Hey, I’m not a Catholic, but truth is truth no matter the source, and this man, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, is layin’ it out to the Brits in no-nonsense, straightforward language that even a University graduate should be able to fathom.

Pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth: sometimes it feels as if Britain is in the grip of the seven deadly sins. There are arrogant politicians, greedy bankers, lecherous television presenters, furious trade unionists, obese children, competitive shoppers and an underclass of people who do not work. To the doom-mongers, British society is not broken, it is shattered.

According to the Archbishop of Westminster, the economic downturn could be the very thing that brings us to our senses. “It’s the end of a certain kind of selfish capitalism,” Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said. “This particular recession is a moment – a kairos – when we have to reflect as a country on what are the things that nourish the values, the virtues, we want to have … Capitalism needs to be underpinned with regulation and a moral purpose.”

“[A] moral purpose.” I don’t think that we’ve heard much about that these last couple of weeks with the Democrats’ ramming the Trillion dollar stimulus package through the Congress. The Cardinal goes on:

“One feels very sorry for those losing their jobs but in times of recession people have to rely on friends and neighbours and families and things that really matter to them. That may be a good thing. I think people did lose their way a bit. It has been difficult to bring up children with the kind of values we want. Let’s face it, we now have a ‘me, me’ society, a more consumerist society, a utilitarian society, and our values and virtues have become diminished.
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“Some of it has got to do with having too much. If your worth just depends on your wealth, that is not healthy. Your worth should depend on who you are.”

After that he spanks the bankers for their avarice and greed, but also the common folk who got caught up in the spendthrift mania.

“Everyone was cashing in. People kept borrowing as well as bankers lending. People kept shopping. I think shopping fills a void. If you have one car, you need two. Everyone wants the latest trainers and clothes. It is awful to go to a house and see in a corner hundreds of unused toys. It’s so profligate. What children need is security and love, not huge amounts of money.

“Maybe the Church lost a bit of confidence. We should have said more. [The recession] is not a punishment of God but the consequences of living a certain way of life. If you live a life that is consumed by overindulgence and greed, you eventually pay a price.”

And then there’s that little problem in Briton, the breakdown of the family.

“Clearly you have an obligation to look after people, whether one-parent families or broken families, but if all resources are put on them, it isn’t right. Every social policy should have, at its heart, benefit to the family.” He said that much of the benefits system “obviously doesn’t benefit people. The tax system must benefit the family. The greatest evil in this society is the breakdown of the family.”

Yeah, and we’ve got that in spades here, too! Who to thank for that? Why, us “boomers”, that’s who. While we went out askin’ “Why don’t we do it in the road?” and “What’s It All About, Alfie Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice?” those sixties/seventies pioneers of rampant narcissism tried to drive a stake clean through the heart of the traditional family and its values — tried and in a large part, succeeded! Check out any night of broadcast television, especially these interminable awards shows, and you’ll be face-to-face with a plethora of visuals and verbiage that would mortify our folks. But, back again to the Cardinal and his thoughts on Briton being a Christian country.

“There is a serious attempt by the [Richard] Dawkinses of this world to say we want as much right as the believers to post our unbelief.

“There’s not enough weight given to Christianity in schools. Children should learn about Christmas before Diwali and Ramadan. People should not be afraid to say we are a Christian country.”

I’ve written often on this blog that Europe, and Great Briton too, seem to be doomed. Too much malaise, too many Muslims infiltrating, not integrating, their societies. Too much sex, violence and rock & roll and not enough going to mass, church, temple.

What got me going on this topic today was those comments of the Cardinal’s on the importance of family, and that government wasn’t going to fix these problems by doling out tons of cash. It’s kind of freakin’ me out that the rest of the civilized world is starting to turn around and look toward being more conservative at the very moment in history that this great country of ours seems destined to become a modern day fascist Italy, or fascist Germany, or Soviet Russia — and with all pilin’ on the socialist-bullet-train to make it happen as fast as possible. God help us all!

We damn sure are gonna need it!

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