The conservativehome.com blog

I believe...

Do you remember Michael Howard’s January 2004 statement of beliefs? They were criticised at the time for their motherhood-and-apple-pie character but they did amount to an aborted CCO attempt to embrace positive politics. I recently came across a Canadian ex-blogger’s beliefs statement and I thought I’d try one of my own. I’ve outlined at least one belief for each of conservativehome.com’s main ten themes:

Who did they expect, Polly Toynbee?

So, it seems that the Catholic Church has missed an opportunity. An opportunity, that is, to bow the knee to secular modernism.

How rude of the red hats to elect Joseph Ratzinger when there were so many progressive candidates available for the job. Bill Clinton, for instance, he’s pretty free these days. Or what of the admirably qualified Michael Portillo? Passed over, yet again.

It really is is intolerable. Once more the world asks “is the Pope a Catholic?” and once more the Church unimaginatively answers in the affirmative.

It’s not as if they weren’t given every opportunity. Did the world’s media not gather round the last Pope’s death bed? Did the liberal commentators not pay generous, if carefully qualified, tribute to the great man? Indeed they did. And what does the Church give them in return? Benedict XVI!

There’s something rather odd about the disappointment of the secular Left. Why should they care who’s Pope? Surely, to them, religion is an irrelevance at best, an adversary at worst. And, in particular, Roman Catholicism, whose very existence is an affront to the progressive creed. So what could they possibly want with the Church, other than the pleasure of consigning it to the scrap heap of history?

Election result from Vatican City - conservative hold

Britain's opinion polls may be disappointing but the news from Rome is much more encouraging.

The election of Joseph Ratzinger is a sure sign that the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church wants to protect theological and moral orthodoxies.

Just yesterday Cardinal Ratzinger described the need to resist a dictatorship of relativism.

A few months ago - in the wake of the Rocco Buttiglione affair he warned of the dangers of secular fundamentalism.

Pope Benedict XVI is also a defender of traditional positions on abortion, family life and social structure.

The legacy of Pope John Paul II is safe.