Cardinal's former adviser attacks Church teaching

Update: surprise surprise, Stephen Wall done it again. This time The Tablet has given him a whole article in which to vent his spleen. In between he contributed to a book attacking the Pope published with the support of the bishops of England and Wales. Does anyone care? We don't. But hat-tip to Damian Thompson all the same.

Briefing (11/02/07): this is not the first dissident to have been retained by the Cardinal in a key post: in May 2006 he had to sack his press officer, Stephen Noon, when the latter began to flaunt his immoral lifestyle.

From CFNews: In a letter to The Tablet, Sir Stephen Wall says he disagrees profoundly with the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. 'I admit that I do not share the Church's view that homosexual acts are intrinsically sinful, he says. 'The Catholic bishops of England and Wales find themselves in the unenviable position of having to interpret, with as much realism and humanity as they can, the edicts on homosexual relationships of an authoritarian Vatican. … The Vatican itself behaves with all the stridency you would expect of an institution at loggerheads with a secular world which requires it to justify its dogmatic positions. In describing homosexual acts as 'grave depravity' the Vatican goes beyond the interpretation of Christ's teaching and into what, to me at least, looks like homophobia. .. If there was one defining 'quality' instilled by the Catholic education I received, I would have to say it was 'guilt'. Most of us got over it, many simply by walking away. For someone like me who has stayed, it is painful to see the Church still trading in guilt as a prime commodity and failing to show the tolerance to thers it demands for itself.

Sir Stephen was former principal adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.