Friday 18 November 2011

Zola's Germinal- Part VI

Father Ranvier tries to reach out to the striking miners.....
"Listening to him La Maheuda heard echos of Etienne's voice, when he had sat up late at night during the autumn, announcing the imminent end to all of their problems. But she had never trusted a man in a cassock.
"That's all very well, the way you tell it Father", she said, but it's only because you don't get on with the bourgeois .. All our other vicars used to dine with the manager, and threaten us with hell fire as soon as we asked for bread".
He continued the argument, speaking of the deplorable misunderstanding that had arisen between the Church and the people. Now in veiled phrases he attacked the city priests, bishops and ecclesiastical dignitaries who were bloated with pleasure and sated with power, supported by the liberal bourgeoisie in their imbecile blindness, not realising that it was the same bourgeoisie that deprived them of their influence in the world. Deliverance would come from the country priests, who would all rise up together to re-establish the kingdom of  Christ, with the aid of the poor; he seemed already to see himself at their head, and straightening his bony back as if he were an outlaw chief, or an evangelical revolutionary, his eyes filled with the light that they lit up the dark room around him. He was carried away by his own ardent preaching in a spate of mystical language, which the poor folk had long since given up trying to grasp.
"We don't need all those words" Maheu grumbled roughly. "You had better start by bringing us some bread""

So this OLSX thing. Take it from Zola, we've been there before....
1) "Godless lefties" will not come to us. We are out primarily to "indoctrinate" them with "false consciousness" and make them feel bad about sex remember!
2) Even an encyclopedic knowledge of Monty Python's "The Life Of Brian" does not cut as much ice as it used to. What you know about Isiah, Amos and Judas Maccabeus... all in good time Rev!
3) Follow Linda Hart et al's example and bring cake!

See you at St Paul's and on the picket lines on 30th November!
Consider this a shot across the bows Cranmer. This reformation will be on the blogosphere.
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/

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