MPs to force religion into the NHS

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Chaplaincy in the NHS – which is supported by 40 MPs from different religions – has said it will “name and shame” hospital trusts failing to provide chaplains from a required range of religions. The new grouping will attempt to force all NHS hospitals to provide a Catholic chaplain by making it a legal requirement.

The new group was formed with backing from former Conservative leader and Catholic Iain Duncan Smith, and will be chaired by shadow Health Minister, Mike Penning, an Anglican. The group will press for all major religions and denominations to be represented in hospital chaplaincies if they are present in the local population. Mr Penning said such hordes of clerics were necessary because the idea of “multi-faith” chaplains was “unsatisfactory”. All these chaplains are to be employed at the NHS Trusts’ expense.

Father Peter Scott, a national chaplain liaison officer and chaplain co-ordinator at Westminster Diocese, who pushed for the formation of the parliamentary committee, said: “The aim is to make chaplaincy services a statutory requirement, as it already is in prisons, the armed forces and higher education, but not in hospitals. In the NHS core principles there is nothing specific about the religious and spiritual needs of patients and staff.”

This latest push follows from the publication of a report from the Theos “Christian think tank” which revealed that hospitals in dire financial straits were cutting chaplaincy services in order to save medical and nursing jobs. Since then, the pressure has been increasing from the churches for this trend to be reversed.

When it was discovered that the Worcester Royal NHS Hospital Trust had cut its chaplaincy service to save money, the churches went into overdrive. Their pressure – as usual – has paid off and the Trust has been forced to announce that chaplaincy provision for its three hospitals will be part of the budget again next year – albeit that this is only a third of the previous complement.

As the churches push to dip into the stretched funds of hospitals around the country, the Bromley Hospitals Trust has announced that it has debts of £99 million and will have to lay off hundreds of staff. Drug orders have been slashed. London NHS doctors face a reduction in the supplement they get for living in the capital. The London Evening Standard reports that a superbug vaccine that could save thousands of lives has been shelved because of a funding crisis.

Perhaps the time has come, in the face of the financial crisis within the NHS, for the churches to examine their conscience and ask what moral right they have to demand money from such a service to finance something that should be their own responsibility? Why don’t they pay for the chaplains out of their own gigantic resources?

We’ve said it before, and we stick by it: these chaplains are parasites on a service that is there first and foremost to provide medical treatment and health care. When are we going to see the All Party Parliamentary Group for Making the Church Pay its Share?

Boy 13, gets 60 years for sex attack of girl, 6

A judge sentenced to 60 years in prison this morning a teenager who had pleaded guilty of kidnapping, beating and sexually assaulting a neighbour in Spanish Lake on Nov. 11, 2005, when he was 13 and she was 6.

St. Louis County Circuit Judge Melvyn W. Wiesman imposed the sentence on Sherman Burnett Jr., now 15 and the youngest inmate ever housed in the county jail.

In imposing the lengthy sentence — Burnett will be ineligible for parole until at least the year 2056, when he is 64 — Wiesman rejected confining Burnett in a juvenile offender program in Montgomery City, Mo., where Burnett could have gotten a chance at probation as early as age 17.

Testimony this morning disclosed that Burnett had blamed, in part, the 6-year-old for his own misfortune and had denied any sexual assaults in a recent interview with a state employee, even though he had pleaded guilty on Aug. 10 of sodomy and attempted rape, along with child kidnapping and assault.

Brent Buerck is a senior program administrator for the Missouri Division of Youth Services. He testified that he interviewed Burnett to see if the teen would be eligible for a dual jurisdiction juvenile program of his agency and the Department of Corrections.

Under questioning by prosecutor Rob Livergood, Buerck said he was told by Burnett that the incident was caused because the victim had thrown a rock at him, and Burnett had denied he tried to rape her. Buerck confirmed that there was no evidence in any of the records or police reports he saw to substantiate Burnett’s new claims or to rebut the victim’s statements about the attack on Nov. 11, 2005.

Buerck said, however, that it was not unusual for a teenager to minimize his crimes, and Burnett had qualified for the program. Buerck added under Livergood’s questioning that Burnett had told him: “he beat her up severely so she wouldn’t remember anything.”

Under the juvenile offender program sought by defence attorney Nellie Ribaudo, Burnett would get counseling, sex offender treatment and education that he couldn’t get in prison. He would have hearings when he turned 17 to see if he should continue in the program and again at  21. In that hearing, Buerck said, a judge would decide if Burnett was eligible for probation or would be turned over to the prison system for the balance of his sentence.

Wiesman rejected juvenile custody, saying Burnett was an inappropriate candidate “in light of the severity of the assault and what appears to be a threat to the community.”

The judge then sentenced Burnett to 20 years in prison each on counts of child kidnapping and assault; and 10 years each on charges of sodomy and atttempted rape. The sentences are to be served consecutively and Burnett will be ineligible for parole until he serves 85 percent or 51 years.

Burnett showed no emotion when Wiesman pronounced sentence. Seven members of his family appeared stunned. Also in court this morning were the victim and her mother. They made no oral statement.

From her hospital bed at St. Louis Children’s Hospital two days after the assault, the victim picked out Burnett from a school yearbook picture. She had half an ear torn off, a lascerated liver, a skull fracture and bruises from the top of her head to her thighs.

She told police she couldn’t walk after the attack. She crawled through a hole in a fence near railroad tracks but could go no further and, as night descended in woods near her house, she tried to cover herself with leaves. A police officer found her the next morning after a massive neighborhood search.

Faith Schools still covertly select pupils

The Mail on Sunday last week carried a story with the headline: “Church schools will not be able to select pupils under Balls adviser’s plans.” The story said that Richard Brooks, the new senior aide to Schools Secretary Ed Balls, thought Church school selection privileges were ‘unfair’ and wanted a new system that would hand admissions systems back to local authorities who would force Church schools to take a broad range of children based on their abilities and family income.

Closer reading of the story shows that it is based on a report from the Institute of Public Policy Research, a think tank with close ties to New Labour, at which Mr Brooks was employed before being head-hunted for Mr Balls’ department.

The IPPR report had shown categorically that “faith schools” are socially unrepresentative of the areas that they serve and that they covertly select pupils to screen out disadvantaged and badly behaved pupils.

The Mail on Sunday story said that “the Government refused to deny that the plan was under active consideration”, but the following day the Daily Telegraph reported that “the Department for Children, Schools and Families said last night that a rule change was not under consideration.”

Indeed, any suggestion that “faith schools” should lose the right to impose injustice on parents would create a deafening screech from the vested interests at Church House and the Diocese of Westminster.

Despite the fact that one report after another has shown that church schools ruthlessly cherry-pick their intake in order to achieve the results they do, the churches continue to claim that the schools’ success is all down to their religious ethos. (We will overlook — as the churches want us to — the fact that there are “faith schools” at the bottom of the league tables as well as at the top).

The Government is in thrall to the churches. It has created a monster that it cannot now control. And it is continuing to feed that monster in order to make it stronger. More “faith schools”, more privileges, more kow-towing to the demands of bishops and imams – despite the accumulating evidence that this is creating the exact opposite effect to the one they want.

And that’s before we get to the question of minority faith schools and the threat they pose to “community cohesion”.

Let us hope that the arrival of Mr Brooks at the department of education will inject some sense into the debate – and put some fire in the belly of Ed Balls. Let’s have an education secretary at last who is prepared to say “no” the churches. The effect will not be as catastrophic as the Government fears.

Calls for fundamentalist Christian to be removed from equality body

NSS

The appointment by the Government of an anti-gay Christian fundamentalist to the new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is “a slap in the face for Human Rights”, says the National Secular Society.

The Government has appointed Joel Edwards, general director of the Evangelical Alliance, as one of its commissioners. Mr Edwards has been prominent in campaigns to undermine women’s rights to choose an abortion and recent equality legislation for gay people in the areas of employment and the provision of goods and services. The Society is convinced that the appointment will damage the reputation of the Commission and raise questions about its objectivity.

On April10 last year Mr Edwards was reported to have said: “Forgiveness, respect, hope and trust are rooted in the Christian faith and they are the antidote to a culture that is being railroaded into an individualistic, rights-orientated mentality”. Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, described this stance as “denigrating the underlying basis for Human Rights”.

He continued: “We note Mr Edwards said on his appointment: ‘As a Christian leader, I believe one of my primary responsibilities will be to ensure that the values of faith communities — our concerns for important issues such as respect and tolerance — play an effective role in this commission’. This shows a disturbing focus on representing the values of faith communities rather than totality of Human Rights. What Mr Edwards is really trying to do is impose his religious values on others, whether religious or not. This is the very antithesis of Human Rights.

“This appointment must be reversed immediately. Mr Edwards comes to the job with a pre-formed agenda that is based on a literalist reading of the Bible. How on earth is he going to look objectively at sexuality issues when he so vociferously opposes equality for homosexuals and women’s right to choose?”

Mr Sanderson added: “It has been a concern from the inception of the Commission that trying to accommodate religion under the same human rights umbrella as sexuality is an impossible task. Religious people can change and abandon their religion or interpret it differently if they want to, but gay people cannot change their orientation. Mr Edwards would doubtless like to claim they can, and seeks to persuade them to desist from any sexual activity whatsoever.”

The NSS has written to the Minister for Women Harriet Harman requesting that she rethink Mr Edwards’ appointment as a matter of urgency.

Jim Herrick, chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, said: “Joel Edwards likes to present himself as Mr Moderate. He likes to portray those who oppose him as extremists. Yet he is a classic evangelical, one who will not accept that gay people are entitled to sexual expression under any circumstances. He is front man for a body that shelters a section of the population that is so illiberal one wonders where on earth this can lead in the context of Human Rights. This appointment is a step towards a redefinition of human rights.”

GALHA says that if the gay community doesn’t protest most vigorously about this appointment, some of its hard won new rights could be fatally undermined.

“Mr Edwards is going to present a most reassuring front when he is challenged. Don’t be fooled. His troops of fundamentalists are lining up behind him whooping with glee. They’ve got their man exactly where they want him. This appointment must be cancelled – and without delay,” said Mr Herrick.

The new EHRC amalgamates previous watchdog bodies dealing with race, disability and gender and adds new strands dealing with sexual orientation and religion and belief.

Church-State battle hots up in Spain

It’s all happening in Spain as the battle between Church and State continues to rage on several fronts.

In schools, the new civics course, which replaces the traditional Catholic religious education classes, has begun, with the Church screaming blue murder over its loss of power in education.

Church officials and conservative social activists are trying to have the mandatory courses scrapped, contending that the curriculum promotes ideas that go against church teachings. Among those is acceptance of homosexuals and, by implication, same-sex marriage, which the government legalised a couple of years ago.

“This is a frontal assault on the Catholic religion,” said Sister Maria Rosa de la Cierva, a nun who is the church’s liaison to the Education Ministry. “This is an authentic scholastic war … and part of a clear persecution, little by little, of the Catholic faith.”

Opponents of the curriculum have mounted a petition drive and claim to have gathered more than 20,000 signatures. They want children to be allowed to declare themselves “conscientious objectors” and boycott the classes. And they say they are prepared to go to court to press their challenge.

Education is only the latest squabble driving a wedge between the church and the state.

Church officials, a so-called ‘pro-family’ conservative lobby and rightist opposition politicians have reacted with horror to the Spanish government’s liberalisation of abortion and divorce laws, its reduction of state funding for churches and its efforts to better separate church and state.

At the heart of the conflict is a Vatican-backed effort by Spanish conservatives to restore traditional Catholicism to a place of importance in public life – and to recapture the power and influence that go with that. The Socialist government, however, sees the promotion of secular values and its socially liberal agenda as essential to the nation’s modernisation, especially in today’s fast-changing, multicultural Spain.

Now reports are emerging that the Zapatero government is considering proposing a whole raft of new secularising measures that will drive the Church to even greater fury. A Government working group is looking at changing the Vatican concordat to remove from the military the over-arching influence of the Catholic Church, so that people from other religions can find a place in the armed services.

Modern Spanish history is replete with the ups and downs of tumultuous relations between the church and state. As the renowned Basque writer Pio Baroja once put it: “Spaniards through the ages have followed their priests – either with candles, or with clubs.”

A deadly wave of anti-clericalism swept Spain in the 1930s, when another leftist government was trying to modernise the state and push aside a Catholicism that had reigned for centuries. In extreme cases, priests who resisted the changes were jailed, even killed, and churches burned.

It became one of the pretexts seized upon by General Franco to attempt overthrowing the government in a 1936 revolt that launched Spain’s devastating civil war. Once he won, Franco declared Catholicism the official religion, and the church and its priests gained enormous clout.

Under the fascist regime of Franco, Catholic instruction became compulsory in school. To this day, under a treaty that Franco signed with the “Holy See”, Spain is still obliged to offer Catholic instruction in all public schools – only now it is optional.

With the citizenship curriculum introduced this term, that arrangement raises the possibility of contradictory lessons. A pupil could be instructed in the beliefs of the Catholic Church in one schoolroom, then hear opposite arguments in another.

Education Ministry officials say that teaching about citizenship and laws, and all that goes with it, including tolerance for minorities, is essential in a Spain that is no longer homogenous. The number of children of immigrant parents in Spain’s pre-university school population has grown nearly tenfold in the last decade.

“The reality of Spain today is that students are coming from different kinds of families,” Alejandro Tiana, secretary-general of the ministry, said in an interview. “The education system should teach the importance of fighting discrimination and avoiding homophobia.”

Tiana said the citizenship courses would not force pupils to change their core beliefs but would help them understand what it means to be a responsible citizen in a diverse world. He said he believed the government would be able to negotiate with moderate sectors of the church to make the curriculum acceptable, saying, “It is not our desire to have a war.”

However, in another act of provocation to the anti-clericalists, the Vatican decided to “beatify” several hundred clergy killed during the civil war. Left-wingers claim that these priests and nuns were complicit with the dictatorial Franco regime and were little more than fascists themselves.

As the Church held one of its pompous parades to start the ‘beatification’ process, fights broke out between the faithful and the anti-Church radicals.

The Association for History Memory, which searches for the mass graves of those killed by Franco’s forces, said the Church had not admitted its role in the violence. “The Catholic Church hierarchy is missing an opportunity to publicly recognise its responsibility for supporting Franco’s military coup and helping the dictatorship,” it said in a statement. “It is claiming its share of victims without admitting its role as persecutor.”

Educators are powerless in the face of onward march of “faith schools” in London

Education experts accept that “faith schools” are cherry-picking pupils, but seem unable to do anything about it.

This was what Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, discovered at a recent conference at London’s City Hall called “Social Sorting and Education”. The main theme was about how children from many ethnic minorities and those with social disadvantage were catered for in London’s schools.

Professor Geoff Whitty, Director, Institute of Education, University of London was questioned by Keith about about the role of schools with a religious character (the technical name for “faith schools”). Keith pointed to the growing hard evidence of cherry-picking by “faith schools” made possible by their privileged selection criteria, and the huge disadvantage at which community schools were consequently placed relative to them. Keith had expected a torrent of disagreement from delegates, if not the chair, but there was none.

Two studies presented that day illustrated the problem quite clearly, but delegates – with the exception of groups such as the Campaign for State Education – just seemed to wearily accept that it was a fact of life over which they had no control. They are painfully aware that central Government encourages this inequality, and is delighted to attribute the “faith schools’” success to religious ethos, when everyone but them knows the success is unquestionably down to selection.

Another study showed the hugely disproportionate number of places in London secondary schools that were of a religious character, and yet still more faith schools are being opened.

Keith said: “I was even told by a delegate that a minister of education had personally telephoned councillors in a neighbouring borough to the minister’s home to encourage them to vote in favour of a faith school. It beggars belief that any minister would act in such a way, doesn’t it?”

Magistrates Must Be Made To Follow the Law

The National Secular Society is calling for the appeal by an ex-magistrate who failed to get an exemption from hearings in which he might have to place children with gay couples to be dismissed.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society said that “Andrew McClintock, of Sheffield, is not as he is claiming, facing discrimination for his Christian beliefs. When he took on his position he undertook to uphold the law without fear or favour. He now wants to pick and choose his cases, something other magistrates are not permitted to do. We must not allow the law to be religionised. There are already growing calls for Sharia law and if this appeal is allowed, the prospect of Sharia will come a step closer. It is essential that we have one law for everyone regardless of religion or belief.

“Christian activist Mr McClintock reportedly claims he has no option but to resign. Our understanding is that magistrates can opt to sit in several different aspects of law such as family matters or criminal law. We believe he has an option to stay on as a magistrate but is making this stand as a part of a proselytising campaign to push back the boundaries of the law. He should not be allowed to do so.”

Cherie Blair lets religion off the hook

In her much-hyped speech at Chatham House, Cherie Blair said that religion could in no way be used as an excuse for discrimination against women. But rather than exhort religion to change, she claimed that it wasn’t really religion that caused the discrimination, but cultural interpretation of it.

Against all the evidence, she also claimed that human rights were, in fact, a religious construct. This idea was challenged by NSS honorary associate A.C. Grayling on Thursday’s Today programme in a debate with Lord Harries.

In an interview with the Today programme on the previous day, Mrs Blair said that the Islamic veil could interfere with women’s right to self-determination and deny them choice. She failed to mention the Vatican and its own restriction of choice for women. Mrs Blair is, of course, a very enthusiastic Catholic.

Read the whole speech here

Catholics accuse Somerset council of ‘reneging on election promise’

CATHOLICS across the district are being handed letters saying North Somerset Council has ‘reneged on an election promise’ by planning to phase out transport to faith schools.

Councillors approved ‘in principle’ cuts to the service which mean all school transport to faith schools will be phased out.

Churchgoers are now being asked by the Catholic diocese to write letters as part of a campaign to get the council to rethink.

The plans also include sending pupils to Backwell Community School from Yatton by train rather than coach.

Catholic diocesan representative Justin Templer, who sits on the council’s children and young persons scrutiny panel, says he was not consulted on the idea which he describes as a ‘U-turn’ by councillors.

Mr Templer says he wrote to each of the three main political parties before the local elections in May and received a response from the Conservative group which left him ‘in no doubt’ about its commitment to keep transport for faith school students.

He said: “It was clear they supported the ongoing provision of denomination transport.

“I would like to express my grave concern and irritation that I was not involved. This was exceedingly discourteous. It is straightforward reneging on an election promise.”

An email from Cllr Jeremy Blatchford in April, which had the approval of council leader Cllr Nigel Ashton, said: “The group had the opportunity to add denominational transport to the budget and, despite searching for every economy possible, it was not mentioned.”

It added: “We would be strongly opposed to an instant review, as has happened elsewhere, but would seek a constructive open debate scrutinising not merely the cost of transport but the other issues including ethics, student and parental choice.”

Mr Templer said he learned of the proposals at a scrutiny panel meeting earlier this year.

According to Mr Templer, the Tory administration originally planned to abolish faith schools transport altogether, but watered down its proposals at the last minute to phasing it out over several years.

Mr Templer said the parents of pupils would be able mount a legal challenge against the council should the changes go ahead.

This week Cllr Blatchford said: “The budget for the next two years is an absolute nightmare and there a lot of things we have had to consider. I have spent eight years protecting this provision which I strongly agree with. It is a decision which does not sit very happily with everybody

UK Government hands over £70 million to Muslims to challenge fanaticism

The government is to make £70 million available to Muslim organisations in an effort to undermine extremism among young Muslims. The money will be spent on training imams, on religious indoctrination centres attached to mosques (otherwise known as maddrassahs) and funding internet projects.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said communities need the strength and skills to “face down a false and perverted ideology”. At a conference in London on Wednesday, Ms Blears is expected to say research suggests young muslim men aged between 16 and 35 are most susceptible to the message of extremists. This is disseminated in so-called ungoverned spaces including on the internet and in bookshops, snooker halls and clubs, she said.

By setting up local web-based projects where young Muslims can talk about their identities and grievances, it is hoped they will be less likely to be attracted to other sites run by radical groups.

Ms Blears will say: “Given the scale and enduring nature of the threat we face, tough security measures are vital. But they cannot be the whole solution. We have to overcome this challenge by giving communities the strength and skills to face down a false and perverted ideology. This challenge will be with us for years to come, and we must do more to support the next generation in winning it.”

Mr Blears made no mention of the separation and isolation that is on the cards once Muslim state schools are opened.

Sikhs want to carry daggers through security checks

National Secular Society (UK)

A delegation of British Sikhs this week demanded in parliament that they should be permitted to carry their ceremonial dagger, the Kirpan, through security checks at the European Parliament, at Windsor Castle, the London Eye and other places protected by tight security.

The delegation met the All Party Parliamentary Group for UK Sikhs and told them in a briefing document: “The Passport Office, Immigration Offices, Driving Standards Agency offices, some schools, London Eye, Windsor Castle etc. are all operating security policies without conducting a proper evidence-based risk analysis regarding the Sikh Kirpan. Institutions such as the European Parliament and the UN Human Rights Council have also denied practising Sikhs from the UK the right to meet elected representatives in person in Brussels or raise issues about religious freedoms in Geneva. Practising Sikhs are therefore being denied free access to public places in the UK and elsewhere, unless they are prepared to compromise their religious identity.”

The Sikh delegation insisted that the dagger was an essential “article of faith” that all observant Sikhs must carry. The Government had promised to create a code of practice that would offer guidance on this matter, but had so far not come up with it. Since 9/11 the situation had changed dramatically.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “This is utterly ridiculous. I was stopped and interrogated at an airport in the United States because I had omitted to remove a very small corkscrew from my hand baggage. I had forgotten it was in there and, of course, gave it up instantly it was detected on the x-ray machine. The idea that a large dagger could be permitted on air liners or in places such as parliamentary buildings that are prime targets for terrorists is completely crazy. Don’t these people know that knives were used to hijack the planes that were used in the attack on New York?

Mr Sanderson continued: “Who is to say that once such an item is through security it can’t be stolen and misused or even that its owner might have malign intentions. This is taking the religious symbols argument way too far – and those requesting this exemption are quite obviously looking to create a confrontation in which they can once again portray themselves as victims of discrimination. They may well find that on this occasion it will backfire on them.

“They claim to want equality. If that’s true, then they shouldn’t demand ‘rights’ that are denied to everyone else on the planet.”

Mum aged 22 dies for Jehovah leaving behind twins

The Sun

PALS of pretty Emma Gough told last night how the devout Jehovah’s Witness cuddled her newborn twins – then died just hours later after refusing a blood transfusion.

Shopgirl Emma, 22 – whose life could have been saved after complications set in – ticked a form before the birth insisting she should not be given blood.

Medics begged husband Anthony, 24, and other members of Emma’s family to overrule her after she suffered severe blood loss and began slipping away.

But because Jehovah’s Witnesses are barred from having transfusions they refused – insisting the young mum would not want to betray her principles.

Stunned friends last night described her grieving husband – a fellow Witness who has been left to bring up the motherless twin boy and girl – as distraught.

Peter Welsh, 24, was best man at the couple’s beach wedding in Barbados two years ago. He said: “Everyone is devastated by what has happened.

“We can’t believe she died after childbirth in this day and age, with all the technology there is.

“What makes it even more sad is Emma had time to hold and start to bond with her twins before the complications set in.”

Yesterday shattered Anthony, a central heating engineer, was caring for the tots at his home in Telford, Shrops – as the local coroner’s office launched a probe.

He wed Emma, who worked at high street store Next, in December 2005. Friends said the pair had been teenage sweethearts – and described Emma as a “bubbly modern girl, always full of life.”

She had been “ecstatic” to learn she was expecting twins. Emma’s mum Glenda and dad Jim – also Jehovah’s Witnesses – were at her bedside after she gave birth at the Royal Hospital in Shrewsbury.

She died in the early hours of October 25, a week last Thursday.

Yesterday grief-stricken Jim, 43, refused to comment. Both sides of the family – including Anthony’s parents Sham and Ian Gough – closed ranks and remained tightlipped.

A woman relative mixing baby feeds for the twins at Emma’s home insisted: “We have nothing to say.”

Best man Peter – also a Jehovah’s Witness – said: “Luckily Anthony is part of a big family. They will all pitch in to help him bring up the twins.” But he added: “Anthony is in pieces.”

Part of the Jehovah faith says the Bible prohibits the “consumption, storage and transfusion of blood” and quotes the book of Acts.

Some Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that to have a transfusion is the same as consuming or eating blood.

A spokesman for the local Kingdom Hall, where Emma and Anthony worshipped, said: “This is a terrible time for the whole family.

“They are all grieving terribly. The entire Witness community is distraught and including them in their prayers.”

Friend Peter, of Sutton Hill, Telford, told how Emma’s dream had always been to marry on a Caribbean beach. Loving Anthony organised the ceremony as a surprise.

Emma said at the time: “Anthony went ahead and booked it without telling me. You can imagine my surprise.” The excited couple exchanged vows in the tropical sun as a steel band played under palm trees.

Peter said: “Thirty guests, including both sets of parents, arrived a few days before the ceremony. “A local minister was booked to officiate. Emma and Anthony stayed in separate rooms in the hotel because our faith strictly bans sex before marriage. The wedding was the happiest day of their lives.

“They were desperate for a family and no one was surprised to hear Emma was expecting not far into the New Year.

“It was no great surprise that Emma was having twins because they run in Anthony’s family every few generations.

“Emma was as happy as I have ever seen her and looking forward to the birth.

“Now it is up to everyone to rally round and look after Anthony and the twins,” A coroner’s office source confirmed: “We are investigating why she did not have a transfusion. An inquest will be held.”

Rome condemns Queen Elizabeth

A Vatican-backed historian has attacked the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age as a “distorted anti-papal travesty” that risks dividing the West just when it should be rediscovering its “common Christian roots” in the face of Islam.

Writing in Avvenire, the official organ of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Franco Cardini said that the film formed part of a “concerted attack on Catholicism” by atheists and “apocalyptic Christians”.

Professor Cardini, who holds the chair of medieval history at Florence University and formerly taught at the Lateran University in Rome, a Vatican body, said that its aim was to “secularise and de-Christianise” Europe.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age stars Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth, Geoffrey Rush as Sir Francis Walsingham, her spymaster, and Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh. Directed by Shakhur Kapur, it was widely praised at the Rome Film Festival last month, with critics describing Blanchett’s performance as magnificent.

Professor Cardini said “a film which so profoundly and perversely falsifies history cannot be judged a good film”. It had potentially offered “a contribution to the understanding of a moment of vital importance.” Instead, the Virgin Queen was portrayed as “an able politician and courageous sovereign” while King Philip II of Spain was shown as a “ferocious, fanatical Catholic, swinging his rosary like a weapon and roaming the Escorial Palace like a madman, full of impotent fury, dreaming of subjugating the world to the Catholic faith”.

The defeat of Spain’s “invincible armada” in 1588 was caused by a storm but was presented in the film as a “shining victory for free thought against the forces of darkness in the form of the Inquisition”, Professor Cardini said. He said while Philip II and the Pope had gone to the aid of the Venetian Republic when it was threatened by the Muslim Turks, Elizabeth I was more interested in destabilising France, “where Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were lining up against each other”, supporting pirate raids in the Atlantic against Spanish convoys, and “wiping out any residual liberty of the Anglican Church in England by subjecting it to the Crown through the Thirty Nine Articles of 1563”.

The Queen had also “exterminated the Catholics of Scotland and Ireland”, and had Mary Queen of Scots, her own cousin, executed in 1587 “after an illegal trial”. He said that the film was reminiscent of 19th-century anti-clericalism. “Why put out this perverse anti-Catholic propaganda today, just at the moment when we are trying desperately to revive our Western identity in the face of the Islamic threat, presumed or real?”

Professor Cardini, who also attacked Ken Follett’s novel World Without End as anti-Catholic, said part of the explanation may be a resentful awareness that Catholicism was the “authentic fulcrum” of Christianity without which there was no defence against secularism and Islam.

The Pope’s Condom Dilemma

Soon after he was made pope, Benedict XVI ordered a report on the spicy question of condoms. A papal ruling may be coming soon. Will the Pope relax the rules on condoms? His will not be an easy decision to make. The Church’s historical stance on condoms as well as on other forms of contraception was a firm no. As recent as 1993, artificial contraception was defined by the Church as ‘intrinsically evil’ (John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor). According to the Church, sex may only take place within marriage, homosexual sex is forbidden as are heterosexual acts between unmarried people.

Only very recently (in Church terms) has the Catholic Church made her first concession in this area: In 1951, Pope Pius XII informed midwives in Rome that the rhythm method was henceforth an acceptable family planning technique. This was a dramatic departure from all that the Church had been teaching up to that moment with regard to sex. In the past, the Church had preached that sex was evil (St. Augustine), that the pleasure derived from the act was evil (Pope Gregory the Great) and that sex was only meant by God as a way of insemination (St Thomas Aquinas). Now, with papal permission, one could calculate the days on which a couple could have sex with a certainty that it would not produce a child. Sex was no longer only meant for procreation. The notion that sex was there to be enjoyed was given support in a 1965 document of the Second Vatican Council which states that ‘actions within marriage by which the couple are united intimately and chastely are noble and worthy ones.’

Other forms of family planning such as the pill or the condom continue to be prohibited. AIDS, however, has changed the status of condoms even in polite society. Once, only sold under the counter they are now easily obtainable in most countries. Doctors, scientists and the World Health Organisation consider them an effective barrier which prevents the transmission of the virus during sexual intercourse. Most governments support sex education which promotes their use. The Catholic Church is steadfast in her opposition. The Church must have decided that it was not enough to repeat the Scripture and tradition related prohibition on contraception and that she should attempt and dissuade people from using condoms by proffering clinical and scientific arguments, albeit false arguments and flawed science. A leading Cardinal, Alfonso Lopez Trujilo, as President of the Vatican’s Council for the Family, demanded that a health warning, ‘the condom is not safe’, be attached to condom packages and vending machines. He explained: ‘in the case of the AIDS virus which is 450 times smaller than the sperm cell, the condom’s latex material obviously gives much less security.’

Unfortunately, lies about the inefficacy of condoms are repeated by both senior Hierarchy and lower clergy especially in the lesser-developed countries, the very countries which bear the main burden of AIDS. In South Africa the Catholic Bishops Conference stated that ‘The Bishops regard the widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms as an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV/AIDS…condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS’ In Kenya, bishops produced a pamphlet which claimed that ‘Latex rubber from which condoms are made does have pores through which viral sized particles can squeeze through during intercourse.’ Elsewhere, bishops organised the burning of condoms and of sex education literature. Several days ago, Brazil’s Cardinal Geraldo Majella criticised the Brazilian government for handing out 10 million condoms over the carnival period, explaining ‘They think that it’s going to help but I don’t believe in that.’ Such lies are as pernicious as the AIDS virus itself.

There has been noteworthy internal opposition to the Church’s formal teaching. Indeed, some members of the clergy actively promote condoms to populations at risk, such as prostitutes, thereby risking disciplinary action by their superiors. Two years ago, Swiss Cardinal Georges Cottier, the theologian to the pontifical household, suggested in an interview, that in certain cases the use of condoms ‘could be considered legitimate.’ Cottier stressed that he was not speaking for the pope, when he explained that in his opinion condom use was legitimate as a means to avoid transferring the HIV virus during sexual intercourse. He is not the only senior clergyman pressing for change in this area. The previous pope, John Paul II and his main enforcer of theological discipline, Cardinal Ratzinger would have none of it. Now Ratzinger is pope himself. Will Pope Benedict XVI allow what he forbade as Cardinal Ratzinger?

He will be damned if he will and damned if he won’t. Catholics in developing countries continue to suffer and die because of the Church’s anti-condom instructions. Most European and North American Catholics ignore Church teaching concerning sex. And yet, do they want their Church to drop one of her fundamental teachings? Is not the knowledge that all sins can be forgiven part of their relationship with their Church? Will permitting the use of condoms in limited circumstances not open the door to wider use of condoms? Will not allowing condoms now mean that thousands of Catholics who have died from AIDS because they heeded Church instructions have died in vain?

This is a serious dilemma for the pope and he actually may be in the unique position of playing it safe by not allowing the use of condoms.

Dr. David Ranan is the author of Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church (436 pp, Theo Press, £15.99)

Catholic ban on condoms is spreading AIDS says UN

The rapid spread in Latin America of the virus that causes AIDS is made worse by the Roman Catholic Church’s stand against using condoms, a UN official has said.

Some 1.7 million people across Latin America are infected with the HIV or have full-blown Aids, and the epidemic is spreading swiftly with around 410,000 new cases in 2006, up from around 320,000 new cases in 2004, according the UN Aids programme, UNAids.

“In Latin America the use of condoms has been demonised, but if they were used in every relationship I guarantee the epidemic would be resolved in the region,” said Alberto Stella, the UNAids Coordinator for Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

The Catholic Church, which holds sway in Latin America despite the rise in evangelical churches, opposes all forms of contraception and instead promotes abstinence as a way to avoid spreading Aids. “The fact young people start to be sexually active between 15 and 19 without sex education contributes to the spreading of the virus, as well as the fact that the evidence shows abstinence is not working,” Stella said.

Latin America is home to nearly half the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, but the Church’s position on premarital sex and contraception often clashes with modern values. Brazil, the region’s largest Catholic nation, regularly distributes free condoms to try and bring down HIV infection rates.