Once called an High Church Anglican,
former British prime minister Anthony
Blair has now became a Roman Catholic
like his wife Cherie and his kidz. There
had been much media speculation for years
about him converting from Anglicanism to
Catholicism. Now that its happened as of
last Friday, it is hard to reconile how
the Holy Catholic Church could accept
him as a member in light of many who
see him as a war criminal, like I do,
and also a pro-abortionist and stem-
cell advocate and pro-gay that Anthony
Blair is. Such is against the teachings
of the Roman Church to say the least.
I hold no religious prejudice what-
soever. To me, whatever one wishes
to believe in the form of one's faith
or creed or belief is fine with me, even
if I might personally disagree with what-
ever the person may or may no believe.
As an avowed and affirming Anglican,
I have always suspected Anthony Blair
was a "dodgy Anglican." Much like what
one Catholic priest told me of his view
that Cherie Blair was to him a "dodgy
Catholic." As a pair, I have no doubt
The Blairs have always been "dodgy" in
the public and political arena. I don't
believe a word of anything the pair
say, either.
Anthony Blair's reception as a convert
couldn't have come at a more propitious
time for the Catholic Church in England,
where Catholics now outnumber Anglicans
for the first time since The Reformation.
Indeed, the Holy Father is being called
upon to make room for the ever-increasing
numbers of disaffected Anglicans who want
to join the Catholic Church due to their
personal revulsion and chagrin over, inter
alia, the issue of gays and gay unions in
the American and English church. Not that
Anthony Blair was a disaffected Anglican
per se in joining the Catholics, but
rather he joined for domestic, family
and faith reasons to be more like his
own wife and kidz. But above all, it's
a religious coup for the Holy Catholic
Church to have a former British prime
minister go from the Established Church
of England to the Priest's Confession Box!
It appears that Cormac, Cardinal Murphy-
O'Conner, Archbishop of Westminster, has
played a pivotal role in ensuring that
Anthony Blair would be accepted and
welcomed into his new church as a full
member.
Whatever, I was taken aback by the
Christmas Homily the Cardinal gave
about the need to make new immigrants
more welcome in England than they are
now. Perhaps His Eminence needs to
go visit places like Peckham, Lewis-
ham and Elephant and Castle to see the
onslaught of Third World immigrants
thankz to the political ilk of Anthony
Blair. I now almost see more blacks at
Elephant and Castle at England's south-
east London than I did during my visit
last year to South Africa's Cape Town.
We're overwhelmed, my dear Cardinal, with
too many useless immigrants and vexing
foreigners and so it is hard to welcome
what we've already got thru no choice or
say of our own other than New Labour's
mindless and blanket policy of open door
immigration to what appears to be in all
too many cases the human scum of the
Third World and beyond. Your Eminence,
most immigrants have come not to give,
but rather to get whatever they can get
by fair or foul. For a moment, I almost
thought, too, you were echoing Anthony
Blair's self-congratulatory comment: "My
policy to Africa was right!!." Personally,
I think Anthony was dead wrong and still
is. While, I see no reason why we should
unfurl anymore welcoming mats to useless
immigrants anymore ... See what they have
brought us and it isn't a pretty picture,
Your Eminence!!
For those interested to know, top Catholic
Cardinals and Archbishops are said to be
paid €3,500 per month, so noted recently
The Times' Holy See correspondent Richard
Owen. With such pay, the princes of the
church also receive such helpful perks as
rent-free housing, official limousines,
and duty-free goods at the Vatican shop.
Nice ... very nice.
UPDATE: I have been looking for the re-
ligious term or word for those who covert
from protestantism to roman catholicism
as now seen in the case of Anthony Blair.
I finally found the term or word in The
Oxford Dictionary of The Christian Church,
by Divinity Professor F. L. Cross, Oxford
University Press, 1958, 1492pp. Page 5 gave
me the clear answer: The Act of Abjuration.
"ABJURATION. The act of renouncing any idea,
person, or thing to which one has previously
adhered. Acc. to canon law it is an external
retractation, made before witnesses, of errors
to Cathloic faith and unity, such as apostasy,
heresy, and schism. There are examples of it
in the reconciliation of penitents during the
first centuries, in the history of ecclesiat-
ical legislation of the Middle Ages, and in
practice of the Inquisition, which imposed
abjuration on formal heretics as well as on
suspects. Today, the term is usually re-
stricted to the public retractation imposed
on those abandoning an 'acatholic' faith,
esp. Protestantism, in order to be received
into the Catholic Church. Acc. to the 'Form
for the Reception of a Covert,' used in the
RC Church in this country, only an un-
specified abjuration is required after the
formal profession of faith. It is enforced
as a guarantee of the sincerity of the
conversion and as a help for future
perseverance."
NOW FOR MORE ON THE BIG ISSUE
As I write on this the day after The
Feast of St. John the Baptist, I arrived
at Vauxhall's Big Issue H.Q. at around
7:00am to buy 100 copies of the 2oo8
New Year issue, No. 776. I soon found
out, however, that I had in fact wasted
my time and money by going there since
the edition was not to be released until
January 2nd, 2oo8, for vendors like
me to buy and quickly sell at their
pitch. Last year and the year before,
I got my New Year issues right away.
This year was not the case. Why? From
what I could see there was still
stacks and stacks of the now old 2oo7
"Festive Special" still waiting to be
bought and sold by vendors. Thus, the
focus was to sell those first before let-
ting the 2oo8 edition be bought and sold.
Next to those stacks, was even bigger
stacks of the now already printed 2oo8
New Year edition, No. 776. What this means
is that the 2oo8 New Year edition will sit
for another 5 or 6 days before either the
vendors can buy them or for the public
to read such ... In the meantime, we're
stuck with a magazine that is now almost
two weeks old and such is like trying to
sell a newspaper today that is already
dated and close to two weeks on the
stand ... My customers said to me today,
"I've got that, when is your next issue
coming out?" I told them it was already
out, but that I was stopped from buying
such until next week. Most customers
who hadn't bought the "Festive Special"
told me to keep it and gave me the money
for the magazine instead. The Big Issue
focus, no matter what, is to get rid of
all those 2oo7 "Festive Special" issues
still stacked and unsold before letting
the 2oo8 New Year issues out for release.
That, despite being told only last week
that such would be released on the 27th,
which is today, and that's why I went to
Vauxhall to buy such ready for my customers
to enjoy. Alot of publications release
their New Year edition well before the New
Year itself arrives. But not so at The
Big Issue this year. It's way too long
to expect vendors to continue to flog a
magazine that's been on the streets for
almost two weeks now ... Yes, the big
whigs didn't print a sell by date for
the "Festive Special" like most editions
are of The Big Issue. With or without a
sell date, the public still quickly become
wary of seeing the same front cover for days
and days on end. What's worse it doesn't
help vendors to capitalise on potential
New Year income and sales without a New
Year edition that is now just sitting in
some warehouse or storage for the next 5
or 6 dayz. Is it the process or the
product or is the product or the process?
The product is there, but the process has
been manipulated to prevent the product
from being sold. In the news business,
it's otherwise called "embargo." That's
what The Big Issue has now done!!
I had planned to work at my Long
Arce pitch right through until
New Year' Eve, like I've done in
previous years by selling the New
Year edition. But it's pointless
this year without the 2oo8 edition
being for sale right now. So I
simply finished business today and
will now go off to "Tom Brown's Old
School Days at Rugby" and stay there
at the famous prep school with two
old friends of mine along with my
young Canadian grand nephew at Oxford
who will also stay with us for the New
Year at Rugby ...
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY, Monty.
Isadora Duncan, 2oo7.
PS. As I hopped on the 87 bus, I
saw perhaps half a dozen or more
Big Issue staffers tossing lots of
bungles of 2oo7 and 2oo8 issues into
the back of a stationary van with
the name "West Wallasey" on it, I
think ... It was now about 7:45am
and it was still rather dark as I
saw the last of Vauxhall ... As I
darkly glimpsed the staffers doing
their thing, it almost looked like
they were card-carrying members of
a local Working Mens Social Club
instead of being assembled at some
magazine headquarters ...
Ah, yes I also did achieve to-
day my goal of getting in 2,000
quid by the end of the year for
my Xmas fund raising period. I
did the sum by just over 7 quid
mind you ... But £2,007 feels
mighty good and I would have
earned more if those 2oo8
New Year issues had been
sold to me this morning at
Vauxhall for me to sell and
make even more cash for the
remaining dayz of 2oo7 at my
pitch. Instead, I'm now off to
Rugby in the next hour or so for
the New Year ... And yes, two grand
does sound hot, but such is still
cold peanuts compared to what I once
earned as a news photographer in
America and elsewhere ...
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