Letters: Morality? Look back to the Sixties
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: During the 1980s, the sometimes ugly battles between the Conservative government and the churches were based on a false understanding of social architecture. Church leaders, out of touch with their lay members, joined Labour in seeing the state as offering a solution to every social problem. Too often, Conservatives replied by laying exclusive stress on individual rights and responsibilities.
The new agenda, tentatively signalled by the 1988 stress on "active citizenship" by Kenneth Baker and Douglas Hurd, has blossomed into a great national debate about the importance of the social values and institutions which lie between the individual and the state.
Paul Vallely's overview of Catholic teaching ("What gives bishops the right to tell us how to vote?", 21 October) mentioned the importance of Professor Michael Novak's work to the Pope's writing - notably Centesimus annus. Novak, a recent Templeton Prize winner, suggested that popular discourse had exaggerated either the importance of the market economy or the democratically accountable state. This exaggeration was at the expense of the need to nurture family, voluntarism, manners and morality. All parties - and church leaders - are now becoming interested in the moral cultural sphere, and the mediating institutions that transmit its mores.
Tony Blair, to his credit, has led much of this debate, but I am afraid that his Party's liberal voting record on questions of sexuality, marriage and the sanctity of life (abortion and euthanasia - key issues of concern to Roman Catholics and other traditional believers) betray an affinity to the destructive values that Frances Lawrence's "call to moral arms" must address.
TIM MONTGOMERIE
Director, the Conservative Christian Fellowship
London N2
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments