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Can anyone holding orthodox Catholic views hope to hold high office in British public life? During the recent General Election, the attitude taken towards the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, an Evangelical Christian who had expressed orthodox Christian views on same sex marriage and abortion, was forced to recant them, which led to the question of whether we have a new Test Act. The old Test Acts, a product of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, were designed to bar Catholics from public life by requiring of voters the ‘test’ that they were loyal Anglicans. If they communicated at the local Anglican Church at least twice a year, and possessed the necessary qualifications, then they could vote; if not, not. So, if you were not a very conscientious Catholic, and willing to make the pretence you were an Anglican, you could vote; if you were not, then not. The same applied to Protestants outside the Church of England. The Test Acts were repealed in 1828, and Catholics allowed to vote in 1829. Since then, there has been a steady advance of the franchise to include all men and women above the age of 18.
The new Test Act can be seen from the reaction to the fact that Prime Minister May is forming a pact with the Democratic Unionist Party. It has given British liberals a terrible shock to learn that there are those who oppose abortion and same sex marriage, and that they have seats in parliament. The general view seems to be that this is quite dreadful, “how dare people elect such people”? This is a view clearly shared by the British media, which treats those holding such views as though they are modern-day heretics. If the modern heretic is, as Farron did, willing to recant, then he can be absolved of his sins and allowed to continue. But is seems clear that anyone holding orthodox Catholic views cannot confess them and hold high office.
Traditionally, in this country, Catholics have tended to find a home in the Labour Party, but now it is the party of identity politics and of feminism and progressive ideology, it is hard to see how an orthodox Catholic gets a hearing there when the Test Act demands you accept abortion and same sex marriage. Naturally, there are those who would answer that if only the Church would change its mind on such issues, then all would be well – but that simply amounts to saying that if we all sign up to the programme then we can get round the new Test Act; it intensifies the notion that there is no place in the front of public life for orthodox Catholics. At the very least, the Test is that we accept the secularist line that we leave our religious beliefs at the door; imagine their horror if we said they had to leave their beliefs on gender ideology at the door?
The General Election offered an interesting contrast in styles. Corbyn, who has no religious faith, nonetheless conducted his campaign like an old style evangelical preacher, offering hope at huge rallies. Mrs May, a conventional Anglican, appeared not really to believe in anything and offered nothing more than that we should trust her to govern the country; there was no message and less charisma. Man does not live by bread alone, and political leaders do not win without a message of hope. It seems as though Mrs May thought that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was a good model to follow, whereas Corbyn took a leaf out of the Obama playbook.
[update] The fact that Mr Farron feels he has to resign tells us not only that the suspicions voiced above were correct, but it tells is more. Where were the Liberal voices saying that this was not necessary, where were the Lib-Dem MPs saying that in the party of Gladstone there was always room for a man of Christian conscience? I noticed none. Maybe it was drowned out in the torrent of ‘hate speech’ directed at the DUP? Our public life is the poorer for the absence of men and women of faith who cannot accept the secular diktat that they leave their faith ‘at the door’. Can you imagine the outcry if one said to a Green activist, or and LGBTI activist that they should leave their views on these issues ‘at the door’? And such outrage would be well-directed. People go into public life for all sorts of reasons, the best one being they want to change the world. Well, this certainly is a world in need of changing – but not in the current direction of travel.
All Along the Watchtower 
It was pretty amazing from over here, listening to the UK media carry on about the DUP, yesterday. Heresy is almost too mild a term. Imagine someone who doesn’t believe in SSM, Abortion, Gender fluidity and/or whatever the society destroying myth of the day is. I will admit that creationism at least in its most literal form (if that truly is what they say) might be a bridge too far for me. Other than that, they rather sound like mainstream Americans.
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Indeed – believe what we tolerant folk believe – or else!
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Indeed, our left is just the same (and a very few on the far right), but except for the courts, we’ve kept them fairly well corralled. I bet Lewis Carroll didn’t know he was writing an English manual.
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I guess not 🙂
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🙂
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This is all really sad.
I wish things were different.
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Me too – it’s one reason I joined the University I joined, I feel I can say orthodox Catholic things there without anyone delating me to the authorities!
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Yes. The way some of the paranoid leftists carry on, you’d think we were trying to impose a Cromwellian theocracy. But ask your average Anglican or Catholic or Baptist, and nothing could be further from the truth. Frankly, I think we’d all settle for more tea parties and less politics.
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Ah, Nicholas, so would we, and if you knew how bad American tea is…:)
But one must carry on, even when the duty is lousy.
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Too true. For my part, I voted in accordance with my Zionism. Corbyn is no friend of Israel.
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That is very true, but he is a friend of any enemy of Israel, of the US, or of Britain, as near as I can tell. I could not possibly support a party with him in it.
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I quite agree. As ever, the antichrist spirit is everywhere.
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C, have you changed locations?
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Yes – now at a Catholic university.
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Great, good job!
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Is it the oldest Catholic Univ. in the UK?
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It is – 1850
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I haven’t contributed anything here for a long while, and accidentally found myself here by hitting a wrong link. I still have a long way to go before I return to anything like Christian faith. The edifice began collapsing here, and I don’t thank you for it, but that’s my problem.
Tim Farron’s fate is one that concerns me. I voted tactically in the election and voted LibDem against Sir Julian Brazier in Canterbury. (I had no idea that several thousand students would actually get off their arses and vote him out, which was quite an upset.) So I watched from my distant valley under the Aitana ridge to see how the election would go, and I took a particular interest in the LibDem success because I am now active in Spain in the pan-European ECREU, the European Citizens rights group. The LibDems were slaughtered in the election.
At the end of it all, I find myself a Labour voter again, for the first time in decades. Why? Because the Tories have turned #UKfailedstate into their own playground and they no longer have any credibility as people who speak for the community: only international capital.
Keep me in your prayers. I may one day return to the fold. For now, I have only a sense of very keen interest in the needs of the poor who are being totally despised and bulldozed by the likes of the conservative traditionalists I once mistakenly allied myself with, to my great regret.
It is a shame that the politics can sometimes ruin your faith.
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You remain in my prayers Gareth – these are times to try the souls of men.
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Thank you. I value your prayers.
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Oddly enough, I have been dealing of late with the Franciscan friars in Canterbruy – it is a small world
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Gareth, you will have my prayers as well. I’ve always enjoyed your presence.
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I saw also that Bernie Sanders made a statement in which he advocated that Christians be barred from public office.
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Well, of course. After all, Christians would say one should give part of ones $1 million dollars earning to charity, instead of keeping it all.
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Well said Chalcedon. As you will have noticed, the former MP for the Isle of Wight had to step down because he bravely refused to alter his Christian beliefs on homosexuality as Tim Farron cravenly did. I read an interview recently with Ruth (I can’t recall her surname) who was once a Labour MP and Cabinet Minister but who left because she found it impossible to reconcile her Catholic faith with Party dogma and who is now at St Mary’s University. She said that if challenged to say if she ‘believed homosexual behaviour to be a sin’, would have replied that ‘sin’ is not a concept that the media understands and that she would rephrase the question as ‘Do you think such behaviour should be criminalised?’ to which the answer would be ‘Of course not’. Actually I think it worth challenging the interviewer with ‘How do you define sin?’ ‘What do you think sin means?’ ‘Do you think people should be allowed to follow their conscience?’ etc. You would still lose out as the new ‘Test Act’ wouldn’t wear it; but you would go down fighting – as Tim Farron conspicuously failed to do.
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And that is an important point, Francis, or at least I think so. When we speak of sin, it is basically an advisory, “God will be displeased if you do this, and displeasing God has consequences that God has told us he will impose,” so to speak.
I’m not entirely sure that I had heard of the DUP until this week, but unless they are completely different from pretty much any modern day Christian grouping, they have no strong desire to criminalize any of this stuff. Advise how it weakens the structure of our families and our communities, and even nations, sure, and they are correct. But I see few of us attempting to criminalize much of anything. Although I do think a resurgence of ‘do what you want but don’t frighten the horses would be most advisable’.
Basically, I don’t really care what you do at home behind closed doors, as long as you don’t hurt people, especially nonconsenting adults and children. It’s pretty much between you and your god, if any. But a bit of decorum would be a very good thing in public. And for the same reason, your practices may be normal for you, but they may well be offensive to me (or others). As I suppose mine might be to you, which may be why we mostly have worship services indoors, I suppose.
As C. noted above, I am thoroughly tired of people who claim to be oh so tolerant, but only of people that agree with them. As I’ve said so many times, freedom of speech is actually misnamed, it is the power to offend, and if you are offended by that, you do not believe in freedom, or toleration.
But then, I’m old, old enough that my parents taught me that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. Unless I let them, I reckon, and that implies respect for those that say them. Otherwise, who cares, really?
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The former MP’s name is Ruth Kelly – I remembered after I had sent my comment. Unless you want to live under a theocracy like Islam (God forbid) you cannot criminalise private adult behaviour (as long as children are not involved.) As Christians know, many things might be sinful in our society – e.g. abortion, but they are not a ‘crime’ in the eyes of the State, because they are legal. Secular people don’t understand this distinction and think that because you believe certain behaviour is ‘wrong’ in the eyes of God, you cannot function in a public office. As to the situation in Northern Ireland, being traditional, fundamentalist Protestants, they stand firm on the Bible and don’t try to ‘amend’ it or change it (as the Scottish Episcopal Church has recently done, in agreeing to same-sex ‘marriage’). I think it will only be a matter of time (and a short time too) before the C of E does something similar. That will leave the Catholic Church and evangelical Christians holding the line in the West.
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I agree with all you say here. Like you, I suspect, I do believe the abortion laws are immoral, but they are the law, and as long as the law is as it is, it is legal.
I think it will, both the Episcopal and my branch of the Lutheran church here have. It’s one (although not the only one)of my qualms with the ELCA.
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And yes, just to emphasize a bit, I have found atheists, especially evangelical ones, to be the worst (save Islamists, maybe) incipient theocrats of all. What a dreary world they would make.
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Atheists don’t realise they are following a fundamentalist creed every bit as devotedly as those they denounce.
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Ruth is my fellow PVC at St Mary’s, and a wise woman.
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I think Christians have to care about what others do behind closed doors, certainly not to ‘criminalise’ them but to pray for their immortal souls. Nothing is hidden to God and if we care for our fellow men we must care if their lifestyles are leading them to perdition. Also, although not illegal, they are hurting themselves and society, though this is invisible (except in its effects e.g. fewer children being born etc, which is causing huge demographic problems for western countries.)
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Do we see adherents of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, committing jihad throughout the world on an almost daily basis? The first ones to ban would be the Islamism. For those of you that know Tommy Robinson he has been screaming his head off for about 12 years, and only now are people waking up. For those of you that don’t know of him, this may be of interest.
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