LONDON, England, October 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Catholic bishops in England have criticized a Catholic weekly magazine for claiming that the Church’s doctrine on preserving unborn human life is irrelevant.
The Tablet’s September 13 editorial, entitled “Restricting abortion: Catholic teaching sets the bar too high,” was a reaction to an interview with Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who told a television interviewer that he took the teaching of the Catholic Church “seriously” and regarded it as “authoritative.”
The editorial claimed that Catholic doctrine against abortion means that the Church “comes close to having no position at all, or at least none that has any relevance either to lawmaking or to the lives of real people.”
Subsequently, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies, questioned the authenticity of The Tablet’s claims to Catholicity. He told Christianity Today: “Sadly, there are journals which use the name ‘Catholic’ but are not reliable guides to the faith and teaching of the Catholic Church.”
Davies stated that the teaching of the Church “could not be clearer” in affirming the sanctity of every human life from the moment of conception.
“No Catholic Christian could sincerely claim that this teaching is unclear or irrelevant to lawmaking or the moral choices made in the lives of people today,” the bishop said.
“It would be especially tragic in this anniversary year which marks the destruction of (over) 8 million human lives since 1967 that anyone would seek to obscure the witness of Christian teaching to the value of every human life.”
Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster wrote to The Tablet to say Church teachings are not “unrealistic but can help to better protect the child in the womb and are relevant to lawmaking and the lives of all people of goodwill.”
Bishop Michael Campbell of Lancaster alluded to The Tablet editorial when he posted “a word of encouragement for the pro-life movement” on his blog.
“Sometimes, we … assume that as long as we’re well-intentioned, God will overlook the more ugly side of our actions,” he wrote. “But nothing in Sacred Scripture supports this. In fact, you will find very little soft sentiment in the words of the Lord Jesus. We can, of course, count on God’s mercy and compassion, but we can also count on his justice. God will always love us, no matter what we do. But love always tells the truth.”
“Here’s the truth: Three hours ago, Pope Francis tweeted: ‘We are called to defend and safeguard human life, especially in the mother’s womb, in infancy, old age and physical or mental disability.’“
Campbell blasted the British Catholic’s tendency to claim to be Catholic while ignoring Church teaching.
“For some Catholics, sadly the price of admission into mainstream British life has meant that we somehow keep the Catholic brand name and tribal loyalty, but are content to live a mix of nostalgia and generic good will and ‘keep our heads down’ in the public sphere,” he said.
He reminded English Catholics that “we have pro-life obligations to the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the elderly and the refugee. But abortion is foundational. There’s no way around it. It’s the cornerstone issue for any society because it deals with the most basic human right of all — the right to life.”
Campbell also observed that some Catholics, “including some periodicals and newspapers who .. use that name,” seem “simply embarrassed by the abortion issue.”
“The abortion struggle gets in the way of their natural political alliances,” he wrote. “Others don’t really agree with the Church’s teaching, or don’t accept the personhood of the unborn child. Others just want a respectable way to explain away this issue and get on with what they regard as the ‘real’ work of the Church!”
Brendan Walsh, the editor of The Tablet, told Christianity Today that the Catholic bishops “are in a bit of a bind. They want to celebrate and protect every human life, from the moment of conception. But if they hold fast to the view that women should not be allowed the right to choose an abortion under any circumstances, the Catholic voice is less likely to be listened to.”
The Tablet has weathered the scorn of many British Catholics through the years, and many Catholic priests refuse to have it available for sale in their churches. Nicknamed “The Pill” or the “Bitter Pill” by orthodox Catholic commentators, The Tablet is notorious for its detours from the straight and narrow path of Catholic doctrine. Sometimes mistaken for an “official Catholic voice,” The Tablet has a circulation of only 18,772 worldwide. The circulation of its principal rival in England, the Catholic Herald, is about 21,000.
There are approximately 4.2 million Catholics in England and Wales; of these, approximately one million attend Sunday Mass. One 2016 survey suggested that 61 percent of British Catholics agree the law should allow abortion if the woman doesn’t want to keep the child. In 1985, only 31 percent of Catholics surveyed said they agreed with this.
Eleanor Attar Taylor, a senior researcher for the survey, posited that the dramatic change in Catholic attitudes could be stem from a “general liberalizing of attitudes in society as a whole, but also could be linked to Pope Francis’ softer stance on abortion.”