William Oddie responds to her interview here.
I ask who she thinks she is: well, unlike Edward Stourton, I will tell you who she is and where she is coming from. When the New Humanist asked a number of people, including Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman and Claire Rayner, known to be hostile to the Pope, the question: “If you were invited to address Benedict XVI during his UK visit… what would you say to him?”, one of two Catholics presented by the New Humanist as asking the question “stay or go?” – in other words whether to stay in the Catholic Church or leave it altogether – was Professor Tina Beattie. Her question for the Pope was: “Your Holiness, I hope your experience of the variety and vitality of British Catholicism will help you to understand the challenges we liberal Catholics face in maintaining a dialogue between our Catholic faith and secular society… conservative Catholics accuse us of betraying the Church because we are willing to debate questions such as women’s ordination, priestly celibacy and homosexuality… What would you do, in my situation?” She is, in brief, a radical feminist hostile to the Magisterium: ...I agree with William when he says:
So when Stourton asked: “Do all Britain’s Roman Catholics welcome the ordinariate?” what he actually meant (though was too fly actually to say) was: “Do Catholic liberals and radical feminists welcome the ordinariate?” Well, of course they don’t: those who are joining the ordinariate are coming, in part at least, because in the Church of England (unlike the Church of Rome), those who think like Professor Beattie are in the ascendant and are in the process of suppressing those in their Church who think in a Catholic way: that’s one very good reason among others why so many Catholic-minded Anglicans are joining the Catholic Church itself.I don't know what other illiberal liberals have been saying about the Ordinariate but I suspect like Tina they will be bashing and scraping away at it because it is an icon that represents authentic Catholicism, the Magisterium, the person of the Pope and everything else they despise.
Is it sexist to suggest that she sounds just like the mother-in-law that has just met her son's new bride?
19 comments:
Did you notice that when she was asked why she was unenthusiastic about the ordinariate, Tina Beattie could not really find an answer?
How is it that people with very small brains can get to be a professor?
Follow the link to Tina's blog. The photos depict the creative liturgies she is afraid of losing if the traditional anglo-catholics influence the Catholic Church. In one of the pictures the priest is celebrating Mass wearing a green wig. Perhaps the Ordinariate will rob us of our clown masses. If that's the price we have to pay for unity I think we've got a bargain.
Why give her the oxygen of publicity? The media may like her because she ptofesses a catholicism which she appears to repudiate, but has she anything to say of substance? Her academic credentials and standing are not superior to those of the leadership of Anglo-Catholicism and the Ordinariate. Roehampton ,where she has the title of professor is a recently elevated teacher training college,which comes well down in the long list of universities. Does anyone quote her except feminists? She sounds rather like a down-market sociologist. I hope I am not charitable but it is hard to take such people seriously.They merely add a veneer of religion to the consensus generated by the secular elite.
I am certainly no fan of Tina Beattie Father. However, as Catholics is it really right for us to retaliate with anger and vitriol and revel in it?
On the telegraph blog today this is what Paul Priest posted:
Hey !
What about Tina Beattie's blogpost on the ordinariate she took down after 'complaints'
[i.e. she didn't like being humiliated by the comments from Fr Ray, Laurence England and myself which kinda contradicted her version of reality and Catholic teaching]
Still - it wasn't as bitchy and pig-ignorant as the article to which she referred from Peter Stanford.
Two wrongs certainly don’t make a right. Your name was up there Father for all to see. We are meant to respect and look up to the priesthood, you should be giving us an example to live by. Your posts are becoming more and more vitriolic. All done under the guise of defending our faith. I find the fact that you would go out of your way to humiliate Tina Beattie quite disturbing.
Being a Traditional Catholics does not mean having a licence to stick it to the other side just because we don’t agree with what they have to say! We are all entitled to our opinions or is the right of free speech only for the Traditional Catholics among us?
The Traditional Catholic Lobby has set aside mercy, charity and humility. Today you just go for the jugular regardless of whether you are right or not and to hell with the consequences.
"Is it sexist to suggest that she sounds just like the mother-in-law that has just met her son's new bride?"
No, but it's very unfair to mother-in-laws.
She's scared stiff.
Greg,
Thank you for your observations, I shall obviously have to consider them.
I am however not responsible for what Mr Priest writes. I don't think I humiliated Ms Beattie, I only drew attention to what she had to say. I certainly do not think I am in slanging match with her. However she is one of the more influential Catholics in Britain today, through her repeated media appearances, her involvement as a professor at Roehampton and as a trustee of the Tablet, as well as her involvement in adult formation.
In many ways she has more influence than many of our bishops, I don't think it lacks charity to hold her to account, or to question some of what she says.
Well said Independent! And well done Father for displaying the comment. Sadly few of your bloggers seem to have chosen to read Tina Beattie's books and react out of prejudice against her pertinent questions when broadcast. She does not seek the "oxygen of publicity" but is invited. Be in no doubt she loves the Church.
Don't be put off from valid criticism of what you regard to be wrong, Father. Just because a person is in formal communion with you does not mean that you may not criticise them. In any case what you say is almost invariably charitable if trenchant. Compared to what for instance Anne Roche Muggeridge says about people like Dr Beattie in the Canadian Church your tone is mild and you preside over a blog which eschews the vituperation common on eg."Holy Smoke."
I do not belong to your communion but urge you to keep up the good work. Respect is earned by fidelity to own's beliefs and maintined by resolute and reasoned but charitable criticism of those of others.
I am not aware that Fr Blake has ever resorted to vitriol. He is straight talking on certain matters of the Catholic faith, which is his job as one of the shepherds of the flock. Certainly, Ms. Beattie is entitled to her opinion. Fr. Blake is more than entitled to put her right when she errs. He must do so. That is his job.
The way the media works you get invited to air your opinion if you are always ready and willing to be a "talking head". It saves hours ringing around to get 10 "nos" and one "yes". It also helps if you are chums with the presenter who shares your outlook.
If Ms. Beattie has ever backed the Pope, it's passed me by. Indeed, she has gone out of her way to criticise the current papacy because it doesn't fit in with her take on Catholicism. I have news for her. It works the other way round, as millions attested last September.
Fr Blake is a priest who has a voice. Would there were more of him to stand up and be counted. It is not lack of charity to say that someone is wrong. It is lack of charity to say nothing and an abdication of priestly duty.
To hold him responsible for what someone else writes is nonsensical. Bandying words like charity and humility is generally code for "shut up". Unfortunately, the defence of Ms. Beattie (re-read and absorb Fr. Blake's first par) displays some of the negative qualities of which Fr. Blake has been unjustly labelled.
Please. Tina Beattie has been nasty about the Ordinariate and nasty about Catholics who accept the Church's teaching re: the impossibility of ordaining women. To criticise Fr Blake for pointing out that she is doing the Church a disservice is ridiculous - yet unsurprising coming from "progressives" who invariably play the man, having lost the argument.
I have followed the recent posts concerning Tina & her blog with interest. It does seem to me that some here do gang up on her rather harshly. Criticism & correction can be offered more gently you know- remember St Francis de Sales & the 'honey' & 'vinegar'?
You can do better!
down market sociologist -
Assertions that particular people "love the Church" need to be tested by action. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer all said that they loved the Church, but merely wished to reform it.
Prejudice is an easy word to throw about; how do you know that the people concerned are not in fact engaged in reasoned rejection? Still, mercifully, you do not accuse them of a phobia or of being bigots!
Please however do not think that I denigrate sociology, indeed I have always found it a worthwhile study.
May I praise you for defending your friend and ask where does she differ in ideology from the consensus generated by the secular elite? Edward Norman years ago illuminated this phenomenon as it related to the C of E, and it has now spread to the Catholic Church.
Fr. Ray,
God bless you for speaking up! We ought all to remember that one of the ways to participate in another's sin (and doesn't the obstinate refusal to cease from promoting that which has already been defined as set—-as is the male-only priesthood--border on heresy?) is to remain silent. We could also conceal the sin, or defend the sin committed and these to are sinful acts.
This should not only be done in an effort to expose error and those things which do battle the magisterium of the Church, but also to call the sinner to repentance. At times this may need be done in a somewhat harsh tone to wake up the soul to the truth if gentleness has not convinced. I recall St. Nicholas slapping Arius in the face at the 1st Council of Nicea.
Father, you have kept your tone gentle and are to be commended for it. You have also not refrained from speaking the truth. Well done!
I heard the Professor on Sunday and I thought she sounded like lost soul.
She knows a few bits & pieces about theology but being allowed to air her barmy views as an expert on Catholicism just goes to show how corrupt the BBC is.
Good Queen Mary would have her those who follow her burnt at the stake.
Why did Tina B attack the Ordinariate which is created by the Pope?
Why did the scorpion sting the frog?
She / It could not help doing so. It is in their nature.
Whatever reservations one has we should rejoice at those who come home to the true Church even if they keep some of their ways from their earlier life.
Father you are right to draw the attention of your readers to the views of those who oppose you. We are free to read what they say and make up our own minds. Then our support for you is reinforced.
"...we should rejoice at those who come home to the true Church even if they keep some of their ways ..."
Gosh, that's jolly tolerant. Thanks.
LBS Reading Anglicanorum Coetibus one might suspect that His Holiness might reword "Peter" to read "especially as they keep some of their ways".There is no point in the Ordinariate if they dont. Pope Benedict's own published works pay ample tribute to Anglican, Lutheran and Jewish scholarship. He certainly does not suggest that he or Catholic scholars have no need to refer to others or can learn nothing from them.
LBS
I think that Independent has read my mind.
Even if Tina B does not like the way that the Ordinariate will worship she should still be pleased that the members are now in full communion with the true faith.
I suspect that they will contribute to "mutual enrichment" in a way that Tina B will not like and most readers of this blog, me included, will like. But whatever views we have on that we should still rejoice that they are now part of our church.
I do try to be tolerant: I hope that others will forgive my faults and tolerate me when I am silly or rude.
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