Who Wants a Pope Like This?
It amazed Happy Jack how many Catholics commenting on this Youtube video clip expressed a yearning for a pope who would exercise his authority this way.
Really?
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger just before the conclave that elected him said:
“How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism.”
Well, 'Papa Lenny' is a Machiavellian reactionary fundamentalist.
Catholic Traditionalists are cheered by what 'Papa Lenny' has to say. An ultraconservative despot who decides to go back to the style of Medieval and Renaissance Papacies. Pius is done with: evangelicalism, ecumenicalism, tolerance. He wants fanatics for God. “Fanaticism is love, everything else is strictly a surrogate.”
This speech is presented in the same spirit with which Shakespeare wrote the oration of Polonius to Laertes, with it’s famous “To thine own self be true” platitudes that mock the very positions the old fool mouths.
Transcript for our American cousins
Brother cardinals, from this day forward, we're not in, no matter who's knocking on our door.
We're in, but only for God.
From this day forward, everything that was wide open is gonna be closed.
Evangelization. We've already done it.
Ecumenicalism. Been there, done that.
Tolerance. Doesn't live here anymore. It's been evicted.
It vacated the house for the new tenant, who has diametrically opposite tastes in decorating.
We've been reaching out to others for years now. It's time to stop!
We are not going anywhere. We are here. Because, what are we?
We are cement.
And cement doesn't move. We are cement without windows.
So, we don't look to the outside world.
"Only the Church possesses the charisma of truth", said St. Ignatius of Antioch.
And he was right. We have no reason to look out. Instead, look over there. What do you see? That's the door. The only way in. Small and extremely uncomfortable. And anyone who wants to know us has to find out how to get through that door.
Brother cardinals, we need to go back to being prohibited.
Inaccessible and mysterious.
That's the only way we can once again become desirable. That is the only way great loves stories are born.
And I don't want any more part-time believers.
I want great love stories.
I want fanatics for God.
Because fanaticism is love.
Everything else is strictly a surrogate, and it stays outside the church.
With the attitudes of the last Papacy, the church won for itself great expressions of fondness from the masses. It became popular. Isn't that wonderful, you might be thinking! We received plenty of esteem and lots of friendship.
I have no idea what to do with the friendship of the whole wide world.
What I want is absolute love and total devotion to God.
Could that mean a Church only for the few?
That's a hypothesis, and a hypothesis isn't the same as reality.
But even this hypothesis isn't so scandalous. I say: better to have a few that are reliable than to have a great many that are distractible and indifferent.
The public squares have been jam-packed, but the hearts have been emptied of God. You can't measure love with numbers, you can only measure it in terms of intensity.
In terms of blind loyalty to the imperative.
Fix that word firmly in your souls: Imperative.
From this day forth, that's what the Pope wants, that's what the Church wants, that's what God wants.
And so the liturgy will no longer be a social engagement, it will become hard work.
And sin will no longer be forgiven at will.
I don't expect any applause from you. There will be no expressions of thanks in this chapel. None from me and none from you.
Courtesy and good manners are not the business of men of God.
What I do expect... is that you will do what I have told you to do.
There is nothing outside your obedience to Pius XIII.
Nothing except Hell.
A Hell you may know nothing about... but I do.
Because I've built it, right behind that door: Hell.
These past few days, I've had to build Hell for you, that's why I've come to you belatedly.
I know you will obey, because you've already figured out that this pope isn't afraid to lose the faithful if they're been even slightly unfaithful, and that means this Pope does not negotiate. On anything or with anyone.
And this Pope cannot be blackmailed!
From this day forth, the word "compromise", has been banished from the vocabulary. I've just deleted it.
When Jesus willingly mounted the cross, he was not making compromises.
And neither am I.
Amen.
The video is unavailable in the US. Can you summarize?
ReplyDeleteCarl, it's a 10 minute speech! To get it you have to watch the delivery.
ReplyDeleteThere's a full transcript here
Carl: the new pope excommunicates and anathematizes Biden, Pelosi, all the nondead Kennedys, AOC, Tom Kaine, Patrick Leahy, Boris Johnson, Tony Blair and the European Union. Reunion with Moscow is announced. The Inspector General is made a Cardinal. Jack holds out briefly but soon kisses the papal ring. Martyn Percy converts to Rome. Cranmer restarts his blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bell becomes a Papabile - ding-dong!
Delete@Brian
DeleteThanks for that. I couldn't make heads or tails of the transcript Jack posted.
@ Carl
DeleteThere's a transcript of the relevant section with the papal speech now in the article.
@Brianr
DeleteCan The Inspector not simply be fast-tracked to Gloustershire-based anti-pope?
@Jack
ReplyDeleteWho is Pius XIII?
Never mind. I get it. He is a fictionalized Pope. This is all from a TV show I have never heard of.
DeleteIt seems his primary advisor is Diane Keaton? Is this all orthodox?
@ Carl
DeleteIs it orthodox? That's the question, Grasshopper. 🤣
So this is all a fiction?? Jack had me going there for a moment!
DeleteIt's rather good as a show. Definitely weird though. The sequel series was nowhere near as good.
DeleteThe fictitious pope in the HBO series 'The Young Pope' and 'The New Pope'.
ReplyDelete(Also chap named Earl Pulvermacher, I understand, who runs a traditionalist Catholic group in the US.)
Delete@ Gadjo
DeleteHad never heard of that chap - thanks for the info.
I genuinely thought that Pius XIII was a real pope, but when you look that up you get this guy :-
DeleteWe are cement. And cement doesn't move.
ReplyDeleteClearly spoken by someone who's never sat through an earthquake! Concrete is strong under compression, weak under tension; not how one wants one's faith to be.
I have no idea what to do with the friendship of the whole wide world. What I want is absolute love and total devotion to God.
This, however, is true. The former is meaningless without the latter.
From this day forth, the word "compromise", has been banished from the vocabulary.
I can see the appeal in this, in a world where the churches seem to do nothing but compromise. But there's quite a gap between fanaticism (which, I presume, is how this fictional pope is portrayed) and holding firmly to the truth in love.
Much of what he says is true - the faithful must be truly faithful; the church doesn’t need worldly friendship; she shouldn't compromise; faith and forgiveness easily attained lead to lapsed spirituality and presumption.
ReplyDeleteThe watering down of church doctrine by progressives from within and without makes this pontiffs approach appealing. For some, it shows an unapologetically traditional Catholicism. It admires Catholic tradition and the beauty and value of a liturgical form. This fictional pope is certainly opposed to the progressive social gospel, but presents this in the style of a Tomas de Torquemada!
I think much depends on the attitude in which these truths are guarded. I'm thinking of Constantinople's rebuff of the early Lutherans' attempts at dialogue, which was to simply say that their friendship and points of agreements were welcome, but that the Church's fundamental teachings weren't up for discussion. This seems a better way of refusing to compromise than burning one another at the stake.
DeleteI increasingly wonder how helpful 'ecumenism' is. I recall sitting through endless Churches Together meetings that achieved very little other than organising a few shared fetes and having people fall out with each other over another denomination's hymn choices. I was recently asked if I'd consider taking part in some Orthodox/Anglican dialogue, which I turned down. Our positions are fundamentally irreconcilable; there's no hope of reconciliation while Anglicanism maintains its current course. Similarly, the vision of God promoted by some Anglicans and other denominations is as far removed from ours as the vision of Allah is from the Christian God.
It's good to have friendly relations with other churches and other faiths, of course, but anything else seems to me to require somebody to compromise their beliefs and ultimately means that nobody is being honest with themselves.
Pius XI (the real one) forbade Catholic participation in inter-church or inter-religious meetings motivated by a desire to restore Christian unity. In particular, Pius condemned liberal Protestant theology as false doctrine. He warned that the visibly united “Christian church” that liberal Protestant ecumenists dreamed of would be “nothing more than a federation of the various Christian communities, even though these may hold different and mutually exclusive doctrines” (Which appears to be where 'Anglicanism' has ended up). Vatican II, on the other hand, encouraged Catholic participation in such activities - within certain limits.
DeleteAt Vatican II, the Church made a prudential judgment that the risks and dangers of indifferentism and confusion about the faith occasioned by such activities were outweighed by the good to be hoped for from ecumenism: gradual, better mutual understanding, leading to that unity which Christ willed for all who profess to be his disciples; i.e., unity with Rome.
Vatican II's position affirms that while the separated brethren have many elements of truth, God’s will is that they all come to that plenitude which can be found only in Catholicism:
"For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone . . . that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic College alone, of which Peter is the head . . . that we believe the Lord entrusted all the benefits of the New Covenant in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ, into which all those who already in some way belong to the people of God ought to be fully incorporated." (Unitatis Redintegratio # 3)
Whether or not ecumenism has been faithfully implemented is a different question. Also, we can ask whether or not the results achieved vindicate the prudence of the shift.
The Orthodox Church has been involved in the ecumenical movement since, I think, at least the 1920s. However, the Church does not acknowledge confessional equality and participates in ecumenism with a view to facilitating restoration of the undivided Church, not pluralism. There isn't really any official pronouncement about the condition of Protestant traditions, such as that of V II and within the CCC; the OC simply asserts that the fullness of faith is only found within her.
DeleteI think the opening up of V II was essential for the healing of Catholic identify after the Reformation and its fallout, which destabilised the established religious order and identity. There may be strength in the fortress mentality, but there's also something insecure in it, too. Catholicism needed to re-emerge into the world and increased mutual understanding was much needed in an attempt to heal the bitterness between the Catholic Church and Protestant traditions. (The OC also needs to grapple with its own tendency to create ethnic fortresses, which have largely grown out of being persecuted by members of a certain other faith).
There are, I think, questions about how the ecumenical movement has been (and the same questions are asked by ecumenism's detractors in the OC). Unity is arguably further away than ever (that ship sailed with the Anglicans when women were consecrated to the episcopate, if not before). One wonders how much more understanding is possible after a century of dialogue. The most contentious issue for Orthodox is ecumenical worship (and the Protestant-led nature of ecumenism): this isn't permitted for us, which is why Orthodox hierarchs who attend religious state functions, such as state funerals, weddings etc., only wear monastic garb and no liturgical vestments. Ecumenical work on social issues is a good, but raises questions when it comes to regarding such work as an act of witness. For whose gospel are we witnessing? The gospel of the Calvinists, for example, was anathematised by the OC, so we cannot in good conscience promote that through our joint works. Similarly, they would regard us as Bible-denying Mary worshippers, and wouldn't want to promote our gospel. It's hard to see a path ahead for truly ecumenical work: it seems to be a matter of saying that, apart from the nature of Christ, God, salvation, the sacraments, the Church, the Theotokos and the Communion of Saints, we agree on everything!
Being ecumenical with the truth only serves one agenda: it legitimises those who are wrong. Ecumenism is driven by and loved by liberals, because it is a way back into a faith by which they ought to have been disowned. Satan slithered his way into Eden and engaged in interfaith dialogue to great effect.
Delete@ Chef
DeleteThat's one view - and certainly seems applicable to all 'progressives' and 'modernisers' in all the Christian churches or ecclesial communities. Hitherto, the Catholic Church spoke of "schismatics” and “heretical sects”.
Bizarre that any script writer would think that a straight down the line Pope would gainsay the Great Commission and ban evangelism. Have I missed something?
Delete@ Magnolia
DeleteGood to hear from you!
The address is parody.
@Jack
DeleteTo properly engage in ecumenical work beyond the niceties, churches need to have the resilience to hold to their principles. These principles are what caused divisions in the first place of course, and if everybody holds firmly to theirs, it limits what can usefully be achieved beyond understanding one another's position and agreeing not to martyr one another. And I think we've already achieved those two things.
The position of the OC has always been to engage in ecumenism in order to hold the door open for the return of other Christians, not to modify our position for them. This hasn't allayed the fears of those who see ecumenism as a fast track to compromise and heresy, and they're perhaps right to sound that note of caution as more and more denominations fall prey to (more) heterodox (than before) ideologies, The greatest threat to Orthodox orthodoxy at the moment comes, unsurprisingly, from the States and converts bringing with them either the militant fundamentalism of their previous tradition, or the 'enlightened' ideas of their secular culture.
@ Lain
DeletePope John Paul II wrote:
“It is not a question of altering the deposit of faith, changing the meaning of dogmas, eliminating essential words from them, accommodating truth to the preferences of a particular age, or suppressing certain articles of the Creed under the false pretext that they are no longer understood today. The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all the content of the revealed faith in its entirety. In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God who is Truth. In the body of Christ, ‘the way, the truth, and the light’ (John 14:6), who could consider legitimate a reconciliation brought about at the expense of truth?”
(Ut Unum Sint #18).
Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus) was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in August, 2000. It was signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II.
Key themes:
Paragraph 4: Religions pluralism endangers the Church’s missionary efforts. Relativistic attitude towards truth is a problem, as well as reading Scripture outside of the Tradition of the Church and the Magisterium.
Paragraph 16: The fullness of salvation belongs to the Church. “And thus, just as the head and members of a living body, though not identical, are inseparable, so too Christ and the Church can neither be confused nor separated, and constitute a single “whole Christ”.” The unicity of the Church must be affirmed. “Therefore, in connection with the unicity and universality of the salvific mediation of Jesus Christ, the unicity of the Church founded by him must be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith.” Catholics are required to affirm the continuity between the Church Jesus established and the Catholic Church. There is only one Church. “The Catholic faithful are required to profess that there is an historical continuity — rooted in the apostolic succession — between the Church founded by Christ and the Catholic Church: “This is the single Church of Christ”. The Church of Christ “continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church.”
And them one that so enraged Cranmer:
Paragraph 17: Churches that maintain apostolic succession are true local Churches. The Church of Christ is present and operative in these local Churches. “Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches. Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.” Communities without apostolic succession are not truly Churches. “On the other hand, the ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptised in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church. Baptism in fact tends per se toward the full development of life in Christ, through the integral profession of faith, the Eucharist, and full communion in the Church.”
@ Jack
DeleteChrist and the Church can neither be confused nor separated.
I think many people confuse the two. Believers are often more focused on protecting their belief system than coming to know Christ, and confuse the former for the latter. The Church is the gateway through which we enter into the mysteries of Christ, but it does not exhaust them. Otherwise, one ends up with Churchianity.
Religious pluralism endangers the Church’s missionary efforts.
Indeed, but it's also important to recognise the good in other religions (which I'm sure VII affirmed somewhere), since all truth is from God. I think this leads to an unhelpful abhorrence of other religions and something of an unattractive superiority complex among some Christians. Until modern times, it was Christian practice to 'baptise' the good in other religions (Acts 17:23), rather than try to snuff out other practices in a misguided pursuit of a 'pure' Christianity (i.e., one that looks like ours). St. Adomnán, for example, recorded that some British pagans were overjoyed at the coming of Christianity, because it had been foretold by their own prophets (I was reading an article the other day that speculated that Christianity was so well received in the British Isles because the ground had been prepared by Buddhist missionaries from India, who familiarised people with similar ideas).
And the one that so enraged Cranmer.
Which should have come as no surprise. It reminds me that I can never follow the logic of those who accuse the Catholic and Orthodox Churches of being heretical, committing idolatry with the Saints, denying Scripture, and blaspheming Christ through the Eucharistic sacrifice and then complain that we don't allow them to take our communion. I always wonder why they would want to take communion with us, if they really believe their accusations.
@ Lain
DeleteYes, Vatican II, to the horror of some, did affirm that there was truth in other faith systems and beliefs.
Here's a comment Jack shared with Ardenjm under another profile and so it wasn't deleted when Cranmer nuked his site:
"Funny, isn't it, how you find it so intolerant, unacceptable or 'bigoted' when people question the authority and infallible precepts of the church that calls itself 'Catholic', yet here you are declaring that the Church of England has no valid orders and, therefore, no valid sacraments, which is to say, in your opinion, it is not a church, or any part of the Church catholic. This is an Anglican blog. You may view it as your personal mission field - and you are certainly not obliged to believe what we believe - but, in all fairness, if someone called your church a false church or the Whore of Babylon, or intimated that your pope was the antichrist and the Mass an outrageous blasphemy, you'd doubtless find it quite offensive. The Church of England is Catholic and Reformed: it is a valid church and part of the Church catholic. Please get over it."
This was during a somewhat heated exchange over him receiving the Eucharist without permission during a visit to Rome. Of course, Jack was tempted to ask "Which 'Church of England' would that be? The evangelical; the Anglo-Catholic; or the liberal "ecclesiastical community?" But, having been banned twice, he didn't want to risk a third expulsion.
...if someone called your church a false church or the Whore of Babylon, or intimated that your pope was the antichrist and the Mass an outrageous blasphemy, you'd doubtless find it quite offensive...
Delete'If'?! I thought most of that was established Reformed dogma, even if some express it more delicately these days. It's certainly the stated position of the 39 Articles. After all, "As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith." (Article XIX). The hubris in that position continues to astonish me. And, again, why would you even want communion from blasphemous isolators?
The Church of England is Catholic and Reformed: it is a valid church and part of the Church catholic. Please get over it.
If one is secure in one's belief, one doesn't need the approval of an outside party. I've never heard Catholics demanding that, say, Methodists recognise the Catholic Church as valid. I think, deep down, there's an insecurity inherent in the Church of England; it isn't Catholic, no matter how much it insists it is and apes the appearance of Catholicism in its structures and grand occasions, and truly Reformed churches regard it as suspiciously popish for even having a three-fold ordained ministry and occasionally chucking on some vestments.
Which 'Church of England' would that be?
Not to mention the Church of England (Continuing), Free Church of England, and all the Continuing Anglicans groups, who all see themselves as valid parts of the CofE.
Like Carl in the USA, I'm banned from watching the video here in Brazil, too, but I've read your transcript, in which this snippet is what gives the game away:
ReplyDelete"... this pope isn't afraid to lose the faithful if they're been even slightly unfaithful ..."
However liberal or progressive or conservative a given pope may be, one thing he is expected to do is to keep the numbers up. In other words, the character in this work of fiction is saying, "I'm not going to do the job I was elected to do. I fully realise that my actions may result, over time, in the Catholic Church disappearing from the face of the earth, but I don't care. Après moi le déluge."
@ RayS
DeleteYes, it's the job of the pope , bishops and priests to strengthen and nourish the faith of believers - most especially during times of doubt. It's not sure about numbers.
At the time of the address in the series, the pope is an atheist. I think a key passage is: "There is nothing outside your obedience to Pius XIII." It's a parody on the medieval papacy during 'Christendom' when Catholic worldly power.
Nothing except Hell.
@Ray
DeleteYou are in Brazil? Interesting times, I understand. May God bless the Brazilian people.
We had a presidential election and there's going to be a change of government. That's all, really. All very polite and well behaved. Nothing like the thrills and spills in the UK that began with Partygate and moved on to the rail and airport strike phase, with no end in sight.
Delete@Ray
DeleteOk. We all pray for polite and well-behaved.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/20/christmas-carol-rewritten-inclusive-pushes-woke-unbiblical-agenda/
ReplyDeleteLook what has been done to my favourite carol.
And guess who approves 😡😡
Satanic.
Delete@Prof
DeleteWho approves? It's behind a paywall for me.
When something dies, it starts to rot from the inside; this isn't always noticeable and those who eat from it can get very sick. Eventually, the rot bursts onto the surface and its spread accelerates. Then, everybody knows to leave it well alone.
That's all that's happening here. The CofE abandoned the worship of the divine (who seems to have been erased from the lyrics, as far as I can see) for the worship of 'the I' a long time ago. The faster the dead wood rots away, the faster something green can take its place.
I suspect that this abomination will be played in other churches as well. I know of congregations in the Church of Scotland who would embrace this. I suspect even the odd Baptist and RC will as well.
Delete"So when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not" (let the reader understand), "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."
DeleteIn the Book of Malachi God’s people are told to repent. They have shown contempt for the Lord’s table, they have divorced the wives of their youth, and they have wearied the Lord by saying, “Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord.”
DeleteThese are the precise issues splitting the Church today. However much we hope for peace, a Church that lacks respect for the altar, sanctions adultery, or says that evildoers are good in the sight of the Lord is fallen.
It does make one wonder if the cross-fertilisation of ideas across Christian churches is fanning the flames of this apostasy.
There does seem to be a bizarre race to the bottom in both modern society and most churches; a childish rejection of what has come before simply because it's what came before. I think there was a point after the Reformation and its adversarial aftermath when salvation through knowing God started to be slowly replaced by salvation through holding the right ideas, and this has just worsened ever since.
DeleteProgressive politics seems to me to be all about desperately seeking the security of being 'right', which has become a stand-in for salvation in a world that denies anything supernatural.
@ Lain
DeletePope Francis calls it the 'new' Pelagianism' and the 'new Gnosticism'. Except it isn't really new. It's been in the Church, in one shape or form, since the beginning.
The then Father Ratzinger recognised this as early as 1958:
"The Church is no longer, as she once was, a Church composed of pagans who have become Christians, but a Church of pagans, who still call themselves Christians, but actually have become pagans."
It's quite a convoluted argument - here
@ Jack
DeleteThanks, I'll have a read when I'm not up to my eyes in wrapping paper.
Quiet a handsome young priest, wasn't he? ☺️
@ Lain
DeleteHe was - very clean cut features and with a determined look.
Why do people who have no talent whatsoever at poetry and verse insist on barging their ideas in to lines that neither scan nor make grammatical sense with barely any imagery, and when it occurs, garbled imagery. What on earth does "Remember Christ will bring love's light/ The dawn of Christmas day" mean. Have they missed out the word 'at' and what sense does that make anyway? Or is it at the dawn of Christmas Day that we are being asked to remember the light of Christ in? And do they think dawn brings love of itself? Are they doing a New Agey thing? And then the next verse is 'cram favourite woke theology in and to hell with scansion or anyone trying to fit them to a tune' time. Ghastly.
Delete@ Anon
DeletePerhaps because the Anglican church is at war with itself.
"I attended an Anglican seminary of the Evangelical persuasion called Wycliffe Hall, and down the road was the Anglo-Catholic seminary called St. Stephen’s House. The two were totally opposed in theology, liturgical practice, culture, and ethos. In Oxford was an Anglican seminary which was “broad church,” or liberal. This third strand of Anglicanism has always been a kind of worldly, established, urbane type of religion that is at home with the powers that be and always adapts to the culture in which it finds itself.
These three forces co-exist in the Anglican church—united by nothing more than a shared baptism, a patriotic allegiance to the national church, and the need to tolerate each other. Unfortunately, the toleration frequently wears thin. The Anglo-Catholics, the Evangelicals, and the liberals are constantly at war. Their theology, their liturgy, their politics, and their spirituality are in basic contradiction to one another
Other influences have complicated things further, and the three main strands of Anglicanism have divided into sub-strands depending on the influences of various individuals and movements. Just about every permutation and mixture of politics and religion is found within the Anglican church."
(Father Longenecker)
@lain,
ReplyDeleteYes you are right. It's the Rev. Jayne Ozane.
Very excited by it as well!
I'm shocked. At least when they start composing hymns to gender ideology, they're finally admitting that it is a religion. Every time I'm convinced that people couldn't possibly worship their own egos any more, they prove me wrong.
Delete@ Lain
DeleteThe full wording is available here
Imagine children being exposed to this! It is diabolical.
What it is, is condemnation by Carol. It's a badly written rage against these individuals hobby horses. It's designed to create division and encourage resentment.
DeleteThose celebrating it are celebrating hate.
Messed up the link!
Delete@ Jack
This is up there with the 'Amen and Awoman' nonsense that congressman came out with the other year. I note a lot of other secular content surrounding the carols in that service sheet. Looking at
that church's website, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that anyone who goes there is already fully behind this kind of thing. It's full of references to gender and I note the sermon transcripts begin with 'in the name of The One who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer'.
@ Prof
Yes, it's an entirely passive aggressive attack on the progressives' favourite boogeymen which, as usual, is leveraged so nobody can respond to it. It's much like a preacher using his sermon grind his favourite axe while remaining 'six feet above contradiction'. Sticking it in a carol service is particularly cowardly.
"explore the Christian faith with depth and intellectual integrity" intellectual integrity?!!!
DeleteLike in "thinking Anglicans"!!
Oops should have explained, this quote is from the Churches website.
DeleteI'd guessed it was from there, it sounds like just the kind of pretentious twaddle I'd expect. Clearly, the person who posted the lyrics (who I understand is proceeding towards ordination) has no idea what the purpose of a hymn or an act of worship is.
DeleteThis is sadly the result of viewing ordination as the culmination of a training exercise in which one passes the right exams and ticks off the right experiences; rather than a process of formation in holiness and humility. Give me a holy and illiterate priest any day over one who has PhD and a head full of self-righteousness.
I wish I could uptick
DeleteTo judge from the church photo, they are about 40 adults, mainly female, and about 8 kids, and a couple of elderly retired clerics.
DeleteThe usual scenario in small liberal catholic urban congregations where severa olderl gays have settled and got busy in the choir etc. A bit like St Paul's and St Martin's in Canterbury which Cranny thought wss wonderful in one of his posts. Families? Nah.
Of course, Canterbury now has a Dean in a civil partnership who was inducted a few days ago by Justin Welby, and a man in a same-sex marriage (performed in Canada) has been appointed interim Dean of Chelmsford, so the disintegration of thd C of E hastens. Are the evangelicals going yo accept this or appoint thrir own bishops?
@ ProfG
DeleteYou can .... 👍
@Brian
DeleteWhat do (conservative/traditional) evangelicals actually gain by remaining in the CofE at this point? The Anglo-Catholic wing has been more or less eviscerated of traditionalists by the faithful going to the Ordinariate or Catholic dioceses. I don't understand what keeps evangelicals abroad, since they presumably don't require the approval of an ordained hierarchy from which sacerdotal ministry flows.
I replied earlier but it looks like my reply didn't get through. The gist of my reply was the big financial investment evangelicals have made in their church plant. Thry don't want it to end up in libersls ' hands.if they left the C of E they would probably lose their properties.
DeleteSurely better to lose one's investment than one's soul, though. It's a high price to pay to hang onto a property: to be shackled to and branded by an organisation that preaches a false gospel (which puts even angels under God's curse).
Delete@Lain - I agree entirely with the sentiment, and in a zero-sum game where the choice is moral compromise or retention of assets, the assets have to go.
DeleteThe challenging part comes when you consider that in many cases the faithful congregations are often in buildings that they have more than fully paid for, using resources that they have more than fully invested in. My experience is that evangelical churches tend to be pretty good on tithing (without requiring any pressure from above - I was a church treasurer for years and we never once had anyone make any statement about tithing or required giving from the lectern or in any of our materials - the church just desired to honour the principles set down in Scripture).
With decentralized movements, it's often easier to detach a specific church's property from the wider denomination. With CofE in particular, this can be very very difficult to effect.
@Grutchy
DeleteFollowing the truth can sometimes call for big sacrifices; I know of at least one female Anglican cleric who has become Orthodox, losing a house and an income in the process.
I'm curious how common this in among evangelical CofE congregations, outside of the HTB machine. All the evangelical Anglicans I know of around here meet in historical church buildings. I'm aware that there have been wrangles over buildings when congregations have left en masse and the legal rulings seem to imply that no one party owns historical church buildings. But if a congregation has entirely purchased their own property with their own funds, I don't see how the CofE would have any legal rights to it, unless it had been signed over or covenanted at some point (although I know ecclesiastical law and land law are arcane).
Still, there must surely come a point when one can no longer be associated with the institutional CofE if one believes it has departed far enough from the Gospel, 'calling evil good and good evil' (Is. 5:20). Scripture is abundantly clear on having nothing to do with those who partake in immoral practices (1 Cor. 5:11), and that associating with or assisting those who spread false teaching is 'sharing in their wicked work' (2 Jn. 1:11). If folk are indeed tithing from a desire to honour scriptural principles, these ones seem hard to ignore. I hear evangelical Anglicans talk about 'lines in the sand' a lot, but it seems to me that those lines are always just a little bit further on from where things currently are, and they get quietly rubbed out and redrawn when they're crossed.
This carol is asking to be re-rewritten...
DeleteGod rest ye very mental men
The church has gone astray
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was certainly not gay
It seems as though the wokesters have
Been on the Beaujolais
O-Ozanne's sins have come for to destroy
For to destroy
O-Ozanne's sins have come for to destroy.
Verse 2, anyone?
God rest ye very mental men
DeleteAnd your anathema
Let's scrap our carol service
And all travel to Quatar
Don't mention gender theory
They'll shove it up your aaar
So tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
So tidings of comfort and joy.
A huge improvement. Scans better, too.
Delete@ Chef ... 👍
DeleteNews from Birmingham.—A Catholic woman has been arrested and charged for praying in silence inside a "buffer zone" round an abortion clinic
ReplyDeletehttps://catholicherald.co.uk/woman-arrested-and-charged-for-silent-prayer-near-abortion-clinic/
Jack has been following this shocking news. How can you been arrested for silent prayer?
DeleteThis is quite chilling: The exclusion zone was introduced by Birmingham City Council on September 7 to prohibit anyone “engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval” of abortion in proximity to the clinic, including through “verbal or written means, prayer or counselling”.
DeleteIt would appear that there are designated areas in the UK where you're not allowed to have an opinion.
It now looks as though the news sources haven't been telling the whole story. Comments posted on a Catholic website suggest she has been in trouble before, and for forms of protest that go some way beyond silent prayer.
Delete@ Lain
DeleteGoogle Northern Ireland exclusion zones - recently upheld by the Supreme Court. Somilar legislation is passing through the English parliament.
Btem AC Welby approves.
@ RayS
DeleteBut in this instance it was silent prayer. She should have said "No comment" to the police.
What websites?
@Jack
DeleteI know he does, it's the only thing related to abortion that he seems able to express an actual opinion on.
@HJ
Deletehttps://forum.stisidoreslounge.com/t/woman-arrested-by-english-police-for-silent-prayer-near-abortion-facility/9988/6