Pontifical University of St Thomas, otherwise known as the Angelicum, one of the Church's leading universities has invited Cherie Blair to speak at a conference. English Catholics are quite aware of the Blair's pro-abortion views, it seems the authorities at the Angelicum aren't.
Maybe they haven't read about her "contraceptive equipment" in her autobiography, or more worrying maybe they have.
16 comments:
" Blairs' ", surely?
Now perhaps catholics can understand why some people are chary of joining a church which tolerates open disobedience to its teaching among some of its prominent members. Why, Oh why ,can they not obey the Pope? Those who stay outside because of difficulties with some aspects of Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility look aghast at members of the Catholic Church who defy its teaching, indeed the teaching of all Christian churches until recently, on subjects such as abortion.
The Blairs - a shining example of Catholic family life (well...er... sadly not!). And yet they could be if they would listen to, absorb and understand the teachings of the Catholic Church, lose the arrogance, repent deeply of leading this country for so many years towards the 'anti-life abyss' on whose crumbling brink we now teeter and learn the meaning of humility and obedience. There is always time to carefully think things over, time for True spiritual reflection and direction.
God Bless them.
How deeply disturbing to read this.
I sincerely hope they obtain a large nember of complaints. Do you intend to write Father?
John Smeaton provides some relevant contact details.
You can contact the following relevant persons at the Angelicum:
•the organising secretariat of the conference, email convegno@pust.urbe.it
•the deanery of the faculty of social sciences, email fass@pust.urbe.it
•the secretariat of the university, email segreteria@pust.urbe.it
Yes, done so, I also included this mocking photograph.
Quite right Joseph!
Ok.
I think it would be a good idea to copy any complaints to this email address too 'benedictxvi@vatican.va'
This sort of news is just so depressing. Maybe they didn't know Cherie Blair's pro-abortion views, but surely they will have to uninvite her once they know? Let's hope they are pro-life and do the right thing.
None of JS links seem to work. My emails have bounced back.
I got a failure notice for the first email address listed only, but because I cc'd the others, it should have got through to them. I sent it a 2nd time anyway minus the first address, and know it got through.
It's about time the Blairs were both "UNFROCKED"
Hmm. I'd have more support for this kind of protest if it weren't the only thing the SPUC director was getting up to.
As it is, he seems to spend all his time and very generous salary producing a not particularly good blog which he uses to launch holier than thou attacks on bishops and other Pro Lifers. His blog isn't even a proper blog as it doesn't have a comments facility.
Aside from the fact that this forecloses the possibility of meaningful debate with him about his posts or wider pro life issues, it's also indicative of the lack of confidence he has in his arguments. A self-confident Pro Life blogger would know how to deal with whatever arguments came his way and would fling that comments box open.
The monologue blog he has serves one purpose only: celebrating the cult of John Smeaton which is what SPUC has become. The once mighty SPUC is now a self-perpetuating clique of natural oppositionalists who moan much about the awful state of the world but propose little in the way of fixing it.
For these reasons and many others, including the tape recorder incident and if John Smeaton is reading this he'll know exactly what I'm talking about, SPUC is not well regarded among Pro Life parliamentarians. It doesn't work with them or engage in political activism of any significance. In other words, it isn't fulfilling its main purpose.
This would all be forgiveable if SPUC were involved in genuine grassroots political mobilisation but there is no evidence that that is happening at all. When was the last time anyone saw an advert for a SPUC branch meeting? I haven't ever. It doesn't do any Pro Life recruitment work that I can see and I don't know how it fills its internal positions but it doesn't seem to be on the basis of democratic elections or competitive entry. I can't remember the last time I saw a vacancy at SPUC advertised in the religious press.
Yet despite this dearth of activity, despite this lack of transparency, SPUC gets a lot of money from the Catholic community. Where does it go? Fat salaries is one answer.
I think priests should ask some serious questions before they give their collection boxes over to SPUC:
Is this the best way the Pro Life cause can be advanced?
What does SPUC do with the money we donate?
Would this money be better spent differently?
Red Maria: My SPUC branch (a few people with jobs and families, and me) organised an information-provision service for letter writing (so for example when the Mentally Incapacitated Adults bill was up before the Scottish Parliament, the relevant parts of the legislation were quoted, explained, and the relevant names and addressses provided, so people could easily write their own letters to MSPs), organised training for speakers who were invited to state schools to speak (usually non-denominational schools), organised (and carried out) leafletting before elections, helped run a (non-SPUC) student conference on the culture of life, organised a fundraiser for a Romanian orphanage,... Why don't you organise a branch yourself?
I have posted on my blog a response from the dean of the social sciences at the Angelicum...you may find it helpful:
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2008/12/angelicum-dean-responds-to-blair.html
Fr. Philip, OP
At that lecture, which took place today, a question was posed to Cherie, from a morals prof, about her stance on abortion.
Her reply was unequivocal condemnation of abortion and the announcement that she is pregnant!
horrid
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