Conrad Black's arrogance has been well known in Canada for decades. While one can appreciate his intellect, his business practices are exactly what Pope Francis would have deplored. I know people who still pay the price for his corporate manipulation and pension machinations in Toronto thirty years ago. Black spent time in prison in Florida for malfeasance against shareholders in the United States. Brought into the Catholic Church by the late Toronto Archbishop Emmett Cardinal Carter, Black had renounced his Canadian citizenship in order to accept the peerage of the British House of Lords. It is important to note that Emmett Cardinal Carter, one of the so-called, "gang-of-five" was instrumental in the development of the Winnipeg Statement which gave Canadian Catholics the "permission" to dissent on Church teaching.
In a column in the National Review, Lord Black contradicts himself in a column instructing Pope Francis to change the Church's teaching on contraception. On the one hand he finds it "commendable" that the Church "avoids trendiness and pandering" which "distinguishes it from many other churches" and on the hand declares that "the Church’s official position on contraception enables its enemies to portray it as an archaic society for the propagation of chaste humbug by an esoteric fraternity of superannuated clergymen in antiquarian costumes."
In a column in the National Review, Lord Black contradicts himself in a column instructing Pope Francis to change the Church's teaching on contraception. On the one hand he finds it "commendable" that the Church "avoids trendiness and pandering" which "distinguishes it from many other churches" and on the hand declares that "the Church’s official position on contraception enables its enemies to portray it as an archaic society for the propagation of chaste humbug by an esoteric fraternity of superannuated clergymen in antiquarian costumes."
So which is it Lord Black; Is the Church to be commended for not being trendy or is She to submit to the worldly view?
And speaking of "antiquarian costumes" ...
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| Lord Black tried to dismiss his outfit, saying it was "the only one available at the costumier the day before the party" and insisted that he certainly wasn't dressed as the power-crazed Richelieu. He added that, rather than Marie Antoinette, Barbara - famous for her hundreds of pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes and penchant for gold-plated loos - was dressed as a lowly barmaid. |
Black opines that the Church should end its "its hostility to safe sex ahead of its mortal opposition to abortion: and calls it "a much more defensible and important cause that would be directly assisted by ending the failed war on contraception." Yet, whilst doing so, he completely misses the intricate connection between failed contraception and procured abortion to say nothing of the degradation of the conjugal act to be only for that of pleasure divorced from its procreative aspects. Black declares that the Church's teaching is "not supported by more than a small and very doctrinaire section of the laity." This may be true, but even Lord Black should know that the Church is not a democracy.
Rather than lecturing Pope Francis, perhaps Lord Black might allow Pope Francis' words on humility to pierce him instead; but then, Black's unethical business practices in Canada were exactly those which caused the growth of Liberation Theology in the land from where our Holy Father hails.
Rather than lecturing Pope Francis, perhaps Lord Black might allow Pope Francis' words on humility to pierce him instead; but then, Black's unethical business practices in Canada were exactly those which caused the growth of Liberation Theology in the land from where our Holy Father hails.
3 comments:
A powerful refutation of a confused Catholic. Well done.
Conrad's inability/refusal to understand the concept of the Magisterium is tragic. He should read (re-read?) Pius XI, XII, Paul VI and John Paul II on the illicitness of the use of contraception to understand why the Church teaches what She does.
The Church can no more change Her teaching on contraception, then on abortion.
Of course, the Church should just do as Conrad Black decides ... By the way, why wasn't Black elected in the conclave?
Lord Black also makes the erroneous assumption that the Church should only take up the battles that it will easily win in the near future. Of course, this is only a thin veneer for liberalization. But there are too many people out there that see the Church as a business, thinking it should only undertake tasks that will offer visible results in our own lifetimes. The idea of the absolute is replaced by a sense of "negotiation", "trade offs" and a push for results.
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