Read Them

Matthew Franklin Cooper has three remarkable posts, on the Ultramontane abolitionism (i.e., in relation to slavery) of Pope Gregory XVI, on the war in Bosnia, and on the relationship between Confucian, and radically orthodox Christian, ontology.

Read them.

Many Are Called

I am not entirely convinced that reconciling the SSPX, or at any rate part of it, is necessarily such a good idea. From the Eastern Catholic Churches to the Ordinariate, there has never before been any question of doctrinal negotiation; it has only ever been a matter of making appropriate pastoral arrangements for communities that had already arrived at full doctrinal assent to the Magisterium. That arrival at that assent was precisely why they were seeking the fullness of Petrine Unity, there being no other possible reason for wanting it, nor, I submit (so to speak), any other possible grounds for extending it. Furthermore, I cannot help suspecting that many, most or even all of the Lefebvrists would regress to schism within 10 years, possibly five, when they did not get their own way over something or other.

All of that said, rather than requiring only as many SSPX bishops as were willing to come back into the One Fold of the One Shepherd to do so, why not take this opportunity to require everyone on earth who holds any teaching responsibility within the Catholic Church to subscribe in a public ceremony to the documents of the Second Vatican Council collectively, to each and every one of those documents in turn, to each and every section of them in turn, to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and to each and every one of its paragraphs in turn? The anniversary of that event would be a Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation throughout the world. Propers as for Saint Peter and Saint Paul. But gold vestments, of course. There might even be some annual requirement to repeat and renew the action during the course of the Mass of the Day.

Many, most or all of the Lefebvrists would not do this. But nor would those, admittedly rather elderly these days, who held teaching positions in the Church but who did not believe in, for example, the canonical Biblical text as containing only those things which God wished to be in it, or the Four Canonical Gospels as entirely and uniquely reliable accounts of the actual and historical earthly Life of Jesus both before and after the Resurrection, or the bodily character of that Resurrection as manifested by the Empty Tomb, or a whole host of other doctrinal and moral truths set out with dazzling brilliance, including their utter coherence among themselves, in the Conciliar documents and in the Catechism. (Something like Tradition, Family and Property would also have to go into schism over subscription to the Social Teaching and to the witness for peace of the Council and of the Catechism.)

Where would they go? On the Continent, they would presumably join the Old Catholics, whose every living bishop is now a former Catholic priest of the "Spirit of Vatican II" generation. In the English-speaking world, it would still be tribally impossible for them to join the Church of Ireland, but some sort of link-up with it would hasten the impending split between its mostly Southern liberals and its mostly Northern Conservative Evangelicals. There might also be a tribal problem with the Scottish Episcopal Church, but probably not, and they would fit very easily both into what little remains of that and into what little remains of its American namesake; if anything, the Unitarian Universalism of some of them would make them rather conservative figures in those and in the remnant Anglican Churches of Canada and New Zealand.

But the Church of England, the Church in Wales and the Anglican Church of Australia would admit people on the basis of their refusal to subscribe to theological propositions such as those set out above? The internal ramifications of such admission would be matched or surpassed only by the international ramifications, including from the very Evangelical, and these days largely Charismatic, Anglican missionary presence in South America, where are there no Old Catholics, either. Whatever will become of anyone still alive who continues to adhere to the Liberation Theology of yesteryear? Since they already have laypeople pretending to say Mass in their "base communities", are they just going to give up altogether on any concept of ordination? Since they already have laypeople pretending to say Mass in their "base communities", they have already done so.

Matters Jewish

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith writes:

Some time ago I had an interesting conversation with a well-known Catholic journalist in which we both wondered about Ed Miliband and his Jewish background. How Jewish was he? Had he or had he not had a bar mitzvah?

This last question is given an answer in the current edition of the New Statesman, which focuses on all matters Jewish, and which carries an article by Ed Miliband which you can read here.  

Ed says: “I am not religious. But I am Jewish. My relationship with my Jewishness is complex. But whose isn’t?” He goes on to say: “They [his parents] assimilated into British life outside the Jewish community. There was no bar mitzvah, no Jewish youth group; sometimes I feel I missed out.”

Can one be Jewish and not religious? This is really a matter for our Jewish brethren to discuss among themselves, but it is of great interest to us Catholics as well. There are many people who identify themselves as Catholics and who never go to Mass. That said, when Ed Miliband uses the word “religious” he intends it in a somewhat different way to us. Judaism is the religion of doing, as much as believing, it is commonly said. So, does Ed mean that he is Jewish, but not religious in the sense of not keeping the Law, not the sort of person who is observant of the Torah?

But metaphysically where does he stand? He may well eat in the House of Commons canteen, but what does he actually believe? “Sometimes I feel I missed out” strikes me as eloquent. Does he mean that he missed out on the sense of community that being an observant Jew would have brought with it? Or does it mean that he feels the absence of God in his life? Or both?

I find myself quite touched by what Ed says here: 

Although my wife Justine is not Jewish, my Jewishness is part of me, so when we got married last year, we broke a glass at our wedding, an old Jewish ritual. I will explain our heritage and the connection to my boys. I will encourage them to identify with it and, when they have got past CBeebies, I will sit down and watch Woody Allen with them. 

This is not just schmaltz (to use a Yiddish word, as, yes, Ed is right about Yiddish – “there is no better language for idiomatic expressions”) but rather something important. Ed wants to pass on a tradition to his children. This desire is something without which religion cannot flourish. Goodness knows what he is going to do, though, when they start asking awkward questions about Santa Claus.

Again, Ed says something that needs no comment from me or anyone else: 

One night, I went to a dinner with Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, where we sang a traditional prayer. I remember thinking my grandparents – their grandparents, too – would have said the same words. 

Finally there is the expression of an ethical faith. He says: 

Above all, what I see in so many parts of the Jewish community is a desire to leave the world a better place than you found it. 

Some people may disagree with me, but in answer to my original question about how Jewish is Ed Miliband, my answer is, after reading this, pretty Jewish indeed.

Two last points: at no point does Ed Miliband say he is an atheist. He just says he is not religious. In Catholic terms he is what we would call a “non-believer”, a non-theist rather than an atheist. I think this is an important distinction. He is not in the Dawkins camp.

Secondly, Labour’s spin doctors could allow themselves an extra glass of champagne this weekend on the strength of this article. Given the vacuum that is the content of Dave’s Big Society, this article seizes back some important territory from the other side. It lays claim to concepts such as community and tradition, which will be music to the ears of many of Labour’s longstanding supporters, which includes, or has included, the vast majority of British Catholics.

No Wooliness In The Wool City

The Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in Bradford, a city which that party used to run under Eric Pickles, has joined Respect. 

He, a British Pakistani, is probably fed up of all the sectarian Leftists, the Islamists and the Asian communalists in the Conservative Party led by the Prime Minister, and he has accordingly moved to a party far less burdened by them. I have set out that, among much else, in considerable detail in a recent book which is enthusiastically endorsed by Lord Glasman, Lord Stoddart, Bryan Gould and others.

But just try getting any of it into the Establishment media, print and online alike. On this and on a good many other matters, I have managed to post things below the line so many times that I have noticed their slow but certain entry into mainstream debate. But that is a very slow way of going about such urgent work.

Deal With It

The only candidates for whom the Conservatives will be standing aside in 2015 will be Lib Dem incumbents, possibly called "Conservative & Liberal Democrat" in an echo of those termed "Conservative & National Liberal", and before that "Conservative & Liberal Unionist", who repeatedly turned the Tory machine into a vehicle of Liberalism even as they were subsumed into it organisationally, a serially recurring pattern which is about to be repeated.

This has all been arranged, and there is nothing that Conservative activists could do about it even if they wanted to. So that's UKIP told. In any case, Labour's commitment to an In/Out referendum, explicitly ruled out by the Conservatives, would make UKIP's contesting of the General Election a politically less serious version of the latter-day activities of Arthur Scargill.

As for Dan Hannan's pitch for Eastleigh if Chris Huhne were forced to resign, not only is it inconceivable that either Coalition party could win a by-election anywhere at the moment or for the foreseeable future, but it is no less inconceivable that either of them would contest a by-election for one of the other's seats.

That would leave UKIP. But Hannan's signature views on the NHS and a number of other matters are wildly at variance with the policies of UKIP, and would cause it the utmost political embarrassment if expressed by a by-election candidate, the first time that almost anyone outside the largely American readership of Telegraph Blogs or the almost entirely American audience of Fox News would ever have heard of him.

And frankly, UKIP activists in the South East must despise Dan Hannan. I am not saying that I do. I do not; I merely disagree with him on many, many issues, although I always find him a good read. But UKIP activists in the South East, from their own point of view, must really and truly despise him.

One Flagship Sunk, One To Go

In better days, the humiliation of David Cameron, in his having been forced to allow a free vote on the redefinition of marriage, would have caused his resignation this morning. Alas, though, we are not yet living in better days. But this climb-down can only have happened because Cameron was facing a rebellion big enough to defeat the legislation, including enough Ministerial resignations to cripple his Government even by comparison with its present sorry state.

A triumph, then, for Ed Miliband, who never threatened either to whip this issue or to make it any sort of priority in the present economic climate, one of many reasons why Labour became the voice and vehicle of conservative, even Tory Britain at the recent local elections. A status on course to be maintained and consolidated all the way to 2015. The tyranny of Blairism has met an obstacle.

Meanwhile, do not expect this piece of Notting Hill dinner party chitter chatter to reach the floor of the House, never mind the Statute Book. Hard times are hardly the times for this sort of thing. But Cameron has only this and the other piece of Notting Hill dinner party chitter chatter. Do not expect that to reach the floor of the House, never mind the Statute Book, either. Meaning that there is simply no point whatever to the continuation of this Government. It should be put out of our misery.

Never Mind The Buzzards

Of course buzzards' nests should be destroyed in order to protect pheasants, which we rightly shoot in order to eat.

Unless you prefer broiler chicken and the products of sow crates to free range game bird and venison?

Or do some animals matter more than others, and within that do our foodstuffs matter less than those which would eat them in our stead?

You know, like chickens and sheep (along with the inhabitants of uneconomic hedgerows) mattering less than foxes...