The bullying of Christians

The bullying of Christians is being taken to a new low in some quarters. The dismissal of Olive Jones from her job as a supply teacher for offering to pray for a sick pupil is not only ridiculous but doesn't make sense on a number of levels. Mrs Jones is a regular churchgoer who attends her local Church of England church most Sundays. In what sense can the offer of prayer, by a member of the Church of England, be interpreted as a sackable offence when the Church of England is the established church of the land and when British citizens are regularly entreated by the state to ask God to 'save our Queen' in the national anthem which is itself written in the form of a prayer. Paddy and Stephanie Lynch claimed their daughter was left 'distressed' and 'traumatised' by Mrs Jones' conversation. Perhaps Olive Jones was less than tactful, and their teenage daughter frightened by her illness, but however difficult the personal circumstances of the Lynch's, one would have to be overly sensitive, and lets face it pretty mean minded, to report the teacher to the local authority for offering them the comfort and support that many people in similar circumstances would be grateful for. Their complaint lead to the perfunctory sacking of the teacher after a lifetime of public service when Olive Jones' managers agreed that offering to pray for someone 'could be perceived as bullying'. It is, to put it mildly, a pretty perverted world view that tries to construe someone offering to do another person a kindness as bullying them. Any sane person would have no option but to judge that it is Mrs Jones who is being bullied here.

Thought Police

There is something bizarre about the decision to prosecute two Christian hoteliers, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, because they had a heated argument with a Muslim woman, Ericka Tazi, at breakfast one morning in the boarding house which is effectively their own home. Merseyside's Police Hate Crime unit had at least six police officers working to bring this case of 'religious harassment' against the couple. Inconsistencies in Ericka Tazi's testimony in court led the judge to dismiss the case. Despite being cleared the case has had a damaging effect on the livelihood of the two accused. But what remains possibly the most worrying aspect of this case is what was going on in the heads of the police and the crown prosecution service that made, and given the following statement from the latter, continues to make this sort of state sponsored police harassment of Christians legitimate. Sharon King, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution said: 'I think we would pursue a case like this again if a similar incident was to arise in the future. It is in the public interest that incidents like this are properly investigated. We felt there was sufficient evidence in this instance to support a prosecution.' The actions of the police and crime prosecution service in bringing this case gives a lie to the claim, so favoured by atheists, that a person's religion can and should be confined to the private sphere of their own home. It seems that even here, just as in the public sphere, those of a tyrannical mindset will, if given the chance, seek to exercise control over what others, with whom they disagree, may think and say.

Religious rights doublethink

European establishment voices have been united in anger and indignation at the Swiss ban on new minarets. Talk has been of the Swiss breaching religious freedom as set out in the European Human Rights Convention and of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. The secretary general of The Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, has suggested that a case may be made to seek a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights condemning Switzerland for violating freedom of expression, freedom of religion and prohibition of discrimination. Did I miss something? This is the same European Court of Human Rights which only last month ruled that crucifixes should be removed from classrooms in Italy. Not only was there no talk then among the European political class of breaching the religious freedom of expression of the Italian people, the European Court ruled decisively against their right to it. This blatant and dangerous case of doublethink by Europe's ruling elite shows that the only rights to 'religious freedom' they see fit to defend are those which seek to directly attack Europe's Christian heritage or are in line with their agenda to eradicate Christian culture in Europe.

Militant Atheist Terror Twentieth Century Style

Today is the feast day of Miguel Pro, a young Mexican Jesuit priest and one of the personae of this blog. Writing in 1939, Graham Greene observed that the militant atheist dictator President Calles of Mexico embarked on the fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth I (aka 'Good' Queen Bess). Calles ruthlessly enforced the anti-Catholic provisions of the 1917 Mexican constitution, which among other things prohibited the Church from involvement in primary and secondary education and made secular education mandatory. It is chilling that atheists in the twenty first century, closer to home, have expressed similar ambitions for secular only education (see Friday's blog below). During the terror of the Mexican regime, churches were closed and mass had to be said in secret. Priests and religious were arrested and executed. Administering the sacraments was a capital offense but Miguel Pro was undeterred from offering the mass and continually outwitted the military police, at times disguising himself as one of them! He was an extraordinary and brave character. According to one of his biographers, he 'had a case filled with disguises, false mustaches, putty noses, spectacles of all kinds, costumes from dungarees to morning coats, and a rubber face that could flicker from peon to patrician in an instant, no matter what the clothes.' He was in disguise when Calles' henchmen eventually caught up with and arrested him. The priest was accused by the state on trumped up charges, no evidence was brought against him, and he had no trial. He was shot dead by firing squad on the 23rd November 1927.

It wasn't Mussolini

In the recent discussions concerning the judgement of the European Courts of Human Rights concerning the placing of crucifixes in public buildings in Italy, many of the commentariat in the media have been saying that they appeared there as a result of the concordat between the Vatican and Mussolini. No they didn't; they were there before Mussolini was born. See Anna Arco's Diary. But then the atheist media never let the facts get in the way of a good anti-Catholic story.

Removing Christ from Christmas

The attempted re-writing of Christmas by the German Nazi state is more evidence, if more were needed, that atheism and tyranny are inextricably linked. Any of this sound familiar?

Ideological Atheism again being imposed in Europe

This week the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that crucifixes should be removed from classrooms in Italy. The case was brought by an atheist, Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born Italian national who argued that the crucifixes were “contrary to the principle of secularism by which she wished to bring up her children”, and should be removed. It is a sobering thought that last week the Church celebrated the feast day of Bl. Mary Restituta, also known as Helen Kafka, who was ordered by the Nazis to remove the crucifixes from the hospital rooms where she worked as a nurse. When she refused she was imprisoned and later beheaded.