Paganism in Brighton

Have you seen Damian Thompson's piece on the BBC and Paganism?

Pentangles abound in Brighton, so do rings with goats heads, people wear strange tattoos. Personally I know more pagan priestesses than vicaresses. There are more shops selling witchcraft's bits and pieces than there are selling copies of Hans Kung's latest, in fact there aren't any selling Kung but there are at least half dozen witchcraft shops.
As Damian says witchcraft and paganism, feminism and greenness go hand in hand. Local witches are often specialists in which herbal tea to drink for headaches or joint pains and their witchery goes no further, except possibly to a openness to lovers of either sex.
In our psychiatric hospitals there are sad men who tell complicated narratives of human sacrifice on the ancient hills that surround the city, I hope these depend more on the fantasies of madness and Alistair Crowley than reality.
There is an overlap between paganism and Satanism which seems to centre on overthrowing Christian values and morallity, there is not much evidence of 20th century far right politics in Brighton's paganism except to overthrow the morality of the last 2000 years.

Say a prayer for my pagans, they need it.

The Unfaithful Departed, more on Halloween

God desires that all Men are saved!
But what about those who choose not to be saved?

The doctrine of Hell is not about God's anger but about God's love and man's freewill. True, the Church never says anyone is in Hell, apart from the Devil and a few ancient fallen angels. It could indeed be empty. The doctrine however reminds us that Man can choose to reject God, because God forces no-one to accept him. Man's freewill is so absolute that it embraces Heaven and Hell. A fundamental Catholic understanding is Man's absolute freedom.

I criticise those priests who want to canonise everyone, who assume everyone really wants God but then I suppose although I might be a little more realistic like many "trads", I suppose I assume that though most of us are too damaged to enter heaven immediately that through a period of purgation God will heal them, and yes, they will be saved.

But what about those who have spent their whole lives saying, "No" to God? Halloween is presumably about acknowledge their existence, those who have rejected the Church and the Sacraments, Christ's teaching on marriage, those who have lived selfish lives, those who have died without the the slightest Hope in Christ. What about the Un-faithful departed?

The feast of All Saints is about the Saved, All Souls, the commemoration of the Faithful Departed is about those who rightly Hope - in the sense of the theological virtue - for Salvation but isn't it arrogance to assume everyone wants to be saved?

I accept that God has made us to love and desire him, it is part of our nature but habit and lifestyle, or even sin, can change and pervert that nature.

Tea at the Trianon presents an interest theory on the origins of Halloween, I just wonder if its origins are in fact about trying to deal with the Unfaithful departed who are part of the danse macabre.

All Hallows 'Een

Halloween, All Hallows Eve, used to be "light" in England when I was a child: a bit of apple bobbing and a ghost story. Now it has become something else in all its US ghoulishness.
Catholics, and others nowadays seem to be promoting the "Night of Light", dressing up as saints rather than ghouls or ghosts, I think that is very commendable but isn't that a bit of "sanatising"?
Is it really healthy to avoid the horrors of death?
Isn't it a little bit like the white vestment funeral? which seems to want to avoid the very possibility that our own choices can actually lead us not just to heaven but to hell too? Are we not trying to avoid the fact of supernatural evil?

Sympathy with Liberals

I am a creature of the 60s, I've got a lot of sympathy with liberal Catholics, when the Lord God comes walking in the Garden in the cool of the evening fallen Man wants to hide in the shrubbery. When he appears on Sinai, it is terrifying. Always, always man wants to control God, to contain him, to make him smaller than he is.

The Incarnation itself leads immediately to the crucifixion. Man is afraid of the intimacy God demands by becoming Flesh and dwelling amongst us, and instinctively wants rid of him.

Catholicism pure and simple tells us of Divine Intimacy, it speaks of a God who binds himself to Man, who shows himself through the Church herself and through things, people and objects. Liberalism tries to break these bindings. The reality is terrifying; that God comes disguised as bread and wine, through a priest he himself forgives, takes sins away, shares his priesthood, binds couples in himself for life and literally, not figuratively, makes us by adoption what he is by nature, sons of God - truly terrifying!

How difficult is the idea that the Church is his bride, with the implication of becoming "one flesh", difficult too the idea of his Mystical Body, that intimacy! His words too are almost unbearable: "whoever listens to you listens to me", "I will be with you always, even to the end of time". Then there are those words about forgiveness of sins and worst, those to Peter about binding and loosing, not just on Earth but in Heaven itself!

Traditional Catholics say the speak with Divine Authority, they condemn opinions of others as not merely being incorrect but actually heretical. William Oddie blogs about Attacks build up on the ‘Taliban’ and the ‘McCarthyites’ of the Catholic blogosphere. He cites Michael Vorris on the Vortex,  which as a priest "with a pastoral side" and even liberal tendenies, I am not entirely at home with. I don't think it is about the Americanism of all, I think it is a lack of faith, a weakness on my part, a sense that I might be wrong, or maybe it is an unwillingness to really stand up for the faith, recognising that I am in a minority of one most of the time.

Catholic Voices in "dialogue"

There is an interesting piece on the ICN site, it is titled "London: first 'Catholic-Humanist dialogue' held". I think it is a very commendable thing, a group of Catholics and a group of Humanists getting together. Some of my parishioners have been doing this off and on for sometime here in Brighton.

Whether this is first for London, I doubt it, I suspect it is bit of hyperbole. I have sat in a London pub and "dialogued" with humanists, I think Archbishop Peter Smith did it on the eve of the Papal Visit under the auspices of the Met.

It is perhaps interesting Catholic Voices, which "does not speak officially for the Church", patron Fr Christopher Jamison and its coordinators, Austen Ivereigh and Jack Valero, put the Church’s case on Aids/condoms, faith schools, and same-sex adoption in a discussion with Alan Palmer, chair of the Central London Humanist Group; Josh Kutchinsky, a British Humanist Association trustee; and Paul Sims, news editor of New Humanist magazine. Humanist are always a bit of mixed a disparate bag, even more prone to schism that Baptists.

I am glad this seems to be the way forward for Catholic Voices, maybe once they have honed their debating skills they might start training parishes, even clergy and bishops to enter into debate or even publish simple fact sheets for others involved in "dialogue". Who knows this could be the revival of the Catholic Evidence Guild.

I am not knocking this, or Catholic Voices, I really do believe that the Chuch needs gangs of bright young Catholics on every university campus, in every city, town and parish in the country. Every newspaper, every radio phone in or internet forum that discusses religion or ethics needs some catholic voices on it. I would just like to see CV as being more than just a platform for Jack and Austen and more widely based than London. For me the problem is that it seems to be a little narrow, a little elitist. What has happened to all those bright young men and women?

What the Abbot, Jack and Austen were discussing takes place all over the place wherever there are committed Catholics including bedrooms and school classrooms. I wish Catholic Voices could be a mass movement.

Of Gods and Men

“Of Gods and Men” is a drama that follows the story of eight French monks living in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990's. The acclaimed French director Xavier Beauvois delivers another stirring film based on the real events of a clash of religions.

Algeria is being swept up in a civil war and the monks are forced to make a decision, flee Algeria and live, or stay with their monastery where they will most certainly die.

The film received high praise from critics at this years Cannes Film Festival and has since been the source of discussion in many religious circles.

“Of Gods and Men” begins by showing how the monks lived alongside the local Muslim community in peace. However, the camaraderie quickly vanishes as Muslim fundamentalists begin to make their presence felt.

In Cannes the picture won the Ecumenical Jury Prize, awarded to films for expressing faith and humanism in their films. Since then Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the rights to the film for production in the US, New Zealand, and Australia.

It will also be France's Oscar submission this year for the foreign language category. The finalists will be announced in January and the ceremony will be held the following month.
Rome Reports

James MacMillan: bullied by Liturgists

James MacMillan reveals he had an awful time with a liturgical committee in Scotland over the Mass he wrote for the Papal visit. I have met James on a couple of occasions, far from being "il Maestro", he is gentle, self deprecating, respectful, even defferent to clergy and the Church. Therefore it is surprising that he feels so strongly about how badly he was treated that he writes about it the Telegraph.

Fr Z makes some comments here.

In all their years of facilitating the commission of new music, Boosey and Hawkes had never dealt with such rudeness and shoddy behaviour. They were deeply shocked; and I was embarrassed because of how my Church was being seen by my professional representatives and colleagues. I had dealt with all of them in good faith from day one. I worked professionally, delivering the music in days and continued to offer the Church my services to see the project through to a fruitful conclusion.

I have given up being surprised at how badly the Church can treat people; how arbitrary, partial, self serving, cruel, unprofessional those with power can be, when they exercise it. For some reason the bullying which is constrained in secular world by legislation, good practice guidelines and clear and open procedures, is unrestrained in the Church.
I am glad James has made this public, there is nothing like the bringing things into the light to deter ecclesiastical bullying. It is same type of bullying that coerced the victims of child abuse to keep silent, wherever it occurs it should be exposed. There is no reason for the Church to be less just than the secular world.