Front Mr B. O'Connor Sir, Two items caught ray attention in this week's edition of The Catholic Herald, both of which demand serious reflection on the part of Christians in this country. The first was the report of the banning of hotcross buns by some local authorities and second was the "cri de coeur" from Josephine Quintavatle on the defeat of the ProLife Alliance with regards to cloning.
Nobody should be in any doubt that the banning of hotcross buns has nothing to do with not wishing to offend the sensibilities of people of other religions, it is part of an orchestrated movement to eradicate all reference to Christianity from our society. If you don't believe this. ask yourself the question, why is it only Christian beliefs and practises that are targeted and objected to?
Secondly, the abhorrent practice of cloning has now become the law of the land. This infamy has been legalised, not just because of the aggressive campaigning on the part of those in favour of cloning, but mainly because of the apathy and indifference of the rest of the population.
As Josephine QuintavaIle points out, we are prepared to demonstrate on just about any issue, except the one that really affects us at the very core of our being.
Do we really want to be treated as no more than fungi and bacteria? And yet that is now to be our fate if the biotechnocrats have their way. But how do you get people, who don't want to know, to take notice?
How do you get people to realise that this is an extremely serious issue atid that they cannot just simply sit back and let things happen?
Put a petition at the back of the church and only about a third of the congregation, if hat. will bother to even look at it. Put up a notice about a particular issue and probably noone will look at it.
Put a notice in the parish bulletin and it will probably be skipped over as irrelevant. It would be helpful if attention was drawn to any issues that do appear in the hulletin, hut this is very often not the case.
I empathise wholeheartedly with Miss Quintavalle, but until we wake up. as a body. and rellise what is happening and what is being done, our beliefs and practices will continue to be eroded, we will continue to be defeated on every moral issue, and probably deservedly
SO.
Yours faithfully, BERNARD O'CONNOR Workington, Cumbria