So Little at State - Take 2

Stan,

What's got me going on politics and corruption is the fact that no one else I have read or heard about seems to have commented on the sinister consequences of current styles of corruption, specifically Tony Blair/J P Morgan and the state co-option of charities. Obviously corruption has always been part of public life, but the scale and manner of Blair's corruption is not just a function of his bottomless venality. It was a plain advance bribe for every other senior politician on the planet. The subversion of charity independence is all the more depressing as the state takes another bite out of a vital part of civic society which offered a real alternative to state provision, a separate source of expertise and opinion.

Worst of all, the various Churches should be organisations clearly independent of the state. But, surprise, surprise, there is a group of clergy, the so-called "Commission of Bishops", who are only too ready to sing the praises of the EU - because they're funded by the EU. Note report below by the Cranmer blog: (named in honour of Archbishop Cranmer, immolated c. 1556)

====================================================================

To Cranmer’s total incredulity (and, judging by the howls of laughter, to that of the entire House of Commons), this was a line which the Foreign Secretary gave to the House of Commons as evidence for the innate goodness of the Treaty of Lisbon, and as a substantive reason for the House to support it.

His Grace is dumbfounded:

Firstly, that the Foreign Secretary should bestow upon the Commission of Bishops such religio-political clout as to be able to sway the elected representatives of the Commons; and secondly, the delusion that this group is held in such high spiritual regard that their patronage might constitute some moral argument for selling the United Kingdom down the river.

Bishops have been little more than a prop of government for quite some time. They are now routinely wheeled out to sit on committees or to ‘impartially’ investigate whatever the Prime Minister wishes to be investigated from the moral high ground, or it is they to whom politicians allude when the debased is in need of sanctification and the sepulchres need a little whitening.

But this ‘Commission of Bishops’ is not constituted of the leaders of the Church of England: it is a Roman Catholic-led ecumenical body which is financed by the European Union to produce reports singing the praises of said union with all glory, laud and honour.

Its stated objectives are:

- To monitor and analyse the political process of the European Union
- To inform and raise awareness within the Church of the development of EU policy and legislation
- To promote reflection, based on the Church's social teaching, on the challenges facing a united Europe

It is led by Bishop van Luyn of Rotterdam, a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture and adviser to the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. Its present occupation is to consider such issues as the ‘Christian reflection on climate change in the EU’, but, as the Foreign Secretary observes, it has recently been concerned with fervently supporting the EU Constitution: