Get Off Your Knees

at

St Peter’s, Phibsborough, Dublin on Good Friday

This morning.

Via Irish Times Letters:

At long last the Roman Catholic Church has expressed concern about the criminalising of public worship in the Republic (“Catholic archbishop criticises ‘provocative’ law on services”)

The Government does not seem to care that in this respect the country is out of step with most other countries in Europe. At Easter, we had a ludicrous situation that churches in the North were able to celebrate Easter while in the South they were bolted and barred.

Irish Times Letters

Meanwhile…

This morning.

Faith! Fight!

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39 thoughts on “Get Off Your Knees

    1. Junkface

      God must really work in mysterious ways. He sent the virus through the atheist CCP virus lab in Wuhan, China.

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        He’s a character in an epic work of fiction I skimmed when I was younger. Its lead character is a self obsessed narcissist that gets off on killing a lot of people, including his own child.

        1. benblack

          As does Covid.

          If you don’t believe in the devil, then, don’t reference God to make a moot point – in your opinion.

          The supernatural exists, or, it doesn’t.

          TopTip:

          It does.

          1. Daisy Chainsaw

            Invisible sky fairy controlling your every thought and move? Sure.

            Enjoy hell, by the way.

          2. benblack

            Visible power structures controlling your every thought and move – governments – do the same, Daisy.

            Hell, we’re all living in it.

          3. Rosette of Sirius

            At least they’re our visible, and tangible power structures controlling us and not fictitious all powerful maniacal egomaniac controlling us from the pages of a stupid book.

          4. benblack

            The book is not stupid and the power structures contained therein are the best for humankind.

            Forget heaven, we can live in our own constructed hell!

            And we are.

          5. Daisy Chainsaw

            If you want to be controlled by a work of fiction, that’s your problem and not one that should be inflicted on the rest of us.

            My thoughts are controlled by me and me alone. As for the government controlling some of my moves (like not letting me drive without a seatbelt, or walk down the middle of a busy motorway), at least the goverment actually exists, voted for by people who also exist.

          6. benblack

            And there you have it, Daisy – you don’t even know where you are living.

            Mob rule, is no rule – that’s why we call it democracy.

            Did you vote for this government or a local representative of a political party that proposed this rotating coalition?

            There’s your democracy.

          7. Micko

            Ah come on guys

            Honestly, while I’d call myself an agnostic atheist, I still do see a place for religion in our world.

            It gives (some) people a sense of community and ties people to their neighbours, and more importantly (like it or not) our societies basic tenets about how to treat each other are based on the teachings of a judeo christian faith.

            In fact, the only thing more annoying that someone who is ramming religion down your throat is someone who does the same with atheism.

            No one has a fupping clue. Least of all me. ;)

          8. benblack

            “our societies basic tenets about how to treat each other are based on the teachings of a judeo christian faith.”

            Let us not stray from those values.

          9. Oro

            Hasn’t the main uninterrupted ever present value displayed by christianity been corruption? Every single story about the catholic church seems to either be about corruption or deals with their own corruption. The further society moves away from it the healthier it becomes, the cold hard grip it had on Irish society is weakening and Ireland will be all the better for it.

          10. Steph Pinker

            Micko, I think I’ll name my next born foal ‘agnostic atheist’ – it’ll be an EW bet regardless!

          11. Micko

            I agree that it’s fiction Formerly

            That doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from it.

            I’m not saying that you can’t be moral without it.

            I’m saying that going back a very long time, our society’s morals were based around these teachings and those teachings have influenced our society.

            Again – I don’t believe in any of it.

            But to deny it’s influence on western society (good and bad) is just odd.

            Do you think the teachings of Islam have influenced the societies in the Middle East?

            Course they have

  1. Clampers Outside

    Or ” Faith fight! ”

    Be pitching P̶e̶n̶n̶i̶e̶s̶ hosts against the back wall of the sacristy… Best of 3!

  2. Micko

    Slightly off topic but what the “hell” – eh eh eh?

    So, I’m chatting to a pal on WhatsApp last week and she tells me that the Gov count any death in an “Institutional setting” as a Covid death. Which really surprised me.

    So regardless of a test – they count it.

    She’s a fairly high up civil servant (not HSE). so I thought she’d know what she was talking about.

    So, I had a look there for myself. On the official figures.

    https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/epidemiologyofcovid-19inirelandweeklyreports/

    Last week (Week 15) there were ZERO confirmed Covid deaths in Ireland.

    The week (14) before there was “less than 5” confirmed Covid deaths?.

    And the week (13) before that there was zero confirmed Covid deaths again

    It’s there in table 1 if anyone want to check.

    All the ones going back to the start of the year are there

    Now, am I reading this right can anyone confirm or am I missing something really obvious? Genuine question.

    Thanks

    1. Cian

      I think it is a bit confusing the way the weekly reports are written, If we just look at week 15, the table on Page 2:
      https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/epidemiologyofcovid-19inirelandweeklyreports/COVID-19%20Weekly%20Report_Slidset_HPSC_%20Week_15_WEB.pdf

      They are saying in week 15:
      Total number of confirmed case:    2,593
      Number of cases hospitalised:           95
      Number of cases admitted to ICU:           <5*
      Number of deaths among confirmed cases: 0

      But these numbers are out of the 2,593 that tested positive during the week.

      i.e. of 2,593 people that tested positive in Week 15 zero died in week 15.

      If you compare the week 15 report with the week 14 documents:
      Week 15: total confirmed deaths = 4,568
      Week 14: total confirmed deaths = 4,519

      A total of 49 peoples deaths were notified in Week 15 (just none of these had had a positive tests IN week 15)

      1. Micko

        Thanks Cian.

        That makes more sense – but that’s a bloody very confusing way to list them.

        I think there’s an error in table 4 between the the 14th week and the 15th week. There’s an increase in deaths in table 3, but no increase in the total age groups apart from two people under 45 – both list 4785 as the total number of deaths.

        Anyway – the whole reporting thing is gone crazy. They need to move to a weekly or monthly model. These nightly briefing are very confusing.

        But maybe that’s the point ;)

        Cheers.

    1. Daisy Chainsaw

      Must be seriously missing the income from the plates and weekly envelopes… and the candles that no granny has been able to light for the grandkids doing the leaving.

        1. Cian

          What do you mean?

          Were non-practicing Catholics sneaking into the churches to light candles?

          1. benblack

            The loss of income is not the issue here, Cian. The issue is a person’s Constitutional right to practise – a verb – their religion.

            And, if non-practising Catholics light candles they are, by definition, practising Catholics.

        2. scottser

          Yeah, daisy is forgetting all about the spying, curtain twitching, gossiping, judgement, condescension and exclusion that they all love so much.
          Well, it’s a hobby I suppose.

          1. Micko

            A lad I know put up a picture of an elderly gentleman on the Dart today on his Facebook feed.

            Because the elderly gent was wearing his mask under his chin while reading the paper.

            He of course did it to shame him the old man. And to signal his own virtuous.

            So I think all those bad things are in us anyway. Sometimes they just need something to focus them.

            Religion works well to focus these negative parts of us – but so do other things.

        3. Daisy Chainsaw

          It’s what it’s all about for the hierarchy. They’re losing their meal ticket and their relevance.

          Power and the money
          money and the power
          minute after minute
          hour after hour.

  3. Joe

    Most attendees at Mass are in the older age group.
    Presumably the church is happy with additional covid deaths from this cohort, funerals must be a nice little earner for the skypilots

  4. Charger Salmons

    I’m not always in the hunt for a hat-tip.
    But sheesh, Bodger, the headline.
    You’re stealing all my material … :)

    1. Steph Pinker

      Material? Do your Union Flag Budgie smugglers require much material near your flagpole?*

      Send me a pic… please?

      * Per sq inch/foot and how the wind is blowing if you don’t mind.

  5. f_lawless

    There’s only so far we can keep going down this road where “health and safety” is always put first to the detriment of everything else; of reducing everything down to protecting “bare life” at all costs. Humans have a fundamental need to gather together for spiritual growth and a sense of community, whether in a church or elsewhere. We need that in these times more than ever

    Worth a watch:
    https://unherd.com/thepost/church-leaders-vaccine-passports-would-be-un-christian/

    “A Christian would never argue that physical health and protection is the ultimate thing. A Christian must say that eternal health is infinitely more important…And this is the problem: the message of the church collapsed into one of merely health and safety in a temporal way. It has entirely omitted speaking about hope and salvation. That is a catastrophic failure of the institutional church”

    “Many of us have been frustrated, both in the church and in society, with what we see is a considerable lack of Christian Leadership over the last 12 months. We feel that senior church leaders across all denominations have given an imprimatur to the dictates of the government and of the secular, unelected technocrats who appear to be running things at the moment. People are extremely frustrated with this.

    I’m a curate at the bottom of the food chain. I’ve only been ordained for less than two years. But there’s such a dearth of leadership that I felt like it was necessary for me to do something. “

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