The Gay Gospel?

Don't Baptists misread the Bible too?

Returning to a much-covered theme that will be having readers make an exit for a different blog sharpish, an anonymous reader has kindly sent me a book 'for my armoury', thanking me for a 'sane and committed blog'. I'm quite sure some people think this blog is 'insane' and 'you should be committed'.

Anyway, this book has been sent to me from someone who likes the blog, so I'll say thank you, for it is a gift, but I found it strange to receive it since I am a Catholic and the author of the book is, wait for it, a fully-paid up Protestant who seems to be 'rent-a-church'.

Joe Dallas, the author, is 'past president of Exodus International, lectures extensively at churches and seminars and directs a biblical counseling practice in Tustin, California'. The book seems to be a personal travelog from 'pro-gay' theologian to 'mainline' Christian with biblical quotes aplenty addressing the mistakes made by 'pro-gay advocates'.

I do not wish to sound in the slightest bit derisory towards Protestant churches, or some of their gifted ministers, nor do I think that anything that is not in the Vatican library should be immediately burned, it is just odd that I've been sent a book written by someone in whose lexicon the words "Catholic Church" are most assuredly not. While I appreciate the gift of this book, I do think that the subtitle to the book is interesting, since it is highly likely that, since the author of the book is not a Catholic, that he may just be a 'pro-Baptist advocate' who has 'misread the Bible'.

Humbly, he suggests that while he was actively gay and signing up to 'pro-gay' beliefs, that he had 'lost his salvation'. Now that he has repented it appears that 'losing your salvation' cannot occur. Most amusingly, when he discusses the mainline Churches reaction to the gay liberation phenomenom, he mentions every denomination under the sun...except that which compiled and wrote the book itself. No offense to the kindly man or lady who sent me this...I'm just being honest. I immensely distrust books published by 'Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402'. Inevitably, books written by 'reformed gays', or indeed people who have overcome some particular disorder, like 'reformed chocoholics' or even that most dreadful bore, the 'reformed smoker' are of the, "Sinner? Yes, I used to be a sinner and nearly lost my eternal salvation!" ilk. There are surely few more irritating to God than these and surely few more irritating to men. No offense to those who have given up smoking. I do admire you actually!

The One True Church, the Catholic Church, teaches that anyone, straight or gay, can have the faith of the Centurion and yet lose his immortal soul eternally should he die in a state of mortal sin, therefore cutting himself off from Christ. There are no free passes to Heaven. Let none of us fall into the sin of presumption that 'we've cleaned up our act' and are 'saved'. God has no favourites as St Paul says, for 'pride goeth before a fall'. Still...I'll dip into it, for it does have some very interesting points to make about the Christian LGBT movement, and its rise from total obscurity, to less obscure than before status, so thanks!

Petition in Support of Egypts Coptic Community

I've been sent a petition about a No Way Out Campaign in support of Egypts Coptic Christian community, now under seemingly more open persecution than they were under Hosni Mubarak. The petition will be sent to UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague, US Secretary of State,Hilary Clinton and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Baroness Ashton.

'We, the undersigned, ask you to use your good offices to urge the Egyptian authorities to provide extra security to protect Christians in Egypt in the aftermath of sectarian attacks in 2010 including the Nag Hammadi shootings in January 2010 and the Alexandria church bombing on New Year’s Eve. In light of continuing violence against Egyptian Christians, we urge the government of Egypt to take proactive measures to address the root causes of sectarian violence, and to prevent acts of religiously-motivated hatred. It is vital that the rights of all Egyptian citizens are upheld as set out in article 40 of the Egyptian Constitution, and that Christians enjoy “equal public rights and duties without discrimination due to race, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed.” Furthermore, we ask you to encourage a review and restructuring of the legal measures employed after sectarian attacks, and to call for an end to informal reconciliation meetings which do not recompense victims or serve justice. The rule of law must be upheld in Egypt in order to break the cycle of religious violence.'

You can also download a paper petition on the same website to be signed by others of good will, parishioners, friends etc.

David Aron to Complete His 184 Mile Walk for Good Counsel

This man deserves a beer and more, but donate to Good Counsel!

David Aron aims to complete his 184 mile along the Thames Path Walk to raise money for the work of the Good Counsel Network today.

David began his walk on Friday 7th October. He plans to attend the Old Rite mass for the Good Counsel Network this evening at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane in Central London.


He has walked about 25 miles a day to complete the walk and has had to carry his sleeping bag, tent etc. Please sponsor David, and help the Good Counsel Network to protect more babies by giving support, friendship, food and housing to more expectant Mothers by clicking on to his JustGiving page.

Support Margaret Forrester, Catholic NHS Worker

Margaret Forrester's tribunal begins on 15 November

This blog has, over the last couple of years highlighted some of those public cases in which the expression of Christianity has been, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI on his visit here, pushed 'out of the public square' and relegated 'only to the private sphere'.

It has to be said that, nearly without exception, those high profile cases have not involved a Catholic 'in the firing line'. Margaret Forrester therefore represents a watershed moment for us Catholics, as one of our sisters is now sharing in the the Lord's Passion and is in danger of being sacked for an expression of the Faith to a work colleague.

The Telegraph documented the story in December of last year. On the 15 November of this year, the Central London Employment Tribunal will hear the case of the 39 year old Mental Health worker who was suspended and disciplined by the Central London NHS Trust for handing a booklet concerning the psychological and emotional realities of abortion, covering case studies of five women who suffered post-abortion syndrome - feelings of guilt, despair, emotional pain or bereavement.  Such a booklet seems like eminently sensible reading for anyone interested in mental health and, in fact, the colleague that Margaret Forrester handed the booklet to, entitled 'Forsaken', was not offended by the booklet. Even though this is, apparently, the case, the Employment Tribunal has decided not to call upon that work colleague for evidence in the hearing.

It has to be said that the NHS has become as devoted to abortion as the most fervent Catholic could be to Christ. It has embraced abortion as a religion. It is one of the defining articles of faith for modern Britain. Nothing can be said against it, since abortion is part of a new religion for a new age which has decided to render God and any form of traditional morality as implausible and obsolete. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy on abortion comes in for heavy criticism and is even silenced or loses their livelihood. The injustice of Margaret's treatment is, to we who believe in the fundamental right to life of the unborn, staggering. She has been accused of gross misconduct and yet the injustice being applied to her is gross. Therefore, I join with other bloggers and campaigners on her behalf to both pray for Margaret, and for those who seek to ruin her career for the simple act of raising awareness to a work colleague of the often terrible emotional impact of abortion on women, and, if you possibly can, to contribute to her legal costs.

Mgr Andrew Burnham to Come to St Mary Magdalen

If you are in the area, this promises to be very interesting.

God Became Human

God’s adversary, the Devil, despises our humanity, yet God so loved His Creation that He desired to unite Himself with it and become a man. God is not proud, distant or aloof. The Devil’s great sin was to want to be God. Our first parents sinned because they wanted or chose to be ‘like gods’ following the serpent’s temptation.

Yet Almighty God, who has no sin, who is all pure and all holy and who dwells in ‘inapproachable light’, before whom Israel's sons prostrate themselves in fear and awe, wants to become a man, wills to become a man, desires to be human and so does so! What are we to think? That being Almighty God 'in inapproachable light' surrounded by adoring Angels is not all it is cracked up to be?!

Yet it was His plan to do so, we are told, from all eternity, whether Adam and Eve had caused our humanity to fall or, indeed, not!

How strange and contradictory and mystifying is God! He said, after Creation, that man is ‘very good’, not just ‘good’ as he described the rest of it. The Creation of man is so ‘very good’ and in man's Creation He is so very delighted, in fact, that He chose, before all eternity to join in on the party and become one Himself! What great a dignity then now, has man! For it is not the other species, nor any other created thing which can 'boast in the Lord'!

He did not choose to become a whale, he did not choose to become a tiger. Much of nature he endowed with beauty but He did not choose to become a bird, graceful as they are (apart from pigeons). He did not choose to become a constellation, nor a planet, nor a star, nor a moon though all speak of His beauty. He chose to become human. This He did, while remaining God, for at no point in the Virgin's womb, or in His infancy, did He 'become God'. We are told that nothing in His own divine nature changed when He became man, even though he 'assumed humanity', and became man. His descent is contradictory and His death is contradictory to us. Why should unbelievers not believe it!? It often seems that nothing in man's nature changed either when God became man, since we see evil in the World and in ourselves and yet something in man's nature has irrevocably changed.

Man now has the capacity to know, love and serve God. Man is no more capable of great human achievements now than ever he was. Man cannot build buildings any better than he could before Christ came. He cannot make money better than he could before Christ came. He cannot be a more fierce warrior than he was before Christ came. Man can, however, now become 'by adoption, what Christ is by nature' because 'God became man, so that man might become God'.

In Jesus Christ, God chooses to become that which can issue forth blood, mucus, urine, faeces, that which can bleed, that which can have a runny nose or a cold, that which can undergo mental anguish, or even terror, that which can cry, that which can be frightened, that which can graze its knee as a child, that which can work and labour, that which can toil, that which can have friends, a mother, an earthly father under whom he places himself for protection and responsibility, that which can sleep, breath, that which can be abandoned, that which can even be tempted, that which can be betrayed, that which can trust only in God, that which can be spat upon and mocked, that which can be nailed to wood, that which can be tortured, that which can feel deserted by even God, even that which can pray and that which can die. God became human. Yes, the Devil despises our humanity. He cannot abide it, but not so God - for He desired, chose and willed to become 'like us in all things' except sin.

"Preach the Gospel at All Times, If Necessary Use Words..."

A Catholic family who travel in a mini-bus: Witnesses to Life and Faith

This quote, much loved and often banded around in the Catholic world, is attributed to St Francis of Assisi who, having humbly and prayerfully wandered an Italian town, presumably somewhere in Umbria, absolutely silent and in his habit, told astonished enquirers of his behaviour that he had preached to the whole town.

This evening, having earlier made the Rosary Crusade from Westminster Cathedral to Brompton Oratory with a large throng of Catholics, praying the Rosary and singing hymns to Our Blessed Lady, I went to a restaurant, Bella Pasta in South Kensington, to be precise, with my fiancee and her family. Half way through the meal, a family of nine arrived at the restaurant and sat next to us.  The waiter had to arrange another table so that the whole family could be seated. I thought that this family might just be Catholic and might just have been on the Rosary Crusade and this was confirmed by the mother who was wearing a Miraculous Medal and the parents themselves when I, er, asked them.

It need not be said that large families - this delightful couple have seven delightful children - are extremely rare. They are, perhaps, as rare as Franciscan friars wedded to Lady Poverty wandering towns barefoot, but, my oh my, what a wonderful sight they are to behold! It appeared to me that their love and cherishing of the gift of life and their generosity to God shone forth like a light in a dark World. Everyone is used to seeing a family of two or three sit down at a restaurant. There is nothing ordinary or particularly counter-cultural about it, though in Brighton, of course, families do still run against the grain.

A family of nine, however, can turn a whole room on its head, a whole restaurant stop and wonder, and doubtless, a whole parish stand back in awe at what, today, is something like a modern day miracle. No, today, it is a miracle. It is impossible to sit with or near a family of nine and not be changed in some way, not be struck nearly speechless by the holiness of life and the generosity with which such couples live. To top it all, the children were well-behaved and the parents had this air of simplicity, humility, charity, strength and joy. They weren't stressed out and manic or fretting. I expect that, interiorly, this was rather the disposition of those who witnessed the family and reflected upon their own lives which had not borne such visible fruit - in terms of new life - and in terms of the spiritual fruits of the Holy Spirit Who has so graced this couple with jaw-droppingly bewildering peace and serenity. The children seemed to take care of themselves and the parents chatted while the mother fed the newest born on her high chair. Far from being in any way depressed, or encumbered, or 'burdened' this family radiated with joy, peace and love. Then, to double top it all, the mother told me that she home schools the children! She's a wife, a mother and a teacher to her children! Amazing!

Large families: consigned to history or due a glorious resurrection?

I told the couple that my parish priest always talks about how he prays the Lord would send him just one large family because it would teach the Faith better than he ever could and asked if they'd consider moving to Brighton! They said they couldn't afford it and they're moving to another more affordable county anyway.

I am sure the Priest in question will not be embarrassed when I say that now I understand exactly what he meant. This family and all those who are like them, who are open to life and who co-operate joyfully and generously with God's plan, are holy, heroic, saintly, counter-cultural, life-giving to the World and the words attributed to St Francis of Assisi can equally be said of them! For wherever they go, Christ's message of salvation, redemption, life, faith, hope and charity follow in their wake. They are the future of the Church's evangelical mission, as much as are those who follow Our Lord in Priesthood and Religious Life. They are Evangelists yet they need not say a word!

In order for people to see the Catholic life lived - to see Faith in action - these families must surely be esteemed and honoured by the Church which has given them the Graces to respond to God's call and be held high for the Church and the World to see their light.  For the message of the Gospel is a challenge to us all: Do we choose Death, or do we choose Life?  Do we say "no" to God? Or do we say "yes"?  Do we trust that God will provide for all of our needs? Or do we not trust God's promises? Are we selfish and self-centred? Or are our lives centred on Christ and His love? The family I met tonight indeed preach the Gospel at all times and they do not have to use words. Wherever they go, they teach.

The rejected encyclical: Humanae Vitae

They may be a living embodiment of what the much hated by liberals encyclical, Humanae Vitae, taught us, but they appeared to me to be the happiest family I have ever met. Pray for large families and if you are a priest, if you don't already, pray that your parish may be gifted with one and you never know, the Lord may send you great teachers of the Faith who can do more walking into a Church or parish hall, than a thousand homilies could ever achieve.

To married brother and sister Catholics, I urge you, if you are generous enough to live the Catholic Faith with great joy and for your family to be abundant and fruitful then do it quickly, before the Government bans large families and endorses the Optimum Population Trust's two child per family quota campaign! I pray their plans fail! As it stands, the country's average birth rate is so low that the population is struggling to replace itself anyway, apart from Muslims, of course.

Ultimately, this family and families like them are also the Church's answer to the proposal to legalise 'gay marriage', because they have refused to go with either the 'spirit of the age' or its evil pseudo-religious twin, the 'spirit of Vatican II' and are immensely loyal sons and daughters of the Church. Both the 'spirit of the age' and the 'spirit of Vatican II' divorced both marriage and human sexuality from their primary function - the procreation of new life - children. It will, perhaps, surprise nobody to hear that they attend the Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday at 9am at their local parish Church in Northamptonshire. May God bless them and all couples who are open to the gift of new life and who endeavour to be faithful to God's loving plan for them. May their holiness of life continue to awaken in the hearts of men and women the flame of hope and the light of the Gospel. If we refuse God's gift of life then it is us who are poor and in the words of St Paul, 'to be most pitied'. I know that some will read this and call me a vile hypocrite because I'm not married and I have no children. All I ask you to do is pray for me, a poor sinner, that God may complete His work in me, for His Eternal Glory. It's incredible to see what you can make out of a white van, isn't it!?

Afternoon Must Read

The LGBT organistion, Quest, is to offer a Mass at Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Soho. To find out why this undermines Archbishop Vincent Nichols's public opposition to gay marriage, read A Reluctant Sinner's post today.

While the post makes clear that Quest and those who organise the Soho Masses are different groups, it also makes clear that these are 'different sides of the same coin'.  The difference with Quest is that their dissent from the Church's Magisterium is even more entrenched, public and strident than that of the Soho Mass organisers. I agree with the blogger that it is impossible for Archbishop Vincent Nichols to defend the definitive nature of marriage as between one man and one woman, and to allow an organisation that publicly defies Church teaching, and which is publicly supportive of gay marriage, to use the Catholic Church to celebrate and promote their anti-Christian agenda. This is the reason why many Catholics will feel that on this issue, as well as others, the public words of condemnation in response to David Cameron's pledge to make gay marriage legal by 2015 ring very hollow indeed.

The Way Movie

Matthew Archbold today interviews Martin Sheen on the DVD release of the new movie, The Way, a tale as epic as the Santiago de Compostella pilgrimage at the heart of the new film.

It is not yet released in the UK, but it will be on 31st October. You can buy it at Amazon on pre-release here. It would make a wonderful Christmas or even birthday present to a brother or sister Catholic (hint hint!).

Or, alternatively, divert your gift to brave soul David Aron, who is commencing his sponsored 184 mile walk along the Thames Pathway for The Good Counsel Network tomorrow. Keep him in your prayers also.

I've only seen a trailer for The Way but it does look like its going to be a good movie and a tearjerker at that.

See...That's three blogposts today and I haven't mentioned either sex, homosexuality or gay marriage. Oh no...I've done it again! I'm just obsessed!

Please Pray for a Catholic Family in Distress

The Rosary is a powerful intercessory prayer

As I said earlier, our Bishops have told us to fast today for Cafod, on this day, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary commemorating the victory for Christendom secured at the famous Battle of Lepanto.

I know a Catholic family who would appreciate your prayers and the Rosary is, as today commemorates, a powerful method of intercessory prayer.

I recently assisted an African Catholic man move his family's belongings from their home at Shoreham Beach into storage. He and his family attend St Peter's Catholic Church in Shoreham. 

His wife is heavily pregnant with their second child.  Even though the man earns relatively well, as a chauffeur in London for some really rather famous people, he is bed bound in hospital following serious surgery to remove a gall stone which was, it turned out, endangering his very life, because of its proximity to his liver. He is now convalescing but is unable to look for new accommodation while his wife is heavily pregnant and looks after their other child.

His wife and child are in temporary accommodation in Worthing.  The accommodation is clean, but it is in no way suitable for a family soon to be 4, in one room, especially given that she is very soon to give birth to the new baby.  Obviously, what with being temporary accommodation, the owners of the place are fleecing the Council for £176 a week to house the family in one room. Outragous! It is so obvious these 'Bed and Breakfasts' that are used as temporary accommodation are just cashing in and taking advantage of those who have fallen on hard times, often through no fault of their own! They get beds, no breakfast and even have to clean the room themselves!

I fear that the family are victims of a strand of racism which is still to be found in the Worthing, Shoreham, Littlehampton region of Britain.  The father had already signed an agreement with a local Shoreham lettings agent for renting a new property, since the landlord wished to sell the property where they had been living for years in peace. The only problem was that on the very night before they were to move to the new property, the rental agreement for which he had secured, the landlord of the place to where they were moving suddenly backed out for no apparent reason. The father was totally distressed, as was the mother, and they were forced to go to London to stay with family and friends, their lives suddenly up in the air.

I agreed with the father to look for a property to rent in the region and so I did on rightmove.co.uk. He went and looked at a property in Lancing and over the phone had agreed some terms with the lettings agent and then suddenly, once more, the landlord backed out and the rug was pulled from underneath the family. I hear that this happens when people buy houses - as house buyers and sellers agreements are prone to suddenly "fall through", but I haven't heard of it in the renting arena. Now, he lays in a hospital bed incapacitated, even though his wife is about to give birth to their second child. He is also in a lot of pain following the operation.

I cannot personally look for accommodation for the family because the father is still in hospital and obviously he needs to be up and about to look at the property and deal with agents. I must say though, that I do have a bad taste in my mouth concerning their two experiences of suddenly being rejected by landlords for no apparent reason. Could it be that African families are not welcome in this part of the South East? I, for one, wouldn't rule it out.  Along this part of the South Coast, it is amazing how many union jacks you see popping up over the roofs of houses - I know the national flag shouldn't mean, "This is a house of small-minded racists" but invariably it seems to. Just look, for instance, at Buckingham Palace...

So say a prayer for this Catholic family, since prayer can move mountains, while often we are unable, even through circumstance, to lift a finger.

What the TV Cameras Didn't Tell You About the Conservative Conference

All smiles for the cameras but who was in the audience?

I find this article, written by Peter Oborne, to be a really refreshing and quite scathing attack of the big corporate interests that now dominate party politics - as well as party politics more generally. The article is really quite scathing of the Conservative Party, while still being intelligent enough to understand why big business leaders have replaced the ordinary party members who presumably used to throng Tory Conferences. It says a lot about why politics now is more corrupt than it ever was.

To me, that situation seems totally farcical. Outwardly, through the media, we are given the impression that the people who fill the Conference Hall are relatively 'ordinary folk' that Mr Cameron describes when he is talking about getting Britain working again as he does his 'Bulldog spirit' bit. But it isn't. It's the managing director of Tesco or the Chief Executive of some other huge corporation! It is reassuring that there are still journalists who have not been totally incorporated into the profit-obsessed world of big business and media yarn spinning for companies - journalists who still care about democracy and the truth about who really influences, funds and even dictates Government policy.

I have to say that when I heard Cameron's speech as he was defending his plans for businesses to expand onto the countryside, I did wonder whether he was speaking directly to the Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Co-Operative section of the audience, rather than us at home. Oborne's article is really quite damning of the Tories, who, lets face it, have always managed to outdo Labour - even during the Blair years - (though Blair, individually, is another matter), in courting the interest of large corporations and, doubtlessly, allowing such corporations to influence Government policy. Very interesting article, highly recommended.

Happy Cafod Fast Day of Our Lady of the Rosary

Grrrr...and its my birthday. How could the Bishops call a fast today!?

Presents, cards, money, cigarettes, alcohol, rosaries, mass cards and letters of good wishes from friends can be sent to the Presbytery at St Mary Magdalen's Church. Dead puppies from my enemies can be sent to my PO Box address, which I seem to have lost. Don't worry if they arrive late, I'll still appreciate them.

Happy, er, Fast Day, everyone.

Today, I'm 34. I hear it is all down hill from here.