The US Catholic Church deserves massive credit for this moment. No single institution has done more to preach the truth about abortion, to open people’s hearts to the vulnerable, or to show that a pro-life politics necessarily includes generous material support for those in need.
It is a truly astonishing claim, which may be why so many astonishing buildings have been raised to house the mystery, and so much madly beautiful music has been written to accompany it.
Roman Catholics are required to believe that communion wine actually is literally the blood of Christ, and the wafer literally is his body. Not symbolically but literally. Not a metaphor but literally. That way madness lies. At very least it’s a pernicious abuse of language.
Nearly 2 million women in our country have been locked out of the workforce because they have to care for a child or an elderly relative at home.
My Build Back Better Act will make caregiving accessible and affordable and help them get back to work.
The most terrifying words in 21st-century Catholicism are “I’m from the German Church and I’m here to enter into a synodal dialogue about new doctrinal insights.”
I hope Ireland can avoid the shameful fate which has overtaken almost the entire West – and show the rest of us that a better way is possible.
#Savethe8th
1. Doesn’t get its head round the classical understanding of God (see Feser’s The Last Superstition)
2. Naively assumes materialism has no case to answer (see Keith Ward’s Why There Almost Certainly is a God)
3. Complacent about the origin of nice liberal values (see Tom Holland)
Dropped into an unfamiliar East London church this week and happened upon the funeral of a parish stalwart. A kind and formidably strong-willed woman, the priest told us; a daily Mass-goer who raised six kids single-handed. How many beautiful lives are lived just out of sight.
To be clear—and it is clear now, from the Canadian example—this means institutionalised lethal poisoning of the sick, vulnerable and sufficiently miserable
EXCL: Keir Starmer wants to legalise assisted dying in the next parliament.
ITV News filmed a phone call between the Labour leader and campaigner Esther Rantzen, in which he insisted a vote on assisted suicide cannot wait any longer.
Big moment.
For years, I told myself and others that Pope Francis was being misrepresented by angry bloggers and ignorant journalists. But the truth is that his words are frequently, needlessly, seriously misleading about Catholic doctrine. Today’s column:
I have nothing against the Queen. I think she's quite impressive, keeping her cool amid so many maelstroms. But I despair of the fuss we make of her. Pomp and pageantry are the enemies of reason. They impede progress towards a fairer society.
One priest in 1950s South Carolina challenged segregation by building a shack for white parishioners, while black ones used the official church. “To hammer the point home,” Wilfrid Sheed writes, “the whites’ only Mass was scheduled at dawn.” Integration quickly ensued...
“They were Marian statues. Or rather, they represented fertility, but that’s not pagan. Well, it is, but the Church engages with paganism! It’s not like anyone bowed down to them. OK, they did, but only as a mark of respect. I don’t know why you keep complaining about ambiguity.”
Roger Scruton on the value of the monarchy, 2009 ():
“It has made it possible for people who disagree radically about how the nation should be governed nevertheless to share an object of affection by which the nation as a whole is symbolised.”
Don’t want to alarm anyone, but Boris Johnson’s 2011 book on the history of London contains the sentence: “In the following year [1536] King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, in one of the greatest pro-business moves of any government in history.”
When St Benet’s Hall closed, the University said it was due to ‘ongoing financial uncertainty’. In fact, the Hall had signed a provisional £40m deal which would have saved it. So what was the real reason?
My story in this week’s
@spectator
:
“New taboos replaced old ones, but mainstream humour failed to maintain its role of undermining them ... Memes, in contrast, are more provocative and darker, coming from a place of genuine contempt and despair.”
Read
@edwest
’s genealogy of Wojak:
Seems a fitting centenary on which to say that I’ve been appointed as the next editor of the
@CatholicHerald
, starting April 1. Prayers and pitches appreciated.
Catholics hold onto dogmas as mountaineers hold onto their ropes: no other way to the summit. This is why the ultra-dogmatic Newman and Ratzinger are the most thrilling of theologians
The Pope addresses his conservative critics in the church.
"Conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude," says Pope Francis. This Sunday on 60 Minutes, the Pope sits down with
@NorahODonnell
.
These vigils save lives. There are little girls and boys running around today because these good people stood out in the cold and rain offering their help
MPs just voted to attach prison sentences to standing near abortion clinics in England and Wales, on the basis that it is “harassment”. Here in the BBC’s own coverage you can see the type of violent protest that is no longer acceptable in this country:
Letter from young Scots ahead of the synod: “Far from being ‘out of touch’, it is those priests who proclaim orthodox teaching in its fullness with joy and courage who have brought the light of Christ into our lives, and really offered us His Mercy.”
There’s a credible historical case for this analogy. After eugenics suddenly went out of fashion in the mid-20th century, some of its leading advocates redirected their efforts into liberalising abortion laws.
“What drives men to Communism is not mere economic discontent, nor even dissatisfaction with the existing social order. It is something deeper than these—a discontent with human life itself…that can only find full satisfaction in the sphere of religion.”
Christopher Dawson, 1935
When I meet voters up and down the country, their message is clear: they’re tired of the same-old, same-old. Where are the tax cuts? they ask. Where is the deregulation? Taking from their handbag a battered copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, they look me in the eye and say—
“Transubstantiation, celibate priests, active saints, venerated bones, the dominance of Mary…the more baroque the belief, the more easily I found it slid, on closer inspection, into a coherent bigger picture. It’s like an existential jigsaw.”
“Being offensive is an offence”: Wirral Police have had to withdraw their much-mocked slogan.
But it only confirms what recent history has already shown: police forces consistently struggle to grasp the difference. Me for
@unherd
:
The men Pope Francis has empowered at the Amazon Synod are dissenters from Catholic teaching, who want to use the occasion to reshape the Church. Today's column:
“An institution which possesses no philosophy of its own inevitably accepts that which happens to be fashionable.” (Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism)
Here’s a textbook example of the kind of judicial overreach discussed by Jonathan Sumption in his Reith Lectures. A panel of judges rules that a “lack of belief in transgenderism” is now “incompatible with human dignity”.
London used to have a custom of naming abandoned babies after the place in which they were found: so a girl left in Mutton Court was christened Mary Mutton. In the 17th century, one little lad dumped on top of an oil barrel in the parish of St Stephen’s became Stephen Oylbut.
Happy feast of St Athanasius! He fought against a powerful heresy, which hid within ambiguity and vague phrases while intimidating orthodox believers: the saint was regularly condemned and exiled. Though gentle and kindly, he described Arians as “hydras”, “eels” and “chameleons”.
Finland has 15,000 registered Catholics, and just got its 9th native priest since the Reformation. Visiting Oregonian monks “were pleasantly surprised by the level of devotion…They particularly appreciated the faithful receiving Communion on their knees.”
In this week's magazine, I've tried to write a fair account of the - genuinely complex - Alfie Evans story. Whatever one thinks of the case, a review of the law in this area is urgently needed.
After winning the Champions League trophy by defeating Borussia Dortmund, the first thing Real Madrid players did was visit Almudena Cathedral in Madrid to offer their trophy to Mother Mary
Hala Madrid!
Video:
@patergongora
Happy
#OrwellDay
. Rightly revered as a journalist. Probably a bit overrated as a political thinker. Definitely very underrated as a critic of contraception, which he saw as a supreme example of how capitalism ruins everything:
African bishops’ president: “The ambiguity…is causing much perplexity.”
Ex-Vatican doctrine chief: “The teaching [is] self-contradictory.”
Head of Ukrainian Greek Church: “no legal force [for UGCC].”
UK CCC: “Pastorally...inadmissible.”
Metropolitan Hilarion: “Very unfortunate.”
Richard Rex, Professor of Reformation History at Cambridge, examines Hilary Mantel’s “ludicrous” Wolf Hall – and its place in “the spiritual struggle of our times”. Simply unmissable:
Quite! But then “openness” often favours the powerful. “If we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules...The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.” (GKC)
A saint for writers. “Nobody has ever written English prose that can be compared with that of a tiresome footling little Anglican parson who afterwards became a prince of the only true church.” (James Joyce, letter to Harriet Weaver)
#NewmanCanonisation
Profiles of Jacob Rees-Mogg too often treat him as either a cartoon villain or a second Thomas More. In the latest
@firstthingsmag
, I suggest he’s better seen as exemplifying both the successes and failures of Christian witness in contemporary politics:
Viganò begs Cardinal Ouellet to break his silence, claiming: “You have at your complete disposal key documents incriminating McCarrick and many in the curia for their cover-ups. Your Eminence, I urge you to bear witness to the truth.”
The
@CatholicHerald
is becoming a monthly magazine – twice as long, more wide-ranging, cheaper to subscribe to and backed by an expanded website. It’s a major change, but one which we think will be fruitful. Here’s my letter to subscribers explaining why:
It’s worth being precise about this. Newman did not oppose papal infallibility – he repeatedly said he had no problem with it. What he opposed was the timing and manner of the declaration; and more broadly, the spreading of fear and doctrinal confusion by an “aggressive faction”.
A surprisingly large proportion of British workers – one in nine – do their jobs at night, toiling in warehouses, caring for the elderly or riding the streets delivering overpriced food. Me for
@unherd
on securing the rights of the nocturnal workforce:
The great theologians gave a nuanced reading of this verse. Augustine said Jesus forbids calling people fools “without cause”. Aquinas, noting that St Paul called the Galatians fools, said it was OK and that he was “not speaking out of anger, but out of the necessity of justice”.
Gospel: In today's Gospel, Jesus says that if you call someone a name like "fool" you're going to hell. Don't believe me? See Mt. 5:20-26. It's amazing how many supposedly Christian commentators do this online. What's the point of following all those rules if you're just mean?
A striking measure of Amazon’s monopoly power is the vast stream of cash that it extracts from the businesses that have to rely on its site.
In a new report, we find that Amazon is pocketing a 34% cut of sellers’ revenue — up from 19% in 2014. 1/
Tremendous blackpilled newsletter on the mainstream left’s quiet surrender to capital. (Also the phrase “rainbow oligarchy” deserves to enter the language)
Waugh on Catholics who fell for Mussolini: “No one could then foresee that Italy would be jerked into an alliance with Germany but we should, perhaps, have seen that public respect for Christian things was not enough and that only a Christian is fit to rule a Christian nation.”
In 2019 a businessman called Harry Miller was visited by police, who told him his tweets on the trans debate constituted a “non-crime hate incident”. He mounted a legal challenge—and today, the official police guidance was ruled unlawful.
Me for
@unherd
:
Mind-melting details in this
@ADF_UK
report. “As part of her conditions for bail, Vaughan-Spruce was told that she should not contact a local Catholic priest who was also involved in pro-life work”
Newman, writing to a friend who had just become Catholic and was about to make her first confession: “Do not trouble yourself over much about your confession. God asks what you can do and nothing more. Let your one thought be that of His tender mercy and love of you.”
The 1968 protests traumatised Joseph Ratzinger, turning a daring progressive into a wary conservative.
That was the version of events popularised by Hans Küng and widely repeated since. But a new biography takes it apart.
My review in today’s
@thetimes
:
I was just there myself for the third of three lunchtime Masses. Always rather moving to see hundreds of City workers queuing up to be informed, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Reading about Alexis von Roenne, Hitler’s most trusted intelligence analyst, who sabotaged the Nazi machine by amplifying dud information. Tried in the 1944 purge, he told the court Christianity condemns racism; before execution he wrote to his wife that he was going home to God.
10 years a Catholic today, and it really is true what the Psalmist says: “He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Also grateful to the pious old lady who told me with a twinkle: “It’s not easy, you know.”
A victory for sanity. Until now, you could report your enemies to the police and they would almost automatically be put on an official “hate incident” list; potential employers could be told under an enhanced DBS check. The latest figures suggested there were 20,000 NCHIs a year
Harry Miller has just won a huge victory in the Court of Appeal. Court has ruled that the recording of non-crime hate incidents is an unlawful interference in freedom of expression.
@SpeechUnion
press release here.
The Mackereth case, in which a “lack of belief in transgenderism” was ruled “incompatible with human dignity”, epitomises the sorry story of human rights law. It’s become a way for judges to sign up to the religion of liberalism. My take at Coffee House:
Just too perfect. Archbishop Paglia appeals to John 16:12, of which St Augustine memorably remarked: “All heretics, when their fables are rejected for their extravagance by the common sense of mankind, try to defend themselves by this text”
His academy has opened up a theological discussion about certain life issues including the Church’s ban on artificial contraception. Those opposed to this debate, he said, are showing a lack of faith in the Holy Spirit.
Spine-tingling stuff. ”These finds are far beyond anything we expected to see,” Oxburgh Hall say. ”These objects contain so many clues which confirm the history of the house as the retreat of a devout Catholic family, who retained their faith across the centuries.“
Ocado drivers complaining of poor conditions, Uber being rebuked in court, truckers leaving an increasingly badly-paid sector: exploitation is on the road again. Me for
@unherd
:
For some British Catholics, loyalty to Church and king dovetail nicely. Others see something like today as a sort of sinister parody built on the ruins of Catholic England. The same tension existed in the Elizabethan era