An Open Letter to Cardinal Vincent Nichols

7/26/2019 An Open Letter to Cardinal Vincent Nichols

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62 Northgate Street, Chester, CH1 2HT01244 630200

[email protected]

www.stevenwoolfe.uk

Your Eminence,

I am writing to you not only in my capacity as a politician, but as a fellow

member of the Church; that communion of believers in the True Faith which

together make up the Mystical Body of Christ.

Politicians of faith often find themselves conflicted between the interests of

what St. Augustine describes as The Earthly and The Heavenly Cities; that is to say,

our professional lives require a daily balance between attempting to implement whatwe know to be right according to Divine Will and the interests of the material and

temporal. Saint Augustine describes it best when he takes the symbol of the fish, The

ikhths, as a symbol of Christ moving through the waters which symbolise this

world. The ikhthswas used thus by early Christians as a secret symbol of themselves

as the faithful moving through the deep of persecution in a pagan world. As

Christianity once again faces persecution throughout the world today, Roman

Catholics in public positions find themselves as fish swimming through extremely

muddy waters; doing our best to remain faithful whilst facing criticisms of our beliefs

and attacks for stating them.

It is at this point I must respond to a point you made in your speech on theday of the Launch of the Official Referendum Campaign:

Theres a long tradition in Christianity and in Catholicism in particular of

believing in holding things together. Theres a strong tradition in the

Catholic vision of life that to start down the path of division almost

inevitably leads to further division So the Catholic instinct is to look for

the whole thats exactly what the word means. And therefore the

Catholic stance towards an effort such as the EU is largely supportive.

Whilst I agree our faith believes in holding things together, we must first

question as Catholics whether that whole is congruous with the teachings of Christand the doctrine and traditions of His Church. Furthermore, I question whether it is

right to say the EU has not caused division. Like the fish, we must be careful not to be

polluted by the glamour of this whole and instead seek the truth.


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62 Northgate Street, Chester, CH1 2HT

01244 630200

[email protected]

www.stevenwoolfe.uk

Rerum Novarum

"Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular

let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural

justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely,

that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder

conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the

victim of force and injustice." -Rerum Novrum

As Your Eminence will know, Rerum Novarum was a Papal Encyclical by Pope

Leo XIII addressing the conditions of the working classes. It has formed the central

text and main reference for the Catholic Social Teaching movement, a movement

which has grown in strength in recent years as corporate interests once again

threaten the conditions of working people.

Protection of the less well-off is a fundamental Catholic position. I can only

assume your support of the EU is because it is argued that is has enshrined rights for

workers. Whilst this is true in some instances, I do not believe it is necessary for these

rights and regulations to come via diktat from Brussels. Indeed, I believe it is right for

these decisions to be taken at a National level by a democratically elected parliament

and the UK has an enviable history of introducing such rights, most of which are

better than the EUs. I also believe any protection offered by the EU is completely

overshadowed by the EUs inherent interest in protecting big business at the expense

of small businesses and workers, a view which has been recently shared by ASLEF,

BFAWU and RMT trade unions. Those unions in the same statement also stated their

concern for the lack of democracy and the alienation of working people from the

decision making process of the EU.

There is another aspect of the EU which has a devastating impact on the

dignity of workers in the EU. I draw Your Eminences attention to the following

excerpt from the same Encyclical:

...the labour of the working classthe exercise of their skill, and the

employment of their strength, in the cultivation of the land, and in the

workshops of tradeis especially responsible and quite indispensable.

Indeed, ... it may be truly said that it is only by the labour of working men that

States grow rich.

The EU is the cause of less labour for fewer working people. Unemployment in

Eurozone countries is at excruciating levels, especially for the young (49% youth

unemployment in Greece; 41% Spain; 39% Italy). Much of this could have been alleviated

for the common good of countries with various solutions, and in the case of Greece, by

leaving the EU and the Euro. However, such options are callously denied by Eurozone

leaders for the sake of preserving The Project the whole which you described in your

speech.


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The suffering of workers across the continent is something as Catholics we

should display great charity and concern for. But we must also remember the working

poor in the UK. Again, in Rerum Novarum:

To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to

the avenging anger of Heaven. "Behold, the hire of the labourers which by

fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered into

the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from

cutting down the workmens earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by

usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the labouring man

is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in

proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred.

While we must, as Catholics, be welcoming to newcomers, we must use good

judgement and wisdom in the matter of wage compression. It has been established both

by leaders of the IN campaign such as Lord Rose, by economic research by the OECD, EU

and indeed a recent working paper of the Bank of England that mass immigration from

the EU into Britain has lowered the wages of those in the lowest paid trades and

professions. I fear our good intentions and compassion as Christians towards the

Stranger are currently being manipulated by the ill-willed and unscrupulous to artificially

lower the wages of the British Working Classes for their own interests; to defraud the

poorest worker of his means is against the teachings of the Church. Indeed, the Church

upholds it as a mortal sin.

I believe the EUs current policies therefore are an attack on the worker; its cold-

hearted dismissing of the pleas of the poor and the withdrawal from their lives of the

dignity of labour for the sake of false absolutes and idolatry of the European Project are incontravention of Catholic Social Teaching and the love Christ demands of us for the

poor.

On the Family

It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast

into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones. Luke 17:2

"The promotion of the culture of life should be the highest priority in our

societies...If the right to life is not defended decisively as a condition for all other rights

of the person, all other references to human rights remain deceitful and illusory." Pope

Saint John Paul II

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we

live. Pope Saint John Paul II

One area of Law still devolved to member states is in relation to reproductive

and family law. However, the EU and its organs are beginning to show a cavalier

approach to not only the integrity of member states in such areas, but also the

human condition and the family in such a way that Catholics should doubt its


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intentions. I believe it is certainly questionable whether a future European project

will be in keeping with our dedication to preserving The Culture of Life in which the

Church remains a bulwark against some of the greatest evils of the modern world.

While it must be noted there is a protocol in the Lisbon Treaty specifically

relating to Irelands ban on abortion, a recent European Commission directive

recommending the availability without prescription of the morning after pill

ellaOne should be cause for concern for the Church. The directive was originally

taken as mandatory before this was clarified in a written question to the commission.

It nonetheless signals the Commissions ideological preference for abortifacients to

be readily available across member states.

Similarly, the funding of organisations such as the International Planned

Parenthood Federation by the EU should cause great alarm for Catholics in the UK

and Europe given the recent scandal of the selling of aborted baby parts by its arm in

the USA. It is astounding that Church leaders support an institution indirectly

funding organisations that are even tangentially involved in such vile practices.

As Catholics recognise the destructive nature of abortion due to our steadfast

belief that life begins at conception, so too do we oppose the experimentation on

human embryos. A recent petition which called for the EU to cease funding stem-cell

research via its Horizon 2020 programme reached seven million verified signatures

from across 7 member states. This was worryingly rejected by the European

Commission. This is not only another sign of the Commission (which has ultimate

authority) having an ideological preference for policies which go against the

fundamental teachings of the Church, but also a demonstration of how powerless

Catholics in Europe are to stop the implementation of such policies.

As Catholics we view these things as part of a wider culture in the modern

world which not only seeks to diminish human dignity, but also the family unit

which is the very basis for it. We believe same-sex marriage to be a redefinition of the

sacrament around which the Church builds and grows. The EU, despite having no

jurisdiction about such matters, has facilitated the recognition of same-sex marriage

across Europe. As part of the rules regarding free-movement, member states must

recognise unions which occurred in other member states, thus requiring by EU law

the recognition of same-sex unions on an equal basis with traditional marriage

across the EU. It can also be argued that a case against the British Government which

was certain to win in the ECHR by LGBT-activist Peter Tatchell (which questioned

the British legal definition of Marriage) was what hastened Prime Minister David

Cameron to change the law, not wanting to be seen to have a foreign court imposeits will.

While Catholics in the United Kingdom will have to contend with these issues

in their own country, and with bad and unjust laws made by their own parliament,

they will not have to contend with the democratic deficit of the European Union;

they can use their vote and other rights as subjects as wisely as they can to limit or

reverse some of the worst of these injustices. Should the EU move in the direction it

has indicated, with a greater influence over the laws pertaining to the family and

human dignity, Catholics will have no such instrument to reverse them; their elected

representatives in the European Parliament being unable to repeal or initiate


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legislation. Catholics should therefore not only be watchful of the direction of policy

at the European level before deciding whether the whole which Your Eminence

describes should be preserved, but also make a decision based on what will

guarantee their influence in the law-making process in the future.

The Beloved City

And they came upon the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints,

and the beloved city. Rev. 20:8

I refer Your Eminence to the following part of your speech in which you

rightly refer to Europes ancient Christian heritage:

We must not forget the profoundly religious roots of European nations; that

Europe has a two thousand year-old Christian culture that has shaped the

continent and is a dynamic spiritual, moral and intellectual resource as weaddress the future.

Many EU leaders at one time argued this position as a case for refusing

majority-Muslim Turkeys accession to the EU.

However we now see a worrying development in how lax the EU has become

in defending this heritage. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI accurately described the

unique problem of two opposing but complimenting threats to Christianity; that of

faith without reason, as demonstrated especially in Islamic fundamentalism, and that

of reason decoupled from faith, as demonstrated in aggressive secularism. These two

problems could be described as the Gog and Magog of modern Western Christian

Civilisation, destroying it by their misguidedness and error.

I have described already how aggressive secular ideologies are prevalent

within the European Project and are offensive to devout Catholics; I raise the

concern of increasingly aggressive or fundamental Islamism which currently seeks

to enter the cultural and political landscape via two fronts opened by EU policy; the

accession of Turkey as a member state and the current migrant crisis.

The current migrant crisis, caused by a combination of confusion over the

Dublin agreement, the Schengen area, and German domestic policy, poses a

labyrinth of moral and ethical questions for Catholics. We are obliged, as already

mentioned, to welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, feed the hungry. We are

certainly obliged to offer refuge to the oppressed and threatened. However we must

not confuse genuine refugees with economic migrants. This is very important for

reaching a well-considered conclusion; in many cases the emigration of such large

numbers of people, particularly the young, leads to a more impoverished state back

home; it is certainly not the long-term solution to poverty in such countries.

We also face another moral question with regards to the migrant crisis. It is

right to point out that many migrants come from cultures which are radically

different from that of Christian Europe. It can be expected, therefore, that such a

large number will change the very social fabric of Europe.


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Of course, we must not confuse Islam with Islamism, nor moderate Islam with

fundamentalist Islam. Christianity in Europe has itself battled with those who

rejected reason, and we must support Muslims who do the same. But we must accept

that the dynamic of Islam across the world has changed from one of Sufi-like

mysticism to a more fundamentalist tone akin to Wahhabism and Salafism which

has political ambitions. Nowhere is this more apparent than Turkey.

Turkey has seen itself transformed in recent years from a largely Western-style

state into one more Islamic and Ottoman in character, led by the demagogue

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This has not only seen the rise of radical Islam in

Turkey, but also an increase in madrassas, in women wearing the veil, and a fleeing

of the Christian population. This is under the control of an oppressive Islamic

political party which gaols dissidents, critics and journalists. This party remains the

majority party in Turkey; I do not believe it to be alarmist to suggest Turkeys

accession to the EU could lead to an Islamic bloc within the European Parliament,

with all the power and privileges that would bring.

While Christians and Muslims must cooperate on a number of issues, such as

the sanctity of life, we must be cautious at a time when Islam faces its own battle

against the unreasonable. Catholics therefore must look at the current events in

Europe and question whether continuation of this Project will make their societies

less Christian, will hurry the destruction of a cultural hegemony based on the

teachings of Christ, and will make life more difficult for the faithful who we believe to

be on pilgrimage in this world. I argue that it is the perfection of the whole which

you describe which has removed internal borders, and the enlargement of the same

whole which may put in jeopardy that dynamic spiritual, moral and intellectual

resource which Your Eminence describes.

Christs Kingship

Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.

Ps. 145:2-3

We look to our own monarch, herself the Supreme Governor of the English

Church, anointed by a clergyman, who has taken an oath which promises her service

to God. Many monarchs around Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike, do the same.

There are few ardently secular states in Europe, many remaining officially neutral to

religion while recognising the unique status of Catholicism or other denominations

in various bodies, be it in education, legislation, their constitution or their

ceremonies.

In contrast, the EU is an atheistic, materialistic, humanistic system which does

not hold Christ to be its King. It seeks happiness not in justice and faith, but in

existing for its own sake. Its faith is in its own will and ability, based not around what

we as Catholics hold to be true, but instead based on a supposed rationality

untempered by moral truths. I have given examples of how this steadfast belief in

itself, the belief which its followers and leaders have in the Project to create the

common good, has instead created common misery, or in some cases facilitated


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great wrongs. It has sometimes flown in the very face of reason, like the many other

forms of secular religion which we have seen throughout history.

As such, it will always fall victim to the same corruptions, idolatries, errors and

false absolutes as those previous systems. As it does not owe its ultimate authority to

God, it will always be denied Grace, and will never form part of Christs plan for the

salvation of mankind.

I therefore uphold that Catholics are under no obligation to support it; to

suggest otherwise is a gross deceit. I believe a new dynamic form of cooperation

between countries would be in the interests of the Faithful; the best way for British

Roman Catholics in their number to achieve this would be to vote to leave in the

hope that other countries will follow.

Finally, I conclude this letter by bringing Your Eminences attention to two

passages from The Holy Fathers address to the European parliament in 2014:

Despite a larger and stronger Union, Europe seems to give the

impression of being somewhat elderly and haggard, feeling less and less a

protagonist in a world which frequently regards it with aloofness, mistrust and

even, at times, suspicion.

And:

In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and

aging, of a Europe which is now a grandmother, no longer fertile and

vibrant. As a result, the great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have

lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its

institutions.

The Holy Father rightly describes the European Union as old, haggard and

barren; without the Grace of God it will always be devoid of the wisdom, freshness

and renewal which faith brings.

I therefore ask Your Eminence to take into consideration the points I have

made. I pray that Catholics in the UK will look at the European Project as a whole

and consider whether it is truly compatible with their faith; praying to the Holy Spirit

for guidance before making a decision based on what is pleasing to God.

I remain, Your Eminence, Yours Faithfully,

Steven Woolfe MEP.

An Open Letter to Cardinal Vincent Nichols

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