Anti-Catholic feeling stirred up by New Labour

New Labour in the personification of Harriet Harman certainly knows how to be illiberal when it wants to be. Now she has unleashed a load of anti-Catholic bile onto the nation. Maybe not personally, but her craven desire to make life difficult for the Church has encouraged all manner of diatribes against the Pope.

Now I'm not suggesting everyone has to believe in the basic tenets of the Christian Faith. If they wish to walk by on the other side, I'm not going to force them to think or behave otherwise. And it's not as if the Church is seeking to cajole securalists into the fold. It is just a very strange thing that those who say they are liberal and in favour of free speech seem so keen to rubbish the beliefs of Christianity in such a mean-spirited way.

Harriet Harman is besotted with control and legislation. In her zeal to prove a point, she has become the one who has opened the bottle and let out a rather unpleasant genie. Probably the New Testament is lost on her currently, but we are told "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." They certainly have today.

Secular world wants control of the Church

It isn't enough for the secular world to distance itself from the Church. It wants to control it through a mixture of legalisms and diatribes. St Mary The Virgin Parish Church in St Mary’s Road, Swanley, Kent is a well-known Anglo-Catholic church. It professes the unchanged Faith in a changing and changeable world. A rumpus has erupted in the town because the local branch of the Royal British Legion, having appointed a female cleric as their chaplain, were miffed that they could not hold a service within the church. St.Mary's does not recognise the validity of women in priest's orders. This, as the diocese confirms, is "the legal position and is well-documented".

Looking for an alternative venue, the local town council stepped in to allow the Legion to hold their service in a banqueting suite. Mutterings were heard. The council leader Councillor Robert Woodbridge said, “My view is we now live in the 21st century and things have changed. But they will point out there are things in the bible which says women should not be priests, but it’s a matter for the church.” It is this detached view of Christendom that allows such people as Harriet Harman to pursue her so-called Equalities Bill. Councillor Woodbridge may feel times change, and they do. But the Christian Faith does not change. What was heard and understood by the Disciples is heard and understood today and will be in centuries to come.

People may want to use the church as some kind of social club and take precious little interest in the doctrines. Fair do's. But they must surely see that they do themselves no good by being rude, condescending or simply dismissive in an ignorant fashion.