Category Archives: Religion

Mob journalism and the merciless persecution of Cardinal Pell

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Gerard Henderson’s most recent Media Watch Dog (No. 315, 13 May) had a well-deserved go at Radio 2GB’s Ben Fordham for picking up a Daily Mail story about Cardinal Pell and his lunch, and running with the pack. The sneering mocking headline of the Daily Mail piece by an Australian ‘journalist’ is:

Heart condition improving then, George?
Cardinal Pell pictured tucking into steak, chips and beer in a Roman piazza – weeks after claiming he was ‘too ill’ to come home to face child sex abuse royal commission.

The headline tells us which sector of our liberal-democratic society is the object of his incitement. Continue reading →

Sexual harassment ? It depends on who is doing the harassment

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Madonna concert

Madonna, that vulgar little pop star and tireless promoter of the western world’s state-approved bigotry, is touring Australia at the moment. She shows respect for her shameless fans by turning up late for just about every performance, on one occasion three hours late. This insulting and unprofessional behaviour seems not to bother most of them. They are evidently ready to forgive or overlook the crassest of behaviours.

At Thursday night’s Brisbane concert, Madonna invited a 17-year-old fan onto the stage. During the chat, Madonna without warning pulled down the 17-year-old’s top to expose a breast to the stadium full of roaring fans. She laughingly quipped:

“She’s the kind of girl you want to slap on the ass … oh shit, sorry!  Sexual harassment. You can do the same to me if you like.”

The 17-year-old did not take up the offer and later remarked in response to the suggestion that Madonna had humiliated her:

“Only I get to decide if I’m humiliated or not. Why would people assume I am humiliated by my own breast, nipple or body? It’s hilarious to me how much of a big deal it is to everyone.”

To the suggestion she could sue Madonna, she laughingly scoffed:

“Seriously, why would I sue Madonna for the best moment of my life?”

We all know, of course, that had it not been the grotesquely vulgar Madonna that had pulled down her top to expose a breast but another sort of person, it could have been the worst moment of her life. In that case, the public furore would scarcely be contained, and the moralising journalists of the Age would be crowding the front benches of the kangaroo court to ensure the destruction of the pitiless offender.

As it was, the Age, a foremost leader in the great revival of anti-Catholic sectarianism, only mentioned in passing that Madonna’s performance ‘caused a ruckus with religious groups.’ Groups? There’s only one ‘group’ that that vulgar bigot targets – to the delight of the Age scribblers.

The invincible ignorance of some journalists concerning George Pell

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Nobody should miss Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch Dog each Friday. An ongoing feature of Media Watch Dog is Gerard’s highlighting of the ABC’s anti-Catholic sectarianism. This favourite expression of the ABC’s poisonous prejudice against anything with the slightest whiff of conservatism is most manifest in their obsession with Cardinal George Pell who for the ABC is the religious equivalent of Tony Abbott. The ABC can take pride in its being at the head of the current revival of anti-Catholic sectarianism, a disease that came to Australia on the First Fleet and was ably promoted by the likes of the flogging parson Samuel Marsden and Presbyterian minister John Dunmore Lang. This is one Tradition the ABC has loyally kept up. The following is Gerard’s most recent exposition of the ABC’s primitive anti-religious bigotry.

BISHOP GEOFFREY ROBINSON FAILS TO FULFILL THE ABC’S PROPHECIES

The ABC was quite excited on the morning of retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – Tuesday 25 August 2015.

Fr Robinson is a long-time critic of Cardinal George Pell – both before and after Pell became the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. Some ABC producersdecided to preview Geoffrey Robinson’s appearance before the Royal Commission – focusing on what the retired bishop might say about Cardinal Pell.

On Radio National Breakfast, Fran (“I’m an activist”) Kelly interviewed Francis Sullivan from the Truth, Justice and Healing Council.  Mr Sullivan is a public critic of George Pell.  Needless to say, it was not long before the Cardinal was introduced into the discussion.  Let’s go to the transcript: Continue reading →

Ireland – a famous political victory and a devastating cultural defeat

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By voting in a landslide to change the definition of marriage, Ireland has shown on the great feast of Pentecost that it has flipped over into its pagan past. The cultural signs and symbols might still be there, but it’s superficial. Ireland can no longer be considered a Catholic nation. Indeed, it would be struggling to call itself Christian.

The most important part of Irish culture, its Catholic religion, has been spurned. The religion the Irish desperately clung to for centuries under a heartless persecution that reduced two-thirds of the Irish population to a little more than miserable degraded serfs in their own country has been spurned. Continue reading →

Kenneth Branagh’s Very Christian Cinderella

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The following review of the soon to be released movie CINDERELLA appeared on Zenit Online
MORE THAN A FAIRYTALE

By Fr. Robert Barron

Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella” is the most surprising Hollywood movie of the year so far. I say this because the director manages to tells the familiar fairy tale without irony, hyper-feminist sub-plots, Marxist insinuations, deconstructionist cynicism, or arch condescension. In so doing, he actually allows the spiritual, indeed specifically Christian, character of the tale to emerge. I realize that it probably strikes a contemporary audience as odd that Cinderella might be a Christian allegory, but keep in mind that most of the fairy stories and children’s tales compiled by the Brothers Grimm and later adapted by Walt Disney found their roots in the decidedly Christian culture of late medieval and early modern Europe.

Continue reading →

Thomas More – fictionalising history for political purposes

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Deconstructing History

‘[Hilary] Mantel has chosen to make [St Thomas] More the singular object of her anti-Catholic vitriol. More does not appear in the book other than in a damning light; no one speaks anything but ill of him and he is not allowed a redeeming feature’

WOLF HALL AND THE REAL ST THOMAS MORE

By  Graham Hutton

THE FIRST of a trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell by the successful English writer Hilary Mantel, ‘Wolf Hall’ has experienced a phenomenal success winning huge critical acclaim, selling over 1.2million copies and winning the Mann Booker prize. It has now been turned into a stage play and at both Stratford-upon-Avon and London’s West End this play, too, has been such a success that it is being described with such hyperboles as ‘a landmark’ and ‘a phenomenon’. No doubt the forthcoming TV series will reach even more people. Unfortunately, whatever the literary merits of the book, its popularity is something which Catholics can only regret. The great work of recent historians of the English Reformation such as Eamon Duffy, Christopher Haigh and Richard Rex, has done much to clear away the obfuscations of traditional English historiography around the medieval Church and the reformation. Continue reading →

The Christmas story according to St Luke, translated by Mgr Ronald Knox

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The infancy chapters 1 & 2 of

THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

Translated by Mgr Ronald Knox, 1945

MANY have been at pains to set forth the history of what time has brought to fulfilment among us, following the tradition of those first eye-witnesses who gave themselves up to the service of the word. And I too, most noble Theophilus, have resolved to put the story in writing for thee as it befell, having first traced it carefully from its beginnings, that thou mayst understand the instruction thou hast already received, in all its certainty Continue reading →

What is Really Going on in Syria?

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When the conflict in Syria broke out some two years ago, most ordinary Australians who followed the media reports and typically have only a vague idea of the motivations driving the deadly conflicts in the Islamic world, would surely have gained the impression that Bashar al-Assad was the big baddie in the conflict. I deliberately use the word ‘baddie’ because the media often represent such conflicts in the simple terms of a Saturday matinee western. Who the baddie is and who the goodies are in the matinee often depends on what the leftist class voice has decided. Continue reading →

Putting Christ and the Mass back into Christmas

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS

By Paul Stenhouse

Fr Paul Stenhouse MSC PhD (Middle Eastern studies) is editor of Annals Australasia and an acknowledged expert on the (modern and ancient) Middle East. He is a regular contributor to the media discussion on events in the Middle East. Below is his editorial for the Annals’ Christmas edition which will be of interest to the conservative for its historical details – apart from anything else.

THE STREETS of Sydney have been bedecked since mid-November with pennants hanging from light poles featuring multi-coloured stars – which I take to represent the star of Bethlehem – and the words Happy Christmas. Continue reading →