tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001778610134453432012-01-26T17:18:24.180Z~ lacrimae in corde, in capite risūs ~The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.comBlogger455125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-46234167436937097672012-01-24T13:43:00.000Z2012-01-24T13:43:29.358Z2012-01-24T13:43:29.358Z

Father Ray Blake raises an interesting question on his blog about why CAFOD has objected to the prospect of a new London airport in the Thames Estuary; whatever is the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development doing commenting on a development in Britain, regardless of the ecological damage such a development might cause? CAFOD's mandate, after all, concerns overseas development. All told, he

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com17http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2012/01/cafod-and-boris-island.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-84897100485275585152012-01-10T23:09:00.031Z2012-01-11T09:37:22.684Z2012-01-11T09:37:22.684Z

Rumour, it’s said, can be halfway round the world before Truth has got its boots on. Rarely does that adage seem more apt than in the world of religious journalism.  Yesterday morning the Pope gave his annual ‘State of the World’ address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican; the speech was remarkably broad, taking in such issues as the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, tensions

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com10http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2012/01/pope-and-diplomats.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-6548401536850784452011-12-30T16:21:00.005Z2012-01-08T06:01:44.126Z2012-01-08T06:01:44.126Z

I wasn't a good scout. Years ago in Brighton, looking up into the July night sky, my then girlfriend was incredulous of how ignorant I was of the constellations. 'Weren't you a scout?' 'Well, yes...' I said, 'but not a very good one. Not like you. If you were one of the kind of scout that had "be prepared" carved into your heart, I was the sort with "ah, it's grand" scrawled across my chest.'

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Or, a very long post attempting to explain how I wrestled through a complex issue; apologies if it seems rather stream-of-consciousness, not to mention long, but you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to... Perched at the top of my Amazon wishlist, as it's been for some time, is Ian Ker's recent biography of G.K. Chesterton. To anyone who knows me, of course, this'll hardly be a surprise,

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com18http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2011/12/behind-curtain.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-22095471708569591102011-12-25T21:42:00.036Z2012-01-08T04:20:27.709Z2012-01-08T04:20:27.709Z

Last year I attended my first ever carol service -- I'd attended Christmas concerts in the past, of course, but never a designated carol service. It was at an evangelical Anglican church where I used to go with friends, and out of a spirit of curiosity and a desire to understand. Afterwards a friend asked me what Catholic carol services were like. I said I didn't no, but that they were probably

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com0http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2011/12/maternal-abstractions.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-4962111212260499402011-12-24T22:20:00.024Z2012-01-08T05:57:08.679Z2012-01-08T05:57:08.679Z

It being Christmas Eve, and with Christians imperilled in the most ancient heartlands of the Faith, this seems as good a time as any to type this up.... 'The 24th of December 1099 was the first Christmas Eve for more than 450 years on which free, armed Christians might celebrate the Nativity in Bethlehem. The great marble basilica built by the great Constantine was packed to overflowing. Many of

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As I said the other day, I have of late been reading my way through Hergé's Tintin books, finishing them this week. They're remarkable, really, and once one gets beyond the crude stereotypes of the first couple of volumes they develop in subtle and intriguing ways. A few weeks back I read a post on Dylan Parry's Reluctant Sinner blog in which he took issue with a ridiculous column in the

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com2http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2011/12/boy-reporter-catholic-hero.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-56237159293651843932011-12-22T21:12:00.012Z2011-12-26T18:24:42.029Z2011-12-26T18:24:42.029Z

The hoohah in today's news about Tim Minchin's 'Woody Allen Jesus' song having been cut from Jonathan Ross's Christmas special is a curious one. There seems to be a certain disingenuity in how Minchin himself has been describing the song, and indeed in how others have followed the story. On his own blog, Minchin says, 'Being Christmas, I thought it would be fun to do a song about Jesus, but being

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The last month's been an odd one, as readers of this blog will probably have guessed; output here has dropped due to a combination of being busy and being ill, such that priorities haven't been what they were. My studies take most of my time, of course, and other matters have rode into second place, so the blog and other things have slipped a bit behind them. I'll be rectifying that from now on,

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Well, I'm home. It's been a long ten months away, but it's already nice to be back. Some terribly sad news in the car from the port, but still, I'm glad that I was here to hear it. The journey was a smooth one, and well-fuelled with a flask of tea, said flask having been excavated from the attic last night in a fit of thrift. A kind lift got me to the station in the proverbial nick of time, and

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I see the odious Kelvin McKenzie's in the news this week. Last Thursday he claimed that the Sun's vicious calumnies about the Hillsborough disaster were due to reporters from Liverpool, and on Friday he said that he'd got that wrong, and he was sorry about that.  Of course, he doesn't seem particularly sorry about the calumnies themselves, about which he's changed his line a few times. In 1993 he

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com1http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-rupert-really-due-apology.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-67238805771026354042011-12-09T08:11:00.002Z2011-12-09T23:35:56.140Z2011-12-09T23:35:56.140Z

Few books have ever had as big an impact on me as The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell's massively influential study of the archetypal hero's journey in the world's myths, legends, and folklore; since reading that just and a book-length interview with Campbell after I turned twenty-one, I've ploughed through several of Campbell's other books, including his monumental study of

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I realise two posts in one day may seem a bit extravagant, but given how I've read that John Cooney's looking for an apology from Cardinal Connell for the then Archbishop of Dublin having rubbished the more lurid claims in Cooney's 1999 biography of Connell's predecessor, John Charles McQuaid, I think it's worth pointing out that Cardinal Connell was hardly alone in doing so. Here, for instance,

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So, there are alarm bells ringing about McQuaid again, are there? So the Irish Times reports anyway, in connection with a supplement to the Dublin Report that was published online back in July. Before anybody starts jumping to conclusions, they should do three things. Firstly, they should keep in mind that Archbishop McQuaid died in 1973, and thus is no position to answer any allegations.

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I wonder how often historic moments seem spectacularly dull at the time, gaining a sheen of significance only with hindsight. Enda's speech tonight -- only the sixth ever 'State of the Nation' speech by a Taoiseach -- was bland, clunky, and boring. It lacked the fire that filled his calumnies against the Vatican back in the summer, and as it ended I sighed and said, well, that's fifteen minutes

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Years ago, in an unwisely-timed exercise, I decided I'd take part in the first 24 Hour Comics Day, and planned to write, draw, and letter a full 24-page comic in 24 hours flat. Frankly, this would have been a hell of a task at the best of times, but it was ludicrously ambitious on a day when I was on call at work. Suffice to say that the first two pages weren't yet finished and the next two

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Evelyn Waugh may well have been a snobbish and cruel man, but there's no denying that he was a brilliant one, and it seems that he at least tried to battle his nastier characteristics; I'm always taken by how he responded to people who pointed out that his bullying nature made him a poor advert for Christianity: 'Just think how much worse I would be,' he is reputed to have said, 'if I were not a

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Over the last couple of days I've been trying to answer, as best I can, the questions posed here, itself a response to this post of mine.I don't think I'll try anything so comprehensive as this again, as it's been difficult, especially given that I'm both busy and teetering in the no-man's land between a dying virus and a rising cold. It's not been a fun couple of weeks here at Gargoyle Garret.

The Thirsty Gargoylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07555762505933950270noreply@blogger.com2http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/2011/12/answering-grem-part-iii.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-200177861013445343.post-70192581928474434132011-11-30T22:49:00.549Z2011-12-07T02:53:18.027Z2011-12-07T02:53:18.027Z

I know, I should really be talking about the six diocesan audits that came out today, but yesterday's post was too big and needed splitting, and I've been busy and rather poorly of late, so I've not had time to read them all properly yet -- insofar as I've had time, I've been too tired to plough through the documents.  That said, just based on glancing and looking at the early reactions my

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The other day, in connection with a post about Christine Buckley's recent letter to the Irish Times, I received the following comment:'Sir, Did you actually listen to /Mr Kenny's speech. He was referring not to individual acts of abuse but to the collective cover up organised, directed and operated from Rome. The costs you refer too would have been saved if the Vatican and their representatives

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You'll be glad to know, I'm sure, that I made it to Pontefract in one piece yesterday, and back too, and that at no point did I suddenly fall over or veer into a hedge. I did sleep ten hours straight once I got back last night, but I think that's just my body saying it's not sick anymore, but it is pretty well drained. The wedding was lovely, anyhow. There are a handful of photos on Facebook. I

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Today's not going quite to plan. Having overslept, my body clearly still trying to make up for the last week or so of illness, I missed morning Mass and have been trying to figure out the logistics of crossing the Pennines and getting to Pontefract for the afters of a dear friend's wedding, while still finding some way of attending Mass on this very special Sunday. I have it worked out, I think.

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If Patsy McGarry isn’t sued after his performance on Tonight with Vincent Browne the other evening, he should consider himself a very lucky man. I only got round to watching the whole programme a couple of days back, having caught the end of it on Tuesday night, and was astounded to see how it began. Early in a discussion on how RTE had came to defame Father Kevin Reynolds in so horrendous a

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Maisie Ward, in her 1942 biography of G.K. Chesterton, quoted Chesterton as being deeply troubled by the prospect of the Bible being taught simply as literature. He believed that an obligation to teach the Bible in such a way would put Christian teachers into impossible positions, and that the phenomenon itself raised very serious questions:‘I should not mind children being told about Mohammed

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I've met Christine Buckley many times, and though this probably won't endear me to quite a few of my fellow Catholics, I've always got on well with her. And for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure she likes me too. That said, I think her letter to today's Irish Times is completely off-kilter, and not just because she seems to think that money sent to Rome as part of the annual 'Peter's Pence'

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