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Left: Williamson is handed over to the Vatican's secret police by the SSPX. Right: Beattie says he can 'live in my garden shed'
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Following the astonishing crackdown by dark Magisterial forces in Rome on Tina Beattie, still under house arrest in London, the liberal academic theologian known for exotic and controversial views on important Church doctrines has made an unlikely 11th hour plea for the SSPX to show mercy to Bishop Williamson, maintaining the he can 'always live in my garden shed'.
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| Crowds applaud for up to 5 hours. It is said those who stop clapping are shot |
Dr Beattie, who caused a stir recently by writing to The Guardian to lend her weighty support to civil same-sex marriage has recently been targeted by a group of voluntary Stasi footmen known as 'bloggers' and feels some affinity with another victim of 'Roman repression', Bishop Williamson. The theologian views as 'imminently possible' an alliance between the SSPX dissident and herself against what she describes as the 'Communist People's Republic of Vatican City', led by the charismatic and academic dear leader of what Beattie describes as a 'vast spiritual empire of dark doctrinalism', President Joseph Ratzinger.
Dr Beattie took time to explain why she wants to extend the hand of friendship to someone she views as a fellow dissident against a regime in Rome that tolerates no other view on faith and morals than that which has been revealed by Almighty God.
"I feel that in the struggle for academic freedom which is my own plight, as I walk this path through truth and untruth, being and unbeing, through this road accompanied by pixies, fairies and other angelic beings, searching as one enlightened by the mysterious force that penetrates the Earth and reveals the creative dynamism of nature, as the dew descends from the biosphere and flutters around me like butterflies in a cosmic forest of sensual and spiritual energy remaking me while inspiring me to preserve Earth's goodness, that I and Bishop Williamson have much ground in common, despite our different views.
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| Some have described Beattie's beliefs as a little 'new age'. |
Both of us are walking along this winding, moonlit garden path, admiring and appreciating the wonderous beauty of theological nuances, brushing against spiritual thickets of unseen knowledge that touch upon our chakras and energise us towards new penetrating insights into the hidden realms of yogic oneness in nature's glorious rebirth within us. For this reason, and because we both have a deep animosity to the spiritual authority which comes from the Magisterial centricism of Rome and its unswervingly dictatorial leader, whose intolerant views still hold sway over his loyal followers, I wish to support Bishop Williamson and offer to him my academic Christian charity and hospitality. He can stay in my garden shed, where I keep a delightful set of healing crystals."
Williamson himself, currently thought to be under questioning by agents from Rome in a nearby camp known as a 'Centre for Human Flourishing' is said to be considering the invitation. It is, however, believed that what could be a new alliance between two personalities with markedly different views of Catholic spirituality may not work out as planned. Already, rumours are circulating that, were this union of dissidents to be achieved, that it would not take long for the two members of what has become an underground intelligentsia, fighting bravely for academic and religious freedom, to clash in their respective opinions.
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| Site of the 'Centre for Human Flourishing' where Williamson is being held. |
It is thought, however, that Williamson, who has recently been seen sporting an 'I am Tina Beattie' t-shirt in solidarity with the theologian at the heart of a row over academic freedom, may yet join forces in a new coalition that could bring lasting freedom to those in the UK who long to bring down the institutional Church, which has brought so much tyranny and repression to these shores with what Beattie descibes as 'frightening doctrinal certainty emanating from Rome's belief that it is owner of all truth, as if it has come to it from on High, which leaves no room for academic belly dancing or masturbatory esotercism of any kind'. Dr Beattie is expected to be released from house arrest so that she may return to work at her rebellious Institute for the Constant Undermining of the Magisterium, now no longer Catholic following direct intervention by undercover members of the Vatican secret police, next Tuesday.
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| Benedict: Commander of huge military force |
Benedict XVI was made President of the Vatican City in 2005 in what international observers describe as an 'undemocratic' electoral process in which dissidents, even in the influential Catholic weekly press, did not get the resulting candidate for which they had hoped. Yet, despite what human rights groups call a 'profoundly unusual and worrying' electoral process involving Cardinals and white smoke, Benedict XVI claims that he is the Successor to St Peter and that therefore he is the guardian and custodian of the Deposit of Faith, rather than one who is able to change or relax laws within the spiritual empire of the Catholic Church.
This has not placated rebels and dissidents, however, who seek to change and alter Church teaching to reflect new and enlightened times in which modern attitudes towards sex and sexuality, marriage and contraception, as well as whether women can serve in the Vatican's male-dominated government, are embraced.
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| External observers question Rome's electoral process |
Vatican City, still under stringent sanctions in terms of trade and under a strict incense embargo, but with a military described by dissidents who have been beyond the heavily fortified city as 'awesome and truly staggering in proportions and capability', is hoped to make a statement on the Beattie/Williamson situation within the next seven to seventeen years.
Despite the rebellion, Benedict XVI has a loyal bloc of support that extends throughout the world, beyond what dissidents have described as the 'Lace Curtain'. As governments in the West plan to enhance such institutions as marriage and embark upon the expansion of new models of reproductive healthcare that inhibit embryonic growth, many Western governments fear political supporters of Benedict XVI and are beginning to discuss ways in which to counter potentially subversive supporters of the tyrannical Rome regime, who seek to spread what they have eerily dubbed the 'Culture of Life', a culture which is, in Beattie's view, incredibly 'dogmatic and unhelpful' and which threatens to undermine the entire culture of the West which has 'progressed so well for 50 years.'
8 comments:
Brilliant! I wish I had written it.
God bless!
You are too witty by far! You should send it to a few of the Catholic papers - everyone should get to enjoy it. I think Fr Zuhlsdorff might appreciate it and want to share it with his readers.
Laurence, you have surpassed yourself!
What you should have said is not that Rome tolerates no other view on faith and morals than that which has been revealed by Almighty God, but Rome tolerates no other view ... than that which Rome says has been revealed by God. This is the whole problem with so-called dissent (= disagreement where disagreement is possible). Seeing that the only recent statement made by the Church that can properly, according to the Church's own criteria, be called infallible is the 1950 definition of the Assumption, every other statement it makes, however authoritative, weighty or long-standing, is only opinion which cannot be binding on anyone and which everyone must be free to discuss and disagree with. If this is not so what we have is not Christian leadership, but Soviet-style dictatorship.
Tina Beattie might be flattered to receive so much attention in blogs like this (if she bothered to read them). Instead of constantly vilifying her you would do much better to start being honest in your rhetoric.
Dorotheus
If the Holy Spirit guides the Church to express on matters of faith and morals, those things which Catholics ought to believe, then it is settled, since the Holy Spirit cannot lie.
The problem with dissenters is not that they have an opposing view to that proclaimed by a body of men in ecclesiastical authority. The problem is that they believe in a Church without God - a Church through which God has not spoken.
They believe moral truths are 'up for grabs', when, in fact, either the Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, or it is not. Because it is the Church of Jesus Christ, and Christ has spoken, the matters are settled.
The reason why dissent has no place in the Bride of Christ is because such men and such women who, having no authority but themselves, raise themselves above the authority of the Church and of Christ Who has spoken through Her, impeding the salvation of men through their error and by encouraging confusion.
Superb riposte, Bones!
Almost 100 academic staff at the University of San Diego declared a loss of confidence in their president's leadership after she cancelled the visiting fellowship of a leading liberal British Catholic theologian.
The academics from the university's College of Arts and Sciences were protesting against President Mary Lyons's decision last week to rescind her invitation to Tina Beattie, a director of The Tablet and head of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Catholic Studies at Roehampton University in south-west London.
Some 99 people voted yesterday in support of the measure - a principally symbolic gesture - 16 voted against it and 19 abstained.
Dr Lyons cancelled Professor Beattie's fellowship under pressure from donors and the conservative Cardinal Newman Society, which noted that Beattie had co-signed a letter in The Times stating that Catholics could support gay civil marriage.
Shortly before the vote Dr Lyons said she would allow Beattie to speak at the university, as long as the theologian was not given an "honorary affiliation" with the institution, a reference to her expected title of "visiting fellow" of the university's Harpst Center, where she was due to speak.
Gerard Mannion, the director of the Harpst Center, told the US-based National Catholic Reporter that the general feeling among academic staff was that Dr Lyons' response was "too little, too late."
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