I have to feel a certain feeling of guilt that I am not one of the Catholic bloggers Professor Beattie is railing against after the withdrawal of her invitation to San Diego*. I salute those bloggers, clerical and lay, whom she blames.
She has constructed a wonderful structure in which she is a theologian who is catholic rather than a Catholic theologian, at a College with a catholic foundation in which she teaches theology, rather than a theology prof at a Catholic institution, and then points out (repeatedly? obsessively?) that as a teacher in an English University, nobody can get rid of her just because
Part of me feels desperately sorry for her: she has been feted and lauded, and has gradually begun to think of her magisterium as being the equivalent of anybody else's, and the intellectual-formationally challenged Hierarchy has encouraged her because she is challenging, and they have come to believe in a Guardianista view of the world in which "challenging" is an absolute virtue. She makes me think of Tracey Emin, who has lost the power to shock, and whose efforts to shock induce pity rather than anger, and whose genuine talent was lost behind her status as enfant terrible.
But then I wake up and remember that, irrespective of the adolescent enthusiasm for her of people who are responsible for knowing better, she is bright enough, ferociously clever enough indeed, to know exactly what she is doing and to understand exactly what the value is of her construction. Read Deacon Nick to find out just what this "theologian who is a catholic" has been preaching.
I'm glad that she blames the bloggers, and complains that the Vatican is paying attention to them, though. It shows that the Church in E&W as an Establishment is under threat from within through the power of the Internet, in the same way that it was taken over from within by the spirit-of-Vatican2istas - I note that she appeals directly to the "spirit of Vatican II" as though it is a positive - and that against the Truth they have no alternative but to whinge. They are losing; they will lose.
* (O/T SD is where to go to experience nice CA if you want to miss PC SF, or (UGH!) LA, BTW.)
6 comments:
Traditionalist Catholics seem to have nothing positive to offer except bringing back old-style liturgy with Latin, lace, frilly nightshirts etc. Apart from that all they ever do is search out heresy and dissent. So considering how much time and space they give to vilifying Tina Beattie one can only conclude she must getting it right.
BTW, Im often guilty myself FYI, as if you didn't know, but Im lost in the Alphabet soup at the end.
Unlike Theophilus, I cannot include supporting many cases of abortion misleading people about miscarriages, arguing from specultive science on such things as early miscarriages as if proven fact etc, on the same level as excluding goers to OF vernacular mass, just because some BLOGGERS and commentors happen to be against BOTH.
This is carrying water before the fact for what terrorists have done after a number of nasty hostage takings : hide themselves among the survivors and victims of their own actions.
IS it really even humanly so much to ask that the label Catholic mean Catholic?, any more than that orange marmalade have at least broadly,oranges and not offal?Later we may get to the stage of whether they be genetically unmodified seville
True, human nature is such that, with failings and sin, sooner? or later someone innocent probably WILL suffer from any such effort by Holy Mother Church.
But pro tem the boot is on the other foot by the thousands: Priests, seminarians , laity, who have suffered at the hands of very palpable heresy.
With regard to High-profile public "Catholics", this probability seems an awfully long way off, and orders of magnitude off target.
Mr. Cliffson, if your comment is intended as a reply to mine, I must admit I have not got a clue what you are trying to say.
Theophilus: not me. I've only been to three EF Masses this year, and only when I've been phoned and asked to serve. OF for me, often on Saturday evenings: no lace, no Latin, not much respect for the rubrics, but Mass in my parish with my fellow parishioners. No heresy either as a rule: it's a Catholic parish.
Prof Beattie keeps banging on about how as an academic in the UK she has complete freedom to voice her opinions: I've no quarrel with that. My quarrel is with her self-proclaimed view that what she spouts is Catholic.
Theophilus
Few things could be further than my thoughts than replying to your main point, mention you tho I did, as I would hesitate muchly before taking on one mentored by St Luke and steeped in all things Pauline...
The blogosphere is all too full of threads choked up arguing and refuting that my enemy's enemy must be my friend, which in the thirties led anticommunists to embrace Adolf, and viceversa Uncle Joe.
I am sorry if you feel you are entitled to a direct reply, riposte, or acknowledgement of your existance, which you have not had from me .
Since my fellowfeeling in English is rather for the tradosphere, I am sad when on orthodox and traddie blogs I see any signs , amidst a gunghoness I appreciate, of an ultramontane exclusivity , with which you characterize vast numbers of unnamed blogs whom your words indicate you see as foes.
IF Internet has become another way for the vatican to keep tabs, then any substance there might be to your comment needs addressing, and we may praise the Lord for unimpeachably well-researched posts such as so many of ttony's, , and, I will name names, so many of Paul Priest's at on the side of the Angels, or Catholic-and-loving-it.
Meanwhile, The highprofile "Catholic" academic whose public engagements were the burden of TTony's post is demanding the E&W Hierarchy's support.
Demands for such support in the past from many of my ken have gone largely unheard and and un,or underreported."Move along, nothing to see here" rather sums it up.
I am thinking, eg , of another academic,of International repute, the late Miss Anskem aka Mrs Geech. Perhaps you did not like her support of traditional church teaching on abortion and life issues? Perhaps you have never heard of her?
Post a Comment