Edmund Adamus blames UK's 'moral wasteland' on equal rights

[LeftishBrit]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/senior-catholic-edmund-adamus-blames-uks-moral-wasteland-on-equal-rights-2067112.html

A leading adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster has blamed abortion and gay rights for turning Britain into a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland" which has become "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".

Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to Archbishop Vincent Nichols, said Parliament had turned Britain into a country which is more culturally anti-Catholic than nations where Christians are violently persecuted such as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan.
....
In an interview with Zenit, a Catholic news agency with close links to the Vatican, Mr Adamus railed against five decades of equality legislation and the availability of abortion services in modern Britain.

"Whether we like it or not, as British citizens and residents of this country – and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies – the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death," he said.

"Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking – more than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."


(This could have gone in the Atheists forum or even GD; but I thought I'd put it here.)

Is the religious-right as influential in the UK as in America or quite a few other countries? No, not at all. But is it getting worse than I can ever remember it? Yes.

I am really not sure how much of this is due to political changes here - partly due to cross-fertilization of ideas between American and British right-wingers, possibly somewhat influenced by the Blair-Bush collaboration - and how much is due to right-wingers becoming more aggressive within both the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

It is interesting that Adamus does not include war in his concept of a British 'culture of death' - despite the fact that the late Pope did condemn the invasion of Iraq.

[lizerdbits]

1. Ah yes, those good ol days were so much better

Those homosexuals just need to stay in the closet and live miserable lives with an opposite sex partner. But now, thanks to their "agenda" we have to treat them like humans!! What an outrage!!

I won't really get started on abortion. I've known several women who've had them and it was an awful decision to make for each of them. Though they like to portray women who have them as using it as a method of birth control. It would be a financially stupid decision anyway compared to the cost of other forms of birth control, I think they were several hundred dollars and that was almost 10 years ago.

[LeftishBrit]

4. In any case, conservative Catholics like Adamus don't believe in 'non-natural' birth control either.

[mr blur]

2. 'moral wasteland'? I like it that way.

Sure beats the theocratic leanings of, e.g., the US.

I'm sick of self-important delusional idiots telling us what's right. They could start by addressing Catholic child abuse and priests adding to the 'culture of death' by being active in the IRA. Or they can just fuck off to Texas and join the other halfwits.

[LeftishBrit]

3. One thing that particularly interests/worries me here...

is that Adamus seems to think that a country's willingness to tolerate personal behaviour that (some) Catholics disapprove of, is a form of 'persecution' as bad as or worse than physically threatening or injuring people for practicing the Catholic faith.

No. Allowing people personal freedom is NOT the same thing as 'persecuting' those who disapprove of their actions. And the idea that it is, is both insulting to those in the world who are genuinely persecuted for their faith, and an EXTREMELY anti-democratic attitude.

[onager]

5. The Early Tudor Era could have taught him about "persecution."

"OK, this week you're all Catholic."

"I thought we were all Protestant?"

"No, that was last week. Convert or..."

"Or we don't go to heaven?"

"No, you get burned at the stake."

"Oh..."

...nations where Christians are violently persecuted such as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan.

I HATE these kind of statements, because I don't want to be seen as defending the damn Saudis. And I'm not.

But I did live there for 2 years, and Xians are certainly NOT "violently persecuted" in Saudi Arabia.

They aren't allowed to convert Muslims and they can't openly hold church services. That's pretty much the extent of the "violent persecution."

What they do is quietly meet at somebody's house on Sundays for prayer etc., on a rotating basis. I worked with a lot of American Xians who did exactly that every Sunday morning.

Saudi officialdom knows that too, and usually turns a blind eye to it.

Yes, a few years ago a Filipino nutjob was "jailed for Xianity." The Western press whipped that up into a frenzy of speculation that he might be executed.

But from what I read, he was actively trying to convert his Muslim co-workers - IOW, doing exactly what he was told NOT to do when he took a job in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis kept him in jail for a few days, then sent him home.