Damian Thompson's summary of the year

Briefing: the bishops of England and Wales look pretty bad when one reads Damian Thompson's list of their failures to support the Pope's initiatives (the Motus Proprio and his encyclicals) and their support for a book attacking the Pope, since March when he started his blog. To this we might add the support given by a number of bishops to militant homosexual groups which not only demand that the Church's immutable teaching be changed to suit them, but describe the Pope himself as a 'homophobe': and allowing the Association of Catholic Women to be driven out of the bishops' own consultative body, the National Board of Catholic Women.

But to balance Thompson's list here is a list of good things bishops have done in 2007.

January:
Bishop Roche of Leeds condemns abuse of the Holy Name by the media.

Scottish Bishops as a body plan legal challenge to the Sexual Orientation Regulations on behalf of their adoption agencies.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor makes an urgent appeal against the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

Februrary:
Scottish bishops as a body issue strongly-worded attack on the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

Bishop Devine of Motherwell calls on Scottish Labour to support Christian values.

Bishop Hollis of Portsmouth condemns the abuse of 'general absolution' and the giving of communion to non-Catholics.

Bishop Tartaglia speaks out against the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

March:
Archbishop Nichols of Birmingham calls for lobbying of MPs to stop or modify the Sexual Orientation Regulations. For this he is pilloried by Stonewall as a runner up 'bigot of the year.'

April:
Scottish bishops as a body call on Catholic voters to examine the pro-life credentials of candidates in elections.

June:
the Bishops of England and Wales as a body reiterate the Church's teaching that human embryos should be treated with the respect due to human persons, against the proposed 'hybrids' bill and embryo experimentation.

Archbishop Smith of Cardiff says pro-abortion politicians should not receive communion.

July:
Scottish bishops, as a body, call for a delay to the 'hybrid embryo' bill.

Bishop O'Donaghue of Lancaster rules out any compromise between Catholic adoption agencies and the SORs: rather than hand chidren over to homosexual couples, or hand them over to another body to do that, they will close.

November:
Bishops of England and Wales as a body call on schools to withdraw support from the now pro-abortion Amnesty International.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor tells the rebel management of the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth that if the hospital won't be Catholic, it will be sold off and the proceeds used for Catholic purposes. The management finally backs down and accepts a new code of ethics.

Archbishop Nichols of Birmingham sticks his head above the parapet (again) to criticise the Government plan to allow two lesbians both to be described officially as 'mother' to a child.

Bishop O'Donaghue of Lancaster calls on Catholic schools to be truly Catholic, and lists the ways this must be done.

We don't want to give the impression that the Bishops have done nothing not open to criticism. But criticism must be made on the basis of the complete picture. Just as we say 'No to Pollyanna', we reject the view that the bishops never do anything right. In 2008 they have had their backs to the wall on a series of issues: euthanasia, the SORs and the adoption agencies, the hybrids bill, Amnesty International and abortion, and the growing threat to Catholic charities. Their response has not been perfect, but they are at least opposing the persecution of the Church and the destruction of the vestiges of legally enshrined Christian values. These issues will continue and they will get worse; we can only expect the bishops to carry on, and improve, on such issues if Catholics commend and support them.

What the bishops have failed to do is to put the Church in these islands into a position in which it can gather the strength to oppose these laws and begin to reconvert the country. The first and most important thing, the thing that only they can do, is to get rid of the openly dissident people who run pretty well everything the bishops are directly in charge of, from 'gay' Masses to the seminaries. Only when they do this will things start to improve: there will be more, and better trained, priests, and the Church won't constantly be attacked and undermined from within. The bishops seem to be fond of this ghastly crowd of professional dissidents, whose only qualifications seem to be membership of an 'in-group' with the same tedious attitudes of liberal dissent from Church teaching.

Please pray for the bishops.