Meanwhile, back in the Protestant Monarchy

[Mornac]

• Tweet

Some commuppance for one of those "white Irish Catholics" that distress Michelle Obama so much:


10 January 2012
Film teen 'left for dead' in sectarian attack

A Catholic teenager has said he was left for dead in a sectarian attack as he left a film set in Belfast.

James Turley, 18, was working as an extra on The Good Man in the Village area of south Belfast when he was attacked on 6 January.

He told The Irish News that during the assault one of his attackers said: "That's enough. I think he's dead."

Police have confirmed that they are investigating a sectarian motive for the attack.

Mr Turley, from the Short Strand area of east Belfast, said he was confronted by a group of people as the production team finished filming a scene at the junction of Frenchpark Street and Ebor Street.

Four other friends who were with him had also been taking part in the film.

The gang surrounded their car, pulling off a wing mirror and smashing a window.

Kill
 
Mr Turley ran from the scene, but was caught.

He said that at one stage he tried to hide in a nearby house, calling on the family: "Please help me. They're going to kill me."

However, the gang pursued him into the home.

Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteAs I got the car door closed they just began to wreck the car, kicking the whole car, as the driver got into the car, they punched my passenger side window in”
End Quote Friend of victim
Mr Turley said: "They all just came in and started beating me."

"They stamped on my head and everywhere. The woman said: 'Get him out of my garden' and they dragged me out into the alley.

"They just started beating me again. They put me in a bin and were pushing me somewhere. I didn't know where I was going, when I got put in the bin I thought that was it."

Mr Turley said at one point he was knocked out, but when he started to come round he heard one of his attackers saying: "That's enough. I think he's dead."

Later he managed to flag down a passing motorist who drove him to the Royal Victoria Hospital, less than a mile away.

Crowd
 
His mother Donna, whose husband Frank was murdered in 1998, said she thought her son had been killed. She went to her son's bedside last Friday.

She said: "It's like deja vu. I can't remember getting to the hospital. I just kept thinking: 'Please, please, just let him hang on for me'."

James's friend Sammy said they came under attack from a crowd of about 25 people, mainly teenagers.

"As I tried to close the car door, they wouldn't let me, they were holding the door and they were kicking us in through the door," he said.

"I had to pull one of my friends into the car on top of me in the passenger seat.

"They were kicking and throwing punches through the window.

"As I tried to close the car door, one of them slammed it onto my leg, back and forth.

'Scary experience'
 
"As I got the car door closed they just began to wreck the car, kicking the whole car, as the driver got into the car, they punched my passenger side window in.

"I tried to turn my head but the glass came in all over me. They were punching us on the back of the head.

"It was hard to believe that what was happening was actually happening. It was a scary experience."

Paula Bradshaw, from the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, said she was saddened by the attack. She said police knew who was responsible but needed people to come forward and give them evidence.

"As a mother of a young son I can imagine what it must have been like to take that call (about the attack)," she said.

"This was an horrific crime and the young people responsible have to be taken to task."

The Good Man is set in Northern Ireland and South Africa and stars Irish actor Aidan Gillen, who also starred in the hit television series The Wire.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-16483213

[notoc]

Some commuppance for one of those "white Irish Catholics" that distress Michelle Obama so much: 

When were you last in Belfast, Mornac?

[Mornac]

1982. Why?

[notoc]

1982. Why?

Because you're talking nonsense.

[Mornac]

How so? All I’ve done is post a news story about a white Irish Catholic who was beaten and left for dead and how the police are “investigating a sectarian motive for the attack.” My only comment had to do with how Barrack Obama’s wife is distressed by people who share the victims ethnic background. Maybe I haven’t kept up on the demographics in Ulster over the past 30 years as much as I should have. Has the Catholic population shifted to something other than white? Perhaps James Turley is an Arab or an Asian? Please enlighten me notoc.

[DougRich]

My only comment had to do with how Barrack Obama’s wife is distressed by people who share the victims ethnic background.

Your "only comment" had exactly zero to do with the story. And Michelle Obama was "distressed", as you say, by certain individual political families who happened to share the victim's ethnicity.  Talk about grasping in the general direction of straws.   

[Mornac]

Your "only comment" had exactly zero to do with the story.

--I was showing another incident wherein people were “distressed” by white Irish Catholics just as Michelle Obama is.

And Michelle Obama was "distressed", as you say,

--It wasn’t me who said it.

by certain individual political families who happened to share the victim's ethnicity.

--She used their ethnicity and religious affiliation to define them.

Talk about grasping in the general direction of straws.

--Suppose it was Antonin Scalia who remarked that he was distressed by Arab Muslims locking up power in an American city. Or how ‘bout if Angela Merkel said that she was distressed by European Jews locking up power in Brussels? Would you characterize that as grasping in the general direction of straws?

[DougRich]

--I was showing another incident wherein people were “distressed” by white Irish Catholics just as Michelle Obama is.
--It wasn’t me who said it.
--She used their ethnicity and religious affiliation to define them.
--Suppose it was Antonin Scalia who remarked that he was distressed by Arab Muslims locking up power in an American city. Or how ‘bout if Angela Merkel said that she was distressed by European Jews locking up power in Brussels? Would you characterize that as grasping in the general direction of straws?

If such comments were mischaracterized as displaying an anti-Muslim bias by Scalia, or an anti-Semitic bent in Merkel, and linked in some nebulous way to an act of violence against members of either of those two groups - then, yes, I guess I would have to.

[Mornac]

The woman was of the opinion that something nefarious took place at the hands of people whom she identified solely by their ethnic background and their religious affiliation. That’s all I or anyone else needs to know about her character. Furthermore, I’m rather distressed by how this unemployed Protestant black gal doesn’t mind spending my hard earned Irish Catholic money on her lavish travels.
 

[johnhp]

The woman was of the opinion that something nefarious took place at the hands of people whom she identified solely by their ethnic background and their religious affiliation. That’s all I or anyone else needs to know about her character. Furthermore, I’m rather distressed by how this unemployed Protestant black gal doesn’t mind spending my hard earned Irish Catholic money on her lavish travels.
 

AN absolute lie.  They were identified by their hold on power.

[Mornac]

Catholic monarch could put Church of England in peril, bishop warns
Bishops are preparing to fight Government plans to allow a Catholic to ascend the throne because they say it would put the Church of England’s position in peril.

By Edward Malnick

10 Mar 2012

“If the heir to the throne is brought up as a Catholic, and therefore, under the present disciplines of the Roman Catholic Church, is not able to be in communion with the Church of England, it effectively renders a Catholic heir incapable of being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, so clearly that’s a more complicated issue than it appears at first sight,” he said.
 
Bishop Stevens said that a change to the Act of Settlement with the potential to disestablish the Church of England would be something that bishops “would have to resist”.
 
The Act of Settlement was introduced in 1701 to secure the Protestant succession following the death of Mary II without any heirs and the likelihood that her husband, William III, would also die without an heir, which was what happened.
 
A second part of the Government’s plans, which the bishops support, would allow a firstborn daughter of Prince William and the Duchess to take precedence over her younger brothers.
 
Both proposals, announced by the Prime Minister last year, are being approved by the 16 Commonwealth countries which have the Queen as their head of state, and, following that process, are expected to be debated in the next session of Parliament.
 
Bishop Stevens said he was defending the established Church rather than attempting to “disadvantage” or “diminish” the role of Catholics in Britain. He said the proposals, along with plans to legalise gay marriage, which are opposed by senior Anglicans and Roman Catholics, had not been sufficiently considered.
 
“Most of us would passionately support the principle of equality before the law for gay people, people of religious faiths and so on,” he said. “But supporting that principle does not necessarily mean that we have to start to unpick the threads that have held us together as a society for a very long time.
 
“I think if you start to introduce change that questions the place of the established Church or questions marriage as an institution which exists for the good of all society, not just as a private contract between two individuals, then you need to think very hard and long before you do that.”
 
He said careful negotiation with the Catholic hierarchy would be needed to raise a possibility that an heir with a Catholic parent could still be the Supreme Governor.
 
Bishop Stevens’s warning follows a series of political interventions by bishops in the Lords this year.
 
Last week they helped scupper the Government’s attempts to cut £350 million from Britain’s legal aid bill, which ministers argue is far higher than in comparable countries.
 
The bishops supported a series of amendments to the Coalition’s legal aid legislation, including a successful proposal to ensure there should be “access to legal services that effectively meet [people’s] needs” within the resources available to Whitehall.
 
Bishop Stevens said the proposals would hit some of the same people who face the withdrawal of welfare benefits, arguing the Government's claims that the cuts would reduce the amount of money going to lawyers were “disingenuous”.
 
He said: “We all know that lawyers who base their practises on legal aid are remunerated very much less than those who are commercial lawyers.”
 
The Bishop said the simultaneous passsage of the legal aid bill together with the health and welfare bills had placed a “great pressure” on the Lords Spiritual - whose numbers face being cut from 26 to 12.

The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, who leads the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords, tells The Sunday Telegraph that David Cameron’s policy to end Britain’s 300-year-old succession laws risks overturning the Church’s constitutional role.

Bishop Stevens also defended the bishops’ recent political opposition to several Government reforms and said that they were watching draft legislation carefully for measures that could disadvantage particularly poor or vulnerable people.

He argued that the Prime Minister’s plans to repeal the ban on the monarch being married to a Catholic posed a serious potential risk. Currently the Queen is required to take on the role of Supreme Governor of the Church of England — making it the established Church. But the bishops said that it would be impossible for a Catholic monarch to have that role.

If Mr Cameron’s reforms were passed it would be possible for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s firstborn child to marry a Catholic and still ascend the throne. If that monarch had a child, he or she would have to be brought up as a Catholic under the rules of the Roman Catholic Church.

Bishop Stevens, convener of the Lords Spiritual, said that they would vote against Mr Cameron’s measure to amend the Act of Settlement if Rome did not relax its rules. There is no sign of Rome doing so.

He said their opposition to particular measures in the bills were justified by their wide experience of the lives of “ordinary people” in their dioceses.
 
In January five bishops helped dismantle a key element of the Government’s welfare reforms by supporting the removal of child benefit from the government’s £26,000 a year benefits cap in the Welfare Reform Bill - although it was reinstated in the Commons.
 
Bishop Stevens said the role of the bishops in the Government’s defeat had been over-stated, pointing out that although their arguments had an effect on peers their votes alone did not damage the bill.
 
The bishops also backed changes to the NHS reforms, joining calls for a select committee to examine “questionable principles” in the Health and Social Care Bill.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9136295/Catholic-monarch-could-put-Church-of-England-in-peril-bishop-warns.html

[johnhp]

Somebody has just been aching to come back...

10 Mar 2012

[Mornac]

Protestant flock follows vicar to Catholic church

Thursday 12th April 2012
Exclusive By Hannah Williamson

A Croydon congregation has taken an extraordinary leap of faith by switching their beliefs to follow a popular preacher.
 
Parishioners at a Church of England parish church have converted to Catholicism after their vicar left to join a neighbouring Catholic church six weeks ago.
 
Father Donald Minchew, together with 69 of his previous congregation - almost half his flock - and three new members, were received into the full communion at St Mary's Church, in Wellesley Road, on April 3.
 
Former Anglican bishop, Monsignor John Broadhurst, received and confirmed the group, who will now form the Croydon Ordinariate.
 
Father Donald was the vicar at St Michael's and All Angels Parish Church in Poplar Walk, Croydon, for 16-and-a half years.
 
He resigned in February because he disagreed with decisions being made by the Church of England, including the ordination of female priests and bishops.
 
Speaking after the service, Father Donald said: "These people are very brave because they have answered the call of God and the indignation of Pope Benedict and done it at a great cost.
 
"I think the reason they came across during the Ordinariate is because they don't quibble over things like the clergy, but I think there is a great comfort in the Catholic church, you know what you believe and what the church teaches.
 
"In the Church of England you don't know what the church believes from one synod to the next.
 
"What we would have taken for granted for 30 years you can't now, but in the Catholic church it's not changing.
 
"You know what you are getting in to."

The Ordinariate will participate in Catholic services at St Mary's church and at the start of June Father Donald and Father Ken Berry - also formerly of St Michael's church - will be ordained into the priesthood.
 
They will then take services for the Croydon Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
 
Father Donald added: "The Anglican bishop, Bishop Christopher of Southwark, the Archdeacon of Croydon, the Diocese and secretary have been extremely supportive and encouraging.
 
"There has been no animosity from them at all, and you thought there might have been but there wasn't and I've been quite comforted by this in this pastoral journey."
 
Parishoner Barry Barnes served for 15 years on the General Synod of the Church of England.
 
He also left St Michael and All Angels for the Ordinariate after being part of the congregation with his wife for about 30 years.
 
Mr Barnes said: "We saw where the church was going and decided we could no longer stay in the Church of England and it was about the same sort of time the Pope made the offer of the Ordinariate.
 
"My wife and I decided the Church of England was no longer where we wanted to be and we joined the Ordinariate for a number of reasons.
 
"Their [the Church of England's] attitude towards homosexuality and in light of the possible ordination of women as bishops, neither of us can accept that.
 
"If it hadn't been for the Catholic church, we would possibly have considered the Orthodox church."
 
Another parishioner, who did not want to be named, said she also joined the Ordinariate because she was unhappy with the way in which the Church of England was going.
 
She said: "They [gay marriage and the ordaining of female bishops] are the two main reasons most people have gone over, it's just not scriptural teaching.
 
"I couldn't have stayed in the Church of England.

"I have been considering what to do ever since they came out with the announcement and then the Pope made such an incredible offer."
 
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Southwark said: "Father Minchew and some members of his congregation felt it was right for them to continue their Christian life within the Ordinariate.
 
"While we regret that we are losing them as Anglicans, we wish them well for their future Christian journey."

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/9643164.Protestant_flock_follows_vicar_to_Catholic_church/
 

[Mornac]

'Ex-Gay' Bus Ads Banned by London Transport Officials

Apr. 13, 2012

Transport officials in the city of London, England, have decided not to allow a Christian group that believes homosexuals can change their sexual orientation to post its new advertisement on the city's buses.
 
The advertisement was created by Core Issues Trusts, a ministry that helps homosexuals who are voluntarily seeking to change their sexual preference, and was also supported by Anglican Mainstream, a community within the Anglican Communion dedicated to upholding biblical truth.
 
The ad, which said, "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!" was scheduled to run for two weeks beginning Monday before it was announced that it would not be shown at all. In appearance, the ad looks very similar to one created by Stonewall, a pro-gay-rights organization, that recently appeared on the city's buses and said, "Some people are gay. Get over it!"
 
The ad created by Core Issues was deemed acceptable by both the Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice before it was turned down by Transport for London (TFL), which is chaired by London Mayor Boris Johnson. A spokesperson for TFL told The Christian Post in an email statement on Friday why the authority denied the group's ad.
 
"This advertisement was brought to our attention yesterday afternoon by our advertising agency, [CBS Outdoor], and we have decided that it should not run on London's bus or transport networks. We do not believe that these specific ads are consistent with TFL's commitment to a tolerant and inclusive London," said the spokesperson. "The adverts are not currently running on any London Buses and they will not do so."
 
Mike Davidson, co-director of Core Issues, told The Associated Press that his organization is being censored and they did everything they were supposed to do in order to book the ads.
 
"It is of deep concern that there can only be one point of view and that is the point of view of individuals who are determined to push through gay marriage and apparently believe that homosexuality cannot be altered in any possible way," Davidson told AP. "This is a disturbing development."
 
In a nearly prophetic column, which was completed about ten minutes before Johnson made the announcement that the ad wouldn't run, Tom Chivers, the assistant comment editor for The Telegraph, encouraged gay rights activists to allow the ad to go up as planned.
 
"Seriously. Don't ban them. Ugly though these ads be, we don't get to tell people what to think," wrote Chivers.
 
Chivers, who is clearly opposed to the beliefs held by Core Issues, argued that the ads alone would not bring the Christian organization nearly as much attention as banning them would. It seems he was right.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/ex-gay-bus-ads-banned-by-london-transport-officials-73205/

[Mornac]

‘New law will compel churches to offer same-sex marriages’

By Simon Caldwell
20 April 2012

David Cameron will not be able to exempt the Churches from a duty to offer marriages to gay couples, a senior Catholic barrister has warned.

Neil Addison, the director of the Thomas More Legal Centre, said that the Prime Minister’s assurances to the Church that they would not be compelled to perform religious marriage for gay couples are worthless.

He said two judgments by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg combined with a Court of Appeal ruling in 2010 clearly showed that the Government would be acting illegally if it legalised civil gay marriages without permitting them on religious premises too.

It means that if the Coalition Government presses ahead with its plans to redefine marriage to include gay couples the Catholic Church could face prosecution under equality legislation for acting according with its teachings.

“The Government will be obliged to permit same-sex marriage on religious premises on exactly the same basis as it permits heterosexual marriage,” said Mr Addison, a specialist in religious discrimination law.

“How this will affect the rights of Churches who are registered for marriage and in particular how it will affect the Church of England and its clergy who are registrars of marriage by virtue of their status as priests of the established Church is legally very arguable,” he said.

“Certainly a good legal case can be made that any place or person who is registered to perform marriage must be willing to perform same-sex marriage on the same basis as they conduct heterosexual marriage since, in law, there will be no difference between the two.”

Mr Addison’s legal opinion is sharply at odds with the Government’s assurances, included in its consultation document launched last month, that a new law would “make no changes to religious marriages”.

“This will continue to only be legally possible between a man and a woman,” the document said.

But Mr Addison argues that a recent European Court of Human Rights case involving two French lesbians found that, although there is no human rights obligation for any country to legislate for gay marriage, once a state had passed a gay marriage law it must be applied to all citizens equally.

The ruling upheld the findings of an earlier case involving a homosexual who had sued the Austrian government.

Mr Addison said: “What the Government assurance is ignoring is the fact that, in law, there is no difference between and no status for civil as opposed to religious marriage – both are in law the same thing and merely take place in different premises.”

He said the position of the Churches had already been undermined by a ruling of the Court of Appeal ruling against the registrar Lillian Ladele who in 2009 had taken Islington Council to court for refusing her the right not to officiate at same-sex civil partnership ceremonies.

The judges decided that her orthodox Christian view of marriage “was not a core part of her religion”.

Mr Addison said: “Churches which perform heterosexual marriages will have to be willing to perform same-sex marriages and they will have no legal grounds to resist since the courts have determined that the ‘orthodox Christian view of marriage’ is not a ‘core’ part of Christian belief.”

The remarks of Mr Addison came as British Muslims grew increasingly vocal against the proposals.

Dr Majid Katme, the head of the Islamic Medical Association, called on Britain’s two million Muslims to form “a holy alliance” with Christians and others against the proposals.

“Marriage in Islam is only between a man and a woman,” said Dr Katme. “This is the belief of the two million British Muslim believers and the belief of about 30 million Muslims who live in western Europe.

“It is the same belief of 1,600 million Muslims in the world,” he said. “It is the same belief also in the holy teachings of Judaism and Christianity.”

He continued: “The time has come to establish a holy alliance of all faiths with those sensible people who are without faith in order to oppose gay marriage in any new law.”

He urged Muslims to sign Lord Carey’s Coalition for Marriage petition which has already attracted about 450,000 signatories opposed to gay marriage, making it one of the largest petitions in British history.

The words of Dr Katme were substantially stronger than the statement issued by the Muslim Council of Britain, which last month had described the Government’s case as “strikingly weak”.

The Council of Glasgow Imams was also more forthright, saying that a gay marriage law would be an “attack” on their faith and said Muslims should not vote for candidates who favour changes in the forthcoming local elections.

“There is no scope for compromise on this issue and we simply say this: no to same-sex marriage,” the imams said.

All the mainstream Christian churches are opposed to the proposals, with Catholics urged by their bishops to do all they can to resist them.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2012/04/20/new-law-will-compel-churches-to-offer-same-sex-marriages/#.T5VbM8zpVeg.email