Execution

The customers were all over the place this week and especially yesterday. The bars were a hubbub with some folk whining and showing their hearts for all to admire and others sipping deeply and slowly on their pints, keeping their 'feelings' out of it. And all to do with the executions in Indonesia.

Those in the news were not innocent people having their heads cut off with knives on a beach; they were not innocents being burned and dismembered in a womb. I can understand furore about that.

No. these were drug runners, and at least one, we are told, was a 'King-Pin'. 

'Australians', apparantly.

For weeks and indeed months, great effort has been expended on getting 'Mercy' for these two men. They were, after all, Australians.

Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran were ‘perfect’

One has to wonder about the media.

 http://www.themercury.com.au/news/world/bali-nine-indonesia-says-executions-of-andrew-chan-myuran-sukumaran-were-perfect/story-fnj3ty5y-1227327478332

INDONESIA has declared the executions of Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran and six others to be “perfect” and a “success”, as revulsion for the brutal midnight slaughter crossed the globe.

The executions were carried out. The Indonesians claimed they were carried out without a hitch: it was 'perfect'. So the media headline is that the two drug runners were 'perfect'.  Where do they find these media people? 

As the bodies of the Bali Nine duo reached Jakarta, local Catholic priest Charlie Burrows described how the men had been executed in a macabre new way, strapped by cable ties with their arms outstretched on what were effectively crucifixes.

“They were singing on the crosses and we were in a tent not too far away from the execution place trying to support them,” Father Burrows told News Corp. “The Australians seemed to be more or less leading the singing.”

He said they sang Amazing Grace and other hymns.

The Australians met most of their fellow victims for the first time just before the executions. Father Burrows said all the men hugged and said goodbye to each other.

Indonesian Attorney-General HM Prasetyo appeared satisfied with the result.

“The executions have been successfully implemented, perfectly,” said Mr Prasetyo, who in a previous role had personal oversight of his country’s execution program.

“All worked, no misses,” he said of the executions of Mr Chan, Mr Sukumaran, four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian man.

No mention of the Names of the 'four Nigerians', the Brazilian and the Indonesian. Just the Australians. 

No mention of these other 'victims' being similarly arms outstretched. Just the Australians.  

The partiality is astounding.

This is men's lives that are being talked of but only the 'Australians' are given a small respect of their names. 

It says a lot about the bleeding hearts.

As 'Breaker' Morant said, "Shoot straight you bastards" 

Chan and Sukumaran courageously declined the offer of hoods and watched the firing squads take aim and fire. Medical teams declared all the men dead three minutes after they were shot.

Did the 'others' decline? We are not even told. 

Hours later, in Canberra, Tony Abbott branded the killings “cruel” and ordered the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Paul Grigson, home.

As the world took a closer look at the stone-hearted resolve of President Joko Widodo, the Indonesian embassy in Canberra said its ambassador, Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, would not be recalled to called to Jakarta, because he was already there.

Joko's 'stone heart' would be welcomed by the judges in Oz' Family Courts, where he might even be given lessons. 

A spokesman was unable to say whether he would remain in Indonesia in retaliation for the Australian withdrawal.

Chilling ... Father Charlie Burrows says Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed with their arms outstretched on what were effectively crucifixes. 

The Prime Minister took dual positions as a father who could understand the pain of the Chan and Sukumaran families, and as a leader who was deeply disappointed Indonesia had not taken the path of mercy.

He said he could understand the anger of Australians, but the government would not fall into the trap of overreacting. The purpose of the recall of Ambassador Grigson was discuss a “way forward in relation to the Indonesia-Australia relationship in the longer term.”

“We respect Indonesia’s sovereignty but we do deplore what’s been done and this cannot be simply business as usual,” Mr Abbott said.

Not a mention of the 8 kilos of heroin these men had which they were going to bring into Oz. Caught red handed. 

Not a mention of others languishing in Indonesia's jails because of Chan and Sukumaran. Not a mention of the people they conned and blackmailed into becoming drug mules.  

Not a mention of the heroin deaths from overdoses that occur every day in Oz, because of scum like these two. Not a mention of the addicts hooked by their import business. Not a mention of the thousands of families ruined. 

Candlelit ceremonies were held all over the place, it seems. For 'Mercy' Someone wanted one in the Tavern too, but I would not allow that. 

Fire regs.

And Mercy Regs.

You can look those up in your Bible.

I mainly kept quiet as rival factions sounded off at the bar. I had pints to pull. Most were quite nice people who showed compassion along with their passion. Their passion often won out over their compassion which all too often - as is all too common - showed itself to be more 

sentimentality and 'virtue-selfies' 

than actual Love.

 Bill Muehlenberg was his usual consistent self, making his voice heard.

The Hypocrisy of ‘Compassion’

 http://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/04/30/the-hypocrisy-of-compassion/

Does showing compassion make one a hypocrite? No, of course not – well, at least not necessarily. But I have seen far too many people just recently going on and on about compassion and mercy in a rather hypocritical fashion, and I for one am growing a bit tired of it to be honest.

In fact, I have been really quite astonished at the degree of duplicity and hypocrisy being exhibited by so many. While this of course occurs often, it has been on display big time over recent headlines about what has transpired in Indonesia. There are a number of examples of obvious hypocrisy going on here.

Let me mention just a few of them. First, far too many of these people going on and on about the death of two convicted criminals are utterly silent on other cases of people being put to death. People I never hear from or who are utterly silent on the abortion holocaust are all of a sudden all over the place on this issue.

He had a lot more to say, and again, mostly spot on. (see his link).

There, I have hoisted a flag. My towel is off the taps.

My simple nodding agreement with Bill brought forth demands that I put my oar in the murky waters on 'one side or the other'. I am a Catholic, after all. Supposedly 'holier than thou'. 

(Actually, its before all. And I am still suffering from and for my own sins.)

And therein lies a big problem we have in our society. It has to be 'One side or the Other'. 

So let me look at some of the points. There were many offered which seem to suggest some very 'partial' attitudes. Biased. Frankly, thoughtless.

First. These two were Australians. 

So what?

There are many people in Australians that we can be thoroughly ashamed of. We have our fair share (for all who demand 'fair') of liars, false accusers, thieves (and that's is just in the family Court), murderers, thugs and, of course Drug runners.  We have bogans, welfare cheats and politicians. Let us not overlook lawyers.

There are people in Oz who personally I would prefer to send over to MacQuarie Island. Some I would prefer to send back from whence they came. Even scummy Englishmen. 

They cost Oz a huge amount in money, heartache, pain and disruption.

They are scum.

Those two are 'australian' only by virtue of name, not by any fine quality. Their 'nationality' is an affront to the rest of us.

They have no hesitation on 'using' others in the most dreadful manner.

We have had hundreds of thousands of people come to Oz, including myself, and most are fine people. But some start out illegal and continue a life of illegality. 

Some hate Oz. They make that clear. 

They hate our 'ordinary' Moral stance on most matters.

We have very highly qualified and well paid people in Oz who muder babies. They dispatch 100,000 a year. Innocents.

As Bill points out, where is the outrage?

Second. They committed a crime in Indonesia.  Not in Oz. That crime though was not peculiar to Indonesia nor to anywhere else in the world. It is illegal in Oz too. The penalty in Indonesia is somewhat more useful.

"Ahh, but...," some will say, " the death penalty does not work. It does not deter people from their crimes". 

To that I say nonsense. It deters many enough. It deters me, for a start.  I am supposing it has some small bearing on you as well. 

It did not deter them. True. But then they are them.  It deters people with a modicum of conscience.

And if it detered no-one else it still permanently removes some scum from the gene pool.

"But Indonesia has a cruel death penalty and we should not have anything to do with them". Oddly those who say that rarely seek the same isolation of the dozen or so other countries which have the death penalty and with whom we trade. China, for Instance. Or America. Pakistan? Saudi Arabia?  Have we 'withdrawn' our Ambassadors from those countries?

Indonesia's 'macabre new way' of 'brutal midnight slaughter' seems to me to be quite preferable to hanging, but that is just a personal view. Did Fr Charlie ever speak out aginst strapping people to a cruciform bench in America so as to hold them as they were injected to death? 

Did he speak aout against the Chinese who make the family pay for the bullets? Perhaps he did, but buggered if I have heard it mentioned in the tavern.

"But innocent people get convicted". Indeed. But were these two innocent? No. An arguement for better procedures for getting the Truth would be worth complaining about. But even in Oz there is precious little concern, let alone candleit protests, about the woeful nature of our family courts where truth is kept well outside the buildings. 

"But.... the 'War on Drugs' doesn't work"

Amazing. Show me a war that does. Of course white ants and enemies will fight but a war is only 'over' when the enemy is defeated, Roundly. Drug pushers included.

Third. They 'repented'.

Not that that had anything to do with the imminent finality awaiting them, of course.

And did they? What you see is not always what you get, and what we saw was 'singing Amazing Grace'. Heck, even I can sing that.  (not at all well, mind you). 

"But Chan became a pastor and baptised people".

This bit has been accompanied by snaps from the jail showing 'pastor Chan' being a holy man. Ahhhh. Ain't that nice. He's found Christ.

This 'could' also be seen as a typical ploy of a psychopath and narcissist gaining a 'position' in a jail amongst the thick, dangerous and influential. He has made himself out to be a 'holy man'. A Guru. What a following of willing believers he has gathered around him, both inside and outside jail.

To them he is a 'celebrity'.

The 'laying on of media hands' has made him so. 

And what or who 'made' him a pastor? Did he get a 'Rev' certificate from the Rolling Stone magazine? 

Has he spent the past ten years at a theological seminary to become a Catholic Priest? 

Suddenly he is Chan the Baptist ??!!

He may have added blasphemy to St Peter's charge sheet. It may not be a crime down here but clearly he is showing himself appealing to a Higher Authority.

But, let us charitably suppose that he did repent, that he was remorseful. So what? 

His crime still needs the time. The punishment fitted the crime not the attitude.

If he is truely repentant and confesses his sins, I am pretty sure he will now be in heaven. 

"He had done ten years already".  Indeed. So what?

Enough of the points.

I do not approve of the Death Penalty. In general.

Specific cases though? Perhaps.

We are all on a path to our deaths. Accidents, illnesses, volcanoes and earthquakes, stepping off the curb at just the wrong moment.......inevitability.

It is not wholly outside the remit of Man to speed someone on their way after due process, or even sufficient immediate provokation.

May the souls of those two be treated Mercifully by God.

And Justly. 

He is the only one who knows how to balance and meld the two. 

Pax.

And less of the hypocricy.

Would You Survive Civilisational Catastrophe?

Many rolled-eyes and harrumps in the Tavern yesterday at the memories and questions that some people raised.  I don't know about you but so many people today think 'hardship' is having their iPod go u/s or their favourite TV show delayed for a memorial service such as ANZAC day. (For our American cousins, that is like your 'Memorial' day.)

Myself, I was raised in the rubble of war. My city, wherein I was supposed to be coddled and cossetted when I was to have arrived, was bombed to buggery before I could get there. Many people today in the middle-east will know what that is like. At least I did not have lunatic butchers roaming through my streets.

How would, could, anyone survive.

We can and do, only because the rest of the world continues on. The electricity flows, and the water. Communications are restored quickly. Planes fly, and when some are not bombing and strafing, others are bringing relief. 

There are good people around who help. 

They do that for natural disasters too, as the poor souls in Nepal are currently experiencing.

But what if there was no-one else, elsewhere, continuing? What if the western world was struck down; civilization as we know it brought to a grinding halt?

Some disasters are 'planned-for'. Predictable. Procedures are put in place to cope and bring relief. But not all can be. Some come unannounced.

 And some suspect that some distasters may even be planned. 

Jade Helm, anyone ?

Aplocayptic catastrophy scenarios are not uncommon and over the past decade or so we have had one TV show after another contemplating 'what would we do'? 

They have a fine modern history and this month was the 40th anniversary of one of the first. Remember Terry Nation and 'Survivors'?

16 April 2015 is the fortieth anniversary of the original broadcast of “The Fourth Horseman” (the opening episode of the first series of Survivors). The first ever episode of Survivors was shown at 20:10 on Wednesday 16 April 1975 on BBC 1, and was seen by just over 7m viewers. 

“The Fourth Horseman” was written by Survivors‘ creator Terry Nation, directed by Pennant Roberts, and introduced the characters of Abby Grant (Carolyn Seymour) and Jenny Richards (Lucy Fleming) – the character of Greg Preston (Ian McCulloch) was introduced in the second episode (“Genesis”).

In 'The End of the World? The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Survivors', the authors introduce their review of the episode as follows:

“The Fourth Horseman” must rank as one of Terry Nation’s finest single scripts, and sets an incredibly high standard for the drama that will follow. The opening episode of a new drama series imposes multiple challenges for the television writer: the series’ premise must be established; key characters introduced; and audience interest in the fate of the programme’s central characters secured. In the case of Survivors, Nation is required to achieve all that, whilst at the same time evoking a plausible picture of a global catastrophe using only the personal experiences of a few disparate individuals. In doing so, as Anthony Brown observed in DWB in 1993, he ‘avoids all the clichés of disaster fiction.’

Cliches caught up though in pretty well every other series ever made. Most have been American, but Survivors was 'terribly British'. It followed on from and was from a similar stable housing many fine stalking horses made for British TV, such as  'Quatermass'  and Dr Who. 

Please don't say you have forgotten Professor Quatermass. 

'Survivors' Epi.1 Pt.1/6 'The Fourth Horseman' Series 1

"Everything's all gone to pot," a character says at the beginning of this gripping 1975 BBC series. It's a characteristically understated British way of saying, "It's the end of the world as we know it." 

Created by Terry Nation, already installed in the cult sci-fi pantheon as the creator of Dr. Who's Daleks, Survivors plops viewers down in a postapocalyptic nightmare already in progress. 

We hear reports of evacuations, massive power outages, and frighteningly large body counts.

Er... did someone mention Jade Helm again? 

A globally spread virus has taken its devastating toll, leaving survivors to carry on in this primitive new world. Series 1's key players are Abby (Carolyn Seymour), a widowed middle class housewife determine to find her son, a missing student; Greg (Ian McCulloch), a resourceful engineer; and the compassionate Jenny (Lucy Fleming). The first--and best--13 episodes chart how these three come together and the tentative first steps in beginning civilization anew. 

A series benchmark is the episode "Law and Order," in which their fledgling settlement debates the fate of one of their number who has been found guilty of murder. As the saga unfolds, we meet some who would like to exploit the situation to exert their own "central control." We meet another, Anne (Myra Frances), a "rich brat" determined "to make sure I get my full share of everything that's going." 

I think she did, by the way. Not quite the share she had in mind though. 

But Survivors, bleak as its scenario is, is not without an abiding faith in human nature. Nation left the production before series 2, as did Seymour, who reveals in a candid series retrospective included as a bonus feature that her grappling with substance abuse led to her departure. In the second and third series, Greg, Jenny, and company further learn to adapt "to this ghastly way of life." A gallery of disparate and desperate characters put the tenets of the settlement to the test, while our heroes venture out into what's left of the world, most memorably in the second series' two-parter "Lights of London." Survivors enjoys a sizable cult following. While not as popularly known in the United States as The Prisoner (which, like Survivors, has been given the remake treatment), it should survive and thrive on DVD. --Donald Liebenson

 Down the hill at Anna's pub, the Raccoon Arms, we heard Petunia talking about it too.

Tomorrow’s World

http://annaraccoon.com/2015/04/27/tomorrows-world/ 

Forty years ago this month, BBC1 screened a new drama series penned by Dalek creator Terry Nation; but this was no journey through space and time; this was very much the here and now. Nation’s chilling portrayal of a Britain in meltdown tapped into the contemporary paranoia of the mid-1970s – fears of right-wing coups by retired colonels forming private armies; fears of left-wing coups by trade unions funded from Moscow; fears of energy shortages inspired by the global oil crisis and the Three-Day Week; and, most of all, fears that the human race was living on borrowed time.

‘Survivors’ was rooted in far more adult territory than ‘Doctor Who’, and the memorably apocalyptic opening episode, which I saw as an unsettled seven-year-old, depicted the swift and sudden obliteration of the familiar and the reassuring. 

A man-made plague swept across the world, although our focus was on Britain, and specifically England. We were introduced to a small cast of characters, each of whom experienced the killer disease claiming friends and family, leaving them to abandon the charnel-house urban atmosphere for a rural wilderness that seemed (on the surface, at least) a safer bet. ‘Survivors’ is like ‘The Good Life’ directed by Bergman.

Over the course of three series, ‘Survivors’ chronicled the coming together of disparate individuals into self-sufficient communities, returning the country to its agricultural origins, forced to learn ancient skills in the absence of electricity and petrol-driven machinery. But if that sounds like a dull ‘Open University’ experiment to see how people might cope when deprived of their creature comforts, it wasn’t. 

The abrupt disappearance of the framework of civilised society – law and order, a police force, a judiciary, a government – provoked an ‘every man for himself’ attitude in which not all were committed to the common good. 

Pillaging criminal gangs on one hand and pseudo-fascist vigilantes on the other roamed across this eerie vision of Britain and left the viewer in no doubt that there would be precious little signs of a resurrected ‘Blitz Spirit’ if the premise of ‘Survivors’ became our reality.

There are numerous occasions throughout the series in which it belatedly dawns on the characters just how dependent they’ve been on the technology they’ve taken for granted. 

But, lest we forget, this was 1975 – the pre-internet age, the pre-mobile phone age, the pre-Facebook, Twitter and texting age. 

Forty years ago, there were no emails or any form of online correspondence; people wrote letters and used a landline telephone (or a public call box); and yet, what to us now appear quaint household trinkets – full colour TV sets, transistor radios or stereo music-systems – were, at the time of the programme’s broadcast, domestic objects of desire that it was hard to imagine life without.

People of every age naturally see themselves as inhabitants of the most technologically advanced society the world has ever seen, which they are; but what strikes the DVD viewer coming to a series like ‘Survivors’ four decades since it aired is that the dependence those characters have on technology is 

nowhere near the dependence we have on technology today.

Were an actual event such as that portrayed in ‘Survivors’ to strike Britain in 2015, I doubt the genuine survivors would cope half as well as the fictitious survivors of Terry Nation’s grim masterpiece. 

Even the youngest adult characters in the series are in their mid-twenties, meaning they would have been born in the early 1950s, carrying memories of post-war austerity and an inherited practicality born of the make-do-and-mend mindset of ration-book Britain. 

Their education would have prepared them for a blue-collar trade or a white-collar workplace, even academia at a time when one had to be of above-average intelligence to qualify. Reliance on one’s hands or one’s intellect meant they brought a distinct breadth of talents to the table that would enable them to apply these talents to the task at hand. The drastic disappearance of what to us seems like basic technology hits them hard, but doesn’t leave them in despair. They are secure in the knowledge that their life before ‘the sickness’ imbued them with skills they now have need to call on.

Living one’s life in a virtual world that revolves around the narcissistic worship of the self,... 

....one facilitated by pocket technology, would be a drawback to survival; 

possessing knowledge that extends no further than being able to name each transitory starlet to invite a press photographer’s camera up her skirt would be a drawback to survival; 

devoting spare time to binging on the trivial, fuelled by mass-produced fast-food, would be a drawback to survival; 

receiving an education in which ‘media studies’ is regarded as a legitimate and worthwhile life lesson would be a drawback to survival; 

earning a living by taking a place in a chorus line of cold-callers, asking strangers if they’d ever considered installing double glazing, would be a drawback to survival; 

settling for the perpetual adolescence supported by a mother’s mollycoddling that ensures clothes are washed and dinner is served would be a drawback to survival. 

In short, so much of what it prized and praised today would be absolutely no use whatsoever.

On a personal note, I’ve had a lot of trouble with my computer lately. In the last few months, my mouse, my keyboard and my monitor have all conked out and have needed replacing; my increasingly erratic internet connection has been something of an inconvenience over the past seven days as well. This household appliance is of particular importance to me and anything that goes wrong with it prevents me from not only working, but from being in contact with 75% of the people I regard as friends. Of course, I wasn’t presented with a computer as a christening present (there wouldn’t have been enough space in the church to house the entire wall a 1960s computer would have needed, for one thing); over half of the life I’ve lived so far didn’t have a computer in it, so I know what it’s like not to have one. But the crucial point is that, having had one, I cannot now imagine what I would do if suddenly deprived of it.

Yes, you can’t miss what you’ve never had. And what made ‘Survivors’ such a compelling and ingenious series is the fact that it shows people who have had items that made their life easier taken away in an instant, and they then have to devise a life bereft of them. 

I’d certainly struggle in that situation, but I dread to think how those twenty or twenty-five years younger than me would. 

They have even less intellectual and practical tools at their disposal than me. This society will not be inherited by those prepared for what could happen should that society collapse overnight. Their encouraged detachment from it, encouraged by corporations, governments and industries that rely upon their blind, unthinking acquiescence, will reduce the population to the level of Morlocks within a generation should disaster befall it. After all, even the name of Terry Nation's series has had its meaning turned inside out this century.

It is true; you reap what you sow – but in the case of the cast of ‘Survivors’, that cliché referred to self-sufficiency, not selfie-sufficiency.

Always good for a final word, our Pertunia.

'Wild Bill' in our opening video (shown in the US Room) points to a whithering of political morality in the U.S.  Deliberate. It is affecting - and changing - the Military. It CAN be done. It IS being done. 

Whither morality and humanity. Withering, along with conscience.

Hope and Change, folks. The 'Fundemental Transformation' of America.

'Surviving' may on the whole be reliant, as it is these days, on massive infrastructure and the efforts of demeaned men, dismissed men, disgruntled men manning the sewers and food supply chain. But destroy those and ..? Destroy the willingness of men to act in the common good, and.....? 

It will be down to YOU.

And you will be left with naught but your conscience and your morality. 

Are yours 'modern' or are they maintained in good working order?

Pax & Hope.

Rats in the Bilges

Who needs enemies when there are so-called friends to do the dirty work?  It is a sad day when anyone discovers that those he thought he could count on are the ones doing it. They are dirty Rats. And the Tavern has been hearing of some really nasty rats frequenting that rathole of San Francisco.

It has always been a place where 'fringe-dwellers' and assorted nutters hung out and they were generally lefties of the old order. Che fans. The 'Free Love' mob. Homosexuals. Rich ones in the rock/entertainment biz and poor ones in the hippy mob singing folk songs and smoking hash. 

There is a new order now.  They are rich too and have infiltrated groups close to a Taverners heart - and soul.

While evil stalks everywhere, we cannot expect it not to seep and sneak into the very heart of  the Church. They pretend, these rich rats. Cultural Marxist Rats. They have political power. No wonder the Catholic Church in America is in deep trouble. 

Bishops and Archbishops have been getting dirty hands of late and it is good to hear of a 'sound' one here and there who stand for the Magesterium. One such as Archbishop Cordileone.

Never heard of him? Outside of America, few would have. Few in America would have either had he not stood up for the teaching of Traditional Moral Values in the schools in his diocese. In doing so he stirred the rats in the bilges. And out they came.

ANNE HENDERSHOTT came in to tell us.  And she named names.

And the good people of his Parish came out too. And others all around the world. Including this Tavern's customers. They sent the rats scurrying.

Attacks Against Archbishop Cordileone Fall Flat

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/attacks-archbishop-cordileone-fall-flat?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrisisMagazine+%28Crisis+Magazine%29 

Despite a ruthless public relations war against San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for attempting to ensure that Catholic schools remain faithful to the Church, the majority of respondents to a San Francisco Chronicle poll remain supportive of their episcopal leader. 

'Faithful to the Church' these days means keeping to Church Doctrine and resisting the 'same-sex marriage' mob.  It also means protecting children.  It means standing against rampant, government-sponsored Abortions. 

The Archbishop can put his hand up and admit he is a defender of marriage and children, pro-Life and against the Homosexual mobsters. 

 On Sunday, the Chronicle provided a weeklong poll for readers entitled “Time for Archbishop Cordileone to Go?” 

The results (as of April 21 at 3pm) revealed that those who have been lobbying Pope Francis to remove the archbishop remain a small minority. When asked: “Should Pope Francis Remove Archbishop Cordileone from the San Francisco Archdiocese?” 78 percent of all respondents said “No, the archbishop is upholding the values of the Catholic Church;” and 10 percent said the archbishop is right to oppose same sex marriage. 

In contrast, only 11 percent indicated that the archbishop is fostering a climate of intolerance; and a tiny fraction (1 percent) said that “Yes, his morality clause for teachers in parochial schools defies the law.”

Should Pope Francis remove Archbishop Cordileone from the San Francisco archdiocese?

 78%  No, the archbishop is upholding the values of the Catholic Church

 11%  Yes, the archbishop is fostering a climate of intolerance

 10%  No, the archbishop is right to oppose same-sex marriage

 1%   Yes, his morality clause for teachers in parochial schools defies the law

This has to be disappointing for those who hired Sam Singer, the infamous public relations guru, who has created a cynical marketing campaign to convince Catholics that the archbishop does not understand or appreciate the unique cultural needs of the San Francisco community.

Hah ! So the old sins of the people of 'Frisco are unique cultural needs', eh?

From candlelight vigils at the cathedral—replete with protestors dressed in black to vilify the archbishop at Church services on Ash Wednesday—to an extensive campaign to try to convince Catholics that the archbishop hates the homeless and is using sprinklers to remove them from sleeping on Church property, Singer has tried several unsuccessful strategies to convince Catholics to remove their leader.

Most recently, Singer helped to stage an elaborate press conference to announce a “grassroots” group of 100 so-called “committed Catholics inspired by Vatican II” who purchased a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle asking Pope Francis to remove the archbishop—and provide a new leader for them who is “committed to our values and your teachings.”

Leading the charge against the archbishop was Brian Cahill, retired executive director of Catholic Charities/Catholic Youth Organization in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. 

Angry about Catholic teachings on homosexuality, Cahill has been protesting these teachings for more than a decade—long before Archbishop Cordileone ever arrived in San Francisco. 

A long-time advocate of same-sex “marriage” and adoption of children by gay parents—even during the time he headed San Francisco’s Catholic Charities, Cahill publicly denounced Catholic teachings on homosexuality. 

On March 13, 2011, Cahill published an op-ed in The San Francisco Chronicle entitled: “My Gay Son: The Face of Church’s Lack of Respect,” which began with: “I am a Catholic who voted against Proposition 8 in 2008 and contributed $1,000 to the No on 8 Campaign.” Archbishop Cordileone was a leader of the Proposition 8 campaign that sought to ensure that marriage remain a union between a man and a woman.

Cahill is in the minor league compared to bigger players like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, who 'claim' to be catholic but do not even earn a small c.  But he is of their ilk. 

RATS

They are NOT Catholics. Perhaps they were once. Perhaps they were Baptised Catholic. But they have left the Faith a long way behind, seduced by cultural marxists exhortations, homosexuals, and political power from 'PC'.  

Cahill was joined by several Bay Area leaders—many of them big donors to Democratic political causes. 

First Things writer Matthew Schmitz pointed out that among the 100 signers included several business leaders like Charles Geschke, the co-chairman of Adobe System, who has given more than $200,000 to the Democratic National Committee; 

and Clint Reilly who worked on political campaigns for Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and later, headed the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities under Cahill.

Getting into powerful positions in Catholic Charities seems to be a ploy of the left homosexual mob lately. Michael Voris at Church Militant is currently exposing  another such rat in the ranks. 

CRS: Catholic Relief Sodomite

A vice president for Catholic Relief Services is legally married to his homosexual partner—and everyone knows it.

http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/crs-catholic-relief

Joining Cahill in his campaign against the Church in San Francisco, Jim McGarry and his wife, Kathy Curran appear to have made a commitment to changing Catholic teachings on marriage and homosexuality. And, like Cahill, Curran and McGarry made that commitment more than a decade ago—long before Archbishop Cordileone arrived in the Bay area. 

In December, 2008, the couple coordinated a demonstration along with Dignity USA, New Ways Ministry and Call to Action in a candlelight vigil to protest Vatican opposition to a United Nations resolution on homosexuality.

Curran coordinated a March 17, 2015 forum held at the University of San Francisco which was described in National Catholic Reporter as an opportunity to “galvanize opposition to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s changes to a handbook for teachers at four high schools.” 

In his opening speech at the March 17 forum, Cahill helped set the tone for the evening when he charged that “Cordileone, who with his imported crew of orthodox, smugly ideological and intentionally provocative zealots, is trying to shove his sex-obsessed version of Catholic identity down the throats of Catholic high school students and teachers.”

Jim McGarry appears to share his wife’s zeal for changing Catholic teachings on marriage and homosexuality—and has chosen to join her in the attack on the archbishop. But, McGarry goes even further by criticizing the Church’s teachings on reproductive rights including in vitro fertilization. 

In an open letter to San Francisco Catholic students McGarry suggested that the archbishop is “not in compliance with Catholic teaching.” Claiming that the archbishop is “very selectively choosing a small number of doctrines and putting them forward in a selective way,” McGarry concludes that the archbishop is “distorting the tradition in a way that first of all endangers the health and well being of our children.”

As the campaign against the Church in San Francisco has begun to lose ground, Singer’s rhetoric has escalated—and he has personally extended his attacks on those who have publicly supported Archbishop Cordileone. 

Following the publication of a National Review article  last week, Singer sent three tweets to his followers on April 18 and 19 advising them to denounce the author for her hateful speech. Calling the article “mean-spirited and hateful,” Singer called on the archbishop (of all people) to “reject” the author. 

Making sure that the author saw his angry tweets—and would be fearful of retribution by Singer-supporters—Singer forwarded them to her personally so she would receive them in her email inbox. Unfortunately for Singer, the strategy seems to have failed as only a handful of his followers even bothered to re-tweet any of his offensive tweets.

Realizing that he is losing the public opinion battles, it is likely that Singer will escalate his attacks on those of us who support the courageous work Archbishop Cordileone is doing. On April 18, Singer tweeted that he “won’t give up until Cordileone is gone.” Maybe. But, it is more likely that as Singer continues to lose ground in his ongoing war on the Church, and his supporters begin to retreat, his sponsors may start to consider whether they are engaged in a losing campaign.

No-one is obliged to be a Catholic. Who would want to be ? It is a very hard Church to live up to.

Catholics convert, yes, but by the most easy means. No-one is ever forced.  The demands, morally and spiritually, are very tough. Most Catholics are not very good at being either Catholic or good. But we try damned hard. We sin but seek forgiveness.

These people trying to get rid of Cordilione are undermining and attacking the Church. They sin and get a PR firm to brag about it.

If they do not like Church teachings they could always leave and join a Protestant group of their choice. They have 40,000 different protestant churches to choose from among. 

But they don't want to leave. 

They want to Destroy the Church.

They call themselves catholics but they are not. There is a shorter word for them.

RATS.

We must Love the sinner: but hate the sin.

Pet rats are fine.

Sewer rats, bilge rats, San Francisco's rats, are not.

(Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. She is the author ofStatus Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education; The Politics of Abortion; andThe Politics of Deviance (Encounter Books). She is also the co-author of Renewal: How a New Generation of Priests and Bishops are Revitalizing the Catholic Church (2013). )

Good to see a sociology professor who does noy buy into all the sociology crap that is taught.

A fine customer, Moira, standing close by, was familiar with the city and its depravities. She spoke up too.

I come from this corrupt area. I've heard and seen unimaginable evil. 

I am trying to remember that the Church is from God and cannot be broken by a few sinful men, or even a few thousand!

"that the archbishop does not understand or appreciate the unique cultural needs of the San Francisco community."

Unique cultural needs? Needs to rewrite the Gospel? If you don't like the Church, leave it. You can't DECIDE what is in the Bible. You can only choose to obey or not. Plenty of people have placed their own sinful desires above the Church, and left it, and have even placed their sinful desires above their families, and left them, or forced them to endure the horror of a transgendered parent, a gay parent, even a new collection of lovers. 

I've seen all these things: most of them (not all) close up. 

Compounding insult with injury is that we, as children of that sinful generation, are not allowed to talk about our experiences and our pain: our lives are subsumed in the need for "tolerance" for "acceptance" for "celebration" of these things that rip our lives apart.

I don't celebrate having three gay parents. I don't celebrate having parents more concerned with their sex lives than with their children. I don't celebrate how unimportant we were: how the social experiments, gay identity, even the religious folly were all more important than the children.

If you want to live in a grand sexual social experiment, don't kid yourself that it's a family. It is not.

We would have appreciated having parents who were more interested in raising healthy children than "tolerant," "diverse" and "preferably gay" children. 

Most of all, we didn't appreciate the endless pressure to take after the elder generation, or the ongoing sense that we were less than because no attempt to indoctrinate could actually cause us to become gay.

I wish I was kidding. I really do.

Pax, and healing, folks. Drink deep of Grace.  

Go and get you fill of the Sacrements.

I cannot stress enough the Grace one gets from the Eucharest.

Sheep drift away from the fold and the Shepherd will look for them by night and by day.

Pax Dei.

Politics and Religion

We are told that there is a 'seperation' between Church and State.  Can't say as I notice it too much, m'self. Indeed it has been remarked upon in the Tavern that Politicians are increasingly interfering with religious expression, especially in America. 

Some religions seem to be imposing their own expressions on States too. 

We cannot avoid the Muslim Problem, although in recent months there seems to have been a mixed response by the political leaders, most of whom seem to be in denial. 

One, however, just cannot seem to help himself in trying to blame anyone but the Muslims for the mayhem. 

President Obama.

I will come to him in a moment. But first let a very articulate and passionate lady have the floor to set the scene. Brigitte Gabriel. Here she addresses the United Nations. Not that many will listen and fewer of the delegates take any notice.

But YOU should.

The horrors she describes are just a small example.

And the response by the white House? The other leaders? Say in Britain?.

Ahh, Britain. The only western country where they claim seperation but actually have a State Religion. Hmmm. Not that it does much, but.....

Obama’s ‘Christianity’: 

A political tool to silence Christians

For all his faults on the subject, at least British Prime Minister David Cameron has talked about Christian persecution in the Muslim world. Barack Obama actually uses and abuses Christianity to shut down the discussion altogether. What a disastrous failure of leadership. Or is it?

Doing his best for his Allah

Raymond Ibrahim stood in the bar.....

In the United States, where Americans are used to hearing their president always invoke Christianity as a way to silence Christians, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent Easter message was moderately refreshing.

 http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5756/obama_s_christianity_a_political_tool_to_silence_christians

Among other things, Cameron made it a point to say, “that we should feel proud to say, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Yes, we’re a nation that embraces, welcomes and accepts all faiths and none, but we are still a Christian country.”

The context of Cameron’s statement, it should be recalled, is a UK with a large, and in parts intolerant and aggressive Muslim populace -- some among whom seek to treat the UK’s indigenous Christians the way the Islamic world’s indigenous Christians are habitually treated, that is, subjugated, enslaved, raped, and murdered.

In fact, Cameron touched on the phenomenon of Christian persecution in mostly Muslim lands:

“We have a duty to speak out about the persecution of Christians around the world too. It is truly shocking that in 2015 there are still Christians being threatened, tortured, even killed because of their faith.

“From Egypt to Nigeria, Libya to North Korea.  Across the Middle East Christians have been hounded out of their homes, forced to flee from village to village; many of them forced to renounce their faith or brutally murdered.  To all those brave Christians in Iraq and Syria who practice their faith or shelter others, we will say, ‘We stand with you.’”

While one may argue that Cameron is all talk -- after all, the UK’s foreign policies, like America’s, have only exacerbated the plight of Christians in the Middle East -- it is still refreshing to hear such honest talk, since here in the U.S. one seldom gets even that from President Obama.

Consider what Obama -- who is on record saying 

“we are no longer a Christian nation,” 

and who never notes the Islamic identity of murderers or the Christian identity of their victims, and who ignored a recent UN session on Christian persecution -- had to say about Christians at the Easter Prayer Breakfast:

“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”

This is in keeping with his earlier statements calling on Americans in general, and Christians in particular, to be nonjudgmental and instead to have “humility” and “doubt” themselves.

For example, during the National Prayer Breakfast last February, after Obama alluded to the atrocities committed by the Islamic State -- which include beheadings, crucifixions, rape, slavery, and immolations -- he said:

“I believe there are a few principles that can guide us, particularly those of us who profess to believe. And, first, we should start with some basic humility.

“I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt -- not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.”

Humility, of course, is a well-recognized Christian virtue. It is the exact opposite of pride; a modest if not humble opinion of oneself, one’s shortcomings.

But what does that -- exercising humility -- have to do with our understanding of Islamic violence and terrorism, which was, after all, the topic Obama was discussing immediately before he began pontificating about humility?

Are we not to judge and condemn Islamic violence -- since we’re apparently no better, as the president made clear when he 

told Christians to get off their “high horse” 

and remember the Crusades and Inquisition?

Furthermore, while Christian humility encourages self-doubt, it does not encourage doubt concerning right and wrong, good and evil.

The same Christ who advocated humility repeatedly condemned evil behavior, called on people to repent of their sins, and even hurled tables in righteous anger.

The point here is that whenever Obama invokes Christianity and Christian virtues, it is almost always in the context of trying to silence Christians: 

telling them to “love” more -- that is, to never judge or condemn anything, and instead be doormats ever “turning the other cheek”; 

telling them to remember the historic “crimes” of other Christians -- even if they are a thousand years old and no crimes at all -- that is, telling Christians not to criticize Islam because they too live in glass houses.

This is the “liberal Christianity” which Obama and others hail, because its chief purpose is to silence Christians from condemning and combatting what are otherwise clear evils.

Christians are being persecuted by Muslims all around the world? That’s okay, seems to be Obama’s response; just turn the other cheek -- have some more “humility” and “doubt,” show their Muslim persecutors some more “love” -- and everything will be set aright.

Obama is not just an excuser of Islam and a blamer of Christianity, he is an active destabiliser.  

On the matter of that 'equivalencing' of the crusades with islamic terrorism, Sheila Liaugminas had some things to say too.

Invoking the Crusades

Did Obama do a moral equivalency of Christian Crusaders with Islamic terrorists the other day?

Well, yes. But he won’t call them “Islamic”, though that’s what they call themselves.

 http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/invoking_the_crusades/15575

Expert analysts are talking daily now about the president’s refusal to address the threat we face globally. Time after time he’s had the opportunity, notably in the State of the Union address in January.

But in addressing the National Prayer Breakfast last week, Obama turned it into a chance to call religious extremism out. Of sorts.

In his comments at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama condemned violence in the name of religion and pointed to religious groups other than the Islamic State that have perpetrated acts of terror in human history.

Note, other than the Islamic State, which has mutilated, crucified, beheaded, raped, enslaved, burned alive, beaten to death, tortured and terrorized countless populations of innocent women, children, men, elderly, anyone and everyone in their path.

Obama continued with this astonishing statement:

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place,” the president said, “remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Oh geesh. This is more than a ‘here we go again’ moment. This is critical mass. The president of the United States. Going there.

Our news is increasingly made up of one outrageous act of barbarism committed in the name of Allah after another…

Against this backdrop of horror, our President feels the need to step back and take the long view. Instead of talking about Islam’s connection to the slavery of young girls right now, the President wants to lecture us on Christianity’s connection to slavery 150 years ago. 

Instead of condemning ISIS’ undeniable connection to Muhammad right now, he wants to re-focus our attention on the Crusaders and the Inquisition. 

Instead of condemning the Charlie Hebdo attackers Islamic extremism in a clear voice he wants to also condemn those who insult the faith of others (as if these two things were equally problematic).

This is not a much needed exercise in humility. 

This is a dodge, a cop out.

The ongoing threat to peace and human dignity from religion is not coming from Christianity, nor does it stem from Christian arrogance. 

The Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria, in Syria and Iraq, and in Egypt do not need a lecture on humility. 

The President ought to drop the moral equivalence and confront the threat we face in the here and now. And if he feels the need to lecture on religious humility, there is one religion that desperately needs to grasp the concept, right now in this century. In case it’s not already clear, that religion is not Christianity.

So in the name of Christianity, and for the purpose of clarifying the history of the Crusades now that we have this window opportunity, here are a couple of good articles by academics who know what they’re talking about.

Author and historian Thomas Madden.

Most people in the West do not believe that they have been prosecuting a continuous Crusade against Islam since the Middle Ages. But most do believe that the Crusades started the problems that plague and endanger us today. Westerners in general (and Catholics in particular) find the Crusades a deeply embarrassing episode in their history. As the Ridley Scott movie Kingdom of Heaven graphically proclaimed, the Crusades were unprovoked campaigns of intolerance preached by deranged churchmen and fought by religious zealots against a sophisticated and peaceful Muslim world. According to the Hollywood version, the blind violence of the Crusades gave birth to jihad, as the Muslims fought to defend themselves and their world. And for what? The city of Jerusalem, which was both “nothing and everything,” a place filled with religion that “drives men mad.” 

On September 11, 2001, there were only a few professional historians of the Crusades in America. I was the one who was not retired. As a result, my phone began ringing and didn’t stop for years. In the hundreds of interviews I have given since that terrible day, the most common question has been, “How did the Crusades lead to the terrorist attacks against the West today?” I always answered: “They did not. 

The Crusades were a medieval phenomenon with no connection to modern Islamist terrorism.”

But you have to be open to learning the truth to accept that and stay with the article, short as it is. Madden knows this, too well.

It is generally thought that Christians attacked Muslims without provocation to seize their lands and forcibly convert them. 

"The Crusaders were Europe’s lacklands and ne’er-do-wells, who marched against the infidels out of blind zealotry and a desire for booty and land. As such, the Crusades betrayed Christianity itself. They transformed “turn the other cheek” into “kill them all; God will know his own.”

Every word of this is wrong. 

Historians of the Crusades have long known that it is wrong, but they find it extraordinarily difficult to be heard across a chasm of entrenched preconceptions.

Which obviously includes the president.

Madden continued teaching, for those who were open to learning. Here’s a piece he wrote two years later.

"Many historians had been trying for some time to set the record straight on the Crusades — misconceptions are all too common. These historians are not revisionists, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, current interest is a “teaching moment,” an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people are actually listening. It won’t last long, so here goes…

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression — an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. 

While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity — and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion — has no abode."

It’s an extensive piece, well worth reading to learn the history of the Crusades. Take the time for it, too few people in media and politics will.

But they should get this from Madden’s conclusion:

"From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. "

But we have the most articulate President, equiped with his teleprompter, revising history for us and blaming the victims.

Thank goodness some people are ready and willing to call him out.

I call him Evil.

Yes, I know. It is not a fashionable word. 

But let me give the last (but one) word to the lady. She does not need a teleprompter.

Pax