Karl Rove is proud of waterboarding

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From here:

The man known for much of his career as “Bush’s brain” has caused a storm of protest by saying that he is proud of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on prisoners by the US and internationally condemned as torture. Karl Rove said that the Administration “broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information”.

The first public hint of the programme of CIA rendition flights and coercive interrogations led eventually to terrifying first-person accounts of waterboarding, including that of the British columnist Christopher Hitchens. It felt, he wrote, “as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face”.

Anything that causes liberals to froth at the mouth and clamps a huge wet paw over Christopher Hitchens’ face can’t be all bad.

Canadian Anglicans Widening the Circle

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The Diocese of Niagara is advertising the Widening Circle Conference 2010, apparently, because orthodox Anglicanism is inclusive and diverse.

In case anyone has any doubt about what that really means:

We are joining together:
1. to take a stand against making the doctrine and discipline of our national church subservient to the Primates of the Anglican Communion through a proposed Anglican Covenant; and
2. to resist a narrow and exclusive version of Anglicanism, expressed in our own country as resistance to the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.

I bet that was a surprise.

As is this:

We welcome the resolutions of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada affirming the full equality of gays and lesbians, and the “integrity and sanctity” of their intimate relationships. We believe that this affirmation must be translated into concrete acts of contrition for past wrongs, and full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.  In the absence of such acts, the church is existing in a state of unholy hypocrisy.

And this:

We call on the House of Bishops to lift the moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions.

Just how wide is this Circle. Not that wide, it seems:

Other provinces, mind your own business:

We uphold the autonomy of the provinces of the Anglican Communion to adjudicate, elaborate, and specify questions of doctrine as they emerge in their unique cultural contexts from time-to-time.  We expect these doctrinal decisions to be reached by synods or other established councils of the church, in the form of canon law and authorised liturgies.

Rowan Williams, mind your own business:

We appreciate the historic place of the Archbishop of Canterbury as a symbol of unity, while affirming that his juridical authority is restricted to that primatial See.

Primates, mind your own business:

We recognise the role of the Lambeth Conference and the international Primates’ meetings as occasions for our episcopal and primatial leaders to engage in mutual reflection; but we reject any notion that such voluntary gatherings should exercise juridical authority.

We don’t care what any of you think, we make up are own rules, so there:

We affirm that every Christian has the right, through baptism, to judge questions of faith, and to contribute to ongoing dialogue within communities of faith and in the councils of the church. The free exercise of this responsibility is necessary in order to maintain the integrity, constancy, and truth of the faith.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

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In case anyone has any doubts about where the heart of the Anglican Church of Canada’s is, these three articles published today in quick succession by the Anglican Journal will give you a clue: it’s in eco-babble:

Waste not, want not

‘Planet Matters’ an environmental advocacy engine

Many faith traditions active in environmental advocacy

I found it particularly interesting to note that the second article recommends watching An Inconvenient Truth; the ACoC must surely be one of the few organisations left that is gullible enough not to have recognised the Al Gore money machine for what it is.

Child abuse, the devil and Harry Potter

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From here:

Child sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church are evidence of the Devil’s presence in the Vatican, the Pope’s chief exorcist said yesterday.

Father Gabriel Amorth, 84, who has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms in a career spanning 24 years said Pope Benedict ‘fully agreed’ with him in ‘casting out evil’.

I quite agree.

Father Amorth, who was ordained in 1954 and who is president of the International Association of Exorcists, said of the JK Rowling books: ‘Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.
He said Rowling’s books contain innumerable positive references to magic, ‘the satanic art’ and added the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction ‘does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil’.

Possibly true, although I found the Harry Potter novels a thumping good read and an imaginative illustration of humanity’s participation in the drama of good vs. evil. I’ve forgotten where C. S. Lewis mentions it (That Hideous Strength, perhaps), but he has God chiding – not condemning – Merlin for dabbling in matters forbidden; I hope the same for Harry.

The pornogrification of parliament

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It had to happen eventually, I suppose:

So far, she has been a staunch advocate of all things blue.

The first woman in Britain to direct adult films revealed yesterday, however, that her political colours are of a different hue.

Anna Arrowsmith, hailed in some quarters as a champion of ‘female-friendly porn’, has been chosen as a Liberal Democrat candidate in the General Election.

If elected, Ms. Arrowsmith will be spending most of her time in the parliamentary locker-room showers with her camera.

Celibate priests and pederasty

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From here:

A leading cardinal today claimed that the sex abuse cases rocking the Roman Catholic Church were due to ‘priestly celibacy’.

Calling for a ‘change of vision’, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, leader of the Catholic Church in Austria, said the causes of sex abuse by priests could be found in ‘priest celibacy’ and ‘priest training’.

In recent weeks the church has been rocked by a series of abuse scandals in Ireland, Holland and Germany – where Pope Benedict’s retired priest brother Georg Ratzinger has admitted to hitting choir boys.

The 65-year-old cardinal, who is tipped to be a future pope, made the shock claims in a religious magazine.

Cardinal Schoenborn said: ‘The causes of sex abuse by priests? These need to be found in priest training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution of 1968.

‘It also includes the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development.

‘It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the Church and of society as a whole, a change of vision.’

The abuse of children by anyone, in any way, is an unconscionable horror – particularly so if it is inflicted by church officials.

But to blame the sexual abuse of children on priestly celibacy makes as much sense as blaming animal abuse on vegetarians: there is no connection between voluntarily renouncing the God-given enjoyment of sexual intercourse and the evil of raping children.

Even though I don’t agree with Roman Catholic Church’s requirement that priests be unmarried, it seems fairly obvious that the problem is not one of priestly celibacy: it is that candidates for the RC priesthood are not being screened for pederastic sexual perversion.

The denaturing of evil

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The New Statesman would like to substitute “damaged” for “evil”:

Bulger killers were damaged, not evil.

Why can we not see Jon Venables and Robert Thompson as both victims and perpetrators?

Since the 1993 murder on Merseyside of the toddler James Bulger, the single most profound shift in our understanding of what creates disturbed children comes not from the criminal justice system, but from neuroscience. It is the graphic evidence for something many parents instinctively feel: that love is as vital to children as breathing. Brain scans conducted in the 1990s on children from Romanian orphanages deprived of almost all human interaction show a virtual black hole where the part of their brains dealing with managing emotions should be. The scans suggest the infant mind is not born but made, building itself like a muscle over the first two years of life as parental attention triggers physical responses in the brain.

In Samuel Butler’s Erehwon, the sick are treated as criminals and those who commit crimes as people in need of healing. For today’s elite, having largely abandoned the idea that the will exists independently of the brain, the latter of Butler’s ideas does not seem too far-fetched. Evil, for an atheist, is not rebellion against absolute moral law, it is simply something he doesn’t like, something that disrupts the harmony of the information processing capacity of his neurons. For example, in Christopher Hitchens’ case it is something that seeks to diminish his ego.

Most people, though, even though they may be adiabolists, instinctively understand that evil is real. In the case of Venables and Thompson, their killing of a helpless toddler was an act of evil for which they bear responsibility; to claim otherwise is to make them less than human – it assumes their freedom of choice had been “damaged” to such an extent by their parents that it no longer existed.

Nevertheless, there is still hope for Venables and Thompson: it is in acknowledging the evil they have done and in the saving power of Jesus Christ.

The Anglican Church of Canada immersed in treacly conversation

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From here:

For a little over a year, five Canadian and six African dioceses have engaged in diocese-to-diocese theological dialogue on matters relating to human sexuality and to mission.

Ours was an experience of holy listening as we engaged together in prayerful attentiveness to God and to each other in Christ. There is much that we celebrate from this experience of dialogue-in-community. In spite of differences, we strongly affirm our commitment to each other as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ and as members in the Anglican Communion.  As we continue to learn about each other’s mission contexts, cultures, values and languages, each of us grows in deeper mutual understanding of theological and ethical positions — both our own and those of our partners.

We affirm together that dialogue cannot be about trying to make someone change their position, but is about working together better to understand the fullness of our stories, affirmations and commitments. To do so requires that we meet, that we converse, that we commit to this holy listening and honest, respectful speech with openness and prayerful thanksgiving for the gift that is the other. This is the gift of communion we share in Christ: that we are one, in his body. We are empowered by our mutual listening and learning to carry on, to deepen our existing bonds of affection, and to serve God’s mission with renewed hope.

It is the desire of this group to continue to meet again, and to plan other ways in which our dioceses might deepen relationship one with another. It is our hope that the process and the fruits of our theological discernment may link with the Continuing Indaba process of the Anglican Communion.

The New Anglican: I’m OK, you’re OK; what’s right for you may not be right for me; let me affirm you; holy listening; respectful speech; openness; context; telling stories; deeper mutual understanding.

What a load of old bollocks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0a06gsiF4]

Rowan Williams is baffled and angry at Israel

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From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that despite believing Israel has a right to defend itself, he is “baffled and angry” at some of its methods.

Dr Rowan Williams spoke in conversation with Times editor James Harding in front of more than 200 people at a JC-sponsored event organised by the Board of Deputies on Wednesday.

Less than 15 minutes into the 90- minute discussion, Mr Harding asked Dr Williams to face the “elephant in the room” and reveal his views on Israel.

“The state of Israel is a legitimate state,” the archbishop said. “It has a right to exist and right to defend itself. The very fact that Israel makes so much of its status as a democratic state leaves me baffled and sometimes angry at what seems like collusion with unauthorised parties. I want to hear a legal defence of settlements and I am yet to hear it.

“Unless there is a way of representing the settlements as legitimate self-defence I remain very disturbed about that, along with many.”

Rowan would undoubtedly be much happier if Israel would engage Hamas – who don’t seem to make Rowan angry at all – in Indaba sessions, holy listening and telling stories; then, at least everyone would be baffled.

The Anglican Church of Canada has been insulted!

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From the Journal

Bishop James Cowan of the diocese of British Columbia told his synod at the Mar.6-7 meeting that Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was “insulting” in the way he refused to allow eleven priests from the Anglican Church of the province of Myanmar to visit last fall when the diocese was celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“When Victoria MP Denise Savoie tried to speak on our behalf with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, she was rudely received and patronized by him. His correspondence with her is insulting to all concerned,” Bishop Cowan told synod.

A New Democratic Party press release last fall accused the Immigration Minister of being “unwilling to take the word of Canadian church officials about a group of priests with unbreakable ties to their home parishes.

Jason Kenney represents one of the few remaining sins that is still acknowledged by the Anglican Church of Canada: he’s politically conservative. And now he has insulted the ACoC apparatchiks by refusing to take their word that the Myanmar Anglican priests would return to their own country.

Although the visit of the Myanmar priests was probably innocent enough,  Kenney’s mistrust of the ACoC is not entirely unfounded: in 2009 the Anglican Diocese of Montreal sponsored Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian terrorist who conspired with Al Qaeda.