In Our Time

BBC Radio 4's In Our Time is one of my favourite radio programmes. If you're interested in the history of ideas, it's always worth a listen. They've just launched a new website with an archive of all their past episodes.

1 Cor 1:23

Some trouble at the Wailing Wall:

The leaders of Ireland's four main Christian Churches have accepted an apology from the Israeli government after a Jewish settler prevented them from praying for peace at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The enraged settler blocked the way to Judaism's holy place because three of the men, including Cardinal Sean Brady, were wearing crucifixes which he took exception to as a symbol of Christ's death by Jews.

One wonders whether that last sentence is an accurate reflection of the settler's views, or journalistic speculation.

This incident took place after an Israeli security guard agreed that the Irish church leaders, who are on a five-day peace mission to the Holy Land, could wear their crosses going through the checkpoint.
The local Lutheran Bishop, Munib Younan, who was accompanying Cardinal Brady; the Church of Ireland Primate, Alan Harper; the Presbyterian Moderator, John Findlay and Methodist President Roy Cooper, said that an angry settler threatened to stop them.
To avoid a confrontation that would have had serious diplomatic repercussions, the churchmen did not proceed with their visit.

It should be noted that the officials at the Wailing Wall seemingly weren't the ones causing hassle - however, given the general atmosphere in Jerusalem, it's understandable the things would get quite tense when this settler raised his objection.

After seven or eight minutes of consultations in Hebrew between the Israeli guard and Bishop Younan, Cardinal Brady decided that the Irish delegation would have to move on to keep an appointment at the Israeli ministry for foreign affairs.
Last night a spokesman for the Irish church leaders was at pains to explain that they had not been turned away, and that the incident was "a storm in a tea-cup".
Cardinal Brady revealed that after visiting the famous Al-Aqsa mosque they had decided to pay an unscheduled visit to the Western Wall and had not had the opportunity to coordinate the visit with the Israeli authorities.
"We encountered some difficulty in gaining access to the wall and the difficulty arose over our wearing crosses.
A security guard promised to bring some senior officers to resolve the matter," the Cardinal said. "But we were under constraints of time to be at another meeting scheduled in the ministry for foreign affairs."
The Cardinal said that later on during a visit to the ministry for social affairs, minister Isaac Hertzog, whose grandfather, Yitzhak Hertzog, was the first Grand Chief Rabbi of Ireland graciously conveyed an apology, which was accepted.

Blair Popes!

Via the Telegraph:

Tony Blair has completed his long anticipated conversion to Catholicism.
The former prime minister joined the faith at a service in a chapel in Westminster, after years of speculation that he would convert after leaving Downing Street.
Mr Blair, whose wife Cherie and four children are Catholic, met Pope Benedict XVI on an official visit in June - his third trip to the Vatican in four years.
Now a Middle-East peace envoy, he was reluctant to convert while in office because it could have caused a potential conflict with his role in choosing Church of England bishops.
His views on abortion, gay rights and stem cell research were also at odds with Catholic teaching, and his parish priest Fr Timothy Russ commented that he had “some way to go” on important moral issues.

Now, that's putting it mildly! I don't doubt the sincerity of Blair's desire to be Catholic, but he and the Church Catholic have been poorly served by ignoring the several elephants in the chapel and downplaying the extent to which his position on several issues put him outside the pale.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor has welcomed Mr Blair into the faith. He said: “For a long time he has been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he has been following a programme of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion."
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has also wished the former Prime Minister well in his spiritual journey: "Tony Blair has my prayers and good wishes as he takes this step in his Christian pilgrimage."

Frankly, the whole thing leaves me speechless.
Damien Thompson comments:

Yesterday the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster received into the Catholic Church a politician who consistently voted in favour of abortion and, as Prime Minister, refused to countenance any reduction in the time limit for “terminations”. In the eyes of the Church, he has the blood of innocents on his hands.
Don’t ask me for an explanation: I simply don’t understand. Has Tony Blair changed his mind about abortion? If so, why has he not said so publicly?
I repeat: I do not understand what has happened. Can anyone enlighten me?

Edited to add:
I'm thinking that maybe my initial reaction doesn't do sufficient justice to the power of the Holy Spirit; I pray that the grace of Christ may work within Mr Blair. May he be a holy and faithful member of the Church.

On proportion...

Just comment from the Times's Daniel Finkelstein:

Have you noticed that word disproportionate?

It keeps popping up in relation to Gillian Gibbons and the teddy bear.

The Archbishop of Canterbury called her jail sentence:

"absurdly disproportionate response" to a "minor cultural faux pas".

while the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), which represents more than 90,000 Muslim students in the UK and Ireland, said it was:

"deeply concerned" at what was a "gravely disproportionate" verdict.

Er, no.

It was not a misunderstanding of culture on the part of Gillian Gibbons. And the verdict was not disproportionate.

The arrest and imprisonment of this teacher was a political act, not a cultural or religious one. Its aim is not cultural preservation but terrorising the population. It is the classic move of a totalitarian state supported by a mob.

Why wasn't it disproportionate? This word implies that some sort of censure was required but that imprisonment was too much. The punishment wasn't out of proportion. It was unwarranted, outrageous, insupportable.

The use of the phrase "disproportionate" is offensive.

Exactly!

The Secular Cult of Relics

A fascinating phenomenon described by the Times:

From today, anyone with £1,000 to hand and a serious enthusiasm for Diana memorabilia can purchase a contemporary relic: a fragment of the silk used for the princess’s wedding dress.
David and Elizabeth Emanuel, the British designers who created the dress for the eleborate ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981, promise that this will bring the buyer “a step closer to the woman who is still alive to so many throughout the world”.
The fabric has been cut into 1,000 swatches of roughly four square inches, to go with every copy of A Dress for Diana, a lavish coffee-table account of the Emanuels’ best-known assignment. If all 1,000 sell, the venture could realise £1 million.
Publicity material for the sale claims: “We are able to step back in time, join that shy young girl as she made her hesitant way down the aisle in front of millions of people watching, as she took step after dainty step to meet her future, as dramatic and tumultuous as that proved to be.”
(snip)
The offcuts from the dress and the remnants of the bolt of silk that was used to make it have been kept in a bank vault for most of the 26 years that have passed since the Royal Wedding.

Rilke

A number of weeks ago, a very kind friend sent me this volume of Rilke's poetry which I am enjoying immensely. I've been meaning to post a couple of extracts and have finally got them transcribed:

Moses’s Death

None of the angels, but the dark and fallen one
was willing; took up arms and with deadly intent
approached the one to whom he had been sent.
But again he rattled away, backwards, and up
to the heavens he screamed: I can't.

For nonchalantly through the heavy brow
Moses had seen him coming and continued to write:
words of blessing and the everlasting name.
And his eye was pure to the depth of his core.

Thus, the Lord himself, carrying along half the heavens
came down and removed the covers of the hill like a bed;
placed the old man there. And from this well-ordered house,
he called the soul forth to rise, up! to recount
the many common things of a friendship deeply laid.

And in the end, the soul had enough, was satisfied,
and said this much. Then, the ancient God
bent toward the old man His old face and took
life with a kiss out of him into His own,
the older one. And with the hands of creation
He covered the mountain so as to disguise
it as one among many others
and to keep it from being recognized.


Extract From: Death of Mary

II
Who would have thought that until her coming
the entire heavens were incomplete?
The risen one had taken his seat,
but next to him, for twenty-four years,
the seat had been empty. And they had begun
to get used to the vacancy,
which seemed to have closed up and healed;
the son with his radiant gleaming had it filled

Thus, not even she who stepped into heaven
walked toward him, despite his pleas;
there was no room, only he was there
with the radiance that stung with its gleam.
But when she, the gentle figure,
sought to blend with other newcomers there
and sidled with them inconspicuously,
there broke from her such sheen
of such might, that the angel next to her
blinded by it, cried: Who is she?
There was surprise. Then they saw
how the Father in heaven implored our Lord
so that caressed by a mild dawn
the empty spot emerged like a small wound,
like a trace of loneliness,
like something he still endured,
a residue of earthly time, a dry compress-.

And they looked at her; and she, afraid,
leaned forward as if to say: I am
his most enduring pain-: and fell suddenly
forward. But the angels caught her and braced
her fall and happily, for the final stretch,
carried her in.

I wish my German was sufficent to properly appreciate the original poetry.

Vaisakhi - The Sikh New Year

I was strolling near S. Maria Maggiore today, and came across a most colourful and rather noisy procession. Men in turbans were handing out refreshments and there was quite the party atmosphere. It seems that Rome's Sikh community was celebrating their New Year's Day which fell yesterday.


At the vanguard of the procession came a truck spraying water onto the street, followed by a small army of sweepers...


... because some of those marching in the procession were barefoot.


After them came these impressive fellows.


Sure, we have the fullness of faith, but I think we do have something to learn from our Sikh brethren... We Catholics should consider the greater liturgical use of swords.


Next came this float.


and after the float, these Sikh women in colourful dress.

Anyone out there knowing anything about Sikhism is welcome to comment on the significance of the various costumes, etc...

Interesting Legal Question...

From the Times:

A Roman Catholic teenager has brought a landmark legal action against a council for sending her to live with Protestant foster parents.
The young woman, identified only as “AR”, is seeking damages of £70,000 from Highland council for housing her with two sets of Protestant foster parents after she was taken into care aged 8.
Now 18, she has been granted legal aid to mount a case against the council and was yesterday given the go-ahead for it to be heard in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scot-land’s supreme civil court.
In a written ruling after a brief hearing last Friday, Judge Lord Uist appeared to admit yesterday that the case was unprecedented, saying that it involved “novel and difficult questions of law”.
(snip)
Legal papers were served on Highland council this year, while documents lodged before the court yesterday said only that the council had failed to accommodate the girl’s religious needs.
According to the papers, the council failed to ensure that she could follow “her religious persuasion throughout the period she was looked after and accommodated”.

A cure for what ails you...

William Rees-Mogg gives a history lesson in the Times today, in response to an hysterical column written by Michael Portillo:

The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce’s long campaign to end the slave trade. His Bill received the Royal Assent on March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the great reforms of the 19th century; essentially it was a Christian reform, inspired by the Protestant conversion of Wilberforce himself. March 25 was the old New Year’s Day; it is also the feast of the Annunciation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
We live in an age when modernists regard religion with something approaching panic. It is like the Devil’s attitude to Holy Water. There was a comic example of Christianophobia in The Sunday Times yesterday. Michael Portillo, who used himself to be seen in Brompton Oratory, was hyperventilating at the idea of David Cameron going to church. “I worry,” he wrote, “because men of power who take instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics . . . I would be more reassured to hear that the Tory leader goes to church because that is what it takes to get a child into the best of state schools, not because he is a believer.”
Perhaps this neurotic response to Mr Cameron’s habit of going to church reflects Mr Portillo’s recognition that religion is again becoming an important influence on society. Many of the current news stories show that religion is back in public consciousness; for those who feel uneasy about religion, that is unwelcome.
(snip)
The modernist attack on religion was based on the victory of science, and particularly of neo-Darwinism. Yet science was open to the same challenge as religion; it could explain only half the world. The scientists, or some of them, sneered at religion for being unable to explain the developments of nature. Yet science itself was unable to produce a science-based morality for society. Marxism attempted to create a scientific social order that ended in monstrous and bloodthirsty tyranny. Social Darwinism either meant eugenics and the slaughter of babies who were not thought fit to survive, or it meant nothing. The Social Darwinism of George Bernard Shaw, or indeed that of Adolf Hitler, has been rejected by mankind.

The whole article is worth reading as a necessary corrective to the idea that religion is responsible for all the world's evils. Rees-Mogg does fall into the trap of seeming to reduce the role of religion to that of being merely some kind of basis for morality. It's a small step from that position to that of considering Christianity as being a useful sort of morality-tale which promotes good behaviour amongst the lower orders, and leaves open the question of whether religion might not simply be replaced by some sort of secular moral philosophy. But it is a reminder of the centrality of religious thought in establishing what might be thought of as 'civilised values.'

Cargo Cult in the Telegraph

There's a facinating story in the Telegraph about one of of the most bizarre 'Cargo Cults' of the South Pacific.

The US's standing in the world may have plummeted under President George W Bush, but a bizarre cargo cult in the Vanuatu island nation holds America in god-like esteem.
The Jon Frum movement celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding yesterday with a lavish feast in which village men dressed up as US soldiers and marched in front of a giant Stars and Stripes flag on a bamboo pole.
Miniature American flags festooned trees lining the black sand parade ground which forms the focus of Lamakara village, the headquarters of the cult, on the jungle island of Tanna.
(snip)
The origins of the cult date back to the 1930s, when Britain and France jointly ran what was then the colony of New Hebrides.
Tanna's inhabitants bridled at colonial rule and the missionaries who badgered them to embrace Christianity, stop drinking the mildly narcotic drink kava and abandon other customary ways, known in pidgin English as kastom.
Village elders tell of how a mysterious outsider came to their forbears in a series of apparitions, telling them to go back to their traditional ways. The idea of a messiah-like outsider was given a huge boost during the Second World War, when hundreds of Tannese men were recruited by the Americans to build roads, airstrips and bases. They were impressed by the large amounts of cargo – tanks, weapons, medicine and food – brought by the US military. The shadowy spirit figure they already believed in gradually assumed a name and a nationality – Jon Frum is believed to be a contraction of John From America, a reference perhaps to a soldier who showed particular generosity.

I had to double-check that it wasn't the 1st of April today.