Sounds like the Jon Cruddas talk at Blackfriars in Oxford didn't go ahead.

Maybe he was ill or had family commitments or something. On the other hand, perhaps he pulled out because...

...several younger members of the Priory are active supporters of SPUC in Oxford, supporters of vigils outside abortion clinics oragnised by similar parts of the anti-abortion movement, and went ballistic upon hearing that Dr Cruddas was coming to visit??

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Who knows? If that's true then well done them. Meanwhile somebody called Francis Davis (I've never heard of him either) is spitting feathers.

Fr Perera seems to think that a senior MP giving up his Saturday to travel from Dagenham to Oxford is ‘bestowing an honour’ on him. How very self referential. Get real Father, Dr Cruddas does bigger gigs every week.

It is all very strange really as in September 2008 Jon Cruddas spoke in the very same room that he was due to speak in tommorrow inside Blackfriars Priory and we had a great chat in the Lamb And Flag afterwards. His views are the same now as they were then and he went down a storm.

And thus does the Church – well the 90 or so English Dominicans 2/3 of whom are active – risk failing to honour one of its sons to whom they owe respect.

The only solution is for the Prior Provincial to invite Dr Cruddas back to Oxford and give him a platform in the Priory so as to send a clear signal that the English Dominicans played no part in Dr Cruddas’s absence tommorrow.

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What a whirlwind of contradiction. First he mocks Fr Pereira for thinking it would be "bestowing an honour" for Blackfriars to have Dr Cruddas over to speak. Then without pausing for breath he says the Church could "risk failing to honour one of its sons" if they don't have him over to speak. Is it an honour or not?

Elsewhere he writes...

Now, I have not met Fr Periera so none of this is personal. But his stance is not helpful, is of a piece with his policies as Prior in Leicester, is politically naive and will do damage to the pro-life cause. He has been led astray by that part of the anti-abortion movement that likes to be funded to talk to those with whom it agrees , and rant against the rest. In that regard his position is co-terminous in its political irresponsibility with that of SPUC’s and does nothing for the sensible voices in parliament who seek reform on such issues. Theologically its the equivalent of walking around with hand cleanser and boxes of Ariel Soap Powder for one’s own use rather than having a vision of how to build sanitary considtions for a society.

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Presumably Francis Davis thinks sanitary conditions for society would be best built by people who don't keep their own hands clean? In any case, it is difficult to see how sanitary conditions are promoted by giving a platform to somebody who thinks speading germs is a good idea.

Fr Leon Pereira OP has sent his thoughts on the matter to Paul Smeaton and given permission for them to be published. Thank you Fr Leon.

Dr Cruddas’ voting record as an MP on abortion and same sex unions is not in keeping with the teaching or mind of the Catholic Church. This matters all the more because I am given to understand that Dr Cruddas describes himself as a ‘practising Catholic’ - a designation at odds with his actions as an MP. His actions appropriate the dimension of scandal precisely because he is a public figure. Therefore what he says and does in public which is contrary to Catholic faith and morals, all the while describing himself as a ‘practising Catholic’, are a scandal to the Faithful and prone to reinforce the assumption that perhaps these things (abortion, same sex unions, etc) do not matter, and that Catholics may reasonably conform their mind to that of the age, and still somehow (mysteriously!) remain fully Catholic without incurring any penalties whatsoever. That is a grave wrong wrought against God and His Church.

Is the Church then unable to dialogue with institutions or individuals who hold certain beliefs contrary to our Faith? Not at all. From the beginning we prayed for the very same emperors and authorities who persecuted and killed us. We appealled to them, to their reason, for tolerance and for the truth (the sole truth that comes from God which they can still perceive by the use of their reason, and not necessarily faith) which enables genuine justice and peace in society.

Notice how in her history the Church has not hesitated to negotiate with authorities, no matter how evil their deeds. We hold out the hope for their conversion and salvation, beginning with the cessation of their evil deeds, but also we do not see anything or anyone as beyond hope whilst they are still in via, still alive.
So in our desire to spread the Gospel, we should never be reluctant to dialogue with anyone, whatever their beliefs, so long as they are genuinely open to dialogue. You cannot dialogue with soliloquists, but we can still pray for them. I see the invitation extended to Dr Cruddas as a great opportunity for the friars at Blackfriars, Oxford, to ascertain where exactly his faith has gone wrong, and how his conscience has come to be so deformed. I am not too surprised that he has ended up like this, because the Church in our country has for too long been filled with compromise on essentials, and tolerated error - error which has poisoned the minds of too many Catholics who take secular assumptions as their yardstick in morals, and not Christ and His authoritative teaching, expressed by His Church.

But when Blackfriars opens its doors to the public to hear Dr Cruddas, this becomes a different matter. The invitation, although not an awards ceremony, nevertheless takes on the air of an accolade. Out of politeness it is unlikely that Dr Cruddas will be asked serious (however awkward) questions. Instead it is most likely he will leave Blackfriars with a sense of vindication, confirmed in his erroneous position by our silence and misplaced courtesy. Is it inconceivable that he or his supporters may say that he was honoured by an invitation to Blackfriars, where he set forth his positions in a well-received and unchallenged lecture, etc? The false impression given then is that Dr Cruddas truly is what he calls himself: a ‘practising Catholic’. And it is the Catholic in the pew who will suffer - either by being misled into error, or by the scandal this will cause.

At the heart of this, I wonder why Dr Cruddas in particular was invited by the Las Casas Institute? There are many MPs to invite, so the reason is unlikely to be his membership of the Commons. I hazard that it is his Catholicism and perhaps his affiliation to the Labour Party. But, as I have said above, his distorted understanding of the Catholic Faith is a scandal because he is a public figure. There seems to be an assumption in this country that to be Catholic is to be Labour. This naivete reached a nadir in the fawning displayed by our Church over that most reprehensible couple Tony and Cherie Blair. In Mr Blair’s case, I cannot understand how he could be received into the Church without a public abjuration of his erroneous beliefs and practices - for example, his own voting record on abortion. These were errors he committed before he became a Catholic, but they were in the public sphere, and his reception as a Catholic without any recantation is a continuing scandal.

The Church must remember that her one Lord and Spouse is Jesus Christ, and not hurry to jump into bed blithely and blindly with any political party or establishment. It is such ‘promiscuity’ which infects us, infects our faith, and makes the Church weak, sick and compromised.

The assumption that the Church’s social teaching is more naturally alligned to the political Left is a false one. The great irony is that Dr Cruddas (who has woefully failed to stand up for the Catholic teaching on abortion by his voting) has been invited by an institute committed to ‘justice and peace’ (our normal shorthand for Catholic Social Doctrine) when the single greatest justice and peace issue in our country is abortion! Is that like inviting the BNP to speak on ethnic minorities?

Justice and peace has, in the U.K., often been interpreted as ‘soft’ issues, that the middle classes can protest safely, for example, nuclear weapons and their disarmament, or ecological issues. I call them ‘soft’ because they do not impact our daily lives, even though we live in the shadow of nuclear destruction and environmental pollution (I am suspicious of ‘Climate Change’ being treated as a pseudo-religion, one which supplants the Gospel in the minds of too many Catholics and Christians; the only unforgiveable sin for them seems to be one’s ‘carbon footprint’). The things which do impact our daily lives are abortion, employment, just wages, euthanasia, the poison of contraception, and the erosion of both marriage and the family.

Perhaps the ‘Cruddas Affair’ is a wake up call to Catholics. Why is the Church so sycophantically snuggling up to the Left? Why do we tolerate errors on this scale? Why are Catholic public figures not brought to task for the scandal they cause? Justice and peace must be at the heart of the Church’s faith and morals, and I mean true justice and peace, and not simply those ‘easy’ or ‘soft’ issues which the wider society will not object too much to, and which does not require individual Catholics to convert to the Gospel.

We sign agreements to make our parishes ‘Fair Trade friendly’. That requires a conversion of sorts, although I understand that Fair Trade as it now stands could be improved and made fairer. But why do we not make a covenant with all our families (remember, they are the ‘domestic Church’ according to Vatican II!) to be ‘Humanae Vitae friendly’? Is it a good use of our energies to chain ourselves to the gates of Faslane, when hundreds of thousands of children are slaughtered in our cities every year? Probably not, but it is easier isn't it? It's easier to moan about carbon footprints than to form our consciences according to the mind of Holy Mother Church. But then the Gospel isn't about what's easier.

Yours,

Fr Leon Pereira, O.P.

h/t Paul Smeaton

It seems somebody didn't get the memo about 'vs the politicians'...

Vigil of reparation outside Blackfriars, Oxford, for the invitation of Jon Cruddas MP, the pro-abortion politician to speak at their conference

Dr Jon Cruddas MP is due to speak at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, on Saturday 29th October at their conference 'The Modern State and the Kingdom of God'. Dr Cruddas will speak about 'Building democracy'.

In December 2010 Jon Cruddas told The Catholic Herald that abortion "should be safe, legal and rare" and in June 2007 he said to BBC Sunday AM , when questioned about abortion ,“I'm perfectly happy with the current situation”. The current situation in the UK is that there are 570 registered abortions on average each day, with abortions carried out up to birth.

Since 2000, Jon Cruddas MP voted 18 times with the anti-life lobby. For example:

• voting in favour of the anti-life Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act at second reading - a law designed to kill millions of innocent human beings deliberately created never to be born. 
• voting for the pro-euthanasia Mental Capacity Act.

Dr Cruddas has also expressed his pride in his voting record in support of the homosexual agenda. Prior to this campaign, Daniel Blackman wrote three times to the interim director of the Las Casas Institute Fr Richard Finn OP. The letters were dated 17th August 2011, 21st September 2011 and 7th October 2011.

These letters raised objections to Jon Cruddas MP being invited to speak, with a request that the invitation to him be withdrawn. Daniel received one reply to his first letter. Fr Richard said in his reply that they took their Catholic identity seriously, but that they thought it was acceptable to invite a speaker along with whom they wouldn't necessarily agree with on all issues. Fr Richard did not respond to Daniel's two subsequent letters and he has been informed several days in advance that this vigil will be taking place. Whilst there is still time, it is hoped Las Casas will withdraw their invitation to Jon Cruddas. In the absence of this happening, an act of public prayer and witness is felt to be a sensible and respectful course of action.

"The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." ~ US Catholic bishops' document Catholics in Political Life, June 2004

"Platforms which would suggest support for their actions" had been interpreted to mean "speaking invitations, as these invitations would suggest support for their actions."

Catholics are naturally scandalised that a Catholic institution have invited a speaker who has on several occasions voted for measures which deny human beings their fundamental right to life and which are in direct contradiction to Church teaching. Therefore we will be holding a vigil in reparation for this event outside Blackfriars, Oxford, from 3pm - 5pm Saturday 29th October. You are welcome to join us.

We are praying for the conversion of Dr Jon Cruddas MP, those who invited him to speak and those Catholics associated with Blackfriars who have not raised their voice in opposition to this scandal. We also pray for all those whose faith has been weakened or destroyed by scandals within the Church. We entrust them all to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In light of his record we are calling on Blackfriars to cancel Dr Jon Cruddas' address, just as the Catholic Parliamentary Internship Scheme recently cancelled their placement of an intern with him.

This event has been organised by Catholics: Called to be faithful, not compromise. You can contact us at faithfulnotcompromise@gmail.com or visit our blog http://faithfulnotcompromise.blogspot.com/

If you live within an hours drive of Oxford then you should definitely go along and support the vigil between 3pm and 5pm this Saturday.