Subverting Virtue

Some Taverners take note of what is written on the signs around the walls.  Many in Hilary's Village do not.  So let me remind you of one.

“ For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, 

but against Principalities, against Powers, 

against the Rulers of the Darkness of this world, 

against Spiritual Wickedness in high places. “

Those Powers and Principalities are having a field day, subverting the quite clearly virtuous aspects that most (I say that in hope) generally recognise. For subversion is a favoured tool, turning otherwise good people into tools of destruction.

Take the current fad of 'Tolerance', for example. Now, being tolerant and not blowing your stack all the time at every little difference that others might present, is a good course. We have to accept the things that we cannot change and work diligently and carefully to change the things we can.  And we can change most things in this world, especially ourselves. But simply accepting many awful and bad things that people do is not 'virtue' but acquiescence and often facilitation. 

We have to 'tolerate' wickedness. We are ordered by the Powers that be and the laws passed against our wishes or needs to accept things that are inimicable to a heathly society.  We have to kow-tow to mantras instead of thinking about matters and making sound judgements.

Indeed, we are told that 'Judging' is wrong ! 

We must not 'discriminate'

By these denials of human facility we allow all manner of bad things to happen.

My friend James brought a chap into the bar today. A Professor of some sort. Bruce G Charlton.

Bruce took us on a short look through the windows of empathy. You will have heard of empathy if you are a woman, of course, as feminists make the claim that it is soley a female virtue, along with nurturing. Chaps, they say, do not have these. We are supposedly only able to watch in wonder as woman deploy them. 

Feminism is one of those major tools of the PTB, subverting our most fundamental differences - Male and Female.

So, Bruce was saying.......

Induced loneliness and the snaring of Good by empathy

It is dismaying to see so many basically decent people who are drawn into the net of evil and corruption woven by the demon-possessed ruling elites such that they cannot discern evil even when it is standing in front of them and haranguing them with anti-moral tirades based on an increasingly obvious loathing for the people they are supposed to be representing and leading.

The process of corruption is long and incremental - and often begins with loneliness. 

 http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/induced-loneliness-and-snaring-of-good.html

Modern life creates loneliness, disaffection, alienation; and the way out from this state (so nearly intolerable for social beings such as ourselves) is to join in with the fake empathy demands of the mass media; 

join in with the (more-or-less) sexualized, intoxication-focused and mutually exploitative events that go by the name of 'social life'; just, basically, 

Join In.

I presume that this is why the elites are so keen that as many as possible vulnerable and impressionable 18 year olds should be torn away from their friends and families and planted somewhere (anywhere!) else among people who they do not know and who care nothing for them, in spiritually barren colleges where their only escape is into meaningless mass media, superficial social interaction, sexual adventures, intoxication events, and self-righteous moral grandstanding --- the only alternative being to sit in your room, a cafe, a library for hours... alone and silent. 

Odd, isn't it how University students take such a long time to study at what I would call a 'basic' level'. Three years or four of at the most 15 hours a week for at the most 30 weeks of the year. That, to me, is not work at all.  They could do that and have a full-time job. I did m'self.

The uneducated mobs of students in Universities, egged on by socialist, jew-hating, christian-hating, reason-hating professors huddle in their 'safe spaces' coming out only to prevent others with different opinions and view from speaking. 

So much for tolerance and diversity and inclusiveness.

Here and now, pretty much all high volume, widely-available social interactions are thoroughly permenated by mass media attitudes, which are secular and leftist attitudes; any group of 'friends' casually interacting, or interacting on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or whatever (and - so far as I can see - everyone is doing this all of the time, unless physically prevented) will be participating in a festival of shallow secular evil - will be thought-policing each other for crimespeak, will be demanding and eliciting 'appropriate' attitudes and responses to an agenda supplied and hourly updated by the mass media.

The only way out from this is solitude and silence, and the only way that solitude and silence are tolerable (let alone rewarding) is in a loving and nurturing context - which is, pretty much, restricted to the family context (i.e. embedded in the context of sociality and responsibilities which is - or should be - family life).

Mind you, solitude and silence are the stock in trade of hermits. Quiet contemplation, reading, considering, observing, yea even praying, are good for the soul. 

Of course families are themselves infected by the same anti-spiritual culture, including the culture of busyness - of over-planning, of always doing something (or feeling guilty about not doing something) - but at any rate, the family makes this basic life stance possible in a way that the public world simply disallows - there is the possibility of genuine human contact: soul to soul.

Family, again of course, is an anathema to the feminists whose faux-philosophy derides motherhood  and punishes fatherhood. Children are an imposition and a obstacle to 'fulfillment' as a drone working for some Government Department and paying taxes.

In the public world you can have solitude and silence, but at the cost of paralysing despair --- Or you can 'join-in' with the agenda of always inane and ever-more-frequently evil chit chat, opinionating, endorsing, mocking, cheering and ritually-condemning that is 'modern life'.   

Nobody is going to solve this for us, because everybody is the problem. 

'Society' won't reform because they don't want to 'reform'; they don't perceive anything wrong that coudn't be fixed by more-of-the-same; and anyway they personally are not the worst, so 'don't judge/ blame me'? 

Once you have made the diagnosis, only you can implement (or work towards) a solution.

Being reasonable, friendly, agreeable, empathic... these are enemies of Life in this world. 

Sad but true. If you don't like it for yourself, get on with changing it for yourself - as best you can. 

That parlysing despair can only be overcome by Grace.

I make no bones about that.The dark forces that beset us are not simply 'out there' but within the hearts and minds of us all, and we must be vigilant with ourselves, lest we piss on our own carpets.

So drink up and read on.

That mass media encourages suicide. 

Not only individually but societally. 

Men are suiciding at an alarming rate. Divorce under the modern feminist-decreed laws has ruined families and sent men to a long, living hell of false accusation and punitive court appearances. And that is just to see their own children for a day a fortnight. 

Hiding behind this little girl motif lurks a much darker person, seeking your empathy.

The very man and woman-ness of people is being subverted.  The media is pushing and shoving 'Transgender' down our throats and woe betide anyone raising a cautionary word. 

They are denounced - no 'tolerance of their view allowed - as Transphobic, Homophobic, and worst of all it seems 'Heteronormative'.  The mind boggles.

And we are encouraged to be 'inclusive' of such 'diversities' as stoning woman to death, beheading anyone who 'insults' that paedophile warmonger Mohammed and marrying off small pre-pubescent girls who have had their vaginas mutilated to old men who duly rape them. 

Our children, whom U.S Presidential candidate Hilary (of the Village fame) Clinton claims only a village can be entrusted with rather than parents, are being subverted under our noses but out of our sight in the schools we are obliged to pay for.

Australia is once again leading the way. Two MPs wandered by. Michael Sukkar and Tim Smith. They must have spun the bouncer a good yarn but we heard them out.

Parents’ values and rights ignored

THE balance is shifting against mainstream values in Victorian state schools under the Andrews Labor government.

Nothing is more critical for parents than sharing their values with their children; instructing them in right and wrong, and acting as role models.

 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/parents-values-and-rights-ignored/news-story/eb238d305c96c0098405ed0eaa9a49d4

Among the most sensitive of these values for children concerns sex and sexuality.

Yet some of our schools include in their curriculum the Safe Schools Coalition program, a program that usurps the parental role.

It is a program that seeks to indoctrinate children as young as 11 in an understanding of sex and sexuality.

It is a program that has attracted legitimate criticism across mainstream Australia.

In the guise of an anti-bullying course, the so-called Safe Schools teaching materials present children with confronting and manipulative information. That information is often at odds with the values those children are taught at home.

No-one approves of bullying and barely anyone has been through schooling without some sort of bullying. Kids do that. Ill-mannered kids. Nasty kids. Most kids, that is. So 'anti-bullying' is a convenient 'back door' for subversives to gain entry to the schoolrooms.

For example, the materials link to a website that says that “genitals and bodies in general don’t reflect anything about a person’s … gender”.

One video shown as part of the program bizarrely includes the following phrase: “They may take our penises, they may take our vaginas, but they will never take our freedom!”

Shades of that mad bastard from Scotland, played by the sad bastard from New Zealand, Mel Gibson. Well, everyone has an off day. 

Indeed, conventional arrangements in schools, such as recording each student as a boy or a girl, or having a boys’ toilet and a girls’ toilet, are [now] labelled as “restrictive policies” by the Safe Schools Coalition.

Alarmingly, a Safe Schools brochure threatens schools that to “maintain restrictive policies around uniform, personal records and access to bathroom facilities could be breaking the law”.

The teaching materials are also developed in conjunction with an organisation called Minus18.

This group’s website offers advice to children on such matters as chest binding and penis tucking.

It also advocates the use of “puberty blockers”, drugs that require medical prescription and, for obvious reasons, are only effective for young children.

This whole program is of course otherwise called 'grooming' and allows paedophiles to run amuck with our subverted children. 

Under the Andrews Labor government, the Safe Schools program will be compulsorily rolled out to all Victorian state schools by 2018.

Parental consent will not be sought by the state government before this curriculum is taught in their children’s school.

In fact, parents will not be advised of any detail of the contents of the Safe Schools program despite its fiercest proponent, Premier Andrews, telling parliament “it does push the boundaries sometimes”.

The Coalition, both federal and state, is in favour of any government-funded program in schools that combats the scourge of bullying. Children need to be taught that bullying is wrong, for any reason.

However, we fear that the Safe Schools Coalition goes far beyond an anti-bullying document and has unfortunately morphed into radical gender theory curriculum and sexual identity politics.

These are issues that one might expect to be exposed to on a university campus — not taught to 11-year-olds.

This is, perhaps, not surprising given that one of the Safe Schools Coalition co-founders, Roz Ward, has conceded the program is part of a broader strategy to radically change our society.

In fact, Ms Ward told the Melbourne 2015 Marxism Conference that capitalists have imposed “cultural and moral norms around sex, marriage and the natural family that inhibit sexual freedom”, and that the Safe Schools program was a way of tackling these “norms”.

It is frightening that somebody with these warped views and belief in lurid conspiracy theories is provided with taxpayer-funded support to indoctrinate the nation’s children.

Accordingly, we support the Turnbull government’s review of the Safe Schools program and curriculum — if for no other reason — because the program is way out of step with the mainstream values of Victorians.

As Cella White, a concerned mother of four, told the Herald Sun in February: “It was announced in science class that boys could wear school dresses next year.”

She later went on to say in a radio interview, “I think it’s far too graphic” a teaching program for her young teenage son.

Ultimately, we believe that the state should not usurp the role of parents and make value judgements about what children are to be compulsorily taught.

Particularly on these highly sensitive subjects, without their parents’ consent and knowledge.

Sadly, in parliament last week, Bill Shorten and Daniel Andrews derided anyone as a homophobe or bigot for simply questioning the age-appropriateness and other aspects of the Safe Schools program.

In this respect we concur with the words of former prime minister John Howard, who said: “To say that anybody who is alarmed about this ‘Safe Schools’ booklet is a homophobe …(is) so out of touch.”

It is wicked. Say it. 

We are determined to be the voice for mainstream values and to defend the rights of ordinary parents to guide the values of their children on these highly sensitive matters.

MICHAEL SUKKAR IS LIBERAL FEDERAL MP FOR DEAKIN

TIM SMITH IS VICTORIAN LIBERAL MP FOR KEW

I pulled them a pint.

Not only are parents not told anything but even unethical 'researchers' have gone behind their backs to seek children's views to the usual biased questions.

Rebecca Urban and Greg Brown were shouted a drink too.

Parents in dark over uni sex survey linked to Safe Schools

Vulnerable teenagers as young as 14, including some who had suicidal thoughts, were secretly interviewed without parental knowledge about their gender and sexuality by a university research team with links to the Safe Schools program.

The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, run out of La Trobe University, went to significant lengths to ensure its interviews with underage participants took place without parental consent when researching its report, From Blues to Rainbows.

The move has been savaged by education expert Kevin Donnelly and sparked questions from leading bioethicists about recruiting young people for research via social media.

More 'grooming'. Such people should be arrested. 

Several gay, lesbian and transgender organisations promoted the project by sharing links to surveys on their Facebook and Tumblr pages. 

It was also promoted via other media, including gay magazines LOTL and the Star Observer, as well as ABC’s Triple J radio station.

Interviews via an online instant messenger platform were often held during the evening so some participants would not be interrupted by parents who did not know about their child’s “gender identity”.

“It was imperative that people under the age of 18 were able to participate in this research,” the report concedes.

“In order to protect the young people from being outed to their family, the young people did not need to gain parental or guardian consent to participate in the research.”

It was to 'protect' the young people, eh? How many paedophiles have used that as an excuse to keep secters from children's parents? 

The report, released in 2014, presents a picture of a highly vulnerable cohort, with half the 189 participants aged 14 to 25 identifying as transgender and 11 per cent as “gender questioning”.

But of course. Not that anyone can see the questions or how the answers were collated. It is a technique started and successfully applied elsewhere by Professor Mary Koss who came up with the statistic that One in Four Women are Raped.  Most of the respondents to her questionnaire didn't even think they had been.

I have a strong suspicion that the 'half identifying as transgender' had no idea they would be counted as such either.

Almost two-thirds had reported being subject to abuse or harassment due to their gender non-conformity, more than half had been diagnosed with depression and 38 per cent had experienced thoughts about suicide.

And we are supposed to take this nonsense as true !!  

While the project was approved by La Trobe University’s ethics committee, the methodology appears to go against the National Health and Medical -Research Council’s guidelines pertaining to the ethical conduct of research involving minors, which recommends that parental consent be obtained when dealing with “children and young people”.

Dr Donnelly, who opposes the Safe Schools program, raised concerns about minors being interviewed about contentious issues without parental involvement. He said the research participants were clearly vulnerable. A worst-case scenario would be that a participant could emerge as a risk of self-harm, yet their parents or guardians would remain oblivious.

“I would have thought it was unethical; as we know the guidelines are pretty strict for academic research,” he said.

“Parents still have primary responsibility for raising their children; as a parent I’d be quite shocked (if my child was interviewed without my knowledge).’’

The report, which was released with much fanfare, appears designed to push a case for further rollout of the Safe Schools program — an anti-bullying program that has been criticised by conservative groups for politicising sex education and advocating a LGBTI lifestyle.

Its approach to sex education, in which teachers are counselled that it’s “heterosexist” to refer to students as “girls and boys” and children are instructed to role-play gay teenagers, has outraged religious groups and conservative politicians.

The Safe Schools Coalition was co-developed by Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria, 

which is situated within the research centre but funded by the state government. It is run in Victoria by Roz Ward, a La Trobe University academic and hard-left advocate for LGBTI issues. 

Ward is one of six authors behind the From Blues to Rainbows report, which noted that participants who did not feel supported by their teachers were more than four times more likely to leave school if they experienced discrimination than those with teacher support.

The ABC would not comment on its involvement in seeking survey respondents.

La Trobe University vice-chancellor John Dewar said the research centre had his full support. “It is a centre of excellence in research and has forged an international reputation for the quality and impact of its work over the last 23 years.” he said through a spokesman. “The project was subject to rigorous scrutiny by the university’s ethics committee prior to being approved and was undertaken to the highest academic standards. As an additional layer of oversight, the project was also reviewed and monitored by a community advisory group, which included young people and support services.”

The University of New England, which also took part in the research, distanced itself from the project yesterday. A spokesman said the report was a product of the research project led by La Trobe University.

“La Trobe was the recipient of the research grant and it contracted a UNE researcher to work for La Trobe on the project,” the spokesman said.

The whole business stinks.

But hey, we have to be 'Tolerant' and 'Inclusive', or else.

God help us all.

Pax. 

Good Deeds and False Accusers.

The Taverners have been following the circus put on by the media Emperors as the massed ranks of what passes for the chatteratti elite in Oz throw George Pell to the lions. And they chose a place as close to the Colloseum as they could afford.

Well, as much as they thought you could afford as it is a taxpayer funded junket.

No matter that George has appeared before, several times.  No. They chased him all the way to Rome for yet another roasting.  They even had the 'Commission' hire a hotel for the occasion and crowd-sourced money from the gullible to send an audience. 

And no matter that he has not even been considered for criminal charges of any kind. In fact his only 'crime' seems to have been kindness.

Good Deeds George.

He was the one man who, horrified by what he found when he rose to such heights as to see what was happening, actually did something positive where others had cut and run.

No sign in the entourage of media egging on the accusers on to star reporter and ex-Catholic priest Paul Bongiorno, either, in the media huddle. That darling of the circus is being kept hidden in a back room somewhere in Wagga Wagga. No-one demands that he be interviewed and interviewed, interrogated and accused falsly.

On the Stand, Paul. 

Peter Wales was in to give his view. He can hardly be called a defender of Catholicism as he was an Anglican clergyman.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

That the Church harboured paedophiles is beyond dispute, so to note that allegations of abuse can be prompted by an eye for the quick dollar risks demeaning genuine victims. It is these very people for whom Cardinal Pell sought justice, yet we told he is the monster. There is something very wrong here.

NOT that paedophiles lurked in every nook and cranny of the hundreds of parishes, mind you.  We are talking (well the Royal Commission and every media hack is talking) of a very few, several decades ago, most of whom are dead or in jail. 

In the mid-Nineties I had a friend called Pat. He was a Christian Brother. This was about the peak of the time it was the Christian Brothers’ turn to be the most hated people or organisation in Australia. 

 http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/02/good-deed-goes-unpunished/

I asked him what the heck had happened. His reply was that their investigations had led them to believe that a large number of the complaints were without foundation. Certainly their legal advice was that if they contested the claims, they would win almost every case.

However, they had also reached that view that at least some of the claims were likely to be true, and that it was not easily possible to tell which were true and which were not. 

They would rather accept every claim than run the risk of denying justice to a single person who had genuinely been abused. 

I thought then, and still think, that this view, while noble, was naive.

If you were at a Christian Brothers school twenty, or thirty or forty years ago, and you knew all you had to do to get a $60,000 payout was claim that Brother Fred, or Tom or whoever, now deceased or in a nursing home, had gone the grope in the change rooms … well, many people would be, and apparently were, tempted.

That is not justice. 

Firstly, it ran the risk of utterly and falsely ruining the reputations of men who had given up any kind of sexual relationship over their life-times, who had given up the right to make choices about where they lived or who they lived with, who were paid nothing, or mere pocket money, in order to serve and work with boys who were often difficult or disadvantaged, and who did so faithfully all their lives with little thanks. And of course, who were now not able to defend themselves.

           That is not justice. 

Nor is giving money away. 

That was not the Christian Brothers’ money to do with as they pleased. It was raised through hard work, dollar by dollar, by ladies at cake stalls, by children at car washes, by gifts from working people so that many would have a fair chance at a decent education. 

Giving it to anyone who made a claim was not fair to the people who raised it, and it was not fair to the people who missed out on educational opportunities because there was no money left.

                          That is not justice. 

Nor was it just to the schools and communities where Christian Brothers had worked, which were now looked at with disdain or suspicion.

                                           That is not justice. 

Nor was it fair to those who had been genuinely abused, who deserved to be heard, to be recognised and helped.

I thought this was wrong. And I suspect that Cardinal Pell thought it was wrong too. 

Justice based on untruth, no matter how well meant, is not justice. 

At the time, Fr Pell was a priest in the Diocese of Ballarat, he had no authority over anyone else, nor was he in a position to make rules or issue guidelines. Yet somehow, he is being treated as if he were responsible for child abuse that occurred within that diocese. That he must have known, and should have done something about it. [They say]

It is even being pretended that he has tried to avoid giving evidence to the Royal Commission. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Pell, who has never been accused by the Commission of any wrongdoing, has given more hours of evidence than any other witness — having so far appeared twice, once in person, once via video. 

Giving evidence via video is nothing out of the ordinary. About one-third of witnesses in Australia have done so, for reasons that include distance and work commitments.

Former Catholic priest Paul Bongiorno, now an ABC journalist, shared a house with that despicable creature Gerald Risdale, as did many others. 

Bongiorno says he had no idea what Risdale was up to. 

I do not see or hear any media people or any of the accusers currently hounding George Pell calling Bongiorno a liar.  But then Bongiorno is 'one of them', a lefty tool.

He has noted that paedophiles won’t normally come home in the evening and boast about how many boys they have raped. He is right, of course. Paedophiles are secretive and sneaky. There is no reason to think that Bongiorno or anyone else knew what Risdale was doing.

Hense, there is no reason to think Pell did either. 

As soon as George Pell was in a position to know what had been happening, and to do something about it, he did. Just three months after he became Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, he set up the first protocols for dealing with child abuse in any church group in Australasia, Europe or the US. The Melbourne Response, as it was called, was widely hailed by police and victim groups.

Essentially, anyone who had a complaint could discuss it in a non-adversarial environment. Counselling and other forms of support were offered. In many cases, financial compensation was offered. It is important to note that this was not meant to replace a victim’s right to go to the police. Victims who talked to the Melbourne Response were told of all their options, and could make a complaint to police at any time, including after their case had been heard by Melbourne Response, and financial compensation paid.

As well as being highly emotional, these were very often complicated and confusing situations, with unclear or conflicting evidence, with justice being dependent, of course, on what was the truth. What seems clear now, and justice now, after many years, and further evidence and cases, was not always clear at the time. 

Yet somehow in spite of all of his work over many years to stop child abuse within the church, and to make processes for victims as supportive and comfortable as possible, and to ensure outcomes were what victims needed, Pell is made out to be the bad guy.

For example, ABC TV News last week ran an interview with Chrissie and Anthony Foster as they departed Melbourne Airport for Rome, so as to be present when Cardinal Pell gives further evidence to the Royal Commission, as he is set to do tomorrow morning (February 29). Two of the Fosters’ daughters were sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest in Melbourne before George Pell became Archbishop of Melbourne.  This is what Mr Foster had to say, as reported by ABC TV:

"We want to hear the truth. And he’s worked his way right through the hierarchy right up to the top of the Catholic Church.  So, we really want to hear the truth about what happened. And it’s about time we saw some action out of the Catholic Church. So maybe hearing the whole truth from him – we might actually start to see some action."

You can certainly understand the parents being upset and angry. But there are a couple of things to note, things the ABC did not note. 

Firstly, the assaults on their daughters took place before Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne. He did not know, and could not have known, what was happening. 

Secondly, the Foster family made use of the Melbourne Response, set up by the Archbishop Pell for exactly that purpose. 

Thirdly, even though he was not Archbishop when the Foster girls were assaulted, as part of the Response process, Pell personally apologised to the family “for the wrongs and hurt you have suffered.”

Fourthly, and finally, in November, 2005 the Foster family accepted $750,000 in compensation from the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, plus payment of their legal costs and an indemnity in respect to any payments to the Health Insurance Commission. (See the Royal Commission’s Report of Case Study No 16: The Melbourne Response, July 2015, page 19.)

Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! 

So what on earth does Mr Foster mean when he says, “We might finally start to see some action?”

And why blame Pell?

I put it down to Cognitive Dissonance. They gouged, and now they justify with more gouging.

Perhaps a friendly Lawyer will step up and 'assist' the Fosters and anyone else at hand to make an outrageous demand for money from the ABC for harbouring a journalist who lived with a paedophile.

But I really don't want to see taxpayers' money going the same way as Catholic parishioners collection plate contributions.

Pax. 

Mops and Fine Music

I cannot claim to be a musician and I cannot hold a tune, but I do know exceptional talent when I hear it. And I heard it today in the Crypt, where I was mopping the floor, as is my usual Sunday chore. One has to keep a clean place for Holiness to come in, and a bit of humility does not go amiss.

So there I was, mop in hand when I was called to Confess by an angelic voice. It brought me to my knees.

To 'make it' as a First rate opera Diva, one has to master a huge range of Holy music. The 'muse' for many of the great composers was God Himself. And a soprano voice can rank alongside Angels in any choir. 

I have to confess here that Elina Garanca is a favourite.  One of Finland's best exports. Ot was it Latvia? I can't recall. Not only do I judge her to have a beautiful voice but she is, to me, a beautiful woman too. I will leave the state of her soul to my Supplier to judge, and her country of origin hardly matters when she is a gift to the world.

But she certainly can give honour and glory.

So my mopping task was interrupted several times and while I was down on my knees I could attend to the tough bits with my scrubbing brush as I listened to her.

She gives praise to the Holy Mother too. Her way is certainly more expansive than my humble daily Rosary.

And talking of mopping, she has a freind that I also much admire. (They always have a friend, don't they !!). Anna Netrebko, a Russian gal who worked her way up the opera ranks by mopping the floors of her music school.

That's humility for you.

This is in Russian, by the way, but with subtitles. Read as you listen.

Now, a round of drinks is called-for, m'thinks.

Pax.

Usquebaugh

Looking out from the Tavern on the Mountain,

Low cloud.  Misty amongst the trees.

Leaves and grasses painted with a sheen.

Fifty shades of Green.

Water of Life 

 aqua vitae ("water of life"). 

     uisce beatha

            uisge beatha 

                   uskebeaghe 

                         usquebaugh 

 usquebath 

           usquebae  

 Drink deep.

Pax

Persecuted

There seems to be a constant stream of news and events that can objectively be called 'Persecution'. Much of it is vile and murderous, as we see all the time in countries dominated by or heavily influenced by Muslims. You know - the 'Religion of Peace'. But in the Tavern these few days past the conversations have been about a more pernicious and closer to home sort. 

NOT Arrested

There is, of course, a religion which preaches, teaches and tries somewhat fitfully to 'Love your neighbour' that is considerably more successful at being peaceful. That is Christianity. 

But against it are arrayed forces that rely on 

The Lie.

Those lies take forms that have permeated our society, both secular and religious. It has penetrated the Churches and the Parliaments, the Education systems and the Legal structures. Some seem to have a strong following and backing of 'ordinary' people in the west who might otherwise make fine neighbours but choose instead to cheat, steal, lie and persecute. Anyone who raises the Truth can become a target.

Two matters were being discussed in the bars. One from France and one from here in Oz. Both concerned Priests and both priests are being 'accused' and persecuted.

Kevin Whitman was telling us about Father Guy Pagès. Never heard of him? Me neither, but we are not likely to, are we, what with our laws and public attitudes and media conspirators.

FRENCH PRIEST ARRESTED

 Father Guy Pagès has made quite clear that he loves God, Christendom, and his native France. Due to his fidelity to The Almighty, the Church and his homeland, Abbé Pagès has found himself persecuted by civil authorities on the grounds of advocating terrorism.

 http://kevinwhiteman.com/2016/02/french-priest-arrested-islam-is-a-punishment-from-god-for-apostasy/

As noted by Andrew Bieszad on the Walid Shoebat news portal, French police have arrested the Catholic priest as well as shut down his website, Islam-et-Verite.com (Islam and Truth). Despite the government attempting to silence the Abbé, Bieszad cites an interview he recently gave to the website Polinia Christiana(Christian Poland).

Arrested

Unafraid to boldly declare the truth, Fr. Pages will undoubtedly face the wrath of the radical Left, militant multi-culturalists, and even thesurrenderistas within his own Church when he stated, “The countries of Western Europe, renouncing Christianity, began to promote the Islamization, and the Church itself seems to have nothing against the view that Islam is a religion of good.”

Perhaps sending Islamic enablers into apoplectic fits of Biblical proportions, the controversial cleric continued with, “Europeans, as non-Muslims, they should be afraid of Islam because Islam wants to make them their subjects. Moreover, as already mentioned, the word ‘Islam’ means ‘submission.’ Submission to what? The Antichrist. Because who else can come after Christ, if not the Antichrist? Islam is coming to destroy the work of Christ.”

Perhaps the best summation of the interview overall was Father Pages placing the blame of the Islamization of Europe and the collapse of Christianity on the continent directly at the door of both secular and Christian Europe, 

“Non-Muslims should therefore understand that if they rejected Christ, they will have the Antichrist. 

The development of Islam in the West is a tough punishment for apostasy.”

Now even I might say that the connection is not made in simple logic. But anti-Christ is a tool of the Prince of Lies, and what we see all around us is lies.

A society that arrests a priest for sounding a moral alarm but does nothing to mobs that march around demanding that other be beheaded, is a lost society.

I do not see Islam as being due to Apostacy, but perhaps the opposite. The failure of people to listen in the first place.  Our society (and I count the French in 'our') has to a large extent not even adopted Christ as its model. If its rejection of His Church since the late middle ages counts as 'apostacy',  then it implies that God takes His time. 

But Islam was around long before the Reformation and that rejection of His Church. It is the view of this old Tavern Keeper that Islam is a direct Satanic response to Christ Himself and His Church, rather than to us not accepting either or leaving aside both.

Meanwhile, the French portal Resistance Republicaine has also cited  the reason the French police raided the office of Fr. Pages website provider and subsequently seized the server and all related software, hardware and documents.

According to the site, the good Father is accused of violating France’s State of Emergency, which was implemented in the wake of the Islamic jihadist attacks in Paris this past November. As noted, the charges were brought against the priest for embedding photos on his website of the carnage the Islamic terrorists visited on the patrons of the Bataclan Theater, where 89 were killed.

(The Tavern now publishes it too. So come on France, arrest me too)

For posting the pictures of the slaughtered innocents, Father Pages has been charged with the following violation;

Article 5461-2,  227-24 and 225-17 of the Penal Code criminalizing respectively the ” broadcast of a violent character message inciting terrorism, pornographic or likely to cause serious harm to human dignity […] when this message is likely to be seen or perceived by a minor and breach in respect for the dead.”

This is a mendacity. Not the statement: not the legal provision: But the application in this instance. The same photographs have been published in newspapers and on TV without charges being made against those media. So why Fr. Pages? 

He's a Priest. 

Easy Target.

Muslims who say and do far worse 'incitement' are untouched by the long arm of the gendarmerie.

The secular forces are quite happy to persecute Christians.

But in the meantime, Father Pages Facebook site Islam et Vérité is still up, at least for the time being.

Meanwhile back in Oz we have our own witch hunt happening. And while to some it is close to home and personal, it may well be a small part of a far larger and darker picture.

Tess Livingstone raised some serious questions regarding the concerted efforts, even from within the Church, to destroy Cardinal George Pell.

Not only is he the most senior Catholic prelate in Oz, but he has been appointed by the Pope (in a rare moment of clarity, it may seem) to head up the investigations into corruption in the Church, and specifically in the Vatican Bank. That 'institution' - the bank - you may well know has been a sewer pipe, into which some very unsavoury characters have infiltrated to the heart of the Vatican.

The current and long running 'Royal Commission' into child abuse has focussed its attention on the Catholic Church, despite most abuse being inflicted by myriad others. That is not to excuse errant and wicked priests, but they are few in number compared to the numbers of abuse victims and perpertrators in the education industry. 

Oz schools are little different

Or in the home for that matter.

Fathers get prosecuted, but rarely do mothers. Why is that?

Cardinal Pell is a  Tall Poppy, a 'Big Head' to lop off but we are not going to see any Education Department Heads cut off or Minister of Education arses hauled into a Tribunal.

Why is that?

Despite appearing twice before and given reams of evidence, his presence in the dock is demanded again. He is in Rome. He is not a well man at 74.  But blood is sought.

Catholic Priests are an easy traget. And the biggest liars and thieves are out for blood, and not just to CYA.

Too effective in Rome for his enemies’ liking.

Plenty of people want George Pell to come unstuck. 

Chief among them are the Vatican old guard, the mafia and heavies whose money laundering, tax evasion and possibly worse will come to an abrupt halt if crucial reforms instigated by the cardinal, such as the professional auditing of all Vatican agencies, including the Vatican Bank, come into force in coming months.

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/too-effective-in-rome-for-his-enemies-liking/news-story/8d4fdf4fe0952e5441ef2a9b7e360c5f

It’s needed. The cardinal, 74, and his team have uncovered more than €1 billion ($1.5bn) in Vatican funds unaccounted for, busted a multi-million-euro rort centred on a children’s hospital funded by a Catholic charity and the Italian government and exposed millions in unexplained transactions. 

Crunch time is coming, and some in prominent Vatican positions want a return to the “old ways’’. As in Australia, where he injected energy into the church in Melbourne and Sydney, he has been too effective in Rome for his enemies’ liking.

Last week, Pell’s supporters and ideological opponents alike recognised the visceral hatred fermenting in the blogosphere, egged on by Tim Minchin’s tasteless warbling, had become a toxic, dangerous witch hunt of a kind rarely if ever seen in this country. 

Minchin: Musician, funny, sick soul.

Then, on Friday night, came the well-timed “bombshell’’. 

It’s not known who made the complaints reportedly being investigated by Victoria Police or who leaked the details. Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton should clarify the matter. Justice must be done and be seen to be done, the presumption of innocence afforded unless otherwise proven.

At least one supposed incident reportedly occurred at the Ballarat pool, where then Father Pell used to swim in summer. Claims that supposedly relate to his time as archbishop at the cathedral in Melbourne are also an utter mystery.

The notion Pell “groomed’’ young males between 1978 and 2001 — and got away with it — beggars belief.

We’ve been here before. 

In 2002, he was accused of abusing a boy at a holiday camp at Smiths Beach, Phillip Island, 40 years earlier. The complaint was investigated and the cardinal exonerated.

But at that time, with the story everywhere, it’s hard to understand why supposed “victims’’ would not have come forward then. 

I know. I was writing his biography and will never forget the hatred and hot air. This kind of living martyrdom would break most hearts. But George Pell will be fortified by his faith and his supporters’ prayers.

It is all too easy to accuse. Especially when the accusations are being made today about events that were claimed to have happened forty of fifty years ago. Better late on the bandwagon than not at all if there is easy money to be made. Sympathy and excuses to be gained to boot !

And..... the current climate has it that all accusers are to be believed, else they may 'suffer trauma' again from being questioned and corroboration sought. 

No-one in the media or the police bothers to investigate claims that ruin reputations, careers and health. There is HUGE money in the game of false accusation.

Take this for example. Money has been donated to send 'accusers' to Rome to put the heavy hand on Pell's shoulders.  But do they need it?

Andy Bolt and Gerard Henderson spoke of it.

$750,000 of action, but let’s kick the Catholics

I have noticed that no victims of clerical abuse are ever questioned sceptically by the media.   

That may be driven largely by a respect for their suffering, but it does leave the Catholic Church rather defenceless. Gerard Henderson (said):

 http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/750000_of_action_but_lets_kick_the_catholics/

ABC TV News this morning interviewed Chrissie and Anthony Foster, two of Cardinal George Pell’s most vehement critics, as they departed Melbourne Airport to attend the hearings of the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Rome (commencing Monday morning, Australian time).

Two of the Fosters’ daughters were sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest in Melbourne before George Pell became Archbishop of Melbourne.  This is what Mr Foster had to say – as reported by ABC TV:

Anthony Foster:  Well we want to hear the truth. And he’s [Cardinal Pell’s] worked his way right through the hierarchy right up to the top of the Catholic Church.  So, we really want to hear the truth about what happened. And it’s about time we saw some action out of the Catholic Church.  So may be hearing the whole truth from him – we might actually start to see some action.

What the ABC did not report is that, in November 2005, the Foster family accepted $750,000 in compensation from the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne plus payment of their legal costs and an indemnity in respect to any payments to the Health Insurance Commission. 

They want the Money AND the Blood.

This is documented in the Royal Commission’s Report of Case Study No 16: The Melbourne Response, July 2015, page 19.  ABC journalists seem unaware of this “action” which has already occurred with respect to the Foster family.  It’s not that hard to find out – it’s called doing research.

So, in some instances at least, there has been action by the Catholic Church with respect to victims of clerical child sexual abuse.  But you rarely hear this on “Your ABC”.

Not that a skerrick of evidence other than assertion was ever provided that assualts ever took place. No newspaper nor the ABC has ever explained what evidences led to the payout.  Note that it was a civil action and not a criminal one. 

Money attracts thieves.

Another astonishing aspect is that those who have recieved 'compensation' have done so ONLY because of the work of Cardinal Pell. It was he who set up the lauded response.

And yet another aspect is the source of the money paid in compensation. It is from Parishioners. Every-day Catholics who put their small monies on the collection plate.  

Other people's money. The individual criminals don't pay. Were the onus to be on them and not 'the Church', there would be no such clamouring for 'compensation'. 

Lies are easy, especially when so many are willing to believe and vast financial gain at the expense of unrelated parties is the norm.

Our society is sick.

Drink deep of Grace.

Pax.