UK Catholic Bloggers React to Controversal Book Published BY Group Funded by English Bishops That Attacks Benedict and Has other Errors

The Catholic Community in the UK appears to be in a outrage about a book that The Catholic Church in England and Wales helped commission that attacked Pope Benedict XVI(among others) and refers to the atrocities of 9/11 as “the ‘terrorist’ attacks” in inverted commas.

This story broke in the London Telegraph and can be read here and more here.

Here are some jewels:

The attitude of the Catholic clergy towards women is that men were/are considered more in the image of the Man-God Jesus Christ and hence superior to women. Women are still not considered worthy of priestly ordination and of the exercise of higher teaching and administrative functions in the Church."


"The 21st century was born in violence, with the 'terrorist' air attack on New York on 11 September 2001 and the invasion of Iraq by the USA, the UK and Australia on 18 March 2003. It is now well known that the invasion of Iraq was not motivated by fear of a nuclear attack by Saddam Hussein or due to the desire of the invading forces to install democracy in Iraq. It was a step in the efforts of the USA and its allies to exercise superpower domination, especially over the Middle East, largely due to its oil riches."

The publication calls Pope Benedict on social justice " “hardly credible” and that Benedict is all for "the capitalist system and colonialism”. I can imagine a couple of very Social Justice minded Catholics at Vox Nova , especially Michael Joesph, that would disagree.

Of course what they mean by Captialist system is not what we imagine it too be.

We are told that Pope Benedict and John Paul the Great can't understand the developing world becacuase they live "in a world dominated by white racism”

What drivel.

UK Catholic Bloggers are not happy to say the least. Here are just a few I have ran across. No one seems to think that book is a good thing or represents authentic Catholicism in anyway.

Catholic Action UK is one blog that is leading the fight in this post English Bishops attack the Pope. The blog states
"Philomena Cullen, one of the editors, attacks “the ideology of the nuclear family” and endorses “the open family ideology rooted in a feminist perspective”.

THe UK The hermeneutic of continuity tells us more background on this silliness that is actually dangerous to the faith int his post called Caritas Social Action attacks Pope. We learn form thim that one of the authors Fr Tissa Balasuriya whose work "Mary and Human Liberation" was the subject of a notification by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Catholic Rights has important background to what is going on and who is behind it in this post Loud and Clear - We will build our own Church, thank you. Of interest is that reports on a conference where many of these "catholics" involved in this were at and what was said.

Forest Murmurs thinks that this book is worrying.

Saint Mary Magdalen, Brighton, UK is run by a priest that gives the indications the reasons for this are much more deeper and troubling.

At Mystra which is a beautiful looking blog, at the end of this post on troubles in the Anglican Church he says:
"Of course it isn’t only Anglicans who have their problems or their disagreeable bishops. Damien Thompson’s blog at the Daily Telegraph has a horrible story today regarding a book containing a number of “challenging” essays on a number of social issues and the Catholic responses. The criticism of the Holy Father by a “former” heretic, Tissa Bulasuriya, and the presence of an essay by a Catholic priest in good standing (though not permitted to hold a Catholic teaching post in a university!), surname, Küng, are telling. The foreword to this little gem is - unbelievably - written by a Catholic bishop. I don’t think he is called Barry, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were his middle name."

Nova et Vetera in a post aptly called Beyond Belief states:"This is getting beyond a joke. When is Rome going to send us one good bishop we can be proud of?

White Stone Name Seeker has some thoughts on this here at this post and ends with a line that a Certain Pope said to a certain Prime Minister oh about a month ago.

auntie joanna writes has a post called What on earth do the Bishops think they're doing?


Tales from a Roman Seminary... really doesn't say anything on this but I really wanted to point out this cool clerical garb he is wearing. Love the colors