The Bishop of Motherwell has called on the Catholic Church in Scotland to stop “cowering” before the government, reports The Scottish Herald.
In an address to a Motherwell audience, the Rt. Rev. Joseph Devine warned Christians against the “creeping political correctness” that has made religious expression increasingly difficult for Christians.“The Church needs to rediscover a political voice and stop cowering before the apparatus of government and its politically approved doctrines,” said Rev. Devine. “The situation is that there are people in authority in this country who are determined to stamp out all Christian influence.
"They regard the Church as a social nuisance,” he said.
Bishop Devine said there "worrying evidence" that the law was being used to "intimidate and silence" the expression of Christian views.
"To challenge the demands of same-sex partners for the right to adopt children, to encourage our schoolchildren to wear symbols of their Christian faith, to dare to assert that Scotland in a faith context has to be seen as a Christian country are all recent examples where the people involved have been taken to task for the sentiments expressed,” he said.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien came under fire last week for issuing a call to “re-Christianise” Scotland.The Church needs to rediscover a political voice and stop cowering before the apparatus of government and its politically approved doctrines.
Rt. Rev. Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell
Cardinal Keith O’Brien said in a forthcoming BBC radio interview that Christianity had been present in Scotland since St Ninian landed at Whithorn in AD397, but that the country no longer lived up to Christian standards, reports The Scotsman.
The Cardinal said that he “tolerated” people who live differently and that he did not intend to demote the stature of other faiths but stressed that Scotland is a Christian country.
“I feel I must take a stand when Christianity itself is questioned in this country,” said Cardinal O’Brien.
"In a re-Christianised Scotland I would certainly respect the beliefs of people of other faiths, the great world faiths, and acknowledge when they are celebrating their feasts, just as they acknowledge when we celebrate the feast of Christmas and these sort of things.”He added, however, the hope that followers of other faiths to acknowledge that Scotland is a Christian country.
The remarks have met with anger among leaders in Scotland of the Hindu and Muslim faiths, with a spokesman for the Hindu Temple in Glasgow describing them as “obnoxious” and criticising the call for people of other faiths to realise they live in a Christian country.
Osama Saeed, the Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Great Britain, defended Cardinal O’Brien, saying, “Mr O’Brien is a Christian leader and he is going to spread Christianity – I don’t find that particularly surprising.”
