THE CATHOLIC archbishop of Westminster has distanced himself from an aide who said gay rights and the commercialisation of sex had turned Britain into a “selfish, hedonistic wasteland” and “the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death”.
The comments from Edmund Adamus, pastoral affairs director at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, have angered gay rights and secularist groups and provoked embarrassment among the Catholic hierarchy weeks before Pope Benedict visits Britain.
Senior figures have stressed that the UK, while secular, is not anti-Catholic and the pope is not flying into hostile territory.
Mr Adamus told the Catholic news agency Zenit there was an “aggressive anti-Catholic bias towards the church and the pontiff” in Britain that exceeded attitudes in countries that violently persecuted Christians.
“Historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death. Our laws and lawmakers, for over 50 years or more, have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking, than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution,” he said.
He also urged Catholics to “exhibit counter-cultural signals against the selfish, hedonistic wasteland that is the objectification of women for sexual gratification”.
He added that Britain “with its ever-increasing commercialisation of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the gay agenda, is such a wasteland”.
A spokesman for Dr Nichols said the views expressed by Mr Adamus did not “reflect the archbishop’s opinions”.
A spokesman for Stonewall, the gay rights group, said: “Recent Stonewall research shows that people of faith feel the claimed tension between religion and gay people is overemphasised by religious leaders.
“This certainly seems to be the case with the archbishop’s adviser, whose comments are deeply offensive.”
In a separate development, gay and lesbian Christians criticised secularists planning to protest during the pope's visit to Britain, saying their tactics were "unhelpful and counterproductive". – ( Guardianservice)