In my last blogpost I said: “The evidence clearly indicates that the policy of the CBCEW [Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales] – as distinct from the doctrinal position of the Church – is, effectively, to lend support to access to abortion”. The roots of this policy can be found in the England and Wales ecclesiastical authorities’ position on contraception.

Phyllis Bowman, my predecessor as chief executive of SPUC, wrote to Bishop Vincent Nichols (now Cardinal Nichols and President of the CBCEW) on 6th February 1996, expressing concern about a book entitled “How to Survive Being Married to a Catholic”, a Redemptorist publication sold widely through Catholic churches.

The pandemic created by the coronavirus is giving many of us more time to think. The various threats it poses mean that “normal” life has been largely suspended. The daily activities which consume our waking hours are replaced with seriously hard thinking about what to do next, as we seek to rearrange our affairs in the light of sudden restrictions of movement and contact with others, detailed government guidance on personal and general hygiene and a host of sometimes bewildering developments in our family and in our working lives.

The terrifying moral seriousness of what the Catholic bishops’ Conference (CBCEW) of England and Wales are doing in supporting the Government’s Relationships and Sex Education legislation can be better understood by reflecting on the unforgettable address given by the late Carlo Cardinal Caffarra at the fourth annual Rome Life Forum, organised by Voice of the Family, on May 19, 2017. His Eminence said...

In April, 2019, SPUC launched a final, last ditch, effort in the House of Lords to stop compulsory Relationships Education in primary schools, and Relationships and Sex Education in secondary schools, pointing out to our supporters the sad reality that “despite the mounting public opposition, especially from parents”, the House of Commons had voted to approve the regulations… which deny parents the right of withdrawal, by a large margin (538 to 21).”

It might surprise some to learn that one of the great works of twentieth-century war literature carries a pro-life message. Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61), set at the time of the Second World War, is a neglected work, no doubt, compared to the author’s most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited, but it might just be Waugh’s masterpiece.