The latest of the continuing assaultson the Catholic Church, by Catholics.
Reader GWR kindly sent your Tatler a link to a superb self-described polemic by retired Prof. Dr Larry Chapp of deSales University in his blog Gaudiam et spes. It is noteworthy, paradoxically, for both its savagery and elegance, and the author nicely lays waste to the shallow heresies of the German bishops and their proposals in their so-called Der Synodale Weg, The Synodal Way. If passed, it will pretty much spell the end of what’s left of the German Catholic Church, which, as the author points out, is almost there already with average attendance down to two-percent.
It is not, however, only the German Church that is threatened by the innovations the bishops embrace, it is the entire Church, as church-wide, the liberal-left is at it again, as they were in the horrendous ’70s, attempting the pushing of Holy Church into bland, broadly inclusive doctrine that promises salvation for all, whatever the hell one does in this life; judgment is an antiquated notion.
Well worth reading, this remarkable piece, which is not only entertaining, but in which the author displays fluent, yet not pedantic, use of a remarkable vocabulary.
Bon chance, Elon. Your work is cut out for you. If you can clean up the godforsaken mess that is Twitter at present, your app could conceivably offer certain utility.
Bickerstaff briefly had a Twitter account not long ago, but closed it because he could not find a way to stop the depressing daily profusion of lascivious ladies of the night seeking his commerce, as it were. Elon, if you can rid your newly acquired toy of that sad spectacle, he just may return and so may many others.
It’s telling these criminals in the New York trains have so little fear getting caught they dress in a manner making them detectable from a full city block.
Or else they’re just stupid. Perhaps a bit of both.
Less than satisfied with his playing of the organ at mass this morning, Bickerstaff decided the best way to nurse his wounds was to relax the rest of this cold and rainy day (a rarity in Taos)–practicing could wait til tomorrow. So determined, he lit the fire, brewed a pot of coffee, called the dog over, and opened the Met Opera app, eventually settling on the work seen above.
Although Puccini is one the writer’s two favorite opera composers (the other being Wagner), he had somehow never seen or heard The Girl of the Golden West (as it is titled in English), probably because of being advised by, via reading and hearing, “experts” and critics over the years it was the mature Puccini’s least successful opera. Well, they are entitled to their opinions and your Tatler is entitled to his, which is La fanciulla del West is a stupendous, albeit strange and unconventional, achievement of Puccini’s and is now high up on his list of favorite operas.
Enjoying the opera, however, this writer felt a strange wave of nostalgia wafting over him and realized that though he has no warm feelings remaining for the City of New York itself, the feelings are still much intact for the cultural institutions there, such as the New York Philharmonic, the NYPL, the Museum, and of course the Met, for which the warm feelings are the strongest. That nostalgia is remedied a bit by the aforementioned Met Opera app, with its deep library of performances, from historic radio broadcasts to the more recent performances in superb high-resolution sound and audio, a treat for the eyes and ears if you have reasonably decent AV gear. Other terrific features include being able to “re-attend,” performances attended in the past, as well the backstage interviews, with the interviewers being Met stars themselves.
Still and all, though, there is no substituting sitting in the audience and experiencing the charged atmosphere and expectation as the Austrian crystal lamps (a gift to the Met from the Austrian government as gratitude to the United States for rebuilding the bombed Vienna State Opera House after the Second World War) slowly rise to the ceiling and then, curtain up. Nothing will ever duplicate that.
As the English bishop complained to his Catholiccounterpartand friend: “We send you our best and you send us your worst.”
For some reason your Tatler is on the e-mail list of St Thomas Church in the City of New York (Episcopal), this despite having quit that congregation long ago, before there even was email. The reason for his quitting was the gleaning over time the absolutely superb liturgy and music at St Thoms were as devoid of spirituality as most of the musicals playing on Broadway three blocks west.
Still, despite the writer’s eventually perceiving the exquisite services at St Thomas as more glitzy than godly, the church did seem at the time, in addition to preserving the beauties and formalities of Anglican worship, maintaining a reasonably traditional and conservative point of view (not withstanding some unpleasant rumors circulating about its rector), this, while its parent the Episcopal Church was already spiraling into madness.
Not having thought about St Thomas, Church for some time, an email received this morning surprised and though only glanced at, seemed to affirm the church was still holding the line against the radical changes going on all around it in the Episcopal Church. Herewith is the entirety of that email, such as your Tatler thought it was.
Not long afterword your Tatler received an email from an old friend, Invicta veritas, who received the same email from St Thomas’s, but had scrolled further down than your Tatler and found the following.
Oh.
Perhaps it’s appropriate here to point out there are former Anglicans who forsook the gorgeous liturgy and music of their church for the insipid mediocrity of modern Catholic worship, and, more important and without going into detail, at great personal sacrifice to themselves and others. Nonetheless, when revealed to them the Holy Catholic Church, despite its manifest shortcomings these days, is the one true Church, they chucked it all and swam the Tiber. The Rev’d Dr Luigi Gioia seems to have lost sight of this enormous truth in his desire for marriage in violation of Church teachings,
It should also be pointed out, ice cream does not take the plural.
This is getting so tiresome. Your Tatler was notified the excellent Taos Chamber Music Group, a first-rate ensemble made up of members of first-rate orchestras, was giving a performance in the superb recital hall of the Harwood Museum in Taos. This particular program was gratifyingly original, Sounds of Shakespeare, with off-the-beaten-track repertoire, as seen below.
This sort of program your Tatler jumps at and he eagerly clicked the “buy tickets” button. He was about to go ahead with a purchase until he saw the dreaded and depressing advisory: Masks required.
Ah, well, too bad, this music lover will not be attending Sounds of Shakespeare, nor any other Taos Chamber Music Group concerts this season or those following. Isn’t the TCMG or the Harwood Museum aware one can go into nearly every store and restaurant in Taos and see nary a mask? Are they not aware that even though the Berlin Philharmonic and Met Opera still have mask requirements, they are flagrantly ignored?
Insisting audience members still wear masks long after the vastly overrated COVID virus has run its course shows not only arrogant disdain for the audience, but reactionarism as well (it’s not just found on the right, you know) by TCMG and the Harwood Museum.
What a shame: your Tatler had been of the mind supporting this superb ensemble above and beyond ticket sales. That will now not be happening, thanks to the idiotic mask requirements. How many other potential donors, one wonders, have made the same decision and how much has it cost the Taos Chamber Music Group?
Kathleen Anderson of The Political Insider has uncovered a new trend among white upper class liberal women of Canada (a trend that will most certainly make its way south), who are looking for new ways of self-flagellation (metaphorically, of course) to assuage their guilt being born the wrong color.
The latest fad takes the form of a lunch or dinner given by one of these unhappy gals for her friends, at which a couple of well paid women of color berate the ladies for their intrinsic racism as they dine on soufflés and a very decent Chardonnay.
Don’t believe it? Watch this excerpt from a documentary called “Deconstructing Karen.” (Warning: this stuff is painful to behold. You might save yourself the bother and save a lot of time by simply watching the video beneath this one.)
The CBC used your money to create a documentary called 'Deconstructing Karen' where white women listen to a black woman tell them how racist they all are.
White House says Biden, 79, looking for dead Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski was ‘not all that unusual’, says Americans ‘understand’ and insists it wasn’t a mistake in utterly ludicrous defense of blunder.
What mind?
Or: If he had a mind, there was something on it.–P. G. Wodehouse.
As Russia threatens to use nukes against the U.S. “if the West attacks Russian territory,” a disturbing story has come out in recent days detailing the recruitment of over a hundred Chinese scientists who had worked at the nuclear research lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to bring whatever they may have learned back to China.
Certainly that’s disturbing enough, Russia loading up on nuclear techies, but it raises some even more disturbing questions: What were a hundred or more Chinese nuclear scientists doing in our Los Alamos labs doing to begin with? How long have they been there? How much access do they have. Last, who was responsible for the ill-considered decision allowing scientists from a nuclear rival to come work in the heart of our research facilities?
THE TAOS TATLER. 