Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Dave and Nick: What does it mean?

What does it mean:
for the Natural Law?
for the unborn?
for conscience?
for freedom?
for the family?
for the Church?
for the poor?
for the vulnerable?
for moral values?
for the cohesion of society?

23 comments:

me said...

What does it mean ?

Another election, and soon.

nickbris said...

Can't wait till they have their first tiff.

No doubt Sgt Bilko will keep us informed.

Seeing them both together is enough to make some of us hide behind the couch.

B flat said...

The Today programme, and BBC news generally. have fallen into the habit of telling us, not what has happened, but what is going to happen. This is irrational and destructive. It is irrational because speculation is no better than gossip as a basis for moral judgment. It is destructive because it builds up expectation in the consumer which is often unfulfilled and undermines the credibility of the news medium. It produces the rubbish we had served over the Easter period concerning the Pope's culpability in the sex abuse cases.

Why not continue to fight for the truth, blog enthusiastically, and see what fruits your work will bear? Continue to encourage us to the Good, Father.

Personally, I think a look at the political map of Gt Britain shows that without the Liberal-Democrats, the Conservatives could claim no mandate to govern over Scotland at all. This coalition may preserve the United Kingdom, if the two parties choose to govern in the national interest rather then their own.

Michael Petek said...

What does it mean:

for the Natural Law? Same deal.

for the unborn? Same deal.

for conscience? Same deal.

for freedom? Same deal.

for the family? Cameron will support same-sex marriage.

for the Church? Clegg hates God.

for the poor? Cameron hates paupers. Clegg might restrain him.

for the vulnerable? Cameron's friends will make lots of lovely money out of them. Clegg might restrain him.

for moral values? Forget it!

for the cohesion of society? Total civilizational collapse.

Mrs. A. L. said...

Do you know what is their position on homeschooling?
Many thanks.

Richard White said...

A bit like team ministry "in solidum" it never works. If priests can't share leadership then what chance is there of politicians being able to do so?

Physiocrat said...

Who knows what it means but I haven't heard much said or seen much written on the subject of social justice anywhere lately, apart from Caritas in Veritatis

And who among us as read that? It's our fault as much as anyone's. Too many of us think that life and family issues begin and end with sex and abortion. The rest of Catholic Social Teaching never gets an airing, and we get labelled and ignored, not entirely unjustly, as single-issue bigots.

Michael Petek said...

Right as far as it goes, Physiocrat, but the reason the Church is preoccupied with human life and its inviolability, sex, marriage and family is that it is precisely these terms the ambient culture is trying to change the meaning of.

epsilon said...

"for the Church? Clegg hates God."

Now, Michael Petek, how are you *be*ing a catholic by making inflamatory statements like that??

He has married and loves his catholic wife and is happy for his children to *be* catholics. How does that equal hating God??

Lets hope and pray his wife and family will eventually help him to recognise that God is not a myth.

Far too many of us catholics do not *practise* our Faith but act like resentful whingers because the world does not see us as we like to see ourselves.

How about we get ourselves in a prayerful mindset as we prepare for the Papal visit in September with humility, joy, cooperation, and acceptance of each other as all God's children, even those who can't see it. Maybe, if we gave witness to what it truly means to be catholic, during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI who leads us with humility, Nick Glegg and possibly many more might see The Light.

He (Nick Clegg) will certainly have a 'front seat' to view our behaviour, and we catholics can act like members of an inward looking clique *or* we can choose to truly let the Pope lead us on the road to Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

nickbris said...

Today was only the first of 1825.By the end of the term the population problem may be solved,those who aren't bored to death will have emigrated.

Independent said...

For the vulnerable and the poor - Ian Duncan Smith.

Michael Petek said...

Good question, Epsilon.

I've just sent a letter to the US magazine 'This Rock' which they're going to publish in their next issue together with a reply by Father Brian Harrison.

My letter is a response to a point he makes in the current issue of 'This Rock' in which he says that dogmatic (not merely fiducial) faith is so necessary for salvation that a person who dies an atheist or an agnostic is necessarily damned.

The extent to which I agree with him is as follows.

Repentance and contrition are metaphysically necessary for salvation, That means, if they are absent then there is no substitute capable of supplying for them.

Repentance and contrition are an act of the will, which cannot move save in favour of what the intellect presents to it as good.

So there must be two things in the intellect. The first is that there must be some truth, assented to in faith, that God is good and sin is evil, so that the will can in charity hate sin and love God. The second is that there must be knowledge of the fact of God's actual disposition to forgive sins, otherwise the will cannot rationally repent, for it cannot see any profit in doing so.

So it seems that Mr Clegg, being an atheist, is until further notice in some large measure of trouble.

P Standforth said...

I'm sure I heard an interview the other day with Mr Clegg in which he said he didn't know what to belive, which I think puts him in the agnostic camp rather than atheist? As epsilion says, let us all set an example, and pray that Mr Cameron is helped to display Christianity in his daily life too.

Rational Catholic said...

Can I ask why you say The Tablet is the fastest declining Catholic newspaper? What are the facts that you base this assertion on? The Tablet circulation appears to have been stable at around a healthy (and viable) 22,000 to 22,500 per week for a number of years.
As Fr Zed would say, I'm just asking!

Fr Ray Blake said...

RC,
WRONG POST

Anonymous said...

I think I agree with Shadowlands; it means another election soon.
Neither of these men inspire any kind of trust.
Nevertheless they will have to try hard to be worse than Brown, Balls and Harman- so there is a glimmer of hope.
For the state of the family I think worse is to come but we wait and see.

Mrs A L: Michael Gove is minister for Education. He said some concerning things during the fight as I am sure you are aware, however Graham Stuart MP has given a firm assurance that EHE will be left alone (for now)-so we can just get on with educating our children :)
I advise you to keep an eye on blogs in the know such as Carlotta at Dare TO Know and you could check mine out now and then.

God bless

Independent said...

Disraeli said ironically of Sir Robert Peel's Government that it was "a sound Conservative government, Tory men and Whig measures". This would seem to be true of the new administration as it is difficult to discern what they intend to conserve. They propose change, but never to change back. The restoration of our traditional moral order is totally neglected.

Glorfindel said...

But don't worry everyone. Dave recently used the phrase "common good", and that's like, you know, really Catholic. And Nick's wife's Catholic (even though he doesn't believe in God - and she doesn't actually believe in Nick, because she didn't vote him). So really they're both like Tony Blair, and Tony Blair's like really Catholic, and Cardinal Cormac thought he was really great, even though he didn't agree with the Pope about anything (apart from global warming). So, um, yeah, like, that's OK then.

Or something!

RJ said...

Some signs of hope, I think.
Good speech by Cameron outside No. 10. He mentioned freedom, responsibility and fairness (the latter being a lib-dem emphasis - always makes be shudder slightly as to me it suggests coercive equality legislation). He also mentioned the common good and the family. There is more chance that we will be allowed to live according to conscience. Good to hear a leader pointing out that the government can't fix everything (a recipe for government interference and the discouragement of intermediate voluntary initiatives between families and civil authorities). There has to be more exercise of personal responsibility.
Somewhat worried about Catholic schools if a Lib-Dem is in charge. Seem to remember there was some proposal to prevent schools from choosing pupils according to their faith.

RJ said...

Perhaps I should have qualified the comment about freedom of conscience by saying that there is less likelihood of further encroachments on our religious freedom. That still leaves us with some awkward laws and interpretations of the law. Perhaps the better response is positive political engagement rather than negativity from the sidelines.

Mike said...

Neville Chamberlain infamously said that Czechoslovakia was a faraway country about which we (the British) know nothing. I would venture to suggest that for many people in England, especially the south of England, Scotland is also a faraway country about which we (the English) know nothing (or very little). One example is a man from the BBC telling his listeners that North Queensferry is in Edinburgh. (The slight problem being that North Queensferry is on the north side of the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh is on the south side.)

For those people who predict that the LD-Tory coalition will not last very long you may be unaware of the following:

In the Scottish Parliament elections of 1999 no party won an overall majority. A coalition was formed between Labour and the Lib Dems. It lasted four years (until the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2003).
In the Scottish Parliament elections of 2003 no party won an overall majority. A coalition was formed between Labour and the Lib Dems. It lasted four years (until the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2007).

You may be right that the coalition will not last long, but before rushing to speculation you mighty like to consider what happened in Scotland. Incidentally, an SNP minority government has been in power since 2007. Maybe politics is not as brittle as some people think.

As to the nature of this C-LD government time will tell. Hopefully it will not resurrect the Children, Families and Schools Bill or anything like it but I don’t think we can take that for granted. At least a Lib Dem is not in charge of education.

As to the BBC it should rename its News programmes and called them the 6pm or 10pm Speculations. How many times have the newsreaders in the studio asked someone else what they THINK is going to happen. The best one was when someone was asked: “What do you think X is thinking?” It was lovely listening to Nicholas Witchell telling us that David Cameron would be having a very long meeting with the Queen and as he was telling us this David Cameron appeared out of the Palace about ten minutes after he went in. The other annoying modern habit of newsreaders is to tell some reporter what has happened, as in: “Gordon Brown has resigned, George” and George has to say “Yes” before moving onto what he really wants to report.

Edward P. Walton said...

One of David Cameron's relatives was earnest in the continuance of the slave trade.

Mr. Cameron is a lineal descendent of King William IV.
(The Illegitmate Fitz Clarence Line)

Edward P. Walton said...

One of David Cameron's relatives was earnest in the continuance of the slave trade.

Mr. Cameron is a lineal descendent of King William IV.
(The Illegitmate Fitz Clarence Line)

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