Franciscan Eye Candy

A photo of the original tunic wore by St Francis from the excellent 'Portiuncula - The Little Portion' website dedicated to the life and writings of St Francis of Assisi.

'But when on a certain day the Gospel was read in the church, how the Lord sent his disciples out to preach, the holy man of God...immediately put off his shoes from his feet, put aside the staff from his hands, was content with one tunic, and exchanged his leather girdle for a small cord. He designed for himself a tunic that bore a likeness to the cross...'

Saint Francis of Assisi
Celano, First Life
CHAPTER IX

"I don't know, it's all me, me me..."

"Everybody, look at me! This art is so me. It is all about me."

"But hang on!" I hear you say, "Suffering is redemptive! Out of emotional and spiritual pain and suffering can come art of a spectacular nature and from torture and pain emerge Truth, Love, Beauty, O Redemption!"

Well, it used to. Not with this lady it doesn't. In the good old days people believed that art was Art, and that God was using the artist...the artist was merely a channel, the mortal hand in the Hand of the Almighty God...

Art like Emin's speaks only of the spiritual sickness and malaise of the modern World, the World which has lost a sense of the Divine. This is modernity, people! Haven't we progressed!? Still, notice that Christ still gets a look in and is mentioned in her piece.

However, it is still bollocks. For real art, see the post below!

Catholicism Dull? Not a Bit. Not At All. Not then. Not now.

Incredible painting! Really captures the moment, don't you think. The Blessed Virgin towers, central, a giant in the painting, standing majestically amidst the descent of the Holy Spirit, totally open, embracing God, while the Apostles, once again, half-cack themselves in trepidation.

As Paramedicgirl of Salve Regina fame says...

'Notice how the Blessed Virgin appears to be the first to receive the fire of the Holy Ghost, how her hands are clutched across her Immaculate Heart, and her eyes are directed to heaven. She appears to be the only one who is not afraid, and this I find striking, knowing how humble Mary is. This pose appears to anticipate the wait that Mary was subjected to; she literally looks to be in love with God.

This painting, titled "Pentecost" is oil on canvas, and was painted in 1732 by Jean ll Restout, a French neoclassical painter. It rests in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Most of this artists works were altar pieces and tapestries.'

Well said!

I Haven't Got Talent...But Britain Has!

Still, I hear she was robbed by some bunch of amateur dancers tonight. Again, like the Catholic Church always proclaims, of whom she is a member, Truth and Justice are often met by strong opposition! Those dancers...amateurs! Robbed she was! Robbed! I demand a recount!

Update: Say a prayer for Susan, our sister in the Faith, who is in the Priory recovering having been 'taken in' under the Mental Health Act.

Christ Crowned with Thorns on the West Pier

Clever graffiti from presumably a local graffiti artist or Miraculous sign of God's favour on the crumbling Pier?

Happy St Joan of Arc Day!

'And now I know how Joan of Arc felt!
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt!
As the flames rose,
To her Roman nose
And her hearing aid started to melt!'

Glorious martyr, St Joan of Arc, Ora Pro Nobis!

Horticultural Post

I was stunned to see so many butterflies at my parents garden the other day. I know this is a Catho-blog, but I thought peeps would like to know how to get these beautiful butterflies into their garden. While the Gospel should be preached in season and out of season - remember - this is the growing season! I mean, if Damian Thompson can keep harping on about Haydn, I see no reason why I can't introduce some wildlife into my blog.

People say that Buddleja is the best plant for getting wildlife and butterflies into your garden. I recently took a trip over to my parents house and they showed me the Everlasting Wallflower, latin name, Vanessa cardui.

Tens of painted lady butterflies are now swarming into my parents garden, because they absolutely adore this plant. If you like butterflies in your garden, get it! You won't regret it!

CAFOD: Campaigning for a World that is 'Destined to Die'

Mercy, Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye

According to CAFOD 'Our climate is in our hands'...

I understand that the effects of 'climate change' have a more prolific and devastating outcome upon developing nations than our own. Yet, at the same time, CAFOD is a Catholic charity, present in disaster zones at times of desperation and need. Much like Amnesty International, however, CAFOD appears to be losing its Catholic roots, severing itself from the Vine that has fed it and given it so much moral and financial support for such a long time.

The Catholicity of the secular branches of the Church seems to be waning and handing themselves over to the World. Amnesty International now seem to view gay marriage and abortion as 'rights' in the same way that the secular world view them as rights, neglecting the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of Marriage. CAFOD repel the teaching of the Church with regard to contraception, pay their boss over £70,000 a year and keep banging on about the environment, which, vital as it is to our continued existence, is not half so vital to our continued existence as the fact that if we don't breed, if we keep contracepting or sleeping with the same sex and then when we do breed we only have one child and abort the rest, then the human race will become extinct of its own accord.



I don't know. There is something particularly depressing about a Catholic organisation which stand on roadsides protesting telling everyone, 'The climate is in our own hands.' It is debatable even whether this is true. Is the climate really in our own hands? And, even if it is, is this the most important issue of the day? Can we rescue a World, which, as Marvin Gaye so beautifully sang, 'is destined to die', in his song 'Save the Children'.

Secondly, campaigning for the climate is as vague and unsatisfactory a campaign as there could possibly be. Is there anything more intangible than 'the climate'? Much like standing on roadsides and campaigning for an end to poverty with banners saying, 'End Poverty Now!' it is highly dubious whether any poverty will be reduced by such a campaign. How much more dubious, then, is campaigning on roadsides saying, 'save the climate', with no, or little evidence to hand that the environment is improving even if people act upon the advice?

It is important to recall that the Early Church did not go around with placards saying, "Look everyone, this World is so precious and beautiful, it's time we saved the rainforests." The Early Church said, "Brothers and sisters! Repent and believe in the Gospel! The Messiah has come! His name is the Lord Jesus Christ! He was crucified for our sakes! We fully expect Him to return any minute now so you'd better gets your arses onside pronto and live according to God's will!"

The Apostles and the Early Church expected the 'consummation of the World' within their own lifetimes. The fact that the World has lasted this long and has not yet been consummated is clearly another demonstration of God's unfathomable love and mercy for His Creation. Yet still, at every Mass, the Church cries out, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

And when the Lord Jesus comes, what will He ask of His people? Will He ask us about whether we campaigned for the environment? Or will He enquire into the state of our souls? Will He ask whether we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, visited the sick, the imprisoned, protected the most vulnerable and defenseless? When Christ is gazing into our souls on the Last Day, I don't think the environment will be His chief concern, for the environment as we know it shall have been thrown into disarray and we shall be before Him, face to face.

So-called Catholic charities are campaigning for an end to torture, death and the salvation of the environment. Yet, at the same time, the policies with which they acquiesce lead to death, torture and human extinction. The Lord Jesus did not come in the flesh to save the environment, because He knew, and told the Apostles bluntly, that this world was passing away. Suffice to say, that important as the environment is to our continued survival on planet earth, the real seeds of self-destruction are within us, as the Holy Father recently said, not in the atmosphere. It is in our hearts and our souls which make choices whether we shall live, or whether we shall die. There is only one climate which is in our hands...and that is our moral climate. And as you can see from the newspapers, that really is the only campaign worth fighting for...but as the Gospel writers firmly declare, it starts with us.

The Colossus of Rhodes

So, thanks to Netflix I've finally gotten around to seeing Sergio Leone's debut film, the 1961 peplum The Colossus of Rhodes. Despite a handful of neat directorial touches and an interesting story, Colossus is pretty typical of its genre and its studio, with only sporadic hints of a future master at the helm.

Dario (Rory Calhoun) is a celebrated Greek warrior vacationing on the island of Rhodes, ruled by the tyrannical King Serses (Robert Carmadiel), which has just completed building the great Colossus as a monument to the King's glory. Before long, Dario finds himself involved in a complicated web of political intrigues: a group of slave rebels recruit an unwitting Dario to help overthrow the King, and Serses' greedy advisor Thar (Conrado San Martin) is importing Phoenician mercenaries for an attempt coup d'etat of his own, with the help of his duplicitous lover Diala (Lea Massari). Dario sides with the rebels and sets out to defeat both evil parties and make things right on Rhodes.

My experience with the peplum genre is pretty much limited to the atrocious, laughably bad Hercules films with Steve Reeves. Like the Spaghetti Westerns Leone would later make his name (and legend) with, the peplums were largely an off-shoot of a popular Hollywood genre, in this case the sword-and-sandal historical epic that dominated Hollywood in the late '50s and early '60s: Quo Vadis?, Ben-Hur, Spartacus, The Fall of the Roman Empire. (It's certainly no coincidence that Leone worked as an assistant director on the former two films.) Colossus is fairly unremarkable, hampered by a limited budget, with a few neat directoral flairs and story ideas interspersed throughout; certainly it lacks the skill, quality and depth of a Spartacus or Ben-Hur, with the usual genre cliches in abundance - gladiator fights, executions, sultry maidens, crooked kings, ruthless schemers, and rebellious slaves.

The movie's plot certainly has a lot going on. The movie's multifaceted storyline and tangled intrigues are comparable to an average Hollywood sword-and-sandal film, at least in theory. Leone and Christopher Frayling have argued that the movie is a parody of Alfred Hitchcock's spy films - Dario as Cary Grant in North By Northwest, the hollow Colossus itself standing in for Saboteur's empty Statue of Liberty - and while it's difficult to dismiss this idea, given Leone's well-noted cinephilia, it may be an attempt to add gloss to an unremarkable film. Whatever the case, the interesting-on-paper story is inevitably let down by the lagging budget and production values. The acting is adequate, with the expected atrocious dubbing, the screenplay clunkily written, Angelo Lavagino's score banal and bombastic - in these regards, Colossus is nothing special. The film moves at a snail's pace, with lots of poorly-dubbed talking scenes, interspersed with some nice cinematography and an occasional battle scene.

The best part, unsurprisingly, is the film's direction and design. The movie's art direction is wonderful, with lots of well-designed, ornamented and foreboding sets - Diala's home, Serses' palace, and the mechanical, empty Colossus itself - and Leone's trademark camera eye and visual sense are already clearly developed. Action scenes are handled adequately, with a handful of standout moments in the film (the final battle in the Colossus a standout). However, the movie is only fitfully exciting, and while auteurists may spot some visual cues that will point the way to Leone's later films, that's not reason enough to watch it in and of itself.

Colossus of Rhodes isn't by any means a bad film, merely an unremarkable one. The few flashes of Leone flair are a very small piece of the whole, and not reason enough to watch. This film is recommended to non-discerning sword-and-sandal fans and Leone die-hards only; for anyone else, it's at best a curio. At the very least, it's no worse than A Fistful of Dollars.

Rating: - 5/10 - Mediocre

The Irish Catholic Abuse Scandal

Damian Thompson has written a good piece on the Irish-Catholic abuse scandal. I have thrown my two pennies worth in. He has concentrated on the question of whether it was Irish or Catholic abuse, almost as if cruelty and sexual immorality was hereditary within the Irish genetic make-up. I am being a bit spurious. I don't think that was what he was really saying. It is true that Ireland had experienced poverty and political strife and warfare that had a dehumanising effect but it is difficult to put it all down to that. Why Ireland? It is difficult to say.

Fr Ray Blake, at St Mary Magdalen's, posted a good piece on Irish Catholicism, also, which may give a hint of as to why. He also argued that in a sense the deep turmoil, civil, political and social of Ireland had almost desensitized men and women to human suffering and the abuse of the individual. Yet he went deeper. I remember reading Angela's Ashes and being struck by the very vivid and honest account of the writer's upbringing, Frank McCourt.

The Church described in McCourt's book is dark, damp, dank, unforgiving, inhuman terrain that speaks only of the fallen nature of mankind, of the harsh judgment upon sinners, which could, if unreflected in the light of the Church's understanding of God's paternal, tender, compassionate and merciful love be seen in the Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It was almost as if the Irish Church were saying, "You killed Jesus and that's it! Game over!" The Church that we know however, holds aloft the Cross of Christ and says, 'Behold, the Saviour of the World!" The Lord indeed did die for our sins...Yet He rose again as He said He would!

How then, without a sense of the Resurrection, which comes from the joy of being forgiven, the joy of having been lost, but found again, time and time again, could anyone show to another the joy of God's redeeming love? This, I can only assume, is why the Church does not applaud flagellants, even in Holy Week, for God did not die upon the Cross for nothing. He died for us, to ransom us and to save us from the punishment that would rightfully have been ours. God doesn't need us to prove our sorrow to Him or our worth. Our Blessed Lord, in the Parable of the Prodigal Son describes the Heavenly Father as looking out for the son, and upon seeing him, literally running out to meet him so that He may caress him and embrace him as a Father!

God is generous, loving, tender, gentle, kind, compassionate and is Goodness itself! God is Love! Yet within the Irish Church, so many have recounted through their experience in their formative years, an impression of God which goes against all of His Heavenly attributes. The God of the Irish Church does not appear to be the God of the Italians, Spanish or even that notoriously stiff bunch, the English. And so, it is about the formation, generationally, of the image of God that we have. Is our God mean, cruel, sadistic, judgmental and angry? If He is that for us then it is highly likely that we will imitate that image. Whereas if God is, for us, what He truly is, Love, then it is likely we will imitate that love towards our neighbour, whatever age, gender they are.

Take it away, Morrissey...Go on, son, let it all out...



You see! There is more to that man than meets the eye, I can tell you. The point is, that our joy, Christian joy, is just in what the Gospel says it is. It is in the joy of being forgiven. That is why this blog is called what it is - That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill - The bones that are crushed by the weight of our sins, thrill and are revived, restored by God Himself, by His Love, by His Sacraments of Love! The same bones will thrill, I pray at the End of Time when He comes in Glory! If we do not have that joy, then how could we possibly forgive the injuries that we incur from our neighbour and show our neighbour the love of God? How could we love, if we were not shown what love is? That, or a lack of understanding of that, is at the heart of the Irish-Catholic abuse scandal.

From Out of the Mouths of Babes...

I say this as a total aside. However, a thought just popped into my head. Why is it that the website of, say, the Bishops of England and Wales, which has a veritable army of employees and surely more than a few in a media team, does not look anything like Catholic Online, which is a very well orchestrated website speaking out unequivocably on matters of Faith, Life and Catholic Doctrine? It has daily readings, a Saints Calendar, reflects totally the Magisterium and really is a good source of all things Catholic. I don't know...it's bemusing.

'Lia, the twelve-year-old girl who made headlines for presenting a pro-life speech in a school speech competition against tremendous opposition from her teachers earlier this year, gave her exceptional oration to the 12,000 strong crowd at the National March For Life in Ottawa, Canada last week.

Lia, who is from Ontario, adapted her speech for the March for Life slightly, adding, “Every day, 115,000 are being put to death through abortion. 115,000. Look around at this great sea of people. This is only about 10,000 people. Every two hours, this amount of children are killed because of abortion.”

Lia became a household name in the pro-life world when she was disqualified from a public speaking contest last February. She gave her speech anyway, while still being disqualified, causing one of the judges to leave the panel before her speech even began. Controversy among the judges caused them to reverse their earlier decision to disqualify Lia and she ended up winning the contest.

The speech on Parliament Hill was videotaped by Socon Media. The amateur video not only shows Lia giving her speech, but clearly reveals the large size of the crowd, as well as the difficult weather conditions experienced by everyone present for the March for Life. Lia's 8-minute speech was cheered by the pro-life Canadians on the Hill, many of whom were delighted to hear and see this young lady, made internationally famous as a result of the YouTube video of her original speech, which has been viewed 650,000 times so far.

“Almost one third of our generation never made it out of the womb,” Lia said, “all those lives are now gone. All that potential, gone, and all that hope and future, gone.”

Lia rhetorically asked the crowd, “Why do we think that just because a fetus can't talk, or do what we do, it isn't a human being yet? Could it be that we only call them humans if they're wanted?”

“Fetuses are definitely human, knit together in their mother's womb by their wonderful creator,” Lia said, referencing Psalm 139.

Commenting on the legal vacuum surrounding abortion in Canada, Lia said, to the approval of the crowd, “Some people might say that since there are no laws against abortion in Canada, it doesn't matter any more. The matter's settled, and it's none of our business. But if an action is unjust, it should be illegal, and it needs to be our business.”

“I know some people say, 'the mother has the right to abort, after all, her life is dramatically affected by having a baby,' ” she said, “but I'm asking you to think about the child's rights that were never given to it.”

“No matter what rights the woman has it does not mean we can deny the rights of the fetus,” Lia stated, eliciting cheers. “We must remember that with our rights, and with our choices, comes responsibilities, and we can't take away someone else's rights to avoid our responsibilities.”

Next, Lia spoke out against the startling abortion statistics related to babies with disabilities, saying, “What doesn't make sense to me is that on the one hand, we provide special parking and elevators for the handicapped, we sponsor the Special Olympics, speaking of the joy they are to us and how they inspire us.” She continued, “But, when we find out that a pregnant woman is carrying one of these very children we counsel her to abort it, not giving the child a second thought.”'

For full story click here at Catholic Online.

UN: Not Killing Your Child Feels Like This...

And there I was thinking the UN was a largely useless organisation which pulls out of war-torn African nations and leaves people to die out of cowardice...No, they're more than just that. Apparently, they now equate not having the 'right' to abortion to 'torture'!

Another article from the highly informative Friday Fax from C-Fam.

The United Nations (UN) committee charged with monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture has declared that Nicaragua’s full protection of fetal life violates the country's obligations under the Convention. This is the first time this committee has reviewed Nicaragua since that government outlawed abortion for any reason three years ago.

The torture committee is the fourth UN committee to pressure Nicaragua with respect to its laws protecting unborn life, joining the committees charged with monitoring the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Critics are increasingly concerned with what they view as the politicization of the treaty monitoring system by committees charged with oversight. Neither the Convention Against Torture nor any other UN treaty mentions abortion, and it was not contemplated when such treaties were negotiated and ratified that countries were committing themselves to altering domestic legislation on abortion. For full story click here.

Let's Kick Some ICE!

God help me.

Today I watched Joel Schumaker's Batman & Robin (1997). It had been quite awhile since I'd deliberately watched a notoriously awful movie without the help of MST3K. I knew from various YouTube videos and word of mouth that I was in for one hell of a ride, but nothing could prepare me for the dumbfounding sight that I witnessed today. While the Billy Jack and Leprechaun movies could at least plead "No budget!", this would-be blockbuster has no such excuse. Other than the Devlin-Emmerich Godzilla reboot, this is without a doubt the worst big-budget Hollywood movie I've ever seen.

Do you really need to know the plot? Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cold-hearted ex-scientist who goes on a crime spree in an attempt to cure his dying wife of a rare disorder. He's helped by Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), a pheremone-spewing femme fatale created through a lab accident, burning for revenge against humanity in general. These two spew off bad pun after bad pun like a barrel full of MadTV writers. Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell) strap on their nipple-adorned Batsuits and attempt to stop these guys, only to find themselves at odds with each other as much as their superfoes. Oh, and Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough in child molestor mode) has a terminal illness, and his niece (Alicia Silverstone) shows up to help our heroes kick some ice (and, er, leaf).

One comes away from Batman & Robin completely and utterly dumbfounded. I've never been a fan of Batman or superheroes in general, so I'm merely judging it based on basic human instincts. That being said, What the fuck is going on here? Did Schumaker and Company seriously think they were making a good film? Certainly some degree of camp is intentional - you don't write a million puns about ice without hoping at least one of them is funny - but how can one take this film even remotely seriously? With a boatful of A-list stars giving earth-shatteringly bad performances, an unbelievably turgid screenplay that's the stuff Internet memes are made of, a plot that goes nowhere in a hurry, laughably drawn characters, horrendously shot action sequences (with amusingly primitive CGI), and the visual sense of a squirrel on angel dust, Batman & Robin is not only mind-bendingly bizarre and inexplicable, but absolutely worthless as entertainment - even the justly-mocked camp elements are treading on thin ice towards the end.

The film is certainly creative visually, full of giant nude statues, Batnipples (and lots of crotch and butt close-ups), lots of icey and plant-adorned sets, and backdrops and settings that seem to be aimed at a deliberately cartoonish atmosphere. The result is surreal, inasmuch as a fever dream is surreal. Ultimately, it's also about as pleasant as a bad bout of the flu, or eating raw meat out of the ice box. If nothing else, this film provides Exhibit A that creative is by no means a synonym for good. One misses the rote, uncreative banality of a Michael Bay extravaganza here; with its multifaceted plot, large cast of characters, and whacky, drug-induced visual sense, Batman & Robin is nothing if not ambitious - but oh how it fails.

The cast seems to be engaging in a contest to see who can give the worst performance - and believe me, the competition is very stiff. George Clooney is stiff, wooden, boring and completely unemotive as the third '90s incarnation of Batman, and Chris O'Donnell is an obnoxious, utterly punchable prick as Robin. Arnold Schwarzenegger stops the competition cold with a frosty performance, spitting off frost-bitten puns every second that brings in gails of laughter. Uma Thurman trades him punch for punch as Poison Ivy, chewing off an endless string of equally atrocious plant puns in the most insufferable Barbara Stanwyck/Katharine Hepburn impersonation ever. I was expecting this from Ahnuld but damn, I was under the impression that Uma could act. Alicia Silverstone is just unspeakably annoying as Batgirl, and John Glover's brief appearance as Thurman's psychotic research partner surely deserves comparison with the theater douchebag from Silent Night Deadly Night 2 as the most obnoxious one-scene character in film history. In a smaller role, Coolio gives a performance every bit impressive as his turn in Leprechaun in the Hood. Only Michael Gough as Alfred and Pat Hingle as Gordon give anything resembling decent performances.

So, yeah, I may not be The Dark Knight's biggest fan, but after this glacial abomination I've no freezing desire to see more. Unless my ice deceive me, this film is as pleasant as an icicle through the eye, and just as painful. At least there are some laughs to be had, but the idea of sitting through this iceberg again is a chilling prospect indeed. It gives me frostbite just thinking about it...

All right, enough of that. All I have to add is: Vat kilt da dinosaurs?*

Rating: Absolute Zero/10 - Dat Means It's Really Cold... Er, Bad

* - DEE ICE AGE!!!

Pentecost

Veni Creator Spiritus

The Choir at St Mary Magdalen's are learning this Gregorian Chant for Pentecost. Nice, eh?! It's more morish than midget gems!



Veni Sancti Spiritus

Was Morrissey Schooled by the Christian Brothers?

Billionaires Meet in New York to Plot 'Population Strategy'

George Soros, one of a group who want more 'population control'

Courtesy of C-FAM, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

A cabal of the world’s richest men and women just met in New York City. The meeting included multi-billionaires David Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Warren Buffet. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate their charitable giving. That sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Until you hear what they agreed on. They agreed that the world’s number one problem is that there are too many poor people. That’s nice, too. There are too many poor people. And what is their solution? Get rid of the poor people.

These fabulously wealthy people with their grand houses, private jets, yachts and lavish lifestyles decided to pool their massive resources and declare war on the world’s poor by spending billions of dollars on population control! This group met a few days ago in New York and call themselves, get this, 'The Good Club'!

This is a veritable rogues gallery of anti-life and anti-family plutocrats. Ted Turner is a long time supporter of forcing poor countries to support abortion and population control. David Rockefeller is one of the founders of the modern population control movement and through his Rockefeller Foundation has paid billions for it. And these guys are not just for population control; They are also anti-Christian!

The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the big funders of the anti-Catholic anti-life groups that calls itself Catholics for Choice. Ted Turner gave a speech at the UN several years ago in which he attacked his childhood Christianity and was given a standing ovation for doing so! There is a massive resurgence of population control activity. Just a few weeks ago, we reported in our Friday Fax that the UN just issued a new report calling for increased spending to reduce the fertility rate (that is UN-speak for population control) in the developing world!

I will put aside the question of whether these guys have gotten the news that the big population problem in the world today is not rapidly growing populations but rather the “graying of the population” precisely because of UN style population control programs. I bring this to your attention because as there is renewed spending on these issues and that the UN is back into the population control business so much that there is a profound need for the continuing health of C-FAM’s Friday Fax…You can donate here to keep the Friday Fax going.

The Friday Fax broke the story on the new UN report! We got there first because we are at the UN every single day. Our office is a mere 50 feet from UN headquarters. The UN and the billionaire boys club will not stop. They will not stop until abortion is the law of the world. They will not stop until they have imposed population control on every single man, woman and child in the world. We cannot allow David Rockefeller, George Soros and Ted Turner along with the UN to target poor counties. We cannot allow them to spread abortion around the world.

1962 Westerns: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Ride the High Country

In honor of John Wayne's birthday, I gave a long-overdue rewatch to one of my old favorites, John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and then watched Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country to boot. Both films were made in 1962, both are elegiac, mournful and nostalgic re-examinations of the Western myth - with one the last masterpiece of an aging master, the other the first great film of an up-and-comer. Little surprise that the two films have so much in common, and both are masterpieces in their own right. Here then is a double-barreled review of these two fine films, each the work of a great director at (or near) the height of their creative talents.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance



The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of John Ford's greatest films, up there with Stagecoach as his magnum opus. Despite its unimpressive, cluttered visual sense, the film rich in story, characters and themes, and is one of the most deep and fascinating of Ford's works, exploring and criticizing the myth of the Old West that Ford himself played no small part in building. Late in the film, Carleton Young's cynical newspaper man proclaims "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend" - a clarion call for the revisionist Westerns of Leone, Peckinpah, Eastwood and numerous others who would soon overtake the genre.

Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) returns with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to his old hometown in Shinbone, to attend the funeral of deceased rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Stoddard recounts the story of his arrival in Shinbone for Maxwell Scott (Young), the editor of the local newspaper. Stoddard arrives in the town when Shinbone was still a small farming village; along the way his stagecoach is robbed by the vicious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his gang of thugs (Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef), and he is beaten and left for dead, until rescued by Doniphon and nursed back to health by Hallie and her parents (John Qualen and Jeanette Nolan). With the help of Doniphon and hard-drinking newspaper editor Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien), Stoddard hopes to bring law and order into Shinbone, trying to vote for territorial statehood - only to find Valance now working as a hired gun for cattlemen, sent south to terrorize ranchers into voting their way. After Valance is defeated in an election, he embarks on a brutal campaign of vengeance - forcing Stoddard into a fateful showdown with the fearsome outlaw.

Liberty Valance is oft-criticized for its claustrophobic, stage-bound setting; most of the film takes place on sets and interiors, with only a handful of modest outdoor sequences, and the movie has a number of lengthy dialogue scenes more literate and wordy than one would find in the average Western. However, given the film's focus and subject matter, this is hardly a flaw; if anything, it makes the tale more potent. One may miss the pictoral majesty of Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine or The Searchers, but the film's meat is in its story and characters. It's a deliberate throw back to Ford's older films, with the same broad archetypes and humor (and sparse, limited production values) that made films like Stagecoach and Drums Along the Mohawk, injecting them with a mixture of nostalgia, cynicism and regret. This is the way it used to be, and while not perfect or easy, one could look towards the future with a sense of hope.

The movie matches many of Ford's thematic preoccupations. Like the Ringo Kid, Doc Holiday in Clementine, and most pointedly Wayne's own Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, Doniphon is the archetypical tough guy Westerner, necessary for the conquest of the West but completely irrelevant in a modern society - he has more in common with Valance than Stoddard and even his fellow ranchers. The scene where he bursts in on the territorial convention, disheveled and embittered, shows us more than The Searchers' revered final shot; when he dies, this history-making man, once beloved and respected by all, dies without anyone noticing. It is better for the legend for the idealistic "dude" Ransom to have slain the evil wild man Valance; however necessary this story, it is fiction, and one that society is more than happy to propagate. Even Hallie, who marries Ranse but is truly in love with Tom, upholds the "legend" - allowing the story of a noble hero saving the town and ensuring progress, rather than a conflict resolved with a cold-blooded murder.

The cast is filled to the brim with stars and veteran character actors. James Stewart is far too old for Ranse, but he instills the proper mixture of optimism, idealism and righteous anger; it's impossible to see anyone else playing the part, age aside. John Wayne is at his iconic best, as both the badass hero and the washed-up, embittered outsider. The real scene stealer is Lee Marvin, whose flamboyant, sadistic Liberty Valance is one of the greatest villains in film history (with a young Lee Van Cleef and a particularly sleazy Strother Martin as his henchmen). Edmund O'Brien, Ken Curtis and John Carradine chew scenery with gleeful, reckless abandon; in other films their hammy performances might be distracting or out-of-place, but they're absolutely perfect in this context. The supporting cast includes the great Woody Strode as Wayne's sidekick Pompey, and Denver Pyle, Andy Devine, Carleton Young and O.Z. Whitehead as various townspeople. If Vera Miles is the same shrill, obnoxious shrew as in The Searchers, and John Qualen and Jeanette Nolna's Muppet Swedes are annoying as all get out, they're in the minority.

Rating: 10/10 - Must-See

Ride the High Country



Sam Peckinpah's second feature film (after considerable TV work and the Maureen O'Hara star vehicle The Deadly Companions) is no less accomplished or melancholy than Ford's effort. In many ways, it represents a passing of the mantle from the old school Hollywood director to the new generation. Although the film's mournful nostalgia for "the old days" and reflections on loyalty and friendship would be reflected in Peckinpah's later Westerns, the movie lacks the violent nihilism of The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and is all the better for it.

Aging lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) is hired by a bank to transport a shipment of gold from the mining town of Coarsegold. Needing some extra help, Judd enlists the help of his old partner, Gill Westrum (Randolph Scott), who has been scratching out a living as a conman with his hotheaded partner Heck Longtree (Ron Starr). Gill plans to convince Steve to make off with the gold shipment, but finds his old partner frustratingly implaccable. Along the way to Coarsegold, they find themselves saddled with Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley), a young girl fleeing her repressive father (R.G. Armstrong) to marry miner Billy Hammond (James Drury). Complications ensue when Elsa discovers that marrying Billy will leave her at the mercy of his animalistic brothers (Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, John Davis Chandler, John Anderson), who have less-than-savory plans for her. After rescuing Elsa from a decidedly unpleasant fate, Steve discovers Gill and Heck's duplicity, only to find their group tracked by the vengeful Hammonds - leading, of course, to a violent showdown and forcing Gill to face up to his treachery.

Ride the High Country is certainly a fascinating and entertaining film, just as filled with rich characters and elegiac nostalgia as Valance. Steve and Gill are both old veterans, with endless stories from the old days, endless shootings, beatings and betrayals. Stealing the gold seems like an obvious choice to Gill, the pragmatic, self-interested survivor; but Steve's strong sense of morality, baffling to Gill and Heck, prevents him from breaking his word and the law he has striven to uphold his whole life. Eventually, Steve wins out, his forthright honesty enough to shame Gill into submission. Both men find themselves reluctantly protecting Elsa, who flees her repressive, Bible-thumping Father only to find herself in an even worse situation with the rapacious redneck Hammonds - their sense of chivalry overwhelming their sense of survival. The film's mournful ending, with the mortally-wounded Judd slowly dying with the Sierras in the background, is among the most moving and tragic finales in film history - a fitting ending to one of the most endearingly honest and straightforward characters in Western history.

In only his second film, Peckinpah shows a wonderful sense of the cinematic. Working with an economical budget, he creates a truly beautiful film, with Lucien Ballard's brilliant cinematography capturing the beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains - the film has the appropriate "late-afternoon" quality, perfectly matching the mournful nature of the film's story, much more gentle than the angry and cynical feel of Peckinpah's later films. Peckinpah's trademark attention to detail and accuracy, as well as his own personal experiences in the West, is perfectly shown in the mining camp and the developing town. The final showdown, where Steve and Gill take on the surviving Hammonds in a face-to-face standoff, is fiercely edited, showing traces of the Peckinpah who would become infamous for his graphically violent montage. The movie is briskly paced at 94 minutes, with not a second wasted. George Bassman provides a wonderfully mournful and tragic main theme, although much of his incidental music is bombastic and overbearing.

Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, long-time Western stars, are both picture-perfect in their respective roles. The fresh-faced Mariette Hartley is wonderful as Elsa, one of the best female characters in a Peckinpah film. The foundations of Peckinpah's stock cast are in evidence, with R.G. Armstrong playing the first variation of the Bible-thumping psychopath he would perfect in Major Dundee and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones and John Davis Chandler as three of the Hammond Brothers. Also noteworthy are Edgar Buchanan in an amusing bit as the drunken Judge and James Drury as the deceptively charming Billy. Ron Starr's stiff performance as Heck is the only histrionic flaw in the film.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation

Another Great Idea from Tony Blair

In Brighton we have a great many Police Community Support Officers. I have blogged about them before, suffice to say that are universally hated by the poor and serve only to act as a local band of state Stasi. The strange thing about them is that they are neither 'police', nor do they 'support' the 'community'. All they are is a group of officers.

Tony Blair, presumably, decided they were a good thing, because he wanted to crack down hard on 'crime' and the 'causes of crime', which seemingly, in the eyes of the PSCOs, is a few people milling around on a lawn having a beer. Now, I'm not as naive as I was. I know that the people on the lawns of London Road can get lairy. However, the PCSO's are employed to pour people's beer down the drain and take their names and details and ask them to move on. So they do, they move on, and get another beer. I don't know, maybe Blair just wanted to crack down hard on the poor, who can't afford to drink champers like he does, or earn £100,000 every time they open their mouths. Ironically the average poor man of London Road has things to say which are a thousand times more profound and important to the World than anything that emanates from Blessed Tony of the Faith Foundation's mouth.

I went out busking today in Brighton and saw quite a bit of my friend, 'J'. God provided for my needs and I had some left over for another. Jason is confined to the London Road, by and large, because of an ASBO which lasts until 2012. He has been beaten up 4-5 times in the last week. He now has a blood clot in his head, which if it spreads further down to his spine could kill him. I have offered to take him to hospital but he doesn't want it. He was released from jail and thrown onto Brighton's streets with nothing and nobody.

Two weeks later, he still waits to be housed or get a place in a hostel. He is trying desperately to go to his meetings at the drugs rehab day centre in Brighton to get off drugs and avoid a 2 and a half year sentence in Lewes prison. He is confined to London Road, where he encounters only people with the same addictions from which he suffers. He begs, he drinks. He drinks, he begs. He forgets to eat, he starves. He has nothing to do. He cannot work, for he has no home, no clothes but what he wears and suffers alcoholism and drug addiction. He wanders down the valley of the London Road again and again, back and forth seeing friends and foes. He goes to the Probation Service. He is told there is no hostel places for him at the moment, 'Come back and try again soon,' they say.

I tell him I am worried about him with his blood clot. He says he doesn't mind if he dies. I tell him I mind and so do others. He says he has struggled on his own since he was 10. He never had a mother's love or a father's love. He was in and out of care homes, most probably abused. He has always been unloved. The society now, which penalises him, still refuses also to house him or help him or support him. The community support officers see him with a beer and tell him to pour it away down the drain. They cannot see his pain, his suffering, only his sin or his vice. They cannot bring themselves to enter into, even slightly, the sufferings which mark him, nor look upon the scars on his head from his 5 beatings, for they are 'professionals'.

They cannot bear to see that Christ suffers in him. They cannot care, they can only penalise and criminalise. He swears at them. I swear at them. We are both told not to swear in the street or to a policeman. I tell them they are nothing but trumped up administrators and they're not even police. They hound Jason and other street drinkers or beggars. That's what they do with their day. Further up the London Road I see two men in suits filming with someone from BBC South on the 'regeneration' of London Road, which doubtless means hotels and shops and flats. I tell them about my friend who is homeless for two weeks out of jail, naively. He says, 'we're filming about this regeneration project'. The man being interviewed talks about 'regeneration' and 'business'.

I meet a friend later called 'G' who was arrested this week for begging, while singing in the town centre. We both wonder what on earth is going on when you cannot even busk for your dinner. Brighton and Britain are turning fast into a police state. The effects of the breakdown of society are all around and the poor suffer it the most. The State, the police, feel compelled to penalise, just to make sure that society doesn't go under, but they serve only to criminalise the very poor and to exclude men and women from society further. I look around and wonder whether one day the police will have the power to remove everyone they deem problematic or unsightly from society altogether, like the street-children of Brazil who are picked off at point blank range by the State police.

Keep 'J' please in your prayers. St Philip Neri, Wonderworker, please pray for him and the poor of London Road.

Red River

Today is John Wayne's 102nd birthday, and in seeing such I realize that I, an alleged John Wayne fan, have yet to review a single one of his films for this blog! Last Friday I gave a long-overdue rewatch of Howard Hawks' Red River (1948), but didn't get around writing a review of it. So, here is my humble birthday offering to the Duke.

Tom Dunson (John Wayne) is a tough cowpoke who decides, along with crabby old partner Groot (Walter Brennan), to leave his Western-bound wagon train and settle in Texas - a fortunate decision, as a band of Comanches soon wipes out the wagon train. With only a bull and a cow - and Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift), a young boy who is the party's sole survivor - Dunson sets up his own claim along the banks of the Red River. Fifteen years later, Dunson is one of the most powerful ranchers in Texas, but he needs to drive his herd east to Missouri to pay off debts and keep his business afloat. Along the arduous trek, sparks fly between Tom and Matt, as the former becomes increasingly cruel and tyrannical. Eventually, Matt leads a mutiny against Dunson, and drives the herd to Abilene, Kansas rather than Missouri. Along the way, the party rescue a group of pioneers - including tough girl Tess Millay (Joanne Dru) - from marauding Indians, but even as they approach their destination, Matt knows that Dunson is on his trail, sworn to avenge his treachery.

Red River is widely considered one of the landmark Westerns of all time, and one of John Wayne's very best performances. It delivers in both categories, for the most part, but the movie is far from a masterpiece. The film's flaws have been well-expanded on by this point in time, but they certainly hamper what could otherwise be one of the all-time great Westerns.

The movie is certainly solid for most of its length. One thing Hawks undoubtedly excells at is male bonding; the scenes of Dunson's cowboys bickering and bonding on the trail, which might prove banal in the hands of another director, are highly entertaining and well-written sequences. Certainly, the relationship of Tom and Matt is perfectly set up, with their makeshift father-son bond stretched to the breaking point as Tom proves to be a petty tyrant. And the scenes of the drive itself are breath-taking and exciting, interspersed by strong bits of character conflict and interaction which help drive the story along. Much of the film would later be appropriated by Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee: the male comarderie, the tension between the two protagonists, and Dunson's obsession with killing deserters (the two pertinent scenes borrowed almost verbatim by Peckinpah). The first hour and twenty minutes of Red River, then, are Hawks at his best, and there's certainly the set-up for a truly great film.

But things go south in the last forty minutes. Without much logical progression other than getting Dunson out of the picture, Matt and Co. come across a group of Western-bound settlers under Indian attack, including Tess, who provides a ridiculous, tacked-on love interest. Joanne Dru is a fine and quite attractive actress, but here she is saddled with a ridiculously out of place character, who seems more like Hildy Johnson thrown into a Western setting than a tough pioneer woman (the scene where she keeps chattering even after being shot with an arrow is ridiculous). She just seems out of place, with no point in the story - a problem Hawks would repeat in other Westerns (most notably Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo). Nor does she have any chemistry with Matt, which makes it all the worse (yes, Montgomery Clift was gay, but he had chemistry with many an actress).

The film really falters on its ludicrous conclusion, which I have no problems with spoiling since the film is 61 years old. Dunson completely disappears from the story for the better part of half an hour, allowing Matt and Tess to wallow in romantic contrivance while we wait impatiently for the final showdown. Tom finally appears with a large gang of hired guns, Matt's men prepare to confront him - and what do we get? A brief bout of fisticuffs, interrupted by a whiny, gun-toting Tess who shrieks at them to get along. Is this some sort of joke? If it is, it isn't funny, but on the other hand it's impossible to take it seriously. For this, Red River belongs in the same league as Rosemary's Baby for an otherwise brilliant film ruined by an atrociously ill-conceived climax.

For all this, at least Hawks excells directorially. Hawks and cinematographer Arthur Rosson provide beautiful location work; the shots of the huge herd of real cattle on the move is really refreshing in an age of CGI, and the rest of the movie, aside from a few set-bound sequences, is no less impressive. The stampede scene (copied almost verbatim in the recent Australia) in particular is exciting and expertly staged, the set and location work matching seemlessly. Dimitri Tiomkin provides a nice if somewhat bombastic score to the proceedings.

John Wayne gives very near a career-best performance as Dunson. The Duke was always more of a physical presence in his films than a great actor, but in the right role he showed that he wasn't just a wooden tough guy. Along with Ethan Edwards in The Searchers and Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, Wayne's performance as Tom Dunson is a truly impressive and admirably atypical performance; he plays a vicious, tyrannical martinet with surprising ease, and gives off a strong performance, commanding the screen throughout (and even when he's not in the film). If there's one reason to see the film through to the end, it's the Duke.

The rest of the cast is hit-or-miss. Montgomery Clift is fine, if a bit mannered; he's not quite convincing as a tough cowpoke but he has chemistry with Wayne and makes Matt an interesting character. Walter Brennan rehearses the cranky old coot role he would perfect in Rio Bravo. John Ireland is underused as Cherry Valance, Matt's presumptive rival, and Joanne Dru, as mentioned above, is largely annoying. Smaller roles are ably handled by Western veterans Harry Carey Sr. AND Jr., Paul Fix, Noah Beery, Chief Yowlatchie and Hank Worden.

Red River is very entertaining for two-thirds of its length; it could easily have been a masterpiece. The last thirty minutes, but especially the conclusion, is absolutely ridiculous, which is a real pity.

The Unborn Under Attack: UN Population Fund

Powerful abortion lobbyists use the UN as their power centre

I get emails from Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. In the West, we take it for granted that legalised abortion is universal and that the rights of the unborn are not really defended anywhere. Not so. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute is doing a good job of highlighting the pressure building on countries which have not bought into the abortion agenda. Much of the pressure on these countries is coming from the United Nations, from powerful secular pressure groups and lobbyists, concerned with the rights of everyone but the unborn.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic has come under fire from some of the world’s most powerful abortion advocates, aiming to block a proposed constitutional amendment that would enshrine legal protection of the country’s unborn.

The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), backed by European nations, major foundations and the UN Population Fund, has launched an aggressive campaign to thwart proposed Article 30, which would protect human life “from conception.” The country’s national assembly approved the amendment in a first reading by an overwhelming majority of 167-32 on April 21st, but it must go through a second reading before final promulgation by the President.

IWHC is seeking to draw Dominicans into street protests and letter writing campaigns to the legislature claiming that Article 30 “violates international agreements signed and ratified by the Dominican Republic, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], the American Convention on Human Rights [ACHR] and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW].”

For more click here.

East Timor

As pre-session working groups of the committee charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) meet in advance of the committee's July session, the small Asian nation of East Timor has come under pressure for its continued criminalization of abortion. East Timor’s new penal code, which will take effect early next month, continues to penalize the practice, including abortion in cases of rape or incest, but with the added proviso that exceptions can be made in cases where the mother’s health is in jeopardy.

As East Timor, or Timor-Leste, states in its report to the Committee, "Abortion is still an extremely sensitive issue in Timor-Leste, especially given the traumatic events of recent years." The report goes on to explain some Timorese cultural practices which impact "reproductive health." Contraception is generally unpopular in the predominantly Catholic state, with both men and women seeing it as fueling promiscuity and sexually-transmitted diseases while decreasing the number of children.

For more click here.

To sign a petition to the UN to have the rights of the child and the family enshrined and upheld, click here.

Symbolism Associated with Obama

The image of the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, IHS. Obama and his gangsters had covered at Georgetown at a Catholic University.



The sign of 'progress'. Remember, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro and every other horrendous ideologue has had a vision of 'progress'. Usually it involved killing hundreds of thousands in order to achieve it.

This is how Hitler explained his plans to his nation, with the use of signs and symbols.



Crikey! The triangle is an occultist symbol. Hence the pyramid and 'all-seeing eye' which adorns the dollar and so much masonic symbolism.



His supporters are cottoning on. Freaky and bizarre. Have they lost their minds?



Lucifer is described as the 'bright and morning star'. This symbol is straight out of an occult textbook. It has been borrowed from one Lucis Trust, formerly known as Lucifer Trust, set up by occult practitioner, Alice Bailey. They seem to be particularly influential in the UN, which is developing some pretty horrendous abortion legislation.

Lucifer is the 'light-bearer'. Obama's campaign imagery, especially on his website, has him bathed in bright, white light, and even Biden gets in on the celestial action. Oprah Winfrey, known for her new age enthusiasm, has described Obama as an 'evolved leader'. This is, according to many, a phrase lifted from the occult only to be applied to Obama. Disturbing.



The Lucis Trust wishes to see an invocation to 'the Christ', that is, not Our Blessed Lord, but to a new Christ/Messiah, under whom one world government, currency and hippy, new age communism will take place in the 'age of aquarius'. They are not harmless hippies, no, they are raging satanists. From their disconcerting website.

'There are comments on the World Wide Web claiming that the Lucis Trust was once called the Lucifer Trust. Such was never the case. However, for a brief period of two or three years in the early 1920’s, when Alice and Foster Bailey were beginning to publish the books published under her name, they named their fledgling publishing company “Lucifer Publishing Company”. By 1925 the name was changed to Lucis Publishing Company and has remained so ever since. Both “Lucifer” and “Lucis” come from the same word root, lucis being the Latin generative case meaning of light. The Baileys' reasons for choosing the original name are not known to us, but we can only surmise that they, like the great teacher H.P. Blavatsky, for whom they had enormous respect, sought to elicit a deeper understanding of the sacrifice made by Lucifer. Alice and Foster Bailey were serious students and teachers of Theosophy, a spiritual tradition which views Lucifer as one of the solar Angels, those advanced Beings Who Theosophy says descended (thus “the fall”) from Venus to our planet eons ago to bring the principle of mind to what was then animal-man. In the theosophical perspective, the descent of these solar Angels was not a fall into sin or disgrace but rather an act of great sacrifice, as is suggested in the name “Lucifer” which means light-bearer.'

Oh! Well, that's okay then, isn't it!? A ringing endorsement of the fallen angels! The New Age Movement is highly, highly dubious and even more dangerous to souls, to humanity and to the Church.

Christ is Like The Butterfly

At the pub yesterday after Mass, we talked about caterpillars and butterflies a little. I used to breed them when I was a child, before I became an adult and became prone to spending an entire Sunday in the pub, falling asleep while talking to other parishioners, waking up face down on the table and feeling embarrassed and alone. Fr Ray told us to party yesterday for Ascension. I think I may have taken his words too much to heart.

It struck me in a small moment that Christ is like the Butterfly. For as Man He becomes incarnate in the Virgin's womb, becoming, like the caterpillar egg, God the Son made Man in the Virgin's womb. There He is nourished by the Virgin's Motherly love and care.



He emerges from the Virgin's womb and like the caterpillar, small and defenseless, appears as a normal baby, yet He is God made flesh. As a Child and as a Man he remains totally vulnerable. As a Man, in His Ministry He is meek and unprotected, open and vulnerable to the insults and injuries of sinful mankind as would be the caterpillar from birds who seek to devour it and even becomes for us, 'like a worm' at His crucifixion, for he is no longer considered by onlookers as human.



Then in the Tomb, like a cocoon, His very being is changed. He descends to the place of the Dead and releases the captive souls, that they emerge from the cocoon of the Dead and may fly, like butterflies, into the Eternal City of Heaven.

Then when God the Father raises Him up by the Power of the Holy Spirit, like a butterfly, He bursts forth from the tomb, in Glory, shining in the radiance of God's Beauty, free from the power and sting of death, which no longer has any power over Him. He has been raised by a great Miracle by the Author of Life, His Heavenly Father, with Whom He was with eternally and yes, it was He, Christ, through whom everything was made, yes, Man himself.



Then at His Ascension, He is lifted and goes up, exalted and free like the butterfly, into Heaven, no longer even bound by natural law, for He has entered into a new and glorious state! From there, Christ intercedes for the World and His Church, bestowing His Grace on mankind, for whom He came, died and rose again.



At Pentecost He sends to the Church the Holy Spirit to give the Church the Power to proclaim the Gospel, to baptise, to forgive sins, and to dispense His Blessed Body and His Most Precious Blood, so that man too, may emerge from the cocoon, the tomb, the chrysalis, may die to himself and live for God and become more like Him, in Beauty, in Grace and in Holiness, like Christ, the Butterfly. In Confession we go into the cocoon, and absolved and forgiven, and we walk out in the Beauty of Christ's forgiveness and Grace.

In Purgatory we hope to enter into a chrysalis of suffering and purification, only to emerge one day into the brightness of God's eternal and Heavenly City. The Virgin, by the merits of her Son and by the favour of her identity as Mother of God, is assumed body and soul, into Heavenly Glory and is crowned and adorned with Majesty by her Son.



At the Resurrection at the End of Time, we hope to receive new and glorious bodies, more beautiful, of more splendour than even the the wings of a butterfly, to be adorned and crowned by Christ to dwell with Him, in the company of His Saints forever and ever! Talk about stretching a metaphor of metamorphoses!

'God became Man so that Man might become God' ~ St Athanasius

Soz Moz I Do Give a Toz, but I Can't Afford Your Gigz

"So who is rich and who is poor, I cannot say...but you've got everything now."

A friend of mine just emailed me to ask if I wanted to go see Morrissey on Friday. Tickets were £40 he said. Shame, I can't go. I don't have £40. Nor the extra £20 it would cost to get up to London. That's £60 plus another £10 for food and fags. Plus another £10-20 for a few beers or a round for my friends. That's about £70-80 to go see Morrissey. Morrissey is rich. It's a shame that he has priced so many of his fans out of the market. I expect some will steal hubcaps in order to make it to see him. I'll go to the Latin Mass instead and hope I see him live one day in Heaven. I can't afford to see him on Earth. Frankly, it was the poor in Manchester who got him where he is now, who went to his first gigs. It's a disgrace the poor can't see him live now, but hey, that's what fame does to people I guess. It has removed him from his roots. Perhaps that was what he wanted. Sad.



"A double bed and a stalwart lover for sure...these are the riches of the poor."

Giant Figures of the Church in the Run Up to Pentecost!

Here are some dates for your diary. I noticed on my calendar we have some fantastic Saints and a Venerable approaching.

Today, 25th May: The Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church. Holy historian of the English Church.


26th May: St Philip Neri. Wonderworker of Oratorian fame.


27th May: St Augustine of Canterbury. Bringer of the Gospel to the Brits!


30th May: St Joan of Arc. French martyr of renowned holiness.

Archbishop of Westminster Inteviewed by The Times

The Times Interviews the new Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.

Click here to read.

CAFOD V ATD Fourth World

Fr Joseph Wresinski, Priest and founder of ATD Fourth World

Fr Ray and other bloggers have a piece up about the enormous salary of the Chief Executive of CAFOD. Other posters and commentators are talking of stopping their funding to an organisation which claims to help poverty, yet gives such vast sums to its workers.

I used to work for an organisation called ATD Fourth World in London. It was ATD Fourth World that opened my eyes to the suffering of the poor in the UK. Prior to my experience of a couple of years within the organisation I knew nothing or little of the poverty that condemens hundreds of thousands within our own country to suffering and exclusion.

It was started by a French priest called Fr Joseph Wresinski. He was born into poverty and began serving at Mass from an early age. His desire for the priesthood grew, but he grew up in deep poverty. After he left the seminary, he was sent to Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, where his mission was to evangelise the poor in the slums who lived there in post-war France. Many priests had come and gone and been rejected. Yet, by Providence, he was sent there and when approached by a small boy of the town, a slum, was asked by the boy if he had any money. He replied that he had nothing save the clothes he stood in.

The boy went back to the town's people and said, "See I have found a priest who has nothing!" His popularity grew and his pastoral work among the very poor of Noisy-le-Grand bore incredible fruit. He was greatly loved, admired and adored by the very poor. He devoted his life to serving them and in time, developed an organisation called ATD Fourth World, which would, in time, reach as far as 27 countries worldwide, combatting and fighting social exclusion wherever it was found.

He promised the very poor..."I will not rest until your story is told in the UN and every major institution in the land. He did not rest until he had October 17 officially recognised as a UN day to recognise extreme poverty." He set up ATD Fourth World with volunteers. Every volunteer lived on a bare minimum in solidarity with the poor with whom they lived and from whom they learned about the realities and indignities of extreme poverty and exclusion. It is now a big movement in France and ATD Fourth World has a base here in the UK. Still, its workers live on a minimum income.

Perhaps the big charities like CAFOD could learn from ATD Fourth World, that it is in emptying ourselves of our wealth, that our giving to the poor becomes truly giving. If we are earning £70,000 off the backs of the poor, then one has to wonder whether we are helping anyone but ourselves. To learn more about ATD Fourth World, click here.

Occultist Benjamin Creme on the Antichrist's Appearance

And here...the method by which the Son of Perdition will deceive the nations. Let's see how long this post stays up. Incredible syncronicity between Creme's 'day of declaration' speech and the investigatory work of the 'man-who-knew-too-much', international free press agency reporter, Serge Monast, who died in mysterious circumstances.





But Benjamin Creme is a crackpot ignored by the World isn't he? Isn't he? Well, his diabolical organisation, 'Share International' somehow managed to air this commercial on Fox, MSNBC and the History Channel. Where does an ignored occultist fruitcake like him get that kind of money?



Interestingly, Obama and this new 'world teacher' have something in common. They both apparently put in an appearance in Kenya in 1988. Conspiracy theories abound! The question people are asking is this...Are Obama and the Antichrist brothers, cousins, good friends strangers or...wait for it. The same person? Or is Obama a Trojan Horse for the Antichrist?

According to Wikipedia, 'In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.^[32] He returned in August 2006 in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.'^[33]



A striking resemblence! Holy Mother! What a breaking news story! It's official! Obama could actually be the actual Antichrist! Or not. But that would sure as heck explain why Biden and Pelosi and an enormous amount of 'Catholics' are backing Obama as if mesmerised by a hypnotist with a penchant for mass killings, instead of Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!

Add to that the fact that Obama's birth certificate appears to have been a forgery mixed with the birth certificate of his sister, Maya, and we have an explosive cocktail of conjecture and horrendous apocalyptic scaremongering going on. But seriously, Houston, in general, I think we have a problem.

The Obama Deception

Good documentary on the great deception taking place today in the Obama regime. If you think Notre Dame was a breathtaking piece of obamaspin. Watch this! Last Obama post today. And yes, I am obsessed about it.

Obamawatch: Behold! The Incredible Gift for Doublespeak!

Obama condemns undemocratic excesses of the Bush regime in one breath and then calls for executive powers for 'indefinite, prolongued detention' without trial or even, a crime having been yet committed! You have to hand it to the guy - his gift for deception is utterly confounding! If Bush had said this there'd have been uproar. Obama said it and people are like, "Fair enough."

Obama was chosen as THE man to sell something to Americans that Americans would never have hitherto accepted - namely - the suspension of democracy and the rule of law. Incredible!

If you know your history...

...then this is the most disturbing video you will see all year. Brothers and sisters, behold Obama's 'Red Jackets'.

Was Pope Benedict XVI in Hitler Youth? Yes. Every youth had to be in Hitler Youth.

Will young Americans join Obama Youth? Yes. Every youth will have to be in Obama Youth.

Check it out! His supporters even have their own 'sign of progress'!



Apparently it symbolises 'One World'. Cute. Give it time and it will be the 'O' for saluting Obama himself.

No alarm bells ringing yet?



None? Ah well...Don't say I didn't warn you.

It looks very much like history is about to repeat itself. Germany must have been so full of youthful optimism when Hitler came to power. Just like then, this new 'civic pride' crap will end up in tears and a fictional future American Pope saying, "Yes, it's true. I was a 'Red Jacket'. I soon became disillusioned with the Obama regime..."

The 'peaceful' President is, undoubtedly semi-militarising the nation and he's only been in office 100 odd days. Boy! That Hitler! He really hit the ground running too, didn't he?!

So. Let's make an assessment here of the Obama phenomenom. Obama emerges, out of some political wilderness from nowhere, writes a book about his life, sells shedloads of them, and the media talk much of his community services as a younger man. We know little about him and he says very little, other than empty slogans about hope and change, but says them so charismatically that he makes even Tony Blair seem like an amateur politician.

Key themes of his crusade are civic service and pride in the nation. We know he is emphatically pro-abortion and even blocked the protection ensured to babies who survive abortion as a Senator. We know that if his own daughters fall pregnant, he doesn't want them to be 'punished with a baby', no, but would rather the baby be punished. The media adore him. Rap artists and folk singers sing Obama songs. He walks in the room and even self-obsessed celebrities think the sun shines out of his arse. There are tears of joy because America is all of a sudden at ease with its racist past and a half-black man is President. He is sold on this virtue of civic service. He gets into office and suddenly the pre-election talk of 'be the change we need' and 'make the difference' is put into a context of actual Government policy. But, the 'change', which results in this 'shitty year' campaign becomes mandatory.



Look at the star on the 'i' in nation! Heck! What was America doing fighting those 'commies' for so long! Looks like they've just elected one! Anyway, soon enough, thousands of these teenagers are 'red jackets' and they're in city centres doing these weird training exercises. Suddenly New York City looks like some freaky North Korean military march. The emperor looks on and applauds. The whole nation, bar some dissidents, who are presumably arrested and slung into jail like Alan Keyes, are on his side and former college lecturers are sweeping the streets at his call for civic action. This is how grizzly dictatorships start - interestingly, as a parallel - Hitler also had a book about his philosophy and life. He also had charm and charisma and people would do near anything for him.

I'm sorry, but wake up people! Obama has been groomed for electoral success and the presidency for a long time by people of influence who wanted this kind of neo-Nazi/communist state. He's like a can of coke. He's a product and he has been sold to the electorate as 'change'. He has been waiting in the wings for this moment for years. He mouths slogans telling Americans, 'I'm going to need you to help me change America'.

Yes, he is going to need 'every man, woman and child' in order to change America from a dwindling, broken, former economic powerhouse to a despotic, tyrannical regime from Hell, where kids sing songs in praise of him and his 'One World' claptrap pseudo-philosophy, young men put themselves totally at his 'service', and young women renounce family life and rush off to the abortion clinic to terminate their child, because such a responsibility would impede them in their glorious desire to join the 'red jackets'.

Just like Hitler he takes an unhealthy interest in eugenics, as seen by his swift desire to sign the Freedom of Choice Act and the Human Embryology legislation on the way yet somehow he deceives his nation into thinking everything that he is doing is for the good of the nation and communities, rather than the truth of the matter, which is that he blatantly attempting to remove another layer of human freedom - in this case, the freedom to be a grumpy, lazy or irritating teenager, so that everyone is geared up to serve the State. No, there will be no more layabout teenagers because they'll all be pumping iron and doing press ups in the community youth corps.

But there are no plans for any concentration camps in America, are there? Err...Some people seem to think there are.



Oh America! What have you done!? I think this is how the story ends...Pray for America...It is on the edge of an abyss.