Innocence lost

Lone Veiler on how a whole generation has been traumatised

In spite of the rain lashing the windows and the gale howling down the chimney, Autumn has always been one of my favourite seasons. I like the leaves subtly changing colour, how the air freshens, the grey skies. I look forward to Ember Days. The way the Liturgical Year recognises and commemorates the changing seasons, and with them the call to thank God, to pray, and to fast, is reassuring. A far cry from the potentially pantheistic neo-colonial nature-fest the latest Synod threatens to be. A far cry from conforming to Christ. Of course, as a Catholic laywoman I rely on a wide range of media sources from which to glean information, not just one. But the gleaning over the last few months has filled me with little confidence, and less trust, in the hierarchy than ever before. This is a good thing I have decided; prefer nothing to the love of Christ, especially when some form of undermining of the faith and church is afoot from within it.

Everyone knows it’s a really bad sign if the secular world is behind you. The secular world doesn’t understand, nor does it seem to have any desire to understand, the fact that we aren’t called to make ourselves worldly and fashionable. We shouldn’t be going all Gaia and being ‘mindful’, we should be addressing real problems, currently so evident in the Church it’s embarrassing. I’m thinking particularly of the Real Presence. It’s a scandal that reception of Holy Communion is treated so lightly, but that’s a rant I have already had, and where I am, thankfully we have priests who are absolutely orthodox. I haven’t always been quite so lucky. Thankfully, too, we are so far free from pitch and putt and fairground rides although we are treated, and often treat ourselves, like the slowest dodgem, the easiest target to aim at and hit. Repeatedly.

It’s not that we don’t as an institution deserve a good drubbing. The lamentable involvement with, and reactions of hierarchy to scandal, sexual, financial, and theological, seem to demand one. It’s amazing the power you can believe you possess when your coffers are bulging and you are not checked. Or if you are, can slam back at how judgemental or un-ecumenical any critical questioners are. Questioners, ah yes, that infamous lobbyist for all things LGBT, but mainly G and T (and no, that’s unfortunately not the tipple). The media priest pops up all over the place, usually when you are least mentally prepared, doing his bit at undermining the faith one inclusive day at a time, often in a photo, wearing civvies, a big grin, and a bottle of rainbow vodka behind him. This is just part of the mire that Our Lady of Salette told us of. Innocence lost at an ever-younger age, and modesty laughed at.

None of the teachers I know are anything other than horrified by the way state education is going…

Speaking of innocence lost, another absolutely appalling order from our secular leaders relates to the most recent instructions for in-school sex and relationship education. Has the hierarchy of England and Wales said anything about this? Under the guise of RSE (that’s Relationship and Sex Education for the uninitiated), children are being taught, no-holds barred, exactly how to engage in gay sex.

How many children are going to end up on juvenile sex offender registers for acting out those lessons in the loos or in in the playground? Factor in online access to every kind of porn, and we have a totally traumatised generation unable to form genuine relationships with the opposite sex, or anyone at all. None of the teachers I know are anything other than horrified by the way state education is going. Teacher in-service training frequently consists of staff having to spend hours (yes, hours!) being lectured by speakers from groups specialising in this kind of thing. When I was a child, dressing up was make believe, it was playing, and didn’t require psychological evaluation and a visit from an infant school transgender worker. I spent most of my tender years wanting to be Batman and wearing a cape and cowl. Now I would run the risk of being diagnosed as a transgendered bat. For the record, I identify as a woman, and although I have always liked bats, I don’t like them that much.

So, bent on ignoring the salacious and unsavoury, I made sweet and wholesome bara brith alongside the usual loaves. There’s nothing like pummelling bread dough, or the kitchen full of the wonderful smell of baking bread. It’s one of those things I love to do, and, thankfully, the family love to eat. Sometimes it makes it to the freezer. It’s positively therapeutic watching dough rise and tapping hot crusty loaves straight from the oven. It’s still raining, but not blowing the gale it was. Time for us to have tea and buttered bara brith in front of the telly. Ben Hur, I think.