence the document had caused.

"This is clearly a foolish document that does not in any way reflect UK government or Foreign Office policy or views. Many of the ideas in the document are clearly ill-judged, naive and disrespectful," he said.

"The text was not cleared or shown to ministers or senior officials before circulation. As soon as senior officials became aware of the document, it was withdrawn from circulation.

"The individual responsible has been transferred to other duties. He has been told orally and in writing that this was a serious error of judgement and has accepted this view."

From the Catholic Defence league!

2010-04-12T12:00:00.002+01:00

GOING FOR THE VATICAN JUGULAR

Recent accusations against the Vatican deserve a response.

• Fr. Lawrence Murphy apparently began his predatory behavior in Wisconsin in the 1950s, yet the victims' families never contacted the police until the mid-1970s. After an investigation, the case was dropped.

• The Vatican did not learn of the case until 1996.

• Cardinal Ratzinger, now the pope, was the head of the office that was contacted. There is no evidence that he knew of it. But even if he did, he would have had to allow for an investigation. While the inquiry was proceeding, Murphy died.

• The Times questions why Murphy was never defrocked. But only the Vatican can do that, and since it never learned of the case until he was dying, it was never a realistic option.

• The Times says the Vatican's canonical inquiry was done in secret. Correct. The proceedings of internal investigations—even in organizations like the Times—are never shown on C-SPAN.

• The Times says repeatedly that Church officials did not report accusations of abuse to the police. The common response of all organizations, secular as well as religious, was to access therapy and reinstate the patient (I prefer the term offender). Today it is obvious that a more hard-line approach is necessary, though therapy is still popular in many quarters.

• The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis," when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.

Here's what's really going on. The Times has teamed up with Jeffrey Anderson, a radical lawyer who has made millions suing the Church (and greasing professional victims' groups like SNAP), so they can weaken its moral authority. Why? Because of issues like abortion, gay marriage and women's ordination. That's what's really driving them mad, and that's why they are on the hunt. Those who doubt this to be true need to ask why the debt-ridden Times does not spend the same resources looking for dirt in other institutions that occurred a half-century ago.

Bill Donohue President

CATHOLIC LEAGUE for Religious and Civil Rights

450 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10123 (212) 371-3191 Fax: (212) 371-3394 www.catholicleague.org