Atheism, Marxism, Secularism - the Devil's highways.

  'Archangel Saints - Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, with Joshua'  (F. Botticini 1446-97)

I am not a fan of unsolicited e-mails, however I have recently received two from the 'change.org' website on which I was happy to act, and which I have also passed on to others. For those who are unaware, the 'change.org' website exists to allow ordinary citizens  to set-up petitions on the internet, usually on matters of public interest about which they have real concern, inviting like-minded people to sign the petition, which will eventually be passed on to the appropriate authority with a view to suitable action being taken.

Of my two messages, one related to a 'Petition' to be presented to Edward Timpson MP,  to outlaw the display of pornographic literature in places where it is visible/accessible to children and young people eg. newsagents, shopping stores, bus/railway stations, airports, etc.  The other on a similar theme, was to persuade the owners of the Sun newspaper to cease publishing photos of  women  in various stages of undress or none, in the daily editions of their newspaper.

I support both these Petitions and have duly signed, but more signatures are needed.  The links to the respective Petitions are shown below:-

http://www.change.org/petitions/edward-timpson-mp-make-it-illegal-to-display-porn-around-children?utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition   - petition addressed to Edward Timpson M.P.        

 just click here to share the petition on Facebook. -  petition to David Dinsmore,  Editor of Sun newspaper.

 Congratulations to the organisers of both these Petitions.  Fight the good fight - for evil to succeed it is only necessary that good men do nothing.  'Holy Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil'

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We have finished with the earthly Tzars, now we shall deal with the heavenly Tzars' - 'Bezbozhnik', January,1923.

(The Bezbozhnik, or 'Atheist', a weekly newspaper of a violently anti-religious character, is published at Moscow by the Bolsheviks)

I have recently been reading a most interesting book, ‘The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity’ by Captain Francis McCullagh, published by John Murray, London, 1924. McCullagh (born1874  N.Ireland, died 1956 New York) was a British Catholic journalist, who in the early days of the Revolution, had  been imprisoned by the Bolsheviks, but subsequently escaped. He was an experienced war correspondent and a fluent Russian speaker, and early in 1923  he was commissioned by Frank Munsey, editor of the ‘New York Herald’ to travel to Russia  to obtain first -hand information on the relationship between the Bolshevik government and the Christian Churches; and this book is the result.

                         McCullagh deals initially with the take-over and politicisation of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Bolshevik government. He then  follows this with a full account of  the State trial of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Achrida, John Cieplak; Monsignors Maletzky and Budkiewicz; Exarch Fedorov, head of the Uniat Church; eleven  priests and one Catholic layman, all charged with offences against the State, namely refusal to hand-over church valuables- which included the Eucharistic vessels,  from churches and religious houses, to agents of the State;  also teaching  the Catholic faith to children and young people, both in church and in their homes. The result of this obscene travesty of a  trial, which lasted a mere five days from March 21 to March 25 1923, was a finding of guilt for all the accused, with Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkiewicz sentenced to death, and varying terms of imprisonment for the remaining defendants, ranging from 10 years in solitary confinement, to 3 years; with the one lay defendant sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

                                     Monsignor Budkiewicz was executed (shot in the head) in a cellar, during the night of 30/31 March, the night of Good Friday/Holy Saturday.  As a result of international outrage and condemnation of the trial, the death sentence on Archbishop Cieplak was commuted to one of 10 years imprisonment in solitary confinement.

                          

Monsignor Budkiewicz

 The author completes his work with an analysis of all the Christian Churches in Russia at that time, concluding that with the destruction and virtual dissolution of the Russian Orthodox Church, which included the murder of 28 Bishops and 1200 priests, the Catholic Church alone possessed the spiritual strength  to withstand and survive prolonged  State persecution. The book is 400 pages long and contains a wealth of information, with a particularly full and detailed account of the Cieplak 'trial'. Reading the account of the trial,  I was particularly struck by the similarities in Bolshevik policies  regarding the relationship of  State and family, to those of our secular government in  the United Kingdom today. It seems incredible, but nevertheless logical, that Marxism would eventually synchronise with atheistic secularism, confirming McCullagh’s view that  Bolshevism and 'Big Business' are ‘natural’ allies.   

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 Extracts from ‘The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity’ by Francis McCullagh (1923)

 ‘The teaching of religious beliefs in State or private educational establishments and schools to children of tender age and to minors is punishable by forced labour for a period not exceeding one year’ – clause 121 of the new Criminal Code. (p53)

 “If the Soviet government orders me to act against my conscience, I do not obey. As for teaching the catechism, the Catholic Church lays it down that children must be taught their religion, no matter what the law says. Conscience is above the law. No law which is against the conscience can bind”  (Exarch  Federov, head of the Uniat Church in Russia, defendant in the trial of Archbishop Cieplak and others, replying to government prosecutor, the Procurator Krylenko, March 22, 1923)

 “The worst feature of the Bolshevik persecution of Christianity is not the imprisonment and murder of priest  and laymen, but the attack on family life.The new laws on marriage and on the education of children, which a Commission in the Department of Justice is now preparing, are deeply tainted by that most atrocious doctrine of radical Communism – namely, the doctrine that children belong absolutely to the State, and must be handed over to State institutions. ‘Children who have not reached maturity (eighteen years) are regarded as belonging to no religion whatsoever, and the assertion of the parents that the child belongs to any particular Church has absolutely no force.’

 “Moreover, apart from its frontal attack on the Church, the Soviet Government had trespassed on parental authority and on the home to an extent which no Christian prelate should have permitted without a public protest, which would have resounded throughout Europe and America. To show in detail how far such trespass extends would necessitate too long a digression; so that I shall only mention one point – namely the right which the Soviet Government claims, and exercises, of extorting from its citizens information on sexual matters, about which no Government has ever asked for information before.  I do not refer to the practice of debauched medical students and ‘lady’ doctors giving to school children of both sexes erotical lectures illustrated by films; though this practice, known as “the teaching of sex hygiene,” is in my opinion wrong. I refer to the questionnaires on sexual questions which   are sent out by the Commissariat of Public Health. One such questionnaire was sent in the Spring of 1923, to all women and adolescent girls in Moscow, and these were required by law to fill it up. Most of the questions related to self-abuse and to unnatural vices, with which the compilers of the questionnaire had apparently no quarrel”

 “Catholicism is detested by autocratic rulers, which included the Tsars and the Bolsheviks. Writing in 1819, of the hostility of Alexander I  to Rome, Joseph de Maistre says, “There is in the teaching of the Catholic Church, an hauteur, an assurance, an inflexibility which displease temporal rulers, who cannot believe that they are master, or sufficiently master, where there exists a power with which they cannot do as they please.   It never occurs to them that this pride and this independence are the natural and necessary characteristics of truth, so much so that where independence does not exist, truth does not exist ……….Truth is invincible, independent, and inflexible ………..It is said in the Gospels that the peoples who heard the preaching of the Saviour were astonished because He did not speak to them like their doctors, but as one having authority ………..The religion which has not this tone is human.”

 “If some of the great English profiteers who did so well out of the war (Great War) begin to do well out of Soviet Russia, some British politicians who had hitherto inveighed against Lenin and Trotsky may come to regard these gentlemen in a different light; and some British newspapers to which the Red Republic had been like a red rag to a bull may come to consider that Republic as a sensible and right-thinking bull regards good fodder.  Big Business and Bolshevism are natural allies, and they are likely to come together sooner or later, for the oppression of the poor, and of those priests whose place is with the poor, as their Divine Master’s was.”

 “In their rank materialism, in their genuine contempt for such tenets of Christianity as they cannot utilize for political or financial purposes, in their efforts to relieve parents of the care of their children and children of the care of their parents, to interfere in the home, to put asunder those whom God has joined, to exclude religion from the schools, to reduce the workers to a state of servitude, to impose such taxation that the difference between it and nationalization will soon be negligible, and, finally, to erect the State into a sort of divinity, some European governments outside of Russia are entering on the same path as that along which the Government of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (R.S.F.S.R) has already advanced so far”

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'I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love.'
(with ack. 'A Faith Seeking Understanding' blog-site)

                                                 Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

'Bee-eater' in Stronsay; and England, Our Lady's Dowry

Summer has at last arrived here in Orkney – but it would be distinctly unwise to predict the length of stay! After weeks of bitterly cold weather with prevailing wind from north, east, and north-east, we have enjoyed a beautiful week-end of warm sunshine and clear blue sky, with little or no wind.
Orkney is well known for the migratory birds that pass through here, en route to both warmer and colder breeding grounds, but occasionally we enjoy sightings of birds that have absolutely no reason to be here. Such was the case this week when we received a phone call from our neighbour, Ross, urging us to drop whatever we were doing and come round to his garden. My wife and I jumped into the car, and taking cameras just in case, arrived at Ross’s house, and there perched in one of the few trees,  was a ‘bee-eater’. Now I have never before seen this beautiful bird, and if I were to have seen it, I would expect it to have been in the south-west of England where we lived for many years.  To see it on Stronsay, one of the northern isles of Orkney, was as unexpected  as it was exciting. We watched the bird  for several minutes, during which time it obliged us by flying down to the ground, and reappearing seconds later with a bee in its beak! The bird stayed in the vicinity all day, and the following morning I saw it again on a fencepost in a nearby field. I managed to take a few rather ordinary photographs, but one taken by my wife showing the bird with a bee in its beak, is brilliant, and is shown below.

                                                'Bee-eater', Stronsay. May 24, 2013.

I think this sighting must rate with one of a blue-throat seen by me on Stronsay about five years ago, a photograph of which is shown in the heading of this web-site; also a hoopoe which visited a couple of years ago. There have been many other rare visitors over the past ten years, many of which I did not see but others did, Orkney really is a bird-watchers delight.
                                                       
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In spite of the recent vote in the House of Commons on the third reading of the ‘Same-sex marriage’ Bill, the battle against this proposed legislation still goes on.
The House of Lords has yet to approve this Bill and one hopes that good sense and common sense, combined with an awareness of the grave moral and societal implications inherent in changing not only the definition of marriage, but the whole ethos of marriage, will guide their Lordships to reject it out of hand.  This undemocratic and unwanted legislation, steamrollered through the House of Commons by a combination of political manoeuvring, emotional blackmail and self-delusion, backed up by varying degrees of self-interest, represents a distortion  of genuine democracy. The manner in which this particularly bizarre and un-natural concept of ‘same-sex marriage’ has been suddenly adopted by governments world-wide, unannounced, unexpected and for at least 95% of people totally unwanted, indicates a long-term  strategy by an immensely powerful but secret lobby with influence in high places, intent on destroying the traditional family unit, the basis of society as we know it, and replacing it with a society governed by ungodly laws and increasingly despotic government. The ramifications of this Bill if approved, will be widespread, with the potential to affect every aspect of life from the cradle to the grave. Freedom of action will be limited  and freedom of speech gagged, as those behind this legislation have been careful to ensure by means of previous so-called ‘Equal Rights’ legislation.

There have been a number of excellent posts on this subject by Laurence England which I strongly recommend    
 http://thatthebonesyouhavecrushedmaythrill.blogspot.co.uk/                                                  

Acknowledgement also to Laurence, for the ‘Prayer to Our Lady, for the Conversion of England’ with which he heads his web-site, and with which it seems appropriate to end this post:-

‘O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England, thy Dowry, and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee.  By thee it was that Jesus, our Saviour and our hope, was given unto the world; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more.  Plead for us, thy children, whom thou dost receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother.
Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son.  Pray for us, all dear Mother, that by faith, fruitful in good works, we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home.  Amen.’


                                          Our Lady of Walsingham                                                    

Four Paintings in the Old Castle

With thanks to Albino Luciani - the smiling Pope.

Four Paintings in the Old Castle

Dear unknown painter,
                ‘I have not been able to discover your name; but your four pictures, hung in that corner room of that old castle, illuminated by little Gothic windows, caught my fancy.  Their artistic quality seemed scant to me; but their moral significance was persuasive and made me stop and think.
The first painting represents childhood.  A sailboat has just left the harbour. In the middle of it a boy is sitting, looking idly at the play of the waves. He can sit there, he can be idle, because facing him, firmly at the tiller, there is an angel. Behind at the poop, there is a dark figure, true; but he is asleep and shows no signs of waking up.
The second painting represents adolescence. The boy in the first painting is now a young man; standing, he casts a curious gaze from the boat toward unknown distances, where he imagines there are endless beauties.  The tiller is still in the angel’s hand, but the waves have grown rougher, and the dark figure is no longer asleep: his grim eyes promise no good; they are yearning for the tiller, and they herald attacks.
The third painting represents maturity.  In the boat now, there is a man, struggling with all his strength against the hurricane raging in a kind of witches’ Sabbath; the sky is dark; the man is dark; the tiller is in the hands of the dark figure; the angel has been relegated to the background.
In the fourth painting, an old man is seated in the boat. The storm has calmed down, the harbour is in sight, the sun gilds the waves. The angel is steering, and the dark figure is firmly in chains.’

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‘I agree with you, dear painter, that our life is a voyage, with a point of departure and one of arrival: our twentieth, fiftieth, sixtieth years are only intermediary stations between these two extremes.
But there is this also: whereas we know our precise distance from the point of departure, our distance from our destination is completely unknown. How many years still?  We are acquainted with many fine people; they know all about design and mechanics, English and trigonometry; but nobody knows this little matter, this insignificant detail of the years that remain to us. The spirit feels a shudder run through it and makes a declaration: “The years may be very few, it may be only a matter of months or of days. Lord I will not waste a minute!”
      There is an even more worrying problem. Two harbours exist: Heaven and Hell.  Only the first is desirable, the greatest of good fortunes. Will we arrive there? Here is the problem.  All others, compared to this, are nothing. “I was rich, I was famous, I had a splendid career. All this is nothing but disaster if I do not arrive there. I mean at that first, blessed harbour!”’

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‘I agree with you that to be good one must struggle, especially in certain, more difficult moments. It is true that two opposing forces fight for the tiller, that is to say for the guidance of our life.  It is true that holiness is the fruit of conquest and of victories won day by day at sword’s point.
      It is all true.  Paul VI wrote: “We are not in conflict with weak and fragile human beings, but against …….. the cosmic dominators of this murky world, against the spirits of evil roaming through space.”  The Pope, just recently, reminded us of this truth.’
                                                            
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‘I agree with you that a tactic must be used: the tactic of human passions. Dante describes it when, at the beginning of his journey, he finds the way barred by three wild beasts: the leopard, the lion, and the she-wolf.
The leopard, which, swift and light, shows no quarter, is sensuality: it takes advantage of everything to extinguish in us the tastes and joys of the spirit and to kindle desires that are not good. We sense it everywhere, at our heels, and it would be capable of discouraging and humiliating us, if we did not have the help and the protection of God on our side.
The lion, “its head high”, represents pride, which aims, in fact, at heads, seen going off high and erect, while, below, the body swaggers, the belly, as one walks, is thrust forward. But there is no reason to be so proud.
In the time of Giuseppe Giusti there was the president of a court; he preened himself when he presided; he wore a top hat and set it on a chair during sessions. But one day somebody sat on it by mistake and the poet fired his shaft:
                                      "They have broken a president’s top hat;
                                        Luckily, inside it, there was nothing!"
Oh, certain characters march along, top hats on their heads, even in front of God, people who know everything, non-conformists, self-sufficient folk, protesters! But what then?  Underneath?  What does all their knowledge amount to?
The wolf, lean and filled with desires, could be worldliness, which devours us with endless engagements: visits, examinations, competitions, business affairs, sports events, performances.  We allow ourselves to be engulfed by these things as if by an abyss.

And God?  And our soul?  They become two minor, secondary matters, which we glimpse now and then like distant dots, to which we grant a few instants, rarely and rapidly, with a sudden and absurd reversal of values.
                                                              
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‘I agree with you that the forces of good unleash the counter-offensive with a tactic opposed to that of the wild beast. Fortunately!
For sensuality the tactic of 'the void' is valid. Yes there are moments when God creates the void in us. We realise that certain things are unworthy of us, insufficient, they do not sate us.
This year, 1973, is the centenary of the birth of Trilussa. He once wrote:                                                    
                                                    
There is a bee which lights                                                    
On a rosebud:It sucks it and flies away …….
All in all, happiness
Is a small thing.

Very often, besides, it is not a question of happiness, but only of fleeting pleasure. Often of unhappiness. One feels a kind of toothache, as a voice shouts: “Go to the dentist!”

Saint Augustine, referring to the time when he was seventeen, leading a debauched life, confesses “rodebar, crucibar” --- I was gnawed, I was tortured in those years; that was not life, Lord! “Talis vita, nunquid vita erat?”

Saint Camillus warned himself and others in this way: “Doing evil one feels pleasure, but the pleasure passes quickly and the evil remains; doing good costs an effort, but the effort passes quickly and the good remains!”

For pride one wants the Gospel, which is very clear on this point: “Put yourself in the last place”; the Lord lived among His Apostles as “one who serves”; and taught: “You ought to wash one another’s feet ….. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”’
                                                     
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‘Friend painter, you have managed, with your paintings, to strike some response in my spirit. It was a pleasure for me.
Too bad that now a sorrow begins. “What?”- you will ask.
I will tell you in confidence: it is a suspicion that I may have irked my readers. Some will have found me romantic, ingenuous, and out of date, thinking about castles; others will have broken off their reading as soon as they caught a whiff of “moralism”.
One of the many risks of my job.’
April 1973
(Ack.  ‘Illustrissimi’ by Albino Luciano – ‘Letters from Pope John Paul I’)

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On August 26, 1978, Albino Luciano was elected the 263rd Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, in one of the shortest conclaves in Church history. He was 65 years years old, and adopted the name of John Paul I. Thirty-three days later, he died unexpectedly in his sleep. He will always be remembered as the smiling and unpretentious  Pope, who radiated a Christ-like spirit of joy. From 1969 to 1978 he was Patriarch of Venice, during which time he wrote a series of articles and letters addressed to famous personages, living and dead, factual and  fictional, all of which encompassed the spiritual frailty of mankind,  but  always  compassionate  and pastoral in content, and always expounding Christ’s love for those seeking Him. These letters and articles were published over a period of time in the Italian Press and  subsequently reproduced in book form after the Pope’s death, under the title of ‘Illustrissimi’.

A Good Shepherd's Pastoral Letter

With acknowledgement to 'Abyssus Abysum Invocat/ Deep Calls to Deep'    - http://abyssum.wordpress.com/     -    March 14, 2013

                                                                 POPE FRANCIS

 

'We can gain some insight into the humility and spirituality of Pope Francis from the letter below that he published at the beginning of this Lent 2013 for his faithful people in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His writing style is more simple and direct than the, at times,  lofty intellectual reflections of Papa Emeritus. This is not to detract from the immensely valuable writings and speech of  Benedict, it is  simply to point out a difference between the teaching style of the two men.'

Cardinal Bergoglio’s Diocesan Lenten Letter, 2013

'And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. (Joel 2:13)'

'Little by little we become accustomed to hearing and seeing, through the mass media, the dark chronicle of contemporary society, presented with an almost perverse elation, and also we become desensitized to touching it and feeling it all around us even in our own flesh. Drama plays out on the streets, in our neighborhoods, in our homes and — why not? — even in our own hearts. We live alongside a violence that kills, that destroys families, that enlivens wars and conflicts in so many countries of the world. We live with envy, hatred, slander, the mundane in our heart.

The suffering of the innocent and peaceable buffets us non-stop; the contempt for the rights of the most fragile of people and nations is not so distant from us; the tyrannical rule of money with its demonic  effects, such as drugs, corruption, trafficking in people — even children — along with misery, both material and moral, are the coin of the realm today. The destruction of dignified work, painful emigrations and the lack of a future also join in this tragic symphony.

Our errors and sins as Church are not beyond this analysis. Rationalizing selfishness, does not diminish it, lack of ethical values within a society metastisizes in our families, in the environment of our neighborhoods, towns and cities,  testifies to our limitations, to our weaknesses and to our incapacity to transform this innumerable list of destructive realities.

The trap of powerlessness makes us wonder: Does it make sense to try to change all this? Can we do anything against this? Is it worthwhile to try, if the world continues its carnival merriment, disguising all for a little while? But, when the mask falls, the truth appears and, although to many it may sound anachronistic to say so, once again sin becomes apparent, sin that wounds our very flesh with all its destructive force, twisting the destinies of the world and of the history.

Lent is presented to us as a shout of truth and certain hope, that comes to us to say, “Yes, it is possible to not slap on make-up, and not draw plastic smiles as if nothing happened.” Yes, it is possible that all is made new and different because God remains “rich in kindness and mercy, always willing to forgive”, and He encourages us to begin anew time and again. Today, again, we are invited to undertake a Paschal road toward Life, a path that includes the cross and resignation; a path that will be uncomfortable but not fruitless. We are invited to admit that something inside us is not going well, to change, to turn around, to be converted.

Today, the words of the prophet Joel are strong and challenging: Rend your heart, not your clothing: be converted to the Lord, your God. These words are an invitation to all people, nobody is excluded.

Rend your heart, not the clothing of artificial penance without any eternal future.
Rend your heart, not the clothing of technical fasting of compliance that only serves to keep us satisfied.
Rend your heart, not the clothing of egotistical and superficial prayer that does not reach the inmost part of our life to allow it to be touched by God.

Rend your heart, that we may say with the Psalmist: “We have sinned.”

“The wound of the soul is sin: Oh, poor wounded one, recognize your Doctor! Show him the wounds of your faults. And, since from Him our most secret thoughts cannot hide themselves, make the cry of your heart felt. Move Him to compassion with your tears, with your insistence, beg him! Let Him hear your sighs, that your pain reaches Him so that, at the end, He can tell you: The Lord has forgiven your sins.” (St. Gregory the Great)

This is the reality of our human condition. This is the truth that approaches authentic reconciliation between God and men. This is not a matter of discrediting self-worth but of penetrating, to its fullest depth, our heart and to take charge of the mystery of suffering and pain that has tied us down for centuries, for thousands of years, for ever.

Rend your hearts so that through this opening we can truly see.

Rend your hearts, open your hearts, because only with such a heart can we allow the entry of the merciful love of the Father, who loves us and heals us.

Rend your hearts the prophet says, and Paul asks us – almost on his knees – "be reconciled with God.” Changing our way of living is both a sign and fruit of a torn heart, reconciled by a love that overwhelms us.

This is God's invitation, juxtaposed against so many injuries that wound us and can tempt us to be hardened: Rend your hearts to experience in serene and silent prayer, the gentle tenderness of God.

Rend your hearts to hear the echo of so many torn lives, that indifference does not paralyze us.

Rend your hearts to be able to love with the love with which we are beloved, to console with the consolation with which we are consoled and to share what we have received.

The liturgical time the Church starts today is not only for us, but also for the transformation of our family, of our community, of our Church, of our Country, of the whole world. They are forty days so that we may convert to the same holiness as God’s; that we become collaborators who receive the grace and the potential to reconstruct human life so that everyone may experience the salvation which Christ won for us by His death and resurrection.

Next to prayer and penitence, as a sign of our faith in the force of an all-transforming Easter, we also begin, as in previous years a “Lenten Gesture of Solidarity.” As Church in Buenos Aires, marching towards Easter and believing the Kingdom of God is possible we need that, in our hearts torn by the desire of conversion and by love, grace may blossom. We need effective gestures to alleviate the pain of so many of our brothers who walk alongside. “No act of virtue can be large if it does not also benefit another… Therefore, no matter how you spend the day fasting, no matter how you may sleep on a hard floor, and how you may eat ashes and sigh continuously, if you do not do good to others, you do not accomplish anything great.” (St. John Chrysostom)

This Year of Faith we are traversing is also an opportunity God gives us to grow and to mature in an encounter with the Lord made visible in the suffering face of so many children without a future, in the trembling hands of the elders who have been forgotten and in the trembling knees of so many families who continue to face life without finding anyone who will assist them.

I wish you a holy Lent, a penitential and fruitful Lent and, please, I ask you all that you pray for me.

May Jesus bless you and may the Blessed Virgin care for you.

Paternally,

Card. Jorge Mario Bergoglio S.J.

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May God bless and Our Lady guide and protect our Holy Father, Pope Francis.  Amen.

'The Extraordinary Cabman' by G.K.Chesterton

   

           It is well said that if enough mud is thrown at a wall some of it will stick, and in the same way if a falsehood is regularly and convincingly preached, it will eventually be accepted as the truth.  So-called ‘same-sex marriage’ is a concept which has been promoted world-wide on the basis of 'equality', presenting as fact that a man has as much right to marry a man, as a man has to marry a woman. From time immemorial marriage has been defined and understood as uniquely between man and woman, based on God's law and the Natural law, for only by the union of male and female can new life be created. To suggest that homosexual  'union' is equal to heterosexual marriage, is palpably not true, yet this is what we are told to accept.  'Equality' has become the bible of today's politicians, but it is impossible to square the circle, and this is what is being attempted by equating 'heterosexual marriage'  with 'homosexual union'.   Support for 'same sex marriage' has emotional rather than intellectual appeal, and is backed by the influential and powerful homosexual lobby. It has been suggested by some that the homosexual agenda is being used  to undermine and ultimately destroy the whole structure of our Judaeo-Christian civilisation, for by abolishing marriage between a man and woman, it is weakening the traditional family structure and by default, making the State ever more powerful. In the same way by limiting religious freedom and indeed free speech, the State exercises more and more control over ordinary people, until ultimately we have a secular, anti-religious totalitarian state. 

          Already we have the primary and natural  authority of parents  being eroded in schools in the matter of sex-education and sexual health , for the government intends the homosexual agenda to be taught  whether parents or teachers agree or not, and we have a situation where young girls can be  proscribed  contraceptives and even  referred for an abortion without the parents knowledge!
                                                                          
          Regarding the recent vote on 'same-sex marriage', a combination of government backing, political opportunism,  peer pressure,  collective media bias, and a generally secular, anti-faith ethos in society and Parliament, ensured that the Bill successfully passed its second reading.

           Full marks to those parliamentarians who showed moral courage, intellectual honesty, and above all common sense, in declining to share the poisoned chalice inherent in this legislation.  

There is a long way to go before this Bill becomes law, if indeed it does eventually make it to the finishing line, and for those opposed to it, there is still much to play for.           

        I was able to watch 'on-line' some of the debate, and was struck by the shallowness of the arguments put forward by many of the Bill's supporters.  'Equal rights' was the main, often the only basis for their support,  addressing solely  the 'right' of homosexuals and lesbians to 'marry' another of the same sex. Little or  no reference was made to the implications for children, families,  teachers,  health and social workers, and other people and occupations, nor to the real effect on religious institutions and the individual conscience.  No reference to the  inevitable resultant  legal problems nor to the the huge financial cost of implementing these laws, nor to the genuinely divisive effect of this  legislation.
        I can remember a popular song of many years ago -  ‘all we need is love, baby’ or words to that effect, and this expressed so well  the shallow over-riding sentiment of  many supporting  the Bill.  I found myself becoming increasingly angry, frustrated, and cynical  - did these supporters  really believe in what they were saying, or was it a  matter of political correctness or  perhaps political opportunism?
         
         Coincidentally, a day or two later, I picked up one of my favourite books from which I hoped to gain inspiration, and I was not disappointed. By an extraordinary coincidence I happened on a short story by G.K.Chesterton which could have been especially written to explain the unedifying and irrational support of the majority of our M.P.s, for the above mentioned 'same-sex marriage' Bill. Of course this story was actually written over one hundred years ago, an age when anybody preaching 'same-sex marriage' would probably have been immediately locked up in a mental institution! But it does emphasise the danger of  self-deception in the face of constant  and repetitious presentation of fallacies presented as truth, which might explain why the 'same-sex marriage' Bill  is 'proudly' 'misrepresented' by its proponents as a victory for 'equal rights'.
         Which, of course, is where we started!      

         Read for yourself and see what you think - I wish GKC was around today, he would be in his element demolishing this whole preposterous concept of  'same-sex marriage'!
       

                    'THE EXTRAORDINARY CABMAN'
         
         From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I mean only that I have found that my  meaning was better expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair.

          On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the  most ultimate and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really no experience of greenness.
            So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is really the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fronds of a palm tree, opening for opening’s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
                                                                           
           Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a Member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the  corner of Leicester-square to the members’ entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between us which still continues.
          
          It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the  utmost exactitude of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine.
 “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you’ve only given me 1s. 8d?”
 I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it.
“Now you know, sir,” said he, in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know that ain’t the fare from Euston.”
 “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on earth has Euston got to do with it?”
 “You hailed me just outside Euston Station,” began the man with astonishing precision, “and then you said —”
 “What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said with Christian forebearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of  Leicester-square.”
“Leicester-square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, “why we ain’t been near Leicester-square today. You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said —”
 “Are you mad, or am I?” I asked with scientific calm.

          I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog’s, if ever (in short) a human face was all that a  human face should be, it was the face of that resentful and respectful cabman.
 I looked up and down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve.
          What was certaintly? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! To think of the dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life.  The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess a past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a picture?
          The darkness grew deeper from the road. The  cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion, he was equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung just a hair’s breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free will, the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic; I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner of Leicester-square.

          He began with the same evident and ponderous sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston Station and you said —”
And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up by a lamp from inside.
 “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember now. I beg your pardon.”
 And with that, this astonishing man let out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of which interview, before the banner of St George I swear, is strictly true.
                                                                              
            I looked a the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect.

                                From 'Tremendous Trifles' by G.K.Chesterton
                              Published by Sheed and Ward, New York, 1955.

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At this momentous time, we pray especially for our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. We also pray that God, the Holy Ghost, will guide the consistory of Cardinals in their choice for a new Pope. Amen.