Newsline 25 October 2013

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News, Blogs & Opinion

	Magistrates reject proposal for a single secular oath News \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 The Magistrates Association has rejected a proposal from one of its members that it should end the swearing of oaths on holy books in court. The Association debated the motion, which would have replaced Bible oaths with a promise from witnesses that they would "very sincerely tell the truth" but in the end voted against the proposal. Witnesses will still be able to hold the Bible and say: "I swear by Almighty God [to tell] the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Other faiths can take the oath on their own books – Muslims on the Koran, Jews on the Old Testament, for example. Atheists are allowed to "solemnly, sincerely and truly affirm" instead of swearing. The new proposal, which was put forward by Bristol magistrate Ian Abrahams, would have required witnesses and defendants to promise to tell the truth and say: "I understand that if I fail to do so, I will be committing an offence for which I will be punished and may be sent to prison". The Magistrates Association represents about three quarters of the 23,000 magistrates. Meanwhile, in Ireland, six of the President's seven nominees to the Council of State have made a submission to the Convention on the Constitution asking that it consider the appropriateness of office-holders having to take religious oaths. The Irish Times reports: The nominees point out that article 31.4 of the Constitution reads: "In the presence of Almighty God I . . . do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfil my duties as a member of the Council of State." In their submission, the six say: "The respect due to religion and to those who profess religion is of course sacrosanct. But to require a citizen to publicly profess a faith — any faith — as a precondition to enter and hold public office serves neither religion nor the ideal of a public space open to all who are willing to contribute to the common good in a Republic." Acting in their individual capacity, the submission was made on Monday by former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness; solicitor Michael Farrell; community activists Sally Mulready and Ruairí McKiernan; academic Prof Deirdre Heenan, and disability law expert Prof Gerard Quinn. The President's seventh nominee to the council was historian Prof Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh. The six said: "This issue came to our attention recently at the first meeting of the Council of State called by President Higgins (July 29th, 2013). Our core concern is the reference to religious beliefs in the relevant oaths and declarations as a pre-requisite to taking public office". They were approaching the issue "from the perspective of what it means to take seriously the Republican form of Government . . . We are also conscious of the increasing diversity of our society today compared with society at the time the Constitution was adopted". The requirements of article 31.4 "could exclude or cause embarrassment to atheists, agnostics and humanists. It could also be unacceptable to Quakers and other Christians who do not approve of religious oaths, and to members of some other non-Christian faiths", they said. They further noted that "the Constitution requires similar declarations to be made by the President him or herself and all members of the judiciary" and that this too should be considered by the convention. The courts "already allow witnesses and members of juries to choose between taking a religious oath, under various forms, and making an affirmation with no religious references", they said. The Council of State, which offers advice to the President when asked, comprises the appointed members, and senior office holders, including the Taoiseach and Chief Justice, as well as former such office holders and former presidents. Welcoming the submission, Atheist Ireland recalled how at the Council of State's meeting last July, "Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore had to swear the religious oath, despite being publicly on record as saying that he does not believe in God. He said that he had taken legal advice, and that he had a constitutional obligation to swear the oath." Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "It was the founder of the NSS, Charles Bradlaugh, who succeeded in getting the Oaths Act passed in 1888. This gave everyone the right to affirm rather than swear a religious oath in parliament and in courts. It has taken a long time for institutions such as the Scouts and Guides to catch up, but they got there in the end. We hope that the Irish Constitutional Convention will grant the request of the six nominees to the council of state and bring Ireland into the nineteenth century".
	The RE Report – A missed opportunity Opinion \| Fri, 25th Oct 2013 The RE Council's report has been well received. However, with the decline in church attendance and increasing evangelism in schools, Keith Porteous Wood argues vital opportunities to reform RE have been missed. The Religious Education Council Report is a missed opportunity because it fails to acknowledge how RE should be reformed to accommodate the decades of plummeting church attendances – now only 4% of pupils and their parents attend church on an average Sunday. Presumably this, and RE being the least popular subject, is why the Report refers to the "RE community" feeling a "sense of crisis". Could the hand wringing and failure to grasp the nation's scepticism over religion be because the RE Council consists of 60 "faith groups", and deeply religious academics – many of whom have vested interest in promulgating their ideas in schools? The Church of England's religious supremo, told the General Synod: "The clergy ought to have a camp bed in [schools] for heaven's sake! We don't have to bemoan the fact that our Sunday school has collapsed if there are 200 children at the local church school. The first big challenge is truly owning the centrality of our church schools in our mission..." The Chair of the Catholic Education Service similarly says: "The Catholic ethos...should be incarnate in all aspects of school life, so that they may be effective instruments of the New Evangelisation." Extreme evangelical groups are also targeting schools, even community schools. Parents are horrified when they discover that these groups are giving their children highly contestable messages on topics such as premarital sex and homosexuality. Our mailbag shows this proselytising is often done without parental permission. It is no surprise that the Report failed to acknowledge this rise in school evangelism, or call — as it should have done — for publicly funded schools to be banned from evangelising and faith schools (that non-believing families are increasingly forced to attend) from claiming their denomination or religion is the only true one. The RE settlement with the Government has not changed since 1944, England and Wales are the only countries on the world where daily (mainly) Christian worship remains mandatory in every school. The National Secular Society maintains it should not be the business of the state to try to revive these religions through pumping scarce time and public funds into raising knowledge about them. It should be the basics only, and on an objective basis. Any more, if desired, should be for the home or place of worship. The whole subject should be completely rethought. A good start would be to abandon the implicit assumption that it is better to be religious than not, and call the subject Philosophy and Ethics. Yet the RE Council predictably dismisses this, it seems because it diminishes pupils' "understanding of the nature of religion in general". And the new subject should incorporate citizenship, a far better way of encouraging community cohesion than dwelling on the religious minutiae the divide us.
	Chaos in the workplace will follow if this case succeeds Opinion \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 If an employer can reasonably accommodate religious requests without disrupting their business or disadvantaging their other staff, we have no objection. But if they can't, then employers should have the right to say "no" argues Terry Sanderson. Just when you thought we had seen the end of foolish legal challenges by the Christian Legal Centre along comes another attempt to gain religious privilege in the workplace. Now they are backing a Baptist woman who wants every Sunday off from her work as a children's care worker on religious grounds. Celestina Mba will try to overturn a previous Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling against her, arguing that an employer has a duty to "reasonably accommodate" the beliefs of a Christian employee. She brought a case for constructive dismissal against the council she worked for, the London Borough of Merton, but it failed on the grounds that observing the Sabbath was not a "core component" of the Christian faith because some believers were prepared to work on a Sunday. The case also turned partly on whether the employer could justify Sunday working as a "legitimate business need". The case is backed by the ever-litigious Andrea Williams of the Christian Legal Centre whose track record in trying to establish new "rights" (that is to say, privileges) for Christians in the workplace has, up until now, failed almost totally. This one looks doomed, too, mainly because it is far from reasonable to permit Christians to have every Sunday off work as of right. Not only would this potentially disadvantage these Christians' co-workers — who also might want to have Sunday off to spend with their children and family — but it isn't really very fair on their employers who might have difficulty covering Sundays… In a business like a care home, you can't just leave the residents to their own devices on Sunday. They can't just be put in a cupboard and forgotten about until Monday morning. And this is true of all essential services. If Christians are permitted to demand every Sunday off, then why shouldn't Muslims be permitted to have every Friday off and Jews every Saturday? Indeed, as the law stands, if the Christian Legal Centre succeeds in the case, it will have to extend to all religions. If you are working in a job that requires 24/7 coverage every day of the week (e.g. police officer, firefighter, or nurse) people can't just be excused duties because they claim to be religious. If an employer can reasonably accommodate these religious requests without disrupting their business or disadvantaging their other staff, then we have no objection. But if they can't, then employers should have the right to say "no". Christians know the deal when they apply for a job. If the working hours don't suit their religious preferences, and their religious preferences are more important to them than making a living, then they should look elsewhere for a job. Mrs Mba now has a job where her employer has no problem letting her have Sundays off, so it can be done. But to try to make it a legally enforceable right is selfish, and has the potential to cause absolute nightmares for employers and their workplaces all over the country.
	Scottish NHS Trust pays £30,000 to Catholic Church for last rites service News \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 It was revealed this week that a Scottish NHS trust is paying the Catholic Church £30,000 a year to provide "out-of-hours spiritual care", largely to ensure that dying patients receive the last rites. The Edinburgh Secular Society condemned the deal, saying it found it strange that the "well-funded Catholic Church requires the tax-payers of Scotland to top up its coffers". Garry McLelland, chair of the ESS said: "I would find it strange if the Catholic Church was to leave one of its members lying in hospital without providing a service because the state refuses to foot the bill". NHS Lothian has entered into the "service level agreement" with the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. While the Church banks the money, members of the clergy receive £10 per week for their work. A previous arrangement, whereby a chaplain from the RC Church was employed at a salary of £56,000 a year was scrapped because of "poor on-call service". Sandy Young, NHS Lothian's head of service for spiritual care and bereavement, said the health board focussed on meeting the "urgent and essential needs" of patients and their families at all times. He added: "Over half of the out-of-hours urgent and essential referrals received in the last year were from Roman Catholics, for whom spiritual care often requires the presence of a priest at short notice. A 24/7 on-call system is in place to ensure this requirement is met". Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "The Church justifies this because it is an 'out-of-hours' service. Since when was a priest's duty to provide last rites a nine-to-five job? Would they refuse to turn out to a pensioner at death's door in his own home at midnight unless they received a fee? "This kind of service has absolutely nothing to do with a hospital. It is entirely a matter between a priest and his congregant. There is no justification whatsoever for a cash-strapped body like the NHS to be paying tens of thousands of pounds for it. By all means call out a priest if it is important to the patient, but why pay his wages? That's the church's business. "What next," Mr Sanderson asked, "the NHS being asked to repair the church organ or pay for repairs to the church roof? Where does this end? The Church should be ashamed of itself." A spokesman for the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh said its £30,000 fee for out-of-hours cover represented only 5% of the amount the health board spends on spiritual care annually. A report from NHS Lothian stated that funding for a Roman Catholic chaplain to be on the NHS payroll at £56,000 per annum had been scrapped because of "poor on-call RC service delivery". The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the paper "did not supply any evidence" to support the assertion.
	£350,000 of taxpayers’ money wasted over an Islamic tradition News \| Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 A High Court judge has expressed his bafflement at a case involving the Islamic tradition of shaving off a woman's pubic hair that has cost the taxpayer £350,000 and has now been dropped. The Muslim parents of a severely mentally disabled woman, named as ED in court, claimed their daughter's pubic hair had to be shaved off as part of their Islamic beliefs. But the local authority, who have looked after the girl since 2008, say that she doesn't have the mental capacity to consent to such a procedure. In 2011 the couple applied to the family court for their daughter, now in her thirties, to be returned home and raised the "stark" issue of her pubic hair being removed. The local authority objected and a long-running legal battle ensued which cost the council £138,000, the parents £82,000 and the official solicitor, who appeared for ED, £130,000. All of this will be paid by the taxpayer. But as the case came for its final hearing to the High Court, the couple suddenly dropped their application. High Court judge Mr Justice Roderic Wood said: "I thus remain utterly baffled by the course this litigation has taken, and perplexed by this lack of clarity in their case. Obtaining a 10-day slot of a High Court Judge's time is not easy, for there are many competing cases of equal if not greater urgency than this one". Referring to the cost to the taxpayer, the judge said: "This is an astonishing sum of money, particularly when one considers...that the ultimate resolution is that the parents have, ultimately with their own 'consent', agreed to orders which dismiss any hope of ED coming to live with them and a significant reduction in her contact with them". A huge amount of evidence was prepared, including 740 pages of witness statements, 300 pages of expert evidence as well as other documents, the judge added. Unchallenged evidence from a cultural expert observed that "whilst there was a duty to remove pubic hair — both for religious and cultural reasons — there is an exemption for those incapacitated such as ED". Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: "It is highly undesirable for secular courts to get involved in theological disputes. In this case, of course, there was more at stake than whether this woman, who is incapable of making a decision for herself on such an arcane matter, should have her pubic hair shaved. But it is ridiculous that such an issue should ever have reached the High Court at such monumental expense to the taxpayer. We share the judge's bewilderment that it ever got this far, but are also angry that it even came to court in the first place. People in the situation of ED should not be subjected to religious rituals that they don't understand simply because other people want them to be".
	No new options on religious observance in Scottish schools Opinion \| Thu, 24th Oct 2013 The Scottish Government has responded to the petition lodged recently by the Scottish Secular Society to change the current parental opt-out option on Religious Observance to an opt-in. The SSS had called for an amendment to the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 by making religious observance (RO) in public schools an "opt-in" activity rather than an "opt-out" one. Perhaps predictably, the Scottish Government, a strong advocate of religion in general and Christianity in particular, is not minded to change anything. In its Learning Directorate's response, all it does is repeat its current policy: "Scottish Ministers are clear about the value that RO can have for young people in schools. It can offer opportunities for young people to reflect meaningfully on different points of view and values, including their own. It creates chances to think about the nature and possible meaning of life and humans' place in the world. It can promote critical thinking, supporting the development of an awareness that not all people think the same or share the same ideas and experiences about life. In this way, RO can contribute to development of the four capacities: successful learner, confident individual, effective contributor and responsible citizen." Note here that this is not religious and moral education (RME) being discussed, where pupils might be expected to reflect on life's big questions through critical thinking. No, this is in the context of forced worship, without participating in which Scotland's future adult citizens will, apparently, be somehow deficient both as citizens and as human beings. The Scottish Government makes the claim that RO can contribute to the four capacities listed above, but nowhere is any attempt made to explain how or why this miracle of osmosis occurs, or on what basis its success or failure is to be measured. The rest of the Scottish Government's response simply regurgitates its already known policy on forced worship in schools. It has however, clarified the policy on informing parents of their opt-out rights as they currently stand. In terms of parents' awareness and involvement, the Education (School and Placing Information) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 make provision about what a school's handbook should say about how the school plans and provides its curriculum, including RO. That includes how parents will be consulted about what pupils learn at the school, how parents will be informed of any sensitive aspects of learning, and how a parent can arrange for a pupil to be withdrawn from RO. The response states: "Parents have the right to question what arrangements are in place, and schools should be well aware that some parents and carers will decide to opt children out of RO. Schools should be prepared and willing to engage with parents who wish to have more information about what is planned or indeed wish to discuss any concerns and possible courses of action." What this doesn't say is that current Scottish Government guidance to school heads encourages them to dissuade parents from exercising their right to opt out, because RO "should also have a role in promoting the ethos of a school by bringing pupils together and creating a sense of community." The so-called encouragement to schools 'to inform parents of this without applying pressure to change their minds' is clearly intended to play a guilt-trip on parents that in withdrawing their children from RO they will be undermining the very ethos of the school. What parent would want to be accused of that? And is it not possible for a school to develop an ethos and community spirit without forcing children to worship a god they don't believe in? Evidently not. The response goes on to state that "The Scottish Government would fully expect schools to engage with parents in a spirit of openness and collaboration in all areas" which is disingenuous since its own guidelines on RO clearly infer that effort must be made by the school in the collaboration process to dissuade parents from exercising their rights. The guidelines on RO are hypocritical in the extreme: parents are to be encouraged to compromise their beliefs in the interests of the school ethos, but the instructions to heads also states regarding the beliefs of school chaplains "their own religious beliefs should be respected and they should not be asked, or expected, to compromise them." Perhaps most bizarre is this passage in the response that "Children and young people, and indeed parents, have the right to be treated fairly and without discrimination." As some of you may have noticed, the Scottish education system is a model of discrimination in practice, with its Catholic faith schools permitted to discriminate in admissions and teacher employment and promotions. You really couldn't make this up! As even the most casual of political observers will know, governments when in power rarely, if ever, admit that they might — just might — have got something wrong. What rankles most in the Scottish Government's response is that it says it is "not persuaded based on the evidence given that a move to an opt-in system would be helpful to young learners." In other words, it is conveniently ignoring the mountain of evidence given by the Scottish Secular Society and the NSS (via Education Scotland) of the widespread incursion of evangelicals into schools where they not only lead RO but also take RME classes, and of the widespread failure of schools to make the opt-out known to parents or to make the full extent and nature of RO known to them. Alistair McBay is the NSS's spokesperson in Scotland. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.
	Do you know what a Concordat is? Opinion \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 Concordats are a little known tool of the Vatican to impose its dogma in to the public square. They are anti-democratic and anti-secular and, as Anne Marie Waters argues, are having a serious impact on the safety and health of millions of women. Do you know what a Concordat is? Sometimes you think nothing can surprise you anymore – but I am quite happy to say that I am still shockable, particularly when it comes to sheer effrontery of the Vatican. I recently came across the website www.concordatwatch.eu – read it, it's quite the eye-opener. I am, and have long been, heavily involved in secular campaigning but I didn't know any of this, and I suspect many others don't either; so out of interest - do you know what a concordat is? Just in case you don't. Here is a run-down. A concordat is a contract between the Vatican (conveniently operating as a nation-state as opposed to a church on these occasions) and a compliant country or state. I say country or state because it is important to understand that isn't a contracting government that is bound, but the country (or state) itself, and therefore all subsequent governments. It is a contract that can only end by mutual consent, meaning only when the Vatican decides it; and when you consider the privilege concordats provide for the church, that is highly unlikely to happen. By virtue of its double role as both a church and a state, concordats are unique to the Vatican and have the status of international treaties. No other agreement between a religious institution and a government enjoys such prestige. International treaties generally override domestic law, making it difficult for subsequent governments to throw out these agreements. For example, and this arose in Slovakia, a government can give a fixed percentage in funds to the church in a concordat, and may never be able to change that percentage – regardless of the position of the church in society, or the financial situation of the government. Concordats have also been used to ensure the Catholic Church's tax exemption. For example, the controversial Slovak concordat of 2000 ensures that church offertories are "not subject to taxation or to the requirement of public accountability". Of course not. Finances are far from the only places where concordats have influence. Schools across the world maintain a Catholic ethos often as a result of concordats requiring them to do so. In Portugal in 2004, the government there signed a concordat allowing the Church "the right to found and run schools of education and training of all levels in accordance with Portuguese law, without being subjected to any form of discrimination". This is accompanied by a clause which "guarantees the conditions necessary to ensure, within the terms of Portuguese law, the teaching of Religion and Catholic Morality in public educational institutions at the secondary level, without any form of discrimination". This concordat bypassed the normal democratic process of parliamentary discussion of individual clauses prior to being signed and ratified. Instead, according to Concordat watch, the Portuguese concordat (and later the Brazilian one, too) were signed secretly in the Vatican, making the terms unalterable. Then the legislators were faced with a yes-or-no choice on the ratification vote. Politically they could hardly dump the whole treaty with the Holy Father, so this manoeuvre ensured that the concordat went through unexamined and unchanged. In Croatia in 2011, a similar agreement was reached which allowed the Catholic Church to claim its right to establish schools and to specify the obligations of the state, including teachers' salaries. It even fixes norms for enrolment, the type of instruction offered, and the appointment of school directors. A contentious agreement in Brazil a couple of years earlier gave similar power to the church to evangelise and indoctrinate at tax-payers' expense. This concordat had been opposed by various high profile legal groups – including the Association of Brazilian Magistrates – and indeed by many lawmakers. It was the clause on religious education that caused the greatest alarm because, as in other countries, clause 11 obliged the state to fund – through its own schools – the teaching of the Catholic catechism. Perhaps it should be obvious that when a church is permitted by an unbreakable treaty to teach "Catholic Morality" to children, serious questions will be asked as to what exactly is meant by "Catholic Morality". Concordat watch doesn't shy away from providing a few opinions. As someone who went to a Catholic school myself, my guess is that pupils regularly find themselves lectured on the evils of contraception and, more especially, abortion. Concordat watch concurs. As it so brilliantly states: "The Vatican knows that the best way to control a woman is to burden her with more children than she feels able to cope with. Almost a century ago Pope Pius XI stressed that married women must be "fruitful" and "obedient". Nowadays "fruitfulness" is called "giving life" and "obedience" in Vatican-speak becomes "true freedom". Regardless of what they're called, fruitfulness leads to obedience, as a woman worn out with childbearing will be more docile and her children will serve as hostages. Her inability to leave may even turn into acceptance. Psychologists have found that "the less control people feel over their own lives, the more they come to endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order". This matters, and it has a real impact. In Brazil, whether the government is legally obliged to allow the Vatican to dictate morality in schools, abortion remains illegal in most circumstances. Though it is technically legal in some cases, according to Monida Arango, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights "most women in Brazil will never be able to get a legal abortion. Even in cases of rape and when the mother's life is in danger it is very difficult". A 2010 study revealed that, despite the law, 22% of Brazilian women had had abortions and 50% of those had been hospitalised due to complications. Various polls also show that the vast majority of Brazilians want the law to stay as it is. The education system without doubt has a massive impact on this prevailing view. As Concordat watch points out, the war against contraception is not over either; the Vatican has simply changed tack. In going after women's sexual freedom, "it's more strategic to attack abortion than contraception. This is why churchmen claim that morning-after pills and IUDs are "abortificient". Vatican envoy Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski has even told the Worth Health Organisation that emergency contraception is a "direct attack" on the life of "the unborn child". Apparently, the Archbishop knows better than most scientists who say that these methods work by preventing fertilisation". One of the most astounding Concordat watch also reveals the astonishing facts in fact the Slovak government fell following the refusal of the Slovak Foreign Minister to sign the controversial "conscience concordat" and this prompted the Christian Democrats to pull out of the coalition. Concordat watch is arranged by country, and clicking on the country concerned gives the — often considerable — detail. Germany is a particular eye-opener. Concordats have been made with many an unsavoury character over the years, including Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Jean-Claude Duvalier – to name but a few. They've attacked women's rights through education, avoided the tax-man, and duped Parliaments with shady methods of legislative passage. They are anti-democratic and anti-secular; they profoundly undermine the notion of the separation of church and state by binding governments (and successive governments) to contracts which allow an effective Catholic supremacy to take hold in vital areas of public life. As Concord watch concludes, "These church-state accords give the church massive state subsidies and other privileges. They can effectively force liberal Catholics to observe orthodoxy, and can disadvantage non-Catholics as well". That, I would say, is putting it rather mildly.
	Vatican signs new agreement with right-wing Hungarian regime News \| Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 The Vatican has signed an agreement with the right-wing Hungarian Government this week, modifying the 1997 concordat and giving the Church major new powers in education and big financial advantages. The churches in Hungary already receive 1% of people's tax payments. The Vatican announced that: "The legislation regulates various financial issues regarding the teaching of religion in schools, Catholic higher education institutions, the restoration and conservation of religious patrimony of monuments and works of art owned by ecclesiastical bodies, the destination of a portion of tax to the Catholic Church, and the income of ex-ecclesiastical real estate not recorded in the appendix to the 1997 agreement. "The Agreement, which consists of seven articles and three appendices, will come into force upon the filing of the instruments of ratification." Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "The Vatican is careful not to spell out exactly what all this will amount to – the opaque language is carefully constructed to hide what precisely is happening. It has learned from bitter experience that when the population comes to know just how much the Church intends to take out of their pockets, and how much power it will have over their daily lives, there is often resistance. Not that anybody has been consulted about this. It has all been achieved behind closed doors and only announced when it is a done deal". This is not the first time the Vatican has tried to amend this concordat, but it has had to wait until the country has turned sufficiently to the right to make this successful bid. Many commentators are ringing alarm bells at the way that the Hungarian political system appears to be turning into a dictatorship, with the Prime Minister. Viktor Orban systematically dismantling the democratic checks and balances that might restrain him. The Vatican, of course, is notorious for making deals with dictators. It also signed concordats with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and many others. You can read the background to these developments at Concordat Watch. See also: Hungary is no longer a democracy and threatens Europe with extremism Hungary: the makings of a dictatorship The Church in Hungary lacks distance from the state
	Religious and conservative MEPs block vote on reproductive health and rights News \| Thu, 24th Oct 2013 Members of the European Parliament have blocked a vote on a progressive report that sought to promote the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of EU citizens and beyond. As previously reported, MEPs were due to vote this week on the report, authored by Edite Estrela MEP, a Portuguese MEP from the Socialist and Democrat Group, which called for universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights throughout Europe. However, due to the intense lobbying of right-wing religious and political conservatives, the report was instead returned to the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, which had, in September, voted by a clear majority in favour of it. The non-binding report called for, amongst other things, comprehensive sexuality education, safe and legal abortion services, teaching about negative LGBTI stereotypes, and the prevention and treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases. It also contained a number of recommendations in favour of LGBTI people, such as against the mandatory sterilisation of transgender persons and the right to access non-discriminatory information about sexual orientation and gender identity. Religious and political conservatives had lobbied intensely against the report, repeatedly misrepresenting its contents. For example, they wrongly claimed that the report would force EU Member States to change abortion rules, or include mandatory teaching about masturbation to 0-4 year-olds. During a tense debate, which saw the author of the report heckled, MEPs voted in favour of a motion to send the report back to the Committee by 351 (with 319 voting against). There were also reports of right-wing MEPs walking out and boycotting the debate altogether. Several Members described the boycott as another clear attempt by conservatives to impede any progressive move related to women's SRHR. An alternative resolution authored by conservative MEPs, which sought to defend a dignified vision of maternal health, to extend conscientious objection and to promote "healthy" sexual education for children, was rejected. NSS Honorary Associate Michael Cashman MEP commented that the Parliament's actions have "achieved nothing but send an excellent text back to the Committee on Women's Rights. The majorities will be the same, our support even stronger, and we will see this report adopted before the end of our mandate. Shame to those who voted against women' and LGBTI rights." Ulrike Lunacek MEP, Co-President of the LGBT Intergroup and spokesperson for the Green group, said that: "It was shameful. Right-wing bigots from the EFD, ECR and EPP groups argued against this report, and women's right to a safe and healthy reproductive and sexual life." She added that: "They bullied the chamber into taking a vote which shouldn't have taken place, and then booed the Rapporteur when she took the floor."

Read this week's Newsline in full (PDF)

NSS Speaks Out

NSS Scottish spokesperson Alistair McBay was on Radio 5 Live talking about claims by the BBC's head of religion that Britain is now religiously illiterate.

The case of the Christian woman who is suing her employer for the right to have every Sunday off for religious reasons resulted in quotes in the Daily Mirror from Campaigns Manager Stephen Evans and an opinion piece by Terry Sanderson to accompany it. Terry Sanderson was also interviewed about this on BBC Three Counties. Keith Porteous Wood gave interviews on BBC Tees and BBC Radio London on the same topic.

The RE Council's new report on religious education saw the NSS quoted in the Daily Telegraph. Terry Sanderson was interviewed about it on Radio Gloucester and LBC radio

Keith Porteous Wood was quoted in the Cambridge News on the topic of the christening of the royal baby.

Terry Sanderson recorded a debate on the topic of religion in schools for Premier Christian Radio (to be broadcast on Saturday in the "Unbelievable" slot).

Quotes of the Week

"Look at any time that religion has been given major power within the state. It hasn't ended well. There's a reason why many nations separate church and state."
(Richard Palmer, the Trumpet)

"Quite why taxpayers should be paying for children to receive religious and cultural instruction outside what is on offer in the mainstream schools we already fund is beyond me. Pushy parents who want to put their children into selective surroundings with others of either their background, beliefs or ability – or, indeed, all three – should put their money where their mouth is and pay for their indoctrination."
(Melissa Kite, Guardian)

Essays of the Week

What about Malala's religion?
(Elissa Strauss, Jewish Daily)

Will radical Islam be defeated?
(Ghana Web)

	Magistrates reject proposal for a single secular oath News \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 The Magistrates Association has rejected a proposal from one of its members that it should end the swearing of oaths on holy books in court. The Association debated the motion, which would have replaced Bible oaths with a promise from witnesses that they would "very sincerely tell the truth" but in the end voted against the proposal. Witnesses will still be able to hold the Bible and say: "I swear by Almighty God [to tell] the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Other faiths can take the oath on their own books – Muslims on the Koran, Jews on the Old Testament, for example. Atheists are allowed to "solemnly, sincerely and truly affirm" instead of swearing. The new proposal, which was put forward by Bristol magistrate Ian Abrahams, would have required witnesses and defendants to promise to tell the truth and say: "I understand that if I fail to do so, I will be committing an offence for which I will be punished and may be sent to prison". The Magistrates Association represents about three quarters of the 23,000 magistrates. Meanwhile, in Ireland, six of the President's seven nominees to the Council of State have made a submission to the Convention on the Constitution asking that it consider the appropriateness of office-holders having to take religious oaths. The Irish Times reports: The nominees point out that article 31.4 of the Constitution reads: "In the presence of Almighty God I . . . do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfil my duties as a member of the Council of State." In their submission, the six say: "The respect due to religion and to those who profess religion is of course sacrosanct. But to require a citizen to publicly profess a faith — any faith — as a precondition to enter and hold public office serves neither religion nor the ideal of a public space open to all who are willing to contribute to the common good in a Republic." Acting in their individual capacity, the submission was made on Monday by former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness; solicitor Michael Farrell; community activists Sally Mulready and Ruairí McKiernan; academic Prof Deirdre Heenan, and disability law expert Prof Gerard Quinn. The President's seventh nominee to the council was historian Prof Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh. The six said: "This issue came to our attention recently at the first meeting of the Council of State called by President Higgins (July 29th, 2013). Our core concern is the reference to religious beliefs in the relevant oaths and declarations as a pre-requisite to taking public office". They were approaching the issue "from the perspective of what it means to take seriously the Republican form of Government . . . We are also conscious of the increasing diversity of our society today compared with society at the time the Constitution was adopted". The requirements of article 31.4 "could exclude or cause embarrassment to atheists, agnostics and humanists. It could also be unacceptable to Quakers and other Christians who do not approve of religious oaths, and to members of some other non-Christian faiths", they said. They further noted that "the Constitution requires similar declarations to be made by the President him or herself and all members of the judiciary" and that this too should be considered by the convention. The courts "already allow witnesses and members of juries to choose between taking a religious oath, under various forms, and making an affirmation with no religious references", they said. The Council of State, which offers advice to the President when asked, comprises the appointed members, and senior office holders, including the Taoiseach and Chief Justice, as well as former such office holders and former presidents. Welcoming the submission, Atheist Ireland recalled how at the Council of State's meeting last July, "Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore had to swear the religious oath, despite being publicly on record as saying that he does not believe in God. He said that he had taken legal advice, and that he had a constitutional obligation to swear the oath." Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "It was the founder of the NSS, Charles Bradlaugh, who succeeded in getting the Oaths Act passed in 1888. This gave everyone the right to affirm rather than swear a religious oath in parliament and in courts. It has taken a long time for institutions such as the Scouts and Guides to catch up, but they got there in the end. We hope that the Irish Constitutional Convention will grant the request of the six nominees to the council of state and bring Ireland into the nineteenth century".
	The RE Report – A missed opportunity Opinion \| Fri, 25th Oct 2013 The RE Council's report has been well received. However, with the decline in church attendance and increasing evangelism in schools, Keith Porteous Wood argues vital opportunities to reform RE have been missed. The Religious Education Council Report is a missed opportunity because it fails to acknowledge how RE should be reformed to accommodate the decades of plummeting church attendances – now only 4% of pupils and their parents attend church on an average Sunday. Presumably this, and RE being the least popular subject, is why the Report refers to the "RE community" feeling a "sense of crisis". Could the hand wringing and failure to grasp the nation's scepticism over religion be because the RE Council consists of 60 "faith groups", and deeply religious academics – many of whom have vested interest in promulgating their ideas in schools? The Church of England's religious supremo, told the General Synod: "The clergy ought to have a camp bed in [schools] for heaven's sake! We don't have to bemoan the fact that our Sunday school has collapsed if there are 200 children at the local church school. The first big challenge is truly owning the centrality of our church schools in our mission..." The Chair of the Catholic Education Service similarly says: "The Catholic ethos...should be incarnate in all aspects of school life, so that they may be effective instruments of the New Evangelisation." Extreme evangelical groups are also targeting schools, even community schools. Parents are horrified when they discover that these groups are giving their children highly contestable messages on topics such as premarital sex and homosexuality. Our mailbag shows this proselytising is often done without parental permission. It is no surprise that the Report failed to acknowledge this rise in school evangelism, or call — as it should have done — for publicly funded schools to be banned from evangelising and faith schools (that non-believing families are increasingly forced to attend) from claiming their denomination or religion is the only true one. The RE settlement with the Government has not changed since 1944, England and Wales are the only countries on the world where daily (mainly) Christian worship remains mandatory in every school. The National Secular Society maintains it should not be the business of the state to try to revive these religions through pumping scarce time and public funds into raising knowledge about them. It should be the basics only, and on an objective basis. Any more, if desired, should be for the home or place of worship. The whole subject should be completely rethought. A good start would be to abandon the implicit assumption that it is better to be religious than not, and call the subject Philosophy and Ethics. Yet the RE Council predictably dismisses this, it seems because it diminishes pupils' "understanding of the nature of religion in general". And the new subject should incorporate citizenship, a far better way of encouraging community cohesion than dwelling on the religious minutiae the divide us.
	Chaos in the workplace will follow if this case succeeds Opinion \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 If an employer can reasonably accommodate religious requests without disrupting their business or disadvantaging their other staff, we have no objection. But if they can't, then employers should have the right to say "no" argues Terry Sanderson. Just when you thought we had seen the end of foolish legal challenges by the Christian Legal Centre along comes another attempt to gain religious privilege in the workplace. Now they are backing a Baptist woman who wants every Sunday off from her work as a children's care worker on religious grounds. Celestina Mba will try to overturn a previous Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling against her, arguing that an employer has a duty to "reasonably accommodate" the beliefs of a Christian employee. She brought a case for constructive dismissal against the council she worked for, the London Borough of Merton, but it failed on the grounds that observing the Sabbath was not a "core component" of the Christian faith because some believers were prepared to work on a Sunday. The case also turned partly on whether the employer could justify Sunday working as a "legitimate business need". The case is backed by the ever-litigious Andrea Williams of the Christian Legal Centre whose track record in trying to establish new "rights" (that is to say, privileges) for Christians in the workplace has, up until now, failed almost totally. This one looks doomed, too, mainly because it is far from reasonable to permit Christians to have every Sunday off work as of right. Not only would this potentially disadvantage these Christians' co-workers — who also might want to have Sunday off to spend with their children and family — but it isn't really very fair on their employers who might have difficulty covering Sundays… In a business like a care home, you can't just leave the residents to their own devices on Sunday. They can't just be put in a cupboard and forgotten about until Monday morning. And this is true of all essential services. If Christians are permitted to demand every Sunday off, then why shouldn't Muslims be permitted to have every Friday off and Jews every Saturday? Indeed, as the law stands, if the Christian Legal Centre succeeds in the case, it will have to extend to all religions. If you are working in a job that requires 24/7 coverage every day of the week (e.g. police officer, firefighter, or nurse) people can't just be excused duties because they claim to be religious. If an employer can reasonably accommodate these religious requests without disrupting their business or disadvantaging their other staff, then we have no objection. But if they can't, then employers should have the right to say "no". Christians know the deal when they apply for a job. If the working hours don't suit their religious preferences, and their religious preferences are more important to them than making a living, then they should look elsewhere for a job. Mrs Mba now has a job where her employer has no problem letting her have Sundays off, so it can be done. But to try to make it a legally enforceable right is selfish, and has the potential to cause absolute nightmares for employers and their workplaces all over the country.
	Scottish NHS Trust pays £30,000 to Catholic Church for last rites service News \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 It was revealed this week that a Scottish NHS trust is paying the Catholic Church £30,000 a year to provide "out-of-hours spiritual care", largely to ensure that dying patients receive the last rites. The Edinburgh Secular Society condemned the deal, saying it found it strange that the "well-funded Catholic Church requires the tax-payers of Scotland to top up its coffers". Garry McLelland, chair of the ESS said: "I would find it strange if the Catholic Church was to leave one of its members lying in hospital without providing a service because the state refuses to foot the bill". NHS Lothian has entered into the "service level agreement" with the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. While the Church banks the money, members of the clergy receive £10 per week for their work. A previous arrangement, whereby a chaplain from the RC Church was employed at a salary of £56,000 a year was scrapped because of "poor on-call service". Sandy Young, NHS Lothian's head of service for spiritual care and bereavement, said the health board focussed on meeting the "urgent and essential needs" of patients and their families at all times. He added: "Over half of the out-of-hours urgent and essential referrals received in the last year were from Roman Catholics, for whom spiritual care often requires the presence of a priest at short notice. A 24/7 on-call system is in place to ensure this requirement is met". Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "The Church justifies this because it is an 'out-of-hours' service. Since when was a priest's duty to provide last rites a nine-to-five job? Would they refuse to turn out to a pensioner at death's door in his own home at midnight unless they received a fee? "This kind of service has absolutely nothing to do with a hospital. It is entirely a matter between a priest and his congregant. There is no justification whatsoever for a cash-strapped body like the NHS to be paying tens of thousands of pounds for it. By all means call out a priest if it is important to the patient, but why pay his wages? That's the church's business. "What next," Mr Sanderson asked, "the NHS being asked to repair the church organ or pay for repairs to the church roof? Where does this end? The Church should be ashamed of itself." A spokesman for the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh said its £30,000 fee for out-of-hours cover represented only 5% of the amount the health board spends on spiritual care annually. A report from NHS Lothian stated that funding for a Roman Catholic chaplain to be on the NHS payroll at £56,000 per annum had been scrapped because of "poor on-call RC service delivery". The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the paper "did not supply any evidence" to support the assertion.
	£350,000 of taxpayers’ money wasted over an Islamic tradition News \| Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 A High Court judge has expressed his bafflement at a case involving the Islamic tradition of shaving off a woman's pubic hair that has cost the taxpayer £350,000 and has now been dropped. The Muslim parents of a severely mentally disabled woman, named as ED in court, claimed their daughter's pubic hair had to be shaved off as part of their Islamic beliefs. But the local authority, who have looked after the girl since 2008, say that she doesn't have the mental capacity to consent to such a procedure. In 2011 the couple applied to the family court for their daughter, now in her thirties, to be returned home and raised the "stark" issue of her pubic hair being removed. The local authority objected and a long-running legal battle ensued which cost the council £138,000, the parents £82,000 and the official solicitor, who appeared for ED, £130,000. All of this will be paid by the taxpayer. But as the case came for its final hearing to the High Court, the couple suddenly dropped their application. High Court judge Mr Justice Roderic Wood said: "I thus remain utterly baffled by the course this litigation has taken, and perplexed by this lack of clarity in their case. Obtaining a 10-day slot of a High Court Judge's time is not easy, for there are many competing cases of equal if not greater urgency than this one". Referring to the cost to the taxpayer, the judge said: "This is an astonishing sum of money, particularly when one considers...that the ultimate resolution is that the parents have, ultimately with their own 'consent', agreed to orders which dismiss any hope of ED coming to live with them and a significant reduction in her contact with them". A huge amount of evidence was prepared, including 740 pages of witness statements, 300 pages of expert evidence as well as other documents, the judge added. Unchallenged evidence from a cultural expert observed that "whilst there was a duty to remove pubic hair — both for religious and cultural reasons — there is an exemption for those incapacitated such as ED". Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: "It is highly undesirable for secular courts to get involved in theological disputes. In this case, of course, there was more at stake than whether this woman, who is incapable of making a decision for herself on such an arcane matter, should have her pubic hair shaved. But it is ridiculous that such an issue should ever have reached the High Court at such monumental expense to the taxpayer. We share the judge's bewilderment that it ever got this far, but are also angry that it even came to court in the first place. People in the situation of ED should not be subjected to religious rituals that they don't understand simply because other people want them to be".
	No new options on religious observance in Scottish schools Opinion \| Thu, 24th Oct 2013 The Scottish Government has responded to the petition lodged recently by the Scottish Secular Society to change the current parental opt-out option on Religious Observance to an opt-in. The SSS had called for an amendment to the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 by making religious observance (RO) in public schools an "opt-in" activity rather than an "opt-out" one. Perhaps predictably, the Scottish Government, a strong advocate of religion in general and Christianity in particular, is not minded to change anything. In its Learning Directorate's response, all it does is repeat its current policy: "Scottish Ministers are clear about the value that RO can have for young people in schools. It can offer opportunities for young people to reflect meaningfully on different points of view and values, including their own. It creates chances to think about the nature and possible meaning of life and humans' place in the world. It can promote critical thinking, supporting the development of an awareness that not all people think the same or share the same ideas and experiences about life. In this way, RO can contribute to development of the four capacities: successful learner, confident individual, effective contributor and responsible citizen." Note here that this is not religious and moral education (RME) being discussed, where pupils might be expected to reflect on life's big questions through critical thinking. No, this is in the context of forced worship, without participating in which Scotland's future adult citizens will, apparently, be somehow deficient both as citizens and as human beings. The Scottish Government makes the claim that RO can contribute to the four capacities listed above, but nowhere is any attempt made to explain how or why this miracle of osmosis occurs, or on what basis its success or failure is to be measured. The rest of the Scottish Government's response simply regurgitates its already known policy on forced worship in schools. It has however, clarified the policy on informing parents of their opt-out rights as they currently stand. In terms of parents' awareness and involvement, the Education (School and Placing Information) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 make provision about what a school's handbook should say about how the school plans and provides its curriculum, including RO. That includes how parents will be consulted about what pupils learn at the school, how parents will be informed of any sensitive aspects of learning, and how a parent can arrange for a pupil to be withdrawn from RO. The response states: "Parents have the right to question what arrangements are in place, and schools should be well aware that some parents and carers will decide to opt children out of RO. Schools should be prepared and willing to engage with parents who wish to have more information about what is planned or indeed wish to discuss any concerns and possible courses of action." What this doesn't say is that current Scottish Government guidance to school heads encourages them to dissuade parents from exercising their right to opt out, because RO "should also have a role in promoting the ethos of a school by bringing pupils together and creating a sense of community." The so-called encouragement to schools 'to inform parents of this without applying pressure to change their minds' is clearly intended to play a guilt-trip on parents that in withdrawing their children from RO they will be undermining the very ethos of the school. What parent would want to be accused of that? And is it not possible for a school to develop an ethos and community spirit without forcing children to worship a god they don't believe in? Evidently not. The response goes on to state that "The Scottish Government would fully expect schools to engage with parents in a spirit of openness and collaboration in all areas" which is disingenuous since its own guidelines on RO clearly infer that effort must be made by the school in the collaboration process to dissuade parents from exercising their rights. The guidelines on RO are hypocritical in the extreme: parents are to be encouraged to compromise their beliefs in the interests of the school ethos, but the instructions to heads also states regarding the beliefs of school chaplains "their own religious beliefs should be respected and they should not be asked, or expected, to compromise them." Perhaps most bizarre is this passage in the response that "Children and young people, and indeed parents, have the right to be treated fairly and without discrimination." As some of you may have noticed, the Scottish education system is a model of discrimination in practice, with its Catholic faith schools permitted to discriminate in admissions and teacher employment and promotions. You really couldn't make this up! As even the most casual of political observers will know, governments when in power rarely, if ever, admit that they might — just might — have got something wrong. What rankles most in the Scottish Government's response is that it says it is "not persuaded based on the evidence given that a move to an opt-in system would be helpful to young learners." In other words, it is conveniently ignoring the mountain of evidence given by the Scottish Secular Society and the NSS (via Education Scotland) of the widespread incursion of evangelicals into schools where they not only lead RO but also take RME classes, and of the widespread failure of schools to make the opt-out known to parents or to make the full extent and nature of RO known to them. Alistair McBay is the NSS's spokesperson in Scotland. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.
	Do you know what a Concordat is? Opinion \| Mon, 21st Oct 2013 Concordats are a little known tool of the Vatican to impose its dogma in to the public square. They are anti-democratic and anti-secular and, as Anne Marie Waters argues, are having a serious impact on the safety and health of millions of women. Do you know what a Concordat is? Sometimes you think nothing can surprise you anymore – but I am quite happy to say that I am still shockable, particularly when it comes to sheer effrontery of the Vatican. I recently came across the website www.concordatwatch.eu – read it, it's quite the eye-opener. I am, and have long been, heavily involved in secular campaigning but I didn't know any of this, and I suspect many others don't either; so out of interest - do you know what a concordat is? Just in case you don't. Here is a run-down. A concordat is a contract between the Vatican (conveniently operating as a nation-state as opposed to a church on these occasions) and a compliant country or state. I say country or state because it is important to understand that isn't a contracting government that is bound, but the country (or state) itself, and therefore all subsequent governments. It is a contract that can only end by mutual consent, meaning only when the Vatican decides it; and when you consider the privilege concordats provide for the church, that is highly unlikely to happen. By virtue of its double role as both a church and a state, concordats are unique to the Vatican and have the status of international treaties. No other agreement between a religious institution and a government enjoys such prestige. International treaties generally override domestic law, making it difficult for subsequent governments to throw out these agreements. For example, and this arose in Slovakia, a government can give a fixed percentage in funds to the church in a concordat, and may never be able to change that percentage – regardless of the position of the church in society, or the financial situation of the government. Concordats have also been used to ensure the Catholic Church's tax exemption. For example, the controversial Slovak concordat of 2000 ensures that church offertories are "not subject to taxation or to the requirement of public accountability". Of course not. Finances are far from the only places where concordats have influence. Schools across the world maintain a Catholic ethos often as a result of concordats requiring them to do so. In Portugal in 2004, the government there signed a concordat allowing the Church "the right to found and run schools of education and training of all levels in accordance with Portuguese law, without being subjected to any form of discrimination". This is accompanied by a clause which "guarantees the conditions necessary to ensure, within the terms of Portuguese law, the teaching of Religion and Catholic Morality in public educational institutions at the secondary level, without any form of discrimination". This concordat bypassed the normal democratic process of parliamentary discussion of individual clauses prior to being signed and ratified. Instead, according to Concordat watch, the Portuguese concordat (and later the Brazilian one, too) were signed secretly in the Vatican, making the terms unalterable. Then the legislators were faced with a yes-or-no choice on the ratification vote. Politically they could hardly dump the whole treaty with the Holy Father, so this manoeuvre ensured that the concordat went through unexamined and unchanged. In Croatia in 2011, a similar agreement was reached which allowed the Catholic Church to claim its right to establish schools and to specify the obligations of the state, including teachers' salaries. It even fixes norms for enrolment, the type of instruction offered, and the appointment of school directors. A contentious agreement in Brazil a couple of years earlier gave similar power to the church to evangelise and indoctrinate at tax-payers' expense. This concordat had been opposed by various high profile legal groups – including the Association of Brazilian Magistrates – and indeed by many lawmakers. It was the clause on religious education that caused the greatest alarm because, as in other countries, clause 11 obliged the state to fund – through its own schools – the teaching of the Catholic catechism. Perhaps it should be obvious that when a church is permitted by an unbreakable treaty to teach "Catholic Morality" to children, serious questions will be asked as to what exactly is meant by "Catholic Morality". Concordat watch doesn't shy away from providing a few opinions. As someone who went to a Catholic school myself, my guess is that pupils regularly find themselves lectured on the evils of contraception and, more especially, abortion. Concordat watch concurs. As it so brilliantly states: "The Vatican knows that the best way to control a woman is to burden her with more children than she feels able to cope with. Almost a century ago Pope Pius XI stressed that married women must be "fruitful" and "obedient". Nowadays "fruitfulness" is called "giving life" and "obedience" in Vatican-speak becomes "true freedom". Regardless of what they're called, fruitfulness leads to obedience, as a woman worn out with childbearing will be more docile and her children will serve as hostages. Her inability to leave may even turn into acceptance. Psychologists have found that "the less control people feel over their own lives, the more they come to endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order". This matters, and it has a real impact. In Brazil, whether the government is legally obliged to allow the Vatican to dictate morality in schools, abortion remains illegal in most circumstances. Though it is technically legal in some cases, according to Monida Arango, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights "most women in Brazil will never be able to get a legal abortion. Even in cases of rape and when the mother's life is in danger it is very difficult". A 2010 study revealed that, despite the law, 22% of Brazilian women had had abortions and 50% of those had been hospitalised due to complications. Various polls also show that the vast majority of Brazilians want the law to stay as it is. The education system without doubt has a massive impact on this prevailing view. As Concordat watch points out, the war against contraception is not over either; the Vatican has simply changed tack. In going after women's sexual freedom, "it's more strategic to attack abortion than contraception. This is why churchmen claim that morning-after pills and IUDs are "abortificient". Vatican envoy Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski has even told the Worth Health Organisation that emergency contraception is a "direct attack" on the life of "the unborn child". Apparently, the Archbishop knows better than most scientists who say that these methods work by preventing fertilisation". One of the most astounding Concordat watch also reveals the astonishing facts in fact the Slovak government fell following the refusal of the Slovak Foreign Minister to sign the controversial "conscience concordat" and this prompted the Christian Democrats to pull out of the coalition. Concordat watch is arranged by country, and clicking on the country concerned gives the — often considerable — detail. Germany is a particular eye-opener. Concordats have been made with many an unsavoury character over the years, including Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Jean-Claude Duvalier – to name but a few. They've attacked women's rights through education, avoided the tax-man, and duped Parliaments with shady methods of legislative passage. They are anti-democratic and anti-secular; they profoundly undermine the notion of the separation of church and state by binding governments (and successive governments) to contracts which allow an effective Catholic supremacy to take hold in vital areas of public life. As Concord watch concludes, "These church-state accords give the church massive state subsidies and other privileges. They can effectively force liberal Catholics to observe orthodoxy, and can disadvantage non-Catholics as well". That, I would say, is putting it rather mildly.
	Vatican signs new agreement with right-wing Hungarian regime News \| Wed, 23rd Oct 2013 The Vatican has signed an agreement with the right-wing Hungarian Government this week, modifying the 1997 concordat and giving the Church major new powers in education and big financial advantages. The churches in Hungary already receive 1% of people's tax payments. The Vatican announced that: "The legislation regulates various financial issues regarding the teaching of religion in schools, Catholic higher education institutions, the restoration and conservation of religious patrimony of monuments and works of art owned by ecclesiastical bodies, the destination of a portion of tax to the Catholic Church, and the income of ex-ecclesiastical real estate not recorded in the appendix to the 1997 agreement. "The Agreement, which consists of seven articles and three appendices, will come into force upon the filing of the instruments of ratification." Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "The Vatican is careful not to spell out exactly what all this will amount to – the opaque language is carefully constructed to hide what precisely is happening. It has learned from bitter experience that when the population comes to know just how much the Church intends to take out of their pockets, and how much power it will have over their daily lives, there is often resistance. Not that anybody has been consulted about this. It has all been achieved behind closed doors and only announced when it is a done deal". This is not the first time the Vatican has tried to amend this concordat, but it has had to wait until the country has turned sufficiently to the right to make this successful bid. Many commentators are ringing alarm bells at the way that the Hungarian political system appears to be turning into a dictatorship, with the Prime Minister. Viktor Orban systematically dismantling the democratic checks and balances that might restrain him. The Vatican, of course, is notorious for making deals with dictators. It also signed concordats with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and many others. You can read the background to these developments at Concordat Watch. See also: Hungary is no longer a democracy and threatens Europe with extremism Hungary: the makings of a dictatorship The Church in Hungary lacks distance from the state
	Religious and conservative MEPs block vote on reproductive health and rights News \| Thu, 24th Oct 2013 Members of the European Parliament have blocked a vote on a progressive report that sought to promote the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of EU citizens and beyond. As previously reported, MEPs were due to vote this week on the report, authored by Edite Estrela MEP, a Portuguese MEP from the Socialist and Democrat Group, which called for universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights throughout Europe. However, due to the intense lobbying of right-wing religious and political conservatives, the report was instead returned to the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, which had, in September, voted by a clear majority in favour of it. The non-binding report called for, amongst other things, comprehensive sexuality education, safe and legal abortion services, teaching about negative LGBTI stereotypes, and the prevention and treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases. It also contained a number of recommendations in favour of LGBTI people, such as against the mandatory sterilisation of transgender persons and the right to access non-discriminatory information about sexual orientation and gender identity. Religious and political conservatives had lobbied intensely against the report, repeatedly misrepresenting its contents. For example, they wrongly claimed that the report would force EU Member States to change abortion rules, or include mandatory teaching about masturbation to 0-4 year-olds. During a tense debate, which saw the author of the report heckled, MEPs voted in favour of a motion to send the report back to the Committee by 351 (with 319 voting against). There were also reports of right-wing MEPs walking out and boycotting the debate altogether. Several Members described the boycott as another clear attempt by conservatives to impede any progressive move related to women's SRHR. An alternative resolution authored by conservative MEPs, which sought to defend a dignified vision of maternal health, to extend conscientious objection and to promote "healthy" sexual education for children, was rejected. NSS Honorary Associate Michael Cashman MEP commented that the Parliament's actions have "achieved nothing but send an excellent text back to the Committee on Women's Rights. The majorities will be the same, our support even stronger, and we will see this report adopted before the end of our mandate. Shame to those who voted against women' and LGBTI rights." Ulrike Lunacek MEP, Co-President of the LGBT Intergroup and spokesperson for the Green group, said that: "It was shameful. Right-wing bigots from the EFD, ECR and EPP groups argued against this report, and women's right to a safe and healthy reproductive and sexual life." She added that: "They bullied the chamber into taking a vote which shouldn't have taken place, and then booed the Rapporteur when she took the floor."

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Newsline 25 October 2013

News, Blogs & Opinion

Magistrates reject proposal for a single secular oath

The RE Report – A missed opportunity

Chaos in the workplace will follow if this case succeeds

Scottish NHS Trust pays £30,000 to Catholic Church for last rites service

£350,000 of taxpayers’ money wasted over an Islamic tradition

No new options on religious observance in Scottish schools

Do you know what a Concordat is?

Vatican signs new agreement with right-wing Hungarian regime

Religious and conservative MEPs block vote on reproductive health and rights

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Newsline 25 October 2013

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