What occured in Canada could happen in the UK:


In -JUL-2005 A Canadain RC Member of Parliament Charles Angus, voted for a Canadian bill allowing same sex marrages. He was denied communion by Father John Lemire, pastor of St. Patrick's parish in Ontario.

Angus told an Ottawa radio station: "I feel that we are starting to move into some very uncomfortable waters when the priest is telling me how to vote in the House of Commons....I felt no matter what else was at stake I can't allow the Eucharist to be a political pressure point." Angus can attend services but cannot receive communion unless he first repents of his decision to vote for C-38. Father Lemire said: "it is a consistent teaching of the Catholic Church as voiced by the current Pope and his predecessor."

Wherre could this action come from? Possibly below:

The Roman Curia's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith"document NOV-24, 2004, "Doctrinal Note on participation of Catholics in political life."
The main thrust of the document is to inform individual Roman Catholics including legislators, that they are not free to vote for parties or laws which deviate from the Church's teachings.

Some points raised in this note are:
An atmosphere of cultural relativism exists in many democratic countries. But the concept of pluralism which accepts all systems of morality as equally valid must be rejected. Only the moral and ethical systems taught by the church are correct. That is because the Church's "...ethical precepts are rooted in human nature itself and belong to the natural moral law."

..citizens claim complete autonomy with regard to their moral choices, and lawmakers maintain that they are respecting this freedom of choice by enacting laws which ignore the principles of natural ethics and yield to ephemeral cultural and moral trends, as if every possible outlook on life were of equal value."

Roman Catholic citizens, including legislators, are only free to "choose among the various political opinions that are compatible" with the church's faith and natural moral law. They are not free to develop an opinion which is based on secular beliefs or on another religion's teachings, if the conflict with Catholic principles.

"Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society."

The church "has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a 'grave and clear obligation to oppose' any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them." Laws must protect "the basic right to life from conception to natural death."

"...a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals" as taught by the Catholic church. "

The principle of separation of church and state does not apply in matters of morality: "For Catholic moral doctrine, the rightful autonomy of the political or civil sphere from that of religion and the Church – but not from that of morality -- is a value that has been attained and recognized by the Catholic Church and belongs to inheritance of contemporary civilization."


Lawmakers cannot create a wall of separation between their religious life and their political life. They cannot behave as Catholics part of the time, and as secularists for the rest of the time. "There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called 'spiritual life', with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called 'secular' life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture."