From WND:
An announcement by a television station in the United Kingdom that it will broadcast the Muslim call to prayer daily during the month-long religious observation called Ramadan has sparked concerns by those who point out that the nation’s constitution recognizes God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and “in any other age” the action “would have been regarded as treason.”
The announcement comes from Channel 4, which, according to spokesman Ralph Lee, is responding to factors that are pressing in society.
[…]
I wonder if the broadcasting of the adh?n will come before or after their broadcasting of the Angelus. What do you think would be better? Before? After?
Here’s the deal.
Ramadan is turning into a big deal because a) it is chic to prefer Muslims to Christians these days because we all know that Christians are hypocritical homophobic losers and Muslims are… well… not Christians (leave aside the head-sawing episodes and chants of “DEATH” to just about everyone) and b) Christians and especially Catholics have abandoned their Catholic/Christian identity in the public square. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Just looking at the “fasting” dimension of this: In the UK the bishops of England and Wales recently made abstinence on all Fridays binding for Catholics.
We could benefit from some commentary by our friends in Ol’ Blighty about how that is going.
In the meantime, Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
UPDATE:
Remember this poll?
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“We could benefit from some commentary by our friends in Ol’ Blighty about how that is going.”
In my experience not that well. Personally I often forget. Almost all Catholics I speak to about my problems reassure me that their priest explained that it wasn’t obligatory on pain of mortal sin so we shouldn’t worry about it.
Related to the poll -this is a Democrat Governor.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/07/missouri-governor-jay-nixon-vetoes-the-second-amendment-preservation-act/#disqus_thread
You can’t put the djinn back in the bottle. I don’t think the new (old) abstinence requirements have made the slightest difference. I knew of them because I heard from the Bishop at a conference; I don’t recall the change being announced in my parish. I was at Mass away from my parish recently. They were planning a parish weekend camp. On arrival on Friday hamburguers were to be served!
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Winston Churchill
The Christian functional equivalent of the Muslim call to prayer is the sounding of church bells, which I recall hearing every Sunday morning during my childhood.
Come to think of it, the BBC still has a “Bells on Sunday” slot –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sgsh
Considering the matter in proportion, it seems to me that the effusions of hot air on both sides of the Pond about Channel 4 broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer amount to a lot of fuss about very little.
Patruus Blightiensis
vetusta ecclesia says: “You can’t put the djinn back in the bottle. I don’t think the new (old) abstinence requirements have made the slightest difference.”
Of course you can. In nearly every Djinn story, he will return to the bottle on his one volition. And you can turn back the clock, we do so every daylight savings time. And you can put the toothpaste back in the toothpaste tube, how do you think it go there in the first place?
If you look at Church history there have been several times when practices have been lax and they have recovered in vigor. If the Church can recover from the Pornocracy, the Church will recover lax abstinence standards (both contraception and fasting). We’ve just gotten too comfortable. But the moment being publicly Catholic becomes uncomfortable, abstinence will be a must because one will have to give up a lot just to be Catholic.
WRT your parish, did you bother to say something about Friday abstinence wrt the camp? Just because the parish is negligent does not mean you need to be. At the very least, ask them to provide “Veggie burgers” or “Fish burgers” so Catholics don’t have to be bullied into either breaking the Friday fast (which is still a requirement even if it is not talked about) so as not to starve or be looked down on by their parish.
BBC used to have “Choral Evensong” five days a week at 16:00, it is now down to Wednesday and repeated on Sunday, [now occasionally Choral Vespers from a Catholic Church]. As a youngster, I could follow it with my St. Andrew’s Missal as it coincided with Vespers therein. BBC Radio 4 used to have a five minute programme circa mid-night: “At the end of the day” with a set of highly recognisable prayers. In Salford Diocese, ITV, a few years back, broadcast a series of multi-faith purported ‘Masses’ – complete with concelebration with Protestant clergy and pastors, male and female – from an iconic church in Preston, all with the approval of the bishop and organised by his Jesuit media-man.
Well, the UK doesn’t actually have a written constitution but since the Queen is the Head of the Established Anglican Church the State can be said to recognise God (much as the Establishment has steadfastly ignored that fact over the last century at least).
Channel 4 has generally always gone further in its attempts to be hip and cutting edge. Like the other media its Kultur Fuehrers have an abiding contempt for religion, but this latest move is just part of their perpetual attempt to be seen as multi-culti, tolerant and inclusive.
The pathetic aspect of it all is that the fanatics of that particular culture will pay absolutely no regard to this when the time comes, and their bleats of “but, but, we bent over backwards to please you” will be laughed at when the bomb detonates… or the cleaver strikes.
Re: forgetting abstinence on Fridays that aren’t Lent — It took me about two years to get to the point that it was second nature. Of course, you do have to remember what day it is, which some weeks is harder than others! But after a while you do remember. EWTN constantly running reminder commercials helped.
Of course, it helped that, when I was a kid, school lunches and home food always left out the meat. (Out of inertia in our local school system and at home, and probably out of knowledge at parochial school although nobody told us.) There’s something about meatless Friday that just seems normal to me.
Yes anilwang we can return to the ways of our fathers; it has happened several times in the history of both the old and the new Israel. But you are right in saying that we are too comfortable right now, human nature being what it is, for a mass conversion back to the Truth. That will come I think when we have gone through some days of discomfort, the fog of material prosperity passes, and our eyes are opened once again. God of hosts bring us back!
Our parish priest in the UK promoted meatless Fridays and handed out leaflets, put it in the newsletter, preached on it it when it was introduced.
Last Friday I went to supper at a catholic friends house and she served up beef lasagne. None of the other guests, all regular Catholics, registered any surprise and all tucked in. A local catholic retreat centre dished up meat main courses last October on a Friday, apparently in ignorance. Again I was at a catholic conference last summer and yes we had meat dishes lunch and dinner on Friday.
I would say that virtually NO regular UK Catholics abstain on Fridays. I do but I’m odd. I even fast some Fridays and not only in lent.
Personally I would rather epiphany and ascension return to the proper days than have abstinence on Fridays. Maybe other UK Catholics have better experiences than me but I rather doubt it.
Many Doctors are recommending at least one meatless day per week for health reasons. In fact some suggest even more.
It seems the Church was right in the first place–for the good of our souls (offer it up) and the good of our earthly bodies.
I offer my meatless Fridays up for all the souls in Purgatory.
I don’t have a problem with the current rule, i.e., do some form of penance on Fridays which could include not eating meat. However, I am one of those people who really like seafood so eating fish on Fridays is not a penance for me. I still abstain from meat on Fridays but I look forward to the day because it is the only day of the week I have seafood. Therefore, because eating fish is not a penance for me, I fast on Fridays for my penance.
I should have added that whilst on a day of retreat last week, one of the leaders had to explain to regular church goers what fasting before mass meant meantime that it still applied. These were committed parishioners involved in catechesis themselves who don’t understand their own faith. The lack of good catholic teaching in this country for those now aged 50 and lower is truly scary – I am one of them and I hope I know what I don’t know and try daily to learn. All I can say is thank you Lord for America and EWTN, Fr Z, Fr Robert Barron, RCSD etc etc.
I am bemused as to why so many in the UK find Islam so interesting. Our very secular office suddenly had a prayer room when we started taking on Muslims which I don’t object to. It’s just odd. At least radio 4 still has “bells on Sunday” which is 5 minutes or so of church bells pealing.
@anilwang Thanks! I get so tired of hearing all the variations of “because we’re doing it now, people will never accept going back.”
Guess I just lived through too many things that happened despite the fact that “you can’t turn the clock back.” The fall of the Berlin Wall without bloodshed, and the increasing wins against the abortion laws are just two cases in point.
Of course we can go back if that’s what we need to do. One of the most pernicious things I find in modernism is the idea that somehow human nature changed fifty/one hundred/fill-in-time-period ago, and that now for some reason, we’re stuck and can’t fix the same problems Christians have fallen into and worked their way out of over and over and over again.
We ain’t that special folks.
According to the full article: “The call to prayer will be preceded by a short film, Ramadan Reflections, featuring a range of voices, from imams to architects, feminists to a former rock chick, each providing some serious Ramadan food for thought,”
Something tells me that even muslims are going to be offended by this sort of call to prayer.
The abstinence is not obligatory under pain of any sin (not mortal sin) and relates to flesh meat only. I do abstain but have excused myself on one or two occasions when away from home and have been offered meat by hosts. I have usually abstained from alcohol, when we were asked to decide our own form of abstinence/sacrifice on Fridays and now usually do both.
I have made my views known to Channel 4 but believe that they wanted to offend Christians anyway so, as some have suggested, it might be preferable not to react at all. The contents of the Islam ‘Call to Prayer’ is the really objectionable thing, not at what time it occurs.
I’m pretty sure the vast majority of English crusaders of the 14th Century would be massive supporters of the increasing Islamisation of England, through “culturally-sensitive” efforts like this.
My point about Friday abstinence in the UK was that, it having been reinstated by the Bishops in England and Wales, neither they nor anyone else has pursued it with any vigour.
I believe I am right that the Director of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC is a Muslim.
How’s Friday abstinence going in the UK? It’s being ignored, that’s how it’s going. The bishops of England and Wales (sigh) re-introduced it as a way of showing we’re Catholics when they were still on an undeserved high from the success of Pope Benedict’s visit -which, lest we forget, had precious little to do with them.
Since most English Catholics are frequenters of the Cafeteria they take the view that they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do (or believe anything they don’t want to believe), because, hey, ‘God doesn’t care if I eat meat on Friday’. I did get an interesting reaction when I suggested to someone carefully selecting a meat curry in a pub the other Friday that maybe he minded disobedience to those set in authority over us. Or perhaps it was just the curry that turned their complexion sort of puce.
All the Catholics I personally know keep the Friday abstinence in England. Some also do not eat meat on Wednesday, which is a Byzantine Catholic practice picked up by many here.
In fact, I have not met one Catholic who is not keeping the Friday abstinence, and some restaurants are now advertising fish on Friday, even pubs. One pub in Walsingham, for example, run by an ex-Presbyterian from Northern Ireland, offers fish because the pilgrims want it.
It is not a hardship except that fish is much more expensive than meat in England now that the fishing zones have been depleted. In fact, some salmon comes from Alaska, which is rather ironic.
I think fasting from contraceptives would be a nice move from the bishops in England and Wales…
I’m with JayKay.
I agree with supertradmum, all my (practising) Catholics friends keep Friday abstinence and most of my Catholic acquaintances do. There tend to be pockets that don’t in particular parishes/groups, but most seem on board.
When I was on retreat a couple of weeks ago, we had a self-service buffet lunch on the Friday. Meat was on offer (in a Catholic establishment) but none of the more than 30 retreatants chose it. It seems common for Catholic organisations (cathedral cafes, schools etc) to continue to serve meat but a large number choose not to eat it. Many of the children I have met with are poorly catechised though (and yes, I know it’s not obligatory for the very young) and more pushes will be need to remind people regularly.