News Roundup

New York Times writers warn Catholic ‘mafia’ has infiltrated US Supreme Court

The New York Times’ chief Washington correspondent, Carl Hulse, sincerely believes a shadowy “cabal” of Roman Catholic operatives has been working quietly to stack the Supreme Court with anti-abortion activists. His colleague, columnist Maureen Dowd, also believes a sort of Catholic “deep state” has infiltrated the court.

Dowd interviewed Hulse earlier this month and asked him about six of the nine justices on the Court being Catholic [Catholics were 20.8% of the population as of 2018. One of the six is the Obama-nominated liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and another was baptised and raised Catholic but is now a member of the Episcopalian Church] and the numerous Catholics involved in proposing the Trump Administration’s judicial picks.

Hulse said, “It’s just a fact, hard to explain. I honestly think that anti-abortion ideology is part of this, but there is a serious Catholic sort of mafia, which is probably not another term I should be using, that is driving this.”

The previous month, during a separate interview with Dowd, Hulse said, “There is a Catholic cabal . . . And it totally plays into the abortion rights fight.”

He added, “There is, like, a real Catholic underground that is influencing this probably in an outsized way.”

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Atheist parents take primary school to Court over assembly prayers

Atheist parents are taking their children’s primary school to the High Court in the UK, claiming that biblical re-enactments and praying in assembly are a breach of their human rights.

Lee Harris and his wife Lizanne have won permission to bring a judicial review against Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust (ODST) arguing that the school’s practices interferes with their children’s right to receive an education “free from religious interference”.

ODST is a multi-academy trust that runs 33 schools, all of which are Church of England bar four, including  Burford Primary, which are designated as non-religious “community schools”.

All church and community schools are required, by law, to provide a “daily act of collective worship”. Burford Primary holds a daily assembly for children which features “exclusively Christian prayer”, Mr and Mrs Harris say.

They add that once a week there is a longer assembly which involves an external Christian group “dressing as biblical characters” and acting out Christian stories including the crucifixion.

When they asked to withdraw their children, aged eight and ten, from the longer assembly, they were “left to play with an iPad” while a teaching assistant watched over them, according to the parents.

By failing to provide an alternative that is of “equal educational worth”, they claim the school has breached its public sector equality duty to have “due regard” to people’s beliefs and has also breached the children’s human right by denying them education.

The school also holds various functions in a Church, including a harvest event and the Year Six leavers event, where every pupil is given a bible.

Mr and Mrs Harris say that they do not want their children to attend these events, which leaves them “deprived of the benefit of what should be important elements of school and community life”. This amounts to another breach of equalities laws since their children are effectively being discriminated against, they argue.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, said that requiring children to participate in religious worship and then “marginalising them if in good conscience they cannot”, ignores their right to freedom of religion or belief.

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Former BBC boss criticises broadcaster over Belfast Pride

A former BBC boss has criticised the corporation for taking part in this weekend’s Pride parade in Belfast.

Writing in the letters page of the Belfast Telegraph, Ian Kennedy said he believed the BBC had “made a mistake in allowing its staff to participate in the Pride Festival as BBC representatives”.

Mr Kennedy, who is now retired, is a former head of BBC Radio Ulster and head of BBC NI television, as well as head of broadcasting for the south and east of England.

He said that while he “wholeheartedly” supported “equality for the LGBT+ community, including equal marriage rights”, participation in the parade as BBC representatives called into question the broadcaster’s impartiality.

“Whilst of course there should be no restrictions on any of them attending in a private capacity, I have problems on two specific counts,” Mr Kennedy wrote.

“First of all, the question of equal marriage is unfortunately unresolved in Northern Ireland. Whilst this remains the case, the BBC must be seen to be impartial on this subject and indeed on any contentious political issue, especially because it is in receipt of licence fee income from all sections of the community.

“Secondly, I find it very disappointing that the senior management of BBC NI has failed to face up to journalists’ questions on its stance – again because it should be seen to be responsive to all sections of the community that it seeks to serve.”

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Bishop condemns attack on Galway Mosque

The Catholic bishop of Galway has condemned an attack on a local Mosque.

Bishop Brendan Kelly said he was “dismayed and shocked at the willful and malicious assault made last night on the Maryam Mosque in our city,” and he wholeheartedly condemned the actions of the perpetrators.

The mosque, which is located on the Monivea Road on the outskirts of Galway city, was “badly and severely vandalised” late on Sunday night.

A statement from the mosque said locks and windows were broken during the attack and security camera equipment was stolen from inside the building.

This is the second time the mosque has been vandalised since it opened in 2014 with the first attack in 2017.

Members of Galway’s Ahmadiyya Muslim community say they are feeling terrified following an attack in the early hours of Monday morning

Bishop Kelly said he would visit his “good friend” Iman Ibrahim Noonanto to assure him of his personal support and prayers and to convey to him the very deep sense of outrage felt across the Christian community.

“An attack on a place of worship is an assault on God and an assault on all people of faith. We stand in solidarity with our Muslim neighbours.  With them, we reject violence, we reject division and we reject hate,” he said.

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Surge in Government restrictions on religious activity in Europe, says Pew Research

There has been a surge in religious restrictions in Europe over the last decade including measures to ban the wearing of Muslim head-scarves and similar clothing in public places.

That’s according to the findings of a recent Pew Research Center report that analyses restrictions on religion (by both governments and private individuals or social groups) from 2007 to 2017.

The report measures various types of government restrictions and social hostilities across eight different categories on a scale from zero to 10. In one of these categories – government limits on religious activity – Europe’s score doubled over a 10-year period. This was one of the largest increases in any of the five global regions analyzed.

Europe’s score also rose sharply in the category of government harassment of religious groups. In one year of our analysis, 2015, religious groups in 38 out of 45 European countries reported at least limited levels of harassment.

In addition to government actions, there also was a dramatic increase in Europe in some measures of social hostility to religion. Europe’s score in the category of social hostilities related to religious norms increased by a factor of four over a decade, exceeding the global average.

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Christian street preacher in UK exonerated after wrongful arrest for ‘hate speech’

A Christian street preacher who was arrested, handcuffed and taken away by police for ‘hate speech’ has been awarded £2,500 for wrongful arrest.

The former dentist was preaching outside Southgate Tube station in North London in February when a passer-by called police and accused Oluwole Ilesanmi, 64, of ‘Islamophobic’ speech. Approached by police he said he described Islam as an ‘aberration’ but insisted he was simply expressing his point of view as a Christian rather than denigrating Muslims. The police accused him of racism, arrested him for ‘breaching the peace’, wrested his from him bible, and drove him to a location four miles away, after which they ‘dearrested him’.

The arrest was captured on camera and posted online and has since been viewed ten million times. The case was raised in Parliament and a petition with 38,000 signatures calling for greater religious freedom for Christian street pastors will be delivered to Government next week.

Scotland Yard has now agreed to pay Mr Ilesanmi £2,500 for wrongful arrest and his humiliating and distressing treatment.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: ‘Despite laws that theoretically support the freedom to preach in public, in practice police officers are quick to silence preachers at the first suggestion that a member of the public is offended.’

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150th anniversary of Church of Ireland ceasing to be State Church

150 years ago this month the Church of Ireland was removed from its role as Ireland’s State Church by an Act of the UK Parliament.

The Irish Church Act 1869 separated the Church of Ireland from the Church of England and disestablished the former. The Act meant the Church of Ireland was no longer entitled to collect tithes from the people of Ireland although existing clergy of the church received a life annuity instead. It also ceased to send representative bishops to the House of Lords in Westminster.

Royal assent was given to the Act on 26 July 1869 and it was commenced on 1 January 1871.

Commenting on the matter to the Irish Times, Canon Patrick Comerford said leading Church of Ireland figures feared the “very worst for the future” and a “very dismal catastrophe”. However, those fears were never realised.

 “The Church of Ireland was left in possession of the cathedrals, churches and church schools then in use – which might not have been the fate of an established Church of Ireland at independence half a century later,” he said.

Dr Ida Milne, lecturer in European history at Carlow College, says disestablishment meant little to those made their livings as tenants rather than the professional classes that were a key element of the political and social Protestant establishment.

“We probably find the historic connection to the Church of Ireland establishment and the inequality it created in society an embarrassment, and would in the past have been teased about it,” she says.

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New UK Foreign Secretary ‘must pledge to protect persecuted Christians’

Christian charities are calling on the new UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, to uphold the promises of his predecessor to persecuted Christians.

The former Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, had pledged to act on the recommendations of the Anglican Bishop of Truro that were made in a recent report for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in support of those discriminated against because of their Christian faith around the world.

Mr Hunt had said during his campaign for leader of the Tory party that the first thing he would do as PM would be to work with countries whom Britain already has a diplomatic relationship with, such as Nigeria and India, and encourage them to protect persecuted Christians.

Religious freedom charity Open Doors told Premier radio they are: “urging the new prime minister, Boris Johnson, to keep his promise to ‘prioritise protecting religious freedoms’ and ‘stand up for those facing persecution’ and Open Doors is calling upon the new foreign secretary, Dominic Raab to carry on the vital work started by his predecessor and implement the recommendations of the report into the persecution of Christians.”

They added that they are pleased that shadow foreign office minister, Liz McInnes asked for the FCO to focus on countries such as Nigeria where persecution is escalating and for the prime minister’s special envoy on freedom of religion or belief, currently Lord Ahmad, to be made permanent.

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University reverses decision to ban pro-life group after legal threat

A student union has reversed itself and decided to grant affiliation to a pro-life student society after the initial decision to deny the group affiliation was challenged. The University of Nottingham Students’ Union had sought to argue that the values of the pro-life group “did not align” with their own and rejected the group’s application for affiliation on that basis. However, with the help of ADF International, “Nottingham Students for Life” was able to challenge the decision, arguing that the Union had a legal commitment to represent all students whether or not they agreed with their beliefs. Consequently, the Students’ Union has now reversed its original decision and granted the pro-life group affiliation.

Affiliation for student groups with the Students’ Union at a university is important for those groups as it permits them to use university premises for their events and often entitles them to a certain amount of funding.

Clare McCarthy from Right To Life UK said:

“This is great news for the pro-life students at Nottingham and the pro-life movement in Britain more generally. The difficulty pro-life groups face in gaining official status in universities has become the norm and Student’s Unions seem very happy to violate their own policies on ‘inclusion’ and ‘equality’ to discriminate against those who take a different view on abortion to them.”

“Universities were once considered the forum in which ideas and opinions were discussed and argued however, more and more we are seeing attempts to censor the pro-life argument from being discussed on campus. This behaviour sets a dangerous precedent for freedom of speech and expression more generally.”

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Dutch on the verge of recognising ‘four-parent’ families

New proposals concerning surrogacy in the Netherlands could mean up to four “parents” would have legal rights to one child.

The Country’s ruling coalition parties have proposed that the government should provide certain protections in gestational surrogacy arrangements and, separately, should provide some recognition of rights for non-biological parents, leading to a multiplicity of “parents”.

The Netherlands wouldn’t be the first governmental entity to recognize certain parental rights for up to four people. For instance, Ontario, Canada, passed a parentage law in 2016 that allows for up to four parents to a child. And based on one reading of recent New York State case law, the Empire State arguably permits up to six parents to a single child. The proposed legal changes in the Netherlands are intended to address current problems whereby step-parents, foster parents, and other non-biologically related persons acting as parents, nevertheless have no rights to a child.

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