Reflection on Celibacy

Sacerdotal celibacy is founded on no mere expediency of availability but rather from a worthiness to stand in the Person of the High Priest to offer the unblemished Victim. The offering is heavenly and so much be his delight. 

Reflection on History

The Catholic can have no contempt for history and tradition as his worldview should be essentially sacramental. The action of God pervades the material and communicates meaning to it. He has overseen the course of all human history with as fatherly care in less "refined" ages as He continues to bestow now. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Reflection on Equality and Autocracy

The abolition of all social and economic distinctions can only be obtained through a totalitarian regime that would assume in itself all the former privileges, in the interests of fairness after all. 

On Naturalism and Moral Matters: Against the National Catholic Reporter

http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/synod-family-and-grace-self-doubt

Such people are insufferable. More tolerance would be afforded these shallow thinkers if they did not possess the audacity to consider themselves Catholics. The death of Catholicism in the public square is quickened by this naturalism posing as mercy and acceptance of every and any deviance that would astonish their own master. A fundamental principle of Catholic theology is the distinction between nature and what is owed to it, and grace which is essentially of the supernatural order. These self-proclaimed saviours of Catholicism are not even capable of grasping the necessity of such a differentiation. On the contrary, they mesh the two realities together in confused fashion, polluting their integrity and perverting man's ends. When one is unable to discern what pertains to man as his due, one is liable to claim that salvation is his right.

 There is a primordial error in their attitude towards the Faith whose only existence is to serve as a cultural inheritance or to grant a mushy feeling of goodness or the obligatory niceness. Their faith is a pride in themselves and their ability to overcome the bonds of history, tradition and objectivity. The faith is there to serve as the guarantor of their fabricated reality, a reality sown together by discordant threads of unconscious prejudices, fears and the need for a good fame among the 'respectable'. For them the Faith originates within man (or person, for they hate such ''exclusivity'' of expression), fulfilling his needs and projecting his confused hopes of reassurance and happiness. It is a great wonder that the word most on their lips is ''mercy''. For what do they ask mercy? They proclaim no wrong-doing. A hypocritical superficiality can only request mercy when sin is a construct of history and goodness is a feeling. Surely for someone with a Masters in Divinity, these basic premises of Sacred Theology should be rooted deep in her intellect. Alas, this would be a threat to her security as a happy sinner. 

 For these people nothing of substance is ever serious,  is never urgent. They ascribe transcendental importance to the interpretation of words which would embarrass the worst caricatures of a dialectician of the Schools.Self-doubt in matters of theology is more than heresy, it is utter madness. A desire to consider one's faith as provisional leads to the obvious conclusion that one should never die or sacrifice for this pleasing fantasy. It is for this reason that they only wish to consider the 'diverse experiences' of groups that they have pinned together without any realisation that they are individuals with no more in common than the labels relentlessly applied to them. The love of God is cold in them, it never surpasses a natural and inefficacious complacency in the benevolence of the Lord as manifested in creation and His general providence. God is made in the likeness of man and as man is never settled in his nature, the divine being is infinitely fertile for manipulation. 

 Man can only obtain a true understanding of moral theology after he has mastered the treatises of De Deo Uno and De Trinitate and de Deo Creatore. All too often moral theology has been reduced to the most banal presentation of civic ethics imaginable. Without a knowledge a man's end, how can he attain to this end? What steps should he take? How will he know when he has reached it? De Christo Salvatore and De Gratia provide the means. However these are intrusions into his secularism, where Faith can only embarrass him among his contemporaries. A hindrance to be snubbed until the all too necessary cliche is required to be recited as evidence of piety and niceness. Your ''own moral discernment'' is founded on nothing other than your progressive acquiescence in sin. 

 The aim of man is sanctity, not accommodation, nor tolerance nor diversity. If the formal motive for faith is the authority of God revealing, the rejection of elements of it is self-belief and self-deception. Have you noticed that the reasons for abandoning the fullness of faith pertain to the moral? Who leaves the Church for Monothelitism nowadays? But how many will depart for the sake of ''LGBT issues''? This shows the falsity of their position which they claim to be intellectual and rational. The effect of original sin is stronger on those who do not believe in it.

 I converted to Catholicism when I was 17 after going through the expected teenage upheavals in matters sexual. A conversion that lead to the bemusement of friends and family, a suspicious respect from some and ridicule of others. Such upheavals were hindrance to my embrace of Catholicism and if I am to abandon my Faith it will be due to that. It is all or nothing. Sanctity or returning to where I was those few years ago. Purity or normalcy. Heaven or Hell. There is no in-between, no accommodation, no middle ground for dialogue. God or Satan. 

 It is for this reason that Mason and her ilk disgust me. Doesn't the ''average sinner'' deserve to hear the call to holiness or are we to be so condescending to snatch away hope from such unworthy and incapable beings?

My Thoughts on Scottish Independence

This article has been wandering around lost in my mind for quite a few months. In fact I have just taken a few minutes pause after writing that first line to consider what to write next. To be entirely honest, I have no clue how I am going to vote, if at all, on September 18th. The ''arguments'' wielded by either side have left me as they found me, entirely indifferent and sceptical. Maybe I will make the Yes box, maybe I will tick the No box, with good probability I will do nothing and remain at home and channel surf.

 I have been rather intrigued about my passivity towards this referendum. If anyone had asked me prior to the bombardment of this cliche ridden campaign, I would have labelled myself a Scottish nationalist. Although to be honest I still do. I have never considered myself British and have only ever felt disgust and irritation at selecting ''Great Britain'' while filling out online registration forms. Yet, my Scottish patriotism does not extend much beyond a general suspicion of the English. It is true that I fought a few times for Scotland as a martial artist however there is no strong feeling either way other than the usual annoyances living in a culture dominated by English and American television and attitudes. I believed that I would have been energised by the campaigns, involving myself in the debates and attempting to convince my friends and colleagues to see the issues as I do. Alas that has not occurred.

Like most matters I consider, they exist entirely as a concept. For someone so pessimistic my idealism, especially of the past, governs my principles of how the world should be. It is for this reason that you may observe to the right of my blog the Cross of Burgundy. My social and political tenets find a natural home in the Carlist movement but my contribution to such initiatives is the odd aphorism and grumbling infront of the television. I am content to scribble down some thoughts and express briefly my mild exasperation at the idiocy of a social commentator who has trotted out the latest platitude in vogue.

 The world is certainly wicked and the transformation, nay restoration, is not to be. Original sin has reached its zenith in this generation. The terms of the debate do not appeal to me at all. It is a matter of complete indifference to me if the NHS should be privatised at all. Or if income inequality has breached a tolerable distance. The irascible comments on social media and on television debates show a superficiality that should be mocked. It has not occurred to these stalwarts of the NHS whether such an institution needs scrapped or reworked. Whether the system actually works has not strayed across their radar. They only consider preservation, they are the traditionalists of short memory. What issue is it to me whether London is prosperous as thought by levelling the City to the condition of a sink estate to match our own would be to increase happiness across the board. Yet the cliches and ill judged assumptions will be proclaimed as though the mere mention of them is enough to clinch the debate provided compassionate and socially aware men are present.

Will Scotland prosper outwith the Union of Parliaments? Who knows. That is not the issue. As I saw recently it does appear that as the economic strength of a nation increases so does their degeneracy. I will provide you with one thought to consider. I truly do fear that there will be some socialist takeover of this nation. The influence of the socialist movement is far more than latent in Scotland. In many places it is considered the mark of good taste and compassion. However much I may dislike the political union of this island I will always detest socialism, the plague that ravages the rights of God, of the family and property. It can only promote economic misery and a progressive degeneration of our morals. Such men will seek to enshrine their vices as constitutional principles. We shall see the deification of rights of sodomy, ''marital'' perversity and the removal of all mention of the Faith in the public square. The mush that our archbishops have written betray their all too naturalistic conception of society. They have disgraced their episcopal orders by their promotion of democracy in the 21st century where Catholicism in public is banished. The revolution does eat its own after all. The misery of socialism, the paralysis of trade unionism and the perversity of the sexually uninhibited will rule this land. A wasteland. A land which cries freedom but will soon kowtow to Brussells and Strasbourg.

What is to become of the monarchy? In its current state it is worth no more than a tourist trinket.

 Yet how long can we rely on back bench Tory MPs to uphold even vestiges of Christendom when they will abandon all moral principle if they get a whiff of a promise by Cameron of a free vote on fox hunting? In or out, the decline will be steep and the brakes will be cut.

After all what chance will there be of the King over the Water taking any notice?

Reflection on Poetry

Poetry can spring from either wonder or frivolity. It is the directing influence of the intellect that distinguishes the former from the idle giddiness of the latter.