The Bishop of Stafford, quoted in the Birmingham Post:
“It’s easy to demonize Josef Fritzl. And it’s certainly hard to imagine a more monstrous or revolting crime. The publication of photographs showing him sunbathing in Thailand while his helpless daughter and several young children were locked in his basement is bound to make us ask, ‘How could anyone do such a thing?’ And yet Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck. In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is – we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key. We are right to be disgusted at these crimes. But mere disgust is too convenient. There are lessons for all of us to learn.”
The moral idiocies of Anglican Bishops have long failed to surprise me but this probably deserves to be in the top five of stupid remarks. Is he really suggesting some sort of equivalence between the father who abuses his kids in a dungeon and a father who takes his family on an EasyJet flight to the Med every year? No wonder fewer and fewer people turn to the Church of England for guidance or leadership.
