WHEN we awoke this sunny Good Friday, we bet ourselves that the Mad March Hares would be getting more than their fair share of media attention during the day.
We weren’t wrong. First to seize a sizeable chunk of the BBC’s coverage was Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of Scotland’s Catholics, who used his Easter Sunday sermon to criticise the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which will allow scientists to create part human, part-animal embryos for use in stem cell experiments.
Said the cardinal:
This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. In some European countries one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal.
He also said the Bill would lead to the endorsement of experiments of “Frankenstein proportions”. See the Telegraph report here.
His attack comes just days after the Archbishop of Cardiff, the Most Rev Peter Smith, condemned the proposals as “gross interference in human life”.
The Government was also lambasted for lifting the long-standing ban on betting during Easter as part of reforms to the gambling laws.
Churches expressed anger, saying the development reflected a lack of respect for the day when Christians recalled Christ’s crucifixion.
The Church of England warned that it was part of a gradual trend to remove the shared holidays that “help create a rhythm for the nation’s life”.
The Rev Ken Howcroft, the Methodist secretary for conference and communication, said:
While for some gambling is a leisure pursuit, for others it can be immensely addictive and damaging in all aspects of their lives. Ironically, the soldiers who crucified Jesus then gambled for his clothes. But Jesus said, ‘Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing’.
Mike Judge, from the potty right-wing Christian Institute said:
To allow gambling and encourage avarice on Good Friday, when we are remembering the sacrifice Jesus made for the world, is particularly regrettable.
But a spokesman for betting shop chain William Hill said :
We are a commercial organisation, not a religious one. The Government has given us permission to open and we are because our first responsibility is to the 15,000 people who work for us.
Prize for the biggest tosh spouted this Good Friday goes to The Rev Dr Peter Mullen, Rector of St Michael’s, Cornhill and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.
In an article in the Telegraph entitled Without Christianity, Our Society is Doomed, he unleashed his second attack on the gay community in as many months, saying:
We might have expected the Church to resist the decay, but instead it has connived with the destructive sexual and social revolution begun in the 1960s. Back then, I voted for homosexuality to be decriminalised. But this meant ‘between consenting adults in private’ – where ‘between’ meant two, ‘adults’ meant men over 21 and ‘private’ meant behind locked doors. I did not foresee the obscene and coercive ‘Gay Pride’ pantomimes that now disfigure our high streets.
Who would have thought we would live to see the Bishop of Hereford fined £47,000 and made to attend a re-education course because he refused to employ a practising homosexual in his diocese’s youth services? How long before I am carted from the pulpit to the nick for preaching that sodomy is not morally equivalent to Christian marriage?
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 21st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
With Christianity, my peace of mind is doomed.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:46 pm
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
- Galileo Galilei
Just as apt today as it was 400 years ago.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Yeah, a look what the Catholic Church did to Galileo – put him on trial for heresy. But Hey, in 1992 the then Pope conceded that the earth wasn’t stationary, and the Vatican began the process of rehabilitating him. See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....478943.ece
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 am
“How long before I am carted from the pulpit to the nick for preaching that sodomy is not morally equivalent to Christian marriage?”
As soon as possible, please.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Bear in mind that as well as being honorary chaplain to the Stock Exchange, Mullen has the same position (and seems to be on the board) of the Freedom Association – a bunch of geriatric dingbats who I thought all died in the late 1970′s. If you think he spouts crap in the Telegraph you should see their website! It’s like the Christian Institute handbook but written by fossils with gout.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thirty odd years ago my father was forced to lead an utterly wretched existence before finally dying from Parkinson’s disease. There was no cure. There was no hope of finding a cure.
There is still no cure today. However, stem cells could hold the answer and scientists are investigating as fast as they can.
But along comes a soothsayer called Cardinal Keith O’Brien. He’s a big cheese in that caring, humane organisation, the Roman Catholic Church and he says that cracking the riddle of the stem cells will unleash a plague of monsters!
He doesn’t seem at all bothered that my father, and millions of others, have already suffered monstrous lives.
Anyway, O’Brien rants and raves; the BBC rolls over and opens the studio door to every catholic MP it can find; Cormac Murphy O’Connor (never one to miss a rave) asks if he can join in; Gordon Brown doesn’t know what to do…
What else do we know about this O’Brien bloke? Well, according to Wikipedia, he was born unto us on 17 March 1938. Which means his anti-science out-burst came hot on the heels of his 70th birthday.
Now, let me explain, 70 is a pretty significant number for religious types – the bible refers to it as ‘three score years and ten’ – it’s supposed to be the life span of the believer…
Holy shit, it’s time for Cardinal Keith to pass to the other side and, joy of joys, meet his beloved maker. No wonder his old ticker’s started missing a few beats.
But hallelujah! Within a week of denouncing science, O’Brien dodges the trip to heaven, choosing instead…
…grotesque Frankenstein surgery…
…alien materials are implanted in his chest…
…Cardinal Keith is no more; the ghastly creature rising from the operating table is…
…Cardinal Chimera – half man, half circuit board!
The hypocrisy is stunning.
With arrogance equalling that of the French aristocracy on the eve of revolution, O’Brien grasps at science to keep his own heart ticking but tells Parkinson’s victims to eat cake.