Many years ago, when I was younger and only a little bit bitter and twisted (at least compared to now) I went to see a bishop.
(It was a different chap from the one there now, and a different diocese from the one in which I now live).
I had some concerns about Catholic education in a Catholic School my daughters were at. One of the issues I mentioned was that they were not even taught about the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays (this seemed fairly basic to me, if one is to teach anything about Catholicism to anyone...)
The bishop responded that the schools could not teach about the Sunday obligation, as some children's parents might not go to Mass on Sundays, and that would make the children think they were doing something wrong.
I think that was when I started to worry seriously about our bishops...
Just follow that line of reasoning down any of the interesting avenues it opens up... See what I mean?
Equivocate, that's the word I was searching for.
Now what recently could have brought that to mind?
WDTPRS 21 Dec. – O Oriens – The Winter Solstice and thoughts on time
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This year’s Winter Solstice is marked in special ways. This is the day
when, at last, the days in the Northern Hemisphere began to lengthen. I
don’t know ...
6 hours ago
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7 comments:
The bishop had an interesting point! In fact the ten commandments could be a minefield. "You shall not commit adultery", "You shall not steal", "You shall not bear false witness"- That's about half an average classes parents dissed already!
This is why I'm afraid I'm not with you on the CV versus SPUC spat. Of course it shouldn't be John Smeaton who is pointing out the difference between black and white! Of course it shouldn't be JS who is calling some of the CVers to order! Of course the argument shouldn't be played out on Twitter!
But it isn't JS's fault that he has found that he has to do this; and Twitter is a way of alerting the world that there are objective reasons for believing that members of and dependants of the CBCEW seem to be at variance with Rome, particularly when there is a lock on all Church-owned social communication tools.
This argument is dire, but it reflects a fissure which will remain open until the CBC provides a Catholic lead for Catholics.
Ttony
I'm not sure you are 'not with' me on the spat; indeed you seem to echo most of the points I made, and I studiously didn't take up a position - except that Twitter is the wrong medium (not saying blogs are...)
I think (and I really need to research this as I am given to quoting it) that it was Solzhenitsyn who said the photocopier was the main cause of the collapse of Soviet power.
I think blogging is to Ecclestone Square what samizdat was to the Kremlin...
Bukovsky wrote:
"I myself create it,
edit it,
censor it,
publish it,
distribute it, and ...
get imprisoned for it."
One could argue the stakes are not so high for Catholic bloggers in the UK - or one could argue that they are higher...
Patricius
You are quite right. And yet they are happy to preach Fairtrade and expect the kids to evangelise their Primark-shopping parents about that....
My apologies - I think I misread your post.
It strikes me that after banging on for ages about an educated laity, the Hierarchy is recoiling from the fact that it can't control the educated laity who use the Internet, and have therefore set up their own "official" educated laity as the resource everybody outside the Church should use.
What we need as a counterbalance is an English or Welsh analogue of Michael Voris ...
Ttony
Maybe you had better start blogging again, with that mission...
No, not me.
It has to be somebody who is:
young enough not to have a family depending on an income;
happy (well, prepared) to be pilloried, attacked and be subject to all sorts of insidious nonsense;
really confident in understanding VII as well as what went before so as to be able to present a Benedictine world view;
media friendly: somebody the camera and the microphone likes;
and most of all, really, really Catholic, down to the toenails.
If you can add OTSOTA's theological depth, the "presence" of the English priest-bloggers, the persistence and deep down rightness of John Smeaton, and a sort of Chestertonian Englishness, we're on our way!
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