Woolwich slaughter: sorry, MCB, but this *is* a school of Islam

The beheading of a British soldier in his own country has long been threatened by some of our home-grown Islamists, but such a barbaric act occurring on the streets of London has been quite literally incredible, unimaginable, inconceivable. Yes, there are gruesome 'religious' decapitations all over YouTube, but that sort of bloody horror is peculiar to the shady fiefdoms of Mogadishu, Chechnya or the Sudan. It just doesn't happen in England. Not to a 20-year-old young man wearing a 'Help for Heroes' charity T-shirt, walking peacefully in the warm London sunlight of the merry month of May.

There appears to be some unfortunate attempt at media censorship going on, and this will help no-one: indeed, it is more likely to increase suspicion over motives and inflame anger. One of the killers, speaking in a recognisable saarf-Laandan accent, was recorded on video. He said:

"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

The Muslim Council of Britain rushed out a swift statement, washing its hands of the murder, repudiating utterly any link with Islam: "A barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly," they said.

The problem, of course, is that it manifestly does have a link with Islam. It may have nothing to do with the MCB understanding of the religion in modern Britain, and doubtless they sincerely believe that 'No cause justifies this murder' and that the 'Vast majority of British Muslims acknowledge armed forces for the work they do world'. But to say it has no basis in Islam is to deny Islamic history, ignore the brutality of the warrior Mohammed, and brush off those inconvenient jihadi-Islamic movements in the modern era who seek to emulate their prophet's example.

The MCB is also rather selective with its condemnations and justifications. Have they repudiated Palestinian terrorism? Or does that particular cause justify the slaughter of the Fogel family? Have they said anything unequivocal to condemn the Taliban? Have they condemned their co-religionists who rally in the streets of London demanding the overthrow of the Government and Monarchy and the establishment of a Caliphate?

The truth is that those who hacked away at a British soldier yesterday are acting in accordance with a theologically determined logic which can certainly be situated within a sharia view of Islamic culture and understood on the basis of Islamic religious precepts. The killer calmly and rationally quoted Islamic sacred texts: 'We must fight them as they fight us' echoes the Qur'an:

"..fight (qātilū - literally means kill) in the cause of Allah those who fight you... And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for fitnah (oppression, persecution) is worse than slaughter;... if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith'" (Sura 2:190-9).

"..fight the polytheists all together as they fight you all together" (Sura 9:36).

"Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is able to give them victory" (Sura 22:39).

The reference 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' is the Mosaic Pentateuch reiterated in the Qur'an:

"And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation" (Sura 5:54).

These murderers invoke ancient religious rulings and refute any notion of abrogation. As Osama Bin Laden put it: "It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge."

No moderate or reasonable Muslim would invoke the literal interpretation of such texts today. But it is simply not true to say that this interpretation of Jihad has no basis in Islam. The Woolwich slaughter is a declared reprisal attack which comes as a direct consequence of the British military presence in Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan. It is, to the jihadi mind, a rational act of holy war, of the sort advocated today by the die-hard Salafist-Wahhabi movement.

That is not to say that the Woolwich killers are members of this school or adherents of its teachings. This is simply to refute the crass and simplistic assertion by the MCB that this slaughter 'has no basis in Islam'. In fact, it bears all the hallmarks of the sort of ritualistic killing not infrequently featured in the Qur'an and Ahadith. This is not, of course, to excuse or justify the action, but we get nowhere very quickly at all if the official body which purports to represent all British Muslims denies the religio-political or theo-cultural inspiration of the slaughter.

The MCB needs to acknowledge that Sunni Islam contains the malignant ideological strand of Salifism. They must own it, condemn it, and seek to reform it. It is that very same militia devil that has overrun Timbuktu and Mali, and is crushing everything that opposes it. The Salafi-Wahhabi movement is now a global phenomenon: it has spread way beyond it primitive desert tribalism and burst forth into our civilisation. It not an Islamic denomination of peaceful shrines, sacred texts and respect for aesthetic heterogeneity: it is one of death and destruction in the name of Allah, following the zeal of Mohammed. We either bury our heads in the sand, or eradicate it utterly from our presence. If we choose to appease Saudi-Arabian puritanism, it will destroy us, just as it is wiping out the mystical Sufi strain of Islam wherever it is to be found.

Political ignorance and judicial impotence against the irruption of virulent quranic rhetoric is no longer acceptable. All authentic Muslims are in submission to Allah: all are jihadists, or holy warriors, for truth. The vast majority, as the MCB point out, pursue the jihad of peace. Others look to the primitive quranic era, and seek to destroy our idolatrous Christian deviancy. The Muslim Council of Britain needs to respond with something rather more potent than a lame bit of text.

Baghdad barbarism comes to the streets of London

It is not at all clear what is of 'Muslim appearance' about this man, as was widely reported as this appalling story was breaking. It is certainly not at all typical of an Al-Qaeda operative to apologise to the ladies when they are forced to witness a machete hacking away at a severed head.

What we do know is that the murderers were two black men, and that they were heard shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' as they sliced into the victim like he was ‘a piece of meat’. An eye-witness told Iain Dale on LBC Radio: "They were hacking at this poor guy, literally. They were chopping him, cutting him. These two guys were crazed. They were just animals."

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim's family. This is utterly deplorable and totally unjustifiable, unless you happen to follow quite literally the historic example of Mohammed, who butchered and beheaded his enemies while invoking the name of Allah.

Atrocities committed in the name of religion are actually committed by man. God condemns murder. Those who spout a doctrine of God which condones it are worshipping a false god or heeding the words of a false prophet. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Those proposing EU 'reform' must put up or shut up

From Brother Ivo:

On Sunday His Grace identified Lord Howe as 'unhelpful' to the Prime Minister, through a combination of abuse of opponents and a slavish commitment to an institution that many on his own side recognise as deeply flawed and desperately in need of reform for the sake of those wishing to remain within it.

As that post was being offered, Lord Mandelson was being interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show where he did his best to be avuncular and wise, assuring the interviewer, that he had been a European Trade Commissioner, and nobody needed to tell him about the institutional failings that needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately, he did not go on to share with us what those problems and necessary reforms might be, and neither, sadly, did Mr Vine press him to explain to the nation what he had in mind.

Herein lies a deep flaw at the heart of the Europhile case.

Brother Ivo often observes that it is one's best friends who are willing to tell us the hardest truths, and may God bless those who love us enough to reprove us, not in anger, but with wisdom and true pastoral care.

If the big beasts of yesteryear who have sustained the Pro-European dream for the past half century know these necessary truths, the identification of which are needed to make the Euro-Leviathan leaner and more fit for purpose, why are they being so reticent about making these helpful suggestions more widely known so that confidence in the EU may be more widely developed?

Brother Ivo has heard - but does not know if it be true - that former servants of the EU risk their pensions if they use their insider knowledge to bite the hand that feeds them. If that is true, then it gives us all the more cause for suspicion when we hear from the likes if Lords Mandelson and Patten. If not, it serves only to show how widespread is the suspicion of an institution that has consistently failed to deliver properly-audited accounts for decades. They need to re-establish their credibility if they seek to be taken seriously in this debate.

Whatever one's views on the ultimate fate of the UK within the EU, we know that it delivers crony capitalism in copious quantities, most recently illustrated by the plans to require restaurants to serve olive oil only in designated and marked containers.

Such nonsense is not of the Euro-sceptics' making, though they immediately see the fruits of industrial manufacturers' lobbying to the detriment of the quality small artisanal producer. Lords Howe, Patten and Mandelson have to engage seriously with how and why this kind of nonsense can happen and how it is to be stopped.

If the erstwhile great-and-the-good seek to preserve the UK within the EU, they need to do more than stand on their dignity and past reputations. They need to offer us analysis and substance. With Lord Lawson characteristically setting out his reasons for changing his mind in these matters, he implicitly challenges his colleagues to 'show their workings'.

There are some who believe and assert that necessary and helpful change is both identifiable and deliverable. If so, they have a duty to offer a comprehensive critique. If Lord Mandelson 'knows' what needs to be done, let him tell the Prime Minister - and us - in plain terms. Not to do so is a betrayal of the cause he purports to be able to sustain.

It was Lord Howe who famously likened Margaret Thatcher to the cricket captain sending his batsman out having broken his bat in advance. He and others are now sending David Cameron in to bat without any bat all.

If these grandees know how to end the nonsense, make the EU honest, and clip the wings of the proud, over-mighty and corrupt, let them help Mr Cameron with a comprehensive programme which he can use as his negotiation checklist as he enters discussion.

If they cannot or will not do this, then a little less patronising rhetoric would be welcome.

(Posted by Brother Ivo)

Paul Goodman: Gay Marriage Bill is a threat to religious freedom

In response to allegations that someone with 'strong social connections' to the Prime Minister (allegedly Lord Feldman) is of the opinion that Conservative Party members are 'mad, swivel-eyed loons', David Cameron has written to every party member assuring them that he thinks nothing of the sort. He said: "I am proud to lead this party. I am proud of what you do. And I would never have around me those who sneered or thought otherwise."

The problem is that many members simply will not believe him, not least because 'swivel-eyed loon', if not quite an aphorism, is an innate Cameroon attitude. Ever since he became leader and sought to stamp his programme of modernisation upon the party, some of his allies have freely described members as ‘Turnip Taliban’, ‘dinosaurs’ and ‘backwoodsmen’. And they have done so with impunity. Lord Feldman's alleged views are therefore unsurprising: there is little to distinguish the prehistoric dinosaur attitude of the rumbling backwoodsman and grumbling Turnip Taliban from the madness of the swivel-eyed loon.

Cameron naturally denies that he is sneering at his party, but his actions belie his words. As the excellent Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome explains:

The Loongate row is still reverberating in the Party, especially at local Association level. The key point about it is that too many Conservatives, from the Cabinet table to the grassroots, believe that the controversial words are what is thought and said of them in Downing Street. No measure has done more to buttress that impression than the same-sex marriage bill - which has been imposed on the Party with such absolutism, and which is the cause of such a bitter culture war. Many older people especially see the measure as a deliberate assault on their values: the bill might thus almost have been designed as a recruiting-sergeant for UKIP. For this reason alone, Tory MPs should vote against the bill this evening in good heart. They will certainly grasp that Ministers haven't a clue what the courts will do when they get to work on Equality Act challenges, and that the bill is consequently a threat to religious freedom.

The vast majority of Conservative Party members - along with discerning Conservatives like Paul Goodman, Sir Gerald Howarth, Edward Leigh and David Burrowes - fully appreciate that same-sex marriage is a threat to religious liberty: it is simply not possible to sustain two competing equalities; one must give way to the other.

Gordon Wilson, former leader of the SNP, has warned that gay marriage will lead to ‘state fascism’. Those who oppose will be cast as bigots, Nazis and fascists ( or 'swivel-eyed loons') ranged against the moderate, enlightened and utterly reasonable proponents. The consequences of this Bill are being completely ignored:

“You are summoned to a tribunal where you cannot have a defense lawyer and you cannot record the proceedings nor have a witness present. The people judging and prosecuting you have no legal qualifications. The accusation is ambiguous, having to do with ideas the state does not like. The penalties could include fines equal to several thousands of dollars, public recanting, and rehabilitation classes. You are a bishop. This is not China. This is Canada. The offense: explaining why homosexual relations are a sin.”

So began the address of Terrence Prendergast, Archbishop of Ottawa, to St Thomas University Law School just six months ago. He set out - calmly and rationally - 'the alarming consequences of same-sex “marriage” from the Canadian experience'.

The Archbishop was recounting the true experiences of Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, who received complaints for preaching the Church’s traditional and historic teachings on homosexuality. The complaint was subsequently dropped by the plaintiff, who admitted that he only filed it to get media attention.

How many Christians will be targeted and harassed by 'aggressive homosexuals' - the homosexualists - simply in order 'to get media attention'? And don't think it's only the Christians: the crusading gays are ferociously unforgiving in condemnation of their moderate dissenting co-sexualists (see here, here and here).To the rabid, intolerant homosexualist, a gay person who doesn't support gay marriage is 'like the token Asian guy who wants to be in the BNP'. Nice, huh?

We will doubtless be seeing an awful lot more of this: The Attorney General Dominic Grieve has warned of the 'profound difficulties' ahead for those who dissent from the state's redefinition of marriage. We will surely see Christian ministers and schoolteachers dragged before commissions and inquisitions, and they will be judged 'guilty' irrespective of the religious conscience. Their crime will simply have been that of preaching a sermon or delivering a lesson expressing some concern about the gay agenda or casting some doubt upon the validity of gay marriage. But someone will complain about 'hurt feelings' (whether truly hurt or not), and these preachers and teachers will be arrested, prosecuted, fined or imprisoned. The only means of avoiding this will be self-censorship: the mere discussion of homosexuality will become taboo.

Canada has gone before us. Archbishop Prendergast tells us that gay marriage has resulted in the Bible being called 'hate literature'. Like the Roman Catholic adoption agencies here, there is 'growing pressure for the Church to comply or to be shut down'. Indeed, we've already heard the threats - from a Cameroon Conservative MP.

Archbishop Prendergast enumerates the consequences of same-sex marriages as including 'restrictions on freedoms; forced sex education; sexually confused children; sexual experimentation among children; and muzzling and debilitating the Church'.

“By reassigning financial benefits to same-sex marriage, what was once an incentive to fruitful, traditional families has become an incentive to sterile, destructive social arrangements,” he said.

But David Cameron will march on regardless, persuaded that those who oppose him are the real swivel-eyed loons. He can deny it, but we know that he despises traditionalists. "If our Lord Jesus was around today," he preached back in 2010, "he would very much be backing a strong agenda on equality and equal rights, and not judging people on their sexuality.’

This is his theology.

And when asked if he thought the right of gay children to have a safe education trumps the right of faith schools to teach that homosexuality is a sin, he answered: “Basically yes – that's the short answer to that."

This is his notion of religious liberty.

When the Prime Minister appropriates Jesus to his gay-marriage cause, the dissenting theologian is not merely a swivel-eyed loon: he is a heretic. Not since 1559 has there been an Act of Uniformity requiring everyone to assent to a particular worldview, and it took more than 300 years to eradicate that. But sexual orientation has acquired a quasi-religious status which trumps any religious worldview that opposes it. It is secular pluralism by statute law.

Paul Goodman accuses David Cameron of acting in an absolute fashion. Interestingly, back in 2008 the Archbishop of York wrote of New Labour:

"Our current Government is in danger of sacrificing Liberty in favour of an abused form of equality – not a meaningful equality that enables the excluded to be brought into society, but rather an equality based on diktat and bureaucracy, which overreaches into the realm of personal conscience.”

Cameron once naïvely claimed to be the 'heir to Blair'. Certainly, on equality, they are peas in a pod. Cameroon Conservatives are a continuation of New Labour, which is why they turned to Labour yesterday to rescue this appalling Bill from recalcitrant Tory backbenchers. The Prime Minister has lost sight of the foundational importance of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. He has forgotten that these hard-won liberties are crucial for the peace and security of the realm. He has no understanding at all of what it means to be Conservative in the realm of religion. He has forgotten - if ever he knew - what it is to be conservative.

Gay marriage brings gay supremacy; not equality

It is with considerable weariness, not to say reluctance, that Brother Ivo briefly returns to the issue of Gay 'Marriage'.

Contemplating stable long-term gay relationships, he regularly reverts to the words 'it is what it is', and quite simply does not believe that 'that' is a marriage which, for well-rehearsed reasons, has been culturally, religiously, historically and universally defined and understood as between a man and a woman.

From the outset of the discussion, he warned about 'meaningless arguments over equivalence'. He wishes that had been heeded. 'It is what it is'; no more, no less.

The only new contribution he can now offer is the following short observation identifying an overlooked absurdity:

If the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill is passed, we will have Gay Marriages, and Gay Civil Partnerships. The only difference will be at the point the relationship is created. Thereafter, the rights and obligations will be identical, as will be the procedures for ending the relationship.

As Nadine Dorris has correctly identified, sex is a major component within the marital status; there is a full body of jurisprudence to support this, developed from the days of ecclesiastical legal jurisdiction. This has been entirely ignored - or, rather, deliberately excluded - from the legislating framework for these new institutions. So, in brief, we shall have a position where gay men who are 'married' will have more in common with gay civil partners who are not married, than with heterosexual couples who are.

How can this be logically described with any integrity as 'equalisation'?

(Posted by Brother Ivo)

Pentecost: the original mad, swivel-eyed loons

Thinking of these Tory swivel-eyed loons, it is apposite today, Whitsunday, to recall the first time Christians were accused of being mad. "Good men and wimmen, this day (Dies Penthecostes) is called Wytsonday by cause the holy ghost bought wytte and wisdom into Crists dyscyples, and so by prechying after in all Cristendom and fylled him full of holy Wytte." But God's wisdom is folly to the world.

In this increasingly secular society, it stands to reason that Christians are perceived as mad, swivel-eyed loons. Dr Richard Dawkins epitomises the attitude. If one is to be counter-cultural and counter-intuitive - as the gospel demands - one should not be surprised when allegations of madness or drunkenness ensue. To oppose equality and diversity - the orthodoxy of the secular age - is to be 'swivel-eyed'.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

Drunk, mad, swivel-eyed - it's all the same haughty mockery. That which the unbeliever cannot rationalise is, by definition, irrational. And the irrational is aberrant, delirious, demented and, in the final analysis, bigoted. It must be silenced and expunged.

But the Church must love the sinner, and that includes the fruitcakes and swivel-eyed loonies, not least because they must feel a degree of empathy. This is indeed mad, but Christianity is mad. What kind of madness is it which sends a swivel-eyed Son-God to preach repentance, salvation and self-sacrifice in an age of materialism, perversion and hedonism? Christians should rejoice in being called mad, swivel-eyed loons - it is our vocation.

The real swivel-eyed loons

This Lord Feldman thing is an irritating and distracting side-show. Of course there are some very, very senior 'professional' politicians who believe the wider Conservative Party membership are 'mad, swivel-eyed loons': that is surely nothing new. It is certainly nothing new to many senior party volunteers who are not infrequently taken into the confidences of senior politicians in a back-slapping, pally kind of way, over a pint or five in the Stranger's Bar, and with a wink and a glint in the eye told precisely what 'senior MPs' and CCHQ really think about party members. We've had a constant but consistent refrain over recent years: from ‘dinosaurs’ to ‘backwoodsmen’ to ‘Turnip Taliban’ to 'swivel-eyed loons'..

But the real swivel-eyed loons are those who assassinate the party leader and persist with their deranged euromania. Take poor Geoffrey Howe. Not content with knifing one prime minister over her increasing euroscepticism, he has now turned on David Cameron for having the audacity to offer Parliament an EU Referendum Bill. And Howe's article in The Guardian (where else?) has all the grubby hallmarks of his notorious assassination of Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons. Perhaps he was irked by Lord Lawson's reasoned EU intervention. Perhaps he felt he couldn't let so many swivel-eyed ex-chancellors infect the political discourse with their malignant europhobia. Whatever the impetus, this is how he now speaks of David Cameron and the Conservative Parliamentary Party:

..almost farcical.. saga.. looks more like the politics of the French Fourth Republic than the serious practice of government.. the prime minister has opened a Pandora's box politically.. seems to be losing control of his party.. running scared of its own backbenchers.. allowed deep anti-Europeanism to infect the very soul of the party.. the UK needs the (European) union as the platform and vehicle by which to influence events and policy in many spheres.. leaving the union would, by contrast, in my view, be a tragic expression of our shrinking influence and role in the world.. Much of our inward investment also depends on easy access to the £11tn EU economy.. the Conservative party's long, nervous breakdown over Europe continues.. Serious mistakes have been made.. What is needed is a mixture of clear thinking, strong leadership and an overriding concern for the national interest, not party management or advantage.. the Conservative party is losing its head.. a heavy responsibility now rests with Labour and the Liberal Democrats to hold their nerve.. In the complex and interdependent world we inhabit today, to walk away from the European Union into the unknown would be a very dangerous choice indeed.

Who, pray, are the real swivel-eyed loons?

The failures of Committee Stage of Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

The CARE Public Policy Team have produced a helpful document summarising the shortcomings of the Committee Stage of the Government's 'Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill':

Key Facts:
 Report Stage of the Marriage Bill is now only days away
 Considerable problems with the Bill remain
 Committee stage achieved very little
 Not one word of the Bill was amended despite the fact that numerous amendments were put down
 Of the 19 MPs on the committee only four were against the Bill
 There were no dissenters in the Labour ranks

Commenting on the Committee stage Mark D’Arcy, BBC Parliamentary Correspondent said, “In short, it's all a bit of a ritual. The dissenters dissent and the supporters support, and the whole thing is as mannered as a minuet danced at the court of Louis XVI.”

A range of concerns were not properly addressed by the Government. Here are four:

1) Failure to put same sex relationships into same legal framework as opposite sex marriage

The Government’s Position

 The Government Minister, Hugh Robertson MP, supported the Bill’s position that adultery is only a ground for divorce in a marriage between two people of the opposite sex.
 The Minister noted that introducing homosexual adultery would bring “significant uncertainty for couples. It could lead to divorce applications failing, and adultery would be difficult to prove.”

Critique by MPs

 Tim Loughton asked: “Why should a same-sex couple who want to get married not be subject to the same obligations and rules as an opposite-sex couple who want to get married?”
 He added: “One could logically make the case for legal recognition of same-sex relationships, but if the standards of commitment required are different from those required in a marriage, it would be completely wrong to categorise such relationships as marriage.”
 David Burrowes remarked that debate on this issue exposed “the flawed notion of equal marriage as a concept.”

VERDICT: The notion of equal marriage is a flawed concept.

2) Failure to address inequality

The Government’s Position

 The Minister made clear, in accordance with the Bill, that couples already in a civil partnership who wish to marry will not be required to have a same sex marriage ceremony, unlike every other couple.
 He said: “a couple in a civil partnership will have already gone through a civil partnership registration, demonstrating a level of commitment not unlike-different, but not unlike-that required for a marriage ceremony.”
 He added that the conversion from a civil partnership to a marriage “will simply involve a straightforward administrative process for those who prefer that, while those who want a more public ceremony will be able to hold that at a place of their choosing.”

Critique by MPs

 David Burrowes responded: “How can I set out the Government’s case that the Bill is all about equality for same-sex couples to be married like opposite-sex couples, when only same-sex couples can be civil partners and have this conversion - perhaps this paper upgrade - to marriage, so skipping the other formal requirements of the Marriage Act?”

VERDICT: The Minister failed to address the fundamental subject of inequality.

3) Failure to address religious freedom for registrars

The Government’s Position

 The Minister argued, in accordance with the Bill, that registrars should be compelled to perform same sex marriages even if it is against their conscience or religious belief.
 The Minister responded to Tim Loughton’s question about freedom of conscience by saying: “They are different functions. One is an abortion; the other is a same-sex marriage.”

Critique by MPs

 David Burrowes and Tim Loughton pointed out that the law has long accommodated atheist teachers who do not wish to teach religion in schools and pro-life doctors who do not want to perform abortions. There is no reason why this principle should not be extended to registrars who do not wish to conduct marriage between two people of the same sex.
 The Minister was asked by Tim Loughton: “Why is it the principle that a surgeon who has strong Catholic views is allowed to pick and choose whether to perform abortions or other surgery, if the same principle cannot be applied to a Catholic registrar with strong views, allowing them to pick and choose whether to perform that other public service? What is so essentially different that we protect one but not the other?”

VERDICT: There is inconsistency in the Government’s position. In both cases public servants perform a public function for which the public pay. Merely saying that they are different functions is not justification for treating them differently.

4) Failure to address protection for schools

The Government’s Position

 The Minister asserted that “no teacher is under any duty to promote or endorse a particular view of marriage, and neither would they as a result of any revised guidance in the future.” However, he was unprepared to allow this to be written into the Bill.
 He further commented “teachers are entirely free to express their views in any reasonable way that they wish, but not in an offensive or discriminatory fashion.” But what constitutes an “offensive or discriminatory fashion” was not clarified.

Critique by MPs

 Tim Loughton quoted John Bowers QC – Employment Silk of the Year 2010 – who, in his legal opinion, says that teaching that one form of marriage is “better than another” would likely “amount to unlawful direct or indirect discrimination.”

VERDICT: The Minister was unable to address the major concern of protection for teachers who do not feel able to endorse the new definition of marriage.

Have we lost the war against Female Genital Mutilation?

From Brother Ivo:

The Female Genital Mutilation Act was passed in 2003 with little scrutiny, and no opposition. Since then, no prosecutions have taken place, and it has been reported that each year some 7000 women continue to present themselves at a sample of London maternity clinics having suffered this procedure - some 5 per cent of births. In the UK, we have 17 clinics devoted to reconstructions and remedying the health consequences of badly-performed operations. The prohibition does not appear to be having much practical effect. Ordinarily, this would provoke calls for a review.

Unfortunately it seems to be a subject which continues to be swept under the carpet. We have dealt with it once; we have moved on.

France passed similar legislation at the same time, but at least they followed it up and subsequently brought over 100 prosecutions. Additionally, the French, being less squeamish about offending minority cultural sensitivities, routinely monitor children at risk within communities where the practice is likely to be found. If one thinks about it, it is not a crime easily concealed from the medical community, and we expect them to report crime in a variety of circumstances. So how is it that the police appear more active in relation to the Twittersphere than in relation to a widespread crime in relation to this Act?

Brother Ivo needs to be clear: he finds the whole idea of such mutilation utterly repellant and none of the issues he explores in this post is intended to apply to children. Not only does a 'procedure' with no health benefits plainly constitute 'significant harm' within the terms of the 1987 Status of Children Act, but disfigurement of those who do not and cannot lawfully consent is never acceptable under any circumstances, ever.

When he thinks for a moment what some of these little girls suffer, he is overwhelmed with anger and could probably be persuaded to attach the millstone around the necks of perpetrators prior to their being cast into the depths. Sadly, the police and Crown Prosecution Service appear less passionate about the subject.

He has no more liking for adults undergoing the procedure, for when God created Eve he saw that she too was good. It is the sin of human pride to think oneself capable and entitled to improve on the Lord's design. But, for these purposes, Brother Ivo is prepared to move on and consider the matter more broadly with a view to exploring the inconsistencies of human autonomy.

It seems that we were prepared to write the headline by passing the Act, but are unwilling to press on and engage in the practicalities that might vigorously put an end to this barbaric practice.

In any other sphere, we might expect to find our progressive friends, including feminists, pointing out that the legislation isn't working, and that the better focus for action would be to 'respect diversity' and to promote 'harm reduction'. The latter is currently the argument deployed in relation to the war on drugs, and before that, the same approach was used to change the prohibition on abortion, when it was asserted that it was better to engage with an evil than to attempt to suppress it.

It is in that latter sphere that the parallel is closest, for do we not constantly hear about 'the woman's right to choose'?

Whenever anyone seeks an adjustment of abortion time limits, are we not confronted with the shrillest cries that women must have absolute control of their own bodies without legislative Interference? If the entire baby has no 'legal personality' to be protected, it seems hard to see why the clitoris should be individually favoured. It is indeed occurring to Brother Ivo that the only purpose currently served by the Act is to act as a totem: a 'crime against feminism'.

Usually when such an Act falls into question, or even disrepute, our progressive friends move towards a preference for replacing prohibition with regulation, and in this instance a strategy such as a more hygienic management of the health risks. We heard it in relationship to the backstreet abortion, and currently hear the same argument deployed for needle exchanges for drugs users or licensed brothels. Why not here?

If one thinks about it, it is odd for a culture to regard itself as superior in condemning the body dysmorphia of adult women from sub Saharan Africa whilst promoting the 'boob job' the 'vajazzle' and even the 'designer vagina'.

It actually gets curiouser and curiouser.

When we turn to the 'Transgendered community', we have no such squeamishness. Our NHS pays for similar surgery - even, occasionally, for serving prisoners - and the philosophical underpinning appears to be that such re-configuring is not only to be 'celebrated' as a form of 'liberation', despite the considerable mutilation involved, but the passing of adverse comment risks the commentator being accused or even prosecuted for 'hate speech'.

So wherein lies the difference?

If an adult woman wanted such surgery in the UK, what precisely is the basis for not respecting her wishes, given the raft similar operations currently being undertaken without demur?

One suspects that the answers, if given, would centre upon patriarchal power forcing women into such a demeaning decision, as if no man ever deployed emotional, physical, economic or cultural reasons to impose his preference for the termination of a pregnancy.

Here we come to the crux of the question. Can anyone satisfy Brother Ivo's intellectual curiosity and give him a single reason against Female Genital Mutilation that does not carry at least equal force in the case of abortion - noting, of course, that in the latter case it is possible to argue (as he does) that additionally another's life is ended. If we can override the woman's views in one case, why not the other?

Our progressive and feminist friends care passionately for this Act. We ought perhaps to press them to 'use it - or lose it', and along the way scrutinise their defence with greater care than was deployed when the matter first came before Parliament.

(Posted by Brother Ivo)

Nick Boles and Nadine Dorries - a tale of two electoral pacts

Ever since the 2010 General Election, the Conservative Party has been mulling over the possible long-term consequences of coalition, mainly in preparation for a forthcoming era of political indecision and hung parliaments. On the left is Nick Boles - privately-educated, PPE Oxford, son of a knight, moderniser, europhile, gay - who imagined an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats. On the right is Nadine Dorries - comprehensive-educated, former nurse, daughter of a bus driver, traditionalist, eurosceptic, anti-gay-marriage - who has mooted a deal with Ukip.

Nick Boles wrote back in 2010:

If large numbers of Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs feel that the harsh but necessary measures being implemented by the coalition are destroying their chances of being re-elected, they will begin to panic and look for opportunities to bolt.

That’s why I conclude my book with a call for an electoral pact. This autumn both David Cameron and Nick Clegg should ask their parties to approve a binding agreement to fight the 2015 general election as coalition partners.

...the pact would give parliamentary candidates in constituencies in seats held by a coalition party a free run against other parties... We would also agree on which coalition party should contest the most marginal seats of the opposition parties. If the voters do decide to embrace the alternative vote, the pact would require each of the coalition partners to urge their supporters to give their second preference vote to the candidate from the other coalition party.

And here's Nadine Dorries in this week's Spectator:

She has already mooted 2015 candidates with a joint Ukip/Tory endorsement. Now she reveals she will be seeking that arrangement for herself. ‘I will be having that kind of conversation with my association,’ she says. She’d need its permission to stand as a joint candidate - but she seems happy for herself and other Tory MPs to seek this before the leadership then follows.

She says she can appreciate the conflict felt by Tory voters who went for Ukip in the local elections. ‘There are members in my association who approached me recently who are confused,’ she said. ‘They have always been Conservative and will never change their allegiance but feel very much as though they have a huge amount of empathy with Ukip. I feel it would be a travesty if Ukip came in and took the seats off our councillors or indeed me when actually their policies and their beliefs are very much Ukip. Because what we have done, we have thrown clothes off and they have picked them up and put them on.’

Nick Boles was 'notably' not slapped down for his LibDem dalliance: indeed, he was rewarded with a job in Government. David Cameron made him a junior minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Nadine Dorries has been swiftly slapped down for her proposed Ukip alliance. David Cameron said his party 'doesn't do pacts and deals'.

Right.

EU Referendum - Cameron nails his colours to the mast

He may have been dragged to the referendum table kicking and screaming; he may have waited until President Obama had given his 'fix the relationship' renegotiation nod; he may even have waited until the week of Eurovision in order that the country might better appreciate the artistic, cultural, political and democratic benefits of being a full and active participant in all things European. Or he may be trying to head off a damaging amendment to the Queen's Speech which, if passed, traditionally spells the end of the government.

Whatever his motive, there is no denying that David Cameron has not only put clear blue water between the democratic Conservatives and the autocratic Lib-Lab elitists; he has given hope to a generation that the United Kingdom might once again become a sovereign, self-governing nation, free to sign trade treaties and free to enact laws unencumbered by EU diktats and gold-plated regulations. The Bill is quite remarkable in its brevity and clarity:

1. Referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union
 (1) A referendum is to be held on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union.
 (2) The referendum must be held before 31 December 2017.
 (3) The Secretary of State shall by order appoint the day on which the referendum is to be held.
 (4) An order under this section may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
 (5) The question that is to appear on the ballot papers is—
“Do you think that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union?”
 (6) In Wales, a Welsh version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers, as provided by order.

2. Entitlement to vote in the referendum
 (1) Those entitled to vote in the referendum are—
   (a) the persons who, on the date of the referendum, would be entitled to vote as electors at a parliamentary election in any constituency, and
   (b) the persons who, on that date, are disqualified by reason of being peers from voting as electors at parliamentary elections.

3. Conduct of the referendum and further provisions
 (1) The Secretary of State shall by order provide for the rules in accordance with which the referendum is to be conducted.
 (2) The Secretary of State may by order make further provisions about the referendum.
 (3) An order under this section may make provision modifying or amending this Act or another enactment.
 (4) An order under this section may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.

4. Interpretation
 (1) In this Act—
   • “enactment” includes—
   (a) any provision of an Act,
   (b) any provision of, or of any instrument made under, an Act of the Scottish Parliament,
   (c) any provision of, or of any instrument made under, Northern Ireland legislation, and
   (d) any provision of subordinate legislation (within the meaning of the Interpretation Act 1978);
   • “the referendum” means the referendum under section 1.

5. Expenditure
 (1) There shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament-
   (a) Any expenditure of the Secretary of State in consequence of this Act; and
   (b) Any increase attributable to this Act in the sums which under any other Act are payable out of money so provided.

6. Short title
 (1) This Act may be cited as the European Union (Referendum) Act 2013.

Be as cynical as you like, but no prime minister since Harold Wilson in 1975 has gone this far. Yes, the Act would be predicated on the Conservative Party winning the next General Election; and, yes, it is dependent upon David Cameron being prime minister in 2017. But there is no remote possibility of the Conservatives not delivering on this: it binds hands, ties feet and gags mouths. It is much of a cast-iron guarantee as David Cameron could give in coalition.

The purists will say (as Nigel Farage already has) that constitutionally Parliament may not bind its successors, and they would be correct. And His Grace certainly would not argue that this Act ought to be binding in any sense upon a future Labour administration, or Lib-Lab coalition - should either be the outcome of the 2015 General Election - which chose to continue along the tedious path to 'ever closer' union'. But for a Conservative government, it would be an inescapable trajectory to 'ever closer referendum'.

And, most importantly, there is no renegotiation obfuscation in this question: it is straightforwardly In or Out.

We had been led to believe that such a stark choice was crass and crude; that the question ought to be something more nuanced, like: 'The Prime Minister has worked very hard indeed to renegotiate the UK's truly beneficient relationship with the EU and has won mighty and impressive concessions. Do you think the UK should take advantage of this God-given, heaven-sent opportunity, or retreat into the political outer darkness of nowhere?'

But the question isn't predicated upon any renegotiation; there is no mediated or manipulated 'third way'. Cameron goes to Brussels, and negotiates. Whatever he comes back with (or doesn't), the question remains the same - In or Out.

That might just focus a few oligarchical minds: they will need to consider constantly 'What will make the British vote "Yes"?'.

Or they may try to circumvent this ghastly plot by helping to ensure that the populist Cameron loses in 2015 and we are governed by a Miliband-Cable cabal in coalition with Clegg as our commissioner in Brussels.

That will be the choice before us: a Manichæan struggle between darkness and light in which a vote for Ukip really would neuter and negate their own professed super-objective. They may want out, but secession cannot be without the consent of the people in a referendum. A vote for Labour or the LibDems would be a vote for the status quo. A vote for the Conservatives would be a vote for Ukip.

A difficult call. But His Grace will leave it to his wise readers and enlightened communicants to discern the lesser evil.

If Gosnell is guilty of murder, when does life begin?

The monstrous case of Dr Kermit Gosnell, largely censored by the mainstream media, is at last making the headlines. His abortion house of horror, which earned him almost $2million a year, has been found by a jury to have been a literal slaughterhouse, where babies (aka 'late-term abortions') were born breathing and whimpering, clinging desperately to life, but were surgically dispatched with a quick snip to the back of the neck. And bags and bottles were found filled with foetal remains, including severed feet. On this conveyer-belt of death, one baby was delivered healthily at 30 weeks; another was born in a filthy toilet. They all went the same way - a pair of scissors in the back.

And now Dr Gosnell he has been convicted of the first-degree murder of three babies, and the prosecution is seeking the death penalty. For some reason, he was acquitted of murdering a fourth. Perhaps he or she didn't whimper loudly enough. But in the potted highlights of three snipped spines, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this man was responsible for thousands of perfectly legal abortions performed over a career spanning 30 years.

Not everywhere has a 24-week limit - the threshold at which the Pennsylvania and UK legislatures determine the existence of human life. Across Europe, the upper limits are: France 12, Germany 12, Italy 12, Belgium 12, Bulgaria 12, Denmark 12, Czech Republic 12, Greece 12, Hungary 12, Luxembourg 12, the Netherlands 13, Poland 12, Slovakia 12 and Sweden, the most ‘liberal’, 18.

Places like Pennsylvania and the UK are the exceptions. Yet if it be murder to snip the spine of a baby born at 25 weeks, why is late-term abortion, or 'partial birth abortion' not always murder? Is it that a pair of scissors in the back of a visible neck is more of a grim reality than slicing up the unseen baby in the womb?

Some 200,000 abortions are routinely performed in England and Wales every year. How many of these are quite bloody and gruesome affairs which go completely unreported? There has been an undeniable shift away from using abortion as a last resort in favour of a post-conception contra-genesis, where life is now deemed to begin with the first breath. If you can legally kill a baby that has not breathed, why not one that has just whimpered for 20 minutes or so?

It is perhaps worth noting that in Scripture both the Hebrew word ר֫וּחַ (‘ruach’) and the Greek word πνεῦμα (‘pneuma’) are used interchangeably for both ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’, and that certain passages draw out the correspondence between the Spirit of God and the human spirit (eg 1Cor 2:10-12). There is, however, no scriptural, scientific, moral or ethical justification for the increasingly pervasive assertion that if the ‘foetus’ has not breathed, it has not lived. This is the belief that leads to such practices as those performed by Kermit Gosnell.

George W Bush found 'partial birth abortion' so abhorrent he set an example to the Western World by outlawing it. President Obama takes a slightly different view.

Setting aside Europe, which constitutes an unimaginable slaughter of holocaust proportions, the 200,000 abortions in England and Wales works out at 23 babies systematically killed every hour. If one factors in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the NHS terminates the life of a baby and cremates the body every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or, put another way, the British state legitimises the murder of a baby every single minute of a working day, and then burns the evidence. Such a callous, systematic and efficient slaughter would impress even Adolf Eichmann.

The term ‘holocaust’ is derived from the Greek holókauston, which referred to a completely (‘holos’) burnt (‘kaustos’) sacrificial offering to a god. That god is sex. The Western world is obsessed with it. Gosnell is the price we pay for that obsession.

And now, with the development of drugs to do-it-yourself at home, these figures are quite possibly a gross underestimation. It is even more scandalous that it is the British taxpayer who pays for 80 per cent of abortions, and that the NHS spends a fortune on keeping premature babies alive which are born within the abortion time limit, but terminates far more 'viable' babies. We need to return to the 1967 default position that abortion is a profoundly undesirable thing, and that a universal presumption of care for the baby from the moment of conception should be the norm. Since the age is obsessed with ‘rights’ – of man, woman and animal – there needs to be a codification of 'foetal rights'. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams once pointed out, it is ironic that the pregnant woman who smokes or drinks heavily is widely regarded as guilty of infringing the rights of her unborn child; yet at the same time, with no apparent sense of incongruity, there is discussion of the possibility of the liberty of the pregnant woman herself to perform the actions that will terminate a pregnancy.

Gosnell's snipped spines we see: NHS severed hands, feet and eyeballs being sucked down a tube we do not. The nation cries out for a latter-day Shaftsbury or Wilberforce in Parliament who will bang on about this barbarism ad nauseam, day after day, week after week, until something is done about it.

The Walsingham Bubble Mass

Bubbles at the Elevation from Fr Simon Rundell on Vimeo.

His Grace was going to write today about something religio-political that irked him, but then he saw this, and he was sorely angered. Apparently, the Diocese of Exeter held a 'taster' for the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage, which included Mass celebrated by Bishop John Ford of Plymouth. We are told: 'Having used bubbles earlier to consider their beauty, uniqueness and specialness - just like us - filled with breath which ultimately goes right back to God, we were encouraged to blow bubbles as the holy elements are raised, and fill the sacred space with light, airy prayer-filled bubbles...'

Right.

His Grace is so convulsed with incredulity, he can scarcely type. He is so used to writing about those who inhabit the metaphorical Westminster Bubble that it had completely escaped him that the Church of England was blowing its own, quite literally. Can you imagine Jesus getting Judas and Peter to do these on the night he was betrayed? "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is clouded in bubbles for you." Or St Paul:

For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to blow bubbles at the Lord's supper.
For in blowing every one showeth himself to be a pillock: and one is dippy, and another is just preposterous.
What? have ye not houses to blow your own fairy liquid foam and froth? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
He didn't blow bloody globules of air.
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
And the Lord's death isn't a particularly effervescent soapy fest.
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
And unworthily includes jocularly, trivially and absurdly.
But let a man examine himself (yea, and a suffragan bishop, too), and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup, but cut the bloody spumes of lather.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily (yea, with fizzy globules), eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

Evangelising with a nail

From Brother Ivo:

Whenever Brother Ivo puts his hand in his coat pocket to find his mobile phone, car keys or change for the parking meter, he finds a nail. It is about 3 inches long.

He was given his nail last Good Friday and he put it in his pocket. He did not intend it for it to remain there, but never quite found a good enough reason to put it aside, which is perhaps what Bishop Stephen Cottrell intended when he wrote his short Lent book The Nail. Its 75 pages can be read in a sitting, and comprise seven reflections which can be used privately, with a Study group or, as Brother Ivo encountered it, as a constituent part of a Good Friday 3-hour service.

After setting out a relevant part of the gospel, the author presents a fictional internal reflection for each of the key participants of the passion narrative; Peter, the Roman Centurion, Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and Pilate's wife each in turn asks questions of themselves and indirectly of the reader.

The biblical texts are familiar, which is perhaps why the Bishop's additional exploration is useful. To hear possible questions, reactions, motivations and doubts of these participants draws the reader into personal engagement with the crucifixion from a very human human and strangely vulnerable perspective.

The fictionalised monologues may not be 'true', but they contain truth in the same way that a Shakespearean play may reveal much about the human condition on a grander scale. It becomes easier to excuse Peter his cowardice when he asks: "What would you have done?" The Centurion reveals our own cynical self=-justifications when he begins with bravado: "What a laugh, strung up by us lot for aggravating his own." Yet even he reflects more sensitively on how Jesus affected him, before passing the buck - to Pilate. Mary Magdalene confesses: "I had never known God before."

We live in an age where 'How do you feel about..?' has become the opening gambit of many media reporters, and by this elevation of the emotional response to importance in each and every daily issue, truth is often devalued. It is not wrong, however, occasionally to use such techniques. They can take us deeper. Jesus's teaching method was to start where people found themselves. If those around us use their own emotional response as the guiding principle of what they believe and 'consume', it becomes increasingly necessary to spark such a response, but with the intention of leading them the foot of the cross.

One might once have been able to jolt people into a realisation of their need for faith by declaring 'Jesus wants to wash you in the blood of the lamb', but the Jeremy Kyle generation - to whom such cultural references mean nothing - needs to be approached from a different angle. They are repelled by the ease with which they believe Christians condemn them, so accessible books like The Nail are truly valuable.

Being short, it does not feel intimidating, but it packs a punch: story-telling works.

In Jesus' ministry, he does this all the time. 'Behold a sower went out to sow..' invites the audience to engage with the coming story and its message. We are ready to pay attention and ask 'What happens next?' Similarly, no parent can fail to identify with the grieving father of the Prodigal Son, knowing what is best, yet patiently waiting for the child to learn from their own mistakes. The projection we make onto the sower hoping for a harvest, or the father awaiting his child, is fictional, but also universal.

So it is that when Stephen Cottrell's Judas begins: "I have to explain.. It's not what it looks like." We want to hear his account of self-justification and expect to confront him; yet with his plausibility, he does not let us condemn him easily. The more we hear his and every other person's plea to be understood, the more we realise that they truly are just like us.

When Brother Ivo experienced the reading, everyone was given a nail, and its significance remdinded at the end of each witness testimony. The words were repeated: 'You hold in your hand a nail that was used to crucify Christ.'

We all have our part to play.

It remains as a reminder in Brother Ivo's pocket, and when it makes itself known, there is also a recollection of the chilling sound from the closure of each of the witness readings - that of a nail being driven by a heavy hammer into a block of wood.

Brother Ivo has been thinking of his nail as he watches the world's leaders in politics, the Church and the media exculpating themselves from a variety of scandals concerning bullying, abuse of power, obfuscation, and sexual abuse. He cannot help regretting that so few of them will read The Nail.

Imagine if our leaders spent less time trying to prove themselves innocent and more time trying to improve themselves by acknowledging culpability.

Imagine if they ceased justifying themselves and allowed themselves more time to be justified by faith.

Isn't this where the secular world starts to go so wrong? With no internal controls, and an aversion to feeling personally discomforted, personal failure is not something to be considered and worked upon, but rather to be denied and given over to those who manage reputations.

'Make it go away' is so much easier to ask than forgiveness. The former is an assertion of power; the latter of vulnerability.

How much would public life be improved if Ed Balls came forward and said: "I really wish we had not spent all that money, like we did." Think of how children's lives would be transformed if David Cameron confessed "We really have not done enough to explain the value of marriage for children or done enough to support them." Imagine Lord Patten reflecting: "We have become too protective of own privilege." Perhaps Nick Clegg might say: "I did not do enough to protect women" or Tony Blair: "Actually, I'm not the pretty regular sort of guy I claimed to be."

These would be early steps on the way to the world being truly transformed.

Actually, Brother Ivo does not insist on humiliating public confession. He would settle for our leaders making a start by admitting it to themselves.

For the want of a nail..

(Posted by Brother Ivo)