Saturday, July 05, 2008

Intinsically Disordered Brighton


Brighton is supposed to be Gay Capital of Europe and seems to advertise itself as such but from its very beginning it was known as the place where morals were lax and sex was up front. It began really with the Prince Regent moving here to be with Mrs Fitzherbert, they were actually secretly married, she being a good Catholic girl refused to sleep with him unless they were, but for all the world she was his mistress. Therefore Brighton became the place where if the Regent and Heir to the Throne could live, apparently promiscuously, so could everyone else. In the nineteenth century Brighton was known for brothels and mistresses, later on it also became the home of othe more exotic vices, all those actors who lived here!


In the days when evidence of adultery was needed for a divorce one of my great uncles committed adultery here. Actually he didn't, but many solicitors arranged a package of a night in a Brighton hotel, a lady who would hop into bed just before breakfast was brought by a chamber maid involved in the scam, she would scream with shock at her discovery thus alerting a photographer who happened to be passing, he would take a quick picture and act as a witness. The whole package in the 1930s cost about 100 guineas ( £105 for the less posh).
Along with the sexual stuff there was also the whole criminal subculture that we see in Brighton Rock.

The Oxford Anglican, Fr Hunwicke has an interesting post on Gafcon in which he seems to say sin is sin, disorder is disorder, it is a good definition of what we Catholics understand when we talk about something as being intinsically disordered, a term that is so often misunderstood not only by those who have a same sex attraction, who think the Church singles them out but by many ordinary Catholics.

6 comments:

Fr Ray Blake said...

Fathers Clifton and Herron, my appologies, I thought I had rejected that comment, as you both refer to it could you re-submit your own.
Fortunately it was only there for less than an hour.
My appolgies.

Fr Ray Blake said...

Dennis out of courtesy we tend to use the titles people choose.

I am not going to say to the second Mrs Jones that she is really Miss Smith and an adulteress.

As far as the orders of Anglican clergy are concerned since 1928 and the use of what would appear to be valid bishops, we have to be more careful of the conclusions of Apost. Cur.
One's first presumption is grace andtruth rather than sin and error.

gemoftheocean said...

is there a marketing campaign "What goes on in Brighton, stays in Brighton?" :-D Someone's missing a great ad campaign!

Physiocrat said...

The staged adultery in Brighton is one of the themes in "A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh".

No adultery actually took place in that story.

Anonymous said...

People are astonished when I tell them I am Catholic and they know of my sexual orientation. "How can you be in a Church which holds their views on homosexuality?" they ask. If you really took that view to the limit, though, the Church would be empty because people would feel they could only be one of Her members if they had no sin or moral disorders.

At work I take alot of flak about Catholicism. Sometimes I'm like a scratching post for people who can't understand. It seems to be an entrenched view that placing children with same-sex couples is a great idea. I'm always arguing against that.

Fact is I'd rather be in a Church that told me the truth and listened to my Confessions rather than a church that told me that there was nothing wrong with homosexuality at all. That the Anglican Church is giving mixed messages about that is terribly damaging to society.

gemoftheocean said...

Good for you, Maurice. The church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners!

The Lord’s descent into the underworld

At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...