Here's The Deal, Britain...We get Damian Thompson, you get Chris Matthews
Now here's one Limey I can live with. And I mean that in the nicest sort of way. Anyhoo, here's the article in it's entirety from The Telegraph (London, UK); Enjoy.
By Damian Thompson Religion Last updated: September 25th, 2009
Councillor Tim Cheetham, a Labour councillor in Barnsley, has been watching Catholics venerate the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux on television. “With all those slobbering zealots kissing that glass case, I hope it has some mystical power to prevent swine flu,” he wrote on Twitter this morning.
That’s the authentic voice of 21st-century Labour. As Louise Bagshawe, novelist and Tory prospective candidate, immediately tweeted back: “Nice to describe faithful Catholics venerating a relic as slobbering zealots. Would you use such bigoted language about Muslims?”
Cheetham’s pathetic reply: “As the church has issued new guidlines [sic] about the conduct of ceremonies to protect against spreading disease, it needed saying.”
Bagshawe: “Labour’s anti-Catholicism is breathtaking sometimes.”
Indeed it is. Tony Blair’s relationship with the Catholic Church disguised the ferocious secularism of New Labour, which under Gordon Brown has increasingly focused on Roman Catholicism as an object of ridicule. (The Catholic bishops are slow to wake up to this fact, but one of these days they will have to give up their sentimental attachment to a party that hates them.)
Another tweet from Cheetham: “It’s not Bigotry to highlight the lunacy of dark age mysticism in the modern world.” Really? OK, then let me put you on the spot, councillor.
You say: “I will decry any faith that denies my right to question it in whatever form I wish.” Well, Muslims in Barnsley do object to the slightest criticism of their Prophet (who lived during the dark ages, as it happens) with his child wives and message of violence. But you’re a brave man, it seems. So go on: speak fearlessly and with your trademark withering disdain about the zealots in your own town.
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
12:10 AM
5 Comments:
1. Do you really hate the mother country that bad that you would wish Chris Matthews on them?
2. Much of what I have read by thompson has left a favorable impression on me.
3. He is being charitable about the problem with the British Bishops. Some of them make Cardinal mahoney seem like an orthodox Catholic. On 2nd thought, maybe they do deserve Matthews.
"withering disdain." Now, there is a phrase worth repeating.
I will take H1N1 flu over anti-Catholic bigots any day of the week. Let's hope the mystical powers of the relics of St. Therese save us from these "liberals."
BTW, the Dark Ages were anything but dark. It gave us Benedictine monasticism. And the term itself was coined in that much overrated age, the Age of Englightenment, by atheists and Protestants. Same with the "black legend" of the Spanish Inquisition. When the SI was disbanded by the Spanish government in the early 1800s there were riots in the streets of Spanish cities in protest. It would seem the SI was a court in which one could actually get fair treatment in a civil case. Go figure!
I would say the UK is currently in a dark age with folks like Cheetham mouthing off.
So I guess England is pretty much toast now.
I wanna go home to America. Pray for me! I'm begging God to move us across the pond...
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