John Smeaton - 24.8.2010
http://www.spuc-director.blogspot.com/
Jack Valero (pictured), spokesman for the Birmingham Oratory, and Ruth Dudley Edwards, the writer, debated the issue of the Birmingham Three on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday - see my blog last Friday for the background to this. You can listen to the debate on the BBC website and read an uncorrected transcript of it on the SPUC website. Ruth Dudley Edwards has written about the debate on the Standpoint magazine website.
Mr Valero said that the "disciplinary matters" to which (he claims to have) referred previously regarding the Three were "pride, anger, disobedience, disunity, nastiness, dissension, the breakdown of charity" adding that
"Very serious things were going on in that house."
This is in contrast to Mr Valero's previous assertion that the Three were "entirely guiltless of any wrongdoing whatsover".
Mr Valero also said that the Three could not return to the Oratory "until they are healed". One assumes that, by "healed", Mr Valero means of their alleged sins of "pride, anger, disobedience, disunity, nastiness, dissension, lack of charity".
Mr Valero added that the Three "are going to come back at some point, we don’t know, it’s not going to be soon" more likely after the Pope's beatification of Cardinal Newman in Birmingham on 19 September. This is in contrast to Mr Valero's previous claim made back in June that the Three "can come back soon and continue as normal."
Yet Br Lewis Berry has not been returned to the Birmingham Oratory but sent thousands of miles away to South Africa for at least a year. The Three have already been sent away from the Oratory for over 100 days.
Interestingly, The Catholic Herald reported yesterday that:
"English Catholic officials are hoping that the Pope will not further inflame anti-Catholic sentiment by speaking out against gay marriage or adoption, or abortion and divorce."
As I wrote in June:
"Could it be that external forces who want a Catholic Church which is inclusive of the Blairs' anti-life, anti-family positions are bringing pressures to bear in this situation? How very convenient it would be, especially in the run-up to Pope Benedict's visit, if uncomfortable issues such as the teaching of the Church on contraception, abortion and on homosexuality were also safely hidden away?"
Could these be the same external forces who have yet to cut their ties with pro-homosexual "rights" campaigning Catholics and with public figures with lengthy anti-life/anti-family records? Also interestingly, Ruth Dudley Edwards writes that Mr Valero "reports to Archbishop Vincent Nichols's press secretary". Mr Valero is also the spokesman for the cause of beatification of Cardinal Newman.
The Birmingham Three - Fr Dermot Fenlon, Fr Philip Cleevely and Brother Lewis Berry - publicly opposed an interpretation of Cardinal Newman as the patron of ‘conscientious’ dissent; and publicly opposed the sex and relationships education policies of the last Government and of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales. It is therefore vital that as many people as possible concerned about the defence of life and family take up the cause of the Birmingham Three.
