The Invitation

Taking It Seriously

Ella Carte: Upper Catholic

Ella Carte: Downer Catholic

Should Catholics buy the Irish Examiner?

I had a shock today when I read the Examiner. There is an anti-Catholic article in it that - well, I can't critique it. It is beyond description. I would ask you to buy it, read it, and let that be the last time you buy, or consider buying, the Irish Examiner. We Irish Catholics have to ask ourselves, at this stage: should we buy such newspapers, should we support the enemies of the Church? Free speech, they claim. Go ahead, speak freely. But if I must suffer your hateful bigotry, must I pay you while you're writing it?

I read papers every day, the morning papers, the on-line papers, the free papers, including all the small ads, and the evening paper that tops off my day. I soak it all in, I agree and I don't agree but I rarely take exception. Now - I'm taking more than exception. I'm sick, I'm shocked, I'm truly frightened. What are they trying to do? It seems they are already planing to take our religion from us. This is no conspiracy theory: I'm just reading the signs here.

Confirmed Catholics must ask, can I have it on my conscience that I aided the enemies of the Church? It has come to this, in our free Republic, alas it has come to this.

Is the Holy Father Safe?

Terrible thoughts occur to me, and I try to banish them. I say "this is the 21st century", but that's no help - it's well on it's way to be the most irrational century ever. Terrible things have already happened in the 21st century and what haunts me is the thought that there could be one more, perhaps the most terrible. Is the Holy Father safe? Could we be looking at a Pope about to be martyred?

I'm sure the Vatican and the Swiss Guard deal with so many cranks and nuts, benighted individuals with inner voices saying 'kill the pope'. It occurs to people who have never been Catholic, never even knew Catholics, don't really know what a pope is. Councillors still report they feel under instruction to kill the pope. Mental illness seems to open up the mind to the dark forces swirling around in society. Let us never forget, to the forces of greed, selfishness and aggression - 'progress' - we Catholics are the old enemy.

And now, there is this constant drumbeat of hatred pounding away, and sad, bewildered souls take it up, are suffused by it's hatred and feel in it a call to insane action.


Look at what is said about the Pope. Look at what people dare to say in the media? May I liken it to inter-war Germany? In 1924 there were things that simply could not be said in the Press about the Jews: frequently said in conversation, but not in the Press. But by 1934 those things were being said, had long since been said and were being superseded by things so foul no-one had even thought of them in 1924. And it was all backed by a huge fire-storm of mutual authentication that roared through society, whereby one writer became the source for another writer becoming the source for another writer, so that these things were said everywhere and there was no need to look for the source because - they were said everywhere.

Never think people enter journalism because they have a commitment to the truth. They become journalists because they want to be heard. And after that, they want to be feared. They are a particularly dangerous group of people when let off the leash of common decency. In the French Revolution they wrote people to the tumbrels, in Nazi Germany they wrote people to the camps, what they'll do to us Catholics - I don't know. But I know they want to do something nasty, now or as soon as possible. They are slavering, you can feel their appetite.

God protect our Holy Father.

The Truth in the News

Ella Carte: Nomore Catholic

Rowan Williams: What a Bum

Rowan Williams, purveyor of priestliness to the English crown. What a bum.

Mr. W., how many of your ministers are paedophiles? Do you even know how many are of them are Christian? You bum!!! Useless, useless, useless hangnail upon Christianity. You didn't mean to cause offence!!! That's what drunks say, the next day, and they carry a bunch of flowers and offer to pay for the damage. But you, sober, thought this was not an offensive thing to say. Do you want to know what sort of people support you? Look in the chat rooms, the Sky news comments site, the gutters where the Catholic haters share their thoughts. Nice, nice company, Mr. W.

What are you - a bumbling old fool who runs off at the mouth, or a professional public speaker used to large audiences and media coverage? If you didn't mean to cause offence, truly, you're just a bumbling old fool of an anti-Catholic bigot. If you knew you'd cause offence but hadn't calculated on the negative response, thought you'd be hailed as a liberator, not a crawling opportunist, then ...you're just a bum.

Ah hell, either way you're just a bum.

My O My

So many people say they are sad, and they cant shake off this sadness. I'm sort of like that too. It's a worry and a trial. I keep reminding myself that as a confirmed Christian I must be strong, but I'm so used to leaning on my church, not having my church lean on me. Am I not also a victim of clerical sexual abuse? That's the tenor of what I read, confessions of distressed Catholics being run in all the papers. They echo my feelings, I thought, glad to find others like me, while I settled once more into the weepy Catholic mainstream. But yesterday, Spy Wednesday, I suddenly thought, for whom is the distress I feel - for the victims of sexual abuse, for the priests and nuns unjustly tarnished, for the Holy Father so viciously attacked by old, old enemies? No, it's for me. For my loss of happiness and my loss of tranquility and the interruption of my progress in Catholicism. MY, MY, O MY. Just like the high priests and the pharisees looked at Jesus and thought only of how he was upsetting their world, I think of these scandals as things visited upon me by others, from outside my beautiful religious space, and so, I contrive to make myself a victim. Boo hoo, make it better. I'm the original Catholic baby.

I have nothing to be sad about. I have the gift of the Holy Spirit. I have the treasures of the Church. I have the unbroken apostolic line to follow back to our Founder, to follow hand over hand, until I come to the precepts handed down by Him. I have everything I need.

Catholics should not be sad. The Pope has called us to penitence, but let it be a penitence undertaken cheerfully, for we know the reward is great. Some people love to get in on the sympathy act. I could be one of them myself. I must guard against it.

Jesus came from Nazareth to upset their world, so they set about getting rid of Him. They didn't want to hear what He had to say, just make Him go away. They must have considered themselves perfect. They had their sects, and their temple, and the division of duties and the division of spoils. Though they didn't always get along with one another, they were united in hating Jesus. I must not be like that. The Church is never perfect. I must listen to what these times have to tell me. But I cant do that while I'm concentrating on my own hurt and my own victimhood. I repeat, I have everything I need.

That's why I'm giving myself a bouquet. I'm officially cheering up. I'm present and ready to help. Word of advice to those who style themselves 'abuse survivors': in my life I've had to cope with some really awful stuff, stuff I survived, though many did not. I could call myself a 'survivor', but what's that? We're all surviving from day to day, until we're not anymore. Don't say you're a survivor: say you're alive.