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TRIUMPH, TRAGEDY AND STARDUST

~
The Papal Visit in Perspective ~

THE EDITOR

On 10 June 2010,
the former Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, was installed as the
Archbishop of Southwark. "I am delighted at the appointment," cooed
Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. Far from "delightful," of
course, it was utterly depressing: the familiar sound of deck chairs being
shuffled aboard our sinking ship.

On 8 October
2010, Archbishop Patrick Kelly of Liverpool announced the impending
closure of Ushaw College, the 400-year-old seminary which serves the
dioceses of the Northern Province and Shrewsbury. A difficult decision, he
sighed, "because of the excellence of the formation our students are
receiving." On the contrary, as one of our (discreet) Ushaw subscribers
confirmed, students are often fed "rank heresy."

In-between these
workaday red-flags of local dissolution, Christ's Vicar on earth passed
four exhilarating days in Britain. From 16-19 September, the undeserving
episcopate basked in the reflected glory of Pope Benedict XVI.

And that, in a
nutshell, was the real story of the historic and doubtless
providential State visit. More of the same interrupted by a brief but
triumphant interlude: a tragedy sprinkled with stardust.

Triumph

This is
not to diminish Benedict's whirlwind tour. Simply to keep things in
perspective. At diplomatic and pastoral levels it was a runaway success.
All the more impressive because by the time the Holy Father arrived
carrying the weight of worldwide Liberal opprobrium on his frail
shoulders, he must have had that John Major feeling: "I am walking over
hot coals suspended over a deep pit, at the bottom of which are a large
number of vipers baring their fangs."

Decried and
pilloried for everything from global clerical sexual abuse to the cost of
the British visit, had the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing commenced
its new season before Benedict arrived, his baying critics would have
blamed him for convert Anne Widdecombe's criminal damage to the Tango as
well! Throughout the course of the year the Holy Father stood firm before
one malicious media beat-up after another, insisting in Holy Week that the
Church would "not be intimidated by petty gossip" and decrying "the vulgar
levels" of discourse. In England, meanwhile, preparations for his visit
were occasioning scandals, cock-ups and vulgarity galore.

Rude
Britannia
One
such incident, in March, is worth relating because of what it reveals
about British society at several levels. It was sparked by an
Oxford-educated 31-year-old in charge of the Foreign Office unit
coordinating arrangements for the papal visit. He issued a mock memorandum
- an "ideal visit" itinerary - suggesting that Pope Benedict
should open an abortion clinic, launch his own brand of condoms and bless
a gay marriage, among other crude and insulting ideas. Far from an
in-house joke among junior staff, it was approved by his superior,
distributed to several Whitehall departments and emailed to Downing Street
itself. Such epic stupidity and lack of judgement recalled former Foreign
Secretary Lord Hurd's speech to the House of Lords early last year, when
he noted "a malaise becoming increasingly apparent" in the Foreign Office,
describing a "hollowed out" organisation that needed to "repair and
restore its tradition and excellence."

A diplomatic
storm ensued when the memo was leaked, endangering the visit. The Vatican,
both astonished and furious, having never encountered such diplomatic
behaviour anywhere else in the world, spoke of "dark forces" at work
within the government. But it spoke more to the religious vacuum and the
uncouth, boorish, sex-obsessed face of Rude Britannia which has taken
shape in the three decades since John Paul was graciously received here in
1982; reflecting the general collapse of educational and moral standards
that Blair's New Labour project put into overdrive. According to Melanie
Phillips, it has left the civil service with "a certain type of young
official who is callow, shallow and politically correct to a fault."

"It shows," she
went on, "how flippancy and shallowness coexist with a brutalised
arrogance. Among those who purport to be the most liberal, educated and
enlightened minds are actually closed and display a vicious illiberalism
and gross absence of respect for other points of view, particularly
mainstream European religious faiths."

Bigoted
Britannia
The scandal was also a sharp reminder of the enduring
anti-Roman prejudice which maintains its hold on the British psyche. Even
on those, like Daily Mail commentator Stephen Glover, who admitted
their sometimes irrational reaction to the Church despite finding so much
to admire about it. This devilish undercurrent has continued to simmer
long after the last vestige of religious sentiment evaporated in the
affluent heat of sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, flat screen TVs, The X-Factor
and budget airlines.

For instance, it
wasn't just the Anglican Establishment that got all testy when the Pope
issued Anglicanorum Coetibus last November. The most unlikely types
- Church-friendly media commentators like Glover, one normally
sensible (non-religious) sports writer and a variety of religious
illiterates - all chipped in with indignant digs at the Pope,
suddenly alarmed that he would charitably open his door to Anglicans
before they kicked it down in their determination to join his Church. But
why would they or anyone else in a nation of 'practical atheists' give two
hoots about this seemingly irrelevant papal offer?

On 16 September,
as the papal plane winged its way to Edinburgh, the Pope diplomatically
told the journalists aboard that the UK had a "great history of
anti-Catholicism," but also a "great history of tolerance." As the Vatican
quickly gauged from the nasty Foreign Office debacle, however, where
Catholicism and the Pope are concerned it is not that simple. Old habits
may die hard. But animus towards the true Faith never dies. And the
imprint the Reformation stamped indelibly on the socio-political British
fabric might well account for its advanced state of decay 500 years on.

Broken
Britannia
In
fact, only the day before, in a comical outbreak of truth, leading
ecumaniac Cardinal Walter Kasper had told the arch-liberal German magazine
Focus that arriving at Heathrow airport was like landing in a
"Third World country"! It was probably the plainest speech ever to trip
off Kasper's ecumenically-forked tongue. Moreover, the entire country
nodded as one, since the Heathrow eyesore, a Gorkeyesque symbol of Broken
Britain, has long been held together by little more than masking tape and
hope. But it made a good headline so all hell broke loose.

Instead of
apologising to the Third World for the Heathrow comparison, the
liberal-Left and their media lackeys summoned up their best impressions of
indignation and disgust at the alleged insult. The Vatican cheekily
suggested that His Eminence was only referring to the UK's "multicultural
society." While Kasper the unfriendly ghost did a runner, pulling out of
the trip ("due to illness").

On the very same
day, in America's Newsmax magazine, John Laughland, a British
citizen who works in Paris, neatly spelled out why Kasper's hilarious
indiscretion barely touched the surface:

After a few
decades in which the traditional anti-Catholic prejudices fell into
abeyance, the basic anti-popish reflexes of an ancient Protestant nation
have come back with a vengeance, spurred on by ideological attacks on
the only Christian church that seems to stand for anything at all. …
Common to all these attacks is an obsession with sex and a refusal to
see Christianity as anything but a "teaching," a mere series of moral
"thou shalt nots."

Britain has
traveled further down the road of political correctness than even
traditionally permissive European societies like those of the
Netherlands or Scandinavia. At a time when the basic social conservatism
of some of those countries is manifesting itself in various protest
movements, especially against Muslim immigration, British politics and
society is now well to the left of the already very left-wing Western
European average.

Soon after
David Cameron was elected to power, the new "Conservative" prime
minister hosted a garden party at 10 Downing Street for the nation's
most prominent homosexuals. This kind of demonstrative support for gays
is something not even the progressive Dutch have ever done, and
certainly not something a right-wing politician would normally deem
necessary.

The contrast
also is striking with the United States, which is, like Britain, a
country with a strong Protestant ethic, but unlike Britain, a country
where religion plays a big role in public life. Whereas a Florida
pastor's desire to burn the Koran is widely denounced as extremist, even
in the United States itself, the prevailing mood in England regards
virulent attacks on Catholicism in England as mainstream. The BBC treats
opponents of the Pope as decent campaigners with a voice that deserves
to be heard but derides opponents of a mosque at ground zero as redneck
right-wingers and racists.

The
UAPA
These
papal opponents were, of course, the Usual Alliance of Perverts and
Atheists [UAPA]: ubiquitous sodomites Peter Tatchell and Stephen Fry,
rent-a-lawyer Geoffrey Robinson, mad scientist Richard Dawkins, angry
scribblers Terry Pratchett and Philip Pulman, et. al. "A whole assembly of
crackpot sexual revolutionaries and wild ultra-Leftists," as Peter
Hitchens called them, they variously railed against Catholic moral
teachings, threatened mass protests, defamed the Pope while calling for
his resignation, or blathered idiotically about attempting to arrest him
when he landed (although warned by the chief constable in charge of
security they would be arrested themselves if they tried). On 15
September, 50 of them signed a letter to the Guardian arguing that
"Pope Ratzinger" should not be accorded the "honour" of a State visit
because of the Vatican's record on "gay" rights, abortion and
contraception.

This menagerie
sent hypocrisy into unchartered stratospheres. As John Laughland noted:
"The fact that these attacks come from people who are already discredited
has done nothing to stem their resonance. Tatchell attacks the Pope over
the child abuse scandal, but he himself defended sexual relations between
adults and children as young as 9 …. Robertson, meanwhile, was sacked from
his post as president of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2004
because he refused to withdraw as judge in a case whose defendants he had
proclaimed guilty in one of his books. But he continues to pose as an
authority on the law and due process."

Litany of
incompetence
While these external pressures were being brought to
bear, the bishops seemingly did everything within their power to deter the
faithful from turning out to greet the Pope, suggesting they stay home and
watch on TV and requiring payment (from ยฃ10-25) and/or parish "passports"
to attend events, blaming it all on the health and safety bogeyman. Rome
was not impressed. According to political sketch-writer Quentin Letts
[Daily Mail, 12/6/10], Monsignor Guido Marini, Papal Master of
Ceremonies (no relation to his appalling predecessor Piero Marini,
mentioned last month) was "dismayed by [the] attitude among British
Catholic officials supposedly organising the trip. The priest in charge, a
corpulent monsignor called Summersgill, has not impressed. 'He has been
all at sea,' says one Catholic observer." Letts continued:

The mood at
Brompton Oratory is not far from mutinous. The great and gilded of the
Roman world are underwhelmed by the visit's progress. "With all those
business lunches, you'd have thought more would have been organised by
now," says one close to the action.

Mgr Marini has
had a theological battle with the happy-clappy English Catholic
authorities, many of whom never much liked this Pope in the first place.
Benedict, a traditionalist, has an understandable horror of the
tambourines and Joan Baez-style hymns favoured by Summersgill and Co.

On and on it went
as the bumbling multiplied, costs soared (upwards of £10 million or more
eventually needing to be found from the faithful and Catholic sponsors)
and thousands of places at events like the Hyde Park vigil remained
unfilled ("I've jumped through so many hoops and now I have to go all the
way down to south London to pick up my tickets in person!" one exasperated
working mum told me).

Finally, in early
June, the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, a distinguished
Catholic, was parachuted in as David Cameron's "personal representative"
and troubleshooter. "Downing Street feared the visit could turn into farce
unless Whitehall took a more active role," wrote Letts. "Sorting the thing
out may take all of Lord Patten's diplomatic skills."

So, as time went
on, not only the relentless anti-papal attacks orchestrated by the
mainstream media in cahoots with the UAPA were causing deep concern, but
also this thinly disguised anti-papalism of the episcopate; the
accidentally-on-purpose bungling and dampening of expectations. Their
feeble appeals for support using hollow soundbites ("This visit spells out
'the future of our past'!" exclaimed Archbishop Nichols in cringing
Blair-speak) was congruent with their scaling down of venues to cater for
a much lower turnout than 1982 (for fear that 60-80,000 crowds at venues
tailored for 200,000 would too starkly expose their depopulation and
de-Catholicisation of the local Church in the intervening period).

Prayer-fuelled
success
Yet
the number of prayers launched heavenward for a safe and happy outcome
should have convinced the nervous naysayers that it would all work out, as
it always has during every papal visit over the last 30 years. Supporters
of Aid to the Church in Need alone promised to say 32,148 decades of the
Rosary and spend the equivalent of 137 days in Eucharistic adoration
- as well as having 11,485 Masses offered for the Pontiff and his
intentions. And that was a fraction of the prayerful petitions around the
country. At that rate, God was bound to let his Vicar come up trumps. And
so he did.

In the end, Lord
Patten's vast experience and professional guidance surely rescued
Whitehall, the episcopate and all manner of floundering functionaries from
themselves, turning a potential farce into a raging success. And as for
the star of the show himself: despite the crushing personal and
institutional attacks he faced in the lead up, the 83-year-old pontiff hit
the ground running and never looked back; proceeding to carry out his
exhausting schedule with the energy, grace and serenity of a man clearly
fortified by a deep prayer life and zeal for British souls entrusted to
his care as Christ's representative on earth.

Over four
(ludicrously) jam-packed days: the UAPA were reduced to a barely visible
and irrelevant sideshow; a veritable tidal wave of negative publicity
miraculously switched to an unprecedented flood of largely uninterrupted
and positive Catholic coverage on BBC and Sky (even extending to several
live feeds from Lourdes, where the nature and history of the shrine was
reverently explained); and a goodly portion of a populace estranged from
its Christian roots was disarmed and won over by the gentle, softly-spoken
yet authoritative man in white - who, they quickly discovered,
was not the snarling "Rottweiler" of media/UAPA legend.

Moreover, despite
the many obstacles placed before them, including tight security affecting
travel routes, the faithful turned out in force, whether at the scheduled
events or on the street, expressing their solidarity with the Pope over
and against the (by now microscopic) UAPA opposition. They also behaved
impeccably at the Hyde Park vigil where the total silence during papal
Benediction and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament approximated the
reverence one finds at similar outdoor gatherings in Poland (there is no
higher compliment). Given the rampant irreverence, sacrilege and
indifference one observes in parish churches across the country, it showed
what might be achieved by a radical cleanout at the top.

There was much
else to appreciate about a brief visit which was never going to involve
kicking episcopal backsides or reading the riot act to a nation at war
with Divine and Natural Law. There was the beatification itself, of
course. Although Blessed Newman was almost lost amid the rare heady
atmosphere generated by the positive coverage afforded to a Church
unaccustomed to fair treatment by the press (even its obsession with
sexual abuse was waning near the end). While the Pope's winning manner and
the crowds deflated the UAPA bully boys, the media scrutiny of each papal
address quietly denouncing their dissolute, fascistic agenda drowned them
out and finished them off. Most of the talks were variations on the
initial theme spelt out at Holyroodhouse on arrival, where Benedict called
on the UK to "always maintain its respect for those traditional values and
cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer
value or even tolerate." From first till last, the pundits poured over
every word.

And, of course,
we were privileged to witness the momentous sight of Christ's Vicar in
Westminster Hall addressing the dubious denizens of British public life
- many of whom, truth be told, would re-condemn Campion and
Moore given the same opportunity in the same place! Regardless, it was a
moment to savour.

Tragedy

As invigorating
as these things were, however, successful statecraft and stirring displays
of papal affection by throngs of uncatechised Catholics In Name Only
[CINOs] are peripheral to the deeper salvific issues threatening the local
Church; systemic problems promoted or tolerated in every sphere of
Catholic life by a hierarchy tucked up in bed with the Westminster Hall
set: the overseers of England's Moloch State.

What really
defined the visit - before, during and after
- was the clarification of this dire predicament to a
heightened degree: a worldly convergence acted out in public by bishops
pursuing an effete dialogue that perverts (doctrine, morals,
liturgy, discipline, authority and law) instead of virile dialogue that
converts (every ignorant, lukewarm, lapsed and errant soul to the
One True Faith).

Delusion and
denial
Practised blame-shifters and straw-clutchers, many
bishops are so deluded as even to deny that there is a problem in
Church and State, never mind multiple apocalyptic developments and their
facilitation of them. Take the notorious Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel
and Brighton, whose faithless posturing we have treated many times before
(cf. "Cronies, Crooks and Crisis Popes," Jan. 2001; "Faking History," Nov.
2004).

More CEO than
Shepherd, Kieran finds the anarchic and dissolute English scene rather
appealing. In the lead-up he told the culture-of-death warriors at the
Guardian just what they wanted to hear: that Pope Benedict "may
well be relieved to be coming to a place where, unlike some of his other
recent trips, there are no big problems for him to sort
out."

Mercifully (and
bravely), a senior adviser to Archbishop Nichols, Edmund Adamus, demurred.
Refusing to stay 'on message' and reduce the Church to a laughing stock,
he declared that, in point of incontestable fact, Britain is "A
selfish, hedonistic wasteland" and "the geopolitical epicentre of
the culture of death."A neat and perfectly accurate summation that was
quickly countered by his boss. A spokesman insisted that Edmund's views
"Did not reflect the Archbishop's opinions." Indeed they did not.

Asked by Andrew
Marr of BBC on 5 September: "Do you share that sort of vision that Britain
is a particularly Godless and indeed sort of death culture society,
extremely secular by modern standards?" Nichols restored the fantastical
party line: "Well it's not how I would describe our society at all
actually. I think our society is characterised as much by generosity and
by genuine concern one for another, and I think religious faith is taken
quite seriously by probably a majority of people in this
country."

Everything we
need to know about the bogus faith and self-delusion of Vincent Nichols is
encapsulated in that idiotic response. As the Director of the Society for
the Protection of Unborn Children, John Smeaton, commented:

I can't think
of anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, religious or non-believer, who
believes that "religious faith is taken quite seriously by probably a
majority of people in this country."And with 570 babies killed daily
in Britain and with well over two million embryos discarded, or frozen,
or selectively aborted, or miscarried or used in destructive experiments
since the birth of the first IVF child was born over thirty years ago,
how can the Archbishop blithely dismiss the culture of death without
having his head kept, deliberately, buried in the sand?

Crime sheet

A
battle-hardened pro-life veteran (who nowadays sounds like a
CO-veteran!), Mr Smeaton then briefly elaborated with the
refreshing candour which has made his daily blog an essential weapon in
challenging the ecclesiastical subversion which threatens us all. In a
passage totally vindicating Edmund Adamus, he underlined the magnitude of
the denial, compromise and collusion we endure from a hierarchy no longer
fit for purpose:

The UK, not the
US, China, North Korea or any other country you care to mention, has
always been the main operating base and favourite milieu of the movement
for abortion, contraception and eugenics - "the culture
of death" identified by John Paul II. That movement is more
dangerous, and is responsible for deaths of more people, than any
government in history. That movement dates back far beyond the 1967
Abortion Act and part of its origins can be found with Malthus and
Galton in the 19th century. IPPF's central office has always
been London, as has Marie Stopes International's. There are many other
good reasons why Britain is indeed "the geopolitical epicentre of the
culture of death" - and the tragic fact is that the
Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, led by Archbishop
Nichols, is co-operating with that culture rather than confronting it
with the truth about the sanctity of human life. Is that why the
archbishop is in denial about the death culture in
Britain?

Southwark blogger
Fr Tim Finigan also alluded to the treachery on high, describing how
"[T]he London-centred secularist elite in Britain … relentlessly work to
draw us into collaboration and compromise until we are unable any longer
to speak out for the truth - or more pertinently, for the
sanctity of the life of those who are the smallest and weakest of all."

The "us" in
question certainly includes untold numbers of worldly clergy and laity,
but refers above all to the hierarchy in general (with one or two
occasional exceptions) and Archbishop Nichols in particular. Prior to
consideration of his shameful conduct in the weeks and months before
Benedict's arrival and to put this former head of our Catholic In Name
Only Education Service [CINOES] in immediate perspective, consider the
following summary of his countless infractions, many of which we've
previously reported. A veritable crime sheet, they were dutifully listed
by blogger James Preece, who, like John Smeaton and other exasperated
souls, is fed up to the gills with the outrageous abuse of episcopal power
in this country and drawing blood on a regular basis with hard-hitting
commentaries. "Am I being paranoid?" asked Preece, after being accused by
Catholic Herald columnist Stuart Reid of getting carried away with
his CO-like assessments of Nichols and the local scene. "Or is the
situation in England and Wales simply very, very bad? Let's do a quick
recap…":

Oona
Stannard, Director of the Catholic Education Service, describes
Connexions as "a service to be welcomed." Connexions as a
matter of policy promotes contraception and refers young girls for
abortion without parental knowledge. Connexions are still to this
very day being promoted in Catholic Schools. Archbishop Nichols (at that
time the Bishop in charge of education) said and did nothing.

Birmingham
Archdiocese publishes All That I Am, a sex and relationships
education programme. The programme includes DVD clips of 3D animated
nudity to be shown to mixed classes of ten year olds. Archbishop
Nichols' name appears in the credits. Parents complain but Archbishop
Nichols does nothing.

Terry
Prendergast, the Director of Marriage Care (an organisation funded by
the Catholic Church with Archbishop Nichols as president) appeared in
the national news saying that homosexuals and unmarried couples could be
just as good parents as husbands and wives. He attacked the Church's
teaching on Marriage and Family Life. What did Archbishop Nichols do?
Nothing. They remained silent and Terry Prendergast remains Director of
Marriage Care. You [the faithful] pay his wages.

Director of
Catholic Education Service Oona Stannard appears before a parliamentary
public bill committee and is asked her views on what age parents should
be allowed to withdraw their children from sex education classes. She
states that she would like to sit on the fence. Eventually she says she
would "err on saying: allow the right of withdrawal until 16." This
total failure to defend the rights of parents is recorded on the
Bishops' Conference own website but still the Catholic Bishops do
nothing.

Ed Balls
[Minister of Children, Schools and Families] appears on Radio 4 saying
that under his proposed legislation a Catholic school "must give a
balanced view on abortion. They must give both sides of the argument.
They must explain how to access an abortion." He went on to say that he
had "the support of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Nichols." Did
Archbishop Nichols speak out saying, "You do not have my support!"
- No. He remained silent while the CES discouraged Catholics
from opposing Ball's Bill.

The Catholic
Education Service go beyond parody when they appoint Greg Pope as deputy
director. Greg Pope is a retired Labour MP who voted for abortion
[and supported virtually every other item on the culture of death's
anti-marriage, anti-parental, pro-euthanasia, pro-homosexual,
pro-transexual, pro-contraception, pro-sex ed, pro-population control
agenda - Ed.]

"So," concludes
Preece, "the Catholic Bishop's Conference have consistently turned a blind
eye. Oona Stannard and Terry Prendegast are bullet-proof and Labour are
not to be criticised. Is it paranoia to suggest that there may be pattern
here? I don't think so. The pattern is plainly obvious: The Bishops of
England and Wales are heavily influenced by modern lefty liberal
"progressive" views. They couldn't oppose Prendergast because they are
terrified of appearing homophobic (besides which they probably agree with
him) and they won't oppose sex education or promotion of contraception in
schools because they actually think it's a good idea. Why did Ed Balls
go on the radio and say he has 'the support of the Catholic Church and
Archbishop Nichols'? Because he has! He just didn't realise he was
supposed to keep quiet about it."

CINOism as
Catholicism
Faced with mounting orthodox critiques like this, the
episcopal frustration is becoming ever more apparent. "I am often told by
those Catholics who dislike the way our church operates in this country,"
huffed Bishop Conry, "that they are the 'silent majority,' denied a voice
by people like me in the hierarchy. The reality is that they are a very
small minority. Pope Benedict is coming to a country where Catholicism is
unusually stable, cohesive and vibrant enough in the current overall
context of decline of interest in the Church in western
Europe."

BBC presenter
Mark Dowd quickly revealed what passes for "stable, cohesive and vibrant"
in the episcopal lexicon. On 9 September, the homosexual Dowd presented
"The Pope's Divisions" on Radio Four, a virtual cook's tour of the
CINOism, falsely labelled "Catholicism" by Conry, that was actually going
to greet the Pope under cover of infectious youthful enthusiasm and
smiles. It was embodied in two of the schoolchildren interviewed, from St
Benedict's, Derby, in the Nottingham diocese, who were due to meet the
Pope the following week as part of a special delegation of Catholic youth.
We can safely assume that the BBC edited out any children espousing
'rigid' orthodox views. Nonetheless, what we heard was normative.

The first child
confirmed she was "a practising Catholic" and was asked by Dowd what she
would like to say if she meets the Pope. She replied:

"I don't
think [the Pope] quite understands that we're in the
21st century yet, and I think that some of his
views are still quite outdated, things that he's said about abortion and
same-sex marriages."

"Do you think
it's possible to be a Catholic and to be pro-abortion and in favour of
same-sex marriage?"

"Yeah, I
think it is. I know I certainly am, and I don't have a problem admitting
that and being a Catholic."

The second child
referred negatively to "the stuff" in Catholic teaching "that's a bit
restricting" such as "chastity," adding that "the best thing about
being a Catholic is the fact that you can pick and choose which bits you'd
like to believe in, as long as you worship God."

The Director of
Youth Services in the Nottingham diocese then spelt out the CINOism being
taught by the CINO Education Service that triggered those tragic replies:

Fr Joe
Wheat: "You talk to 50 young people who would refer to themselves
as Catholic and you'll get 50 different versions of Catholicism, which
is brilliant. It's fantastic actually."

Chris
Dowd: "A lot of the students we spoke to [at St Benedict's school]
mentioned contraception, abortion, homosexuality. Can they, in your
view, maintain views which are contrary to Church teaching but still
call themselves a good Catholic?"

"Depends
what your measure of 'good' is when you say 'good Catholic'."

"What's
your measure?"

"I don't
have one. I try not to make value judgments about people's Catholicism,
because I don't want them to make value judgments about mine."

A ghastly CINO
product of our corrupting CINO seminaries, John Smeaton notes that "Fr
Wheat certainly has, let us say, strange ideas. On the Nottingham Diocesan
Catholic Youth Service website, he numbers Tony Benn, the
anti-life/anti-family retired politician, among the 'living person[s] he
most admires'; and says he would invite K.D. Lang, the entertainer and
homosexualist activist, to his 'dream dinner party'."

The reader's
blood pressure may have rocketed while reading this transcript, but Fr
Wheat's CINO superior, Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham, who replaced
Archbishop Nichols as head of the CINOES, would doubtless approve of the
entire exchange, having declared himself ready to employ homosexual
headteachers in sodomitical 'partnerships' ["Catholic Education: A Nail in the English Coffin?",
CO, Feb. 2010]. It was under McMahon's chairmanship that the CINOES
appointed as its deputy director the aforementioned anti-life, anti-family
retired Labour MP, Greg Pope.

Failure as
success: shifting the blame
A few days after Mr Dowd had stripped away the
episcopate's "stable, cohesive and vibrant" fig leaf, the Naked Emperor
himself, Archbishop Nichols, carried on where Bishop Conry left off,
painting a false picture of growth and stability.

"Catholic parish
life is in good heart," he gushed in a Daily Mail interview,
depicting a Church "invigorated by people coming here from many different
countries." He claimed that this has stopped the precipitous fall in Mass
attendance, purportedly raising the figure from 750,000 to a million.
Given the Archbishop's problematic relationship with reality and truth
(CO passim ad nauseam) we should automatically doubt this latest
figure. But even if we accepted it at face value - ignoring
the huge numbers of elderly Catholics and 'practising' CINOs, as well as
the problematic reliance on (often isolated and transient) foreign
parishioners for survival - since when is 20% Mass attendance
something to crow about?!

Truly, when it
comes to the Bishops of England and Wales, Churchill's words resonate:
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of
enthusiasm." And to do so, in the episcopal case, with ever more despotic
arrogance.

In an interview
on Radio 4 which touched on Rome's recently established Pontifical Council
for New Evangelisation, Bishop Conry pronounced the initiative
superfluous, stating that he was not convinced by the notion that
secularisation lies at the heart of the Church's decline in Europe. "My
own personal opinion," he decreed, "is that I am not entirely convinced by
this secularisation argument. It suggests that the Church's problems are
external, in other words society has gone wrong, but the Church is
fine."

Firstly, as his
own merry assessment of the crumbling local Church testifies, only
diabolically disoriented shepherds suggest that the Church is "fine" and
that the wolves are outside the gate. Secondly, since we are living
through the gravest internal crisis in Catholic history due to
widespread apostasy among the hierarchy, the "secularisation argument"
applies precisely to himself. To the galloping secularisation of
the local Church he embodies: through his civilian dress, dissident views
and unseemly behaviour.

Blind to his
self-contradiction, he turned disorientation into a tailspin as he went on
to complain that "the Church has a problem in its own proclamation of the
Gospel… I don't think we're doing very well." The Church, he opined, had
become "simply irrelevant" for many people.

Suffice to say
that rather than shift the blame to "the Church," perhaps His Lordship
should question whether his own non-performance - i.e., his
loss of faith and nerve - explains that perceived irrelevance and why
'we're not doing very well'?

He might start
the self-examination of conscience with this query: Is the cause of
Catholic evangelism aided by mocking papal authority and teaching on
national television?

This is precisely
what he did during the BBC's Cofton Park coverage of the Newman
beatification. Appearing on the Sunday programme (disgracefully
attired, as ever, in his civvies), alongside several Tablet
soulmates who predicted that the Church would eventually ordain women
regardless of the Pope's definitive ruling to the contrary, His Lordship
responded with a craven snigger: "Well, according to Pope John Paul II,
this was a definitive statement, wasn't it, so… [laughs] I couldn't
possibly comment."

For Conry this
kneeling before the worldlings, licking their boots and sharing their
anti-Catholic jibes is the way forward - precisely the
naturalistic mentality fostered by the Masonic Annibale Bugnini which we
considered last month. His Lordship assumes that this meeting of
secularised minds will make the local Church "relevant" to the Liberal
Establishment. And since that unholy union remains the relentless
objective and unchanging party line of the episcopal junta established by
Derek Worlock and Basil Hume, the bishops never pause to consider the
whopping beam in their own eyes. Ideologically and robotically they are
following this received policy of compromise and convergence to its
fantastic end: syncretic Shangri-La. Hence those fly-in-the-ointment
orthodox who resist the Tabletistas and insist on moral and
doctrinal fidelity are hugely problematic, as Bishop Conry
intimated in his further offerings to Radio 4.

The Church, he
said, had "failed to put across its own message in a way that's accessible
enough," making it appear too "authoritative," "intolerant," "demanding,"
and "exclusive." In other words, orthodoxy - Truth - is
off-putting and only by abandoning this black-and-white absolutism for
Kieran's elastic Counterfeit Church will we solve the problem: by allowing
the Church "to become a little more tolerant, accessible, welcoming,
compassionate. All the things that, for many people, it is not." (Ah, such
a fair and reasonable man, our Kieran.)

In a parting
shot, this monument to whited sepulchres declared: "I think the Church
has got to re-present itself rather than simply blame everything on the
ills of society." Really? How about this instead: Why don't the
bishops withdraw from public life to re-discover the Faith so they can
"re-present" themselves as Catholic shepherds instead
of Anglicanoid sellouts? And having thus returned from the
wilderness full of apostolic zeal, why don't they then start preaching the
Faith without fear or favour, "rather than simply blame everything on
the ills of society" and everyone else except themselves? Just a
thought.

For his part,
Archbishop Nichols pinned the blame on the Twin Towers! He told the
Mail that since 9/11 "there has been a shift in attitudes to
religion." Religious faith, he explained, was suddenly "seen as a
problem. All religious faith got tarred with the same brush. I hope
the Pope might help us to see that faith is not a problem to be solved
- but one to be discovered." And yet, as the following example
highlights, any reader, listener or viewer who happened upon a media
commentary by Kieran Conry or Vincent Nichols before, during or after the
papal visit would have simply wondered what the fuss was about; whether
there was any demarcation between the secular and sacred or anything at
all of value to be discovered in the Catholic faith.

"I don't
know": the Faith
denied
In a
2 July interview conducted by Stephen Sackur on "HardTalk" [BBC News
Channel], Archbishop Nichols showed himself utterly lacking in Catholic
conviction, unable to give straightforward answers to simple questions: to
say "yes for yes" and "no for no." At one point, simply asked if
homosexuality was "unnatural," he spent 19 words avoiding the word "Yes,"
as revealed in these extracts (my italicised comments in
brackets):

STEPHEN
SACKUR: Catholic bishop of Rustenburg, Kevin Dowling … says that in
his particular diocese he has decided that condoms are a crucial part of
the healthcare alternative offered to women because he says they save
lives and more than anything else he is pro-life and being pro-life has
led him to believe that he has to challenge his own Pope on this
fundamental issue.

ARCHBISHOP
NICHOLS: Well I respect his views. He's been there. I've never been to
Africa. That's why I would be cautious in expressing the view precisely on
this point in practical terms. [Firstly, the Archbishop should've been
prepared for the inevitable condom assault and thus armed with a
bullet-point list of all the pertinent scientific facts and case studies
(cf. Thailand vs. Philippines, CO, Jan. 2005) which demolish the
condomaniacs and support the Catholic position. That he wasn't speaks
volumes at many levels. As does the fact that he did not identify Bishop
Dowling as a notorious dissenter whose condom-touting has been shot down
by the South African Bishops. Instead, he hastened to give him "respect."
Secondly, you wouldn't guess that His Grace had already indicated to
Sackur, in a roundabout way, that condoms were not the answer to AIDS! A
classic Modernist ploy identified by Pius X: switching from orthodoxy in
one breath to heterodoxy or ambiguity in the next. Derek Worlock surely
knew the slippery qualities of the young Vincent Nichols he was sponsoring
up the clerical ladder.]

SS: But I
just wonder whether you sometimes feel uncomfortable because on the one
hand your Catholic faith and your belief in the Pope [Sackur can be
forgiven for such false assumptions] … leads you to a position where …
like Bishop Dowling you believe that this Pope or any particular Pope
takes a stand that you can't share. How do you wrestle with that
personally?

AN: Well I
think we start off here by wanting say, and this would be my most
fundamental commitment, would be a search for truth …. I think the Church
is misunderstood when the Church is represented as saying we possess the
truth and from here on we'll give it to you. And Pope Benedict would
never say that. He would say and I would try and echo that we are
searchers for the truth. We want to be possessed by the truth - not
possessive. [Cardinal Manning would weep to hear such doubt,
unbelief, confusion and misrepresentation mouthed by his successor; a lost
soul still "searching" for the Deposit of Faith possessed by the Church
alone, blissfully unaware that he is charged, under God, to shout this
absolute Truth from the rooftops. No wonder (as CO was accurately
forewarned) that "V. Nichols," originally listed to receive one of the red
hats handed out last month, was belatedly struck off the list by Rome when
authorities were duly enlightened. At least Manning would be somewhat
placated by that rare act of Vatican justice to English Catholics, however
temporary.]

SS: But
your perception of the truth may be different from [the Pope's].
[Bullseye!] For example in 1986 the famous letter he wrote on
homosexuality in which he described homosexual acts as intrinsically and
objectively disordered. Do you in your view of truth and searching for
truth disagree with that? [Sackur has immediately picked up on his
aimless, relativistic posturing.]

AN: Well
again you have to understand the language. That's a technical language
that draws on scholastic philosophy … [More fudge and evasion. In fact
it's very plain language that draws on the Natural Law which
is written on the heart of every man on earth and thus easily explained to
a moron. The Archbishop lacks either the knowledge and ability or
the faith and nerve to provide that explanation.]

SS:
(interrupting) But Archbishop, when you say that you're probably losing a
large part of the audience. People want to know from a senior churchman
like yourself. [Even Sackur is exasperated by the weasel words. How
does he think we feel!]

AN: Well
let me tell you what it means. It means there is an understanding that
human sexuality is to do with procreation and sex between two people of
the same sex will never produce a child.

SS: And is
therefore unnatural.

AN: …
Therefore it is not along the line of the order, the pathway, of sexuality
as understood in this tradition. [Was that a "yes"? A "no"? A "maybe"?
A "who cares"?]

SS: The
Church of England for example in this country is taking a rather different
view. They believe there has to be some flexibility. The church has to be
a reflection of society's values to a certain extent and therefore we see
women priests, women vicars, and there's obviously in some parts of the
Anglican Communion, women bishops.

AN:
Certainly. [A portentous affirmation, flagging the treachery to come in
the next breath…]

SS: Some
of their vicars are also prepared to sanction gay unions. That church is
showing flexibility. Is the Catholic Church not going to have to do the
same eventually?

AN: I
don't know. Who knows what's down the road?
[He doesn't know!! Yet
the Magisterium he purportedly represents, under God, knows perfectly well
what's down that corrosive road. 1. For natural marriage and the family:
further marginalization and dissolution. 2. For sodomite and lesbian
participants in unnatural unions: every kind of violence, disease and
dysfunction, and premature death. 3. For souls and society: moral and
spiritual corruption. Hence the declaration in the Catechism that
homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity [and] Under no circumstances
can they be approved," never mind sanctioned in bogus
marriage!]

SS: Well
I'm just asking you. You're rather an important player in the Catholic
Church. What do you believe it should be? [Sackur at wits end, trying
get a straight answer.]

AN: No no.
There's no doubt in my mind that our first call is to faithfulness and not
to success. And if faithfulness involves [a smaller Church] so be it.
[Is that crystal clear now? Whatever he meant, listening to Vincent
Nichols invoke "faithfulness," which he often does, is like listening to
Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor invoke "fidelity." Just doesn't ring
true, does it?]

False-charity

The Sackur
debacle is inseparable from the never-ending circle-squaring ecumenical
quest he champions (the latest faithless fruit of which is expertly
analysed by Father Thomas Crean in this edition). And consistent with the
mindset underpinning his socio-political convergence summarised by James
Preece. Yet by the end of Sackur's interview it was apparent as never
before that the personal "journey" of Vincent Nichols - his endless
"search for truth" - had led him out of the Church, off a cliff and
into the relativistic swamp. And to make sure we got the message, within a
few months he re-confirmed the betrayal.

In a Daily
Telegraph interview of 11 September, he was again asked: "Should
the Church one day accept the reality of gay partnerships?" Again he
replied: "I don't know," proceeding once more to offer no clear and
firm explanation of the Church's teaching and the solid reasons for it.
Instead, per usual, it was all false-charity wrapped up in rhetorical
questions followed by the sort of inoffensive, incomprehensible
non-answers that frustrated Stephen Sackur.

"People who are
of a homosexual orientation say: 'Well, hang on a minute. How is the Book
of Nature written in me?'" he babbled, as if a "homosexual orientation"
was not an affliction or addiction but a natural category within the "Book
of Nature"! He might have explained that the Natural Law written on their
hearts rather obviously does not include the Unnatural - i.e.,
perversions of that Law. Ergo, because of the knock-on effect of Original
Sin, their lower disordered sensual nature is simply at war with their
higher natural state (their "heterosexuality"). So the Book of Nature
is written in them, and spiritual and professional help is
available to restore it to its original default setting.

How difficult
could it be to provide such simple instruction? Yet as the
Telegraph reported, the very idea is a non-starter: "The old
language - of mortal sin, for example - was, he says, a
misguided attempt to motivate the faithful. 'Fear is never a good
motivation. The whole point of the Catholic journey is that it is a
journey…'."

True charity for
homosexuals, real compassion for their dreadful plight and genuine concern
for their eternal salvation requires that we stop Vincent's endless
blather right there! Since what he should have gone on to say, had he
possessed the faith and courage to do so, is that for active homosexuals
that would be a very short "journey" - to an early grave and
instant judgement by the Just Judge! In which case fear would be a huge
motivating factor if only the pertinent statistics were laid out:
indicating that unnatural homosexual acts which riddle you with
debilitating parasitic diseases will, on average, take at least
twenty years off your life (if you're lucky).(1) By
omitting these dreadful facts from discussion we fail to challenge the
monstrous lie peddled as the "gay lifestyle" - the healthy, happy
homosexual of media-entertainment fantasy - when the reality is a
"gay deathstyle."

Typically, for
instance, it was reported in the April 2005 issue of Sexually
Transmitted Infections that "A rare venereal disease, a bacterial
infection of the anus and genitalia, is now 'a significant' problem in
European homosexual men. The disease, Lymphogranuloma venereum
(LGV), is caused by an invasive strain of chlamydia. Previously known only
as a rare disease in poor countries, LGV was first reported in Europe in
2003, when an outbreak was detected among 100 gay men in Rotterdam."

There are a
countless horrific examples. After all, how many grey cells do you need to
foresee what's likely to happen when a life-giving organ is inserted into
the orifice intended for defecation? As the late great American writer Joe
Sobran once reflected: "Whose idea of love is that? Normal intercourse
produces human life; homosexual intercourse spawns only bacterial life."
Unlike our local hierarchy, the plain-speaking Sobran understood that
without truth, however discomforting it may be, all that remains is
false-love, false-compassion and false-charity.

On the spiritual
plane, St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah should also give the
homosexual transgressor pause. In his eleventh century treatise on
clerical sodomy and pederasty in the Church, the truly charitable Saint
explains how the innate malice of the vice of sodomy surpasses the
enormity of all other vices:

Without fail it
brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the
flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from
the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the
stimulator of lust. … It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise.
…This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church. …This
disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope,
dissolves the bond of love. It makes away with justice, demolishes
fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence. Shall I
say more?

For her part, St.
Catherine of Sienna insists that the act of sodomy is so foul that it even
repulses its instigator, the Devil himself. When he is satisfied that the
unspeakable act is accomplished, says the great Doctor of the Church, he
leaves the room in disgust.

Perhaps some
blunt sermons along those lines would sow life-saving and soul-saving fear
among the unashamedly practising sodomites and lesbians attending the
Archbishop's Soho Masses? But it takes authentic charity and the true
heart of a spiritual father, not to say Catholic faith, to confront
sinners with such hard truths in these politically correct times. Alas,
like the roster of pro-homosexual clergy who celebrate the Soho Masses,
the Archbishop repeatedly fails to demonstrate such qualities. He only
manages to muddy the moral and doctrinal waters, betray his flock,
disgrace his sacred teaching office and abandon the many homosexuals of
goodwill looking to the Church for a way out of their sinful addiction to
the "gay" deathstyle.

Episcopal
tyranny: "Shut the f*** up!"
"Putting it all together," says
John Smeaton, "it seems obvious to me that Archbishop Nichols gives
lip-service to the Catholic Church's teaching, while fatally undermining
(as distinct from denying) the security and even the legitimacy of that
teaching. The way the Archbishop has presented in a popular public forum
is more than suggestive that: a) he doesn't really believe that the
Church's teaching on homosexuality is true for all time b) that
homosexuality is not such a big deal, and c) we should really just accept
the fact that people are sexually active in all sorts of ways."

A foreign
priest-scholar of worldwide repute also exclaimed to a private e-mail
group: "the head of the British Catholic Church 'doesn't know' basic
Catholic and biblical doctrine about marriage and purity! He should have
been removed from office immediately - never mind the red hat! - for that
one scandalous comment, which will lead thousands - millions? - of Britons
to think there can't really be any definite sin in sodomy."

"I don't
know." Vincent feigns not to know because Vincent does not want to
know. Or as James Preece more accurately put it: "because he doesn't
know whether the government is going to pass legislation making it a legal
requirement to sanction gay unions. What he does know is that whatever the
government does, he will be bound by it. He isn't about to go to prison
over it. St John Fisher he isn't."

Precisely. A
damning assessment underlined by the contrasting response of Scottish
Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley. His Lordship wrote to the Prime
Minister after his unprecedented Gay Pride reception of the UAPA at
Downing Street in June, to lay down the Catholic law. The Church, he said,
will never celebrate same-sex unions - "not now, not in
the future, not ever"- even if the law changes to allow
religious celebrants to conduct unnatural "marriages." How refreshing
- bracing - is that!

The difference
between Bishop Tartaglia's reaction and that of Archbishop Nichols is the
difference between "Campion's Brag" and the fearful vacillation of the
sixteenth century turncoats. Hence the Cranmer-like dander that lurks
beneath the hierarchy's artful spin and smiles.

Faithful clergy
have long borne the brunt of this tyrannous episcopal temper but bishops
are revealing it more and more to the laity, with less and less
self-restraint, the louder their righteous critics become. And they
- the "very small minority" of orthodox believers decried by Bishop
Conry - are becoming more numerous and passionately outspoken,
however belatedly, as the extent of the episcopal betrayal accelerates
into shameless public view. Indeed, former critics of Christian
Order now agree that the alien spirit within the hierarchy we
identified, exposed and condemned several decades ago and have hammered
ever since, is not only malign but purposeful. As scandal
piles upon unspeakable scandal they are venting their spleens. And the
hierarchy, used to having things all its own way, is reacting.

A prime example
was broadcast by Mark Dowd during his BBC radio report on the Soho Masses,
when he asked Archbishop Nichols if he expects "total chastity from
everyone who receives Communion at the Mass?" Carefully omitting
fundamental notions like "sin," "confession" and "state of grace," a testy
Nichols, chafing under his Soho millstone, replied:

Every time Mass
is celebrated and Holy Communion is offered, it is a public expression
of my desire to live closely with Christ and in accordance with His
teaching. But no priest makes the moment of Communion a moment of
judgement and I trust in people as they come forward that they do so
with a good conscience and they do so knowing that this public gesture
by which they receive the Body and Blood of Christ is reflected in their
heart, in their desire to live in union with Him, so that is never a
point for judgement and anybody from the outside who is trying to
cast a judgement on the people who come forward for Communion,
really ought to learn to hold their tongue.

A swipe at Soho
antagonists, the teeth-grinding anger was palpable. But it was left to one
of the Soho organisers, Terence Weldon, to plainly state what the despotic
President of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales really
meant to say on behalf of his episcopal comrades. An arch-dissident
CINO who boasts of being "Catholic, homosexual and 'practising' in both
respects," Weldon stated on his blog "Queering the Church" that on the
basis of Archbishop Nichols' statement, those who denounce his
homosexuality should "shut the f*** up." The fact that this
delightful soul distributes the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ at Soho, in his role of Extraordinary Minister of the
Eucharist, says all we need to know about the blasphemous and sacrilegious
nature of these Masses. Just as it further underlines the rank complicity
of the Archbishop and mocks his authority.

Accommodating
perversion
It is a promising sign that the bishops are losing
their cool. Clearly, though, Vincent is not for turning. He is out of
control, thoroughly intent on completing the work of convergence Derek and
Basil entrusted to him, come what may: above all ecumenically and morally
(as we noted last month, the liturgical meld is basically achieved).
Comprehensive, compulsory sex education and accommodation of homosexuality
have become key components in achieving the moral transition. Hence the
ever softening local line: the incremental blurring of distinctions and
demarcations, even to openly subverting Vatican documents on the most
clear-cut moral issues.

For example, ever
more explicit sex education evolved under prelates like Cardinal Hume and
Bishop Konstant through their CINO Education Service (including homosexual
propaganda under cover of AIDS education, supported by Hume). Parental
efforts to stop this institutionalized abuse of children and violation of
their innocence in the classroom came to naught. Finally, in 1995, Rome's
excellent guidelines on The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality
were received with joy by the long-suffering faithful. But since they
demolished the corrupting English agenda, no sooner had Cardinal Hume
received them than he began telling parents who referenced them that 'the
guidelines were not meant for this country.' Effectively, they were
binned.

Since then, as
detailed earlier, the compromise and corruption has descended to new
depths of hellishness: even to the CINOES actually cooperating with
Britain's most infamous anti-life/anti-family lobbies to help draft the
government's anti-life/anti-family sex education guidance which
incorporates repeated references to the promotion of homosexuality,
contraception and abortion. The government press release accompanying the
draft guidance last February even quoted Oona Stannard of the CINOES as
saying: "Today's draft guidance for SRE [Sex and Relationships
Education] is a positive step forward."

Therefore, when
it comes to educating our young people in sexual morality, we can
confidently state that whatever wafer-thin distinctions and lines of
demarcation still remained between the local Church and the worldlings,
they have now been obliterated. Catholic education in how to live
virtuously and resist the world, the flesh and the devil has become CINO
indoctrination into the culure of death. And when the last feeble
discretionary clauses are removed from future government education bills
it will become compulsory from the earliest age (i.e. nursery), under
threat of punitive legal action against uncooperative parents and schools.

As for sodomy,
Labour's Secretary of State, Ed Balls declared that faith schools should
be forced to teach that homosexuality is normal and harmless, saying:"They
[religious schools] must be absolutely clear about the importance of civil
partnerships." But they needn't worry. No government will have to
frog-march the current successors of Bishop Iscariot to Westminster Hall
for a show trial over this. They signed on the dotted line long ago!
Appropriately, it was a 26 May 2004 Guardian headline that flagged
the betrayal upon the release of the episcopate's 103-page document
Cherishing Life. "English bishops soften Vatican's moral line,"
announced the champagne-socialist rag with glee:

The Catholic
Church in England and Wales will today soften the harsh moralistic
language of the Vatican in setting out its most comprehensive moral
guidelines for many years to the faithful on how they should live their
lives. The document, called Cherishing Life, approved by the
Church's bishops, refrains from the sort of blunt language in which last
year the Vatican described gay partnerships as evil. The English bishops
say instead that homosexual orientation must never be considered sinful
or evil in itself - just so long as it is not sexually expressed.

The hierarchy and
its homosexual advisers were careful not to repeat the Vatican's
insistence in its 1986 Letter to the Bishops On the Pastoral Care of
Homosexual Persons that "an overly benign interpretation was given to
the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral."
They ignored it because that is precisely the line they take: often
referring to the "orientation" as "neutral." Not only the thin edge of the
sodomitical wedge, the Church has ever taught the opposite: that both the
inclination and the practise are abhorrent (cf. Pius V, Horrendum Illus
Scelus).

As we have often
reported since the days of Cardinal Hume (the "Godfather to the Gays," as
we designated him), the long list of radical sodomites and lesbians who
have publicly admired the hierarchy's approach to homosexuality tells its
own story of infernal collusion. Even Peter Tatchell, perhaps the most
notorious and rabidly anti-Catholic homosexual activist in England, has
often praised the bishops' for their "sensitivity." In 2008 he lauded a
pamphlet produced by their Marriage and Family Life Project Office,
announcing that it "challenges" the "outdated, bigoted attitudes"
expressed in "the stern, uncompromising homophobia of most Vatican
pronouncements on homosexuality." Calling for "the Vatican to adopt this
leaflet for use by Catholic dioceses worldwide," he said the bishops had
merely reflected "the growing acceptance of loving, loyal, long-term
same-sex relationships by grassroots Catholics." In keeping with
Archbishop Nichols' recent public statements and his ardent defence of the
Soho Masses, in other words, the propagandising pamphlet simply
articulates the ongoing policy of rationalising and accommodating
perversion.

Entitled,
"What is life like if you or someone in your family is gay or lesbian
in their sexual orientation? … and what can your parish family do to make
a difference?" it employs the same political language of the radical
"gay" lobby now heard at Soho, such as recommending "bidding" or
intercessory prayers for use at Mass which thank God for the "gift of
[homo]sexuality." It also includes emotive "gay" propaganda quotes from
complainants: "The continual message from the church is that homosexuality
is so, so dreadful. Our gay son just hasn't stood a chance"; "My brother
is gay; the church has been very intolerant of him." Priests are
instructed to "check the local school policies on bullying and equality,"
warned "not to assume that everyone is heterosexual," and urged to
"reflect this in language and conversation."

The fact that the
pamphlet was produced under the auspices of an episcopal "Marriage and
Family Life" office trumpeted the agenda and sounded the alarm. But if few
of the faithful were watching and listening, non-Catholics certainly
observed the capitulation. A Catholic layman with vast experience of
working with churchmen in the political and media world recently noted on
the Preece blog: "I was speaking with a very, very prominent Protestant
minister who said 'you know there was a time you could always depend on
the Catholic Church to uphold Family, Marriage and Defend Life - but no
more'."

Gay
lapdogs
The
particularly egregious obeisance to the "gay" lobby prior to Benedict's
arrival only confirmed that tragic assessment. Not least Archbishop Peter
Smith's agreement to meet Peter Tatchell at New Scotland Yard on 8
September to beg his peaceful cooperation during the visit! "The fact that
the Catholic Church in England and Wales chose to meet its staunchest
critics yesterday … is an indication of how rattled senior clerics are, at
the prospect of having his trip dominated by protests and criticism of the
Vatican," chuckled the Catholic-baiting Independent on Sunday.

The report noted
that Rome had never pandered to "its detractors" in this way. That's
because Rome understands the well-documented, scientifically-measured link
between homosexuality and child abuse, and so does not wish to afford its
homosexual "detractors" (who often facilitate that abomination) even the
slightest credibility by association.

"Many
psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between
celibacy and paedophilia," said the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal
Bertone, last April. Instead, they have found a "relationship between
homosexuality and paedophilia. That is the truth, this is the problem."
He was immediately backed up by Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a
psychiatrist who treats sexually abusive priests. It is a nexus also
readily admitted by the "gay" community itself; lauded by some but
deplored by others such as Los Angeles homosexual radio personality Al
Rantel ["The 3,000-pound Elephant: Predatory Gay Men," CO, Feb.
2006].

And yet, on cue,
simply wishing away the numerous studies and stats which confirm the
rather obvious link, the Bishops Conference of England and Wales trotted
out its General Secretary, the hapless Fr. Marcus Stock, to disavow
Bertone's truth-telling and parrot the party line: "To the best of my
knowledge," he declared, "there is no empirical data which concludes that
sexual orientation is connected to child sexual abuse. The consensus among
researchers is that the sexual abuse of children is not a question of
sexual 'orientation,' whether heterosexual or homosexual, but of a
disordered attraction or 'fixation'."

Presumably the
"empirical data" Fr. Stock consulted was the self-serving "gay" variety:
produced by homosexual researchers forever seeking to obstruct the truth
and rationalize their own disorder. Famously, in 1973, via power politics,
threats, and intimidation, not scientific discoveries, they orchestrated
the removal of homosexuality from the diagnostic glossary of mental
disorders, thereby dismissing not only hundreds of psychiatric and
psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also a number of other
serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators
over the best part of a century. Thus, for the last 37 years, countless
men and women have been denied the proper course of treatment, with
harmful and lethal consequences, because doctors have been prevented from
properly diagnosing homosexuality as an aberrant behaviour ["The Myth of
Homosexual Normalcy," CO, Feb. 2006].

Though
demonstrably false, Fr Stock's convenient denial unburdens the episcopal
conscience and allows it to pow-wow with the likes of Tatchell, whose
vileness was further exposed just three days after he met with the
Archbishop.

On 11 September,
in The Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens recalled that on 26 June 1997
Tatchell wrote to the Guardian newspaper defending an academic book
about 'Boy-Love' against what he saw as calls for it to be censored; a
book which Tatchell (who now bleats that he "was not in any way condoning
paedophilia") said documented "examples of societies where consenting
inter-generational sex is considered normal." He concluded his defense
with this shocking statement:

The positive
nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to
non-Western cultures. Several of my friends - gay and straight,
male and female - had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13.
None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and
gave them great joy. While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia,
it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving
children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.

This, as Hitchens
underlines, from the most strident denunciator of the Pope's handling of
clerical sexual abuse! A man recently given an hour on prime time TV,
several days after his meeting with Archbishop Smith, to launch yet
another dilettantish tirade of abuse at Benedict XVI ["The Trouble with
the Pope", Channel 4]. Who claims that John Henry Cardinal Newman was in a
"same-sex relationship" with his great friend Fr. Ambrose St John. And
who, by the way, is lobbying to lower the age of consent to 14 (what a
surprise!). This poster-boy for the Seventh Circle of Dante's Inferno
is the creature Peter Smith foolishly thought he should and could do
business with: instead of directing him to the nearest Confessional; or
daring him to do his worst; or ignoring him altogether, thereby denying
him the kudos that feeds his insatiable ego.

In the event, on
8 September at New Scotland Yard, still on all fours after tea and
biscuits in a fifth-floor boardroom with Tatchell and a few other members
of the UAPA, the episcopal lapdog panted happily: "We had an open and
frank discussion on the issues of child abuse, homosexuality and the
status of Pope Benedict's visit as a state visit." He then scurried on his
hind legs "to report back to my fellow bishops the particular concerns
raised."

Of one thing we
can be morally certain: that neither the "frank discussion" of "child
abuse and homosexuality" at the Yard, nor the episcopal debriefing which
followed, raised any "concerns" about Tatchell's depraved views above.
Heaven forbid. It would have upset the "gays"! Who would then have
shouted, perhaps very loudly, at their mitred poodles
- "dumb dogs not able to bark" [Isaias 56:10]!

De-facto
schism
And
so, while it makes sense to blame all of this on Rome, especially because
of its tacit support of the Soho Masses which they could easily have shut
down, it is a facile explanation. The corrupting Hume-Worlock vision of a
via media-style "broad church" is the driving force and heart of
the whole affair. Although, in fairness to Derek Worlock, he might
have parted company with both Archbishop Nichols and Cardinal Hume on the
homosexual facet of his master-plan. Despite all his egoistic scheming and
ecumania, it is said that he had no truck with the "gays." Nonetheless,
Derek's protégé Vincent ploughs brazenly on with his supine brothers.

No sooner had the
Pope left our shores than the following day the Archbishop boasted on BBC
2 that the English hierarchy were "very nuanced" in their attitude to
civil partnerships. Confronted by an aggressive homosexual academic on the
panel who claimed that Catholic bishops "hate gay marriage," Nichols ran
for cover, hastily noting that the bishops of England and Wales were not
opposed to homosexualist political goals. "We did not oppose gay civil
partnerships," he insisted. "We recognized that in English law
there might be a case for those." The sodomite immediately made common
cause with Nichols, agreeing that the English Church "has rather taken
its own line on this, not the Vatican's line." As we have seen, his
assessment is not only correct, it also signals the mess Benedict has left
behind: de-facto schism.

Archbishop
Nichols was fully aware that prior to his visit Pope Benedict had
reaffirmed, for the umpteenth time, precisely the opposite of what he was
proclaiming on national television. "The Church cannot approve of
legislative initiatives that involve a re-evaluation of alternative models
of married life and family," taught Benedict. "They contribute to
the weakening of the principles of natural law and so the relativization
of all legislation and also the confusion about values in society."
Vincent knows this papal score. But he and his episcopal partners in crime
have long separated in thought, word and deed from the Vicar of Christ.

On 27 September
LifeSiteNews [LSN] revealed that in 2005 this schismatic cabal had simply
ignored Vatican-mandated corrections to the episcopate's scandalous
Diversity and Equality guidelines. Published in response to the
then-Labour government's proposed Equalities Bill - which ultimately led
to the notorious Sexual Orientation Regulations and forced the dissolution
of the Church's adoption network - the guidelines told Catholics that
they must comply with legislation on equal employment rights of male and
female homosexuals, bisexuals and "transsexuals" in Catholic institutions
and structures. A source close to the Bishops' Conference informed LSN
that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had issued a list of
changes to bring the document into conformity with Catholic teaching. This
list "was ignored" by the document's author, Archbishop Peter Smith
(Tatchell's lapdog).

On several
occasions, when referencing the Diversity and Equality guidelines,
CO has noted the private observation of a visiting Cardinal who
considered them the greatest betrayal since the Reformation. This LSN
summary shows that he wasn't exaggerating. It also explains why the
Vatcian found the guidelines so objectionable, and indicates the truly
frightening extent of the episcopate's break with Rome and loss of
Catholic faith:

In their
document, the bishops said the first duty of Catholic organizations and
institutions is to "to be inclusive, respectful of the human dignity of
all and in tune with the spirit as well as the letter of the law."

Using the
language of the homosexualist political movement, the bishops suggested
that Catholic institutions should create hiring quotas for homosexuals.
It called on authorities "at all levels of the church" to "be more
aware" of whether "different groups" are adequately represented in
Catholic institutions such as schools, and said that "organisations,
institutions and dioceses should consider appointing or entrusting
someone with responsibility for diversity and equality."

Despite
allowing Catholic institutions to require applicants to "be broadly in
sympathy with the vision, mission and values of the organisation," the
bishops' policy does not require any private adherence to Catholic moral
teaching. This would include requiring doctors or nurses to agree with
the Church's teaching on abortion and euthanasia, or teachers to live
according to Catholic sexual teaching.

"In a society
in which relationships are increasingly fractured and complicated, it is
only to be expected that this may at times be reflected in the
lifestyles of those who serve the Church," the document says.

"Every
applicant and employee has a right to his or her private and family life
and all Catholic employers must respect that right."

"As employers,
subject to limited and narrow exceptions, Catholic organisations must
ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable
treatment than another on the grounds of race, gender, disability,
religion or belief, sexual orientation or age. This is 'direct
discrimination'."

So pleased was
the Labour government with the document, that its publication and
distribution was funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, the
source told LSN.

Significantly,
the document was later cited favourably by an EU document on the right
to conscientious objection by health care workers that linked the
"right" to abortion with similar putative "rights" to euthanasia and
assisted suicide. The EU document agrees with the bishops that "subject
to limited and narrow exceptions, Catholic organizations must ensure
that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment
than another on the grounds of โ€ฆ sexual
orientation."

The episcopate's
2008 "gay" propaganda pamphlet lauded by Peter Tatchell was clearly the
perverse fruit of these treacherous provisions. As was Archbishop Malcolm
McMahon's public support for actively homosexual teaching staff in his
CINO schools. One also discerns an alarming homosexual infiltration and
manipulation of the bishops' conference and its bureaucracy.

It was as a
result of information on the Diversity and Equality guidelines being
delivered to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, that the
Pope exhorted the bishops on their Ad Limina visit this year not to
compromise on life and family issues or take a soft approach to aggressive
European secularism, but defend the Faith "convincingly" [CO, March
2010]. This, the LSN source revealed, was a direct rebuke.

Perhaps so. But
as my March, April and May editorials insisted: papal rebukes are so much
wasted breath until such time as the faithless, gutless partisans of the
Hume-Worlock agenda are stripped of their sees and replaced with
courageous, no-nonsense Catholic bishops: Apostles of the Axe!

Until then, the
ecumenical and socio-political convergence will proceed apace and
Archbishop Nichols will maintain his great facade of English Catholic life
"invigorated" and "in good heart." His deluded comment about Newman's
Second Spring suddenly having great "resonance for us today" would .be
hilarious if it weren't so utterly tragic. Far from embracing Blessed
Newman's faith and vision of the One True Church and the conversion of
England, the Archbishop has clearly spurned them. "We are a family.
This is not a recruitment drive," he splutters apologetically when
queried about Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Pope's soul-saving desire
to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic fold. This familial theme is also
proclaimed on the website of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
over which he presides. An official recipe for syncretic dissolution of
the local Church, it reads:

Like any
family, the Church has several branches. Each is different (Roman
Catholic, Methodist, Anglican to name but a few) but all share a common
source: Jesus Christ.

This is
Vincent's "Second Spring" - selling out to the heretical Anglican
"branch theory" of Christianity categorically rejected by the Church and
Newman! And that is what he meant by "the beginning of a fresh agenda
before us," which programme he conveniently discerned in the Holy Father's
meeting with "ap Aneurin," Lambeth's honorary Druid (aka Mr Rowan
Williams).

St. Robert
Bellarmine wrote that "It is granted to few to recognise the true
Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies." Fewer still
are destined to recognise Her amid the de-facto English schism being
widened and deepened by perfidious prelates wielding the devilish "branch
theory."

Stardust

So this is
where we are and what Pope Benedict left behind after his spectacular
four-day turn. The triumph was diplomatic and fleeting. But the tragedy
has worsened and deepened. In the end, the local Church is still in
meltdown. Ushaw College is closing down even as Archbishop Nichols basks
in the glow of post-visit plaudits and spouts pearls of reflective wisdom
on the lessons to be learnt, such as: "we need to be less cynical and less
corrosive in our attitudes."

What Olympian
hypocrisy from the mouth of one whose cynicism has ground the Faith and
communion with Rome to dust. Which is about all that's left for the
CINOs. Abandoned by hirelings [Jn 10:13] and stripped of their Catholic
birthright by "ravening wolves" [Jn 10:12; Matt. 7:15; Acts 20:29], papal
stardust is their last thread of attachment to Rome.

For four days the
bi-millennial magic of the papacy was sprinkled upon them, re-uniting them
with the ancient Catholic tribe and eliciting emotion, romance, passion
and pride. Though largely devoid of intellectual conviction, this response
was not without its value and rewards. If nothing else, it revealed a vast
reserve of goodwill waiting to be tapped, if only dynamic (and I ever
emphasise and repeat) Catholic leadership existed to realise its
potential. Benedict himself recognised "how deep is the thirst" for the
Good News among the cheering crowds.

But just as
Catholics In Name Only are not Catholics, papal stardust
is no substitute for the Christian hope they sorely need. This
can only be occasioned by decisive papal action to provide a
hierarchy willing and able to ensure that the Good News they receive is
rooted in the objective truth of Christ's Passion, Death and
Resurrection, and the loving obedience to His teaching Church and
His earthly Vicar a profession of faith in that truth demands.

As it stands, the
British CINOs - "sheep that have no shepherd" [Matt. 9:36]
- cannot make those logical connections: between faith, objective
truth, love and obedience. So they are without hope. And without hope how
are they to choose light over darkness? Especially the homosexuals?

In a trenchant
piece about the Soho Masses in the September 2010 FAITH magazine, former
Catholic Herald editor William Oddie wrote: "I predict that when
the history of the English Church in this dire period of its fortunes is
written, this subject will merit more than a passing footnote." Indeed
it will. It is a pivotal affair. Which is why we have closely documented
the scandal since its inception. It was inevitable that the infamous
Masses would feature heavily in media coverage of the papal visit,
exposure which has given their supporters great heart.

Currently, the
homosexuals feel so invincible that they taunt Catholics with public
boasts of their inexorable advance. Ex-Carmelite priest Martin Pendergast,
the architect of the Soho blasphemy, posted this little gloat in June
2008:

Following the
UK Civil Partnerships' legislation a number of couples have held
celebratory liturgies in Catholic churches. These have included Masses
of Thanksgiving and Services of Prayer and Blessing. These may well have
been private occasions, but there has often been some recognition within
the parish context of such events taking place.

When my partner
[Julian Filochowski, former director of CAFOD, the bishops' dissident
aid agency - Ed.] and I celebrated the 25th Anniversary of our
relationship in 2001 with a Mass of Thanksgiving, while the two Catholic
bishops who were due to preside were requested not to by the local
Ordinary, interestingly as a result of a breach of our privacy by The
Daily Telegraph newspaper, the priest who stepped in suffered no such
recriminations [See CO, Jan. 2005, pp. 16-19 - Ed.]. When we
celebrated our Civil Partnership in 2006 with a Liturgy of Midday Prayer
in our parish, again no penalties were enacted either against the
presiding priest, or the homilist, or our parish priest at the time.
Indeed on the Sunday after, our names were included in the list of
intercessions at Mass.

With the mark of
the priesthood still imprinted on his soul but the holy fear of God's
righteous judgement long discarded with his Carmelite habit, Mr Pendergast
needs our special prayers. Yes, the heinous fallout of his defiance of the
Natural Law and rage against God's holy Church and His Vicar on earth are
the cause of deep anguish and sorrow to us all, for our suffering Lord's
sake. But since the souls of our homosexual antagonists are always at
stake, charity demands that we seek only their good and their salvation,
even as we denounce their harmful actions. Left to wallow in his "gay"
deathstyle by a faithless, merciless hierarchy, our prayers are the last
best hope for Martin, his "partner" and all the intrinsically disordered
and disoriented homosexual CINOs. For they will never hear the saving
words of Catholic truth from the lips of episcopal hirelings. Neither the
sober warnings of St. Peter Damian, St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Pius
V, about the "execrable and nefarious crime" of the "vice against nature"
in which they indulge, nor comforting counsel like this from St Cyprian,
the third century martyr and Bishop of Carthage:

… And after
such sufferings, He even still receives his murderers if they are
converted and come to Him, and with a patience instrumental in saving
man, this kind Master closes his Church to no one. Those adversaries,
those blasphemers, those persistent enemies of His name, provided
they do penance for their offense, provided they acknowledge the crime
committed, He not only receives and pardons, but admits to the
reward of the kingdom of heaven. What can be called more patient, what
more kind? Even He who shed the blood of Christ is given life by the
blood of Christ. Such is the wonderful patience of Christ. And unless it
were so wonderful, the Church would not have Paul the great Apostle.

Truly, while we
live and breathe there is hope for all of us. Our forbearing God of
infinite patience waits to welcome repentant sinners of every magnitude:
even bishops who, like Paul of Tarsus, are currently persecuting Him in
His Mystical Body; even a sodomite who claims to be a Catholic while
denying what it is that makes him one.

Sadly, for all
our sakes, "repentance" and "penance" are missing from their List of
Things To Do because things are currently going all their way. The
hirelings and sodomites are cock-a-hoop. "I believe that UK progressive
Catholics generally, and gay Catholics in particular, have good reason to
feel their position has been strengthened by the [papal] visit, and
especially by some statements of Archbishop Vincent Nichols," crowed one
of their supporters, summing up the state of play.

Perhaps that is
why I wasn't singing God Bless Our Pope as Shepherd One, the Holy
Father's Alitalia jet, rose out of Birmingham airport and headed back
whence it came on a dull Sunday eve. Instead, as the Prime Minister waved
goodbye, I found myself mouthing the catchy refrain from the recent hit
Airplanes. It seemed a better fit: "Can we pretend that
airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?/ I could really use a
wish right now …."

The Vicar of
Christ came, saw and conquered, then departed in the night sky like a
shooting star: as if dispensing in his wake a farewell shower of holiness,
truth and goodness over the nation and the local Church. But he had no
sooner disappeared into the silver-grey clouds than the last particle of
papal stardust vanished with him, evaporating in the still air. And so the
cameras panned back to the departure lounge - to reality
- where Vincent Nichols and his entourage remained: smug and
schismatic … untouched and untouchable. Deflated, my little 'hymn' petered
out in a heavy sigh. Never mind a wish, I thought. Only a bona fide
miracle - nothing less - will save us from this
wrecking-crew! Oremus.

FOOTNOTES:

(1)http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007_docs/CameronHomosexualFootprint.pdf

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