Crisis? Which crisis?

  When I started out in journalism, "crisis" was one of the overused nouns, some would say cliches, that we students at the London College of Printing were instructed to under use. Or not use at all. But the only one of my tutors who had worked on the staff of a national paper had only worked for the Guardian, and that was subbing not reporting, and he is now living in France. (Wynford Hicks, well known for his books on writing for journalists.) It's a bit like TS Eliot quotes, '"That was in another country, and besides the wench is dead." It was certainly another era, the fag-end of the hippy era, and none of us challenged the injunction against crises and other cliches, except me, and Wynford always marked me down. But I passed the course and landed up on the Daily Mail and discovered a whole new world of superlative. "Astonished", "Extraordinary", "Amazing". It was all of those and more, and I began to forget Wynford, which I should never have done because he was one of those extraordinary teachers who I was lucky to have and should have made more of.

Now that we appear to be at the fag end of Anglicanism (to risk a possibly tasteless joke), I find myself almost wishing that Wynford would return from France and somehow acquire the power to indict against the word "crisis". Or not so much the word, as the phenomenon itself. Admittedly, it is difficult to see how my profession would survive were there no more crises, but there comes a point when any observer must wonder just how many more crises the Anglican Church can survive intact. "Of schism they were made, and to schism they will return," was the other title I considered for this post.

Anyway, Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria, and his bishops have resolved the problem, though not in a way that Wynford would approve I think. Instead of crisis, they are speaking of a "cancerous lump". Opposing a suggestion put by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Anglican Communion be divided into “associated” and “constituent” provinces, the Nigerian bishops have issued a statement posted on the Global South website. They praise Dr Williams for his “lucid” analysis of the situation in his recent letter to primates and add that his suggestions are “brilliant” as the “heartbeat” of a leader who wants to preserve the unity of the church by accommodating “every shred of opinion” - “all because we want to make everyone feel at home”. Referring to the liberals, in other words The Episcopal Church, they continue: “One would have expected that those who had embarked on this religious misadventure would be encouraged to judge their actions against our well-established historic tradition. A cancerous lump in the body should be excised if it has defied every known cure. To attempt to condition the whole body to accommodate it will lead to the avoidable death of the patient. We encourage the Archbishop of Canterbury to persuade those who have chosen to ‘walk apart’ to return to the path chosen by successive generations of our forebears.” The Nigerians have also posted this on their own website, along with a synod communique in which they appear to challenge the need even to hold a Lambeth Conference in 2008. The discussions are continuing on all this, along with links and more analysis, on TitusOneNine, Anglican Mainstream and Thinking Anglicans. It all seems so far removed from the cordiality evident in the picture above, where Akinola is among those chatting to the US primate after a retreat he led for the Nigerian bishops.

Quite apart from all the doctrinal issues, I have a theory that one reason the Africans, and in particular Dr Akinola, are creating such an impact in this is because they actually understand the inherent power of the Anglo-Saxon tongue much better than the Americans and even some of the English themselves, for whom it is supposedly their native language. I challenge anyone to read a sermon by Frank Griswold and one by Peter Akinola and deny that Akinola's is the more gripping, the more powerful in its use of drama, the more thrilling in its eschatology. I personally found his chosen metaphor in this context obnoxious and offensive and the Nigerians have gone too far, as Akinola also did in previous comments about homosexuality and bestiality. But he certainly grabbed my attention. It is not difficult to imagine which one would write for the Guardian and which the Mail, given the opportunity. "The Word" is after all what Christianity is about, and until they understand how to use words with power, the liberals will continue to struggle.

Through all this, one organisation that must be experiencing a sense of schadenfreude from the Anglican difficulties is the Roman Catholic Church. The world has moved on from the paedophile crisis and with no schism pending, the Catholics seem beacons of unity and eirenicism. But all is not as jolly as it appears. In Tuesday's paper I reported two studies out in the last few days, both written in terms of "crisis" and one, from the Pastoral Research Centre in Somerset, claiming the Church is facing its "greatest pastoral and demographic catastrophe since the 16th century." This study is the longest but is mainly collections of tables and statistics collected by parishes and dioceses since 1911.

Shorter but consisting of useful analysis and interpretation on top of statistics, is Tom Horwood's book, The Future of the Catholic Church in Britain. Tom, who worked for six years in the Catholic Media Office, wrote this book in response to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's plea for "a lot more lay people to speak out." I'm not sure this was quite what the Cardinal had in mind. Tom accuses his former employers of a "reactionary, defensive approach" that he says has failed. He says there is an "inability to set a clear direction" and that the bishops are ill-equipped by their backgrounds and careers to do their jobs properly.

He addresses of course the child abuse scandal. I said earlier the world had moved on. I suppose it is my world that has moved on, the media world. Thousands of others are still learning about what really happened. In WH Smith at lunchtime today, I picked up the number three bestseller in paperback, Kathy O'Beirne's "Don't Ever Tell". From the cover and inside, I learn that this is a story of a destroyed childhood. Kathy describes her incarceration in a series of Catholic homes in Ireland and how she was sexually abused and had a baby at 13 in a Magdalen laundry. She has led the campaign for justice for Magdalen girls for the past 11 years. Given how this book is selling, hundreds and thousands of people are learning the truth of the suffering of children at the hands of the Church. How can the Church survive this, and does it deserve to?

The world still seems to want a good, strong Church. The reaction to some recent stories I did, both sadly published before The Times gifted me with this astonishing new medium in which to discuss the issues they raised, indicated the strength of the passions still aroused by religion. One of the stories was about some US research that purported to prove that religion did more harm than good. The other was about a document from the Catholic bishops of England and Wales that challenged the literal truth of some passages of the Bible. So people still care. They want a godly church, and they get terribly upset when journalists appear to challenge it in any way.

But just how the Catholics and Anglicans resolve their "issues" to bring about such a godly body as a  Church should be I have no idea. Describing other Christians as "cancerous lumps" cannot be the answer. I am just glad it is Rowan Williams and the Pope who have got to sort it all out, and not me.

(Note to readers: some people have been complaining they cannot access the links in my posts.  That is because I post them as pop-ups so as not to direct people away from the TimesOnline site. You can override your pop-up blocker by pressing the 'ctrl' button when you click on the link. rg)

Comments

[Christopher]

PS

"And there is a special case where the bride and groom vow celebacy before marriage and their marriage IS consummated? "

I did not make that very clear. I mean of course that it is regarded at sacramental, not that it was consummated sexually.

[Robin Bather]

OK Aidan, I have read Humanae Vitae and agree that family planning is covered albeit in the recommending of an unreasonable, unreliable, quasi system quite unworthy of the label "family planning". As good a recommendation to an obese person might be "don't eat".

However what really is unbelieveable is how a group of people so emminently unsuitable and unexperienced for the job, have the presumption to lay down so called laws in an area where they can only imagine the situation, problems and nuances.
We have here, perhaps one of the few cases where Irene Lancaster's statement applies-- only people with first hand knowledge should give an opinion. The glaring difference being that in the case of human sexuality, the Catholic Church (supposedly) is elevated to another higher moral plane and confesses to having no first hand knowledge of the whole affair. This document is as profound as a book entitled "How to Ride a Bike".

Their missive is as extensive as any propaganda document should be, covering how bishops, priests, scientists, doctors & nurses, and of course married couples, should respond and behave in this area.
Far from being a "loving human document" as some have said, I find it to be a misleading evil piece of quasi logic which will continue to cause misery to those poor souls who attempt to comply with the laws of the Church of Rome but who will have to pay a very high price.

A bad document that interferes in an area that does not correspond to any religion.

PS
I was surprised there was no section on Paedophilia. Perhaps the Pope forgot.

[Christopher]

Aidan said "but you should at least criticise the Church for what it actually believes, not what you attribute to it."

Well, Aidan that's pretty dismissive because I am not sure what I am supposed to have attributed to the Church; I thought I was critiqueing a doctrine. My objection to HV, at risk of repeating myself, is that if sex has to be open to the transmission of life and for no other reason, I find the idea of the rhythm method an odd get-out. Why is sex of any kind allowed once you know the outcome is NOT open to the transmission of life in advance (post-menopausal wives, men who've had prostatectomies and so on and so forth - let alone monkeying around with thermometers to detect an infertile period in the cycle)? There are cases where some Catholic priests have refused to marry paraplegics because they couldn't, in their opinion, have sex that would produce babies - again the doctrine is that the sacrament is conferred at consummation. But then what about the Virgin Mary's marriage? And there is a special case where the bride and groom vow celebacy before marriage and their marriage IS consummated? Too many exceptions by far.....

The Catholic Church is usually able to be consistent because it is absolute; hence no divorce (except for the wiggle-room of annulments - okay if you have not consummated the marriage or went into it without full consent - but even there I know of a case of a man and wife who got one after three children and the man himself doesn't know why he got it.) The Anglican church's present agonies are not a little to be attributed to changing Jesus's teaching over remarriage of divorcees while trying to maintain a hardline against people in same-sex loving relationships. Here the Anglican Church is prepared on grounds of compassion to adjust dominical rules for some and unbending towards others about whom as a category it is arguable the Bible may not even speak; at least the Catholic Church is unbending towards all (except, as I say, in the rhythm method get out and the way some rich and famous people get annulments - Nicole Kidman? Oh no, hers is another exception, a Catholic who has a first marriage NOT in a Catholic church gets to have a divorce AND a white wedding in a church with all the trimmings.

Thank you for the reference; as it happened I had just read Humanae Vitae before I answered you and that was what I saw in it - a paean to married love but with the subtext that sex was really limited to reproduction with a few exceptions to allow non-creative sex to somehow uphold the idea that "man and wife co-operate with God's plan for humanity ", as you say. Fine, if you believe there is a god with such a plan, but my point still is, if the Church allows the fooling around with thermometers to avoid the sperm meeting a fertile egg then why not be honest and say, at least to happily, sacramentally married couple ONLY, if it wants maintain the sanctity of sex inside marriage, that they can use mechanical methods? That was what I was trying to say, not trying to speak for the Church. What is the difference between 'wasting' the sperm inside an unreceptive vagina, or outside, or in a condom? The old ideas that the sperm contained the human being in toto, the mother being merely the seed bed, was inherited from the ancient Greeks (c.f. Aeschylus's Oresteia for this argument in the goddess Athene's judgment); in many ways it seems the Church still clings to the idea in some weird and obfusticating way.

When we hear now that Trujillo wants to excommunicate scientists and doctors involved in stem-cell research I hope people will remember what he said about the structure of condoms being permeable to the HIV virus. He didn't just say some are faulty, he actually said the latex membrane was permeable.

[Aidan Twomey]

Christopher,

Your criticisms of the Church may or may not have validity, but your view of the Church's view on sex has little to do with what the Church teaches : I suggest that you might like to read Humanae Vitae before criticising it again :

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Humanae Vitae has no problem with limiting the size of families. It recognises that sex is an expression of marital love. In essence, it says that man and wife co-operate with God's plan for humanity, and that to shut out the possibility of new life from sex is to thwart this plan. It is an exalted view of marriage, but it is beautiful.

I think the fundamental difference between your position and the Church's position lies in your admiration of "taking control of your own destiny" - the Church teaches that it is our mission to fulfill God's plan for us, not make one for ourselves. You might think this is cobblers, but you should at least criticise the Church for what it actually believes, not what you attribute to it.

[Chris]

"Both Catholicism and Christianity teach, in broad terms, that the purpose of sex is dual: to unite man and woman into one new and greater flesh (as per Genesis and Jesus Christ), where they become, truly one new body, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically."

Somehow it comes as no surprise that you buy into that, James, but it is only rhetoric, and to those don't share your religiosity, hyperbolic nonsense. Shakespeare calls it making the beast with two backs, which is pretty descriptive too.

[James]

No, Christopher.

Both Catholicism and Christianity teach, in broad terms, that the purpose of sex is dual: to unite man and woman into one new and greater flesh (as per Genesis and Jesus Christ), where they become, truly one new body, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and physically - and exist to love the other half for all the days of their lives, and also, to open up and enable possibilities for the creation of new human life - and in the married state provide the best locus for the raising of that new human life.

Further, getting false teeth, or taking an aspirin, does not thwart a Godly purpose. Purposefully preventing the creation of new human souls does.

James

[Christopher]

Dear Aidan

I agree there are many things about the Catholic Church to admire, and I also like Thomas Merton, St Francis and Teresa of Avila. Thomas Merton has been an inspiration to many people inside and outside the Church - he was very open minded about Buddhism, for example. The Great Teresa, Doctor of the Church, said once she read the psalms in Spanish after having chanted them in Latin all her life that she was disappointed - she had thought they had meant so much more. She had a sense of humour - she once fell on her face in the mud getting out a carriage and said "Lord, if that's the way you treat your friends no wonder you've got so few!" I was visiting the Cistercian monastery of Mt St Bernard's Abbey soon after the monks had decided to translate the liturgy into English shortly after Vatican II. As you know monks sing the whole psalter each week so they get to know and love the psalms. But when they translated them they realised they contained passages of barbarity that sounded worse when you took the veil of Latin off. In fact words having to do with killing significantly outnumber words having to do with love in the Bible. So the good monks simply sing the psalms and readings with the barbaric stuff cut out. Are they correct to adapt the scriptures to a more compassionate reading? I don't know.

I think the Church's problems with sex can be laid at the door of Augustine who never got away from his Manichaean view of sex. It is odd that humans play god and are encouraged to in every other respect of life than with sex. In fact every aspect of our life could be said to be quite unnatural - so you can have a heart transplant, wear false teeth, completely change the blood of a blue baby at birth and so on but you must not control sexuality. Overpopulation of the world is fine, just as long as you don't try to control it except by the use of the so-called rhythm method. This may work for some people who have the knowledge and the time - and can afford the new accurate high-speed digital thermometers - most people see it as a dishonest cop out. Until the 20th century all the other churches banned artificial contraception but gradually they have all come round. The cynic might say it was because their bishops are married but it might be that they also see that sex is also about pleasure - and what is wrong with that? And if it is only to be limited to good boys and girls who are having it to have a nice little Catholic baby and whose pleasure in the act is a quite incidental and unnecessary adjunct, then why is it allowed for women past the menopause, or couples who are NATURALLY infertile (that word again). If sex was only for reproduction and nothing else then the Church shouldn't even be allowing such concessions as the rhythm method. But religion is full of wriggle room. People use their ingenuity to get round laws, e.g the use of light boxes in hospitals, or lifts that never stop on Shabat, or the eruv around London. Is it like playing a game with God and saying "Ha! I got out of check on that one"? Irene please advise why this is done. I imagine there is some rabbinical teaching, even humour in it somewhere.

But, allowing the rhythm method as the exception the Church is not trying to give further teaching as in Zen (and perhaps in a rabbinical sense) about growing up, coming of age, and taking control of your own destiny, keeping a rule and at the same time having fun with it; rather the Church is reiterating that sex is really only about biology, and all that mucky stuff is a necessary evil. So much better to be celebate. Humanae Vitae might be seen as a beautiful paean to marriage but it seeks to interfere in areas which have nothing to do with the old men in the Vatican whose sexuality is in most cases a grey area (if you want details see Peter Tatchell's website on the Pope). How many people realise that this interference even goes so far as to tell people that they are only allowed to have sex "coitus adspectans" facing each other? No other position is a permitted. And as for oral sex....forget it.

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

Hi, Marc!!

Thanks so much for recommending my blog. Others have also found it most helpful, and comforting, including many who are not Jewish.

Including a young radio producer who has just invited me onto her programme to explain the situation in Gaza and also to contribute to her programme 'Thought for the Week'.

A

[Marc]

Alastair
You may be an orginal sinner and an aetheist but you are also a divine optimist if you are expecting a straight answer from Irene Lancaster - if you find her comments confusing try her newly set-up blog - it's the theological equvalent of Suddodak - remember she is an academic so clarity is not her greatest attribute!! Anyone who engages in detailed critical analysis of what she writes just gets labelled as anti-semitic - it is the most embarrassing trait of of a certain generation of my co-religionists - if we start to lose and argument just play the anti-semitic card - whatever you do don't criticise Israel! Yasher koach - ( keep at it brother!) Marc

[James]

"Describing other Christians as "cancerous lumps" cannot be the answer."

---

C'mon Ruth. Akinola did NOT describe Christians as 'cancerous lumps.' He referred to ECUSA as a cancerous lump in the body of Christ. It is.

All sin is a cancer to our souls. The promotion and glorification of sin (of any sort) leads to degradation in this life and loss of the next. Futher, those who promote and glorify sin to our children (including acts like homoanal sodomy and other sexual license and perversion) are not Christians. They're something else.

Akinola is right. You either excise the lump, or you allow it to poison the body. There are no other possible alternatives.

No amount of hand-wringing or creating multiple associate and other 'levels' of Christianity (as per Rowan Williams) will change that. The poison is deeply in the veins of Anglicanism now. Either excise, or die.

James

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

Alistair: it is you who are confused: you confused our two names, that is all.

And it is not necessarily you who are confused by what I meant, but others.

[Gerry Lynch]

N. Olafimihan, your analogy does not stand up. The primary purpose of the Vegan Society is to promote veganism. The primary purpose of the Christian church is not to promote second-class treatment of homosexuals. Unless of course, you know different.

[James]

"The commitment of the US Church to liberalism will best be demonstrated on the day they fight for the rights of other people with a different interpretation of morality from the Bible, such as polygamists and people with multiple partners, to be ordained as Bishops."

---

Indeed N. Olafimihan. Once anything goes, anything goes.

All things [in the anything goes Creed] degrade the family and the soul, and the beautiful ideal of man's and woman's combining into one new and greater flesh - there to love each other 'til the end of their days, and there to be open to the creation of new human life, to be raised and loved in the best possible way.

God's way is always the smartest and most loving (agape love, not the 'feeling' of love) - and is what is truly best for us, for society and for children.

What churches like ECUSA want (and societies too) is a huge dollop of paganism, while still trying to believe they live under the guidance of God and Christ. That is of course a profound delusion, but worse, they always but always end up fully pagan. It is only a matter of a little time.

You cannot have just a little Christ. It's all or nothing. (As God and Christ Themselves tell us over and over...)

James

[Alistair McBay]

I repeat: What is the point you were trying to make, why is Ruth confused and what do you find really interesting?

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

I like your sense of humour, Alistair.

Irene

[N. Olafimihan]

Without going into the rights and wrongs of the conservative view of homosexual acts/behaviour, it is clear that the conservative view has been church doctrine for the past two thousand years. Given the lack of consensus on the issue therefore, one can liken the view of the liberal church as that of active meat eaters demanding seats on the executive of the Vegan Society, and demanding that the society change its rules to accommodate them. Until the society changes the rules, a new or different point of view cannot be forced on the others just because noe part has decided that the existing way is wrong. As an African, it is hurtful to see no one considering it from the point of view that homosexuality is just one of several sexual activities grouped together in the Bible, along with such commonly practised sexual behaviour in Africa, as polygamy. And in these days of relaxed sexual morals, why should the Liberals ignore the other issues? Every part of the Anglican communion has it challneges. The issue is whether the generally accepted iblical rules should be binding today, not forgetting the fact that Church membership is entirely voluntary, and comiing toghether as a Communion, is based on shared beliefs. For this reason, African Bishops for example, would no more ordain a practising polygamist, than a man who keeps a mistress apart from his wife, (both of whom, abound in the African church) If therefore they cannot do this, how are they expected to support the ordination of practising Gays? What name will they be called for this? The fact that homosexuality is the issue in the West omits the fact that the African Church takes a consistent position on the overwhelming moral issues mentioned in the Bible that exist in the African Church and to which the Anglican Church Universal also appears to take a uniform view. The commitment of the US Church to liberalism will best be demonstrated on the day they fight for the rights of other people with a different interpretation of morality from the Bible, such as polygamists and people with multiple partners, to be ordained as Bishops.

[Alistair McBay]

Irene, I know the fictional Jesus is said to have spoken in riddles, but there is no need for you to do it.

What is the point you were trying to make, why is Ruth confused and what do you find really interesting?

Words of one syllable and joined up writing now - remember I am an unrepentant original sinner and an atheist, and I am sure James would want you to tell me very slowly so that I understand

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

I think some of you have missed the point I was trying to make and also some have confused Ruth for me.

Now that, I find really interesting.

[James]

"I think Humanae Vitae is a beautiful document (if hard to love up to)"

---

Indeed, Aidan. Humanae Vitae is one of the most beautiful and Godly and prophetic documents of the 20th century.

It presents, forthrightly, a Godly way of living and creating new human life and nurturing family and the right use of our Godly bodies (for which, the Bible reminds us, a steep price has been paid) - as opposed to the way of the world - which promotes the selfish and lustful use of those bodies.

James

[James]

"James, that last post says more about you than it does about Christopher"

---

Thank you.

James

[Alistair McBay]

James, that last post says more about you than it does about Christopher

[Aidan Twomey]

In fairness, Christopher, the hierarchy is only one of the areas that Catholics listen to. There is the great body of thought, from Augustine, through Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Merton, the body of which forms a teaching as binding on us as the hierarchy. There is always self-renewal in the church, witness St Francis, St Theresa or Karl Rahner. It never comes from the hierarchy, but the hierarchy is the way that it can be channeled and spread throughout the church. This is as far as can be from relying on a guru : it doesn't matter from whom the teaching comes, but it will come. Incidentally, I think Humanae Vitae is a beautiful document (if hard to love up to) : perhaps you could tell me which arguments you disagree with.
Alistair, I am quite willing to debate the use of embryos with you elsewhere (or even privately if you want to get in touch). I am even willing to discuss it on purely humanist terms. I await your mail.

[James]

"They will be upheld by people saying, in the words of the Abortion Rights flyer: "I've had an abortion. I am not ashamed." I've had an abortion, and I'm not ashamed in the slightest."

---

Many people feel no shame for the things they do, Christopher.

Many murderers fall into that category, many child molesters fall into that category, many torturers fall into that category.

I assume they'll win their rights to murder, molest children and torture as well.

James

[James]

"Any humanist should agree that acting like this denies what is special about humans and will end up in savagery that debases all humans."

---

Indeed, Aidan. Once you treat human beings as commodities to be used or destroyed for others wants (embryo farms, abortion, partial birth abortion, murdering born babies meant for abortion), you establish the principle that human life (however you decide to define it) exists only for the convenience of others. You rip away any sanctity at all with regard to human life.

That's why people like Peter Singer at Princeton University advocates a parents' 'right' to 'put to sleep' any child before it attains age two.

Eventually, someone takes power who finds YOUR life inconvenient. The principle established leads eventually to Hitlers and exterminations.

James

[James]

"If the Church worries so much about the fate of an embryo of three cells how much more should it worry about a child who has been born?"

---

The Catholic Church allowed great evil to seep into itself with the child molestation scandal (90% of which involved homosexual priests preying on teenage boys - in many different countries).

All Christians are called to protect children (from the instant they are formed) and human life, to protect the innocence of children, and to safeguard them from the sins and evils brought about by others.

James

[James]

"And James, no, embryos aren't "children", but that's another story..."

---

They are not fully formed (in fact, a human is not fully formed until after puberty), Alistair - but they are of course children. Every embryo is the son or daughter of its parents.

In just the same way, a caterpillar (not fully formed) is the offspring of its butterfly parents.

James

[Alistair McBay]

Maybe Ruth should start a separate thread for this, as we are straying slightly from the point of her article. However, Aidan, you might like to look at this and follow the links. The moral controversy about this is like the moral controversy over abortion - it will never go away. You can see from these links though that Christians generally, and catholics in particular, are split on the issue:

http://www.isscr.org/public/ethics.htm

Moral Debate Concerning Embryonic Stem Cell Research

"Our task is to decide how we should act toward an embryo, and whether we should recognize, as we do among adults, distinctions between embryos of various types and in various circumstances. We immediately encounter the question of what beings we should classify as "persons" for purposes of the duty not to kill persons. Answering that question with the view that not every embryo should be classified as a person for purposes of that duty, the Protestant theologian Ronald Cole-Turner, M. Div., Ph.D., has offered a Christian moral defense of humanitarian embryo use. "

"In contrast, Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., of Georgetown University states a Catholic case against embryo use. As is well known, the official teaching of the Holy See of the Roman Catholic is unequivocal in its opposition to the use of embryos as means. For one who holds that we should treat every embryo as a person for purposes of the duty not to kill, embryo-destructive experiments could gain justification only if it were argued that it is sometimes permissible to kill some persons in order to help other persons, and that is an uphill argument within any moral view. But the official teaching of the Holy See is not the only interpretation of Catholic tradition. Margaret Farley, Ph.D., of Yale University explains that in history and in present theological discussion, there is more than one Catholic line of reasoning, including a strong Catholic moral defense of humanitarian embryo use. For one who concludes that we are not obliged to refrain from using embryos that will never enter a womb, embryonic stem cell research is a case of fostering a worthy end by using only nonpersons as means."

[Christopher]

"Cardinal Law, former Archbishop of Boston, should be spending his days in prayer and contemplation in a monastery in my opinion, rather than being feted in the Vatican."

I think behind bars would be better, Aidan. And as for
"the hierarchy is inching towards a more just position" I think "dragged kicking and screaming" would be more apposite.

It is clear the Church will only move on when people stop listening to the Vatican, fellows like Trujillo, speaking whereof he does not know, on the subject of condoms, or the listening to the poisonous drip of homophobia from the former Cardinal Ratzinger in various documents when he was in charge of the CDF.

Like you, I have known the Catholic Church from the inside, but I think your hopes for self-reform are frankly deluded. There are very many good Cathoilc people, but as a corporate entity the Vatican Church is interested first and foremost in self-protection. The laity came of age when they ignored Humanae Vitae and Paul VI's loss of nerve. The human race needs to grow up, start thinking without reliance on the guru mentality.

It reminds me of when Andrew Harvey eventually parted ways with his guru Mother Meera "when she started talking like Jehovah"! We are all in this life together and as a species have to use our brains or we are sunk. Listening to the hierarchy won't do it.

[Christopher]

OK Irene, I get the context now - I have read on down.

I know Alistair can speak for himself but surely the issue is not that Murphy-O'Connor shouldn't pontificate on faith and morals; in a case where he ought to have exercised his judgment and authority he didn't. He shuffled the offender around, perhaps putting children at further risk, and then disengenuously blames lack of guidelines when the issue is protection of children. Alistair is right though, the Catholic Church through the Vatican document enforcing secrecy on bishops in cases of child-abusing priests puts churchly scandal above the safety of children.

If the Church worries so much about the fate of an embryo of three cells how much more should it worry about a child who has been born?

[Aidan Twomey]

As a Catholic, The hierarchy's response to the child abuse scandals is the most dispiriting episode in the church in my lifetime. For example, Cardinal Law, former Archbishop of Boston, should be spending his days in prayer and contemplation in a monastery in my opinion, rather than being feted in the Vatican. Recent moves by Pope Benedict against Fr Maciel show that the hierarchy is inching towards a more just position. We are moving on, but only very slowly and at huge damage to the body of the church.

However, these faults should not stop us listening to the hierarchy when they are correct, and they very much are in the case of embryonic stem cell research. The Church welcomes enthusiastically stem cell research from non-embryonic sources (eg placenta), but even your humanist principles, Alistair, should tell you that destroying one human to conduct experiments that may (but have not yet shown any solid results) help others is not admissible. Any humanist should agree that acting like this denies what is special about humans and will end up in savagery that debases all humans.

[Christopher]

But Irene, did you see Zoe Williams's column in the Guardian today?

She says:
"...I do not, for instance, share the view that parents are the only people who understand children; or that you need to be the victim of a crime to comprehend prison sentencing; or that unless you had a family member involved in 7/7, you won't grasp the threat of terrorism. Taboos, however, are different. Gay rights were not won by a load of straight people saying "I don't mind if people are gay"; and abortion rights will not be upheld by a load of people saying "I agree with this right in principle". They will be upheld by people saying, in the words of the Abortion Rights flyer: "I've had an abortion. I am not ashamed." I've had an abortion, and I'm not ashamed in the slightest."

I don't know that she is pontificating - a loaded word, surely?

[Alistair McBay]

No, Ruth, I'm not - nice try, though! He is as entitled to pontificate on marriage as I am to pontificate about Israel. See this from Zoe Williams' column in the Grauniad today, which might help you:

"...I do not, for instance, share the view that parents are the only people who understand children; or that you need to be the victim of a crime to comprehend prison sentencing; or that unless you had a family member involved in 7/7, you won't grasp the threat of terrorism. Taboos, however, are different. Gay rights were not won by a load of straight people saying "I don't mind if people are gay"; and abortion rights will not be upheld by a load of people saying "I agree with this right in principle". They will be upheld by people saying, in the words of the Abortion Rights flyer: "I've had an abortion. I am not ashamed." I've had an abortion, and I'm not ashamed in the slightest."

What I am highlighting (as you well know) is that the Cardinal is conveniently picky over his areas of expertise in matters sexual - a self-proclaimed expert on all matters sexual, it seems, except child sex abuse by Catholic priests, on which matter he professed to be "naive and ignorant" (said on BBC 2 Newsnight), a convenient escape route when he could realistically have been prosecuted for aiding and abetting a child abuser in his immediate employ. Still, in covering up for Fr Michael Hill, we now know he was only obeying Vatican orders, on pain of ex-communication if he didn't. There's your biblical morality for you, James.

And James, no, embryos aren't "children", but that's another story and let's not get this blog hijacked by that issue, although no doubt you will try.

[CF]

I enjoy reading the blog. My religion compels me to point out the correct attribution of the quotation about the dead wench and the other country. It was Christopher Marlowe,in 'The Jew of Malta', not Eliot. Surprising?

(rg writes: Eliot used it in Portrait of a Lady in Prufrock, but you are write, it was from Marlowe. http://www.bartleby.com/198/2.html)

[Dr Irene Lancaster]

Alistair, are you suggesting that experience is necessary, before one pontificates?

[James]

Actually, Alistair, human embryos are people's children.

James

[Peter]

The real diiference between a sermon by frank grisworl and dr. Akinola has more to do with the fact that Dr. Aiknola's sermons are biblically based as opposed to Bp Griswold's empty and tired liberal platitudes of leftist fundamentalism. A well reasoned, well preached biblical sermon will always trump a merely leftist religious lecture.

This should not surprize because the Holy Spirit loves to empower faithful biblical preaching. Why else are churches that are faithful to Scripture growing while those who seek to establish a revisionist gospel are fading away. liberal Christianity is by and large staying alive because of the life support of large endowmwnts from the long dead. Churches faith to Christ and the Scriptures by contrast are growing despite their relatively meagre material resources.
2 Corinthians 10: 3 - 5 is mercifully still proving true.

[David]

"How can the Church survive this, and does it deserve to?"

Two key words, "Can" and "Deserve".

Matthew 16:18 is the answer.

To quote G.K Chesterton,

"When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, he chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward - in a word, a man. And upon this rock he has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link."

[Alistair McBay]

Excellent piece, Ruth.

But I don't think we have moved on from the catholic child abuse scandal, and I for one remain astounded and sickened by the fact that none of the cardinals who knowingly moved offenders from parish to parish has ever been tried for aiding and abetting the abusers, never mind jailed. We now now they did so because the Vatican threatened them with ex-communication if they didn't comply with the instruction to move these people around, and otherwise keep schtum about it. See this, for example: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=24&art_id=vn20021212061254430C381713&set_id=1

Hypocrisy in the Catholic church is in evidence this week - again. The so-called ‘Vatican Taliban’s’ latest threat of ex-communication for scientists (and politicians in agreement) involved in stem-cell research is the topic. When Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor visited Patricia Hewitt recently to put his case for a review of the UK’s abortion laws, he cited advances in medical science as a reason for reviewing the 24-week limit. Now, with Cardinal Trujillo’s attack last week on scientists at the forefront of embryonic stem-cell research, we see that the Vatican is only interested in championing scientific and medical advance as an ally when its narrow agenda can best be served by it.

Dear old O'Connor - didn't understand priestly abuse of children when it happened under his nose (something about guidelines not being available) but the man is nevertheless an expert on contraception, abortion, marriage and how women must use their bodies. Not bad going for a life-long celibate who will never marry.

As for Akinola and co, don't they have enough to do in Africa in the name of their supposed saviour without worrying about what those damned Yanks are getting up to?