Cardinal tells Catholics to reject (UK's) Labour over abortion

[sonicx]

Sound familiar?

THE Roman Catholic Church made a dramatic entry into the election campaign yesterday by backing Michael Howard’s stance on abortion and withdrawing its traditional support for Labour.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor ensured that abortion would play a greater part in the coming election than any other by praising the Tory leader’s call for a cut in the legal abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks.

The Archbishop of Westminster went on to admit that Labour was no longer the natural party of choice for the UK’s six million Catholics.

snip

“There has been a notion in the past that Catholics would be more in support of the Labour Party because they were working-class people who felt that the Labour Party stood for many of their needs. I’m not so sure that would be quite as true today.”

snip

The US Catholic lobby cost John Kerry, the Democrat candidate, himself a Catholic, thousands of votes from his country’s 50 million Catholics.

snip/much more

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1526042,00.html

[sasquatch]

1. I'm glad to see the current Catholic church is supporting fascism

:eyes:

[TahitiNut]

2. I guess the Church is "reaching out" to folks who don't seek guidance.

I guess it's a lot easier to impose Caesar's Laws than appeal to the conscience of Man. One fell swoop is simpler than the one-at-a-time toil in the ecclesiastical trenches.

Gee! I wonder why God didn't think of that? :eyes: "Free Will" is a nuisance, right?

[Hardrada]

3. U.S. Grant wanted to tax churches,

What's good enough for him is good enough for me. Tax the buggers!

[CJCRANE]

4. Both main UK parties

are starting to use US Republican-style tactics/talking points against each other.

Fair play to the Conservatives to up the ante with the abortion card seeing as Labour are playing the terror card for all its worth.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Interesting lie from a Murdoch paper that has previously supported Blair

The first thing to remember is that abortion does not split up easily along party lines in the UK - and there are no party positions on it (Cosmopolitan just asked the leaders for their personal opinions; votes on it and other matters such as capital punishment are 'free votes' in parliament). It's true there are more people against abortion in the Tories than Labour or the Lib Dems, but as the body of the article shows, there are some in Labour too.

Now, the cardinal actually said:

Praising Mr Howard’s commitment to reducing the time limit, he said: “This is something we can commend on the way to a full abandonment of abortion.”
...
“As bishops, we are not going to suggest people support one particular party,” he said. Ultimately, the Catholic bishops are not being party political. A Catholic would not be expected to vote for a Conservative with liberal views on abortion.

“There has been a notion in the past that Catholics would be more in support of the Labour Party because they were working-class people who felt that the Labour Party stood for many of their needs. I’m not so sure that would be quite as true today.”

But The Times has twisted that into the headline: "Cardinal tells Catholics to reject Labour over abortion". That's basically a lie. Now, we'd expect this behaviour from a Blair-hating paper such as the Daily Mail. But Rupert Murdoch's Times (and the Sun) supported Blair and Labour at the last election. So is Murdoch trying to put mistrust between the Catholic church and Labour? Or just trying to discourage people from voting Labour? Either way, it's an interesting development close to the presumed election. Has Murdoch decided to abandon Blair?

Link to print-friendly article, which may be accessible to those outside the UK, unlike the original (please give me feedback on whether this does work for you - we UK posters need to know if we can make Times articles available to you or not):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-1526042-2,00.html

For a balanced story, the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4349581.stm

[Briar]

7. "Support Tories over abortion, cardinal tells Catholics"

Was the headline in the Blairite Guardian.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Well, that's not right either

What he said was that Howard's policy was good. His letter seems to be specific (has anyone seen the entire thing?) that he's not calling for the support of one particular party, but that certain policies, of which abortion is an important one (to him), should be considered.

[Bridget Burke]

10. Your link to the Times article worked fine.

And, yes, the headline is deceptive. The matter is not nearly so simple.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Thanks - now I know for sure! (n/t)

[dsc]

6. Given some of the movement to the right under Blair

this may well be a true statement.

“There has been a notion in the past that Catholics would be more in support of the Labour Party because they were working-class people who felt that the Labour Party stood for many of their needs. I’m not so sure that would be quite as true today.”


I think they should have left abortion out of it, but I think Blair has stopped representing the working class to a large extent.

[Malva Zebrina]

9. Under Hitler's fascist, dictatorial regime, the Catholic Church

supported that regime,as did the Luterans and has championed the subjugation of women. Likewise under Mussolini.

In the fear of their own power women have also supported fascist dictates that seek to subjugate them. That is unfortunate , but there are still some around, with intelligence and knowledge of history, who will stand, as in the past, for women's rights. Some still will be willing to suffer humilliation under the guise of a religion trying to keep them at home, and pregnant, according to the religion.

It is not surprising to me, that this church has joined the ranks of the Republican right, along with all of it's extremists, in supporting this, even going to the absurd extreme of comparing women who support the right to choose, or women who have abortion,and the law itself, with the histerical accusation that they are similar to Hitler and the holocaust.

[noonwitch]

11. How much sway does the catholic church have in the UK?

There can't be that many voting catholics in the UK. I thought Cromwell took care of that centuries ago.

[Bridget Burke]

12. Hint: the Cardinal's name is "Cormac Murphy-O’Connor"

I believe quite a few Irish have moved to England over the years--tickets to Liverpool are cheaper than tickets to Boston.

Immigrants from Catholic countries & Catholics from the former Empire have probably swelled Church numbers in the UK. A few English managed to hold on to the Old Faith & others have converted since it became legal once again. I seem to remember some conservative Anglicans "going back to Rome" after the CofE made one of its liberalizing moves.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It hasn't been a voting bloc in the past

Estimates put the total number of Catholics between 6 and 9 million (10-15%). How many of those are active enough to take any voting advice from the church is another matter. And they'd be fooling themselves if they thought voting Conservative would make a difference on an abortion vote - they'd need to find out the opinion of the individual candidate.

The Catholics will come from a variety of sources - some British who have always been here, some of Irish descent who could have come in any time from hundreds of years ago to the present day (Irish citizens who are resident in the UK are allowed to vote in UK general elections without taking British citizenship), some from other countries.

[fedsron2us]

15. The Cardinal would appear to have delusions of grandeur

The religious vote is one aspect of US politics that just does not travel well to this side of the pond. When Tony Blair once wanted to put some invocation to the Almighty in one of his speeches he was famously told by his chief spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, that -'We do not do God'. Although this is widely regarded as being typical of Campbell's cynicism he was in fact giving Blair wise advice.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/04/nblair04.xml

Most Britons see religion as a matter of private conscience. They are very suspicious when they see it being used to justify policies in the political sphere. This is because anti-clericalism rather than Protestantism has been the predominant force since the 18th century. People just do not accept that priests,preachers, imams or rabbis have a God given right to tell them how to lead their lives.

[alcuno]

16. I'm Catholic. Since when has the # of weeks been a factor?

I've never heard that argument.

[fedsron2us]

17. Policy on abortion has usually been the subject of a "Free Vote"

in the UK parliament. This means that MPs vote according to their conscience rather than being whipped along party lines. I very much doubt that Michael Howard is going to change this arrangement. As a consequence the Cardinal's suggestion that people should consider this issue in deciding which party to support in a run upto an election is pointless.