Friday, 2 October 2015

Attacks on The Faith

I have received the following from a Parishioner - the message is clear we must act.

The Home Office has proposed the following:

  • Priests, Imams and Rabbis must be enrolled on a national register of faith leaders.
  • They must undergo government-specified training.
  • They must undergo security checks.

Under this proposal, a priest or deacon could be struck off the register and have his “license” to be a priest or deacon taken away by the government.   The police can be called on priests by any member of the public and be arrested with the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuting and criminalising them. 



There are also new laws against “Hate Speech,” which is just about anything that is not politically correct as per the government.  Catholic teaching on sex and marriage has been deemed as an indicator of religious extremism by Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for education, and she is threatening to censure and shut down Catholic schools.  Priests and deacons preaching Catholic principles at mass could be prosecuted for “Hate Speech.” 



Here are the three radical individuals in the UK Government that are driving this:


We see how intimidated Christians are becoming in the UK.  We see primary and secondary “Christian Schools” in the area (our children attend one) now only teach Christian values as part of a wider comparative religion course and are too afraid to encourage their students to practice Christian values.  We have to teach our children the Ten Commandments and The Golden Rule at home because their “Christian School” doesn’t teach it.  It’s ridiculous.  No one is allowed to have a religious framework to figure out what is right or wrong anymore.  Churches and schools are too afraid to say anything.  The UK now has the highest rate of family breakdown in Europe.  



The growing religious persecution in the UK will worsen if the Catholic Church and its members do not start taking firm legal action against the UK government to stand up and protect their freedom of religion and speech whilst we still have it. 


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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous15 October 2015 at 13:30

    I came across this & felt I had to respond I appreciate the openness of the writing and felt the alternative perspective might produce some debate.
    You start with “the Home Office has proposed the following” -one would think this was government policy. But as the link to the article shows “The highly controversial proposal appears in a leaked draft of the Government’s new counter-extremism strategy”. It’s a draft, we don’t know what stage, it is not a Home Office proposal.
    Secondly you’ve not mentioned that the suggestion applies to religious officials in the public sector not generally, and that the license that is taken away is the right to work in the public sector. I suggest you are making a case to knock it down. Given what is going on in our Universities and Schools this seems reasonable. You may say “but that is Moslem extremists” but I am sure you would not wish to single them out for registration. Anymore than you would wish to single out Catholic priests for a child protection register. (Not cheap point scoring, most people when asked about Moslem’s say “terrorism” and when asked about Catholic priests say “child abuse”.) Across our public sector religious leaders have unparalleled access to people and to suggest it may need regulating is reasonable.
    On the subject of cheap point scoring: what was the “Minister for Women and Equalities (there is no Minister for Men and Equalities)” jab? As a Catholic priest you immediately see how women are treated as different from men! Are you really against having someone who is charged with trying to get equal treatment, in pay and in opportunity?
    Christian values taught as part of a wider comparative religion course. ABSOLUTELY! It is a school they should be educated not indoctrinated. Teach them and let them make up their own minds. But while we are at it if your children attend a Catholic school then you know that they have access to priests in school time but not to Imams, Rabbis or even the local Anglican vicar; you know that they have a daily assembly that can legally be entirely Catholic in its nature; you know that there will be opportunities to attend Catholic mass either at the school or in school time and that opportunity is not required to be offered to other faiths – and generally is not offered; you know that the Governors can select a head teacher who supports Catholic values and remove him if he turns out to be divorced or gay; you know that the teachers can be selected because they too support Catholic values. Basically you take a child, you drop them into a wholly Catholic environment, you poke religion at them until its coming out of their ears - but when you educate them you have to be educational and not, in the correct sense of the word and without meaning any slur at all, prejudiced.
    Your statement “no one is allowed to have a religious framework to figure out what is right and wrong anymore” is simply not true. Rather Catholics, and others like them, are losing the argument. The majority of people, especially the young, are disgusted at the hypocrisy of the church. It talks about “caring for the poor” but is one of the richest institutions in the world. It talks about “family values” but won’t agree even to civil marriage of gays and lesbians who want to form a family. It talks about “love thy neighbour” but cuts off believers who marry people of different faiths. The new pope seems to be getting some of it right. When he practices humility, poverty, serving people of other faiths and so on people listen. He is actually making some inroads. And as his predecessor discovered when you talk without respect, without love, without thought for others, people switch off and leave the church in droves.
    You say there is religious persecution but I don’t see it. At most the special rights that some religions enjoyed are being questioned. We clearly have very different world view but I am genuinely interested in what you write.

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