LONDON, May 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A document put out by Britain’s new coalition government outlining their goals, fails to include the word “marriage,” or any specific pledge to bolster the flagging institution. Prime Minister David Cameron had made numerous pledges to protect marriage in the build-up to this month’s general election.The new coalition government, composed of ministers from the Conservative party and from the far-left Liberal Democrats, issued a document outlining their policies on “Families and Children.” The document assiduously avoids mention of “marriage” or any promise to help married couples in the tax code. Instead it speaks of “relationship support” for “strong and stable families of all kinds.” Click here to read more
Tags: coalition government, conservative party, liberal democrats, marriage
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Well blow me down! What? Dave reneging on a promise?
All those of us who hate Europe and the Lisbon treaty know that Dave is a ‘pretty decent sort of bloke’ in the purest Blairite tradition.
The vast majority of those who inhabit the House of Commons are interested only in power. They have no vision for the country short of what will get them re-elected.
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highlandpriest,
That’s the first sensible comment I’ve heard so far, in all the daft euphoria surrounding this coalition of the con-men.
I gave up trying to reason with those who emailed me in delight at the Catholic Herald interview/article where David Cameron promised just about everything except a new pope.
So, it’s a breath of fresh air to read your comment – well said!
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I’m always amazed at the nerve of politicians to blatantly go back on their word. I see in the Lifesitenews report that they expect this Liberal/Conservative coalition to be more to the left than Labour. That’s saying something.
I hope it’s not off topic to ask this but we don’t often get a marriage thread and this has been bothering me for a while.
A friend of mine is going to a wedding in a Protestant church where the bride is a lapsed Catholic but is having a blessing by a Catholic priest at the service. She’s been living with her fiance and obviously won’t have gone to confession before getting married in the Protestant church, so is this sort of thing allowed? Maybe I should have asked this on the other thread about the Kirk joint liturgies. Please tell me if you want me to re-post it there, editor.
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No surprises in this outcome. I would have been prepared to vote Tory (Gasp!) but after the sacking of the Ayr candidate and Cameron’s views on abortion of disabled children, I could not, ever vote for such a party in line with my conscience. His proposals for a married couples tax break were watery in any case and would probably have made no difference. Sadly, I feel that Britain is gone, finished, and I cannot ever see it regain any sense of morality or decency in future.
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Michelangelo,
The trouble is that there is simply no-one left to vote for. I personally follow the advice of Fr. Benedict Groeschel whom I heard saying a few years ago that he will not vote for any candidate unless he is pro-life.
Dave is the quintessential politician of the media age. You see, I don’t take the line that it is politicians who have brought Western civilisation to the brink of collapse. Far more than politicians, I blame the media (especially the television variety) and the chattering classes in general.
Until people realise that they are being lied to systematically, things can only get worse.
I have always agreed with the adage that a people gets more or less the government it deserves. Dave, like Gordon and Tony before him, is a non-conviction politician for whom image is everything. But in this he is no different from 95% of the people one meets in any shopping centre the length and breadth of these Isles.
In my daily experience people lie systematically, are totally oblivious to great injustices like abortion, and generally just want to have a comfortable life style and good time which often consists in getting stoned. It would be very strange is animals such a these gave rise to virtuous politicians.
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Think me not crazy when I add that I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that democracy is becoming a major obstacle to putting our society to rights.
The media have substituted fifteen second sound bites for informed debate, turning the electoral process into little more than a game show. Trouble is, the punters appear to like it. And so we go forth on an ever increasing downward sprial as mediocrity generates mediocrity.
The other day I was talking to a priest friend from another European country who has to be one of the most cultured people I have ever met. A research scientist to trade, he was pointing out that history shows that the collapse of sexual mores are nearly always a sure sign that a civilisation is on its death bed.
I believe that we are on the verge of something very nasty. What exactly I don’t know, but it’s going to be very, very nasty.
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highlandpriest,
you have said something that I’ve been thinking for a while, that democracy is not the cure-all but is a really big part of the problem.
It’s what would be put in its place, that I can’t really answer. I’m not fooled by the knee-jerk reaction of “dictatorships” because that is exactly what we’ve got, a dictatorship – an elected dictatorship – and a very oppressive one at that.
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Rebel,
You’re spot on. An enlightened Catholic soverein would be lovely, but I would settle for a virtuous philosopher king.
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Sorry, I mean to say ’sovereign’. It has been a long day and it’s not over yet.
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“Give them bread and circuses and they won’t remember any of our phony promises.” – politicians
BTW highlandpriest, these days “democracy” no longer means what it used to. Nowadays it means socialism and world government (i.e. the errors of Russia). But I agree, even its traditional meaning leads to a dead end.
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Torkay,
As Catholics, I think that we should be interested in a system of government which facilitates men in responding to God’s offer of grace. Democracy as we have it in most of the West is really a case of the blind leading the blind.
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Well, folks, I’m available if you think a benign dictatorship would work.
And as far as marriage policy would go, the first thing I’d do would be to ban divorce/remarriage, adjust taxation to (hugely) favour married couples and pay mothers to stay at home and look after their children.
Then I’d get down to looking at the policy seriously.
highlandpriest,
I love your avatar! I think I’m correct in saying you have the same hairdresser as Torkay?
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Editor
So uh, wouldn’t you have to get married to avoid heavy taxation under your benign dictatorship?
As for my hairdresser, it was an Iroquois Indian who tried to scalp me but botched the job.
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Hi Michelangelo,
“The trouble is that there is simply no-one left to vote for. I personally follow the advice of Fr. Benedict Groeschel whom I heard saying a few years ago that he will not vote for any candidate unless he is pro-life”, What do you think of; Voting for the Candidate who is most Pro-Life?
God Bless
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Why am I not surprised? Truth is always a casualty in an election campaign.
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I’m quite surprised that none of the bloggers who were encouraging us to vote Conservative have come on here to say “mea culpa!”
I mention this because I was briefly tempted to vote Conservative, based on the information provided on this website. I can’t remember who they were, but there was a definite push to vote Conservative and I am very glad now that I didn’t do so.
David Cameron is like the rest of them (which was my first impression) a smooth, slick politician, Tony Blair in a blue tie.
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Want a breath of fresh air?
Read …
Ah, o how so very refreshing!
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Yes, Gerald Warner is one of the clearest thinkers I’ve encountered (with the possible exception of Madame Editor, of course…). Anyone want to bet that the “solution” to this crisis won’t be less totalitarianism and more individual freedom and dignity, but more totalitarianism, more taxation and less freedom and dignity? And that it will also use “climate change” as the leverage for this tightening of control?
The deranged and perverted will never mortify their lust for absolute power. The EU power brokers are like the Nine Nazgul in Lord of the Rings: once-mighty rulers of men who sold their souls to Sauron.
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I seem to remember that “Windswept House” begins with a warning by Ven. Pius XII in 1958, that the Church should steer well clear of the geopolitics (that is, the EU) that were already on the planning boards back then.
Just another of his many wise warnings, like the suicide of altering the faith in the liturgy, which were ignored. Deliberately ignored.
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Rebel
I think the only blogger praising the Conservatives was me. I think you’ll find, if you look back, that I changed my mind before the Election and launched a scathing attack on David Cameron.
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Sorry, Petrus. I had forgotten that you changed your mind at the end. Forgive my neglect. I should have checked back.
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Rebel
No worries!
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Torkay, you flattering me with a view to avoiding doghouse duties again? It worked!
highlandpriest,
Thanks for posting the link to Gerald Warner’s article – this paragraph struck me, most of all:
“What is the point of denationalising industries if the nation’s children have been nationalised? If a schoolgirl can be pressured into having an abortion by the agencies of the state, without her parents’ knowledge? Their grandchild has been destroyed with the complicity of the authorities and they are not even aware of the fact. That example of state intrusion into the most intimate areas of family life and the subversion of parental authority that it represents is shocking evidence of the extent to which the state has exceeded its legitimate role.”
It’s what to do about it? Elections don’t seem to work!
Here’s a slightly different angle on marriage (well, priestly celibacy really!) here’s a link to Christina Odone’s Telegraph article. I’ve added a comment at the end, and hope others will, do. She trades on her former editorship of the Catholic Herald, and attacks and undermines the Church at every turn. Don’t let her away with it!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100041445/the-priests-the-mistresses-and-the-pope/comment-page-1/#comment-100320264 -
In the emerging new world order, the European Union will be one of the most powerful political and economic entities on the planet. The Catholic Church, even if it was cohesively anti-EU, doesn’t have the political strength to take it down.
If Catholicism became associated with opposition to such a powerful organization, it could be quite dangerous. Far better for Catholics to co-opt the EU and hijack it for our own purposes. Just like we did with the old Roman Empire.
EU leaders have in the last few years been seeking to create a common identity but have struggled. In the next few decades, the appeal of a ‘Christian Europe’ will become more potent, particularly to emphasize Europe’s distinctiveness from other continents, to advance political decisions on a common heritage and most importantly, as a reaction to a shared immigration problem from Islamic countries. Indeed Christianity is the most natural pan-European identity there is. This is why EU leaders have been very receptive to Church personnel and among other gestures, invited the Pope to address the EU Parliament (just like his predecessor) Incidentally when the Pope John Paul II addressed the EU Parliament, nutjob Ian Paisley rantingly accused him of being the antiChrist; he was quickly disabled by the intervention of Otto Van Habsburg[ the sucessor to the Holy Roman Emporors and son of Blessed Charles], who is also President of the oldest pan-European organization, Pan-Europa, which emphacizes Christian and anti-relativist principles. Anyone who knows anything about the history of the EU will be aware of its fundamentally Christian Democratic origins and Pius XII’ approval of it. But the EU can only move in this direction if the Church co-operates. Claims that the EU is anti-Catholic simply become self-fulfilling prophecy.
Besides I’m not sure how the EU really differs in ideals from the UK. There’s certainly much less change of it breaking up. After all England was once a foreign country to Scotland but they merged in the Act of Union. Why is it okay for Scotland to be ruled from London but any direction from Brussels is so inadmissible?
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shane, did you see the Fatima Challenge video on the EU? It was very good indeed.
The difference between being ruled from London and Brussels is that we are at least on the same bit of land, for starters. Also, it is quite possible that we can somehow get separate from England again, but I get the feeling that we won’t be able to get out of the EU so easily.
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