Special report from Washington

Tonight we have a brief report from my good friend Philip Cunnah (left) who is currently on pastoral placement in Louisiana, United States, from the Propaedeutic Year at the Royal English College, Valladolid.

Last Thursday, he joined thousands at the March for Life in Washington. Phil's only had a bit of time to write this. I'll get some analytical, reflective stuff from him hopefully on his return to Europe. Here's his report:

On Sunday January 18 I joined 160 young people and seminarians from Baton Rouge and the surrounding area on a pilgrimage to Washington D.C. for the annual March for Life. Although they spent five days in the north, the march itself took place on the following Thursday.

Beginning with a Youth Rally at the Verizon center, the Washington Wizards basketball stadium, thousands of pilgrims marched down the mall to the US Capitol building and on to the Supreme Court to show their protest of the Roe vs Wade case.

There were 30000 young people at the Verizon center celebrating Mass with the Archbishop of Washington and hundreds of other priests and bishops - the procession alone took 25 minutes.

For most of his time out there, Phil is working with the homeless in a soup kitchen type place. Slightly more informally, for those of you who know him, Phil writes:

Louisiana is awesome, I've met some amazing people. The seminarians are great. The homeless are also good, I love that type of work. The psychiatric hospital is a little more taxing but the people are good.

Cabinet papers: Abortion Act

In December last year, more than 500,000 Cabinet papers from 1915 to 1977 were put online for the first time by the National Archives. Previously, I think, people had to go to somewhere in London and trawl through mountains of documents. Among the documents I have researched so far are cabinet papers in the lead up to one of the darkest days in British history, the passing of the Abortion Act in October 1967.


The search engine and downloading procedure is a faff. You have to give your email address for each document, add it to a basket and then "buy" it, although it doesn't actually cost anything. The information comes in PDF format but text from the early part of the century is not selectable so you have to skim read the whole document to find the reference you are looking for. But some of the content itself is revealing.


On May 31 1967, there is a confidential memorandum prepared by Roy Jenkins, the then Secretary of State for the Home Department, on David Steel's "Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill". In it, he urges his colleagues to agree that the private members' bill be granted government time to be debated, a clear indication, it seems, that a number in the cabinet wanted the law on abortion to be relaxed.

The memo states:

It seems clear from the volume of amendments that the report stage of the Bill will not be completed during Private Member's time on 2nd June, and that Government time should be given to enable decisions to be reached. I invite the Cabinet to agree that we should, if necessary, make it clear that Government time will be found.

At that stage, from what I can gather, the Bill was an early draft to what was actually passed in the October of that year. There is no mention of any time limits at this stage. It's horrific to even think that, at one stage, the Bill was drafted by supporters with no restrictions on the time limit. There was also an attempt to allow abortions on the grounds of "injury to well-being" as well as health.

In these papers, it mentions the only two grounds (after some proposed amendments) would be:
- risk to the life of the mother or injury to the physical or mental health of the women or any existing children

- and the serious handicap clause

In the end, as we know, several clauses were added to these and the Bill has horrifyingly become much wider in scope. Even at this time some five months before the Bill was passed by parliament, Mr Jenkins was saying:

The Bill will contain safeguards which are not in the existing law. A termination of pregnancy will be lawful only if both the operating doctor and another doctor are of the opinion, formed in good faith, that one of the grounds permitted by the Bill is satisfied; the operation may be performed only in a National Health Service hospital or in a place approved by the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State for Scotland; and notice of the operation must be given to the chief medical officer of the Ministry of Health or the Scottish Home and Health Department.

The Minister of Health and I are satisfied that, with these safeguards, the Bill, with the proposed amended grounds for abortion, and with other more technical amendments I have suggested to Mr. Steel will be in a workable form.

...it would be most unfortunate if Parliament were now prevented, by shortness of time, from reaching decisions on Mr. Steel's Bill. We should then almost certainly have to go through the same trouble again next session.

Draw your own conclusions, but, it seems, government ministers were in collusion with David Steel about finding time for this Bill to be debated. Remember that most private members bills fail because they run out of time. But killing unborn children seems to be the issue the Harold Wilson government seems to be keen on giving time to.

In the minutes of the actual Cabinet meeting on June 1 1967, the Lord Privy Seal questioned whether to make Government time available was compatible with the attitude of neutrality towards the principle of abortion that the government had adopted. The minutes go on to outline the Lord Privy Seal's argument:

Recent articles in the Press suggesting that the Government proposed to "come to the rescue" of the Bill and to " defeat a filibuster " had created an impression of Government support which would be confirmed in the public mind if Government facilities were now given. This might do harm to the Governments reputation with considerable sections of public opinion which were by no means wholly Roman Catholic, as was illustrated by the collection of 500,000 signatures to a petition against the Bill which had been organised by a non-Roman Catholic Committee.

He also said the inclusion of risk of deformity in the child among the grounds for abortion had been criticised by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. But describing further discussion among members, the minutes say the Bill “dealt with an important issue on which public opinion was much concerned” and that Government time should be given. It was agreed to arrange for Government time on one evening after 7pm to be made available to the sponsors of the Bill. And we all know what happened in the Autumn of that year…

It’s a pity the cabinet papers currently available only go up to 1977, eight years before I was born and before the amendments to the Abortion Act in 1990 and the legalisation on human embryo experimentation. If these are the actions of the Wilson government, Lord knows what we’ll read in cabinet minutes from the Blair and Brown Governments when the become available decades down the line…

More tales from cabinet meetings to come.

A day for journalists

On the feastday of Saint Francis de Sales, I would like to give a big shout out to fellow Catholic journalists. I know we're probably the least popular profession, but please spare us a prayer today.

Every day on the way to work I ask for the intercession of St Francis, the patron saint of journalists - and boy do I need his daily help! In this increasingly secular age, it's really difficult to be a Catholic reporter in the media. The industry itself is suffering in the current financial situation with papers closing, journalists getting made redundant and working hours changing considerably. And with the BBC's continued bias against the Catholic Church and pro-lifers, this is such an important day to pray that the mass media will strive to "respect the dignity and worth of every human person" as the Pope puts it in his message for the World Day of Communications released yesterday.

A quick look at St Francis. He was born in France in 1567. He knew for 13 years he had a vocation to be a priest. God made His will clear to Francis while he was riding. Francis fell from his horse three times, each time the sword came out of the scabbard and came to rest on the ground in the shape of the cross.

Francis was at times over-ambitious as a priest. He wanted to lead an expedition over the border to Switzerland to convert the 60,000 Calvinists back to Catholicism. By the time he left the expedition consisted of himself and his cousin. His father refused to give him any aid for and then diocese was too poor to support him.

The Catholic Online website says: "For three years, he trudged through the countryside, had doors slammed in his face and rocks thrown at him. In the bitter winters, his feet froze so badly they bled as he tramped through the snow. He slept in haylofts if he could, but once he slept in a tree to avoid wolves. He tied himself to a branch to keep from falling out and was so frozen the next morning he had to be cut down. And after three years, his cousin had left him alone and he had not made one convert."

"Francis' unusual patience kept him working. No one would listen to him, no one would even open their door. So Francis found a way to get under the door. He wrote out his sermons, copied them by hand, and slipped them under the doors. This is the first record we have of religious tracts being used to communicate with people."

I suppose it is for this reason that he is the patron saint of journalists. Not only did he write the content, he delivered it, so maybe he could be the patron of paper boys and girls as well!

This way of communication and the way he played with children impressed adults as well. In the end, he is said to have converted 40,000 people back to Catholicism, only 20,000 short of his target.

In 1602 he was made bishop of the diocese of Geneva, in Calvinist territory. Then, shortly after, he decided to go into the religious life. He gave spiritual direction to lay people at a time such a thing was thought of as unusual. His most famous book, Introduction to the Devout Life, was written for these lay folk in 1608. Written originally as letters, it became an instant success all over Europe. St Francis died in 1622.

He's also the patron saint of writers, meaning today is a special day for bloggers as well. Today, Pope Benedict has a message for us in his letter for Communications Day, to be celebrated in May:

The new technologies have also opened the way for dialogue between people from different countries, cultures and religions. The new digital arena, the so-called cyberspace, allows them to encounter and to know each other’s traditions and values. Such encounters, if they are to be fruitful, require honest and appropriate forms of expression together with attentive and respectful listening.

The dialogue must be rooted in a genuine and mutual searching for truth if it is to realize its potential to promote growth in understanding and tolerance. Life is not just a succession of events or experiences: it is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by those who see us merely as consumers in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

Crude radio adverts

As you may know, I drive quite a bit. Rather than listen to music on CDs, I like to flick between radio stations, including local commercial ones. Over the last month or so, I've been genuinely shocked at the bombardment young people are getting of sexual health/contraception adverts on the wireless.

Slogans like "Want respect? Use a condom" have been prominent particularly over Christmas. Some of them have used rather crude language, using actors at a party who discuss sex. One station, Galaxy 105 in Yorkshire, has a whole programme dedicated to devoting a large majority of adverts to sexual health advice, chlamydia testing and promoting breast enlargements (with the slogan "My body, my choice)". But many others whose audience is very much the teenager/20s bracket are also culprits.

One of the websites promoted in these adverts is "r u thinking?" Here we have the "lad pad" and the "lady lounge". From the content, you can clearly see this site is targeted at vulnerable adolescents. The whole thrust of the website is to promote the (false) notion of safe-sex. One of the pieces of advise for lads is: "Sex rocks when both people like each other and feel ready – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise."

In the "Why am I gay" section of the lady lounge, the website says: "You don’t choose your sexuality - it chooses you. No one knows what makes people gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight, but its normal and you deserve to be with someone you love, whoever that is." O dear...

Once your ready for sex, get the condoms out, the advice says. "Condoms stop your girlfriend getting pregnant and protect you from STIs," the 'how does a condom work?' section outlines. This is just one example of how this mysterious "independent teenage pregnancy unit" misleads young people. We all know through that 20 years of the same government policies of promoting confidential sexual advise and contraception, including access to the morning after pill, has done nothing to cut teenage pregnancies and has actually led to the numbers of STI infections to rocket.

I've recently been reading The Case Against Condoms, published by Human Life International (2006). It is largely written by the late Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, the former president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Responding to his misrepresentation on - you guessed it - the BBC programme Sex and the Holy City (2003), Trujillo exposes the lies of "safe sex" and the condom as a 100 per cent protection tool against STIs.

He finds that even the International Planned Parenthood Federation admits the use of condoms only reduces the total risk of contracting AIDS, for instance, between unprotected sex and complete sexual abstinence by 70 per cent. A failure rate of 30 per cent is pretty high when dealing with the potentially mortal disease of AIDS.

He argues there is no 100 per cent protection from the AIDS virus through the use of condoms because numerous studies have shown “certain permeability” through the latex as the virus is 450 times smaller than the sperm cell. Studies show that as the number of condoms distributed increases, the number of HIV/AIDS cases increases. Two studies found that regular use of condoms prevented the contraction of the AIDS virus by 85 per cent, Trujillo found. Therefore claims that contraception categorically prevents STIs are unfounded. People, especially vulnerable and confused teenagers, have the right to accurate information when it comes to things so serious as these.

I long for the day, although I've no idea when it will come, when the radio advert will not say "Want respect? Use a condom", but "Want respect? Say no". But until the government and the NHS insist on giving the abstinence message the cold shoulder, our young people will continue to be bombarded with these attacks on their childhood.

It's the Catholic Church that has the answer protecting children from STIs and restoring sex to a procreative act within marriage. The answer is to strengthen the family and restore the true meaning of human loving in our society today.

Obama: The disaster starts here

Having just watched the 10pm news, it's time for me to publicly criticise the BBC for the second time in 24 hours.

Throughout their coverage of the candidate selection, election campaign, the election itself and the period up to today, it seems the Beeb has regarded Obama almost like a god. Never have I seen a "public service broadcaster" so overwhelmingly one sided in political coverage than its attitude towards Barack Obama.

Think back to how, for instance, World Youth Day events have been covered by the BBC. Among the hundreds of thousands of worshippers, journalists seek out (or are probably told to find, or even muster up themselves) the handful of protesters wielding condoms, "women's right to choose" and "Catholic Church is homophobic" banners and the like. Now consider how today's inauguration was covered by the BBC. Mass hysteria, presenters smiling with glee and appearing to get emotional, not a hint or mention of any negative Obama comments. And we know there are plenty around, even at today's event.

On Newsnight, a climate change feature said Bush "didn't listen to scientists" but that Obama does. It was as if he was being wheeled out as some kind of saviour, superhero of the planet. A dangerous approach. It seems Obama is set to use the (bad) science excuse to extinguish the lives of millions of human embryos through his expected support and funding of unethical stem cell research.

Obama had barely got off the podium after uttering the last words of his speech when the White House website was transformed from being largely pro-life to completely pro-abortion. Gone is any mention of the Sanctity of Human Life Day, extraordinarily established by President Bush as one of his last acts. Instead, Obama states his clear intent to make abortions even more available.

"President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Administration [sic]," the Obama White House site says. There's also a promotion of the new president's view that Americans should be forced to pay for embryonic stem cell research.

In his speech, the new president said: "The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." All except the unborn, it seems...

Hunter: BBC is back on the attack

I thought the showing of the mildly Catholic-friendly Apparitions on the BBC was too good to be true. This week, the Beeb comes back with a vengeance, portraying pro-lifers in a detective drama series on prime time television as child abductors and murderers. The closing quote from a senior detective at the end of the programme is "thank God for abortion". Just minutes before the 10pm news, the naive TV viewer is subjected to a warped, sickening view of, in reality, the most peaceful people in the country.

The sinister thing about this programme is you don't know the perpetrators are "pro-lifers" until the end of the first (of two) episodes. On the face of it, Hunter just looks like your average police drama. Even in TV listings in papers and on the internet, the plot refers to the abductors as "extremists" and and the crime as a "shocking and highly sensitive" one. The ultimatum from the kidnappers is: "show the film of their cause on the national news bulletins, or the boys will be killed". The identity of the criminals is not spelt out from the outset. The listings entice the viewer in. But by the second programme, the plot becomes outrageous.

Two seven-year-old boys are abducted from different places and very different backgrounds, but are both from the same town. After initial investigations by the police, emails begin to arrive at their office and at various media organisations with images of the two boys looking unconscious - with the name SACRED written on their bodies. Then a package is delivered to the BBC in Birmingham by a chap on a scooter. It has the boys' clothing in it. Then, less than five minutes before the end of the first programme, another email in received from the "Sacred" group:

"We hold that all life is sacred," it says, before listing abortion statistics and providing a copy of the Abortion Act. "The law is neither being observed or policed. Therefore, to concentrate our minds we have therefore taken children from women who have previously had abortions and unless the attached film is shown on BBC TV at 1pm, 6pm and 10pm tonight, these boys' lives will be terminated. For what is the difference of lives of these children and those of their brothers and sisters before them?"

Then the officers listening to the email being read out by their boss DSI Iain Barclay are shown the video the group want broadcast. Many of them are uncomfortable and some can't even look at the screen. Up until this point, the kidnappers creep around making phonecalls to each other. There are disturbing scenes of one of them sedating the children on beds in a garage.

Sacred murders one of the boys after the 1 o'clock news by lethal injection. So pro-lifers now also like euthanasia, according to our public service broadcaster.

One of the main leads in catching the abductors is a memo of an organisational committee of events to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Abortion Act. The BBC's boundaries are blurred again, directly linking murderers to those kind of people that commemorated the loss of over six million lives in 2007.

The leader of the three perpetrators is a spina bifida sufferer, who makes the point in a police interview that nine out of ten unborn babies detected of having the condition are aborted. The injustice he feels for those aborted children leads this character to kidnap children and murder one of them. Not the story of the average disabled pro-life campaigner.

The portrayal of so-called anti-abortion campaigners stretches far beyond the three involved in the kidnappings. The general dislike and scorn towards pro-lifers is shown by several of the coppers, who seem to think they are barbaric nutters. At the end of the plot, DS Amy Foster, who has had three abortions, says to Barclay, "thank God for abortion".

My complaint to the BBC has several points to it. There is not a shred of evidence of any incident in real life where anti-abortionists have used abduction, murder and violence to attempt to further their cause. This is almost like making a programme depicting William Wilberforce's supporters using rape and murder to further their anti-slavery cause. Pro-lifers are leading a peaceful protest movement against what they see is a fundamental injustice. Granted there are a couple of nutters about who have sent nasty packages of pictures of aborted foetuses to people. But they are in the distinct minority.

The ironic thing is that the Beeb included in the plot the issue of showing pictures of abortion, the most commonly performed operation, on TV. It was part of an ultimated from a fictitious "anti-abortion" group and it didn't get broadcast. Yet, in 1997, the Pro-Life Alliance were entitled to a party election broadcast. But their film, including footage of an abortion taking place, was censored by the BBC because of "taste and decency". A party election broadcast in an apparently democratic country not allowed to be shown.

Calling to mind countless occasions when the issue of abortion has been covered astonishingly one sidedly in favour of pro-abortionists by the BBC on TV and radio, we can see a pattern emerging here. The Beeb doesn't like any threats to its liberal mindset, a world where everyone can do what they like because they have rights and choices. They, like the establishment, don't really like the pro-life movement. So, as well as censor their message, the BBC also likes to portray these campaigners as violent, malicious and horrific so that they are dismissed to the sidelines of debate.

Pictures from Faith Session

Here are a few pictures from the recent Faith Winter Session. Unfortunately, they haven't come out particularly well as the light wasn't great and my camera isn't particularly good. But I think they illustrate the excellent atmosphere of the conference.

This is Fr Paul Brooks in full swing during his talk.


Here's a brief snippet on video of his section on the damage of sin:

This is the popular ceilidh (I always have to put in "traditional Scottish dance" into Google to find out how to spell that) that is the feature of the last night of ever Faith conference.

As ever, it really is refreshing to attend these events. Up to 200 young, committed Catholics, all wanting to pray, play, learn about their faith and socialise together. They came from various parts of Scotland, Ireland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, London, Midlands, and the south. There were many seminarians, dozens of priests, students, civil servants, teachers, shop workers, school pupils, a journalist, bloggers and mothers.

We were reminded from various priests that tough times lie ahead for the Catholic Church. Now is the time, therefore, for young Catholics to remain faithful and stand up for their faith in public life, the workplace, school and in the home.

White Flower Appeal

The weekend was spent at the Parish of the Sacred Heart and St Oswald in Peterborough where I made SPUC's annual White Flower Appeal. I try to make the fundraising appeal at a different parish each year to take the pro-life message to new people. Parishioners tend to appreciate someone from an organisation specifically coming to visit their parish as opposed to just having a retiring collection at the end of Mass.

I go over to the parish for a Tuesday evening Mass when I can as it's only 45 minutes from Kettering and I know the parish priest, Fr Bruce Burbidge. When he said he was holding the appeal this year I offered to do it for him.

There were three Masses - one on Saturday night, one on Sunday morning and another at midday on Sunday. I managed to struggle through the Sunday Masses (having fallen ill overnight) and then had a big nap in the afternoon after it was all over.

The appeal has been held in Catholic (and other) Churches across the UK for about 30 years. It highlights the pressing pro-life issues of the day to lay folk and attempts to generate some income for the society's work. This year the appeal letter focused on three main themes; the right to conscientious objection for doctors and nurses, support for women suffering with their abortion experience and help for women in crisis pregnancy situations.

SPUC is launching a leaflet to GPs to give to patients who ask for an abortion. This gives women factual information about the development of their unborn child and what abortion and its aftermath really involve. It also includes details of organisations which offer help in a crisis pregnancy situation.

British Victims of Abortion, funded by the SPUC Educational Research Trust, offers a post-abortion helpline which provides counselling and support for women and men struggling to come to terms with an abortion experience, sometimes many years after the event. For more information, click here.

All doctors and nurses have a right – and we would say, a duty – not to be involved with abortion, but this right is being challenged by the pro-abortion lobby and the Department of Health. SPUC is launching a new support helpline for doctors facing pressure to participate in abortion and other anti-life practices. The appeal postcard contained a public declaration of support for medics who refuse to be involved in abortion. This will be sent to the General Medical Council and the Nursing & Midwifery Council.

The appeal in Peterborough made about £360 - a great effort from the parish there. I had a good chat with several people, some of whom had daughters having to fight for conscientious objection to abortion as medical students. Others were really sincere about their admiration for the work of the society and others were happy to simply put their change in the basket. I'd like to thank the parishioners for their generosity, whether they gave 1p or £20.

Illness

Sorry I haven't been posting for a few days now - I've been on bloggers' sick leave. I fell in on Saturday night with a virus and I had to take Monday and Tuesday off work this week because of it. I'm still recovering at the moment (my asthma is particularly causing me bother) but I seem to be over the worst of it.

The normal service of a steady trickle of posts resumes this evening.

Happy New Year

Eight days into 2009, I'd like to wish you a Happy New Year. Already I've been writing stories about the likelihood that one in seven shops, particularly in market towns, will close this year. There's also already rumours about job losses in the area where I report.

Further afield, the year doesn't look like it will be a good one for human life. There's the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the impending inauguration of arguably the most anti-life American president in history and the implementation of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the UK to name but a few.

But, as Catholics, we of course have hope. As ever, Pope Benedict can emphasises this better than any of us. Here are three snippets of what he said on New Year's Eve:

"In these times, which are marked by insecurity and worry for the future, it is necessary to feel the living presence of Christ. Mary, the Star of Hope, leads us to Him. With her maternal love she is the one who can lead us, especially the young, to Jesus."

"The growing needs of evangelisation require many workers in the vineyard of the Lord: do not hesitate to respond to respond readily if He calls you. Society needs citizens who are not merely concerned with their own interests because, as I recalled on Christmas Day, 'if people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart'."

"Even if there are many clouds forming on the horizon of our future, we should not be afraid. As believers, our great hope is eternal life in communion with Christ and the entire family of God. This great hope gives us the strength to face and to overcome the difficulties of this worldly life."