Weird shit: Sedevacantist Catholicism

The illustration is a cuff belonging to Pope Pius XII. Now there was a man who knew how to dress for church.

This was going to be one of my weird shit posts, about the Holy Prepuce, but I see that speaking or writing about it is now punishable by excommunication & I can't risk that! In fact it would seem very similar to my post at St Valentine's about the number of St Valentine's heads, which Jesus seems to have trumped by having something like thirteen foreskins at one point.

I have posted repeatedly on here about the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church; amongst the reasons I think can be adduced for it is that these people plainly do not believe their own religion. I have a lot of time for orthodox (I.e. Right-teaching) Christians. I expect them not to accept me, & similarly I would expect real Christians not to protect child abusers.

What is not trumpeted so loudly is that there are a number of faithful Catholics, who while they are Catholics themselves, essentially take exactly the same position as I've just taken on paedophile-protecting clerics, amongst other issues, that they are not the real thing at all. Take, for example, this reporting of the Anglican-Rite liturgy recently approved for Anglican Ordinariate Catholics:

'Francis-Bergoglio's New Order sect has rolled out a new version of the Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service, this one based directly upon the invalid service of Thomas Cranmer, Heretic Archbishop of Canterbury, who colluded with English King Henry VIII in the imposition of an invalid Protestant service on the English Catholic people and in the murder of St. Thomas More, Catholic Chancellor of England.

'The newly-approved invalid rite, used for the first time on October 11, 2013, contains sections of the Protestant Church of England service. Originally fabricated for use by Benedict-Ratzinger's "ordinariate" for Anglicans, Newmonsignor Andrew Burnham, a senior cleric in the ordinariate at the inaugural Novissima Ordo service, admitted that something that was until now "merely Anglican" had become part of the Newchurch of the New Order. The inaugural Mess was accompanied by music in the English vulgar tongue. This "ordinariate" was similar to the one proposed for Bernie Fellay and his Neo-SSPX.

'The new invalid and heretical service was given the Novus Ordo seal of approval by Newvatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the [Non-Catholic] Faith and the Congregation for [New Order] Divine Worship and fully approved by Newchurch. Newmonsignor Burnham specifically praised the Arch-heretic, who composed the Protestant Book of Common Prayer to replace the Roman Missal. After the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary, Cranmer was finally put on trial for treason and heresy and, after several cowardly vacillations and recantations, was hismelf executed after the fashion of St. Thomas More, whose execution he helped engineer just a few decades before.' (http://www.traditio.com/comment/com1310.htm)

The sometimes strange phrasing (mess means Mass & newchurch means what most people would recognise as the Catholic church) is because this is written from a sedevacantist point of view. I can't do better in defining sedevacantism than wikipedia:

'Sedevacantism is the position, held by a minority of Traditionalist Catholics,[1][2] that the present occupant of the papal see is not truly pope and that, for lack of a valid pope, the see has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.

[...]

'Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962�65).[8] Sedevacantists reject this Council, on the basis of its documents on ecumenism and religious liberty, among others, which they see as contradicting the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church and as denying the unique mission of Catholicism as the one true religion, outside of which there is no salvation.[citation needed] They also say that new disciplinary norms, such as the Mass of Paul VI, promulgated on April 3, 1969, undermine or conflict with the historical Catholic faith and are deemed heresies.[9] They conclude, on the basis of their rejection of the revised Mass rite and of postconciliar Church teaching as false, that the popes involved are false also.[1]

[...]

'Traditionalist Catholics other than sedevacantists recognize as legitimate the line of Popes leading to Pope Francis.[11] Some of them hold that one or more of the most recent popes have held and taught unorthodox beliefs, but do not go so far as to say that they have been formal heretics or have been widely and publicly judged to be heretics. Sedevacantists, on the other hand, claim that the infallible Magisterium of the Catholic Church could not have decreed the changes made in the name of the Second Vatican Council, and conclude that those who issued these changes could not have been acting with the authority of the Catholic Church.[12] Accordingly, they hold that Pope Paul VI and his successors left the true Catholic Church and thus lost legitimate authority in the Church. A formal heretic, they say, cannot be the Catholic pope.[13]

'Sedevacantists defend their position using numerous arguments, including that particular provisions of canon law prevent a heretic from being elected or remaining as pope. Paul IV's 1559 bull, Cum ex apostolatus officio, stipulated that a heretic cannot be elected pope, while Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law provides that a cleric who publicly defects from the Catholic faith automatically loses any office he had held in the Church.' (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism)

Now of course it will immediately be obvious that this is bang up my street. This is exactly the sort of thing I love. It's also not difficult to work out who my sympathies are with, since the opposing argument to that of the sedevacantists' always boils down to: ubi papa, ibi ecclesia - the pope would always have to be the locus for the church. I have a terrible confession to make, that I'm a bit of a closet Thomist, that is I loooove the theology of Thomas Aquinas. And here is the thing about real traditional Catholics - they have been nourished by the true greatness of the Catholic faith. This is why for centuries Catholicism was the religion of the intelligentsia: Thomism is such a satisfying system. Also because we Witches are not a missionary religion we can forget the sense of urgency that Christians get because they are. I am posting this as weird shit (because it is) but the protagonists are deadly serious about what is at stake. The sedevacantist position again:

'Communion in the Catholic Church is always based first upon unity in the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.  That is why, in the history of the Church, we see not only popes but also bishops, priests, and laypeople refusing to be in communion with those who no longer have, or are suspected of no longer having, the immemorial Catholic Faith transmitted by the Apostles.

'Indeed, the pope has "the fullness of power over all the churches" (St. Bernard, Epistulae 131), but this power is limited to confirming and defending the faith of Peter, not for altering it or encouraging those who would alter it.  This is the limit, set from on high and proclaimed dogmatically by the First Vatican Council (Pastor Aeternus, cap. 4):  "For the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles."' (http://traditio.com/tradlib/faq09.txt)

In fact for traditional Catholics these matters are important because they depend on Vincent of Lerins's test of what actually is Catholic:

'Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

'What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.

'But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in various times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation.' (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm)

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Spirit of place: Cheltenham/The Loneliness of the Mid-30s Gay Man

I swear I have been to Cheltenham before, & not incredibly long ago, I mean I was definitely an adult when I went there. If I had gone there as a child it would have created an acceptable reason why Cheltenham is *nothing* like my recollection of it. I suspect I am conflating Cheltenham & Ryde in my memory, which with my memories is doing an extreme injustice to Ryde. Instead what I found today was exactly what I would have envisaged if I had had to imagine Cheltenham in my head.

It is largely a spa playground purpose-created by the Victorians, the sort of place where Mapp & Lucia would (later) have taken houses (in different price brackets) for the season. It would be facile to say it's posh - it doesn't quite live up to its reputation of doggy old ladies. Rather it's a place of two halves - one half of the populace is sheltered by their prosperity. If you look into the eyes of the other half you can see the desperate lives of criminality & frequently the empty eyes & poorly-nourished bodies of the druggie.

I came across this excellent blog when I was reading about Cheltenham before going there: http://gaycheltenham.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1 He makes the point, having lived in both London & Cheltenham that people in London are ironically more friendly, but their friendship isn't as enduring once you get in. I don't know who he is, but he's a good theorist of gay life & he can't half write.

There is something unreal about the spirit of place in Cheltenham: I actually got a sense of a strangely unhappy spirit, which felt quite stressful. It also felt quite invasive: I felt observed in Cheltenham bit not welcomed. It was very strange. The train station is also some way from the town centre, which to me gives the impression of visitors only being welcome to go to the spa & then go. I think the reason people may be more friendly in big cities may ironically be the relative anonymity: individual interactions with others assume less importance because of the very real possibility that you will never see them again, while strangely allowing an impromptu intimacy which may take decades to develop in a small town.

I was sitting in a pub some time ago with a friend who runs the group I go to & talking about the irony that we go to a group for like-minded people, are actually not like-minded at all, but this is just not a problem. He identifies as pagan, I as a witch; he as gay, I as queer; he is pro-gay marriage, I am vehemently against. I feel in a smaller place we would feel obliged to take sides with each other. With more space we can differ but still be on the same side.

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How we see the world

I'm on annual leave. Since I'm frantically keen on old telly & have nothing particularly to do, I'm spending it watching TV series of the past. It is interesting to observe the world-view of different TV series.

Of course The Avengers is the hallmark for 1960s weirdness & was also among the 1960s series on which I cut my teeth. The actual first were The Man from UNCLE, where the baddie is an organisation in opposition to the goodie organisation, UNCLE, & also Mission Impossible, where the goodies are expendable freelancers. Here, for me, is the thing: no society which treats its public servants - regardless of which side of the counter they operate on - is a well-ordered society. Of the two I prefer Man from UNCLE - in retrospect it's camp as tits, & Mission Impossible seems stodgy by comparison. The shortcoming of course is that in real life the 'baddies' seek out individual positions of power, & also make alliances among themselves, rather than the Cold War - era  perspective of an organised opposition, which may be hidden amongst us goodies, a perspective which seems somewhat simplistic in retrospect.

The (original 1960s) Avengers alternates between both these two visions of the world. The two or three avengers are inside an organisation or freelancers, depending on which series it is. The evil forces they avenge also vary between being organised opponents, individuals who have gone off the rails, and either or both who may be hidden in high society.

I've been watching some episodes of The New Avengers - I always forget how much I like them, I think I ought to approach them as I would any other 1970s detective series such as The Professionals, but the authentic Avengers world is always there under the surface. The goodies are very very organised in The New Avengers - the organisation they're employed by is obviously huge & has actual offices as well as facilities for training & what have you. The way this series sees the baddies is often as part of a (non - specific) power. These baddies may try to infiltrate our good establishment, & so it is justified for the avengers to play outside the rules.

The reality is that institutions don't like people who break their - often unspoken - rules, even in the interests of defending the institution. With greater organisation comes the demise of the gentleman adventurer, & also comes professionalism, the kiss of death to individual dedication & quirks.

It is for this reason that I would resist paid clergy in witchcraft: who pays the piper calls the tune. Far better, I think, for us to be a collection of enthusiastic amateurs, if this does risk over-enthusiasm & unprofessionalism. Being paid for something is no guarantee of quality: doctors & dentists get struck off, & so on.

I'm watching a series that is new to me, Spyder's Web. Here the goodies are expendables, definitely in the pay of government, but off the books, & working under the cover of a film company. The baddies are whoever their paymasters tell them are baddies, I.e. Anyone threatening to the government. For TV buffs, it was definitely a nostalgic look back at The Avengers. Also it is made more sombre for me by the fact that the lead actress, Patricia Cutts, killed herself by a barbiturate overdose after being turned down for a part in Coronation Street.

So where does this leave us? The pertinence to witchcraft is in the stories, depicting ways in which we can 'place' good & evil in our world. It is very clear that the dominant cultural norm is to see ourselves as good & some 'other' as bad.

How dangerous is this?! I'm capable of being a complete c*nt, myself, & will admit so.

Contra this prevailing cultural norm I would suggest there are two things a witch can do to create a more healthy world view. The first is obviously a self-examination so that one can see ones conscious or unconscious c*ntiness. I would suggest the other is to create a portrait of what one thinks should be an enemy. It will help if this concentrates on actions: so that ultimately ones identified enemy should be, for example, 'someone who rapes women'. The other purpose is to prevent us projecting our enemy-picture onto a group of people who may or may not be guilty of the actions we want to be gone.

Don't get me wrong - one of our missions must be to rid the world of turds, but we must be specific. What a lot of witches & wiccans do is buy into the 'we're all good' mythology, which is dangerous because it will lead us to find an explanation for 'evil' & project it onto someone else: down the same road as the Christians, in other words. And look where it's got *them*. Have an enemy, please do, just make sure it's the right one.

I was going to end this post with a tarot reading into why Patricia Cutts killed herself & her present state, but I'm getting a very strong sense of resistance so won't go there.

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The consolations of weirdness

In my family there's a custom that the creepiest person in any gathering covers their head with a bag.

If my last two posts were a tarot card they would give a 'reversed' idea of my current familial situation. Now to flip it over & give the 'upright' position.

As my biological family has fallen apart - whose fault & reasonings why & wherefore are not really the point here - I have acquired an alternative family. In this I'm delighted to say that I'm in with the kids, since I have read research that for people under 30 now their closest ties are actually with their 'tribe' rather than any of the more traditional groupings that are falling apart in my own case.

With this comes consolation: needless to say the people in my alternative family who are living on this plane are magical people, so I got sent a cat in the street to console me the other evening. No matter that it was meant to be a dog!

What makes it even stranger is that my dead father is joining in this. He didn't really have that much presence for me until my relationship with my mother fell apart. He regrets that I don't have the sort of relationship with her that he & I would both like, one which doesn't so stress me out that I can maintain it, but he knows that I've tried. He knows *how* I have tried.

He likes my beloved G*ddess daughter - I suspect he would also like it if things were different & we would get married & have children, but he'll just have to live with the fact that that's not going to happen. I had no idea before I became - or realised that I was - a witch, that I would have conversations with someone who has met my dead father, who died before she was born! The proof of this is that she tells me things which clearly reflect his personality, & which I have not told her.

On the other hand what he's doing talking to her when he's *my* dead dad, I can't begin to tell you. Lucky she's not freaked out by having a friend who's introduced her to the dead members of his family but not the living!

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Sometimes like attracts like

...And this is actually one of the occasions when the Hound will admit that the energies you put out there attract similar ones.

When you say to people 'my family's fallen apart' you get several different responses.

The first is that it is obviously your fault - I get this one because people don't see what I see in my family. Of course there are people whose view of 'my family right or wrong' means anyone who breaks contact with their family is wrong.

The next is something along the lines of 'that's a pity', usually followed by attempts to help & helpful suggestions. This is actually the most useful of the reactions.

The only other things that happens is that you suddenly discover how f*cked other people's relationships with family members are. Sometimes it feels like people are desperate to talk to someone who won't judge them on their inability to mend their family or on their breaking off contact with a family member.

I spoke with a very long-standing friend, whom I speak to rarely (largely because I don't want to be just friends with him, why are all the best men straight?). It turned out his big brother had got fed up with their dad & gone off the Scotland. He wasn't talking to his little brother - this was for having sex with his wife. All this in the six months since their mother died. Wooooooh!

In another family who are family friends - the youngest daughter of whom I was most friendly with & who was very keen to tell me how close her family was when I bemoaned my family - the mother never told her daughters that she had had breast cancer. Now this is the reason doctors ask you what diseases you've had in the family, because you're more likely to get them. Their mother only told the other daughters after their eldest sister died of breast cancer.

I'm being as judgemental here as anyone who judges me for not being able to have a relationship with my mother, but this frankly astounds me.

In fact so many people, on asking me how my mother is, & being told we've been estranged for two years, have come up with real divisions in their family.

Once again I'm banging my head against this shibboleth of how we are supposed to think, feel, & behave. We *should* love our family - in some families there is actual hate. Fortunately this is not the case for me & my mother.

We should also be able to behave like a family. Like all human relationships we make up ways of surviving: my personal opinion is that the most functional families are those where they come up with ways of living with or without each other.

We *should* get together at Christmas - surely one of the most stressful times of the year.

I suppose it's somewhat 'left hand path' consciously to act against these societal norms. I think it may be, to be proud of it. But if you choose the way that best safeguards your own sanity over how you should behave, that is left hand path in my opinion. What then happens is you receive the opprobrium of the 'you can't not see your mum' crowd, but you attract other things, including people who share your experience. You also find out who your real friends are. That's the crux: you come out of it resolutely you, & that is precisely what some people fear the most. Must be terrible, that, to go through life frightened of yourself.

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Tarot: The Hermit. Also Telford, Solitude & the Apparent Soullessness of the Modern Town

There is a received wisdom that the modern city is impersonal & somehow soulless. Of course there is a truth to this: the adage that 'we spend money we haven't got, to buy things we don't want, to impress people we don't like' holds true, whether at Birmingham's Bull Ring on a Saturday afternoon or any other Maul. The spelling is deliberate.

I am writing this at Telford Central station, waiting for a train to take me on to Shrewsbury. I had never been to Telford, & don't really intend to go again: the town centre is one large shopping centre with all chain stores. You can't get anywhere without using bridges to cross motorways. It's a planning disaster.

But the day hasn't entirely been wasted so far. Being me, of course, I left the pedestrianised way & had a nice little walk in a less-tamed green bit, & contacted the underlying spirit of place. Unbeknown to me I suddenly started feeling outlandishly frisking & desiring a farm boy to leap into the bushes with. Of course! This is Shropshire Lad Country! I love this parody by Humbert Wolfe, who must surely have been shopping in Telford, of Housman's verse:

When lads have done with labour

In Shropshire, one will cry

"Let's go and kill a neighbour,"

And t'other answers "Aye!"

So this one kills his cousins,

And that one kills his dad;

And, as they hang by dozens

At Ludlow, lad by lad,

Each of them one-and-twenty,

All of them murderers,

The hangman mutters: "Plenty

Even for Housman's verse."

The point here for the purpose of this post, is that some people both have a well-developed sense of self & also can sit with their own presence. The people who do not have these things are the ones who go wrong in the 'soulless' - in reality distractionless - environment of the modern world.

This is what the Hermit card depicts: when you are without distractions from yourself, the lack of escape can literally make you go mad.

So people seek distractions, & *how*! Shopping, drink, drugs, anything other than sit with their own company, which for many people is the most frightening thing in the world. This also explains why religious people are frequently the *most* dysfunctional people you could ever wish to meet: religion can make another attempt to fill up people's perceived emptiness or deal with the thoughts we think we shouldn't be having, sexual ones for example.

In the solitude our own 'demons' come up, & from these there really is no escape. Meditative practices can assist us to become more comfortable with them without being beaten over the head by them. I know mine: anger at the people who've done me over, grief at my inability to build a liveable relationship with my mother, my distrust of people & expectation of unconditional obedience.

This is what the Hermit card feels like: the totality of our existence, but particularly the shitty bits. I've always had a sneaking suspicion myself that the character (at least in RWS) is actually part of a procession, a wildly dysfunctional procession where people aren't talking to each other.

A most unusual interpretation is that of a friend of mine who refers to the hermit as the 'wanker' card. This is of course a realistic interpretation: he's in solitude with his own sexual predilections & is dealing with them as best he can. This is a kind of 'reversed' interpretation, the 'negative' side of the more positive spin I've put on sitting with your own company. Just be grateful I haven't illustrated the post with that image!

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Tarot: Meeting Granddaddy Marseille

It surely does not need repeating on this blog that the tarot cards started off life as a game, not a magical tool - oh damn, couldn't stop myself saying it again. Personally I love using tarot decks that were designed for playing games rather than divination. I particularly love the Italian style called tarocco piemontese, a descendant of the French tarot de Marseille style.

I want to draw a parallel between the Marseille tarot & the King James Bible. We all know it's venerable. It looks & feels lilke the real deal. We all know it's old. It looks right when a tarot deck is required for a reader to turn over card XIII in a film - you see, it takes over. Normally I would say the Death card but under the influence of this deck you start doing funny things.

Both this deck & the King James Bible also attract a certain fundamentalism. If you are going to seek the one true tarot deck, you might as well fix on this one. Personally I think there's more mileage in the school of thought that this style of deck makes you read differently from a wholly pictorial deck. The Marseille fundamentalists also tend to insist on their own pet edition of the deck, just as the King James Bible fanatics often insist on a Cambridge University Press edition, or anyway will collect multiple editions.

For some time I have had the standard Grimaud edition of this deck in the house: as far as I know no purists insist on this deck, but up until modern paganism made inroads into France, that was the standard divination deck there just as RWS ( or whatever you could get) was here.

Since I have had it this deck has spent much of its time in its box in my wardrobe. The Christians would no doubt say a Bible in the wardrobe is useless, & this parallel extends to the following statement, which is both obvious & an oxymoron: it has stayed in my wardrobe because I can't read with it.

I have rationalised this in my head as being because the colours are odd, which is a downright lie, since I'm not bothered by the Death figure's skeleton in my tarocco piemontese being coloured blue & yellow!

The King James Bible fanatics are very keen that its language need not be a barrier to evangelism, & the Marseille-only tarotists are also firmly convinced that it is not more difficult to read. They will acknowledge that you may have to do more learning before you can read proficiently with a pips deck. For me that isn't a problem: I have several systems of numerology fixed in my mind; bits of the Tree of Life remain on & off in my mind; if push comes to shove I can mentally reference RWS; & ffs, I'm a witch, if I can't read intuitively with whatever comes to hand there's no hope. There is no conceivable reason why I would not be able to read with this deck & not others, after all I'm fond of saying that the purpose of divination tools is to get you psychically to the point where you don't need one. But for no apparent reason, a veil is drawn over everything when I pick up this deck.

Until last night, that is. I took it to the pub with me, ironically with a view to giving it away to one of my friends, but when I took the cards out one of my friends said 'Do me a reading'. The most extraordinary thing happened: I do know the person I was reading for, but it was as if the cards came alive. I would tend to see the Tarot de Marseille as a little stodgy, & so was amazed to see some wild kinky sex coming up for her at the end of the month! So then I read for someone else, who I've met before but don't really know. The reading was fairly pedestrian, showed clearly that what he was desperately worried about wouldn't be as bad as he thought it would be.

So far so much better than I thought. Then we played a card game with them. I'm not all gone for shitface as a game - I'm still convinced the rules kept changing as we went along. I actually wanted to play Strip Jack Naked, but unfortunately Jack was having none of it. I didn't get an impression that the cards minded this cavalier treatment.

I'm actually quite surprised that my deck came alive in the pub being treated at best casually. Perhaps this is the downside of the King James Bible approach to the tarot - it teaches you to hold this deck in such awe that you actually can't get intimate with it. On the other hand they showed this deck's origins clearly: it showed itself comfortable with normal people who may sit in a bar & see what is going to happen by pulling cards out of a deck, over & against the decks born in high-falutin' occultists' drawing rooms.

The best came when someone else joined himself on to our group & asked to have his cards read. I have met him before but don't know him. Unfortunately when I drew cards showing such acute misery that I could only go with it & begin by asking him if he has financial troubles, this deck came up 'trumps' again. They also clearly showed the origin & solution to his problem: way too much cups goinbg on in his life, & if he'd just get on top of that, his coins would be much better!

The upshot is I took the deck home with me & will now see if I can get a better connection with it. Now I've discovered at least one way in to this deck, it may see more boozy outrageous readings in pubs, rather than being treated as a deck for meditative readings at the altar.

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