A recording of an MP discussing how to end Catholic education in Scotland has been condemned as “chilling” by a bishops’ conference official.
According to a report in the Scottish Catholic Observer, remarks by Tommy Sheppard, the MP for Edinburgh East, have emerged from a Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) fringe event at last year’s SNP conference, at which he said he wanted to introduce a secular education system.
The event was held to promote the HHS’s “Enlighten Up” campaign, which aims to end mandatory religious representation on local authority education committees.
Mr Sheppard said the way to make education secular was to introduce it “bit by bit”, in order to “chip away at the power organised religion has within our school system”.
Mr Sheppard said campaigners should eventually “advocate that the role of religion in schools is for people to learn about it but not for it to define the value system in the school.”
A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland condemned the remarks as “a blatant attack on religious freedom and chillingly intolerant”.
He said: “While members of the Humanist Society claim to be proud of their belief system, they don’t seem sufficiently proud of it to argue for Humanist schools which would be underpinned by Humanist beliefs. Advancing the rights of Humanists by demolishing the educational rights of Catholics is hypocritical in the extreme.”
The SNP distanced itself from the comments, saying that the party was “a strong supporter of faith schools”, and that “parents and pupils” should “have the choice to attend a faith school if they want to”. More than one in five Scottish children attend a Catholic school.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has praised the Maltese bishops’ approach to the Pope’s apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia.
Malta’s two bishops issued guidelines in January saying that a divorced and remarried person should be admitted to Communion if, “with an informed and enlightened conscience”, they believe they are “at peace with God”. The bishops added that avoiding sex with a new partner may be “impossible”.
Critics have argued that this contradicts the Council of Trent, which anathematises anyone who says keeping the commandments is impossible.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI reaffirmed Church teaching that the remarried may not receive Communion, except possibly when they try to live “as brother and sister”.
Speaking of the Maltese document, Cardinal Nichols told America magazine: “It doesn’t start by saying, ‘What about this rule or that rule?’ It starts by saying if this is your position and you feel uneasy, you want to know where you stand, what you ought to be doing, then come and we’ll talk. But let’s be honest, let’s be open and let’s see where we go.”
Asked if the bishops of England and Wales had drafted their own guidelines on Amoris, he replied: “No, we haven’t got there yet,” adding: “It’s obviously very interesting to see what other people do. I think some principal points are becoming pretty clear to me anyway.”
According to the cardinal, these points include a readiness to journey with the divorced and remarried individual and for both parties to have an open mind about the process, America magazine reported.
“Try and accompany these people, whoever they might be, with the full richness of the Gospel and [try] not to enter the process with a determined outcome,” he said.
Cardinal Nichols said it was acceptable that guidelines varied from country to country: “Creating space for a variety of pastoral responses is not decentralisation,” he said. “It’s a response to the realities in which people live.”
When asked if Pope Francis should respond to the dubia from four cardinals asking for clarification of Amoris Laetitia, the cardinal said it was “absolutely right” for the Pope to ignore the questions.
He argued: “To enter into that field is actually to step back from the very thing he wants to help us understand, that we have to respond to people and help them in their journey to God, and to do so is not simply to apply a law.”
Cardinal Nichols also thanked Pope Francis last week for the “steadfast” way he upheld Church teaching.
In a letter of congratulations to the Pope on the fourth anniversary of his election, the cardinal, writing on behalf of Catholics in England and Wales, said: “We thank God for the richness of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are the hallmarks of your ministry: joy and peace, patience and kindness, faithfulness, wisdom and mercy.
“Holy Father, we thank you for the steadfast way in which you uphold the teachings of Christ and the Church, presenting them in deed and in word with a freshness and directness, which draws the attention of the world.”
In his interview with America magazine, Cardinal Nichols described Pope Francis as one of the “toughest” people he had ever met.
He said: “His work regime is astonishing. If he’s got something in his mind and he thinks it’s right, he’s not going to waver this way and that. He’s immensely patient but clear,” the cardinal said.
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are likely to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican next month, Clarence House has said.
It will be the first time that Prince Charles and Camilla have met Pope Francis. The meeting will take place between March 31 and April 5 as part of a tour to celebrate links between Britain, the Holy See, Romania, Italy and Austria. The couple met Benedict XVI once in 2009 and Charles visited Pope John Paul II in 1984.
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