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REMNANT
NEWS WATCH
Mark Alessio
REMNANT COLUMNIST,
No More “Husbands” and “Wives”
in
According to Life
Site News, on February 24, 2005, the government of
The substitutions for previously used spousal terms throughout the
73 statues are:
- “Widows”, “widowers” replaced by “surviving spouses”
- “A person of the opposite sex” replaced by “a person”
- “Wives, husbands” replaced by “spouses”
- “Two persons of the opposite sex” replaced by “two persons”
- “The wife or husband” replaced by “spouse”
- “A husband or wife” replaced by “spouse”
- “The husband and wife” replaced by “the spouses”
- “A man and a woman” replaced by “two persons”
- “Husband and wife” replaced by “spouses”
- “Cohabited as man and wife” replaced by “cohabited as a married
couple”
- “Same-sex partner” replaced by “spouse”
Attorney General Michael Bryant, who
introducing the bill, stated that "currently, the statutes offend the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms". He continued, "The bill removes
references to gender and gender-specific language from
Bill 171 includes provisions stating that religious officials
cannot be compelled either to perform marriages or allow their property to be
used for the celebration of marriages which go against their religious beliefs.
However, the bill fails to protect civil marriage officials or anyone else in
situations affected by same-sex unions, who have religious or conscience
objections, from being coerced into marrying homosexual couples or providing
other services related to same-sex unions.
This limited protection of religious freedom earned the Bill
unexpected support from the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops (OCCB).
Pro-Family groups were shocked to read an OCCB press release which states that,
while the Ontario Bishops Conference continued to oppose the Ontario court
decision which redefined marriage, it also “commends Premier Dalton McGuinty and his government for proposing this
legislation." OCCB General Secretary Tom Reilly told Life Site News
that the Bill gives priests protection so that “they won’t find themselves in
court.” He said that the Bishops “wanted to be sure that religious bodies could
not be compelled to allow their properties to be used for purposes associated
with same-sex unions if such are contrary to their teachings, as is true for
the Catholic Church.”
Comment: One need not
try to imagine the outrage sparked by the OCCB’s
expression of self-concern in the face of such assaults on marriage. One need
only read the quotes, such as this one by Rev. Tristan Emmanuel, a Presbyterian
minister and the Executive Director of Equipping Christians for the
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) issued a press release
which also lauded Bill 171’s supposed protection of religious freedoms. However
they also expressed concern that “the purpose of this omnibus bill is to
recognize in
Gwen Landolt of the pro-family group,
“REAL Women of Canada,” rightly criticized the OCCB’s
lack of vigorous opposition to the Bill:
They’ve really missed the point. Unfortunately, in getting
religious protection, they’ve overlooked the broad picture which is the passage
of legislation that ceases to respect “spouse” as a man and a woman and instead
are acknowledging as a fait accompli that “spouse” can include same sex
couples. In effect the bishops are showing their political naiveté on one of
the most crucial issues
Bishops trying to stay out of court,
and placing that consideration above a defense of the truth. How often have
we witnessed that trend in recent years? The OCCB press release on Bill
171 was titled, “Ontario Catholic Bishops support protective legislation.” Can
you imagine the looks on the faces of the pro-marriage, pro-family crowd –
Catholic, Protestant, or other – as they read those words and realized that the
bishops were lauding the legislation merely because it kept them out of
hot water? Just what the Church needs. More scandal.
If anything, why did the bishops not at least condemn the manner
in which the Bill was passed? Life Site News lamented how the Bill was
“rammed through the provincial legislature,” and Giuseppe Gori,
leader of the Family Coalition Party, noted that:
Apparently the issue was not important enough for the
Can the people who voted for Bill 171 be
unaware of its legal, let alone moral, consequences? As Mr. Gori points out, this new legislation will have serious and
turbulent consequences. What happens to the legal term “conjugal relationship,”
and will it now have to accommodate “multiple partners?” Is legal polygamy on
the way? What of pensions and benefits? How many of these new-styled “spouses”
will the people of
“If you wanted to destroy
marriage,” wrote Mr. Gori, “you could not have done a
better job.”
But at least it keeps the bishops out of court…
“Passion”-Fueled Attacks
On The Gospels Continue
The March 12, 2005 edition of The Times Online (
In 1957, he left the church, went to
In her review of Vermes’ The Passion,
Armstrong summarizes the thrust of the book:
Vermes concludes that
the Passion narratives by themselves cannot give us a full portrait of Jesus,
but points to two incidents that may indicate His state of mind during these
fateful days. First, at the Last Supper He ate with his Disciples, He seemed to
be excited and hopeful about his mission: He vowed to abstain from wine until
the coming of the Kingdom of God — a gesture that would have no meaning if He
knew that he was about to die. Second, Jesus’ cry from the
cross — “God! God! Why have you forsaken me?” — may, Vermes
says, have been a colloquial expression of religious incomprehension, not a
quotation from Psalm 22. If so, at this terrible moment, Jesus saw that God was
not going to rescue him.
Comment: A February 27, 2004 editorial appearing in The Guardian, written
by Geza Vermes, begins: “I
am still in a state of shock having sat through two hours of almost
uninterrupted gratuitous brutality, Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. I hope I will never be obliged to see
something as dreadful again.” Is Mr. Vermes merely squeamish? Perhaps, but his contempt for
Gibson’s masterpiece is only a mirror image of his contempt for the film’s
basis: the Gospels. He says that, “examined with expert eyes, basic questions
arise concerning the purpose of the narratives, the identity of the readership
for which they were written, and the broader historical setting.” You know what
comes next. Vermes imperiously tells us that “the
Gospels demand to be interpreted.” And, no, not by Aquinas, Augustine or Jerome,
but by – Geza Vermes! (insert fanfare here)
I won’t bore Remnant readers with the details of Mr. Vermes’ problems with the Gospels. We’ve seen them repeated
over and over, ad infinitum, in the year prior to the release of The Passion
of The Christ. In fact, since 1985, the so-called
“Jesus Seminar” has been performing the same hatchet-job, to the point where
these “scholars” (which include the notorious John Dominic Crossan)
will accept only 20% of the quotes attributed to Jesus as authentic. Similarly,
Vermes believes that Jesus only said “some” of the
things attributed to Him.
Naturally, the “Jesus Seminar” threw out the Virgin Birth, Our
Lord’s miracles and His Resurrection. Vermes,
likewise, believes that the story of Our Lord’s early life consists of nothing
but “artificial genealogies and legendary infancy narratives." As for the Resurrection? Of course, such a thing never
happened! Instead, simply because “Jesus had made such a
profound impact on His apostles that they attributed to the power of His name
the continued success of their charismatic activity.” He “rose from the
dead in the hearts of His disciples and He lives on as long as the Christian
Church endures.” In the hearts of His disciples?
This is a fancy way of saying that the first disciples were either liars or
superstitious dupes.
Why waste ink on this latest assault? Whenever the secular media
quotes Gospel-trashers, they do so with an attitude
that says, “here are the rational ones who are
telling the truth about all this Jesus stuff!” Unfortunately, as Catholics, we
are embarrassed by our Church hierarchy even in a matter as basic as Scriptural
exegesis. Strange documents such as the
Pontifical Biblical Commission’s The Jewish People and their Sacred
Scriptures in the Christian Bible (2001), which ignore the very words of
Christ concerning His Person and role as Redeemer, merely give the enemies of
the Church more ammunition, and reinforce the idea that those millions upon
millions of people walking the earth today who accept the Scriptures as
historical documents are, at best, “grown-up children” who will believe anything.
As is usually the case, the most “appealing” intellectual attacks
against the Catholic Faith (that is, to those who eat this stuff up) are
launched from within. The priestly group which Geza Vermes left in order to pursue his life of Gospel-trashing
was none other than the “Fathers of Notre-Dame de Sion,”
which had been founded by the great Jewish converts, Alphonse and Theodore Ratisbonne, for the express purpose of laboring for the
conversion of Jews and Muslims. Ironic, but at least Vermes
had the decency to leave the Church.
As for the churchmen who remain “in the fold”? In the end, if the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass isn’t sacrosanct, if Catholic doctrine isn’t sacrosanct,
then why should Scripture be respected as infallible
Truth? It all ties in, and the defense of one is also a defense of the others.
“Jerry Springer: The Opera”
Coming To
On February 19, 2005, Jerry Springer: The
Opera closed its doors at
The opera centers on American celebrity Jerry Springer and his
television show. During the first act, Springer confronts the same type of
guests which made his show so popular in the
According to The Sunday
Telegraph (Jan. 9, 2005), the show features "a semi-naked gay
Jesus" who is "being fondled by a disheveled Eve, as the Devil looks gleefully
on with an inebriated Adam." Also, the Virgin Mary turns up to accuse
Jesus of parental neglect “amid a blitz of four-letter words." The show
ends with Springer telling Jesus to "grow up for Christ's sake and put
some [expletive] clothes on.”
Reaction to the airing of Jerry Springer: The
Opera on BBC2 was intense. A barrage of complaints was lodged even before
the screening, while peaceful protest vigils, which included Muslim attendees,
were held outside the BBC offices. Finally, three BBC executives (the Director of
Television, the Controller of BBC TWO, and the Head of Television, Classical
Music and Performance) met with representatives of the Churches’ Media Council,
an ecumenical organization dedicated to media issues, to hear their complaints.
In the end, the BBC defended its position to air the program, stating that “the
potential offense had been balanced against the quality and artistic content of
the programme, which had within it a moral journey
and a moral conclusion.”
According to the show’s official website, Jerry Springer: The Opera will have its
Comment: Stewart Lee,
one of the creators of Jerry Springer: The Opera
(along with composer Richard Thomas) said that both men “were profoundly
affected as adolescents when experimental ideas or high art somehow pierced the
hermetically sealed bubble of popular culture that surrounded us.” He also
stated that, as a former Church of England choirboy “with a B in Religious
Studies at A-level,” he feels “almost over-qualified” to defend the show’s
“appropriation of Christian theology.”
Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, insists that the show
“is a satire aimed not at Christianity but at what the authors take to be the
valueless amorality of The Jerry Springer Show.” He goes on to say that
“one can accept that some Christians might find the mention of Jesus, Mary and
God the Father in the tawdry context of Jerry Springer — The Opera
intrinsically offensive, and that offense was another serious factor for us to
weigh up, but here the issue seems to be once again part of that argument about
taste, decency and offense to public feeling rather than blasphemy.” Coming
from a BBC exec, this is an interesting statement, considering that the BBC's
own Guidelines on Taste and Decency (chapter 3, section 9) advises
producers that “deep offense” will be caused by “profane references or
disrespect, whether verbal or visual, directed at deities, scriptures, holy
days and rituals which are at the heart of various religions.” Apparently, this
offense is not a desirable thing.
Here are two men desperate to extricate themselves from charges of
blasphemy. One appeals to “high art” and touts his theological credentials. The
other presumes to lecture the unwashed masses about the differences between
“blasphemy” and “taste, decency and offense to public feeling.” In the end,
though, we don’t need to run around in circles to wonder about what is and what
is not blasphemous. Blasphemy is, simply, “the act of insulting or showing
contempt or lack of reverence for God,” and an “irreverence toward something
considered sacred or inviolable.” Does a “semi-naked gay Jesus” and a
profanity-spouting Madonna fit the description? They sure do.
Of course, supporters of the film, including some “Christians,”
screamed “censorship” at the protests and complaints directed against the BBC.
They miss the point. Artists are free to create whatever they want. But, no one
– no theater, school, museum or television station – is compelled to display
this “art.” Every year, thousands of artistic creations – novels, screenplays,
songs, etc. – are tagged with rejection slips and returned to their creators.
That’s a simple fact of life. The BBC could have taken the high road. They
could have said, “We don’t believe in censorship, but we DO believe in artistic
standards, and we DO respect our viewers.” In the end, and considering that the
BBC chose to ignore its own guidelines in this instance, it is difficult to
believe that the BBC execs decided to air Jerry Springer: The
Opera because it was a satire on the original Springer show. It
looks more as if they did so in the spirit of the original. It will be
interesting to see how the American media will rush to the show’s defense when
it opens on these shores.