I hope that we will be spared the sermons from an authoritarian leadership about the spiritually dead, the soulless, secular uncaring, of liberal Australia society violating the sacredness of life etc etc as well as the repeat of the attacks on Islam and Muslim-Australians for undermining western civilization.
Can I suggest a theme? Sermons on reconciliation with a liberal Australia and secular humanism instead of ones on heartless and godless liberalism.
It doesn’t look like his prayers will be answered: Populate or perish: Pell
“There is a crisis in the Western world. No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country,” he said.
Update: Bernard Keane in Crikey on all the Popey goodness in the media.
Elsewhere: Pavlov’s Cat:
23 words, and three of them are ‘Western’– that subtext should be clear enough for even the masses to get the message. Wimminz, on your backs: you owe it to your country. And you non-Western folk, stop reproducing and get back to the jungle at once.
That’s Catholic WYD is it?
I thought it was all about inspiring 500 extra young men to become priests. At least, that’s what they’re hoping for. With the current shortage of priests there won’t be enough soon for weekly masses in every parish, a situation which has lead to predictions about the death of Catholicism in Ausatralia. Compass is examining the question next week, presuimably with a little more depth than they examined Benedict the whatever on Sunday.
As for Pell, I suspect those prople who could envigorate the Church hear stoped listening to him years ago.
Update: Bernard Keane in Crikey on all the Popey goodness in the medi
So those 500 young men need to cause quite a number of pregnancies before they go all celibate on us, eh?
That’s they thing about preachers. They preach.
This whole mickfest has become very tiresome, and it’s only Day 1.
Buggered if I know what the attraction is.
No, Ambi, it’s up to us wimmins to be barefoot and pregnant as often as possible to save Western civ.
“There is a crisis in the Western world. No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country,” [Pell] said.
And I thought the Rock and/or Roll had made ME tone deaf. Last week, we learned that the Murray/Darling is cactus. It’s possible that Australia is beyond its carrying capacity. So Pell wants us to make more babies? The man is mad.
And incorrect as well. There are at least two Western countries (for a given value of “western) whose birthrate is beyond the magic 2.0 children per women: Israel and the United Stats. A lot more if one includes Latin America as Western.
Gary Sauer-Thompson: says:
Thats an excellent idea. We need something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate war crimes committed during the waging of the Culture War. Both sides need to front the tribunal.
THe Church should make repentance for its sins and seek reconciliation with citizens who were harmed by the cover-up on sexual abuse in religious insitutions. This was a violation of a sacred trust.
I see that the Pope is making a genuine effort in this direction.
But its also way past time for “liberal” Australia to step forward and issue its own apology - a liberal Sorry Day if you like - for unleashing and/or promoting various social pathologies on the traditional norm-tending mainstream.
How about an apology for the disasterous social experiment with indigenous self-determiniation in remote communities? And one for the shameless huckstering by ethnic lobbies? An apology to all the children whose lives were ruined by a soft-on-drugs would not go astray. Promiscuous sodomites should also consider making an apology for reckless endagerment of public health.
Apologies all round are due to stay-at-mothers for the relentless downgrade in their status, one reason why less women want to take on that thankless task. Last, and least, profuse apologies to the courageous band of anthropological scientists who refused to be blinded by the veil of political correctness drawn over the proper study of mankind.
Both “Corporal” and “Liberal” Australia have a lot of explaining to do and a lot of apologies to make. We can only hope that, for the sake of their souls, both sides make a full confession.
Spiros wrote:
I suppose if you were, you would know.
(sorry).
Strocchi are you completely mad, or is it just a bad hair day for you?
David Rubie, since you’ve opened the (back) door:
“As you’ve probably heard, the Pope has asked all the Cardinals to return to Rome. You know how they got them all to come back? They told them that there was going to be a performance by the Vienna Boys Choir.” —Jay Leno
“The Cardinals will be staying at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the new hotel at the Vatican, where turn down service means the bell boy isn’t interested.” —Daily Show host Jon Stewart
“They say (the Pledge of Allegiance) violates the separation of church and state. How about the separation of church and altar boy? That’s what I’m worried about.” —Jay Leno
Pavlov’s Cat:
“There is a crisis in the Western world. No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country,”
Not even in the wall-to-wall Catholic Western countries* Italy and Ireland. How piss poor is that?
* As Sheilah Wells said to Dan Ackroyd in The Blues Brothers when he asked what kind of music they played
“Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western”
Yep, ‘Western’ in this case means ‘white’. Pell just needs a few caricature Kanaka and Chinese labourers and we’re back to 1901.
I had an unusual encounter with some Oxford Oratory youth on a Melbourne train on Friday night. The girls were here for the Docklands mass on their way to Sydney. No, I was on the way back from watching different saints at the MCG. Even stranger was the fact that theie parish priest commented somewhat favorably on my blog post, Of Saints and Sinners, the next day.
kim, i’m sure you know what’s what, but i was under the impression that part of western civ had now changed tack and agreed that it would be jolly nice for all concerned if the wimminz wuzz NOT to barefoot and pregnant.
has nobody mentioned this to that nice mr pell?
The strange thing about the reactions for me to WYD is how strong they are. Why is this so? The Pope, together with the Catholic Church does not have a strong influence on the populace at large (thanks God - probably literally). So Pell tells people to reproduce? Who fucken care? Is it a directive? No. We can ignore it or act upon it.
The influence of the Church in western countries is the same as other beliefs, whether they are economic rationalism or Enviromentalism. Catholics are against abortion but so are other religions and also non-religious people. They are against Gay marriage but also quite a sizeable population of Australia who is not Catholic (unfortunately).
If the NSW government is wasting millions of taxpayers’ money on this thing is something that the voters of NSW will have to take into account next time they go to the ballot box (but the NSW government is so moribund that it may be the least thing on their minds) but if some young people are having a good time let them. What’s wrong with that? OK they may be mislead by a set of belief that we may not share but if thats their thing let them. I approve of them singing koom bah yah or whatever to the Pope the same way I would approve of a young people ’shagfest’ with pigeons and puppies as extra features if that’s what they feel like.
Maybe because I am Italian and Italians have developed a way to be Catholics and basically do whatever we want anyway, but I wonder whether this anti-Catholic discourse is originated by those who went to Catholic Schools and have years of resentments to get rid of.
Mea culpa!
Nah, I’m motivated by some old-school sectarianism, imported holus bolus from the motherland.
Or rather, Pell gives me the shits.
If its one thing I learnt by attending a Christian (though not Catholic) school its the ability when getting preached at to just nod, filter and ignore. The great thing is its applicable to all types of preaching whether it be religious, environmental, corporate, etc
They don’t preach at you in Catholic schools. Or ar least they didn’t when I was a boy. They make you write essays and sit exams, and take you off to Benediction every Friday, and say the Angelus at twelve o’clock.etc, etc. And you get Holy Day of Obligation off, so you get more holidays than the Proddies.
Jesus, what a wasted youth I had!.
10 amused l 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
No just conducting an experiment to test for the existence of the “social concience” that liberals are always telling us is their most precious posession.
Results to hand indicate that you tested negative.
I never fail to be flabberghasted by the audacious cheek of post-modern liberals. More front than Myers.
Liberals, such as Sauer-Thompson, have a hide insisting traditional corporal authorities (such as churches and states) should be coming forward cap in hand begging for forgiveness for the sins they inflicted on “secular Australia”. When their socisl experiments have left such a trail of cultural devastation.
And they pretend that they have not had the whip hand for most of the past generation. Pay a visit to Sauer-Thompsons parallel universe, making sure to get a return ticket:
The proposition that Catholics authorities are at odds with “liberal Australia” is contrary to commonplace fact. Catholic officials fairly swarm over social justice committees, reconciliation councils, refugee advocacy bodies and so on. No doubt they have a few reservations about gays and abortions. Not exactly the Spanish Inquisition.
Even more difficult to rise to is the notion that “political liberalism” is an “attitude of rebellion against the confinements and restraints of the traditions and power of the established authorities”. Up until the late nineties “political liberalism” was pretty much identical with the “established authorities”. Who is he trying to kid?
Post-modern liberals (ie those who would wish away human nature) have had some set-backs recently (thank God). But are still firmly in the saddle in most cultural institutions esp the media-academia-legal complex. (A reason why the general populace hold those authorities in such low esteem.)
Elites, whether cultural financial or political, bend over backwards to pay homage to the pieties of post-modern liberalism. Even as they are kept busy mopping up the mess left by doctrinaire practioners of this philosophy. (Hence the need for politically correct doublethink.)
So it is bizarre of them to act as if they are being hounded into the catacombs by a plague of zealous priests.
Religious folk tend to be quite apt at denying reality, no matter how much its stuck right in front of their face.
I think much of the anxiety comes from the political power the religious right can been seen to wield in the US. Also, given that many MPs are Catholic, presumably the church’s teaching would have significant sway over their views.
Can I please have some laws implemented to ensure that anyone who “annoys or inconveniences” me gets a good kicking and a night in the cells? I know that would cover a large percentage of the population, including (were I a Sydneysider, likely to be subjected to massive inconvenience) the organisers of WYD themselves, but that would be a small price to pay for the basic equity issue at stake here.
And no, WYD doesn’t piss me off because it’s a Catholic event. It pisses me off because one organization appears to have appropriated a city and a great deal of taxpayers’ money and received favourable legislative treatment. I’d be equally annoyed whether the perpetrators were Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, Satanist, sportophilics, greenies, capitalists or little green men from the planet Zog.
And is anyone really surprised these days when Pell comes out with something wackily right wing or a century out of date? After all, it happens pretty much every time he opens his mouth in public.
The answer is obviously completely mad, to which I would add the word barking.
Geez, and what happened to the old Roman Catholic saying “Semper Ubi Sub Ubi”? Is the instruction now negatived?
Nil illegitimus carborundum or you’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
First annoyance to report: WYD organisers telling pilgrims they can use the toilets in an inner-city childcare centre without ever asking the centre director (who would certainly have denied the request, because it’s a childcare centre FFS and you can’t just have random people marching in and out, Catholic or not).
They have planned major events in the area in the next few days and there are no toilets being provided.
I think when Pell says “stable” he means “predominantly white christian”.
Well, I’m glad that these happy young folk in Sydney have got their woggles up the right way and their sock tabs straight.
Whoops, wrong jamboree!
‘…no Western country is producing enough babies…”.
Is that because too many males of a certain religious persuasion spend all their time and effort trying to mount choir boys?
Seriously, the arrogance/ignorance of someone who ( ostensibly ) doesn’t have sex and has therefore ducked the onerous requirements of parenthood then sitting around like some lounge lizard spiv or lout, hectoring others to breed ( lest the Master Race be drowned in a sea of pigmental darkness from Beyond? ) is possibly gross fascism beyond even the extreme.
Disapointed in the lack of empathy with the survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church. i think they would prefer every body look the other way. I grew up watching people be sexually abused at the age of eight by Priests and brothers one who is in prison right now.
Oh noes! I’ve been accused of wanting to bend WYD to my “political philosophy”. I’m “pseudo-Catholic lefty Kim” apparently…
http://dogfightatbankstown.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/gr-gott-papa.html
Well what else can I think Kim? Happy to be corrected.
Well, I don’t know what you’re implying, saint. There must be a lot of implication going on because you’re basing an inference on a links post.
Normally Hendo’s menu of watered down conservatism is a bit too bland for my taste. Not to mention earnest, plodding and self-righteous.
But have to agree he hit the mark today with this final poke in the eye to “sneering secularists”:
So far as I know the liberal-Left does not have a tradition of private community service provision at home or abroad. Punlic hospitals and schools do not much extra money from the liberal-Left “community”. Its all on the tax payers dime.
Charity is cheap when its comes at someone elses expense.
hendo Link
I attended the same school as Henderson during the 60s. His recollection and mine seem to differ a great deal. Sport was much more important than academic performance. Despite their reputation as intellectuals, the Jesuits of the time showed little interest in foster a real learning environment. I believe things have changed considerably.
Jack Strocchi wrote:
This suggests that Jack believes that there was a pre-Wet Golden Age when stay-at-home mothers were “upgraded”. Twas never so. Patriarchy downgrades and always did downgrade motherhood by imposing on women a loss of independent social citizenship and material security as the price of motherhood. Less and less women want to take on this “thankless task” because feminism has enabled many women to discover that working in an office with other adults and a computer, and being able to access money from an ATM without argument, is preferable to grappling with a shytty nappy with talkback radio in the background, and not being able to access money from an intoxicated sole provider husband without argument and, in not a few cases, a smack in the chops.
And the word is ‘fewer’ not ‘less’, Mr Strocchi. As in the fewer babies there are the less the western world can maintain its cultural superiority in the face of deviant leftest cultural elites. Or something.
I too stand grammatically corrected.
For those who are interested in George Pell’s hypernatalist exhortations, I have compiled this table of Western developed nations, their fertility rate, and the percentage of their population which is Catholic. Figures are sourced from the CIA World Factbook unless otherwise indicated.
[NB: Unfortunately, WordPress is not all that flash on presenting tables.]
New Zealand 2.11, 12.4%
United States 2.10, 23.9%
Metropolitan France 1.98, 83-88%
Iceland 1.91 or 2.07, 2%
Ireland 1.85, 88.4%
United Kingdom 1.85, 12.5%
Luxembourg 1.70 1.78, 87%
Norway 1.78 or 1.90, 1%
Australia 1.76 or 1.81, 26.4%
Monaco 1.75, 90%
Denmark 1.74, <3%
Finland 1.73 or 1.83, <1.1%
Sweden 1.67, <13%
Netherlands 1.66 or 1.72, 31%
Belgium 1.65, 75%
Canada 1.57 or 1.53, 42.6%
Liechtenstein 1.51, 76.2%
Malta 1.51, 98%
Portugal 1.49, 84.5%
Switzerland 1.44, 41.8%
Germany 1.41, 34%
Austria 1.38, 73.6%
Greece 1.36, 98% Greek Orthodox
San Marino 1.35, 100%
Italy 1.30, 90%
Spain 1.30, 94%
Paul Norton’s figures tend to support Guido’s argument about the the adaptability of Latins to their “house” religion.
Kiwis and Yanks could need, following a Pavlovian strand, “zipper up” and muzzle their c-cks. Except we know what sk-nks the females are…
Paul Norton,
Thanks for digging up these figures. This echoes research done in Australia, early 1970s I think, showing that the birthrate amongst married Catholics was practically identical to the national birthrate. Given the vagaries of “rhythm” and “Billings” and “open slather” at the time, this was regarded as CLEAR evidence that Catholic couples were using just as much contraception as everyone else.
Your figures show very little correlation (zero?) between the proportion of Catholics and the birth rate. So even if a Pope says “don’t use condoms” or “don’t go on the pill” or “don’t have an abortion”, it seems that the Church is unable to maintain its authority in these matters.
Unless, unless…. it’s 98% abstinence and/or successful rhythm, all round
Which I doubt.
So perhaps the more strident critics of the RC church might pause to consider whether even the Flock is listening to the Dinosaurs. Mebbe they ain’t listenin’?
Ambi, I’ve just run my figures through MS Excel and they actually show a negative correlation between the percentage of Catholics and the birth rate - very counter-intuitive!
Well,
they ain’t just not listenin’ then, they’re doin’ the OPPOSITE of whut them Bishops say.
I did see this very beautiful Italian WYD thing. They’ve marching thru the city and stopping every now and then. They form circles (there’s a lot of that) and sing Italian folk songs. There’s a golden crucifix bit of paganism and the dance is very simple with two concentric circles and a cog of guitars. Easy to join in you see.
.
The songs are very beautiful.
.
Haven’t really paid much attention otherwise. There seems to be a stress on the multi-culturalism that the Church evokes post-Vatican II (and Benedict will be all about inter-faith co-op and diversity in unity blah blah).
.
The things about the various creeds of the Church is that you’re not really expected to be obedient to the tenats of the Church. You’re expected to feel guilty about being disobedient.
.
‘S where the money comes into it.
BTW, what is it with the Kiwis that they have the highest birthrates in the developed world (on Paul’s figures)?
In America I gather you can divide the country into blue states with birthrates much like Europe and Red states more like Saudia Arabia (well not quite, but a rare example of a rich country with birthrates well above replacement level). That makes sense - religious fundamentalism rather than affiliation being the cause of lots of breeding.
But what about New Zealand? Not exactly known as a hotbed of religious extreemism.
The condoms/contraception in Western countries is a lower agenda issue considering for some decades now Western Catholics have all but ignored church teachings on the pill and abortion etc.
The pressing issue of our time however was, and still is the Church’s stance on Catholics using condoms to protect themselves against HIV-Aids, and to stop it’s transmission by using condoms if infected, most especially in developing countries.
This is the blood which stains their frocks; who knows how many infections and deaths are now directly attributable to the Catholic Church:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7014335.stm
Perhaps they include their foals and lambs in the calculations.
What else is there to do?
eff thus is going to be another forem fer kiwi beshing then you sherd all be ashamed und stop ut; if kiwis want to love their sheep ut’s none uf yer jolly buzznuss. yer might stop end thunk why yer wummin won’t sleep wuth you jokers, cress vulgar bustards; auusie rules what a joke ut’s union over here in the lend of the long white shroud; makes our men stronger und able to sire lembs und kuddies galore
End bisides, whet do you ixpict a stellion to do outside of the breedung season whin there are no nice mares eround end my prutty young humen streppers are constently fondlung me end brushung me.
Re the origins of HIV and Africa. Years ago there were some very interesting myths, (and I stress that they were myths) that the Nixon Asministration had created HIV-AIDS to wipe out the woreld’s black population, especially black Communist Africans. The idea that HIV-AIDS is some sort of white conspiracy to destroy black Africans/Afro-Americans that went wrong is not new. So far as I know, there’s no evidence for this. In fact, if I recall correctly, Randy Shultz, in And The Band Played On, tentatively suggests the first case was a white British merchant seaman who had been in Africa who died in London in 1936! I think that’s right, but its been a long while since I read the book, so I may be inaccurate.
1950s I thought, but still well before the African colonies started grabbing their independence, let alone veered into the Soviet “camp” or the Chinese “camp” or developed their own home-grown “socialism”. Ghana was an early cab off the rank, I think. Circa 1958?*
What twaddle the miasma of Cold War hatreds threw up.
* a Ghanaian told me a very impolite joke. Obviously I hesitate to re-tell it. Oh, OK, twist me arm why dontcha?? “Our country was called Gold Coast, but we had to change the name to Ghana, because the British had taken all the gold!” How very rude of him, I thought. All the chaps at the Club agreed. Horse-whips were mentioned.
“So far as I know, there’s no evidence for this.”
There is, Paul, absolutely no evidence for this. It’s now generally accepted that HIV originated in a species viral mutation crossover from chimpanzees (who carry a very similar virus known as SIV) possibly through hunters becoming infected with chimpanzee blood. The earliest known case is in a stored plasma sample taken from an adult male in the Congo in 1959.
Sooty mangabey monkeys have also been identified as a point of species viral crossover from which the HIV-2 subtype probably developed.
A mathematical modelling study carried out by Dr Bette Korber of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2000 estimated that the first cross-over occurred around 1930 - well before Richard Nixon had any influence over the CIA…
“As the Band Played On” was an important book but Randy Shilts was wrong about a lot of stuff, including identifying a hapless Air Canada flight attendant named Gaetan Dugas as “Patient Zero - the guy who began spreading HIV among gay men in North America. In fact, poor Gaetan was but one of hundreds and then thousands of gay men unwittingly spreading HIV in the late 1970’s.
With respect Paul, the issue is not about HIV-Aids myths and conspiracy theories and obviously Mugabe & many other African leaders have utilised all sort of half baked conspiracy theories vis a vis the West to legitimise different Govt policies in their respective countries, and nor is the issue about the origins of the HIV virus itself…. the pertinent issue is that the Catholic Church is spreading misinformation in developing countries today, beyond their odious anti-condom policy.
The Church is not only condemning their own adherents to risk of infection and the further spreading of infection and certain death for many of those infected, but as a global institution which provides health & education services in developing countries, they are knowingly spreading misinformation into whole communities, which may not have any other organised health care or education services as Helen, ably pointed out in another thread.
Regimes like Mugabe’s are rightly condemned for their terrible brutality and venality, and Mbeki and the South African Govt has been absolutely pilloried for their unscientific HIV-Aids response - otoh - the Catholic Church whose leader is in our country right at this moment - is not being called to account on this issue.
Yes, there are a few cases of nuns and priests and more catholic lay workers on the ground who are handing out condoms in some African communities and yes, the Church does provide some palliative care and other health services to Aid’s victims in these countries, but the Church hierarchy to the ever-lasting shame when faced with this unprecedented global pandemic chose to put “thou shall not kill” - a long, long way behind “thou shall do as the current church hierarchy states in relation to protection against sexually transmitted terminal diseases because it will weaken our already faulty anti-contraception message”.
Has the head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique who accused, only last September “western govts and western companies” of deliberately infecting people with HIV-Aids been sacked?
As with child rapists, sadists and many other criminal types, the Vatican will close ranks to protect their own from both responsibility and from justice.
It was sort of a segue, Jo. I do them sometimes.
I absolutely agree with you.
But if I let myself get upset about the idiocy of Xtans too much, I’d be stressed out for weeks on end.
I’m well aware their AIDS prevention policy is dangerous and deserves fulsome condemnation. To be explicit, the idiotic theoties that used to abound about the origins of AIDS could very well have laid the ground for the current garbage being spouted by the bishop of Mozambique and others. I don’t believe those kind of ideas come out of thin air, even if one takes into account Xtan pre-occupation with “sins” of the flesh.