The liturgical colour of Lent: not violet, but green!

The C of E, that formerly venerable institution of English culture and religion which has given us such delights as choral evensong and the Oxford Movement, but which lately has resorted to frivolous gimmicks to keep up its media profile, is now preparing for the holy season of Lent.

And what are Christians being urged to do for Lent this year?

Mortifying the body through the practice of fast and abstinence? Not a bit of it.

How about rising earlier from sleep in order to give oneself to an hour of prayer before undertaking the duties of the day? Not that either.

Or, perhaps, spiritual reading and daily meditation? No.

More frequent attendance at church services, or almsgiving, or works of charity? Not these.

No, the Church of England in general and two of its bishops in particular, have recommended that Christians give up carbon for Lent. In practical terms, this involves such practices as eschewing the use of plastic bags, washing dishes in the sink instead of in the dishwasher, insulating the house and the hot water tank, switching off electrical appliances when not in use, &c. In this wise, Lent is to be a time for reducing the size of one’s “carbon footprint” rather than a time of penance and spiritual renewal.

How thoroughly, heart-warmingly secular! How totally at one with the zeitgeist! How completely and fashionably trendy! They must have forgotten what Lent is all about. There is nothing in their lordships’ prescription, apart perhaps from the occurrence of the word Lent to which any atheist could take exception.

A secular programme for what is in essence a secular goal, and with it the Christian significance of Lent is jettisoned entirely.

Lest Melancholicus be thought of as mocking the Anglicans, he assures his readers he has no such malicious intention. On the contrary, he is pleased to offer, as an antidote to the above nonsense, some edification he found on the blog of a C of E clergyman here.

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?

Orwellian society update: Ireland condemned by UN “human rights” commission

Why?

Because Ireland practices torture and genocide?

No, actually. Because abortion on tap is not available in Ireland and because this country is full of Catholic schools. From RTÉ:

Govt urged to amend human rights policies

Thursday, 24 July 2008 21:52

The UN human rights committee has called on Ireland to moderate abortion laws and to open up the Catholic primary school system to secular education.

The strictures were issued in summary observations by the committee on a report presented by the Government earlier this month on how they were carrying out obligations under the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In comments on the report, it said the Government 'should take measures to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies so that they do not have to resort to illegal or unsafe abortions'.

It also expressed concern 'that the vast majority of Ireland's primary schools are privately-run denominational schools' with religion integrated into the curriculum, 'thus depriving many parents and children who so wish to have access to secular primary education'.

The committee said the Government should amend the Constitution to drop a compulsory religious oath for judges and allow them to make a non-religious declaration instead.

So much for the sovereignty of nations. These nazis will never rest until the entire world conforms to their twisted ideology. Is it not passing ironic that this so-called “human rights commission” should be a zealous promoter of abortion? What more despicable violation of human rights is there, than abortion? For if one does not have at the very least a right to life, one has no business claiming any other rights. Further comment is surely unnecessary.

But that was not all. The story goes on:

In separate comment, the nine-member body, composed of legal experts from a range of countries, said Britain should ease back on tough 'anti-terror' measures and take firm action to combat "negative public attitudes" towards Muslims.

Dhimwits of the year 2008, say I. The Islamofascists can call upon the services of no idiots more useful than these craven lunatics.

Such are the wages of ecumenism

It was surely a mistake to admit this man to the communion of the Catholic Church.

Melancholicus had hoped — O, the naivete of the boy! — that when Tony Blair became a Catholic, he would convert to the Truth, repent of his errors, and reform himself; that in the conduct of his public life he would do the Church proud; that he would be, as it were, a great “catch” for the holy Roman Church.

But it seems that in switching his adherence from the Church of England to that of Rome, Mr. Blair has merely followed his personal taste rather than religious convictions of any depth, because to all intents and purposes, he is just as secular in his outlook now as he was before he was received into the Church.

Accordingly, he has since been a great disappointment — even an embarrassment — as a Catholic, and Melancholicus finds himself hoping that (fingers crossed!) the established church will soon take him back again.

Now the fellow has gone and established a “faith foundation” in New York which — as far as Melancholicus can see from its homepage and its description in the media — is a veritable sty of Sillonism, an organisation which will not advance the Catholic religion one iota, nor attract to it a single convert, but will instead sow the seeds of secularism and godlessness under the guise of promoting some vague and generic “power of faith”.

Let us now hear Catholic World News on the subject:

Blair's new foundation will fight religious extremism

New York, Jun. 2, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair has launched a new foundation dedicated to fighting against religious extremism and harnessing the power of faith to fight against poverty and disease.

Speaking in New York at the formal opening of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the former British leader said there is "nothing more important" than ensuring mutual understanding in the world and fostering cooperation among different religious groups.

Blair said that in addition to enlisting religious support for global development projects, his new foundation would fight against extremism in religion -- not only in Islam, but in every religious tradition. "Though there is much focus, understandably, on extremism associated with the perversion of the proper faith of Islam, there are elements of extremism in every major faith," he said.

It seems that Mr. Blair’s attitude is that a little bit of religion is quite alright, even to be recommended, but let us not commit the cardinal error of taking religion seriously, since that results in ‘extremism’.

It is quite clear that Mr. Blair’s faith foundation is quite unapologetic in treating all religions as essentially the same — hence, he is quick to offer excuses for Islam (islamist violence is a “perversion” of the “proper faith” of Islam, not part of the “proper faith” itself, despite the life of Muhammad and the testimony of the Qur’an) and has no hesitation in mollifying the Mahometans by assuring us that “there are elements of extremism in every major faith”. Well, fallen human beings are still fallen human beings regardless of the religion they profess, so anyone might be capable of violent acts, but can Mr. Blair explain to us the obvious disproportion between number of atrocities carried out by adherents of Islam as against the adherents of all other religions combined?

Clearly, all religions are not the same — it is a plain fact that they teach different and mutually-exclusive things, and that each religion expects a different standard of conduct and behaviour from its adherents. This truth is an embarrassment to the likes of Mr. Blair, since it is self-evidently divisive.

Hence, anything that divides man from his neighbour, anything that introduces division, must be suppressed. An insistence upon religious truth is by its nature considered ‘divisive’, and so must be eschewed like the plague. What the Tony Blair Faith Foundation has at its heart is the promotion of a single universal religion devoid of dogmas and creeds, to which all can belong, and centred upon the temporal needs of humankind in the here and now. Taking one’s own religion seriously, and claiming that it alone possesses truth while rival faiths are false is something this anthropocentric approach above all cannot tolerate, and so all religions — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and the rest — must be blended together in a syncretic mass such that each will lose its distinctive characteristics in favour of identification with the whole.

Needless to say, Roman Catholicism — the faith only recently embraced by Mr. Blair — is not exempted from such treatment. A strange position indeed for any man calling himself a Catholic.

But Mr. Blair is not so much a Roman Catholic as he is a Conciliar Catholic — and there is a world of difference between these two, since Roman Catholicism and Conciliar Catholicism are two different religions.

Accordingly, one cannot really blame our recently-received convert for this execrable blasphemy, at least not exclusively, since this essentially secular ideology of all men working together in harmony in order to realise paradise here on earth has been extolled and promoted even by the Roman pontiffs ever since the halcyon days of the ’sixties, in what Mark Fellows has described as ‘the papal vision’. Paul VI and John Paul II were the most enthusiastic proponents of this worldly ideology, but it also marred the pontificate of its originator, John XXIII, and, despite the damage it has done to the Church, is not completely absent from the teaching of even the present incumbent of the Apostolic See.

For is it not true to say that, if the Catholic Church had maintained her traditional stance vis-a-vis other religions, that it would not be possible today for any Catholic (except a dissident) to fall into such errors and delusions as our recent convert, Mr. Tony Blair?