Then paint!

It's a funny thing about Italy. Whatever your reasons for coming here, there is a kind of bug you catch, and those who get bitten by the Italy bug just seem unable to bring themselves to leave. When a new person arrives (and we get a fresh batch every year) you can tell right away whether he's going to just finish whatever it is he came for or be a long-termer. The long-termers get that look very quickly that says, "I'm going to stay here, even if I have to fake my death and create a new identity to do it."

The lovely and talented Kelly Medford nails down a few reasons why...

... the warm light in Medford's paintings is a dependable constant in her work from Rome. "When I moved here from Florence, what I noticed is that the light in Rome is so dramatically different," says Medford. "It's really warm, almost a rosy pink. When I moved here I had to keep buying so many different cadmiums because I couldn't find the strength I needed to depict it. I made a conscious choice to exaggerate the warmth here. Now I really see it that way -- that is really how I see Rome, and how I paint Rome."

I went into town yesterday to have a drink with my art teacher and said, "I still fear paint though." She said the obvious thing: then paint!!



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Knock knock! Who's there?

What do you get when you cross a surrealist with a mafia don?

An offer you can't understand.

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Holy Father, the government is threatening to arrest priests who preach against homosexuality!

That's terrible! We must ban Communion on the tongue immediately! I'll be covering that in my encyclical on the environment!

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I'm starting to have trouble coming up with appropriate comparisons here... It's starting to seem like this pontificate is just one vast non-sequitur. Is it just me, or is it getting to feel like we've fallen through the looking glass? Things that you expect to match up no longer match up. Corners are detached from their directions and parallel lines converge and tangle.

It is starting to make me do what we do when presented with a totally inappropriate non-sequitur... you just sort of stand there and blink while your brain tries to make sense of it. "Err... hang on a sec, my brain is buffering..."

This is from Marco Tosatti who seems to be doing that standing and blinking thing...

The encyclical on the subject of poverty, environment and climate change will be ready in seven or eight months, the Pope said during his audience at the General Assembly of the Italian bishops, in the part of the session open to the public. It is likely that the document - which will deal not only with creation as such but also of the dangers of a tumultuous environment and in particular its impact on the poorest - will appear at the beginning of 2015.

The bishops were very happy that the pope had given space for questions, saying, 'Ask me whatever you want.' But some of the answers to specific questions seemed rather indefinite.

When asked about the reports of [relations between the Church and] public authorities [Pope Francis] replied that the responsibility of dialogue with the country's politicians is the responsibility of the Bishops. The Holy See has nothing to do with it, much less the Secretary of State.

In the light of past battles ... about who should be the protagonist of the dialogue, the Pope's words may sound like support for the CEI [Italian bishops' conference - this is a huge issue in Italian Church politics but it tends to be extremely arcane to outsiders- ed.]; but at the same time you cannot forget that the Pope is Primate of Italy, and the bishop of Rome, as noted often, is therefore not an office unrelated to the life of the country. And the Secretary of State, in particular in the Second Chamber, is his most direct operational arm.

A bishop posed the problem of how to respond to the ideology of "gender," advocated by the majority party responding to the demands of [the Council of] Europe, where it is happening like a divorce from God the Creator, and where the man wants to be a creator. [No answer here? Tosatti doesn't say what the pope responded to this- ed.]

More explicit and precise instead was the answer to the question posed in "desperate" tones by a bishop of a small diocese (forty thousand inhabitants) who complained that a part of the clergy is "conservative" and does not want to give Communion in the hand. The Pope advised him to take strict measures, because "you cannot defend the body of Christ while offending the social Body of Christ."

Tosatti: One wonders to what extent is the phenomenon (are there reports of rioting crowds in the streets begging for the Host on the hand?) and how great is this prelate's ability to manage human situations...

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LCWR and "conscious evolution"

I realise that it's kind of redundant to be writing about how the LCWR anti-nuns went wiggy because of the influence of the New Jesuits, but I really do think the pleasures of shooting fish in a barrel have been unfairly maligned.

And this is one of the clearest explanations I've seen yet in a mainstream journal about what's been going on in there since the 60s.

To many ears, “conscious evolution” probably sounds like a squishy catchphrase picked up after too much time in a New Age sweat lodge, and that’s pretty much how Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, views it.

The German theologian bluntly told heads of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious last month that the principles of “conscious evolution” — that mankind is transforming through the integration of science, spirituality and technology — are “opposed to Christian Revelation” and lead to “fundamental errors.”

That’s tough talk, and Mueller warned them that if the nuns persist in pursuing such dangerous ideas, Rome could cut them loose.

Yet those principles, and indeed the very term “conscious evolution,” also lead directly back to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a French Jesuit who was by turns a philosopher and theologian, geologist and paleontologist."

Oh, and a professional liar: apart from being one of the fathers of the New Age gibberish, he was also one of the lead proponents of the Piltdown hoax...

Oh yeah, and a eugenicist..

Teilhard was one of the first to articulate transhumanist themes. Transhumanists advocate the ethical use of technology for human enhancement. Teilhard's writing likewise argues for the ethical application of technology in order to advance humanity beyond the limitations of natural biology. Teilhard explicitly argues for the use of both bio-technologies (e.g., genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies, and develops several other themes often found in transhumanist writings.

aaand a supporter of the Nazis,

Personally, I stick to my idea that we are watching the birth, more than the death, of a World. The scandal for you, is that England and France should have come to this tragedy because they have sincerely tried the road of peace. But did they not precisely make a mistake on the true meaning of "peace"? Peace cannot mean anything but a HIGHER PROCESS OF CONQUEST. … The world is bound to belong to its most active elements. … Just now, the Germans deserve to win because, however bad or mixed is their spirit, they have more spirit than the rest of the world. It is easy to criticize and despise the fifth column. But no spiritual aims or energy will ever succeed, or even deserve to succeed, unless it is able to spread and keep spreading a fifth column.

But hey, who are we to judge, right?

Oh, and this is the "conscious evolution" proponent the good sisters thought would make an ideal keynote speaker at their annual meeting.


Isn't she great, ladies and gentlemen? Let's give her a big hand.

But hey, points go to the Washington Post guy for figuring out what she was blithering about..."that mankind is transforming through the integration of science, spirituality and technology" ... more than the rest of us could do.



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Goings on

So many reasons not to go to Australia
Sooo many...

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Sometimes it goes the other way... sometimes.

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"This too shall pass" (One of my favourite videos of the "famous things falling down" genre.)



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"Order is better than chaos...creation better than destruction..."

Here is Sir Kenneth Clarke's message for the ignorant savages who have, apparently, briefly taken time out of their busy days of beheading Syrian Christian children, to break into the museums and smash to powder the some of the planet's most precious cultural treasures and antiquities.





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"Christian vision of the dignity of the human person is one in which the European Union finds its values reflected and supported..."

Where do they dig these people up?

I did a thing yesterday on a voters' guide published on the website of the Irish Bishops Conference. It really has to be read to be believed. I don't think I've ever seen a more brazen bit of EU-speak bureaucratic rubbish in my life. It really is so outrageous that it tells me one thing very clearly: they don't care any more who knows the people in charge of the Catholic institution in Europe have not got the slightest interest in the Catholic religion.

The new one is so much cooler and more shiny!

This was the comment of a friend in Ireland:

Its opening line: "The Christian vision of the dignity of the human person is one in which the European Union finds its values reflected and supported." I thought this was just a poorly constructed sentence
but its real problem isn't its syntax. Leaving aside the fact that this claim is entirely untrue, it appears to be an assertion made from the point of view of the EU. The statement also calls the EU parliament "the House of the people of Europe." Does anyone outside the European institutions even speak in such terms?

Later on it says: "The goal of European integration has not yet been fully realised." What exactly does the Gospel tell us about European integration? Do Catholics really need to ask themselves whether our current foreign policy reflects the founding vision (not of Christ) but of "those committed to the European project."

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Seriously, just run that sentence through your brain a few more times to see if the sense of it sticks:

"The Christian vision of the dignity of the human person is one in which the European Union finds its values reflected and supported."

Didja catch it? Took me a few tries, but then I got it...Yeah... the lead voice here is not the Catholic Church; it's the EU patting the Catholic Church on the head for "getting" its own "vision".

The religion being pushed here has nothing whatever to do with the goals of Jesus Christ in founding His Church. And what did Our Lord have to say about people who were not with Him?

In the last few years of keeping track, it has become clear that there are quite a few of these EU toadys squatting in the Church in Europe, belching out their neo-Marxian poison. It has become such a part of my daily life that it usually just makes me smile a little when I hear someone else saying breathily, "Do you think it's possible that this document was drafted by someone from the EU?"

Is it still a conspiracy when they come right out and say things like this and post it to the internet?

Go on over and have a little gander if your stomach is feeling up to it. It really is an excellent example of the kind of blither that gets published every day, with complete earnestness and deadly serious faces, at the EU.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right




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The wasp in the room

There is nothing nice about wasps. As larvae, they are unspeakably horrible. As adults, their sole purpose for existence is to hurt you.

I was once lying on the grass of my front garden, thoroughly enjoying the summer day, on my blankie with a pitcher of iced tea, a book and my little radio. It was the perfect day.

Lying there, I happened to see a little green caterpillar in the grass, so I just watched it, peacefully chomping its little grass stalk. As I was wondering what kind of butterfly this little fellow would turn into, along came a creature that looked like it had flown straight out of the demonically twisted imagination of HR Giger. I recognised it from my bug books as some kind of ichneumon wasp. And it recognised my little caterpillar friend as exactly what it was looking for.

It was over for the caterpillar in an instant. The horror hovering overhead just reached out its ovipositor and, *ting!*... The caterpillar, not knowing what had just hit it, just flinched a little and continued chomping its leaf. But I knew exactly what had just happened.

Nope, there really is nothing at all to like about wasps.

Someone asked me a while ago why I have become so obsessive about the news, particularly the Church politics news. I think the answer is that I watch Church politics for the same reason one watches a wasp when it has flown into the room. Once you've become aware of its presence, you don't want to take your eyes of it for a second.



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Soon, soon...

"...multiple sources are telling Rorate that a large number of FI friars -- possibly 100-150 -- are petitioning Rome to be released from their pontifical vows and to be placed under diocesan bishops.

As we have reported from the beginning, the order assigning a commissioner, which has led to the rapid destruction of a growing order that was increasingly attached to Traditional Catholicism, and has led numerous Faithful to lose access to the Traditional Latin Mass, was approved directly by Pope Francis.

We do not know what Pope Francis meant when he told the distressed parents "soon, soon." In Roman time, soon rarely means quickly. Let us pray that soon the Holy Father will end this drastic intervention that he approved and save a beautiful order currently in critical condition."

The Rorate Caeli article refers to that weird report about Francis meeting the parents of an FFI seminarian. Asked when the pope is going to stop torturing their son, Francis reportedly replied, "Soon, soon..." Which, I'm afraid, did very little to reassure anyone.

All times may be "soon" to Aslan, but what does that mean to Francis? Perhaps if I were there, I might have been tempted to interject, "Your Holiness, does 'soon' in this case mean before or after there are no more FFIs left?"



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Starting the day off right

A friend who has a blog where she gets absolutely scorching about Francis, enough to make me look like Mary Poppins, usually starts her day of writing off with the following admonition:

Start the day off right: Pater noster, qui es in caelis...

I took the idea and ran around the block with it a few times.

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Crank up your computer speakers, and click this.



Now, stand up and say,

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis,
satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen.

Seriously, it does stuff to your head. Like espresso for your soul.



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Crucify them!

Received the following message privately that seems worth passing on:

On a trad board, one of the forum members said the following: "My brother is in the FFI and he has told me that Francis has admitted making a mistake in appointing Volpe and will soon remove him.
He will also overturn the ludicrous ruling of not allowing the FFI from offering the TLM and the Traditional breviary."
I hope I'm wrong but I believe they're overly optimistic.

Our friend Dorothy adds the amusing comment: "Craziness. The president of Harvard is named Faust, and the nimrod in charge of destroying the FFI is called Volpe. Has life turned into a Harry Potter novel or what?"

Another friend comments:

When this ends, if not with total destruction of the FFI, they will have Volpi lift the restrictions under some pretense that his draconian measures have effected some good in the organization. But I fear that nothing short of total destruction will be the end, for this is their purpose, to send a message that traditionalism is fatal. Anything short of this sends the wrong message. The FFI cannot be allowed to survive.

Hard to argue with this. It is certainly a very visible form of public execution. There really can be no doubt that a clear and hard message is being sent by this "pope of mercy and forgiveness". One might almost be inclined to call it a crucifixion.



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