In the UK it generated this response which I think summed up my feelings
Guardian CiF - I don't believe it
Murphy-O'Connor also speaks with forked tongue when he tries to portray the Catholic Church as some persecuted institution that means harm to no one. He says the Catholic Church is caricatured as "some heartless, insular institution that wants to deny people their freedom". Cardinal - this is not a caricature. It is the truth. Your own actions and pronouncements confirm it. You have tried to deny human rights to homosexuals, you have tried to rob women of the right to choose contraception and abortion and thereby take control of their lives, you have tried (and continue to try) to interfere with scientific research that may lead to the alleviation of enormous suffering. You have attempted to manipulate the political process by pressurising Catholic MPs. On a personal level you - and your church - try to control every aspect of your followers' lives, from telling them what to think, what to eat and when to eat it, to telling them who they can sleep with and even what they can and cannot do when they get between the sheets. You have argued that Christian leaders should have privileged input to government policymaking. You have said that you should have unchallenged access to the BBC. You are a politician as much as a priest, but no one has elected you. It is you and your church - not secularists or atheists- which are out of step with the people of this country ................. You ask why the government continually thwarts your will - the answer is that they are elected to represent the people, while you take your orders from an unaccountable central source in another country. You may bleat that people no longer believe - but that is their choice and choice is the one thing that the Catholic church fears.
Cardinal - this is not a caricature. It is the truth. Your own actions and pronouncements confirm it. You have tried to deny human rights to homosexuals, you have tried to rob women of the right to choose contraception and abortion and thereby take control of their lives, you have tried (and continue to try) to interfere with scientific research that may lead to the alleviation of enormous suffering. You have attempted to manipulate the political process by pressurising Catholic MPs. On a personal level you - and your church - try to control every aspect of your followers' lives, from telling them what to think, what to eat and when to eat it, to telling them who they can sleep with and even what they can and cannot do when they get between the sheets.
You have argued that Christian leaders should have privileged input to government policymaking. You have said that you should have unchallenged access to the BBC. You are a politician as much as a priest, but no one has elected you. It is you and your church - not secularists or atheists- which are out of step with the people of this country ................. You ask why the government continually thwarts your will - the answer is that they are elected to represent the people, while you take your orders from an unaccountable central source in another country.
You may bleat that people no longer believe - but that is their choice and choice is the one thing that the Catholic church fears.
The point being that I honestly have little idea what the religious views of his predecessors were, but Blair made his religiosity, his presumed piety, into an aspect of his premiership. Campbell was fooling himself when he said "we don't do god"; he might not have, but Blair did, each and every day. keep to the Fen Causeway
I know you are also very well read on Muslim faith. Could you do an LQD with the rest of the article to start a religions´ series? Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
