...to celebrate the launch of English Catholic Heroines, published by Gracewing Books.
Drinks and speeches and tasty snacks and talk and hugs and congratulations, all at St Wilfrid's Hall at Brompton Oratory. This is a place which is a sort of home-from-home for the Bogles, because we held our Silver Wedding party there, and I have spoken there at all sorts of meetings and conferences and taken part in all sorts of social events. It was lovely to be celebrating with some of the various contributors to this book, and it was a happy evening. Tom Longford, my splendid publisher, presided with much good cheer, and John Jolliffe, who got the whole project off the ground and produced English Catholic Heroes last year was among the guests.
Readers of this Blog can join in the fun by buying the book! Ideal Christmas gift, packed with highly readable stories. Find out about England's great Catholic women, from St Etheldreda to Maria Fitzherbert, from heroic martyrs like Margaret Clithreoe and Anne Line to writers, nurses, teachers, and founders of religious orders...
11 comments:
A very enjoyable party and a great book! I read one of the chapters on my way home, and really look forward to dipping into the rest. Congratulations!
Just heard you on BBC Radio 2.
Have to say, you sounded demented.
You interrupted, you fired off on irrelevent tangents, and you seemed to shout.
As a pretty middle-of-the-road observer, I often hear religious people say that when they hear atheists talking they are shrill and angry. In this case, I am sad to say it was you who fitted that description. Not Dawkins.
I am sure you are right. I always sound deplorable on radio, shrill and angry. Do let me know your name so we can have a proper discussion. There's an awkwardness about anonymous letters that makes it hard to communicate.
Joanna
Three cheers for Anonymous, above. You certainly did sound demented, but that is because you are demented. I have some differences of opinion on the odd matter with Dawkins, but to give him his due, how on earth he keeps a civil tongue in his head at all when being deliberately misrepresented, harangued, interrupted and insulted by you nutters is a marvel to me.
Oh my God! You've not been letting the Church down again, have you Mad Aunt in the Attic? Do you ever listen to or watch the results of your embarrassing outbursts afterwards? If you know how appallingly you come across, 'deplorable. shrill and angry' in your own words, why continue to drag the Church down to the level of your own vanity? Maybe you need the money, but it's a meretricious way of earning it.
Out of interest I tracked down your contribution to Jeremy Vine's show on BBC 2 yesterday, something I would normally never listen to. It was clear that they wanted a fanatic to counteract Dawkins and you were the obvious choice. You did yourself no good by insulting him at the start, trying to be the Lady Muck of Motspur Park, and then hysterically interrupting him (following a torrential gabble at the end of your time) during his reponse.
I loathe and detest Dawkins and have no sympathy for his views but he does have good manners, you don't. Nor do you have much clarity of mind and less restraint. The only reason you are chosen to contribute to this wretched, low brow programme is because you are guaranteed to make a fool of yourself and a bigger one of the Church. If you believe when you die you will bring a record of your deeds to the Lord you will have much to answer for due to the damage you have done to His body on Earth.
You really are an embarrassment.
You ARE shrill and angry, which probably goes a long way towards your sounding as such on the radio. A nitwit like you childishly mocking and interrupting Dawkins is par for the course.
My favorite part:
Right in the beginning of Richard trying to get his fair share of time for a response, your ill-mannered mouth opened back up despite having just had your own uninterrupted time: "You remember the slogan, don't you, Dr. Dawkins? It said there probably isn't a god, and there were a whole lot of REEEALLY funny things on the Internet. OH DEAR, it was funny! It did make you look silly, but go on, have another one, let's see if you can do a little better this time. I don't think you will."
What a stunningly important interjection. The only reason he was even mentioning the previous slogan is because you had brought it up (for some reason) in your initial salvo. Do everyone, including yourself, a favor and stay out of public discourse. You don't have the mind nor the maturity for it.
You are all quite right. Dr Dawkins was courteous and well-mannered, and I sounded shrill and angry. I am distressed by campaigns of atheism and I shouldn't be.
I have chosen to print the comments that have sent in even though it is not right to send anonymous letters and in general they should not be printed. If the correspondents would write to me revealing their names - which I will not publish - I think it would be the right thing for them to do.
Joanna
Erm, did any of you lot (apart from Delia) happen to notice the subject of this post?
Joanna - there's no need to beat yourself up because you performed less well than you would have liked. At least you have the guts to get out there and have a go at defending the faith, which is more than can be said for many who might have been expected to think it was their duty.
To return to the purpose of this post: Here in the USA, I have ordered a copy of English Catholic Heroines. I look forward to hearing from my local bookstore that it's arrived!
Joanna
why don't you headhunt and train a young lady to do this sort of thing? It might be a better use of your talent.
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