Catholic Church shown to be economical with the statistical truth

New research shows that the Catholic population in Britain is falling dramatically, despite Church claims that new immigrants from Eastern Europe are bringing about a revival.

The new figures, from the Pastoral Research Centre, show that the numbers actively participating in Catholic life in England and Wales has fallen by more than half a million in the last 11 years. The statistics — compiled independently of the Church — are based on the number of people baptised in the last 50 years and more recent marriages, baptisms and deaths. It shows that many of today’s Catholic adults are not returning to the Church to marry or baptise their own children or bury their dead.

Anthony Spencer, who runs Pastoral Research, said the Church’s own figures were little more than guesswork, based on rough estimates of mass attendance.

Mr Spencer said: “Mass immigration is masking a huge alienation among the Catholic community. There is a huge unexplained loss of people to be found when you look at those who were baptised as babies, but who are not getting married or holding funerals and subsequent baptisms in Church.”

Mr Spencer said that his statistics showed that 530,000 Catholics had ceased even minimal involvement with the Church since 1997, whereas official Church statistics put it at 72,000. Mr Spencer has been checking the official figures and finding many errors. In official Catholic Bishops’ Conference figures he identified one diocese in which a group of five parishes appeared to have increased their Catholic population by 277,000 in the course of one year. On investigating, he found typographical errors were to blame. He also said that many parishes refused to co-operate with the collection of statistics. Mr Spencer challenged the recent claim that there are now more practising Catholics than there are Anglicans because counting systems for the two denominations were different.

The new figures show that in 1958 almost 68,700 couples were married in a Catholic Church, whereas in 2005 just 14,700 Catholic weddings took place.

Most controversially, he found the number of late baptisms had risen over the last 50 years. In 1958 there were fewer than 5,000 baptisms of children between one and seven. In 2005 this had risen to 16,000. Mr Spencer attributed this to the need to prove baptism in order to get a place in a Catholic school.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “These figures show a very different situation to that fed to us by Church propagandists. The Catholic Church in Britain is dying on its feet and yet we are constantly told that the new intake from Poland has revived it. Of course, it is in the Church’s interest to keep alive the impression that it is big, powerful and representative of significant sections of the population. The Government is afraid to confront it on so many issues because it fears that the Catholic hierarchy will tell Catholics to vote against it. Well, we now know that the Church does not have that power any more. Increasing numbers of Catholics are repelled by the reactionary nature of the Church they were forced into. Taken together with recent opinion polls it shows that the majority of Catholics don’t share the Vatican’s dogmatic approach to issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality, condoms to fight AIDS and so much more.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “As Ed Balls made clear only this week, it is for local communities to determine the types of schools that they want. All schools are bound by our new admissions code which stipulates fair admissions policy for all schools. Schools are under a legal duty to promote community cohesion, understanding and tolerance.”

Mr Sanderson said that the late baptism phenomenon reinforced the idea that the selection criteria that faith schools enjoy are forcing people to be dishonest, underhand and to act against their conscience in order to get their children a place in a state school of their choice. We do not accept that any admissions criteria are ‘fair’ which are religiously discriminatory or privilege religious schools to the detriment of community schools.

Muslim girl found dead in river was beaten by parents

A Muslim teenager found dead in a river after fleeing an arranged marriage had suffered years of beatings from her parents, an inquest heard today.

Shafilea Ahmed, 17, vanished in September 2003 and her body was found five months later in the River Kent near Sedgwick in Cumbria.

She had been beaten by her mother and father, who also stole her £2,000 savings, and had fled her home in fear of being forced into an arranged marriage and left to live in Pakistan, the inquest into her death was told.

Shafilea, from Warrington, Cheshire, was a bright and intelligent young woman who wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, the hearing was told.

But she was “torn” between her ambitions and her family and religion, the inquest at the County Hall, in Kendal, Cumbria was told.

During a trip to Pakistan in the year before her disappearance, she drank a caustic substance, possibly bleach, after being introduced to one possible suitor, the hearing has heard.

But three months after returning to the UK she vanished.

Shafilea was most likely strangled or suffocated, according to pathologists who examined her badly decomposed body.

No one has ever been charged over her death and her mother and father, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, both strongly deny any involvement in her disappearance.

But homelessness officer Anne-Marie Woods said when the youngster came for an interview to get her own flat she claimed to have suffered abuse from her parents.

“Shafilea said she had been staying with friends and she had nowhere to live and she was fleeing domestic violence and an arranged marriage that her parents had arranged for her,” Ms Woods said.

“She said there had been an escalation of violence since she was 15/16 and that one parent would hold her down and the other would hit her,” she told the hearing.

Ms Woods read from a statement Shafilea made in her application for council accommodation.

It said: “Over the past few years I’ve been experiencing domestic violence by my parents.

“I had saved £2,000 which they took out of my bank account.

“My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I’ll be married to someone and left there.

“There had been a build-up of violence towards me, and my mother told me I was about to go to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.

“My mother had started to pack and my parents had been in to school to inform them we were going to Pakistan.”

Coroner Ian Smith asked Ms Woods if Shafilea was genuine.

“She wasn’t being a drama queen,” she replied. “She came across as a shy, quiet girl.

She came across as being genuinely frightened of this impending arranged marriage.”

The teenager turned down a place at a refuge for Asian women in Liverpool because she did not want to disrupt her education in Warrington, but was given emergency accommodation in a hotel and told a flat would be available on February 10 2003. Instead she chose to return home, the hearing was told.

Ms Woods added: “She had returned to her parents after they had agreed not to take her to Pakistan.”

Retired police officer Brian Monaghan told the inquest he visited the Ahmeds’ family home with a view to buy on the day Shafilea was reported missing by a former schoolteacher.

He asked Mr Ahmed why they were moving.

“He looked towards his wife and they spoke in what I assume was their native language,” Mr Monaghan said.

“He then responded to me and said that his daughter had been seeing a young boy and there was some fall-out with the family over it and as such they intended to move back to an area where they had previously lived, which, if my memory serves me, is the Accrington area.

“He said that she, being his daughter, had been mixing with the wrong people and they had got into some trouble and brought shame upon the family. They were the terms he used.”

Melissa Powner, a school friend of Shafilea’s, told the inquest her friend liked wearing trendy clothes, was very clever, always laughing, and loved her family.

She also said Shafilea was unable to socialise much with her friends and had to hide her friendships with boys from her parents.

Miss Powner said Shafilea told her that her own sister had warned her to “go away, they’re going to get you married off”.

After Shafilea ran away from home in February 2003 her father turned up at school to take the “petrified” teenager home.

Oxford College pursues theological vendetta

The Oxford theological college Wycliffe Hall yesterday “strongly refuted” claims that BBC Radio 4 contributor Dr Elaine Storkey was sacked from her research post because of her beliefs.Storkey was dismissed last year and has since issued legal proceedings against the training college, part of Oxford University, claiming that she was bullied out of her job and citing religious discrimination.

The Thought for the Day presenter claimed that conditions worsened after the appointment of Dr Richard Turnbull as principal, and that she was the victim of a battle between two strands of Christian evangelism.

She accepted a payout believed to be about £20,000 at an employment tribunal hearing in Reading on Monday, after the college agreed she was unfairly dismissed.

Storkey is still seeking a ruling of religious discrimination against the Right Rev James Jones, bishop of Liverpool, who is chairman of the hall’s trustees. Her lawyer will argue in a hearing set down for June that Storkey’s evangelical stance constitutes a religion.

A spokesman for Wycliffe Hall expressed hope that a settlement could be reached. “The college accepted that Dr Storkey had been unfairly dismissed as the college had not, prior to dismissal, gone through the statutory procedure. Nevertheless, we strongly refute any allegation that Elaine’s dismissal from Wycliffe was in any way connected with her religious beliefs.”

Make the defence of Human Rights your New Year’s Resolution

Message from Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director, National Secular Society

Rather than the usual New Year’s resolutions about reducing your credit card debt, losing weight or giving up smoking, we would urge you all to make one about something much more important to future generations. To vow to support Human Rights. For it is they which underpin our way of life – for many they represent one of the greatest achievements of Western civilisation.

The body overseeing Universal Human Rights is the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Taking part in their meetings is a sobering experience. While there are countries, groups and individuals who make wonderful contributions, Human Rights are undoubtedly becoming less universal and inalienable. The individual’s rights are in great danger of becoming alienated in favour of group rights – often for religions.

The proceedings of the UNHRC have become a constant battle between Western nations, on the one hand, and the numerous members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), aided by a few countries who always support them and in turn receive support from them. These include China, Cuba and even India.

So, the 56 OIC countries are also making considerable progress on an international declaration on defamation of religion – a kind of all-religions blasphemy super law. Anyone seeking to draw attention to the capital offence of apostasy will be lucky even to be heard, and there is no chance of any action. Anything deemed the slightest bit critical of Islam is immediately jumped upon, and possibly even excised from the official record.

But the problem is much more serious even than apostasy laws or threats to freedom of expression. The whole edifice of Universal Human Rights is crumbling before our very eyes, and the “West” is letting it happen. With all the support the OIC can muster, and with painfully little active opposition from the “West”, those supporting the Universal declaration no longer have the upper hand. There are some honourable exceptions such as Canada and Belgium and the EU is a positive influence, but most Western countries are doing little better than wringing their hands, while others do not even do that. The United States is less than helpful, yet with its support and leadership this depressing picture could be so very different.

And the Secretariat are coming under increasing pressure to give the OIC an unobstructed run. The opportunities for non-Governmental organisations that are prepared to speak out — such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union — are being drastically diminished, if not eroded altogether.

The OIC Secretary-General, Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a statement to mark Human Rights Day 2007. It reads, in part (our emphasis added):

Respect of Human Rights through effective protection and promotion of equality, civil liberties and social justice is a milestone in the OIC Ten Year Plan of Action. In this regard the OIC General Secretariat is considering the establishment of [an] independent permanent body to promote Human Rights in the Member States in accordance with the provisions of the OIC Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and to elaborate an OIC Charter on Human Rights. The OIC is also committed to encourage its member States to reinforce their national laws and regulations in order to guaranty strict respect for Human Right[s].”

The complete statement can be read here.
The OIC Cairo Declaration is explicitly based on Shariah law.

According to Wikipedia “The CDHRI concludes that all rights and freedoms mentioned are subject to the Islamic Shariah, which is the declaration’s sole source. The CDHRI declares ‘true religion’ to be the ‘guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity’. It also places the responsibility for defending those rights upon the entire Ummah.” This is paving the way for second-class, religious-based group “rights”, rather than individual Universal Human Rights. And unless we are careful, many of the countries with the greatest need of Universal Human Rights support (and a high proportion of them are in OIC countries) will come under a shariah system. See this excellent report on the problem by IHEU’s Roy Brown who has done so much in this area: and also an exposure of the UN Human Rights Council’s ignoble stance on Darfur.

The United Nations has already completely overhauled its Human Rights machinery and this second attempt has been completely undermined as was the first, discredited, one. The whole Universal Human Rights machinery is unravelling for the second, and perhaps final, time while Western states stand by, drumming their fingers.

Meanwhile, the most vulnerable in the world are being betrayed.

We must all try very much harder to support Human Rights from attack, whether that is from religious or cultural forces. Please do anything you can to raise consciousness of this impending crisis for humanity and to put politicians and diplomats everywhere under pressure to take responsibility for protecting Universal Human Rights.

Iranian clerical fanatic says unveiled women should die

A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in the country who do not wear the hijab should be killed.

“Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die,” said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan. “I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive,” he said.

“These women and their husbands and their fathers must die,” said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan.

Hassani’s statements came after two Kurdish feminists in Iran were accused of being members of an armed rebel group and of carrying out subversive activities threatening the security of the state. It is believed that his statements and the arrests could spark a fresh crackdown on women who do not abide by the Islamic dress code in Iran. Thousands of women in Iran have already been beaten this year for their “un-Islamic dress” such as wearing tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves.

The multi-faith prayer rooms that aren’t

A porter at a Manchester children’s hospital has been questioned by police on suspicion of “religiously aggravated assault” after a row in the hospital’s prayer room.

Joseph Protano, 54, is a devout Catholic who works at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Pendlebury. He was released without charge by the police but is suspended from his job pending enquiries by the authorities.

The incident centres on a supposedly “multi-faith prayer room”, which three Muslims were using when Mr Protano entered. He asked them to remove a cloth covering from the crucifix. This request resulted in an argument and Mr Protano’s subsequent interrogation by the polce and suspension from his job.

Mr Protano said he was unable to comment due to the ongoing police investigation and an internal hospital inquiry, but a friend told the Manchester Evening News that Mr Protano denied assaulting anyone. “He was shaking like a leaf and spent four hours at the police station.”

The friend said: “Joe goes into the prayer room about six times a day to check the statues in there have not been left covered. He is a Christian, but he also thinks it could be upsetting for visiting parents who want to say a prayer to find the statues covered. He went into the room and there were three adult Muslims already in there. Two were visitors and one was a member of staff. He walked in and said ‘please don’t cover up the statues’. He was only in the room for 30 seconds. There was a statue of a crucifix and one of Our Lady cradling the baby Jesus. They had been covered with a curtain. Also a picture of Our Lady had been placed face down on a table. Joe uncovered the statues, turned the picture up the right way and left.

“Almost immediately the three people in the room followed him outside and there was a confrontation in the corridor. It is alleged Joe assaulted one or more of them but he denies it completely. He says they were verbally abusing him. There are witnesses to what happened who can verify Joe’s account.”

Mr Protano has worked at the hospital for two years and will be represented by his union if the hospital takes disciplinary action. Meanwhile, staff in the hospital are up in arms about the treatment of Mr Protano, which they consider unfair.

Police plan to interview several witnesses and the complainants before taking any further action.

This is the latest in a series of interests where competing religions have clashed in the workplace. In October a Manchester airport worker was suspended after he hung an image of Jesus on a staffroom wall. Car parks supervisor Gareth Langmead, who is Catholic, was sent home after a Muslim colleague complained. He was suspended for three days while airport chiefs investigated the complaint then reinstated him without a blemish on his record.