Thursday, April 17, 2008

Oratory School, London, and the Terence Higgins Trust

Update: The THT now promotes the most disgusting and dangerous sexual practices imaginable on its website. Claiming to make these marginally less likely to cause AIDs infection, they are in fact endorsing the sub-culture which is spreading them, and the AIDs they carry, more widely. This is one embarassment which the Oratory School has wisely avoided. Full story here.

Original post 12/11/07: Local action as appropriate:
anyone connected with the school should register their support for the headmaster, David McFadden. The Terrence Higgins Trust openly supports the immoral lifestyle which increases the risk of AIDs infection, a strange position for an AIDs charity. They actively promote contraception and abortion. The Oratory School apparently offered to support them through a charity concert without giving it much thought; having thought about it, they have made the courageous decision to endure the censure of the liberal media by pulling out. The actor Simon Callow, a patron of both the THT and the Oratory Schola, has threatened to resign from the latter. Good riddance, we say.

The Oratory Schola's website still carries the announcement that they support the Terrence Higgins Trust; they also reveal, without embarrassment, that they sang for the odiously anti-Catholic film 'The Golden Compass'. Let us hope that the new Headmaster's attitude means this kind of thing won't happen again.

From The Guardian, in part: Yesterday, the Terrence Higgins Trust said it was "very disappointed" that the London Oratory School had axed it as the nominated charity for the concert, which is due to take place on December 1. The event will feature the school's internationally acclaimed choir, the Schola, and prominent soloists.

However, in a letter sent to parents and seen by the Guardian, headmaster David McFadden explained there were concerns "regarding the distribution of proceeds to an organisation whose aims and practices conflicted with the teachings and viewpoint of the Catholic church.

Full story here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are fuelling the flames of homophobia. What you don't seem to understand, is that this whole sorry episode, orchestrated by reactionary elements of the Catholic church, simply shows the hierarchy to be hypocrites and "moral pygmies"*.
Surely the Church should support anyone who is suffering, regardless of how they got there? Shame on you for your lack of Christian love. I wonder if you have the guts to publish this comment.
I'm ashamed of some of my fellow Catholics and will be donating to the Terence Higgins Trust the money I would normally put in the weekly collection.


* quote from Gareth Valentine, composer of the Requiem due to be performed at the World Aids Day concert.

Anonymous said...

Who said anything about homosexuality? A glance at the THT site reveals that they promote sexual immorality with a commendable lack of discrimination: gays and straights can all go to hell together, as far as they are concerned.

Church institutions should not support organisations which attack Church teaching.

What part of that can't you understand? What part of that is homophobic?

Anonymous said...

It's sweet of anonymous to challenge the Webmaster's gutlessness, when he himself isn't quite brave enough to tell us his own identity. He might like to explain though how an organisation that promotes sexual promiscuity can really be called "anti-AIDS". AIDS is spread mainly by promiscuity and the THT is named after a dead rent-boy.

On the question of homosexuality though, it does have a youth outreach programme that specifically encourages children and young men to become homosexuals. That, I would have thought, is the sort of thing that encourage homophobia, and it's shameful that there are teachers at a Roman Catholic school that want to endorse it.

Anonymous said...

The reason for posting anonymously Mr McCarthy is simply because I wish to protect my family from attacks by people like yourself. The THT does NOT promote promiscuity. Did you know that you can contract HiV through your first (post marriage if you must) sexual encounter? Did you know that babies are born HiV positive? Is this promiscuity? These people are supported by charities such as the THT. I know people who died of Aids and it was the THT which cared for them when NO-ONE else would. Where were the Catholic charities then? Nowhere to be seen.
Your comment that the THT "specifically encourages children and young men to become homosexuals" is simply ignorance writ large. If you had any knowledge of the subject, you would know that people are born gay. No-one and no organisation can "turn" you gay.
At least one in ten* of the boys at the London Oratory School are gay. Same goes for the staff. What message do you have for them? They're condemned to hell or what?
I repeat - where is the compassion, where the enactment of Jesus's one big commandment, to love our neighbours?

* the estimate is taken from the figures for the population as a whole. Being brought up a Catholic doesn't make you automatically straight.

Anonymous said...

So: if the facts - like the genetic basis of homosexuality, and the number of them in the population - don't support you, just make 'em up.

And if the facts - like the THT website demonstrating their promotion of immorality - are against you, just ignore 'em.

Just look at their stuff on abortion, for heaven's sake. That is enough to show this organisation should never be the recipient of Catholic funds.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to close this discussion now. You are never going to listen to another point of view. I'm sad that such intolerance exists in this day and age. God will judge of course, in end, who has led the sort of life that his son asked us to lead.

Anonymous said...

I haven't published yet another comment from 'Anonymous', even more half-witted than the one advertised as the 'last'; but please note that we reserve the right not to publish, even out of sheer boredom, comments from people who can apparantly write their own but not read anyone else's.

Pope Leo XIII's Prayer to St Michael

Holy Michael, Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust down to Hell Satan, and all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen