Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

Yesterday afternoon Declan wrote to the Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster regarding the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre (see previous blog). Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is also the head of the Catholic Church in Britain (the email letter is presented below). This morning Declan was informed in the Dellow Centre – by the same homeless that on 11 April, while in the Manna Centre, more or less told me I would be found one morning with a knife in my back – that I am going to be “sorted out”. So it seems I don’t have much time left. Oh, well.

On 2 April professor of philosophy AC Grayling, one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals, wrote an article in the Guardian titled “Sin of omission: Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's attack on secularism is based on a heavily edited history of Christianity”. The previous day the Cardinal had claimed that "Judaeo-Christian heritage" was the only thing binding British society together, on the eve of a lecture series on the place of faith in British public life. (Incidentally, on 2 April the Guardian asked Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor if he thought that Christian faith leaders should have a privileged position when it came to making interventions in public policy. “Yes,” he replied, “I don't see why not.") Grayling’s article goes so well here, I cannot but publish the first three paragraphs:

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's remarks attacking "aggressive secularism" and claiming that "what binds the British people together is their Judaeo-Christian heritage" body forth several major acts of selective amnesia.

First as to "aggression". The cardinal chooses to forget that when the church was in a position to be aggressive towards those who disagreed with it, it did not restrict itself to robust and uncompromising language, as today's secularists do, but committed murder by burning its opponents at the stake, often torturing them beforehand. That was genuine "aggression"; using this word to describe the forthright and sometimes scornful language of those who disagree with his outlook (and what he tries to do with it, like blocking medical advances for the suffering) is a sort of running to mother, thumb in mouth.

Secondly as to "secularism". The cardinal chooses to forget or ignore that progress towards contemporary liberal democracy, pluralism, civil liberties, individual autonomy and the rule of secular law was achieved only once the hegemony of the church over minds and bodies was broken, and in spite of it. The church fought hard, long and bloodily to abort the beginnings of secularism in the 16th and 17th centuries, as it also then sought to stop the rise of science, and throughout the history of the growth of literacy it attempted to limit the spread of more general knowledge and awareness by placing almost every book of value on the index of forbidden books.

This is Declan’s email letter to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor (Abhreception@rcdow.org.uk):

Subject: Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre

Dear Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

I am writing to you in your capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, of which Tower Hamlets is part. As you are aware, the Dellow Centre of the Sister of Mercy Providence Row Charity is a day centre in Tower Hamlets that provides, among other services, free breakfast, showers and clothing for vulnerable people in the City of London and the East End – the charity's Annual Review 2006-2007 cites the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London Councils and The Corporation of London as statutory funders, as well as 28 churches among a long list of supporters.

My name is Declan Heavey. I am the director of Network of those Abused by Church (NAC), an international secular humanist organisation which my wife and I launched on the internet after moving from Dublin to Birmingham in 2003. Although NAC has yet to be registered as a company, it has a distinguished list of 13 international (agreed) trustees and 32 honorary associates – I regret that I cannot provide you with a link to the NAC website as it was suspended on 8 March after SpamCop drew up a report on 6 March stating that emails from me to scientists and academics, inviting them to sign my petition to the United Nations in support of work on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease, was spamming. (My wife and I are in the process of trying to raise £4,000 to run a campaign in support of the petition, which since 22 October has been signed by 512 scientists and academics, including 22 Nobel laureates.)

Having had to go on state benefits in July 2005, the Department for Work and Pensions ceased our allowance entitlement on 27 September 2006 because I did not “sign on” two days before I was due to do so on 29 September. Consequently, my wife and I have been sleeping rough in a porch in the City of London since 3 November 2006. My case is currently before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In December I received (c/o the Dellow Centre) a letter for and on behalf of the Registrar turning down my request of 8 September for priority, but informing me that the Court would examine my application, also of 8 September, possibly before the end of January. I have yet to learn if my case has been dismissed or if the Court has invited the Government to set out its observations on the merits and admissibility of my case.

I wish to draw to your attention that since 10 April I have been washing and shaving on the streets as a result of all the harassment and threats I have received from other homeless while attempting to wash in the Dellow Centre’s men's washroom. For example: (1) on Friday, I had to leave the washroom as a homeless was shouting loudly and menacingly at me because I grabbed an empty chair, and (2) on 1 April, I narrowly escaped assault in the washroom, having had to twice call staff.

My wife and I are especially concerned that we could be barred from the Dellow Centre through no fault of our own – the breakfast provided by the centre is the only food available to my wife for the entire day; whilst I daily walk a round trip of two hours to the Manna Centre (whose building is provided rent-free by the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark) to avail of the free lunch provided to homeless people. I beg to point out that on 18 June we were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission by the minister's wife due to concerns about our safety following an unprovoked assault on my wife by a homeless woman in the canteen of the premises. Despite that the Whitechapel Mission 130th Anniversary Review states that homeless people are not be barred or excluded, and that I wrote by registered post to the minister himself and to the head of the Methodist Church in the UK, Rev Graham Carter, my wife and I were never readmitted.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey