Power to the Papal

As the lives of millions become increasingly dominated by the heavyweight fundamentalists, religious or otherwise, it looks like the Catholic Church is going to join the fracas and once again start throwing its weight around.

Having exercised a degree of damage control by largely staying clear of public life during the child abuse scandals of the last 20 years, the willingness of the church to influence public policy is in the resurgent, and in voting terms this means the awakening of a sleeping giant.

The influence of this new power base is being felt most keenly in the abortion debate. The church has always been steadfast in its pro-life stance but recent months have seen a sharpening of the rhetoric followed by the action to back it up. In June of this year Pope Benedict called on Catholics to sop donating money to Amnesty International after it made a change to its constitution to support abortion in cases where a woman’s health is in danger, or their Human Rights have been violated as in the case of incest or rape.

Closer to home Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Catholic church in Scotland resigned his membership of Amnesty on Wednesday, and earlier this year likened abortion to “two Dunblane Massacres a day” urging voters not to support politicians who defend the “social evil” and just stopping short of advocating excommunication.

It is difficult to judge the outcome of the church’s renewed vigour on this issue. The church represents a sizable, and more importantly, organised bloc, and will certainly make its presence felt, yet the recent hard line stance does run the risk of alienating more liberal Catholics, not to mention the public at large. Additionally, recent threats to close its adoption agencies in Scotland if they are compelled to consider homosexual foster parents could have a similar effect, undoing the ecumenical and concilatory work of JP by plunging the church back into the dark ages.

It wil be interesting to see how Cameron reacts to this as his party drags him to the right by the scruff of the neck , but i wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a conservative issue at the next election.