Stop Tony Blair's invitation to speak in Rome on "civilisation of love"

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has been invited to speak at a youth meeting in Rome (28 - 30 November) for "young people who want to find solutions" to the "problems of modernity" in the spirit of John Paul II's call to "build a civilisation of love". The meeting is being held at the European University of Rome. Participants include H.E. Mrs Hanna Suchocka, Polish ambassador to the Holy See, Dr Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Father Paolo Scarafoni, Rector of the European University of Rome, and Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, who is celebrating Mass on the final day of the meeting. I have posted the invitation letter and the programme.

It will be a scandal if the invitation to Tony Blair remains in place, until or unless he publicly repudiates his anti-life and anti-family political record. He is, arguably, one of the worst possible role models to present to young people. As I say in a letter to the organizers (reproduced in full below):

"In his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (91) Pope John Paul wrote: 'On the eve of the Third Millennium, the challenge facing us is an arduous one: only the concerted efforts of all those who believe in the value of life can prevent a setback of unforeseeable consequences for civilization'. In view of Tony Blair’s unwavering pursuit of legislation and policies in Britain and overseas promoting abortion and other anti-life measures, it is clear that he has been a principal architect of the worldwide attack on the value of life to which the late Holy Father refers in Evangelium Vitae."

Perhaps you would like to join me in writing to the organizers of the meeting - who are possibly unaware of Tony Blair's anti-life, anti-family record.

Text of my letter to the organisers

Organizing Committee,
Youth Meeting in Rome,
Ul. Foksal 11,
00-372 Warsaw
Poland

16 October 2008

Dear Friends,

I am very concerned to note that Mr Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has been invited to speak at the Youth Meeting at the European University of Rome, based on Pope John Paul II’s teachings, entitled “The Civilisation of Love”. You are possibly unaware of Tony Blair's anti-life and anti-family political record.

Since being received into the Catholic Church last year, Mr Blair has repeatedly refused to repudiate his strongly anti-life and anti-family political record.

On 11 January of this year, I wrote to ask Tony Blair if, in the light of his reception into the Catholic Church, he now repudiates:

• voting for abortion up to birth three times
• personally endorsing his government policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent
• his government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right
• personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos
• his government introducing legislation which has led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients.

In reply, I received a letter on Tony Blair’s behalf, dated 9 April 2008, saying: “the [Tony Blair] Foundation will not be able to address the issue of pro-life, weighty though it is. Nor, I am afraid, will Mr Blair be able to enter into correspondence on his personal beliefs on this or indeed other issues”.

A week earlier (on 4 April 2008) at a talk at Westminster Cathedral, the primary Catholic cathedral in England and Wales, Mr Blair said: “There is nothing I look back on now and say that as a result of my religious journey I would have done things very differently but that is expressly not to say that I got everything right”.

It will be a scandal if the invitation to Mr Blair to speak at a meeting of young people based on the teachings of Pope John Paul II on the civilization of love remains in place. In his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (91) Pope John Paul wrote: “On the eve of the Third Millennium, the challenge facing us is an arduous one: only the concerted efforts of all those who believe in the value of life can prevent a setback of unforeseeable consequences for civilization”. In view of Tony Blair’s unwavering pursuit of legislation and policies in Britain and overseas promoting abortion and other anti-life measures, it is clear that he is a principal architect of the worldwide attack on the value of life to which the late Holy Father refers in Evangelium Vitae.

Not only has he failed to repudiate his political record on these matters, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation is now working with a partnership of organizations , including World Vision which calls for abortion on demand to be legalized in the world’s poorest nations – which was also, for Tony Blair’s government, central to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, as can be seen in his government’s position paper on sexual and reproductive health and rights (July 2004).

I urge that the invitation to Mr Blair to speak at this conference be withdrawn, until or unless he publicly repudiates his anti-life and anti-family political record. Public figures, especially those who may continue to seek political office, cannot be allowed to protect themselves from public scrutiny by being received into the Catholic Church.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

John Smeaton
SPUC national director

Austen Ivereigh clarifies his comments on Tony Blair and I respond

I'm glad to publish the following clarification from Dr Austen Ivereigh following my blog-post commenting on his Guardian article "Churches can help Labour's renewal":

"John,

You rightly point out that the SORs came in under Blair, not Brown. But you fail to say that Blair (and Ruth Kelly) sought an exemption for the Catholic adoption agencies but were outvoted by the secularists in the cabinet. This was a key turning-point.

You try to make out that my Guardian article seeks to justify Blair's record in relation to church teaching. But it doesn't. It says (first paragraph) that Blair 'did God' "not in the sense of agreeing with what the churches said, or enacting policy on that basis, but in granting exemptions and opt-outs from equality laws for faith-based organisations in order to preserve their integrity and independence." The first sentence makes your whole list of the Blair Government's offences against Catholic teaching, which you try to claim my article justifies, wholly redundant - in fact, it makes your whole post redundant. I haven't attempted any whitewash.

Best wishes

Austen"

My responses to Dr Ivereigh's clarification:

Dr Ivereigh:

"you fail to say that Blair (and Ruth Kelly) sought an exemption for the Catholic adoption agencies but were outvoted by the secularists in the cabinet."

My response:

• I am unaware of any actual proof that this is what really happened in the Blair cabinet. Also, there is no evidence (at least that I am aware of) that either Mr Blair or Mrs Kelly were prepared to take any further principled action on the matter. Mr Blair could have removed the regulations from the government's legislative programme, or challenged the cabinet to back him or sack him, or simply resigned. Mrs Kelly could have resigned (I and SPUC have commented on other evasions of moral responsibility by Mrs Kelly as a Catholic politician.) Such principled action is the minimum required of a Christian politician when faced with the evil of homosexual* adoption. In any case, homosexual adoption is evil per se, not just for Catholic adoption agencies. SPUC is fighting for the culture of life and of authentic love on behalf of both Catholics and non-Catholics. What was ethically required of Mr Blair and Mrs Kelly was not so much "exemptions and opt-outs" but moves to stop homosexual adoption altogether.

Dr Ivereigh:

"This was a key turning-point."

My response:

• I really didn't detect any notable difference between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown regarding the ethics of pro-life/pro-family issues.
• Dr Ivereigh doesn't actually detail what "exemptions and opt-outs" were in fact granted under Mr Blair, whilst neglecting to detail the numerous examples (see list below) of how Mr Blair and his government violated the integrity, independence, conscience and beliefs of people of faith and their organisations.

Dr Ivereigh:

"[M]y Guardian article...says (first paragraph) that Blair 'did God' "not in the sense of agreeing with what the churches said, or enacting policy on that basis, but in granting exemptions and opt-outs from equality laws for faith-based organisations in order to preserve their integrity and independence."

My response:

• "Granting exemptions and opt-outs" is hardly evidence that New Labour under Tony Blair did God "a lot".
• In the second and third sentences of his Guardian article, Dr Ivereigh wrote that under New Labour under Tony Blair: "There was respect for conscience and belief. Blair's ears were tuned to faith." If New Labour under Tony Blair really had done "God a lot" in any sense, really had had "respect for conscience and belief", and Mr Blair's ears really had been "tuned to faith", then Mr Blair and his government would have "agree[d] with what the churches said" and "enact[ed] policy on that basis". Instead, the New Labour government marked itself out as the most anti-life and anti-family government in British history, even before Mr Blair was replaced by Mr Brown.
• Dr Ivereigh doesn't actually detail what "exemptions and opt-outs" were in fact granted under Mr Blair, whilst neglecting to detail the numerous examples (see list below) of how Mr Blair and his government violated the integrity, independence, conscience and beliefs of people of faith and their organisations.

So I stand by my original post in its entirety. As prime minister Tony Blair

• did not "d[o] God a lot", in any sense
• did not manifest "respect for conscience and belief"
• did not have "ears...tuned to faith"

not least for the reasons I listed in my original post, which I list again below.

It seems to me that Dr Ivereigh has a defective perception of Christian politicians and their moral responsibilities on ethico-legal matters.

Some key facts about Mr Blair's time as prime minister which every British Christian needs to know:

• the Labour government passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007 through parliament, because of which the Catholic Church was effectively stopped from providing adoption services.
• Mr Blair personally championed destructive experiments on human embryos (2000, 2004, August and September 2006)
• Mr Blair personally endorsed his government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent (Foreword, Teenage Pregnancy Report, Social Exclusion Unit, 1999)
• Mr Blair's government introduced legislation which led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients (The Mental Capacity Act 2005). There is no conscience clause in the Mental Capacity Act. Mr Blair personally defended the legislation.
• Mr Blair's government in 2005 endorsed Recommended Standards for Sexual Health Services, drawn up by a coalition of pro-abortion advocates and abortion providers. The policy includes arm-twisting doctors who are reluctant to refer for abortion. Many GPs wish to refuse to refer women for abortions on medical grounds, or for religious or conscientious reasons. The Department of Health brooked none of these objections, but insisted that every woman who enquires about abortion is immediately referred for abortion.
• Mr Blair's government was committed to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right (Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, A position paper, Department for International Development, 2004)
• Mr Blair's government passed through parliament the Civil Partnerships Act, which contains no conscience clause e.g. for registrars. In his memoirs published earlier this month Mr Blair made repeated references to his support for the homosexual agenda, such as: "Just before Christmas [2005] the Civil Partnership Act came into force ... I was really proud of that."

* The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in paragraph 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

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Help stop Tony Blair speaking at major Catholic meeting

Zenit reports that Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, is amongst the speakers at next month’s Rimini meeting on “knowledge and faith” organized by the Communion and Liberation movement. Previous visitors to the meeting include Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

A core of 14 people work full-time on the organization of the Rimini meeting. I am sending each of them the open letter below. I suggest that others write to them too – including concerned Catholics, pro-life people of all denominations and none, and everyone whose family lives are threatened or damaged by the anti-life/anti-family legislation supported by Tony Blair whilst in parliament and by his continuing positions. You can write to them from here

Remember: This is the man favoured by the British Government to become president of the European Union (EU). An Obama-Blair alliance imposing its “pro-choice” culture of death worldwide has been described thus by leading Vatican scholar Monsignor Michel Schooyans:

“What the analysis of Barack Obama's decisions and Tony Blair's project reveals is that an alliance is coming between two converging intentions, one aimed at subjugating law and the other at subjugating religion. This is the new version of the two-headed eagle. Law and religion are exploited to 'legitimize' anything at all.”

Open letter to 30th Rimini meeting organizers

My dear friends and fellow Catholics,

Zenit has alerted me to your meeting next month in Rimini on knowledge and faith at which Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, is among the speakers.

Firstly, I wish to congratulate you on the impressive history of your Rimini meetings which have been attended in the past by John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Father. As Pope Benedict XVI, he called on your meeting last year to consider the question: " ... What makes a person unmistakable and guarantees his/her existence full dignity? ... "

The theme of your meeting this year is equally lofty and challenging: Mankind's search for the truth, in an uncertain world, through "reason and love ... profoundly united in the dynamics of knowledge ... " as you express it. You explain on your website: "Without the mediation of witnesses (my emphasis) there would not be the growth of knowledge, there would not be civilization and culture, and there would not be history."

One of the witnesses you have chosen as a speaker at your meeting is Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. Here I must express - and provide reasons for - my intense disappointment and deep concern:

Only last April, in a homosexual magazine, Tony Blair, who has recently been received into the Catholic Church, attacked papal teaching on homosexuality, telling the Church it must change its "entrenched attitudes" to homosexuality.

As a British member of parliament and prime minister, history shows that Tony Blair is one of world's major architects of the culture of death. Since becoming a Catholic he has refused to repudiate the anti-life policies and legislation he pursued, and succeeded in enacting, throughout his political career. These include: voting for abortion up to birth three times; personally endorsing his government's policy of supplying abortion and abortifacient birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent; his government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right; personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos; his government's legislation which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients; bringing down the force of the law upon doctors who refuse to refer women to other doctors for abortion, and upon Catholic adoption agencies who refuse to hand over children to homosexual couples.

Naturally, I can and I will send you in the post all the evidence to support the reasons I give above - which you can also find on my blog http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/ It's important to note that Tony Blair's public record (of attacking Catholic teaching and pursuing public policies undermining the family and the sanctity of life) are not historical curiosities. Unlike St. Paul, he has had no road to Damascus conversion. As I say above, he has refused to repudiate the anti-life policies and legislation he has pursued throughout his political career. He continues to nurture ambitions to become a future EU president, and he is the favoured candidate for this post of the British government.

Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a leading Vatican scholar, has delivered in Rome a masterly analysis of Tony Blair and Barack Obama, in which he explains with devastating insight their anti-life/anti-family agenda to undermine both law and religion respectively. I do urge that you study what he says carefully, review the evidence to which I refer above, and cancel your invitation to Tony Blair to speak at the celebrated Rimini meeting next month. His participation in your event effectively provides a platform for a politician who is intent on continuing his influence and power in order to attack the Church's teaching, the family based on the marriage of man and woman, and countless vulnerable human lives - the unborn, the sick and the elderly.

Thank you in advance for giving urgent consideration to my request.

Yours sincerely,

John Smeaton
National Director
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC)

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John Henry Newman cause website censures Blair and Tablet on conscience

Placing "Newman and conscience in the company of Tony Blair amounts to a provocative juxtaposition", says the official website of the cause for the canonisation of Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman in response to this weekend's Tablet editorial.

"However many times it is refuted as an interpretation of Newman, the idea that he is the patron of ‘conscientious’ dissent shows a stubborn tendency to resurface.

"It is in this context that The Tablet’s having placed Newman and conscience in the company of Tony Blair amounts to a provocative juxtaposition."

The Newman cause website continues:

"Since becoming a Catholic, Mr Blair has refused every invitation to disown and repent of these things. Although they are simply incompatible with the Catholic Faith and were pursued by him, before he was a Catholic, with every appearance of conviction, Mr Blair has refused since entering the Church to say whether in these respects he has undergone a change of mind and heart. In refusing to clarify his position, he implies that he still believes that they were the right things to do.

"If this implication is correct, some commentators, including Catholics, have sought to justify it by saying that Mr Blair’s silence is because his support for abortion, embryo experimentation, civil partnerships and gay adoption has always been for him, and remains now, a matter of conscience. Now this is the danger in The Tablet’s association of Newman and conscience with the case of Tony Blair. If as a Catholic Mr Blair thinks that his conscience directs him to support such positions, to invoke Newman in defence of his stance would be a travesty. For Newman, no Catholic can be in good conscience in supporting the positions Mr Blair espoused. The impossibility of conscience, enlightened by Faith, justifying adherence to evil is one of the most important of Newman’s lessons for our times."

What is The Tablet trying to achieve by exalting Tony Blair into Newman's company? Not only has Tony Blair refused to repudiate his anti-life and anti-family political record, since being received into the Catholic Church, he has extended it with open attacks on Catholic teaching on sexual ethics.

Remember: This is the man favoured by the British government to become president of the European Union (EU). An Obama-Blair alliance imposing its so-called pro-choice culture of death worldwide has been described thus by Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a leading Vatican scholar :

“What the analysis of Barack Obama's decisions and Tony Blair's project reveals is that an alliance is coming between two converging intentions, one aimed at subjugating law and the other at subjugating religion. This is the new version of the two-headed eagle. Law and religion are exploited to 'legitimize' anything at all.”

Is this what The Tablet wants?  Surely rather than using their editorial to promote Tony Blair, who remains one of the world's leading anti-life/anti-family politicians, The Tablet should be briefing its readers to oppose the Brown government's anti-life legislative push expected in November - promoting access to abortion for schoolchildren without parental knowledge and consent?

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Tony Blair is undermining the faith of the church into which he has been received

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is holding an “exciting event” in Los Angeles tomorrow to mark the midway point for the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals in 2015 – a panel discussion including Tony Blair and significant Islamic figures.

The blurb says: “Recorded live, this will be a great chance for you, and countless others around the world, to discuss your thoughts and ideas on issues of faith and combating poverty - as well as encouraging understanding of and between faiths.”

The Mission Statement of Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation is at pains to emphasize: “ … the Foundation will use its profile and resources to encourage people of faith to work together more closely to tackle global poverty and conflict … ”

The trouble is that Tony Blair has refused to repudiate the position his government promoted in words and action during his premiership – the promotion of abortion on demand in developing countries as central to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. This was also emphasized by Baroness Amos, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Blair’s government, in answers to questions in January 2003.

As I’ve said before, Tony Blair has reportedly got his eye on becoming president of the EU Council and he is using his “Faith Foundation” to promote his influence worldwide.

While there’s a possibility of him running for public office in any part of the world, citizens have a right and a duty to challenge him on his political record on pro-life matters. As a Catholic myself, I do not believe that politicians should be protected from public scrutiny simply by being received into the Catholic church.

I have no wish for Tony Blair to don sackcloth and ashes. I’ll do that for my own sins before I judge anyone else.However, Tony Blair’s position on abortion, abortifacient birth control, IVF and euthanasia by neglect is a matter of public record. As prime minister he was in the forefront of championing the culture of death not only in Britain but also, on abortion, around the world through the UK’s foreign policy. As long as he fails to repudiate his appalling legacy, Tony Blair is undermining the faith of the church into which he has been received.

Tony Blair’s Christmas greetings ring hollow

“To everyone celebrating Christmas, I send my very best wishes” Tony Blair said on the Tony Blair Faith Foundation website last week.

His greeting reminds me of King Herod (pictured right) saying to the wise men: “Go and diligently inquire after the child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him”.

Indeed, the anti-life laws and policies Tony Blair supported and promoted as prime minister and which he refuses to repudiate since his reception into the Catholic Church, continue to cost far more lives than the number of babies killed in King Herod’s massacre of the innocents, even according to the highest estimates.

The scandal of Tony Blair’s position was highlighted in Newsweek just before Christmas. The printed edition of Newsweek’s report was published on the same day as Tony Blair issued his hollow greetings “to everyone celebrating Christmas”.

Tony Blair’s message says: “On this most joyful of Christian festivals, we celebrate new light coming into the world. We rejoice in the chance of a new relationship between God and humankind and the hope which that inspires. We commemorate the birth of the Christ child, and the willingness of God to humble himself for our sake in the shape of a helpless baby. [JS: Tony, don't forget that every one of the countless thousands of unborn children who were killed because of your support, and your government's support, for abortion was a helpless baby.]

"Christmas subverts so much of the world's wisdom. God the all powerful becomes vulnerable; the king of glory whose first shelter in this world was a stable; the infinite reduced to the smallest human form. [JS: Just like newly-conceived embryos, don't you think, Tony?] Usual expectations are confounded by the Christmas story [JS: in which a teenage mother whose child was conceived out of wedlock continued the pregnancy to birth under difficult circumstances], which challenges us to look beyond the world's order and priorities. [JS: Yes, like your government's expectation and priority that teenage mothers should have abortions.]

“So, in the midst of all the celebration, let us not lose sight of the radical challenge which Christmas poses us. [JS: I'll pose you a challenge, Tony, but not too radical: just tell us whether or not you stand by your anti-life, anti-family record in parliament and government] And above all let us remember the divine care for the world which Christ's birth represents. Let us do whatever we can to show our care for the word and for all our fellow humans [JS: What are you going to do, Tony, to show that you care for unborn children?], so that the world becomes a better place in which everyone may find and fulfil their God-given potential. [JS: Amen. A pity you and your government denied that opportunity to so many people.]

“Happy Christmas. Tony Blair”

I continue to pray the Our Father daily for Barack Obama and for Tony and Cherie Blair: that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life. If you would like to join me in this prayer commitment/campaign which I launched last month, write to me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk and pass on this message to others.

Austen Ivereigh of Catholic Voices tries to whitewash Tony Blair's anti-life/anti-family record

Dr Austen Ivereigh, co-ordinator of Catholic Voices, former director of public affairs to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and former deputy editor of The Tablet, has tried to whitewash Tony Blair's anti-life/anti-family record in an article for The Guardian entitled "Churches can help Labour renewal". He writes:

"Although Alastair Campbell famously said otherwise, New Labour under Tony Blair did God a lot: not agreeing with what the churches said, or enacting policy on that basis, but in granting exemptions and opt-outs from equality laws for faith-based organisations in order to preserve their integrity and independence. There was respect for conscience and belief. Blair's ears were tuned to faith.

Then came Gordon Brown, and Labour tuned out. No more opt-outs from anti-discrimination laws, which under Blair had allowed religious organisations to retain their distinctive ethos; 13 Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close because they refused to allow same-sex couples to adopt (even though there were 400 others the couples could go to)."

Here are some key facts about Mr Blair's time as prime minister which every British Catholic needs to know:

• Contrary to Dr Ivereigh's claim above, it was under Tony Blair, not Gordon Brown, that the Labour government passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007 through parliament, because of which the Catholic Church was effectively stopped from providing adoption services.
• Mr Blair personally championed destructive experiments on human embryos (2000, 2004, August and September 2006)
• Mr Blair personally endorsed his government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent (Foreword, Teenage Pregnancy Report, Social Exclusion Unit, 1999)
• Mr Blair's government introduced legislation which led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients (The Mental Capacity Act 2005). There is no conscience clause in the Mental Capacity Act. Mr Blair personally defended the legislation.
• Mr Blair's government in 2005 endorsed Recommended Standards for Sexual Health Services, drawn up by a coalition of pro-abortion advocates and abortion providers. The policy includes arm-twisting doctors who are reluctant to refer for abortion. Many GPs wish to refuse to refer women for abortions on medical grounds, or for religious or conscientious reasons. The Department of Health brooked none of these objections, but insisted that every woman who enquires about abortion is immediately referred for abortion.
• Mr Blair's government was committed to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right (Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, A position paper, Department for International Development, 2004)
• Mr Blair's government passed through parliament the Civil Partnerships Act, which contains no conscience clause e.g. for registrars. In his memoirs published earlier this month Mr Blair made repeated references to his support for the homosexual* agenda, such as: "Just before Christmas [2005] the Civil Partnership Act came into force ... I was really proud of that.

Were Tony "Blair's ears" really "tuned to faith" when he personally endorsed introducing the culture of death into schools, the killing of embryonic children and starvation of helpless patients? Is forcing professionals to cooperate formally in abortion, euthanasia and homosexual lifestyles, or keeping parents in the dark about their daughters' sexual health, "respect for conscience and belief"?

Dr Ivereigh clearly has a strange (to say the least) idea about what constitutes "doing God a lot". As well as seeking to whitewash Tony Blair, Dr Ivereigh and/or his Catholic Voices project has also sought to whitewash (among other things):

• the Soho Masses organised by and for homosexuals who dissent from the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality
• condom use in relation to the Catholic Church's perennial prohibition on contraception
• Catholic schooling in England and Wales: ""[T]here is no Catholic school in Britain, joint or otherwise, in which Catholic children are being taught less than the Catholic faith in its integrity." (Catholic Herald, 2005)
• The Tablet, which is internationally renowned for its dissent from Catholic teaching, especially on sexual ethics.
• The Guardian which is in effect the house journal of the British anti-life/anti-life movement and which regularly publishes attacks on the Catholic Church for its pro-life/pro-family teachings
• the British media generally
• British society generally, despite it being "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".

Dr Ivereigh's latest comments simply reinforce my opinion that he is seeking to redefine the common perception of what constitutes mainstream Catholicism in England, and that he should not be appointed to any representative position in any official or unofficial Catholic or pro-life/pro-family organisation.

* The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in paragraph 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

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Tony Blair continues to manipulate the Catholic Church

Tony Blair has written an article in the latest edition of The Tablet, which describes itself as an "international Catholic weekly". The article's subject is the work of Mr Blair's Faith Foundation in promoting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Mr Blair neglects to tell Tablet readers that his government interpreted the MDGs to include a universal right to abortion on demand which, along with other anti-life policies he pursued, he has refused to repudiate since being received into the Catholic Church (see below). Mr Blair quotes Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez who has said that "the needless deaths of nearly 10 million children a year are an abomination that cannot be tolerated". Cardinal Rodriguez was referring to the deaths of born children from disease. Interestingly, Mr Blair does not quote Cardinal Rodriguez's call for life and the family made to politicians and legislators in 1996, the year before Mr Blair became prime minister:

"Abortion is a primordial evil and one of the fundamental problems of our age ... We call for a massive international effort by politicians and legislators in favour of human life ... We call for legal protection for the unborn child from the moment of conception. We recommend unequivocal pro-life legislation on embryo experimentation and genetic engineering ... We call for an end to the 'contraceptive imperialism' of population control promoted with the use of abortion, sterilization and contraception."

Nor does Mr Blair quote what Cardinal Rodriguez said about politicians who support abortion, shortly before Mr Blair was received into the Catholic Church in 2007:

"A politician who publicly supports abortion, he excommunicates himself ... [T]hat person himself is doing an act that is inconsistent with what he says he believes. That is, we're talking about a person who...is doing something that is a lie."

Since being received into the Catholic Church shortly after leaving office, Mr Blair has refused even to comment upon, let alone repudiate, the swathe of anti-life laws and policies he supported as prime minister and as a parliamentarian.

Mr Blair goes on to praise Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio on international development. Yet Mr Blair makes no reference to certain other of Paul VI's words:

• "It is inadmissible that those who have control of the wealth and resources of mankind should try to resolve the problem of hunger by forbidding the poor to be born." (address to UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1974)
• "[I] declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children." (Humanae Vitae, 1968)
• "[W]hatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction...are infamies indeed. They poison human society" (Gaudium et Spes, 1965)

Mr Blair explains the Faith Acts Fellowship programme that his Faith Foundation is running in partnership with the InterFaith Youth Core, but neglects to inform Tablet readers that the Interfaith Youth Core is bankrolled by pro-abortion foundations and that the Faith Acts Fellowship works with World Vision, which is calling for abortion on demand to be legalised in the world's poorest nations. Mr Blair says the programme's fellows will need "compassion in the face of needless suffering and death" - yet what compassion has Mr Blair shown for the needless suffering and death of the unborn and the vulnerable caused by the laws and policies he promoted?

Mr Blair, stretching to his full moral stature, preaches to us: "[S]ins of omission can vary in their gravity, and the worst can be more grievously damaging than sins of commission." Indeed - omitting to repudiate anti-life laws and policies for which one is mainly and personally responsible, and refusing to witness to the sanctity of human life.

Mr Blair predictably reminds Tablet readers that "countering climate change [is] the greatest moral challenge of this century." So, Mr Blair, is countering climate change the greatest moral challenge of this century, or abortion? Was Pope John Paul II wrong to tell pro-life leader Fr Paul Marx that he was "doing the most important work on earth"?

Tony Blair, and his anti-life wife, is undermining the faith of the church into which he has been received.

Supposing Tony Blair had pursued throughout his political career, policies in support of killing bishops or the lay faithful of, say, the Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion? And, supposing, having been received into the Catholic Church, he refused to repudiate such policies? Would The Tablet give him free rein to present his thinking on religious matters? If not, why not? What distinctions does The Tablet draw between unborn children and the respect due to their right to life, and the right to life of Catholic and Anglican bishops and lay faithful?

Vatican newspaper should not have given Tony Blair an easy ride

Today's Guardian reports on a double-page spread interview with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's newspaper. The Guardian says:

"Weeks after a packed Catholic conference in Italy gave Blair an ovation for his words about the universality of Catholicism, the pope's newspaper was equally effusive, calling the convert 'a gentleman, educated, smiley, courteous in a way few know how to be'.

"Letting slip the Vatican's possible ambition for Blair, the paper also described him as 'a probable future president of the European Union'.

"With a double page spread at his disposal, Blair served up a mix of anecdotes about his conversion and strong indications of how faith is at the heart of every step he takes."

I pose the question: Are there subversive elements at work within the Vatican who are intent on appeasing Barack Obama and Tony Blair and their anti-life policies? Imagine if Obama and Blair were committed racists rather than being committed to their anti-life and anti-family policies. Would L'Osservatore Romano afford them such a generous platform? I hope not. But surely this same standard should apply to attacks on the sanctity of human life. As Michel Schooyans, one of the Vatican's leading scholars has pointed out in a masterly analysis, Obama and Blair, with their anti-life, anti-family agenda, are seeking to undermine both law and religion respectively.

Tony Blair has refused to repudiate his anti-life, anti-family record and he has also attacked the Catholic Church's teaching on pro-family issues. In my letter to Tony Blair (11 January 2008), I wrote:

"We would...be most grateful if, in the light of your reception into the Catholic Church, you would tell us if you now repudiate:
• voting in 1990 for abortion up to birth three times during Parliamentary debates on what became the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990;
• personally endorsing your government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent;
• your government introducing legislation which has led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients;
• your government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right.
• personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos."

The reply I received from Mr Blair's office - in fact, from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation - refused point-blank to answer any of the questions that I had put.

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"President Blair" of Europe and President Obama - the pro-abortionists' dream team

"Tony Blair is poised to become the first President of Europe after it was confirmed that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to help him win the post", the Daily Mail reported last week.

And about this time last month the Guardian carried an interview with Tony Blair in which he suggested he wanted to be European President.

It might seem a distant prospect ... but if Blair became President of Europe during Obama's presidency of the US, it would be the pro-abortionists' dream team.

Tony Blair, the UK’s former Prime Minister is one of the world’s leading architects of the culture of death. Since being received into the Catholic Church he has refused to repudiate the anti-life laws and policies he steadfastly pursued throughout his political career. Indeed he's reportedly determined to continue his anti-life, anti-family agenda.

As for Obama - just check his record on the US National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) website "A closer look at Senator Obama's position on abortion" And last month, in one of his first Presidential actions, he signed an order "that will put hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of organizations that aggressively promote abortion as a population-control tool in the developing world" according to NRLC.

Obama's executive order to abort the world's poor represents a policy pursued relentlessly by Tony Blair's government and is a policy with which he remains closely associated through the Faiths Act Fellowship, an initiative of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, on which I blogged recently. It's also a policy closely associated with Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair, also a Catholic, who endorses the work of CEDAW committee (as well as other radical pro-abortion groups) - and specifically its work on "reproductive rights". The CEDAW committee is notorious among pro-lifers for using the CEDAW convention to bully countries into allowing abortion, even though the convention doesn't mention abortion.

Earlier this week, I reported on LifeSite's interview with Archbishop Burke who said: "There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion". I made the point that it would be good to obtain further advice from the archbishop as to what ordinary Catholics can do to assist their priests and bishops in doing "their duty", as he puts it, in this regard. With Tony Blair's interest in the European presidency reportedly powerfully backed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French leader, that advice is now more urgently needed.

Does Tony Blair really have "a very intense and very deep faith"?

Fr Michael Seed (pictured with Cherie Blair), a Franciscan priest well-known for his relations with prominent people, has claimed in an interview with France 24 that Tony Blair "has a very intense and very deep faith", adding that Mr Blair has been an "honorary Catholic" (implying a de facto Catholic) since his marriage to Cherie in 1980. I think Fr Seed needs to ask both himself and Mr Blair: How does Mr Blair square his 30-year-old purported Catholic faith with his almost equally long public record of attacking Catholic teaching on pro-life and pro-family issues? Since Mr Blair's reception into the Catholic Church, not only has he refused to repudiate his anti-life/anti-family political record, he has also attacked the Catholic Church's teaching on pro-family issues.

Elsewhere in the interview Fr Seed referred in passing to 19th century anti-Catholic laws (largely dormant) under which Catholics can in certain circumstances be jailed for witnessing to their Catholic faith in public. What Fr Seed neglected to mention was that because of the laws, policies and practices supported by Mr Blair whilst in parliament, additional rules now apply to Catholics, bringing down the force of the law upon:

• Catholic doctors who refuse to refer women to other doctors for abortion
  
• Catholic doctors who refuse to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients
  
• Catholic adoption agencies who refuse to hand over children to homosexual couples.

If Tony Blair had voted for laws permitting the killing specifically of Franciscans or Jews or people from ethnic minorities, and refused to repudiate such laws, would Fr Seed still then say that Tony Blair has "has a very intense and very deep faith"? I suggest that Fr Seed read the masterly analysis of Tony Blair's faith by Monsignor Michel Schooyans, one of the Vatican's leading scholars.

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Vatican newspaper helps Tony Blair steal Newman's legacy

L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper, has today published an article by Tony Blair entitled "The Pope and Newman". Here is the key content from the article:

• "For the life of the Church today, Newman’s reflections on the development of ideas evidently have...profound implications."
• " ... Newman also described the consensus of the whole “body of the faithful” on matters of doctrine as the “voice of the Infallible Church”. I doubt if this voice is yet taken seriously enough on moral questions, or if we have yet fully digested the implications of these ideas. The tendency of some religious leaders to bundle a large number of different ideas into a bag marked “secularism”, then treat it as a sinister package, is divisive in pluralist societies. It cuts the Church off from possibilities of new developments in thinking."
• "Newman, like Pope Benedict, was fiercely opposed to relativism. But the interfaith work that my Faith Foundation undertakes rests on, and generates, the opposite of relativism. I have found that it affirms people in their different faiths, while building respect and understanding for the faith of others." [my emphases]

Elsewhere in the article Mr Blair pays lip-service to the role of the Church's Magisterium (teaching authority). In this Mr Blair is clearly attempting to fool Catholics into viewing him as a moderate conservative, one who acknowledges the Church's teaching authority whilst being open to modern developments. Anyone inclined to believe Mr Blair can simply read his newly-published memoirs, in which he says:

"Politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it".

The truth is that Mr Blair is cleverly abusing the nuances of Newman's opinions on the primacy of conscience and on the development of doctrine. Mr Blair is trying to steal Newman's clothing in order to leverage a change to Catholic teaching on homosexuality (and no doubt on other pro-life/pro-family issues). In April last year Mr Blair told the gay magazine Attitude that the Catholic Church must change its "entrenched attitudes to homosexuality".

As Monsignor Michel Schooyans, one of the Vatican's leading scholars, has pointed out in a masterly analysis, Mr Blair, with an anti-life, anti-family agenda, is in fact seeking to undermine the Catholic faith and religion generally:

"The fresh 'convert' [Blair] does not hesitate to explain to the pope not only what he must do, but also what he must believe! ... So now we are back in the time of Hobbes, if not of Cromwell: it is civil power that defines what one must believe ... [T]he nanny state [which] has multiplied subjective 'rights' of attribution, for example in the areas of divorce, sexuality, the family, population, etc. ... Religious institutions must also be reformed to adapt them to the changes. Some religious figures must be taken hostage and made to approve the new secularized 'faith', that of the 'civil partnership' ... In the case of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation [JS: see my blog about it], this is also a matter of promoting one and only one religious confession, which a universal, global political power would impose on the entire world".

Cherie with a condom

Mr Blair has been ably assisted in his assault upon Catholic teaching by his wife Cherie (pictured) and her vocal campaigns in favour of contraception and leading pro-abortion organisations.

I am disgusted by L'Osservatore Romano's decision to give such prominence to Mr Blair and his manipulative agenda.This is not the first time that the newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has betrayed the pro-life movement. In September last year it published an effusive double-page spread interview with Mr Blair; and earlier in 2009 it published articles favourable to Barack Obama, with the editor even declaring that "Obama is not a pro-abortion president".

To my mind it is no coincidence that Tony Blair's shameful attempted theft of Newman's legacy follows so soon after Fr Dermot Fenlon, one of the world's leading expert defenders of Newman's authentic legacy, has been sentenced to five years' exile from his home, Newman's Birmingham Oratory. Fr Fenlon, along with the other Birmingham Oratorians, were at the forefront of warning Catholics about the Blairs' agenda. As the Newman Cause blog said in November:

"Newman is indeed the great teacher of the rights and duties of conscience. It is of the greatest importance that his teaching is not used to make him the patron of Catholics, like Cherie Blair and others, who in the name of conscience practice dissent from the Church’s teaching ..."

And as the Newman cause blog said in October:

"Since becoming a Catholic, Mr Blair has refused every invitation [JS: see my blog about this] to disown and repent of [his anti-life/anti-family political record] ... [S]ome commentators, including Catholics, have sought to justify it by saying that Mr Blair’s silence is because his support for abortion, embryo experimentation, civil partnerships and gay adoption has always been for him, and remains now, a matter of conscience. Now this is the danger in The Tablet’s association of Newman and conscience with the case of Tony Blair. If as a Catholic Mr Blair thinks that his conscience directs him to support such positions, to invoke Newman in defence of his stance would be a travesty. For Newman, no Catholic can be in good conscience in supporting the positions Mr Blair espoused. The impossibility of conscience, enlightened by Faith, justifying adherence to evil is one of the most important of Newman’s lessons for our times."

Since the removal of Fr Fenlon and the Birmingham Three from the Oratory, the Newman Cause blog has had no substantial articles (in fact, the blog stopped altogether in July); and the posts on the Oratory website (12 March, 20 March) which so powerfully challenged episcopal policies on abortion and sex education have also stopped. The ending of these articles coincided with the parachuting in of Jack Valero by the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales to be press officer for the Newman Cause and who reports to Archbishop Nichols's press secretary.

Yesterday's edition of Zenit contains an extraordinary interview with Andrea Tornielli, a noted Vatican watcher. Here is a key extract:

Zenit: According to the Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi of Trieste, there exists a parallel magisterium among ecclesiastics, professors of theology in the seminaries, priests and laypeople who "muffle Benedict XVI's teachings, do not read the documents of his magisterium, write and speak arguing exactly the opposite of what he says, launch pastoral and cultural initiatives, on the terrain of bioethics or in ecumenical dialogue, for example, in open divergence with what he teaches." Is this true or is Archbishop Crepaldi mistaken?

Tornielli: I believe that Archbishop Crepaldi is right. It is obvious -- just take a look at many parishes, participate at conferences, cultural gatherings, etc., and you will see how Benedict XVI's magisterium (but this happened before too, with other Popes) is not transmitted to the faithful, but is instead sometimes openly contradicted.

I wrote in June:

"Could it be that external  forces [JS: outside the Birmingham Oratory but inside the Church] who want a Catholic Church which is inclusive of the Blairs' anti-life, anti-family positions are bringing pressures to bear in [the Birmingham Three] situation? How very convenient it would be, especially in the run-up to Pope Benedict's visit, if uncomfortable issues such as the teaching of the Church on contraception, abortion and on homosexuality were also safely hidden away?"

It seems to me that the Blairs, Archbishop Nichols and the Catholic bishops' conference of which he is president are key players in this "parallel magisterium". (Jack Valero, in his bishops' conference role, has even denied the very existence of such a "parallel magisterium"). Ownership of the interpretation of Newman is one of the "parallel magisterium's" key goals. It would suit the purposes of the "parallel magisterium" to move to divide and conquer at the Birmingham Oratory, especially targeting Fr Dermot Fenlon, the champion of the true Magisterium's authentic interpretation of Newman's legacy.

Concerned readers of this blog are therefore heartily urged to join the faithful Newman experts who are standing up for Fr Fenlon: Dr Roman Siebenrock of the German International Newman Society, and Jacob and Stephanie Maria Knab.

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Pray that Barack Obama, Tony & Cherie Blair, change to become ambassadors for the unborn

Breda Laffey, a leading Catholic evangelist from Ireland, has made a call for prayer for Barack Obama, the US President-elect - that he will have a change of heart on abortion and go on to become a great US president. Breda was speaking before Mass at a prayer group last night in north London which Josephine, my wife, and I have been attending these last sixteen years. As a Catholic myself, at a time of unprecedented danger for humanity, I strongly support that call. The threat to countless millions of lives following the outcome of the US presidential election is serious and growing ever constantly, as I have been reporting recently. We must use every effort, intellectual, political, and spiritual, to confront this danger.

I also urge my fellow-Christians and believers in God also to pray for Tony and Cherie Blair - that they too will have a change of heart and join the campaign against legalized abortion.

Last week I described how Tony Blair (pictured) was reinforcing his pro-abortion links. I have frequently mentioned his refusal to repudiate, since his reception into the Catholic Church, the anti-life laws and policies he supported and promoted as prime minister and as a Member of Parliament.

Also last week, I pointed out Cherie Blair's long track-record of supporting anti-life and anti-family causes, when I drew attention once again to the scandalous invitation to Mrs Blair to speak at a conference in the Angelicum, a leading Catholic university in Rome.

From the initial reports of the conference, it seems that at no point in her remarks did Mrs Blair state an opposition to abortion, nor did she explain why she has supported the leading pro-abortion organisations IPPF, FPA UK and Human Rights Watch. Neither did she explain her specific endorsement, on her own website, of the inclusion of reproductive rights in CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women), which the CEDAW committee inteprets to include abortion.

It also seems that a concerted effort may have been made at the conference to caricature critics of Mrs Blair's invitation as being unable to distinguish between abortion and contraception and Mrs Blair's position on them. It should be noted that forms of contraception, by their manufacturers' own admission, can kill newly-conceived human life. The Vatican made the same point last Friday, in their newly published Dignitas Personae.

I fear that the conference may well have been stage-managed so that Mrs Blair did not have to explain her track-record of endorsing pro-abortion organisations, enabling her and others to bubble-wrap her dissent from Catholic teaching. I will be writing to Mrs Blair to put to her the questions which were conspicuously not put to her at today's conference.

I am deeply concerned that both Tony Blair and Cherie Blair may be manipulating the Catholic Church at a time in human history when its uncompromising witness on the sanctity of human life is being threatened by governments and politicians - like Barack Obama - with laws which seek to criminalise conscientious objection to destroying human life.

However, today, as the great feast of the birth of Jesus Christ approaches, who like Barack Obama, Tony and Cherie Blair, and the rest of humanity, lived for nine months in His mother's womb, I put all these matters aside. I appeal to you to follow Breda Laffey's lead. Pray for Barack Obama and for Tony and Cherie Blair: that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life.

With the election of Barack Obama, this is a time of unprecedented danger for humanity. Christians may like to join me in saying one Our Father daily for the US president-elect and for Mr and Mrs Blair. Write to me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk to let me know if you will join me in this daily prayer. And please share this message with others.

If we want a culture of death to continue to be imposed in Europe, let's back Tony Blair as EU president

It appears that a majority of the British public, as well as Tory party leaders, are opposed to Tony Blair becoming European Union (EU) president.

Whatever their reasons for opposing Tony Blair, it's important for we Europeans to understand, that if we want a culture of death to continue to be imposed in our countries, then Tony Blair is the man to appoint as EU president.

History shows that, as a British member of parliament and prime minister, Tony Blair has been one of the world's major architects of the culture of death. Since becoming a Catholic, he has refused to repudiate the anti-life policies and legislation he pursued, and succeeded in enacting, throughout his political career. These include:

• voting for abortion up to birth three times;
• personally endorsing his government's policy of supplying abortion and abortifacient birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent; 
• his government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right;
• personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos; and 
• his government's legislation which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients.

I must add that, when so much is at stake for Europe, it really was indefensible of L'Osservatore Romano to have published such an effusive double-page interview with Tony Blair. Countless human lives continue to be destroyed as a direct result of the policies he has championed - and refuses to repudiate. Countless parents in Britain are robbed of their inalienable rights and responsibilities by the secret abortion policy for schoolchildren he championed as prime minister - and refuses to repudiate. Unlike St. Paul, Tony Blair has had no road to Damascus conversion. Surely it's not appropriate for the Vatican's semi-official newspaper to risk giving an impression of carrying out public relations for a committed anti-life politician who is well known to be seeking high office?

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Tony Blair "bid" to be president of EU council

“I’ll be president of Europe if you’ll give me the power – Blair” ran the headline in The Guardian on Saturday, and it certainly caught my eye.

I wrote to Tony Blair early last month following reports that he had been received into the Catholic church.

I asked him if he now repudiates:

• voting in 1990 for abortion up to birth three times during Parliamentary debates on what became the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990;
• personally endorsing his government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent;
• his government introducing legislation which has led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients;
• his government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right;
• personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos.

I have no wish for Tony Blair to don sackcloth and ashes. I’ll do that for my own sins before I judge anyone else.

However, Tony Blair’s position on abortion, abortifacient birth control, IVF and euthanasia by neglect is a matter of public record. As prime minister he was in the forefront of championing the culture of death not only in Britain but also, on abortion, around the world through the UK’s foreign policy.

Particularly while there’s a possibility of Tony Blair running for public office in any part of the world, citizens have a right and a duty to challenge him on his political record on pro-life matters. As a Catholic myself, I do not believe that politicians can be protected from public scrutiny simply by being received into the Catholic church.

If Tony Blair does repudiate these positions, I will be the first to shout it from the rooftops.

Tony Blair "did not strictly follow the Catholic line" on abortion! says Our Faith on Sunday

Many Catholic parish priests reproduce reflections entitled "Our Faith on Sunday" on the reverse side of their weekly bulletins. Fr Stephen Boyle (picture right), parish priest of The Good Shepherd, in New Addington, Surrey, contacted me to ask for my comment about this week's edition - on the feast of the Visitation.

This Sunday, the author of "Our Faith on Sunday" refers to Ann Widdecombe MP's "begrudging comment" about Tony Blair's reception into the Catholic church and to her concern that Mr Blair had not strictly followed the Catholic line on a variety of issues in his voting record as Prime Minister, most notably on abortion.

"Not strictly followed the Catholic line?" Frankly, that's putting it mildly - and a lot more mildly than Ann Widdecombe rightly put it.

In my letter to Tony Blair (11th January 2008) on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, I wrote:

We would...be most grateful if, in the light of your reception into the Catholic Church, you would tell us if you now repudiate:

• voting in 1990 for abortion up to birth three times during Parliamentary debates on what became the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990;
• personally endorsing your government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent;
• your government introducing legislation which has led to a lawii which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients;
• your government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right.
• personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos."

The author of "Our Faith on Sunday" asks "Is a Catholic politician bound to vote as illegal everything of which the Catholic Church disapproves?" to which the answer is clearly "No" . However, on abortion the Church teaches that Catholic politicians are morally bound to vote against it.

Pope John Paul II writes in Evangelium Vitae:

In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to 'take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it'*.

"Our Faith on Sunday" finishes by suggesting that insisting that politicians have a moral obligation to vote to make abortion illegal "could be counter-productive".

I encourage Catholics who read "Our Faith on Sunday" to write to the author to ask the following question: If Tony Blair had voted for laws permitting the killing of Catholics or Jews or people from ethnic minorities or lethal experimentation on them, would Catholics be right to expect him publicly to renounce such laws and to repudiate his role in passing such legislation before being received into the Church? Is it counter-productive to insist that politicians like Tony Blair vote to make such killings illegal?

By the way, what a way for "Our Faith on Sunday" to celebrate the feast of the Visitation, when the unborn St. John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother's womb - greeting the unborn Jesus Who may not even have implanted in the lining of Mary's womb! Jesus may have been the same age as the embryos upon whom lethal experimentation is carried out under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act for which Tony Blair voted in 1990 - and which he continued to champion shortly before being received into the Catholic church.

*Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (18 November 1974), No. 22: AAS 66 (1974), 744.

The hypocrisy of Tony Blair

Tony Blair is in China tomorrow (Monday, 4th August) as he puts it on MySpace, “answering questions from MySpace users about the global challenges we face, in particular related to our campaign to show how people of faith can help the world achieve its Millennium Development Goals. How we can join together as global citizens both of faith, and of none, to tackle the great social ills that we face today and provide the opportunity for young people to make a real difference?”

As Anthony Ozimic, SPUC’s political secretary put it to me, what about the great social ill of abortion?

Since giving up the premiership (and being received into the Catholic Church) Tony Blair has repeatedly refused to repudiate the strongly pro-abortion, pro-human embryo research and pro-euthanasia by neglect policies he and his government pursued.

Under Tony Blair’s government, the UK was the world’s fourth highest donor country to the UNFPA, giving just under $US38 million in 2006. The UNFPA’s well-documented involvement in China’s one-child policy has been described as “arguably the greatest bioethical atrocity on the globe”. To their credit, earlier this month, President Bush's government withheld some $40 million from UNFPA, making a total of $235 million withheld over seven years on the grounds of the UNFPA’s participation in a programme of forced abortion and sterilization. See my post last week on this topic.

When Tony Blair goes to China to explain to global citizens how to tackle the great social ills that we face today, will any Chinese citizens be able to ask him any questions, who have been fined, had their property destroyed, imprisoned or tortured for resisting forced abortion, or forced sterilization, a policy funded by his government?

In-depth information about China's one-child policy can be found in SPUC's February 2004 submission to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

The hypocrisy of Tony Blair takes some beating.