Happy Birthday!

That's all for today, but I am working on a couple of more substantial pieces.

Confessions of an Anglican Pope fan

Being a post in three loosely connected parts, starting with:-

'But what is most striking, as hundreds of thousands observe this Pope in person for the first time, is not the visual symbolism, the crowds or the made-for-TV events, but the imposing beauty and power of his words.

'It’s already a cliché in Rome that the crowds came to see John Paul but they come to hear Benedict. Among those familiar with his career, his reputation was always that of a fierce intellectual — the theologian and author of dozens of dense tracts on Christianity. But what was missing was an understanding of Benedict’s remarkable capacity to use words to speak to the emotional part of the human brain.'

- Gerard Baker in the Times.

How true this is. I feel immensely privileged to be able read him in the original - he writes like an angel in his native tongue - but I think the clarity of his prose is such that he also translates well. Apart from his two encyclicals (read them online) I'd recommend this (the only one you're likely to find in your local bookshop, sadly), this, this, this, this and this (we make no charge to Amazon for this service). Let's face it, I'm hooked.


Part Two

From the Pope's Pesah message to the Jewish community:-

'At this time of your most solemn celebration, I feel particularly close, precisely because of what Nostra Aetate calls Christians to remember always: that the Church “received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles” (Nostra Aetate, 4). In addressing myself to you I wish to re-affirm the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and reiterate the Church’s commitment to the dialogue that in the past forty years has fundamentally changed our relationship for the better.'

Which is important in view of the somewhat overwrought reactions there have been to the new prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the Latin liturgy for Good Friday. It's been suggested that the very idea of conversion represents a regression to the bad old pre-Vatican days.

This article makes a good job of answering these concerns. For better or worse, the Pope is indeed a Catholic. He believes in the universality of the Christian Gospel. It is Good News for everyone. The way it has been 'preached' to the Jews in the past has, of course, frequently been anything but good news. Vatican II marked a clear repentant break with that shameful history. There must be no place for any form of coercion or manipulation in converting anybody, nor for defamation of their existing beliefs. But still we need to say that the Gospel is distinct from its past abuse and that we cannot agree to throw the baby out with the bathwater, even if that distinction is extremely hard for Jews to accept. To say the Gospel can't be, or need not be, preached to the Jews is actually to say that it's not much use to anybody else.


Part Three

I've recently been pointed towards a batch of German Catholic blogs. I hope the author of this post won't mind me taking the liberty of translating it in its entirety. You just need to know that 'Wir sind Kirche' ('We are Church') is a liberal Catholic pressure group. The quote from them, part of their appraisal of B16's first three years, could just as easily be from (for instance) the Affirming Catholics, fellow enthusiasts for a church as broad as the Zeitgeist - but no broader. Joseph Ratzinger's been the man these folk love to hate for a long, long time, and a rethink is not in prospect.


'Learning from Life

'"The Church and Catholics can learn from the world as well as just teaching it. Therefore they need to display a positive attitude towards encounter and dialogue, illuminated not by a rigid doctrine but by a faith which learns from life." (German source)

'Agreed, it's not altogether fair to use an extreme case against the simplifiers and muddlers of "Wir sind Kirche", and I am sure they find it just as repulsive as the rest of us. But is it not, perhaps, events like this which make it clear where we stand? The project in question received the blessing of one of the large and highly-respected institutions of the secular intellect, and thus, whilst it may be a little weird, it is evidently compatible with the mainstream of contemporary thinking and feeling.

'Aliza Shvarts, an art student at Yale University, New Haven, CT, will be presenting her senior art project in the next few days:

'"a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process." - Source: Yale Daily News via Creative Minority Report)'

Ed Stourton doesn't get it

'Stourton was interviewing Barbet Schroeder, who has produced biopics on Idi Amin and Claus von Bülow and has just made a film about the famous French lawyer Jacques Vergès. Like many lawyers who prefer to act for the defence, Vergès enjoys difficult cases. But he's a little bit more daring than Horace Rumpole in his client list: Vergès has, in his time, defended the Vichy collaborator Klaus Barbie (the Butcher of Lyons), Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Carlos the Jackal), various Palestinian terrorists and members of the BaaderMeinhof gang. Oh, and we shouldn't forget Saddam Hussein's No 2, Tariq Aziz.

'Stourton was curious about this galère of clients, and confessed to feeling perplexed about what could possibly link Klaus Barbie and Palestinian terrorists. What on earth would unite these disparate people, and what would draw Vergès to them?'

- from an excellent piece by Michael Gove in the Times (I don't need to answer his question for you, do I?). Yes, that's right, the man's a Tory MP, boo, hiss - and would that this level of clearsightedness and decency was the norm on the Left (but here's a small reminder of what, alas, we get instead).

Nestling among the comments is my own 2p-worth.

Barack and his padre (updated)

Well, I suppose it's one way to get your church magazine noticed: reprint an article by a Hamas functionary. It could cause a little embarrassment for one of your parishioners, though, if he's set his sights on the White House.

This is plainly a church after Christian Aid's collective heart. But those of us who don't admire anti-Semitic terrorists badly need to hear some reassuring words from candidate Obama.

Update: in response to the comment that's been posted here, I should say that I'm not calling on Obama to disown Jeremiah Wright personally - as a fellow Christian - in addition to disowning his views. The commenter is quite right about us being 'family' in the Body of Christ however much we may disagree. My goodness, if I were to walk out of every church where I took issue with the priest's politics...

But there is an 'on the other hand' here. Because there is a point at which a 'gospel' which has become purely an instrument serving political and/or racial ends ceases to be in any true sense the Christian gospel. Example (simply to make the point): the 'Deutsche Christen' movement in Nazi Germany. I hope that the distinction is not lost on Barack Obama and that the faith to which he was introduced by Pastor Wright was - notwithstanding the unashamed blackness of his church - indeed the Christian faith.

Tommy this, an' Tommy that

St Lucia-born Rogers Jean-Baptiste has had his application for British citizenship turned down. Reason: he had to have been on British soil five years to the day before he made his application. And he wasn't. He was in Germany. In a British army uniform. Since when he's served two tours of duty in Iraq.

Kipling, I feel, wouldn't have been surprised. Though of course we've moved on a bit since his day. In these enlightened times we think even less of Tommy when he's getting shot at.

Hat tip to the Dumb One.

As not featured at Engage

The following comment on this post at Engage apparently hasn't got past the moderation. Why?

OK, the film's a one-sided, manipulative polemic (not a phenomenon entirely unknown on the Left - if someone made a film like this about conservative evangelicals a lot of the folk condemning this one would be in raptures). But, come on... Alongside the indiscriminate slaughter of unarmed civilians, it points to anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, judicial murder and hostility to democracy. None of this is made up. When, exactly, did these become right-wing concerns?

My friends, if you're not careful I might start feeling that my democratic rights stand a better chance of being defended by the likes of Geert Wilders than by people like you.

David T of Harry's Place, another who should know better, comments on the similarity between Wilders' film and Al Qaeda films. Well, given that the subject matter is identical that's not altogether surprising. But you might hope the fact that in the one case the motive for showing scenes of carnage is to shock, whilst in the other it is to inspire, would merit a passing mention. HP often comes down commendably hard on spurious moral equivalences, but really this one takes the biscuit.

PS Due to a variety of circumstances I'm still not finding much time for posting. Doubtless a cause for quiet satisfaction in some quarters. Apologies to readers to whom that does not apply.

Loonies of the Catholic persuasion

What is the perennial and irresistible appeal of anti-Semitism to nutters of just about every description? As Damian Thompson reveals, the Catholic lunatic fringe is no exception to the rule.

'The SSPX is currently negotiating with the Vatican about returning to full Communion with the Holy See', Damian tells us. That's nicely phrased to spare his blushes - he, like me, being a big B16 fan - but of course the verb 'negotiate' is reciprocal. You can't be negotiating with someone who isn't negotiating with you. Let's hope and pray that the Holy Father doesn't disappoint us, but takes a tough line. He may have some sartorial tastes in common with these people, but does he really want them on board so long as they're spouting this poisonous nonsense?

Black Propaganda in the War on the Past

Spot what this post from Laban and this one from the Dumb One have in common.

A little economy with the truth, but hey, what does that matter if it helps to convince us that life before the Great Cultural Revolution wasn't worth living? And what are facts but the social constructions of the powerful, anyway? Which is scarcely an exaggeration - consider this from one of the Dumb One's links:-

'For now, Rigoberta’s academic fan club resorts to what may be termed the Tawana Brawley defense, named after the New York teenager who faked a racially motivated rape. The lawyers and civil rights activists who defended Brawley said it didn’t matter that she had concocted her tale, because a racist society causes such desperation. As legal scholar Patricia Williams put it, “No mater who did it to her, and even if she did it to herself, Tawana Brawley has been the victim of some unspeakable violation.”'

Remember this one? This is from a document apparently emanating from Yale University, no less:-

'The old saying, “a rule of thumb” comes from the rule that a man could not beat his wife with a rod thicker than his thumb.'

I've heard this repeated in good faith (and duly believed it myself), and read it in a book by a Christian feminist. It's an urban myth. Or you might prefer the description here: a 'gender hate crime'.

Nobody told them

'If Hamas is not an antisemitic organization how does Seumas Milne explain the fact that on Thursday night Palestinian fighters thought it was a smart political move to walk into a Jewish Yeshiva in Jerusalem and kill eight Jews who were studying their religion?

'Perhaps nobody had told these Jew-killers that Hamas has commissioned a re-drafting of the Covenant?'

- asks David Hirsh.

It doesn't seem to be doing a great job of briefing its own spokesmen, either. But doubtless Comrade Seumas can explain everything.

What It's All About

I can't do elegies, and my local churchyard was once a country churchyard but no longer. Never mind. While wandering through it today, my eye was caught by a small gravestone beside the path. It bears the inscription 'Treasured memories of Darren X' (I won't give the full name).

A hackneyed phrase, perhaps, easier to inscribe on a stone than in a heart? Wait - the grave is immaculately tended, and in the vase in front of the headstone there are fresh flowers. And there are dates on the stone: one in July 1968, one in August 1969. The treasure is treasure indeed.

One of the questions which could be asked is where God was on that day in August 1969. It's a fair question, of course, and I can't get much beyond answering that he knows and I don't.

But there is another question: why were there flowers, and what do we do with the Why? Do we do our best to explain it away? Or do we fall on our knees before it as before the Mystery of Mysteries?