In this day and age of relativism, camps of opinion arise like midges on a hike in Alaska. One brushes away one set of "arguments", only to find dozens flying into one's face. The media frenzy over the events of the past three weeks is not going to subside. On the contrary, we Catholics are entering into a new era of Church-bashing which will not go away. The days of toleration for differing religious opinions, or at least, Catholic teaching, is over. I watched two days of the Parliament hearings of witnesses regarding the civil union or rather same-sex-marriage act. I usually do not watch television, but I was visiting a friend who wanted to watch this swarm of opinions based on sola fide, sola scriptura; each man and woman on the panel proved to be his or her own pope. The Church of England witnesses, as they were called, had eloquent and keen questions and answers. So did Archbishop Peter Smith and his legal team. I was impressed by the firm and clear positions given by these two groups. Not so other groups, like the Church of Wales representatives, who waffled. What did astound me was the out and out rudeness of some of the questioners, all of them MPs, not to be named here. One can look at my blog for names. I merely want to point out the lack of respect towards those representatives of organized religion. At several places in the presentation of answers by Archbishop Peter Smith, some members laughed out loud in derision for the Catholic position on marriage, pre-marital sex, and our anti-contraception, anti-abortion positions. What came to my mind was that I could have been in a time-machine, taken back to the interrogations of Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, or Robert Southwell et al. The entire meeting of this Parliament panel on both days was a sham. The smug hypocritical statements of the members of Parliament shone out like words of old transcripts in a history of Recusant trials. Parliament determines moral and religious policy in Britain, not the churches. Parliament in 2013 mirrors Parliament in 1581, or 1585 or 1681, this last the year of the martyrdom of St. Oliver Plunkett. I have seen his head in St. Peter's Church, Drogheda. His face is peaceful, but reveals pain. We honour martyrs in the Catholic Church almost daily. We of this Guild honour Titus Brandsma, who was martyred and is a Blessed. But, do we really want martyrs in 2013? Do we feel uncomfortable watching Peter Smith being derided? Do we want our leaders to stand firm on the ancient teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church? rest here at supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/…/bears-repeating…
