Not in my name, Brother

Girls are perfectly capable of active participation in the Mass without special treatment

Why do some celebrants feel compelled to mess around with the liturgy and use inclusivity as an excuse? I'm feeling particularly exercised by the noxious "Pray sisters and brothers" which was slipped into a recent OF Mass celebrated by Someone Who Should Know Better. As a woman I find it unbearably condescending that a Bishop, a successor of the Apostles, would think that I might not feel included unless he deposes the elegant and correct "pray brethren" with the vandalism that is the twee "pray sisters and brothers".

Is my ability to pray somehow hampered by not being singled out, and told how special I am? (Oooooh, look, I've put you wimmin ahead of the 'brothers', how right on is that? Bet you feel special now."). The former Oxbridge English tutor in me rankles at the sub-1960's hippy-doodle-dandy sound of "sisters and brothers". Is there a woman, anywhere, who feels that her dignity is somehow compromised by being included in the brotherhood of man signalled by "pray brethren"? Do those celebrants who butcher the liturgy in the name of inclusivity truly believe that women are incapable of meaningful communication with Our Lord unless they're condescended to?

So, dear priests and bishops - Do the red, say the black. Please. But if you do choose to vandalise the sacred liturgy, please have the respect not to do it in my name.

 

An atheist "outs" Piers Morgan

When is a Catholic not a Catholic? Piers Morgan doesn't appear to know, but the celebrity atheist that he's interviewing is pretty certain that Morgan, who self-identifies as a Catholic is nothing of the sort.

I couldn't possibly comment, but it makes for good viewing...




H/t Mark Cogitate

International Women's Day? Not in my name, comrades.

A couple of decades ago, International Women's Day was virtually unheard of in the UK outside Students' Unions, Socialist Worker meetings and feminist support groups, but in recent years it has taken on a higher profile, being acknowledged in the mainstream media and is seen as a good day to launch so called "woman friendly" policies and campaigns by governments and international NGOs.

I'm a woman, but I'm not having any of it. Started by the US Socialist Party in 1909, the idea of "celebrating" women's potential to be more than "just" wives and mothers took off throughout Europe. It was an International Women's Day protest that kicked off the Russian Revolution on 8th March 1917 and after the October revolution Lennin was persuaded by Bolsheviks to make IWD a national holiday.

Today it's used to ferment far more insidious social change, usually dressed up as women's health or human rights (a.k.a. shorthand for abortion, contraception and quirkie divorce among other goodies). In some former communist countries, where IWD is taken for granted as a Good Thing, Mother's Day no longer exists - it was subsumed into International Women's Day. Think about the original purpose of IWD and then consider the fact that Mother's Day has been done away with.

For those who think I'm overreacting to a nice excuse to celebrate all things womanly (or who will accuse me of being a 'self hating woman' -- actually, don't bother, I only publish comments that I like: this blog is not a democracy) please consider the following: the British government in this time of austerity is spending 2.9 million Pounds on the services of a pair of "relationship gurus" to train an army of relationship counsellors to help couples understand that the source of their problems is Tradition. Yes, that's right, traditional gender roles, where, for example, a mother looks after her young children while the father provides for them is toxic according these 'experts', and our government is determined - to the tune of three million pounds - to make sure that this message is sent out loud and clear. See here for more details.

...so being a full time mother (and yes, there is another sort) who is committed to her marriage and family, you'll have to forgive me if I can't get excited about International Women's Day, or being told by the government that I'm either oppressed or stupid for following the biological imperative of being a wife and mother.

When a High Court judge says that the Third Commandment isn't important to Christian belief, it's time to start looking for the nearest catacomb...

Mr Justice Langstaff ruled on the case of Celestina Mba, a Christian care-worker, who was forced to leave her job after being repeatedly scheduled for work on Sundays despite having her employers having been told before they hired her that, as a Christian, she would not work on Sundays. Despite the evidence that other workers were  able and happy to cover Sundays, and therefore no business case could be made for compelling Ms Mba to work on Sunday, The High Court judge said " Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs"

Presumably he's never heard of the Ten Commandments.

The Telegraph's report says 

Mr Justice Langstaff, who as president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal is the most senior judge in England and Wales in this type of case, upheld the lower tribunal’s ruling which said it was relevant that other Christians did not ask for Sundays off. 

The fact that some Christians were prepared to work on Sundays meant it was not protected, the court said.

So if we can discard the Ten Commandments as being a core part of Christianity, what else wouldn''t count as a "core componant" of Catholic belief in a court simply because lots of people who call themselves "Catholic" do or do not do them?... The mind boggles.

None of this is particularly surprising - if anything I'm amazed that it took so long. I was saying that exactly this would happen only a few months ago to Mr Annie-Elizabeth, and he thought I was sounding paranoid. Ha! I very rarely wish I was wrong (like most wives, I'm rarely wrong - I think almost always being right is a special dispensation of grace that comes to wives with the sacrament of marriage) - but in this case I sincerely wish I was wrong. 

Want to get really paranoid? Look at prime office space in Central London,  lying empty for two days out of seven: it's astounding that there isn't more call for a 7 day business week. The argument would be made,  initially, as it was with Sunday opening (but quickly recinded), that nobody would be forced to work on a Sunday.The NHS is toying with the idea of implementing a 7 day working week, Sunday shopping is the norm, and Sunday is no longer special (or even relevant according to the High Court) then what barrier is there to all businesses slowly adopting an "efficient" 7 day model. Of course people would be given two days off together: they just wouldn't be the weekend as we know it. Childcare? Come on, there's nothing the government would love more than getting their ideological paws on the nation's children for even more hours a week. Think of the opportunities! A seven day working week would allow full-time mothers - those scourges on the nation's economy - to work on the days when their husbands were at home. In time they could be persuaded to synchronise work patterns and give up any loony ideas of influencing their offspring. Hell, the state schools will do a much better job. And yes, I did mean, Hell.

Well, with this pretty picture of dystopia-not-quite-yet here I'm off to dig a catacomb, and it may not simply be a metaphorical one. Isn't it about time you considered doing the same?

I don't want a gay marriage. So why am I being forced to have one?

Whaddya mean "unnatural"? You bigot!

 One of the more sophomoric slogans of pro-gay marriage campaigners is "if you don't want a gay marriage, then don't get one!" You can almost hear the hyuck-hyuck-hyuck snigger after the exclamation mark.

There may be a serious point contained within this slogan: if Call-me-Dave Cameron actually pushes through his promised amendments to marriage legislation, the British government will have to redefine the nature and purpose of marriage. It is this point that seems to me to be least understood by the man on the #37 Clapham omnibus whose point of view tends to be "well, if gay people want to get married, I don't see why they shouldn't...". The mainstream media has largely ignored the issue of the redefinition of marriage, focusing on perceived "injustices" in the status quo. As many commentators have described far better than I can (see Marie Therese here and here (h/t Mulier Fortis)) from a rights and purely legal point of view there is currently no discrimination against gay couples in British law: civil partnerships confer the same legal rights as marriage, but recognise that marriage is different and distinct based as it still is on a stable sexual relationship geared towards the procreation and rearing of children; and this even in secular law where non-consummation is still considered reason for divorce.

I would argue that gay couples, if anything, have more rights at present than other individuals in British society. Two sisters or two friends who have lived together but are not in a relationship cannot use legislation to confer legal rights / inheritance / succession onto their friend / sibling. Really, to be fair, civil partnerships should acknowledge that human relationships come in all shapes and sizes. I had an elderly, blind piano teacher when I was in my teens. She had had the same carer / companion for over 50 years but they were not in a  sexual relationship: a civil partnership would have acknowledged their interrelationship in a far simpler way than the only other option which was a complicated combination of living wills and ordinary wills.

And then there's the rather delicate question of the nature of marriage and consummation. I've read several imaginative and rather jokey accounts, as well as a few tasteless ones, of what might constitute consummation in a gay marriage. The fact is, that the adoption of gay "marriage" will make consummation a nul point. Marriage will no longer be linked to procreation, it will be about two people who are in love. Awwwww. Sweet that, but will  it last a lifetime? And what exactly is the point? Could it be about the Big Day? I reckon that it's driven in part by the wedding industry: I'll bet that someone has the commissioning documents for "My Big Fat Gay Wedding" already waiting for the change in legislation. I'd also put money on the fact that at least one large publisher will have a glossy gay "Wedding" magazine ready to hit the shelves within days of the announcement of the change to the law.

Back to my original point (the soup's bubbling on the stove and I'm typing against the clock): why should I be forced to have a gay marriage? Because that's exactly what's going to happen if this bandwagon rolls on uncontested. I don't want a marriage denuded of its meaning. Why should the definition of my marriage change just because a small a vocal minority are demanding that ALL marriages change to accommodate them? Why is new ideology being retrofitted to old law? Just as it's outrageously unfair to change the terms of someone's employment contract without notifying them (pity the poor registrar who, after 20 years in the job, is told to like it or lump it when civil partnerships came in) it's equally unfair to change the legal nature of every marriage in the country without asking permission of those who are married. Since when was the following small print at the bottom of the marriage certificate:

 "Terms and conditions apply. Government may choose to redefine marriage on an electoral whim. Past performance is no guarantee of future integrity" ?

A tale of two cities...

...Or how to break things if they aren't working already (in Switzerland)... or make them better before they go wrong (in France)...

"Saint Pierre des Latins", Nancy, France

On our recent visit to Switzerland we discovered that, although we were surrounded by EF Masses at [F]SSPX churches we would have to drive over an hour into another diocese to find a legitimate EF Mass I asked the priest there why there were none closer to where we were staying, particularly considering the proliferation of [F]SSPX Masses which presumably indicated a need and desire for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. The answer was depressing in its simplicity: the Bishop of the area in which we were staying has Écône in his diocese. Because of this the Bishop has declared that he will never permit the older form of the Mass to take place under his authority, despite there being at least two dozen regular EF masses by the [F]SSPX in his area.

Before you start to hyperventilate, compare and contrast this with the situation in Nancy, France where we stopped the following Sunday for Mass at the wonderful Eglise Saint-Pierre with Abbé Husson of the FSSP and where the Extraordinary Form of the Mass has been said regularly since 1991 with the blessing of the local Bishop under Pope John Paul II's motu proprio: Ecclesia Dei. After Mass I asked Abbe Husson how it came to pass that Eglise Saint Pierre had nurtured and served a community devoted to the older form of the Mass. It was a simple story, he said: after the [F]SSPX schism and excommunications, a local sedevacantist priest started saying the Latin Mass. Determined that none of his flock should stray for want of spiritual sustenance, the local Bishop not only gave a parish to the FSSP to say legitmate Latin Masses, but he gave them a jewel of a church in the city centre.

Thank God for far-sighted Bishops! 

Can we blame liberal nuns for the Gates' Foundation's "philanthropy of death"?

The excellent Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute has started a campaign to raise awareness of a "Family planning summit" to be hosted by Melinda Gates in London in a few weeks time. The summit is co-sponsored by International Planned Parenthood Federation (the world's largest abortion provider) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (slogan - apparently intended without irony: "Population matters"). Pro-lifers have applied to register at the summit in order to provide a counter-voice to the dominant pro-abortion, pro-population control, pro-contraception agenda, but have been refused entry. As a result, C-Fam have started a petition attached to an "Open letter to Melinda Gates"  on http://2-melinda-gates.org/ which I have signed and would encourage readers to consider doing the same. 


The letter raises many pertinent issues, including asking whether the summit will consider support for healthy childbirth programs. For me this is crucial - so much money and effort is spent on contraception and abortion services under the umbrella "women's health" when the Cinderella services - midwifery, neonatology,  ante- post- and peri-natal care are barely given any consideration. When pregnancy and childbirth are dangerous simply for want of cheap sterilisation equipment or vitamins or simple equipment like pinards / fetoscopes or simply more trained birth attendants, women may be far more easily seduced into believing that abortion is their "only" option. 

A pinard is cheap and as effective as ultrasound for ante- and peri-natal  foetal monitoring
Photo credit: "Midwifery Elective Adventure"

I visited the Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation website and read Melinda Gates' address to TED xChange 2012: The Big Picture  which is described on its website as "a platform for sharing game-changing ideas [for] solving the world’s biggest problems? Climate change, global poverty, the AIDS/HIV crisis — solving these problems will demand big thinking and unprecedented international cooperation. ... and the world is invited to join the conversation." Presumably this invitation isn't extended to pro-lifers.


Melinda Gates' speech gave me some insight into her background: on the subject of contraception she says that while she considers herself to be "a practicing Catholic" she believes that "we can insist that all people have the opportunity to learn about contraceptives and have access to the full variety of methods. I think the goal here is really clear: universal access to birth control that women want. And for that to happen, it means that both rich and poor governments alike must make contraception a total priority."


Now when third world women talk about wanting opportunities, I don't think that they're thinking about  the "opportunity to learn about contraceptives". But Gates' talk is subtle, if illogical - she gives examples of  "happy endings" stories of  poor women who started up businesses, or managed to educate their children privately, because (she suggests) they restricted their family size. I wonder whether she talked to elderly people in countries with low birthrates - China, Italy - about the impact on their lives of having only had one child. I wonder also about the changes to human relationships in a society where the majority of people are the willful first-borns. Historically most political and military leaders have been first-born or only children. Parents with larger families will understand why almost immediately. Second, and particularly subsequent siblings have a different perspective on life; are more likely to be team players. A healthy society needs foot-soldiers and farmers as well as generals.

Here's the telling bit: Melinda Gates' had a Catholic Education. Or should I say a "Catholic" education. Referring to the religious sisters who educated her, she says: "you know, the nuns who taught me were incredibly progressive. And I hope that they’ll be very proud of me for living out what they taught us about social justice" [emphasis mine].

So can we blame this whole sorry debacle on liberal nuns?

Are confused leftist nuns to blame?

Most depressing of all was the slogan on the Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation website: "ALL LIVES HAVE EQUAL VALUE". Yeah right - tell that to the millions of babies who'll never be born thanks to the Foundation's "philanthropy".  For an organisation deeply involved in contraception and abortion behind the "womens' health" smokescreen, that really is a slogan FAIL.

Sign the "Open Letter To Melinda Gates" petition now!

I've just said a Hail Mary for the reader...

...who found my blog using the search terms "green + ink + secularist"

Whoever you are you made my day!