Benedict vs the rest

Now that the righteous, unrighteous, pragmatic, opportunistic and hypocritical angers have gone slightly off the boil, it’s time for a reassessment of Pope Benedict’s analysis of the intellectual and arrogant dominance of reason in Western Europe. That after all, was what his Regensburg address was about. Inevitably, reaction to it was hijacked by Muslim over-reaction to one small part of it. Can you expect anything else from a religion that demands submission in every aspect of its exposition?

No, what I have found difficult to accept is the way in which the Pope, not only being left to contend with the above mentioned angers, was, in the words of an American Catholic news agency, hung out to dry by Catholics who were leaden-footed, if not actually dragging their heels, in coming to his defence. One glorious exception; Sister Leonella Sgorbati, martyred missionary in Somalia, a country at present being taken over by Islamic fundamentalists, armed as always with the Qu’ran, sharia law and swords to implement it.

An examination of the three main Catholic newspapers on sale in church porches in Scotland provide a spotty reaction. Least acceptable is the editorial of the Scottish Catholic Observer (SCO) which begins, “There may be an argument as to whether Pope Benedict was wise to include the comments of a Byzantine Emperor…” It goes on to suggest Benedict’s advisers should have counselled against inclusion of this. In SCO-speak, this suggests they should have censored it. The newspaper devotes one column of text and its editorial in an image-filled edition to the affair, one week after it took place. Always politically correct with a tendency to patronise on occasion, it cites the efforts of the Scottish Bishops to develop positive relationships through the Inter Faith Council. Perhaps more regular bulletins on the work of this group would help Scottish Catholics to understand other faiths better.

The Catholic Times, defensor fidei and whose letters columns are something else again, one half of the Gabriel Communications stable, whose journalists seem interchangeable with The Universe’s, its other half, concentrated its editorial input on apologies and the non-acceptance of them. Its main columnist began his regular column with the statement that “Pope Benedict XVI has endangered Christian minorities in Islamic countries with his quotation from Manuel II Palaeologus….” He then goes on to an historical disquisition on this individual, taking up three columns, then to some analysis of Benedict’s lecture. Nowhere does he follow up his initial comment on endangering Christian minorities.

The Universe, tabloid doppelganger of the Catholic Times, emphasised apologies, respect and misunderstandings from Benedict and provided three pages of what pleased it to call world reaction to the affair. Mysteriously included in this was a comment from a university chaplain in Wales to the effect that Benedict was trying to cover too much ground, that he missed some salient features of forced conversion, citing Saxons, and that perhaps he should have acknowledged the contribution of Islam to the writings of St Thomas Aquinas. Editorially, the message was – time to move on. Indeed. Mercifully.

In Nostra Aetate, the Fathers said, “The Church also has a high regard for the Muslims, who worship one God, living and subsistent, merciful and omnipotent, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.” In this same document, they stated, “ Even if over the course of centuries Christians and Muslims have had more than a few dissensions and quarrels, this sacred Council now urges all to forget the past and to work towards mutual understanding as well as towards the preservation and promotion of social justice, moral welfare, peace and freedom for the benefit of all mankind.”

Pope John Paul had no delusion that relations with Islam were not and would not be easy to negotiate or to maintain. In ‘Crossing the Threshold of Hope’ he said that ‘Fundamentalist attitudes….make reciprocal contacts very difficult.’ Benedict knows this perfectly well, but as Sandro Magister of L’Espresso writes, he is not prepared to stand silent before Islam, a silence as Magister says that is often given the name “dialogue”. Benedict’s dialogue involves asking Islam to consider reason in order to free itself from the grip of fundamentalism. There’s nothing unreasonable about that.

Well maybe.........

26 September.

The Feast of Sts Cosmas and Damian.

Little is known about these martyrs of the early Church. They were apparently healers who took no money for their services but who after their deaths were venerated by Christians. Their names appear in the Canon of the Mass.

22 September 2006.

The Martyrdom of Fabianus, Dominggus and Marianus.

A lot is known about the death of these three Catholic laymen in Sulawesi, Indonesia. It would be dishonest to say that the death of these new martyrs passed unnoticed. These three dirt poor farmers were accused of organising a Christian militia that carried out attacks on Muslims, a charge that they vehemently denied. Although worldwide protest was made about the unfairness of their trial, nothing could stop their execution.

In a display of spite and indifference that seems hard to believe, Fabianus, Dominggus and Marianus were refused all indications of compassion from the public prosecutor. He denied their requests that their bodies lie in state in their church for one day before burial, that they be buried in their own districts, that their priest witness their execution and that they send a message to Indonesia’s president. Most harrowing of all was his alleged refusal to allow these men’s request for the Sacrament of reconciliation and for a last Mass before their execution.

Their execution took place a few days before Ramadan.

All Fired Up

The story has gone round the world quite a few times now, but try as they might to deny it, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service bosses cannot avoid seeing red faces in the mirror – probably over-heated ones. Their order to serving personnel to hand out leaflets at a ‘Gay Pride’ march through Glasgow, and their consequent disciplining of firemen who refused to take part, has raised a storm of protest tinged with disbelief. Arguments such as this kind of activity being a waste of highly trained and experienced firemen’s time and energy, have proved to be of little avail.
Predictable name-calling and accusations of ‘homophobia’ have obscured the true impact of these men’s refusal to get involved in handing out leaflets to homosexuals prancing around the public highways. The real issue is about political correctness, (not just a policy, more an ideology), that dominates the thinking and actions of public bodies all round Scotland. Once this was considered a joke or a fad. We have all come across examples such as referring to Chairman as Chair or Chairperson, or calling the ‘man in the street’ ‘ordinary people’. Coming from self-considered progressive council bodies, actions such as those taken by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service make clear that what we call ‘political correctness’ is something a little more sinister. Political correctness more precisely has to be identified with the spillage from the overturned dustbins of debunked economic Marxism – what it has metastasised into - cultural Marxism.
It’s all tarted up in nice words like ‘tolerance’ or ‘diversity’, ‘multiculturalism,’ ‘anti-racism’ or ‘gay rights’ and has a whole string of designated victims. When the truth is told however, this is soft Marxism as distinct from the hard Marxism that the Cold War was about. Its objective remains the same – the downfall of the West.
Back in the 1920’s the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, a darling of left wing ideology, delivered a throw-away line that still resonates today. He talked about ‘the long march through the culture’, by which he meant subverting our institutions from the inside – like a process of bringing down a building by means of dry rot rather than by demolisher’s ball. It has taken a long time, but Gramsci must be sniggering in his grave at the success of his plan. When it hits base line however, political correctness or cultural Marxism, has got teeth. An example perhaps of the sharpest of these in the case of the Strathclyde firemen is the insistence by their employers, in the face of protest, that they are to attend ‘intense diversity training courses’.
The punishment, and a real punishment it is in terms of the boredom levels that these men will be subjected too, is compulsory attendance at these courses. Naturally enough their social and cultural retraining will be presented in fuzzy, not quite transparent terms. There will be nothing North Korean about it for it is more sensible to approach this sensitive business in a softly-softly way. After all, the first diversity awareness course was started up for people regarded as social deviants in Dachau in the 1930’s.
But eventually the message will be delivered to them firmly and clearly that their reactions to the order given to them were an indicator of their wish to retain their perhaps barely understood or comprehended power over minority groups. There is no question that they the firemen have human rights under a whole galaxy of laws or that their religious beliefs demand personal acceptance. In the face of the urgency of political correctness however, these must be placed to one side.
Eventually what will be laid before them will be a demand, couched in general terms at first, that they realise that they exploit these minority groups, in this case homosexuals, by not acceding to what are their perfectly reasonable demands. These demands are simple, not hard to understand or to carry out. The firemen will be placed in the situation that they must understand they have failed in this case to tolerate homosexuals, have failed to accept them either as individuals or as a social unit, have failed to endorse them and their activities and have failed to celebrate them. In other words, this demand will place them in the position that they should say what they do not believe and are forbidden to disagree with. In other words, they will be expected to direct their words and thoughts into channels that have been predetermined by their employers.
The firemen’s diversity training will not, I imagine, be swayed by arguments that thinking or talking about race does not make you a racist. Nor will they say that thinking or talking about another religious denomination does not make you a religious bigot. Nor will they say that differing between genders makes you a sexist person. Least of all will they say that even if you accept homosexuality per se but do not wish to celebrate it, this does not make you a ‘homophobe’. What will be demanded at some stage in the proceedings will be some sign or other that they conform to the prevailing philosophy and cultural wishes of their employers.
It is only in a world of ruthless disregard for the feelings and beliefs of others that these firemen have been made victims on the altar of ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’, branded as socially and politically incorrect and had their human rights trampled on. They will get the message that in 2006, sin is not any longer a violation of God’s law but is insensitivity to designated minorities. I’m glad to see that Archbishop Conti of Glasgow has spoken up in the press to defend these men. For those sceptical or unsure about his credentials to speak on the issue of ‘diversity’, might I remind them that he (and I) are members of the most diverse group on the planet – the Catholic Church. As for Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service managers – their faces should be red with shame.