OK, call me Jingoistic. Tell me that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel; that the nation state is so last-year. The fact is that my heart warms to read accounts of Drake and the Armada (or better still, Lord Macaulay on the subject), when a brave little English fleet fought off the pride and the might of Catholic Spain. I strongly identify with the Church of England — not, indeed in any spiritual sense, but in cultural terms, as an expression of our history, our identity, our uniqueness. I love to read the lesson in our parish church (always provided that I can use the King James version). And indeed a part, just a part, of what makes our Monarchy such a special and resonant institution is the rôle of the Queen as Head of the Church of England.
The Church of England is an institution that emphasises our separateness from the continent of Europe. Call it, if you like, English exceptionalism. So in any dispute between Canterbury and Rome, you can expect to find my feet firmly planted in Kent (despite the trendy, irreligious, leftist modishness and climate alarmism of so many of our English clerics).
It was therefore with surprise, and a degree of unease, that I read the headline in today’s Telegraph: “Pope attacks Labour laws on equality”. Because the Pope is right. And to be fair, this is hardly a dispute between Rome and Canterbury, since our English Bishops seem to take very much the Pope’s line (or he theirs). Harriet Harman’s laws are unnecessary. They are divisive. And they are consciuously, deliberately anti-religious, and, in a broader sense, anti-freedom.
It is outrageous that a religious foundation, or a religious school, should be obliged by law to offer employment to those who profoundly disagree with their teaching. It is outrageous that a Bed & Breakfast proprietor should be obliged to accommodate under his roof people whose behaviour he regards as offensive and sinful. That is, of course, not to agree with the B&B owner. But it is to defend his right to live according to his religious beliefs, whether those beliefs are right or wrong.
So I hate to admit it, but the Pope is absolutely right. But it is a sad day when it takes a German Pope to correct the errors of an English government.
Well said Mr. Helmer! As a Convent-educated, cradle Catholic, I probably would generally agree with the Pope. But you have said what so many of us hardly dare say. The threat to our established churches in the UK is enormous and intolerable. I am also a B and B proprietor and the thought that I could be prosecuted for trying to uphold my particular moral principles under my own roof is nearly enough to make me want to leave the land of my birth in favour of somewhere in the world where these suffocating laws do not invade my own persona and private space.
A point well made Mr Helmer. Isn’t it strange that, under the present government, the Church in the UK is being attacked and attempts made to erode its standards, as never before: and under two prime ministers who both call themselves “Christians”. Obviously they’ve not heard the term “resignation on principle”.