Our first post of the new secular year (Deo gratias for safe delivery).
Sadly, we find our first duty is to report further fallout from "Cillagate" (pew nod to the prodigious team at Torch of the Faith for originating that pithy short-hand for this local and national [well, it should have been!] Catholic scandal).
We'd hoped that our last word on this, still all-too-depressing, mess had been written with the last of our three posts dissecting the repulsive, episcopally-approved occurrences that were permitted in this archdiocese late last summer. We use the term "our last word" with no little irony, for it was an equal scandal that, apart from this parish – and the aforementioned Torch of the Faith blog, and the superb Catholic Collar and Tie blog – one of this land's biggest public sacrileges and insults to the Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in years, certainly one of the most widely broadcast, was completely ignored not only across the Catholic media but also by the Traditional Catholic blogosphere. We're tempted to say something about "the unreported north" but we'll let it go; let's face it, near everyone else has!).
Regular readers (aye, we've a few) will know of the blood-boiling events that were allowed to occur, in fact openly encouraged, last August at St Mary church, Woolton, Liverpool, during the (supposedly) Catholic Requiem Mass for the soul of the baptised Catholic and popular UK celebrity singer, performer and broadcaster, Priscilla Maria Veronica Willis (aka "Cilla Black").
That was the laugh-in event that led to a Catholic bishop on a sanctuary cracking a penance joke, in response to the celebrity "eulogist", Paul O'Grady, who had regaled his audience, sorry the congregation, with comedy anecdotes aplenty (oh that one about mantillas! our sides still ache), burlesque references and a casually glib wink-and-nod about Satan (yeah him).
Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Rev. Thomas Williams to Mr O'Grady:
"Thanks Paul, now say three Hail Marys."
Cue uproarious laughter. Cue riotous in-church applause. All hail the "in crowd".
It's how we'll get the pews full again you know! Just wait and see.
Our three original posts about the utter shame of it all are here, here and here.
Links also to those original reports on Torch of the Faith (representative examples here, here and here) and Catholic Collar and Tie (here).
We have to return to the subject because the UK national media has very recently revisited the story - on Christmas Day no less! We would ask new readers to read this reluctant post in the light of our previous ones.
That dreadful occasion last August was reported on, and broadcast, extensively across the UK secular media. Therefore, there was no excuse in the UK Catholic media and certain commentary circles for claiming ignorance of the matter and the true depth of the scandal. But largely ignored it indeed was.
Of course, whilst it was roundly dismissed in Catholic circles, the liturgical pantomime was eagerly lapped-up by the secular media who just loved this "nu Catholicism" on vivid public show (and we don't just mean the hideous rainbow vestments that seem to get worse with every viewing). So much so that, not surprisingly, the sickening subject was thrust back into the national spotlight – that's press, TV and online channels – in the build up to, and right across, the recent Christmas period.
We said at the time of the repellent episode that, apart from the terrifying magnitude of the outright sacrilege, blasphemy and Eucharistic desecration, as laid bare for all to see, the events at Woolton – (broadcast live and uninterrupted on secular national media news and radio channels – also streamed live on the Internet via which coverage can still be freely accessed here) – could and should not have been under-estimated in terms of reach and lasting effect. Especially given the size of a watching audience which was to be measured in millions.
Furthermore, as we also suggested at the time, it was no exaggeration to claim that the UK national media's coverage of the requiem for Cilla Black was akin to that of a State Funeral. It was – and we'll back-up that claim further in this post via a celebrity quote.
Without doubt, the events proved to be one of the biggest anti-adverts for the modern state of the Catholic faith in this land for years, if not decades. A truly wasted, make that deliberately spurned, grand-scale opportunity to evangelise and catechise. Instead, millions of souls were, again deliberately, introduced to a diabolical distortion of the Truth and richness of Catholicism (we'll also substantiate that "millions" claim a little further on, lest anyone accuse us of over-stating things as, yawningly and all-too-predictably, has been the case; yes, we've had feedback).
Okay, a reminder here to any of our monitors about what we said in our very first post just over a year ago: we're simply beyond-beyond-beeeeyond caring about things like sensitivities and diplomacies; and as for stern but well intentioned "this is not the way to do it" friendly-fire type rebukes (do what, we wonder? win friends?), well, you know that cranial pain when you roll your eyes just that bit too hard...well that!).
The proof of the continuing Satanic reach of the "Cillagate" effect was seen across the UK national press for several days leading up to Christmas, and then again on UK national TV on December 25th – Christmas night, for heaven's sake! – via the broadcast of an end-of-year tribute to the much-loved celebrity and unfortunately well-known Catholic (we'll here only briefly recap what we exposed in our previous posts: that she had completely lapsed from the Faith of her baptism and was also an overt public proponent of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the Dignitas death clinic in Switzerland; the best thing that can be said about her ramblings on these matters is that, in her woefully un-catechised fog, Cilla Black, like swathes of post-conciliar Catholics, had completely succumbed to over-sentimentality, undoubtedly the result of much serious heartache suffered in her life, and had clearly sacrificed the Truth for the temptations of false mercy).
Yes, on the biggest TV evening of the year, key excerpts from the lamentable events at St Mary, Woolton, last August – no doubt perceived by the general public as "what Catholics do now...how Catholic funerals are..." – were replayed to an audience of just short of two millions during a programme entitled "Our Cilla". We're all saddled with the baggage of that false perception now. Don't blame the national media, or indeed the Willis family (who can hardly be faulted in their ignorance for pushing at an open door). Instead blame the Archdiocese of Liverpool.
"We want a Catholic funeral that's fun, y'know like Cilla Black had..."
Also, in the days prior to Christmas, many sections of the UK press not only publicised the then forthcoming "Our Cilla" programme but also used the occasion to re-stream video excerpts from the infamous funeral via their online channels.
For a prime example, see the link below, from The Telegraph, which had a montage of ITN funeral footage embedded two-thirds of the way within its online report publicising the Christmas Day special.
The Telegraph; December 22nd, 2015
For anyone who has viewed the above brief link and wondered what all the fuss is about, we advise you again to read our initial three posts on the subject, as linked to at the top of this post, and you'll soon see the problem. And if you can explain to us exactly what happened at Communion, in THAT evil instant, then get in touch with us pronto and put our mind at rest.
So, sadly, we need to unfortunately revisit "Cillagate". Hopefully for the last-last time.
When we first linked to the Sky News/YouTube coverage of Cilla Black's funeral (i.e. the almost 3hr footage that is extant on the Internet, as linked to above) we remarked that viewings of this abomination had reached the 90,000 mark. That figure is now just short of 180,000 and rising. The Lord alone knows how many millions also watched on TV when the coverage was actually broadcast live. And now, we note that just short of 2 millions were further treated on Christmas night to a recap of everything that Catholicism isn't but what they likely now perceive it to be ("hey, hun, maybe this is what they mean by Pope Francis' modernising of the Church, it's almost enough to get me to go to Catholic Mass...pass me another beer and the crisps first.").
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| Above inset image, and below: Taken from the official website of BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board): showing an audience of 1.93 millions viewed the ITV Christmas Day 2015 special tribute to Cilla Black "Our Cilla", which featured spoken and video recaps of the sacrileges perpetrated at her funeral held at St Mary, Woolton, Liverpool, in August 2015 (fair usage) |
As we said up at the top, it was indeed one of the "biggest public sacrileges" witnessed, by millions, in this land in years.
To be sure, regardless of the almost blanket ignorance in Catholic quarters of this major scandal, we do not exaggerate now, nor did we in August when we said, and repeat now, that the broadcasted deleterious effects of this true blasphemy, scandal and desecration were so huge that they urgently warranted a public Act of Reparation at St Mary.
Indeed, when there is damning video evidence (see our previous posts) of direct Eucharistic desecration – n.b. as we said in August, there is very good reason to believe that the liturgical laxness of the occasion gave rise to an instance whereby a consecrated Host, Lord Jesus Himself in the Blessed Sacrament, was simply tossed aside to the floor, or later destroyed, or taken away to be used for some other purpose, and here our minds fear to imagine just what – then make no mistake that Satan was truly prowling around that day in Woolton and that an Act of Reparation now is the very least that is required.
Over the last few months we have noted that there are those in this archdiocese, circling the wagons, who would have others believe that all is quite well locally, or at least progressing steadily in the right direction. Further, we know that our claim, i.e. that the events at St Mary last August were a true reflection of the parlous state of the Faith locally, has been dismissed as a gross distortion, an over-reaction. Okay, they are as entitled to their view as we are to ours. But it's interesting to always note that our precise foci (evidenced in many of our posts) are never directly challenged or gainsaid. Always we get the generic, unsubstantiated responses: e.g. "Things aren't as bad as you make out." (which is roughly decoded as: "The FSSP has been invited to save St Mary, Warrington.")
Well, to all that we can only say that we "make out", i.e. report, on what we know has definitely occurred. Further, if what we know has occurred has then, in turn, also been shown to millions then, yes, things certainly are as bad as we claim. It's just a case of admitting it and not hiding from it. It's an odd local syndrome (and it's a very hyper-sensitive Liverpool attitude, generally, it has to be conceded) and it's certainly confusing that we've detected it in some (by no means all) local Traditional circles, namely: an un-questioning view that the Universal Church has found herself in a mess for six decades; that the global north-west is in a bigger mess than most parts; that the Catholic Church in England & Wales has lost its direction totally; but, hey, don't go criticising Liverpool now. "Things aren't that bad here." Equals = Warrington. Just bizarre.
We can only say again that we started this blog just over a year ago – indeed a full two years after the occurrence of the events which we recounted in our very first post, i.e. that appalling episode in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, in January 2013, which finally prompted us to conclude that this archdiocese, corporately-speaking, had completely lost its Catholic senses (our naiveté was such that we actually persevered as far as early 2013 before finally admitting the screamingly obvious). We said a year ago (before we were lulled into a near half-year silence based on a promise that a great new dawn lay just around the corner ... we certainly won't be falling for that line again! we may not be a year wiser but we're certainly a year less naive!) that we are here to: "...provide, when appropriate, a locally-based online witness about the mess a once great Archdiocese has become".
That first post was a full eight months before Cilla Black's death and the evils at Woolton were broadcast to the world. Really, how could we have ever known...?
Well, we don't claim any future visionary gifts here. Rather, our ability to implicitly predict at the start of 2015 that some further "mess" (a polite term) would inevitably occur for us to report on, carried about as much clairvoyance skill as predicting, now, that sometime in the next month (week?) Donald Trump will say something deliberately inflammatory in order to prompt the world's progressive media to press its incandescent button again. It's how things are.
Who knows what Catholic scandals 2016 will deliver locally?
Let's face it, when no one bats an eye-lid any longer, and simply cannot see what the problem is, that the Lutyens Crypt of our Metropolitan Cathedral is annually converted for three days, as indeed it will be next month, into a beer festival hall (but, hey, it's "Real Ale", so that's okay then!), then it's time to stop pretending. Nothing to get het-up about. Except if you're old-fashioned like us (oh, the sheer irony of CAMRA, the Campaign For Real Ale, whose membership boasts more than a few priests in the heart of the city of Liverpool, which rails against modern trends and holds one of its traditional festivals in a Catholic cathedral crypt where anything but Tradition is normally allowed; Trad Mass in the Crypt, Fathers? "Not a chance in hell!" Trad ale? "Oh thanks. Make mine a pint of Old Speckled Prelate!")
Cryptic booze
The Archdiocese of Liverpool is indeed a mess.
All we'll add to what we've said before is: yes, we know that virtually every archdiocese in (at least) the north-western Catholic world is in its own local form of post-conciliar chaos (there's a general global abnormality that covers most areas but then each individual territory seems to have its own locally-flavoured disarray to add to the noxious mix) but we contend that the Archdiocese of Liverpool is in the mire deeper than most. If we're not in the global top 10 per cent (or is it the bottom?) of the most screwed-up archdioceses, then truly, God help those who are! We also claim that Liverpool is the most shambolic of all of the dioceses/archdioceses in England. Quite an assertion? Sure is. And we stand by it. Search out its vocation figures for a start.
"But lots of good gets done, too, you know."
Yes, we know that also. So because some good stuff that should happen, as a matter of Catholic course, does happen, which we don't deny, we shouldn't then report on the bad stuff that should never happen, but does happen with alarming frequency and seemingly on an ever-larger scale and increasingly public stage? Like Cillagate? To be deathly topical, it's a bit like denying the fact that for much of his career David Bowie (requiescat in pace) was, for masses of vulnerable people, a one-man portal-introduction to the evils of so-called "gender theory" and sexual ambiguity, and instead concentrating only on the theory (which indeed has some anecdotal evidence) that suggests that he finally concluded, in later years, that Christianity (of some form) was "the answer" that he had undeniably been searching for all his life (another thing that was right under his nose all along) and that he once led (we stand corrected on four counts)
Anyway, before the Laughing Gnome of digression sidetraps us, we've transcribed the recap of the excerpts from the "Cillagate" funeral that were broadcast across the UK on Christmas night just gone (talk about a prime slot in the TV year!).
It's truly lamentable stuff, folks.
Although you can still watch the footage online for the next eight days here at ITV.com (if you really wish to, though you'll need to set-up an e-mail account and you'll need to suffer at least three mandatory commercial breaks that are marked-out by notches on the horizontal fast forward scrolling tool to reach the relevant section at 42mins 35secs), you can get more than the general gist of things by scanning our, admittedly artistically-limited, presentation below. We've interspersed the verbatim quotes (provided by the assorted celebrities who were interviewed to provide narration over the film) with screen-grabbed captioned-stills from those precise portions of the footage.
Coverage of the relevant funeral excerpt starts with Cilla Black's fellow native-Liverpolitan, the celebrity comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, speaking over news footage of the funeral cortege. His narration is then followed by that of Paul O'Grady – the openly and actively same-sex attracted (i.e. being in a civil partnership with a man, a "husband" of his who was in attendance at his side during the funeral) – the celebrity broadcaster and former "drag queen", Lily Savage (that's a safe, if depressing, image link, of course), as the film coverage moves inside the St Mary church.
As can be seen from the stills, they are broadcast-stamped Friday, December 25th, 2015, 10.45pm.
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| Jimmy Tarbuck: "…I mean it was like a State Funeral, they were six deep on the pavements … Liverpool did her proud that day, as she’d done Liverpool proud…" |
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| Paul O'Grady: "...I wanted her to be remembered as a fun person causing mayhem all over the place..." (film then cuts to direct video and audio footage of O'Grady's pulpit-delivered so-called eulogy, as shown in the next still) |
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| Paul O'Grady (from his actual eulogy): "I remember her losing her keys and getting wedged in a window in Barbados ... |
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| ... with me holding her ankles and when the neighbours came out she shouted ‘Surprise Surprise!’" |
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| (general requiem hilarity ensues, episcopally-speaking – of course it does) |
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| … and I got three Hail Marys off (sic) the Bishop of Liverpool (sic) when I finished and that made my day coz that’s something Cilla would have loved." |
Yep, all's good in these parts. So, no more to add other than, Happy New Year; and no, we haven't gone away; oh and (deadly seriously) the Catholic way that we've ended each of our previous posts about "Cillagate" for a fellow baptised Catholic:
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
