Letters to the Editor

Pleased that the Tablet letters' editor indicates that the following offering might soon reach the light of day in that weekly mag:

"...Archbishop Peter Smith’s article “Voice that must be heard” was both informative and thought provoking. However, the threats to religious freedom come as much from legislation already passed as from the legislation currently before Parliament that he warns of. Thus in 1994 a Catholic School RE Teacher who had become pregnant as a result of a relationship with a local catholic priest was held to have lost her job unfairly on the grounds of sex discrimination. The catholic arguments were left to the school’s secular LEA to argue whereas the arguments should have been better put by lawyers more steeped in catholic ethos. A lesson for the English and Welsh catholic bishops therefore is that the threats to religious freedom which come from secular legislation both now and to come, need to be defended or indeed on occasion attacked, in the secular courts through lawyers who empathise with, if not, share the religious practices being threatened.

Sadly we are already witnessing the demise of catholic adoption agencies. Will catholic schools be next?..."