Not Quite

Gummint

Over in Britishland, a bunch of cops raided a church during a Good Friday Mass and told everyone they had to leave because they were offending the Gods Of State by breaking some petty Covid-related restrictions.  (I am simply astonished that in a religion which glorifies martyrdom, not one parishioner let themselves be arrested rather than be hounded out of a church on the holiest day of the Christian calendar.  Of course, being meek British Christians, they left the church without fuss, instead of making the cops leave with their tails between their legs, like that Polish priest did in Canada.)

Which led Peter Hitchens to say this:

“When police start raiding our churches, you know the revolution has begun.”

Au contraire, mon cher Pierre:  that is not the start of the revolution;  that is merely the evidence of creeping governmental thuggish totalitarianism.  (And saying “sorry” after the fact doesn’t excuse or exonerate them, the bastards.)

The revolution will begin when the Stasi are chased out by a storm of invective, or bullets.

I am so angered by this that I can barely write about it.  And I’m not even a Christian.

Small wonder there’s an outbreak of “Kill The Bill” protests and riots in Britain.  (“The Old Bill” is a nickname for cops Over There;  I prefer “The Filth”, myself.)

9 comments

  2. Good thing that didn’t happen at my church, there would have been two versions of the headline:

    Local: Parishioners at Scranton church refuse to shut down worship on most solemn day of Christian Year.

    NYC: Religious fanatics resist reasonable restrictions on gatherings under Covid-19.

    During the classes I took for conversion to Catholicism one evening the priest arrived a few minutes late, he apologized saying he’d just gotten back from taking his nephew shooting. His nephew was going into the Coast Guard academy, and he wanted a chance to shoot his grandfather’s guns before he did so. Coming from NJ, I told Father (redacted) that had a NJ priest announced that he’d taken his nephew shooting most of his congregation would’ve had to retire to their fainting couches. His response: “God requires you to protect your own life, that law pre-dated government, so the government has no right to prevent you from owning the proper tools to do so.” So yeah, attempting to end our Good Friday service would not have ended well.

    (An aside, since our host mentioned Martyrdom and I fear someone will suggest it’s inconsistent with self-defense. Martyrdom is specifically being killed rather than recanting your faith, because your faith is more important than your life and indeed it determines where you’ll spend eternity. While in self defense you’re not supposed to INTENTIONALLY kill your attacker, you’re not only allowed but EXPECTED to use any reasonable amount of force required to prevent your attacker from killing or seriously harming you, anyone under your charge, and indeed innocent others whom you can protect. If using that level of force causes life-threatening injuries to your attacker, that’s his problem, he brought his injuries upon himself by his actions. Found familiar?)

    It’s a long story about why we don’t come under the local Diocese and Bishop, but our Bishop (who’s in Houston, TX) lifted capacity limits, reservations, mask requirements, etc last summer. He recommended that each church have one service on Sunday specifically for those who are in the greatest danger from the Kung Flu, where masks and distancing are encouraged (but not enforced), and attendance at Sunday Mass is not required for anyone over 60 (but it IS required for everyone else unless they have other health issues). Throughout the pandemic, when everything was shut down, my church was the ONLY one in the area that was open for Confessions even though we didn’t have Mass. Father said he heard more Confessions from March thru August (when things started to open up) than he had his entire ministry up to that point.

    History will judge parts of the Church in its failure to minister to Her people at a time when they needed it most.

    1. Why your NE PA church has a Bishop in Houston has to be an interesting story.

      When the Covid thing hit last spring our church – a large downtown mainline Protestant congregation – shut down for about two months and did on line services. We opened up in June and “cautioned” people who were elderly and disabled about attending. The first Sunday we were open for business the average age of the attendees was about 75! The wife and I were on the younger side of that age, but we were among the people who had learned the good habit of church attendance. Worshipping on You Tube just isn’t the same as being there.

      Our mayor came out of the liberals over at the university and she has always placed more restrictions on our town than the state mandates. Our governor is a Republican and Her Dishonor the mayor will go far beyond the state requirements because the she knows best and really really wants to protect us. The governor wants us all to die.

      At the end of the summer she issued a manifesto saying that groups of up to 50 people in one “family group” would be allowed to meet. Somebody pointed out that such a rule would shut down the churches which had been open all summer. There was this messy thing called a Constitution in the way and the churches are still pretty powerful in Oklahoma. So she amended the manifesto by declaring that people sitting in a church pew constituted a “family group.”

      Instead of having 200 people in a service – which would be illegal by her proclamation – we now have 20 or 30 legal “family groups” scattered throughout the church which are legal.

      You can’t make this stuff up.

      1. “Why your NE PA church has a Bishop in Houston has to be an interesting story.”

        I belong to the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.

        https://ordinariate.net/

        It’s a non-geographic Diocese specifically for converts from Anglicanism (AKA Episcopalians), we retain an “English” style of worship including our hymns. The parish came over from the Episcopal Church to the Catholic en masse, including our priest who was an Episcopal priest, despite him being married with ten children (the actual rule is that a married man CAN be Ordained with permission from the Vatican, but an Ordained man can’t get married). So while we’re a fully Catholic church, in Communion with Rome, and any Catholic who’s eligible can receive Communion there, only people who came from the Anglican church or their immediate family members can be members of the Ordinariate.

        1. Thanks for the education Mark. I had no idea that group existed. In my old age I’ve sort of given up on the “learn something new every day” thing and I’m happy to occasionally add something to my knowledge base.

          We’ve come a long way from the days when the Baptist and Methodist kids told each other that if Kennedy was elected as president we’d have to go to school on Saturday because Kennedy was a Catholic. Things don’t have to make sense when you’re eight years old.

          My Episcopalian cousin introduced me to the Book of Common Prayer. My late deepwater Baptist mother would have a fit if she knew that I was reading a written prayer every morning. She called them “vain repetitions”. I call them good for my mind and attitude.

      1. I don’t recall that happening. In the case of Ruby Ridge, you had Bill Barr doing the cover up.

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