Just Before Our Christmas Celebrations...

While in the US, you can't be in the army and say 'Happy Christmas', in Russia, the schools' curriculum makes the learning of Orthodox Christianity mandatory.

Have a very happy Christmas.

Last thing. I dream of a day when you walk into Sainsbury's and they are playing this on a loop instead of pop-pap. I'm sure the decline of Faith is correlated to awful Christmas music.

Gangster Squad

Gangster Squad (2013) slunk unobtrusively through theaters last January, trashed by critics and ignored by audiences. It's easy to see where Ruben Fleischer's crime saga went wrong. A risible swirl of cliches and inept staging, the movie doesn't clear even the dumb action movie benchmark to which it aspires.

Postwar Los Angeles is in thrall to Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), boxer-turned-Mob boss whose sadism frightens even fellow gangsters. Police Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) taps war hero John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) to head an off-the-books team of cops and fight Cohen head-on. O'Mara's chief lieutenant Wooters (Ryan Gosling) is a ladykiller more interested in bedding Cohen's moll Grace Faraday (Emma Stone). The squad uses unorthodox methods, namely kneecapping and wiretapping, to unravel Cohen's scheme of monopolizing LA's gambling rackets. But it's only a matter of time until the crime boss hits back.

Gangster Squad borrows slavishly from The Untouchables, restaging its set pieces without Brian De Palma's slick direction and giddy enthusiasm. When Cohen rants about murdering the heroes (and their families!), we remember Robert De Niro doing it ten times better. Besides De Palma, writer Will Beall lifts key scenes from Dirty Harry (the badge-throwing scene) and Lethal Weapon (O'Mara offering Cohen "a shot at the title"). That's not to mention Mulholland Falls, from which Gangster Squad lifts its plot and setting.

What's left are stock situations that were passe in Al Capone's day. Gangster Squad expends its creativity on marginal bits, like O'Mara's wife (Mireille Enos) helping recruit teammates rather than nag. This is a movie where six heroes with pistols easily vanquish a dozen machine-gun toting villains. Where the diffident Wooters requires a child's death to motivate him. Where Cohen instructs henchmen "You know the drill!" before dispatching a victim with - you guessed it - a miter saw. The lack of irony extends to the premise: Gangster Squad barely questions whether extrajudicial death squads are a good idea.

Fleischer proves equally inept at characterization. O'Mara's team compiles every archetype in the book: the straight arrow leader, roguish sidekick, tech dweeb (Giovanni Ribisi), streetwise black dude (Anthony Mackie), grizzled geezer (Robert Patrick) and his Mexican Man Friday (Michael Pena). Were the Asian martial artist and gay best friend on vacation? Cohen seems to have wandered in from a Bugs Bunny short, while Grace acts and dresses like Jessica Rabbit. Possibly Fleischer took the phrase "live-action cartoon" literally.

For all this, Gangster Squad could still work as popcorn entertainment with decent direction. Sadly, Fleischer opts for the whiz-bang style of Zack Snyder, complete with overdone CGI and swooping slow downs, lingering on spent shell casings and shattering Christmas bulbs. A nighttime car chase is dazzlingly incoherent, while the climactic battle has all the style of a middling first person shooter. Sure the art direction and costumes are neat, but if that's the best you can say about an action flick something's wrong.

Nor does Fleischer do his cast any favors. Josh Brolin emerges unscathed: his bedrock integrity sells O'Mara's inflexible uprightness. On the other hand, Sean Penn goes hog wild in a performance of teeth-gnashing absurdity; even Nick Nolte seems comparably sedate. Ryan Gosling seems lost in a period film; as Gosling's love interest, Emma Stone mainly coasts on their chemistry from Crazy Stupid Love. Other than Robert Patrick's crusty cowpoke, none of the other cops make much impression.

Gangster Squad is loud, graceless and stupid. Even those seeking late night HBO viewing would be well-advised to stick with Transformers, or something of comparable merit.

A holy, peaceful and merry Christmas to you all

"If ever the Catholics or bishops rule again in England they will set the church doors open on Christmas Day, and we shall have mass at the High Altar as was used when the day was first instituted, and not have the holy Eucharist barred out of school, as school boys do their masters against the festival.  

What, shall we have our mouths shut to welcome old Christmas? 

No, no, bid him come by night over the Thames and we will have a bark door open to let him in.  

I will myself give him his diet for one year to try his fortune, this time twelve months may prove better".

17th Century Anon 

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.....

People Who Believe in a Creator but Who Cannot Believe in the Virgin Birth...

'Making all that is and instituting laws governing the Universe which was made out of absolutely nothing is a breeze, but preserving the Virginity of just one woman is a bit above my pay grade...You're asking a bit much there, mate...'

There remain in the World and in the Church people who believe in God, a Creator, Who created all things that came to be, but who cannot bring themselves to believe in the Virgin Birth or the perpetual virginity of Our Lady before, during and after childbirth.

These people, presumably believe that the God who willed that from out of absolutely nothing there should form billions of stars, planets, the entire Universe, creating all living beings, trees, rivers, oceans, water, and crowned Creation with man, all out of nothing and Who instituted all the laws which sustain the continuation of everything as we know it, would find preserving the virginity of one woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'a bit tricky'.

Surely if we accept that all that exists comes from nothing, but that God simple spoke and it all came to be, and there was afterwards something, then we must accept that there is nothing that is impossible for God, or remotely 'tricky'. For those who claim to believe in God to deny the Virgin Birth because 'that is impossible' means they don't really believe in God because in human terms neither can anything be created 'out of nothing'. There is a logical inconsistency about modern day denials of the supernatural from within the Church, not just outside of it from sceptics.

I would say that once you have created an entire Universe 'out of nothing', nothing is impossible or difficult. These days we seem to have a problem with belief in various articles of Faith and it is not just on the matter of the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady. We see it with Faith in the Real Presence, the reality of the indelible marks on the soul of Baptism and the Priesthood. The supernatural is seen as problematic. God is God. What's the problem? Why can't we just accept that God's action is a Mystery in which we can believe without comprehending?

If we cannot accept that with God everything is possible then do we rather believe in a god-type person or a figment of our imagination, a caricature of Him that abides by human thinking and exists according only to our understanding of what is and is not 'possible'? The Virginal Birth is an important doctrine because it feeds into our understanding of the Person of Christ. Is this Person truly the Son of God, 'born from the Father before all ages', whose Throne is in inaccessible light, the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, or just another man?

If He is truly the Son of God, then His Birth is going to be something extraordinary, since His Mother is the Ark of the New Covenant. She, also, is not going to be 'just another lass'. She is going to be something, someone extremely special and extraordinary in order to be the Tabernacle in which will dwell the Most High Lord. There is a logical and resonable consistency to the Church's doctrines, but only if we accept Jesus is Lord on His terms, not ours. Belief in these doctrines all seem to hinge on the age old arguments concerning Who we believe Jesus Christ is. That even Prelates in the Catholic Church should doubt or profess doubt concerning the doctrines of the Church, or that some even try to 'humanise' or minimise the holy and miraculous in order to make believers feel more comfortable is or should be extremely concerning because if the nature of this Child's birth is unextraordinary, then, frankly, what is there to celebrate? The implications of unbelief in the Virginal Birth within the Church are horrifying. However...

...with all that said, I wish readers a very happy, holy and blessed Christmas. 

Gaudete!

In the bush which Moses saw unconsumed, we acknowledge thy admirable virginity, preserved: intercede for us, O Mother of God.

Good old BBC, never fails to disappoint

Sorry, no tangos at Latin Masses, only
at Latino ones!

First, before I get to Auntie Beeb let me give you the results of my pre Christmas Quiz, the one showing a picture of a couple doing the Tango, you know, that dance that epitomises immodesty with its blatant sexual overtures and scanty dresses.

The answer, of course, is number three, and it originates from the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing programme, or, as I prefer to call it, Strictly Come Pornography.

For that, really, is what it is. Sorry to be a killjoy but pornography it is.

Those that nominated number one, the Berlin nightclub were a shade off strasse; but it could well have been snapped in a dodgy joint in Germany's capital.

And, as for those who suspected that the photo came from a Catholic Mass in Buenos Aires, what an outrageous suggestion.

Can you possibly imagine a sensuous, provocative dance taking place on the sanctuary after Holy Mass?

That would surely be an act of sacrilege, the modern day equivalent of prancing round the golden calf.

You just have time to make it to Confession before Midnight Mass.

Now for the BBC.

Radio Four on Sunday morning and the adenoidal tones of that pillar of the Church, Ed Stourton.

He is introducing a piece on the seasonal celebrations, you know, the ones that we love to take part in at this time of the year 'cept he's not talking of Christmas and the birth of the Messiah, no, no,
no-ooo!

Ed is speaking about the Winter Solstice and how pagans love to gather at dawn around the standing stones of Stonehenge - great!

And then, as I listened in horror whilst attending to matters of dental hygiene I hear a Pythonesque voice state words to the effect that:

"Well, Stonehenge is a place of spirichool healing, just like Lourdes, reelly"

At this point I had to call Mrs L to disentangle my toothbrush from my epiglottis.

Nice one Ed and your pagan chums!