Geert Wilders and the BBC

Don’t you just love the partiality of the BBC! Don’t you just love the way al-Beeb views very social, political, historical or cultural matter through such a red-tinted lens that anyone even slightly on the wrong side of the centre line is blasted as “far right”, as though the Dutch Freedom Party were the quintessence of fascism, akin to the Nazis?

Well, the Freedom Party appear to be showing strongly in the European elections, strongly enough to claim at least four seats in the European parliament.

This has sent al-Beeb into conniptions. Count the number of times the expressions “right wing” and “far right” appear in the following story.

When does the BBC ever use the terms “left wing” or “far left”? Answer: it doesn’t. This because that organisation is slanted so far to the left that to be “left wing” is to be positively centre, which is where al-Beeb fondly imagines itself to be.

Dutch far right in poll triumph

The party of the right-wing Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, has come second in the country's elections for the European Parliament, partial results indicate.

Mr Wilders, who is facing prosecution over anti-Islamic statements [interesting that no-one ever faces prosecution over anti-Christian statements], said his Freedom Party (PVV) would get four of the 25 Dutch seats in the parliament.

With more than 92% of votes counted, the ruling Christian Democrats are top.

Voters are now going to the polls in the Czech Republic and the Republic of Ireland. The UK voted on Thursday.

Dutch and British voters were the first to go to the polls to elect the EU's most powerful legislative body.

Some 375 million people in 27 member states are eligible to vote. Most will cast their ballots over the weekend.

Partial results released on Friday showed Mr Wilders' PVV was on course to win 16.9% of the votes in the Netherlands. The PVV currently has no seats in the European Parliament [looks like this is about to change—unless the EU decides to refuse acknowledgement of democratic results it doesn’t like, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility].

Mr Wilders was refused entry to the UK in February on the grounds that he had sought to incite hatred with a film he made last year that equated Islam with violence and likened the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf [one cannot even debate this subject without drawing down on oneself the hysterical fury of the multiculturalists, never mind the far more dangerous psychopathic fury of the islams, but one can trash the Bible with as much vilification as one likes without the slightest consequence].

EU officials concerned

Voters are deciding who gets the 736 seats up for grabs under various forms of proportional representation.

The European Commission has asked for an explanation from Dutch officials, who broke EU rules by releasing partial results early. Results are not supposed to be announced until polls close across Europe on Sunday night [perhaps the real explanation they’re looking for is why the Dutch electorate have dared to deliver such an unpalatable result. Re-education, anyone?].

In the UK, elections were also held in some areas for local councils.

The results of both UK polls are keenly awaited to see how they might affect the national political scene, following weeks of turmoil over MPs' expenses claims.

Latvia, Cyprus, Malta and Slovakia vote on Saturday, while the Czech Republic and Italy vote over Friday and Saturday, and Saturday and Sunday respectively. People in the remaining 18 member states will vote on Sunday.

In Ireland, the vote is seen as a key test ahead of a second referendum on the EU's controversial Lisbon Treaty, expected in October.

The Irish government, stung by the voters' rejection of Lisbon last year, is opposed by Declan Ganley's Libertas. The millionaire entrepreneur, who helped fuel anti-Lisbon sentiment in Ireland, hopes to win one of the 12 Irish seats.

Coalition ally hit

The anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party MEPs will be headed by Barry Madlener and Mr Wilders will remain an MP in The Hague, Radio Netherlands reports.

The partial results in the Netherlands also showed gains for two staunchly pro-EU parties - the social-liberal D66 and Green Left. Each is on course to send three MEPs to Brussels.

The Christian Democrats' governing coalition partner, the Labour Party (PvdA), was the biggest loser - its share of the Dutch vote fell nearly 10% percentage points to about 14%.

"We dare to talk about sensitive subjects like Islamisation and we use plain and simple words that the voter can understand," Mr Wilders has said in the past.

The controversial politician is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for making anti-Islamic statements, following a court ruling in January [once again, would Mr. Wilders be facing prosecution if he had made anti-Christian statements? Rhetorical question...].

Polls show that Euroscepticism among Dutch voters has increased since the last European elections, with EU enlargement and integration the most unpopular issues.

Across Europe, far-right [there we go again!] parties are hoping to win at least 15 seats. However, the centre-right European People's Party bloc is expected to remain the main force, followed by the European Socialists.

Geert Wilders is now unmasked as a known agent of Goldstein, and he must be stopped before he spreads thoughtcrime throughout the European Union!

What is heartening, however, is that the Dutch at long last seem to be waking up and recognizing the reality around them. This is a country Melancholicus had long given up for lost, but the Islamic infiltration of Europe has now reached such a pitch that even the liberal, left-leaning Dutch have started to notice. Why are so many Dutch people casting their vote for the “right-wing” Geert Wilders and his “far right” Freedom Party? Because they are afraid. They see their liberal, tolerant, easy-going society and culture being filched from them little by little, and supplanted with a replacement which is anything but liberal, tolerant and easy-going, abetted by the Dutch government and by the EU.

Just ask the good people of Rotterdam.

The BBC on the first hundred days

Yesterday marked the 100th day in office of US President Barack Hussein Obama.

The celebration of this sacred festival was reported in a variety of media and without exception all coverage of Obama’s first hundred days was overwhelmingly positive. It was astounding to listen to the effusive, jaw-dropping panegyrics.

RTÉ Radio 1 featured an American commentator—Democrat, naturally—whose smooth, slick and syrupy tribute to the wonders of the presidency thus far was lapped up eagerly and uncritically by the presenters. The only negative notes allowed to ruffle the waters were found in passing references to the inevitable ‘far right’ and that favourite bugbear of leftist journalism, the ‘religious (i.e. Christian) right’.

But BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme, presented by Robin Lustig, went further than RTÉ in attributing a voice and a human face to those perfidious opponents of the Chosen One. The effect, of course, was to make them look ridiculous—which was surely the purpose of such coverage to begin with. In search of fruitful propaganda, the reporter, one Kevin Connolly, betook himself to the American mid-west, specifically to the state of Oklahoma, where he hoped to obtain a collection of suitably dotty soundbites from a collection of suitably dotty individuals, which would then be passed off by the BBC as representative of conservative American opinion at large. The premise: that opponents of Obama are unbalanced, uneducated, prejudiced, fundamentalist evangelical rapture-type rednecks who stubbornly refuse to render the great man his due adulation for a variety of specious reasons that no sane rational person could possibly take seriously. They are also, naturally, racist and ‘homophobic’. The BBC doesn’t have to say this, of course. The beauty of this propaganda coup is that the selected interviewees make such an arse of themselves denouncing the President that one feels positively embarrassed listening to them. One may safely assume that anyone expressing a more moderate view, or opposition to Obama on more specific and tangible grounds, would have been carefully edited out so as not to spoil the picture.

We do not exaggerate. For those who may have missed it, or who are so nauseated by the shameless bias of the contemporary BBC that they cannot bring themselves ever to listen to anything broadcast by that organ, here is the source. The anti-anti-Obama propaganda starts at approximately 39 minutes in.

Listen particularly to the group of “Bible-believing Oklahoman ladies who lunch” after 40:50 to get the kind of score the BBC was really after. The reporter’s caveat that one “wouldn’t wish to meet more hospitable, warmer people anywhere” is merely a disarming remark and nothing more.

It’s all really rather insulting to the good people of Oklahoma, as well as to the millions who voted either for John McCain or for another candidate, to suggest that opposition to Barack Hussein is based only on this kind of stuff.

Bravo comrades at the BBC, you’re doing your work well!

Anti-semitism and the BBC

Roger Bolton, of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday fame, is somewhat nonplussed by the claims of the UK parliamentary committee for anti-semitism that incidents inspired by this prejudice are at their highest level since recording began 25 years ago.

The interviewee, the Rt. Hon. John Mann, is the chairman of the aforesaid committee, and he was most adamant about the rise in the level of anti-semitic incidents, which he rightly described as “disturbing in a country which prides itself on its tolerance”.

Bolton doesn’t believe it, though. Listen to his language: “reported increase ... said to be ... danger of overstating the level of anti-semitism ... incidents are pretty low level ... we’re talking about hate-mail, anti-semitic graffiti ... I don’t want to downplay this [tongue firmly in cheek] but there’s still a relatively small amount of physical assaults and things like that...”

Melancholicus is not in the least surprised by this attitude. He knoweth the BBC far too well.

But who to blame for this “reported increase” of anti-semitic prejudice? Sure, why not the Jews themselves! Mr. Bolton asked his guest if there was a danger that opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza might be confused with racial prejudice. Melancholicus thinks that Mr. Bolton would prefer the answer to be yes, which would comfortingly imply that there isn’t any genuine anti-semitism out there, at least not really. But that would necessarily involve the corollary of the BBC admitting—at least tacitly—its own responsibility for fanning the flames with its consistently partial and one-sided coverage of the interminable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So either way Mr. Bolton can’t win, can he?

So he seeks a scapegoat: “In the past anti-semitism has been driven by religion, Christianity in particular”. Yes, he really did say those words. Listen. It’s at 9:20.

Melancholicus shall let pass this swipe at Christianity, soft target that it is (how brave of you, Mr. Bolton), for he is more interested in the words in the past.

Thus the elephant in the room goes completely unnoticed. Anti-semitism is indeed on the rise as the elephant grows bolder, more militant, and more sure of itself. But Mr. Bolton cannot admit this, since to do so would violate one of the BBC’s most cherished nostrums of political correctness. Witness the obsession with Israel; the other “I-word” doesn’t even get a mention. Melancholicus was disappointed that Mr. Mann likewise failed to cite the Islamic impetus behind contemporary anti-semitism—but then Mr. Mann is a Member of Parliament, so he can’t be expected to have a brain.

But guess who did get a mention? Yes, good old Dickie Williamson again! Melancholicus believes there has not been a single edition of Sunday which failed to mention the holocaust-denying bishop, even in passing, since the story first broke three weeks ago. Some things never change.

Oremus pro pontifice nostro Benedicto

As Our Blessed Lady said to the three children to whom she appeared at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, “Pray, pray very much for the Holy Father, for he will have much to suffer”.

V. Oremus pro pontifice nostro Benedicto.

R. Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius.

Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum Benedictum, quem pastorem Ecclesiae tuae praeesse voluisti, propitius respice: da ei, quaesumus, verbo et exemplo, quibus praeest, proficere: ut ad vitam, una cum grege sibi credito, perveniat sempiternam. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

V. Let us pray for Benedict our pope.

R. The Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Benedict, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Melancholicus has so far resisted the temptation to weigh in with his (admittedly worthless) opinion on the current situation involving the Holy See, bishop Richard Williamson FSSPX, the remitting of canonical penalties, and the holocaust controversy, although he has made brief reference to the matter in two or three posts from January.

He has resisted the temptation not because he is possessed of heroic self-control, but because every several attempt to post on this subject has had to be deleted as unsatisfactory. In any case, he lacks the full facts of the matter, does not have the time to inform himself by reading everything of importance pertaining to it, and there is nothing he can say that has not already been better said by others more erudite, more eloquent, and more widely read than he.

Melancholicus also wishes to retract a certain comment he made in this post below, in which, in his indignation, he accused bishop Williamson of deliberately denying the holocaust in order to forestall the lifting of the excommunications. This he now knows to be incorrect, and he regrets his audacity in publishing this rash supposition. Bishop Williamson may indeed be a man of odious views, but let us not accuse him of the kind of malice we were so rash as to impute to him. It is a dangerous thing to impute motives to other persons or to think that one knows another’s mind.

In any case, bishop Williamson has since apologized for the embarrassment he has caused to the Holy Father and to the Holy Catholic Church. But thanks to this affair, the Vicar of Christ is now exposed to a level of public opprobrium not experienced by any sovereign pontiff within living memory.

The media storm is only to be expected. Wolves will be wolves; the nature of the beast will always out.

In a fit of self-righteous indignation, Honourable Members in Westminster were last week falling over one another in their haste to affirm the historicity of the holocaust and to denounce the Holy Father with the kind of pig ignorance of which only Honourable Members are capable (this is NOT a racist comment—I listen to the brain-numbing stupidity of these mindless automatons daily on BBC radio 4’s Today in Parliament, so I know what I’m talking about), This denunciation is gloatingly upheld by the usually sensible Cranmer who, alas, sometimes cannot conceal his rabid anti-Romanism, and on this occasion—perhaps enticed by the scent of papal blood—Cranmer has chosen to side with the wolves.

But all is not relentless hostility. Consider this from the Anglican Fr. Hunwicke, whose learning, wisdom and sound common sense Melancholicus cannot praise highly enough. His blog Liturgical Notes is a must-read for anyone interested in liturgy, Church history and much more besides:

“They’re closing in on Pope Benedict XVI. In the newspapers, on the television, in the blogosphere, in debates in legislatures, in trendy magazines. They think they’ve got him.

It’s prejudice, prejudice, prejudice. In many cases it’s their atavistic gut hatred of Rome, which they were prepared to put slightly on hold if a Pope (like John XXIII) seemed to be behaving sufficiently unpopishly. In some cases it’s fear of somebody who is cleverer than they are; they don’t mind Christians as long we appear not very bright, because then they can feel unthreatened. For others, it’s because they can see Benedict as a contradiction of their own corrupt and promiscuous lifestyles. In many cases it’s the simple deep-down hatred many have of Holiness, because they are children of the Father of all lies.

This is a moment of pure contest of Evil against Good; something that we very rarely see in this world of Gray Areas. The Dark is rising. This is not a time to sit on the fence or hedge bets; to say “on the one hand ... and on the other”. This is the time to show where one stands. In years to come, the question will still be: “What did you do, when the animals were baying for Benedict XVI?”

This holy priest has said all that needs to be said. In the spirit of his closing question, let us now act. Pray, pray very much for the Holy Father, that our Blessed Lord will sustain him in this bitter hour. Let us also take the opportunity where we can to rebut the lies of half-informed and prejudiced illiterates who peddle such headlines as Pope Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier and the like. Do not let them get away with blackening our Holy Father’s good name. There is nothing we can do about their prejudice, but we must hold them accountable to the facts of the matter and not allow them to indulge in wild anti-catholic fantasies. This is all the more important when they are employed by some organ of the news media to which we can complain.

If you have not done so already, gentle reader, please consider signing the online petition of support for the Holy Father here. Melancholicus signed it yesterday, and it has received about 5,000 more signatures since then!

Here in Ireland, the matter does not appear to have been raised in the Dáil. A search for ‘holocaust’ on the webpage of the Houses of the Oireachtas returns just four hits, none of them more recent than 2007. A search for ‘bishop Williamson’ returns no hits at all, so it appears as if our TDs have not engaged in the kind of pope-baiting practiced by Honourable Members across the water. Now Melancholicus is not at all given to reading newspapers, and he has listened but sparingly over the past week to current affairs programmes such as Morning Ireland, Drivetime and The Right Hook, so it is hardly surprising that he has not heard about bishop Williamson’s controversy thereon even once. He is sure that it has been mentioned—it returns about a dozen hits on the website of RTÉ, for instance—but the Irish media are at least not running with it, nor do the public in this country appear to be in a flap about anything other than the economy. This is not because the media in Ireland are any kinder to the Church than they are elsewhere in the west, but because of the prospect that Ireland—at least according to the good people at Sky News—is now facing “a recession of nightmare proportions”. Any time Melancholicus has switched on the radio he has been confronted with some story or other of economic interest—all about banks, markets, rising unemployment, financial hardship, the loss of thousands of jobs with each passing week, and the continuing failure of the government to come up with any sort of plan for keeping the country afloat. The media are simply too fixated with the death-throes of the Irish economy and the seeming inability of Taoiseach Brian Cowen to get his act together to bother with another opportunity to spin salacious yarns to the detriment of the Church.

There is one more thing that we can do. We should all undertake to get a priest to celebrate Mass for the Holy Father. One Mass is worth more than a hundred articles rebutting the charges of the wolves.

Now it is time to head for the chapel.

Olivia O'Leary, and other animals

Is there any wonder Melancholicus has ceased listening to the news and to current affairs programmes on the radio while driving home from work, when all that can be heard thereon are gloomy prophecies of impending economic catastrophe and similar woes?

However, out of curiosity he switched on Drivetime on RTÉ 1 yesterday evening, whereat he was confronted with Olivia O’Leary’s weekly radio diary.

This is not normally a trial; Melancholicus has no animus against Olivia O’Leary (at least he used not to have such), and not a little of what she says is sound common sense.

But that all changed yesterday evening, for Ms. O’Leary opened her broadcast with an entirely gratuitous attack on the Catholic religion—that’s right: not the institution of the Church, nor even the clergy—the Catholic religion itself was her target.

Those who wish to be scandalised may listen to her pomposity on the Drivetime podcast page here (at least when RTÉ get around to fixing the link, for if one clicks on the Olivia O’Leary 27 January podcast, one will, to one’s great annoyance, find Joe Duffy instead).

What does the reader think of her breathtaking statement that “other religions had, I think, a sense of justice, something to be worked out openly and rationally; we had dark confessionals and agonies of guilt”? This remark is so risible it hardly bears comment.

Her arrogant and profoundly ignorant denigration of our holy religion is all the more galling insofar as there was absolutely no need for her even to mention it, for the subject of her broadcast was not religion at all, but the economy, real estate, property tax and suchlike things.

Catholicism only made an appearance because Ms. O’Leary wanted to set the stage for all her later blather about “guilt” with regard to financial misfeasance by government, financial institutions and property speculators. Does she think it right and good to throw ugly slurs against the religion of the majority of this country’s population in order to make a point about the economy? Pleading that she is herself a Catholic is no excuse. If she is herself a Catholic, she ought to know better than to trot out such tired and shopworn stereotypes.

Of course RTÉ did not deign to edit Ms. O’Leary’s comments before they were aired yesterday evening; the editors of Drivetime either concur with her dismissive attitude or else reckon that alone among all religions, Catholicism is fair game for slander and abuse.

Now imagine she had chosen to attack not Catholicism, but the Islamic religion. What would have been the reaction? Of course RTÉ—a paragon of great cultural sensitivity—would never have permitted it to be broadcast in the first place, but let us just indulge in a little fantasy and imagine how that would have gone down.

There would have been a whirlwind of protest—but not from crazed fanatics seeking to cut off her head, for the ummah in Ireland is as yet too small to be so openly belligerent. The furious response would have come instead from the good people of Dublin Four, and from those who read The Irish Times as though it were scripture. Today Joe Duffy would be inundated with calls to Liveline by people horrified at Ms. O’Leary’s insensitive remarks; The Irish Times likewise would receive a flood of letters by decent citizens protesting against such outrageous cultural racism. The news would be reported abroad in Britain, and perhaps further afield, and Muslim groups there (the good old MCB, no doubt) would not be slow to voice their displeasure and to score political points. In the end, RTÉ (and not forgetting Ms. O’Leary herself) would be forced to make a humiliating and abject apology in order to abate the tempest.

But because Catholicism is the object of her venom, no-one shall so much as bat an eyelid.

UPDATE: RTÉ have now fixed the link. Listen to Ms. O’Leary’s ramblings here.

So much for balance

The Irish media likes to think of itself as serenely balanced between opposing extremes, and that impartiality is its greatest virtue.

Such self-flattery is not restricted to those who work in broadcasting or for the newspapers, but it seems nonetheless to abound in that profession to an extraordinary degree.

The profoundly overrated Modern Man, writing for the profoundly overrated Irish Times—which takes itself far too seriously—cannot draft an article in which he is seen to take a side. All bases must be covered; no pro may be considered unless equal weight is likewise given to the contra. As a result his readers will never find him reaching anything like a firm conclusion on any subject whatsoever (unless of course some sacred cow of liberalism is at stake, whereat he will marshall all his powers of sophistry and wordcraft in its defence).

One finds a similar approach whenever a contentious issue is debated on the radio; the presenters of current affairs programmes will entertain two guests simultaneously, each approaching the matter from a different and often mutually antagonistic perspective in a perfectly balanced Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But if the subject under discussion entrenches near upon some issue dear to the heart of the liberal agenda, the pretence of impartiality is dropped at once, whereat every stratagem and every weapon to hand is immediately employed to the end that the evil reactionary opposition might be beaten back.

A ripe example of this occurred yesterday evening, in the aftermath of Cardinal Brady’s speech to the Céifin conference on the family. Drivetime on RTÉ Radio 1 took a break from its relentless plugging of the Obamessiah to rally the troops against a sinister attempt by the evil, backward, reactionary Church to promote a rigid opposition to the proposed Civil Partnership Bill. As usual, Mary Wilson had two guests; these were Colm O’Gorman, director of Amnesty International Ireland, and Karen Kiernan, director of One Family. Both were highly critical of the Cardinal’s speech and of the teaching of the Church on marriage, sexuality and the family. Melancholicus wonders who selected the guests, but they were obviously chosen with care so as not to upset the liberal status quo and, with that end in mind, they fulfilled their function admirably.

Was RTÉ not able to find anyone to speak on the Cardinal’s behalf, or to argue his case?

Or is it a case that they were unwilling?

Give my head peace

Tomorrow the citizens of the United States of America shall vote for their favoured candidate in the presidential election, although some will doubtless vote not for a particular favourite but for the lesser of two evils.

Melancholicus will be heartily glad once the wretched election is over, the result has been announced and the inevitable squawking and flapping in its wake has finally died down. For at this stage he is heartily sick of hearing about it, every imaginable news medium being saturated with detailed coverage of every move and counter-move, every speech, every act, every prank, every embarrassment or potential embarrassment, the colours of their ties, Sarah Palin’s shoes... good Lord, is there no end to this wretched circus?

But that which irks Melancholicus more than anything else is the totally unapologetic, blatant, in-your-face bias of the Irish media, a bias which has completely polarised the understanding of the Irish public with respect to the merits and demerits of the candidates; across the water, an identical bias is unmistakable among those who broadcast for the BBC and similar outlets.

This is surely illustrative of how completely dominated are media in the comtemporary west by left-wing fanaticism.

For if Barack Obama were standing in Ireland, he would be elected in a landslide. Melancholicus is at a loss to know why the Irish generally are so keen on Obama; he surmises that Obama must represent to them the fullest embodiment of the thoroughly secularised post-enlightenment Weltanschauung, in contrast to what is perceived as the reactionary, hide-bound, backward, even religious world-view of those who vote Republican. For if there is anything universally loathed by the great and the good in modern Irish society, it is religion—or at least a religion that is taken seriously enough to affect one’s approach to political office.

Of course socialism is a religion in itself, and a dangerous one at that, but in the current climate that it hardly likely to do Obama anything like the harm that Sarah Palin has suffered from her adherence to Christianity.

The relentless gushing on the airwaves about Obama’s countless virtues does have the effect of making him seem attractive to the untutored listener, who cannot be expected to distinguish fact from hagiographic propaganda, or to recognise the consequences that must inevitably issue from this or that particular policy. Similarly, though Melancholicus does not have much time for the Republican ticket either, he must conclude that continuous and concerted media hostility directed at the vice-presidential candidate has made her look infinitely more ridiculous than she must surely be in reality.

But as far as Obama is concerned, Melancholicus is amazed that no Irish news medium has seen fit even to notice the fifty-ton elephant in the room, namely Obama’s voting record on life issues, and his unequivocal support for abortion—which is a good deal more than merely support for abortion.

For Barack Obama is the single most anti-life politician that Melancholicus has ever encountered. He is not one of these lily-livered tortured souls trying to steer a fine line between the Catholic bishops and the liberal left; his anti-life stance is firm and unequivocal. Abortion on demand, for any reason whatever, at any time of gestation; partial-birth abortion; even infanticide. Obama even goes so far as to oppose allowing babies who survive the abortion procedure to live. The man’s view of human life at its beginnings is so thoroughly twisted that Melancholicus cannot doubt its serious implications for the continuance of Roe v. Wade, the heavy toll in innocent blood that will be spilled, or the further erosion of the right to life extended to the elderly, the infirm, the sick, the mentally incapacitated... the list goes on.

Are they really at peace with this, those smug, cocksure Irish journalists that beam out their support for Obama every day of the week in the newspapers and on the airwaves? Can it be that they are ignorant of it? Or do they simply not care?

The right to life must surely be the most fundamental of all human rights, for it seems to me that if one has no right at least to life, one has no business claiming any other rights either.

Melancholicus does not believe Obama to be literally the “Man of Sin”, heralding the imminent collapse of what little is left of civilisation; but he is no Messiah either. At best Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and his presidency will see to it that our inverted society not merely remains inverted, but becomes more so.

As Melancholicus must relocate to the left coast of the United States after his marriage next year, he will be in the somewhat unenviable position of being able to report on an Obama presidency at first hand... but let us hope it will not come to that.

In any case, as God wills, so be it done.

Cardinal Newman slandered by the BBC

Slander is always an evil thing, but how much more so to slander one who is dead and hence unable either to defend himself or to exact redress for the harm done to his reputation.

Melancholicus usually has his alarm set for 7am on Sunday mornings, a habit which has survived from the time when he used to attend the earliest (8am) Novus Ordo Mass offered in the local parish. This entailed waking up every Sunday morning to the BBC’s Sunday programme—most assuredly not the best way to begin obervance of Dies Dominica since hearing the first few minutes of this programme (extremely woolly at best and misleadingly tendentious at worst) would always send him off to Mass in rather ill humour and desiring to hit someone. Hard.

Melancholicus no longer goes to the local Novus Ordo (for reasons explained below) but still wakes on Sunday morning at 7am, whereat he lies abed exposed to the entire length of the Sunday programme unless sleep should mercifully reclaim him into blissful unconsciousness.

But this weekend Melancholicus failed to set his alarm, so he missed the Sunday programme completely. He was happy enough about that until, later in the day, he read the evil news—O horrible to relate!—over at Mulier Fortis.

Since he has a devotion to Cardinal Newman, and will be marrying his bride next year in Cardinal Newman’s Dublin church, Melancholicus was—to say the very least—wroth.

So Melancholicus went to the Radio 4 website to listen in on the offending article which, after promising an interview with the ridiculous former bishop of Edinburgh, coverage of the marital union between a Hindoo and an Anglican vicar (whether of the same or opposite sexes Melancholicus cannot tell), then a Mahometan who refused to sign a contract saying he would not take a further wife (or two, or three!), introduced the matter of Cardinal Newman with the words

“Is the Roman Catholic Church trying to cover up the homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, now on the fast track to sainthood?”

“The homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman”?? Notice this slur on Newman’s character—for which there exists not a tittle of evidence—is taken for granted by the BBC, as though it were a matter of hard fact. And what about the flippant “fast track to sainthood”? Newman has been dead since 1890. His cause has been in preparation for a long time; “fast track” it most certainly is not.

That’s about the level of this programme. Ill-researched, sensationalist, tabloid pap, whose editors (Roger Bolton, Jane Little and the egregious Edward Stourton) seem unable (or unwilling?) to report accurately on the facts in a manner which sifts fact from fiction and to reassure the listener that the BBC is an unbiased and impartial news service after all.

Melancholicus is most exasperated, not with the screaming Peter Tatchell, who is so fixated with his vice that he sees it everywhere and cannot be expected to know any better, but with the editor who chose this hysterical freak as a credible guest on the programme.

But for an organisation which is devoted to proselytism on behalf of buggery and sodomitical weddings, and which regards the likes of Hans Küng and Lavinia Byrne as respected ‘Catholic’ theologians, these kind of propaganda slurs are not surprising, are they?

They still don't get it

This year being the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, there has over the past few weeks been a glut of coverage by the secular media of Catholic teaching on contraception, some of it hostile, some of it seemingly impartial, all of it facile.

Woman’s Hour yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4 was presented by Jenni Murray, and included a feature on contraception and the teaching of the Church. Reference was made to a recent survey (conducted by that well-known organ of dissent The Tablet) which revealed that the majority of Mass-going Catholics in England and Wales are using, or have used, some form of contraceptive device or practice.

This is no surprise to any of us; such statistics have been around at least since the ’sixties. We might also reasonably conclude that the ‘Catholics’ quizzed in this survey were doubtless from the Novus Ordo-attending Tablet-reading demographic, and so no doctrine of faith or morals would be likely to inhibit their pursuit of the thoroughly secularised life.

In any case, the results of the survey prompted Jenni Murray to ask this question: “If the majority of Roman Catholics are simply defying papal orders, should they be changed?” [emphasis mine].

They still don’t get it, do they? Truth is not formed by public opinion. An error is still an error, however sincerely and fervently one may believe in it. Likewise a proposition is not made true simply by the fact that it pleases the majority to give it their assent, nor made false by their rejection of it. Melancholicus could not say it better than St. Augustine: “Wrong is still wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is still right, even if no-one is doing it.”

Melancholicus snorted with contempt at Ms. Murray’s dismissal of the Church’s teaching as papal orders, as though it were no more than the diktat of a tyrant, a mere policy that could, and ought to, be changed when a more congenial and enlightened fellow occupies the See of Peter, rather than an objective truth the Pope is bound to uphold for all time.

Reference was also made to Mrs. Cherie Blair, wife of the former prime minister and known contraceptrix, in which Mrs. Blair was described—somewhat ironically—as a “good Catholic girl”. Melancholicus thinks that Mrs. Blair is now a bit long in the tooth to be reasonably described as a “girl”, and as far as “good Catholic” goes... why does the BBC feel the need to use this adjective in reference to Catholics? There are not a few bad Catholics knocking about these days, among which may be numbered Mrs. Blair herself. Is there not a hint of derision here, with this trite phrase revealing Jenni Murray as mocking and sarcastic? We must not be surprised. To adopt such an attitude to Christianity and the Church is de rigueur among the media mavens of today, in marked contrast to the craven deference they accord other religions, particularly Islam—witness the cloyingly obsequious approach by this same Jenni Murray to the Islamic religion on Woman’s Hour on Tuesday 1 April.

Let the reader compare. Is there not a contemptible double standard in evidence here?

RTÉ suppresses politically-incorrect results of abortion poll

Communist: Comrade, you are oppressed!

Working man: What? No I’m not.

Communist: But you are! I am sure of this because I’ve read my political theory and you haven’t! Now stand back and I will liberate you!

Working man: Huh?

Communist: If you deny the truth, comrade, you must be a counter-revolutionary! If you’re not for us, that means you’re against us!

* * *

Earlier this week, Melancholicus linked to a poll on the RTÉ website which asked viewers whether it were time to overturn Ireland’s abortion laws. Melancholicus recommended his readers visit the site and vote No.

He had already done so himself, at which point most respondents were clearly in favour of NOT overturning this country’s prohibition on abortion—an encouraging result for anyone concerned to defend the lives of the unborn against the state-sanctioned slaughter that is legalised abortion.

Today Melancholicus was back on the RTÉ website, looking for coverage of an unrelated matter. While he was there, he noticed that the interactive poll on abortion laws had been replaced by one on property prices. Assuming the abortion poll to be now closed and interested in seeing the final result, he went to the poll archive page. There he found the results of a great many previous polls, even going back as far as March 2007, but this week’s abortion poll result was nowhere to be found.

What can we conclude, except that the final result of the poll displeased some pro-choice zealot at RTÉ and as most of those who voted were clearly in favour of maintaining Ireland’s ban on abortion, the result was quietly suppressed?

Those who run our media are all for public opinion when said opinion happens to coincide with their own, and they trumpet this agreement loudly in their newspapers, on the television and on their websites. They are all for democracy when it gives them the result they want. But when the public manifests a view that contradicts some aspect of politically-correct leftist orthodoxy, our dissent must be hushed, suppressed and swept under the carpet.

Is that what has happened in this instance?

It would be too much of a coincidence to think otherwise.

More pious mohammedan hagiography from the BBC

As the other occupants of the household rose early and departed for work, Melancholicus lay abed this morning, enjoying a late snooze and listening to BBC Radio 4. This is partly a consequence of end-of-job indolence, since Melancholicus will, upon the expiry of his contract, be leaving the university at the end of this month of April to seek his living elsewhere.

Regular listeners of Radio 4 may be familiar with Woman’s Hour, which is broadcast daily (Mon-Fri) after the news at 10am. Woman’s Hour, as its name implies, is a programme by, for and about women, often with a strongly feminist slant. This morning’s edition was presented by Jenni Murray and included a feature called Women of the Qur’an. This is a serialised item, and this morning’s instalment was on Aisha, one of Muhammad’s many wives and a prominent influence on early Islam.

There was nothing particularly offensive in this feature (although Melancholicus did not listen to it all the way through once he realised it would be a hagiography). The feature was more significant in terms of what was omitted rather than what was included. Nothing offensive to the politically-correct reverence in which the BBC holds Islam was ever mentioned. Muhammad was referred to throughout as ‘The Prophet’, even by Jenni Murray (who is not, to my knowledge, a Muslim). The feature was presented by an academic woman who was herself a Muslim, so we knew straight away there would be no remarks or judgements hostile to the Islamic religion or to pc-orthodoxy. She narrated that somewhat amusing tale of Aisha losing her necklace in the desert, going back alone to look for it, and her empty litter being carried on by the Muslims unaware that she was no longer in it. It was all very charming and homely, which is precisely the effect the BBC wanted to achieve. Aisha was also a strong character, and being Muhammad’s favourite she could carry on with a certain licence not available to other Muslim women. Naturally, being so close to Muhammad, she could exert a considerable influence over the whole community. This portrait of Aisha as the stereotypical ‘strong woman’ likewise enabled the Radio 4 people to feel good about themselves, and allowed them to indulge in the leftist fiction that Islam really doesn’t endorse or encourage violence against women, nor relegate them to the status of chattels under the absolute dominion of their male relatives.

The fact that Muhammad ‘married’ Aisha when she was only six years old and consummated the marriage when she was only nine was of course discreetly omitted. The fact that Muhammad had several other wives (of whom Aisha was merely his favourite) was likewise not mentioned. It is ironic that in a programme devoted to promoting sexual equality as well as the social and political advancement of women, the degraded position of women in Islam should be glossed over so completely. Rather than doing its own research and adopting what should be an impartial approach to women’s lives under Islam, the BBC is instead given to repeating the pious nostrums it has heard from Muslim clerics and Islamic scholars.

It is fashionable in leftist circles to talk about how Islam has somehow “elevated the status of women”, and that Islam is a religion that is good for women. This is of course utter nonsense, and is totally at variance with the facts on the ground. These facts are so obvious that one wonders how they could be overlooked. Even the BBC itself has reported repeatedly on the plight of women in many Islamic countries (and even Muslim women in western countries like Britain), but has so far failed (or refused?) to make the connection between the Islamic religion and the misery in which these women’s lives are spent.

So on today’s edition of Women of the Qur’an, there was no mention of the harsher Qur’anic injunctions against the fairer sex—no mention of the fact that the Qur’an permits a Muslim husband to assault his wife, or that it permits the rape of female captives taken in war, or that it makes divorce a male prerogative, or that it permits a man to take a plurality of wives and have sexual relations with his slave-girls as well.

None of this was even mentioned by the BBC, so the listener might be forgiven for assuming that Islam is a peaceful and benevolent religion that promotes equality and harmony between the sexes. Not for the first time, the BBC has allowed its ideological views to dominate its attitude to the evidence, with the result that its presentation of the Islamic religion is one-sided, deferential, partial and to a certain extent dictated by the leaders and spokesmen of the Muslim community.

Unfavourable coverage of Islam or Muslims is deemed to be ‘racist’. Any evaluation of the current political situation, in which we see young Muslims—even Britons—radicalised by their religion to the point of attending terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan and seeking to blow themselves up on the London tube, that attempts critically to study the relationship between their acts and their religion, is strictly off limits. The politically-correct position is that Islam must never be blamed for the misdeeds of its adherents.

Contrast this deferential approach to Islam with the BBC’s hostile treatment of Christianity, in which the Church is lashed—often with generous helpings of satire and mockery—for her teaching on such issues as contraception, abortion and sodomy. Any journalist may adopt this stance with total impunity and be as spiteful and sarcastic as he or she likes, without fear of the slightest rebuke from Broadcasting House.

So much for impartiality, and for standards of professionalism in broadcasting, even at the vastly-overrated BBC.

Pope rules out any role for 'female theology'

This is the actual title given to an article in Ireland’s biggest-selling daily broadsheet, The Irish Independent. Melancholicus has not been able to find the article online, but he quotes the piece in full for the benefit of his readers from today’s paper. Has has added his own comments in red:

Pope rules out any role for 'female theology'

Malcolm Moore

The Vatican has cracked down on feminist interpretations of the liturgy, ruling that God must always be recognised as Our Father [and rightly so, since Christians dare to call God "Father" on the example and invitation of the Lord Jesus Himself].

In a move designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases, the Holy See said that anyone baptised using alternative terms such as "Creator", "Redeemer" and "Sanctifier" would have to be re-baptised using the traditional ceremony [what breathtaking ignorance it is for this writer — or is he being deliberately misleading? — to portray the Holy See’s concern for safeguarding the integrity of the sacraments as merely a mealy-mouthed move "designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases". For baptism to be validly confected, it is absolutely necessary that the form used mention the persons of the Most Holy Trinity by name. To say, "I baptize thee in the name of the Trinity" is insufficient, nor is it at all possible to substitute other appellations intended to denote some aspect or function of the Godhead. The Church has the option of modifying at her convenience the form of certain of the sacraments, but baptism is not one of these, since the Lord Jesus Himself clearly commanded His disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Mt. 28:19). This is a Dominical precept, which cannot be changed by any ecclesiastical authority, however elevated, for any reason whatsoever. Those persons unfortunate enough to be "baptized" in the name of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier (or some such) are not in fact baptized at all.].

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said yesterday: "These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words Father and Son, which are held to be chauvinistic." [it is amazing how quick some are to follow the feminists with their gender-neutral newspeak, and at the same time how slow to obey the command of the Lord Jesus to baptize in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is because they fear man (or should that be woman?) more than they fear God. Furthermore, how is it "chauvinistic" to use the proper terms in the first place? Everyone — feminists included — has, or at least had at one stage, a father. Why can almighty God not be addressed as such, especially as His divine fatherhood has been revealed to us by His Son? And speaking of the Son, how can the feminists reasonably let themselves off the hook here, when the Lord Jesus became incarnate as a human being — a male human being — in the words of the Creed, AND WAS MADE MAN? Or are we now going to make like Katharine Jefferts-Schori with her "mother Jesus"? Hate to spoil it for you honey, but mother Jesus had a Y-chromosome.]

Instead it said that the traditional form of "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" had to be respected [with good reason; baptism cannot be validly confected without it. How many times do I have to say this??].

The alternative phrases originated in North America and started to become popular only in the past few years.

The new phrases are particularly popular in the Church of England [!]. It was recently reported that guidelines to bishops and priests advised them to avoid "uncritical use of masculine imagery" [who issued these guidelines?].

The Catholic Church and the Church of England are split over feminist issues [The Catholic Church and the Church of England are split over a whole lot more than merely "feminist issues"]. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Pope, met in Rome last year, but admitted that the ordination of women priests was a "serious obstacle" to closer ties [in the same vein as John Cooney, this tendentious writer omits to mention that the Anglican Communion itself is internally split over feminist issues, and much more besides].

The Pope, who wrote the latest ruling, has been a strong opponent of feminism in the Catholic Church [since so-called "Catholic" feminism seeks to replace the Christian religion with a goddess-worshipping neo-pagan cult I'm hardly surprised the Pope is "a strong opponent" thereof].

In his book, The Ratzinger Report, he wrote: "I am, in fact, convinced that what feminism promotes in its radical form is no longer the Christianity that we know; it is another religion" [first of all, The Ratzinger Report was written not by Joseph Ratzinger but by Vittorio Messori. Secondly, what feminism promotes in its radical form is another religion. This is indisputable. It's not merely the Pope's opinion].

Thank goodness it ended there. What the dickens, we might ask, is “female theology”? Theology is an intellectual discipline, a branch of study, and therefore does not admit of adjectives like male and female, which can be applied only to living beings. Surely the fellow who scribbled this careless piece really meant “feminist theology”. If such be the case, why didn’t he say it? Could it be because everyone hates feminists and therefore his readers would not have responded to his headline, had he used that word, in the emotional manner in which he clearly intended them to? Much better, for our writer’s purposes, to concoct a headline that evokes the image of a sexist, chauvinistic Pope (who, let us not forget, is a former Hitler Youth) patriarchally oppressing suffering womyn in the most hidebound and reactionary fashion.

This story contains a great deal of feminist spin, yet the central issue concerns feminism only peripherally. Perhaps the writer has taken the slant he has in order to uphold the secularist image of the Church as a backward and sexist institution, but in any case he shows very little understanding of the actual issues involved. Instead, he has diverted the attention of his readers (most of whom would hardly know any more about the matter than he does) with this emotionally-charged red herring.

One thing which particularly alarms Melancholicus is the revelation that invalid baptismal forms are increasingly being prescribed for use in the Church of England. He would like to know more about that. Are Anglican converts to Catholicism required to submit to conditional baptism before their reception into the Church? If the Church of England continues to play fast and loose with its baptismal formula, conditional baptism of all converts may quickly become the rule. Catholics and Anglicans are separated by many things, but Melancholicus has always consoled himself with the thought that at least we all have our baptism. It looks like this may be changing now. Shall Anglicans, alas, arrive at such a pass whereafter Catholics shall have nothing in common with them at all?

John Cooney on 'denominational migration'

From today’s Irish Independent comes another annoying piece of lightweight journalism from the egregious John Cooney. There are so many problems, mistakes, erroneous assumptions, smart-arsed remarks and other howlers in this piece that one scarcely knows where to begin. Melancholicus has added his own comments below in red.

Roaming Catholics: More conversions than ever before...

By John Cooney
Saturday March 01 2008

The appointment this week of the Venerable Dermot Dunne, a former Catholic priest, as Dean of Christchurch, one of Dublin's two landmark Anglican cathedrals, highlights a growing trend of "denominational migration".

Up until recently it was regarded as a social stigma, even a badge of shame, for a Catholic to convert to Protestantism, or for a Protestant of whichever strand -- Anglicanism, Presbyterianism or Methodism -- to embrace the Roman Faith.

Indeed, much of the history of 20th century Ireland, especially since the foundation of the State in 1921, was bedevilled by the decline of the minority Protestant population, mainly as a result of the Catholic Church's strict mixed marriage regulations requiring children to be raised as Catholics [in this regard we might remark that in some parts of Northern Ireland it is still seriously believed, even today, that the decline in the Protestant population of the Republic of Ireland after partition was caused by an orchestrated campaign of genocide by the Irish government, and that Protestants were done to death in extermination camps after the manner of the Third Reich!].

Memories still linger, particularly in the West of Ireland, of the crusades by Protestant evangelicals in the mid-19th century to provide soup-bowls to the starving Catholic poor on condition that they committed their souls to the Bible as propounded by the anti-Romanist preachers since the 16th century Reformation [Melancholicus is actually quite impressed by the 'soupers', since the Church of Ireland throughout its long history made practically no effort to convert the popishly-affected majority of the population].

When introducing Dean-elect Dunne, and his English wife, Celia, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, admitted that it was no great shock to him that at a time of change within each of the Christian traditions, individuals are finding their expression of Christian faith in another tradition.

Noting that last year Mrs Anita Henderson, the wife of the Anglican Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, Dr Richard Henderson, was received into the Catholic Church in Ballina, Co Mayo, Dr Neill said the important thing is that "we do not go seeking people from other denominations to attract them into our own." [classic ecumenical niceness!]

Noting that proselytism was something unfortunate [!] that happened in previous generations, he added: "The freedom and acceptance of change and the way that ecumenical relationships remain strong when people change from one denomination to another is not causing great pain," he insisted. "I do not see this as anything like triumphalism. We are all part of the Christian Church."

The reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s spawned a new era of ecumenical détente among previously feuding Christians, but 'the Restoration' policies pursued by the late Pope John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, [here we go, stick the knife in! Can't pass up any opportunity to attack the Holy Father now, can we Mr. Cooney?] have put the brakes on the pace of the church unity movement on issues such as shared Eucharist, Rome's continued non-recognition of the validity of Anglican Orders, the compulsory celibacy of Catholic priests, and Rome's refusal to ordain women and its consequent alarm over the ordination of women and gay men to the Anglican episcopacy and priesthood [There are a number of issues here, which we will treat seriatim:

1. First of all, the so-called "shared Eucharist". The Church of Ireland, in common with certain other branches of the Anglican Communion, offers an open table to other Christians "in good standing" in their own denominations who wish to receive communion at an Anglican service. This is a novelty in the history of Anglicanism, which traditionally did not offer the Eucharist indiscriminately to all and sundry, never mind to stubborn papists or to the adherents of sects. The reader should study the exhortations printed in the communion rite in the Prayer Book for an exposition of the classic Anglican position. Now that the novelty of an open table has been introduced in these unbelieving and ecumaniacal times, is it not presumptious, to say the least, to expect other Churches to espouse the same novelty as a matter of course? Shall we not do better to regard this innovation for what it is, namely an aberration that shall disappear when a measure of sanity begins to return to the churches of the Anglican Communion?
   
   Furthermore, the Eucharist is an expression of communion with those with whom one shares it. How can such communion be pretended when it does not in fact exist? "Eucharistic sharing" ignores the very real divisions and disagreements between Christians, preferring instead to generate a warm and fuzzy but no less false feeling of unity, a fake and artificial unity which is not grounded in reality. "Eucharistic sharing" is on this basis actually a form of spiritual prostitution. Suppose, gentle reader, that your next-door neighbour should offer to you his wife (or her husband, if you are female) for your good pleasure. If you are decent and a gentleman, you would of course decline. Would you not also be greatly affronted if your neighbour then expected to be allowed take the same liberties with your own wife as he offered you with his? In such manner do we behave when we offer the Eucharist to those with whom we are not in communion, or if we avail of such an offer from them.
   
   Finally, those who engage in indiscriminate "Eucharistic sharing" are also guilty of failing to discern the body of the Lord. There is a world of difference between the Roman Catholic theology of the Eucharist and the Anglican theology of the same. This means in effect that the Roman Eucharist and the Anglican Eucharist are two completely different things. No Roman Catholic who knows his faith would ever be prepared to receive the Eucharist at an Anglican service, except out of malice or unbelief. No Roman Catholic priest could, unless he had lost his faith or valued the approval of men more than the approval of God, offer the Eucharist to Anglican communicants, except under those few exceptions granted by canon law.



2. Now to deal with what Cooney calls "Rome's continued non-recognition of the validity of Anglican Orders". Actually, he has this sentence backwards. He ought to have said "Rome's continued recognition of the invalidity of Anglican Orders". Cooney simply assumes that Anglican Orders are "valid". But what does "valid" mean in this context? Can Cooney not tell us why Rome perceives a difference between its own orders and those of the Anglican church? As with the Eucharist, there is an unbridgable gulf between the Roman Catholic and the Anglican theology of orders. Cooney misleads his readers by treating this most serious question as a simple matter of reciprocal courtesy, as though there were no reason beyond a snooty sense of superiority for Rome to withhold "recognition" of Anglican Orders. He does not inform his readers that Rome recognises as valid the orders of the Orthodox and Old Catholic churches, even though these bodies are not in communion with the Holy See, and that if only the Anglican churches possessed the same orders as these bodies, Rome would have no hesitation in recognising them also. Despite the definitive judgement of Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae, there are many today, including Catholics, who continue to insist with John Cooney that Anglican Orders are fully valid in the Catholic sense. Of course the situation has been muddied somewhat since 1896 by the introduction of the so-called "Dutch Touch", namely the ordination of Anglican clergy by Old Catholic bishops whose orders are not in dispute, and the Anglicans themselves have long since fixed the defects in their ordinal which, according to the Holy See, caused a fatal interruption of the apostolic succession in the sixteenth century.
   
   For more on this contentious question, the reader will find a useful collection of resources here.



3. Melancholicus shall pass over the issue of clerical celibacy, since he has said enough about it elsewhere. Instead, he shall move on to what Cooney calls "Rome's refusal to ordain women", as though this were simply an issue of sexism. But this question is related to that on orders above; once again, the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches have two radically divergent theologies of ordination, and they cannot be regarded as though there is no difference between them. The Roman Catholic Church believes it has no authority to confer the sacrament of holy orders on women. This is because the sacraments were instituted not by the Church, but by Christ, and the Church has no authority to change them in accordance with the fads of the hour. Of course, true to his tendentious approach throughout this article, what Cooney neglects to tell us is that the ordination of women to the Anglican priesthood and episcopate has caused enormous rifts everywhere in the Anglican Communion wherever such ordinations have taken place. Thus this matter is not reducible to a simplistic view of Rome as sexist and authoritarian, and Canterbury as inclusive and enlightened.



4. As if to seal the deal, Cooney feels compelled to thump the drum of the homosexualist lobby. Once again, hidebound reactionary Rome is unfavourably contrasted with open and enlightened Canterbury, as the latter, knowingly and with approbation, ordains gay men (and gay women) to the priesthood and episcopate. Although the Roman hierarchy is likewise full of ring pirates, as a spate of scandals over the past decade or more has revealed, homosexuality is frowned upon by hidebound reactionary Rome, which Cooney would like us to believe is horrified by all expressions of human sexuality. Once again he fails to mention that the Anglican Communion is at this moment bitterly convulsed over the issue of the ordination and marriage of practicing homosexuals, far more bitterly than any controversy generated by women's ordination.]

.

At the same time as the re-imposition of Rome's doctrinal authority [ooooh, evil authoritarian Rome!], increasing numbers of Irish Catholics have adopted 'Protestant' attitudes on issues of personal conscience such as birth control, cohabitation and divorce [there are many Anglicans, and other protestants likewise, who also reject birth control, cohabitation and divorce. Once again, Cooney attempts to reduce these matters to a simple question of backward, reactionary Rome and a modern and enlightened 'protestant' attitude] -- and are out of tune with the Sistine choir [this guy is far too enamoured of his own wisecracks to be a credible journalist. Is that why he has opted to write about issues of religion rather than something more "serious" such as politics?].

One option for disaffected Catholics is to join the Church of Ireland. It is estimated that 10pc of its 125,585 members in the 2006 census were born Catholics. This represents the highest figure for the Church of Ireland in the Republic since 1936 [This is true. Membership of the Church of Ireland is certainly growing. The figure Cooney provides includes only those who live in the Irish Republic. More Anglicans live in the north than in the south. Altogether the Church of Ireland has about 390,000 adherents, though this is still a lot less than the nearly 700,000 or so that belonged to the Church at the time of its disestablishment in 1870].

Dean Dunne is but one of several ex-Catholic priests in the Anglican ministry. Another notable [!] recruit is a former Dublin priest, the Rev Mark Hayden, now Rector in Gorey, Co Wexford, who describes his spiritual journey in his book, Changing Colours [First of all, Rev. Hayden's book is called Changing Collars, not Changing Colours. Cooney clearly hasn't read it. But Melancholicus has, since he used to know the author somewhat during the latter's appointment as a curate in Greystones, before he left the Church. In 2007, in the grip of a deep melancholic despond and, partly for that reason (among numerous others), disenchanted with the Irish RC Church, Melancholicus actually flirted with the idea of becoming an Anglican. Knowing of Rev. Hayden's departure some years earlier and finding that he had written a book about his journey, Melancholicus eagerly obtained a copy (in a Catholic bookshop!), looking forward to a learned and convincing vindication of the Anglican religion against the errors of popery. If he expected such, he was singularly disappointed. Rev. Hayden's book is not about theology at all, but more an exposé of its author’s human weaknesses and unfortunate misunderstandings. For such a defence, Melancholicus would have done much better to read Hooker, Andrewes, Cosin or Jeremy Taylor. Hayden's reasons for becoming an Anglican were so poor in comparison. In fact, he might have become any kind of protestant; there is nothing particularly Anglican about him. In the end, reason and conscience prevailed, and Melancholicus is still popishly affected to this day].

"I was a devout Mass-going Catholic, but I could not take the 'one shoe for all sizes' doctrinal hard-line from the Vatican, as the fate of many distinguished theologians from Jacques Dupuis to Charles Curran amply demonstrates," he says. "I also felt alienated and unwelcome in parish churches which were dominated by poorly read, loud-mouthed Catholic conservatives whose ignorance of theology was matched only by the emptiness of their unthinkingly conformist rhetoric." [wow, don't we have some issues here!]

Clearly, Rome and Maynooth are losing bright luminaries [!] to the more liberal Church of Ireland. 'Denominational migration' has winners and losers.

Melancholicus knows nothing about Dermot Dunne, but for Cooney to describe Mark Hayden as a ‘bright luminary’ seems to be begging the question. If Rev. Hayden really regards clowns like Curran and Dupuis as ‘distinguished theologians’, it doesn’t say much for his own intellectual prowess, his powers of discernment or his judgement of character. Rev. Hayden seems to be carrying a lot of anger and baggage from the past. He should, for the good of his physical, spiritual and emotional health, just let it go. I know he had some bad experiences at the hands of uncharitable persons prior to his departure from the Church, but come on, Mark, be bigger than that! Don’t bare your wounded soul and the emptiness of your unthinkingly fuzzy theology in the pages of the national press: get a blog! They're free you know, and you can say what you like about your nasty loud-mouthed conservatives without fear of rebuke.

But as for losing such ‘luminaries’ to the ‘more liberal’ Church of Ireland, there are not a few Irish Anglicans who are none too happy about such migrational trends. The quality of the traffic seems to be all one way, so far as Melancholicus can see. In most instances, the Anglican Church gives Rome her brightest and best people, and we give her our dross, our rejects, our cast-offs and our nincompoops in exchange. She sends us Bible-believing, serious, moral, upright Christians, the very best that the faith of their Church has formed, persons who know how to reason and defend the Christian faith against the assaults of an aggressive secularism. From our ranks she receives religious illiterates, persons whose motivation for abandoning the Roman communion is neither conscientious nor scriptural, but often because they wish to pursue a lifestyle of loose morals. They break with Rome over such issues as contraception, abortion, divorce and remarriage, sodomy and suchlike, and they have the temerity to think that the good people of the Church of Ireland will give them a sympathetic hearing. For there are not a few Irish Anglicans who deplore the entrenched and institutionalised liberalism of their Church, and how unscriptural it has become in its normalisation of what were once considered grave immoralities. So who is the winner really?

Alas, Mr. Cooney, you have become a parody of yourself!

Al-Beeb to the rescue

Rowan need not worry, since the Beeb is on his side. Melancholicus has learned, via Biased BBC blog, that a concerted effort is now underway to present his views on sharia law and the British legal system as the soundest common sense and to deflect public attention away from the repeated calls for his resignation that have issued forth from within the Church of England.

Yesterday, BBC Radio 4’s regular Thought for the Day on the Today programme featured a softly-spoken, educated, urbane and very British-sounding Muslim politely defending Rowan’s wisdom and attempting to calm the ruffled waters. The reader may listen to the broadcast here (requires Real Player; or simply read the transcript). Melancholicus feels that the point, though, was not to defend the archbishop of Canterbury, or even to present his views as reasonable; the point was to enable the BBC to distance itself from any suggestion that sharia law might actually be something insidious and nasty. In the last paragraph it is referred to, pointedly and reverently, as a “heritage of legal wisdom” for Muslims. The speaker made no reference to the fact that sharia law prescribes horrific public punishments for trivial misdemeanours, and is so utterly divorced from both reality and compassion that in countries where this foul code holds sway, rape victims are frequently stoned for adultery.

Andrew Marr is proud of the fact that the BBC employs an “abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people”. That explains a lot. Young people, who don’t know anything about anything, and lack the capability and the motivation to even think of questioning the institutional leftism of the organisation for which they work; ethnic minorities [read Muslims] who unfailingly pursue a line favourable to their own group; and gay people — well, enough said. If ever one wondered why al-Beeb is always in bed with either the Mohammedan or the homosexualist (or sometimes both simultaneously), well here’s the best explanation that Melancholicus has ever encountered.

And on this occasion, the latest outbreak of Rowan Williams’ recurring foot-in-mouth disease, the BBC clearly felt it had to step in and clarify matters — lest Muslims be embarrassed.

WANTED: George Hook, for crimes against intelligence in broadcasting

Melancholicus is often exasperated listening to the ramblings of this man on Newstalk 106 while stuck in rush-hour traffic on his way home from the university in the evenings.

To be fair, Hookie is a competent broadcaster, an engaging personality, regularly interesting and informative, and in the battle for Melancholicus’ attention with RTÉ’s Drivetime programme, he wins more often than not.

But yesterday evening’s edition of The Right Hook really took the Fortnum & Mason. George’s guest was the actress and human rights activist Vanessa Redgrave; and while some might have considered the conversation more of a fawning session than an interview, what annoyed Melancholicus most of all was the unthinking soft leftism evinced by Hookie throughout.

Perhaps his slot on Newstalk should more aptly be re-named The Left Hook?

Ms. Redgrave was in Dublin yesterday, speaking in her capacity of human rights activist at a dinner for the Irish branch of Amnesty International. Neither Hookie nor Ms. Redgrave seemed in any way sensible to the glaring fact of Amnesty’s having contracted a wee bit of a credibility problem through their well-publicised advocacy of so-called “abortion rights”.

But anyhow, that’s not the issue.

From the beginning, their discussion of human rights abuses and the activism designed to fight such abuses focused on fashionable left-wing causes. After the obligatory shot at the Nazis (to be fair, the Soviets came in for a good deal of criticism as well), the so-called “war on terror” was addressed. What astonished Melancholicus was that here the criticism was directed entirely at the US, Britain and Israel. Now while Melancholicus would certainly be at one with Hookie and Ms. Redgrave on the illegal British and American-led invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq, that’s beside the point. Britain and the US are hardly pure as the driven snow, but they are most assuredly not the leading abusers of human rights in the world today (unless of course one would describe state-sponsored abortion services as an abuse of human rights, but one couldn’t really see either Hookie or Ms. Redgrave losing much sleep over the number of abortions carried out in these countries daily). The detainees of Guantanamo Bay received excessive attention, the CIA was duly slated over the issue of extraordinary renditions, but not a single word was said about the appalling human rights abuses that take place on a routine basis in Muslim countries. Likewise, not a word was said about the horrendous treatment of Christians and other religious minorities in the same. Even while Hookie and Ms. Redgrave were on the air, Mrs. Gillian Gibbons, 54, a teacher from the UK, had already begun her sentence in a Sudanese prison. Her crime: she allowed her class in Sudan to name a teddy bear Muhammad, for which she was arrested and convicted of the charge of “insulting Islam”. As she languished in her cell, there were protests in Khartoum by crazed sword-wielding fanatics calling for the unfortunate woman’s execution. Yes, it was not sufficient to send Mrs. Gibbons to prison: these prehistoric savages wanted to cut off her head!

If that is not an abuse of human rights, then Melancholicus does not understand the meaning of the term.

Hookie also drew attention to his guest’s socialism, and that in a positive light. Melancholicus was not surprised to hear that Ms. Redgrave is a socialist, but he was more than a little bemused by the fact that neither Hookie nor Ms. Redgrave seemed aware that socialism has been responsible for some of the most outrageous violations of human rights in the twentieth century. To add the icing to the cake, Hookie then pressed his guest for her views on New Labour’s betrayal of its socialist roots in Britain. Melancholicus cannot recall Ms. Redgrave’s comments at this point, but by then he had heard enough.

They were like peas in a pod, the two of them; soft leftists, idealistic and irenicist, but totally lacking in any grasp of the real situation in the world as far as human rights are concerned. As such, they are indistinguishable from the countless millions of other soft leftists which make up a goodly share of western society. These people mean well, but they really haven’t a clue. That much should be obvious, when one squanders precious airtime waxing indignant over Guantanamo, and that in the very shadow of the real elephant in the room, now looming totally unnoticed.

Talk about straining out a gnat and then swallowing a camel. Our Lord used those words against the Pharisees, but in a different time and context they could be applied just as fittingly not only to Hookie but to most of those who ply their trade in the newspapers and on the airwaves. And so the consensus of soft leftism continues undisturbed, and the five-hundred pound elephant continues to evade detection.

Three Anglican parishes in Ireland to unite with Rome?

This just in from the BBC:

Churches set to become Catholic

Three former Anglican congregations have asked to be received into the Roman Catholic Church, a Catholic newspaper has reported.

The ex-Church of Ireland communities in Down, Tyrone and Laois, were part of the 'traditional rite'.

The Irish Catholic newspaper said the congregations asked the Vatican for "full, corporate, sacramental union" under the authority of the Pope.

This would see the communities being received into the Catholic Church.

A spokesman for the congregations confirmed that the members of the traditional rite of the Church of Ireland did hope to be received into "full communion with the See of Rome".

A decision was made at a plenary meeting of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the umbrella organisation for traditional Anglicans, to petition Rome for such a move earlier this month.

Entrusted

According to a statement from the TAC "the bishops and vicars-general unanimously agreed to the text of a letter to the See of Rome seeking full, corporate, sacramental union.

"The letter was signed solemnly by all the College and entrusted to the Primate and two bishops chosen by the College to be presented to the Holy See," the statement added.

The traditional rite broke away from the Church of Ireland in 1991, after the House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland decided to start ordaining women.

Traditionalist Anglicans described the move as a "defiance of both Scripture and Tradition."

It is rare for entire Anglican communities to seek corporate communion with the Catholic Church whereby every member of the parish becomes Catholic and the parish effectively becomes part of the Catholic Church.

There have been a number of high-profile individual conversions.

Most recently, Anita Henderson, wife of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Killala was received in to the Catholic Church in a private ceremony in Ballina, Co Mayo.

To say that this is surprising would be an understatement.

Conditions within the worldwide Anglican Communion must be really, really bad if three entire parishes of Anglican Traditionalists are now seeking full union with Rome.

It is interesting that, with the exception of the group in Co. Laois, these communities are not based in the more liberal, easy-going south, but are from what is considered the most protestant part of the Church of Ireland, namely Northern Ireland.

The website of the Traditional Anglican Communion in Ireland can be viewed here. That of the umbrella organisation is located here.

This story seems to go further than this, however. It is not merely three Irish parishes that are seeking union with Rome, but the entire TAC (see here for further details). It will be interesting to see how this develops. Doubtless the Anglicans will wish to retain—within the limits of Catholic orthodoxy, of course—such features of their praxis which are distinctively Anglican and not at the same time incompatible with the profession of Roman Catholicism. If such a compromise can be agreed upon by both TAC and Rome, we might witness further mass migrations of disaffected Anglicans Romeward, particularly in the United States where the accelerating collapse of ECUSA has created a large pool of displaced Christians seeking alternative primatial oversight since they cannot in conscience continue in the communion of an organisation which so openly and brazenly repudiates central tenets of the Christian faith. Melancholicus would be in favour of such a compromise being reached; he has no wish to inflict upon these his long-suffering brothers and sisters in Christ the barbarities of the Novus Ordo and tasteless ICEL liturgy. A properly-constituted ‘anglican rite’ retaining elements of the classical Prayer Book within Roman Catholicism would be an enrichment to Catholic liturgy. He has said elsewhere that choral evensong is the outstanding contribution of the anglican church to Christian liturgy, and if this liturgical gem could be incorporated within the practice of Catholicism, so much the better!

In the meantime, we await the response of the Holy See.

The exoneration of the Knights Templar, or more tendentiousness from Broadcasting House

The Holy See has lately produced a facsimile edition of primary documents relating to the trial and subsequent suppression of the Knights Templar in the early fourteenth century.



The BBC took up this story of course, as it offers excellent scope for spin detrimental to the Catholic Church.

The BBC made much of how difficult it is for scholars to gain access to the material stored in the secret archives. Melancholicus was not impressed by this attempt to paint the Vatican archives as a sinister and secretive institution, since as a textual scholar, he knows at first hand how jealously EVERY library and repository guards their priceless manuscript sources.

Furthermore, the fact that this documentation can be consulted by serious researchers and — contrary to popular belief — is not sequestered away in some top-secret vault to which no one is granted access does indicate that the archives are not quite as ‘secret’ as the BBC would like us to believe.

The forthcoming publication of the Chinon parchment was featured this morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

Melancholicus has observed a curious phenomenon in contemporary journalism. Most journalists seem to engage in this practice, and those who work for the BBC are no exception.

The contemporary journalist cannot simply report on the facts of the matter and leave it at that. Instead, every news story must be subjected to the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis; reporters seem to imagine that unless their coverage is tinged with this Hegelian hue, they have failed to be impartial and objective. That they would think so proceeds from a false understanding of the nature of truth, and ultimately of reality. This false understanding in turn proceeds from relativism. There is no middle ground between truth and falsehood; no ‘synthesis’ is possible between what is true and what is not. Yet the doyens of professional journalism in our time seem to be incapable of affirming any proposition without immediately setting forth its contrary. This they consider to be characteristic of objectivity; whereas it is actually a characteristic of mediocrity, as the reverend and esteemed Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange reminds us:

The truly mediocre man admires everything a little and nothing with warmth ... He considers every affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory proposition. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is good and evil in all things, and that we must not be absolute in our judgments. If you strongly affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence in yourself. The mediocre man regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it to teach only ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its dogmas as the consequence comes from the principle, he will answer that you exaggerate ... if the word ‘exaggeration’ did not exist, the mediocre man would invent it.

The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre. The humble man scorns all lies, even were they glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth. (Ernest Hello, L’homme, bk. I chap. 8, cited by Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, vol. I, p. 201)

This approach of pro and contra is not restricted to questions of opinion, of which there can be many sides, each of which may be legitimately considered. It is even brought to bear in questions of fact, such that all things are subject to this sophistry — all things with but a single exception: the ‘rights’ claimed for themselves by minority interest groups, to which no contrary position is permitted to be expressed. Such sophism completely destroys not only knowledge, but even the possibility of knowledge.

End of philosophical digression, and back to the BBC. It was not sufficient for the good people on the Today programme to announce the publication of the Chinon parchment and set forth the significance of this document; they had to muddy the waters by introducing the fables of Dan Brown and his ilk. By bringing forth fairy tales into a discourse on an historical subject, the wretched interviewer (probably the same fool who interviewed Cormac Murphy O’Connor yesterday morning) served only to introduce confusion in the minds of his listeners, who as a consequence do not know what is true and what is false. This man was even interviewing a professional historian about the document and the Knights Templar. If she was irritated on being impeded from a scholarly discussion of the facts by the introduction of this enormous red herring, she didn’t show it, preferring instead to render a non-committal answer. Melancholicus, however, lying abed, was exasperated and punched his pillow.

BBC bias

The BBC seems to be constitutionally incapable of intelligent reporting when it comes to the Catholic Church, or to any agency or individual that stands opposed to the institutionalised leftism of the the contemporary social order.

This morning on BBC Radio 4, Melancholicus heard Cormac Cardinal Murphy O’Connor interviewed by either James Naughtie or the egregious Edward Stourton (I’m not sure which) regarding an open letter penned by the Westminster prelate and the Primate of Scotland, Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien.

Melancholicus was exasperated by the (deliberate?) obtusity of the interviewer, who (intentionally?) misunderstood the whole thrust of their eminences’ letter, and seemed to think (while knowing full well to the contrary?) that this letter heralded a ‘softening’ of the teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.

Can it be that the BBC cannot tell the difference between a Church teaching and the manner in which said teaching is presented? The letter calls for efforts to roll back the easy availability of abortion by increments over a period of time. The interviewer did seem to be impressed by this pragmatic approach, but because the letter proceeds thus rather than urging an immediate and outright ban, he seemed to think it advocated a retreat from traditional Church teaching, even wondering aloud whether their eminences’ pragmatism would draw fire from the Vatican. The Cardinal, to his credit, was very patient in the face of all these foolish questions.

Later, this interview appeared in the ‘listen again’ section of the BBC Radio 4 website, bizarrely labelled Is the Catholic Church softening its position on abortion?

The good people at Broadcasting House may have completely internalised the culture of moral relativism and absolute autonomy of the individual, but Melancholicus can hardly believe they are stupid enough to really believe that the contents of this letter mean the Church is changing her position on abortion. On the contrary, it is not beneath the BBC to create the impression in the public mind that the Church is on the point of changing her teaching. Why would they do this? Simple. It plays into the hands of the liberal agenda. Conflicting public reports about the Church’s teaching on abortion only serve to make it more difficult for the Church to make her genuine teaching clear.

The BBC is not, and has not been for a very long time, an impartial and unbiased source of news and information on current affairs. The BBC is now little more than a mouthpiece of the culture of PC nuttiness, an organisation infatuated with Mohammedanism and buggery (strange bedfellows, those), the perceived grievances of minorities and deeply hostile to the Judeo-Christian foundations upon which western civilization is built. The BBC still has a formidable reputation in the world of media and communications; but the longer it continues to sacrifice its integrity in the relentless pursuit of the zeitgeist, that reputation will soon be lost and may well be impossible to recover.