Salisbury Review article

The fall of the house of Rome (titled: 'The next target of the left' online) 

Frank Skinner's Catholicism

Frank Skinner is a British comedian and probably my favourite. He is a master of riposte and double entendre, a genuinely well-educated man from a working class background. And he is a Roman Catholic.

He describes himself freely and frequently on his Saturday morning Absolute Radio The Frank Skinner Show as a ‘follower of the Nazerne’ and many stories are based on something that happened at Mass or speaking to the Parish Priest. He conducted and excellent interview with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, available as a transcript or on YouTube, and has even crossed swords with arch-atheist Richard Dawkins as explained in The Daily Telegraph. He is an alcoholic who has been dry for decades and his life in comedy began when he sobered up and decided to give it a try. He is fabulously rich and once lost a fortune in an economic slump - but recovered. He probably first came to the wide public attention through a show with his good friend and one time flatmate David Baddiel but later through the Frank Skinner Show on TV and Room 101 where his witty banter with a wide rage of celebrities - from Noel Gallagher to Cliff Richard - were always good television. 

His stand-up career - which he still pursues - is legendary and I’ve seen him. His routine is good, hilarious in places and he has an excellent rapport with his audience and has a answer for every comment. He is very amusing on his relationships, including with his present partner Kath with whom he has a son Buzz. Their relationship is often stormy - or has been - and the insights into such relationships resonate with any couple. However, the second half of his show deteriorates into what can only be described as filth. He is well known for this aspect of his routine which used to feature from the outset as a cursory YouTube search will reveal.

He has toned things down a lot in recent years but retains a part of his act which, while extremely funny, made my late teenage and early twenties children - no strangers to the live comedy circuit - blush. His Catholicism is always to the fore but I am curious about how he reconciles some aspects of his stand up routine, a divorce and now living out of marriage with a son, with his Catholicism - or who has helped him to achieve this reconciliation. It is perfectly possible to remain a Catholic under most circumstance - including excommunication (which only prevents you from receiving the sacraments) - on the proviso that you do not receive Communion. He does; I have seen it on TV.

I am not judging and would readily concede that he is probably a ‘better Catholic’ than most, including many seemingly pious people who are regularly at Mass. Undoubtedly he is a Better Catholic than me. But, unless I have missed something - and that is quite possible with the present reforming Pope - there has not been some wide-scale relaxation of the ‘rules’ regarding eligibility to take Communion.

He remains my favourite comedian and personality. I am glad that he is not afraid to proclaim is faith and that he is, undoubtedly, on the side of the angels. I do hope that he has properly understood his faith and has not been misled or made the wrong assumptions about what is expected of a Roman Catholic. 

Catholics and haiku

Should Christians and, especially, Roman Catholics dabble with things like haiku? What would be the problem? There are certainly ‘Christian’ and ‘Catholic’ haiku - Google them. They are sentimental nonsense and nothing to do with haiku. But this led me as a Roman Catholic to question if the practice of haiku - both reading and writing them - is compatible with my faith.

Haiku has its origins in Japanese Zen Buddhism and it is obvious that the Buddhist influence persists from my extensive reading of haiku. The influence is not only in the haiku but in essays around haiku, book reviews and books where people expound on haiku both generally and specifically. It is abundantly clear that many practitioners of haiku are Buddhist. There is no Roman Catholic line on haiku but there certainly is on Buddhism. While Pope John Paul II wrote very positively about Buddhism in the Opus Die inspired Crossing the threshold of hope, it is clear that it is incompatible with Roman Catholicism if, for no other reason, than it denies the existence of a personal God and strays into some practices and holds some beliefs that many would easily see as not being remotely Christian, such as reincarnation.

On the other hand, to deny, as some would, that there is nothing in common between Catholicism and Buddhism is ridiculous - even in our beliefs. We can look at spiritual practices such as meditation and liturgical devices such as burning incense and church bells and it is hard to deny this superficial influence of Buddhism on Christianity. After all Buddhism preceded Christianity by centuries. But, what about haiku and what are they?

Haiku are, essentially, poems. Traditionally, in Japanese, they had a three line, seventeen syllable structure with a seasonal reference (kigo) and a cutting word (kareji) to indicate a break in the flow of ideas. When haiku were imported to the west the three line seventeen syllable structure was mimicked but has gradually disappeared as it only had meaning when the Japanese language was used. Most poems described as haiku now are, strictly, senryu as mostly they do not contain a seasonal reference and deal with a very wide range of topics. But the essence of haiku is not in its structure or specific features of its content. Haiku are about the celebration of the mundane, in the present moment, the taking notice of small things but represented in such a way that there may be ambiguity in the form of words - openness to interpretation - with no moral message and a minimum of emotion and sentiment. For example, one of my own haiku:

the ploughman

his thoughts mingle

with the gulls 
(Published (2018) in Blithe Spirit (Journal of the British Haiku Society) Volume 28, Number 1, page 19. LHA Ref: Blithe Spirit 28.1, February 2018)

Not too ambitious but a moment captured and an impression conveyed. Perhaps a new way of looking at something that you have often seen. Rarely are haiku explained and expounded on - but occasionally they are. The above haiku was inspired by seeing fields being ploughed, a very common sight from my youth in rural Kincardineshire but still visible from roads as we drive past fields in Spring. The gulls follow the plough where the newly turned earth offers worms and other edible substances that have been buried beyond their reach. I imagined the ploughman thinking and his thoughts rising to join the gulls. Obvious, perhaps, but some haiku are quite obscure.

What would there not be to like about haiku from the Christian perspective? Well, nothing in my view but this celebration of the moment and the mundane is certainly very ‘mindful’ - to use a current term which definitely has Buddhist meditational origins. Such meditation emphasises a focus on small things and not on the eternal and this may seem like dangerous meddling with another form of thought, even a syncretism. Perhaps it is but I see no incompatibility between Christianity - and Catholic Christianity - and celebrating the mundane and elevating it to consciousness. After all, the mundane and the 
                                                 eternal are equally part of God's creation.