Reading The Times front page today led to a game of mental bingo, crossing off the following.
CDF/ Holy Inquisition, previously headed by one Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger.
SSPX/Holocaust denying. I'd be heartily sick of that cheap link if I was a member of the SSPX.
[A threat] to wreck decades of ecumenical dialogue. Or perhaps bring it to true fruition? Like ordaining woman as 'priests' and soon probably 'bishops,' isn't.
Anglican orders being utterly null and void. (No inverted commas on this blog.)
Welcomes being too effusive. (Should they be begrudging then?)
Mention of tanks elsewhere, Panzer Kardinal anyone?
Also elsewhere in The Times a quote in defence of the CofE from the National Secular Society. Desperate?
Bingo!
Marvel at no mention of the aging GERMAN Pontiff, ex-member of the Hitler Youth (and no picture!) no naming of Bishop Williamson, such restraint! No mention of relics and indulgences either, but that was last week. They missed out Galileo and Pius XII too. Sigh. Come on Ruth, this is the front page get all the prejudices out there. No via media on the anti-Catholicism!
Now we've got all of that out of the way, this could all prove to be very good. Goodness knows England needs re-converting. The more the merrier and a return to merry England. It could make being British and Catholic almost normal. I might be able to see an historic Church and go to Mass there of a Sunday rather than feel totally alienated from our architectural and cultural heritage as I do now. It could be very good for music. What if the odd Oxbridge College decided that its Chapel was going to join up to this new venture? Catholic musicians could participate in an excellent training in Church music, for example. That would be good, because then more chant and polyphony could be used in all our churches.
SP has brought about great fruit in two years and the same could be true of this venture, if we support it and the people it pertains to. Yes, we could grumble about whether they are having it easy when so many people have been martyred and persecuted for being Catholic in Britain since the Reformation or in my case just had gratuitously, rude hostile things said to them. If the Roman Catholic Church and the Patriotic Church in China can try to patch things up, surely we can have a few ex-Anglicans on board?
It all makes next year's Papal Visit/ Beatification of John Cardinal Newman an even better prospect.
Tempting to add a little joke about getting our Churches and Cathedrals back, but some people don't find that sort of thing funny. I find it very sad that they are the way they are now, but I'm only a Catholic.
You are far better off reading this on FrZ or this from Fr Tim.
The British secular press; always a good laugh!
4 comments:
I find the secular media depressing...but then poor old Patricius has no sense of humour!
It doesn't have much going for it. The recipes and pictures of make up can be fun!
The so-called serious news content is so wrong about Catholicism the I wonder whether the rest of it is as ill informed.
It's interesting to me to read the British press, always has been since college when I had an access to the broadsheets years before newspapers were on line.
Somehow the Telegraph, to me, was always the better paper than the Times. The Times being to my eye, just a little too snooty for the room. I'd never seen anything back then as hostile to religion in general as it is so overtly today, particularly anti-Catholic. This would be some 35 years ago. But the Telegraph, OTOH, while being a good quaility read never gave off that snootiness or "we're too good for you" tone. And it's interesting to me today that off all the papers the Telegraph is the one that seems most sympatetic to religion, and not hostile to it.
I chose well!
The Torygraph used to be anti-Irish, anti-Teachers and anti-Catholic and so my parents never used to buy it. We're talking 80s and 90s here.
The Times seems increasingly silly and often not very well written these days. Their Religion Correspondant is a bit of a thickie with a particular agenda. It also is aimed at people with lots of money who live in London, which is funny.
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