Journal
1045 K Tue 18 Sep 2001
Yesterday afternoon I spent gathering and burning wood on the far hillside in the north-east corner. It left me quite exhausted, so I spent the evening watching Four Corners, started reading some of Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honour" and watched the Wall Street Stock Exchange open.
This morning I have again spent a few hours reading and pondering "The Australian". Again I think there are some very good articles: The Editorial: "War on terror requires time, resolve and sacrifice"; Angela Shanahan "A nation still proud to have God on its side" and "When conspriacy theories become unholy theology" from "The New Republic". I will put down a few quotes from this last article:
... Does anybody doubt the crusade against globalisation is to a significant degree a crusade against the proliferation of American values and American practices around the world? ...
Anybody who hates freedom hates America. ... Anybody who hates ballots and bookshops and newspapers and televisions and computers and theatres and bars and the sight of a woman smiling at a man hates America.
Osama bin Laden and the terrorists of al-Qa'ida chose the US as their target in perfect accordance with their beliefs. Philosophically speaking, we are their mortal foes and they are ours. ...
If the charnel house of lower Manhatten changes nothing, then we deserve to despise ourselves.
Let me try to express a few of my beliefs, how what has happened changes the issues I have been pursuing. A lot of the website has been about showing that the liturgical laws in the Catholic Church have not been implemented or followed correctly. A particularly case of this is with instituted lectors. This approach has damaged the Catholic Church. It seems to me that this has happened in the belief that this will promote the power and interests of clerics (i.e. bishops, priests and deacons) rather than giving power to the laity (i.e. other Catholics).
This approach has weakened the Caholic Church and more generally has contributed to a lose of religious values in Western society. We have made mistakes and become vunerable to the ideas of people like Osama bin Laden.
Saturday's Editorial in The Australian included an excellent analysis:
... recall our core values. These empower individuals, by respecting the right to challenge accepted norms, allowing freedom to accept or reject a lifestyle, and entrenching the right to choose leaders and scrutinise them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that these values strike fear into tyrants of state, religion and culture. The inexorable fight for individual freedom exerts immense pressure on those who exert indecent control over their own people. The pressure builds from within their communities but is often suppressed through force. ...
Some of this applies in the Catholic Chruch as well. I think this sort of analysis of "what happened?" will lead those in the Catholic Church to be more vigorous in making sure the liturgical laws are rationally and consistently implemented.
Copyright J.R. Lilburne, 18 September 2001.
Links to www.theaustralian.com.au
When conspiracy theories become unholy theology