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CHERIE BLAIR THE DAY I TOLD POPE BENEDICT TONY WANTED TO CONVERT PAGE 7

No. 6354

www.catholicherald.co.uk

May 23, 2008 £1 (Republic of Ireland €1.50)

A deadly week for the unborn

COMMENT

Daniel Hannan

on the woman who should have pipped Al Gore to the Nobel Prize p10

MPs keep abortion up to 24 weeks, back hybrid embryos and reject ‘need for father’

FEATURE

Alessandra Borghese meets the Pope on her trip to Bavaria p8

BYANNAARCO

MPs HAVE overwhelmingly rejected attempts to reduce the time limit for abortion, marking the end of a devastating week for the pro-life movement in Britain. The House of Commons also approved the creation of animal-human embryos and so-called “saviour siblings” and removed the requirement for fertility clinics to consider a child’s “need for a father”. The votes are a major setback for the Catholic Church, which has campaigned vigorously against the Government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Three Catholic Cabinet ministers risked their careers by repeatedly voting against the Bill. Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, voted to halve the abortion limit to 12 weeks. Despite giving Labour MPs a free vote, Prime Minister Gordon Brown had insisted the Bill was a vital part of his legisla

tive programme and backed the existing 24-week limit on abortion. On Tuesday evening, four amendments were tabled in the Commons to reduce the upper limit to 12, 16, 20 or 22 weeks. The amendment to shorten the limit to 12 weeks, tabled by senior Tory backbencher Edward Leigh, was rejected by 393 votes to 71, a majority of 322 votes. MPs also rejected all other attempts to reduce the time limit. Although some MPs hoped the time limit would be reduced by a couple of weeks, some pro-life campaigners feared that the debate could lead to abortion on demand. But in the end there were no attempts to deregulate early abortions. Evan Harris, the pro-abortion Liberal Democrat MP, tabled an amendment on Monday proposing to fully decriminalise abortion –which is still a criminal offence under the 1967 Abortion Act –but he withdrew his amendment before the debate. Speaking in the House on Tuesday evening, Mr Leigh said the public supported a reduction and argued that Britain was “out of step” with other European

OURCOMMENT

We have become used to calling ourselves a post-Christian society. But we flatter ourselves. From this week onwards we have definitively chosen to become a post-human society.

Editorial Comment: p11

countries. He told MPs: “In modern Britain, the most dangerous place to be is in one’s mother’s womb, which should be a place of sanctity. Ninety-eight per cent of abortions are social. Only 1.3 per cent are because of foetal handicap and 0.4 per cent are because of the risk to the mother’s life. It is a bleak picture of modern Britain.” But Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, insisted there was no scientific evidence to support a reduction in the time

limit. She accused pro-lifers of trying to ban abortion with a series of gradual reductions. She said: “The upper limit was set by Parliament in 1990 at 24 weeks because scientific evidence at the time was that the threshold of viability had increased. “It has always been linked to the potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb. That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now.” On Wednesday morning John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: “People have to understand that the battle is not over yet. We need to redouble our efforts and launch an even stronger campaign so that the pro-abortion lobby does not use its majority in Parliament to push more pro-abortion legislation into law at the report stage.” Mr Smeaton added that “Evan Harris has put his cards on the table even if he withdrew the amendment” and there is a grave danger that abortion on demand will come up again during the report stage.

On Monday MPs rejected an attempt to ban the creation of “saviour siblings” – children created to aid a sick brother or sister –by 342 votes to 163. An amendment that would have banned the creation of “human admixed embryos” –where human DNA is put into animal egg cells –for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160. On Tuesday attempts to preserve “a child’s need for a father” in cases of IVF treatment were defeated, paving the way for two-mother families being enshrined in law. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor criticised the measure. In an interview with a national newspaper, he said: “I think it is strange that the Government should want to take away not just the need for a father but the right for a father.” Ian Lucas, who co-ordinates the AllParty Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said: “We will continue the fight to reflect the wishes of the public, and support the rights of the unborn child.”

Science and Faith: Page 9

MUSIC

Damian Thompson Bach blooms at the Lufthansa Festival p12

NEWS

1-5

FEATURES 7-9 COMMENT 10-11 ARTS 12 CHARTERHOUSE 16

Cardinal reveals ‘smoke of Satan’ referred to Church liturgical crisis

BYEDWEST

POPEPAULVI was referring to post-conciliar liturgical abuses when he said the “smoke of Satan” had infiltrated the Catholic Church, according his former master of liturgical ceremonies. In an interview with Italian Catholic website Petrus, Cardinal Virgilio Noèè, the chief Vatican liturgist during the pontificate of Paul VI, revealed what the Holy Father was alluding to when he made the famous statement in 1972. The retired Italian prelate, who oversaw the liturgy under Popes Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, also spoke of the necessity of recovering the

true liturgy “in a hurry, before the sense of the sacred in the ars celebrandi, before the smoke of Satan completely pervades the whole Church”. But he added: “Thanks be to God, we have Pope Benedict XVI: his Mass and his liturgical style are an example of correctness and dignity.” Cardinal Noèè, 86, who was also Archpriest of the Basilica of St Peter and Vicar of the Pope for Vatican City, spoke of Pope Paul VI as a “real gentleman, a saint”. Pope Paul accepted the liturgical reforms “with pleasure,” Cardinal Noèè said, and was not a sad man but “he was saddened by the fact of having been left alone by the Roman Curia”. “I

remember still how he lived the Eucharistic Mystery, with passion and participation,” he said. “When I think of him I tear up, but not in the way of a hypocrite. I am truly moved. I owe him a great deal, he taught me a lot, he lived and paid a great price for the Church.” On Paul VI’s remark about the “smoke of Satan,” he “meant to include all those priests or bishops and cardinals who didn’t render worship to the Lord by celebrating badly Holy Mass because of an errant interpretation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council. He spoke of the smoke of Satan because he maintained

that those priests who turned Holy Mass into dross in the name of creativity in reality were possessed of the vainglory and the pride of the Evil One. So, the smoke of Satan was nothing other than the mentality which wanted to distort the traditional and liturgical canons of the Eucharistic ceremony.” For Paul VI, the cardinal said, the worst outcome of liturgical reform was the “craving to be in the limelight” that caused priests to ignore liturgical guidelines. He remembered that the Pope himself believed in careful adherence to the rubrics of the Mass, believing that “no one is lord of the Mass”.

Actor’s sorrow at threat toCatholic adoption agency

BYMARKGREAVES

JOHNTHOMSON, star of The Fast Showand Cold Feet, has said that the closure of a Catholic adoption agency in Salford would be a “disaster”. The actor was placed with a family by the Catholic

Children’s Rescue Society when he was four and has stayed in touch ever since. He had been encouraged to attend the society’s annual fete, he said, by the parents of comedian Steve Coogan. “While I was there, I met the Catholic Sister who had cared for me as a baby,” he said. “I realised how grateful I was to have been put with such a lovely family and to have had a good upbringing.” He said: “These agencies are needed. If you don’t get adopted you’re in care until you’re 18 and you miss out on

the love that I received.” The society may have to end its adoption service because of gay rights laws that compel it to place children with samesex couples. The rules have already forced the dioceses of Northampton and Nottingham to pull out of adoption. Agencies that were attached to the dioceses will become secular bodies in order to continue their work. The remaining Catholic adoption agencies have until the end of the year to decide their futures.

Astronomer: love thy alien neighbour

The Vatican’s chief

astronomer has said that

if aliens exist Christians

should treat them as

brothers.

Full story: Page 5

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