My polling cards arrived the other day with instructions to go down to the local primary school between the hours of 7am and 10pm on 6 May. I usually go early, hoping that it might be an indication of a Christian sense of co-responsibility for the common good. (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2240)
Apparently there is a debate on the television tonight featuring the leaders of the three main parties. Will Heaven at the Telegraph blogs is doing a live blog of the debate if you are interested. I'm off to the Church for Rosary and Benediction...
8 comments:
Not watching the debate, but I did go to an interesting meeting a couple of days ago organised by the Conservative Candidate for Edgbaston, Deirdre Alden, at which the Shadow Minister for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, spoke on the Conservative Party's policy on this subject.
As "luck" would have it, the meeting took place in a Church Hall 100 yards from the local abortion clinic, which struck me as a horrible irony. There we were, discussing how to save lives in the third world, whilst nearby people were making a living killing babies in the so-called "first" world.
Mitchell was an eloquent and persuasive speaker, who knew his subject inside out and took a genuinely non-political stance, praising a lot of the work done by the Labour Government. Much of what he said was very good and all went well until he said that it was "vital" that women in the third world had access to good contraceptive and "reproductive health" advice. My mind went immediately to the abortion clinic over the road and I thought "Yes, I know what you're talking about".
Apart from being morally abhorrent, Mitchell's stance was incredibly patronising. If only the poor benighted Africans could be taught to wear condoms and abort their babies like good Western liberal secularists, there wouldn't be so many of them and their material resources would go further. The fact that people in the third world are kept poor largely by the iniquitous trade policies of the US and EU - a fact which Mitchell mentioned - didn't seem to register with him.
I'm still not clear what is the moral thing to do. If all the candidates support abortion, does one choose the least evil on other issues or is it permissible to spoil one's ballot paper?
Dear Father Finigan
I listened to the opening salvos from all three leaders on the radio.
Cacti burner Nick Clegg opened by 'pinching' the fairness theme that had dominated the launch of the Green Party manifesto at their Brighton Manifesto launch. He then went on to claim the moral high ground as the new alternative to both Labour and the Conservatives.
If my history lessons at Addey & Stanhope Grammar School taught me anything it was that the Liberals and the Tories are really the 'Old Money School' of politics.
Clegg was educated at Caldicott in South Buckinghamshire, then Westminster School in London, then Cambridge.
From age seven Cameron attended the independent Heatherdown Preparatory School at Winkfield, in Berkshire, which counted Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its alumni. Cameron was later educated at Eton College, often described as the most famous independent school in the world, and traditionally referred to as "the chief nurse of England's statesmen", then Oxford.
My retiring Labour MP John Austin formerly of Glyn Grammar School has helped me progress my A Deo et Rege case for the defence against NF/BNP entry-ism in to London's Sporting/Plannig Arena at the Old Addeyans FC/Densitron International (now Technologies) PLC development.
The Home Office wrote to me about critical case developments on April 6th 2010 the day Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Buckingham Palace in central London to ask the Queen for a dissolution of parliament before a May 6 General Election.
I responded to Sara Muir, Home Office, Direct Communications Unit, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1 4DF on April 8th 2010.....Thank you for your letter dated 6 April 2010 in response to my letter addressed to David Hanson on the 15th February 2010.
You, and the Home Office are conveniently missing the point that I have already strategically defeated both the IPCC, and the former Met Commissioner of Police Sir Ian Blair at Judicial Review on the 28th February 2007 in Court No 1 at the Royal Courts of Justice before the Honourable Mr Justice Goldring.
The meeting that I requested with the Police Minister David Hanson was to discuss the appalling ongoing treatment that both I and my recently retired MP John Austin have received from the IPCC, the Met Police, and the MPA since then, in their concerted attempts to cover up the FARE scenario that began at inception with a pro NF/BNP prosecution by CID Greenwich in Regina v Hobson 1991....etc
PAPA RATZI ORA PRO NOBIS!
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us!
Delia - if there is no significant difference between them on pro-life voting intentions, it may be wise to look at whether a judgement can be made in favour of the common good for one of them. but spoiling the ballot paper is in itself a worthwhile exercise much better than staying at home. The candidates see the spoilt papers so it is worth writing a short slogan.
Dear Father Finigan
"The candidates see the spoilt papers so it is worth writing a short slogan" :-)
I did that at the last election '666 OUT 999 IN', and with Blair going and the all party corruption being exposed being the expenses scandal, I like to think that God heard me as well as the candidates in Erith & Thamesmead.
PAPA RATZI ORA PRO NOBIS!
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us!
Thanks. I wasn't looking for an excuse not to bother examining their manifestos, but if one really feels unable to vote for any of them after that, It's good to know that one can make a point in another way, that they do actually see the spoilt papers.
I have become increasingly disillusioned with CAFOD, but my experiences with their so-called "Election Forum" have been the last straw.
In their suggested questions to ask Parliamentary candidates, is there any mention of the abortion issue? No.
The recent moves to legalise euthanasia? No.
The forcing of adoption agencies to approve of adoptions by same-sex couples? No.
The implications of the Equality Bill? No.
The aggressive secularisation of our society? No.
Persecution of Christians abroad? No.
Instead, the questions are nearly all about climate change, and presuppose that the increasingly-discredited theory of "man-made" global warming is true.
I have posted this on their "forum" twice - and twice it has been deleted. So much for freedom of speech.
Well, that's it, CAFOD, you’ve blown it. You won't be getting a penny from me, ever again (I doubt this will have much effect on your Climate Change head honcho's £37,000 salary, but I'm glad I won't be contributing to it).
My money's now with Aid to the Church in Need - a REAL Catholic charity.
Someone just put a Christian Peoples Alliance flyer through my door - there's a candidate in this consistency. So I will be able to vote after all!
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