Interference by meddling cardinals
Politics and piety are becoming increasingly entangled as the human fertilisation and embryology bill passes through parliament…Brown put the interests of the Christian few over the rights of the many. Most people obviously disagree with a Catholic morality that puts the rights of the non-extant over those of the living…Brown’s about-turn has led many to conclude that the government’s front benches are becoming increasingly religion-led…The vice-like grip of Catholicism holds fast across large parts of the continent. Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland are just some of the countries in Europe that have been subjected to interference by meddling cardinals. Abortion is still outlawed in Ireland and was only recently legalised in Portugal. Anti-abortion campaigns have, almost without exception, been led from the pulpit. Catholicism has never taken a back seat; it has always actively interfered in democratic politics.
And there’s an oddly deferential tone to at least some of the press coverage of this fact, as I mentioned a couple of days ago. It’s treated as normal and uncontroversial and unexceptionable that ‘the Roman Catholic Church’ should be telling the UK government what to do. This is a very bad mistake. When the Catholic church interferes it does it in aid of a nasty reactionary agenda. It shouldn’t be politely curtsied to as if it were some benign foster parent.
Ruth Kelly’s contention, supported by other religious politicians, that she can separate her private morals from public policy does not stand up to scrutiny. During the passage of the legislation to ban discrimination in the provision of goods and services in 2007, she is reputed to have fought hard for Catholic adoption agencies to opt out of the requirement to place children with same sex couples. When it came to the crunch, her Catholic faith won the day. Should devout Catholics such as Kelly, Browne and Murphy be allowed on the government front bench in the light of their predilection to favour the Pope’s word above the government’s?
In a word: no.
There was a time in my life when I was reminded by the religious to never go across the water to England as “You will lose your faith”.
Gosh, I also never thought I would live to see the day when offspring of the Irish who emigrated there would hold the British Government to ransom on staunch RC Catholic matters.
The ‘pope’ wheel is slowly turning round!
Actually, the whole business of what is considered a matter of private conscience and what is considered to be whipped vote along party lines is rather weird – and doesn’t really make any sense.
A vote on the Iraq war? Surely a matter of conscience if ever there was one… to decide whether to throw Britain’s military forces into a war against a ghastly dictator – with all the uncertainties as to whether such a decision might serve only to make life even worse for ordinary Iraqis while putting our own troops in serious danger despite the absence of compelling evidence Iraq posed any military threat.
That’s a whipped vote on party lines. (and one where I must confess to having more sympathy with the Catholic church’s line than with the Government’s, ironically)
But gay marriage and civil partnerships? Technical matters around the regulation of embryo research and what you can or can’t do with cell cultures on a petri dish? These are somehow more serious? relate more fundamentally to ethical matters?
Why is sex and biological research an ethical matter while war and economics are party political matters? The cynic in me suspects it’s because trying to develop an ethical defence or economic policy would be, y’know, too difficult…
Just as a point of interest: Heavily Catholic Spain has legalised same-sex marriage.
And Patrick, didn’t Pope JP2 oppose the Iraq war? But then again, to paraphrase Uncle Joe: How many divisions does he have?
DFG – indeed he did – and as I said above, I was something of an Iraq war agnostic (history has since, I think, proven the doubters right) but had more sympathy with the anti camp than the pro camp.
My point is that Ruth Kelly, Des Browne et al didn’t feel the need to let the catholic church’s views get in the way of their vote on the war – so why listen to what they have to say on stem cell research or gay adoption?
Patrick let me answer that for you, all the imformation that an M.P would need to make a decision on stem cell recearch is freely avaliabe and in the public domain, the same can not be said about the war where intelligence imformation was only in the hands of the P.M and a few senior ministers, so M.P,s could not make the same kind of imformed judgement.
Richard – fair point. Although there are plenty of other situations where free votes are not allowed yet all the information is (or ought to be) available to MPs.
That said, I suppose there are issues – for instance around Bills which require government spending – where MPs could, in a free vote, simply vote for things the Government has no money to do.
In times past, rather more so than at present in our Labservative times, it could be argued that an MP’s political party was a reasonable guide to his ‘ethical position’ on matters relating to economics and taxation, thus negating the idea of MPs taking decisions for themselves.
Still not entirely comfortable with the idea of that certain matters of public policy are fenced off as ‘ethical matters’ requiring a free vote while others are not.
Ruth Kelly, who hails from Northern Ireland is allegedly a member of Opus Dei and is a regular attendee at its meetings and events.
(Her brother, Ronan Kelly, (according to Wiki) is also a supernumerary in the Opus Dei organisation.)
Awareness of the above information – really shines a light on the whole human fertilisation and embryology bill issue.
From whence she is coming, anyway!
“Whips, Spiked Garters and Bloodshed. My Terrifying Life in Ruth Kelly’s Religious Sect” http://www.odan.org/media_roche.htm
Agree with your point, Patrick.
It rattles me that in regards to these topics (RU486 was an example in Australia), MPs are afforded a ‘conscience’ vote, yet divide (or in the case of Iraq, get all bipartisan) on topics with far greater effects on living human beings (war, detention, etc0