Catholic Bloggers Network: All for Jesus Lent Challenge

Catholic Bloggers Network: All for Jesus Lent Challenge

Letter to the Scottish "Catholic" Observer

Dear Sir –

Up until eight years ago neither myself or my wife new anything but the longest Papacy in history. Concurrently the imminent papal conclave is both exciting and fascinating for her and I.

However I was disappointed with Kevin McKenna’s recent comments, “Pity Those who take a Pop at the Pope.” It dismayed a deep seated and parochial understanding of the faith handed on to us by Holy Tradition.

In addition the fact that Pius XII helped thousands of Jews during the war does not belong in your “Recent News” section.  John Paul II refered to the Jewish people as, “Our Older brothers and Sisters in the Faith.” Since the war It has been well known that after the horrors of war and anti-semitic Holocoust had subsided the chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism because of  the example of the much maligned Euginio Pacelli.

McKenna is correct in one respect – the purpose of Benedict’s papacy was to imbed what the man who personified the Sixties Council gave us.

As such we salute “Papa Beni” and after obviously contemplative works such as Jesus of Nazereth we, his loyal flock, look forward to further reflections in retirement.

 The church’s current position is unprecedented in modernity. As such Benedict will be a wise advisor to whoever next occupies the shoes of the humble Gallilean Fisherman. The best symbolic gesture he made was to change the crown on the papal coat of Arms to a more appropriate mitre.

However the embedding of the social democratic model has meant that the stated aim of the current Popes tenure – the re-evangelisation of Europe – was outmoded and outdated.  “Selfish Society” is an oxymoron and as we saw with the French Banlieue riots Europe teeters on a knife edge, unable to accommodate different world views.

Ideology has had its day and Chrisendom wisely looks south for a leader. What we need now is a man with a coherent systematic view of reality centred outside the continent that has given us some of the most fruitful and at the same time some of the most militantly atheistic outlooks of the last thousand years.

Our Town

Individual interpretation of Scripture has lead tosome of the grossest discrepancies in history. When doing Crossroads it was quite incredible approaching settlemennts and with typical North American earnestness, seeing signs; "REPRESENTED IN SMALLTOWN, USA" and a couple of hundred denominations denoted.

What has this done for us?

What legacy has the European enlightenment left the Great Experiment?

This is quite farcical, but at least ecumenism is stromger in a country where religion has no cultural tags or remebered grievances.

 What happens in practice is that legalism is returned to and adherents become even more religous than that which they were trying to leave behind in Europe. Constructing a systemitic view of reality on the back of with a few 'trump card' scriptures as their base gurus soon rise; as well the inevitable hypocracies when the new laws that are constructed to keep order are transgressed. 

What equally disturbed me was seeing a child's Catholic Apologetics card linking,  "I will lead you into all Truth" with the majesterium. I have found on my spiritual search that one thing is certain - Christ and any othe prophets did not come on Earth to establish more rules. They are about providing plumblines to the divine which are generally not straight! Christ could have done easily given Divine sanction to the the Whore of Babylon, the Roman Emporer, but chose not to,streching out His Divine arms in the Ultimate show of vulnerability. As we have seen (in Justicio) great men and women are made to decimate established juridical structures - to 'sense' the need of the people to move on. In the same way evil men, like Joseph Stalin, have half a finger on the pulse of the people, lacking the full picture. The are only able to stay in power by lying about how terrible it is on the other side.  This is made even more apparent as we look to North Korea.

With the all of the world's information now available to any individual let us hope we are now on the verge of some incredible advances. As the Police at Downing Street apparently found out it is technologically and technically no longer possible to lie.

Blood Brother Gael

People from honest hard working, mico cultures generally do not project self image but the problem with this is that you rely on others in your micro-community to tell you
 
1) what your meta-narritive is
2) Therefore what your values are
3) As such who you are

I guess this is what the enlightenment was about but concurrent definitions of progress were obviously flawed.

This is why the numerous Celtic siants were were generally forged in foriegn fields. In terms of zeitgeist Scotland has now fallen between two stools as after the collapse of the Neo-Conservative mindset there is noone left to fight and the enlightenment which she forged ultimatly led to holocaust. After independebce the Island of Ireland turned to the County system for peer arrirmation. By the relative of the eurozone she and the former eastern bloc sttes have only just been mercifully spared becoming one of Feurstien's expolded cultures. Otherwise the social democratic model has ruined the naturally creative, uncompromising Celtic soul. Protestantism gave us individuation and enlightenment. In addition the monarchical Celtic feminie bent towards following a personality rather than a law was satisfied for Scotland in Empire. As a part of something bigger than herself Scotland flourished for centuries and by the time of the Easter Rising Ireland was in much the same position it had been for centuries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlDNCjMoiiM

UK Realpolitik

In my home country, UK it was made abundantly clear at the Downing Street (White House) gates recently that even the UK police can sometimes make the mistake of thinking that they are above the law. As a family friend said recently, “Nobody polices the police.” Due to our traditional emphasis on free speech, tolerance and accountability we have always had a relatively incorrupt police service. Our laughing stock is our celebrity culture.  Starting with Jimmy Savile the ongoing police paedophile ring investigation is horrifying and beggars belief. It must be said however that it is no wonder that these people apparently behaved in the manner in which they did. The pattern by which we exhalt and then pulverise celebrity is perverse in itself. The police are not the only ones that believe they are above the law.

Andrew Mitchel was Conservative chief whip, but the hopefuls for the Downing Street job are becoming younger and younger.  In this amoral age we must ask ourselves the perennial question that we once asked of our leaders – “If these people are willing to act in this way towards their nearest and dearest then how would they behave towards us, whom they do not know?” British generic socialism should have fallen on the beach with Kinnock, but seems to have resurfaced with the fratricidal Ed Milliband. A Post social democratic, genuine and clearly articulated Third Way may have had a chance under Ed’s promising, brilliant and understated brother David Milliband but after the leadership was taken from under the latter’s nose in a typally leftist, definitevely Machiavelian and Stalinesque manner by his underhand brother  a young promising, self-effacing foreign secretary  used to addressing the United Nations was last seen on the board of a third rate UK soccer team. The left has always been fractuois and complicated which is generally a sign that something is far from God.

The word Diabolo means fractured.

The winning of the upper middle class has always been pivotal to gaining the political leadership of working social democracies. Aristotle noted that they weigh up and take the good from both the left and the right, deciding if either or is going to stay on or let another philosophy have a chance. The US copied the UK’s bi cameral system. Despite Reagan’s claims to Keep the world safe for Democracy North American voting apathy is a result of too much democracy -  the senate is completely elected. In the UK we must look to this as we tinker with the Lords, and remember that thus far our bi cameral system has given us left of centre triumphs like the NHS and Margaret Thatcher’s reforms from the right.  What is dangerous now however is that like the rest of the polity the middle class are generally narrow, historically ignorant and often apathetic. Tony Blair’s genius was similar to that of the great Christian writer C.S. Lewis  – making complicated things sound simple. Armed with such weapons the swinging middle class can then be wooed.

 Blair’s philosophy was never definitively articulated. All he offered was what we needed to feel good about ourselves at the time. In William Hague’s word’s He just sat on things. The Third Way is now dead, extinct under UK Labour and a damp squib under Obama.

Micro finance is emphasised and much is made of the hope that the Third World does not make our socio economic mistakes, but much closer to home in the Former Soviet Bloc the far right is being looked to answer the embarrassingly obvious questions that are being asked of the Occidental Social Democratic model.

Since the “Evil Empire” collapsed our wars have become hotter. We have fought governments and insurgents that we trained and funded ourselves. In so doing have stretched our respective militaries to breaking point. Blair’s transposition of traditionally right wing oratorical persuasion was imperative to America or she risked becoming an international pariah herself.

Current opinion polls might say otherwise but unless left with no other option the Upper Middle class will never elect Ed Miliband. In fact with the Labour party becoming at least unilaterally unelectable once again the UK is probably condemned to a generation of unstable government, absolutely defeating the purpose of our hitherto robust, sensible and productive First Past the Post System.  

The incumbent Prime Minister knows this and is completely justified in taking his chance and calling a vote on Europe. This is called leadership and should be applauded and not maligned.

Surprisingly for a man who was impressed by the ferocious audaicity of the late John Smith I would rather vote for David Cameron than Ed Milliband. Personal integrity in a politician is integral. With his EU exit referendum proposal Cameron has at least done something with his tenure and is offering us a plebiscite on EU membership. Britain will always be a masculine country of legalists and does not seem to fit into the generally Latin and therefore feminine spirit of the EU. As Scotland looks to her future in 2014 by 2020 as a country we should all at least have laid some perennial, niggling existential banshees to rest.

As a born and bred Scotsman it was a pleasure to recently experience the latest instalment of the Albert R. Broccoli franchise Skyfall. The film climaxes when Bond returns to his Highland roots. We learn that the arch British hero is in fact the product of a Franco-Scots marriage.  An acknowledgment of the current socio-political discourse?

Probably.

New York

Around the time of the Olympics there I heard a suggestion that as the World HQ of Coca Cola Atlanta was the cultural capitol of the world.

Interesting.

However I would dispute this  vociferously.

Having lived in New York I would say that with her constant movement, green spiritual lungs and immense creativity that mantle belongs to Atlanta's sister, further North. The Beijing Olympics, majestic as they were, were contrived compared to London so I imagine that our beating heart will soon move to Mumbai, of which I have never had the pleasure.

Anyway I was working in New York when John Paul II left us.

Astonishingly I found myself in Assisi, when the world was in Rome, enjoying a small glass of wine with regulars at the railway cafe feeling quite eschatoligical for his funeral.

We watched a small black and white television as the Shiroc blew up sand from North Africa through the pages of the gospel, positioned on the Pole's humble Polish coffin.

In between times I sat on the Subway and perused The New York Times for profiles of the preferati. Absolutely content I looked up through the grimey Underground window as shadows flashed by. As if looking into a Hebridean hearth I imagined the head of one fiery Latin American  red hat who had apparently
brought three drug barons to thier knees in repentance. My thoughts ranged back to Europe and our comfortable seminaries.

Common sense dictates that the key to bringing up children is to keep them as close to reality as possible. I imagine that most of Northern Conclave have never been anything like as close to life in the raw as that.  

 

Unlikely

With our current focus on Latin America and Africa my mind inevitably turns to that most popular form of cultural expression, the cinema film.

With its encompassing beauty I was shocked but not surprised to hear that in the materialistic 80's Morricone's The Mission was a complete flop.

It was an excellent film, but given that they all die one which my pragmatic father cannot see the point of!

One scene in particular comes to mind. Iron's Gabriel is speaking to Jean, the young Jesuit played by an concurrently young Liam Neeson,

The brothers think that De Niro's done enough Father
Yes but he doesn't think so Jean, we are part of an order, not a democracy

One thing is for sure, with 42% of the world's Catholics speaking Spanish if the church was indeed a democracy the conclave would be a foregone conclusion.