Vigueur de Dessus

This seems like a good time to quote one of the O'Brien mottos. I missed it back in December, but seems one of my clan cousins over in Scotland decided to say a few words and caused a little ruckus. Oh, how shocking that a Catholic archbishop would condemn behavior his religion says is a sin, or that he would attempt to call sinners to amend their lives! From the Sunday Herald via The Curt Jester:

Scottish parliament bosses have banned ministers and priests from addressing MSPs unless they refrain from attacking homosexuals and other minorities...The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland had used his short speech last December to claim that gays and lesbians were "captives to sexual aberration".He also compared non-heterosexuals to prisoners in Edinburgh’s Saughton jail who were waiting to be "set free".

Hey, you forgot your scare quotes. That's 'refrain from "attacking" "homosexuals" and other "minorities" like liars, shoplifters, people who dump chemicals in streams, and totalitarian dictators. You know, sinners. But I'm glad to learn that sinners are such a minority of today's Scots.

No doubt politicians are worried that people who condemn sin today will start wondering where all the VAT taxes go tomorrow. I guess you shouldn't ask for people to offer their thoughts if you don't want them to give them to you!

I wonder how his critics square Cardinal O'Brien "attacking" with Cardinal O'Brien's more recent run-in with critics, in which he told his archdiocese's schools that they were not to use background checks to find out if teachers were gay, much less fire them for such a reason. God forbid somebody should do something to demonstrate that the Church views homosexual acts not as something you can't help, but as the result of falling for temptation -- just like shoplifting, cheating on taxes, dumping chemicals in streams, and being a totalitarian dictator. You know. Sinning.

Anyway, my clan cousin the Cardinal is apparently not particularly shy, seeing as he says his aim is no less than to re-Christianize Scotland. Lamh laidir an Uachtar!