The least of these
Would you believe it – Gordon Brown is saying Catholicism is often the conscience of the UK. He’s saying it in a new magazine with the rebarbative title “Faith Today.” He’s also spitting on secularism while he’s about it.
Asked if religious faith is essentially “a private, personal pursuit” or has a role in the wider community, he says: “Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values – I absolutely reject the idea that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life. Our equality bill is specifically designed to protect religion and belief on exactly the same terms as race or gender or sexuality.”
God, what a dog’s breakfast. First he conflates religion with values, then he emphatically rejects secularism, then he puts religion and belief in the same category as the unwilled qualities of race and gender and sexuality. Vote Labour, vote for theocracy!
“I welcome the role that people of faith play in building Britain’s future – and the Catholic communion in particular is to be congratulated for so often being the conscience of our country, for helping ‘the least of these’ even when bearing witness to the truth is hard or unpopular.”
Total, pure, unadulterated bullshit. Could not possibly be more wrong. Flat opposite of what is the case. The ‘Catholic communion’ in particular has (in case there was any lingering doubt) been decisively revealed for throwing ‘the least of these’ to the wolves for the sake of its own reputation and ability to tell everyone else what to do, for decade upon decade upon decade. ‘The least of these’ are exactly the people the ‘Catholic communion’ has been defecating all over in Ireland for generations. ‘The least of these’ are, precisely, single mothers who lack money and status and so were imprisoned and enslavedand deprived of their own children in Magdalen laundries. ‘The least of these’ are the children of the poor and the unmarried who were imprisoned and enslaved in industrial ‘schools,’ there to be called names and humiliated and deprived and tormented in every way possible by the fucking Catholic communion. ‘The least of these’ are the children who were raped by priests and then if they complained were threatened and bullied into silence. Where does Gordon Brown get the colossal gall to call ‘the Catholic communion’ any kind of conscience? How brutally obtuse can you get? You might as well call the Mafia ‘the conscience of our country.’
I think the Mafia would do a better job of it.
Is this some vapid election-year ploy to secure the Catholic vote, or does he, like Tony Blair, actually believe this crap?
I also wonder how all the Anglicans think about the idea that “the Catholic communion in particular is to be congratulated for so often being the conscience of our country”.
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/ has a piece on this very topic.
New Labour eh?! What an awful man! A completely, completely outrageous thing for the Prime Minster to have said. To have said that, in the face of all the scandals that have rightly settled over the Vatican, and in spite of the wickedness and cruelty of cathlic morals, is more than I can stomach. Someone should give this man a good slap upside the face!!! A short sharp shock is the only thing that can work with this depth of stupidity! Has the world gone completely mad?!
It seems like the best way to have a politician sing the praise of your religion is to do something despicable, like raping children or blowing something up.
Someone should give this man a good slap upside the face!!
Careful, you don’t want the Colgate Twins to think this forum condones and advocates violence. Do you have a tin ear, man? Innocent people are assaulted every day. Have you no shame, making light of their plight?
New Labor is disgusting.
Surely an understanding of the value of the separation of church and state should be compulsory for a politician – oh wait we are talking about England aren’t we.
Brown has never been very clear what his religious beliefs are.
His father was a Church of Scotland minister (Anglican) but when at Edinburgh University he is reported by those who knew him as being an atheist.
Personally I suspect it is about vote-grabbing. The imminent election is likely going to be very close, and politicians of all parties are out vote grabbing.
The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian. There is an Episcopal Church in Scotland, to which the Episcopal Church in the US is related by way of ordination. The first Episcopal bishop of the US (Samuel Seabury) was consecrated by Scottish Episcopal bishops. Just a bit of historical trivia. Doesn’t explain Gordon Brown’s extraordinary remarks, however.
“Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values”
That bit really pissed me off; that a politician should so astonishingly and glibly equate religion and values doesn’t surprise me, though I wish it did. How monumentally offensive to all those non-religious people who manage to be ethical and principled without unsubstantiatable supernatural beliefs to back them up. Idiot.
“According to Roman Catholic orthodoxy, the Pope is ‘preserved from even the possibility of error’ when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals. Moreover, he may be judged by no man and is answerable to no civil authority: he is not simply a religious leader but a head of state who reigns supreme over the princes, kings, presidents and prime ministers of the world by the authority of God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit via the Apostolic Succession: Jesus laid hands on Benedict.
Such an ecclesiology naturally implies a degree of divinity: it inclines one to view the Pope as another Christ, such that all the Pope’s trials and tribulations are somehow akin to the suffering of Jesus: they are both holy, spotless lambs of God, wounded for our transgressions. When Pope Benedict was attacked last Christmas, for one priest it brought to mind ‘one of the central mysteries of faith, the vulnerability of the Incarnate God, the Word who became Flesh’:
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/ has a piece on this very topic.
Exactly, victimhood is nothing new. I have pointed it out before that children in Goldenbridge were always told they were worse than the soldiers who crucified Jesus Christ – they were the ones who caused his blood to be shed. They were the ones made feel guilty as they stood in a transfixed state with uplifted heads pondering and praying at the emaciated bloody body of Jesus on the three dimensional carvings of the crucifixion scene which bedecked the long corridor of the institution. The floggings and beatings that children received were because they were the ones who flogged and beat Jesus.
Whatever happened to that old Presbyterian tradition of hating Popery?
Looks like Ron Wrongbod’s dad didn’t do his job. He should have sent the lad off on Orange marches.
It’s not quite on a par with NuLab’s cosying up to the Islamists, though. (Cf Edmund Standing’s recent article at B&W. If you live in the UK you ought to read it.)