Building a Better World

Read this post if you want, but I would like to alert you that Ches's post at The Sensible Bond is far better. I recognise this because I'm humble, you see. In an ambitious kind of a way, though, naturally. So if you want to read on...

The mind boggles. I find the Holy Father's most recent interview far more alarming than the previous one. The purpose of the mission of the Catholic Church is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, to 'make the world a better place'.

It is surely a fruit of Her Faith in Christ, hopefully, that by the grace and mercy working through the Church the world is made better - a more holy, more loving World, but that is not her 'purpose'. Her purpose is to save souls, to bring the Salvation of God to the World - to make sinners into Saints, to the glory of God.

Let's also be clear that not everybody shares our vision of a 'better world' - a World in which God's holy will is done 'as it is in Heaven' - and be plain that Original Sin has something to do with that. A eugenically-minded abortionist following what he thinks is good, may always think that he is making the world a better place, like Hitler and the Nazis thought they were making the world a better place in following their warped consciences by killing off the 'unfit'. Those who mount floats at 'Gay Pride' marches are convinced in their conscience they are buliding a 'better world', but disregard the sanctity of the family and marriage. Those contracting 'same-sex marriages' presumably are doing so following their conscience, a conscience not informed by the Church or the light of Faith or even in the light of natural reason. Is it not the truth that the darkening of men's consciences, without the light of Christ, the lumen fidei, has led them to believe in many arenas of human life that evil is good and that good is evil, virtue vice and vice versa?

It is an effect - a wonderful thing - that the work of those 'labourers' for the Lord building God's Kingdom makes the world an objectively better place, more loving, less cold, but it is not why Jesus died on the Cross and it is not why He rose again, it is not why He became incarnate in (and only in) the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is not why He founded His Bride, the Church - the Instrument of Salvation.

The Lord Jesus did not give the Apostles a commission or a 'mandate' to go forth and 'make the world a better place', but to 'teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' If the purpose of the Church is to make the World a better place then it becomes the NGO that the Holy Father said he wishes Her not to be. Oxfam claim to make the World a better place, and they do so by feeding starving populations, but at the same time they are also roped into the 'culture of death', assisting 'reproductive choice' centres in their work 'building a better world'.

Whether unemployment is the biggest problem facing humanity is really a very subjective opinion, entirely debatable. Unemployment and poverty certainly feeds into family life and the abortion issue, undoubtedly. Lack of employment is certainly a problem, one I suffer with myself for long periods of time, but at the same time, I had hitherto been led to believe that the greatest evil afflicting not just the World, but the Church, is sin. Sin can only be overcome, or taken away, by the Lamb of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, He Who is the Light of the World, Who became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, Who suffered and died that man might be reconciled with God, no longer to be stranger to Him, but one who worships 'in spirit and in truth', a servant, adopted son or daughter, friend, no longer an enemy.

All will be filled with light but not all will be able to bear it...

In the end, as the Holy Father says, we will all be filled with light - God's light. For some that will mean the unbearable knowledge of sin unconfessed and unrepented of, leading to eternal destruction and damnation, to others, the saving mercy and salvation of God, in soul at the private judgment and body at the general. There are areas of the Pope's new interview that are confusing, disconcerting, alarming even.

I've had dialogues with atheists, they tend to go round in circles. You often find areas of agreement. It all goes quite swimmingly until you start talking about the divinity and humanity of Christ our Lord. Of course there are areas of agreement in the dialogue. No matter what though, however hard you try to keep things on an even keel, eventually the issues of sin, salvation, hell, heaven, the Devil, Jesus, Mary, the Church, the Sacraments crop up because the atheist in discussion still wants the truth even if he doesn't like it and ends up in a huff.

'He who hears you, hears me', said the Lord to His Apostles. I'm not hearing much from or about the Lord Jesus from these interviews. I know we must place such things in the context of the interviewer, but then, these things go out to the whole world. I'm hearing a great deal about the Church and about the person of the Pope.

'Think of me, think of me often', said Pope Francis to his interviewer. Yes, Your Holiness, many are thinking of you and praying for you fervently. You are certainly on my mind a lot just recently.

Please, though, help us all to think about Jesus Christ, our light, our hope, our salvation, our God. There is a better world than this one, a world without end in which God reigns. If you are called upon to defend the holy doctrines and the Faith of the Church then please do so boldly and without thought of whether men think you inferior in their sight for not compromising on the truth to please persons. After all, Your Holiness, you, Pope Francis the Humble, the Ambitious, are the Pope.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...When His Holiness stepped out onto the balcony to greet the crowd after his election, Pope Francis said he wanted to 'pray for the world so there is a big brotherhood'. That was the first day, but not the last, that I thought to myself, 'Oh no! The Pope's a Freemason!'

Ghost train interview: Out of nowhere, its Cardinal Martini!

That His Holiness seems intent on implementing a project of reform envisaged by Cardinal Martini, who was mourned by Italian Freemasons upon his death, does little to allay my fears. That His Holiness suggested in his interview that Jesus became incarnate to instill in mankind 'the feeling of brotherhood' (rather than to save us) does even less and neither do I recall the Italian Freemasons roaring with approval when Benedict XVI was elected.

Still, pray for His Holiness we must. Read the full interview here. It's like a ghost train ride at a fun fair. The frightening ghoul, Cardinal Martini pops up out of nowhere and you just scream in horror. Also, watch out for that ambitious 'spirit' of the Council. If you've been reading my blog for a while and still need some information on the Church's official position on Freemasonry, you can watch Michael Voris's 'FBI investigation' below.

That Pope Francis Interview in Full

Harsh? Maybe...

Ches roll

Ches of The Sensible Bond is on a roll right now with a series of charitable but frank and perceptive posts regarding the state of the Papacy.

One of his recent posts on the topic reflects on the dangers of mistranslations, how easily Pope Francis's homilies can mean something else when translated from Italian to Spanish and then into English, for example.

It  brought to my mind the case of the General Secretary of a trades union who was due to visit Japan.

He commissioned a straight translation of his designation on to a business card, so essential for doing business in Japan.

The translation described him, in Japanese as 'Head Typist' - not what he had in mind, I'm sure.

And then the tale of the Professor who was booked to speak at a symposium in Greece.

He thought it would be a good idea to begin his talk by addressing the audience in Greek but, arriving at Athens Airport, he realise that he had left the piece of paper with the Greek for 'Ladies and Gentlemen' behind.

Being a leading academic he employed some lateral thought processes and made a note of the nominations above the public conveniences in the airport.

Arriving on stage he then addressed his audience using the words copied from the lavatory signs at the airport.

He felt that the talk fell rather flat and afterwards asked his hosts what was wrong.

The presentation of the learned paper was fine, they said, but why had he addressed the conference members as 'pedestals and urinals?'

These anecdotes have little to do with the Catholic Faith except that, I do hope that most of the HF's pronouncements have suffered from similar poor translation.

Wake in Fright

For years, Wake in Fright (1971) lingered in the pantheon of "lost films." One badly duped copy existed in Dublin; scattered VHS copies, retitled Outback, remained shut away in cinephiles' basements. Then in 2002, editor Anthony Buckley discovered the original materials in Pittsburgh. Years of painstaking restoration and legal wrangling followed, the film getting a limited art house release in 2009.

Wake in Fright helped usher in Australia's New Wave, transforming that country from cinematic also-ran to movie powerhouse. Like the same year's Walkabout, it's directed by a non-Australian: Ted Kotcheff was a Canadian director, later of North Dallas Forty and First Blood. That's not to take away from its Aussiness. This adaptation of Kenneth Cook's novel is palpably raw, finding a razor's edge beneath the Down Under stereotype.

John Grant (Gary Bond) is a vacationing school teacher who makes a one-night stop in Bundanyabba. John initially holds locals like policeman Jock (Chips Rafferty) and Tim Hynes (Al Thomas) in contempt as stupid, overfriendly hicks. When John loses his money in a game of two-up, he's forced to linger in the town, falling in with Tim and eccentric Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasance). A series of increasingly disturbing adventures occur, from a kangaroo hunt to a botched tryst with Tim's wife Jeanette (Sylvia Kay), with John wondering if he'll ever escape.

Wake in Fright's set-up resembles Straw Dogs and Deliverance, with an educated man destroyed by hicks. Yet Fright is more subtle than those shows, couching its story as psychological horror. Bundanyabba's denizens are just living the life they know; bored in a small town, they've little else but drink and sport. The only females about are Jeanette and a hotel clerk (Maggie Dence), both teasing strumpets. John gets little joy from his life or work, posted to a small town; he's all too readily drawn to dissolution.

Essentially, Kotcheff and writer Evan Jones craft a study in macho excess. Everything in Bundanyabba's taken to extremes, from friendship to aggression. Jock's friendly offer of beers becomes an all-night bender. John wins some money gambling, only to blow his entire wad on a return throw. The kangaroo hunt turns into a gory, degrading horror show (made worse by the fact that this is real footage). Challenged by his cohorts, John tries to prove his masculinity frolicking with Jeanette - then promptly vomits. He's ultimately smothered under the barrage of bonhomie; "the Yabba" becomes an inescapable hell.

Kotcheff's direction provides a surreal capper. Early scenes take in the Outback's harsh beauty, matched with John Scott's suitably playful score. But Kotcheff ratchets up the story with increased violence, elliptical flashbacks and terrifying montage work. As John wrestles with a kangaroo, we get terrifying close-ups of his pals' sadistic laughter, a scene recalling the cackling bandits of For a Few Dollars More. John's debauchery mashes memories into a freakish nightmare of sex, booze and gambling coins.

Gary Bond appeared in Zulu and Anne of the Thousand Days but never became a leading man. Resembling a brown-eyed Peter O'Toole, Bond depicts John's unraveling with smoldering intensity. Donald Pleasance gives a subtle edge to Doc's malignant weirdness; you never know just how villainous he is. Chips Rafferty, once Australia's leading film star, gets a fine sendoff. Jack Thompson makes his film debut as a roo hunter. Thompson became ubiquitous in Aussie cinema, from the classic Breaker Morant through Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby.

Wake in Fright is definitely strong stuff: the violence, baroque editing and crushing atmosphere will turn away many viewers. Those able to stomach its rougher edges will find a remarkably uncompromising work.

RIP Giuliano Gemma

Italian actor Giuliano Gemma passed away today at age 75, killed in a car accident in Rome.

The boyish Gemma starred in a slew of Spaghetti Westerns, most notably A Pistol for Ringo (1964) and its sequel, Ringo Rides Again (1965). He also starred opposite Lee Van Cleef in the popular Day of Anger (1967), and also appeared in Arizona Colt (1966), A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof (1968) and The Price of Power (1969). He presented a more clean-cut, traditional hero than Spaghetti stars like Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and Franco Nero.

Other notable films include Luchino Visconti's The Leopard (1963), Valerio Zurlini's The Desert of the Tartars (1976), Dario Argento's Tenebrae (1982) and Woody Allen's To Rome With Love (2012). In recent years he'd focused mainly on television.

Another Pope Francis Interview Wherein Laurence Decides to Go to Sleep

I hope to have time tomorrow to produce an ambitiously humble (or is that humbly ambitious?) post on Pope Francis's jaw-dropping interview with an Italian atheist. I'm sure its my pride says I need to say something about this. Or is it my love of Holy Mother Church?

I'm not sure at the moment, so I'm just going to say a Rosary for the Pope and go to sleep. Yes. Sleep on it. After all, even if I died tonight, the Pope will still be Pope tomorrow. So good to know some things always stay the same despite living in the madness of the world and in the shadow of death.

I do so love a good sleep. O I do, too much perhaps. That said, I do sometimes have the odd Pope Francis nightmare wherein the Pope sells the entire Vatican art collection and sacred chalices to give the money to the poor or ditches the white cassock and starts walking around in 'civvies'. When I wake up I think, 'O thank God! It was just a dream!'

Then I turn on the computer...

Are you introverted, selfish and something of a miser?

Mean? Moi?

Do you, for example, keep yourself to yourself and squirrel away your valuables in a drawer somewhere?

Do you insist on keeping things that you love, secret.......known only to yourself?

And do you refuse to share your riches, even the smallest amount, with your fellow man?

Well, let me put this as sensitively and charitably as possible.

You are a miser; a mean person who thinks only of their own needs and ignores those of your fellow man (sorry, person).

You are guilty of selfishness and greed, not to say avarice and lust and you must change!

Your liberal Catholic contemporaries (and some of your orthodox ones) are deserving of your charity.

Here are some guiding points to help you become less self centred and more charitable:-

1. Attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form and, what is more, tell your friends and family about it. You may lose a few (quite a few) in the process but, hey, at least you are saving them from the sin of culpable ignorance - the sin of wilful ignorance is now firmly in their court.

2. Oppose all the wishy washy words and actions of parish liturgists, greeters, choreographers, members of ACTA and others of the same ilk. They are a cancer eating away at the heart of the Faith and, without giving them too much credit for being taken seriously, should be spiritually head butted whenever possible.

3. Keep up a line of communication with your Bishop, even though it's like trying to empty the sea with a limpet shell. Be kind to him, remember he may never hear the words: "Well done thou good and faithful servant"

4. Evangelise your fellow Catholics but, again, don't beat them over the head with the complete works of Michael Davies. Speak softly to them and gently point out the facts.....ask them to look in their spiritual mirror and reflect on whether they look like a soldier of Christ.

5. Tackle your parish priest, not in the rugby sense (although, it might have to come to that). Ask him why, if Andrea Bocelli can sing modern music and then switch to La Traviata and Nigel Kennedy can play jazz as well as classical, why can't he say the Latin Mass?

6. Share yourself with others. Don't rush off after Mass, stay and have a cup of coffee with some of the nutters and aged nutters that went to make up the congregation. They need you, they need to know that they are not alone and that others are coming along who will shoulder the burden of being a traditional Catholic. You have a lot to offer so please share it.

7. Attend a pilgrimage, pro life vigil or retreat - graces will flow to you that will help you become generous with your spiritual wealth.

8. Display your finery whenever possible. Say Grace before meals in public as well as private, refuse the Sunday football match if it clashes with Mass (and tell your friends why), pray the Rosary on the train, in the surgery, at the cinema, anywhere, in fact, where you have a minute to spare.

9. Give away your possessions; orthodox books, dvds, pictures and statues (you have far too many anyway). They may help inspire and enthuse a fellow Catholic.

10. Buy up Rosaries on Ebay, get them blessed and give them away to your friends, to the sick, the aged and infirm and to young children. That is a gift more precious than pearls.

So, forget all that hogwash about being judgemental and remember that you once received the Sacrament of Confirmation.

That was not a one off sacramental experience, that was a lifelong suit of armour enabling you to be a soldier for Jesus Christ until such time as He calls you.

Then, and only then, can you lay down your sword and hang up your coat of mail.