Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Court decides on Jewish school admissions


...And now the Supreme Court defines who is Jewish.

To be Jewish according to Judaism on has to be born of a Jewish mother, today the new Supreme Court decided that was racist, that the school had to accept "practice". That has never been Jewish custom, thus 3,500 years of rabbinic tradition was overthrown.

This interference in faith, strikes me as being the thin end of a very dangerous wedge. What is next? Telling a Catholic priest who he may marry, forbidding him to discriminate on grounds of gender? Maybe that is someway off ...but just wait, after all service providers can't descriminate.

27 comments:

The Bones said...

Absolutely!

JARay said...

I think that you, in England, will very probably be told not only who priests must marry but also who will be ordained. The persecution is only just beginning. I suggest that one positive thing that all religious denominations can do together is to mobilise opposition to these laws and, most certainly, mobilise opposition to those MPs and prospective MPs by advocating joint action at the polling booths and in the campaign publications put out by the prospective candidates. These were the tactics employed by the militant feminists, the homosexuals, the Greens and other minority groups to push their agendas. One such militant feminist named Joan Kirner who became the Premier of the State of Victoria here, claimed that it took her cohort 30 years to get into the places that mattered, and then impose unfettered Abortion on demand into law.
Christians of all persuasions and also non-christians who share similar values, must unite and use the same tactics to get any legislation overturned which imposes these "equal rights", opposed to centuries of common sense.
JARay

SunnaB16 said...

No, Father,
I don`t think it`s very far off.
Growing up in the late 60s, I thought that communism was the biggest threat - but the enemy was within. Plotting.

Victoria said...

The school was a private school, surely they should have the right to decide who shall and shall not be admitted to their school. As you stated, the tradition that Jewishness comes from the mother is a tradition thousands of years old.

Michael Petek said...

I read the Supreme Court's press release about this. Judaism is unique in having a biological criterion for determinining that a person is a Jew whose mother is a Jew (conversions aside).

That's fair enough for identifying persons with whom God keeps covenant, even though there are many people who are not halakhically Jewish, though they live a Jewish life and worship at a synagogue. It is these who need the benefit of a Jewish education for their children. The Nazis put many such people to death as Jews, because they had three Jewish grandparents, though not a Jewish mother.

Conversely, there are people born of Jewish mothers who don't qualify as Jews under Israeli civil law for the purposes of the Law of Return, because they have converted to 'another religion'.

Michael Petek said...

I should add to my previous comment that the case which is set to give us some real problems is that of Lilian Ladele, who lost her case this week in the Court of Appeal and whose lawyers are set to take it to the Supreme Court.

She is a Christian, and was dismissed from her job as a Registrar because she could not conscionably conduct same-sex civil partnerships.

Her counter party won because the Court decided that Parliament was within its rights to give people the right to a same-sex civil partnership.

Were he alive today, St Thomas More would insist the contrary: that Parliament has no power to legislate beyond the limit of what the law of God allows.

I feel that Christians before the courts in causes like this are wasting a lot of ammunition. What Her Majesty's Justices need to hear is that they will answer to Christ at the Last Judgement if they don't concur with St Thomas.

I know they don't fear it, but can Christians be doing their duty if they don't hear it?

Sadie Vacantist said...

Makes sense to sell the seminaries and move them back abroad just in case. Although, even that may prove tricky i.e. finding somewhere in Europe. Perhaps Africa?

Catholic priests will have to relinquish their right to perform civil ceremonies and make their actions exclusively religious i.e. no civil dimension at all.

Eventually, a militant gay 'couple' will challenge the Church and find useful idiots amongst the clergy to assist with the project. I can't see the Church winning in court because if they can do this to the Jewish community, what chance do we stand?

George said...

Fr Ray it will come to a point in time where ordinary, normal common-sensical people will just tell these PC law-mongerers and interfering government snoops to take a long walk off a short plank and stick their heads where the sun don't shine. And if the penalty for that is to be slammed up in a jail - well let's welcome it! What an opportunity for the apostolate and bring comfort of the Good News to others! And what an opportunity when you have your day in Court in front of the media.

I tell you, they would soon back track very fastly! All it needs for a few good men to speak out LOUDLY and there could well be a massive turnaround.

I bet our Jewish brothers and sisters won't take this lying down - they'll kick up a massive stink and we should support them all the way!

Stuff 'em all I say!

me said...

Priest holes. We're gonna need them. Start digging.

We've been here before fellow English Romans, and it looks like we're headed back.

The Bishop's should advise the laity, via the priests, via the pulpits, on how we should vote.

The one and only MP I have heard sticking up for our Christian culture (he called it our heritage) is Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time. The BNP bloke! If there is any other party defending this, I would like to know, and a lot of the people I chat to (my fellow chattering class) have only heard this message from the BNP too.

Fr Ray Blake said...

Shadowlands,
I would prefer disembowelment than voting for the BNP or to have his advocates here.

JARay said...

You do not have to start digging priest-holes.
Get active.
It means entering the domain of politics.
YES.
POLITICS.
When the laws of the land impinge on your rights of conscience you can no longer sit back and say "I don't enter into politics".
Politics is impinging on you!
YOU HAVE to fight back!
I belong to an Association in Australia called the National Civic Council. It is not a Catholic organisation but most of its members are in fact Catholics. We do have members of various churches as members and we even have at least one Sikh! Even the Mormons are involved.
We are a voice. We were started by B. A. Santamaria at the instigation of Archbishop Manning. He wanted an organisation to fight against the communist influence in the Trades Unions. We are still going but the main thrust of the organisation is anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, same-sex marriage.....etc. We have a publication called News Weekly which is (alas) no longer weekly but fortnightly. Try googling it if you are interested. We are involved in politics and have successfully turned several issues around including the putting into law that marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others. We....Yes..WE pushed this and got it into law!
Get off your backsides and act!
JARay

SunnaB16 said...

Catholic institutions may have to
be set up in the style of Radio
Caroline...

George said...

SunnaB16 says "Catholic institutions may have to
be set up in the style of Radio
Caroline..." - oh well, that counts me out then, I get sea-sick! :-)

me said...

JARay said

'You do not have to start digging priest-holes.
Get active'

You call digging inactive? Your hands haven't held many spades, I take it?

Bet you don't make the tea, at the places you make all these speeches, eh? Get someone else to do that, someone you can bully by telling them to get off their backside.

I also mentioned politics JARay, I made my need known, for guidance, from the Bishops on who to vote for, with my comment. I also tried to highlight what the man in the street is saying, but this maybe got misconstrued as advocating someone. That is where I am at, not at your level, obviously. I don't think I will talk to any other well educated people, especially catholic bloggers. They are some of the rudest, unkindest people I have ever met. Let me know if any priest needs feeding or hiding. We're good at that, us diggers. Some of us just do menial tasks as jobs, so we are not experts like retired maths teachers, but just for today, we also have access to the vote, so I sought my Church's advices on this, if that's all right with you JARay?

On the side of the angels said...

My father's Jewish - even though his mother was a methodist sunday school teacher and there hasn't been an iota of judaic practice in the family for generations, possibly a couple of centuries - but the maternal judaic line stands !

What next ? Churches banned from being called St Bernard's because some muslims or new age gnostic nouveau cathars complain abut his activities in the crusades ?
Courts decide whether gravity is a push or pull force ?
Judge declares sun will in future rise in the west !

Dilly said...

Good point about the registrar powers of the priest. I remember the days when part of getting married meant making arrangements for the civil registrar to come to the Church - massively inconvenient. In the great digging v politicking debate - I would say - do what you are best fitted to do- but do something, because something will be needed. Jaray - I would say that your organisation would be persecuted and accused of hate crime over here - and soon. Look at what happened to the Adoption societies. I posted elsewhere about a national conference I went to with 16 year olds where some creep was handing out condom samples. I will be making my views clear to the organisers, and taking my custom elsewhere.

nickbris said...

According to Jewish Law nobody can be sure who their Father is.

Elizabeth said...

It seems that the government snoops want to interfere in everyones life - whether it be through religion or the family. We must stand strong against this interference.
Our Catholic Faith has already been weakened by bad catechisis, our Catholic schools are failing our children and it appears that the Jewish religion is under equal attack.
There is only one solution to all these problems, be you Jewish or Catholic, and that is prayer.

David Lindsay said...

As Jews trace themselves through mothers, so Catholics trace ourselves through Fathers in God, i.e., bishops. If the Supreme Court can decide who is nor is not a Jewish mother whose children are therefore entitled to be admitted to oversubscribed Jewish schools, so it can also decide who is or is not an episkopos, as all Protestant presbyteroi claim to be, entitling his or her spiritual children to be admitted to oversubscribed Catholic schools. Watch that space.

gemoftheocean said...

Sounds like these clowns are MAKING laws rather than saying what the law is. Judicial activism is NEVER a good thing.

You're going to have problems, inherently with this new body, in part because you don't have a written constitution. One that guarantees freedom of religion. In theory you should have it, but not when people with supreme hubris are put in charge of things.

Yes, batten down the hatches -- the wave of persecution draws near. It would be wise if ALL parents of ALL faith schools got out in a massive demonstration, NOW, before they start shoving you into ovens. These leftists must be stopped. It is THEY who are killing us, and choking good order in society at large. PCism must be killed before it kills us all.

Anagnostis said...

The anglo-saxon world is at last waking up to the fact that persecution in the modern world has mostly been the rule, rather than the exception. I expect not a few us to have resided at her Majesty's pleasure before the end of the next decade. We can expect no support from the general public. 25 years of secularist brainwashing has done its work.

Anagnostis said...

...aided and abetted by fundamentalist idiots.

The Layman said...

Priest-holes, prison… it all sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Make no mistake, the 1533 point is rapidly approaching when the Bishops will have to decide whether they are for the Pope or for the King (the state). Last time, only one Bishop was prepared to stand up in support of the Pope. Let’s hope this time there are a lot more.

1533: Now, Bishop X, are you prepared to take the Oath of Supremacy?

2010: Now, Bishop Y, are you prepared to ordain this practising homosexual/practising lesbian/adulterer/woman?

And if you think that the Church could go along with the idea of making a distinction between celibate homosexuals and practising homosexuals, have a look at this:

“The distinction that the discrimination would only apply to those in actively homosexual relationships frankly implies a level of intrusion into an employee's private life that I would find completely unacceptable
from an employer.”

That comment was made in an email from an MP to a friend of mine. The MP in question is obviously one of those who strongly supports the Equality Bill.

Get political? Yes. There is a campaign (www.equalitybill.com) to remove the ban on Civil Partnerships being conducted in churches. Where is the opposing campaign against the anti-Catholic elements of her Equality Bill?

From their website:
“Our campaign will nonetheless use the debate next week as an opportunity to give notice that we will be submitting amendments - both to lift the current ban on Civil Partnership Ceremonies from taking place in religious premises, and to remove the exemptions in the Equality Bill which continue to allow the persecution of gay members of the clergy. Details of these amendments to follow.”

Well, we should be able to guess what they mean by “persecution of gay members of the clergy”.

berenike said...

Shadowlands, nobody was dissing you in any way!

Independent said...

We are increasiungly faced with a secular confessional state in which the rulers regard any deviation from their values as having no rights. "Error has no rights" has found a new home.

People like my nephew, a headmaster of an Orthodox Jewish school, can obviously no longer be trusted to select pupils according to the religious criteria of their faith.

We now have our very own Nuremberg Laws with the State deciding what for school admission purposes is a Jew.

It is a dangerous precedent which if uncontested will serve as an excuse to order about all religions.

SunnaB16 said...

Start filling the sandbags fellas,
learn to sing "Men of Harlech" and
"Faith of our Fathers", and man
the ramparts.

At least we Aussies have Cardinal
Pell! (Gloat Gloat)

Independent said...

The Supeme Court obviously do not accept the "Declaration on Religious Liberty" of Vatican II.

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