What now?

Maybe it is because I am at that stage of life often termed (politely) as being of “advanced years”, I tend to look at what is going on around me with a different outlook.

There seems to be a great deal of “hot air” being expended on what to do about the economy, as if the “Economy” was the beginning and end of life. I know that I have mentioned this before in other posts but it is necessary for all to acknowledge that the “Economy” is not some esoteric, alien “thing” somewhere out there. The economy IS the people - the citizens of this Country create the Economy with their labour.  

Money is not self-emergent, it doesn’t arise by itself.

Without PEOPLE there would be no money and no economy. There is an old Roger Whittaker song– one called “From the people to the people”, and the lyrics certainly apply today:

“You take it from the people, you give it to the people. 

Its people who reap and people who sow.

You work with the people or you gotta go.”

These words express very well my philosophy. It is PEOPLE who are of paramount importance. Not MONEY. Not the ECONOMY.  Not the BUDGET. It is people – without people there would be no money and therefor no economy, and by default no need for a budget (in surplus or otherwise) or for a treasurer.

So it’s PEOPLE, stupid! People. Look after people!

The problem, in my opinion, is that what is termed the “middle class” is being hollowed out. The divide between the rich and poor is getting wider. The rich are getting richer with the top 1% owning the wealth of the bottom 70%. These are Australian figures but are typical of a world-wide trend. 

The best solution (in my humble opinion) is not to reduce the rate of income tax to the wealthy but to increase it and so provide a better income distribution via a Negative Income Tax- For people who do not earn enough to pay tax (or earn below the minimum wage or some other agreed amount) their income would be supplemented to arrive at the agreed amount or the minimum wage. Everyone, working or not, would be obliged to lodge a tax return and any supplement would be “refunded” via the ATO, similar to the process for a normal tax refund.

More money in the pockets of those with a low-income means they will spend more. This gives rise to what is termed the “multiplier effect”. In Australia this is about 5. This means that for every additional dollar spent the “economy” benefits by 5 dollars. Retail trade in particular would get a boost – more money spent, more employment, more taxation revenue … etc.

To me it’s a no brainer. Increase the “dole” and everyone will benefit. 

My views of the Catholic Church in Australia - about the Confession

This is a letter I sent to the Archbishop below. It expresses my deeply felt feelings about this shocking practice. In addition I will add that it should be understood that the entire Canon was revised in 1917 by the then Cardinal Secretary of State in the Vatican, Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII). So these "sacred" laws are not "inviolable laws of the Church". They are nothing of the sort. They were written by a man; not received carved in stone in some Moses like event. 

  

His Grace Archbishop Peter A Comensoli

Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne

Your Grace,

Re: The Confession and "weasel words".

Few things get up my nose and arouse my ire like injustice and people, or organisations, using "weasel words" to try and escape scrutiny and to try and maintain their authority! It is almost as if their only "crime" was to be caught! Doesn’t seem to matter what they did. 

In relation to the recommendations of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses, you have stated that the church welcomed the extension of mandatory reporting to priests, but maintain that the seal of confessional could not be broken. 

"The keeping of the seal in fact might in real ways enhance the safety of children not put them at further risk," you are reported to have said. 

You explain that this was because of the anonymity the confessional offered to children.

"The breaking of the seal is not likely to lead to child safety, it's more symbolic than a practical solution," you are reported to have said.

Not likely to lead to child safety! And keeping the seal might in real ways enhance the safety of children!! These are children, abused children, vulnerable children! Words fail me – I’m staggered that anyone, anyone, would make such a claim. Your hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Weasel words indeed! It seems your need to protect the "Sacred" institution of the Catholic Church takes precedent over all other considerations.

In relation to your statement, mentioned above, you will be well aware of what follows – but it is worth repeating.

The Confessional:

This requirement was originally imposed in the Middle Ages, at least in part, by church leaders who expected priests to interrogate penitents and learn if they might be heretics. 

Confession and the authority to grant absolution also greatly enhanced the power of the priest. With sins absolved, the believer would gain heaven. Without absolution, death could bring the spiritual pain of purgatory or the eternal damnation of hell.

It would appear that from the very beginnings of the confessional, practices varied widely among both priests and laypeople. Some clergy emphasized compassion and forgiveness and faithfully kept secret what they heard. Others exploited their power and the information captured during the sacrament. The 11th-century monk Peter Damian (1007 – 1072) famously excoriated clerics for the sexual abuse of minors, which often began with the penitent-confessor relationship. In the later Middle-Ages apparently, criminality among confessors was widespread and entrenched. Much of the criminality involved sexual assaults and priestly transgressions against the church's sexual mores.

So, as you can see, nothing has changed! There is nothing "sacred" about the "seal of confession" – quite the reverse. At best a priest should be acting only as a counselor for a troubled parishioner, someone to talk openly with – not hide behind a screen. Hiding behind a screen while confessing, to God presumably, is hypocritical in the extreme. I ask, where is God in all this? Is God only "up there", or is God "everywhere" (as I strongly suspect)? If God is everywhere there is no place to hide – least of all behind a screen! 

Furthermore does a "paedophile sinner" require absolution from a priest – also possibly a "paedophile sinner" himself? Please!! 

More importantly, does an innocent child’s emotional and psychological future weigh less than a mature, if ethically challenged, adult who knew exactly what he (or she) was doing? The Catholic Church has no claim to any moral authority while it hides behind its so-called inviolable "laws of the Church". They are nothing of the sort.

Has nothing moved in the Catholic Church? It’s high time you realised that this is the 21 Century – 2000 years (and counting) after the birth of the man you profess to worship – the man of justice, the man of peace, the man of love and a man of God – and the man who loved children! 

It is a few centuries, I believe, since a Pope had the power to keep a kneeling King waiting in the snow for an audience! Today, Secular Law most certainly takes precedence over Canon Law.

Canon Law can be changed. It’s not as if it is written in stone by God! Men, men of the Church of God, devised and wrote the Canon Law. Men can change it.

If you do nothing I strongly believe that the decline in church attendance will continue at an accelerated rate as trust, that most fragile asset, is further eroded. And you will continue to suffer the censure of many in the public arena. 

The requirement for celibacy is another long story!

I will be very interested in any response you may offer.

Yours "faithfully"

Andrew Campbell-Watt

The beginnings

Being from an “older” generation some of the books I read and the author’s thereof may seem strange or even unknown to more “modern” readers. No matter – I still read what I like and like what I read!

It is often the first few words of a book that draw one into continuing. Without going into an exhaustive list I will just give a few examples from books I have read.

One of the best to my mind is, “Wanted, a detective – to arrest the flight of time!” This is the opening sentence from the (1935) autobiography of Dr Halliday Sutherland, “The Arches of the Years”. My mother, dear old thing that she was, sensed my love of literature and well written books, and suggested this book to me and mentioned that first sentence. I was intrigued!

Charles Dickens also obviously had the knack of punchy first sentences. Take the opening of his well-loved “A Christmas Carol” – “Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that.”  

And then of course the opening (very long) sentence from Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of the noisiest authorities insisted on it being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

I can’t help adding that while this book was written in 1859, that sentence could apply equally well today (USA, UK, Australia – any other suggestions?)!! 

Another author not much read today is Nevil Shute. Some of his books are very dated but they are all very good and well-written tales. This opening sentence from his famous “A Town like Alice”  - “James MacFadden died in March 1905 when he was forty-seven years old; he was riding in the Driffield Point-to-Point.”

Then what I think is my favourite Nevil Shute story, “An old captivity”, starts “This case came before me quite by chance in the spring of last year.” And so it goes on.

Jeffery Farnol is another “old fashioned” author – it is actually quite difficult to

get hold of his books nowadays. He was almost an exact contemporary of the historical novelist Georgette Heyer and wrote rattling good yarns of daring do in the 17^thand 18^thcenturies – always a sword fight or duel of some sort, and of course a beautiful feisty maiden to be won!  As an example the first line of “Martin Conisby’s Vengence” – “The Frenchman beside me had been dead since dawn,” sets the tone.  Martin Conisby had been captured by Barbary pirates and was a galley slave sharing an oar with the Frenchman. 

Erskine Childers, the British author who was a supporter of a “free Ireland” and who smuggled guns into Ireland, in his yacht, for what became the IRA, wrote his most famous book “The Riddle of the Sands”. He was executed by the British for his troubles in 1922.

The Riddle of the Sands, written in1903, was amazingly prescient in that, to my mind, it foretold the possible invasion of England by the Germans using barges towed by tugboats from the "sands" - the low lying islands of the Frisian coast and Holland. Just what Hitler had in mind in 1940! 

The 1903 very English view of the world is evident in the first sentence, but it is a rattling good story – “I have read of men who, when forced by their calling to live for long periods in utter solitude – save for a few black faces – have made it a rule to dress regularly for dinner in order to maintain their self-respect and prevent a relapse in barbarism.”

Then of course there is Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous “Treasure Island”. The first sentence – “Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearing of the island, and that only because there is treasure still not lifted, I take up my pen in the year 17 --- and go back to the time my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodgings under our roof.”

Who would not be drawn into reading further?

I could go on, but as I said at the opening of this post – these are just a few examples that I have found intriguing.

Why aren't we outraged?

I will not post the whole of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – even though it is just two pages in length. It is easy enough to find on line. 

But I intend, in what follows, to highlight the egregious, even contemptuous disregard of this vital document by some nations – even the fact that the USA, for some unfathomable reason, has not agreed to implement all thirty articles. China and Saudi Arabia are amongst the worst offenders – as is Israel.

We should all be outraged at the failure of many nations to hold by the Articles of this Document that they have signed.

Read on:- 

Article 1:- All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

NB. Australia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China ….. Take note.

Article 3:- Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

NB. Australia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China …. Take note.

Article 5:- No one shall be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

NB. Australia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China …. Take note.

Article 9:- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

NB. Australia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China …. Take note.

Article 11 (1):- Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. 

NB. Australia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, China…. Take note.

Article 17 (1):- Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

Article 17 (2):- No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

NB. Israel especially take note, in relation to their treatment of the Palestinians.

Article 23 (2):- Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

NB. Australia (and I’m sure many other countries) …. Take note.

Article 25 (1):- Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

NB. Australia, USA and I’m sure many other countries …. Take note.

Article 26 (1):- Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages …

NB. Australia …. Take note.

Article 30:- Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person and right to engage in any activity or to perform and act aimed at the destruction of any rights and freedoms set forth herein.

NB. All nations …. Take note.

Why?

I consider myself as “white” in that my ancestors all came from Europe and my skin colour is lighter than that of “people of colour”. And I recognize that in many ways this has allowed me privileges not given to those who skin colour differs from mine. Likewise I speak the only language I know – “English”! Furthermore my heritage and inherited customs are also “English”.  

But does this make me “better” than those with a skin colour that differs from mine?; or “better” than those who worship God in a manner different from the way I do?; or “better” than those who speak a different language – even two or more languages?; or “better” than those with different customs and a different heritage?

Surely, surely we can move on, beyond such puerile thoughts and beliefs?

We need diversity; we need the “differences” – these things give us a focus rather than just navel gazing. A lack of “difference” in a group or society often brings out the worst in people and the resultant “mob” formation may have disastrous consequences. One just has to witness the frenzied mobs at recent political rallies or at football matches in England and Europe, or the extreme neo-Nazis or any extreme religious group to understand the effects that may influence much larger populations. 

Should such extremes enter main-stream society then confusion and a breakdown of law and order is inevitable. This has unfortunately been witnessed too often in the 20^thCentury. Apart from the horrendous massacre of about 6 million European Jews by the Nazis (1933-1945), there was the awful Pol Pot (1975-79) in Cambodia whose henchmen killed an estimated 2 million people. Then there was the deranged Idi Amin, the Ugandan president in the 1970s under whose rule about ½ million people died. Also never forget the “ethic cleansing” in the 1990s in what was Yugoslavia and the similar, current,  “cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the present day “re-education” of a million Uyghur Muslims in China. The list is almost endless. 

And why? In the name of all that is wonderful – why?

I know this sort of thing has been going on for centuries but can’t we learn anything from the past? 

Rene Girard, in his book “The Scapegoat” states that a Portuguese monk, Fco de Santa Maria wrote that, “As soon as this violent and tempestuous spark is lit in a kingdom or republic, magistrates are bewildered, people are terrified, the government is thrown into disarray….. All the laws of love and nature are drowned or forgotten in the midst of horrors of great confusion; children are suddenly separated from parents, wives from their husbands, brothers and friends from each other….” 

That was written in 1697! What has changed?

Here is a quote from a speech by Frederick Douglass (African American, a former slave, social reformer, orator and statesman) on the 24^thanniversary of emancipation, Washington, DC, 1886, which has great relevance today:- 

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” 

Then there is the famous warning by John Donne the 17^thCentury sermonist and poet who wrote, “… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Maybe we should all bear this in mind?

Paying the Ferryman

Life is not all doom and gloom. Nor is it always a fun experience. Happiness is elusive. It is necessary to arrive, always, at a balanced position where we are at the very least contented with our lot. 

Helpfulness and co-operation are the cornerstones of any society. We may be individuals each striving for our place in the world and striving to reach our self-determined goals but we can never do this on our own. Even the so called “self-made man” has had help from others along the way – no one can do this in total isolation. 

So what is the cost of ‘life’ to those who strive to reach their self-determined goals? What is the cost of ‘life’ to high achievers? What is the cost of ‘life’ to those people who opt for a career before all else? What is the cost, in lives, of a government’s oppressive or exploitative policies? What is the cost of ignoring the ancient, and very sensible, instruction to always treat others as you would like to be treated?

This proverb still applies: “Take what you want from life says God, take it, and pay!” 

In the present economic climate – even the long “tail” of the Global Financial Crisis is still affecting many people in many countries - it is not surprising that there is widespread concern about employment prospects, wages and financial security. So do not decry or be judgemental about someone’s choice to work as hard as they can to try and secure their financial future by whatever means at hand. That is their call and good luck to them. But they need to be very careful about the methods they use to “secure” their financial future. They must never forget that the Ferryman, who carries us all on our journey through life and across the River Styx to the afterworld, will demand recompense. This payment cannot be avoided and it is always paid in kind – we sow the seeds of the crop we will reap, like it or not. 

We will always have to accept the consequences of our actions and activities (good or bad) – and there are always consequences for every plan, for every activity and all behaviour. It is worth recalling the fate of Lehman Brothers, the ponzi schemes of Bernard Madoff, the greed and unethical behaviour of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKiline, the corrupt practices and fraud exposed by the Wall Street banks, Barclays Bank in the UK, the LIBOR scandal; the ineptitude and plain bad management of many European banks; the false accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” levelled by various politicians leaders against Iraq and the disastrous subsequent invasion of that country; the rotating leaders of Australia’s political parties and their questionable policies towards Australia’s First People; towards asylum seekers -  the list goes on and on and on... 

No one can ever know the full extent of the effects of any action they may take – we will never find any vantage point high enough from which to view the pattern of our life and how the threads interweave to form the patterns we have made – to see what good we do or what harm we have caused. We can never see the interplay between moral values which results in good and evil; in good or bad outcomes. This is why ethics is so important – it must be the first consideration of any person, company or organisation. By engaging in ethical conduct the welfare of people (staff, customers, patients, clients and voters) will be paramount; will be considered, first, before money, market share, first before shareholders, first before the CEO’s or any politician’s ego.

Remember this – burn it into your brain – without people there would be no business, no commerce, no industry and no money. Never forget that commerce and industry are for the benefits of people; that commerce and industry service the needs of people. People do not and never have serviced the needs of commerce and industry. To assume this is the case is to put the cart before the horse; to assume this is to consider people as tokens on some sort of economic game board - tokens to be moved at the behest of commerce and industry. This train of thought will lead only to business disaster and failure and the collapse of government (recall that Soviet Russia tried this and failed spectacularly); the Chinese are experimenting with this right now, to what end? One wonders at the possible outcome.

By being ethical – or at least being guided by ethical principles – will ensure that any business or personal action or activity is being driven by the best motives. To forget or ignore the undoubted fact that every action has a consequence (good or bad), in other words the “Law” of cause and effect, will itself cause problems. This is why there are ethical concepts such as trust, honesty, justice, kindness and compassion. All human actions and activities will have unexpected consequences but much of the unhappiness, the cruelty, the abuses will be minimised if the welfare and wellbeing of other human beings is considered first; by conducting all business and personal matters with ethics as the FIRST consideration. 

We have to live with ourselves and the results of our actions and behaviour. If ethics is disregarded or ignored to satisfy selfish ends the threads that entangle us all in the web of life will, eventually, trip up and bring down the perpetrators. 

The Ferryman is patient but will, eventually, demand payment, regardless. 

Silence was pleased

I always seem to be drawn to poetry for some reason – I can always find something to suit my mood.

While Milton is not a poet I refer to very often I do like some of his works. My copy of the Poetical Works of John Milton (9^thDecember 1608 – 8^thNovember 1674 – by which stage he was totally blind) is an 1889 edition once owned by my paternal grandfather. So it is a treasured volume.

Also I certainly have not read all the 222 pages that comprise John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost” there is one small part of Book IV that I found and which has always touched me in a way that is difficult to explain.

“Now came still evening on, and in twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale,

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleased: how glow’d the firmament

With living sapphires: Hesperus that led 

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon

Rising is clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light

And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.”

It’s just two lines that somehow deeply affect me:-

“She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleased:”

Especially I love the phrase, “Silence was pleased”.

It pleases me!

In relation to Milton’s blindness he wrote the following which I also find quite moving.

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."

“They also serve who only stand and wait” – again a line that resonates with me.