Scottish Catholic Observer

Bishop Joseph Devine of Motherwell has made a scathing atta-ck on the coalition government and Prime Minster David Cameron, saying they are ‘not religiously literate’ and have ‘no reference to religious sensibilities.’

Bishop Devine (right), who has had a long track record of holding politicians to account, said he was driven to criticise the Prime Minster in a Sunday newspaper by Mr Cameron’s failure to meet with Church leaders since taking office.

“It would appear that his priority up until now has been to have an exchange of ideas with more liberal and radical minorities, including sexual minorities,” the bishop says in the article. “Is this the same politician who, when in opposition, draped himself in the mantle of marriage and traditional family values?”

Secular policies

The bishop said Mr Cameron’s reluctance to meet with religious leaders from the Church compared unfavourably with the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and represented a continuation of the secular policies of the previous Labour Government.

“In politics, secularism has sidelined Christian values as irrelevant when creating new laws,” the bishop says. “The current Coalition Government and its Labour predecessor are effectively saying to Christians: ‘Go against your consciences or the state will punish you with all the sanctions of the law,’” the bishop writes. “The parliamentary process no longer appears to represent the mind of the electorate, nor reflects the moral concerns of a substantial majority of the population.”

Papal challenge

The bishop said that Pope Benedict XVI had been wise to raise the issue, when visiting the UK, that powerful people in this country were working to ‘silence Christians in Britain.’

“Such direct and public challenges to our legislators can only be expected to intensify given that we have reached the stage in Britain when in a landmark case the High Court in England was asked to rule on whether experienced Christians were ‘fit people to adopt or foster children!’” the bishop says. “Nothing better illustrates the times we live in and the extent to which the historic Christian identity of Britain is under assault. We now have a straight fight between faith and atheism, morality and amorality, a culture of life and a culture of death.”

Political problem

Bishop Devine added that aggressive secularism showed there was a ‘major problem of political leadership in Britain’ and that Christians had to respond to this assertively.

“The consciences of millions of people—Christians being overwhelmingly the largest social grouping in the UK—are being gravely wounded as aggressive secularism and political correctness inexorably displaces the values of Christianity,” he warns. “Even for people of faith and conscience—patience has its limits. Let me remind them of a paraphrase from Chesterton’s verse: ‘But we are the Christians of Britain; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.’”

The Prime Minister’s office declined to respond to Bishop Devine’s comments.

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