ALL LIVES DON'T MATTER, AT LEAST NOT IN MASTERTON, SAYS CARDINAL JOHN DEW

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"All Lives Matter." Do you agree? Well, who wouldn't? Cardinal (call me John) Dew, that's who. 

The sign appeared outside the Catholic church in Masterton last week. This week, the parish newsletter is apologising all over the place for proclaiming this basic Christian message, which Cardinal Dew has seen fit to call a "political provocation". 

WOT? How sillier can you get? Not much, according to Sir Robert Jones, who obviously rejoiced, in his column nopunchespulled.com on Friday, over this "convoluted logic which certainly epitomises his outfit's practices". Jones quotes this prince of the Catholic Church as saying, in regard to the infamous sign, "a Church should be a safe place where everyone feels welcome".

So, Cardinal Dew, does 'all' not mean 'everyone'? 

Do you really believe - as Jones quotes you as saying - that an 'All Lives Matter' sign is "politicised that some could find unwelcoming and offensive"? 

Honestly, what grist this is to the evil mills of the enemies of the Catholic Church. In fact, your Eminence, your condemnation of this thoroughly Christian sentiment can only add to the number of Her enemies (as if we needed any more).

"Cultural experts and anti-racism advocates labelled the sign racist, ill-timed and disrespectful", said the rnz news report. 

But Masterton mayor Lyn Patterson shows more commonsense and dare I say it, honesty and Christianity. She said "I'm really comfortable that the message wasn't intended to undermine the Black Lives Matter movement. I understand it's linked to the feast of Corpus Christi. The intention really was highlighting the humanity of all people, that's the explanation I have been given."

Pacific lecturer and native Hawaiian Emalani Case said the church might not have received the same level of backlash six months ago.

"It's just ill-timed, it's offensive, it's disrespectful. We can't actually say 'all lives matter' until black lives matter, because black lives unfortunately often get left out of the 'all'.

Emilie Rakete

Emilie Rākete, of Ngāpuhi and Te Rarawa iwi, is an advocate for the Black Lives Matter marches, and said she understood why the sign was vandalised.

"When people see this kind of insistence that 'no, all lives matter', they're angered by it, not because they don't agree that all lives matter, they're angry because it's an attempt to whitewash a very real racist terror that many, many people in this country have to live under the constant threat of." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/419057/archbishop-of-w

What 'very real racist terror'? Diddums. You could reasonably say that many many people have to live under the constant threat of earthquakes, because earthquakes are real. You can't say anyone lives under the constant threat of their own feelings, for example, 'terror'. Unless they're mentally unbalanced ...

Rākete, who is also the spokesperson for People Against Prisons Aotearoa, said the idea that all lives matter was aspirational. "That means it's a value that doesn't exist yet in the world we live in".

Speak for yourself, Ms Rakete. The idea that all lives matter is a value that exists in the hearts and minds of most New Zealanders, and especially Christian New Zealanders.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/419057/archbishop-of-w


Yesterday I received another handwringing 'social justice'  message from the 'Carmelites of Australia and Timor Leste'. (I'm one myself, even though like several others I'm a New Zealander but - antisocially and injustly - we don't seem to rate.) 

"Who will speak if we don’t? ask the Carmelites of Australia and Timor-Leste (the irony of this poster, in a Carmelite publication, being that silence is the sine qua non of the Carmelite charism of contemplation)    "Since the death of George Floyd our screens have been filled with marches and protests against racism. Lest we in Australia thought it was all about people in America, protests here have drawn attention to the experience of racism in our own country. While some were critical of those who marched, others seemed to understand that sometimes you just have to speak out, no matter what the circumstances." Archbishop Wilton Gregory The Carmelites are keen to line up behind the loathsome (I would say, were I not a Catholic and supposed to be Christian) Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington. Just when the nation needs prayer and healing more than ever, President Donald Trump decided to keep to his schedule which, providentially, had him on a pre-arranged visit to the National Shrine of Pope St. John Paul II, which is maintained by the Knights of Columbus. The President made the visit on the occasion of signing another Executive Order to defend religious freedom, and to honor the memory of Pope St. John Paul II, who was a fearless defender of religious freedom. But, rather than welcome the President to pray and reflect,  Archbishop Gregory issued an unbelievably petty and caustic statement, calling the President's visit "baffling and reprehensible. "LifeSite <lsn@lifesitenews.com> And lo and behold, English bishops have joined the chorus of U.S. prelates condemning "systemic racism" as "an evil which must be opposed" following the brutal killing of George Floyd.  Bishop Declan Lang, lead bishop for international affairs and Bp. Paul McAleenan, lead bishop for racial justice, issued a statement Wednesday "in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the U.S.," declaring "racism is an evil which must be opposed; we all have a responsibility for actively promoting racial justice." The bishops praised the "peaceful Black Lives Matter protests taking place in our towns and cities this week," which "reflect the understandable anger that so many people feel about this." English Catholics slammed the bishops' statement as "a half-truth" as violence erupted in London after Black Lives Matter protesters attacked police near the Prime Minister's residence in Downing Street, hurling bottles and barricades and forcing law enforcement officers to "take a knee." Police arrested 13 rioters as a police van was attacked and a cameraman covering the protests was left bloodied by protestors flinging missiles. Agitators defied social distancing rules — government guidelines that have forced bishops to delay the reopening of churches, despite persistent pleas from faithful Catholics." Bishops are 'forced' to delay the reopening of churches? Really?    And now -wouldn't you know it? - Vatican News is praising Black Lives Matter as a "movement dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience through protests against police violence directed at black persons as well as all forms of racism." Black Lives Matter has decentralized into a broader and worldwide network of movements advocating against police violence towards minorities, the militarization of the police as well as against systemic racism around the world," Vatican News reported. The Vatican media made no reference to BLM's involvement in riots, it's campaign to "defund the police" or to the movement's goals of "disrupt(ing) the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement," as explicitly stated on the "What we believe" page of the BLM website. BLM also proclaims itself determined to "dismantle cisgender privilege," pro-transgender and "queer‐affirming," maintaining: "When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise)" — an agenda in flagrant contradiction of Catholic teaching on sexuality and the family. "It is ridiculous for the Vatican to pretend that Black Lives Matter is a non-violent movement," British politician David Kurten told Church Militant. "They are, at best, naïve — and at worst, complicit — by sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring its true, radical, Marxist nature." It's nauseating to witness these prelates - and people - in the Body of Christ on earth, the Catholic Church fomenting, intentionally or not, the very unrest they pretend to abhor.  Today was not a good moment for me to hear about Cardinal Dew's me-tooism on the subject of Black Lives Matter. Our parish Sunday Mass had featured a mutilated statue of the Sacred Heart standing in the sanctuary, by the altar, armless. His missing limbs were lying on the floor. This was by way of driving home the message that we the congregation are the Sacred Heart's arms in welcoming migrants and refugees. Anyway, after the ordeal of the Novus Ordo was over, I asked Father if he'd be giving Communion on the tongue at Mass this coming week. He didn't know. So I reminded him that he'd quoted Cardinal Dew as saying no Communion on the tongue for a month. Father didn't know when that month would be up. I said a bishop had given Communion on the tongue at the Requiem for Bishop Basil Meeking. Father said the bishops at Father Trung's ordination last week had their own special chalices. I said that was a non sequitur. Nah, I didn't, I'm just kidding. Father finally decided there'd be no Communion on the tongue while we're still in Level 1. "That's the Government rules," said Father. I said, "That's not the Government's rules, that's the Church's rules."  But this afternoon I had the joyous privilege of attending the SSPX Latin Mass in Napier and receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, and realising afresh what a terrible injustice New Zealand's bishops are continuing to deal to the faithful whose right it is, as the Church's norm, to receive on the tongue.  Which reminds me that last week I spent hours working on the commemoration of 406 babies killed at Hastings Hospital last year, alongside a Catholic who said he was "evangelical". He doesn't like giving Communion on the tongue. "I don't like touching a tongue," he said.  He should be taught how to give Communion on the tongue, then. No he shouldn't: he shouldn't give Communion at all. That privilege is reserved to the consecrated hands of the priest. And most Novus Ordo priests don't know how to give Communion on the tongue, either - so how could they teach it?. And just to wind up where I started: if Black Lives Matter to blacks all that much, how come in New York City, more black babies are aborted than born?