One of Britain’s leading homosexualist activists has called again for the lowering of the age of sexual consent from 16 to 14, saying that this will reduce incidents of sexual abuse of young people. Peter Tatchell, founder of the group OutRage!, wrote on the website Big Think, “Whether we like it or not, many teenagers have their first sexual experience around the ages of 14 or 15.”

“If we want to protect young people, and I do, the best way to do this is not by threatening them with arrest, but by giving them frank, high quality sex and relationship education from an early age.

[.....]  “Despite what the puritans and sex-haters say, underage sex is mostly consenting, safe, and fun,” Tatchell said. “If there is harm caused, it is usually not as a result of sex, per se, but because of emotional abuse within relationships and because of unsafe sex, which can pass on infections and make young girls pregnant when they are not ready for motherhood.”

OutRage! has long lobbied for the lowering of the age of consent in Britain, which was already lowered for homosexual acts from age 21 in 1994 and again in 2000 to 16, after heavy lobbying by homosexualist activists.

Carolyn Moynihan, an Auckland journalist with a special interest in family issues, responded at Mercatornet, saying it is “a little bit surprising” that Tatchell has made the suggestion at the time when he is part of a protest against Pope Benedict, whom he accuses of failing to protect young people from sexual predators.

Moynihan said, “Of course there will always be underage people who have sex, but that doesn’t mean the law should condone it. Sex is a very complicated part of human behavior that is too nuanced for young people to understand.”

Read here

Tony Blair's memoirs, entitled A Journey, have been published today and we have a copy at SPUC HQ. Here are some key points from it:

The third edition of this perennial favourite has just dropped through the letter boxes of Anglican clergy in England and Wales. It’s an update in the light of the new rules for who can (and still can’t) get married in a Church of England building and the recent developments with civil partnerships.

The existence of a civil partnership is an impediment to marriage. However, a minister may not refuse to marry a man and a woman on the basis that a party of parties has a former civil spouse still living (where the civil partnership has been dissolved) and the English House of Bishops’ Advice to the Clergy on the remarriage of divorcees does not apply.

Aaqil Ahmed

On the morning of 28 May 1982, an Alitalia 727 aircraft touched down at London Gatwick airport. Minutes later Pope John Paul II knelt down and kissed the tarmac.

What followed was an historic and demanding six-day tour of the UK that gripped the nation, and dominated the news both in the UK and around the globe.

I was a football-mad boy just about to turn thirteen and residing in Bolton when I watched his arrival in 1982. I – like others of around my age – remember being enthralled by Blue Peter and Newsround features about the visit – and who can forget marveling at the all-important Pope mobile.

I had little concept of what the Pope's visit to our shores really meant to the millions of Catholics in the UK. I just knew that this man was causing a bit of a stir when he turned up in his very different looking car. Like all things when you are a child, the fascination passed quickly, but my memory of his visit remains, and what really sticks in my mind especially is the sheer size of the crowds who came to see him in Heaton Park in Manchester.

Today – as a forty-one year-old man – I am now preparing for the first visit of a Pontiff for 28 years (and the first ever State visit) and I am in a very different place. I am obviously a lot older, I hope wiser, a father myself, and I am very proud to now be the BBC's Head of Religion and Ethics and the Commissioning Editor for Religion TV. And this papal visit by the current pope – Benedict XVI – rather than being a passing fascination, is on my mind every minute of every day, morning, noon and night. Why? Because I, along with many of my colleagues across BBC TV, radio and online, are getting ready to cover this historic State occasion with a myriad of eclectic programming.

Read here

By Jerome Taylor, Independent

A leading adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster has blamed abortion and gay rights for turning Britain into a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland" which has become "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death". Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to Archbishop Vincent Nichols, said Parliament had turned Britain into a country which is more culturally anti-Catholic than nations where Christians are violently persecuted such as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan.

His comments, made with only weeks to go before Pope Benedict XVI's historic state visit to Britain, will cause embarrassment between organisers of the visit and government officials, because they reveal how some members of the Church's hierarchy believe that the pontiff is travelling to a hostile and anti-Catholic country.

In an interview with Zenit, a Catholic news agency with close links to the Vatican, Mr Adamus railed against five decades of equality legislation and the availability of abortion services in modern Britain.  "Whether we like it or not, as British citizens and residents of this country – and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies – the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death," he said. "Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking – more than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."

Read here

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 31, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Concerned that religion is slipping from its time honored place at the heart of America, tens of thousands of Americans of all different faiths gathered in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. The massive crowd gathered in response to conservative icon Glenn Beck’s call for a fundamental restoration of traditional American values.

For Beck, the August 28 “Restoring Rally” was an ecumenical call that could serve to make the United States great again by bringing it back to God.

"Something that is beyond man is happening," Beck told the massive cheering audience, which was gathered at the same location (in front of the Lincoln Memorial) and on the anniversary of the date when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago.

"America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness," said Beck, who praised American icons like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as men of abiding faith, a component once considered essential to American greatness.

The Restoring Honor website described the event, saying, “We are calling on all church leaders to join with us in building a united community of constitutionally minded and Christ based patriots willing to push back against an overreaching federal government.”

While Beck is a Mormon, his event had the strong support of Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who shares Beck’s concern that belief in God is on the verge of being banished utterly from the U.S. public square.

Read here

As the date for Benedict XVI’s mid-September trip to Scotland and England draws closer, the anti-religious hostility is becoming more intense.

Peter Tatchell, a well-known critic of the Catholic Church, penned an opinion article published Aug. 13 in the Independent newspaper. “Most Catholics oppose many of his teachings,” he claimed in regard to the Pope.

In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme.

Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.

It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported Aug. 3.

Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack “dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.

Read here

Ireland has been stunned by the revelation that a Catholic priest appears to have been responsible for a terror bombing in which nine people died in 1972.

“History may be servitude, History may be freedom,” the poet T.S. Eliot observed in Four Quartets. When it is the former it can also be lethal, as Britain and Ireland were reminded last week. The virus of Irish Nationalism produced another shocker with the revelation that a parish priest in Northern Ireland was the prime suspect in one of the worst atrocities in the three decades of mayhem and murder known as “The Troubles”. Bad history must bear a large part of the blame for this particular manifestation of evil, as it must for much of Ulster’s tragic tale over those 30 years.

The Chesney case, like recent scandals of clerical abuse, appals because of the shocking incongruity of a man committed to the beatitudes of the Christian gospel allegedly taking command of a para-military cell and committing mass murder in the pursuit of a political goal.

It was 1972, the bloodiest year in the recent history of Northern Ireland, the year of Bloody Sunday and the year in which 496 people died in political violence. An undeclared civil war was raging. On the morning of July 31 the local IRA unit detonated two car-bombs in the village of Claudy in County Derry. Nine people were killed, including three children. More than 30 were injured. In the weeks following, it emerged that one of the suspects was a priest in a small neighbouring parish, Father James Chesney.

Read here

VOL: What is your overall take on this gathering of African Bishops from 12 African nations?

DUNCAN: This, the Second All African Bishops Conference has lacked the clarity of the first All African Bishops' Conference. What I believe we learn from this conference six years later is that Anglicanism without a confession is in a troubled place. The contrast between the spirit of GAFCON and this conference was striking. The prayerful, joyful always aware that God-is-right -here attitude of the African Church was present only when we worshipped or shared relationally. The sessions at the conference were dominated by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and social solutions where the gospel of Jesus is not the driving force.

By and large, the folks in Entebbe were the same folks at Lagos and many of the same folks in Jerusalem, but this conference lacked that great enthusiastic spirit that the joy of Jesus invariably displays. Conference presenters were more often good-hearted NGO's, but what exuded and continues to exude from the bishops of Africa was not so often on the podium since bishops were not so often on the podium. The agenda, apart from worship and Bible studies, was far more dominantly social than spiritual. Nevertheless and as always, the Lord did great things for many who shared in the conference and He is able to work all things together for good. (Rom. 8:28)

VOL: Did you feel accepted and affirmed as the new Anglican boy on the block?

DUNCAN: Over and over again, bishops all across Africa expressed to me their affection and respect for the stand that I and all of us have made and their sense absolute oneness in the gospel.

Read here

The New Zealand arm of "ex gay" group Exodus has lost a bid to gain charity status, because the government there says that being gay is okay–and not a disease requiring charitable support, reported GayNZ.com in an Aug. 30 article.

The group says that they offer services that are valuable to gays who are going through "very difficult times," much as a charity for GLBT youth, Rainbow Youth, does.

But the agency that made the decision, the Charities Commission, was not convinced by this argument. In is decision against Exodus, the Commission noted that Exodus laid out its mission as follows: "To promote the teaching that… God gives to human kind the gift of sex for procreation and the expression of love and pleasure in the context of a heterosexual and monogamous marriage and that deviations from this including homosexuality are morally wrong."

The group also claims that it exists in order to "counsel and assist homosexuals and others with sexual problems in order that they may find healing and release into wholeness as desired by God and revealed in the Bible," as well as to "make information available to homosexuals… that they can be released from homosexuality and to teach and present the view that a homosexual can change and that he or she is not born homosexual".

Read here

The next Bishop of Ely will be the Right Revd Stephen Conway, currently the Bishop of Ramsbury in the Diocese of Salisbury. He succeeds the Rt Revd Anthony Russell who retired earlier this year.

Following the formal announcement and a press conference with the local media, Bishop Stephen spent the day touring the Diocese visiting some of his future colleagues and parishioners.

After meeting Diocesan Office staff and others he visited a farm in Ramsey. He then went to Hampton, the site of a new church, for lunch with others from the Diocese. In the afternoon he met with a headteacher from one of our church schools, and visited a small innovative hi-tech business and one of the Universities in Cambridge. His day concluded at Ely Cathedral where he joined worshippers for Evening Prayer.

Read here

From Ekklesia

The gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has received a standing ovation at the Greenbelt Christian festival.

Speaking about “the struggle for queer freedom in Africa”, he attacked church leaders who condone homophobic abuse, but praised the “brave, heroic Christians who refuse to go along with the persecution of people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual”.

Greenbelt, one of Britain's largest Christian festivals, has drawn over 21,000 visitors over the weekend. Tatchell was speaking on Saturday evening (28 August).

Prior to the weekend, Tatchell had told Ekklesia that he was “looking forward” to the weekend and that, while not a Christian himself, “we have more in common than divides us”. The turnout suggests that few had heeded a call by the socially conservative group Anglican Mainstream, to boycott Greenbelt because of Tatchell's presence on the programme.

Tatchell drew enthusiastic applause from parts of the audience, and uncomfortable expressions from others, when he accused the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, of “colluding” with the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Africa.

“The Anglican Church and Archbishop Rowan Williams have a lot to answer for, because they have put church unity before human rights,” he said.

Read here

Preamble

The second All Africa Bishops Conference, organised by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), met in Entebbe, Uganda, from 23rd to 29th August 2010. Participants included 398 bishops representing the following Provinces: Burundi, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Southern Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, West Africa and the Diocese of Egypt. Also in attendance were some invited partners and guests.

The Anglican Provinces of Africa would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to Our Lord God for His mercy and guidance during this conference; our host Archbishop Henry Orombi and the members of the Church of the Province Uganda for their kind hospitality and warm welcome; to the President of Uganda His Excellency Yoweri Museveni and the Right Honourable Professor Apollo Nsibambi Prime Minister of Uganda, and the Government and people of Uganda; the leadership of CAPA especially the Chairman the Most Rev Ian Ernest supported by the Secretariat.

The first conference, with the theme ‘Africa Has Come of Age’, was held in Lagos, Nigeria in October 2004. The theme for our second conference in Uganda was ‘Securing our Future: Unlocking our Potential’ (Hebrews 12:1-2). Its aim was to mobilise bishops to overcome obstacles to their ministry and mission and provide them with the information, skills and tools to accomplish their ministry.

Read here

In an interview on Zenit, Edmund Adamus, the pastoral affairs director of the Catholic archdiocese of Westminster, provides a compelling analysis of England in the context of Pope Benedict's visit next month. He says:

" … whether we like it or not as British citizens and residents of this country … the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain … has been and is the geopolitical epicenter of the culture of death … Britain in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialization of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the gay agenda*, is such a wasteland …

" … Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years or more have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes culturally speaking than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."

Read here