Posted on 03/26/2013 6:55:35 AM PDT by marshmallow
Acts such as showering the Princess’s hearse with flowers show that the public is reverting to a “Catholic” approach to death after centuries of protestant reserve, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols suggested.
He said that the Princess’s funeral in 1997 marked a watershed in British history and would be remembered as the “end of the Reformation in England”.
Catholic practices such as prayers for the souls of the dead and a belief in saints, which were dismissed by protestant reformers in the 16th Century, are now being rediscovered, he said.
The recent growth in unofficial roadside shrines commemorating people killed in accidents – often filled with flowers photographs and mementos – has also been widely interpreted as marking a change in the way the British respond to death.
Interviewed in a BBC documentary about shrines and other places of religious significance in Britain, the Archbishop said that English people were rediscovering their ancient Catholic “voice”.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I have no idea what Andrew Morton said; I didn’t get it from him.
Well, as I said, I don’t dabble. I think that twice in 6th grade, I played twice a friend’s Ouiji board, but that’s about it.
I’m not fascinated enough to ever try it. God has been good to me, and I’ve seen evidence in my life that He will take care of me.
But I do have a scientific curiosity. However, clearly it is either ...hogwash, or you will be calling Satan, by whatever name.
He just says that Diana felt that the spirit of her grandmother was looking after her. That may be occult and new age and shocking and bizarre to a secular and cynical British journalist, but it's not terribly different from what a lot of Americans who claim to be Christians believe.
Of course it may be that Diana believed her dead grandmother actually was creaking the floorboards and rattling the cupboards or that she tried to get in touch with her through a seance, but that's not the only explanation.
It's said that Diana did believe in and consult psychics and astrologers. But there's been so much rumor and disinformation that it's hard to know what to believe. I'd just point out that some people may be condemning her for believing something very close to what they themselves believe.
| Tuesday, March 26 | |
| Liturgical Color: White | |
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St. Margaret Clitherow was pressed to death for sheltering priests on this day in 1586. She became a Catholic because she saw the many priests and lay people who suffered for the defense of the faith in England. |
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The worst thing to happen to Christandom was the split between the Churches, what led up to it, and the mindless brutality on both sides
I’ll be honest, I don’t know any Christians who think dead relatives are looking after them. That’s not a Christian belief.
Diana’s lifelong interest in the occult is more than just stories; it’s well documented. She had quite a few personal psychics, healers, and astrologers....Penny Thornton, Betty Palco, Debbie Frank, Simone Simmons, Rita Rogers, and Sally Morgan.
This was also true of Churches around Edinburgh and Bath and Cambridge
Thousands or millions of Christians have thought that their deceased relatives were looking down on them from heaven -- or at least it's what they told their children.
It's not so large a jump from that to a belief that their dead parent or grandparent in some sense looks after them or is in some way still present in their lives.
Perhaps that's not a theologically orthodox or a rigorously Biblically grounded belief, but if it's is not Christian, a lot of people out there who thought they were Christians aren't.
If I read that somebody felt that way -- particularly in a chapter of their biography that dealt with their childhood, I might not share the belief, but I wouldn't think it strange or out of the ordinary -- sad maybe, but not something I'd reproach them for.
Since there's other evidence that Diana was into psychics and astrologers, I guess the point is more or less moot. I was just trying to say that people on the Internet have a tendency to jump to conclusions and read things in ways that aren't always justified by the context.
Glad to hear that. I lived in London 25 years ago and was just there and not many people in Farm St. Church either time.
Can’t speak for that particular Church, i’ve never been there. Most of the time I went to St. Mary Magdalene’s in Brighton
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