A pundit who's lost his way and an Archbishop who never found his
Once upon a time there was a Daily Telegraph commentator called Damian Thompson, who, in spite of frequent political disagreements and the odd freak of judgment, was a welcome meeting point for devout Catholic readers (and, of course, correspondingly haunted by Dawkinsite trolls). He was particularly good on the deficiencies of the Catholic apparatus in this country, a common and bitter speaking point of English Catholics (there is hardly one Bishop who can be said to defend the faith, and as for the bureaucracies that shelter under their croziers, the less said, the better). He could even be effective. When he publicized the plight of Cardinal Vaughan School, a really good Catholic school in West London under scandalous assault by diocesan apparatchiks, the story was noticed by a Telegraph reader, one Michael Gove, by profession Secretary of State for Education. Mr.Gove phoned Archbishop Nichols to let him know that he was thinking of having the school inspected, and the diocesan pressure on the school suddenly and miraculously vanished.
I think someone should set up an alarm for Mr.Thompson. I think he must be dead and replaced by his evil twin.
He hasn't posted on Church affairs in months. The tone of his writing has taken a sharp downward direction, and he seems unable to post on anything but splenetic and unfortunately unfunny assaults on political targets. And now has come a really defining moment, which the real Damian Thompson would have seized on.
Yesterday the Vatican communicated a list of 22 new Cardinals, to be created in the coming Concistory. Archbishop Nichols has been at the head of the English church for two and a half years; he still is not on the list. That is almost beyond belief. Since the days of Nicholas Wiseman, first Archbishop of Westminster in the days of Queen Victoria, there has never been a head of the English Catholic Church who was not fairly swiftly promoted to Cardinal. It almost goes with the office. Compare and contrast with the current Archbishop of Prague, just made Cardinal in spite of being the head of a shrunken and despised church, numerically much smaller than England's, in the only European country where atheists are the majority. This shows that the Pope thinks as much of his performance in office as I do - and as the real Damian Thompson could have been counted on to do.
So, what did Damian Thompson post on today?
A nasty anecdote about JM Escriva' Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei.
Something is very wrong here.
I think someone should set up an alarm for Mr.Thompson. I think he must be dead and replaced by his evil twin.
He hasn't posted on Church affairs in months. The tone of his writing has taken a sharp downward direction, and he seems unable to post on anything but splenetic and unfortunately unfunny assaults on political targets. And now has come a really defining moment, which the real Damian Thompson would have seized on.
Yesterday the Vatican communicated a list of 22 new Cardinals, to be created in the coming Concistory. Archbishop Nichols has been at the head of the English church for two and a half years; he still is not on the list. That is almost beyond belief. Since the days of Nicholas Wiseman, first Archbishop of Westminster in the days of Queen Victoria, there has never been a head of the English Catholic Church who was not fairly swiftly promoted to Cardinal. It almost goes with the office. Compare and contrast with the current Archbishop of Prague, just made Cardinal in spite of being the head of a shrunken and despised church, numerically much smaller than England's, in the only European country where atheists are the majority. This shows that the Pope thinks as much of his performance in office as I do - and as the real Damian Thompson could have been counted on to do.
So, what did Damian Thompson post on today?
A nasty anecdote about JM Escriva' Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei.
Something is very wrong here.