A well deserved rebuke

"Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth. Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel’s right to be heard?"     Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholic Bishops of England & Wales

Pope Benedict's words have caused a preditable outcry among the liberal "intelligensia" and those who, in reckless and doctrinaire pursuit of the chimera of "equality," have little understanding of the checks and balances and, indeed, compromises necessary to the existence of a free society. The left (the silly, adolescent, post 60s British left) regard the practice of "religion" as a problem to be managed and made to conform to their own preconceptions rather than as a fundamental freedom to be cherished. It was not long ago that the British Labour Party's boast was that it owed more to Methodism (and, it may be added, the votes of working class Catholics) than to Marxism - not so now. "Cultural Marxism" has captured the citadel.
But what they forget is that Pope Benedict speaks for many who have been disenfranchised by current socio-political trends. The Church of England, (and even more so the Church in Wales, not that its voice counts very much) whether it yet realises it or not, because of its seeming inability to make continuing provision for its own traditionalists, is now fatally compromised philosophically and theologically in its opposition to repressive equality legislation, despite the opposition to government legislation of some of its bishops in the House of Lords, and there are almost no politicians of any party who are prepared to speak up in support of the very foundations upon which our freedom rests. It seems to be left to the Holy Father both to rescue credally orthodox Anglicans and to seek to protect the traditional liberties of British subjects.
Given the historic propaganda of the British State, is it possible for contemporary events to take a more ironic turn?

Update

Yes, comments on this issue become more and more bizarre. On BBC's The World at One an M.P. describing himself as a "practising Catholic" (but one whose loyalties to his faith and his politics evidently are not at all divided) characterised the Pope's words as "outside interference" (this from a Catholic - words completely fail me!), and the Daily Telegraph's George Pitcher has a predictably malicious and poisonous post which manages to defame Pope Benedict and Anglo-Catholics in equal measure, seemingly on the basis that if one isn't capable of  marshalling a reasoned argument then one should resort to sexual innuendo and misinformation. As we saw last October, there's nothing like a Roman intervention for getting traditional British prejudices flowing - like a river!