De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

I have to say I was a little shocked at the responses to the death Martin McGuinness at the age of 66 on social media this morning. There has been a really obvious divide between people really praising him and people really decrying him. Of course, we have to believe that repentance and God's mercy are available to everyone, no matter how heinous their crimes. But we must also remember that McGuinness has robustly defended his actions in the IRA , stating he is “proud” of what he did and will not apologise to anyone — and he has refused to clarify whether he ever killed.  I have thought that he was extremely brave in making peace his priority and being prepared to broker peace with his bitter enemies. Although Lord Tebbit, whose wife was paralysed by the Brighton bombing perpetrated by McGuinness, gives a very different assessment , suggesting that at the point where there was no way forward for the IRA, rather than suing for peace, McGuinness in fact grasped for power....

Sadly, I have never been much of a fan of Prince Charles. I have always found him a bit of a disappointment, his much ridiculed eco-activism, his rather grubby affair with Camilla are elements which were only compounded by a childhood formed by Private Eye's Heir of Sorrows series and Spitting Image probably didn't help. Despite my prejudices, I could not help but be impressed and deeply moved by what the Prince said and did in Ireland this week. I mean deeply moved; especially by his profound words at Mullaghmore yesterday. I was pretty stunned by his meeting with Gerry Adams . No doubt the Prince knows that Adams' position is the result of a rather shabby political deal which was stitched together and has put the ringmasters of the murderous IRA into senior political roles and garlanded them with civilised respectability. Respectability that has provided them with a political vehicle to push abortion  and Same Sex Marriage . No doubt Charles' anguish at the loss...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has been someone I have really looked up to as a true Catholic leader for some time. Just search my previous posts. I have stuck up for him on numerous occasions, and defended him against attacks directly, for example after this post I was contacted by Michael Voris who wanted me to go on air with him and discuss it. Recently though...Well...If I'm being honest, since the dawn of the new papacy, I have been growing increasingly worried about my favourite American prelate and some of things he says. I have started wondering why his tone seems to have changed so much. If one were really cynical, one might say he is (wrongly) interpreting Pope Francis as someone who is going to change Church teaching, and jumping on the bandwagon. And so it seems with this latest bit of news , where, in an interview with CNN, Cardinal Dolan said Islamic State militants terrorising the Middle East are a distortion of “genuine” Islam much as the Irish Republican Army w...