Does David Cameron propose structured daily prayer, the setting aside one day in seven, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage, the global community of faith as the primary focus of personal allegiance and locus of personal identity, the lesser outward and greater inward struggle, a comprehensive and coherent critique of both capitalism and Marxism, the coherence between faith and reason, a consequent integrated view of art and science, Sacred Tradition as the answer to the challenge of the Sunna, the Petrine Office as the answer to the challenge of the Imamate, and our own traditions of mysticism and monasticism as the answer to the challenge of Sufism, all derived from the foundation of our civilisation by, in, through and as the recapitulation in Jesus Christ and His Church of all three of the Old Israel, Hellenism and the Roman Empire?
Or does David Cameron propose the rootless, godless, globalised, hypercapitalist, metrosexual wasteland of usury, promiscuity and stupefaction, imposed by force of arms? If this latter is what he means by "the West", then those of us who hold to the former definition must and do hate it as much as any Islamist. Yet those who hold to that toxic neoconservative definition are fulsome in their praise of Cameron's speech. The more enthusiastically supported by that pseudo-West is a regime or movement that is Islamic, Middle Eastern or both, then the more hostile it is to Christians: Pakistan, Turkey, the Gulf monarchies, Mubarak's Egypt, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and the wider Russian Caucasus, Israel, "liberated" Iraq.
Whereas the more hostile the pseudo-West is, the better the relations with those who embody the Biblical-Classical synthesis in Christ: the Christian-majority provinces and the Christian festivals as public holidays in Syria, the reserved Assyrian and Armenian parliamentary representation in Iran, Lebanon in general and the new governing coalition in particular, the seats for Christians in Palestine east of the Jordan (the present Hashemite Kingdom), the Christian quota for the Palestinian Authority, Iraq before 2003. All in all, a government including the Muslim Brotherhood, which freely accepts that it will never govern alone, by no means augurs ill for the Copts, who have hardly had it easy under a "key Western ally". And all in all, it is no wonder that the most vociferous opponents of neoconservatism, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been and are traditional Catholics.
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I agree largely with what you say.
ReplyDeleteI had some good friends in London. They were strict Muslims, devout and observant. We had great fun trying to convert each other.
As a Roman Catholic, I felt much closer to them than to the 'West' which you describe so well.
Should probably keep the name under which I posted a comment earlier, when everyone had adopted characters from Great Expectations. We desperately need some sort of intelligent voice of Catholic Orthodoxy in Britain, the market has been cornerned by an actively homosexual Thatcherite Likudist.
ReplyDeleteHe camps on about "Ma Pepinster" but his own views are no closer to the Magisterium and his lifestyle is less so. So instead of material like this post, material written or approved by him is held up as the "conservative Catholic" position daily in the Telegraph, weekly in the Herald. When does the real Catholic position get a look in?
Then I will also keep my Dickensian name from earlier, when I said: "As you know, he pays some Telegraph bloggers but not others. You have said before that you were never paid. I bet you anything you like all the paid ones at the same time were pure blood Caucasians.
ReplyDeleteIt would not matter if he now pays Birbalsingh, what matters is what was the situation when you worked for him. He probably told you that it was unpaid and you only found out later than some people were not in that position.
You can get legal aid for that sort of thing. Based on past victories in this field you would easily win this case."
I want to echo both of the comments above. Your main point could not be more important: about how much better off the ancient Christian communities are under regimes detested by the liberal capitalist neocons than under regimes supported by them. Everything they hate about Islam, they also hate about real, undiluted, non-decaf Christianity.
A proper voice for this, not filtered through Damian Thompson. Yes, Yes, Yes. If anyone acn make it happen, you can. Maybe nobody else can. We only have to pray that you will be physically well enough to do it and draw out that man's poison.
"An actively homosexual Thatcherite Likudist" has been the main mover in having the Ordinariate designed for the tiny TAC taken over Forward in Faith. Forward in Faith's magazine, New Directions, condemned General Synod criticism of Israeli policy. So Thompson wants to pack the Catholic priesthood with them. That must be the reason, I am sure.
This is far too good for what the Telegraph has become, anyway. Are you going to pursue that claim for race? You should, you know. You might not have long left, but you should at least make that time comfortable. You are owed.
ReplyDeleteAbel Magwitch, I am sure...
ReplyDeleteFinF has been a bit forked-tongued on this one, because the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East is very much part of its own wider constituency. Years ago (it would have to have been), I read an interview with a Palestinian bishop in New Directions, in which he said that his family had become Christians "at Pentecost" and he bemoaned Western ignorance of Palestinian Christianity.
There is a significant Anglo-Catholic critique of capitalism, and certainly of anything that could be called Thatcherism, although by no means all of them are sound on that, while others have Marxist leanings. Another feature that has not been taken into account, I fear.
I take your general point, about using the Ordinariate to pack the Church with people like himself...
We haven't seen you at Mass for two weeks on the trot, you haven't been around the village either. If it really could all be coming to an end, then don't let it end in the middle of a battle against someone who is clearly not worth it. It doesn't matter how just the cause is. Praying for you.
ReplyDeleteI should be there tomorrow, with any luck.
ReplyDeleteThere's more chance he'll be at Mass than on the blogs page of the Telegraph, eh, David? Let me clear that egg off your face. What's that you say, it's being washed away by your blubbing?
ReplyDeleteI have no desire to be above the line on the blogs page of the Telegraph, a Mossad sewer which embodies the strange fact that the British Right is unique in owing its patriotic allegiance to a foreign power, and the even stranger fact that it cannot decide whether that power is America or Israel.
ReplyDeleteDressing that up as Catholicism, and as "conservative" Catholicism at that, only compounds the obscenity. Everything that has been said here is correct, about how horrific it is that Damian Thompson has been able to position himself as the bespoke voice of orthodox Catholicism in the British media. If he were, then this post would not be on here, because it would not be by me. Rather, it would be in the Telegraph or the Catholic Herald, because it would be by one of their staff.
If we really did have a conservative or Catholic press in this country, it would be paying top dollar for pieces like this and all the others you put below the line on the Telegraph blogs, the Catholic Herald blogs and Coffee House.
ReplyDeleteGood to see that you can get published by the American Conservative on Post-Right. As of course you know, because he used to edit you, that was originally edited by an English Catholic expat who is now back here.
But for how long? When did you last see anything written by him? Maybe you should head for America, or could you not get health insurance?
And if we really did have a proper Parliament with proper parties, you would be in it as a very major figure indeed. Don't go to America, David. And please don't die. We still need you here, whatever malicious old queens like D. Thompson might say.
ReplyDeleteOkay, you were shabbily treated by a well-known C U Next Tuesday. Okay, he outrageously pays some people but not others and tells the second lot there is no money, which really does want looking into. Okay, a man who can be so swayed by bitter university contemporaries crying "It should have been me" should not be in the job.
ReplyDeleteBut you need to let this Mossad thing go. It doesn't matter that it's true. It doesn't matter that it is why there is no coverage of the Middle Eastern Christians. His home address is in Who's Who, you know?
You no doubt have a long list of people you think should be ill instead of you. He is no doubt on it, though probably not near the top of it. But would you really like him to open his front door to a hail of gunfire from some Lebanese or Palestinian militia? Wouldn't that be a bit too quick and unlingering to do justice to him? A lot of people would say so in his case.
To the victor the spoils, David, to the victor the spoils.
ReplyDeleteBut I wouldn't want them. If those who object to the monopoly on ostensibly orthodox Catholic comment by a hardline Likudnik and his coterie wanted, in view of their own roots in the Middle East, to "take drastic action" about it, then they would have done it by now.
ReplyDeleteNot that I do not share their objection, you understand. But I do not see why such a particular drawing of the Sword of the Lord would achieve. And, I say again, it would have happened by now.
"Too quick and unlingering to do justice to him"? Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord...
They defined the West against its Christian past, so the regimes allied to them are hostile to Christians while the regimes to which they are hostile are far less so, if at all. Yes. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.
ReplyDeletePlus, a lesson to us all. The fate of Christians under Netanyahu, Erdogan, Mubarak and al-Maliki would not only be their fate if regime change was forced on Iran, Syria, Lebanon or Palestine, although it would certainly be that. Exactly the same people are using other means to banish Christianity from the West too, for exactly the same reasons.
Keep up the fight. Your work is unique and could not be more important. If you need a reason to keep yourself alive, this is it. But yes, real Catholic papers would be doing this if we had any. Including the Telegraph, if Thompson was what he presents himself as.
Also keep up the fight about how the Ordinariate has been turned from a provision for the TAC with its own liturgy into one for people who already use the Modern Roman Rite without deviation so have no apparent need for an Ordinariate. But they are noted for lifestyles that the main media actor is this strange process has an inclination towards.
ReplyDeleteApart from on the Herald letters page, including by you, all concerns expressed in print about the Ordinariate have been liberal ones. But the orthodox concerns, apart from a couple of blog posts by Stuart Reid and Gerald Warner, have not been articulated. Guess who they can't get past?
He knew you were seriously ill but deliberately made you worse. Why would you weep if his genocidal anti-Catholic foreign policy stance was brought to his doorstep? You wouldn't, you know you wouldn't. You know you should, but you still know you wouldn't. No one would.
And these, let the reader understand, are just the ones that I can put up.
ReplyDeleteIf we could stay fully on topic, please. We are doing quite well on that score, so let's keep it that way.
You were not there again this morning. We are praying for you.
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind.
ReplyDelete