Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales claims religion is under attack in this country

Editorial by Terry Sanderson
Murphy O'Connor should be shown the door
In a somewhat over-blown speech in London this week, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, claimed that religion is under attack in this country.

Murphy O'Connor is still raging at the defeat of the Church's attempts to be exempted from legislation designed to protect gay, lesbian and bisexual people from discrimination. He became the first Catholic leader in nearly 200 years to question whether the policy of the government interferes with the practice of Roman Catholicism. He accused the British government of creating, "a different version of our democracy, one in which diversity and equality are held to be at odds with religion."

In a breathtakingly manipulative speech, aimed directly at Downing Street and Tony Blair's Catholic pretensions, Murphy O'Connor told an audience at Westminster Cathedral: "My fear is that, under the guise of legislating for what is said to be tolerance, we are legislating for intolerance. Once this begins, it is hard to see where it ends. My fear is that in an attempt to clear the public square of what are seen as unacceptable intrusions, we weaken the pillars on which that public square is erected, and we will discover that the pillars of pluralism may not survive. The question is whether the threads holding together pluralist democracy have begun to unravel. That is why I have sounded this note of alarm. I am conscious that when an essential core of our democratic freedom risks being undermined, subsequent generations will hold to account those who were able to raise their voices yet stayed silent."

Murphy O'Connor claimed that a secular society would cause religion to go off the rails. He said: "The secular state, which we now risk adopting in Britain, seeks a politics entirely independent of religion, in which religious principles have nothing to say in the 'real' world of political action. The choice of the State to side with the secular is said to be neutrality; and it is usually justified by an appeal to equality. But this is in itself ideology, divorcing religion from the public realm on the pretext that religion is divisive. This sets up great tensions in society. The more determinedly secular a state becomes, the more pressure mounts for religious beliefs to assert themselves. We then no longer have a common search for truth on the basis of shared reason, but a series of monologues in which each side excludes the other. People talk past each other. There is little reasoned thinking.

does Religion depend on reasoned thinking, or on Faith?

There is no adequate civil discourse. Society is then at risk of the fragmentation of its moral structure."

Murphy O'Connor said he feared that Britain was becoming a country where faith-based charity work will not be welcomed. "When Christians stand by their beliefs, they are intolerant dogmatists. When they sin, they are hypocrites. When they take the side of the poor, they are soft-headed liberals. When they seek to defend the family, they are right wing reactionaries," he moaned.

The Cardinal gave his strongest indication yet that the church would close their nine adoption agencies rather than take an estimated £10m of government money to run them in compliance with the new law.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, commented: "Murphy O'Connor's own behaviour in the past disqualifies him from lecturing others on morality – especially in relation to vulnerable children. We have yet to hear any meaningful apology from him for the disgusting cover up he engineered for the rampaging paedophile priest "Father" Michael Hill. And as for the Catholic Church suddenly becoming a defender of democracy – what does that institution know about democracy? Its headquarters, Vatican City – a supposed independent state – is the also the only surviving theocracy in Europe. The Vatican loves to interfere in the politics of other nations (see other stories in this edition of Newsline), but there is no opportunity for anyone to repay the compliment.

"The Catholic Church has happily allied itself with just about every totalitarian regime that has emerged over the centuries in Europe. At the moment it is in bed with the crypto-fascist regime in Poland. Cardinal Murphy O'Connor has nothing to teach us about morals or democracy, and nor is he qualified to lecture us on 'conscience'. The Catholic conscience seems to mean that those who have it have awarded themselves carte blanche to be as nasty and excluding as they like to those they don't approve of. Well, modern concepts of human rights must trump these claims of divine conscience. It's time for the Catholic Church – and all the other religious bodies that seek to impose their will on democratic governments – to be firmly put in their place."

Read the whole speech.

reposted from: NSS
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