Page 2, 12th March 2010

12th March 2010

Page 2

Page 2, 12th March 2010 — Debate goes in favour of return to the glory of Catholic England
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Debate goes in favour of return to the glory of Catholic England

BY ED WEST
ENGLAND should be a Catholic country, a London audience decided after a debate last week.
At the event, hosted by the Spectator and held at the Royal Geographical Society, the 700-strong sell-out audience voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion: “England should be a Catholic country again”.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, author Piers Paul Read and Dom Anthony Sutch, former headmaster of Downside, spoke for the motion. Speaking against were the Anglican Bishop Lord Harries of Pentregarth, Labour MP Stephen Pound and journalist Matthew Parris. Broadcaster Andrew Neil was chairman.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor argued that the Reformation had cut England off from its traditional culture, while it was the layman who defended Catholic moral teaching.
Mr Read said: “Recently the Conservative Party has woken up to the damage done to England’s social fabric by the increasing number of broken homes. There is much cant about protecting the rights of children but, as Pope John Paul II said, the right of a child to be brought up under one roof by its natural parents should be seen as one of the most fundamental of all human rights. And there is no doubt that it would be if children had the vote. But children do not have the vote. They have no lobby. No Stonewall. No feminist MPs.” The wretchedness of broken homes, he said, “is cascading from generation to generation”.
Lord Harries defended liberal Anglican Christianity, saying that, although it was true that “he who marries the spirit of the age will be a widow in the next”, the Church of England had reacted creatively to change.
They had accepted evolution in the 19th century and contraception in the 20th, and today they do not oppose IVF, which gives many the gift of parenthood, he said.
Matthew Parris said that even though he was a non-believer he “refused to play the hired atheist” and would argue “from the Christian tradition”, a tradition he loved and which nurtured him.
“We know Jesus existed,” he said. “Because if Jesus had not existed, the Church would not have invented him. Jesus of Nazareth is a colossal embarrassment to the Catholic Church.” He took the nonconformist line that Jesus would have been horrified by gold, rituals and mantras, and finished: “This Protestant atheist holds that England must never be a Catholic country again.” Mr Pound finished by arguing that, even though he was a Catholic, he did not wish to see the Catholic Church wielding as much power as it had done in the past. However, he defended the record of the Church and joked that he was not secretly working for the opposing side: “I guess my allegiances... as I was saying to my brother, Fr Rufus Pound, after 7am Mass,” he joked.
Afterwards one of the audience members quoted Martin Luther and accused the debate of being a Catholic set-up.
Before the debate 247 people were in favour of the motion, 189 voted against, and 226 were undecided. After the speeches, 349 agreed with the motion, 227 were against and just 42 were still undecided.
Afterwards Dom Anthony told The Catholic Herald:“Hearing that the Royal Geographic Society’s hall, the venue which holds 750, was filled to capacity, filled me with apprehension. Would it be an Areopagite experience or rather more like the Coliseum? Ann Widdecombe’s debate with Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry did not calm me, nor sadly the Biblical admonitions to have no fear and trust in the Holy Spirit.
“My anxiety was picked up by my parishioners who soothed me by promising to pray for me. A preliminary meeting with the Cardinal and Piers Paul Read set the strategy. I was to speak third and try to pick up on the opposition’s arguments.
He said “the speeches were good, argued with wit, conviction and insight”.




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