We are in the world but not of the world, we should remember that. Whilst it is sad that this country is becoming secular, we can’t force the world to obey Catholic teaching. The secular idea of marriage is that it is merely a legal arrangement to be forged and dissolved at a whim as and when the Hollywoodised version of love waxes and wanes.

How sad, and we see the disastrous consequences of such an empty idea of marriage in our society, disjointed families, children raised in emotionally damaging situations, single parents struggling to cope. Thus we have a broken Britain that nobody will dare fix because it will mean valuing the family and what holds it together, marriage.

Most people are understandably jaded about the hollow idea of marriage espoused by modern society, but they are without faith so they cannot embrace the Catholic ideal either.  I’ve met people who don’t believe in God, yet who are totally committed to their partner and have children, yet still won’t marry…

A bit of a bizarre analogy I’ve thought of is this.  There is a kung-fu game called Jade Empire, the protagonist is taught by a master, who turns out to be evil, when the protagonist confronts his master he is easily defeated because throughout all his lessons his master gave him a fatal flaw in his fighting style.   The modern world has this fatal flaw. They have been dealt a cruel blow and they will never know what has hit them, the fatal flaw is modernism.

Whilst the rate at which the number of Church going Catholics contracts has slowed (probably more due to the wonders of modern medicine and immigration than anything else) unless we embark on a course of more vigorous evangelism the Catholic Church in England and Wales will continue to have an ever aging demographic. We need to address what is holding us back from effective evangelisation.

I’d say what is holding us back is the schmaltzification of  the Catholic faith. Frequently a woolly, gooey version of Catholicism is given to children and  converts, this gooey version, whilst not necessarily totally modernist in and of itself, is weak when it comes into conflict with modernism, i.e. every day. Our kung-fu is weak and we need to spice it up if we are going to swim against the current of modernism which is sucking all meaning and objective moral truth from our society.

How can we combat modernism more effectively? We need to know our faith, not just as it is now, but its history, its theological development of thought, we need to look back to times when our faith was more robustly clarified in order to go forward because today theological truths are often espoused in terms of feelings and opinions, schmaltzy platitudes that pull the rug from under our feet rather than objective truths that can be relied upon when times get tough.

I had a conversation with my mum (who is an evangelical Anglican) who was singing the praises of an ecumenical talk she went to about the history of the Church… it greatly amused me, I have no idea how you can know anything about the history of Christianity and not become Catholic, perhaps especially in this country where the reformation was ruthlessly imposed from above by the government. If you want to go back to a more authentic Christianity you have to turn to Catholicism.

Another gripe I have at the moment  is all the gender inclusive language we get during mass, last Sunday the responsorial psalm was completely mangled in an attempt to exorcise all mention of masculinity from it.  It had long since ceased to be a translation and become an exercise in political correctness. When we no longer deal in truth but ideology we are diminished.  The psalm sounded completely ridiculous, like it was attempting hopscotch standing on its head in order to avoid mentioning men. Messing around with scripture to reflect the social mores of today (or the 1970′s as the case might be) puts us in dicey theological territory if you ask me, never mind its aesthetic poverty.

To end on a positive note the new translation of the Mass with its increased fidelity to the Latin offers hope that things can and will improve, maybe one day the hierarchy in this country will realise that fidelity to the gospel message will mean offending the focus groups responsible for the schmaltzy version of the faith that has been doled out with disastrous effect for the past 30 years or so. Meanwhile keep your kung-fu strong, dig around for robust Catholic teaching and grab every opportunity to share it with fellow Catholics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/jennymccartney/9075822/The-double-standards-of-teenage-sex.htm

That’s a pretty interesting read really.  So yes it would be illegal, and wrong for an underage couple to have sex.  It would be a sin too since they aren’t married.  But since most people who fall into the trap of underage sex (which has been so perfectly set for them by the modern media) have received little to none in the way of correct moral formation are they necessarily culpable? the answer is no.

I think I’ve made the point before that one thing we have to do is not throw the baby out with the bathwater, in this case in quite a literal sense.  I might be really tempting controversy when I say that isn’t it quite strange that the picture of mother and child at the top of that blog is actually disquietingly beautiful.  I’m pretty sure that girl isn’t the baby’s mother but that doesn’t matter, because the alternative to that metaphor is abortion.

I was in Tesco desperately trying (and failing) not to spend money the other day and I saw what I’m sure was a teenage mother, with a child that was at least four years old. And you know what, the sky did not fall, the earth didn’t split apart with lava spewing forth, dragons didn’t appear from a parallel dimension to turn humanity into charcoal briquettes.  In fact, the girl, who probably did drop out of school, probably does live off benefits and the generosity of her parents (like me I suppose on those latter two counts) looked pretty serene, and the kid looked pretty happy.

Life is beautiful, we are forgetting that in the UK, we are probably one of the most depressed nations on earth at the moment.  We need to realise that life has such incredible value and that a baby’s gurgles and giggles are such a better outcome than the highroad to abortion that seems to be part of most policy in regard to teenage pregnancy.

This is where the Catholic Church will always trump other religions, because it meets people in whatever situation they are in, and it doesn’t condemn sinners only calls us to repentance. Even those espousing the cake or death gospel of niceness that is Anglicanism can also be the Church of propriety. Yes the scandalous truth is that a young girl who keeps her baby no matter the cost needs to be praised! It reminds me of another young girl who conceived out of wedlock and gave birth in a cattle shed. I wish there was a way to say that to the girl in Tesco without seeming like a mental case.

So then its been a very strange week in the news at least.
Argentina is as ever ramping up its sabre rattling.
There has been a death threat against the Pope attributed, most likely malisciously, to a Cardinal whilst he was in China… mental.  Smells like devious commie misinformation to me.
There is also a rumour that Kim Jong-Un has been assassinated…

The UN security council has shown how totally morally bankrupt the Russian and Chinese governments are, oh but we already knew that didn’t we.

The winning touchdown of the Super bowl was scored unintentionally…

The Eurozone is as ever circling the plughole.

Jeremy Clarkson somehow keeps getting into the papers for saying something ever so slightly un-PC.  For which he should get a medal, along with Prince Philip. Don’t people who rant about anything said by Clarkson, Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr know that they just make them more popular?

American politics has been interesting to watch.  The Republican nominees are looking increasingly lame (oh why Herman Cain why???).  Barack Obama has decided he doesn’t need Catholic votes, but his assault on religious freedom might not go down too well with Bible belt America either…  yet I still have the horrible feeling he’ll get re-elected to the detriment of the US and the world mainly because the Republicans are too busy savaging each other.

UK politics are looking even worse. Chris Huhne resigned, because he’s probably a criminal (how many of these Lib dems can resign for breaking the law???)  only to be replaced by another global warming wind farm endorsing lunatic. Nick Clegg looks more Spanish by the minute, Cameron looks less principled and more like a clueless Etonian by the second.

Also since I have become unemployed I have to give up my right wing priviledges and become a Marxist (only without the anti-religion bent) so that makes commenting on UK politics far less fun and I have to start saying things like, benefits are too low. People should be paid to lounge about because there are no jobs and if the people who do lounge about don’t spend money then the people with jobs will soon be people without jobs too. It doesn’t make sense but I’m standing by it!!! (until the second I get a job and all these pathetic layabouts can get their hands off my taxes!)

Actually one thing that has annoyed me is that for some unknown reason you lose 3 days at the start of any benefits claim, nobody could tell me why, its like the 3 days disappear down a black hole for some reason.  So I was expecting my JSA to be backdated to the day I opened it, alas not. It seems every time I think I’m poor something comes along and makes me poorer.

So then, on religion, a little bird told me that the bishop of Middlesbrough will be presiding at the York pilgrimage in honour of St Margret Clitherow. This is big news really. Finally an English successor of the apostles is engaging with the latin mass movement in the UK. Bishop Terence Drainy will have to get used to people kissing his apostolic ring and kneeling to receive communion! And perhaps certain odd bods within the Latin Mass movement will have to get used to having a English Bishop in their midst.   Very interesting times, put this in your diaries everyone.

Right, since I’m sure nobody is reading this blog, I’ll be happy to continue this stream of consciousness style and end this post just as clumsily as I started it. Adieu!

The only problem is now I have to start applying for other soul crushing spirit sapping jobs to appease the goon squad at the jobcentre plus (and if anyone can tell me why the e goes after the r in centre… well don’t because it annoys this dyslexic immensely, its undoubtedly the fault of those dastards the French)

I’m applying for a job exactly like the one I had before, the only problem being it is exactly like the one I had before.  But hey the pay is better, and I can’t imagine the possibility that the working enviroment could be worse, its a 30 second walk from my flat and is 9 to 5.  So basically I’ll get a full 45 minutes extra in bed!  its also only covering a maternity leave so after the time is up I can actually go and do what I’ve been pussyfooting around doing for some time and move down south.

As of today I have also (extremely tentatively) given up alcohol, I’m writing it here in an effort to keep that a secret mainly because there is nothing worse than people nagging you about it to make you drink a lake of whiskey. (ergo if anyone actually reads this please don’t mention it to me at all)

My reasoning, that as a drinker, its important to make sure you get more from booze than it gets of you, and lately, having overdone it seriously about 3 times since new year, I haven’t been enjoying it so much. Probably because my brain is getting a telegram from my liver saying its under concerted attack and will surrender shortly unless it rapidly receives reinforcements. So then, I don’t know whether this is for a week, or a month, or till after Easter (it’d be good to give it up for lent) or well, one day at a time.

Other news? well, I’ve stopped taking the happy pills because they weren’t working, not sure whether to go back to the doctor and get a different lot to try… I’ve also been going to CBT therapy. The latter, I’m only going to because it seems its the only type of therapy you can get on the NHS without being sectioned.   I’ve come to the conclusion that CBT might actually be a little bit psychotic.

My thinking on that is that basically CBT is an attempt to get the patient to do the things they did that made them happy when they weren’t depressed in order to cease to be depressed.   But there are plenty of problems with that approach mainly that there are psychological reasons why these activities have ceased.   Its like playing forcibly cheerful music to an emo, it’ll push them over the edge.

It will never deal with the root cause of the depression either, it is about managing the circumstantial and superficial things.  Now whilst those are the things that can actually be tackled, sometimes it is like putting sticking a plaster on a broken arm, there is stuff going on a bit deeper that needs to be dealt with otherwise you really are forever treating the symptoms rather than the disease.

So yes, I think I might endeavor to get some psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) psychotherapy (lol) hopefully on the NHS but perhaps go private (thank s to leeching off my parents).

I’ve also just finished watching all 8 series of Red Dwarf, pretty consistently funny too although I’m basically Lister… and I’ve just finished reading The Three Musketeers on the kindle I got for Christmas (which is a thing of beauty)   I’m basically going through all the books you can get on it for free (or virtually free) trying to get round to some of the books I really should have read but haven’t.

The Three Musketeers was quite a good ripping yarn, but the climax is really quite shocking really, I’m not sure whether its misogynistic with the baddie being a woman and all the goodies being men… there is plenty of womanising which doesn’t get criticised but a woman seducing men for her evil schemes must clearly be the height of evil… hmmmm but it is still a good book, written in a time when books were supposed to be entertaining, not an exercise in flagellation (yes I’m looking at you Dickins!)

Maybe I should say something about Catholicism lol.  My priest seems to think that if I give money to the Church I’ll become rich… which basically is prosperity gospel… which is HERESY.   Jesus didn’t fall for that, in the parable of the Widow’s mite he didn’t say that she would suddenly be showered with gifts by the world and his wife.  Her gift was the biggest because of the complete poverty that she lived in.

Where has the Christian understanding of suffering, or indeed of poverty gone to these days?  Its fine to talk about financial austerity bringing people back to God (not that I think it is or does) but if you have no understanding of suffering especially money related suffering you are just as mad as the world which says that materialism will make you happy.

The fact is money doesn’t magically appear in my bank account, any zealous generosity I make I will in turn have to leech off my parents when the Rent and Bill demons come a’ knocking. So if my priest would lay off it would be grand.

In other parish priest related news him and the vocations director for my diocese also seem to think I should become a seminarian. HA LOL if they had any idea of the turmoil my life is in, the monumental unsuitability of me to the priesthood then hopefully they’d lay off but I wouldn’t tell them half of what I blab on about here never mind the things I don’t even talk about here.

Well I should sign off, I appologise for the stream of consciousness style of this post, but its just good to be back blogging again. Now its 2:50am! I now have to find something else productive to do with the hours insomnia dictates I keep my eyes open.

Though I recently found out I’d been far more charitable than I’d have liked… a standing order I’d set up to a charity way back in the day when I had money, just went out of my account, now I’m wondering whether I’ll be able to afford Christmas presents this year. Oh well I should probably see it as a good deed done and try and forget it.  The etiquette of ringing a charity and asking for your money back is far too tricky to navigate.

Anyway yes. Isn’t the world in a funny state. Cameron has staved off being chained to the rotting corpse that is the Eurozone for a little while. Though I reckon the unelected apparatchiks will find a way to punish us for being right all along. Merkozy is acting just like a little girl yelling at her brother because she lost his ball, to quote the white stripes.  Anyway it makes for good pantomime watching them yelling at us for not joining them in a burning building…

As for Religion, well all seems fairly quiet on that front. Vincent Nichols gave a dull speech a while back, that was so insipid I can’t even lambast it.  What he should be saying is that secularists should be lined up and shot for trying to spoil everyone’s fun.  Having a bleak Godless worldview is one thing but trying to force it on the rest of us is a crime. I got a calander at work from one of my company’s Polish logistics suppliers, did the world explode when it had all the Saints days and holy days of obligation highlighted in red on it? no it did not and it was wonderful. It is possible, we can have a better world, perhaps we should start campaigning to keep atheists out of the public square and see how they like it.

Talking about people spoiling our fun MP’s trying to act morally superior to Jeremy Clarkson to score a very cheap political point by deliberately failing to understand irony is just pathetic.  They should be warned because Jeremy Clarkson is far more popular than they are, what is more everyone working in the private sector completely agrees with Clarkson.   Pension? what pension do I have? will I ever have? I’ll be working till I’m 103! Get a grip people!   I get the feeling that the strike was never about pensions, but to show the government the price will be far too high if and when it tries to make some real cuts (ie start laying people off).

Other spoil sports include people who want to make booze more expensive… sorry but cheap booze is one of the few good things left in this country, we need it to numb the pain of our bone crushingly depressing jobs. (yes I’m still employed till the 19th of January.)   I’m reduced to ASDA’s own premium cider at the moment (which really isn’t that bad) its incredibly cheap, and if having a glass or two after work is a crime then you’d have to lock up 90% of the country.  I’ve got news for you fun spoilers, Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Kieth Richards are all still alive… and they’ve had a lot more than me, they probably won’t fare too badly in retirement either, damn them!

Everyone in Britain knows we are stuck in the mud politically.  Our government is a third way Tony Blair tribute band further ideologically crippled by a coalition status whereby the least popular political party gets to bring its most key policies (ie the things that probably make the least amount of sense) into reality with absolutely no electoral mandate.

I’ve got a confession to make, I truly and deeply despise the Lib dems. I might have said this before, but its always worth saying again. They seem to embody every compromised ideological and moral value and try to present it as virtue. They are so deeply in bed with the culture of death and despair and I’m not just talking about their love of killing the vulnerable and voiceless (aka abortion/assisted suicide).

The Lib dems also have a rabid love of the elitist bureaucratic machine that is the EU (or the fourth Reich as I like to call it) and this seems to suggest that they believe nations can’t be trusted to act as responsible members of the  global community unless they are shackled together with unwieldy one size fits none legislation and the crippling effects of the Eurozone.

And conversely when nations that really shouldn’t be trusted with global finances inevitably fall down the economic hole they’ve dug for themselves, because they are shackalled to the rest of continental Europe by the Euro hobble, they are inevitably dragging the rest along in with them. Never trust Greeks bearing gifts, or ridiculously profligate spending policies as the case might be. But did you know that a lot of countries that joined the EU relatively recently wern’t given a choice about the Euro when they entered? they had to give up their currency even when it was massively against their intrests to do so. How anti democratic is that? Anyway where was I? Ahh yes, I’m sure the Lib Dems would take the Great out of Britain given the chance, oh wait, they already are.

The lib dems are also massively in bed with the AGW rentseeking lobby (for more info see James Delingpole) Its not often you can say that a government minister’s biggest failing isn’t that he’s a criminal but that his energy policy is singlehandedly holding back the country from economic growth.

If I hadn’t given my electricity provider a severe brow beating at the moment I would officially be  living in fuel poverty and for the moment I’m in full time employment. As it is I’m just above it, but still electricity prices are going to continue to soar until something constructive is done about it and if I had an extra £30 spending money a week I’d probably waste it on things that keep people in this country in jobs.

All this economic gloom makes me feel like Frodo when he says, “glad to be with you Samwise Gangee here at the end of all things” except we are not at the end of all things, we are merely at the end of all positive European thought about the human condition. We have lost faith in our ability to work constructively for a brighter future.

Why have we let politicians take this away from us? why do we let our govenment manage our decline rather than encourage our freedom?

What this country needs is freedom, freedom from socialism that takes our money in taxes so we have nothing left to give to charity, nothing left to spend on looking after our own families or raise children the way we’d see best, sometimes we are not even left with ability to look after ourselves. We have to rely upon the state to do these things (albeit incredibly inefficiently) and they took our money in the first place!

But this debate is not being had in this country… instead we have David Cameron, another hopeless Etonian paving the broad road to perdition.

Its been sad to see my favourite candidate for US president getting bogged down by mud raking.  He’s the only truly interesting candidate, with enough appeal to reach the tea-party, the bible belt and the mainstream GOP and an  honest to God Christian with charisma! Oh and to be a little bit more risque, he’s more black than Obama so maybe people who vote purely on skin colour will actually have to think about the issues!

Anyway, this mud raking isn’t really about the Republican primary whether it was leaked by a Republican candidate or not, it wouldn’t be pursued by the liberal media in America so ruthlessly and with such little regard for objective ethical reporting it it were. Its about making all the Republican candidates damaged goods when it comes to facing Obama, who shouldn’t be written off, especially if the Republican’s offer up a non entity.

The incumbent doesn’t have to go the full 15 rounds of a nomination battle, he can turn up at the presidential primary as the veritably unsullied white knight (or should that be black knight?) of American politics. Whilst Obama’s approval rating is low basically people don’t hate him, swing voters might just stick with the devil they know rather than turn to another professional politician with no new ideas and whose only manifesto claim will be ‘vote Republican’.

Anyway less on events an ocean away. I went to a Maltese friend’s of mine last night and was fed to bursting point…. First came the olives salsa and hummus with dipping bread, then lightly fried cornmeal in blue cheese sauce, then pasta… then the main course which was a tomatoey Mediterranean version of a scotch egg.  I turned down the lemon drizzle cake in fear of exploding like the Hindenburg, but still felt like a blimp walking home.

It didn’t help that I’d had a full English breakfast in the morning (2 sausages 3 bacon, black pudding, beans, mushrooms, tomato and egg.) and a footlong Italian BMT sub at subway for lunch (filled with jalapenos which I somewhat regretted later).

Now I just need to find a way to lose the pounds…

Looks like the Greeks are going to pull the rug out from under the Eurozone, and with everyone still standing on it too! everyone on the same planet as that metaphorical sheepskin is holding their breath and sticking their arms out in the hope of keeping their balance.

Being a Christian brings insight into this rather omen laden economic happenstance I think.  St Paul tells us that his faith teaches him how to be poor and how to be rich,  the same faith is offered to us through Christ…   So we can look on at the impending economic gloom with a glint in the eye.  My favourite quote from Babylon 5 is “its a good thing life is unfair, because if it wasn’t everything bad that happened to us would be because we deserved it!”.

Good on the Greeks though, the sooner they get out the Euro the better, and we’ll see if a default really wrecks the world, or whether it’ll just make life a little less ordinary…. , either way, holidays to Greece will become rather attractively priced. Its funny, the average Greek voter may be able to come to an eminently more sensible solution than all the Eurocrats still clinging to their dream of a federal Europe, you never know it might even sink the Euro before it sinks most of the rest of Mediterranean Europe.

Right less politics, today is all Saints day of course, and what an uplifting holy day it is, I went to a vigil mass last nite, which is kinda cheating, but it means I’ve been filled with the happy glow of all Saints day for nearly 24 hours now…  Its like a big hug from God, saying “you can make it, look at all these who’ve gone before you!”

Then we have all souls, which in a weird way I think is even more uplifting, knowing that it’s not just the perfect that get to heaven, but the common foot soldiers like me who sometimes get more than a little bit stuck in the mud.   Also knowing that I can pray for the dead and when I’m dead hopefully someone will  pray for me is a massive comfort.

Then on Friday we have the feast day of my Parish’s namesake so bacon butties on Friday! Followed by bonfire night on Saturday… and with seemingly everyone in the world wearing Guy Fawkes masks these days… pretty soon we’ll be burning effigies of parliament I’m sure.

On a similar anarchic thread, isn’t it hilarious to watch St Paul’s Cathedral implode in a shower of self doubt and woolliness over one or two clueless hippies. Its rapidly becoming one of the myriad of reasons I’m so glad to be Catholic. I shouldn’t be too smug though I guess, what would Vinny Nichols do in the same situation?  knit them socks to go with their sandals I’m sure…

The other problem with the build up is there is no… build up… November suddenly arrives and we have millions of frustratingly jolly looking Santas and snowmen cramming the windows of shops and horrendously cheery Christmas songs… (bar the Pogues who are a bastion of downbeat seasonal optimism) Advent in the Church in contrast is a slow and quiet, contemplative time of anticipation before the big day, much more wholesome.

Right onto important matters are sugar gliders the cutest animals on earth? http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=NaLLDAIRRiY

Apparently they have poor bladder control though… so like all things in nature, what at first looks cute as a pet ends up smelling and trashing your house… still, cute though!

I just had a good evening mass, everything went well, I served well, my PP was very incense happy this evening, four or five spoonfuls of the stuff every time he imposed incense which was a nice change.

Went to the pub afterwards even though there were only us two diehards there and had a good laugh about the vicissitudes of life .  One such twists of fate is that I got given a month’s notice at work last week, which whilst I’m dreading being unemployed a bit of time out might give me a chance to get my head straight.

I’ve also been off the happy pills for a few days now, and I’m not sure whether to go back onto them, how much good they are doing is very debatable especially since one of the side effects seems to be to make me incredibly amorous lol, well maybe its not just the pills…

Being more sociable  seems to help, its good to talk to people who I haven’t chatted with since I took my big dip early summer.

Sadly someone who I considered a good friend flew off the handle on me a week and a couple of days ago, and said some very hurtful things when I was at a very low ebb, subsequently unless he thinks to apologize I can’t really be doing with him right now… if he does all can be forgiven, but I don’t know whether it will even cross his mind. Sad really because I’m not the kind of person who can afford to lose friends, but hey, such is life, maybe its time to meet new more gentle people.

What else has happened… erm the day after I lost my job my computer monitor died in a shower of sparks and I got a HUGE electricity bill so I’m very bankrupt at the mo even before I hit the dole queue… I managed to haggle the bill down a bit and get a second hand screen for £40 but still, I’m already hovering around the bread line. In fact I’ve been living off toast for one of my two daily meals for the last three weeks… All this nonsense about anthropogenic global warming is impoverishing us… its time people  started thinking about the human cost of this myth.  (to the economy and to people dieing of fuel poverty)    Anyway, its time to start investing in heavy duty pajamas.

So yes, that is the news with me, an almost totally self centered egomaniacal post, but then I doubt anyone will be reading it bar me so hey, God bless anyone who reads this and may your guardian angels be with you! and pray for me!