catholicism

Congratulations.

If any of the naysayers come across to Rome I may have to leave. One arrogant Messianic prick was nearly enough to make me leave.

What is the world coming to? You know, I may have very grave concerns about our own democracy and the things our elected dictators are imposing on us, but it behoves us daily to thank whatever deity, sprite or inspiration we believe in, that we are not in Zimbabwe. The inhuman brutality of Mugabe is an affront to mankind. And this is a man who professes to be a Christian.

Leviticus is not my favourite tome, but Chap 23 verse 22 seems quite apt: "And when you reap the corn of your land, you shall not cut it to the very ground: neither shall you gather the ears that remain; but you shall leave them for the poor and for the strangers." There's no conditionality in there. It doesn't say "so long as they vote for me.

Remind me again, was it not Frankenstein's monster that was brought to life with jolts of electricity? So, is giving Cardinal O'Brien a pacemaker not "an unprecedented attack on the sanctity and dignity of human life" after all...

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Cardinal O'Brien gets pacemaker:

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has had a pacemaker fitted following recent heart problems. Cardinal Keith O'Brien was fitted with the device under local anaesthetic at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. The 70-year-old, who suffers from a heart murmur, had experienced dizzy spells in recent weeks and fainted prior to Palm Sunday mass.

On Friday he will attend a public meeting to campaign against the government's Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. At his Easter Sunday mass the cardinal accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of "an unprecedented attack on the sanctity and dignity of human life", and warned the research could lead to experiments of "Frankenstein proportions".

In this Vatican announcement of a new "Seven Deadly Sins" for the twenty first century, the Catholic Church has included the "taking of and dealing in drugs". Rarely can Rome be accused of political correctness, but on this occasion Archbishop Girotti has been spouting the most ungodly bollocks.

In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7 verse 15 Christ says: "There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man."

In the very first chapter of the bible, Genesis 1, verse 29 God said to Adam: "Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat."

Most of the substances that humanity has used as recreational drugs for thousands of years have been completely natural in origin. Created, they would acknowledge, by God. Nothing in that creation is inherently bad. Each has its own place in our "diet", with some providing sustenance, some healing, and some oiling social interactions.

The great twentieth century monk Thomas Merton said that it made a difference what the purpose of using any of these gifts of nature was, whether the taking of them became sinful. In his case he looked at alcohol, and suggested that alcohol was good when it was used for companionship and for helping social situations on their way, but bad when it was used as an indulgence merely to get drunk, to lose one's faculties of judgement.

One can argue I suppose that many drugs can do the latter better than the former. Try talking to someone who has just shot up some heroin! On the other hand, cannabis can induce much loquacious companionship and even cocaine or ecstasy can cut the ice at parties - especially for those of us who are naturally quite timid (terror inducingly so) in such situations. I suppose addiction is a form of gluttony in some cases that has gone to extremes. But the mere act of taking drugs cannot be described as a "deadly sin" just because of the substance being used.

Because of the "war on drugs" we have a terrible situation in which some places, indeed some entire countries are in the midst of a battle with the organized crime that supplies the underworld global market in drugs, and supporting such organized crime is compounding the misery for many. But it is that "war on drugs" that creates and exacerbates that misery.

The Vatican should be denouncing instead the "war on drugs" as a biblically indefensible attack on some of the uses human ingenuity has found for some of God's entirely good creation.

The "taking of drugs" will certainly not be on this Catholic's confessional list any time soon. And I reckon the current crop of Vatican apparatchiks falls woefully short of the wisdom of St Gregory the Great!

If you are already a Christian baptised in a trinitarian tradition, all you really need to do to be "converted" to Rome, is to undergo the Sacrament of Reconciliation ("confession"). Now, of course, it's perfectly possible that in a twenty-five minute private audience this morning with the Pope, Tony Blair may have already done so.

Part of the Sacrament is to perform a penance which is intended to help you reflect on the sinfulness of what you have just confessed and consider how you will avoid doing such things again.

What should brother Tony's penance be I wonder? For me, with some pretty venial sins to confess, it was to meditate on certain Psalms. But I hadn't gone against all the exhortations of the highest authorities in the church and sent men to kill and die in a far off land on a false prospectus in arrogant disregard of evidence collected by servants of the international community on the ground.

So maybe his penance should be to hold a proper inquiry into the decision to go to war and, when it is completed, apologise and face the consequences of his decisions like a man.

Technorati Tags: iraq, catholicism, penance, tony blair

I've wrestled my conscience about getting involved in the recent discussion about Cardinal O'Brien's outburst about politicians supporting abortion. As a liberally minded Catholic I do think I can shed some light on the issue that has caused much consternation and not a little intemperate language amongst fellow party members. But I always hesitate to talk about abortion for, unlike His Eminence, I do think that it is unwise for a single man never likely to sire children, to pontificate on the issue.

But today's Observer ups the ante a little with this: MPs to fight for abortion on demand in which some want to remove the few remaining blocks that attempt to ensure that would be termination clients get what amounts to the most cursory advice and counseling about the potential consequences of abortion.  read more »