Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Shocking video shows barbarous assault on reporter who was peacefully going about his business making a nuisance of himself



naturally, within a short time this had become "Bishop Williamson shoved a reporter". But of course. If you pester an elderly man around a crowded airport, despite his clearly expressed wish not to talk to you, and then find yourself elbowed lightly so that you bang into a pole, what other explanation can there possibly be but that the wicked old traditionalist assaulted you?

I hope His Excellency finds a quiet haven where he can take a breather from these pernicious locusts, be it in England or the US or wherever he ends up. The liberals have used him as a convenient hammer with which to beat traditional Catholics, but in the way of these things, the hysteria hasn't lasted, despite the best efforts of the ADL and others. The fruits of the Pope's decision to lift the excommunications - reconciliation between the SSPX and the rest of the Church - will hopefully be with us much longer.

He's right

"[They] are entitled to a little guarded satisfaction. Guarded satisfaction, though, isn't their style."

- Daniel Hannan on the eurocrats, 13 January



"This was a huge historic step that put an end to the division of Europe, helped consolidate democracy and brought economic benefits for all EU countries."

- EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia on five years of EU enlargement, quoted in yesterday's Irish Times.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Generation gap

It's been a day of protest in Dublin, with reports of 100, 000 to 120, 000 taking to the streets over the cuts in public sector pay. The Christian Solidarity Party handed out our leaflet condemning cuts in vital areas, and instead calling for cuts in areas like pointless government trips abroad, outside the Divine Word conference.

When you hear the word "demo" you usually think of idealistic students with Arafat scarves and five o'clock shadow. But both my parents are civil servants, and this morning I had the surreal experience of hearing these two respectable, middle-aged people call "We're off to the demo now. There's some soup in the fridge if you want to heat it up."

Strange times!

The Taliban have landed in Ireland!

As far back as 1946, George Orwell remarked that the word "Fascism" had lost its original meaning and had become simply a label for "something not desirable." That is far more true now than it was then. The same has happened with the word "racism", with many of our friends on the Left using that brush to tar all manner of opinions and positions, not merely the (nowadays fairly uncommon) belief that one particular people is biologically superior to others. When polemicists want to brand something they dislike, they choose an inflammatory word, something universally hated and feared, something that will get decent people's blood up.

Only a few days ago the Cornell Society for a Good Time were compared to the Taliban by a reader. Today, I opened the Irish Daily Mail and found, over the familiar faces of Íde Nic Mhathúna and Eoghan de Faoite, the headline The Catholic Taliban.

Seeing that, I had just the tiniest inkling of a suspicion that someone in the Mail is not very fond of Youth Defence.

In fact, the article, by Brian Carroll, is not anything like as bad as that unbelievably silly headline would suggest. The upshot is that Youth Defence have been given a new lease of life by the UCC stem cell controversy, and that with Íde at the helm they have been mounting a vigorous poster and leafleting campaign in Munster. Íde is referred to as "the prodigal daughter" (has she been squandering her parents' money abroad or something? The article doesn't say) who apparently wants to "eclipse" the rest of her family in pro-life activism. Along the way, the article gives us some interesting facts. Referring to Tuesday's debate in UCC with Dr David Prentice and Wesley Smith, we are told that

"Youth Defence did invite Dr Deirdre Madden, the college board member who proposed the ESCR in the first place to debate with Prentice and Smith, but she declined. As such it became more of a rally than a debate."

Well, if your opponent refuses to debate with you, that's hardly your fault, is it? Given that Dr Madden was invited to the event (a courtesy rarely extended to Youth Defence by its pro-abortion opponents), and given the gravity of the issue as well as the depth of her involvement in it, I am astonished that she declined. It doesn't exactly fill you with confidence in the pro-ESCR lobby!

There are other little negative digs in the article. Youth Defence are "swamping" Munster with posters, their literature is "graphic and gut-wrenching". (Well, some of us would reply, abortion is a gut-wrenching thing.) Eoghan de Faoite, whom I have only ever known as a friendly, phlegmatic and good-humoured fellow, is called "a divisive figure". "[T]here are some conservatives who feel he and Youth Defence blur the message with their controversial campaigns." Who are these "conservatives"? What "message" are Youth Defence "blurring"? We are not told.

The article tries to conjure up the spectre of finances by telling us, in a meaningful tone, that "Youth Defence, in common with several pro-life organisations in Ireland, is very well-funded." That just might have something to do with the fact that most Irish people are, you know, pro-life.

Niamh Uí Bhriain is mentioned as being involved with Cóir, "a group accused by the Government of spreading "malicious lies" during the Lisbon Treaty Campaign about Europe forcing abortion, prostitution and euthanasia on Ireland." Anyone who took the trouble to read Cóir's literature could see quite plainly that its main argument against Lisbon was the issue of national sovereignty. It didn't make a big deal of the possible threat to morality if the Treaty was carried. Appearing on Questions and Answers shortly before the referendum, Niamh very eloquently stated that her main wish was that the Irish people, whatever their views on abortion, should be the ones deciding what the law in that area was to be - not the eurocrats.

For all that, the article is nothing like as mean-spirited as its headline (presumably not written by Mr Carroll) would have you believe. All it really tells you is that YD are a dynamic, determined group of people, that they mean business in the fight for the unborn, and that their opponents are running scared. Oh, and it also mentions that YD are asking supporters to contribute as little as €10 a month to their campaign. Why, thank you for the tip, Mr Carroll - since I've started a job these past two weeks, I am in a position to do just that. Hopefully my readers are too.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

If you're in Dublin tonight ...

This evening ethics expert Wesley Smith and stem cell expert Dr David Prentice will be delivering some home truths about embryonic stem cell research. Wynn's Hotel, 7:30 p.m. The staff at the YD office have been tireless in promoting the event, and it comes at a crucial moment in the debate about stem cell research in this country, so please go if you can.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Overheard in ... an internet café

Party Soldier is back in the blogosphere, after ten days or so devoted to more mundane matters, like putting food on the table. A major change in one's life - like starting a new job - has a way of making the world's problems seem somewhat less threatening. The world will limp along another day, you think, without my posting an article on this Irish Times editorial or that idiotic comment by the German Bishops' Conference.

However, the new day job having been successfully begun (and, so far, kept), I decided to return to the battlefield. This evening I seated myself in an internet café, feeling like I could take on all the bogeys of the web. Then someone else sat down beside me, and I heard a rustling noise that I knew only too well. Knew and dreaded.

I don't know why it is that when people sitting near me in public places are eating something, that something always has to be crisps. Crisps are the most irritating and most useless food imaginable. They make noise when their packet is being handled, and they make noise when they're being eaten. They smell strongly. They leave your fingertips all salty. They can make you hyperactive. And they don't even make you full. There's nothing to them. Bite into them (annoying everyone within a ten yard radius in the process) chew once or twice, and they're gone. You're left feeling just as hungry as before.

And yet all over the place - in internet cafés, on the Luas, on the bus, on trains, in the cinema, in the library, in the lecture theatre - people have to dig into these pointless things. As did the young man sitting near me on this occasion. I soon noticed, to my dismay, that he was a "relisher". That is, he didn't gobble the things all down at once, which would at least have brought a swift end to the torture, but ate them lingeringly, lovingly, over a long stretch of time. Every few minutes, in would go the hand, rustle rustle, crunch crunch, munch munch munch. Oh yes, he munched. With his mouth open.

I am ashamed to say this got my temper up more than any Tablet editorial or neocon war manifesto that could possibly have caught my eye on the web. "Cretin", I muttered to myself as I surveyed the Catholic blogs, "moron. Should be thrown out." Before long I was harbouring all sorts of uncharitable thoughts against my (literal, on this occasion) neighbour, and decided to put off the business of saving humanity from Bolshevism, Liberalism and the EU for yet another day.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Cornell Society for a Good Time breaks its silence!

I must admit I'd been waiting for a while to see what their take would be on the SSPX situation. (To all non-trads reading this who had never heard of Bishop Williamson until ten days ago: in our little world we've been following this saga for years, so forgive our seemingly bizarre and insatiable interest in the matter.) Clara does not disappoint, but attacks the subject with her usual vehemence:

It's actually terribly ironic when you think about it. If the Vatican were to make a practice of excommunicating people for holding erroneous historical views (say, academic historians who had spread misinformation about the history of the papacy or the lives of the saints) they would be excoriated for not respecting intellectual freedom. Now, because they won't penalize Williamson for his historical errors, they are accused of insensitivity to Jews.

And:

Finally, with respect to Catholic-Jewish relations, I can't quite overcome the impluse to ask... who cares? I mean, I have nothing against Jews per se, but it's not as if being on friendly terms with Jewish leaders is a central part of the Church's apostolic mission. Of course, we shouldn't antagonize them needlessly, but if they're going to throw tantrums about things that don't concern them, that's more their problem than ours.

Reading this piece, I am torn between two emotions: hearty agreement, and a nervous feeling that she might be underestimating the power of the media. Their knack of smelling blood in the air when their enemies are vulnerable. Their stubborn refusal to let facts get in the way of seizing any opportunity to write a headline containing both the words "Pope" and "antisemitism". And of course, their ability to influence the views of the man on the street. The post, however, is well worth a read.

Today news has emerged that the Vatican is requiring a public recantation by Williamson before things can move forward. The problem is that such measures only reinforce the false impression generated by the media that the Holocaust was a factor in the decision to lift the excommunications, and also that non-Catholics have some sort of right to dictate to the Pope what his dealings with his own Bishops should be. And do you think that such a generous measure will silence his critics for one moment? Think again.

For example, this evening when I glanced at the online editon of the German magazine Stern I was greeted by a photograph of the grim-faced Charlotte Knobloch, chairwoman of the Committee of Jews in Germany, with the headline: "Jews greet "first step." The article goes on

A first step in the right direction, but not more: the Jewish organisations have made it clear that they require more from the Vatican than a mere[!] demand that Holocaust denier Richard Williamson take back his comments. The Central Committee of Jews also called for a clear change of course from Rome.

There follow numerous denunciations from Germany's political establishment and liberal clerics. No attempt is made to give the traditionalists' side of the story, and of course the impression is given that the Bishop's historical views were the reason for his excommunication and hence also for the lifting of it. Does anyone seriously think that these people are acting in good faith? That they hold "Catholic-Jewish relations" in any real regard? That they will ever be satisfied?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Because our public transport system is so wonderful

I do not know of any other European capital city without an underground railway. Most readers of this blog will have travelled on the London underground at some point. The Paris métro makes it possible to hop around that great city with ease. Berlin has one, which runs day and night. Bucharest has one. Warsaw also has one, the building of which began in the 1990's. And, indeed, other non-capital cities in Europe have underground railways too. When I lived in Bavaria I was often in Nuremburg. This unimportant provincial city, which has less than half the population of Dublin, has a state-of-the-art U-Bahn.

But Dublin? Seat of the Celtic Tiger? Capital of the country which was for years described as "the envy of Europe"? That city which boasts narrow one-way streets, large numbers of tourists and a rainy climate - a city, in other words, in which good and efficient public transport would be highly desirable? Not on your life. An underground, you see, requires foresight, planning and the ability to sacrifce now in order to reap the benefit later - all qualities which our politicians lack. The men and women whom the Celtic Tiger values are not the sort of people to worry their heads about public transport.

But in spite of this indifference, I was a bit taken aback when I saw that the government had chosen to axe 120 buses and 290 jobs in Dublin. That this was done by a government in which the Green Party is a coalition partner is even more shocking. How, in the government's opinion, are people to get around instead? If the two Luas lines were connected that would solve alot of problems, but of course they aren't, which complicates life for people like me who trudge accross town regularly.

Yes, of course, we knew the cuts were coming and we were warned they would be painful. But I wonder if the government is really saving money in the right areas. This morning I was in a bathroom in a university and, while drying my hands, was forced to stare at one of these idiotic posters, whose would-be hipness can't disguise their finger-wagging, nanny-state undertone. Are these Gutmenschen taking any cuts? It's about time they did.

The Christian Solidarity Party is opposed to cuts in areas that will badly effect the common good, and we are also in favour of an increased role for public transport in this country, particularly rail transport. Party President Paul O'Loughlin, who ran in Dublin North Central at the last election, has been very vocal on this topic. You'll be reading more about him in the upcoming months. Stay tooned.