Election Day Thought

Democracy: they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him".

I wanted to vote "Christ" but he wasn't there on the ballot paper.

Green Leader Caroline Links to Westminster Declaration!!!

My apologies to Caroline Lucas who earlier today was linked to the Westminster Declaration! I put up a post on this, having checked with Westminster2010, they confirmed she had indeed signed the pledge. Having re-checked her name on the list of those supporting the pledge, her status has now been altered to anti.

The mistake was not mine but the organisers of the Declaration.

The Declaration says:

[We] refuse to comply with any directive that compels us to participate in or facilitate abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that involves intentionally taking innocent human life.

We pledge to support marriage – the lifelong covenantal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife.

We believe it [marriage] is divinely ordained, the only context for sexual intercourse, and the most important unit for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. We call on government to honour, promote and protect marriage and we refuse to submit to any edict forcing us to equate any other form of sexual partnership with marriage.

We will seek to ensure that religious liberty and freedom of conscience are unequivocally protected against interference by the state and other threats, not only to individuals but also to institutions including families, charities, schools and religious communities. We will not be intimidated by any cultural or political power into silence or acquiescence and we will reject measures that seek to over-rule our Christian consciences or to restrict our freedoms to express Christian beliefs, or to worship and obey God.

Cardinal Pell: even more rumours.

Rumours abound, and now Andrea Tounielli reports Cardinal Pell is to become Prefect for the Congegation for Bishops. Good news for England and Wales, though maybe not everyone would feel that way, certainly not those on the fringes of the Church. Expect a bit of vitriolic spitting from the Tablet and its supporters.

"While I have long been disappointed by The Tablet's persistent subversions of some Catholic teaching and mystified by the inability of the English bishops to nudge it towards a more productive line of witness."

Letter Cardinal Pell to the Tablet, May 2002.

Tournielli writes:

In the last few days Benedict XVI again received in audience Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, making official his appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Pell subsequently had a long conversation with his predecessor, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. The announcement of the move will be given over the coming weeks, but before the first of summer. Pell would be installed at the helm of the "bishop factory" for its return to full rhythm of its activity after the summer holidays. With the arrival of an Australian in the lead post of the key dicastery of the Roman Curia, that which deals which choosing bishops, Benedict XVI has completed one of the most important choices of his pontificate, one destined to shape the life of the global church for the next twenty years. It's true, in fact, that Pell isn't very young -- he'll be 70 years old in June 2011, and so has ahead of him no more than seven years -- but it's likewise true that the episcopal appointments that pass his sign-off before being placed before the pontiff will impact the life of the church for at least two decades. Papa Ratzinger yet again chooses from among the non-Italians for a key post of Curial governance, and from among the non-Italians who have no experience in the Curia (in the last 35 years, the Congregation for Bishops alternated between Italian and non-Italian heads -- from Baggio to Moreira Neves, from Gantin to Re -- but all had Curial experience). A choice certainly destined to renew and internationalize the Curia, and likewise to reinforce the hand of the Secretariat of State.

Rocco Palmo

English Martyrs: Following Christ

It is the feast of the English and Welsh Martyrs today.

It is difficult for us to imagine the tensions of mistrust that must have flecked the lives of those who adhered to the True Faith. Those priests who landed in England didn't know if the last Mass they celebrated would indeed be their last, some never actually got to say Mass in England they were arrested on the beach on which they landed, others were betrayed by those to whom they gave the sacraments, or even by those who gave them hospitality, even by their fellow priests.

It was only Christ and his saints who could be trusted.
There is an autobiographical account of the torture of Fr Gerard here. Gerard survived and kept his mouth shut, others did not. For those facing torture trust in one's own resistance must have been doubtful and trust in God's grace must have been a minute to minute matter.

When Jesus calls the disciples to follow him, he doesn't show them their end, the invitation is to day to day, a minute to minute affair. When Jesus speaks about Peter's death at the end of John's Gospel, he speaks about Peter having a belt put around him and being led in ways he would rather not go. Being led in this way means the follower literally follows step by step, moment by moment.

"Lord for tomorrow and its needs, I do not pray ..."

May is the Month of Mary

Speaking yesterday in Turin the Holy Father said:

"The Virgin Mary is she who more than any other contemplated God in the human face of Jesus," he said. "She saw him as a newborn when, wrapped in swaddling clothes, he was placed in a manger; she saw him when, just after his death, they took him down from the cross, wrapped him in linen and placed him in the sepulcher."

The Pontiff said that within her "was impressed the image of her martyred Son; but this image was then transfigured in the light of the Resurrection."

"Thus," he reflected, "in Mary’s heart was carried the mystery of the face of Christ, a mystery of death and of glory. From her we can always learn how to look upon Jesus with a gaze of love and of faith, to recognize in that human countenance, the Countenance of God."

How can we understand being a disciple without loving her the most devoted of disciples?
How can we understand Grace without loving her who is full of Grace?
How can we understand the Church without loving the Mother of the Church?
How can we understand devotion to Christ without loving Her who was loved by Him first?

Sedes Sapientiae - Ora Pro nobis

Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet in Rome

The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Rt Rev Keith Newton and the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, the Anglican bishops of Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet have been off to Rome. There has been surprised expressed that Archbishop Nichols was unaware of this visit. No-one has said what this meeting was about or who it was with.

Some have interpreted it as a snub to the English hierarchy, it could be that or more likely it could just part of a series of meetings to inform the Holy See and to clarify the details of a future Ordinariate in England and Wales.

Some have suggested that the news of the meeting was leaked in a rather underhanded way to strengthen the Anglo-Catholic hand in the negotiations over provision for those who will not accept women bishops but will remain in the Anglican Communion. It could be that but then it could simply be that it is impossible to keep the presence of three Anglican bishops in Rome. All Saints in the Via del Babuino, Rome's Anglican church is a hotbed of gossip in the Eternal City, Mickens and Willey et al don't need to bug the place, if news doesn't filter out from there the are plenty of other sources.

Rome is a village after all.

Too Much Christianity!

I get heartily sick with all these Christians wanting to be exempt from the Law of the Land just because they are Christians. I have every sympathy with judges and tribunals who tell them to clear off. Special pleading is not good enough!
Catholics have only of late taken up this odious practice, in the past we appealed to the Common Good, based on the Natural Law and Reason. If something is good for us then it is good for society, our concern is not about narrow fideistic sectarianism but the wisdom man possesses by virtue of his being made in God's image.
Have as look at Innocent Smith who suggests the problem is too much scripture going around. Innocent's is one of my favourite blogs.
Gerald Warner too suggests that behind the MacFarlane judgement is an opposition to the rights of conscience and perhaps therefore the essence of social diversity of our pluralistic society.