What makes a Catholic traditional?

No guitars, no dancing - just the
Sacrifice of the Holy Mass

                                                                            

 Responses to recent posts have highlighted the issue of being a traditional Catholic…or not, as the case may be.

I must stress am not a nostalgic who looks back fondly on the days before the Second Reformation, although there are many aspects of Catholic life then that were good and sound.

The one thing is that then we were all traditionalists; we all sang from the same hymn sheet, Masses were always in Latin, we had regular Benediction, we went to Confession almost every week, we abstained from meat on Fridays, went on retreats, attended the Forty Hours devotions, said the Rosary, covered our heads on entering the church (females) and uncovered them if we were male.

In our congregations we had saints and sinners; bank robbers, bank managers, paedophiles, fraudsters, divorcees, shop assistants, bus drivers, homosexuals (not lesbians or transvestites, they were not invented then).

And that is how it should be…..one community, albeit an imperfect one, gathered together for the worship of Almighty God.

Of course, that is not to condone any sin; a state of grace should be aimed at for all.

But, as far as I am aware, no one in our parish was discriminated against because of their background or deeds.

Mothers might have been understandably cautious as regards the parish paedophile but children, having been warned, stood well clear.

Now today we have a barrage of labels and it appears that most of us dislike being pigeonholed.

I don’t. I’m still a Catholic and because I try to live according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Vicar on earth, I suppose that I now have to call myself a traditional Catholic.

Why?

Because we have some who call themselves ‘Charismatics’ and others, who because of their disregard for the Holy Father and their Bishop, take little heed of the black and white doctrinal requirements that Holy Mother Church places on us or who distort the liturgy to suit their own tastes in their desire to have a “me” focus.

We tend to call these people ‘Modernists’ or ‘Liberals’ – it’s a means of knowing where you stand if you happen to find yourself holding a glass of luke warm Pinot Grigio, lolling around talking to a group of Papes.

Now, I know of some traditional Catholics who sometimes attend the OF Mass, that is, one that is celebrated reverently according to the book and that must surely be a good thing.

But, as for me, I prefer to attend the EF Mass.

 I will go further than that and state that I will only normally attend the EF Mass.

 The exception being if I am in an area where there is not a Sunday EF Mass but there is a reverent OF one.

They are as rare as hen’s teeth.

So, you see, on the surface, there is not too much between me a traditional and Mr X, a modernist (if he is an orthodox Catholic modernist).

But, it has to be said that you can reasonably only call yourself a traditionalist if you do some or all of the following:-

1. Attend the EF Mass
2. Follow the teachings of HMC especially with regard to contraception, abortion, IVF, euthanasia and all other moral issues
3. Avoid Masses that have guitars, skiffleboards or Lithuanian bagpipes
4. Wear a head covering in church if female, remove head covering if male
5. Sing plainchant in the bath
6. Receive Holy Communion kneeling and by mouth from a priest
7. Drink real ale (males only in the main)
8. Give your dog or cat a Latin name
9. Like nuns who wear proper habits
10. Call your parish priest “Father” rather than “Ted” or “Tom”

Any further additions (polite ones) are most welcome

Language, Identity and the New Lexicon of the State

From Dystopia

Before I start this blogpost, I would just like to take this opportunity to tell you that I am a very important person. Does that sound a little haughty, a little un-English, a little immodest, a tad arrogant?

Well, it is none of those things to say that I am a very important person. In fact, every Catholic should acknowledge just what a terribly important person I am.

Why? Certainly not because of any merit of my own and most certainly not because I can sing and play the guitar at the same time (I didn't say well). No. In fact I am largely unemployed and prone to a degree of depression. But I am a very important person and I should like others to acknowledge it only because God clearly thought that I was such an important person that for me He became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. For this reason, I know I am an important person and I should like even the State to acknowledge it.

You see. For me, did God assume flesh and blood. For me did the infinite and eternal God dwell on Earth for 33 years in an existence like ours for He was like us in all things save for sin. For me did He undergo a cruel and terrible rejection. For me did He carry the heavy Cross to Golgotha and for me did He die. For me did he destroy the power of Hell and open up the gates to Heaven. For me He rose on the third day and for me did He ascend to Heaven in His Risen and Glorious Body, so that I may follow after death to where He is now, with the Blessed Mother of God and all the Saints in the Blessed joy of Heaven. If, after God has done all that for me, you do not think I am a very important person, then I would say you are not a Catholic.

And if fame were to be something to be greatly desired then all the Faithful should rejoice sincerely for our names are not written across newspapers and magazines, but instead they are, we are told, 'written in Heaven' like the jet stream from red arrows flying across a hopefully blue London sky. Yes, the reality is that, to God, I am a very important person. Obviously, I'm not more important than anyone else, because all people are very important people in God's sight - Catholics and non-Catholics of every race, age, sexual orientation, ability and gender. In fact, not only are you and I so important that Jesus Christ should cross the threshold from Heaven to Earth and from Earth to Heaven, but you and I are so important that we are offered nothing less than union with God Himself, through Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. We are so important to God that He desires that even should we fall away from the love which unites we and He, then He Himself will forgive and renew us through Confession and make us worthy of Him. We are so important that God desires and wills to unite Himself to us and us to Himself. So important to Him are we that the same Jesus gives us His own Body and Blood so that we are given the power and the grace not to live as strangers or enemies of God, but as friends and disciples and lovers of God - not orphans as we perhaps once were - but adopted sons and daughters of the Triune God.

So, why would I say all this: for surely I am preaching to the converted? Surely every Catholic knows this and any potential atheist reader has stopped reading and gone elsewhere? Well, I say this because there is, as we know, a battle going on. It is not just a battle for our souls and the souls of our brothers and sisters inside the Church and outside of Her that we are used to. It is a battle for our very identity and it is becoming now a battle between the State and its allies on one side and, on the other, the Catholic Church and those with a measure of goodwill towards Her teaching in some matters, if not all - yes, even Protestants and, yes, even atheists. What is more, it is a battle which has been brewing for quite some time. So why is there a battle for our identity? Why should human identity be so important? Why should it become a battle ground or even a war?

Well, how we define ourselves, or how we allow others to define our selves pretty much defines and shapes how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. In fact, it pretty much defines everything, even the laws that shape how we are governed. How we define ourselves and allow ourselves to be defined too defines whether we are free human beings or whether we will find that Orwell's vision of a society in which 'slavery is freedom' can morph into a terrifying reality. Orwell's dystopic vision is not of a society in which people are literally in chains working in gulags 24 hours a day while worshipping the State. The point is that the majority of people get and the State get along just fine. The State and most people are, in fact, in perfect harmony. The State, in fact, is more or less God to the people.

In every dystopic vison novel, the State plays a key role in ensuring that most people are contented for as long as people are necessary or productive. Of course, people needed persuading. People had to be convinced of the State's 'truths' in order to renounce their own liberty and give themselves to its service and for this Orwell cites the near constant stream of propaganda that the organs of the State spew forth onto its general populace - a populace which is near, if not totally, global. The message is that you are either in 'the Party' or you are not. If you are not, because you and the 'Party' are in disagreement, then for you, poor dear, the party is over. To enforce conventional State wisdom, Thought Police are required to counter subversive insurgency or bids for freedom of speech, thought and conscience. Entire 'Ministries' are established to oversee the dystopia with comic, if tragic, names, policies and outcomes and a key element in the victory of the State's propaganda machine is the new lexicon, which Orwell calls 'Newspeak'.

The overwhelming majority of the citizens presumably accept this new lexicon - this altering of words and changing of the meaning of words because they are repeated so often that even lies are accepted. Can we see this happening today? The answer is, as Obama fans often used to chant, 'Yes, we can!' Words and definitions are important since they are the method of delivery by which we understand concepts and ideas and the past 50 years has seen a staggeringly high number of alterations and redefinitions of words. And how very interesting it is that so many of the words and definitions which we used to use, over a period of time, came to either be changed or to mean something else or be reconstructed in ways which touch upon the definition, classification and reassignment of us - human beings.

Few plants, animals or invertebrae have been redefined, but we human beings and those issues that touch upon our very humanity and our perception of our humanity most definitely have. So just off the top of my head, here are a few examples: Unborn babies become fetuses. 'Gay' meant happy, joyful radiant, but now means homosexual. Illicit lovers or those living in sin were 'fornicators' but now they're 'partners'. Sodomy is 'gay love'. Drug addiction is 'substance misuse'. Abortion or 'termination' was once deemed to be child destruction in those less 'enlightened' times and both abortion and contraception are now aspects of 'family planning', 'reproductive freedom' or 'reproductive health', 'termination' and abortion after conception has failed can even become 'emergency contraception'. Even war and invasion is, with the UN, becoming a 'peace-keeping mission'. When the State invades a household and steals the children on grounds that can objectively be called dubious it is called 'removing children and placing them into "Care". Always, of course, it is 'in the best interest of the child'. I wonder, was 'sex education' ever called something else, like marriage preparation? A man who believes he is or wants to be a woman is 'trangender'. Who on earth first came up with the phrase 'mercy killing'? What is 'assisted dying' if it is not killing someone if with their consent? How could 'dignity' become associated with the very same idea?

In so many ways, I am sure you can think of more, words and definitions have been changed and, whether they sprang from any grassroots democratic movement originally, or not, the State has most certainly adopted all of these words and definitions that make up a new lexicon of human ideas because obviously it sees some great merit on advancing ideas about human beings and humanity which distort or cover up the previously, long-held  and established truth that they conveyed. I'm yet to be persuaded by any argument that posits that abortion is not murder, yet we are constantly bombarded by the idea that it is not because, fundamentally, the State and its allies simply refuse to recognise that a new human being in the womb could be attributed humanity. I'm yet to be persuaded by any argument that such a thing as 'gay or same sex marriage' could even exist because the word 'marriage' means the union of a man and a woman, members of the human race who are different, not the same. In order to argue for it, you have to change the meaning of the word itself which, personally, I think should not be allowed. I'd call the crime 'word destruction' but I'm not in any position of power. What the State says, apparently, is the way ahead - the great leap forward, indeed, and who am I, a backward simpleton who is yet to emerge from the 'dark ages' to understand the State's divine mandate to alter the meaning of words and cast their previous meanings into oblivion?

Except..except, I am a citizen, supposedly of the United Kingdom. I am a human being. First, before anything else I am a human being. I was a human being from the first moment of my conception in my mothers womb. I am just at a different stage of my 'being' than I was when I was 'being' in the womb. One day, by God's grace, I hope to be 'being' in Heaven united to God in the company of all the Holy Angels, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints because I am also a Catholic. My second 'birth' was at my Baptism at which I was born into a new relationship with God. I hope and pray to God that after my death, I do not suffer the 'second death'. It is possible, though, because despite the fact that I am a very important person to God, I can refuse His love and friendship by turning away from Him through sin. That is because I am a sinner, one who has refused His love in the past and who still falls into sin, on occasion mortal, more often venial, but there by the Grace of God go I, or indeed, not. It just so happens that I have a condition which is now known as 'same-sex attraction'. I freely admit that I am sometimes attracted to members of the same sex as myself. I do not claim to know why this is so. What I have, I freely profess, is an inclination which constitutes an objective moral disorder because I am drawn to be attracted to members of the same sex, in a sexual way, which the law of nature near universally entirely contradicts. Is this my fault? No. It is a fallen World and I accept that because it is a fallen World, I am wounded by Original Sin. Does such a condition mean I could never be a Saint? No, it does not, for the Church proclaims that I am called to embrace the Cross and be close to Jesus and Mary.

So, why am I saying all this? Why am I preaching to the converted? I say this because I recognise that the language used in the above passage is offensive to many in the United Kingdom. It is offensive to the irreligious. It is offensive to the 'gay community' (as if all 'gays' are in the same 'community' - if only they were then the Churches would truly be full of redeemed and truly gay Catholics of Brighton, Manchester and Soho). It is offensive to those who believe that in order to be a true participant and citizen in the United Kingdom, one must abide by certain rules of language. However, I am a citizen of the United Kingdom and until it is declared otherwise or I am silenced, I am free to use this language, whether people are offended or not. I have a right to express my opinion. It just so happens that my opinion is in line with Catholic teaching. That is freedom of speech. I am also exercising freedom of religion. My freedom of conscience urges me on. My freedom of thought gives me inspiration. I also say these things because under the sight of Heaven above, I am allowed to identify myself in accordance with my beliefs, even were my beliefs not to be religiously motivated. I do not begrudge anyone who chooses to identify themselves as 'gay' or 'lesbian'. I have, in my past, idenfitied myself as such. What I do begrudge is growing trend for the language which I have used to be deemed either 'intolerable' or 'intolerant' by the State and its allies.

My point is this: Who gave the State the power to define which of its citizens uses the 'correct' language in the new lexicon and which of its citizens uses the 'incorrect' language? The Church's language is 'intolerant'. The State's language is 'tolerant', aside from the fact that its language and its actions are intolerant of those with beliefs that contradict its new and mighty authority. The authority which is granted to the State is given to it by God. The Church has authority from Almighty God to teach. The State has authority to govern, not to 'reeducate' people and stamp out their 'outdated' beliefs. Only totalitarian regimes do that. Why, I ask you, does the State have the authority suddenly to redefine words, meanings of words, human institutions that pre-date it and call any opposition to its agenda 'bigoted' and 'intolerant', but as soon as any dissent is raised to its style of governance, those people's rights to freedom of expression are questioned and they are painted as gross malefactors? What makes the State's view of 'truth' more valid or credible than the Truth proclaimed by the Holy Church of God? The State's message is not more credible or valid, it is simply different to that of the Church and apparently more popular than that of the Church.  It has been made popular by years and years of media-channelled secular-atheist-liberal propaganda aimed at the lowest and basest aspects of our human nature. Yet, the power of that propaganda means that in just half a century we have experiened:

The redefinition of human persons - who is and who is not, the redefinition of marriage, the redefinition of child murder, the redefinition of war, the redefinition of the destruction of family life, the redefinition of human identity along purely sexual lines, the redefinition of unnatural sexual relations, even unions, the redefinition of sex outside of marriage, the redefinition of 'equality', of 'fairness' of 'tolerance', the redefinition of the killing of the vulnerable, weak and sick, the redefinition of even 'welfare', of 'planning to have a family/family planning' and, with the advent of IVF, the redefinition of human reproduction itself. Truly, this is a veritable brave new world and these redefinitions have altered, in the popular imagination, society's view of so much that touches on our humanity.

That nearly all of this is readily sanctioned and endorsed by the State is terrifying, not because the State has merely abandoned the God of Christianity, but because the only State that does all these things in the name of a new 'progressive' vision of mankind brought under its unyielding power is the State that believes that, far from being some kind of 'shadow' of God on Earth, it is, indeed God! A god that demands loyalty, obedience, fear and while it cannot yet elicit love, unquestioning approval and nearly totally passive, indifferent electorate. Now that so few men actually believe, 'being God is a dirty job, but hey, someone's got to do it'. Best leave it to the State, eh? Because with CCTV and modern technology, its becoming 'omnipresent' and fast. But first, all the opposition must be crushed since two infallible, mutually contradictory versions of the truth can never happily co-exist.

The Almighty God, because of all that He has done for me, gives me an identity which makes the State's and its notorious allies' 'official version' look cheap, vulgar, insulting, patronising, dehumanising, demeaning, undignified and crass. I may be a man with same-sex attraction. I am certainly gay. I may be a sinner. But, I'm Laurence England and as things stand I am a free man. I am a child of God. I am raised to a dignity which no man can ever take away from me and who knows, maybe one day, I and others like me, we, yes we may be Saints, because those who stand against the tyranny of relativism and the creed of liberalism and the State that extols the virtues of both, may yet be honoured with a new and glorious title: the enemies of the State. Oh, what a wonderful time it is to be a Catholic in the United Kingdom, but, that said, it looks like Protestants and even some atheists should prepare for Room 101 as well. That should make for an interesting prison chat!

And why would we be there? Because we hold that we are very important people - as important as those meeting in Chantilly, Virginia, making 'global governance' decisions which will affect us. We would be in a cell for holding the view that we are very important people, that the elderly are very important people, that the unborn children are very important people, that the mentally ill, the poor, the crippled, the lame are very important people, that Tony Nicklinson is a very important person, that our freedom and liberty of speech, conscience and thought is important, the Ls, the Gs, the Bs and the Ts too because we are very important to God since His Death and Resurrection was for all mankind even if only 'the many' would apply its merits to themselves!

By the way,  as a footnote, I see that the BBC report on Turkey and the Prime Minister's attack on abortion failed to mention his personal assessment of the practice as a tool of population control. The BBC report only mentions that he worries that the population is declining. Funny that. I wonder: Why would the BBC not report what he actually said? After all, the UN has never had any problem with encouraging 'population control' while simultaeneously advocating 'reproductive healthcare' for countries across the globe. Why are the BBC so coy about it?

The Olympics - taken over by modernists?

I am, if nothing else, a glutton for punishment.

The comment box will be full to overflowing with all my readers crossly clicking away (that's my friend Keith who is really a Catholic but in denial, and my other friend who shall be nameless as he lingers away his life in a prison cell).

You see, I think the Olympics a tremendous waste of money. Yes, I do.

I've lost score of how many billions of pounds it is going to cost but I do know that just a fraction of that sum would make a great many people in South Sudan or Ethiopia or Brazil, very happy.

So, it will come as no surprise to you to learn that there are several Olympic events specifically for modernists.
Here is a video clip of them in training........

And here, also, is a tale of some of those nations who are competing (nothing to do with Catholicism, but it's time for a little levity)....

It's 2012 and it's the Olympics in London .

A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman want to get in, but they
haven't got tickets.

The Scotsman picks up a manhole cover, tucks it under his arm and walks to
the gate.
" McTavish , Scotland ," he says, "Discus" and in he walks.

The Englishman picks up a length of scaffolding and slings it over his
shoulder.
" Waddington-Smythe , England " he says, "Pole vault" and in he walks.

The Irishman looks around and picks up a roll of barbed wire and tucks
it under his arm.

“O'Malley, Ireland " he says, "Fencing."

As for the Welshman.....well he is in training with a brew of the Rev James!

Attendees

Where will you find the President of the World Bank Group, the Commander of the US Cyber Command, Peter Mandelson, Kenneth Clarke, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, the Executive Chairman of Google, the Director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, a columnist at the Wall Street Journal, the Editor in Chief of the Economist, a Vice Presient of the European Commission and Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Henry Kissinger, the CEO of Le Monde, the Chairman and CEO of Lazard, the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, the Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, a National Security Advisor to the White House, the Group Chief Executive of BP, the Chairman of the Management Board and Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank plc, the Chairman of Barclays, the Governor of the Bank of Canada and Gary Kasparov, all under one roof among a host of other 'very influential people'?

The answer is: Chantilly,Virginia, USA, today.

Where will you find the minutes of their meeting?

Sorry, that link seems not to be working at the moment.

Death, Dignity and Dystopia

Rest in Peace: The band, Joy Division, took their name from the prostitute wing of a Nazi death camp mentioned in the 1955 novel, The House of Dolls. The singer, who suffered epilepsy, took his life in 1980 at the age of just 23 following a battle with depression. He is still dearly missed by his friends, his family and his many, many fans.

From Dystopia

To recap, then: we are all terrified of both suffering and death. Both are parts of our human experience that we wish to avoid and, to this end, doctors and nurses in the United Kingdom take seriously their vocation to bring medical relief to the suffering and to make death as painless as is medically and ethically possible.

And to recap once more, the attraction of 'assisted dying' or rather, 'assisted suicide', or even voluntary euthanasia, if we are to refuse modern Newspeak, is that we can obtain a measure of control over suffering and our fear of death by at least asserting control over our destiny then we feel more comfortable about death because we can convince ourselves we can master it. We have considered some of the moral and spiritual consequences of the propaganda that surrounds the issue of voluntary euthanasia.

But what does a society that permits 'assisted dying' look like? Well, surely it would look like a society that bears no resemblence to its forgotten Christian past, in days in which the sanctity of human life was defended by both Church and State, for, in those days before the emergence of the 'brave new world', it was deemed that the spiritual or eternal consequences of suicide were to be avoided and that courage, compassion, love, patience in suffering and virtue were to be promoted. Human dignity was to be defended not because it was arbitrary or in the eye of the beholder, but because human dignity was something objective - not something that illness, disease, or suffering could erase from a person. And, for those who believed in the Church and in God, despite trial and physical pain, people believed, rightly that their reward would be in their souls.

Of course, an age that abandons traditional Christian beliefs too necessarily abandons the hope that came with them and, in fact, it is only because we live in a more atheistic age that British society finds itself assailed by a concerted media-driven propaganda campaign to soften its attitudes on 'assisted suicide', since, were it a Christian society, such a message would be rejected forcibly by the public and, presumably, the majority of the politicians who emerged from that society.

But we do not live in that age anymore and we cannot, apparently, 'go back' and if euthanisia is to be born in the United Kingdom, it could well be that it happens because abortion was born first. For what links abortion and euthanasia is the choice of death over life.  In abortion, a doctor and a patient choose death for an unborn patient. In euthanasia, were it come to pass, a doctor and a patient choose death for the patient. Both choices are not choices of hope and life, but choices of despair and death and it is despair that dominates societies which have and continue to embrace sin and reject God. It is noteworthy, too, that the growing popularity of the movement for assisted suicide comes after the United Kingdom has accepted and grown accustomed to abortion and other social evils such as divorce and the breakdown of the institution of the family.

Without recourse even to the teaching of the Church, we can say that natural law, which is open to those who follow their conscience in the light of reason, would dictate that divorce, abortion and family breakdown are bad for individuals and all of society, promoting division over unity, death over life, despair over hope. When a society has embraced such social evils as the above, then it is, one could say, natural that despair would reign in that society since the natural bonds that bind together families, communities and individuals break down to such an extent, that unhappiness is the result. Many women, for example, regret their abortions and a number suffer anxiety, guilt, alcoholism and unhappiness as a result - some even taking their own lives eventually.

The natural happiness of a good conscience which arises out of what Greek philosophers would describe as the virtuous life decreases so much in a society that death itself appears better than life because life has become miserable, ravaged by pain, guilt, depression, fear and despair. The United Kingdom is now in its anti-depressant age and many citizens are dependent upon pharmaceutical drugs (as well as illegal drugs) just to 'make it through the night'. After all, you only get one life and is there really any more than this?

It is only in this kind of society, where not only is God and the Law of God erased from public life, but the natural law is discarded, that a drive for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide can flourish for once the party is over and the hangover kicks in and the superficial pleasures of the World which brought relief and escape are over, what other form of escape from our condition do we have, but death itself?  British society is being brought to its knees, but the population no longer look to God or the Church for the answer, since the answer is unpalatable, salutary and displeasing. And so, sorrowfully, the population begins to look to the State or to others with influence, such as the world of celebrity and the media, for answers.


Dignity in Dying, which was once called the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, would, fifty years ago, have been considered as a bunch of cranks whose agenda was transparently evil because they proposed suicide as the answer to social ills.

The organisation had to change its name because, like the Eugenics Society that became the Galton Institute, the Voluntary Euthansia Society became tainted by the Nazi tyranny which embraced both eugenics and volutary euthansia until they stopped asking the 'unfit' it they'd actually like to be killed and just did it anyway. In the 21st century, however, the agenda of Dignity in Dying, which is essentially the same agenda as it was in 1935, is hovering over the United Kingdom and receiving an unhealthy measure of interest. A sufferer of 'locked in syndrome' called Tony Niklinson maintains that his life is "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable", according to The Times (Tuesday 13 March, 2012) and so is campaigning for the right to ask a doctor to kill him without the doctor facing prosecution. Could the phrase 'hard cases create bad law' be any more apt for this discussion? Since, if the State allows 'mercy killing' (another Newspeak phrase among the vast range of Newspeak phrases) in this case, then to whom can the State turn down an application to be voluntarily killed by a third party?

The answer is, of course, that if the level of human suffering and degradation is subjective according to the sufferer, then a loophole in the law allowing the killing of Tony Nicklinson opens up the avenue for many people with various conditions to come forward to be killed in the future since they deem their lives not worthy of being called 'life'. Nicklinson claims he 'does not want to dribble into old age'. Well, who of us would? And faced with 'end of life issues' such as dementia, incontinence, dribbling, chronic pain and incapacity and being dependent on the care of others, Nicklinson's reasons for desiring assisted suicide could be attributable to any of us. Many in old age or who suffer terminal illness face this very reality. The point is that when the State and the medical associations (and the media) and thus all of society endorse Tony's view that his life is 'unfit' to be called life, by killing him, then we have implicitly made the statement that it is not just Tony's view, but it is the view of the State and society. If somebody's reason for being killed by a doctor was summed up in the belief that they do not want to 'be a burden' then as soon as we permit their killing, we have made the declaration that, far from being a loveable person requiring our compassionate care, that the person was indeed 'a burden' on society or was, in some sense, 'unfit to live'.

As soon as we allow for the idea that there are some people who are 'unfit to live', who are 'a burden on others' or who no longer have dignity, but that their only source of dignity is death itself, then we create the framework for a society that believes that death is the answer to the host of mental and physical illnesses present in society at large. Once a State and society has endorsed this idea for a given length of time, it would not be in the slightest bit surprising if that State and that society promoted voluntary euthanasia as an answer to all of those problems. Before very long, you create a society in which anyone can be killed voluntarily on their own assessment of their situation and it does not take a great leap of the imagination to suggest that the movement from individual, subjective assessment of one's own need for death as the escape from illness, disease, or dependence on the State and others for care becomes so commonly assessed as reqnhsuiring death as a 'solution' that the State itself deems death to be the 'solution' to the problem itself and considers itself more able to make the decision about your life, or your death, than you.

But ,'Surely', I hear you cry, 'In the United Kingdom, this could never happen, because not only is assisted suicide still illegal, bar for a couple of High Court cases, but also the framework of law and apparatus to be prepared for the legal, judicially decided killing of those incapable of 'seeing their own need' for the State's intervention in this matter is not yet in place? We're not anywhere near Nazi Germany!' Well, Germany isn't that far away from us and the apparatus is in place. So is the law. The law is called the Mental Incapacity Act and the apparatus is called The Court of Protection, which operates, not terribly surprisingly, in secret. Now, do I have your attention? The apparatus for a 'final' if more subtle 'solution' for the 'unproductive' and 'unfit' in the United Kingdom is in place, but it relies first upon the British population accepting and swallowing the propaganda first and, just as the BBC was used to spread the sexual revolution and the wrecked families and little unborn corpses it left in its wake, the over-turning of the idea that suicide isn't really a 'good thing' is, once again being promoted by the televisual arm of the State.

In all honesty, it is plausible that the Galton Institute which was known as British Eugenics Society, which incidentally has deep links with the relevant Royal Societies (Happy Diamond Jubilee, Your Majesty!) is also on good terms with Dignity in Dying, which was known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. What with the abortion clinics started by various members of the British Eugenics Society being well and truly models of commercial and eugenic success in the United Kingdom, one almost wonders if the Dignity in Dying members believe that abortion clinics could actually double up as euthansia clinics. Why build new clinics to kill NHS patients when clinics that kill NHS patients already exist?

Bigger bins would be needed, naturally, though I suppose incineration would be the most environmentally safe way to cull the masses. After all, we don't want more landfill do we? That's 'dignity in dying' and its eugenics too, since the Galton Institute are interested in eliminating the diseased, the imperfect, the 'inferior', the disabled, the weak and 'unfit' before birth using the pretext of 'genetics' via the use of pre-natal scans and, in IVF, pre-implantation diagnosis. After birth, should the imperfect have the audacity to escape the womb, the Dignity in Dying lobby are there to promote the 'end of life' plan once the 'unfit' are born into a society that finds their existence intolerable. That's how you create a eugenic utopia, an apparently 'better world', otherwise known by people who are not pathological fanatics of serial killing, as a State-led dystopia. But there is a better World and in that better World, the 'world without end' dwells the souls of those who fought for our World to reflect the joy, the love and the abundant kindness and mercy of Heaven. Do not let the morbid, deathly, misanthoropic, inhuman State into which we are born sing you to sleep. Defend the sanctity of your life, defend the sanctity of all human life, at all possible cost...

When words are superfluous....

Thanks to GM for forwarding.

Rev James to join the Ordinariate?

It's a cause for celebration, in fact, the whole nation (so I've noticed) is joining in this weekend and festooning the streets with bunting and flags to rejoice.

For why?

Because, my good friend Gareth Hurley, who lives in the part of Wales otherwise known as Yuppieland, has revealed that the full bodied Church of Wales vicar, one Reverend James, is to join the Ordinariate. Huzzah! and Hooray!

I would not like to steal Catholic and Welsh's thunder so please visit his blog HERE