Brights News Feed

The Catholic hierarchy has in the last few months raised criticism in Scotland, South America and in Italy due to increased “moral” or political meddling over various issues. Its most recent act of pontification (as it were) is over Amnesty International’s refusal to concur with the papacy’s demands on abortion policy. The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino, last week encouraged Catholics to withdraw support from Amnesty because the organization advocates the decriminalization of abortion in cases where rape or abuse for example have taken place.

The Cardinal said “By pushing for the decriminalization of abortion as part of their platform, Amnesty International has disqualified itself as a defender of human rights”, and he suggested that Catholics should withdraw financial support from the internationally respected human rights lobby group.

Interestingly the backlash has come not only from Amnesty, and other human rights campaigners, and secularists concerned about undue religious intervention in humanitarian matters, but from many ordinary Catholics increasingly disenfranchised from the hierarchy. Ekklesia, for example, carries a typical response from one Catholic.

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A 17-year-old woman from Ireland known only as Miss D had been told by the Health Service Executive (HSE) that she needed permission to travel abroad because she was seeking an abortion, which is against the law under almost all circumstances in Ireland, where many political and legal debates retain heavy Catholic influence. Miss D is four months pregnant and the foetus has anencephaly and will not survive long after birth. Even this does not constitute legal ground for abortion in Ireland.

Today the High Court ruled that the HSE’s decision that Miss D could not travel abroad for an abortion was entirely without merit and that no such law restricting her right to travel existed. Mr Justice Liam McKechnie also rebuked the HSE for trying to shoehorn her case into a model which they (falsely) believed necessary in order for her to travel abroad — they had advised her to claim that she was suicidal. The Justice praised Miss D’s moral stance of refusing to comply with the request and her courage in the face of her ad hoc travel ban.

Also see RTE News.

UPDATE (11 May): And Joan Bakewell has an astute comment piece in the Independent.

A few weeks ago, when Anglican archbishops backed Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor over the issue of Catholic adoption agencies, I wrote in jest: “The Anglican leadership temporarily un-schismed with the Catholic Church, last night…” Now it seems the idea is actually not so far from the truth.

Yesterday The Times (UK) broke the story that — in response to the teetering fragility of the Anglican Communion over the issue of gay clergy and women bishops — the Church really is considering how a reunion with Papal authority might be established (”Churches back plan to unite with the Pope“).

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The debate is over. Despite threats from the Catholic Church — backed by the Church of England, and regarded as “blackmail” by many — that their adoption agencies would be closed if they were forced to treat gay couples the same as heterosexual couples, the British Government has today confirmed that the Sexual Orientations Regulations in the Equality Act will apply to religious institutions. A transitional period will stretch to 2008. It may or may not herald the closure of the agencies, but either way it will ensure that vulnerable children will not be neglected, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly insisted.

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The Anglican leadership temporarily un-schismed with the Catholic Church, last night, in order to voice consensus that religious “rights of conscience” should take precedence over new equality legislation in the UK (reported earlier).

The new Sexual Orientation Regulations aim to grant the same protection from discrimination on the basis of sexuality that already applies to prejudicial treatment on the basis of race, sex, belief and so on. In a continuing reluctance to accept the new moral zeitgeist, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, wrote to PM Tony Blair on Monday (letter in full) arguing that:

to oblige our agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against the principles of Catholic teaching.

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The new Archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, dramatically resigned this morning, during the Mass intended for his own installation. Having repeatedly denied his involvement Communit-era secret police in the past, he had confessed on Friday to collaborating.

The Roman Catholic Church plays a huge role in Polish social and political life, and Poland in turn is a prominent component of the Church in Europe and the world, among other things being the birthplace of previous Pope, Jean-Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła). Wielgus’s resignation represents a personal embarassment to new Pope, Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger), who appointed him last month.

Despite brutal Communist persecution of the Church in Poland, it is estimated that up to 15% of Polish Catholic priests were collaborators.

(Via BBC.)

So claims David Farley in Slate (”Who stole Jesus’ foreksin?“) and in his upcoming book on the mysterious disappearance of the relic of the prepuce of the Messiah.

Just what the holy foreskin was doing in the priest’s house—in a shoebox at the back of his wardrobe, no less—and why and how it disappeared has been debated ever since the relic vanished. Some suspect the village priest sold it for a heavenly sum; others say it was stolen by thieves and ended up on the relics black market; some even suggest Satanists or neo-Nazis are responsible. But the most likely culprit is an unlikely one: the Vatican.

After failing to get a reference to “God” in the preamble of the EU constitution, European bishops have set their sights on pushing a reference to Christianity into the EU’s 50 year anniversary declaration next year.

In a document released last week, the Commission of the Bishops Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) promotes its views on the content of the so-called Berlin Declaration - to be signed by EU leaders in March next year - marking the 50th birthday of the 1957 Treaty of Rome which laid the basis for the current European Union.

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The so-called “Islamic Iraqi state”, an alias of terror group “Al-Qaeda in Iraq”, - today published a statement online denouncing Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) for his widely publicised visit to Turkey, saying:

This visit of the pope has the aim of preparing a Crusade against Muslim countries following the failure of Crusade heads such as Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and Howard to extinguish the flame of Islam lit by Muslim brothers in Turkey.

The pope’s trip is aimed, they say, at “cancelling Islamic tradition and cutting Islamic roots … to send them [Turkey] into the arms of the European Union and stop the Islamic wave.”

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Ruth Kelly is the UK minister for Minister for Women and Equality. She is also a devout Catholic and a member of Opus Dei, and has caused a split in the Cabinet by blocking proposed legislation to ban discrimination over the provision of goods and services on the basis of sexuality.

The Liberal Democrats are now calling for her to give up her responsibility for equalities, claiming her personal beliefs were incompatible with defending gay rights.

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