Your Tatler is a newbie Catholic, embracing the full Catholic faith only fifteen years ago. He had extensive instruction, seven months devoted to reading the following: the entire Catechism, copious Papal bulls and encyclicals, large portions of Scripture, a bit of Canon Law and more. Additionally, a number of written essays were required. When he was at last received into Holy Church, he held the notion he was at least reasonably informed regarding matters Catholic.
Not so, sadly. His ignorance was brought to the fore when an important public figure, a self-proclaimed observant Catholic, made claims about abortion which certainly raised your Tatler’s eyes, forcing a re-assessment of his knowledge of basic Church teachings.
President Biden is taking Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and other Republicans to task over a proposed nationwide abortion ban, a topic set to be a galvanizing issue in the midterm elections.
“Think about what these guys are talking about,” Biden told a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York this week. “No exceptions — rape, incest — no exceptions, regardless of age,” he said of the proposed ban. “I happen to be a practicing Roman Catholic,” he added. “My church doesn’t even make that argument now.”
Oh, goodness, there’s so much more to learn. Puzzling, though, as Canon Law regarding abortion doesn’t provide much wiggle room, as Ed Morrissey’s Hot Air makes clear when quoting from the website of the Human Life International Organization.
Further:
Nevertheless, our nominally Catholic President has spoken contrarily regarding Canon Law on abortion. Ah well, back to the books.
Everyone’s favorite mock news site (except liberals’s, perhaps) has been outdone by reality. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition* has instructed its members not to report bicycle thefts to the police. Why, you ask? Here’s why.
San Franciscocrime has skyrocketed since 2020 and bike theft has grown into an epidemic in the Golden City. In response the San Francisco Bike Coalition wrote on their “considerations” section of their website that victims of bike theft should reconsider calling the police as “Black and brown” people could be harmed from the interaction.
It gets better.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wrote about their dedication to anti-racism in 2020 and have held panels on the intersection of race and bicycles and promised to end the systemic bicycle white supremacy.
And better still.
We have a long way to go to understanding the intersectionality of race and biking. This panel of experts will discuss how anti-Black racism manifests in the biking community, in @sfbike, and in Bay Area urban planning . . .
Now how can the Bee top that?
***
Five years ago, when your Tatler was debating whether or not to ditch the city he loved, New York, the decision was made for him by the City’s voters, when all of 17-percent of them turned out on Election Day to re-elect, by a substantial margin, the City’s worst mayor in modern times, Warren Wilhelm, Jr., aka Bill de Blasio. This despite his undoing in only five years the twenty years good work by previous Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg making New York the safest big city by far in America and the envy of mayors in cities worldwide.
Your Tatler reasoned if the 83-percent of New York voters who chose not to vote, as well the majority of the few that did, had so little concern about the soaring crime rates and plummeting quality of life in their city, then they were getting exactly what they deserved and that things would only worsen. He put his apartment up for sale, got his asking price and left. Four years later, things indeed have gotten substantially worse in New York and get, to use the Shakespearean comparative, worser by the day.
Whether or not the views of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition represent those of most San Franciscans cannot be determined by simply by the silly little item above, but this writer, who has lived among brain-dead liberals most his life, has a pretty good idea they do, thus they too are getting exactly what they deserve, as well the people of most Democrat-controlled cities in this nation. What a tragedy these awful people willingly let this happen.
*It’s a good bet any organization with “coalition” in its name is as commie as they come.
Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes that one of her ancestors sold slaves, but argues that he should not be judged by today’s standards or values.
Apparently it only became immoral when the white folks did it.
A recurring thought yesterday watching the services for the Queen Elizabeth was the extraordinary beauty of the language used. Your Tatler is no stranger to it as he was brought up in the Episcopal Church before they ruined the Book of Common Prayer, not to mention the Church itself, in the ’70s.
Another recurring thought was when the forces behind the reforms [sic] of Vatican II were busying themselves junking the beautiful and elegant Latin texts, replacing them with the lifeless and mediocre English translations found in Novus ordo, it’s a pity they didn’t consider a far better alternative to the expulsion of Usus antiquior: the pillaging as much as possible from either the 1662 (UK) or 1928 (US) Books of Common Prayer, making necessary changes of course to agree with Catholic teachings.
Instead, at every mass we are subjected to eminently forgettable and boring English, save for the preposterous wrenching into Elizabethan English for the Pater noster (amusingly, the Episcopalians do the exact same thing), which seems to this writer tacit recognition the hopeless inadequacy of the English used in the rest of the mass.
It will be pointed out of course that mass texts used by Anglican Use parishes (more properly, those in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter) are just as your Tatler prescribes above. The problem is AU has not exactly caught fire in this country, and parishes are few and far between.
Chances of the Traditional Latin Mass returning to use in Holy Church are just about nil at this point. It’s difficult to learn and most Catholics now have little interest in hearing words they cannot understand. Perhaps, however, some Pope, some day, let us pray, concerned with the wretched state of modern Catholic liturgy will promulgate, or even order–because he can–at least one mass at every English speaking parish be celebrated in the language of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser (and, er, Marlowe). Who knows, that might even stir interest in doing something about the excruciating torture that is Catholic praise-music.
Your Tatler rose early this morning to catch some of the services for the late Queen Elizabeth II. They turned out to be so compelling and moving he watched all six hours of them. The British have a special talent for putting on large scale precision public ceremonies that also manage to display warmth and humanity, unlike, say, Leni Riefenstahl’s ghastly cold-blooded productions.
That was especially so with today’s splendid events commemorating the Queen’s death and this writer believes it is because they were unabashedly and unapologetically Christian, surly reflecting the late Queen’s deep and abiding faith, as well her having a major say in the planning of events at her death. To that end, all prayers and scripture readings were Christian, nothing whatsoever from the other Abrahamic faiths. This was a Christian nation mourning the death of its Defender of the Faith.
That faith of course is Protestant Christianity, as made clear in the state funeral at the Abbey and the later, smaller committal service at Windsor Castle. In a gratifyingly ecumenical action, however, important Catholic clergy and laity were invited to participate, no doubt because of England’s large Catholic population, but also perhaps, recognition that all England’s monarchs were all Catholic until the passage by Parliament of the Act of Supremacy in 1534, and Protestant thereafter (save some exceptions with unfortunate outcomes). Also once Catholic were the two venues, the Abbey and St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Whether is was required of participating Catholic clergy and laity or, as your Tatler likes to think, a gracious gesture by them, Catholics who read scripture at the two ceremonies did so from the King James Bible, at least as best this observer could tell. Good for them. It lent unity to the occasion and gave rise, however infinitesimal, to the hope the Church of England will once again be one with the Holy Catholic Church. There is an excellent account of the ecumenism displayed at the Queen’s funeral and commitment found in the Tablet.
Your Tatler was particularly thankful for the BBC’s coverage of today’s events. Unlike other broadcast services, especially ours, which are terrified of silence, the Beeb kept chatter, blabber and “back-chat” to a minimum, often allowing long stretches of uninterrupted quiet to allow viewers to take in the splendor. This was especially appreciated during the extensive musical offerings made by the numerous forces involved. Also praiseworthy was virtually all the music was by British composers, though at least one of the brass bands snuck in the Marche Funébre from Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, to no ill effect at all.
A memorable day. Requiescat in pace Elizabeth Regina. God save the King.
Emma, the Queen’s favorite pony, greets Her Majesty for thelast time.
John Fetterman is but a bulbous blight, the symptom of a far more entrenched cancer on the body politic. He has vowed to be the 51st vote to end the filibuster — and with it, any remaining protections of a minority increasingly cast as enemies of the authoritarian neo-feudal state. He supports an invasion of the US from the south and, with it, the predictable overdose deaths of our children, along with an effective end to our sovereignty. He supports abortion on demand — which disproportionately kills off Margaret Sanger’s “human weeds” as part of the longtime “progressive” embrace of racialism and eugenics — while his own neck carries its own presumably very privileged spawn to term.
As we mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth, let us also recall Bickerstaff’s favorite royal next to the Queen, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinborough. He was often accused of putting his foot in his mouth with his wildly inappropriate, often insulting remarks. While they were both those things, they were hardly uttered by accident. “Foot in his mouth” suggests bumbling or classlessness. The Prince possessed neither of those traits. What he did posses was a rapier wit, which he had no qualms using.
The website All That’s Interesting has assembled a good sampling of Prince Philip’s fabulous faux pas, which your Bickerstaff is delighted to share. The example below is his favorite in the collection, but they are all fine.
THE TAOS TATLER. 