Racist nonsense

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 16 September 2010, 05:36

After four days at the TUC conference I returned to London to be greeted by the furore of Cardinal Walter Kasper’s comments likening the UK to a Third World country.

The Vatican quickly distanced itself from his comments and the Cardinal pulled out of the visit citing ill health. However, in trying to make light of his comments the Vatican only made the situation worse. In a statement issued yesterday they claimed that the Cardinal was referring to Britain’s multicultural society.

I’m sorry?! If that’s not racism then I don’t know what is.

I fear that this belief is all part of a worrying trend within the dominant faction in the Vatican that views liberal democracy – and so a multicultural and multi-faith society – as the enemy.

Annoyingly some commentators have fallen over themselves to excuse his comments. The BBC’s Rome correspondent described it as “a slightly clumsy thing to have done on the eve of the visit” while the Cabinet Office can meekly say that his views did not represent those of the Vatican.

At least Clifford Longley, from the British Catholic newspaper The Tablet, was honest when he described the cardinal was "obviously talking nonsense".