Evil is being done in the name of the Catholic Church: the deliberate corruption of children

It's unacceptable, to put it mildly, that Bishop McMahon, the chairman of the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales (CESEW), and Archbishop Nichols, its former chairman and the archbishop of Westminster, continue to back the appointment last April of Greg Pope, the anti-life, anti-family former Member of Parliament, as deputy director of the CESEW.

Bishop McMahon has recently said in a letter to a correspondent on the matter:

“Mr Pope’s parliamentary voting record shows that for 62.5% of the divisions he voted in favour on life issues, and that for the remaining votes he was involved in tactical voting, often voting for the lesser of two evils”.

So let's look at Greg Pope's parliamentary record more closely, a fuller account of which I published earlier this year:

• He voted against pro-life Angela Watkinson MP’s Ten Minute Rule bill. Mrs Watkinson’s bill would have required doctors providing contraception or abortion ‘services’ to a child under 16 to inform his or her parent or guardian. His anti-life, anti-parents, vote on this measure alone disqualifies him to be deputy director of the CESEW.

• He also voted against pro-life Iain Duncan Smith MP’s amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill to reinstate the requirement for doctors to consider the child’s need for a father before a woman is given fertility treatment.

How can such votes, which are so hostile to a child’s best interests, be described as tactical votes or the lesser of two evils? They’re evil pure and simple.

Mr Pope describes himself as a “committed practising Catholic” who “very much” shares the Church’s opposition to abortion. His self-portrait, however, lacks all credibility in the light of the facts.

Quite apart from the votes mentioned above:

• Greg Pope signed parliamentary motions calling for increased funding for international pro-abortion organizations, the inclusion of “reproductive health and family planning” within the Millennium Development goals, terms understood by the government to include abortion, and he signed motions praising national condom week, world population day, and the Labour Government’s Civil Partnership Bill.

• He also supported the homosexual agenda as an MP, including voting against measures (popularly known as section 28) preventing local councils from promoting homosexuality, including the teaching in schools of the ‘acceptablility of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’”.

I believe that in the years to come the position adopted by the Catholic bishops on matters relating to sex education, on which I have often blogged, will be regarded as co-operation with a type of child abuse. As Eric Hester, a retired headteacher, put it to me today: the deliberate corruption of children is "pure evil"  and, therefore, the support earlier this year from the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, via the Catholic Education Service, for the previous government's plans to make sex and relationships education compulsory from 5 to 16 years (with all that that involved) is also "pure evil".

Fortunately, thanks to a massive campaign by our supporters and by Catholic headteachers and clergy of various denominations, the previous government's plans, even with the Catholic bishops' support, were defeated. For the safety of our children, it's now essential that the Catholic Education Service is either reformed or closed down.


Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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