"O come and smirk with me awhile...."

Cross or Maypole? More Broadway than Via Crucis

I watched, briefly (very briefly) part of the World Youth Day Stations of the Cross, screened last night by EWTN, from Copacabana Beach - where else?

I came in at the eleventh station and exited at the twelfth.

I have never seen such unmitigated, puke inducing, blasphemous rubbish in all my 24 years, ahem.


At  first I thought that EWTN was showing Men in Black 3 as the screen was full of rather camp looking Brazilians in funny poses and dressed in black suits, a sort of cross between a Monty Python sketch and Morecambe and Wise at their best.

Then, cue the glamour puss who recited, presumably, a rendering of the Passion, with one of those silly half smirks on her face.
You know, the sort normally employed by CoE vicars who feel that they must lighten up and show their 'human' side in spite of the fact that they are speaking of the grimmest moment in world history.

And then we were transported back to the London Olympics, men in black were out and men and women in doctor's and nurses gear were in.

It was a farce of the grand order and only lacked the skill and expertise of the 'Carry On' team.

As I switched off the television, a grotesque 3 dimensional image of Christ on the cross swivelled in the manner of a fairy godmother leaving the stage during a Christmas panto.


Enough - Não obrigado, não minha xícara de chá 

Brilliant Zenit Interview with Cardinal Burke on Sacra Liturgia Conference 2013

Gifted with eloquence and an incisive mind towards matters of Doctrine and Liturgy, here is an excellent interview with Cardinal Raymond Buke.

Despite the obvious differences between Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI's reign with regard to liturgy, Cardinal Burke also gives us an exemplary display of loyalty to the Successor of St Peter, His Holiness, Pope Francis.

The Cafe

I work in a local cafe in Brighton. A cafe is a small microcosm of society. There you have a real mixture of people from different backgrounds all in one small, condensed place.

So, let's examine the cafe as it currently is. The coffee and tea addicts come in the morning. They order coffee either alone or with others. Some of them smoke. They smoke outside because of government regulation on smoking, but all is well.

In come the young children. These are the ice cream addicts. So, in they come and their mums and dads buy them ice creams. The adults sit in the cafe supping their coffee and tea and the children eat their ice creams. So far, the cafe is a happy place with people indulging their little habits and vices but social order is maintained to the degree that it is both happy and healthy.

In walks a young couple celebrating the birthday of one of them. They order a bottle of wine. The cafe is licensed so they drink a whole bottle of wine between the two of them. A middle aged man is in the corner of the cafe alone. He's on his fourth beer. He goes to the bar and orders another, followed by another two. He walks up and he's stumbling. The cafe owner can see he's had too much and refuses him any more beer. He makes a fuss but admits he is drunk and goes home. The cafe is still a happy place.

Food has been consumed and customers have taken advantage of the wonderful coffee, teas and dishes served up by the cafe. People are getting along, some alone, others with friends. There are a lot of children and families here. Its all going nicely.

One Year Later...

The next year, the Government has introduced the legalisation of all drugs. Drugs can be consumed anywhere for the purpose of this story and can even be sold in cafes. So, in the morning, in walk the children and the families, loners and couples, all drinking their tea and coffee. Never one to pass up on a fast buck, the owner of the cafe has a range of drugs for sale behind the counter and has a sign outside saying, 'Formerly illegal drugs now for sale'.

So, first, in come the cannabis smokers. They walk in and order some cannabis. They sit outside in the sunshine smoking cannabis around children and families. They giggle frenetically, find everything amusing, order loads of crisps until eventually they fall asleep at the table. The families are a little confused and tell the owner. The owner tries to wake them up but he can't get them to move. He says, 'Just leave them there for a while', they'll be okay.

Then, in walk the cocaine addicts. The cokeheads walk in and order two bags of cocaine for £80. They go to a table inside the cafe, in front of families, couples and children and snort all the cocaine they have in an hour. They're loud, confident, aggressive, insulting to others and have an inflated sense of their own self-importance. They are behaving like total idiots, disliked to the rest of the cafe. They go back to the cafe owner and say, 'This s**t is amazing, give us some more.' In fact, now they've started doing cocaine in the cafe, they don't want to leave, because they're having the best party they ever had while others in the cafe find them incredibly irritating.

In come the heroin addicts. The heroin addicts buy from the owner a bag of heroin for £20 each. They've been paid and are generous and so say to the owner,

"Perhaps some heroin for your staff as well? We've been paid so we'll buy a round of heroin for your team for their wonderful customer service."

Two of the staff decline the offer, but the other two, the chef and the dishwasher decide to accept. Both are within minutes laid on the kitchen floor in a narcotic bliss for around a quarter of an hour or so. Afterwards, they jump up and ask the boss for more, and are prepared to go without wages to be paid in heroin instead. The following week, neither of them turn up for work because they have sold everything they have in order to devote their whole lives to heroin.

A bad trip in the cafe

Next walk in the acid heads. They come in, order some acid and stare at the ceiling comparing notes with each other of what they can see on the ceiling despite there being nothing there at all but white emulsion.

Then come the ecstasy takers. They order from the cafe owner a small bag of ecstasy tablets. They spend the afternoon telling each other how much they love one another while drinking loads of water and dancing to music on a stereo with a weird repetitive drum beat.

Very soon, the whole cafe is off its nuts and is in chaos. A child has had his foot punctured by a discarded needle by one of the heroin addicts and has contracted HIV. The children and the families have left, never to return and because he's making more money than he's ever known what to do with, the manger has turned into a nightclub by the next month, yet, for some reason, despite the wholesale acceptance of drugs, the heroin addicts are still despised because they steal everything in sight to accommodate their habit and are banned.

Extrapolate the cafe to the whole of society and that is what you have in the event of the legalisation of all drugs.

Just Because All Drugs are Addictive Does Not Mean All Drugs Are the Same

The average amount of coffee I consume in a day

So goes the argument:

If coffee is a drug and tobacco is a drug and tea is a drug, then people who say class A drugs should be illegal are hypocrites.

Okay, so when was the last time a popstar or Hollywood celeb was on the front page of a newspaper under the headline...

'My Coffee Hell.'

'My Cigarettes Nightmare'

'My Tea Shame.'

Who has brought forth their confessions in public and said, "My addiction to tea/coffee/fags destroyed my family/work/home/relationship life."

The answer of course is none. I don't mind at all that to all of us the label 'drug addict' can be applied, but that does not mean that all drugs are the same or that tea and coffee should be banned.

Where are the 'coffee and tea anonymous' meetings?  I should really attend. Of course, these are not drugs that destroy human relationships, lives, families. Now, you may contest that these drugs do not destroy lives because they are legal drugs. Surely no, this is not why they do not damage society. Surely it is because the effects of these drugs are manageable by the individual and that, even if the effects are not managed by the individual, the harm done to society by them is negligible.

In other words, there is a reason why Governments have hitherto taken a pragmatic view on which drugs should be available for social purposes and which drugs should be banned, penalised and discouraged. This is why illegal drugs are classified for the purposes of law in terms of crime and punishment.

Next comes 'the argument from alcohol'. Alcohol's availability is a social good. It only becomes a social evil when it is abused and drank solely for the purposes of total intoxication. Alcohol can be drank in moderation - indeed, we can even drink it to excess from time to time and feel the consequences later on. That said, alcohol by itself is not a social evil - it gladdens the heart, fosters concord when consumed at social gatherings, but fosters street fights or violence when abused or taken to extremes.

By itself, alcohol is not a social evil. It not always is, but can be, drunk sensibly and even if at times we fail, because we are sinners, we are encouraged to 'stay sober for your prayers'.

So here is the clincher:

You cannot smoke crack in moderation. You cannot inject heroin in moderation. Smack does not foster social harmony or cohesion, neither does crack. It is all about self-annihilation from the start. It serves no social purpose. You cannot snort cocaine in moderation. These drugs will, very quickly, take over your whole life if you do not get help. That is why they are social evils. These drugs will, very quickly, ruin your family, cause you to forget your duties, dominate you and enslave you until you care about nothing - n-o-t-h-i-n-g - but the next fix.

Just because all drugs are addictive does not mean all drugs are the same - that is why not all drugs are legal and some are banned substances for the protection of society.

I would concede that, at this time, in this evil time, alcohol abuse is so harmful and so great, especially among children and the young, that an argument could be posited for the banning of all alcohol for sale in shops for the social good, if children cannot be stopped from obtaining it and becoming alcoholic. To ban alcohol in this country may not work, but if it were proposed, we should consider it as a self-sacrifice for the good of children in this generation that we should consider it.

Yet, even that would not be because alcohol is evil, but that our age has lost its ability to protect children from the associated dangers of alcohol and, indeed, so many things created for human enjoyment.

There are some 'drugs' that our condition - affected as it is by what St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas called 'concupiscence' - can cope with and still maintain its social order, structure and cohesion, based on married and family life. A family can gather around a table and enjoy a bottle of wine. They cannot gather around a table and enjoy a bag of smack. Heroin, cocaine, acid, ecstasy, 'meow meow', crystal meth, ketamine, marijuana are surely not among the drugs that our condition can cope with because as every day in Brighton tells you, these things do nothing good in society, but only ensure the abject enslavement of all who take them, more or less immediately and with destructive consequences for all.

Why Fr Alexander Lucie Smith is Wrong and the Pope is Right

'Legalisation, regulation and taxation will mean that drugs are freely available. But you know what? They already are. The single most astonishing thing about the War on Drugs is its abysmal failure to stop anyone who wants drugs accessing them.' - Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, a Priest and Catholic theologian is arguing against the Holy Father's public position on drugs calling for an end to the 'war' against them.

Before I move forward to counter Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith's argument as I defend the Pope's stance, let us ask a question. Where does the Devil stand on this issue? I think once we have ascertained Beelzebub's position on the matter we may be further ahead in deciding whether we should go down the road of legalisation and regulation or retain the current state of affairs.

I would imagine that Satan wants to see the West legalise drugs. Here is why. He has achieved much through 'decriminalisation' and 'legalisation' and even 'regulation' in this country alone on several social evils. If we take ourselves back to the 1950s, when 'class A drugs' was a phrase unheard of and the cities were not awash with such powerful 'recreational' narcotics, Western societies did not have to confront this issue on such a wide scale. We cannot, however, see this issue in isolation because, suddenly, in the overflow of the excesses of the 1960s, nearly every social evil and taboo has been overturned. We can see Satan's hand in the gradual overturning of Christian laws in the common good of society masking itself as kindness, tolerance and even 'love'. The more dechristianised we have become as a society, the more tolerant has society and Government become to social evils.

The argument employed by Fr Alexander is this: that people are doing it anyway, people are going to do it anyway, so let's ensure they do it in a safe, regulated manner. Yet, is this not the argument employed by the social reformers who give condoms to school children and promote to them 'safe sex' way before they are ready and divorce sex from marriage?

Is this not the argument employed by the social reformers who sanctioned pornography? People are going to use pornography anyway, so let's not worry about it and just let this industry flourish. Is this not the argument employed concerning abortion? Women are dying in 'unsafe' abortion clinics ran by bad abortionists, so let's regulate it, legalise it and ensure unborn babies are killed in regulated abortion clinics ran by 'good' abortionists. There was once a 'war' against abortion in this country, with abortionists inhabiting prisons in the United Kingdom, yet now abortionists are free to roam around destroying the unborn. A paedophile group is now campaigning for the same 'rights' as homosexuals. People are going to fiddle with children anyway, so let's just provide them with children?

There were once Christian laws in the country concerning sodomy. These were never there, presumably, to punish homosexuals but to protect society from a prevailing culture that would damage both the institution of the family and marriage. Abortion laws were not there to punish women but to protect society and children. Here we are today, abortion more rampant than ever it was and the definition of marriage destroyed by a Prime Minister and sanctioned by a Christian Monarch. Despite the anger caused when a Pope, Bishop, Priest or layman says this, this is what society held as true only fifty years ago. I use these points only to illustrate that the more that Government and society has 'given in' to the temptation to liberalise laws there for the protection of society in the common good, the worse things have become for all - even if 'individuals' within that society see these developments as improvements in their personal liberty and freedom.

The fact of the matter is that it is true to say that bad men are making lots of money off the back of drug addicts. Why do these men become good if they make money off drug addicts in a regulated manner?  If Mr Big is a criminal under existing laws, then why does the head of GlaxoSmithKline become virtuous when he simply does what Mr Big was doing illegally? And exactly how seriously taken is the so called 'war on drugs' anyway? How are tonnes of bags of heroin and cocaine getting into the country? These are imports from a black market that involves millions, billions of pounds every year. Are you telling me that our customs people are so inept that they can do nothing - nothing - to stop this trade?

Here in Brighton, as far as I can see, there is no real 'war' on drugs. There is a war on drug addicts who are usually homeless. Lewes prison is full of junkies who were entrapped by Sussex Police into selling small amounts of heroin or cocaine in order to fund their own habits, but as for finding the real bigtime suppliers, the police seem either incompetent or are not too bothered. It strikes me as more likely that Government policy is designed to turn a blind eye to the reality of the drugs trade in the life of the nation because they know that it is a multi-billion pound black market trade that plays a part in the life of the economy. It wouldn't be wild conspiracy theory to suggest that the people at the top of this trade could even be part of an untouchable super-elite known to those in power.

Drugs, too, are not just something dabbled in by the poor, but the rich as well. Even our political elite themselves entertain themselves with them at times. Some lawyers do copious amounts of cocaine and we know that the media is awash with it. The fact is that drugs like these destroy lives. I do not see how if you 'regulate' and 'legalise' them, they will stop destroying the lives of individuals. Neither do I see the link Fr Alexander makes between legalisation, regulation and moral regeneration coming in its aftermath. Why can't moral regeneration come first? Isn't the duty of the State to ensure that laws reflect a moral society working in the common good of all, especially the protection of the family and children?

Believe me, I can really see the immense appeal of Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith's arguments. Unfortunately, however, they reflect the power of the Devil's suggestions that using the apparatus of the State to endorse social evils will remove social evils or somehow enable society to manage them. Time and time again, this has been proved to be a lie from the Father of lies. Why the employment of this argument would make drugs a different story is beyond me. Sadly, the legalisation of all drugs might work in utopia, but there and only there. The result of legalising drugs would create that State driven dystopia - the road upon which we are already well down.

Regardless, I expect the legalisation of all drugs to take place whatever the Church says about it, because it is the desire of the most powerful men on Earth that it should happen, for their profit and society's misfortune. George Soros's Open Society Foundation funded a recent report condemning the drug war as a failure. Mr Soros is a keen advocate of a liberal drug policy because he is a social liberal and a serious player in the creation of a dystopic new world order ran by a liberal but tyrannical super-elite along the lines of Brave New World. I know quite a few addicts of class A drugs. None would wish their plight on anyone. I fail to see how legalisation of these drugs would enable people to leave their lives of drugs, while Government and society endorses that very lifestyle through legalisation and regulation and I fail to see in Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith's argument, the Augustinian vision of 'The City of God' - a city awash with the finest wines and meats, but also heroin and cocaine?

Remember that ultimately those ensnared in the kinds of drugs that cause addicts to steal or that cause dealers to kill do have moral choice and that they tried to make a very rich Amy Winehouse go to rehab but, for a time at least, she said 'no, no, no.' 

Most people I know, though not all, who are doing class A drugs have given up on life, given up on God or feel that life and God has given up on them. Many street heroin takers were abused in childhood and use it to mask or numb their pain. I met a heroin user recently, a Catholic, who showed me the wound, which was actually near his groin, into which he injects heroin time and time again. He was abused as a child by the Christian Brothers. He attended the Papal Visit by Blessed Pope John Paul II and received Holy Communion there, but has since all but given up on the Catholic Faith. Terrible things were done to him by the Christian Brothers - all manner of abuse, sexual and physical! Another I know who has always been on heroin was raped by her step-father repeatedly. When she confronted him about it in her twenties, he, a Catholic no less, said, "You never said no."

These people I try with almost no success, to draw back into the Church, to offer compassion, but they are often so damaged and so scarred as individuals and so embroiled in this lifestyle that it overtakes their daily existence in their search for drugs that can numb their inner pain, their broken hearts. I have great sympathy with them, but the wounds are so deep, their pain so great, their existence so much on the peripheries of society that has abandoned them, that I doubt they will ever come back to the Church to be communicants and receive Jesus Who alone can heal such afflictions. Much of what happens to these unfortunates is unjust - their treatment at the hands of authorities for what is an addiction - but there needs to be stigma and there should be taboo around drugs if only for the protection of children who will face these same temptations as young adults. Pray for them, and pray for me that I may be truly Christlike towards those who I know who struggle daily with class A drugs. Catholic theologians, Government ministers, social reformers, the policy think-tankers - all these may know many things, but how many crack and heroin addicts do they actually know?

Ten ways to impress your Bishop

Bishops appreciate a subtle approach

I may be wrong but, it seems to me that Bishops, post Vatican II are more accessible, more 'user friendly' inasmuch that you may meet them at the parish fete, the annual parish visit, on the occasion of  the Sacrament of Confirmation being conferred or, at the golf club.

And, when you do meet them, they are less tied up with things spiritual and far more worldly than their counterparts fifty years ago. Hmmm.

So, if you wish to gain a few Brownie points with your local 'Bish' and convince him that you are the best thing since EMHCs, here are my top ten ploys:-

1. Don't kneel and kiss his ring upon meeting him - Bishops are far too humble for that treatment

2. Never write to him. Bishops dislike receiving letters from their flock. Sheep can't write is their philosophy, so forget it (you won't get a reply anyway).

3. Do not address your Bishop as 'My Lord', instead call him plain 'Bishop' or, even, 'Bishop Reg' (assuming that 'Reg' is his Christian name).

4. There is a litany of words that must not be mentioned in the presence of a Bishop, these include: "Rosary, Latin, Extraordinary, Benediction, Altar Rails and Magisterium" (there are more but these are the important ones).

5. Ask him to adopt a charitable cause of your choosing; high on the popularity list are groups such as the Marxist Catholic Association and the LGBT Rainbow Liturgy Society.

6. Encourage him to appoint a Diocesan Liturgical Artist who will produce some beautiful meaningless posters in pastel colours that nobody will understand.

7. Inspire him to open a Twitter account and to read the Tweets of his priests and deacons (especially the deacons).

8. Suggest that, as his 60 or so parishes offer Masses in Chinese, Tamil, Tagalog, Polish and Latvian, the addition of Swahili and Lakota would be much appreciated. You will find him only too pleased to comply.

9. Invite him to organise some Clown Masses - the smell of greasepaint does things to Bishops.

10. Ask him what he understands regarding Summorum Pontificum.

What if he turns out to be Gay?

The Royal baby, born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, George Alexander Louis, is likely, at some stage in his life, to become King.

All well and good and, fifty years hence or less, this may take place.

But what if the little bundle of joy turns out to have homosexual tendencies? (not unknown in the Royal family).

Laurence England posted on this a few days ago but my imagination, when projected forward twenty years or so, cannot but help speculate on what might take place should the unthinkable happen.

How would the British public, to say nothing of the Commonwealth countries, respond to an announcement of the engagement of HRH Prince George to the Right Honourable Freddy Ponsonby-Ffrench?

And how would the Church of England (if it is still in existence then) cope with having a Head who is not so much red, white and blue as pink, white and blue?

Westminster Abbey would be packed, for the "wedding" with the other Farm Street community and the Stonewall bunch....and Britain would be the laughing stock of the world.

Or, would it?

The rate of moral decline is now so rapid that, in twenty years time, homosexual unions will be as common as.....well, very common.

And heterosexual marriages as rare as an unbleached candle.

After the wedding, a few months after the wedding, the Royal couple, the Prince and Prince of X, might wish to have children.

Just think, what disarray the British constitution would be in, trying to sort out the hereditary rights of a surrogate child born out of wedlock to the Royal couple.

They can't even provide for a Catholic to become heir to the throne (Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and bush born Baptists, yes, but Catholics - no!).

Such are the inequalities of the equality laws in this country.

May the Good Lord save us all!