It occurred to the pond that perhaps there were many scandals in the middle east, not limited to, but including the behaviour of the British empire, assorted forces in the second world war, the Russians, the Americans, the Iraq war and all the fellow travellers who cheered it on in the lizard Oz, or those like the dog botherer were in the game, and assorted slaughters over the years, not limited to the terrorist Zionists who suddenly became statesmen, but also the Arab terrorists who played the same game …
Ah remember the olden days, when The Age's editorialist railed at the Jewish thugs … and worried about the Jews in the mother country … (the pond has joined the date to the editorial - the first piece was some hand-wringing about Britain's then economic crisis… roll on Brexit and the need for the colonies to step up ...)
Scum from the ghettoes of Europe …
Well you wouldn't be saying that these days ...
Sorry, whenever the pond stumbles across the bromancer talking about the suffering of Xians, it's always drawn back in time to the suffering of displaced others …but perhaps it's best to get on with the current bout of paranoia and persecution complex ...
Indeed, indeed, whenever the pond wants an ungarnished, totally honest and unbiassed view of the world, it immediately heads off to the Vatican ...
Indeed, indeed. Why should Chinese citizens miss out on the criminalising of abortion, the taking away of women's rights to control their own bodies, a decent flurry of homophobia and a campaign to remove SSM marriage from the world, transphobia, assorted molestations of underage children, and the many other singular benefits that Catholicism offers the planet …
No doubt the bromancer will be worried if any of these worthy causes are under threat from the damp sponge currently occupying the modest building, a modest little accretion of stolen Roman marble that's a tribute to Christ's talk of rich people entering the kingdom besides the camels ...
By golly, it was a bit like reciting the catechism all over again, and it took a trip to the real Pope for the pond to remember that things were happening in the outside world (the gospel according to the pond's infallible Pope can be found here).
But wait, there's more. You see, Dame Groan was also moved by matters Catholic, and the pond felt the urgent need to attend to even more persecutions and much suffering...
Now for a minute there, it might be thought that Dame Groan had gone socialist, and thinks that perhaps public schools are being hard done by, up against the elite private mob, but of course it's all just a warm-up for another bout of 'won't someone think of the tykes' syndrome, as is only right and proper for the Catholic Boys' (and Groan's) Daily ...
Strange that the Catholic system is incapable of measuring parental needs and parental capacity to contribute; strange that one might head off to some of the mighty private Catholic schools and see such abundance as to make your average public school attendee swoon …you know, the sort that caters for illustrious characters of the Barners and onion munching kind.
Never mind, comrade Bill is on the case, and Dame Groan would like to join him in urging that more money be thrown at the tykes ...
And that, in short, is how a persecution complex can be eased … plenty of cash in the Catholic paw, the poor persecuted paw that needs a little healing plastic balm ...
Now that last part requires careful consideration and contortion. There's possibly too much money being spent on education, but if a meaningless amount of more is to be spent, then more meaningless money should be given to the Catholics, who after all, are just using education to keep their faith-based numbers up, and why wouldn't you? After all, a state-funded Ponzi scheme is better than having to fund it yourself …
No doubt in due course it will make a splendid movie, perhaps a Scorsese, The Gangs of Dame Groan, but in the meantime, it seems that Rowe went off to the movies, and caught some in the raincoat brigade emerging … with more Rowe here ...
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteI’m glad that Sheridan was impressed by the decor at the Vatican. I do hope he took the opportunity to see the Raphael Rooms and of course St Peter’s Basilica, all of which were carried out under the reign of Pope Leo X (son of the Medici ruler of Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent).
Leo X was a major patron of the arts and allegedly upon election said "Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it."
Whilst the cost of it all was ruinous, this Bishop of Rome found that he could drum up some extra cash by the purchase of indulgences, which were supposed to reduce the amount of temporal punishment for sins when people were in purgatory.
However this sort of thing was condemned by some professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg and before you knew it there was a Reformation and a schism in Western Christianity.
This all led to certain amount of unpleasantness and quite a lot of Christians of all flavours ended up being persecuted but fortunately this was all done by other Christians and therefore all in God’s name. (Death Toll somewhere between 6 and 13 million).
Nice to see that doctrine is now going to be presented in a more compassionate way.
DiddyWrote
Pope Leo X - granter of the title "Fidei defensor" to Henry (VIII) Tudor ! A passionate man, it seems (but lucky for him that Ross Doubthat wasn't around then to criticise God's choice of Pope). Incidentally, DW, does Leo X qualify as "a Pope of unhappy memory" ?
DeleteBut then, this bloodthirsty stuff had been going on for a while, eg the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204:
"The crusaders completely took the city on 13 April. The crusaders sacked Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient Greco-Roman and medieval Byzantine works of art were stolen or ruined. Many of the civilian population of the city were killed and their property looted."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade
Not to mention that a long standing bastion against the Ottomans was fatally weakened and the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453. Just 39 years before Isabella/Elizabeth of Spain sent Columbus off sailing the ocean blue. And just 86 years before Suleiman's army laid siege to Vienna.
Oh, Doubthat and the Bromancer would have loved living back then.
Bromancer: "Pope Francis, Douthat argues, is an accomodationist, seeking peace with contemporary culture and surrendering on key traditional beliefs."
ReplyDeleteIt's just so delightful how pissant little lollygobblers like Ross Doubthat are so convinced that they know so much better than God's chosen conclave of cardinals just who should be Pope. Could it ever enter Rossy's ultrathick brow, that that's just how God might want it ? That maybe God runs a deeper and more effective schema than Rossybubble can possibly conceive ? Or the Bromancer either.
It almost like neither of them think that God has any say at all in what goes on in the world, so they have to pretend for him. Of course, if you really don't think that God actually exists (or if he does, pays zero attention to the doings of humanity), then there's absolutely no problem with spouting the cries and whispers of your own petty ego as though they mean something to somebody.
Of course they've both been like that all their lives as best I can tell; which is why, depite all the mistakes they've made, and the utter nonsense they've espoused, they still think their judgement is superior to God's.
D'Groany: "And in the meantime, Shorten has played him [Birmingham] like a fiddle."
Hmm ... I didn't know that fiddles could play zingers.
But I do have a serious question: D'Groany credits it all to Birmingham, but he is just a minister and follows the usual path of being ignorant and inexperienced in the doings of his ministry. Therefore, wouldn't it really have been just a conclave of PubServes who worked all this out and all Birmingham had to do was sign off on it ?
Never mind too that once upon a time prior to the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq the subsequent attempted regime changes in Syria, Libya and now possibly Iran Christians were granted relative freedom and protection to practice their religion.
ReplyDeleteOf course the bromancer was and still is a cheer leader for this continuing project of systematic destruction and plunder. Never mind too that the then pope (JP11) was publicly against the invasion or more correctly systematic planned destruction of Iraq.