tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72361528739812208892024-02-07T13:35:32.219+00:00Marginal MusingsTina Beattie's intermittent reflections: please note that this blog is discontinued. To follow Tina Beattie's new website and blogs, please go to https://www.tinabeattie.com/.Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.comBlogger103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-64892080179197524702016-06-27T12:29:00.001+01:002016-06-27T12:55:04.800+01:00Brexit: what next? - Why Jeremy Corbyn might be our best hope<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215/" target="_blank">petition calling for a second referendum</a> now has over 3.6 million votes. Some of these have been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36634407" target="_blank">found to be bogus</a> - an estimated 77,000 signatories are not UK citizens - but the number remains impressive.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I signed the petition, but it was and should remain a symbolic gesture of protest. I hope that Parliament doesn't act upon it, whatever motley crew now constitutes Parliament as things fall apart. This country is a tinderbox ready to explode. Many of those who voted for Brexit voted in anger. Some might <a href="http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2670023-I-regret-the-way-I-voted?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DDaily+email+SUNDAY+260616%26utm_content%3DDaily+email+SUNDAY+260616+CID_65ae47e916e2f6b4d096f2f0ee5caf58%26utm_source%3Dnewsletters%26utm_term%3DI+regret+the+way+I+voted" target="_blank">regret that vote</a>, but some might become even angrier and more determined if what they perceive as a self-serving political elite overrides their democratic choice.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The fact that we had a referendum at all constitutes a catastrophic failure of leadership by David Cameron - a man who gambled the future of his country on party political power struggles and lost. Even if the remain campaign had won, he should still have been made to resign. He should never have called a referendum on such a monumental issue when what we needed was sound leadership by the elected representatives of the British people, not populist tyranny. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFjKC4ic8x0ljl94HqFYvL3q25TgC1jckXtdKGXk4VX1PfVYTy-vZGCXmjhV2qVxAZDXG-SLgKGRAKPJaH6377K0KTRmAit4FXLp5sU8FhaMd_TbCViLCnwli6Wpqi8mbaiFdCAEwGlQf/s1600/Clz8RvbWIAAIKwK.jpg_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuFjKC4ic8x0ljl94HqFYvL3q25TgC1jckXtdKGXk4VX1PfVYTy-vZGCXmjhV2qVxAZDXG-SLgKGRAKPJaH6377K0KTRmAit4FXLp5sU8FhaMd_TbCViLCnwli6Wpqi8mbaiFdCAEwGlQf/s320/Clz8RvbWIAAIKwK.jpg_large.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8z28nAWEVpkyRzejDwZFi7TP6b1cSQhGvtXMMptcRU1aQN8y5B4q4BrIb5EcpqIFdmP6AY06WA09O7tdvab1iHcYddZoksNAUKIgqFhZOjL7j2kVq1VOXWT8ecjomEcXvtOOW3jW7C6N6/s1600/ClyF9djWEAAlgVU.jpg_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8z28nAWEVpkyRzejDwZFi7TP6b1cSQhGvtXMMptcRU1aQN8y5B4q4BrIb5EcpqIFdmP6AY06WA09O7tdvab1iHcYddZoksNAUKIgqFhZOjL7j2kVq1VOXWT8ecjomEcXvtOOW3jW7C6N6/s200/ClyF9djWEAAlgVU.jpg_large.jpg" width="198" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(I downloaded these two images from the Twitter feeds of a Brexiteer.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are many theories as to who voted for Brexit and why. There are the Bulldog Brexiteers - nationalistic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist and triumphant. They are nostalgic for the days of empire and war, of Queen and Country, of victory and conquest. Already there are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/racist-incidents-feared-to-be-linked-to-brexit-result-reported-in-england-and-wales" target="_blank">reports of racist attacks and abuses</a> which suggest how quickly this country could descend into fascism.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm7bZ2gBYQnsNC58ObmIHY3c5YKbf6XV76-oV5QaIJW2or_tDGrvSt89BzRRFjaHqpApLdK-VP3TR5a57Q9Igs2YNMcrk27L0HoZGk6PMDMVrGQTL4d4TE9PdZqKyJhIC3PDSTR95w5BIs/s1600/North-east-1-012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm7bZ2gBYQnsNC58ObmIHY3c5YKbf6XV76-oV5QaIJW2or_tDGrvSt89BzRRFjaHqpApLdK-VP3TR5a57Q9Igs2YNMcrk27L0HoZGk6PMDMVrGQTL4d4TE9PdZqKyJhIC3PDSTR95w5BIs/s320/North-east-1-012.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Image from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/10/north-east-avoid-becoming-britains-detroit" target="_blank"><i>The Guardian</i></a>, 2014</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then there are all those who have nothing to lose. Some of them might appear to be in the same group as the Bulldog Brexiteers, but as with all revolutions, the disenfranchised masses have been coopted by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nigel-farage-good-morning-britain-eu-referendum-brexit-350-nhs_uk_576d0aa3e4b08d2c5638fc17" target="_blank">the false promises of political elites</a> - in this case, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage. As James A. Baldwin said, 'The most dangerous creation of any society is the man with nothing to lose.' (Can anybody help me with a source for this?)</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Image from <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/30/benefits-crackdown-divide-and-rule-poor-communities-coalition" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, </i>2014</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These are the children and grandchildren of two generations of people who, since the days of Margaret Thatcher, have increasingly been pushed to the margins of Britain PLC. They are betrayed by a failed education system, by the destruction of British industry and of the trade union movement, by the manipulation of the media, and by a neo-liberal ideology that has seen the gulf between Britain's richest and poorest widen into an abyss into which the country has now fallen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Bulldog Brexiteers and those with nothing to lose are not two distinct categories of voters, for the latter are easily seduced by the former. Disaffected, bored and marginalized young men are soft targets for radicalization - whether it be the radicalization of UKIP or the radicalization of IS. I say 'young men' deliberately, for this is an age of macho politics, and machismo is often a cover for insecurity, impotence and fear.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are told that the referendum showed a generational divide: young people voted to stay in, the over 65s voted to leave. This feels like a triple betrayal of the young by an older generation: we grew rich on the pickings of a housing market that excludes our children from home ownership; we benefited from free university education and are making our children pay through the nose for theirs, and now we have voted to make them captive little islanders cut off from any sense of belonging within the cultures and freedoms as well as the economic benefits of the European Union.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In fact, closer analysis reveals that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/eu-referendum-how-the-results-compare-to-the-uks-educated-old-an/" target="_blank">economic and social factors </a>were the crucial influences in voting trends. It was people in the poorest regions in terms of education, home ownership and employment who voted to leave. People in areas of low immigration were more likely to vote to leave than those accustomed to living in more cosmopolitan communities in areas of high immigration. Northerners and people in Wales voted to leave. (Why did nobody tell them how dependent Britain's poorer regions are on <a href="http://www.npt.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=10145" target="_blank">EU development funding</a>?) Voters in the wealthy metropolitan cities of London and Bristol voted to remain. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own powerful reasons for voting to remain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The following images come from an article in <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/redbox/topic/brexit-britain/less-education-lower-house-prices-brexit" target="_blank"><i>The Times</i></a> which is behind a paywall:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGObWc1-nBSVAORWiuuDYjbuygjMOdua3XNn6kB8YJlL5YRFOAgIt05yWvaH2itESx8SyalI4j1oT2Cd1TUPakrjUTo4S84dkxAqhL46BptQV8XNNjqaLliYx5FYbjdFRsM0xubn0U7DY/s1600/ClzC-CiXEAEhCx9.jpg_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGObWc1-nBSVAORWiuuDYjbuygjMOdua3XNn6kB8YJlL5YRFOAgIt05yWvaH2itESx8SyalI4j1oT2Cd1TUPakrjUTo4S84dkxAqhL46BptQV8XNNjqaLliYx5FYbjdFRsM0xubn0U7DY/s320/ClzC-CiXEAEhCx9.jpg_large.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzIYhHzk81Q3Bf1YLFkojHioBXOAdESGFi9TWk1NYEj6BPieQcAev-XCbgAFbpqPTcxu0vv4ujqkOCBXa40DuwMNzDuCorgT2RiinEuLkCOp2a6uYoDQtS5Vvt4oD5M64Y8KU7bwd67NK/s1600/ClzCyn7WYAE3s46.jpg_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzIYhHzk81Q3Bf1YLFkojHioBXOAdESGFi9TWk1NYEj6BPieQcAev-XCbgAFbpqPTcxu0vv4ujqkOCBXa40DuwMNzDuCorgT2RiinEuLkCOp2a6uYoDQtS5Vvt4oD5M64Y8KU7bwd67NK/s320/ClzCyn7WYAE3s46.jpg_large.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about the generational divide? Young, middle class voters suffer the effects of the avarice and self-serving individualism of many in their parents' generation, including the current opinion formers in politics and the media, but many of them have parents who compensate for the shortcomings in the system by subsidizing their education and housing, by paying for them to travel and appreciate all the benefits of belonging within Europe and the wider world. They voted to remain, but so did their parents. That is not how the world looks for a youngster who grew up in the midst of social and economic disintegration, in a household experiencing generations of unemployment and the break up of traditional communities and families, far from the indifferent gaze of Theresa May in her kitten shoes, David Cameron and George Osborne in their DJs, and Tony Blair the botoxed billionaire. Many of these younger people also voted to leave, but the high turn-out of 72.2 percent still means that nearly 13 million people did not vote in this most life-changing of all elections. How could so many people neither know nor care what it might mean for them and their children?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Enter Jeremy Corbyn. He too represents a certain kind of political masculinity, formed by the values of the working class Left before the rise of gender politics. He is rightly criticized for <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-reshuffle-jeremy-corbyn-urged-to-promote-more-women-to-top-roles-a6796671.html" target="_blank">his failure to include any significant numbers of women </a>in his shadow cabinet, but there are enough educated and dedicated women able to step into the breach and fill the gender gap. Murdered MP Jo Cox was not unique. She was one of a younger generation whose educational and economic privileges fed high ideals and noble visions expressed in a life of social and political service. There are many - perhaps a whole generation - like her. Corbyn can and must build a new political class by channeling the energies of such people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many of Corbyn's fellow MPs are staging a coup. Some of these, like Hilary Benn, are the career politicians of the Blair era. They have had the knife in his back ever since he won the leadership of the party through the support of ordinary party members, and they have been well-served by the supposedly left of centre media, notably<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/young-put-jeremy-corbyn-in-now-should-push-him-out" target="_blank"> <i>The Guardian</i></a>. Most prominent Labour MPs do not represent the people whom the Party has traditionally served. They too are employees of Britain PLC, and they helped to create the climate that made Brexit possible. They are trying to oust Corbyn because he failed to rally the party behind the remain campaign, but that is why I think he is the greatest hope for a reformed politics and a renewed society.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unlike Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, Corbyn is not into political grandstanding, nor has he ever been part of the political <i>status quo</i>. He was a reluctant and late supporter of the remain campaign, and it showed - though <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2016/04/labour-rejects-lexit" target="_blank">this excellent <i>Economist </i>blog</a> gives a considered analysis of the reasons for his conversion to the cause. Since 1983, he has pursued the life of a dedicated representative of the people of Islington North who voted for him as their MP. He is loved in his constituency, and is known for putting his duty to the people he represents above the strutting and posturing of the Whitehall selfies. He is a man of decency and integrity, whose socialist vision has remained untarnished and unseduced by the careerism and corporatism of modern politics. If Corbyn was reluctant about the remain campaign, it was because he recognized the dark side of the EU - the unaccountable corporations and bureaucracies that now hold every modern democracy to ransom. Even those of us who are ardent Europeans acknowledge that this is a Union that is very far from functioning as it should. Now that a small majority of British people have voted to leave that Union, we are standing on a crumbling cliff edge, peering into the abyss. The options seem very limited. Corbyn may well be the only politician of any stature who has the credibility and the integrity to appeal to the disenfranchised masses who voted to leave, but to steer the country away from the brink.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Parliament does not have to act on the Referendum. It can reject the vote, and opt instead to work for a better, fairer European Union from within. That would be my first choice, but I fear that would leave a fatally weakened political elite in charge, this time without a mandate, in a way which would only fuel the resentment, alienation and frustration that gave the leave campaign the leading edge. Alternatively, the government could trigger Article 50 and begin the process of leaving Europe. The consequence will be a period of economic meltdown and political disarray, with potentially horrifying consequences not just for Britain but for Europe and the world. Both World Wars started in Europe, and the EU was created as a way of collectively saying "never again". It has secured the longest period of peace this recently invented and now disintegrating imaginary construct of a continent has ever known. Corbyn could I believe credibly lead a party that might unite the nation with a manifesto to remain in the EU but with a mandate for radical change.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We have glimpsed the alternative, and the world is in shock. It is not in anybody's interests for Britain to leave the EU, but nor is it in anybody's interests for Parliament to override the results of the referendum. So let the country go to the polls, and let Corbyn channel his lack of enthusiasm for the EU as it stands into a new politics of European unity. Let him work with a cross-party coalition of wise and trusted politicians to put together a truth-telling manifesto formulated around a new vision of Britain's membership of the EU, and of what the EU could be if it were a union formed around a vision of social justice, subsidiarity and solidarity. He has shown that he is a politician who listens to and represents many ordinary people far from the self-serving elites in Whitehall. That is the kind of leader we need. Of course it's a risk, but we face nothing but risk. We must measure the risks, but we must also act.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/a-vote-of-confidence-in-jeremy-corbyn-after-brexit" target="_blank">Click here</a> to sign a vote of confidence for Jeremy Corbyn after Brexit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is much talk of young people wanting to remain in Europe. I end with an invitation to read my son Dylan's <a href="http://www.dylanbeattie.net/2016/06/why-im-voting-to-remain-in-european_15.html" target="_blank">passionate and eloquent blog</a> - now an elegy - about why his generation should vote to remain. </span></span></div>
Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-61007980144228594072016-05-12T08:41:00.000+01:002017-02-11T11:41:54.845+00:00My position on abortion: setting the record straight<style>
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</style><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are situations in life when the
Christian vocation to peace is profoundly challenged by the reality of a
violent and often tragic world. To pretend that one can remain entirely innocent of violence in such
a world is escapist. To ask when, if ever, a Christian can engage in an
intentionally violent act, is to step into a quagmire of competing and
conflicting moral claims, where certainty demands too high a price by way of
denial, selective engagement and responsibility, and wilful self-delusion. That
is why Christianity is ultimately not about moral certainty but about
forgiveness and healing, renewal and hope.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Over the last few weeks, I have found myself the target of a hostile and
ill-informed online campaign regarding my views on abortion. I have ignored it,
for to attempt to respond would be to degenerate to the same level as those
involved.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
However, I know that some people of good will might be concerned about
some of the views attributed to me, if they are not familiar with my own
writings. I am posting this blog for the benefit of those people. Let me begin
with the background.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<b>Letter to the Polish Bishops:</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
In early April, some Polish Catholic women shared their concerns in a social
networking group, about a statement from the Presidium of the Polish Bishops'
Conference that had been read out in churches across Poland on Sunday, April
3rd. The statement called for nationwide support for the total prohibition of
all abortion in Poland, while also calling for support for the parents of sick
and disabled children and those conceived by rape. Poland already has the
strictest abortion laws in Europe. There were widespread protests and
demonstrations against the bishops' statement.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
I suggested that we form a group to draft an open letter to the Polish bishops,
the content guided by those expressing their concerns, but protecting them from
becoming the target of campaigns directed against them as individuals. We
agreed that the letter should not in any way align the signatories with a
pro-abortion or so-called pro-choice position. The letter supports “the
Church’s moral stance against abortion” and “upholds the sanctity of all human
life, including the right to life of women and their unborn children.” That is
its starting premise. It distinguishes between morality and legality, and it
does not claim that abortion is ever a morally good or right decision. It
acknowledges the “complex ethical challenges involved in any intentionally
abortive act.” It does not ask the bishops to morally justify such acts, nor
does it in any way align itself with the so-called “woman’s right to choose”
position. It defends freedom of conscience as a right. It does not claim that
abortion is a right. It expresses concerns about the possible consequences of
criminalizing all abortion whatever the circumstances, and asks for dialogue
between the bishops and women most affected by such laws. You can read <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-cTKFdtjywma3ZZczVEWW82bEk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">the letter with a list of signatories here</a>.
These include people from a range of cultures and contexts, including a
number of highly respected Catholic theologians and numerous Polish signatories. There is a claim circulating that "Other than Beattie, few signatories of the letter were theologians." That is simply not true. The ninety nine signatories include sixteen theologians, many of them well known and highly respected. Other signatories include a number of medical professionals.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<b>My Position:</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
I have defended the Church's consistent teaching that abortion is never a good or moral act. To argue against criminalization of an act is not to argue for the right to commit that act. I do not believe that people should be criminalized for committing adultery, but that does not mean that I regard adultery as a human right. Abortion should be a matter of profound ethical concern, and it should never be seen as an alternative to contraception. Indeed, I think this is the greatest failure of secular feminism - the social acceptance of abortion goes hand in hand with the increasing pressure on girls to be sexually available, and absolves men of any responsibility for the consequences of casual or coercive sex. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I agree with those who argue that abortion on grounds of disability is a form of eugenics. I do not believe in screening for Down's Syndrome nor indeed for any foetal
condition that is compatible with viability. I refused such screening
during my own pregnancies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is no reference to screening in the
letter I signed. There is a reference to pre-natal tests to diagnose conditions
which are sometimes treatable in the womb, and sometimes allow for abortion
under existing Polish law. In my understanding, that applies to foetal
abnormalities of such severity that they are incompatible with life. It does
not refer to the wide range of disabilities and differences that form part of
the human condition. There are conditions such as ectopic pregnancy and anembryonic pregnancy where there is no possibility of foetal survival, and if such a pregnancy does not spontaneously miscarry, abortion is necessary to save the mother's life. There are other conditions such as anencephaly, where the newborn child has no chance of survival. For some couples, to allow such a child to be born and to cherish it for its short life is redemptive and healing, but I question whether such a decision can ever be legally imposed on parents. Sometimes, life is unbearably tragic and neither law nor ethics can heal the wounds of living and dying. Only faith in the redeeming and merciful love of God can bring healing in such situations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
I am not pro-abortion - I am pro-life. That means trying to balance a concern
for the lives of unborn children, the lives of the women and girls who bear them, and the
roles and responsibilities of the men who father them. In a perfect world there
would never be any conflict between a mother, a father and their unborn child.
However, ours is not a perfect world, and there are intensely complex and
anguished dilemmas associated with pregnancy and childbirth. The World Health
Organisation estimates that around 47,000 women die every year from unsafe
abortion, and many thousands more are injured. Not a single blog or tweet I've
read condemning abortion has mentioned these deaths, which happen among women and girls who are the
poorest of the poor. To be anti-abortion is not to be pro-life if it refuses to
acknowledge the ethical challenges posed by the consequences of illegal and
unsafe abortion, in contexts where pregnancy often results from rape, abuse and
incest.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
I’ve lived in Africa for much of my life. My deep struggle about abortion comes
not from the autonomous individualistic creed of western feminists, but from
the knowledge of what poor women in despair will do to avoid carrying an
unwanted pregnancy to term, in situations where they often have little if any
control over their own sexuality. They know full well that if they seek illegal
or unsafe abortion they risk terrible injury or death through infection or blood loss, but that is still what
thousands of them “choose” - as if that could ever be called “choice” in any
meaningful sense of the word. They too are the silenced victims, and they are
often barely more than children themselves. Until and unless we speak out for
them as well as their unborn children, we cannot claim to be the voice of the
voiceless. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have been unable to find a discussion of the challenge of
maternal mortality in any official document of Catholic social teaching,
despite the fact that of the 300,000 women who still die through
pregnancy-related causes (including illegal abortion) every year, 99% are in
the world’s poorest countries. <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/" target="_blank">Here are the latest facts and figures</a>. The men who father the children of women who
seek abortions never seem to come into the firing line either, nor does any of
the rhetoric seem to be asking what we have to do to educate boys and men about
the responsibilities of sex and pregnancy. Abortion is not simply a question of personal morality. It is a question of creating a social order in which women and the children we bear are able to grow and to flourish in truly human conditions, and that is a responsibility we all share.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
believe that the perfect Christian life is incompatible with all forms of
violence, including abortion and war. I have the greatest respect for those who
set an example by holding to those principles, even when the cost to themselves
is very great. But the Christian life is not a life of moral perfection, far
less of dutiful conformity to rules imposed by law. The Christian life is a
life of failure and forgiveness, sin and grace, healing and redemption,
faithfulness and trust. It is, above all, as Pope Francis reminds us, a life
that puts mercy and love before judgement and condemnation, and a life that
offers hope amidst the messy confusion and tragic dilemmas of the human
condition.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
For a brief summary of my position on abortion, I refer to a short piece
published in <i>Reform </i>magazine in December 2014/January 2015, which can be
read at <a href="http://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2014/12/a-good-question-is-abortion-unchristian/" target="_blank">this link.</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-19996653349219816772015-12-04T21:20:00.002+00:002015-12-04T22:55:08.722+00:00The Helplessness of God - an Advent Reflection<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdk8fYUY9j9dOYzBPvIuhDKYHWLUdlLt3D9m7NJgHkfN8rdfz0T7m2fggBmBtKHJNhRlFRTxYsJ9CcQo3aC31yGXIwsfTxoN3TehM3ta0leKYiC83AnWVanRSaBMw4OJoWWPRCWyNnefTG/s1600/IMG_2805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdk8fYUY9j9dOYzBPvIuhDKYHWLUdlLt3D9m7NJgHkfN8rdfz0T7m2fggBmBtKHJNhRlFRTxYsJ9CcQo3aC31yGXIwsfTxoN3TehM3ta0leKYiC83AnWVanRSaBMw4OJoWWPRCWyNnefTG/s400/IMG_2805.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> The bedroom
in my houseboat has french doors that open onto the water. This morning I awoke
to the sound of a swan approaching in flight. The power of that sound is
unmistakable, like a vast heartbeat pulsing through air. I opened my eyes to
see the swan skim the water outside the doors. I wondered if that’s what
Gabriel looked like when he alighted on the threshold of the Virgin’s womb. Was
the annunciation nothing more than that – the beating power of feathered wings,
silencing rational thought, opening her being to the coming of God?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Then
the tumble of words came back. The dark ooze of something that feels too close
to despair. I always regret going on Facebook at bedtime, this morning most of all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">War
taints everything. It sows the seeds of violence in our souls and makes us cruel with
one another. It makes us angry, and self-righteous, and arrogant. Not us. Me.
It has made me all those things. I have raged and watched others rage as I read the posts and responses on Facebook. I have posted myself, in a lather of indignation. I have
wondered why MPs who voted for war feel offended by angry emails and tweets,
when they themselves have chosen violence as the only way to resolve a
conflict. The anger goes deep and spreads wide. My soul is polluted and
my thoughts corrupted with my own violent hatred of the men who make this a world where
wars must be fought.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
water ripples beneath the wings of the swan, and then it is gone. The sun is rising,
and all is alive with birdsong and light. I get dressed and walk along the
river. I watch the geese and the ducks and the swans. I listen to the high cry
of the gulls. I gaze on the lazy winding river that has been this way for
thousands of years. I think of the body that drifted to our island a
few weeks ago, and of all the bodies that drift on rivers of time, mourned for
a while then melting into eternity. The river swallows our lives, carries them
out to the ocean, dissolves them in the tides of history where only the
monumental solidities of war and conquest retain their shape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
gather kindling for the fire, cracking the sweet green sticks beneath my foot in
an ancient ritual that soothes me. Long before wars for oil, long before drones
and bombs, human beings did this for warmth, for light, for life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
walk in search of silence. I walk in search of my Advent poem. Every
year in Advent, I write a poem for the Christmas card. It always comes to me if
I wait, patiently stirring the silence, feeling it thicken until words begin to
take shape. I thought it would be the same this year, but it’s not. I stir, and
the silence coagulates like clotted blood. I wait, and the words that come are
bitter and ugly, full of satire and cynicism. What poem will suffice for a
Christmas card at a time like this? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Last
night, I went to my first carol service of the year, in Digby Stuart Chapel at the University of Roehampton where I work. I
nearly didn’t go. I couldn’t bear the thought of singing Christmas carols at
such a time. I thought of the obscenity of declaring war in the first week of
Advent. Was this the last crucifying gesture of a secular age?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But who says Advent is a time of peace? I thought of God choosing to be born
amidst the bureaucracy of an empire that sent a pregnant woman to a distant
town because then as now procedures must be followed. I thought of the child
born among the animals, of Herod’s tyranny and the flight of that small family
into Egypt, of the tortured victim on the cross and the mother weeping on the
ground. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As
we sang those old familiar carols, I thought of Robert Kaggwa, our chaplain who
never knew that the carol service he organised last year would be his last. He
died in January. He was everywhere and nowhere last night in the candle glow of
memories and music. Sue Acheson was there too in the sadness and the memories - an RSCJ sister and friend who died too young this year after a cancer diagnosis. I imagined Robert and Sue in a different, better world, watching us with a wisdom that eludes us and a peace that we long for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
felt something timeless and deep and true beginning to melt the solid core of
war. The silence stirred. I glimpsed a word. The word was ‘hope’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
morning, walking by the river, I did not find poetry but <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found words, words that began to shift
the landscape of my soul. For me silence is always a particular form of
words, a particular expression of being that shapes itself in language when the
clutter of everyday speech is cleared away. I dared to reach out and touch the
darkness and give it names – rage, hate, resentment, helplessness.
Helplessness. That’s what it is. I am helpless, and I do not want to be
helpless.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">All
this I think as I walk by the river and listen to the gulls, my arms full of
kindling and the low winter sun turning the water to silver and silk, dazzling
me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Last
night, before the carol service, I went into the small Sacred Heart chapel. It’s a Puginesque jewel, lovingly restored two years ago
by the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart who founded the College. It
is one of the few buildings to have survived a World War II bomb which destroyed
much of the College. My generation easily forgets that bombs can also fall from
the skies in indifferent cruelty on the cities of Britain. At the weekend, out
walking with my baby grandson in Bristol, I was reminded how the iron railings
on the Victorian garden walls had all been removed during the war to make
weapons. The stumps are still there, mute reminders of a trauma that is
increasingly remembered only as heroism and glory, for would we ever fight
another war if we truly remembered the trauma?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
am reading Stan Goff’s book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Borderlines</i>.
I recommend it for those who think that there is ever any glory in war.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Last
night, I sat in silence for a while in that small chapel before the carol service began in the larger chapel next door. I
gazed at the tabernacle, and noticed for the first time the word ‘Jesus’ carved
into the wood beneath it. I am not good at silent contemplation. I am not good
at noticing things. Even in silence, I am always distracted, speaking in my
head, writing, composing, rationalising, sifting, imagining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
swing out into the silence, as one might swing out over an abyss. I swing out
towards that word ‘Jesus’ beneath the tabernacle. I swing towards it in
silence. I never arrive, for it recedes. I can’t grab it, squeeze it, make it
offer up words of explanation and definition. It is just there, as silent and
enigmatic as the tabernacle itself, gazing back at me. But it gives me a gift,
a word, and the word is ‘hope’. That's the word that came back to me in the service.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That’s
what is wrong with all those abandoned Advent poems I’ve been writing in my
head. Not one of them speaks of hope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As
we sing the carols, I don’t think so much as feel the helplessness of the
newborn child, the terror of the refugee family, the anguish of the mother at
the foot of the cross. When Mary wept on the flight into Egypt, her tears fell
on the ground and flowers sprung up. That’s why Lily of the Valley is sometimes
called Our Lady’s Tears. If a refugee mother’s tears make flowers spring up,
the borders of Europe should be covered in flowers by now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There
is hope because God is in the helplessness. That’s God’s hiding place among us.
Do not be afraid, the angel said to Mary, when he arrived with the beating
wings of a swan in flight. Do not be afraid. Was it her helplessness that
allowed God space to become?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After
the service, I am speaking to my dear friend Sister Mary Hinde. I find myself
telling her about my time before the tabernacle. A small miracle happens
between us. She is a modern sister, with little time for traditional devotions.
But she told me that, as she waited for the vote on whether to bomb Syria in parliament the night
before, she went into the small chapel in the house she shares with some other
sisters, took the host out of the tabernacle and put it in a simple monstrance.
She sat in front of it and tried to pray. She found herself saying to God, ‘All
this is going on, and you are just there, as bread. That’s all you are for us.
Bread. You don’t do anything. You’re just there. ' She paused, and I waited. 'That’s the mystery,' she said, 'And I realized it's enough. The bread is enough.' </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
both wept. Bread. Hope. Maybe peace, one day. For now, the bread is mystery enough.
It’s the helplessness of God with us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPGIrLHVYd8CI0k2Y0skGGWsHRTQSmLttWH0wX0I98icM-eICA0JXNjF-YGDPPuYrXkQsM1mGustjnp7Ut3f0dl7pmyA63KfBJnk4owjm7NOYocbPDHk6N4kNVgvjyOJF450sIl7ajPjj/s1600/IMG_0579.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPGIrLHVYd8CI0k2Y0skGGWsHRTQSmLttWH0wX0I98icM-eICA0JXNjF-YGDPPuYrXkQsM1mGustjnp7Ut3f0dl7pmyA63KfBJnk4owjm7NOYocbPDHk6N4kNVgvjyOJF450sIl7ajPjj/s320/IMG_0579.JPG" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digby Stuart Chapel - angel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-9660074622089376912015-11-28T10:51:00.002+00:002015-11-30T11:09:34.800+00:00Syria and the Just War Tradition - A Response to Jeremy CorbynThis weekend, we British citizens once again face the sombre and indeed terrifying prospect of our government taking us into a war with ill-defined aims, a diffuse target, no clear international mandate, and a lack of any clear strategy. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee issued a document posing a number of questions to Prime Minister David Cameron about the legality and viability of a bombing campaign against Syria and he has published his response. Both of these documents can be <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-responding-to-fac-report-on-military-operations-in-syria" target="_blank">downloaded here</a>.<br />
<br />
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has expressed his opposition to going to war, and this has divided the Labour Party.<i> </i>The British media - including <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/26/shadow-cabinet-seriously-split-over-syria-with-corbyn-in-minority" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </i>- are reporting this in a way which reflects high degrees of prejudice against Corbyn, revealing how far the <i>zeitgeist </i>in this country<i> </i>is now infected by neo-liberalism. The <a href="http://www.peoplesmomentum.com/" target="_blank">Momentum Network</a> is worth joining for those who want to support Corbyn through working for grassroots transformation of British politics and policies.<br />
<br />
Corbyn has sent an email to Labour Party members asking for their views with regard to next week's parliamentary vote on a bombing campaign against ISIS. Here is his email and my public response. I have sent him a shorter response and a link to this blog:<br />
<br />
__________________________________________________________________<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70dDYYURaFe-siK5HZKyhkKylDCKr3ecBC_KOvJMvw7VuDZlI7IcKSwPK-pg5vkzwVA1pMg-fghaC3GBM0SzFAR5LSraz1WFRD-gwEFWB6GtiK0CEnKn6K5BNLOxZsZOkFgLL6L3WJAhC/s1600/6800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70dDYYURaFe-siK5HZKyhkKylDCKr3ecBC_KOvJMvw7VuDZlI7IcKSwPK-pg5vkzwVA1pMg-fghaC3GBM0SzFAR5LSraz1WFRD-gwEFWB6GtiK0CEnKn6K5BNLOxZsZOkFgLL6L3WJAhC/s320/6800.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
On 27/11/2015 20:16, "Jeremy Corbyn" <theteam labour.org.uk=""> wrote:<br /> </theteam><br />
Christina, <br />
<br />
On Thursday David Cameron set out his case in the House of Commons for a UK bombing campaign in Syria. <br />
<br />
We have all been horrified by the despicable attacks in Paris and are determined to see ISIS defeated. <br />
<br />
The issue now is whether what the Prime Minister is proposing strengthens, or undermines, our national security. <br />
<br />
I
put a series of questions in response to the Prime Minister's
statement, raising concerns about his case that are on the minds of many
in the country. You can read my response here. <br />
<br />
There could not be a more important matter than whether British forces are sent to war. <br />
<br />
As early as next week, MPs could be asked to vote on extending UK bombing to Syria. <br />
<br />
I
do not believe that the Prime Minister made a convincing case that
British air strikes on Syria would strengthen our national security or
reduce the threat from ISIS. <br />
<br />
When I was elected I said I wanted Labour to become a more inclusive and democratic party. <br />
<br />
So I am writing to consult you on what you think Britain should do. Should Parliament vote to authorise the bombing of Syria? <br />
<br />
Let me know your views, if you are able to, by the start of next week: http://www.labour.org.uk/page/s/syria-consultation<br />
<br />
Yours, <br />
<br />
Jeremy Corbyn MP<br />
Leader of the Labour Party<br />
_____________________________________________________________________<br />
<br />
Response from Tina Beattie:<br />
<br />
Dear Jeremy Corbyn,<br />
<br />
I am profoundly grateful to you for this democratic exercise in consultation – thank you. I fully support your stance in opposing the proposed bombing campaign, and I agree with all the points you make in your response to the Prime Minister. Whatever your own MPs say, I think you speak for a significant minority, and perhaps the majority, of the British people.<br />
<br />
To go to war with ISIS is in my view not to resolve the problem but
to exacerbate it, because it dignifies a mob of brutal and savage
murderers with a heroic veneer and it implicitly recognises ISIS as a
state. <a href="http://juergensmeyer.org/why-isis-attacked-paris/" target="_blank">Mark Juergensmeyer </a>argues persuasively that ISIS is losing support and losing territory, and that the Paris attacks were intended to provoke a reaction from the West: 'ISIS is desperate. It needs a victory, a vivid show of force to bolster
the morale of its supporters, attract new volunteers, and with luck,
intimidate its foes.' American political commentator <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/islamic_state_wants_us_to_reject_refugees_and_increase_airstrikes_20151118#.Vk3M39CCBJU.twitter" target="_blank">Sonali Kolhatkar</a> comes to a similar conclusion.<br />
<br />
While I personally believe that war is rarely if ever a solution to violence, I accept that the resort to war is sometimes legitimate under international law. As citizens we therefore have a duty to participate in debates about the legitimacy of our politicians taking our country to war, whatever our personal beliefs. In such situations, I believe that the just war criteria should be applied, as a rule of thumb against which to measure the decision to go to war and the conduct of war. While it is questionable whether war ever conforms to these criteria, they are the only enduring tradition we have for judging and containing acts of war. I have taken the following summary from the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/just/what.shtml" target="_blank">BBC website</a> and posted my arguments in italics, though there is also a very interesting discussion on <a href="http://catholictruthblog.com/2015/11/27/is-bombing-syriaisis-a-just-war/" target="_blank">a Catholic website</a> about American involvement in bombing Syria, on the basis of Thomas Aquinas’s just war theory:<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is a Just War?</h3>
Six conditions must be satisfied for a war to be considered just:<br />
<ul>
<li>The war must be for a just cause.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The elimination of ISIS (Daesh) is a just cause only if it is a clear act of self-defence and seeks to bring about a greater peace than that which prevailed before going to war. In this situation, there is a high risk that a bombing campaign will result in greater acts of terror and violence against western targets, while exacerbating the humanitarian crisis caused by growing instability in the Middle East.</i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The UN Security Council has not issued a clear mandate for war, nor is there evidence of support for such action in the international community.</i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>The intention behind the war must be good.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The intention is not and cannot be clear because of the immensely complex and fluid situation in Syria. There is no clearly defined opposition capable of governing the country, and Syria is a sovereign state with a government in power. The removal of President Assad is not in itself part of the declared intention of going to war, and indeed to make it such an intention would raise significant questions of legality and sovereignty, not to mention inflaming tensions between Russia and the West with a real risk of escalation. We should remember how, in the Iraq War of 2003, the justification of self-defence against non-existent weapons of mass destruction was blurred and the removal of Saddam Hussein was later hailed as a sign of success by Tony Blair, even though at the time of going to war he repeatedly denied to Parliament that regime change was one of the aims. </i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>As you make clear, stopping the flow of arms and oil revenue to ISIS should be a top priority. Also, while the removal of ISIS in Syria would be a real humanitarian accomplishment, it is not clear that this would resolve the problem of acts of violence and terrorism inspired by its ideas. Several of the Paris attackers were French nationals. ISIS is as much about an idea as it is about a territorial caliphate. One does not destroy ideas with bombs but with better ideas. Every endeavour should be made to discredit IS and to provide young alienated Muslims with good reasons for supporting liberal democracy as the best form of government. To put the vast money invested in a bombing campaign into better social welfare systems and education would be a much better long-term aim with regard to restoring stability and democratic participation in western states by those increasingly marginalised and vulnerable to radicalisation because of exclusion, unemployment and poverty. At the same time, a more effective humanitarian response to the refugee crisis is vital. </i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>There must be a reasonable chance of success.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This is related to the intention behind going to war. What would constitute success, and what kind of time-frame are we talking about? If, as in the case of Iraq, the war resulted in failure – increasing destabilisation in the region and fuelling extremism – how would those responsible for taking Britain to war in spite of widespread opposition and doubt be held accountable? This question is particularly pointed given that we are once again being asked to support our country going to war when we are still waiting for publication of the Chilcot Report. As long as leaders like Tony Blair can, with impunity and with the support of Parliament, take Britain into devastating wars without being held accountable, the public is justified in feeling deep mistrust about the judgement of our elected politicians over such issues.</i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>As you point out, a bombing campaign cannot resolve the problem of ISIS without the support of ground troops. The diffusion of ISIS among the Syrian population means that there will be a very high attrition rate among ordinary people – and please let’s not use the obscene expression ‘collateral damage’. ISIS is unlikely to cluster in clearly identifiable targets for bombing. We have already seen the use of so-called ‘human shields’ in such situations, and ISIS will undoubtedly ensure that potential target areas such as Raqqa are populated by civilians, including children.</i></blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
How should a Just War be fought?</h3>
A war that starts as a Just War may stop being a Just War if the means used to wage it are inappropriate.<br />
<ul>
<li>Innocent people and non-combatants should not be harmed.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>See above. ISIS will use civilian populations to maximise the number of non-combatant deaths. There is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/03/us-led-air-strikes-on-isis-targets-killed-more-than-450-civilians-report" target="_blank">considerable evidence </a>that the current US bombing campaign in Iraq has resulted in many more civilian casualties than has been acknowledged by the Pentagon. If war goes ahead, you should ensure complete transparency with regard to civilian casualties, avoid the term ‘collateral damage’, and insist that the government publishes reliable estimates of the numbers killed – both combatants and civilians. Current policy does not require this, so how is it possible to hold the government accountable for civilian deaths? </i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Only appropriate force should be used. This applies to both the sort of force, and how much force is used.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Targeted bombing campaigns are <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/drone-terror-welcome-barbarism-civilisation-1255921707" target="_blank">far less accurate than claimed</a>. In addition to high levels of civilian deaths, they are hugely expensive, generate vast profits for the arms industry, and contribute significantly to environmental degradation. All this raises questions about how appropriate they are in terms of the use of force, particularly in view of the fact that success in eliminating ISIS is highly improbable without the supporting use of ground troops.</i></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Internationally agreed conventions regulating war must be obeyed. </li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The high risk of civilian casualties, the lack of any clearly defined territory or internationally recognised state as a target, and the use of drones for the purposes of summary execution of suspected extremists, all amount to violations of internationally agreed conventions regulating war.</i></blockquote>
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you for giving a voice back to the ordinary people of this country.<br />
<br />
Best wishes,<br />
Tina Beattie<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Tina Beattie<br />Professor of Catholic Studies<br />Director, The Digby Stuart Research Centre for Religion, Society and Human Flourishing (DSRC),<br />Digby Stuart College<br />University of Roehampton<br />Roehampton Lane<br />London SW15 5PH</span></span><br />
<br />
Update posted on Monday, 30th November:<br />
The Muslim Council of Great Britain has issued <a href="http://www.mcb.org.uk/syria-air-strikes-muslim-view-2015/" target="_blank">a statement opposing a bombing campaign</a>.<br />
I<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/29/raqqa-exiles-bashar-al-assad-isis-bombing?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">nterviews with refugees from Raqqa</a> (the focus of the proposed strike) show strong opposition to bombing on the basis that it would simply intensify the conflict and add to the suffering of the ordinary Syrian people. <br />
<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-62543070340319096362015-11-06T13:58:00.000+00:002015-11-07T07:49:25.692+00:00On poppies, peace and ideology<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-tpfqqobp8uZSgBPVSy3C_tGKR0MpXYVLGOdzwT9IHih5rCeXaerr-hQLI2iMdMT_AqUibyAuvrvpj1AXBapV5aS-0cguUk2GzoMTEzt7h7y3K_0Bl_ivB1mzFbuorKcvVfyo7HJ301R/s1600/a-MUSLIM-POPPY-640x468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-tpfqqobp8uZSgBPVSy3C_tGKR0MpXYVLGOdzwT9IHih5rCeXaerr-hQLI2iMdMT_AqUibyAuvrvpj1AXBapV5aS-0cguUk2GzoMTEzt7h7y3K_0Bl_ivB1mzFbuorKcvVfyo7HJ301R/s320/a-MUSLIM-POPPY-640x468.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/29/young-muslims-poppy-selling-rembrance-_n_2038318.html" target="_blank">Poppy Selling Campaign by Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth</a>"</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Compare these two photos and ask yourself, what would happen if the messages on the T-shirts were reversed? Why is a white schoolgirl touting herself as "Future Soldier" not a victim of radicalization, when a young Muslim of the same age wearing the same T-shirt would most probably be arrested?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rnCXXoQPL5x1B2kO8g2s56laRgN4zjHCVRs_xYBfyYa9JMOzd83h9IP5ArrLzvS5uGTc1VJkixhzmTB3UQPeQw303czM1K3AOjgVPZwZnMhFWe6-2v9ly3573sOB7WSyzUsqVbAXF-Rv/s1600/bx_4kzgccaabf2w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rnCXXoQPL5x1B2kO8g2s56laRgN4zjHCVRs_xYBfyYa9JMOzd83h9IP5ArrLzvS5uGTc1VJkixhzmTB3UQPeQw303czM1K3AOjgVPZwZnMhFWe6-2v9ly3573sOB7WSyzUsqVbAXF-Rv/s320/bx_4kzgccaabf2w.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<a href="https://stavvers.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/i-dont-wear-poppies-and-this-image-perfectly-encapsulates-why/" target="_blank">I don't wear poppies, and this image encapsulates why</a>"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
How much more must our Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens do to prove themselves worthy of our respect and solidarity in the struggle against all forms of extremism, prejudice and violence? How often must every Muslim prove that he or she is a tolerant, peace-loving, exemplary citizen to avoid being branded and blamed by his or her suspicious neighbours and our elected politicians? When will we acknowledge that the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/19/prime-minister-british-muslims-isis" target="_blank">main victims of Islamist extremism have been Muslims themselves</a> - murdered, raped, exiled, impoverished, their homes and lives destroyed by the deadly combination of Islamist extremism, western militarism and an increasingly savage response from Europe's politicians to the plight of refugees?<br />
<br />
Violence - whether mindless or not, whether a calculated military strategy or a calculated terrorist attack - always generates more violence. It is not the preserve of any religion, nation or race, for it lurks in every human heart and finds explosive expression wherever people are persuaded that it is more reasonable to hate than to love, more noble to kill than to die, more astute to exclude than to embrace, better to become a fighter than a peacemaker, better to bring your children up as future soldiers than as pacifists. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/11/05/4346211.htm" target="_blank">René Girard died this week</a>. He was perhaps the wisest and most learned voice of our current age with regard to violence and its causes.<br />
<br />
I am sorry to see these young Muslim men selling poppies, though I understand why they do. But the photograph that <a href="https://twitter.com/PoppyLegion/status/396308596461273088" target="_blank">the British Legion tweeted</a> in 2013 - <a href="https://stavvers.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/i-dont-wear-poppies-and-this-image-perfectly-encapsulates-why/" target="_blank">revived by a recent blogger</a> - should make every poppy-wearing person ask themselves what they think it signifies today, for in no way does it symbolise either the futile horror of the trenches, nor the anguished justifiability of World War II. It does not say "never again" but "war without end". If people want to keep the integrity of the red poppy as a sign of the horror and cost of war, they should rescue it from the hands of the British Legion and give it to a charity that better understands "the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled" (Wilfred Owen, <i><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176833" target="_blank">Strange Meeting</a>). </i>Indeed, if one reads the comments provoked by that tweet, it seems that many supporters of the British Legion feel the same way.<br />
<br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-5362569150186385772015-11-04T08:39:00.003+00:002015-11-04T13:01:06.167+00:00Interpreted by Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday, during Mass at a conference to celebrate <i>The Tablet's </i>175th Anniversary, we sang the lovely hymn which resists rephrasing in inclusive language: "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind".<br />
<br />
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!<br />
O calm of hills above,<br />
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee<br />
The silence of eternity,<br />
Interpreted by love!<br />
<br />
These
last two lines struck me as the fundamental meaning of the Christian
faith, and the fundamental malaise of postmodernity. The silence of eternity
underscores all that is. Do we interpret this as the empty void, or
do we interpret it as the abyss of love? This was the question that I
explored in my book <i>Theology After Postmodernity</i>, but these two
lines say it all. If to be human is to interpret the world, then
the essential and inescapable question is surely, how do we interpret the silence of
eternity?<br />
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-52927039549706776892015-04-23T13:25:00.000+01:002015-04-23T13:44:16.501+01:00Abusing animals and abusing people - food for thought<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
Chris Hedges is a provocative and challenging writer - exciting and irritating in sometimes equal measure. That's how I felt about his piece on '<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/choosing_life_20150419" target="_blank">Choosing Life</a>', in which he argues that the breeding of animals for food has a numbing effect on our sensitivity to violence. We can even feel tenderness for the animals/people we intend to kill, despite suffering from a 'loss of empathy and compassion for other living beings'. That is why torturers are sometimes affectionate towards prisoners. Here is the gist of Hedges' argument:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.cleanwateractioncouncil.org/images/factory-farm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Cows" border="0" class="photo2" src="http://www.cleanwateractioncouncil.org/images/factory-farm.jpg" height="153" width="200" /></a>A culture that kills, including for food, must create a belief system
that inures people to suffering. This is the only way the slaughter of
other sentient beings is possible. This numbness allows us to dehumanize
Muslims in the Middle East and our own poor, unemployed, underpaid and
mentally ill, as well as the more than 9 billion land animals killed for
food each year in the United States and the 70 billion land animals
killed for food each year across the world. If we added fish, the
numbers would be in the trillions.</blockquote>
Predictably enough, he brings in a reference to the Nazis - which somebody told me recently was a sign of having lost an argument. <br />
<br />
I admit to being an omnivore and feeling some discomfort about Hedges' challenge to my eating habits. However, my main concern is the over-simplification of complex questions as to why human beings hurt and kill other creatures - human and animal - and my wariness of Hedge's utopian tendencies with regard to the moral benefits of veganism.<br />
<br />
I do not need persuading that modern factory farming methods are barbaric - consumerism is the most voracious of idols in its appetite for unlimited supplies of the blood and flesh of tortured victims. Yet it seems to me a huge leap from acknowledging that to making a necessary connection between veganism and non-violence. I could go on at length about questions that arise with regard to the hunting and dietary traditions, and the fighting traditions, of different cultures and eras, as needing far more nuanced analysis. I could even be persuaded to make a flamboyant connection between certain unique features of neo-liberal capitalist cultures like our own, namely factory farming and the arms trade - they are both, after all, forms of mechanised butchery driven by market demands - but still, I think Hedges over-eggs his case, and meatier arguments are required.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, soon
after reading his article I went back to Giorgio Agamben's little big book, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Open-Crossing-Aesthetics-Meridian/dp/0804747385" target="_blank"><i>The Open: Man and Animal</i></a> - little because it's a series of short,
sketchy essays, big because it's full of challenging ideas about our perceptions of what it is that separates us from the other animals with which we have so much in common. Here, for example, is a paragraph from the end of a chapter titled '<i>Mysterium disiunctionis'</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In our culture, man has always been thought of as the articulation and conjunction of a body and a soul, of a living thing and a <i>logos</i>, of a natural (or animal) element and a supernatural or social or divine element. We must learn instead to think of man as what results from the incongruity of these two elements, and investigate not the metaphysical mystery of conjunction, but rather the practical and political mystery of separation. What is man, if he is always the place - and, at the same time, the result - of ceaseless divisions and caesurae? It is more urgent to work on these divisions, to ask in what way - within man - has man been separated from non-man, and the animal from the human, than it is to take positions on the great issues, on so-called human rights and values. And perhaps even the most luminous sphere of our relations with the divine depends, in some way on that darker one which separates us from the animal. (p. 16) </blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="https://postacademic.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/de_claris_mulieribus.jpg" height="231" src="https://postacademic.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/de_claris_mulieribus.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boccaccio, <i>De Mulieribus Claris</i>, 16th Century codex, University of Pennsylvania</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Passages like that enrapture me and send me back hungry for more. Yet when I returned to Agamben after reading Hedges' article, here is what
I read in a chapter titled 'Poverty in the World', based on Heidegger's 'Fundamental Concepts of
Metaphysics', about the animal's 'poverty in world' (<i>Weltarmut</i>) and
'world-forming' (<i>weltbildend</i>) man:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://climatekids.nasa.gov/bees/honey_bee_extracts_nectar2-lrg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://climatekids.nasa.gov/bees/honey_bee_extracts_nectar2-lrg.jpg" height="157" id="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="200" /></a>For a vivid example of captivation,
which can never open itself to a world, Heidegger refers to the
experiment (previously described by Uexküll) in which a bee is placed in
front of a cup full of honey in a laboratory. If, once it has begun to
suck, the bee's abdomen is cut away, it will continue happily to suck
while the honey visibly streams out of its open abdomen. (p. 52)</blockquote>
I threw the
book aside, too sickened to read on. I thought of Josef Mengele's
experiments in Auschwitz, and the horrors of scientific curiosity that
cannot tell the difference between what we can do and what we should do.
I also thought of the unresolved ambiguity about Heidegger's
relationship to Nazism. How many steps is it from cutting off the
abdomen of a living bee in order to see what happens, to experimenting
on human twins? If a person is fascinated by the former, does he or she
experience a gradual numbing of the moral sensitivity that might
unambiguously condemn the latter? A giant, unthinkable leap, or a series
of imperceptibly small steps towards the abyss? Maybe Chris Hedges is
right.<br />
<br />
At least, reading Agamben and Hedges together further persuades me that there are certain connections we ought to be making, as science thrusts us further and further towards a radical rupture in humankind - between the wealthy post-human cyborg, and the destitute <i>homo sacer </i>(which is the title of Agamben's <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Homo-Sacer-Sovereign-Meridian-Aesthetics-ebook/dp/B004E0Z3TA/ref=la_B000APY3LW_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429790986&sr=1-1" target="_blank">best-known work</a>), who lacks even the rights of animals. And is that day not already upon us, as the despairing refugees of north Africa and Syria wash up on the shores of Europe, without rights or laws to protect them, without any of the basic attributes which today enable a living being to include itself among the rights-bearing creatures of God's creation? Is there a connection between our indifference as to where our food comes from, and our indifference as to what happens to our human neighbours? Food for thought.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="mw-mmv-final-image mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Kievskaya_psaltir_kinocefal.jpg/800px-Kievskaya_psaltir_kinocefal.jpg" height="299" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cynocephali (dog-headed human figures) in the Kievan Psalter, 1397</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-66277466590870544232015-01-17T12:34:00.001+00:002015-01-17T12:50:38.533+00:00On not calling murdered children 'suicide bombers'<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrp_8DmllR2AuRgV75W_fzfT9lG-kO0eiuLi1dhjLk8kPD_5e9m6K65fINQik7x3KRi3vk3oJJ05BzAUtfrRBfEaQmLGfs3rujvnI2GIwrIRN5obYznV2pSW9S85oLXxA6dd5trAqosYAG/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrp_8DmllR2AuRgV75W_fzfT9lG-kO0eiuLi1dhjLk8kPD_5e9m6K65fINQik7x3KRi3vk3oJJ05BzAUtfrRBfEaQmLGfs3rujvnI2GIwrIRN5obYznV2pSW9S85oLXxA6dd5trAqosYAG/s1600/Untitled.png" height="180" width="320" /></a>While the world was preoccupied with events in Paris, Boko Haram was carrying out its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/boko-haram-deadliest-massacre-baga-nigeria">deadliest
yet attacks in northern Nigeria</a>, using young girls as human bombs. The western media calls these children <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/11339067/Two-more-girl-suicide-bombers-hit-north-Nigeria-town.html">‘suicide
bombers’</a>. Some reports suggest that t<a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/1762330/boko-haram-reportedly-using-kidnapped-girls-as-suicide-bombers-as-attacks-intensify/" target="_blank">hey may have been from among the schoolgirls</a> kidnapped in April 2014.<br />
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A British judge has been widely criticised for saying that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30813335">a sixteen year old
girl ‘groomed’ her abusive school teacher</a>, showing how selective we are in
our moral outrage. To call those little girls suicide bombers is like calling a
victim of sexual abuse a rapist, but where are the howls of protest? We seem
incapable of fully acknowledging the plight of those in the Muslim world whose
persecution and suffering does not directly affect us. </div>
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Muslim victims of radical extremism and western militarism
alike seldom capture the attention of the media in the way that non-Muslim
victims do, even though a Muslim is much more likely to be killed by a radical
Islamist or an American or British drone or bomb than a non-Muslim westerner is
to be killed by a Muslim. The vast majority of Muslims are either
innocent bystanders or victims of this present conflict between Islamic State
and the modern secular state. They are less accountable for what is being
done in the name of their religion, than the citizens of Britain and America
are for what has been done in our name in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
in the continuing use of drones to carry out illegal executions of those
identified, rightly or wrongly, as potential terrorists. It is our taxes which pay for these wars and attacks, and it is our 'democratic' laws which encourage heavy corporate investment in <a href="http://fortune.com/tag/defense-industry/" target="_blank">an arms industry which feeds on such conflicts</a>. Whatever our religion or nationality, we are all caught up in events far outside our control, which leave many of us feeling both impotent and guilty by association. </div>
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Early in January, Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff wrote in
<a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/541/0/islam-urgently-needs-to-find-its-moderate-voice">a
blog in the Catholic weekly, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tablet</i></a>,
that ‘modern Islam seems to have difficulty in establishing that extremist
interpretations are wrong in ways that command universal recognition’, and he
suggests that extremism ‘tarnishes’ even peace-loving Muslims who fail to
condemn it. A cartoon currently circulating on Facebook shows hooded members of
the Ku Klux Klan alongside flag-waving members of Islamic State (ISIS), with
the caption, ‘Nobody thinks these people are representative of Christians, so
why do so many people think that these people are representative of Muslims?’ </div>
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To expect any peaceful majority to gain ‘universal
recognition’ is to fail to appreciate the pervasive power of violence to
silence voices of moderation. Millions of us took to the streets in February
2003 to protest the war in Iraq, yet go to war we did, and the rest is not yet
history. If our democratically elected leaders can unleash such slaughter in
our name, how can we ask ordinary Muslims to take responsibility for the
actions of those they never voted for or supported, simply because they
appropriate the name of Islam for their cause?</div>
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That is the context in which we must speak of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</i> cartoons, even as we
unequivocally condemn the murders of the cartoonists. If those cartoonists had
been satirising ISIS, the Taliban or Al Qaeda, they might have found widespread
support among Muslims who shared their revulsion. But the Muhammad cartoons violated
Islam’s most revered and beloved figure, more authentically revered by those law-abiding
Muslims who devoutly practise their faith than by those who use Islam as a
front for murder. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo’s</i> crude
images lack the slightest subtlety that would make them worthy of the name
‘satire’. They were acts of crass and shameless provocation which demanded of
every French Muslim citizen more tolerance than any civilized society should
ask in the name of freedom of speech. As <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/1625/0/do-not-offend-religions-freedom-of-speech-has-limits-says-pope-francis">Pope
Francis has reminded us</a>, ‘every religion has its dignity’ and there are
limits to freedom of expression. The cartoons are an assault on the dignity of
Islam and its followers, and there is never any justification for attacking
human dignity. </div>
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I do not ask my Muslim neighbour to apologise or explain,
for she and I both agree that what is done in our name is not what we would
choose. Let’s avoid the sloganeering of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">faux</i>
innocence, and face the truth in all its savage complexity and fragile hope.
And when children are murdered, let’s call each child by name and name what has
been done to her in the name of some cause she will never know or understand.
To call a murdered child a suicide bomber is to violate her all over again.</div>
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<img alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKWm37MraPpnW98y8LvmAvnoA_lemZ5mTDZphtl_C_D4wBauTwehDhgDhSWOSq4KN-zo5cD1T9VfiFvM1DbQMEe1yU-kcGE1ENC7FkZjdbXXSGWLjJLXm66N-PR8qKA1JN3nBVhyphenhyphenM1mHp/s1600/missing+nigerian+girls.png" class="decoded overflowing" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKWm37MraPpnW98y8LvmAvnoA_lemZ5mTDZphtl_C_D4wBauTwehDhgDhSWOSq4KN-zo5cD1T9VfiFvM1DbQMEe1yU-kcGE1ENC7FkZjdbXXSGWLjJLXm66N-PR8qKA1JN3nBVhyphenhyphenM1mHp/s320/missing+nigerian+girls.png" height="640" width="576" /></div>
Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-63431756822249859962015-01-09T10:27:00.001+00:002015-01-11T09:37:03.435+00:00Je ne suis pas Charlie<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
JE
NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE. Without in any way wanting to mitigate the horror,
grief and shock of the murders in Paris, I am growing weary of the
disingenuity of so many in the media disclaiming the potentially violent
power of the pen and the image. Public intellectuals are queuing up to present themselves as the
peaceful advocates of freedom of speech, bravely defending western
values of tolerance, respect and democracy against Islamist extremists -
which often seems to include all Muslims who haven't publicly and
repeatedly denounced their co-religionists. (See, for example, Ian
McEwan and David Aaronovitch on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xtl77/newsnight-08012015" target="_blank">Newsnight last night)</a>.<br />
<br />
The use
of violence by rational, cold-blooded, educated people always begins with
the pen - with an idea, with a book, with an image. Look at images of
Jews in <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=germany+anti+jewish+cartoons+1930s&biw=1275&bih=641&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JauvVPmKFY3saPm6gNgE&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ" target="_blank">1930s German cartoons</a>. Look at those <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Muhammad+cartoons&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=T6uvVKuPAcyzaZTMgdgL&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1275&bih=641#tbm=isch&q=Muhammad+cartoons+charlie" target="_blank">crude, provocative images of Muhammad</a> and ask yourself if our 'free' societies would tolerate such
images if they were anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic or more overtly
racist than they already are. Ask a French Muslim woman who would choose
to wear the niqab if she could what she thinks of freedom of expression.<br />
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Writers write because they know the power of the pen. I wonder what
has happened to our understanding of freedom when the power to provoke,
to offend and yes, to knowingly and willfully arouse murderous rage simply through insult and provocation has become the
ultimate expression of freedom. Isn't freedom more complex and dignified than that? If one is going to die for freedom, are there not
better ways of expressing what freedom is than the freedom to ridicule,
mock and belittle? <br />
<br />
David Aaronovitch said on Newsnight last
night, "we want as much free speech as we can possibly get". May I
suggest that he starts by offering to satirise red poppies on the BBC
next November, and see how far he gets? Consider <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12664346" target="_blank">this report in <i>The Guardian</i></a>, about a Muslim who was fined £50 for burning a poppy during a protest because, said the judge,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The two-minute chanting, when others were observing a silence, followed
by a burning of the symbol of remembrance was a calculated and
deliberate insult to the dead and those who mourn or remember them. </blockquote>
The limits of toleration are narrow and the right to insult is seriously curtailed when it comes to abusing the dominant culture's sacred symbols. The dichotomous representation of tolerant secularism versus
intolerant religion blinds us to the deeply rooted intolerance and
growing limitations on freedom of speech in our own societies, for in
truth, this mantra is invoked most frequently with regard to the right
to offend religious people - usually Muslims.<br />
<br />
The violent killing
of one human being by another is always a profound and incurable wound
to our humanity, for no person is an island. But that is true of every
child, woman and man butchered in the name of a cause - any cause. Until
we join the dots and acknowledge the complexity of this spiraling
conflict, there will be no end to the violence and the killing of
innocents by and on all sides in the name of their gods - God, Allah,
Yahweh, Jesus, France, Britain, America, Freedom of Speech. When an idea
demands blood sacrifice, it is an idol. When it enables us to reach out
to one another and ask 'who art thou?', it is a god worthy of worship.<br />
<br />
I mourn the deaths of those defiantly brave journalists, and I mourn
the further wounding of our increasingly fragile and threatened
democratic freedoms. But the greatest threats to those freedoms are not a small minority of religious conservatives (and not all offended conservatives are violent extremists). The enemy which most threatens the future of our values and institutions and indeed of our very planet is
a ruthless political and economic system undergirded by western militarism and the powerful corporate interests of the arms trade. Long before radical Islamism
conquers the world, we will be drowning in the suffocating fog of our
own polluted environment, victims of a
ruthless and inhumane secularist ideology colonised by the politics of
greed and exploitation. Let our intellectuals, artists and comedians
satirise the real enemies of freedom, so that we might become societies
that reasonable people of all religions and none might agree are worth
living in - and maybe even dying to preserve.</div>
Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-8783775953956441322015-01-06T19:24:00.000+00:002015-01-07T17:55:46.825+00:00Women's Cultures, Women's StoriesThe Pontifical Council for Culture is holding its next Assembly in February 2015 on the theme of <a href="http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/plenarie/2015-women.html" target="_blank">Women's Cultures: Equality and Difference</a>. There is much to be welcomed about this initiative, not least because it seems that some of the invited participants are women who will challenge established stereotypes and raise issues not normally addressed at such gatherings. It is also further evidence that the more enlightened members of the hierarchy are slowly putting into practice Pope Francis's repeated insistence on the need to examine women's roles and contributions to the life of the Church.<br />
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As part of the preparations for the February Assembly, women have been invited to submit a photograph or a one minute video message to be considered for inclusion in the programme. However, <a href="http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/plenarie/2015-women/prep.html" target="_blank">the promotional video used to publicise this idea</a> has caused <a href="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3595/pontifical_council_for_culture_stumbles_with_clueless_video_aimed_at_women.aspx" target="_blank">considerable consternation</a>. It is further evidence (if any were needed!) of just how out of touch Rome is with the realities of ordinary women's lives.<br />
<br />
Yet whatever the obstacles and struggles, I am convinced that this is a vital year for women in the Church. Not only is there the forthcoming Assembly on Cultures of Women where at least there has been some effort - however bungled - to solicit contributions from women, but the Synod on the Family in October 2015 will be a decisive event with far-reaching consequences for Catholic women's lives. The Lineamenta, which is <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20141209_lineamenta-xiv-assembly_en.html" target="_blank">available to download on the Vatican website</a>, includes a questionnaire that once again seeks to solicit a wide range of views from across the Church.<br />
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I believe that we women must take whatever opportunities are offered to us to respond to these invitations and to speak out in the hopes of being heard. We must also share our contributions and responses so that they do not disappear into an engulfing silence if we are saying what some of the men in Rome would rather not hear. With this in mind, I have started a Facebook group - '<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/Catholicwomenspeak/" target="_blank">Catholic Women Speak</a>' - which has attracted nearly two hundred members in a few days. I have also spent a ridiculous amount of time putting together a <a href="http://youtu.be/HNQ5hTCdyA0" target="_blank">video submission</a> in response to the invitation from the Pontifical Council for Culture.<br />
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I trawled through my photographs from the last fifteen years, when my new vocation as a Catholic theologian began to jostle for time, space and meaning in the context of my more timeworn and familiar ways of living and loving as a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a mother, and more recently a grandmother. I gathered together snapshots - all either taken by me or with me in them - which are simply a glimpse into the vast diversity of one woman's relationships, encounters and friendships. I decided to take a certain liberty with the time limit and to double it to two minutes, but even then I can offer only the most fragmented and fleeting images of women and girls I have had the privilege of knowing - some of whom are among my deepest loves, others whom I have only met briefly along the way. <br />
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There are photographs of my mother, my sisters, my mother-in-law, my daughter, my sisters-in-law, my daughters-in-law, some of my nieces, my most beloved friends and more distant acquaintances, my students, my colleagues and other theologians. There are pictures of women and girls on the margins whose lives have touched mine in different ways, and who have left an indelible imprint on how I do theology and how I understand my faith. There are married women and single women, women in religious orders, straight women and gay women, rich women and poor women, young girls whose lives are just beginning, and others whose faces bear the noble signs of growing old with grace and dignity. Some of these people have died since their photographs were taken, others struggle on against formidable odds. Many who should be there are not, simply because I ran out of time in looking for images to use.<br />
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I offer this as a different way of representing women and girls from that promotional video issued by Rome. There are most certainly some bubbly young blonde women in the Church - thank God - who could easily appear in advertisements for feminine hygiene products, shampoo or cornflakes. In this particular case, perhaps the model was chosen to represent 'feminine genius' - a term Pope Francis frequently borrows from Pope John Paul II. But we females come in many shapes and sizes, we represent many ages and stages in life, we come from many cultures and contexts, and we have many stories to tell. Our stories have not yet been listened to, acknowledged, respected and represented by the Catholic hierarchy and its carefully selected female spokeswomen and cover girls.<br />
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My video does not tell any story, but it shows the faces of women and girls who have stories to tell. I offer it as a tribute to those untold stories, and to the ways in which these people are part of my story, in great and small ways. Every photo here awakens a memory, an emotion, a desire, a prayer. I hope you enjoy sharing these faces of wisdom and beauty with me.<br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-41999409151668914372014-11-11T13:23:00.000+00:002014-11-11T13:24:25.136+00:00Along the Pilgrim Path - The Synod on the Family and Pope Francis's Theology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the final draft of my article on the Synod on the Family and Pope Francis's theology which was published in <i>The Tablet </i>on1 November, 2014 with the title '<a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/3761/towards-faith-hope-and-love" target="_blank">Towards Faith, Hope and Love</a>':<br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRdtKVZDLrM735megsqUbX8GTWcDJXvoJRjbtKqf5HYZz16zIhobA" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" class="rg_i" data-src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRdtKVZDLrM735megsqUbX8GTWcDJXvoJRjbtKqf5HYZz16zIhobA" data-sz="f" height="212" name="Cv2nNDS1K8azuM:" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRdtKVZDLrM735megsqUbX8GTWcDJXvoJRjbtKqf5HYZz16zIhobA" style="height: 183px; margin-top: 0px; width: 275px;" width="320" /></a>I was in Rome during the Synod on the Family. On the final
Saturday morning I visited the ancient church of Santa Maria in Trastevere
during a Nuptial Mass. As the couple knelt below the dome with its shimmering
mosaic of the Coronation of the Virgin, I thought how beautifully that image evoked
the sacrament of marriage, which constitutes the earthly participation of
baptized Catholics in the heavenly wedding feast.</div>
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Metaphors of marriage and parenthood recur throughout
scripture. These relationships offer us our most intimate glimpses of the
unconditional love of God for creation and of Christ for the Church, but they
are also the relationships that are most vulnerable to sin and alienation.</div>
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At the Synod, the Church’s leaders spoke openly, not only
about the ideals and consolations of marriage but about its failures and
tragedies, its struggles and complexities, putting the vast and unruly
diversity of global Catholicism on display before the eyes of the world. The
western media tended to focus almost exclusively on homosexuality and divorce
and remarriage, but the Synod also addressed issues such as polygamy, forced
marriages and child marriages, mixed marriages, and the impact of poverty,
violence and migration on family life. </div>
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There were some gaping omissions, not least in the absence
of any significant female presence. Pope Francis has repeatedly acknowledged
the need to give women a greater role in the Church, and in this respect the Synod
was a missed opportunity. We heard nothing about HIV/AIDS, nor does there seem
to have been any searching debate about contraception, despite evidence that
the vast majority of Catholics ignore the Church’s prohibition of artificial
birth control. Nevertheless, my concern here is not to analyse the Synod’s
successes and failures, but to ask what kind of theology informs Pope Francis’s
vision for the Church so that he was inspired to call not one but two
successive Synods on the Family. </div>
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Francis repeatedly used the metaphor of a journey during the
Synod. In a prayer vigil before it started, he offered a moving description of
people travelling home at the end of the day – some to the comfort and warmth of
a family meal, others to loneliness and broken dreams. In his closing speech he
spoke of having been on a journey that involved moments of great enthusiasm and
also of desolation. </div>
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Critics of Pope Francis sometimes compare him unfavourably
with his more scholarly predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Yet I believe that we
are witnessing a papacy rooted in profound theological wisdom, informed by
three related principles: Ignatian discernment which comes from Francis’s
Jesuit roots, a privileging of narrative and story-telling (a theology of the
people) over dogmatics and systematics (a theology of the scholars), which
comes from his Argentinian background, and an appreciation of the temporal and
historical nature of the Church’s earthly pilgrimage, which can be seen as continuing
the interrupted process of implementing Vatican II in the life of the Church.</div>
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In a section towards the end of his apostolic exhortation, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Evangelii Gaudium</i>, Francis appeals for an
ethos of transformation and growth that privileges time over space. A spatial
model is one of occupation and crystallization, of immediate results and short
term goals. It seeks to achieve everything in the here and now, by way of power
and possession. A temporal model allows for ‘processes of people building’ by
embracing the tension between fullness and limitation. It accommodates
frustration, finitude and failure without losing sight of its horizon of hope.
This leads to two other factors – the dialectical need to accept that conflict
is a necessary aspect of the quest for ‘a diversified and life-giving unity’,
and the need to recognise that realities are more important than ideas. </div>
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These three related insights offer a key to understanding
not only the Synod but the whole style of Francis’s papacy. He is setting the
Church free from her captivity to doctrinal stasis, from a unity imposed
through the suppression and silencing of conflict and the privileging of ideas
over realities, so that she can continue her earthly, temporal pilgrimage informed
by the struggles and experiences of life in motion. </div>
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Dogmas and teachings that were frozen in the context of
spatial absolutes as eternal, unchanging truths are gradually thawing, warmed
by the bodies and breath of human experience and allowed to flow with the currents
of time. It remains to be seen what will emerge from this process, but that is
the point. We do not and cannot control the future. The Second Vatican Council
pointed to the contextual and the historical as the road along which the
pilgrim people of God must travel, and Pope Francis has told us we must resume
the journey. Our guiding light and final destination is the mystery of the
Trinity, the ultimate object of all our desire. The Holy Spirit animates and
guides us towards what Francis has described as the untamed frontiers of faith,
but in travelling towards that mystical destination we must put on our walking
boots, learn the virtue of patience, and struggle to read the maps together.</div>
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This is the context in which we should interpret the
principle of gradualness referred to in the interim document, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Relatio post disceptationem</i>, published
after the first week. Some have equated gradualism with relativism, but perhaps
that is because they are working with a spatial rather than a temporal model. Relativism
suggests that there are many paths to follow which are all simultaneously valid
and equal, which clearly is not compatible with the self-understanding of the
Church’s mission. However, a temporal model would allow us to interpret
gradualism in terms of personal growth and development in the context of each
individual’s journey along the pathway of truth. </div>
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So back to that Nuptial Mass. Into the vast space between
the couple kneeling on the altar and the mosaic far above their heads, the
priest raises the host. My heart is filled with a longing so delicate and
impossible that there are no words for it. We know that the couple may or may
not stay faithfully together until death. Even if they do, they will face many
challenges, struggles and failures. Yet the desire that their love arouses
swirls in the space between the hope that unites the newly weds, and the
promise of fulfilment that shimmers down from the golden mosaic high above
them. </div>
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At last, the Church is asking what that desire and love might
mean in the face of many different lives and loves, many cultures and contexts,
many obstacles and failures. Our desire is for union with the relational,
Trinitarian God in whose image we are made. That desire finds inadequate
expression in the relationships that touch our humanity most deeply –
relationships of erotic love and sexuality, of marriage and commitment, of
motherhood and fatherhood. But all these are imperfect analogies through which
we obscurely glimpse that eternity of love towards which we are travelling, at
the heavenly wedding feast where God will wipe away every tear, and there will
be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Until then, Francis is
appealing to the Church to accompany the human family along the rocky path of
mourning and tears, which is also the pilgrim path of faith, hope and love.</div>
Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-76082285740551744922014-10-28T08:20:00.000+00:002014-10-28T08:27:36.645+00:00Attentive Beholding - a reflection inspired by people living with HIV/AIDS<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img class="" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Michelangelo_piet%C3%A0_rondanini.jpg/640px-Michelangelo_piet%C3%A0_rondanini.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-height: 657px; max-width: 1238px;" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michelangelo, <i>Rondinini Pietà</i> (16th century)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On Saturday, I was invited to offer a short theological
reflection at the end of a day at St. Martins in the Field in London, organised by <a href="http://www.caps-uk.org/">Catholics for Aids Prevention and Support</a>
(CAPS), on the theme, ‘Love Tenderly, Act Justly: Stories of HIV and
Christianity Today’. Throughout the day, people from many different churches and cultures spoke simply, generously and profoundly about their experiences of living with HIV/AIDS. There were stories
of grief and desolation that were almost too hard to bear, and stories of hope
and delight that lifted the soul. <br />
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One participant told of losing several close family members
to AIDS, and of being HIV positive himself. Another told of her loneliness, the
complexity of giving and receiving sexual love in a time of AIDS, her longing
to be held and touched. We heard about suicidal darkness and bereavement, but
also about the wonder of finding joy in life’s smallest blessings – a flower,
the shape of a cloud – gathering ‘five small delights each day to make a
handful of hope’. We heard about mothers weeping over their dead children,
refusing to be consoled, and about the joy of becoming a mother in spite of the virus. We heard about lovers driven to the point of
exhaustion by caring for their dying partners, and of the aching loss that
followed those partners’ deaths. We heard about the shock of receiving the
diagnosis, and the long dark struggle to accept and adapt.</div>
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But we also heard about stigmatisation and rejection, about
fear and denial. We heard people who had experienced a deep sense of shame and
self-loathing, a dread of making their condition known. We heard too many
stories of churches that rejected sufferers on account of their ‘sins’, or
refused to allow a space where it was possible to speak and be heard about what
it means to live with HIV/AIDS.</div>
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A woman told of how she had left the Church when she
received her diagnosis, only to return many years later when she found a
welcoming community who accepted her fully as the person she was, a person who
happened to have a virus. That was repeated several times – HIV is a virus. It
should not be a condition that sets a person apart from all others because of
some unmentionable shame or secret. She spoke of being a Eucharistic minister:
‘I, a body identified with the leper, the outcast, the untouchable, am offering
the body and blood of Christ the victim.’</div>
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As I listened and reflected throughout the day, I found
myself experiencing an inversion of thought. These were all people who spoke as
if they were somehow on the margins of the Church, dependent on those in the
centre to receive them and welcome them, to allow them to live as part of the
body of Christ. I thought of what it means to place one’s faith in the Word
made Flesh, and I realized that it is the people who are marginalised by the
self-righteous, the worthy, the pious and the fully included, who are the
Church. Theirs are the bodies we must embrace if we are to incarnate our
prayers and sacraments in the Body of Christ. It is not for us to accept them.
We must ask to be accepted by them. It is not for us to forgive them. We must
ask to be forgiven by them. We have nothing to teach and everything to learn,
from those who have been called to travel the desolate and lonely path that
leads through fear, rejection and abandonment to Calvary – a path that any of
us might tread one day, whether through illness, loss or ageing, or through the
unthinkable catastrophes that can visit themselves upon a life. Those who have
gone ahead of us offer wisdom, shine a light and create a space of warmth and
courage within the terror of that cold, dark path of sorrow and sickness.</div>
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To say this is not to glorify suffering. It is not to
indulge in that obscene suggestion that another person’s suffering is
purposeful because it helps to make us compassionate or good or loving. Why
should another human being experience dereliction in order to teach me how to
love? In one of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Waiting-God-Simone-Weil/dp/0061718963">Simone
Weil’s reflections</a> she contemplates the utter desolation of the abjected
and degraded person deprived of all dignity and beauty. Stripping away the
sentimentality of cheap love, she asks us to consider what it means to say to
that person, ‘Who art thou?’ This, she says, only happens in those who have
cultivated the habit of attentiveness</div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Those who are unhappy
have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them
attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare
and difficult thing. It is almost a miracle. It is a miracle. Nearly all those
who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart,
impulsiveness, pity are not enough.</span></div>
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Maggie Ross is an Anglican hermit who spends much of her time
living in the snowy wilderness of Alaska. Her book, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Icon-Heart-Silence-Beholding/dp/" target="_blank"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i>Writing the Icon of the Heart: </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In Silence Beholding</i></a>, is an extended reflection on the biblical word
‘Behold’, which tends to be translated as ‘look’ or ‘see’ in a way that takes
away its depth of meaning. Beholding is our ability to remain open to all that
is revealed to us of God through creation, which requires a form of
attentiveness and stillness far beyond what we normally understand by words
such as ‘looking’ and ‘seeing’. It is the attentive gaze of the inner eye of
the soul on the grace of God manifest in the mystery of creation. It calls us
out of our solipsistic loneliness and narcissism, and draws us towards the
abyss of encounter and silence that constitute our human knowing of God. Ross
writes that ‘Silence is context and end, beholding the means. In the final
analysis, this is all we need to know’. The silence that we experience as ‘the
vast interior landscape that invites us to stillness’ allows us to enter into
the presence of the Other through the sense of awareness that comes from
beholding. </div>
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Beholding and attentiveness – these are the lost arts of
insight and discernment in a culture where we flee from silence and solitude
with endless technological gadgets and gimmicks. Crowding out the empty spaces,
we no longer know how to behold, to say to the other in all her vulnerability
and desire: ‘Who art thou?’, knowing that that question also puts us into
positions of vulnerability and desire that we do not control.</div>
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To behold is to be holding, to be held and to be beholden. It is to
open ourselves to embrace the world in all its fragility and sorrow, in all its
hope and meaning. It is to overcome fear – that most crippling of emotions from
which flows all anger, hatred, violence and envy. ‘Do not be afraid’ is the
angelic exhortation that comes to us on wings of prayer and seeds within us the
vulnerability of the newborn God. It is the exhortation that calls us to stand
with the one who suffers on Calvary, being there in helpless solidarity before
the darkened horizons of death. It is the call that quickens our steps and
leads us through the early darkness of the city to the tomb of the risen Christ,
where with Mary Magdalene we must discover what it means to let go, to
relinquish our clinging in order to open ourselves to the billowing abyss of
the body that is not there for He is Risen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet still he comes among us in every body that
cries out, ‘I thirst’ to an indifferent and terrified world. </div>
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<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem-alone/173632?iframe=true">George
Herbert (1593-1633): Love (III)</a></div>
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<span class="annotation"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew
back</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Guilty of dust and sin.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
quick-eyed Love, observing me grow <span class="annotation">slack</span> </span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> From my first
entrance in,</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drew
nearer to me, sweetly questioning,</span><span class="annotation"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><br />
<span class="annotation"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> If
I lacked any thing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
guest, I answered, worthy to be here:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Love
said, You shall be he.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
the <span class="annotation">unkind</span>, ungrateful? <span class="annotation">Ah
my dear</span>,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I cannot look on thee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love
took my hand, and smiling did reply,</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Who made the eyes but
I?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Truth
Lord, but I have <span class="annotation">marred</span> them: let my shame</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Go where it doth deserve.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> My dear, then <span class="annotation">I will serve</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="annotation"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You must sit down, says Love, and taste
my meat:</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.25in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span class="annotation">So I did sit and
eat.</span></span></div>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-90665310332313222422014-10-20T09:20:00.003+01:002014-10-20T12:05:56.276+01:00After the Synod - a journey into the unknown<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2-eSTGq3NR5Ngu6Q9EAfG3LpXn_cJ16nSg8fdD2QTEHn5z38XT7aZXiijlDGl_i2cYFWc7jZa0daB-S_2Kn__7Y7g8vNCcHC8mdqWeLiHJQNjnsu5a0p_sz4lTV1u-HIwPlbiiM6QGXn/s1600/IMG_0320.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2-eSTGq3NR5Ngu6Q9EAfG3LpXn_cJ16nSg8fdD2QTEHn5z38XT7aZXiijlDGl_i2cYFWc7jZa0daB-S_2Kn__7Y7g8vNCcHC8mdqWeLiHJQNjnsu5a0p_sz4lTV1u-HIwPlbiiM6QGXn/s1600/IMG_0320.JPG" height="226" width="320" /></a></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>The Synod on the Family - journeying into the unknown </i></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And it has been “a journey” – and like every journey there were moments
of running fast, as if wanting to conquer time and reach the goal as
soon as possible; other moments of fatigue, as if wanting to say
“enough”; other moments of enthusiasm and ardour. There were moments of
profound consolation listening to the testimony of true pastors, who
wisely carry in their hearts the joys and the tears of their faithful
people. Moments of consolation and grace and comfort hearing the
testimonies of the families who have participated in the Synod and have
shared with us the beauty and the joy of their married life. A journey
where the stronger feel compelled to help the less strong, where the
more experienced are led to serve others, even through confrontations.
And since it is a journey of human beings, with the consolations there
were also moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations ... (Pope Francis, <a href="http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-speech-at-the-conclusion-of-the-synod" target="_blank">Speech at the Conclusion of the Synod</a>)</blockquote>
In <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html" target="_blank"><i>Evangelii Gaudium</i></a>, Pope Francis contrasts the politics of time with the politics of space. The politics of space is utopian, driven by a sense of urgency, seeking to achieve instantaneous fulfilment and therefore always short-term, frozen in time and vulnerable to abuses of power. The politics of time allows for transformation through growth, for change as a process, for acceptance of limitation and finitude, for the seeding of ideas and their gradual nourishment in people's hearts and minds, and in our institutions.<br />
<br />
The Synod is a beautiful example of this wisdom at work, with its unfolding of a vision conceived in intense struggle, conflict, disagreement and commitment, that now has a year to germinate and begin to grow. The seeds of change have been sown. Now the whole community of God's prolific, diverse and unruly family must create the fertile soil in which these seeds might eventually bear fruit. That is the soil of prayer and reflection, of <i>lectio divina </i>- prayerful meditation on what the scriptures are saying to us. It is also the soil of open and honest dialogue, among people responsive to P<a href="http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview" target="_blank">ope Francis's call</a> to travel audaciously to the wild frontiers of faith, and to resist the temptation to domesticate those frontiers and turn them into a laboratory for the analysis of abstract truths.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/10/18/0770/03044.html" target="_blank">The Synod document</a> has been published in Italian, with an English translation expected soon. Pope Francis's <a href="http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-speech-at-the-conclusion-of-the-synod" target="_blank">final speech to the Synod</a> received a standing ovation. Many are expressing disappointment that, in the end, the tentative and pastorally sensitive paragraphs on divorce and remarriage, on those in 'irregular relationships', and on welcoming persons with a homosexual orientation that found space in the interim document were not included in the final version of the <i>Relatio Synodi</i>. However, in the remarkable spirit of openness that has characterised this whole Synod, the excluded paragraphs have still been published. It is worth nothing that, while they did not achieve the two thirds majority which would have allowed them to be included in the official document, they nevertheless received a significant majority of votes. (The paragraph on homosexuality failed to be included by only two votes). You can <a href="http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/10/19/votes-on-four-key-sections-reveal-synods-fault-lines/" target="_blank">read them here</a> with a tally of the votes. There is a delicious paradox at work in all this, because if one publishes the excluded paragraphs in a working document, in what meaningful sense can one possibly say they have been excluded? Everything is up for discussion. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing has, in fact, been excluded.<br />
<br />
Until the election of Pope Francis, it would have been almost impossible to imagine an event like this happening in the Church in our time. The sclerosis of authoritarianism, the censoriousness of the CDF, the sense of scandal, corruption, cowardice and defensiveness infecting the hierarchy, these were all signs of a Church suffering from a profound sickness of the soul that would surely take generations to heal, if it were not - as some would argue - a church in terminal decline. When Francis was elected, many of us were as incredulous as we were elated, and that incredulity quickly gave rise to scepticism. He is a master rhetorician, a consummate story teller who intuitively understands the power of symbols and gestures to transform beautiful words into deeply moving and meaningful acts of solidarity, compassion and humour. But is there any more to him than that? Is it all style and no substance?<br />
<br />
And now, Francis has opened the flood gates. All that was silenced, forbidden and hidden in the name of a burdensome and oppressive conformity can and must be said. The Church faces a year in which each and every one of us must take the opportunity we are being offered. This means entering into dialogue, tearing up the labels, disregarding hierarchical privileges and punishments, and becoming a community of disciples who are willing to go barefoot into the wilderness in order to struggle together to water the seeds of hope and nurture the tender shoots of new beginnings.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhFEWhyphenhyphenwJ7mxrPjXHqJS4LRtsGYphFgYjhz9Orkos3mIAqQN83fComVeUm_wa_57o-bWQ7wqWOI52AD_mTVhdJ9x-DRdTwUVrFNvSnR3px0Ju3hrEw4ATTE44fdQJanPOh3Cn3knj-cr7/s1600/Bologna_2008_10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhFEWhyphenhyphenwJ7mxrPjXHqJS4LRtsGYphFgYjhz9Orkos3mIAqQN83fComVeUm_wa_57o-bWQ7wqWOI52AD_mTVhdJ9x-DRdTwUVrFNvSnR3px0Ju3hrEw4ATTE44fdQJanPOh3Cn3knj-cr7/s1600/Bologna_2008_10.JPG" height="200" width="108" /></a></div>
Of course there are disappointments. The LGBTQ community has been quick to express its regret about the final document's exclusion of the language of welcome and inclusion. For divorced and remarried Catholics, this will be an anxious year of waiting to see what decisions will be made at the Synod in 2015, regarding the possibility of a process of sacramental reconciliation with the Church. For those in so-called 'irregular relationships' - probably the vast majority of the world's Catholics, if we include not just cohabiting couples, the divorced and remarried and lesbian and gay Catholics, but also those in mixed marriages or in forced marriages, those in polygamous marriages, those many priests with secret lovers and families - the situation remains deeply unresolved. It will take a great deal of patience and courage to address such issues and ask what they mean for the Church's understanding of 'family'.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoEIxT1RxKqVnjo5ILcplHgdOxfWckLX4gWldiqBwoLVk2kx4BF_hVnMoMr86X76oa5QdaLRGJ3OYYxrN5j8Y3qvSGIhQPYNN56rqxr46nQKByPMw8BH3jGsZPjDwOEsdAbwt3K_h07XI/s1600/foto-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoEIxT1RxKqVnjo5ILcplHgdOxfWckLX4gWldiqBwoLVk2kx4BF_hVnMoMr86X76oa5QdaLRGJ3OYYxrN5j8Y3qvSGIhQPYNN56rqxr46nQKByPMw8BH3jGsZPjDwOEsdAbwt3K_h07XI/s1600/foto-1.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a>Challenging though these issues are, the monumental failure of this Synod has been the absence of women capable of representing the vast plurality and diversity of women's lives and struggles in the context of the family. Where are those who would speak for some 800 of the world's poorest women who die every day for want of obstetric care, including those dying from botched abortions? Where are those who would speak for the grandmothers of Africa, raising children orphaned by AIDS? Where are those who would speak for the mothers of the Philippines, leaving their children in the care of others so that they can go and care for the children of the wealthy in a strange land? Where are those who would speak for girls deprived of education and freedom by religious and political regimes which have yet to recognise them as fully human? Where are those who would have turned their attention on that absurd gathering of celibate men and demanded a greater voice for women at all levels of the Church's life?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL5CN0ELTvxD2oMxwjeuYOe5Dfl_jQjnTu-Vj54hilx9JlCPJC14f-p3w75DoVrbKuoqAoGJwAwsHucucDNlGJaytw_GjrjKYCeZr0PWJfF4GXf5z6Lj8cgIlfmGFUi_meOlmhSSmOWVmN/s1600/DSCN1048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL5CN0ELTvxD2oMxwjeuYOe5Dfl_jQjnTu-Vj54hilx9JlCPJC14f-p3w75DoVrbKuoqAoGJwAwsHucucDNlGJaytw_GjrjKYCeZr0PWJfF4GXf5z6Lj8cgIlfmGFUi_meOlmhSSmOWVmN/s1600/DSCN1048.JPG" height="200" width="149" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWB4bSJ45J4d4vu9SbiaFXL_euqH4Ik-jnbOgO_8o-gIvXNdw14YUmVYZxXz7Zl6yaABB5oJfMJFx2S5_Tvl8Df_FCuDkpSxFY_VVXQLr7A7kzqHZbBpHyv1CNXAB8TP-J0OagO1knvGfU/s1600/Kenya_grace1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWB4bSJ45J4d4vu9SbiaFXL_euqH4Ik-jnbOgO_8o-gIvXNdw14YUmVYZxXz7Zl6yaABB5oJfMJFx2S5_Tvl8Df_FCuDkpSxFY_VVXQLr7A7kzqHZbBpHyv1CNXAB8TP-J0OagO1knvGfU/s1600/Kenya_grace1.png" height="200" width="150" /></a>Women have spoken only as wives and mothers, as one half of a couple carefully selected for its conformity to the Church's vision of 'the family'. This is not to deny that a number of them raised issues concerning those who might be in 'irregular relationships' or who might have gay children, but even so, these couples were speaking as and for the normative and narrow model of what it means to be a Catholic family. That makes it vital that many others speak out during this coming year - single people, including single parents; elderly people, including the bereaved or abandoned; the divorced and remarried; childless couples - I could go on and on. But what about those who have no voice, including the very old and the very young? What about those dying in solitude for want of love, in lonely and neglected homes or in prisons and ghettoes where solitude is an impossible luxury? What of those for whom 'family' is an unending daily grind of hunger, homelessness, violence and despair? What of those for whom 'family' is an impossible dream of wholeness woven against a shattered background of broken promises and hopes betrayed? Often, it is women and girls - as mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, siblings - who are in the front line of these situations as both victims and carers. They are the experts, the voices of authority. These are the voices that must be heard during the coming year.<br />
<br />
Another vital and related challenge is that of bridging the gulf between the West and the rest, and this will require recognising that the Church truly is a living body that flourishes through unity in diversity. But what is the cost of unity, and how much diversity can be accommodated? That is a challenge to all sides.<br />
<br />
By the end of the Synod, it was clear that <a href="http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/10/17/africans-are-no-longer-junior-partners-in-catholicism-inc/" target="_blank">the African bishops</a> in particular had staked their claim to a say in the Church's teachings, and it was in no small part due to their influence that issues of homosexuality were sidelined. Africa is now home to 130 million of the world's Catholics, and the African Church is a vibrant and flourishing source of material as well as spiritual support to some of the poorest and most marginalised people on earth. It is also home to a burgeoning middle class and to an educated intellectual elite. It is impossible to speak in general terms about 'Africa', for it is a continent that is geographically, culturally, linguistically and religiously more diverse and multi-facetted than Europe. It is true that the fault lines which run through the Church around issues of sexual ethics are by and large those which divide western liberals from Catholics of the global South, but we should not forget that that means that women and oppressed minorities, including gays and lesbians and those belonging to minority religious and ethnic communities, can suffer even more harshly at the hands of those who embody frozen ideas of 'culture' and 'tradition', usually rooted in powerful patriarchal hierarchies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggFxT4srIcrZcp1RygIYLca7yGh4_n_uJyKi3FNGtGt5c2b0x_3Ym0qNxjY9ieiMU31RiVjp9KjFBfTPeBTvH0MZDybdBf8ezsKRYmL8Mdgo-SSQnvJKbIfomgDNuziyuTod69DBgpvIwp/s1600/DSCN0913.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggFxT4srIcrZcp1RygIYLca7yGh4_n_uJyKi3FNGtGt5c2b0x_3Ym0qNxjY9ieiMU31RiVjp9KjFBfTPeBTvH0MZDybdBf8ezsKRYmL8Mdgo-SSQnvJKbIfomgDNuziyuTod69DBgpvIwp/s1600/DSCN0913.JPG" height="400" width="298" /></a>Let me suggest that, in facing these challenges, we might follow Francis and unify all our endeavours in this mighty time of risk and opportunity around the question of inclusion and exclusion, not on grounds of sexual orientation or marriage, but on grounds of economic justice. As a feminist, I am increasingly aware of the gulf that is growing between socially-minded feminists whose first priority is justice for women who are victims of poverty, violence and various forms of displacement and alienation, and those who are more preoccupied with glass ceilings and career opportunities. If a woman smashes the glass ceiling to get to the top of the economic or political ladder and sends a lacerating shower of injustice down upon women still trapped on the ground, it achieves nothing worth having. (What did Margaret Thatcher do for women)? I think there is an analogy with campaigns for LGBTQ rights.<br />
<br />
The LGBTQ community - and really, I think we are talking about gay men, for the voices of women tend to be muffled here too - has the distinct advantage of attracting the attention of the western media as no other group or topic can. Just look at how that issue has been covered to the exclusion of every other issue discussed during the Synod. Can those who enjoy sexual rights - fragile and contested though they often are - use that powerful voice to speak on behalf of all those whose rights are denied, and not just on behalf of their own particular community of exclusion? <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvDvPQt90oK5rwnER2i3XcAe2ARsPLMqJaJiyWLg9TLY7-fH1KaspjyyemYFCPagiymBwEYtmWvPPpMkhM53m2j_FAq73b49GEGRXaYkzwfERivKU_utVVjtkkxh5_KRfzFC9kGF4kB_L/s1600/Chilld_Nairobi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvDvPQt90oK5rwnER2i3XcAe2ARsPLMqJaJiyWLg9TLY7-fH1KaspjyyemYFCPagiymBwEYtmWvPPpMkhM53m2j_FAq73b49GEGRXaYkzwfERivKU_utVVjtkkxh5_KRfzFC9kGF4kB_L/s1600/Chilld_Nairobi.JPG" height="320" width="227" /></a>If we can find consensus on issues of social and economic justice, then we can ask in what ways women and gay people are particularly affected by injustices that stem from poverty, lack of education, sexual abuse and stigmatisation. But if we focus instead on <i>carte blanche </i>issues of women's rights or gay rights, we risk promoting an agenda heavily biased towards a liberal western elite which, let's face it, in fifty years of gradually accumulated individual rights, including sexual rights, has done nothing to turn the tide of social and economic injustice. On the contrary. The era of individual rights in the West has been accompanied by the rise of a political system that is utterly servile to corporate interests and bereft of any vision of justice or the common good. It has produced a generation of children starved of the most fundamental levels of love and security - not all of them born into material poverty - and a generation of old people abandoned in care homes in helpless dependence on indifferent strangers. In other words, the era of individual rights has been a triumph of the politics of space over the politics of time - of avaricious individualism which wants it all and wants it now, over the virtuous pursuit of the good life which knows that the other side of 'all for one' is 'one for all'.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrLEAtQivDsOX4eFyHXaEwzjoOk6mbIm1ghsVGdlx544h9_ATGGk3bVQkIvt3sinsN11s5e2-rFHr3UC7J-UO_0wykJw-cGI2i4RasxYD34FiGWlcVXhng7kbAAM8KcDl7vHv99D7VMped/s1600/DSCN0799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrLEAtQivDsOX4eFyHXaEwzjoOk6mbIm1ghsVGdlx544h9_ATGGk3bVQkIvt3sinsN11s5e2-rFHr3UC7J-UO_0wykJw-cGI2i4RasxYD34FiGWlcVXhng7kbAAM8KcDl7vHv99D7VMped/s1600/DSCN0799.JPG" height="200" width="133" /></a>Archbishop Jos Kaigama of Nigeria <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/synod-africa-archbishop-frankly-criticizes-western-attitudes" target="_blank">spoke eloquently at the Synod </a>about Africa's coming of age. He said that Africa does not need international organizations imposing their western ideas and policies, including their liberal sexual ethics, on African cultures and traditions. That does not necessarily mean he speaks for all Africans. For many Africans, including many, many African women, those cultures and traditions have been promoted and defended by powerful male elites in a way that has ridden roughshod over the needs and rights of the ordinary people. But the Archbishop was surely right when he insisted that what Africa needs is access to education and economic justice. If we ignore these needs by speaking as if sexual rights come before every other right, we should not be surprised if a rift opens up between the West and the rest.<br />
<br />
In the coming year, can we find a common language that takes its cue from the lives of the powerless, the excluded and the poor? Let's examine every claim for inclusion, rights and justice in the light of those lives and ask what it means for them. Let's speak not <i>for</i> those experiencing poverty and exclusion (for that only increases the silencing and exclusion), but <i>with</i> them. Let's ensure that their voices are part of the conversation. Then I believe that we can go forward in a dialogue of mutual respect and trust as we grope towards a better understanding of what it means to discover unity in diversity, truth in vulnerability, love in the midst of this kaleidoscopic way of becoming and remaining human that we call 'the family'. It is in these messy, conflicted and committed relationships of our origins and endings, our tending and mending, that the love of God is ever incarnate among us in vulnerability, trust and hope.<br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-51932500234734909892014-10-18T08:08:00.001+01:002014-10-20T15:53:26.572+01:00The Family - "What will survive of us is love" (Philip Larkin)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Two days of encounters, conversations
and reflections have left me perplexed, inspired, challenged,
and with a keen sense of ‘being there’. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When Vatican II was happening, I was a Presbyterian schoolgirl
living in Lusaka, Zambia, attending the Dominican Convent School. I think I
registered that something significant was happening when the nuns shed their
wimples, one of them auditioned for <i>The Sound of the
Music </i>at Lusaka Playhouse, two of them came to my Presbyterian confirmation service, and one left to get
married. Dear Sister Ceslaus, the mighty maths
teacher who was later murdered in an attack on a mission in Zimbabwe (then
Rhodesia) during UDI, told her Protestant charges: ‘Now girls, don’t go home
and tell your parents I told you this, but just remember the words of Martin
Luther on his deathbed: “It is easier to live as a Protestant, but it is easier
to die as a Catholic.”’ I don’t think Luther actually said that, but obviously
her strategy worked.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Since coming to live in Britain in the late 1980s as a new
convert to Catholicism, I have become a little bored by the nostalgia for the
Council which constitutes a pervasive melancholic aura among liberal Catholics
of a certain age. Today, there’s a new generation of Catholics who were
born into the postconciliar Church, and many of them simply don’t care about
the politics of the Vatican. They practise birth control, cohabit, ‘come out’,
do whatever they need to do to survive as Catholics who are both faithful and
intelligent. At the other end of the spectrum is a narrow group of ideologues
(some of them also young), who believe themselves to be the custodians and
progenitors of the One True Church over and against liberals, relativists,
feminists, homosexuals, and all the rest of the wicked forces of modernity that
are destroying God’s Church. Ho hum.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This week, however, I am so glad to be in Rome, because I
suspect that, for the first time since 1968, the spirit of Vatican II is dancing
in the streets of this city. The politics, the gossip and the intrigue are
compelling. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNR1-fapu8f2P08QRb0xeFlXB6BPz2bh56Q-PPTol6I1ycWEfmeXC-JmYBnWXTBSquhmKT3k_PK54RH-AuoX1pPJLsAMT39iSlBzVl5-oZoffMOmlU3K7IV6Vj2eYBEaxDvNf6eNLJC2Nl/s1600/DSC02030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNR1-fapu8f2P08QRb0xeFlXB6BPz2bh56Q-PPTol6I1ycWEfmeXC-JmYBnWXTBSquhmKT3k_PK54RH-AuoX1pPJLsAMT39iSlBzVl5-oZoffMOmlU3K7IV6Vj2eYBEaxDvNf6eNLJC2Nl/s1600/DSC02030.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The English translation of Monday's interim document <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2014/10/16/vatican-document-on-outreach-to-glbt-edits-out-welcome-to-focus-on-providing-for/" target="_blank">has been reworded</a>. The section on gays and lesbians has been retitled from ‘Welcoming
homosexual persons’ to ‘Providing for homosexual persons’, and a few other
changes have been made to the wording. Cardinal Raymond Burke has <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/cardinal-burke-reportedly-confirms-vatican-ouster" target="_blank">apparently confirmed stories</a> that he is on his way out.
Similar unconfirmed rumours are circulating about Cardinal Gerhard
Müller, President of the CDF. Cardinal Marx has said that <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/cardinal-marx-doctrine-can-develop-change" target="_blank">doctrine can develop and change</a>. Cardinal Walter Kasper was <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/no-cardinal-kasper-not-racist-updated">accused
of being a racist</a> on the basis of a report by journalist Edward Pentin, whose impromptu interview with Cardinal Kasper outside the Synod Hall resulted in some comments on Africa by the Cardinal which were construed as racist in some reports, with an <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/no-cardinal-kasper-not-racist-updated" target="_blank">ensuing controversy</a> as to who said what and how it was reported. <i>[Please note I have changed the wording of this last sentence, since in two commenst posted below Benedict Ambrose pointed out I had his name wrong, and challenged </i></span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">my interpretation of Pentin's piece. See the first comment for a link to Pentin's clarification]. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The point Kaspar was making
is in my view one of the two central issues of this Synod: how to reconcile the
vast cultural differences within the Church, in a Synod that brings together
bishops from across the world’s cultures and contexts. It is a reminder that
the unity of the Catholic Church is a liturgical and sacramental unity, not a
moral and cultural unity. Bishops and cardinals from some African and Muslim
countries have apparently been shocked by the open discussion of ‘taboo’ issues
such as homosexuality, and there are diverse responses to the question of the
readmission of divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacraments, as I
mentioned on a previous blog. Polygamy, forced marriages and similar issues
have been on the agenda, but they have not attracted the same media attention as
homosexuality. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KqNAmb4csxiyLyNIanM_cRKM_W_mu3b54cXSPuWyF6rX9VV3LNBk0H-3eR5oxz1gNnBD9pJHaJQeDnvUEliU4WUYGjgdqNhzzS9tbGex96Xqj-H7cXUU2cl6L1qNAOgweKUizSl5hYgq/s1600/DSC02038.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KqNAmb4csxiyLyNIanM_cRKM_W_mu3b54cXSPuWyF6rX9VV3LNBk0H-3eR5oxz1gNnBD9pJHaJQeDnvUEliU4WUYGjgdqNhzzS9tbGex96Xqj-H7cXUU2cl6L1qNAOgweKUizSl5hYgq/s1600/DSC02038.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I fact, I suspect that the media are to blame for giving the impression that this has been a Synod primarily concerned with homosexuality, in a way which suggests (wrongly I think) that fundamental
threats to the well-being of families and individuals are being squeezed off
the agenda. I heard from somebody that the highly popular Cardinal Taglia of
the Philippines said it breaks his heart every time he goes to the airport in
Manila, because so many people are leaving the country in search of work. Why
is nobody covering the Synod writing about these things? What does it do to a family when a mother emigrates to act as cheap labour caring for other people’s children in
London, New York or Rome? Indeed, I am suddenly struck by the extent to which,
wherever you go in the world, dark-skinned people wait in attendance on
light-skinned people. I find myself looking around with new eyes since hearing
Taglia’s comment, and wondering about all these displaced human beings eking out a living
on the margins of our modern world – the African men selling handbags on every Roman
street, the shabby tour guides and street performers at every attraction, the desperate eyes of those
who thrust cheap plastic trinkets and baubles in the faces of tourists, begging
them to buy something. And these are the lucky ones. What about the bundles of
rags in doorways and piles of clothing huddled on benches, which turn out to be human beings
with nowhere else to go? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a café I sat near a bishop from the Congo. I
wondered what stories he might tell about ‘families’, from that context of rape
and war and poverty and despair. I remember a few years ago meeting a devout Catholic woman from
the Congo, who had spent three years living in the forest with her five
children, foraging for food, to escape the raping armies of whatever men were
fighting for power at the time. What about her family? What about those from
West Africa, where families are being shredded by the Ebola epidemic? And what
of the bishops and cardinals from Muslim countries, where Christian and Muslim mothers alike are
raped and children are murdered? I hear that some of those church leaders from
such societies say that they forbid marriage between Christians and Muslims.
Catholics who marry Muslims excommunicate themselves, they say. That is heresy,
and surely the seeds of violence are fed the poison they need to flourish in
the face of such bigotry. Others have pointed out that in a world of so many mixed marriages, so much cohabitation, so many forms of marriage and family life, the number of marriages that would be truly sacramentally valid in the eyes of the Church might be infinitesimally small.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Yet one would think, reading
about this Synod, that the greatest challenge, opportunity or threat to the
modern family (depending on how you see these things) is homosexuality. Having initially been irritated by what I thought was a distorted emphasis in this respect, I have in the last couple of days come to realize that this is indeed a core doctrinal issue, because more than poverty and violence, more than divorce and remarriage, it is a question that goes to the very heart of the Church's sexual anthropology. Is sexuality an intrinsically personal dimension of our need for and capacity to express love in a bodily way that engages our whole being in a relationship of intimacy, trust and vulnerability? Or is sexuality more about genital difference and procreation? Put it like that, and the answer should be obvious. However, Pope John Paul II's 'theology of the body', promoted around the world primarily by way of well-funded American campaigns, holds that sexual difference goes to the very core of our being, and to fail to recognise that is to distort our understanding of what it means to be human. Having spent years researching and writing about 'theology of the body', I think it functions more as a vehicle of resistance to feminism and homosexuality than as a genuinely viable account of human sexuality - notwithstanding the fact that couples who can afford large families, who are psychologically, sexually and spiritually on the same wave length, and/or who are obedient and dutiful servants of the Church, promote it as if encountering the sexual other were second only to the beatific vision. Fine when you're falling in love at the age of twenty, but a bit hard to sustain through forty years and more of married life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yet at the other end of the spectrum, there is also something ethically and existentially repellent about those advocates of gendered performativity who would reduce sexual difference to cultural conditioning and nothing more. Our bodies matter, and sex is a very large part of that mattering. We do not yet begin to comprehend that complex interface between culture and nature, where our sexed humanity is both given and constructed, fundamental to who we are in some ways, incidental to who we are in many other ways. However, one thing we can be sure of. Sexual difference functions as a powerful mechanism of exclusion when it comes to women, and nowhere more so than in this most clerical of cities.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSniMEorMLM2GO5cn_6ulqENcKjvSE8zjGQlW18c0mQDlbVd0laEctu_y8ZYjy3wf67bCUNF0_M8ZNFnJ3i3N1ZeMXyBUiS1Zm-gwQPOck36hxC_HHmlYtPl1v6_JudlGVO3Z5OZh52Bva/s1600/DSC02029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSniMEorMLM2GO5cn_6ulqENcKjvSE8zjGQlW18c0mQDlbVd0laEctu_y8ZYjy3wf67bCUNF0_M8ZNFnJ3i3N1ZeMXyBUiS1Zm-gwQPOck36hxC_HHmlYtPl1v6_JudlGVO3Z5OZh52Bva/s1600/DSC02029.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is the second big issue. No - this is THE BIG
ISSUE. Where are the women in this Synod? It is beyond belief that, in a Synod
on the family, the voices of women have been almost entirely excluded, except insofar as they speak as half of a couple. As one woman journalist
observed to me, ‘Women are speaking only as couples. But couples
don’t speak. Only men and women can speak.' Where are the
mothers and daughters, the sisters and aunts, the members of religious orders
who mother the poor and care for those who have nobody else to care for them? Where are those who would cry to the heavens about the fact that 800 of the world's poorest women die every day through causes relating to childbirth, yet they never merit a mention in this church of the poor? In his latest '<a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letter-rome-2?utm_source=Main+Reader+List&utm_campaign=fa1b32c5f1-July+18_The_Week_at_Commonweal&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-fa1b32c5f1-91239265" target="_blank">Letter from Rome</a>', Robert Mickens points out that 'In a meeting room filled with more than two hundred people, mostly
clerics (bishops, priests and seminarian-aides), only twenty-five are
women. It’s not exactly an edifying image of inclusiveness.' As the
absence of women begins to gnaw away at me, I find myself in a state of jaw-dropping incredulity. How is it possible for a Synod of more than two hundred
people to spend nearly two weeks discussing the family, without a single
representative of women being allowed to speak as a woman, on behalf of herself and not on behalf of 'the couple' or 'the family'? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Today, we eagerly await publication of the final document from this Synod, though rumours are that it might not be released until Monday or Tuesday. That is when the important business will really begin, and it is in the interests of every woman, child and man in the Church that we women insist upon having a voice and being heard in the process of deliberation that will occupy the life of the Church between now and the next Synod in October 2015, when the discussions and dialogues opened up this
week are finalised and translated into doctrine and practice. That is not long,
particularly when one is dealing with two thousand years of history. But do not
believe anybody who tells you that those two thousand years have been an
unchanging history of ‘the family’ - the <i>semper idemists, </i>as one person called them this week. There is no such thing as The Family. There
are only human beings, vulnerable and muddled, woven together of starlight and
dust, of memories and dreams, of flesh and fantasy, all of us hungry for only
one thing that can truly sustain us and feed us and express what it means to be
human – love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Somebody only half-jokingly said to me that the
Church in Rome is ‘the vortex of dysfunctionality’. I found myself smiling
about that phrase through the rest of the day, and I began to think that surely,
that could be a good way of describing ‘the family’? This is where each and
every one of us learns to love and be loved – for better for worse, for richer
or poorer. This is where all our dysfunctionalities are forced out into the
open and we go through the painful, unending process of learning who we are and hopefully how to become better at that task of being. To stay committed to love, come what
may, in such a context, is perhaps the most challenging task any of us faces,
and the fragility of our successes always stands under threat by the woundings
of our failures. That's what families are about, but what matters is not
‘the family’ but the love that makes and breaks each person within that communal group that is sometimes about love and cherishing, but that is sometimes
also about hatred and violence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cardinal Dolan gave us the benefit of his own private
fantasy world when he wrote a piece on ‘<a href="mailto:http://archny.org/news/marriage-family">The Noble Nature of
Marriage and Family’</a>, floating away on the ethereal mists of his own
eloquence:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ours is the task of recovering the truth, beauty, and
goodness of marriage and family. In a world that wonders if anyone can really
say “forever;” if fidelity is possible; if children are a gift and never a
burden; we say, yes! We echo what God the Father, His Son, and His Spirit alive
in the Church have revealed: that the bond between a man and woman in marriage,
faithful and forever, leads to a healthy, sound civilization, with happiness
here and in eternity. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We dare to be poets and romantics, reclaiming
the foundation of the “civilization of love” and “culture of life” that can
transform the world, resisting the temptation to conform to a world that
wonders if any love—God’s love, or the love of a man and woman in marriage—can
ever be forever. In a world that often answers “no,” we thunder a yes!<br />
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That’s my sentiment as I prepare to return home to you, my people, with a
renewed admiration for our wonderful married couples and families! I love
you! I thank you! I need you!</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Walking home late on Thursday night from St. Peter’s to Trastevere
along the river, I noticed flowers and a child’s mementoes attached to the
railings of Ponte Mazzini. I stopped to read the notices which explained what
had happened. I read the short, unbearable story of Claudio Franceschelli, ‘the
angel of Ponte Mazzini’.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsOj7lkKtGfqdG6mdceq4d07vhwJwlhJRb-Y1nTcjY6pRHe6-cneHGWCtSxMMQt3T9duK00Uh5QtHXt94G4QieNkecQ8S8JzVsqEPzXl15lZCLqxJimeaBGeEDsZFtegwA_VKT6l0iJY_/s1600/DSC02065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsOj7lkKtGfqdG6mdceq4d07vhwJwlhJRb-Y1nTcjY6pRHe6-cneHGWCtSxMMQt3T9duK00Uh5QtHXt94G4QieNkecQ8S8JzVsqEPzXl15lZCLqxJimeaBGeEDsZFtegwA_VKT6l0iJY_/s1600/DSC02065.JPG" height="200" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL4zguqGzWkNa5I80PhPh9ADz7L5HNEek1AuZ1IgSqteTMA6Sc6Qv5oSu-x375FeIQJLUdrG1h79subVc9365truiGKj9D37yFpGo7zN8VuS14jR3QfxsJrrfCBTryhCoVJBuKLveL8hOE/s1600/DSC02069.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL4zguqGzWkNa5I80PhPh9ADz7L5HNEek1AuZ1IgSqteTMA6Sc6Qv5oSu-x375FeIQJLUdrG1h79subVc9365truiGKj9D37yFpGo7zN8VuS14jR3QfxsJrrfCBTryhCoVJBuKLveL8hOE/s1600/DSC02069.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a>Sixteen months old, Claudio, the son of Claudia and
Patrizio, was staying with his grandmother in Trastevere. It was early morning –
a freezing, snowy February morning. Claudio
was snuggled in bed asleep between his nona, Rita, and his pregnant aunt, Manuela, when
his demented father arrived at the apartment. The father took the child out
into the icy streets and carried him to the bridge, fighting off everybody who
tried to stop him, breaking the desperate grandmother's finger in the process. He threw the dazed child into the river. The English
translation of the note on the railings explains that ‘We want to believe that
Claudio never touched the chilled water of Trevere, but flied directly in the
sky, becoming Ponte Mazzini’s Angel’.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipciR4SDy6mQ4hlKkXJ2AXgcbUCequMAm9Vo9Ye5LQ3ENBzi4IPGPk0EqlA8brhIBzwdHZ1cpECiKnEhZLncp5zHk1u-rXYgI3sHO459bNM_gopgVQQRj41llH-P6aqSrBmsgE2wc9Auqh/s1600/DSC02087.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipciR4SDy6mQ4hlKkXJ2AXgcbUCequMAm9Vo9Ye5LQ3ENBzi4IPGPk0EqlA8brhIBzwdHZ1cpECiKnEhZLncp5zHk1u-rXYgI3sHO459bNM_gopgVQQRj41llH-P6aqSrBmsgE2wc9Auqh/s1600/DSC02087.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maybe cardinals who want to write poetically about the family
should go and do so on Ponte Mazzini, and pray for inspiration from The Angel
of Ponte Mazzini.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Children have a right to be loved. Humans have a right to be
loved. From that right flows every other right, and if that right is denied, no
other right will ever make us truly human.</span></span></div>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-23893915566076301852014-10-15T23:27:00.000+01:002014-10-15T23:27:25.174+01:00Synod on the Family - Reflections from Rome - Wednesday, 15th October (evening)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are two cities that embody for me the paradoxes and
conflicts of the Christian faith – Jerusalem and Rome. In both cities,
archaeology transforms time into space, and history into the here and now. In
Jerusalem, one encounters the religious history of the Christian faith – a
bloody and unresolved history of inter-religious conflict in which abstract
ideas batter vulnerable human lives into submission. The idea of a God or a holy
place or a sacred text or a chosen people becomes the enemy of the people, the
enemy of the ordinary people that we are – Muslims, Christians and Jews – most
of us struggling to eke out a meaningful existence in the face of the violent
dogmas that our religious leaders proclaim in our name and men of violence go
into battle to defend.</div>
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Rome is the same. If Jerusalem is the sacred site of the
bloody conflicts generated by the Abrahamic religions (what about Sarah and
Hagar?), Rome is the sacred site of the bloody conflicts generated by Europe’s
cults and creeds – Greek, Roman and Christian. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plus ca change, toujours la meme chose</i>. But those are musings for
another time.</div>
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This morning, I wrote about my new grandson, and the love
that he needs in order to survive. The birth of a grandchild is the birth of a
new chapter in the story of a family. Siblings become aunts and uncles, the son
becomes the father, the daughter-in-law becomes the awesome bearer of new life.
I hold this child in my arms and I know that my love will never be able to
uproot itself from him. Whatever happens, until I die this child’s story is
inextricably part of mine, and my joy and my hopes and my sorrows and my failings
will all in different ways be bound up in his becoming, his story, his life.</div>
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But now it is evening after my first day of observing what
happens in Rome during a Synod. See the pictures for a flavour of what caught
my attention – cardinals at ease, a barefoot bride, couples clasping hands, and
an old woman begging in front of St. Peter’s with a family pushing their
disabled child’s wheelchair in the background. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2acPyQ5UN5l6qE0NDZLV8M39ilqgB9rPBK1ivcvt77ExLEsRn5Yk0C1XGeujyVUZ2_9KBRRNNbpbFpGiZLljDLgqXvbeG9cf8vr4BN83f8xDYJ3vIScOHzLacFwh4ryMaxZKsI2YEQpFN/s1600/2014-10-15+11.40.19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2acPyQ5UN5l6qE0NDZLV8M39ilqgB9rPBK1ivcvt77ExLEsRn5Yk0C1XGeujyVUZ2_9KBRRNNbpbFpGiZLljDLgqXvbeG9cf8vr4BN83f8xDYJ3vIScOHzLacFwh4ryMaxZKsI2YEQpFN/s1600/2014-10-15+11.40.19.jpg" height="320" width="185" /></a>This morning I suggested that the child must be our
primordial concern when we talk about ‘the family’, but tonight I want to
suggest that the elderly also occupy that space of irreducible responsibility.
What is the story that old beggar woman might tell? Where is her family? What
led her to beg in front of St. Peter’s? How many children did she bear? Where
are they? Do they care? In this Synod in which women are permitted to speak
only as half of a ‘couple’ (more about that later in the week), is there
anybody who has eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to care with regard to
these old people begging in the streets of Rome? More than anybody else, it is
the very young and the very old who are the victims of the kind of
individualism and narcissism that the document on the Synod describes so
insightfully. That is why abortion and euthanasia are the issues of our time,
but the law is too blunt an instrument to heal the human heart of its deadly
alienation. Only a new understanding of love can help us.</div>
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My favourite name for the Holy Spirit is ‘Serendipity’. It
is surely Serendipity that the readings during the Synod have been the great
reflections on the nature of love and law in Paul’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Letter to the Galatians</i>. </div>
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If my newborn grandson evokes in me a love of future
possibilities, my ageing mother evokes a very different kind of love. As my
grandson grows, we will no doubt accumulate the heavy baggage of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with joy comes the burden of failure
and guilt, along with the elation of togetherness and understanding comes the
grief of conflict and separation. As the elderly near the end of their lives,
we must deal with that accumulated baggage – and it can be a complex and heavy
burden. But there is a surprising grace that comes when we need it most and
expect it least, when the dry spaces of resentment and disillusionment become oases
we can drink from. When I look at the vulnerability of my mother, I feel a
surprising resonance with the love I feel for my baby grandson. It is the love
that responds to the gaze of a vulnerable human being whose first and last
request is to be loved, to be given the human dignity that love confers, to be
sustained and nourished in love, which transforms the necessary sustenance and
nourishment of the body into care of the soul.</div>
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Some cardinals are grumbling vociferously about the document
produced on Monday. They think we need to be reminded about the rules. They
think we need to be firmly governed in order to live well, in order to be the
right kind of family. Dear Cardinals Burke, Pell and all the rest. May I suggest
that you put aside your rulebooks and anxieties and take a stroll through the
streets of Rome? Talk to that old woman begging amidst Bernini’s columns. Ask
her about her life. Stop and talk to the mother pushing her crying baby through
the streets. Ask her what it’s like. Only then will you begin to acquire the
authority to speak. Only then will we care what you have to say. Only then will
you have anything to say that’s worth listening to.</div>
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To be continued.</div>
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I'm in Rome this week catching up on news and views on the Synod on the Family (October 5th to 19th), so will try to post a few blogs for those who are interested.<br />
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I have skim read the interim document, <i>'<a href="http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2014/10/13/0751/03037.html" target="_blank">relatio post disceptationem</a>'</i>, and will comment on it in more detail when I've had a chance to study it. It was published half way through the Synod on Monday to cries of jubilation and howls of indignation from around the Catholic world. Vociferous reactions ranged from cardinals and bishops to the whole diverse range of lay organisations concerned with making the Church in their image - that all too human desire which gives us the courage and also the folly of our convictions. For conservative family groups the document is a moral disaster. For many gay Catholics, it doesn't go nearly far enough. For what I suspect is a silent majority of bishops and cardinals attending the Synod, it is an opening up of the windows - first opened by Pope John XXIII to let a fresh wind blow through the church at Vatican II, and firmly closed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict against an advancing hurricane. But for a vocal and influential of what I suspect is a small minority of cardinals, all the rhetorical garrisons are being mustered to fight off this anarchic decline into relativism and cultural conformity in defiance of two thousand years of Church teaching. So what now?<br />
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The document is provisional, open to modification, and intended to serve as a platform for discussion between now and the decisive Synod on the Family in October 2015. If any substantial changes are made to church teaching and practice, they will be made then. However, the most telling document for now is not this week's interim document, but the one that will be released next Monday at the close of the Synod. The wrangling and negotiations that will play out this week will determine the content of next week's document. Comparing the two will provide something of a barometer as to where the majority stands on these issues, though we should never underestimate the power of that vocal minority, led by figures such as the swashbuckling Cardinal Raymond Burke - surely one of the most sartorially extravagant figures in his tendency to drape himself in swathes of red, which perhaps had something to do with the fact that <a href="http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350870?eng=y" target="_blank">Pope Francis has quietly demoted him</a>. But this Synod on the Family, vast in its implications and its potential, is not finally about those attending the Synod in Rome and all the hangers-on like me.<br />
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This morning, I received an email telling me about how ISIS are beheading children in Northern Iraq because they refuse to renounce their Christian faith, but they are not killing the parents. The mind recoils from such stories and incredulity quickly sets in, yet we know how that tendency to incredulity can lead to so much denial and avoidance of unbearable truths. In West Africa, the horrors of Ebola are leaving children orphaned and starving, with some young girls turning to prostitution to feed themselves and their families.<br />
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Before coming to Rome I was having a conversation with someone who works with children in foster care. The stories she told me made me weep. A three year old who took her foster mother's shoes to bed every night, in the belief that if she hid her shoes she couldn't leave the house. Children who wet themselves as it gets to the end of the school day, in terror lest they are abandoned once again. Others who have been abused and abandoned to such an extent that they must destroy every demonstration of love in order to prove to themselves that they truly are loveless, and thus a vicious spiral of negative behaviour sets in which reinforces that belief. There are many forms of torture, and the adult world betrays children in so many, many ways.<br />
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Referring to children who live with couples of the same sex, the Synod document emphasizes that 'the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority'. It is wrong to confine that only to the context of same-sex couples. That must surely be the first priority for the whole human family, and when parents are for some reason unable to give love and support to the children they bear, then that responsibility devolves to each and every one of us.<br />
<br />
My first grandchild was born in September. As I hold him in my arms, I am overwhelmed by his vulnerability and dependence. As I gaze into the unfathomable depths of those dark eyes, I see the most primordial human need - the need to be loved. If we give everything else but give not love, we give nothing.<br />
<br />
That is where any Synod on the Family should start from. And strangely, I think that muddled and conflicted document is about the Church learning to make its peace with human love. Love is messy, muddled and conflicted. But more to follow.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-16525586309945304612014-09-18T09:59:00.001+01:002014-09-18T10:09:28.361+01:00Scotland's Resurrection, England's Crucifixion?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpG1XgLuwgSdmg9az0ZR2o0NuLha4W7XLUEGbn1UvpDseZiimZIDC_ymZxdCB-sdK_0rSejBKg-lBZkGdEL7On9Jfyu-8DqTOOSILT_zNKDSKFd0T6NDxtyuxWDwgu3XyPe3gDHjZ8h_4l/s1600/Flags.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpG1XgLuwgSdmg9az0ZR2o0NuLha4W7XLUEGbn1UvpDseZiimZIDC_ymZxdCB-sdK_0rSejBKg-lBZkGdEL7On9Jfyu-8DqTOOSILT_zNKDSKFd0T6NDxtyuxWDwgu3XyPe3gDHjZ8h_4l/s1600/Flags.png" height="250" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scotland's resurrection - England's crucifixion?</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZjF59VB0h6g?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> </div>
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Eric Liddell reads Isaiah (from <i>Chariots of Fire</i>) </div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I grew up as a Presbyterian Scot in Lusaka, Zambia. My father was an ardent
Scottish nationalist, in spirit if not in politics. I grew up to the refrain
‘Elizabeth the Second of England, the First of Scotland’. It was the only bit
of English history I knew, though I knew a great deal about Mary Queen of
Scots and Robert the Bruce. I knew all about Robert Burns and was able to
recite his poetry by heart, but I knew nothing of Shakespeare. I learned
Scottish country dancing and knew which tartan I was entitled to wear
(Macmillan – I was a Bell). We three sisters and my father wore kilts on
special occasions, and our mother wore a white dress and sash. We went to the Presbyterian Church, and my dad was Chief of
the Caledonian Society.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like most Scots, my parents' Scottish identities became more pronounced the
further away they lived. Scotland is after all a vast diaspora as much as it is
a nation. Burns Night is celebrated around the world, in the most improbable places. I can remember my dad telling me - only half in jest - that if I ever
had to choose between marrying an Englishman and marrying a Zambian, I should
choose the Zambian "because they're tribal like us". Above all, I
should never marry an Englishman.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Well, dear reader, I married an Englishman thirty nine years ago, and in
1988 we came to live in England (Bristol) with our four young children. After
my father died in 1985 (on 8th May, at the age of 58, but then, he always was
fascinated by the associative power of numbers), my mother remarried and moved
back to Scotland, to a small town called Fairlie on the Firth of Clyde, where
she still lives with my American stepfather. She has been deeply hostile to the
SNP and Alex Salmond, but yesterday she admitted she was wavering. I urged her
to consider voting 'yes'. If the nationalists win by one vote, what will I do?!
My Scottish daughter-in-law belongs to a younger generation, many of whom are
enthusiastic about independence. Her baby - our first grandchild - is a week
overdue. Today could be a momentous day in many ways.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I tell people that my parents were economic migrants. They left the tenement
buildings and prefabs of postwar Paisley and Barrhead respectively, to seek a
better future in the colonies. It was 1952. My father was a civil servant in the colonial government – not
a diplomat but a radio technician working at the airport in Lusaka, and for a few
years in a small town called Mongu in Barotseland, where my sister was born by
caesarean section along with her stillborn twin (a boy), by the light of a paraffin lamp. Her
incubator was a shoe box filled with cotton wool. My parents never owned a house, and
my father’s meagre savings were lost after his death in the economic crisis of
the early 1990s. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It was customary in those colonial times for civil servants to spend three
to six months back ‘home’ every three years, so when I was six we spent six
months in Barrhead. I went to school and was mercilessly teased for my English
accent. I remember lying awake in bed at night saying ‘No’ until the vowel was
hollowed out and my accent changed. Six months later, I was once again teased
when we returned to Mongu and I had a Scottish accent, so I changed it again
and it has stayed that way ever since – an odd mix of southern African and
neutral Englishness, with a Scottish inflection here and there which becomes
more pronounced when I visit my mum or – my husband said the night we first met
– when I’m tipsy. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Not surprisingly then, I have been taken for an English person since moving
to this country. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At a dinner party recently, a group of English friends poured
scorn on me for saying that I wasn’t English. ‘Of course you’re English,’ they
said. ‘You’ve never lived in Scotland, you’re married to an Englishman and
you’ve lived in England for nearly thirty years’. But they were wrong. I
changed my religious allegiance – from Presbyterianism to Catholicism – but I
have never felt like anything other than a Scot of the diaspora. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There is a peculiar arrogance among the English towards their fellow Welsh,
Irish and Scottish compatriots, which manifests itself in many subtle and
not-so-subtle ways and which has infected the political system, making some
form of devolution a necessary assertion perhaps of national identity and
difference. But is Scottish independence a giant leap too far? I don’t know. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Over the last
few weeks, like many others, I’ve been drawn
deeply into the politics and passions of the referendum. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Notwithstanding a few ugly extremists on both sides, this debate has been
marked by a level of reason as well as passion worthy of the seriousness of the
issue. That in itself is a rare and refreshing thing in a political system
controlled by smooth-talking, media-savvy politicians far more concerned with
lining their pockets and placating their corporate masters than with listening
to the voices of the electorate and debating substantial political and economic
alternatives. If Scotland votes no, will it be business as usual, or dare we
hope that Gordon Brown’s inspiring vision of a transformed and redeemed
politics might be possible? (See Gordon Brown in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>, Friday, 12<sup>th</sup> September: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/12/scottish-independence-referendum-gordon-brown-moment-destiny">‘This
is Scotland’s Moment of Destiny’</a>.) This is more a challenge to the voters
of England, Northern Ireland and Wales than it is to the voters of Scotland,
for the narrow difference between the two sides shows that there is already a
mood for radical change in Scotland. What about the rest?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What if Scotland votes yes? Some have expressed fears that this would leave
the rest of the country in the grip of UKIP and the Tories, but that could be a
powerful argument in favour of a yes vote, for a country that has always been
more socialist than its southern neighbours. Would a yes vote be part of the
long, slow dismantling of an empire, the rising up of a colonised people to reclaim
their heritage? Maybe. But opinion polls, though notoriously unreliable,
suggest that this is not about narrow-minded nationalism or anti-Englishness.
Jesuit David Brown, in a letter to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Tablet</i> (13<sup>th</sup> September), refers to “the vibrant, articulate debate
that is currently enlivening Scottish life”. He continues:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Many months ago, Scottish hearts stopped ruling
Scottish heads in this debate. You’ll search in vain for the imagery of tartan,
white heather or Braveheart; nor is it anti-English in the slightest. It’s
become a sophisticated discussion, full of passion, yes, but for political and
economic accuracy. What matters is the economy; big questions such as the
proportion of social taxes that support massive expansion here in the
south-east of England; the scandal of waste that will be Trident renewal and of
continuing to site these weapons of mass destruction in Scottish waters; the
investment in education and health-care that could follow a yes vote; and oil
revenues, with an end to the squandering of this great resource to finance, for
example, illegal wars.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A yes vote in Scotland might be the shock the English electorate needs to
get out and vote, in order to defeat the narrow band of prosperous Middle
England Tories and the xenophobic gang of UKIP supporters who are currently
dominating British politics. Voters in Northern Ireland and Wales are not the
problem – voters in England have played a decisive role in driving their
neighbours away through a combination of political apathy and the numbing
effects of consumerism. I don’t see why voters in Scotland should vote no
simply to save England’s citizens from themselves. If every person eligible to
vote in England, Northern Ireland and Wales did so, and if we demanded
substantial political choice with all the exhilaration and passion that such
choice is bringing to the people of Scotland, we could have a transformed and
revitalised democracy in a united nation of the British people of all races,
cultures and creeds. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The stakes are high, but either way, I hope that nothing will be the same
after tomorrow. Our most precious public institutions – health care, education,
law, security – are being handed over to private marketeers. Scotland has a
different education system, a different legal system, and a better public
welfare system than England. A yes vote might be the only way to protect those
assets of the people from the avarice of England’s corporate politicians. Or
are we all ready to say yes to something different, to demand a ballot paper
that says ‘none of the above’ and offers us real political choice with regard
to education, health care, housing, social welfare, law and defence?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Against my better judgement, I voted for the Lib Dems in the last election
on the basis of two promises to the electorate: they would not introduce
university tuition fees, and they would scrap Trident. Six months later, they
had reneged on both those pledges. South of the border, we have no political
choices. Today, the Scottish people have a political choice of momentous
significance for each and every one of us. Today, we are all looking to the
people of Scotland. Either way, I hope they don’t let us down. Either way, I
hope we don’t let them down.</span><br />
<br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-53123334421158619882014-08-27T12:58:00.002+01:002014-08-27T13:00:29.397+01:00Pope Francis, Poverty and WomenHere is a piece I wrote for <i>The Guardian's </i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/aug/27/pope-francis-womens-lives-catholic-church" target="_blank">'PovertyMatters' blog</a>. I have cut and pasted the text here, but if followers of my blog would like to post comments or to contribute to the debate, may I suggest that you do so on <i>The Guardian's </i>comments page, in a way that respects the rules of reasoned engagement and courteous dialogue? Thank you.<br />
<br />
<div id="main-article-info">
<h1 itemprop="name headline ">
Pope Francis has done little to improve women’s lives</h1>
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Women do not seem to have a place in the pope’s vision of a Catholic church that cares for the world’s poor people</div>
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<img alt="MDG Pope Francis with a lamb" class="gu-image" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/26/1409068053384/fbac108f-deeb-4cdd-b251-41ffda63a0e3-460x276.jpeg" height="276" width="460" />
<figcaption>Pope Francis says he wants a church in which the shepherds smell of the sheep. Photograph: Osservatore Romano/Reuters</figcaption>
</figure>
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</div>
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/pope-francis-report-card" title="">Pope Francis</a> has repeatedly said he wants <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/16/us-pope-poor-idUSBRE92F05P20130316" title="">a poor church of the poor</a>.
At a time when millions of people are experiencing the impact of brutal
economic policies and unbridled corporate greed, he has attracted
admiration from Catholics and non-Catholics for his condemnation of the
economic system and the simplicity of his own life.<br />
<br />
He has also acknowledged the need to give women a greater say in the
life of the church, though he has done little to achieve this. Yet
poverty impacts unrelentingly and acutely on women’s lives, and nowhere
does the absence of women’s influence manifest itself so clearly as
around the church’s teachings on sexual and reproductive ethics.<br />
<br />
While papal encyclicals abound with negative references to
contraception and abortion and positive references to motherhood,
marriage and the family, one can search in vain for any discussion of
maternal mortality. Like his predecessors, Pope Francis has a tendency
towards romanticism when speaking about motherhood. This is a dangerous
fantasy when it occludes the harsh realities and struggles of women’s
reproductive lives.<br />
<br />
If the pope wants a church that prioritises the needs of the poor,
then addressing women’s reproductive wellbeing is fundamental to that
goal. Maternal mortality is often a direct consequence of poverty. Of an
estimated <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/" title="">280,000 maternal deaths a year</a>,
99% occur in the world’s poorest countries – mostly in sub-Saharan
Africa and south Asia. Good obstetric care would prevent most of these
deaths, but issues of contraception and abortion raise more contested
ethical issues.<br />
<br />
I do not defend the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html" title="">Catholic church’s position on contraception</a>.
However, it is important to separate women’s reproductive rights from
contraceptive programmes linked to population control policies.
Feminists speaking for the global south, such as Kalpana Wilson, argue
that these are <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/kalpana-wilson/challenging-neoliberal-population-control" title="">driven by exploitative economic policies and are often deeply coercive</a>. Paradoxically, when working documents for the 1994 <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/public/icpd" title="">International Conference on Population and Development</a>
in Cairo included a heavy emphasis on population control, the Catholic
church and the international women’s movement, though deeply hostile to
each other, campaigned effectively to refocus the international
development agenda away from population control to women’s education and
empowerment.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.population-europe.eu/Library/PopDigest/3537/en" title="">Recent research</a>
shows that the most effective way of reducing birth rates is through
female education, which also has a significant impact on reducing infant
mortality. An educated woman who knows that her children are likely to
survive will have fewer children than women in areas with high infant
mortality rates and poor access to education. It is also interesting <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies" title="">to watch Hans Rosling’s TED talk</a>, in which he shows that birth rates stabilise or decrease when poverty is reduced, irrespective of religious influences.<br />
<br />
None of this is to deny that access to safe, reliable and affordable
contraception is important if women are to exercise reproductive
choices. However, while a change in the church’s teaching on
contraception may be long overdue, this must not translate into an
uncritical endorsement of contraceptive programmes inflicted on the
world’s poor. Rather, the international community must focus on poverty
alleviation and the education and empowerment of women and girls, not
only because justice demands it but because it has been shown to be the
most effective way of tackling the population crisis.<br />
<br />
The abortion issue has similar implications, though most Catholics I
know regard this as a more complex ethical issue than contraception. I
know few who would agree that it is simply a question of individual
autonomy and a woman’s right to choose, though that does not mean they
support criminalising abortion. The church says abortion is always
wrong; feminists say it is always a right, but in the real world we
sometimes face complex moral dilemmas where rights and wrongs are not so
easily distinguished.<br />
<br />
The polemical nature of the debate means that statistics – which are already unreliable – are manipulated by both sides. <a href="http://www.pop.org/content/abortion-ever-%E2%80%9Cnecessary%E2%80%9D-evidence-says-%E2%80%9Cno%E2%80%9D" title="">Opponents of abortion</a>
argue that access to abortion does not reduce maternal deaths, pointing
to the fact that countries such as Chile and Ireland have very low
maternal mortality rates despite abortion being illegal. However, such
claims ignore the fact that 40,000 women die every year because they
would rather risk an unsafe abortion than carry an unwanted pregnancy to
term. While early pregnancy might rarely be a direct cause of maternal
death, unsafe abortion most certainly is. These issues must be
acknowledged in any debate about the Catholic church and women’s
reproductive and sexual rights, particularly with regards to poverty and
motherhood.<br />
<br />
At a grassroots level, Catholic agencies and religious orders are
major providers of education and healthcare to the world’s poor. This
includes providing antenatal and obstetric care, dealing with the
consequences of botched abortions, and caring for people living with HIV
and Aids. However, some of this work goes on under the radar. Catholic
healthcare providers are often afraid to publicise some aspects of their
work – such as post-abortion care or supplying condoms to those at risk
of HIV and Aids – in case their funding is cut off or they are censured
by their bishops.<br />
<br />
If he is serious about wanting a poor church of the poor, the pope
has to create a safe space in which these issues can be discussed. He
has said that he prefers “a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty
because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is
unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security”. He
has emphasised the maternal character of the church, and he says he
wants a church in which the shepherds smell of the sheep. How about a
maternal church in which the shepherds smell of bruised, hurting and
dirty women dying in childbirth?Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-27880663764582213402014-07-14T17:10:00.002+01:002014-07-21T03:05:45.767+01:00VIOLENCE AND VENGEANCE - HISTORY AND HYPOCRISY: "an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCe2rYHgR1pgoCDCb8A-VIWVTXrvl-CCr1-Z7LC4qY94VZYHMTYa2k2lB2rRG9qH0PymQWfMDos_2GSm2RlB7_TP_TtWWIGE10ASYxOizU_Bnm9z8lz9XkVeDH8DtfS8wKWjME6dMrqJU/s1600/76199556_gaza3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCe2rYHgR1pgoCDCb8A-VIWVTXrvl-CCr1-Z7LC4qY94VZYHMTYa2k2lB2rRG9qH0PymQWfMDos_2GSm2RlB7_TP_TtWWIGE10ASYxOizU_Bnm9z8lz9XkVeDH8DtfS8wKWjME6dMrqJU/s1600/76199556_gaza3.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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I have never publicly commented on the Palestinian Israeli
catastrophe, though many people I know have strong opinions and do not
hesitate to take sides, usually for the Palestinians, but sometimes for the
State of Israel. One Facebook 'friend' has posted a sloganeering poster for the
Israeli armed forces which has left me feeling sick at heart. When I listen to
Israelis who passionately defend Israel and condemn the Palestinians and
surrounding Arab nations, they sound disturbingly like the many South Africans
I used to know who defended apartheid. The language and
justifications are almost identical.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nevertheless, we Europeans have forfeited our right to play
judge and jury in any situation involving the Jewish people, even as we might
feel profound revulsion at the disproportionate violence of Israel towards the
Palestinians in retaliation for attacks by Hamas. Where was our moral outrage
in the Holocaust, when nation after nation turned Jewish refugees away and sent
them back to die? We should remember that the Second World War was not fought
because Hitler had set out to eliminate the Jewish people, and Britain
carpet-bombed Dresden but it never bombed the railway line to Auschwitz. Brave
and necessary though that war was, it was not a war to protect the Jews.
Britain’s all too recent history of anti-Semitism should make us wary of
speaking out as if we are in no way implicated, as if that recent history has nothing to do with us. On the other side, supporting
the Palestinians does nothing to take away the fact that the vast majority of British
secular liberals are also deeply Islamophobic – even though most of them don’t
know any Muslims.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our moral judgements are
highly selective, and our outrage against injustice is more vociferously
targeted at others than at ourselves. It is easy to start a heated debate on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict because nearly everybody feels qualified to take a
stance. Educated liberals are often more careful about nuance, context and
complexity when discussing Britain’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to
mention our government’s ongoing support for and sometimes participation in
America’s illegal execution by drone warfare of vast numbers of people believed
to be potential terrorists – and any innocent bystanders who happen to get in
the way. Our moral high ground is really nothing but an empty soapbox. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is not to deny that Israel is today waging war against the displaced
people of Gaza because of the botched kidnapping and murder of three teenagers by two individuals apparently acting alone.
Appalling though this was, it was murder, not terrorism nor an act of war. <a href="http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/">Uri Avnery’s story</a> about the
revenge killing of a Palestinian youth who was burned to death by a gang of
Israelis makes awful reading. From a different perspective, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.601993">David
Grossman writes movingly</a> of the despair that now drives this senseless war.<o:p></o:p></div>
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An eye for an eye? How many lives does it take to avenge a murder?
How many deaths are necessary to cure the incurable wounds of bereavement, to fill the unfillable gap left by the loved ones who were
killed? Here in New York I’m tempted to do a comparison. I haven’t yet been to
the World Trade Centre memorial, though I intend to brave the reputedly daunting
security procedures to make that sombre pilgrimage. Yet in retaliation for the
murder of 3,000 Americans, America and its British allies unleashed such deadly violence that a whole region has been plunged into anarchy and war. It is impossible to calculate how many people have lost their
lives so far in this ongoing spiral of vengeance. The British and Americans did
not count how many they were killing in Iraq so we will never know for
sure, and still the violence goes on. Compare that with the attempt to gather and identify every fragment of
bone from the ruins of the Twin Towers. Israel has much to learn
from its powerful American allies if it wants to justify killing hundreds or
thousands of Palestinians for every Israeli death. A glance at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror">Wikipedia page for the ‘War
on Terror’</a> includes a list that even George Orwell could not have invented.
Under the chapter heading ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, one finds the
following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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4.2.1 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Afghanistan<o:p></o:p></div>
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4.2.2 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Philippines<o:p></o:p></div>
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4.2.3 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Horn of Africa<o:p></o:p></div>
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4.2.4 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Trans Sahara<o:p></o:p></div>
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You really couldn’t make this up – the second part of
‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ in the Philippines was called ‘Operation Smiles’. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I find myself asking how different recent history might have
been if the Americans had treated those murderers of 9/11 as just that –
technologically-competent thugs who should have been put on trial the way any
other common criminal would have been put on trial, including those
all-American citizens who regularly go on shooting sprees. Instead, the suicide
pilots of 9/11 and their Al-Qaeda affiliates have been darkly glamorised, becoming icons and role models for
thousands of disaffected Muslim youth as gradually the savagery of that
September day has spread through the poisoned channels of American
and British militarism pouring fuel on the already simmering passions of Middle
Eastern politics. If the deaths of 3,000 Americans had to be avenged by so much
senseless slaughter, how can we condemn the Israelis for doing the same? Of
course America is Israel’s friend. They speak the same political language, and
Britain, nostalgic for imperial power, can only lurk simpering and fawning and cheering on the bullies in
the shadows of violence.<br />
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Weep for Israel. Weep for Palestine. Weep most for
democracy’s shattered dreams and broken promises. Weep for a world blinded by vengeance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-91208481617815469272014-05-09T14:08:00.002+01:002014-05-09T14:08:43.658+01:00Tablet Blog - The Uses and Abuses of Potassium ChlorideHere is the text of <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/368/why-british-outcry-at-oklahoma-s-botched-execution-rings-tragically-hollow" target="_blank">a blog I recently wrote for <i>The Tablet</i></a>:<br />
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Why British outcry at Oklahoma's botched execution rings tragically hollow</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">06 May 2014 by <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/author/49/tina-beattie" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tina Beattie</a></em></div>
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The persistent use of the death penalty in North America has brought widespread international condemnation, and never more so than with the so-called "botched execution" of Oklahoma death row inmate, Clayton Lockett. Lockett died of a heart attack some 43 minutes after the administration of a lethal injection using an experimental cocktail of drugs for the first time. Witnesses reported a prolonged struggle before the executioners drew the curtains on the death chamber.</div>
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The need to experiment with new combinations of drugs has arisen because some previously-used drugs are in short supply owing to a 2011 embargo by the European Union. This prevented European manufacturers from exporting drugs to the United States that might be used in lethal injections. In the past, this method of execution has used three drugs, including potassium chloride which stops the heart.</div>
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In 2010, <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 8px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian</em> revealed that some British companies had been secretly exporting potassium chloride to America for use in executions. The outcry that followed prompted Britain to ban the export of drugs that might be used in lethal injections.</div>
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What has attracted little media attention is the fact that potassium chloride is used in this country to inject the foetal heart in cases of late abortion. The website of the <a href="http://www.rcog.org.uk/womens-health/clinical-guidance/further-issues-relating-late-abortion-fetal-viability-and-registrati" target="_blank">Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists</a> offers this advice:</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 8px; vertical-align: baseline;">For all terminations at gestational age of more than 21 weeks and 6 days, the method chosen should ensure that the foetus is born dead. This should be undertaken by an appropriately trained practitioner. Intracardiac potassium chloride is the recommended method and the dose chosen should ensure that foetal asystole has been achieved … Consideration can be given to abolishing foetal movements by the instillation of anaesthetic and/or muscle relaxant agents immediately prior to potassium chloride administration.</em></div>
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In Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), the time limit of 24 weeks for legal abortion is later than for most countries in western Europe, many of which allow abortion on demand but only during the first trimester. A legal loophole also means that abortions can be performed in Britain until birth in certain circumstances. Of the 190,972 abortions recorded in England and Wales in 2012, 91 per cent were performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, but there were 160 abortions after the twenty-fourth week, of which 28 took place after the thirty-second week of pregnancy.</div>
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Few issues are as resistant to informed and reasoned debate as abortion, and any attempt to open up such a debate risks being hijacked by bitter polemicists on both sides. Yet wherever one stands on the legality and morality of abortion these are vital ethical issues. When there is such clear contradiction and denial as there is with regard to the uses and abuses of drugs like potassium chloride, it is in the public interest that such debate should be had, and that voices of reason should seek to be heard over the din of angry rhetoric. The question that will not go away is why the British public would be outraged at the use of a drug for the purposes of capital punishment, when one of our most prestigious medical organisations recommends its use for the purposes of killing a potentially viable baby.</div>
Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-63507862079964562802013-11-19T16:12:00.000+00:002013-11-26T10:54:05.580+00:00Questionnaire for Synod on the Family (updated 25th November)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZ1MmxOpmNOim41Ola5gpxCEXunlC4cQpjK0fS_jr_ni7O1Vl-1FNBPmUwjulWTBE61KHesm9-Fjs9krfeU4hm-iPPrjjbj7netsGbdFuxbCtpsDahfg2AIDBpXzF5TUdz6lljmrDQWoj/s1600/800px-Master_of_Holy_Kinship,_the_Elder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZ1MmxOpmNOim41Ola5gpxCEXunlC4cQpjK0fS_jr_ni7O1Vl-1FNBPmUwjulWTBE61KHesm9-Fjs9krfeU4hm-iPPrjjbj7netsGbdFuxbCtpsDahfg2AIDBpXzF5TUdz6lljmrDQWoj/s400/800px-Master_of_Holy_Kinship,_the_Elder.jpg" height="185" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.234375px; text-align: start;">Triptych Holy Kinship, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, c. 1410-1440</span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">[There is gathering momentum as more and more Catholics realize the importance of this opportunity. I shall try to update this blog regularly with new links and information. Please scroll down to the bottom of this page for latest updates, and please let me know if you have any information or links which you think I should post here.]</span></i><br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There are a number of simplified questionnaires circulating, but as far as I know only Arundel and Brighton Diocese is collating responses in a simplified format. If you want your responses to be included in the evaluation, you should use either the proforma Word document on the CBCEW website or the Surveymonkey version (see links below), since I understand there is no guarantee alternative versions will be evaluated.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has created <a href="http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/Featured/Synod-of-Bishops-on-the-Family-2014/Questionnaire" target="_blank">an excellent website </a>for those wanting to responding to the Questionnaire on the Family which has been produced in preparation for the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2014. As well as the <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FamilySynod2014" target="_blank">online questionnaire</a>, there is a proforma version on the website which you can download in Word and submit as an e-mail attachment to <a href="mailto:elizabeth.davies@cbcew.org.uk">elizabeth.davies@cbcew.org.uk</a>. The deadline for submission is 30th November 2013.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The questionnaire is poorly worded and excessively complicated, with (I suspect) some additional loss of clarity as a result of a poor translation from the Italian. Nevertheless, our bishops set an example to others by their willingness to consult the laity and to promote the questionnaire as soon as they received it. I think it is vital that as many Catholics as possible take this opportunity to respond, even if they only answer some of the questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Newman University in Birmingham has produced a very good simplified version, which I have put <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jrzppEQR4Izn9WJ74ffT0dgy91wLGvHIsCpYujN_zk8/edit" target="_blank">online here</a>. I have also spent some time completing the full questionnaire, and I thought it might be helpful to share my responses. My completed proforma is available at <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hrx4f9bDv65pS8pBjWY6jiEYHzqEE46MVTqDqy2D3IM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this link</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those who have not read recent issues of <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/" target="_blank"><i>The Tablet</i></a> might find Linda Woodhead's recent article based on extensive research helpful: <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/826/endangered-species" target="_blank">'Endangered Species'</a>, <i>The Tablet</i>, 14 November 2013.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm happy for this blog to be used to discuss the questionnaire and suggest different responses and issues. As always, only comments which respect basic standards of courtesy and intelligent debate will be published. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9JK9g94s8Gla-42M0uJG3_tMmpC_C2LO37aMGt4DXen1YbBDsnilZ4qzh6YgzYYFxJkIroHUtcfcYE3_1E6e7iocCyZCI8a-ozJI25yOgsZN_zLs9ltmhA7s5Ua5sPpeGdF-dRYtw8JL/s1600/1-800px-Master_of_Holy_Kinship,_the_Elder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9JK9g94s8Gla-42M0uJG3_tMmpC_C2LO37aMGt4DXen1YbBDsnilZ4qzh6YgzYYFxJkIroHUtcfcYE3_1E6e7iocCyZCI8a-ozJI25yOgsZN_zLs9ltmhA7s5Ua5sPpeGdF-dRYtw8JL/s400/1-800px-Master_of_Holy_Kinship,_the_Elder.jpg" height="360" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Update - 25 November:</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As well as completing the online survey or sending to your diocesan representative, people can also send a copy direct by email/post to the Synod Office at the Vatican (Via della Conciliazione, 34 - 00120 Citta del Vaticano - <a href="mailto:synodus@synod.va">synodus@synod.va</a>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Tim Finigan, Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark, has posted his completed questionnaire on his blog, <a href="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/response-to-synod-questionnaire.html" target="_blank">The Hermeneutic of Continuity</a>. This offers a different perspective from my own, but might also be useful for those struggling to formulate their responses.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Update - 22 November:</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is another simplified version of the questionnaire produced by Arundel and Brighton Diocese at <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AandBDioceseFamilySynod2014" target="_blank">this link</a>. It might be worth checking what arrangements your diocese is making to evaluate and compile responses. In Clifton Diocese, the proforma version of the questionnaire should be completed and submitted as an attachment to <a href="mailto:alessia.dini@cliftondiocese.com">alessia.dini@cliftondiocese.com</a>, or printed off and posted to Mrs Alessia Dini, St Ambrose, North Road, Leigh Woods, Bristol BS8 3PW.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is a Catholic Scholars' Statement on Marriage and the Family, related to the questionnaire, written by Professor Joseph Selling of Leuven University. This is available for signature on <a href="http://www.johnwijngaards.org/statement/" target="_blank">John Wijngaard's website</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The European Society of Catholic Theology has published <a href="http://www.kuleuven.be/eurotheo/newsletter/" target="_blank">a newsletter on the questionnaire</a>, urging theologians to offer to support their bishops and to promote the questionnaire. They are also inviting short comments from theologians which they will compile and submit to the Secretariat of the Bishops' Synod.</span><br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-9300580942355538902013-10-20T19:20:00.003+01:002013-10-20T19:33:32.698+01:00Consuming feminism - Femen, Gucci and the commodified body<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7236152873981220889" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>Driving through London's Hammersmith this morning, I was confronted by a vast advertisement for Gucci on the side of an office block. It showed the eyes of a woman
in a burqa gazing down on the Sunday morning traffic. When I looked more closely, I saw that it was an advertisement for the 2013 'Trust Women' Conference in London. The message seemed to be that 'Trust Women' (or maybe Gucci) aims to liberate women from the
oppression of the burqa - metaphorical or real - by inviting an
inspirational range of high-powered speakers to celebrate women's achievements and challenge the causes of their oppression. Using more radical methods, Femen seems to share a similar agenda.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZ7FxI-_Yyq40i_Qn3n3USG20vL9vKpcUe_GDwZRrseRcILeBHhTbftrEZ-0XclGlcUmVJ8cakJ9jJkGmP1UWm2-aF74NkR4iiqeYXwxfbucaHZ2PH0Mg9MoPxpB-VCIOoQJ1aCny2DdJ/s1600/Femen-protest-008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZ7FxI-_Yyq40i_Qn3n3USG20vL9vKpcUe_GDwZRrseRcILeBHhTbftrEZ-0XclGlcUmVJ8cakJ9jJkGmP1UWm2-aF74NkR4iiqeYXwxfbucaHZ2PH0Mg9MoPxpB-VCIOoQJ1aCny2DdJ/s1600/Femen-protest-008.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a>This morning's <i>Observer </i>newspaper carries extensive coverage of the activities of Femen, the sensational(ist) feminist movement which (maybe) was started by Ukrainian students in 2008, and has since moved its headquarters to Paris to escape persecution. One of the founding members, Alexandra Shevchenko, is in Britain to promote a new documentary about the group, <i>Ukraine is not a Brothel. </i>She appears on the front page of the newspaper, shown naked from the shoulders up, pouting seductively with a garland of flowers in her hair and slogans painted on her body. The full story is, quite appropriately, on p. 3 of the newspaper, where another beautiful, semi-naked blonde 'feminist' bares her teeth as policemen in leather gloves drag her away. The headline is '<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/femen-activists-uk-branch-feminism" target="_blank">Feminist, fearless ... and topless: activists gear up to bring "sextremism" to the UK</a>'. Not much critical commentary from <i>The Observer </i>then.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHi8B47kRBDOvmLP1xV8UvnZqAl6LNS-sRqWpzYh0lB2ggc0igG4WJWGZZDCQ5k2xCvHj66XZZSuPZPiwq0XA07YdEb6XJYelCf72bdiPkp894If0DhoDfhOzcQu9Zf-ySgJbiD7UaZ3D/s1600/gucci1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHi8B47kRBDOvmLP1xV8UvnZqAl6LNS-sRqWpzYh0lB2ggc0igG4WJWGZZDCQ5k2xCvHj66XZZSuPZPiwq0XA07YdEb6XJYelCf72bdiPkp894If0DhoDfhOzcQu9Zf-ySgJbiD7UaZ3D/s1600/gucci1.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a>These juxtaposed images from the newspaper and the advertising hoarding set me thinking, and I decided to do a little googling when I got home. I was struck by how Femen's publicity stunts and Gucci's advertisements result in similar representations of the female body - scantily clad and beautiful, defined by sexuality, and with disturbing connotations of sado-masochism. In the case of Gucci's classy advertising campaigns, this is hinted at in the most sensual and aesthetic way, so that it seems to belong in a different world than the kind of violence meted out by police to Femen women. That, of course, is one of the points Femen's activists are making - that the female body is commodified and exploited by patriarchy everywhere. But when does a political message become so identified with the oppressive stereotypes it seeks to challenge, that in the end it simply serves to reinforce those stereotypes? Shift the focus slightly, and a similar question could be posed to 'Trust Women'.<br />
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<a href="http://www.trustwomenconf.com/" target="_blank">'Trust Women'</a> advertises itself under the patronage of Thomson Reuters Foundation and the <i>International New York Times. </i>Its agenda includes tackling issues such as slavery and human trafficking, violence against women, and women's access to healthcare. The advisory Board is made up of international public figures of impeccable credentials, and I am not casting doubt on their integrity nor on the potential impact of this kind of enterprise. Neither am I denying that corporate sponsorship is an effective way of raising funds for worthy projects. However, there surely has to be some sense of coherence between an organisation's corporate sponsors and its ethos and aims?<br />
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'Trust Women' has two other sponsors - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a global American law firm called White and Case - but Gucci is prominently displayed as the headline sponsor in all the advertising. The 'Trust Women' website invites sponsors for its annual conference, saying that it is 'the perfect platform for companies wishing to reach a highly-influential audience of leaders from the world of philanthropy, civil society, government and law firms', and it promises 'worldwide exposure' to sponsors who will be able to 'align with the prestigious brands of the International New York Times and Thomson Reuters Foundation' to 'reach a truly global audience through promotional activities'. Click on the Gucci link and you will arrive at the Gucci website offering 'laid-back luxury', 'high gloss glamour' and 'understated sophistication'.<br />
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Gucci is a corporation that exists for the sole purpose of selling luxury goods to very rich people. Reuters is an international news organisation that mediates much of the news we read in our daily papers, and the <i>New York Times </i>is an influential arbiter of American public opinion in its more informed varieties. When this kind of corporate sponsorship becomes entangled with the promise of global media coverage through high-profile news agencies on the one hand, and the promotion of developmental projects on the other, warning bells should sound. If you want to know what Gucci is about, don't look at hoardings
advertising worthy causes with Gucci's name beneath an image of a woman
in a burqa. Look instead at the commodified and eroticised women in the
Gucci advertisements. That's how Gucci brands itself by branding women.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhREEtWBRXdO6ra9yIE8X8s_F8Diz2_Gze3Awc_jrSH2FgB8eLVR2iUd5KHiFratlmbTX14OWvnwtJ6E4-p43SZDJUtjg5qvYaIiej_wFjsqhoeXUYuyEc45xQi72CZVLuD3gwAtYKuOWOB/s1600/gucci_ss091.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhREEtWBRXdO6ra9yIE8X8s_F8Diz2_Gze3Awc_jrSH2FgB8eLVR2iUd5KHiFratlmbTX14OWvnwtJ6E4-p43SZDJUtjg5qvYaIiej_wFjsqhoeXUYuyEc45xQi72CZVLuD3gwAtYKuOWOB/s1600/gucci_ss091.jpg" height="136" width="200" /></a>Advertising intrudes upon our lives in countless ways to trivialise our values and distort our perceptions. It shapes public awareness, values and aspirations through the manipulation of images and the commodification of desire. And corporations that spend vast resources on advertising, product placement and 'branding' are not going to offer sponsorship to any organisation that challenges what they stand for. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOMSwOTAmhZwmYwZLq-Ho-f2bI8AihEZyyDnot4c5s3F1qdLw7WVka-TQhdeWnwq3ddFv0Bs8n63J2TMrBgGyoPGGQXGRFrABSsejOScWMOGWGiLDHTU7LQzmtVbZts2PTS9iZ_IznWxg/s1600/chris-evans-gucci-guilty-ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOMSwOTAmhZwmYwZLq-Ho-f2bI8AihEZyyDnot4c5s3F1qdLw7WVka-TQhdeWnwq3ddFv0Bs8n63J2TMrBgGyoPGGQXGRFrABSsejOScWMOGWGiLDHTU7LQzmtVbZts2PTS9iZ_IznWxg/s1600/chris-evans-gucci-guilty-ad.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>Human trafficking, slavery, the exploitation and abuse of women, lack of access to reproductive healthcare, high rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world's poorest countries, these are scandalous injustices that must be tackled by the international community. But it is no less scandalous that there is a growing global elite amassing obscene amounts of wealth to spend on luxury goods, from yachts and penthouses to Gucci handbags, as the gap between the world's richest and the world's poorest grows ever wider. Surely, 'Trust Women' can find a more credible corporate sponsor.<br />
<br />
One might argue that 'money, tainted as it is' (Luke 16), should be used to do good. I would need some persuasion to believe that this makes Gucci an appropriate sponsor for 'Trust Women', but perhaps there is an argument to be made. However, in the case of Femen, the question of funding and sponsorship is much murkier and more problematic.<br />
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I recommend Adrienne Joy's analysis - '<a href="http://femusings.org/femen-revelations/" target="_blank">Why Femen should probably just stop. Now.'</a> A new documentary film, <a href="http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/ukraine-is-not-a-brothel-review-venice-1200608905/" target="_blank"><i>Ukraine is Not a Brothel,</i> </a>reveals that Femen has for some time been promoted and controlled by a mastermind called Viktor Svyatskiy, although Femen has dissociated itself from him since the film was released. Svyatskiy's public profile and his misogynist attitudes have led some to suggest that Femen is a front in which a feminist cause masks just another venture aimed at exploiting the bodies of attractive young women whose gullibility makes them easy targets. Whether or not that is true, a quick internet search reveals worrying questions about an organisation whose methods leave little to the imagination, but whose motives and sources of funding are more difficult to see through. As <i>Persephone Magazine </i>wrote in <a href="http://persephonemagazine.com/2012/02/femen-ism/" target="_blank">a blog about Femen ('Femen-Ism')</a> in 2012:<br />
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The real problem is that nobody knows from where they get their funding. The average salary in Ukraine is $319/month, but these women, who are otherwise out of work, have enough money to live in the expensive city of Kyiv and to travel all over the world. It is also quite difficult and expensive to obtain a visa from Ukraine to other countries (especially for young women, and for the unemployed), but the women of FEMEN have visas dripping out of their passports. They are being backed by a person or an organization with money and influence, and they aren’t saying who that is. <br />
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Which makes the performance aspect take a chilling note. This is a group to protest the fact that women in Ukraine are commodified and sold to foreigners; meanwhile, the FEMEN women themselves have apparently been purchased for their looks and their willingness to bare their chests, and shipped all over the world to perform what can easily be interpreted as a sex act. Oy.</blockquote>
Femen have indulged in some courageous and/or dangerously foolhardy antics in order to attract the attention of the world's press, and they have succeeded. But they are waging a war of ignorance against the forces of ignorance, and that ways lies barbarism. The fact that religion is a key target of their crusade on behalf of women is likely to alienate them from many religious feminists who might otherwise regard them as allies in the struggle against patriarchy. For example, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/amina-sboui-quits-femen_n_3785724.html" target="_blank">Amina Sboui is a young Tunisian feminist who was briefly associated with Femen</a>, posing topless with a slogan across her chest on Facebook, and being arrested for painting the word 'Femen' on a cemetery wall. After her release from prison, Sboui distanced herself from Femen because of their Islamophobia and the lack of transparency about their funding, although she remains committed to radical feminism. <a href="http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/femen-israel-and-its-jewish-backers.html" target="_blank">There are rumours that some of Femen's funding comes from Israeli sources</a>, but it is impossible to verify any of these stories when there is so little transparency.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrx6oY5trfX3UjzWmdgrg8s6vWGl9eHENwiJVQmG1H8mRzE1SZBhFHSW9PcRiS8y9sQvxnOzb1OVYPW-3pvb92G9zkdd4bg5R1Qkl0uQa_Nrw0DFvcUV9HiLHuEA3XgsW-GGoU9hSGUDo/s1600/femen+and+aliaa+elmahdy+protest+morsi+in+stockholm+-+pIV43YFnHN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrx6oY5trfX3UjzWmdgrg8s6vWGl9eHENwiJVQmG1H8mRzE1SZBhFHSW9PcRiS8y9sQvxnOzb1OVYPW-3pvb92G9zkdd4bg5R1Qkl0uQa_Nrw0DFvcUV9HiLHuEA3XgsW-GGoU9hSGUDo/s1600/femen+and+aliaa+elmahdy+protest+morsi+in+stockholm+-+pIV43YFnHN.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a><br />
To bring informed criticism to the ways in which religious traditions oppress women is as important as any other aspect of feminist criticism. However, to launch an attack on religion <i>per se</i>, including the desecration and violation of religious places and objects which for women as well as men often have profound spiritual significance, is simply to perpetuate the worst characteristics of violence and intolerance that ethically concerned feminism should seek to eliminate. Beyond the sensationalism of the news headlines, women scholars, community workers and activists are working for change in every religion with far more success than is generally recognized, but our endeavours are not well-served when those claiming to be feminists indulge in the kind of extreme provocation that gives all feminists a bad name. Behind the scenes, religions may prove to be more hospitable and enduring contexts for the development of ethically informed and socially engaged forms of feminism than the corrupted and commodified circus of the modern marketplace, with its corporate sponsors and its sleazy publicity stunts.<br />
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Dear women, cast your lot with Gucci or Femen if you want to, but they will never set you free. They are not in it for you.<br />
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-56266169708833184772013-10-10T18:46:00.000+01:002013-10-12T10:51:10.873+01:00The Holy See, the United Nations and Women's Rights<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">'Theology that hears the poor'</span></span></span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">This is the text of an article by me published in this week's Tablet. Scroll down to see the published version, but as it's awkward to navigate I'm posting the text here as well.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>If you are interested in reading more about the issues covered in this article, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Half-The-Sky-Change-World/dp/1844086828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381569336&sr=8-1&keywords=Half+the+Sky" target="_blank">Half the Sky: How to Change the World</a> by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. You might also appreciate Margaret Atwood's poem, <a href="http://newint.org/features/2009/03/01/poem-margaret-atwood/" target="_blank">Christmas Carols</a>.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Pope Francis claims
that the Church lacks ‘a deep theology of woman’. This is only partially true. Since
Vatican II, Catholic women theologians from all continents have been reflecting
on women’s lives in the spirit of the Council, but these theologies have yet to
find official acceptance. On the other hand, ‘theology of the body’, inspired
by Pope John Paul II’s catechesis on the Book of Genesis and his 1988 apostolic
letter on women, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mulieris Dignitatem, </i>now
forms the basis for all the Church’s official teachings on women and sexuality,
as can be seen from the website of the Women’s Section of the Pontifical
Council for the Laity. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPjxIvA7V-tCeQ41-6xxKMgFPYiRryS8qbQ2rc4ZZG2NC3MxdD-wxdUM-LD_F3-2Yn8C0vi_b4HWzSq5xvr3krOR0XDvDJDDOA_sy2NonSXkM-xaIpiww9YPa2G91aasqh8k0aAakdX4x/s1600/DSCN1037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicPjxIvA7V-tCeQ41-6xxKMgFPYiRryS8qbQ2rc4ZZG2NC3MxdD-wxdUM-LD_F3-2Yn8C0vi_b4HWzSq5xvr3krOR0XDvDJDDOA_sy2NonSXkM-xaIpiww9YPa2G91aasqh8k0aAakdX4x/s1600/DSCN1037.JPG" height="320" width="239" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This year sees
the twenty fifth anniversary of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mulieris
Dignitatem</i>, and the Women’s Section is organising a symposium to mark the
event. The report on the last such symposium, held in 2008, suggests that the
participants were selected on the basis of their support for theology of the
body and their condemnation of feminism and gender theory. There has been
little attempt by the Women’s Section to engage with women theologians who
might offer a different perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">John Paul II’s teachings
on the goodness of the body and the positive significance of married sex were
in many ways a transformation in Catholic theology. He also arguably did more
than any other Pope to promote women’s rights within the parameters of Catholic
teaching. Nevertheless, his understanding of motherhood and femininity was
highly romanticised, as was his theology of marriage, based on the principle of
sexual complementarity between male and female. This has provided theological
inspiration for some heterosexual couples who, by luck, judgement or
circumstance marry the right person, find satisfaction in traditional gender
roles and are able to practise natural family planning, but theology of the
body has little to offer to those whose experience of marriage is wounded by
divorce or blighted by violence, abuse or poverty. Theology of the body is also
hostile to homosexuality. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As the United
Nations and international NGOs have become increasingly focused on issues of
gender, sexuality and women’s rights, theology of the body has been promoted by
the Vatican as a form of resistance to feminism and gender theory, and to the
perceived threat posed by contraception, abortion and homosexuality to marriage
and the family. Yet in its romantic sexual stereotypes, in its tendency to
misrepresent or silence the voices of those with whom it disagrees, and in its
glossing over of complex ethical issues to do with sexuality, reproduction and
motherhood, theology of the body is in many ways an obstacle in the way of
developing the ‘deep theology of woman’ that Pope Francis invites. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBXY4O2GTeGxjLbjjAYQsBOousTSx2tV9BCdC1l1DB3eJQ0GtuEUYOzvAfukTpO5idLPEuUO4RBvDMVK0KHAdCkGUyyszUD5yDK9eK2fBKTehVNW66sgZ9ieHyJgrjZ20k5yxHDmnSb24/s1600/DSCN1048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBXY4O2GTeGxjLbjjAYQsBOousTSx2tV9BCdC1l1DB3eJQ0GtuEUYOzvAfukTpO5idLPEuUO4RBvDMVK0KHAdCkGUyyszUD5yDK9eK2fBKTehVNW66sgZ9ieHyJgrjZ20k5yxHDmnSb24/s1600/DSCN1048.JPG" height="320" width="239" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If Catholics are
to respond to Francis’s call to become a Church of the poor, then the
challenges posed by questions of women’s rights, maternal well-being, reproductive
choice and the scandal of maternal and infant mortality have to be addressed by
those most qualified to speak with and for poor women. Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009
social justice encyclical, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Caritas in
Veritate</i>, makes no mention of maternal mortality or HIV/AIDS, despite the
fact that an estimated 800 of the world’s poorest women die every day through
causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. By contrast, a pastoral letter on
the Millennium Development Goals published in June 2013 by the Bishops of
Uganda and addressed to that country’s Government dedicates significant space
to HIV/AIDS and to questions of justice for women and combatting maternal
mortality. Perhaps this is a symptom of how a change in papal style is creating
space for different voices to be heard within the Catholic hierarchy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Next year is
Cairo +20 – the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 UN Cairo Conference on
Population and Development. This might be the first real test of Francis’s
determination to bring about a shift in emphasis, from a Church obsessed with
questions of contraception, abortion and homosexuality, to a Church whose
identity and mission comes from living the Gospel in radical solidarity with the
poor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The 1994 Cairo
Conference was regarded as a diplomatic disaster for the Vatican. The Holy See aligned
itself with some Islamic states in opposing resolutions which included terms
such as ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘sexual health’, because it perceived these
as attempts to promote abortion and population control policies and to
undermine marriage and the family. More recently, in March 2013, the Holy See
once again attracted widespread condemnation for joining with Russia, Egypt and
Iran to oppose a UN declaration against gender violence because it included
reference to sexual, reproductive and gay rights. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Such reports
fuel hostility towards the Catholic Church, some of which is based more on
prejudice than on informed debate. In an effort to avoid a repeat of the 1994
fiasco, John Paul II went to considerable lengths to ensure that the Vatican
was well-represented at the UN Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, with a
delegation led by the then Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon. Reporting in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tablet </i>afterwards, Annabel Miller
wrote that the Holy See’s delegates ‘had been chosen not only for their loyalty
to the Church, but for their intellectual – and street – credibility’, but she
goes on to say that ‘this was not enough to break through the wall of
prejudice, even hatred, among some secular feminists’. So there is a need for
bridge-building on both sides. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Vatican is
already a significant voice for the poor around issues such as migration and
refugees, economic exploitation, human trafficking and war and conflict, and
the Catholic Church is a leading provider of female education through its
religious orders. However, its credibility will continue to be undermined
unless it also engages in more constructive dialogue within the UN and other
agencies about maternal mortality, reproductive health, gender-based violence
and women’s rights. This includes ensuring that the poor are defended against
population control policies directed more at protecting the interests of the
rich than the rights of the poor. There is also evidence that female education
is more effective in reducing family sizes than campaigns focusing exclusively
on contraception, and the Vatican is right to point this out. Yet educated
women are able to limit the number of children they have because they can make
informed choices about pregnancy, and that requires access to reliable
contraception. If the Church’s opposition to abortion is to be seen as a
genuine concern for the rights of the unborn and not as simply another attempt
to deny women’s rights, and if it is to have credibility in its interventions
on the stage of international politics, then the benefits of contraception must
be recognized, as must campaigns for gender justice and sexual equality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Catholic health
care providers are often in the forefront of dealing with the realities of
these issues, beyond the ideological to-ing and fro-ing between the Holy See
and the UN. For example, <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">research currently being undertaken by Dr. Jill
Olivier and others at the University of Capetown shows that, in some African
countries, post-abortion care makes increasingly heavy demands on Catholic
clinics and hospitals. Women and girls who experience heavy bleeding after
inducing abortions at home go to Catholic facilities because they know they
will not be turned away. For many, help comes too late. Accurate statistics are
impossible to come by, but an estimated 68,000 women die every year as a result
of unregulated abortion. A woman who would rather risk death than face an
unwanted pregnancy is in despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often
these are young girls who have been victims of abuse or rape, and sometimes
they face rejection by their communities. A Catholic agency I know of in
Zimbabwe has set up a home for such girls, and tries to reconcile them with
their families when their babies are born.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Such Catholic
initiatives constitute the Church of the poor, providing an active daily
response to Pope Francis’s call for the Church to be ‘a field hospital’ which
responds to the call to ‘Heal the wounds, heal the wounds … And you have to
start from the ground up’. Yet there is a blanket of secrecy thrown over some
aspects of this work when it concerns reproductive health or providing condoms
for people at risk of HIV/AIDS, because of the need not to be seen to contravene
official Church teaching. Catholics working in such contexts are usually reluctant
to go on the record, because of the well-founded fear that they will be
condemned by their bishops and their funding will be withdrawn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Starting from the ground up means allowing theology to
grow out of the grass roots experience of those who put human suffering before
moral absolutes. There is far more to women’s theology than questions of
reproduction and motherhood, just as there is far more to the Church’s work
among the poor than crisis intervention. Yet if a deep theology of woman cannot
provide a compassionate response to those women who suffer most acutely because
of sexual violence, poverty and the lack of adequate reproductive health care,
then it is failing to hear the cry of the poor. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A deep theology of woman must be a theology by and for
women, which learns from women’s visions and struggles in terms of justice and
ethics, sexuality and motherhood, sacramentality and prayer. There are many who
would welcome an opportunity to discuss these issues more openly within the
Church. The Women’s Section of the Pontifical Council for the Laity would be an
ideal forum for such discussions. In this age of reform, might we yet see such
a space opening up? This would allow the official Church to engage with the
resources it needs to develop that deep theology of woman which Francis says it
currently lacks.</span></span></div>
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Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-53360674925572148602013-09-27T08:51:00.001+01:002013-09-27T08:51:12.129+01:00Reflections on Pope Francis's Interview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggz2AVfY0CBaSRrEvpLZsAFe4RneJJvZh7-YyZssBzzi3DXAU6khTXZXZRjZNKVR6cOdpAtXGf_c4tZTO2NQIWJgyTm2iOEE15JW3Q8ALqIjPLEADSxqXGQv914qQBkD9QZBncgIdBh23d/s1600/Pope+Francis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggz2AVfY0CBaSRrEvpLZsAFe4RneJJvZh7-YyZssBzzi3DXAU6khTXZXZRjZNKVR6cOdpAtXGf_c4tZTO2NQIWJgyTm2iOEE15JW3Q8ALqIjPLEADSxqXGQv914qQBkD9QZBncgIdBh23d/s1600/Pope+Francis.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have written a short piece on Pope Francis's interview for the online news magazine <i>The Conversation</i>: '<a href="https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-brings-religious-subtlety-to-catholic-dogma-18490" target="_blank">Pope Francis brings religious subtlety to Catholic dogma</a>'.Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7236152873981220889.post-47964337801574138272013-07-28T17:39:00.000+01:002013-07-28T18:12:16.738+01:00Red Shoes - theology for dancing women<br />
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<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">I have decided to start a new blog for occasional theological postings. Please visit it by clicking on <a href="http://redshoestheology.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">this link</a>.</span><br />
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<br />Tina Beattiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04324786100032395008noreply@blogger.com0