Speakers' Corner:
STATEMENT
I am solely responsible for what I say and how I say it - and I am open to
correction and criticism from any source.
While I hold myself free to criticise the attitudes and actions of other people, including my fellow Catholics, I profoundly hope that nothing I say is in conflict with the basic teachings of the Church, for I believe this body of believers to be guided and animated by Christ, despite the faults of each and every member of this body (regardless of position or title).
I am open to contradiction. I do not expect every visitor to this site to agree with me on any or all of the views expressed. Thank you for your visit.
Why 'Speakers’ Corner'
For some years - in the late 50’s early 60’s (when everyone else was chasing the Beatles!?) - I was a Catholic Evidence Guild Speaker at "Speakers’ Corner", on the corner of London’s Hyde Park, Marble Arch - and occasionally also at Tower Hill and "Kangaroo Valley" – Earlscourt.
It was a great and educative experience - totally exhausting and marvellously stimulating. I call these pages "Speakers' Corner"in the hope that I will engage in the same free and open discussion. I enjoy such an exchange of ideas.
(For some Background information about the CEG see below.)
PERSONAL APPROACH
My "Speakers’ Corner" title, as I have said above, is derived from a stimulating period in the past.
We were careful on CEG platforms to express the teachings of the Catholic Church as accurately as possible - rather than indulge in fanciful flights of imagination and speculation. I am equally concerned with truth in these pages, but in this case I am at liberty to express perceptions and opinions in a more personal manner.
I am not sponsored by any arm of the Church, and it is a total requirement by God that I seek truth, love truth and express truth, without fear or favour. There are dangers in subjectivity (one could become blind to other opinions and to truthful objectivity) but there are equal dangers in clinging to rigid notions of impersonal objectivity (scientific methodology can tend to exclude essential human qualities of love, compassion and understanding).
I take no pleasure in the idiocies and defects of my fellow men, in or out of the Church (I have enough of my own), but it would be wrong to ignore unpleasant truths - offences against justice and love wherever they occur.
It is appalling, for example, to know that fellow believers, supposed guardians of Christ’s love and compassion, bishops and priests of the past, have caused the torture and burning of people because of suspected deviation from the truth. The maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, for example, was burnt at the stake in 1431 for wearing male dress and having ‘relapsed into heresy’. The same fear-filled authorities have resorted to ‘house arrest’ and prohibition of such individuals as Nicholas Copernicus, the 16th century Polish astronomer, who dared to state that the earth was not the centre of the universe. His 17th century adherent Galileo, another seeker after truth, was sentenced to life imprisonment (commuted to house arrest).
These are the actions of people who abandoned 'subjective' and personal notions of love and compassion for the impersonal and objective ideals then in vogue. Today there is a pseudo-scientific notion that personal perceptions and value judgements must be rigidly excluded in the search for and implementation of 'scientific' truth. Human values, such as the instinctive veneration of life in the womb, for example, are ridiculed and reduced in value, and infant life is crushed and incinerated with the same thoughtless, ruthless and impersonal objectivity that brought Joan of Arc to the stake.
Later generations of modern biological scientists may realise their errors, as the leaders of my church have admitted and apologised for the aberrations of their predecessors: but one can imagine the thoughts that passed through Jean d’Arc’s mind when - having been in heaven for 489 years by earth’s reckoning - she was declared a saint in 1920? I wonder, also, what was Galileo’s thought when a pontifical commission apologised to him in October 1992! Equally, millions of unborn children, robbed of life by thoughtless medical practitioners, yesterday and today, may have a critical thought or two.
Such scandals and stupidities arise out of lack of sensitivity and awareness, and in the case of Christians, smallness of faith.
Jesus groaned against the slowness of wit of the Apostles:
" Men of little faith ... do you not yet understand? ... How could you fail to understand?" (Mt.16. 8-11)
"You foolish men! So slow to believe the full message of the prophets!" (Lk.24. 25)
"He reproached them for their incredulity and obstinacy..." (Mk.16.14)
It seems that a few successors of the Apostles fail to accept that they share the same root limitations, apparently believing that the ‘laying on of hands’ is a substitute for reason and perception. (The award of a Medical Doctorate, Election to Public Office or the making of a few Million Dollars can have the same effect.)
It is a considerable relief that the servants of Jesus no longer wield the civil power they once possessed. The people of Christ (including priests and bishops) can now get on with the real mission of expressing Christ’s love and compassion, bearing witness to the great glory of His resurrection - with its consequences for all humanity.
It is a mighty and healthy progression that church leaders are forced into a decent humility and an understanding of, and respect for, the basic freedom that God gives to all people: to believe or not to believe.
Would that the neo-pagan world would express the same care and concern for freedom and life shown by most of today's Church leaders.
Background to The Catholic Evidence Guild
With the approval of successive Cardinal Archbishops of Westminster the CEG operated from the little schoolhouse of St. Peter’s alongside Westminster Cathedral. There were theological lectures each Tuesday, practice speaking classes on Friday evenings, and the main outdoor speaking sessions were scheduled for Speakers’ Corner during Saturday & Sunday. Those who worked nearby conducted lunchtime sessions during the week at Tower Hill, and another team spoke for three or four hours at Earlscourt on Thursday evenings.
It was hectic and exhausting - and highly organised. Potential Speakers underwent in-depth question and answer sessions under topic headings such as those listed on my front page. Speakers were licensed to speak on topics only when examiners were satisfied that we could adequately reflect Church teaching on that subject.
DEMAGOGUES?
The preparation was vital. Some people can warble on for hours, putting forth self-opinionated garbage ad naseum - and sounding quite convincing unless one is alert and critical. Most CEG speakers were inexperienced and initially very nervous. We had to learn to stick to the point, speak for twenty minutes and answer questions for forty; a gruelling experience, but sometimes quite exhilarating when one got launched upon a theme which was hotly debated. I could understand how demagogic orators are born. It’s a heady business, and so easy at times to sway a crowd. It was always a balance. If the audience were bored they just walked away - to the entertaining freelance speaker cracking risqué jokes on the next platform or to listen to the superb Christian socialism of the reverend Doctor Donald Soper - a great advert for concerned Methodism. We had to attract and try to keep our audience, but we had, above all, to provide a factual exposition of the teachings of the Catholic Church.
It says something about the leadership of the Catholic Church in England that we, who were mostly working people with no great theological education, were trusted to present the doctrines of the church in great detail - not argumentatively or with great rhetoric, but simply, clearly and, at all times, courteously.
FRANK SHEED
A major influence upon all CEG speakers, and a great stimulus to coherent thought and expression, was Frank Sheed.
Frank was an Australian, had a Law Degree and was one of the first Catholic laymen with a Doctorate in Theology. A fabulously cogent and entertaining speaker, Frank could have made a fortune at the Bar.
Instead, he made theology the focus of his life, and in addition to his CEG work in London and New York he and his wife Maisie Ward established the Catholic publishing house of Sheed & Ward in those two cities. A large number of people owe much to Frank Sheed’s trenchant, reasoned presentation of basic theology. He could refine ideas with vivid imagery, but imagination was always the servant of reason.
His great skill with words is illustrated by his subtle translation of "The Confessions of St. Augustine". Some say that Augustine’s Latin prose is limited. Frank Sheed’s English translation gives a gloss of understanding to Augustine’s thought that other translators have yet to equal, and probably never will. His own books "A Map of Life", "Theology for Beginners" and "Theology & Sanity" provide a thinking man’s guide to the meaning and purpose of life. I owe much to him.