Notice the one in front not paying any attention. How about some captions?
Friday 10 August 2012
Sad, Sad Ireland
Posted by
Supertradmum
Guercino, St. Peter Weeping Before Mary |
Ireland is now among the top ten nations with the largest number of convinced atheists, following China, Japan, the Czech Republic, France, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Iceland and Australia.
At the time of the 2006 census, 87.4 per cent of Irish registered themselves as Catholic, which number had dropped to 84.2 per cent by 2011. A study undertaken by Georgetown University found that in 1980 Ireland’s Catholics had one of the highest rates of weekly Mass attendance in the world. This rate, however, has dropped precipitously from 81 percent in 1990 to 48 percent in 2006.
According to archdiocese of Dublin’s figures, weekly Mass attendance in the diocese, the area with the lowest States of adherence in the country, had fallen to 18 percent by 2011. In May last year, the Irish Times reported that among younger people, the number attending weekly Mass in Dublin was around 2 percent, according to the archdiocese’s own records.
A 2012 survey, conducted by the Association of Catholic Priests, a dissident group seeking to change Catholic teaching on sexuality and women’s ordination, found that weekly mass attendance for the whole country stood at about 35 percent with previously common daily attendance being about 3 percent.
The same survey also indicated that acceptance or understanding of Catholic teaching on key cultural issues was low, with 87 percent feeling the Church should abolish mandatory priestly celibacy and 77 percent saying that women should be allowed to be ordained to the priesthood. About 60 percent “disagreed strongly” with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and only 20 percent agreed that sexual expression outside of marriage was immoral. Three quarters said that the Church’s teaching on sexuality is “not relevant” to them or their families.
On New Age Again....and Alternative Medicine
Posted by
Supertradmum
Galen |
This is a traditional Catholic blog. I remind people of this, as some commentators cannot understand what that means. It means that anything which is against the teaching of the Catholic Church, or things which have been condemned by the Catholic Church are simply not endorsed.
Much alternative medicine cannot be accepted. It is based on Eastern ideas of the body and soul which are not Western or Catholic. Here is a quotation for my often quoted Jesus Christ Bearer of the Water of Life.
When one examines many New Age traditions, it soon becomes clear that there is, in fact, little in the New Age that is new. The name seems to have gained currency through Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, at the time of the French and American Revolutions, but the reality it denotes is a contemporary variant of Western esotericism. This dates back to Gnostic groups which grew up in the early days of Christianity, and gained momentum at the time of the Reformation in Europe. It has grown in parallel with scientific world-views, and acquired a rational justification through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It has involved a progressive rejection of a personal God and a focus on other entities which would often figure as intermediaries between God and humanity in traditional Christianity, with more and more original adaptations of these or additional ones. A powerful trend in modern Western culture which has given space to New Age ideas is the general acceptance of Darwinist evolutionary theory; this, alongside a focus on hidden spiritual powers or forces in nature, has been the backbone of much of what is now recognised as New Agetheory.
Basically, New Age has found a remarkable level of acceptance because the world-view on which it was based was already widely accepted. The ground was well prepared by the growth and spread of relativism, along with an antipathy or indifference towards the Christian faith
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Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine |
Some of the traditions which flow into New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on.(15)
The problem is the definition of power and from where power comes. Catholics cannot mistake personal power for spiritual powers taught in Eastern religions which do not and in fact contradict the traditional Catholic teaching of body and soul. Our soul in individual, unique. We are created in God's Image and Likeness and our soul is created by God at conception with our body. We do not have multiple sources of spiritual power to harness. This is false teaching.
There is also a false idea that suffering is always bad. One cannot compromise on these philosophies, as one opens one's self up to deceit and possibly demonic powers.
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Do not forget Pat Buchanan
Posted by
Supertradmum
The man is a political genius and should be read and listened to....http://buchanan.org/blog/the-natural-map-of-the-middle-east-5194?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatrickBuchanan+%28Pat+Buchanan+Update%29
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