At the time of writing, the Archdiocese of Liverpool website is highlighting (as shown above), a link to an important briefing paper ("Assessing the evidence on Assisted Suicide") produced just three days ago by the English and Welsh Catholic bishops, ahead of the UK MPs' debate in the House of Commons, 20 days from now, about a bill which seeks to enshrine in British law the legal right to "enable competent adults who are terminally ill to choose to be provided with medically supervised assistance to end their own life; and for connected purposes".
The primary aim of the bishops' short document is actually to refer readers onwards to another work: a study produced by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre ("Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Guide to the Evidence") which comprehensively nails the lie that this murderous campaign (heavily backed by the UK media and assorted UK celebrities, incidentally) is founded upon "mercy". Moreover, it asserts that its anti-success, if given Royal Assent, would only serve to "undermine key principles of law, medical ethics and palliative care".
Offering eight reasons not to legalise Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS), it is the fourth in a sobering list provided by the Anscombe team which forms the bedrock case:
Legalising PAS would undermine a foundational principle of law and justice. All human beings possess, in virtue of our common humanity, an equal and intrinsic dignity. It is contrary to justice and human solidarity intentionally to kill an innocent human being (that is, someone not engaged in unjust aggression).
Whilst rightly highlighting the links to this hugely impressive, incredibly clear and ultra-urgent document, the Archdiocesan website also directs readers to coverage of the high-profile funeral celebrated yesterday by the Auxiliary Bishop in one of the city of Liverpool's most famous Catholic churches – which was also broadcast live to millions across the UK on TV, radio and the Internet – of a soul who scandalised many of her fellow baptised Catholics by publicly proclaiming her support for assisted suicide and especially the Dignitas euthanasia clinic in Switzerland.
Here is what the baptised Catholic, Priscilla Willis (née White; aka "Cilla Black"), said last year, on May 12th, 2014, just three weeks prior to the introduction and first reading of the Assisted Dying Bill in the UK House of Lords, at the height of the initial media-fulled propaganda onslaught:
“I agree with Dignitas, but I couldn’t be the one to administer the poison that kills me. I know I couldn’t commit suicide. I’m too much of a coward. I couldn’t do it. I’d rather somebody make that decision for me.”
"Cilla", in the same newspaper interview, repeated what she had publicly proclaimed to another British newspaper three years earlier – when she had first started to hint at her tacit support for euthanasia – by saying she wouldn't like to live beyond the age of 75. The Lord took her earlier this month aged 72.
It is our fervent prayer that prior to her death Cilla Black recognised the gravity of that publicly proclaimed statement, which had the potential to mislead many unsuspecting souls, and (even in the absence, as far as we can see, of an equally satisfactory and public statement denouncing her belief) repented of her proclamation and died in the state of sacramental grace.
Of course, whilst it is not the business of any baptised Catholic to consider the state of another baptised Catholic's soul upon their death, it is their concern and indeed duty to highlight any errors that they may have fallen into in order to save other unsuspecting souls falling into the same sinful traps.
Her statement last year in support of euthanasia did, however, seem to tie in with the undeniable reality that in her later years Cilla Black publicly lapsed from her baptismal Faith. When speaking, in 2011, to a UK national newspaper, about the death of her husband 11 years earlier, she said:
"The hardest thing is when you realise they’re never, ever going to come back. I’m a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don’t pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year…' or 'Please God…' but they’re only phrases.
"I got into all kinds of weird things for a long time just to get in touch with Bobby. I went to faith healers, psychics. At the time it was comforting. I never revealed any personal information, but one particular woman told me things about how Bobby died – the circumstances, where I was at the time – that nobody could possibly have known but me and my sons. Now I’m a bit more cynical. I don’t know whether there’s an afterlife."
It was within that same, clearly emotional, 2011 interview, actually given in the wake of the death of her brother, that she first spoke, in quite muddled terms, about euthanasia – certainly not in as explicit terms as she would three years later. Still raw from the death of her brother she also recalled the death of her mother 15 years earlier (aged 85, in 1996) saying:
"I’d prefer not to live beyond 75 than go through that, because that’s the age when my mother went downhill. Her head was on her shoulders and she had to be fed intravenously. I was at the end of my tether with her. She had the brightest blue eyes and I could read her thoughts. I could read her pleading with me, 'I don’t want to be here.' I knew she was trying to die. It was awful.
"I actually saw a doctor. The minute I said, 'Can you help?' she knew what I was on about, but said, 'Well, her heart is so strong.' I’d have been horrified if she’d said, 'I can give her a needle now.' It would have been like me pulling the trigger. But it was, in a way, what I wanted the doctors to do. Instead, I had to live with her deterioration and she had to live with it until she was 84. That’s a long time to suffer."
Distressing stuff, on so many levels.
It is clear that Cilla particularly struggled to cope with the acute sorrow accompanying four specific deaths in a 35-year period that defined her personal life: that of her third child, a daughter, just two hours after birth in 1975, the memory of which reduced her to tears on national TV many years later; that of her mother in 1996 as described above; most significantly that of her husband in 1999 when she was just 56; and then that of her brother in 2010.
Although we all have deaths to face and crosses to bear, it is simply too glib to just dismiss Cilla Black's clear grief like that. For some souls seem to cope better than others - though this is not to disregard the strengthening graces that God can fortify any baptised soul with, particularly through proper reception of the sacraments. It is indeed hard, then, not to let your heart go out to Cilla Black who was clearly in need of the support of her Faith throughout a prolonged and trying time in her life. In such times, it is always a particular grace for any soul to be supported by the Catholic Faith of those closest to them, amongst family and friends. Faith supports Faith. Cilla, however, left her Liverpool Catholic homestead behind her to pursue her career, and it would seem evident that thereafter her Faith did not play a significant role in her married home life with her non-Catholic husband.
Inevitably the practice of her Faith declined. Hand-in-hand with that went her convictions in Faith, which were obviously eroded as time went by and ultimately led to her publicly declaring her eventual and unequivocal support for euthanasia just three years prior to her death.
Beyond distressing.
It is also undeniable that in the 16 years following the death of her husband, to whom she was utterly devoted, Cilla Black followed a consistent pattern of publicly surrounding herself with the company of men who were overtly active in same-sex relationships – three in particular. It doesn't take too much insight to figure out why. There was simply no replacement for her beloved husband. Yet, as a still relatively young woman, she still craved "male attention" and company without any strings attached.
Accordingly, in her own words, when speaking to a UK national newspaper in 2013, she described herself as a "fruit fly".
She was also self-aware enough to know that her immersion into the social scene that surrounded the so-called lifestyle of those in openly active same-sex relations was much to the chagrin of her eldest son.
"I had a weird conversation with my eldest lad...who said, 'It's in the paper you're in the Shadow Lounge' (a so-called 'gay'-club in Soho, London)...and I said, 'Yeah. What's the problem with that?' I don't see what the problem is but then I sat with him and I said, '...I will not bring shame to the Willis family',...I thought 'This is weird. I'm his mother. I should be saying this to him'."
Tellingly, she admitted that her late husband would not have allowed her to go to such a nightclub and added:
"My husband was very much a home bird and I loved him so much and still do...[but]...It's my time now. I have got friends all over the world. If they phone me up and I'm free I will go to parties anywhere. I am not doing any harm by doing that. But I love the attention and I love being there."
It's not too difficult, then, to work out how the Catholic senses of Cilla Black were eroded by degrees, through her own misguided choices over many years.
Given all the above, then, it should also not have been too difficult for the leaders of the Archdiocese of Liverpool to have anticipated, with no little advance notice (Cilla Black died on August 1st, her funeral was 19 days later) how the events of yesterday could so easily descend (the right term) into open scandal.
The fact that the events that transpired yesterday at St Mary's, Woolton, were allowed to unfold is proof itself that the Archdiocese approved. For neither the Archbishop and Auxiliary Bishop can claim to have been caught unawares or been blindsided.
And so the watching nation was entertained (no other word for it) yesterday by saturated media coverage of a supposedly Catholic funeral (yet another "celebration of life") during which a bishop and accompanying clergy – clad in the now uniform rainbow vestments which earlier this year became the official liturgical wear of the Archdiocese of Liverpool – purposefully omitted the word "sin" from the spoken rite (more later) and approved of the revelry (even making laughing and crowd-pleasing jokes about Hail Marys and implicitly making light of the Sacrament of Penance). The cliché-riddled festival of syncretism also featured:
• a committed Protestant-Evangelical male pop singer – an avowed supporter of so-called "same-sex marriage", who has lived for many years with an ex-Catholic priest, indeed with whom he was in attendance at the funeral (n.b. this final part of that clause was edit-added to this post on Aug 24, 2015) – introducing the service by singing a truly tedious "Gospel ballad" live on the sanctuary;
• the tiresome (and some rightly say "irritating") reading of the highly dubious and nauseatingly saccharine poem "Death is Nothing At All" penned by an Anglican minister;
• another man who is openly living in a same-sex "civil partnership" reading from the Book of Wisdom (sigh);
• a pop song – recorded by the deceased – being played during the distribution of Holy Communion;
• the reading of a poem written by the Hindu-Brahmoist-Universalist "Divine Society" mystic, Rabindranath Tagore;
• a final tribute delivered from the sanctuary – before a seated Catholic bishop and several clergy (some of whom, slightly encouragingly didn't find it as universally funny as seemingly everybody else did) – by a former drag artist, who turned up at the service with his most recent boyfriend with whom he is in an openly same-sex partnership, who regaled the "congregation" with jokes about mantillas and lillies, seedy New York night clubs, and self-described himself as a "hell-raiser" (which he felt confident enough to joke with the bishop about...on a Catholic sanctuary) using the classless Satanic metaphors of being possessed of cloven hooves, horns and a tail (as painful as it may be, it is recommended that you watch as much of this scandal as possible - link).
The response, from the bishop in attendance, to this last element, was to laughingly suggest (approving of his own jokes) to the speaker that he should "say three Hail Marys".
The response, from the bishop in attendance, to this last element, was to laughingly suggest (approving of his own jokes) to the speaker that he should "say three Hail Marys".
There, in as much a nutshell as possible, is the mess that the Archdiocese of Liverpool has become.
There, in a nutshell is why so many of us (albeit a significant minority) have sought sanctuary in the Traditional wing of the Church, for frankly it's the only place of safety.
And there, in a nutshell, is why both the Archbishop (notwithstanding certain actions and decisions that appear to the contrary) and Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, both publicly, and many of the archdiocesan clergy – declare the Traditional Mass to be "divisive". Because adherence to the Church's liturgical traditions leaves no room for the type of free-styling sacrilege broadcast to the world yesterday.
The Traditional liturgy prevents the Church from demonstrating to the nations how worldly, how accessible, how free and how non-judgemental it has now become. We await the sudden surge of realisation across the archdiocese and the nation about how "with it" the Church now is and for reports of packed pews across the country this Sunday. Finally the fruits of Vatican II may be realised.
In the likely absence of such phenomena, it is our belief that it is genuinely no over-statement to suggest that an Act of Reparation should be performed at St Mary's after yesterday's public scandal.
The Traditional liturgy prevents the Church from demonstrating to the nations how worldly, how accessible, how free and how non-judgemental it has now become. We await the sudden surge of realisation across the archdiocese and the nation about how "with it" the Church now is and for reports of packed pews across the country this Sunday. Finally the fruits of Vatican II may be realised.
In the likely absence of such phenomena, it is our belief that it is genuinely no over-statement to suggest that an Act of Reparation should be performed at St Mary's after yesterday's public scandal.
The fact, though, that so many local Catholics (and not all of them Traditionalists by any stretch) will indeed have been scandalised by the events of yesterday will not be seen as a pastoral issue for either the Archbishop or Auxiliary Bishop to address. Rather, this will dismissed as a problem that those who feel so scandalised must resolve for themselves; file under "get over it!".
Perhaps the only bright spot to have emerged from yesterday's hell-bent caper is that we now note that it is possible for all Catholics, even publicly lapsed ones, to receive either the funeral of theirs or their family's choice, at their archdiocesan church of choice, even if they belong to a different diocese (Cilla Black has been a resident of the Archdiocese of Westminster for many decades). Too late, of course, for the hundreds, if not thousands, of souls attached to the Traditional Catholic liturgy who have been denied, these last 45-plus years, the requiem that was their dying wish. But certainly something to bring solace to those of us who found yesterday's events lamentable and would wish to exercise their "right to the rite" i.e. the provision of a fully Traditional Catholic Requiem (Summorum Pontificum, Art 5, § 3).
Even better if celebrated by a bishop.
* A final word, as promised, about the deliberate omission of the word "sins" by the Auxiliary Bishop, who gave a homily at the service which spoke about five F-words that apparently framed "Cilla's" life: family, friends, football, fun and Faith (His Lordship's capital emphasis).
As can be seen below, the printed Order of Service booklet for yesterday's funeral included the text: "Forgive Cilla her sins."
However, for some reason, when it came to it, "Bishop Tom" ad-libbed his own version and said: "Forgive Cilla her faults and failings."
Well, at least he retained another capitalised F-word.
Small mercies.
[The title of this post has been amended to include the figure (#1) at its end, to signify that a second post on this subject which hadn't necessarily been anticipated but will now be made – certainly out of necessity – based on information received since this original publication]
Priscilla Maria Veronica Willis - Requiescat in pace
Eternal Rest, grant unto her O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon her
May she rest in peace
Amen
