Jess has a habit of crying ‘conspiracy theory’ whenever she is confronted with facts with which she is uncomfortable or vociferously disagrees. So recently she has listed a few of my ‘conspiracy theories’ as though one might need to wear a tinfoil hat in order to not be taken in by my wild-eyed ideas. It is, of course, the ultimate put down and intended to be the discrediting of the individual and all that is said from then on.
But sadly, I have been around far too long to take such attacks as seriously as she wants. For if the list she provides (from memory): modernism, communism, freemasonry, alinsky-ites etc. are no longer relevant then why? I am with good company with the Popes before John XXIII. How many encyclicals were written by our Popes on these things (minus the Alinsky ones . . . as he was of the newer era of Montini, Pope Paul VI). Indeed, however, the future Pope Paul VI wished to meet Alinsky and Jacques Maritain arranged the meeting in Italy . . . a simple fact of which I cannot draw any immediate conclusion from. However, I can draw conclusions on the infiltration of the Alinsky movement into the Church from Stephanie Block’s in-depth investigations into the organizations affiliated to their Marxist founder. Her work was key in getting the USCCB to pull funding from the Campaign for Human Development and the reorganizing of that group under the name Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Sadly, the reorganization has not stopped their backing of liberal and immoral causes via third party transfers of money. But then, if you won’t read the material, you can dismiss it all day long.
Was the Church and her Popes mistaken then as to the clear and present danger that they saw in communism, modernism and freemasonry? Were they the original conspiracy theorists? Did Bella Dodd make things up as well and why would The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita be published by both Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII if they did not see this as an attack on the Church? Did the danger of communism, modernism and freemasonry all vanish mysteriously once Pope John XXIII was elected? It must have been the Oath against Modernism and the Leonine Prayers that ended the danger . . . or there was no danger because it was only a conspiracy theory by the Popes, Fatima, and the visions of Leo and of Don Bosco and many others. And so, I still hear the clarion call of these pre-Vatican II Popes to confront and fight these evils; these horrible conspiracy theories that should discredit me and them as well.
So I am an unashamed ‘conspiracy theorist’ (in the eyes of Jess) who is proud to stand with the likes of those great Popes, Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand, Saint Pio and all who resisted these evils. Detente with evil is not a clear headed or especially good expression of the cardinal moral virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. In fact let me add another to the list; feminism. I stand with Lady von Hildebrand (recipient of the highest award the Church can bestow on a layman: http://aleteia.org/2013/11/04/lady-alice-philosopher-alice-von-hildebrand-honored-by-pope-francis/) in her defense of femininity and womanhood and her assessment of the role of women in all arenas . . . and in the Church especially. Some may like to listen to her as her’s is a wisdom which is rapidly being lost in this world and to the Church:
All Along the Watchtower 
“discrediting of the individual and all that is said from then on.”
Yeah, she shouldn’t outta have done that…huh.
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Very good article. I suspect that the Popes you cite, as well as the late saintly Padre Pio and Don Bosco and the prophetic Dietrich von Hildebrand, simply saw more deeply into the woes of the Church and of society than we ordinary mortals do. Thus we dismiss ‘conspiracies’ at our peril, ignorant of the malice of Satan and how he manipulates human beings for his own evil purposes. It is interesting that the Saints always warn of the diabolical – which we modern Christians are inclined to dismiss.
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It is true Francis. Thank God, that in His mercy he sent us clear warnings about what to expect and much went unheeded by the flock. I wonder how many of our flock have, for instance, consecrated themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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I simply say what I see. Are you saying you don’t believe in conspiracies? You think the fact that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming is the result of a conspiracy. You believe in this Alinsky stuff, which no serious commentator believes; you believe the word of a renegade ex communist, again, no serious commentator give credit to this. Of course before the end of the Cold War communism was a danger, but to think that Obama is part of some communist conspiracy is just nuts. Can you point me to any serious commentator who believes in this stuff? I could go on, but you said it, you are a conspiracy theorist, and there’s no arguing with you.
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I do. First, the conspiring of satan against mankind. Secondarily the small ones, like economic manipulation with currency, global warming, the organized destruction of education and manipulation of our children, the selling of the ‘good’ within Socialism and all its derivitives.
To UFO conspiracy theorists, or an organized coverup of various nutty ideas I think they should be discredited. Why? They operate without facts. There is a difference.
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So, it it the socialists who are manipulating the economy – really? You really believe Goldman Sachs is full of commies?
I used to know many serious scientists and not one of them was a commie, and not one of them doubted AGW. There are a few outliers who do, but I guess not even an overwhelming scientific consensus can shift you. Of course, if you are wrong and we do nothing, what then? I guess that would be the result of the commies under the bed? You operate with skewed facts, skewed to fit the view you had before you cherry-picked the facts. No tin foil involved, simply the determination to see what you already thought was there. Have you done a serious study of AGW, or are you relying of websites of the deniers not having read the real science?
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Not all fall under these convenient groups. Goldman Sachs is always the training school for those who rise into the ranks of government and into the Fed. Narcissistic persons, whether actively or passively, are doing the will of satan. You can call this a new conspiracy theory if you’d like.
I need not look under the bed in your most condescending remark implies. I see them throughout the modern world in positions of authority and in the bureaucracies that are hanging on their coat tails.
I, nor the Church in its condemnation of these things, claimed everyone is in these groups. It is simply the fact that these are clear dangers and that they exist and continue to exist. And are you only reading the scientists that agree with AGW or are so frightened to go against the strong political bloc that pushes this agenda that you discount anything that does not fall into their PC position? That cuts both ways. I have listened and read a great deal from both sides actually . . . but I doubt you have.
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It sure sounds like it. Did you ever read a conspiracy theory you didn’t like?
On AGW, I worked with some of the world’s leading scientists who read everything – oddly enough, that’s what real scholars do. But hey, you know better than men with PhDs who have spent 30 years studying this, and better than the scientific consensus – but, oddly, you side with the nutjobs – there’s a pattern here.
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Hell hath no fury like a womans scorn
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Very astute Bosco.
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Jess, you’re pushing the envelope pretty hard on AGW. Climate change certainly exists, as it always has, see, for instance, Doggerland. A plurality tending towards a majority of scientists has strong reservations on the anthropomorphic aspect. There’s just too little reliable data to substantiate the claim. And far too many books have been cooked to get funding, in universities, in government, and in crony-capitalist firms. One must always follow the money in these things, and it’s an ugly, profiteering, journey.
A conspiracy, no, that’s a bridge too far (maybe two) but it looks an awful lot like people simply looking to keep their rice bowl full.
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Sorry Neo, but here I worked at a uni where scholars who had spent 30 years on this came up with most of the data, and when nutjobs tried to claim they were lying, a serious inquiry showed they weren’t. There’s a hell of a lot of data – but the deniers put their fingers in their ears because they think there’s a conspiracy. Just why would scientists invent this and most of them around the world agree. When they first started, they couldn’t get money from grant awarding bodies because no one believed them. If they’d just been after grants, they’d have kept quiet.
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Sorry, Jess.
I know you did, but they did, as did NASA, and practically everyone else involved. There’s a hell of a lot of data on the other side as well, including what James Hanson is saying now that his paycheck doesn’t depend on it.
May be so, but it’s not proved, or even close on objective data. That’s why I rarely write on it, without reliable data, there’s no deciding. Don’t buy it, at least not past a few years. Then they all saw how to make money on it. It’s farce at this point, on both sides.
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It is a total misapprehension to imagine that most scientists paycheck depends on AGW. In fact, any reputable scientist who could prove the opposite would make millions.
I simply doubt that thousands of scientists across the world suddenly got together and decided that bodies which initially would not give money for this research would do so if they all decided to make stuff up. Having seen how hard the peer-review process is, I’d simply ask how many of the deniers put their work through it?
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Didn’t say most, but I’ve read most of the sources SF just posted, and a lot on the other side. I’m not saying that they don’t believe what they’re saying, likely they do, but it’s simply too easy to curve the results in the algorithm, and then deny (or even simply forget) that one did. Too many, far too many revisions, and almost all of them tending against the premise. And for the first world, it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway, China’s got too many problems in their economy to be on board, and they likely pollute more than the EU and US put together. India and almost all of southeast Asia is in similar boats. All we will do is cut the throats of our lower classes, without gain.
And unless its far more rigorous in the UK than it is here, peer review has become a very frail reed to hang a McDonald’s burger on, let alone the US or UK economy. Far too many examples.
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There was a very thorough investigation into the whole UEA thing which exonerated them – but of course mud sticks.
I suppose it is only when New York is flooded that people will believe – and then blame it in Goldman Sachs and the Commies.
Off to bed now.
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And maybe, but I never saw the report of it, and distrust that unit to this day.
Night, night, dearest friend. 🙂 xx
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Scientists questioning the accuracy of IPCC climate projections
These scientists have said that it is not possible to project global climate accurately enough to justify the ranges projected for temperature and sea-level rise over the next century. They may not conclude specifically that the current IPCC projections are either too high or too low, but that the projections are likely to be inaccurate due to inadequacies of current global climate modeling.
David Bellamy, botanist.[16][17][18][19]
Lennart Bengtsson, meteorologist, Reading University.[20][unreliable source?][21]
Piers Corbyn, owner of the business WeatherAction which makes weather forecasts.[22][23]
Judith Curry, Professor and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.[24][25][26][27]
Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of the School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study; Fellow of the Royal Society.[28][29]
Steven E. Koonin, theoretical physicist and director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University.[30][31]
Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences.[32][33][34][35]
Craig Loehle, ecologist and chief scientist at the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.[36][37][38][39][40][41][42]
Patrick Moore, former president of Greenpeace Canada.[43][44][45]
Nils-Axel Mörner, retired head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University, former chairman of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999–2003).[46][47]
Garth Paltridge, retired chief research scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre, visiting fellow Australian National University.[48][49]
Tom Quirk, corporate director of biotech companies and former board member of the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian conservative think-tank.[50]
Denis Rancourt, former professor of physics at University of Ottawa, research scientist in condensed matter physics, and in environmental and soil science.[51][52][53][54]
Harrison Schmitt, geologist, Apollo 17 Astronaut, former U.S. Senator.[55]
Peter Stilbs, professor of physical chemistry at Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.[56][57]
Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London.[58][59]
Hendrik Tennekes, retired director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.[60][61]
Anastasios Tsonis, distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.[62][63]
Fritz Vahrenholt, German politician and energy executive with a doctorate in chemistry.[64][65]
Ivar Giaever, Norwegian–American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics (1973).[66]
Scientists arguing that global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
Graph showing the ability with which a global climate model is able to reconstruct the historical temperature record, and the degree to which those temperature changes can be decomposed into various forcing factors. It shows the effects of five forcing factors: greenhouse gases, man-made sulfate emissions, solar variability, ozone changes, and volcanic emissions.[67]
These scientists have said that the observed warming is more likely to be attributable to natural causes than to human activities. Their views on climate change are usually described in more detail in their biographical articles.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov, astrophysicist at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences[68][69]
Sallie Baliunas, retired astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics[70][71][72]
Timothy Ball, historical climatologist, and retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg[73][74][75]
Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa[76][77]
Chris de Freitas, associate professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland[78][79]
David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester[80][81]
Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University[82][83]
William Happer, physicist specializing in optics and spectroscopy; emeritus professor, Princeton University[84][85]
Ole Humlum, professor of geology at the University of Oslo[86][87]
Wibjörn Karlén, professor emeritus of geography and geology at the University of Stockholm.[88][89]
William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology[90][91]
David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware[92][93]
Anthony Lupo, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri[94][95]
Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa[96][97]
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada.[98][99][100]
Ian Plimer, professor emeritus of mining geology, the University of Adelaide.[101][102]
Arthur B. Robinson, American politician, biochemist and former faculty member at the University of California, San Diego[103][104]
Murry Salby, atmospheric scientist, former professor at Macquarie University and University of Colorado[105][106]
Nicola Scafetta, research scientist in the physics department at Duke University[107][108][109]
Tom Segalstad, geologist; associate professor at University of Oslo[110][111]
Nir Shaviv, professor of physics focusing on astrophysics and climate science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem[112][113]
Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia[114][115][116][117]
Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics[118][119]
Roy Spencer, meteorologist; principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville[120][121]
Henrik Svensmark, physicist, Danish National Space Center[122][123]
George H. Taylor, retired director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University[124][125]
Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, professor emeritus from University of Ottawa[126][127]
Scientists arguing that the cause of global warming is unknown
These scientists have said that no principal cause can be ascribed to the observed rising temperatures, whether man-made or natural.
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and founding director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.[128][129]
Claude Allègre, French politician; geochemist, emeritus professor at Institute of Geophysics (Paris).[130][131]
Robert Balling, a professor of geography at Arizona State University.[132][133]
Pål Brekke, solar astrophycisist, senior advisor Norwegian Space Centre.[134][135]
John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports.[136][137][138]
Petr Chylek, space and remote sensing sciences researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory.[139][140]
David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma.[141][142]
Vincent R. Gray, New Zealand physical chemist with expertise in coal ashes[143][144]
Keith E. Idso, botanist, former adjunct professor of biology at Maricopa County Community College District and the vice president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change[145][146]
Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists.[147][148]
Scientists arguing that global warming will have few negative consequences
These scientists have said that projected rising temperatures will be of little impact or a net positive for society or the environment.
Indur M. Goklany, science and technology policy analyst for the United States Department of the Interior[149][150][151]
Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change [152][153]
Sherwood B. Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University[154][155]
Patrick Michaels, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia[156][157]
Deceased scientists
This section includes deceased scientists who would otherwise be listed in the prior sections.
August H. “Augie” Auer Jr. (1940–2007), retired New Zealand MetService meteorologist and past professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming[158]
Reid Bryson (1920–2008), emeritus professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.[159]
Robert M. Carter (1942–2016), former head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University[160][161]
William M. Gray (1929–2016), professor emeritus and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University[162][163]
Robert Jastrow (1925–2008), American astronomer, physicist, cosmologist and leading NASA scientist who, together with Fred Seitz and William Nierenberg, established the George C. Marshall Institute[164][165][166]
Harold (“Hal”) Warren Lewis (1923–2011), emeritus professor of physics and former department chairman at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[167]
Frederick Seitz (1911–2008), solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences and co-founder of the George C. Marshall Institute in 1984.[159][168]
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Piers Corbyn is an extreme socialist – brother of our Jeremy, leader of the Labour Party – perhaps the deniers are a commie conspiracy?
No one says there are not outliers who deny it, no one says that there are not debates, but what is clear beyond doubt is that the scientific consensus is that there is AGW. By all means doubt it, but it is my generation who will pick up the check if you are wrong.
If I were to list all the scientists on the other side, it would fill the blog. But you won’t believe them – because you think it is a conspiracy by socialist Greenies.
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Let me go further:
1) I did not say that economists were Communists . . . only that there is a conspiracy of money manipulators that stretch around the world . . . they are bound together by their personal love of money and power.
2) Alinsky: what makes you think no serious commenter believes that Alinsky used the Churches to push his agenda? Have you even taken the time to study the issue? No. Were there serious Churchmen involved for and against this attack within the Church? Yes.
3) The renegade Communist Bella Dodd was believed by Bishop Sheen the von Hildebrands and others. It was credible witness to what the Church had already known and the Pope’s warned of in their encyclicals . . . all just a bunch of nuts to you. Though you have not looked into it.
4) Did I say that Obama was part of a Communist conspiracy? No. But you just put words in my mouth didn’t you. How credible are you? Obama is a narcissist that has socialist leanings and was mentored by a well known communist, Frank Marshall Davis. Just facts, ma’am, just the facts.
5) Yes I can point you to some serious commentors and you might first start with those I have mentioned in the post. But since you won’t, I imagine you will simply say that there is no arguing for I am that dreaded, Pope and Church believing Catholic, that actually takes their warnings seriously and do not think they are of the tinfoil hat club . . . which places me in the ‘conspiracy theorist’ camp of Jess’s ‘everything is beautiful’ world. False peace, based on your wants and desires, is no peace at all I’m afraid. These things still exist . . . and you fail to recognize them or even answer the questions in the post.
My first question is this: were all the Popes, prophecies, the writing of the St. Michael Prayer, the Oath against Modernism and the Alta Vendita just delusions as were the witness of St. Pio, Hildebrand, the Fatima children etc.? Just want to know if they are serious commentors or not.
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On Alinksy, I asked for a few serious commentators – if you have any, do feel free to offer them. The money men are capitalists, and I quite agree, they are the real danger – but you are the one in favour of free market capitalism – which wrecked the world economy in 2008 – or was that the commies too?
On Bella Dodd, I’ve read what’s available on line, and again, you use the argument from authority, not actual facts – as though people in authority never got things wrong.
Obama seems an intelligent man who does his best, but he’s a democrat and therefore a socialist. Do you really think he and Sanders are on the same page? That’s the problem with painting with a brush as broad as the one you use.
You are that Catholic who believes that only his sort of catholic is a real Catholic, fine, but then there are far more Christians than appear in your narrow vision.
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I don’t know what happened to you but I do feel sorry for you, Jess. You are miserable and it shows.
Stephanie Block: Google her and look for her PDF books.
Google Sheen and Bella Dodd and read what Sheen has to say. I have given you corroboration from Alice von Hildebrand who was aware of her communist work at the university and also spent time speaking with her.
Obama believes in the redistribution of wealth . . . a socialist premise.
And your personal attacks just show your deep seated anger. I do hope you get that under control before you turn into a very sad and bitter woman. I shall pray that you find peace someday.
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There are a number of ways of seeing this.
I write a post of women deans. Do look at your reactions. It may be you are so habituated to going over the top and being dismissive of others that you don’t even see you are doing it. I have told you you do, you don’t like it, so you transfer the bitterness and anger you feel at some within your own church to me.
All I can say is the witness you bear to it, like that that Steve and QV have borne, would make me stay as far away from such a pit of squabbling men as I could get.
I hope and pray you can find the peace in your heart which will stop you needing to project your anger onto me and to others. With God all things are possible.
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I have commented on this blog very little in recent times for various reasons, but the main reason is that there has been less connection with everyday spiritual and ecumenical relevance than this blog once achieved. In a word, I find its current irritating discussions irrelevant.
The Jess v. Dave stuff is getting so utterly boring that I would rather watch the football; and I am one who never actually watches football…
I was aghast to read Jess’s stuff about women deacons. It is a red rag to a bull. Not only that but presented in a way designed to re-ignite primitive battles fought in the 1980s that ultimately wrecked the Church of England. When I left to become a Catholic in 1992 the arguments put forward by Jess had already wrecked any chance of the Anglican Church being reunited with Rome – which many honourable people had given a lifetime’s dedicaton to.
Likewise, I find Dave’s opposite extreme view very unsettling. Responding to the bait set down by Jess (how could you not see it otherwise, Jess?), Dave goes off on one… bigtime. I agree the Obama problem. He is a stooge. I do not agree on a unified world-wide communist conspiracy. Nor do I like the tone of such arguments.
This kind of controversy wins no visitors to this site and does nothing for the ecumenical aims with which this blog first gained an audience
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You’re largely right Gareth and most of the Catholics who participated have now left and are tired of the anti-Catholic, or the ‘I know better than Catholic’s what the Church should do during this crisis’ attitude that is prevalent at AATW these days. I am weary myself and yes, I charge like a bull when non-Catholics try to settle or tell Catholics what the Church should be and should do. The old days of asking Catholics ‘why do Catholics do that or why do they believe that’ and the reciprocal questions to other denominations and the arguments for and against such positions is over. It is a battleground that I will not be able to win in and one, in fact, that leads one to indifferently allow others to say what they want and make no response for the sake of peace. I was never one of those types and don’t intend to be. Therefore, consider this my last word at AATW as I take my leave.
I apologize to Geoffrey for not responding to his post yesterday but the Dave/Jess argument took up most of my morning and some of my afternoon without any resultant resolution or cease fire . . . indeed it even continued today. So my apologies to all and a fond farewell as I have enjoyed the many wonderful conversations of the past and will dearly miss them.
From time to time I will blog at Philips site to give air to my creative juices . . . and perhaps will rethink rebooting my own blog. It was a pleasure getting to know you all. My best and God’s blessings on all of you.
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I agree. Goodness, what will Bosco and Jess do now? C is one of the few Catholics left.
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Those who want to read what is here will come. They come in more numbers when the narrow partisan Catholicism which shouts so loud here vanishes to its safe space – I’d not thought of you all as Generation Snowflake – but there we go, God be with you.
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Another entry for Jess’s Little Book of Insults.
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Truth hurts sometimes, but as you are fond of saying, we have to show tough love – what’s wrong – is it an insult when it is not you showing it?
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Jess: I agree with much of what Servus writes – but I would not describe myself as “a narrow partisan Catholic”. For Catholics, as well as other Christians, there is a always a spiritual war on: between the demands of God and the ways of the world. The saints call us towards God (which includes recognising the machinations of the Evil One) while the world tells us not to worry and to ignore “religious nut jobs”. To describe someone as a “narrow, partisan Catholic” is name-calling and uncharitable to all those Catholics with whom you choose to disagree. You are free to disagree and to argue with Servus – but the tone in which you write has become contemptuous and uncharitable and that is a great pity for us all.
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I am afraid that I am responding to what I perceive as a contemptuous and uncharitable tone from him, which is a mistake I am sure. I note you did not complain when he called transgendered people ‘mentally ill’ or at the language he has used about some of your own clergy. And that’s part of my point, it seems to me marrow and partisan’ to see the mote in the eye of others and to ignore the beam in your own. I don’t deny that I have become angry with the contempt with which some catholics here write about others – but that anger extends to their denial that they are doing so.
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http://www.courageouspriest.com
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And on you to. But if you need a safe space where you hear only the echo of your own voice, it is as well to go to one.
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And peace be with you as well.
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My post was on women deacons, it was not a red rag, as would be clear if you re-read it. One reason many Anglicans did not want to unite with Rome was the sort of attitude evinced here so often – which is only one sort of Catholic is a real Catholic. It is pretty clear such Catholics will accept unification only on their terms – something few Anglicans want. Those who do, are there now, and many complain about Pope Francis. The idea of joining such a menagerie is a joke.
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Gareth – the main problem with the ‘women deacons’ post was that she didn’t actually define what a deacon (male or female) was supposed to do.
The argument, ‘oh we can’t have them because Rome might get pissed off and this would mess up our chances of unification’ is the weakest argument I’ve ever heard. Surely there should be some higher principles involved?
My own problem with all this discussion is that making someone a deacon is more to fill the needs of the person who is made a deacon rather than connected with any spiritual outreach. People have to be made to feel important. That is why the Anglican church has a career structure, where people get promoted from curate to vicar to something more important (probably several stages), to bishop and then there are wranglings over who gets to be archbishop.
Other than that – on the contrary, I’ve found this blog very instructive from an ‘ecumenical’ point of view; it has convinced me that the concept is basically a non-starter. There are very good reasons why there are different denominations.
The sort of Catholicism represented by Servus Fidelis, which you don’t like very much, is a major strand within the RCC.
How on earth a blog about Christian principles got on to a discussion over whether or not anthropological activities contributed to global warming beats me.
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Any blog that doesn’t mention anthropogenic global warming every five minutes should be closed down, according to the IPCC. 🙂
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For a long time now, it has become clear that some of the RCs here simply want to hear what they already know. I have tolerated their insults to their own Pope and to many of their fellow Catholics because I believe in free speech. I reserve to myself the right to question their views and to offer those shared by other Catholics – that is part of the wider ecmenical mission of this place – it was never meant to reflect a narrow, partisan viewpoint. Those who want that can find plenty of places on the Internet, and God go with them. But here I shall continue to explore more than one manifestation of the Christian faith. Quite why an Anglican doing that is such a shock, who can tell?
It is sad that those who often mock generation snowflake for needing safe spaces show themselves equally touchy and unable to cope with views they don’t like – but if that’s how it is, I bid them God speed and farewell.
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Can’t stop the rant can you? Why not pick up your rosary and simply let it go?
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What’s up, tough love only work when you are laying down how it is? Anyhow, I thought you were off to your safe space to play with the others from generation snowflake?
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Never used the term. But you keep telling me that I do. Do you just enjoy lying or are you simply projecting what your own vile insults represent?
Ah, generation snowflake . . . whatever that might mean. I’m sooo wounded. Have a nice evening and try to find that peace in your heart that you seemed to lose of late. May God heal that which is causing you so much unhappiness.
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And you too.
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Wlho would have believed that higher education was rotten to the core? http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/1970s-era-academic-high-theory-transgender-bathrooms-campus-8880.html
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Annie, it is sad isn’t it. With all of the truly important issues facing us we are busy trying to figure out who can use which bathroom; a clear reflection of the decline of common sense and of the present state of of what passes for intelligence.
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Evolutionary theory is overrated😂
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That’s an understatement. 🙂
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Have you heard of Hamish Fraser? He came to my school when I was a teenager. A noble man. Here is an interview he did for an Irish newspaper back in the day.
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I have read about him in passing . . . but gather that he had a most remarkable turn around in life and was a communist as a young man. Don’t know much more. I am sure he was an interesting speaker as he certainly had an interesting ife.
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Come on good brother Servus and good sister Jess, you are both beautiful people. You can disagree and still be friends.
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There is no anger in me Bosco, it is just that AATW has changed and I have been contemplating leaving for some time now. Garreth just made much sense and I see that my presence here is only like yours: an annoyance. There is no profit in that. Life is too short to spend it annoying others.
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Annoy….is my middle name.
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I haven’t been paying much attention.
Is this fight all about global warming?
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Too long to get into. You’ll have to go back and read the whole sequence itself. I wouldn’t bother . . . it really isn’t worth the time.
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Gods speed to you good brother
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Thanks Wayne.
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Jess – I did not see that comment by Servus saying that transgendered people are “mentally ill” – but what is wrong with saying that? I have read about the condition (in a book by Walt Heyer, who was transgendered and who came to bitterly regret it) and I also think – in charity and compassion – that they are mentally ill. They need therapy and psychological help – not people telling them that all is fine with them when it isn’t. I don’t see anything narrow or bigoted in saying this – though I know I run the risk of being considered “transphobic”.
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Francis – I saw that comment by Jessica (I hadn’t trawled through the argy-bargy between Jessica and Servus) – and as a result I started asking myself serious questions about Jessica. I had wondered about her before, but the level of alarm reached a deeper level and I simply don’t take anything she writes remotely seriously any more..
This ‘transgender’ stuff is pure sacrilege. I don’t presume to know anything about psychotherapy or psychological help. But I do recognise sacrilege when I see it. Man was created in the image of God – this ‘transgender’ business is a gross violation of this sacred creation.
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Jock, I think the same as you. Almost every day the media now bombards us with more emotive stories by people who are ‘trapped’ in the wrong sex and who should be allowed to be treated in the sex they imagine themselves to be. Like you, my first thought has been, “This is another diabolical outrage against the creation of God.” I don’t mean for a second that so-called ‘transgendered’ people know this: they are confused and unhappy and need our prayers and skilled therapeutic help; but they are being instrumentalised by God’s ancient Enemy, This should be evident to all Christians of whatever church. We cannot expect the secular world to understand the deeper meaning (and outrage) of this assault on creation as we Christians do..
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Many of those we deal with here have long been told by pastors elsewhere that they are being attacked by demons, and that if they would only pray hard enough, or have hands laid n them, things would change for the better for them. It isn’t as though they have not have this experience, or as though they are not receiving psychiatric help. The problem for them is that neither prayer, the laying on of hands, exorcisms or medical assistance is helping them.
We offer them nothing except acceptance and love. If that is wrong, so be it.
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Of course we must offer them love and acceptance i.e. that “this is where they find themselves”. But it does not mean that we should be coerced by the media into thinking all is well. Skilled psychiatric intervention can help actually – but few specialists would feel confident in offering such help in today’s climate when they too, could be called “transphobic”. I loved my older brother and ‘accepted’ him for what he was: an alcoholic. But this did not mean I endorsed his way of life or agreed with it; indeed, I did everything I could to help him ‘change’ – for his sake and for the sake of his family. And that is another thing; the family. What are the children to make of a parent who tells them he is in the wrong sex? Children’s voices are rarely heard. Walt Heyer, the transgendered man whose book I read, only realised when he had come to regret his surgery, how much he had hurt his children during the process of ‘realising’ his own needs.
As to the question of exorcisms – I understand that some Afro-Caribbean sects might try to do this – but on this Forum I think no-one would sanction such a response, so it is unnecessary to raise it. The question is, is Transgenderism a valid alternative option for living or is it a mental disorder, showing a deep malaise in the individual and in society? To believe the latter is not to be uncharitable. So often we do not tell people the truth of their behaviour out of a misplaced “compassion”. To take it away from this issue, if someone tells you they have had an abortion and it doesn’t bother them, what should one respond? “It doesn’t bother me either; it’s your body and your choice” – or something else?
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Yes, the person who told me about the exorcism is from an Afro-Caribbean background, so that makes sense of that.
I don’t dissent from anything you write here at all, except when we come to the question of pastoral care.
Whether you or I consider it is a viable life option (and again, I rather take your view) the people themselves do. Since all the ones I know (that’s about half a dozen) are receiving mental health care, telling them to get help isn’t helpful. So we simply accept them for who they think they are. If there is another pastoral option Id love to know what it is.
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Obviously I don’t know what mental health care you refer to; but I suspect it might be therapy that affirms such peoples’ wish to change their sex. Therapy that gently tries to do the opposite might be rejected (and possibly forbidden by the medical fraternity, just as reparative therapy is forbidden to those unhappy with their same-sex lifestyle). I think the best way a friend can help is to guide the person to come to know Christ – as we would all wish to be so guided, if we did not know Him.
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I don’t know, is the short answer – and don’t really know them well enough to ask. What matters to us is they are here and, I hope, coming to know Christ – who alone heals all things 🙂
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“I was sick or in prison and you visited me…” My mom used say she did not fear dying, only which side of the Lord she would be put on Judgement Day.
Some prisons are man-made, some are of our own making. Some are wrongly put into prison others not. It matters not to Jesus whether you consider the one fallen among thieves guilty or innocent but that you be s neighbour to him or her. There is no law against praying in your own way for suffering and confused people as well as binding up their wounds.
You could also hand the whole matter over to the intercessor who is renowned for “forsaking no one and despising none” …
https://godisinyourtypewriter.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/my-jewish-mother/
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Interesting theoretical comments Jock, but a serious question. Do you know any transgender people and if you do how do you relate to them? How many of them have responded in a positive manner to your telling them that they are mentally ill or they are a sacrilege?
I think I know the answers. It is one thing to write so in the abstract – anyone can do that. But as a Christian called to service in the name of the Lord, what do you think we should do in real life? I ask because where I worship we have quite a few such people and for us it isn’t a matter of putting stuff in a comment box and virtue signalling, it is a case of pastoral concern. All those I know have been and are receiving trained psychiatric help – but I guess they should just listen to those theorising about them on the Internet? Do you have any positive suggestions, or are you just venting your spleen?
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The one guy I know (who now presents as female) did it for commercial reasons. He is a deeply unhappy person. I have avoided him as I would an uncovered mineshaft out of fear. Thanks to these conversations, I will pray and fast for his healing and get my internet prayer group (iipg) and Our Lady, to pray for him too.
Shakespeare said “a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantonness”. Women have taken to wearing men’s clothing over the past 50 years to the dismay of some men. It doesn’t sit well with them and they feel emasculated. Little children, boys and girls, are put into similar leggings….now we have adult women going about (uncovered) in tights, but it is reverting to toddlerhood. One of my nieces as a little girl had to wear gym pants to school and objected strongly. I’m a GIRL she said, in tears. She had to go out in them, much to her disgust. She now wears high fashion and suffers from anorexia
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Annie – firstly, please do be careful with this ‘charismatic’ tendency – I think it’s dangerous and I’m not at all convinced that it is governed by the Spirit of God.
On what you wrote – I’m reminded of the cartoon in yesterday’s Telegraph showing the toilets at Muirfield golf course, with ‘men’ under the picture of a man and ‘men in kilts’ under the symbol for a lady.
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Matt is so on the ball… 😂
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I had a strange experience the one time I went without my friend.
Walking back home, about halfway there, I was attacked spiritually and a hateful voice in my ear said ” who do you think you are, going among those holy people?” I almost collapsed with shock. I didn’t dare look to see who spoke to me but said the Our Father in my mind, devoutly. It was only at the part “deliver us from evil” that I felt the spirit who had oppressed me left and went away.
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Thank you Annie. Praying is certainly something we must and ought to do. As one who hates wearing trousers (I think I own a pair of jeans but can’t recall lat time I wore them) I sympathise with your niece. At the other end of the scale I used to hate playing hockey because of the short skirts we had to wear. 🙂
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Jessica – there is something very weird about this.
I have never (knowingly) met a single one of these people. Of the 200 faculty members in the institute where I work, not one of them is transgender.
I wonder why the problem simply doesn’t seem to exist in normal places, but there seems to be so much of it in an inner-city church.
Your church doesn’t seem to correspond to ‘real life’.
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I’d have said that where I used to live, but as you know, Edinburgh is a big city with a lot of people from different parts of the word in it. We simply respond to what we are presented with.
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Transgender is just the newest name for a homersexual. Lots of them feel they were born like that. If they ask Jesus to come into their life, and He does, He will work with that person.
The good people in this site seem to forget we have our very own transgender member in bad standing….good brother Newengland. Hes an angry young trans-what ever. I spotted him right away, but he didn’t formally admit it til a year later.
Yes, we know how troubled they can be….first hand.
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Bosco – I’m unenlightened about such things. I thought that ‘transgender’ was something different where they also got hormone treatment and eventually had their equipment chopped off and a pair of bazookas surgically strapped onto them.
Yes – NES is a troubled guy, but he’s basically OK and I’m sorry if I said anything in these discussions to make him feel worse.
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Hormone shots , surgery, what ever. A man is still a man, even if hes a head in a plate. Girls become guys with hormone shots and stuff. But they still are girls. Eh, what are you gonna do? If god wants them he will take them. Most people are going to hell anyway. Just witness to whom you can. Just keep in mind that we were on our way to hell at one time.
Don’t worry about good brother Newenglands dainty little feelings. He doesn’t care. Hes as delicate as a bull in a china shop.
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‘Just witness to whom you can. Just keep in mind that we were on our way to hell at one time.’
Yes – that’s the key point, isn’t it?
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“Love, tolerance and the making of distinctions”. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3953/love_tolerance_and_the_making_of_distinctions.aspx
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I have just read the CWR article you provided the link for, Annie. It is very good. Thank you.
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Annie – a helpful link, but for me there is a key problem in the phrase:
‘For the mainstream of the Catholic intellectual tradition, love is not primarily an emotion, but an act of the will.’
For the mainstream of the human race the emotion cannot be separated from the act of will – indeed the two are linked. If you give the impression of acting on an act of will and not from the heart, you risk appearing impersonal and a theorist – that may be why so many turn away. Few people are comforted by an intellectual tradition.
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An act of the will does not mean emotion is not present; it means emotion has been transformed and transfigured into real love, love that is prepared to die on behalf of another’s salvation. St Augustine says “Love and do what you will”; he means that love of Christ (and not the ersatz human misunderstanding of the word ‘love’) is always the passion, the zeal and and energy behind the willed activity of the saints.
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There is a difference between”being in love” and “loving”. One is based on emotion the other on the will. One “alters where it alteration finds” the other is like the house built on a rock which withstands every storm. One is a form of madness, an obsession, the other the ground of our being.
I recommend Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” for a thorough teasing out of these matters.
X
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There is something that worries me here. If what we call love is ersatz it is not real. I do not see the Fathers saying that. The love we have is a lower form of God’s love, it is not artificial. We need, as humans, to manifest love in our actions – if our a tions do not reflect love we fail the test set in 1 Cor 13. St Paul is not talking about some medieval theory, he is talking about something he expects his simple readers to understand. If we have not love then nothing else matters. If we cannot manifest that, then our seed falls on stones.
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Deciding to act with love is deciding to love.
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Very true, Annie
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By “ersatz love” I meant the way the word is used in the media and in the western world today; it is the opposite of the Christian meaning of love as the Church Fathers would have understood it. Perhaps I should have used the word “lurv”. Annie’s distinction between “being in love” and “loving” says it all.
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Again, I’m a bit uneasy. I re-read Paul in 1 Cor 13 and I don’t see either some intellectual act of will, nor do I see something so divorced from what we mean by ‘love’ that it is its opposite. It seems pretty clear love is long-suffering, humble, does not exalt itself, assert its claims or judge others. I don’t see how anyone can make 1 Cor 13 fit the medieval context in which some people seem to be imprisoning it. Paul’s love is reckless in that it does not count the cost, it is vital, it is alive. We cannot be properly in love and not be loving – neither can we be loving and not show some of the signs of being in love.
I really don’t get why you need a word like ‘lurv’ – what is so frightening about love that it needs to be explained away until it becomes the opposite of what most people would think it was? This is almost Gnostic – a claim there is some hidden mystery here known only to the select, who alone know what the word really means. That is not how Paul proceeded, neither is is how the church evangelised. It is, of course, how some intellectuals tried to hijack a faith so simple that servant girls flocked to it.
Why the need to complicate something this simple and wonderful and joyful? I really don’t understand how anyone with the Spirit can feel doleful or pessimistic. Of course our faith will triumph – Jesus told it to us, and if we believe Him, if we have faith even at a mustard seed level, all things will follow.
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What the world calls love is not what Paul calls love. One is manipulative the other is sacrificial. One is selfish the other is selfless. One uses the other person for gain of some sort, the other seeks the good of the loved person.
A lot of others – hope you were able to follow my meanings and didn’t get lost in the long grass 😃
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Again, Annie puts it plainly and simply. Nobody is complicating anything. Christian love and “worldly” love have different meanings. Without the grace of God we would all interpret love selfishly; even as Christians we struggle with the “old Adam/Eve” in our nature. Saying this is not to be “Gnostic” or “medieval” – it is just reality. St Paul knew it in his day and we know it in our day. We are not ‘judging’ others in making this distinction. Christian love can include stoning, flogging, imprisonment and death by the sword as St Paul knew. Something more than just the emotion of love is involved here.
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I really don’t see this is 1 Cor 13 – can you help me out here? Where is what Paul is describing as ‘love’ entirely different from what you or I would see as love? I’d love sto see where St Paul says love includes stoning to death or flogging anyone – these were things non-Christians did to Christians surely?
I do think there is something gnostic about claiming that a word we all really understand does not mean what we think it means but only what a select elite learned in things say it means – that’s really almost the text-book definition of gnosticism.
Or are you saying all those early converts understood that love did not mean love?
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I am simply saying what Annie has said (I hope!), using different words. Love for Christians means ‘dying to self’; true for St Paul; true for me and you. Dying to self and living for Christ might include our enemies doing to us what they did to St Paul (or modern versions thereof). To love Christ is to witness to Him. The word for ‘witness’ is ‘martyr’; the red martyrdom of blood or the white martyrdom of daily living. Thus Christian love is different from love as the secular world sees it. It does include the joy of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. But again, a Christian meaning of ‘joy’ will be different from a worldly meaning.
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Christ died for love of us. We are called to follow Him by loving those who hate us. It is easy to love those who love us…
Christ’s death on the Cross was a stumbling block to Greeks and a scandal to Jews. Muslims can’t understand it either so don’t believe it.
Pax
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There are many ways of dying to self, but none of them involve us in stoning, buring and the other things the church has done to non-Christians and nonconformists over the years – and that’s part of the problem. If you divorce the concept of love from anything we recognise, you can end up burning people – and anyone who thinks Jesus would have approved of burning people really does need a reality check. Again, I think if you are taking words we ordinary people understand and saying they mean something entirely different, you are not doing what Jesus did, you are indulging in a form of elite churchianity – which is one of the many reasons that fewer than 50% of the population in this country is Christian. Much of the RC growth is converts or immigrants – I don’t see a big effort with the unchurched, and I’m not surprised, because I think the sort of things you are saying give a certain message to the unchurched – which is this is a mystery religion which you need to be initiated into before you understand love and joy. The Spirit gives us that understanding unmediated – He always has done.
I get very uneasy at the dualism implicit in separating the flesh and the spirit – that again has always been at the heart of a gnostic Christianity.
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Dear Jess,. I cannot write more clearly than I have done. You have misinterpreted me – perhaps because you have already labelled me a ‘gnostic’ or an elitist. What I have said is not “elite churchianity” as you put it. It is something ordinary Christians have understood throughout their history – not least the saints, who imitate Christ more closely than I do. It with much regret that I now withdraw from this site; for some reason which I don’t understand, possibly because I haven’t followed it regularly enough, it has become increasingly uncharitable in tone and in particular, hostile to the Catholic faith. It was never like this at the beginning and it is a development that I deplore.
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Fair enough Francis, I shall miss you. You seem to be to be drawing a line between the physical and the spiritual which is dangerous, but then I may be misreading you.
All blessings. Jess xx
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Francis – I am sorry to see you go. I do not see this ‘hostility’ of which you speak, but then as I am not an RC, I mightn’t.
What I am seeing from you and others is an attempt to redefine words in a way which does, indeed, make them remote from the lives of ordinary people. What may be perfectly clear to saints probably isn’t to less holy folk.
I’m not sure what you are meaning when, as it seems, you separate human love from spiritual love. To fear that it looks like a form of gnosticism is not ‘hostility’, it is to enunciate a fear. Human love is, as you know, self-sacrificial in nature – you give yourself up to the needs of your family – and in that sense it does map on to Christian love, and for a Christian is part of it.
I shall miss you, as I do the others.
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