It seems that bashing the Pellists is turning into something of a national sport.
Yesterday, there was Anthony Ackroyd, who seems to be the seasonal Mike Carlton substitute, letting fly with both barrels in Catholic brand appears Pell's priority.
Who knows if Ackroyd had read Cardinal Pell's musings on St. Francis's choice of a life of simplicity and poverty, which you can find here under the header Assisi, but in any case, Pell still managed to send him into a frenzy:
I write from my sun-drenched garden, seated on a banana lounge next to a metre-high statue of Saint Francis of Assisi. I have a primarily Buddhist worldview but I have a lot of respect for this quirky Catholic saint and not just because we share the same haircut.
This Italian friar had the crazy idea that if you were a Christian you should actually follow the teachings of Christ who never said, ''Go forth and accumulate appalling amounts of wealth and live a lifestyle of ostentatious self-aggrandisement''. So, unlike the Pope and his pals, Francis and his followers lived simply just like that guy in the gospels.
Fast-forward from the early 13th century to the present day and we find that some of the folks at the top of Catholic Church Inc are still diabolically ignorant of what is written in the pages of their company manifesto.
Take, for example, that role model for ethical underachievement, Cardinal George Pell ...
And take he does, going on from there with the aforesaid cliched both barrels.
Now some may take this as unfair, to keep the sporting "Bazza loves yas all blazing away in national parks" shooters metaphor going, because it's a bit like taking a pot shot at a deer, or a rabbit or a 'roo caught in the glare of a spotlight.
After all, your average Pellist loves to dress up in a sumptuous frock. Simplicity ain't the go.
Oh what a grand excuse to run a nifty photo of a frock or two:
But in any case the pond takes a different view as to what to do with that proverbial deer.
The more the merrier should pile in and pile on.
Because if you read the week-old thoughts of Cardinal Pell, for the Sunday Terror, the unremitting banality will have you reaching for something, and instead of a hammer to smash your computer, you need something with a little more grunt, and directed away from self so that self-harm can be avoided.
The Pellist tract in question is called Holidays, and if it were submitted by a first year high school student, it might pass muster for a student who didn't know how to pitch the line that the dog had eaten his or her homework.
Did we say unremitting banality? As usual an understatement:
During the last forty years I have managed to take regular holidays, near the beach; I count this a blessing.
It is a time for rest and rejuvenation, for family and extended family, for catching up with friends. It is one of the best features of Australian life for those who can afford it. Some elements in this holiday mix have remained constant. The weather can be fiercely hot in Victoria, but it is regularly changeable, sometimes for the worse. In N.S.W. the summers are more predictable, often warm to hot with a touch of January humidity.
The ocean waters are cold off Victoria, warm and pleasant in N.S.W., although this year they have been nippy.
Okay enough. Is there a Chauncey Gardiner in the house?
Hair tearing isn't allowed, screeching is forbidden, and a fainting fit is only allowed while reading Pamela. The pond expects sterner stuff from stray readers.
Is there anything else, apart from Pellist discussion of the cricket, and Pellists being luddites who avidly devour printed books and newspapers?
Well yes, because the tract conforms to the first rule this summer season.
Sssh, whatever you do, don't mention climate change!
Neither state has had bushfires every year, but this scourge does develop at irregular intervals in the worst forms, as we have just seen in Tasmania. Evil is a bigger mystery than goodness and fire bugs are always active at these times, sometimes causing death as well as destruction. It is one of the more baffling examples of evil doing, inexplicable except as an act of hatred towards society. This debit is more than balanced by the unfashionable but sometimes heroic work of the firefighters, many of them volunteers.
And there you have a bonus classical example of a straw dog. Who's said that firefighters are unfashionable? Except Pell.
Indeed, while sitting at an outdoor restaurant the other day, two firetrucks turned up, and a dozen firies milled around like chooks, and then went away again because it was a false alarm.
Now your average Liberal party reductionist anti-government anti-regulation anti-socialist would propose this was a vast waste of taxpayers' money.
Why not first send one man on a bicycle to see if the threat was real?
Let it be noted that the pond would like at least three fire trucks to turn up at the first hint of a fire alarm at the pond's headquarters ...
If you've ever been near a fire, you'll completely forget about fashion.
Pell was probably thinking of the press Tony Abbott had attracted for his grand-standing and posing, since Abbott was incapable of going about the business of fire-fighting, without attracting the media like a swarm of bush fires.
Which is typical of someone completely clueless about St. Francis. Only a man much given to frocks would think about fire-fighting with an eye on what's in or out of fashion.
Meanwhile over at the Sydney Anglicans, the front page splash concerns the building of homes in Kenya.
No doubt this is admirable and much needed work.
But it falls to the pond to remind the Sydney Anglicans of the situation of gays in Kenya. There's a wiki on the subject here, which starts off:
Homosexuality is "largely considered to be taboo and repugnant to [the] cultural values and morality" of Kenya, and the state punishes same-sex sexual acts as crimes.
Will we ever see a headline on the Sydney Anglican site announcing an intention to build hope in the hearts of Kenyan gays, by reaching out to them in a compassionate Christ-like way, judging them not for their sexuality and their lifestyle, but instead planning to implement a life-saving venture ... the changing of laws and attitudes and hearts and minds in Kenya towards homosexuality?
A sort of Anglicans go St. Francis thing.
In your dreams.
Nope, instead you get this sort of tosh, as performed by Mark Earngey, assistant minister in the parish of Toongabbie praising the work of Michael Jensen to the skies as a must-read:
Sydney’s position concerning women and ministry is given judicious and firm coverage, as Sydney is defended from the charge of Arianism.
From refusing to give women a high role in ministry to charges of Arianism, all without pause or taking a breath!
The problem of course is that Arianism is all about Jesus being subordinate to the father (cf John 14:28), and the Sydney Anglicans are always blathering on about how women are subordinate to men, proving once again you can get three wise blind men to decipher the bible and the shape of a camel in many different ways.
The Sydney Anglicans just love subordination, they just happen to prefer it in the matter of women rather than Jesus.
Clearly the Sydney Anglicans are guilty of subordinationism, guilty as hell, and they will have an eternity to reflect on their heresies.
Well they would if there was a hell to send them to, but the pond can't let technical details like this get in the way of a sweeping consignment of the lot of them to eternal damnation, in best Anglican Calvinist style.
Meanwhile, the big news this week was the desire of Xians and others in different faiths to go on discriminating, pocketing taxpayers dollars while punishing people for being different.
There were any number of stories, including Religions will be allowed to discriminate against gays, and Christian lobby rejects push to remove religions exemptions and Religious groups free to discriminate against pregnant women, and David Marr's rant Gillard's bizarre act of faith leaves vunerable unprotected.
All in all, it's a reminder that there's not much difference between Liberal and Labor when it comes to the discriminatory crunch, and it's a reminder how precious the churches and the religious view their right to discriminate, to ostracise, to demonise, to revile and to exile, and to punish and to withhold, and to sack and to fire - all in the name of their intolerant beliefs.
Now there's a thought on which to meditate this Sunday. The unremitting hostility of the religious towards love, forbearance, sharing, and giving, as opposed to what they consider their right and proper entitlement ... taking the taxpayer dollar and using it to discriminate, to subordinate, and to spurn gays, women, and any poor person who doesn't share their fanatical views of the world.
The only bright spot? The fuss surrounding the cult of scientology, following the publication of Lawrence Wright's book Going Clear, which you can read more about in Lawrence Wright Publisher Defends Book Against Church of Scientology Claims.
That's the way it goes in America these days, cults armed with lawyers and publicists and apologists and fellow-travellers, and still they can get their comeuppance with a timely publication.
Take it away Mr. Golding.
Finally to an Anon correspondent - sorry the pond doesn't do email - who's having trouble with his emails from the pond.
Sorry, Blogger is a labyrinth, and the best I can suggest is that you unsubscribe. Cut off all connections ... and then re-subscribe. Toy with its mind and see what happens, or alternatively set up a gmail account (costs nothing but the time, do not allow personalisation). There's really no easy way to deal with issues like email from this end; the only excuse is that it's a hopeless product but it is free.
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