tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post1888089538624050016..comments2024-03-14T06:43:39.590+00:00Comments on LMS Chairman: Why Rees-Mogg is wrongLatin Mass Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17951084157414901564noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-65396506355333491982017-09-19T21:33:52.666+01:002017-09-19T21:33:52.666+01:00I don't agree that an anti-abortion politician...I don't agree that an anti-abortion politician cannot lead a party, but s/he'd need to stand up to the media bullies. But what's really needed is a new populist Christian democratic party. Why try to rehabilitate the Tories (who are no longer conservative) or Labour (who care nothing for working people)? The established parties don't represent their constituencies; they select candidates (who often don't even live in the constituency) for whom we have the privilege of voting. It's not much better than old Soviet-style elections. People should stand from their own constituencies and control the party, not the other way round.Tony Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10862727279147129707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-41243897129991504522017-09-19T20:49:20.994+01:002017-09-19T20:49:20.994+01:00"any party that had a formal policy of bannin..."any party that had a formal policy of banning or greatly restricting abortion by legislation would lose every seat in Great Britain. Every single one."<br />I don't think that's true at all...in fact, it would force discussion of the issue (though the media would unite in trying to keep biological facts out of the discussion and frame discourse instead on 'women's rights'.). I note that at least one dominant party in another part of the United Kingdom is clearly opposed to abortion (though technically Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain).<br />Tony Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10862727279147129707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-28031110328901042612017-09-10T16:11:46.361+01:002017-09-10T16:11:46.361+01:00I totally concur. Should Dr Shaw have been placed ...I totally concur. Should Dr Shaw have been placed in the same situation I wonder how he would have fared? The chance to sit down & think the content of a blog - altering & amending - is not the same as sitting in front of a live interviewer (probably very professional) with no notice of the questions is a different situation completely.<br />It also concerns me that Dr Shaw's blog goes under the title "LMS Chairman". Although (in very small print) he does claim that his comments are personal I do wonder how many readers are misled by the title to equate his ramblings with the stated position of the LMS. I have already suggested an alternative title "Dr Joe's Ramblings"David O'Neillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04023042558615821880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-26803454237594653162017-09-09T11:49:44.399+01:002017-09-09T11:49:44.399+01:00Perfectly bizarre wailing in certain quarters that...Perfectly bizarre wailing in certain quarters that they have somehow been dispossessed. Dispossessed of what, exactly? It is still only 10 years since Tony Blair could not become a Catholic until he had ceased to be Prime Minister. He, who had changed the Constitution more than any Prime Minister before or since, and far more than Corbyn proposes to do, did not attempt clarify the law that still appears to bar Catholics from the Premiership, because he knew that, whatever the law might be, a Catholic Prime Minister was still politically impossible. The insistence on both the constitutional and the political points would not have come from his own party.<br /><br />Oh, well, Jesus Himself thought that this kind of thing was good for us. Arguments in defence of the Catholic Church's definition of marriage as the best basis for the law of the land, and in defence of the right to make that case, ought to have been offered in 1533. As, of course they were. (Even Luther and Tyndale supported Catherine of Aragon against Henry VIII; in its origins, the English Reformation was as untheological as anything has ever been.) Rees-Mogg's and his supporters' weird sense of their own impugned entitlement is like his routine quotation of the Book of Common Prayer, the King James Bible and Victorian Anglican hymnody: it does not come across as culturally Catholic at all. As the New York Irish used to say of John F. Kennedy, "He never did a day of Catholic school in his life."<br /><br />As to those who until this week held that it was, and ought to be, impossible for a Catholic to become Prime Minister, but who have now decided that Rees-Mogg speaks for them despite their Protestantism, see above on marriage, while on abortion, to which church do you belong? The Church of England, has never been against abortion. It, the Church of Scotland, and the Methodist Church wrote suspiciously similar reports that David Steel then wrote up as what became the 1967 Abortion Act. In eventually backing down on several Lords amendments to that Bill, amendments that the Commons rejected by which the Lords were determined to keep, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, saved his own and his brethren's seats in the House of Lords. In other words, there are still bishops in the House of Lords <i>at all</i> because they supported abortion, and not as some Medieval or Early Modern quirk, but a mere 50 years ago.<br /><br />The <i>de facto</i> prohibition on a pro-life Prime Minister is at least 50 years old. Since the 1967 Abortion Act, only three opponents of that legislation and of its successive extensions have even been candidates to lead either of the main parties, in the sense of being on the ballot paper in the end. Those have been John Smith, John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith. Only Smith and Duncan Smith have won the Leadership (in Smith's case, as long ago as 1992), and only Smith has come within sight of becoming Prime Minister, although even he never did so. It is inconceivable, so to speak, that anyone of that view could ever again make it onto the ballot to lead either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party.<br /><br />We have already seen that the same thing now applied to same-sex marriage. If keeping Andrea Leadsom off the ballot meant that there simply would not be an election at all, then there simply would not be an election at all, even though she would have lost it anyway. And even though she would have lost it anyway, there simply was not an election at all. Jacob Rees-Mogg, <i>nota bene</i>.David Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06839882674758833524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-66046723380143900312017-09-08T16:54:57.480+01:002017-09-08T16:54:57.480+01:00For a (complimentary) comment from a minister in t...For a (complimentary) comment from a minister in the Free Church of Scotland see:<br />https://theweeflea.com/2017/09/07/the-man-who-could-make-me-vote-tory/Highland Cathedralhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519428794618769856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-63381413737591332222017-09-08T16:06:44.864+01:002017-09-08T16:06:44.864+01:00Well said.
And I'm glad to learn about Edward...Well said.<br /><br />And I'm glad to learn about Edward Leigh's speech.Simon Platthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16196039882299400327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-33987896669501619952017-09-08T15:51:33.591+01:002017-09-08T15:51:33.591+01:00Yes, they reiterate those principles, and indeed t...Yes, they reiterate those principles, and indeed they may establish penalties associated with them too.Joseph Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-54276131419503228622017-09-08T15:38:19.133+01:002017-09-08T15:38:19.133+01:00On 5 February 2013 Sir Edward Leigh MP, speaking i...On 5 February 2013 Sir Edward Leigh MP, speaking in the debate on same-sex 'marriage', actually quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the floor of the House of Commons. He also made a neat point about Parliamentary sovereignty when he quoted the Earl of Pembroke in 1648 saying that Parliament could do anything apart from making a man a woman or a woman a man - before pointing out that in 2004 it did precisely this with the Gender Recognition Act. The speech may be read at the Catholic Voices website.<br /><br />To oppose what Cameron fatuously called 'equal marriage' is to lay oneself open to the charge of 'homophobia'. Amber Rudd, referring the other day to the group National Action, put its 'homophobia' before other unpleasant characteristics such as its anti-Semitism, racialism and incitement to violence.<br /><br />For the record, I don't think JRM was at his best in this interview. But to say he is 'wrong' is going too far. He might have put up a better argument for his case, but that's hardly the same thing.<br /> John Nolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027156691859606002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-1988669745755882292017-09-08T13:50:54.594+01:002017-09-08T13:50:54.594+01:00So you agree that that marriage cannot be contract...So you agree that that marriage cannot be contracted between two people of the same sex, and that killing the unborn is wrong, is also Divine and Ecclesiastical Law and so is the Ten Commandments. Catholic Missionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06025127342963192930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-89662986338133788282017-09-08T12:18:32.948+01:002017-09-08T12:18:32.948+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ras Celashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02451797744964378073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-20302781464542346352017-09-08T10:46:46.689+01:002017-09-08T10:46:46.689+01:00The case against Rees-Mogg is his voting record on...The case against Rees-Mogg is his voting record on the matters that have in fact come before the House of Commons during his time there, set in the context of his wider political associations and of how he makes his money. On those, not least from the perspective of Catholic Social Teaching, he is a moral disgrace. That is not ameliorated in any way by his hypothetical views on abortion or on same-sex marriage.<br /><br />In Britain, legislation may have something of a role on abortion, and should certainly be supported if and when it were to be proposed, but the fact of the matter is that to try and use it as the principal instrument is, again, simply naive in a country where one in three women has had an abortion. That figure is not skewed by London or what have you. It is constant across and throughout England, Scotland and Wales. In Jacob Rees-Mogg's constituency of North East Somerset, one in three women has had at least one abortion.<br /><br />Rather than an individual candidate about whom hardly anyone would ever ask, any party that had a formal policy of banning or greatly restricting abortion by legislation would lose every seat in Great Britain. Every single one. That is just a fact. In so doing, it would close the debate on abortion forever.<br /><br />The same is true of any party led by someone who was openly of that view. Although checking the parliamentary records would have set them right, most people had no idea what John Smith's, or Charles Kennedy's, or Iain Duncan Smith's view on abortion was. But everyone now knows what Rees-Mogg's is. Ho, hum. Jesus told us to expect a lot worse than merely not being allowed to become Prime Minister.David Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06839882674758833524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-33775272008818472272017-09-08T10:39:50.281+01:002017-09-08T10:39:50.281+01:00The Natural Law is taught by the Holy Spirit, it i...The Natural Law is taught by the Holy Spirit, it is taught by Scripture, and it is taught by the Church. Nevertheless its status is distinct from the status of Divine Law which can be changed: for example the food purity laws which were binding only on the Jews and only between the time of their promulgation on Mount Sinai until the time of the Church.Joseph Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-8180612931033981252017-09-08T10:26:17.221+01:002017-09-08T10:26:17.221+01:00By contrast, we know that marriage cannot be contr...By contrast, we know that marriage cannot be contracted between two people of the same sex, and that killing the unborn is wrong, by reason. It is a matter of Natural Law, not Divine or Ecclesiastical Law.<br /><br />Not Divine or Ecclesiastical Law?<br /><br />What the Church tells us is that the obligation of keeping most of the Ten Commandments does not derive from a divine command which could apply to one community and not another, or varied over time. <br /><br /> Not from Divine Law or teaching ? Not the teaching of the Holy Spirit?<br /><br /> Catholic Missionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06025127342963192930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-42853706133382038012017-09-08T09:03:01.680+01:002017-09-08T09:03:01.680+01:00JR-M's comments are reminiscient of one of his...JR-M's comments are reminiscient of one of his appearances on Have I Got News for You. He was asked why he voted against same-sex marriage and said he had obeyed "the whip of the Catholic Church". It's a neat line, but again it's not much use in the wider debate for the same reasons discussed here.<br /><br />It's also rather a poor means of evangelising. If we start to say that we Catholics labour sadly under the rule of the Church and might speak or act otherwise were the Church more lenient, we give the impression that a) it's pretty unpleasant being a Catholic so nobody else should subject themselves to what we have to put up with, and b) the Church i.e. the hierarchy) should relent and stop being mean.Riddleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18352250581662283650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-27397850480595915272017-09-08T07:37:31.234+01:002017-09-08T07:37:31.234+01:00Seriously, blog posts like this are unhelpful and ...Seriously, blog posts like this are unhelpful and pretty mean-spirited. I wonder whether the author would have enunciated the position he states here so clearly on live television with a glaring and rather aggressive interviewer, all in the space of 3 minutes. Rees-Mogg does not claim to be a theologian but a politician and faithful Catholic. Kudos to him that he was bold in this day and age to express his opposition to both, and not take the weasly way out that somebody of the like of the spineless IDS has done on numerous occasions.richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17372794681723451899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-58250122672180130942017-09-08T02:12:47.196+01:002017-09-08T02:12:47.196+01:00He did not invoke arguments based on faith in rega...He did not invoke arguments based on faith in regard to abortion and in regard to marriage he is correct about its sacramentality (even in the natural order) and the consequent absence of any authority to regulate it attaching to the state. As Leo XIII observes: "Marriage has God for its Author, and was from the very beginning a kind of foreshadowing of the Incarnation of His Son; and therefore there abides in it a something holy and religious; not extraneous, but innate; not derived from men, but implanted by nature. Innocent III, therefore, and Honorius III, our predecessors, affirmed not falsely nor rashly that a sacrament of marriage existed ever amongst the faithful and unbelievers. We call to witness the monuments of antiquity, as also the manners and customs of those people who, being the most civilized, had the greatest knowledge of law and equity. In the minds of all of them it was a fixed and foregone conclusion that, when marriage was thought of, it was thought of as conjoined with religion and holiness. Hence, among those, marriages were commonly celebrated with religious ceremonies, under the authority of pontiffs, and with the ministry of priests. So mighty, even in the souls ignorant of heavenly doctrine, was the force of nature, of the remembrance of their origin, and of the conscience of the human race. As, then, marriage is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church, which alone in sacred matters professes the office of teaching. Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, for through addition of the sacrament the marriages of Christians have become far the noblest of all matrimonial unions. But to decree and ordain concerning the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself, so much a part of the power and duty of the Church that it is plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such power has been transferred to the civil ruler."Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13214668171845527698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-78763117166760819042017-09-08T02:11:46.639+01:002017-09-08T02:11:46.639+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13214668171845527698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-60627778003944969672017-09-08T00:32:45.350+01:002017-09-08T00:32:45.350+01:00Free will comes into it - to refuse to accept a co...Free will comes into it - to refuse to accept a cogent argument involves a perverse act of the will.Albrecht von Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12996637489269911349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-41345218049219143292017-09-07T22:31:12.177+01:002017-09-07T22:31:12.177+01:00"I suspect, however, that few Catholic politi..."I suspect, however, that few Catholic politicians or others in public life would have stated their adherence to Catholic teaching as clearly as he did. Kudos to him for that."<br /><br />So say I !Mold Junctionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04720139361285979498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-25651966397618465832017-09-07T22:25:05.271+01:002017-09-07T22:25:05.271+01:00I agree with DeHeretico. It wasn't a philosoph...I agree with DeHeretico. It wasn't a philosophically foolproof three minutes (how could it have been?) but that's not the point. JRM has laid down a marker in the public mind. He's stood up for his Catholic faith and for the truth, and Joe Public will remember that. It could even be a turning point in the national conversation. Who knows? We should be careful, therefore, not to be too pedantic in our responses, pourng cold water over a pretty bravura performance.<br /><br />The parallel with Tim Farron is a good one. TF tried first to water down, them hide his beliefs and was swallowed whole by the media monster. JRM, on the other hand, has thrown down the gauntlet. He's effectively stood up in the public square and said, 'I'm a Catholic, this is what I believe, what are you going to do about it?<br /><br />He'll get a fair few brickbats, but also much respect. As will the Church, I'm sure.John Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13951246561259007162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-34499895002837493742017-09-07T21:50:12.313+01:002017-09-07T21:50:12.313+01:00Give the guy a break. He was calmly defending Cath...Give the guy a break. He was calmly defending Catholic social doctrine under heated questioning from tabloid journalists - not delivering a class in semantics. He was magnificent. You are being naïve if you think that our society can be brought to understand that SSM and abortion are in conflict with “reason”. And his references to marriage as a sacrament were clearly meant to say: a sacramental marriage in Catholic terms can only be contracted by a man and a woman.<br /><br />Rees-Mogg is clearly interested in being a future leader of the Tory Party and was glad to have an opportunity to get his Catholic views out in the open so he isn’t subjected to death by a thousand cuts like poor old Tim Farron. I wish him luck – and so should you.<br />DeHereticoComburendohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18033835681461582626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-67408812848917482702017-09-07T21:32:10.628+01:002017-09-07T21:32:10.628+01:00Precisely! Which is why so few people find argumen...Precisely! Which is why so few people find arguments against abortion and SSM based on an appeal to the Natural Law convincing! ALEXANDER VIhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00596556221149864809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-88230800992699991162017-09-07T21:16:11.740+01:002017-09-07T21:16:11.740+01:00If you think that people are reliably convinced by...If you think that people are reliably convinced by complex philosophical arguments, you can't have spent much teaching philosophy. Joseph Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-88589606433962749812017-09-07T20:57:05.116+01:002017-09-07T20:57:05.116+01:00Because being convinced by revelation is not the ...Because being convinced by revelation is not the conclusion of a moral/philosophical argument.ALEXANDER VIhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00596556221149864809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30490922.post-22236245871332287062017-09-07T20:49:14.702+01:002017-09-07T20:49:14.702+01:00You could also ask why so few people are convinced...You could also ask why so few people are convinced by divine revelation. Joseph Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06587987442560784792noreply@blogger.com