BY Ian Dunn | April 13 | 
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Fight back and protect Christianity
— Bishop Tartaglia warns Catholics that defence of Faith must be robust in face of attacks
Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley used his Good Friday homily to warn that Catholics must fight back against the ‘menacing’ voices of ‘politicians, judges and celebrities’ that are seeking to drive public Christianity out of Britain.
The Paisley bishop (right) told the congregation at St Francis’, Port Glasgow, that the Bible ‘prophetically’ anticipated many of the contemporary attacks on Christianity.
Powerful voices
“Many contemporary voices say that there is no such thing as truth, only your perspective and my perspective,” the bishop said. “Your opinion and my opinion; voices which say that our Christian and Catholic Faith is a private matter and must not be allowed to influence public policy; voices which say that Christianity must not be allowed to shape how we understand the sacredness of human life, and the nature of marriage and the family; voices which threaten to intrude on the religious truths and moral norms which parents pass on to their children and which our teachers expound in Catholic schools.”
These ‘powerful voices,’ the bishop warned, the ‘voices of politicians and judges and celebrities,’ seek to make Britain a country where ‘Christianity will only be tolerated if it bends to become a religion of the state and a pathetic caricature of itself.’
Courage
The bishop told those assembled that Catholics must follow the courageous example of the Holy Father in resisting this trend.
“We must not allow ourselves to be dominated by what Pope Benedict XVI has called the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ or sleepwalk through inattention or faint-heartedness into this dangerous threat to our freedom of religion,” he said. “For Jesus says before He was convicted and condemned: ‘I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of the truth listen to my voice.’”
Bishop Tartaglia’s remarks echo similar statements by the Holy Father and come at a time when many in the Catholic Church have repeatedly expressed their concern over the growth of aggressive secularisation and the marginalisation of Christianity around the world.
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