From Dr M. Asciak
The pre-empted resignation (prior to the Cabinet reshuffle) last week of one of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet members, Transport Minister Ruth Kelly, sparked off much speculation in the British Press.
Ms Kelly, still an MP, married and mother of four, has since divulged to The Times on line (UK) that she will not be seeking re-election in her constituency, notwithstanding her avowed continuing staunch support for the British Labour Party.
Ms Kelly, born in Northern Ireland and a three or four-time Minister of State since Labour has been in government, has cited familial matters as the reason for her resignation. She would like to spend more time with her husband and children. Not a bad motive or intention in itself!
Kelly is a staunch Catholic and self-professed member of Opus Dei. In a recent interview she confessed how difficult it had become to reconcile her faith with her political duties. Such is the conundrum in certain societies today. Many individuals in the UK could only underscore the maxim that private personal faith should not be allowed to interfere with public political affairs. Faith was private, politics is public but the two should not mix. I would expect that orientation from an increasingly wrong secular attitude in a country such as the UK, where perceptions of faith in public life have been lost and have wrongly evolved in the wrong direction, a negative (to quote Nicolas Sarkozy) secular attitude instead of a positive one. One is a private sphere the other public, and “never the twain shall meet”.
Ms Kelly recently had some trouble (as indeed she had in the past) on the Human Fertilisation Bill, presently being put forward by the British Cabinet in Parliament. This notorious bill allows the creation of human-animal hybrids (sperm from one species, ova from another), extended legal opportunities for earlier abortion and the possibility of same sex couples (female) to have children through IVF without the need of a father, besides other ethically problematic matters.
The British Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, severely and publicly condemned the bill. It is rumoured that she argued vehemently against the bill with another two Catholic ministers, but Cabinet decided otherwise.
She was absent from the House when the bill was presented for the vote on second reading (with permission) and knowing something about politics, I perceive that this presented a problem with the concept of Cabinet collective responsibility.
I do not want to be presumptuous, but I believe she did what she had to do with as little political damage as possible, as the situation became increasingly untenable particularly in a country which still traditionally views anything Catholic with reserved suspicion. Whatever others may say, I wish to take off my cap to her for standing up for her beliefs. Pope Paul VI once said: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
M. Asciak MD.