Churches have joined together to protest against plans for a mosque that would tower over the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, with one minister describing it as a “supremacist statement” for Islam.

A collective comprising every church in Camberley, Surrey, has lambasted plans for the giant mosque, warning that will create only “division and discord” in the town.

The proposal has already caused security concerns in military circles as the mosque includes 30m (100ft) minarets that would overlook Sandhurst.

The planned mosque lies just 360m from the academy, where hundreds of newly commissioned Army officers take to the parade ground each year for their passing out ceremony. The event attracts senior members of the Royal Family as well as important military figures.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

The experience reinforced for me the reality of terror in the sky. Sitting in an aircraft, 37,000ft over the Atlantic, there is nowhere to go, no escape and, confronted by passengers behaving suspiciously, a total sense of helplessness.

The nonchalant manner with which the male passenger was allowed to walk through the plane and enter the toilet during the landing approach, and to remain out of sight and control for around five minutes, was simply incredible and extraordinarily alarming.

Afterwards, I complained to the United Airlines desk. I was informed that an armed air marshal was probably on board the flight, as is most likely the case on high-risk routes between the United States and the UK.

However, I wondered what difference the marshal's presence would have made had the passenger beside me turned out to be a suicide-bomber. Would he - could he - have shot the suspect through the toilet door and saved our lives?

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Travel • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland

The Reformation was bad for England, and the nation would do well to become a Catholic country again.

This was the affirmation proposed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on Tuesday during a debate hosted by The Spectator magazine as part of its debate series. The topic under discussion was "England Should Be a Catholic Country Again," and the cardinal -- who is a retired archbishop of Westminster -- was joined by author Piers Paul Read and Dom Antony Sutch, parish priest of St. Benets Catholic Church, in speaking for the motion.

Speaking against the motion were Lord Richard Harries, retired Anglican bishop of Oxford; Matthew Parris, former Conservative Member of Parliament and currently a columnist for the Times; and Stephen Pound, Labour Party Member of Parliament.

Though affirming that the Reformation "brought a tremendous loss to this country," the core of Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's contribution focused on an ecumenical vision.

"My vision is for the English Church, united with all its history and genius, is to be aligned and in communion with the billion and more Catholic Christians throughout the world, with 4,000 or 5,000 bishops and in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope," he said.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • England / UK • Europe

I agree with Richard Harries' defence of faith groups who want to conduct civil partnerships in places of worship. But I really dislike the way he poses as a defender of religious liberty. We Lords-spiritual have no right to oppose them holding civil ceremonies in places of worship, he loftily says: "it would harm no one, and it accords with their deepest religious convictions. Religious freedom is indivisible". This is laughable. For an Anglican bishop to say this is like a Thatcherite saying "compassion must always come first".

The Church of England has many things going for it: it has lovely buildings, lovely music, lovely liturgies, lovely literature, and a lovely habit of theological vagueness. But it does not have the moral high ground in terms of religious liberty. Indeed it is founded on the denial of religious liberty. This is too often obscured by its reputation for "liberalism", which is based in the fact that it is more liberal than certain other churches on certain issues, and manages to find a few nice people to say nice things on Thought for the Day.

According to the vague, lazy orthodoxy about our history, the C of E is deeply entwined in the story of British liberalism. From the time of the first Elizabeth, did this Church not nurture the distinctive English tradition of toleration, pluralism, fair play? Did it not reject the authoritarian ways of another church we won't name, and choose freedom? No, actually. It is truer to say that our tradition of liberty arose in opposition to the established Church.

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The Rt Revd Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has complained of a “strident and bully­ing campaign” to marginalise Chris­tianity in the UK.

At a symposium organised in the House of Lords last week by the Christian Broadcasting Council, Lord Carey said: “Christianity, which has given so much to our country, is now being sidelined as never before as though it is a stranger to our nation.”

Britain had “reached a point”, he said, “where politicians are mocked for merely expressing their faith. I cannot imagine any politician expres­sing concern that Britain should remain a Christian country. That reticence is a scandal and a disgrace to our history.”

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I mention that some Christian theologians seem to say that Allah is not the same God as the Judaeo-Christian God. At that question, Dr Nazir-Ali becomes visibly uncomfortable. He pauses a long time, formulating his reply, as if his life depended on the answer.

The terrifying truth is that, in modern Britain, his life could indeed depend on how he answers this question. He knows this well, for he has received death threats in the past, and has been under police protection.

"I would say that Islam has a sense of the God of the Bible but, for various reasons, understands the nature of that God, and God's action in the world, quite differently," he says.

Read more...

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While Britain was panicking about a sterling crisis and the terrifying financial consequences of a hung parliament, I spent last week in Japan. It was a good vantage point to put Britain’s financial and political travails into perspective.

Japan’s budget deficit of 10.5 per cent of GDP is this year second to Britain’s among the G7 countries, but in every other respect the fiscal situation in Japan is far worse. Because the Japanese Government has borrowed similarly prodigious sums almost every year since 1990, it carries by far the world’s heaviest debt load, with net public debt now running at 115 per cent of GDP, about the same as in Italy and Greece. And there is not the slightest prospect of any reduction in borrowing in the foreseeable future because of the political situation in Japan. It has had four prime ministers in three years, its civil service is in more or less open warfare with the elected politicians and there has been no effective government since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006.

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The first thing you notice about Julie Etchingham is the hair, a perfect bob that frames her face like a bonnet. It is several hours before she will present ITV's News at Ten live to three million people but she looks ready to go now, immaculately groomed and dressed. Everything from her posture to her voice screams "efficiency", and it's little wonder she is known to her co-host Mark Austin as "head girl"....

She is also one of a handful of broadcasters who, as a Roman Catholic, is unembarrassed to discuss her faith. "Religion is an important part of my home life," she says, "If you have a faith, you are bound to be influenced by it. Would that ever show itself on air? I don't think so. The key place where my faith influences me is in how I hope to handle people." Although she believes religion "is not a work thing", she laments that ours is a "very secular" media, and that "Christians can be discriminated against", before carefully steering the conversation on to the joys of our multi-cultural age.

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It was one of the most complex military logistical and medical operations ever undertaken – and it saved the life of a young British soldier critically injured in Afghanistan.

It involved hundreds of doctors, air and ground crews of several nations, travelling many thousands of miles, revolutionary and experimental medical equipment, several planes and helicopters and communications between three continents and cost millions of pounds.

For months, details of the massive operation to save one man’s life have been shrouded in secrecy. The injured soldier was not shot by the Taliban but was almost certainly wounded accidentally at his camp near Sangin in Helmand province in late July last year.

What a fantastic, inspiring story--read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • War in Afghanistan • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • England / UK

The Church of England has warned that basic human rights cannot be made contingent on the exercise of responsibilities. In a response to the Ministry of Justice Green Paper on Rights and Responsibilities, the Mission and Public Affairs Council argues that connecting rights too closely with responsibilities risks undermining the inalienable nature of fundamental human rights.

Some less fundamental rights - perhaps better understood as entitlements - may follow from the exercise of social responsibility, the response argues, but the Green Paper does not give enough emphasis to the ways in which responsibilities are owed primarily to other persons, groups and communities and not always to the state.

Read it all and also peruse the full response (11 page pdf) there.

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The 25 per cent fall in the value of the pound over the past couple of years has amounted to a bigger depreciation than in any single post-war sterling crisis. Most see this as a healthy correction of an over-valued currency, which has given us a more competitive exchange rate just when we needed it.

This benign devaluation now threatens, however, to turn into a rout. For this week's fall in the pound has been prompted not by worries over Britain's prospects, but by doubts about the economic credibility of the Government. The Tories' diminishing poll lead has raised the spectre of a hung parliament, and of chaos and gridlock in government at the worst possible time. The markets have taken fright: as Kenneth Clarke, the shadow business secretary, observed yesterday, it has only been the prospect of a Conservative victory, and the arrival of a government prepared to tackle the fiscal crisis head on, that has held down interest rates and sustained sterling in recent months. The possibility that this may not happen has alarmed foreign investors, for it is uncertainty that spooks the markets.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

Lord Alli’s amendment to the Equality Bill, which allows civil partnerships to be registered on religious premises, if religious bodies wish to allow it, was approved during the Report Stage in the House of Lords on Tuesday by 95 votes to 21.

The proposed changes to the Civil Partnership Act had been significantly modified since the debate in January (News, 5 February). The scope is narrowed to England and Wales, and the existing rule that “no religious service is to be used while the civil partnership registrar is officiating at the signing of a civil partnership document” is retained.

An additional clause reads: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this Act places an obligation on religious organisations to host civil partnerships if they do not wish to do so.” A further clause states: “Regulations may provide that premises approved for the registration of civil partnerships may differ from those premises approved for the registration of civil marriages.”

Lord Alli stressed that the issue was one of religious freedom. “Religious freedom means letting the Quakers, the liberal Jews, and others host civil partnerships. It means accepting that the Church of England and the Catholic Church should not host civil partnerships if they do not wish to do so.”

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Vicars will end up being sued and the difference between marriage and gay partnerships will be 'fudged' after last night's vote in the House of Lords, the Bishop of Winchester warned. Speaking to me by telephone a few minutes ago, the Right Rev Michael Scott Joynt, who was unable to be in the House for the vote because of unbreakable prior commitments, said he believed the next step would be vicars being sued for discrimation if they obeyed Church of England law and refused to do gay weddings.

'Having thought about it a great deal since the committee stage, I regret enormously the vote last night....I think it will make for a great many difficulties. There are two I am particularly concerned about.'

He continued: 'Notwithstanding the bland words of a number of individuals, some of whom surprise me, I believe it does further fudge the line between civil partnerships and marriage. That is shown by some newspapers which simply speak of gay marriages in church. The second thing is, I believe that it will open, not the Church of England but individual clergy, to charges of discrimination if they solemnise marriages as they all do but refuse to host civil partnership signings in their churches. Unless the Government does something explicit about this, I believe that is the next step.'

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Gay men and women will finally be allowed to marry in churches after the House of Lords dramatically voted in favour of lifting the ban on religious premises holding same-sex partnerships.

The amendment to the Equality Bill, which was tabled as a free vote by gay Muslim peer Waheed Alli, received overwhelming backing in the Lords, including from a number of prominent Anglican bishops.

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Traditionalist bishops and peers fear that vicars could be taken to court and accused of discrimination if they turn down requests to hold civil partnerships on religious premises.

Their concerns have been raised following a landmark vote by peers that will allow the ceremonies for same-sex couples to be held in places of worship for the first time.

It is also feared that the changes would blur the line further between marriage - which churches say must be between a man and a woman - and civil partnerships.

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To summarise, the amendment leaves a number of questions unanswered and the Government has recognised these. They have also stated very clearly the fact that this is in their view, not in any sense a human rights or justice issue. The Bill still has to have a third reading in both houses and the amendment may very well fail at that point, or die with the Bill in its entirety if legislation is dumped in advance of the General Election.

One thing is clear though – this is legalised gay marriage in church by the back door and those of us who are Biblically conservative need to be very aware of what is going on. The Bill in its current form is too ambiguous and would arguably permit Church of England clergy to let Civil Partnerships be registered in churches without the permission of their Bishops.

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What was she thinking? By taking a last-minute detour, on her five-day trip to Latin America, to visit President Fernández de Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Hillary Clinton has — recklessly — given the appearance of throwing America’s weight behind Argentina in its row with Britain over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands...

Intruding in the dispute was lamentable enough. But in further offering to mediate between Buenos Aires and London, the US Secretary of State is implying that there may be some fruitful area of grey between their rival black-and-white claims. By suggesting so boldly that there may be room for negotiation when Britain has insisted that there is none, Mrs Clinton gives the impression that Argentina has America’s tacit support in the dispute.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • England / UK • South America • Argentina

The banking crisis and the MPs' expenses scandal have left people with a profound sense of injustice and exposed how we have been neglecting basic ethical questions of justice, integrity and honesty. In their place we have used a language of market efficiency and managerialism.

Why have we become so reluctant to discuss the big ethical issues? And can we afford to ignore them? As part of our Citizen ethics programme we brought three prominent thinkers together at the British Museum, all with a keen interest in ethics: Diane Coyle an economist, writer and former adviser to the Treasury; Michael Sandel, a political philosopher and professor at Harvard University; and Rowan Williams , the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Listen to it all (an MP3).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

In conclusion, were the state to be preventing a religious body from exercising its freedom of religion it would indeed be quite wrong for the established church to support such restrictions simply on the grounds that it did not itself wish to exercise such a freedom. That is not, however, the situation created by the Civil Partnership Act. The current legislation does not place any such limit on religious freedom. Quakers, Unitarians, liberal Jews, any other religious group, is at liberty to celebrate the formation of civil partnerships and other patterns of same-sex union within their own communities in whatever way they determine according to the laws of their religious body. The state does not claim any right to interfere in or to prevent such religious ceremonies.

No religious body has a right for its clergy to be recognised as acting as a registrar on behalf of the state or for its premises to be used for such registration - registration of births, for example, is not franchised out in order that it can be completed on religious premises by a religious minister at a service of infant baptism or thanksgiving for the birth of a child rather than by a civil registrar! Saying that such registration cannot take place in a religious ceremony is therefore not a denial of anyone's rights.As noted above, in many European countries, there is universal civil registration of marriage and this is not held to be an infringement of religious freedom. Furthermore, in contrast to marriage law prior to 1836, it is not as if those with religious commitments who wish to enter a civil partnership are required to participate in a ceremony to which (as agnostics, atheists or non-Anglicans) they may have conscientious objections - they simply have to sign a document in the presence of a registrar and witnesses.

As some have begun to argue, it may well be time for a more wholesale review of the law in relation to marriage, including now its relationship to civil partnerships. The proposed amendment by Lord Alli is, however, not the way to proceed. The rushed, piece-meal and agenda-driven nature of his changes to the Civil Partnership Act create many more problems and confusions than they resolve and show a lack of awareness of the history and contemporary complexity of the law in relation to civil marriage, religious marriage and civil partnerships. Sadly, given the weaknesses in the arguments advanced, and the known views of many of the signatories of the letter to The Times, it is perhaps not unduly cynical to see the sudden strong lobbying of support for Lord Alli's amendment as something of a Trojan horse. Under the flawed but powerful rhetoric of “religious freedom" and “non-discrimination", the amendment will have two consequences. Removing the restriction of registering civil partnerships to a civil ceremony will further undermine the distinction between civil partnerships and marriage. It will also make life increasingly difficult for those people and communities of faith who in conscience object to the establishment of 'gay marriage'and who are given no protection under the proposed amendments from charges of being discriminatory if they only offer marriages but not civil partnerships.

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Since the debacle of Civil Partnerships I must confess to some doubts about the place of Bishops in the House of Lords.

You will recall that eight bishops (Chelmsford, Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, St Albans, St Eds & Ips and Truro) voted in favour of the Bill while only two bishops voted against (Chester and Southwell). In recent times they have slightly redeemed themselves with a spirited defence of religious freedom by defeating the government on the Equality Bill, but such was the seriousness of the Civil Partnerships legislation that it is not easy to forget.

Three of those bishops who voted in favour came back again like bad pennies with a letter to The Times protesting this time that the Civil Partnership Act had not gone far enough in creating a new category of civil marriage. They now want civil partnerships to have the character of religious marriage, according to the various letter writers. They complain that the original Act had prohibited civil partnerships from being registered in religious premises. Now they want this overturned for uber-liber- al Jewish and Christian bodies, effectively making civil partnerships undistinguishable from marriage.

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A respected Islamic scholar will publish a seminal fatwa tomorrow that unequivocally condemns terrorism and warns suicide bombers that they will “go to hell” for their attacks.

Pakistani-born Shaikh Dr Tahir ul-Qadri is launching his fatwa in London as part of a drive to combat the power of jihadist rhetoric on the web and provide English-speaking Muslims with an authoritative theological explanation detailing why terrorism is not permitted.

Although numerous fatwas condemning terrorism have been released by scholars around the world since 9/11, Shaikh Dr Qadri’s 600-page ruling is both significant and unusual because it is one of the few available in English and online.

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The Right Rev David Chillingworth accused the Scottish Secretary of doing a “grave disservice” to religion by suggesting it could be “shrink-wrapped” to fit the manifesto of a political party.

His comments came after the leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics accused Labour of an “unrelenting attack on family values” and warned the Pope could give the party “hell” on his state visit later this year.

They were both responding to a speech last week in which Mr Murphy tried to woo religious voters by promising their concerns would be reflected in Labour’s policy agenda.

The Scottish Secretary argued Labour was founded on the principles of Christian socialism and had led the trade union struggle for working class rights.

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There are many Catholic-minded Anglicans like me who have wondered, more than once whether we should become Roman Catholics. Rome is clearly the senior church of the Western tradition and I find so much to admire about it.

I rejoice in its internationalism, its capacity to produce saints in even the most unpropitious times and its ability to inspire poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, novelists such as Evelyn Waugh, and a number of distinguished modern composers.

I am deeply moved by the ministry of priests working in the shantytowns of Latin America and elsewhere. Then, of course, for those with an orderly mind, there is the ability of the Vatican to present a clear message for the outside world.

So why remain an Anglican? And why would it not be good for the country to become Roman Catholic again? For me the answer is summed up in a remark that a well-known Anglo-Catholic priest made to the mother superior of an Anglican religious order shortly before he died: “Mother, you know, the Church of England is now the only part of the Catholic Church which is open to the future.”

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Nowadays the very concept of personal ethics has become problematic in one domain after another. Why shouldn’t a businessman or banker pay himself the highest salary he can get away with? Why shouldn’t teenagers treat sex as a game so long as they take proper precautions? Why shouldn’t the media be sensationalist if that sells papers, programmes and films? Why should we treat life as sacred if abortion and euthanasia are what people want? Even Bernard Williams came to call morality a “peculiar institution”. Things that once made sense — duty, obligation, self-restraint, the distinction between what we desire to do and what we ought to do — to many people now make no sense at all.

This does not mean that people are less ethical than they were, but it does mean that we have adopted an entirely different ethical system from the one people used to have. What we have today is not the religious ethic of Judaism and Christianity but the civic ethic of the Ancient Greeks. For the Greeks, the political was all. What you did in your private life was up to you. Sexual life was the pursuit of desire. Abortion and euthanasia were freely practised. The Greeks produced much of the greatest art and architecture, philosophy and drama, the world has ever known. What they did not produce was a society capable of surviving.

The Athens of Socrates and Plato was glorious, but extraordinarily short-lived. By now, by contrast, Christianity has survived for two millennia, Judaism for four. The Judaeo-Christian ethic is not the only way of being moral; but it is the only system that has endured. If we lose the Judaeo-Christian ethic, we will lose the greatest system ever devised for building a society on personal virtue and covenantal responsibility, on righteousness and humility, forgiveness and love.

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Although it may look otherwise the arguments around assisted suicide are about two different trajectories for our society and that is why passion is running high. I cannot remember an issue that has so united the bishops of the Church of England – not a group famed for their unanimity! I hope this may paradoxically be a sign that this is not all about "religion" but the nature of our humanity and what sort of society we want to be a part of. A position paper from the Church of England said this: "Suffering may be met with compassion, commitment to high quality services and effective medication; meeting it by assisted suicide or through voluntary euthanasia, however well intentioned, is merely removing it in the crudest way possible."

I very much hope that Keir Starmer's guidelines will be recognised as providing the nuance and discretion needed for our social and moral wellbeing and steer us away from the road to legalising assisted suicide. If we want to build a society which majors on compassion and care, which supports those who are dying or fearful of growing infirm and a burden, there are far better roads for us to travel.

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You may not have noticed, but today is a very important day for US politics, world economic prospects and even for the global balance of power between Western democracy and benign dictatorship along Chinese lines. Why? Because today marks either the beginning of the end of Barack Obama’ presidency, or the end of the beginning.

At 10am US Eastern Time, he will host an all-day “summit”, broadcast live on nationwide TV, with his Republican congressional opponents and his wayward Democratic supporters, to try to establish some kind of political consensus on the top priority of his presidency — reform of the ruinously expensive US healthcare system. Medicine now absorbs 17 per cent of US national income, double the average in other advanced economies and half as much again as Switzerland, which has the next most expensive healthcare.

If nothing is done to change the US healthcare system, it can be stated with mathematical certainty that the US Government and many leading US companies will be driven into bankruptcy, a fate that befell General Motors and Chrysler largely because of their inability to meet retired workers’ contractually guaranteed medical costs.

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A group of prominent Church of England clergy yesterday called for the right to solemnise civil partnerships in church.

They backed a change to Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill that would allow religious buildings to host them. At present they must be registered in secular surroundings, like civil weddings.

The campaign deepens the difficulties of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is to trying to avoid a worldwide Anglican rift over gay rights in the Church.

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The policy I am publishing later today will show that we have looked carefully at the responses and, where appropriate, made changes. But I draw comfort from the large number of those responding who endorsed many important factors in the interim policy.

In the light of recent discussion about so-called mercy killing it is important to be clear about what the policy does not cover. It does not cover murder or manslaughter.

Assisted suicide involves assisting the victim to take his or her own life. Someone who takes the life of another undertakes a very different act and may well be liable to a charge of murder or manslaughter. That distinction is an important one that we all need to understand.

Ultimately, as many people recognised, each case is unique; each case has to be considered on its own facts and merits; and prosecutors have to make professional judgements about difficult and sensitive issues.

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The Church of England has so far resisted change, arguing that if some religious groups are allowed to hold civil partnerships then the pressure on the C of E to follow suit will become intolerable. It is a feeble argument. No one is arguing that any church should be forced to conduct a civil partnership. But willing churches should not be precluded from doing so.

Benjamin Disraeli believed the Church of England to be “a part of our liberties, a part of our national character”. If it has any hope of continuing in that role, the Church — and the Government — must recognise that our liberties today should include the right of homosexuals to register the most important promise of their lives in a church.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Church/State Matters • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

In the same debate, the bishops were crucial in defeating government proposals to limit the space within which religious bodies are exempt from anti-discrimination law. They see that as a fundamental matter of conscience. But it is inconsistent to affirm the spiritual independence of the Church of England and simultaneously to deny the spiritual independence of the three small communities who seek this change for themselves (and not for anybody else).

The bishops’ “slippery slope” argument is invalid. Straight couples have the choice between civil marriage and religious marriage. Gay couples are denied a similar choice. To deny people of faith the opportunity of registering the most important promise of their lives in their willing church or synagogue, according to its liturgy, is plainly discriminatory. In the US it would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise . . . of religion.

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Gay couples could soon be allowed to “marry” in church after a decision by Anglican bishops and other clergy to support a relaxation of the ban.

Senior bishops in the Lords have told The Times that they will support an amendment to the Equality Bill next month that will lift the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in religious premises. The amendment would remove the legislative prohibition on blessings of homosexual couples and open the door to the registration of civil partnerships in churches, synagogues, mosques and all other religious premises.

In a letter to The Times a group of Church of England clerics say today that religious denominations should be allowed to register civil partnerships on their premises if they wish.

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Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
I’ll be re-reading the Ascent of Mount Carmel by St John of the Cross. Since my first reading of it in my twenties it has been the compass for everything I’ve ever thought about prayer as being stripped of all illusions, images and self-pleasing thoughts to come face to face with Truth in person.

Baroness Cox, founder, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, An Omnibus Edition of His Works, translated by Algar Thorold, revised by John Joyce and introduced by Professor David Knowles. Why? Because I feel I need to do more of this.

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Senior church leaders in West Yorkshire have called on politicians to focus on narrowing the gap between rich and poor during the General Election.

In a joint declaration, the leaders of all the major churches in the region warned that inequality "strains the sinews of society".

The "Every Person Matters" statement was signed on Ash Wednesday in Bradford and states: "Nationally, and across Yorkshire, the wide gap between the richest and poorest people brings mental and physical illness, rising crime and fear of crime, and lowers educational results.

"An unsustainable divide between levels of wealth and poverty leads to disrespect for other people and a strain on family life and social order."

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Matthew Syed’s recent reflection on the extent to which Britain should exploit home advantage for the 2012 Olympics to maximize Team GB’s medal haul, made me wonder what Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic movement, would have thought about it all.

In a strategy called “Own the Podium” Canada made all the Olympic venues freely available to the Canadian team for practice but restricted access by other countries. The aim, of course, is to exploit home advantage to the max and so increase their medal tally.

The book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclestiastes 1:9). There was accusation of home bias in the 1908 Olympics in London, being manifested in a string of protests by American team against rulings by the British officials.

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It is natural for a person to feel helpless and hopeless when a terminal or incurable condition is first diagnosed but, given the right support by family, friends and the medical community, it is quite possible lto come through this phase and to enjoy some quality of life and even its enrichment. As Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the Hospice movement, has said, " Our last days are not necessarily lost days ". Not only can they be used to recapture the past and to strengthen relationships but also for contemplation and preparation. Again and again, people have told me how much they have learned about themselves and others at this time in their lives.

It is simply a mistake to emphasise the autonomy of the individual, especially at this point. It is relatedness that matters. Rather than seeing themselves as unwanted and alone, people, at this stage of life, should feel themselves drawn into a circle of love and care where they will be made as comfortable as possible and valued for who they are. It is not necessary always to be independent. Human beings depend upon one another at every stage of life and this one is no different. "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ", says St.Paul and this is exactly what the Hospice movement has shown us can be done in the care of the terminally and incurably ill. Thank God for all the wonderful people involved in this work.

Another valuable lesson which this movement has taught us is that it is nearly always possible to manage pain and to make sure that patients do not suffer unnecessarily. Palliative medicine is now highly developed and, whether in hospices or in pain clinics in hospitals, it tries to make sure that science is made to serve the care of people who are seriously ill and relieve them of as much pain as possible. Such relief may, in fact, lengthen the life-span but even if it has the effect of hastening death, this is quite different from an intervention that intends the death of the patient.

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The Table is of the worst deficits as a percentage of GDP in the world, according to OECD figures.

Guess where the United States is before you look.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • The National Deficit • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

For Vatican and Irish participants, the two-day meeting on the handling of priestly sex abuse cases was a major accomplishment, combining a frank admission of mismanagement with truly collaborative discussions on how to avoid such mistakes in the future.

But for much of the wider public, especially in Ireland, the meeting Feb. 15-16 fell short of expectations and was remarkable for what it didn't do: no bishops were fired, no abuse victims were heard and Pope Benedict XVI made no plans to visit Ireland and build bridges to alienated Catholics.

"Papal whitewash" and "The pope has 'washed hands' of our abuse" were two not untypical headlines in Irish newspapers the next day.

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

It's not everyday that someone in the public eye admits on television to having killed someone. But that is exactly what happened earlier this week in Britain. The BBC aired a prerecorded show hosted by one of its veteran reporters in which he made startling admission.

NPR's Rob Gifford reports from London.

ROB GIFFORD: Seventy-year-old Ray Gosling has been hosting programs on BBC television for decades. On Monday, in a documentary about death and dying, as he walked through a graveyard in his native city of Nottingham, he said it was time to share a secret that he had kept for a long time.

Mr. RAY GOSLING (Host, BBC Television): I killed someone once. He was a young chap. He had been my lover and he got AIDS. And in a hospital, one hot afternoon, doctors said there's nothing we can do. And he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor leave me just for a bit and he went away. And I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. Doctor came back and I said he's gone. Nothing more was ever said.

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An American-born imam has emerged as a key figure in the story of the Christmas Day bombing suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Muslim cleric's name is Anwar al-Awlaki.

He has admitted to knowing Abdulmutallab, but the relationship is much deeper, intelligence officials say. They suspect he may have directed Abdulmutallab to Yemen for training by al-Qaida operatives before the young Nigerian tried to bring down a Detroit-bound trans-Atlantic airliner on Dec. 25.

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