So much for eternal truths
Bookworm on Apr 08 2009 at 8:35 am | Filed under: Religion
Am I the only one to be a bit surprised by Tony Blair’s chutzpah? He’s been Catholic for about a year, and he is already presuming to tell the Pope that the Church’s doctrine is wrong and should be changed.
Perhaps, ex-PM Blair, you should have converted to a different faith. After all, it’s not as if the Chuch kept secret its principles on such fraught modern topics as abortion and homosexuality. In a religious marketplace, maybe you should have shopped around a bit more for a church that will bend with every trend.
And we should all be grateful that, if you’re lucky enough not to live in a Muslim country, there is a a marketplace for religion. This competition for the faithful means that, if the Church loses too many people because its doctrines are untenable, it has the choice of changing (which it has done in the past) or of drawing a line in the sand and determining that sticking to certain principles is more important than competition. It’s certainly not up to newbies with high profiles to launch into public critiques of the faith they so recently adopted.
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12 Responses to “So much for eternal truths”
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Gee, now Tony wants to transplant to Catholicism all the wonderful things he brought to formerly Great Britain. Can’t wait.
I am a genetically-imprinted but non-practicing Catholic precisely because I could not reconcile my experience as a man who is gay with the Church’s teaching on the subject. But, however ill-tempered I was about it, I at least recognized that it was the Pope’s job to define the faith, not mine. So I did the gentlemanly thing and moved on.
This idea of checking in with the folks at Mass on Sunday, taking a survey and then posting the Creed du jour….Really, the Labour Party and the Church of Rome are just a bit different. At least if I remember my history right.
And Tony is right, by the way, that the Church would fear a revision of its sexual ethic on gays because it would lead to an unravelling of the whole ball of wax. True. Perfectly true. Which is why I have come to understand and respect the doctrine, even as I disagree with it. Liberals have no sense of the complex organic interrelationships which make up human life and institutions. To them it’s all Idea A applied across the board and, voila!, liberation and enlightentenment. Look at all the liberal churches (including Blair’s former Anglican church) who have come to pretty well unravel over time once they start making decisions to please what Schleiermacher called “the cultured despisers of religion.” Just Unitarians in drag. Why commit suicide to please people who fundamentally dislike you?
Oh, wait. That’s the program of the Western liberal.
Interesting because in terms of doctrine, many if not most adult converts are more catholic than the pope.
I’ve wondered about Blair. It seemed apparent that there was conflict between what he advocated as Prime Minister of England and church doctrine. I could accept that he “represented the people” – as do many Liberal politicians who consider themselves Catholic – but I wonder who decided to accept him for baptism into the Church without ascertaining that he didn’t actually consider those same issues out of step with Catholicism. I have a huge problem with people who are – as they say – cafeteria Catholics. Either you are or you aren’t Catholic. There are some politicians who should be publically excommunicated, imo. Pelosi among them. If their choice is that they can be Catholic or Politicians, then let them make that choice. If their political choices are contrary to Church doctrine, then let them be honest enough to leave the Church.
USMale… I appreciate your intellectual honesty. I’m Catholic. I believe that homosexual behavior is morally wrong – but in the end, it’s not my judgment that counts, so I’ll leave it alone. Except politically. Personal behavior is personal behavior. Politics are something else! Unfortunately, I think there are many activist homosexuals who have goals that are detrimental to society. Others don’t, and some of the problems you have stated need to be addressed, but due to the activism of those who _do_ have other goals it becomes necessary to resist even those solutions which are reasonable. That’s not fair, but life often isn’t.
>>many if not most adult converts are more catholic than the pope>>
Maybe not, though, if his conversion was due to a desire to please his wife and bring religious unity to his family instead of actual conversion. In that case, it was a conversion of convenience, and his religious instructor should have recognized it. Makes me wonder if his religious sponsor might have had a bit of a “pride” issue – converting the Prime Minister and all that.
I’m a practicing orthodox Roman Catholic and I find Blair’s arrogance and ignorance insufferable.
USMaleSF, I applaud your integrity is rejecting Catholicism’s stand on homsexuality without abandoning your understanding of how the church reasons and works, or making your opposition to it the basis for a time- and soul-wasting jihad.
suek, I write letters to the archbishop of San Francisco once a month politely inquiring as to when he’s going to have the “talk” with Nancy Pelosi about modifying her views on infanticide and abortion—or else he’ll kick her sorry skank ass out into the street.
Ain’t gonna happen. The archbishop, a nice, kindly wuss who prefers to be liked, hasn’t (and never will) take a stand. Why, it might make the Church unpopular! Can’t have that!
When and if the day comes that the Church takes a courageous stand against the likes of Kerry, Kennedy, Biden, Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and other openly heterodox Catholics, it will be the day that the statists will erupt in rage and (also secret joy—for now, at last, will be the excuse they need to start the persecution).
Pressure against the Church, in form of property takings, hate-crime prosecutions, calumny in the media, roving bands of Unitarian youths beating up old nuns (they wouldn’t dare take on anybody younger), and militant gay intrusions on Masses, will split the Church into two: the ancient Church Suffering and the Roman Episcopalian Church.
We’re in for interesting times.
>>Roman Episcopalian Church>>
Heh. Interesting appellation. Note that I didn’t say “wrong”… just interesting.
I agree. Wheat-chaff, sheep-goats. etc.
I’m a practicing orthodox Catholic too, and I’m not a cafeteria one. USMaleSF, you are an honest and thoughtful man and I hope that some day you can find your way back. But no matter what, God be with you.
From what I have read (I love the British press), Cheri Blair is a ditz who runs after every New Age kook there is. She is a nominal Catholic, but not an orthodox one by any means. Her brand has rubbed off on Tony – poor guy – it’s evidently all he knows and he’s too busy running around giving speeches to actually study the real thing.
Blair was the deciding factor in Bush agreeing to go to the UN route. Thus Blair was the deciding factor in sabotaging the Iraq War by allowing Bush’s reputation to be planted on WMDs, cause Bush trusted Blair. And Blair was directly the leading cause of Saddam being given too much time, thus destroying any WMD evidence so that US troops would only find it tool late, and it also gave Sadadm time to plan an insurgency which killed thousands of Iraqis and wounded many more AMericans.
Blair was the keystone on this.
We wondered and were ecstatic that, for once, America had a charismatic speaker to tout our policies and stances. But we were wrong. Blair wasn’t there to tout our best interests, he was there to get in on the game, by joining us, and then making us play to his fiddle.
Just like the British troops that got a slice of Basra from us and then proceeded to give the citizens unto the care of Muqtada Al Sadr. They thought they could, like their PM, “cut a share” of the action that way.
That’s an interesting point, Y. Certainly Blair took a lot of political heat at home for supporting the Iraq War. Can you give me a little more information about what his home-field benefit was for supporting what was, in England, a very unpopular stand?
Bush gave Blair two choices, and this is sourced from both insiders as well as a logical analysis of the players: Blair could back out of the alliance with Bush in 2001-3 before invasion and Blair responded “no, we are allies”. Bush was seemingly so taken by this that he was convinced by Blair and Powell that if they could use the WMD argument and sell it that way via the UN, then Blair will have an “excuse” to support the invasion of Iraq and Powell, for his own reasons, recommended the same route.
To be accurate, Bush gave Blair an opportunity to opt out and Blair gave Bush the choice to not opt out. It was not Bush’s decision, really, in the end. Bush went on board, because of his own thoughts, but mostly because circumstances had been led to such a pivotal moment by others. Which is why Presidents should never make decisions about the nations they lead on the advice of foreigners.
As for Blair’s interests concerning his political power bases, Melanie Phillips would be the person to ask and research.
Using my own sparse recollection and time spent, I surmise only that Blair believed that the best way to get a say on America was, not to go the French route of active resistance, but the British route of subversion from the inside. Thus Blair could tout, and I believe he did just that, that he had more say on Bush’s policies than Chirac. Which appealed, certainly, to the European obsession over controlling all American actions on the world stage. I would say that this was a peripheral, not a primary, concern for Blair.
As for purely domestic matters, such as Blair’s anti-terrorism laws (which were far more draconian than the little bunny called the Patriot Act) they served the purpose of giving more power to Blair and his Labour Party. After all, the British people don’t elect a Prime Minister. They elect his party and then his party decides who gets to be PM. Thus it almost didn’t matter that the people of Britain were rabid anti-war freaks mostly or anti-Americans. What mattered is what deals Blair could make, buddy to buddy, with his fellow ministers. First among equals, after all. Britain did need new anti-terrorism laws, but with people on his squad like Jack Straw, the reality is that Blair just pushed Britain more into the police state era. Without protecting the British citizens or their “rights”.
Blair believed in a stronger alliance with America, juxtaposed upon enormous Labour transformations of Britain, in the same vein as Obama’s transformation and destruction of America. So yes, the war was unpopular in Britain. But enough to upset the Labour minister’s little honey pot that Blair was dealing out to the Labour slaver party? Probably not. Greed can overcome principles, after all, assuming Labour MPs had any on the Iraq War, which I doubt.
Here are some tidbits. Some of the breezes before the calm heralding the storm.
Link
If you look back further, you get this.
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001479.html
Blair wanted to protect Britain from terrorism. Allying with America seemed the thing to do. His political speechifying was adequate to keep the hobgoblins of the British Parliament in check, and the popular forces were always tools that needed to be told where to go in the first place. They protested Bush, but could not really field enough of a block for Blair.
Some of Blair’s policies were defeated. But a lot went through and most of it would be from the anti-American Labour, I wouldn’t call it camp since the entire party is that way, system.
Blair pushed hard for the EU. That got defeated, since the unarmed British people, as downtrodden as they are, still couldn’t bring themselves to trust foreign bureaucrats. And for good reason .Their own bureaucrats are traitorous and exploitive enough as it is.
Bush’s support concerning the EU helped some. It certainly gave Britain more of a leading role in the EU formation.
Blair, from my view, presided over, if not enormous, then maintenance of Britain’s status quo slide into purgatory while expending much of his energy with the EU, certain domestic laws, and foreign policy initiatives with America.
But in the end, Blair was true to his party, Labour, and thus Britain is not better off than before.
Thank you, Y. I always assumed Blair was our lapdog. Who knew it was the other way around?
The Euros and the Left called Blair our lapdog. But we all know how much credibility Leftist propaganda lies have.
Even at the time they said so, I believed Blair had his own nation’s interest foremost in mind, even though I had not as yet come across the data or the ramifications of Bush’s WMD focus choices.