Thursday, December 20, 2007

Down to Earth

I was brought down to earth with a bump today when a Filipino priest who is staying at the presbytery at the moment asked me, 'What is the Church's stance on abortion in England?' I didn't quite understand what he meant, surely he knows the Church's stance on abortion worldwide. He explained that because abortion is legal in this country he thought maybe the English bishops were in favour of it. I replied that as with the rest of the Magisterium they are most certainly not in favour of abortion in any form.

This shocked me; how many other people in countries where abortion is illegal because of the Catholic status of that country think that the Church in countries where abortion is legal is pro-choice? It made me realise that while we do a lot to try and change the policy in our own country we clearly aren't doing enough to make our voices heard abroad!

Pray for England and her conversion.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most certainly!

Anonymous said...

No we don't want to change the policy. We don't want yet more restrictive legislation. I don't smoke or hunt but I'm damned if they should be illegal. We shouild persuade women not to have abortions and make alternatives possible. Making them illegal will not staop them and campaigning to change the law is a waste of resources.

gemoftheocean said...

Robert, please tell me you do not carry out that "logic" to such things as "having a law against housebreaking isn't going to stop people breaking into houses." What CAN you be thinking?

And Orth. Maybe it's not a nice thing to say, but it strikes me that that particular priest was not the sharpest tool in the shed.


Karen

Fr Ray Blake said...

Worrying that the priest doesn't seem to understand, either Natural Law or the Magisterium.