Pope Benedict attacks government over Equality Bill

From the BBC

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

The Pope has urged Catholic bishops in England and Wales to fight the UK's Equality Bill with "missionary zeal". Pope Benedict XVI said the legislation "violates natural law" and could end the right of the Catholic Church to ban gay people from senior positions. The Pope has confirmed he will visit the UK this year, the first since Pope John Paul II in 1982. The government said the bill, which is currently going through Parliament, would make the UK a fairer place. And gay rights campaigners have condemned the Pope's comments.

The Pope told the Catholic bishops of England and Wales gathered in Rome: "Your country is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed." Religious leaders have voiced concern that the Equality Bill may force churches to employ sexually active gay people and transsexuals when hiring staff other than priests or ministers. No official itinerary has yet been drawn up for the Pope's visit but officials at the Vatican and in the UK told the BBC it was likely to take place in September. A spokesman for the Catholic Communications Network said further details were expected in early March. The Pontiff is expected to visit Birmingham - as part of the planned beatification of Cardinal John Newman - and Scotland.

The National Secular Society said it would mount a protest campaign made up of gay groups, victims of clerical abuse, feminists, family planning organisations and pro-abortion groups among others. President Terry Sanderson said: "The taxpayer in this country is going to be faced with a bill of some £20m for the visit of the Pope. A visit in which he has already indicated, he will attack equal rights and promote discrimination." Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the Pope's comments were a "coded attack on the legal rights granted to women and gay people. His ill-informed claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos," he said. "He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law." But Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent at the Catholic newspaper The Tablet, said the Pope's position was "nothing really new - this is part of the classic Catholic teaching on human sexuality. What the Pope is doing is trying to encourage the bishops to keep their resolve in very fluctuating morals in cultures and societies today." He added: "It's not that the Pope is wading so much into the particulars of British society or British law - I think this is very much a piece of his longstanding teaching." A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said: "The Pope acknowledges our country's firm commitment to equality for all members of society. We believe everyone should have a fair chance in life and not be discriminated against. The Equality Bill will make Britain a fairer and more equal place."

[Is anyone in the least bit surprised that the Catholic Church, in particular, is so set against the idea of sexual equality? What I did find rather amusing is the idea of an Equality Law being against ‘natural’ law which is based on the idea of the equality of all human beings – apparently just as long as they’re not practicing homosexuals or women. With such an attitude it seems that we hardly need any Equality legislation at all, do we!]