Now we include in the Honours List people who live a lifestyle that is totally at odds with the family and children. According to the law of the land, this is no longer the definition of a family. A family can be any kind of assortment of people, two men and a child or two women and a child or any other kind of permutation that you can devise, as in the law of the land, each or any of those permutations are equally valid.
I am sure that the conclusion that I have drawn will have shocked you. If it has, be ready for what I am now about to say. Where were you when this legislation was being enacted? I tried to do my best to challenge the Scottish Executive about our adoption agencies. I had all manner of support from all kinds of people from parts of the land. Most were from members of the Church of Scotland who saw me as their bishop! I found that description astonishing, given the traditional opposition to bishops in the national church. I knew what those people meant in their letters and phone calls. I had given them a voice, when the leadership of their own church had been silent. Where were you, the articulate members of the Catholic Church in Scotland? Of course, I was aware of the fact that wheat I was saying was to represent what you were thinking. But you have to be more vocal in showing your disapproval of what is enacted in Holyrood in your letters to your local MSP’s (members of the Scottish Parliament).
Let me return again to my main theme. That main theme is that the media, soaps and film industry have promoted values detrimental to family life. What they have done is to have coarsened attitudes and prepared society to be much more accepting of such things as promiscuity, infidelity and a wide variety of sexual lifestyles. At the same time, the values of Christianity are being pilloried as impediments to these new freedoms.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO
There is a need to establish principles around which a Christian culture can be regenerated. The bedrock of this fight-back has to be around these three areas, freedom of conscience, the importance of family and the stability of family life. I believe, with all that is in me, that this is the moral battle ground for the future. It is a battle ground on which we can win, for it is Christianity and Christianity alone which has a message of salvation. But a vital aspect to consider is that in establishing principles behind any campaign, they must be resistant to being corrupted by secularism.
This can occur only all too easily if we accept terms which we may be able to interpret favourably but others can interpret otherwise. We must aboid debating whether we are ‘homophobic’ or not. Instead we should argue that we support the wellbeing of all human persons, whether they are male or female.
Bishop Joseph Devine (Motherwell, Scotland) Saying No to Secularism – Gonzaga Lecture, Glasgow
