Signs of Moral Collapse in the UK

Have you been following what’s going on in the U.K. these days? Believe me, it’s not pretty. Trouble is, it might be coming this way sooner than we think. The U.K. is creeping down a path that leads only to the extinction of public morality and the destruction of a once renowned system of justice. Here are just a few examples…

Teacher Fired For Being Christian.  Okay, teachers get fired all the time, and for all kinds of reasons. But have you ever heard of a Christian college firing one of its teachers because he openly expressed Christian teaching? 

Dr. Aaron Edwards, a teacher of theology at Cliff College, a Methodist college in Derbyshire, was sacked because he posted a tweet claiming that “homosexuality is invading the church.” Here’s his complete tweet:

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Homosexuality is invading the Church.

Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this b/c they're busy apologising for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not it's true.

This *is* a "Gospel issue", by the way. If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a Saviour.
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I agree completely, and I especially like his last line. But it seems the presiding powers at Cliff College were displeased when his little social media post went viral. Not only did they fire Dr. Edwards, but also threatened to report him to the U.K. counter-terrorism police, an ever-vigilant team of professionals who apparently look for terror in all the wrong places. That Dr. Edwards is a politically incorrect father of five might also have placed him in the counter-terrorism crosshairs. How un-Green of him to sire so many little polluters.

Dr Edwards is appealing the decision. He claims the college’s accusation that he violated the school’s social media policy ignores his right to express freely his religious beliefs. He also denies that his beliefs are in any way homophobic, but merely express theological insights that to many Christians are certainly not controversial. As he said when interviewed by The Telegraph: “Anyone concerned about academic freedom, Christian freedoms, and free speech should be deeply concerned about what has happened to me.” We are concerned, and troubled, and will pray that Aaron Edwards’ appeal is successful.

U.K. Street Preacher’s Conviction Overturned. Here we have some good news, a successful appeal of an unjust conviction. On June 8, 2021 Dave McConnell, a Christian street preacher, was doing his thing in Leeds when a transgender individual came up to him and asked if God accepts the LGBTQ community. Mr. McConnell, who encourages questions, said that God hates sin, but then referred to the questioner as a “gentleman.” The crowd didn’t like this and responded with hostility and profanity. The unruly crowd continued to abuse the preacher, and some even stole several of his possessions. All of this, of course, drew the police.

The police officer who responded, sporting a pentagram tattoo, arrested Dave because he went on to call a biological man a man, and not a woman. Apparently, the U.K. has a law (Section 5 of the curiously named Public Order Act) that empowers police to arrest anyone who causes “harassment, alarm, or distress” within the hearing of those who might be nearby. It’s one of those marvelous laws that can be applied to anyone in almost any circumstances. The local police station, where Dave was detained for 14 hours, proudly flies an LGBTQWhatever flag. 

Dave McConnell was convicted by a local judge and sentenced to pay costs of £620 and given 80 hours of community service. And then, to top it off, his probation officer reported him to the U.K. Prevent counter-terrorism police because McConnell was “viewed to be persistently and illegally espousing an extreme point of view.” Just reflect on those words and their impact on freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and even freedom of thought. 

Fortunately, the Leeds Magistrates’ Court overturned the conviction, although the presiding judge in the appeal offered a rather squishy comment, stating: “We live in a time when free speech is important and vital and we live in a time when people’s attitudes towards gender are very different from how they were years ago…All these issues need to be properly respected, so I make no criticism whatsoever of the Crown bringing a prosecution in this case.” Two cheers for the appeals court. Three cheers for Dave McConnell.

Woman Arrested Again for Silent Prayer. When I mentioned above that freedom of thought is under attack, I wasn’t kidding. 

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was first arrested back on December 6, 2022, outside an abortion clinic (the BPAS Robert Clinic) in Birmingham, England. At the time she was asked by the arresting police if she were praying. She replied that she “might be praying silently.” That was enough to arrest her. Yep, engaging in silent prayer — that is, your unexpressed internal thoughts — is now illegal in the U.K. If those thoughts might be considered by an observer to be prayer, especially if that prayer reflects opposition to politically correct activities such as abortion, you'll probably be arrested.

Isabel Being Arrested for Silent Prayer

Note that Isabel, this potentially violent praying woman, was arrested not by one, but by three police officers (actually, there was a fourth present) who were apparently patrolling the streets of Birmingham searching for latent terrorists engaging in dangerous thinking or praying. 

As it turned out, the charges against Isabel were dropped on February 3, but she said they might well be revived. In her subsequent statement she said, "It can't be right that I was arrested and made a criminal, only for praying in my head on a public street." She then added, "So-called 'buffer zone legislation' will result in so many more people like me, doing good and legal activities like offering charitable support to women in crisis pregnancies, or simply praying in their heads, being treated like criminals and even facing court." 

Two weeks after the earlier charges were dropped, the Birmingham police arrested Isabel once again, and on the same charges. In a video of her arrest, a police officer informed her that silent prayer "is the offense." It violates the Public Space Protection Order banning any protest that includes "Graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counseling." The officer told her, "But people know who you are and they know why you're here...And it's their perception of events, isn't it?"

Just consider this. Public Spaces are now "protected" from such evils as prayer, especially Christian prayer. Perhaps I'm taking too far a leap here, but I suspect there would be no arrest if a Jihadist prayed openly and loudly on the streets of Birmingham and asked Allah to destroy the United Kingdom. The increasingly woke establishment seems to consider Christianity their primary enemy, so we can expect to encounter more frequent and more intense attacks on Christians and Christian institutions.

Keep Isabel Vaughan-Spruce in your prayers. She is a courageous woman. I wonder what would happen if a few thousand people wandered into that buffer zone and simply prayed together in silence.
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Pray for the United Kingdom, which provided our nation with the much of the foundation of our system of justice. And pray, too, that as a people we Americans will continue to respect the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.

Continued Atrocities

"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. " [Jn 8:44]

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Looking at the world today it's apparent that the "father of lies" has been pretty busy. He makes use of all those caught up in themselves. He turns them into imitations of himself; turns them into liars, and haters, and lovers of chaos. For it is in chaos that he thrives. It is in chaos that his useful fools, who know not what they do, seek worldly power, the power they believe they can exert over others. 

Indeed, the devil is "diablo", from the Greek dia-bolos, meaning "one who divides or scatters." The evil one, then, is the scatterer, the one who strives to divide us, to create the chaos that comes from disunity. Note that Jesus' prayer to the Father seeks exactly the opposite; He seeks not division, but unity.

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me" [Jn 17:20-23].

Jesus' prayer to the Father echoes His call to us:

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect [Mt 5:48].

His is a call to the perfection that can come only when we are united in God's love. We cannot achieve it on our own but must "be brought to perfection as one." The purpose? To show the world that the Father loves every one of us whom He created in individual acts of love; that the Son gave His life for our redemption, that the Holy Spirit is present doing God's work in the world, in the Church, and in our lives. 

Yes, the evil one is certainly active, but we should not become disheartened. Next to God's omnipotence, the devil's works are as nothing. God has an eternal plan, a plan that encompasses the entire span of history. He sees all -- past, present, and future -- and carries all of creation to the end He desires, to the fulfillment of His will. Caught up in time as we are, we often forget that God is eternal, beyond the time and space He created. Just keep in mind St. Paul's comforting and oft-quoted words:

"We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" [Rom 8:28].

Confident, then, that for us all things work for good, let's take a look at some of the things the evil one is doing these days, and the help he receives from those who have been taught to hate, to grasp power, and to deny the God Who loves them. I will restrict these examples to just one diabolical issue, that of abortion, aware that the devil also strives to scatter and divide even nations, driving them from the peace God wills for us.

• The following story gives us a taste of what we the citizens and taxpayers can expect when we openly express our beliefs. A group of 12 high school students from Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenville, SC took part in last month's March for Life in Washington, D.C. Afterwards they decided to visit the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. But during their stay they were approached by museum employees and told they must leave because they were wearing hats with a pro-life message.

In other words, these young citizens were evicted from the museum because they were pro-life and showed it. It's nice to know that the taxpayers (via the federal government) contribute 51% of the Smithsonian's revenues. (info from the Smithsonian's 2021 Annual Report.)

Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice stated that the students “were accosted several times and told they would be forced to leave unless they removed their pro-life hats...The museum staff mocked the students, called them expletives, and made comments that the museum was a ‘neutral zone’ where they could not express such statements.”

After being confronted and accused of blatant discrimination by the ACLJ, Alison Wood, the museum's deputy director of communication, stated, “Asking visitors to remove hats and clothing is not in keeping with our policy or protocols...We provided immediate training to prevent a reoccurrence of this kind of incident, and have determined steps to ensure this does not happen again.”

One would think training on dealing with the public would have been a major part of their existing training program, but...I suppose it's progress. What these young folks experienced says a lot, though, about the attitudes of too many of those who work in our nation's capital.   

Here's a link to the full story: Smithsonian Harassment

• Now a story related directly to my theme. The Satanic Temple, an organization devoted to worship of the evil one, has, of course, long promoted abortion. TST (as they like to call themselves) has decided to turn abortion into a "religious" ritual which they compare to sacramental rites such as baptism and holy communion. They will perform these murderous rituals in New Mexico through their so-called TST Health services. 

Since their "clinic" is a place devoted to the hatred of God and humanity, they gave it a name that demonstrates their hatred for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito: "The Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic." According to Malcolm Jarry, the co-founder of The Satanic Temple, they chose that name because "In 1950 Samuel Alito's mother did not have options, and look what happened."

The Temple went on to claim that "TST is proud to expand reproductive options for our members. This is just the beginning...We remain steadfast as we continue the fight to uphold reproductive justice in the United States."

Yes, indeed, The Satanic Temple joins our President and almost the entire Democrat Party, as they disguise the willful murder of unborn children by simply calling it "reproductive justice." Hidden beneath this euphemism, slaughter becomes something they can talk about in polite company as they lift a drink celebrating the work of the evil one and his followers.

Elisa Martinez, of the New Mexico Alliance for Life, reminded us that "Their willingness to flaunt the practice of ending innocent human life as a ritualistic sacrifice shows how New Mexico public officials have cooperated with this evil by turning the state into the thriving taxpayer-funded abortion capital of the Southwest and even America."

Here's a link to the full story: Satanic Temple Ritual Abortion

• If you think evil has been empowered in New Mexico, check out Minnesota. The state legislature and its governor have just passed what they call the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, a law that guarantees "reproductive freedom" by allowing abortion for any reason right up to the moment of birth. But that's not all. Should a child happen to survive an abortion, the law prohibits any attempt to save the child's life. And there's more. Parental notification is not permitted, so a young girl can get an abortion without the parents being notified.  

Bishop Robert Barron described it well: "I don't know why this is really debated anymore in our country, but this strikes me as just the worst kind of barbarism. And in the name of, I don't know, subjectivity, and freedom, and choice and all this, we're accepting this kind of brutality."

When was the last time you told a pro-choice acquaintance that their support for abortion is nothing more than the support of premeditated murder, a barbaric evil that aims to destroy our nation and our civilization? Then just tell them you will pray for their conversion.

And if you live in Minnesota, how strongly did you speak out against this vicious law? Will you work to vote its supporters out of office? Will you pray for them, for their conversion?

Here's a link to the full story: Bishop Barron and Minnesota's Abortion Law

• The evil one is at work throughout the world, even in jolly old England. The esteemed, but only moderately relevant, House of Lords has voted to support the establishment of "buffer zones" around abortion clinics. The law would criminalize any attempt to "influence" someone seeking an abortion. It becomes a criminal offence to cause "harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services." Such influence, we are told, might well turn even private and silent prayer outside an abortion clinic into a "thought crime."

 If, however, we look at this objectively there may be a silver lining. Since some among the most honorable Lords apparently believe that silent prayer can influence the decision of a woman contemplating abortion, it would seem they recognize the power of prayer. After all, if prayer accomplished nothing, why ban it? But if such prayer actually causes a woman to change her mind and not abort her baby, something the Lords fear might happen, then prayer does have power. But it has power only if God, to whom the prayer is addressed, responds to it. And since God is all Good, He responds only to that which is good. This would mean, then, the House of Lords accepts that God is pro-life. If so, can we expect a mass conversion among these lordly ones? Just a thought.

Here's a link to the full story: House of Lords and Thought Crime

I think that's enough; anyway, I'm tired and still have a homily to write for a cemetery committal tomorrow. Don't fear the evil one; just stay close to Our Lord and pray for all those who have been led so far astray. Try fasting one or two days each week, all for the conversion of sinners. And remember, all those aborted babies are today's Holy Innocents and remain always close to the Father where they intercede for those responsible for their deaths. God's peace...