Pope’s message on resistance to tyranny is timely

Pope Benedict’s first address on British soil this morning contained a timely warning about anti-life laws and governments. Addressing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, he said:

“Your forefathers’ respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom, to the great benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike. We find many examples of this force for good throughout Britain’s long history. Even in comparatively recent times, due to figures like William Wilberforce and David Livingstone, Britain intervened directly to stop the international slave trade ... Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.”

As I told the media earlier today, abortion, destructive embryo research and euthanasia are types of slavery and tyranny in our own age. Britain has rightly been described as the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death. Catholics, other Christians and all those concerned for our common humanity must join Pope Benedict in resisting threats to the lives of the unborn, the sick, the disabled and the vulnerable.

Pope Benedict marked the 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights by saying that Catholic:

"principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death ... are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents."

British Church leaders must not undermine Pope Benedict’s message by seeking an easy accommodation with the British government. The new coalition government has already declared the promotion of abortion internationally as one of its priorities. The Catholic Church, in particular in Britain, must not seek an illusory balance between the truth and a nebulous religious freedom, in which the Church avoids resistance to anti-life/anti-family policies in exchange for toleration by a secularist state.

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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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Scottish bishop challenges hypocrisy of Pope Benedict's detractors

Philip Tartaglia (pictured), Catholic bishop of Paisley and president of the Scottish Catholic Church's National Communications Commission, has challenged the hypocrisy of Peter Tatchell, the homosexual lobbyist who's trying to destroy Pope Benedict's reputation because of his defence of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the family.

In a press release, Bishop Tartaglia said that Mr Tatchell’s past statements, that "not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful" cast “huge doubt on [Mr Tatchell's] claim to be an expert on human sexuality or a credible critic of the Pope or of the Catholic Church”.

The bishop added that:

"[Mr Tatchell's Channel Four] programme shows conclusively that Mr Tatchell knows next to nothing about the real nature and mission of the Catholic Church."

Apart from expressing appreciation for the bishop's courageous intervention, I can only reiterate my exasperation that Vincent Nichols, Catholic archbishop of Westminster, is appeasing the homosexual lobby represented by Mr Tatchell.

Archbishop Nichols should listen more closely, not only to the recent statements by Pope Benedict and Bishop Tartaglia, but also to Peter Hitchens, the Anglican writer, who wrote in last weekend's Mail on Sunday:

"I’m rather grateful that Mr Tatchell, unlike most of his allies, is honest enough to discuss openly where the sexual revolution may really be headed.

"As the condom-wavers and value-free sex-educators advance into our primary schools it seems clear to me that shock, by itself, is no defence against this endless, sordid dismantling of moral barriers till there is nothing left at all. Yet when [ Pope Benedict, ] one of the few men on the planet who argues, with force, consistency and reason, for an absolute standard of goodness comes to this country, he is reviled by fashionable opinion."

Archbishop Nichols, through his own statements and his defence of the Catholic Education Service (CES), is playing a key role in assisting the "condom wavers and value-free sex-educators' advance into our primary schools".

* 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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We need authentic Catholic voices on life and family, not dissenting spin doctors

St Peter preaches at Pentecost

Jack Valero of Catholic Voices told BBC1's Sunday Morning Live programme that:

"the Church is not against condoms".

James Preece of Catholic and Loving It! has kindly provided the full transcript of the segment:

Jack Valero: The Church is not against condoms the Church is against promiscuity

Julie Bindel: The Church is against condoms!

Jack Valero: The Church is against promiscuity and sex outside of marriage

Colm O'Gorman: Is the Church now supporting the use of condoms?

Jack Valero: No, the Church is against... er... promiscuity

Colm O'Gorman: In marriage? Does the Church oppose the use of condoms in marriage?

Jack Valero: Well, no, the Church is against contraception of course.

Colm O'Gorman: So it's against condoms?

Jack Valero: But, but, we're talking here about HIV, no the Church is against contraception.

And as James correctly points out, Dr Austen Ivereigh, Mr Valero's co-director of Catholic Voices, is also open about his dissenting interpretation of the Catholic Church's teaching on condoms. Dr Ivereigh has even said that:

"it is right for schools to teach how condoms help to reduce transmission of STDs."

This is the same Dr Ivereigh who in 2005 wrote to The Catholic Herald making the absurd claim that:

"[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."

Yet Humanae Vitae is crystal-clear in its prohibition of any action by a couple to close the marital act to the transmission of life:

“[E]ach and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life." (Humanae Vitae, 11)

Mr Valero and Dr Ivereigh, wittingly or unwittingly, are providing a bridgehead for other Catholics in representative positions to adopt their own dissenting interpretations, not just of Catholic teaching on the use of condoms, but on other areas of Catholic teaching on life and family. Readers should not forget that Dr Ivereigh was the deputy editor of The Tablet, which is internationally renowned for its dissent from Catholic teaching, especially on sexual ethics. Here are some other worrying recent content from Catholic Voices and/or from Mr Valero and Dr Ivereigh:

• A post [Catholic Voices blog, 10 September] on the Soho Masses for homosexuals* which perpetuates the myth that those Masses are perfectly proper within the context of Catholic teaching and discipline, when in fact there is solid and mounting evidence that the Masses are organised by and for homosexuals who explicitly dissent from the Church's teaching.

• "[Mark] Dowd is a superb producer and close to Catholics [CV blog, 5 September]  ... Dowd concludes the Church is more 'polarised' now between 'traditionalists' and 'progressives' but at the same time 'more Catholic' -- in the sense of 'universal' -- than 28 years ago. Superb." [CV blog, 9 September] Yet Mr Dowd is a homosexual opponent of Catholic teaching on homosexuality. The latter comment by the CV blog-author implies that Catholic Voices supports Mr Dowd's vision of a Catholic Church in which dissent is warmly accommodated.

• “The Guardian ... a paper many Catholics wrongly think is unsympathetic to the Church.” [CV blog, 6 September] Yet The Guardian is in effect the house journal of the British anti-life/anti-family movement and regularly publishes attacks on the Catholic Church for its pro-life/pro-family teachings, such as:

“[T]he [Catholic C]hurch directly aggravates the plight of vulnerable people. It rails against IVF giving children to the childless, against stem-cell research giving hope to the sick, and against the use of condoms – even as a means of preventing the spread of HIV. Its rigid views on homosexuality and the role of women ... [T]he extent of child abuse for which its priests have been responsible has been shocking, as has its tendency to close ranks in response to the scandal. Benedict himself, an arch-conservative, has in the past manoeuvred to preserve the autonomy of the church in such matters, as opposed to having them immediately handed on to the police. He has also indulged the standing of Catholic figures who have turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities.”

• “Ed[ward] Stourton, a lifelong Catholic...” [CV blog, 5 September] Yet the CV blog-author fails to inform readers that, not only is Mr Stourton is a remarried divorcee, but was also the author of Absolute Truth, yet another BBC hatchet-job on the Catholic Church for its pro-life and pro-family teachings.

• I noted recently Dr Ivereigh's stated desire to "find the balance" between gay people's right in law to adopt children and "freedom of religion". Yet no such "balance" is ethically acceptable. This very day
  Pope Benedict has said:
  

  "[T]he Church cannot approve legislative initiatives that involve a re-evaluation of alternative models of marriage and family life. They contribute to a weakening of the principles of natural law, and thus to the relativisation of all legislation and confusion about values in society."

  In other words, Catholics must not tolerate a right in law for gay people to adopt children in return for concessions towards freedom of religion, such as letting Catholic adoption agencies place children only with heterosexuals. When the state passes laws contrary to the natural moral law, especially when they threaten children (born or unborn), we must be fearlessly uncompromising, like St John of Nicomedia, one of the Roman martyrs, whose feast-day was last Tuesday. He
  

  "seeing the cruel edicts against Christians posted up in the public square, and being inflamed with an ardent faith, stretched forth his hand, took them away and tore them up." [Roman Martyrology]

  Pope Benedict told the English and Welsh bishops, on their most recent ad limina visit, that Catholics must:
  

  "recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate".

  Mr Valero and Dr Ivereigh need to retract some of their public statements, lest the Catholic Voices project becomes a vehicle for "dissent [under the guise of] a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate".
  
  * 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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Pope Benedict contradicts Archbishop Nichols on "gay unions"

Just two days after Archbishop Vincent Nichols said, for the second time in recent weeks, that he did not know if the Catholic Church would "accept the reality of gay partnerships" (11th September) or "sanction gay unions" (2nd July), Pope Benedict has made a statement which, effectively, puts Archbishop Nichols firmly in his place.

Pope Benedict was formally receiving the letters of credence of Germany's new ambassador to the Holy See. According to the Vatican Information Service, His Holiness began by speaking about Fr. Gerhard Hirschfelder, "a martyr priest who died under the Nazi regime and who is due to be beatified in Munster on 19 September. He also referred to the beatifications of four other priests and the commemoration of an Evangelical pastor, scheduled for 2011."

Pope Benedict continued:

"Contemplating these martyrs, it emerges ever more clearly how certain men, on the basis of their Christian convictions, are ready to give their lives for the faith, for the right to exercise their beliefs freely and for freedom of speech, for peace and human dignity.

"[However] many men tend to show an overriding inclination towards more permissive religious convictions. The personal God of Christianity, Who reveals Himself in the Bible, is replaced by a supreme being, mysterious and undefined, who has only a vague relation with the personal life of human beings.

"These ideas are increasingly animating discussion within society, especially as regards the areas of justice and lawmaking ...

"The Church looks with concern at the growing attempts to eliminate the Christian concept of marriage and the family from the conscience of society. Marriage is the lasting union of love between a man and a woman, which is always open to the transmission of human life ... the success of marriages depends upon us all and on the personal culture of each individual citizen. In this sense, the Church cannot approve legislative initiatives that involve a re-evaluation of alternative models of marriage and family life. They contribute to a weakening of the principles of natural law, and thus to the relativisation of all legislation and confusion about values in society".

I said on Saturday that "Archbishop Nichols's, my archbishop's, comments are dangerous to the souls of my children". I thank God that Pope Benedict has spoken out today re-iterating the Catholic Church's unchanging teaching on this matter. The ball is now in Archbishop Nichols's court to make it clear, unequivocally, that he withdraws his comments on gay unions and that he supports papal teaching on this matter.


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Archbishop Nichols's comments on gay unions endanger the souls of my children

These are dangerous times for families in Britain - and they are dangerous times too for Catholic families in Britain.

In today's Telegraph, Archbishop Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, described as the "leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales" is interviewed by Neil Tweedie. He asks the archbishop whether the Catholic church should one day accept the reality of gay partnerships, who replies:

"I don't know ... "

Now this is not an off-the-cuff, careless, remark by His Grace. He means what he says. Only two months ago I watched him in an exchange on Catholic teaching and gay unions during an interview on BBC's Hardtalk (Friday, 2nd July). Stephen Sackur, the Hardtalk interviewer, asked the archbishop:

"Some of their vicars are also prepared to sanction gay unions. That church is showing flexibility. Is the Catholic church not going to have to do the same eventually?"

To which the archbishop replied:

"I don't know. Who knows what's down the road?"

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: 

"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (Part Three, Section Two, The Ten Commandments, Article 6)

I am in no position to judge where Archbishop Nichols stands in the sight of God when he makes statements so clearly at odds with Catholic teaching. However, as a Catholic parent, I am in a position to say, and on behalf of Catholic parents I meet up and down the country, that Archbishop Nichols's, my archbishop's, comments are dangerous to the souls of my children. And as a pro-life campaigner, I once again recall the late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, who 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.

Elsewhere in the Telegraph interview, in the context of the sexual abuse of children, Archbishop Nichols says:

"I can assure people that children in the care of the Catholic Church, in schools and parishes, will be safeguarded. They can be confident of that."

Yet children returning this autumn term to Catholic schools up and down the country will be subjected, courtesy of Archbishop Nichols and the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, through the agency the Catholic Education Service, to the government policy of giving schoolgirls, under the age of consent, access to secret abortions without parental knowledge or consent. They are delivering Catholic and non-Catholic children to the abortionists - and I can think of no greater abuse of children and parental rights and responsibilities than that.


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Innocent Fr Fenlon has been sentenced to five years' exile from the Birmingham Oratory

According to a report in this weekend's Catholic Herald, Fr Dermot Fenlon, one of the Birmingham Three, has been sentenced to five years' exile from the Birmingham Oratory. Here are some key quotes from the report:

• "[Fr Fenlon] has been effectively expelled from his community."
• "Sources close to the Oratory have told The Catholic Herald that Fr Fenlon, 68, is now in the process of being "forcibly exclaustrated" for at least five years, when he will be 74, because he is objecting to the way he is being treated."
• "Yet no figure has publicly given any reason why Fr Fenlon has been subject to such severe canonical penalties in the first place."
• "[A]uthorities then offered to treat the [Birmingham T]hree leniently as long as they accept a period of exile, agree to statements distancing themselves from criticism of the way they have been treated and drop any appeals they had lodged against [Fr Felix Selden's] visitation [of the Birmingham Oratory]."
• "The move to censure him may shock worshippers in Birmingham who know Fr Fenlon for his piety and his loyalty to the teachings of the Church."

In the light of this report, I therefore have a number of questions to put to Jack Valero, spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory, who has also been appointed by the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales as spokesman for the beatification of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman:

• Why has Fr Fenlon been exclaustrated if, as you wrote in The Catholic Herald of 27 August, he is a "priest in good standing"?
• Why did you say, first that Fr Fenlon and the other Two were "entirely guiltless of any wrongdoing whatsoever", and then later declare them guilty of "pride, anger, disobedience, disunity, nastiness, dissension, the breakdown of charity"?
• Why did you say in June that the Three "can come back soon and continue as normal" when the Three have now been sent away from the Oratory for periods ranging from at least one to up to five years?
• Were the sending of Br Lewis Berry to the South African Oratory and of Fr Philip Cleevely to doctoral studies abroad concessions offered by the "authorities ... as long as they accept a period of exile, agree to statements distancing themselves from criticism of the way they have been treated and drop any appeals they had lodged against [Fr Felix Selden's] visitation [of the Birmingham Oratory]"?
• Why did you claim in The Catholic Herald of 27 August that "the disagreements which concerned the Visitor were not about Church teaching", whereas you are quoted in this weekend's Catholic Herald as saying that the removal of the Three from the Oratory was partly as a result of "doctrinal tensions"?
• Do you accept the Three's stance on government-led sex and relationships education was different from your employer's, the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales?

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Families will not "hold their tongue" about bishop-protected dissent on pro-life/pro-family issues

Mark Dowd this morning presented a programme on BBC Radio Four entitled "The Pope's British Divisions". Among many other people, he interviewed two schoolchildren and a priest from Nottingham diocese. The two schoolchildren, from St Benedict's school, Derby, will meet Pope Benedict next week as part of a special delegation of Catholic youth.

The first schoolchild confirmed she was “a practising Catholic” and was asked what she would like to say if she meets the Pope. She replied:

"I don’t think [the Pope] quite understands that we’re in the 21st century yet, and I think that some of his views are still quite outdated, things that he’s said about abortion and same-sex marriages."

Mr Dowd asked the girl:

“Do you think it’s possible to be a Catholic and to be pro-abortion and in favour of same-sex marriage?”

The schoolgirl replied:

"Yeah, I think it is. I know I certainly am, and I don’t have a problem admitting that and being a Catholic.”

The second schoolchild referred in a negative tone to:

“[s]ome of the stuff [in Catholic teaching] that’s a bit restricting [such as] chastity”

and added that

“the best thing about being a Catholic is the fact that you can pick and choose which bits you’d like to believe in, as long as you worship God.”

The priest interviewed was Fr Joe Wheat, director of youth services in the Nottingham diocese, who said:

“You talk to 50 young people who would refer to themselves as Catholic and you’ll get 50 different versions of Catholicism, which is brilliant. It’s fantastic actually."

Mr Dowd put it to Fr Wheat that:

"A lot of the students we spoke to [at St Benedict's school, Derby] mentioned contraception, abortion, homosexuality. Can they, in your view, maintain views which are contrary to Church teaching but still call themselves a good Catholic?"

Fr Wheat replied:

"Depends what your measure of ‘good’ is when you say ‘good Catholic’."

Mr Dowd then asked:

"What’s your measure?"

Fr Wheat replied:

“I don’t have one. I try not to make value judgments about people’s Catholicism, because I don’t want them to make value judgments about mine.”

Fr Wheat certainly has, let us say, strange ideas. On the Nottingam Diocesan Catholic Youth Service website, he numbers Tony Benn, the anti-life/anti-family retired politician, among the "living person[s] he most admires"; and says he would invite K.D. Lang, the entertainer and homosexualist activist, to his "dream dinner party."

I therefore dread to discover what on earth is being taught to Catholic young people in Nottingham diocese about the sanctity of human life and the meaning of human sexuality - but I will be writing immediately to Malcolm McMahon, the bishop of Nottingham, to find out. I have blogged before about Bishop McMahon's openness to headteachers being in same-sex unions.* He is the current chairman of the Catholic Education Service (CES) which welcomed and helped draft anti-life and anti-family sex and relationships education under the previous Labour government. Under his chairmanship, the CES appointed as its deputy director Greg Pope, a former Labour MP with a lengthy anti-life and anti-family parliamentary record.

Vincent Nichols, archbishop of Westminster - and Bishops McMahon's predecessor as CES chairman - was also interviewed by Mr Dowd. Archbishop Nichols was asked about the regular provision of Masses for a homosexual group in a central London parish, and the equally regular protests by faithful pro-life/pro-family Catholics against that provision. Archbishop Nichols said:

"anybody from the outside who is trying to cast a judgement on the people who come forward for Communion [there], really ought to learn to hold their tongue."

Yet this totally ignores the evidence that the Soho Masses are organised by and for Catholics who dissent from the Church's teaching on homosexuality, as I blogged recently.

As one of the protestors explained:

"According to God's law, sex is to be used within the context of marriage, [but w]e know from speaking to some of [the Soho Mass attendees] in the past that they have a platform whereby they are proposing that there are other areas in which sexuality can be used and that they themselves believe that to be in order."

This testimony was borne out by a lesbian attendee at the Mass, who told Mr Dowd:

"[Here] you don't have to explain yourself, here I just feel a total sense of acceptance about that area of my life."

Mr Dowd asked her:

"Why do you keep church up at all if the Church says that your orientation is a tendency to an intrinsic moral evil?"

She replied:

"A large proportion of the Church don't go along with that .. I feel intrinsically Catholic."

Last Peter Marshall of BBC's Newsnight interviewed some other Soho Mass attendees, in a programme to be broadcast at 10:30 this evening. Here is some of what they told Mr Marshall:

• "My faith is more important to me than what the Pope might think."
• "The simple fact is that Catholics across the world do not believe and do not follow Vatican teachings on any number of sexual ethics matters."
• "[Y]ou don't need too many commandments, really."
• "We all want to feel affirmed and welcomed with people with the same way, the same nature..."

Was Archbishop Nichols listening when Pope Benedict told the English and Welsh bishops, on their most recent ad limina visit, to:

"recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate. It is the truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free."?

Pro-life families must demand that the Catholic bishops of England and Wales stop providing cover for individuals and groups who are actively undermining Catholic Church teaching on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Families seeking to protect their children from such bishop-protected open dissent must not hold their tongue. For as Pope Benedict said yesterday, Catholic

"principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage - rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman ... are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents".

* 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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Beware of the false claims made about sex education in House of Commons today

Chris Bryant, MP for Rhondda, provided much misinformation when he introduced in the House of Commons today his bill to force all schools to provide sex education. His claims about sex education in other European countries were roundly criticised.

Antonia Tully of SPUC’s Safe at School campaign told the media after the debate:

“The way forward for the new Coalition government is to champion parents’ rights to control their children’s education in human sexuality. The government needs to trust parents. Sex education was one of the main planks of Labour’s 10 year Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, which failed to deliver, and saw record levels of teenage abortions.”

Opponents of the bill did not divide the house. Although the bill has little chance of becoming law for procedural reasons, MPs are expected to try to promote compulsory sex education in the Government’s review of the curriculum later in the year.

Mrs Tully also said:

“Mr Bryant claimed that the countries with the lowest teenage pregnancy rates provided comprehensive sex education. Last year a survey of sex and relationships education in eighteen countries around the world found that the five with the lowest teenage birth rates had no law forcing schools to provide comprehensive sex education. The study was conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research, and published by the QCDA.

“Mr Bryant’s proposals are based on misleading and false claims about the evidence of the impact of sex education. We need to make our MPs fully aware of the research into classroom sex education, and the need to respect the domain of parents and families.”

During the debate, Mr Bryant's claims were countered by Thérèse Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, who pointed to the low teenage pregnancy rate in countries such as Italy which do not have compulsory sex education. She also cited the work of sex education researchers in Scotland, where a large scale study found that teenage pregnancy and abortion rates could not be reduced by enhancing classroom sex and relationships education.

SPUC has produced a briefing responded to other false claims about sex and relationships education made by the Terrence Higgins Trust.

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Congratulations to James Sherley for helping stall funding for embryonic stem cell research

Last week a US court granted a temporary injunction which halts US federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The team which obtained the injunction was led by Dr James Sherley, a stem cell expert and a colleague of SPUC. Most interestingly in the ruling was the judge's statement that

"It is not certain whether ESC research will result in new and successful treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease."

This statement, and the ruling itself, is a refreshing victory for innocent human life and true ethical science.

Daniel Blackman, who researches international affairs for SPUC, has written the following summary of the case:

"Dr. James L. Sherley is a biological engineer at Boston Biomedical Research Institute. In October 2009 Dr Sherley and Dr Theresa Deisher, together with a legal team consisting of: Advocates International , Alliance Defense Fund, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and the Christian Medical Association, brought a case against, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the National Insititutes of Health ‘Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research’ (July 2009). The National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research. The head of the Department of Health is Kathleen Sebelius.

"The Guidelines came about because on March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13505, overturning the virtual ban on embryonic stem cell research put in place by the Balanced Budget Downpayment Act (Dickey-Wicker Amendment 1994), which stated no federal funds would be used for creation, experimentation, and destruction of human embryos. In 2001, former president George W. Bush allowed federal funds to be used to fund research on human embryonic stem cells that was deemed to be non-destructive. With President Obama’s executive order, president Bush’s exception for destructive embryonic research was overruled.

"However, the case failed in 2009 on its first attempt. Dr. Sherley and team then successfully appealed. Dr. Sherley’s case argued that the Guidelines were unconstitutional. They contravended the Dickey-Wicker amendment and the exemption put in place by president Bush. The key argument put forward by Dr. Sherley and the legal team is this: extracting and experimenting on embryonic stem cells cannot be separated from the destruction of embryonic stem cells. As such, all embryonic stem cell research is destructive. This would mean that no federal funds should be used for any embryonic stem cell research.

"On August 23rd 2010, Royce C. Lamberth, Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, approved the case against the guidelines. This means that all funding of embryonic stem cell research has for the time being been stopped. The injunction has forced the National Institutes of Health to freeze funding for about 50 embryonic stem cell research proposals. Also included are 22 proposals in line for a total of $54 million in funding.

"On 27th August 2010, Sebelius and her legal team submitted a plea to appeal. They have also submitted an emergency plea to stay (hold-off) the ban on funding. They argue that the Dickey-Wicker amendment can be interpreted in other ways, that embryonic stem cell research will result in cures for all sorts of diseases, that the work of many researchers has been disrupted, that public interest is not being served by banning funding for this research and the list goes on.

"This case is very important. A legal team of experts are taking the Department of Health to court. If Sebelius is successful, government funding for embryonic stem cell research will continue and increase, as seen from the numbers above.

"However, if Dr. Sherley and team are successful, the executive order of Obama, and the guidelines, will be defunct. However, Dr. Sherley will be doing even more. If successful, the federal funding on embryonic stem cell research permitted by George W. Bush in 2001 will also be stopped. This is due to the key argument that you cannot separate the extraction and research on embryonic stem cells from the destruction of the embryo."

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Catholic officials' heads are kept, deliberately, buried in the sand

On Sunday, Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, was asked by Andrew Marr of the BBC:

"Do you share that sort of vision that Britain is a particularly Godless and indeed sort of death culture society, extremely secular by modern standards?"

Archbishop Nichols replied:

"Well it's not how I would describe our society at all actually. I think our society is characterised as much by generosity and by genuine concern one for another, and I think religious faith is taken quite seriously by probably a majority of people in this country."

I can't think of anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, religious or non-believer, who believes that

"religious faith is taken quite seriously by probably a majority of people in this country".

And with 570 babies killed daily in Britain and with well over two million embryos discarded, or frozen, or selectively aborted, or miscarried or used in destructive experiments since the birth of the first IVF child was born over thirty years ago, how can the archbishop blithely dismiss the culture of death without having his head kept, deliberately, buried in the sand?
 
The archbishop's view was mirrored perfectly by Dr Austen Ivereigh on the BBC's Today programme on Saturday morning. Dr Ivereigh is a former deputy editor of The Tablet, the anti-life/anti-family house journal of British liberal Catholic dissent, and former public affairs director to Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, archbishop emeritus of Westminster. Dr Ivereigh is currently the co-founder, with Jack Valero, of Catholic Voices. Dr Ivereigh told Today that:

• Britain is not "a very, very secular society"
• "we can find the balance" between gay people's right in law to adopt children and "freedom of religion"

This is the same Dr Ivereigh who in 2005 wrote to The Catholic Herald claiming that:

"[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."

How can this possibly be the case with so many Catholic schools, at the behest of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, welcoming Connexions, a government agency which is committed to giving schoolchildren, under the age of 16, access to abortion and abortifacients without parental knowledge or permission?

Move over to The Guardian, the house journal of Britain's pro-abortion movement, and one finds Kieran Conry, bishop of Arundel and Brighton, saying:

"I think [Pope Benedict] may well be relieved to be coming to a place where, unlike some of his other recent trips, there are no big problems for him to sort out."

Even the interviewer, Peter Stanford, another Tablet stalwart, balked at that, writing:

"Well, that might be going a bit far."

All this bears out the truth of recent The Catholic Herald report that Catholic officials

"are hoping that the Pope will not further inflame anti-Catholic sentiment by speaking out against gay marriage or adoption, or abortion and divorce."

And all this makes it all the more important that the Holy Father ignores these head-in-the-sand Catholic officials and reminds the people of Britain that this country is

"the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".

The UK, not the US, China, North Korea or any other country you care to mention, has always been the main operating base and favourite milieu of the movement for abortion, contraception and eugenics – “the culture of death” identified by John Paul II. That movement is more dangerous, and is responsible for deaths of more people, than any government in history. That movement dates back far beyond the 1967 Abortion Act and part of its origins can be found with Malthus and Galton in the 19th century. IPPF’s central office has always been London, as has Marie Stopes International's. There are many other good reasons why Britain is indeed “the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death” - and the tragic fact is that the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, led by Archbishop Nichols, is co-operating with that culture rather than confronting it with the truth about the sanctity of human life. Is that why the archbishop is in denial about the death culture in Britain?

As Fr Tim Finigan aptly puts it:

“[T]he London-centred secularist elite in Britain ... relentlessly work to draw us into collaboration and compromise until we are unable any longer to speak out for the truth - or more pertinently, for the sanctity of the life of those who are the smallest and weakest of all.”

Let's pray that Pope Benedict, when he comes to Britain later this month, dares to speak out for the truth ... for the sanctity of the life of those who are smallest and weakest of all.

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Jack Valero uses Blair-style tactics on Birmingham Oratory crisis

I published a post earlier this week about The Journey, Tony Blair's memoirs, in which Blair admitted to:

"'bending and distorting' the truth as prime minister, but says a degree of manipulation and distortion are necessary to govern, and voters accept that. 'Politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand it be done. Without operating with some subtlety at this level, the job would be well-nigh impossible.'"

Reading last week's Catholic Herald this morning I was struck by the mastery shown by Jack Valero (pictured), the spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory, of these Blair-style tactics in his article "The Birmingham Three protests harm the Church". Visitors will know that I have blogged a number of times about the Birmingham Oratory crisis caused by the sudden expulsion of three Oratorians from the Birmingham Oratory on the Catholic feast day of Our Lady of Fatima (May 13) this year.

Jack Valero says that the Birmingham Three campaign:

"has morphed into an attempt to drive a wedge between the so-called 'liberal' hierarchy and the 'orthodox' Oratorians by those who criticise the bishops for being too 'liberal'. As an orthodox Catholic I deplore this myth ... "

As a Catholic loyal to the magisterium of the Catholic church I deplore Jack Valero's shameful misrepresentation.

Catholic families in England and Wales are living under the yoke of a liberal hierarchy which pursues policies which are seriously harmful to the common good of Catholic families and non-Catholic families alike, for example:

• helping the government to promote abortion amongst schoolchildren under the age of consent, without parental knowledge or consent, 
• the openness of Bishop Malcolm McMahon, the current Catholic Education Service chairman, to headteachers being in same-sex unions* 
• Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster making clear his support for the prevailing government ideology on sex and relationships education, and defending the Catholic Education Service's appointment of Greg Pope, a former Labour MP with a lengthy anti-life/anti-family record
• and Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster failing to rule out the Catholic church sanctioning gay unions in the future

There's a lot more to say about Jack Valero's article but  there's no hurry. After all the Birmingham Three won't be coming back to the Birmingham Oratory "soon" as Jack Valero said on BBC radio West Midlands two months ago. No, they "are travelling the world, working as priests in good standing ... praying in monasteries, studying, writing, taking holidays, visiting friends and deepening their formation ... " as Jack now tells us in his Blair-style piece in the Catholic Herald.

* 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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Support 40 Days for Life in the UK

Here is some information adapted from 40 Days for Life about its campaign in the UK, 22 September to 31 October:

40 Days for Life is a pro-life initiative that began in the USA. 40 Days for Life consists of:

• 40 days of prayer and fasting
• 40 days of peaceful vigil
• 40 days of community outreach

To date:

• More than 350,000 have joined together in an historic display of unity to pray and fast for an end to abortion
• More than 11,500 church congregations have participated in the 40 Days for Life campaigns
• Reports document 2,811 lives that have been spared from abortion — and those are just the ones we know about
• 35 abortion workers have quit their jobs and walked away from the abortion industry
• Six abortion facilities completely shut down following local 40 Days for Life campaigns
• Hundreds of women and men have been spared from the tragic effects of abortion, including a lifetime of regrets
• More than 850 news stories have been featured in newspapers, magazines, radio shows and TV programmes
• Many people with past abortion experiences have stepped forward to begin post-abortion healing and recovery.

As they saying goes, "actions speak louder than words". I think these actions speak very loudly indeed.

40 Days for Life is now coming to London from 22 September to 31 October. A constant vigil will be keep outside the Marie Stopes abortion clinic in central London, 24 hours a day, for 40 days.

The bottom line is this: if you

• are prolife
• care about the plight of unborn children
• care about the countless women left scarred by abortion
• want to reach out to the many men who should have been fathers
• want to do something that will save lives and change the culture of death into a culture of life

then please, commit yourself to supporting 40 Days for Life London. Sign-up, and make a weekly commitment to prayer with fellow pro-lifers at the vigil outside Marie Stopes in central London.

This isn’t just an invitation or an awareness campaign aimed at churches and pro-life organisations; it’s a personal invitation to each and every person, to prayer, fast, and act.

More information and ways to commit can be found on the 40 Days for Life London website.


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Set aside 10 minutes to watch this pro-life video

This is a wonderful pro-life production from 13 year-old Lia.  I will say no more, except, set aside 10 minutes and watch it.



Do let me know what you think of this video. Tell me, if you would, your age and occupation - and your suggestions as to how the video might be used by the pro-life movement.  I would like to share your thoughts, through this blogpost, with my visitors.

Here are some comments I've received:

The Pro-Life community is constantly growing with the maturing of new wave of dynamic young defenders of life. Lia has a gift for communication that far surpasses her 13 years. She is one of many young pro-lifers who are coming to the fore and denouncing the arbitrary killing of so many from their generation. 
 
I believe that youth from around the world should be asked to give their reflections and testimonies on the life issues like Lia does so well. The freshness and frankness of youth is a welcome addition to the social discourse on abortion and related topics. Joseph Meaney, Director of International Coordination,
Human Life International 

I think Lia has presented the arguments in a very clear manner, and what comes across is her personal conviction in the matter i.e. the video is not just a performance. The arguments are all so straightforward, common-sense, and I think this would be excellent material for use in schools - unfortunately not what our government had in mind under the rubric of sex education, but a serious approach to the most crucial ethical question of our age.
Philip Gudgeon

Brilliant video! It's so encouraging to hear young people willing to speak out in defence of the unborn, especially someone as young as Lia. Clearly, Lia is already a fantastic orator with the gift of being able to deliver the truth with courage, confidence and clarity. Lia is not afraid to stand up and be counted as a defender of the unborn, which is truly admirable, given the prevalent culture of death that surrounds us. We can all learn from Lia that no matter how old we are, we can and should stand up for what is right. I hope that many more people, young and old will be inspired by Lia to defend and protect human life from its earliest beginnings until its natural end. Anne Howard, 2nd year student, Bristol University, reading philosophy

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Tony Blair's memoirs reveal that dishonesty was the dark heart of his anti-life/anti-family premiership

Tony Blair's memoirs, entitled A Journey, have been published today and we have a copy at SPUC HQ. Here are some key points from it:

• "Politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it".
• On Hans Kung, the theologian and notorious dissenter from Catholic teaching on abortion, euthanasia, contraception and much else: "My Oxford friend, Pete Thomson, always sung the praises, rightly, of the inestimable Hans Kung ... a distinguished scholar and author [of] great works."
• 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."
• On illicit affairs by politicians: "I tended to look upon such things with a fairly worldly eye".

Mr Blair also writes:

"[Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein shared] a common set of attitudes: indifference to human life; the justification of mass killing..."

At no point does Mr Blair express the slightest regret for his lengthy record of support in parliament and government for abortion, abortifacient birth control and euthanasia - in other words,

"indifference to human life; the justification of mass killing".

Indeed, Mr Blair has refused to repudiate his record. He and his wife Cherie have continued their campaign against Catholic pro-life/pro-family teaching. 

Yet of most interest is Mr Blair's wordly-wise admission that he "conceal[ed] the full truth", "ben[t] and even distort[ed] it". Here are a few key examples of that:

Teenage pregnancy
In 1998 Mr Blair's government launched its teenage pregnancy strategy, and Mr Blair himself wrote the forward to one of its key documents (Teenage Pregnancy, Social Exclusion Unit, 1999). Yet, as The Telegraph pointed out so cogently last week, that strategy was based on the falsehood that greater provision of sex education, abortion and contraception lowers teenage pregnancy rates. Well before Mr Blair was forced to retire as prime minister in 2007, it was clear that the strategy was a failure; yet the Labour government continued pumping millions of taxpayers' pounds into the strategy up to and beyond Mr Blair's departure from office.

Embryonic stem cell research
As prime minister Mr Blair made clear his ardent support for destructive embryo research [2000, 2004, 2006], speaking of his ambition that Britain will become an international centre for embryonic stem cell research. Yet over two decades of destructive embryo research, including years of embryonic stem cell research, have provided none of the cures or treatments which its advocates claimed it would.

Euthanasia by omission
In 2005 Mr Blair's government steered through parliament the Mental Capacity Act. Mr Blair himself, with the active assistance of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, successfully misled parliament and the public into believing that the Act did not entail euthanasia.

I could add many other similar examples, which readers can find referenced on this blog.

* 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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European bishops express renewed concern about directive on protection of animals

COMECE, the Catholic bishops' conference for Europe has spoken out again about the dangers for human embryos of a draft European directive on the protection of animals.

A draft directive on animal experimentation will be debated during the European Parliament’s plenary session on 7 September. If approved, the draft will become European Union (EU) law. The directive could result in scientists experimenting on human embryos instead of animals. Of particular concern is article 4 paragraph 1 of the draft directive. This article calls for member states to use alternatives to animal testing when avaliable. This could be interpreted to mean using human embryos instead of animals.

On 12 August, SPUC issued an international newsletter on this matter, available in 5 languages. A summary and links to the newsletter are avaliable from my previous blogpost of 12 August. Well over a thousand pro-life partners have received this newsletter through the post, as we work towards greater and more effective pro-life action at the European level.

Full details about this issue are available in the newsletter, and the SPUC website here. We have also produced an in-depth briefing on this issue, also on our website here.

COMECE, the Catholic bishops conference for Europe, has issued two press releases about animal experimentation and the threat to human life. The first, released on 6 June, can be read here. This press release also expresses concern about article 4 paragraph 1, and reminds us of the fundamental dignity of human life. The second press release, published yesterday, expresses renewed concern about this draft directive. The COMECE press release draws our attention to the Alternative Testing Strategies - Progress Report 2009, of the European Commission. This report suggests five alternatives to animal testing, each involving the experimentation upon and destruction of human embryos.

Pleasecontact the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/expert/groupAndCountry.do?language=EN representing your area and tell them that:

• you are concerned about the draft directive entitled “The protection of animals used for scientific purposes” presented by Elizabeth Jeggle (Germany)
• the directive will be debated during the European Parliament’s plenary session on 7 September 2010
• the directive would require European Union (EU) member-states to “ensure that, wherever possible, a scientifically satisfactory method or testing strategy, not entailing the use of live animals, shall be used instead of a procedure.” (art. 4, para. 1)
• this article could result in scientists experimenting on human embryos instead of animals
• you object to experimentation on human embryos, as human embryos have a right to life and to dignity equal to all other members of the human family
• you want them to vote for four amendments which would protect human embryos and foetal tissue from being used as alternatives to animal testing (amendments 175, 176, 227 and 228 http://www.ecbr.eu/pdf/Amendments%20134-275.pdf).

Please also contact animal rights organisations in your country, explaining to them why these amendments should be passed.


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