Catholic church condemns Tory 'conspiracy theorist'

Guardian

Matthew Tempest and Tom Happold
Friday March 4, 2005

A Tory candidate who believes the EU is a Catholic plot to impose Vatican sovereignty over Britain was today accused by the Catholic church of preaching a conspiracy theory traditionally associated with the far right.

In an article in the Spectator magazine, Adrian Hilton, who is standing in Slough, argued that "a Catholic EU will inevitably result in the subjugation of Britain's Protestant ethos to Roman Catholic social, political and religious teaching".

His outspoken views prompted the spokesman for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, to accuse him of deploying "the sort of argument that tends to be made by extreme Protestants or radical nationalists".

"These views are bizarrely ahistorical and fundamentally erroneous, and an unfair depiction of the Catholic view of Europe," the spokesman said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1430649,00.html

Under the headline "Tory gun nut", the Sun newspaper featured photographs of Mr Oulds lounging on a bed holding a revolver and posing with an AK-47.

Mr Hilton - who holds the world record for the fastest non-stop recital of the complete works of William Shakespeare and is a religious studies teacher at the town's grammar school - was last week selected as his replacement.

He outlined his view that European integration would lead to a "Catholic Caesar presiding over the Protestant monarch" in an article, headlined Render unto the Pope, which was published in the Spectator in August 2003.

"The issue of European religious union is one that has been concealed even deeper than the plans for political union, but the ratchet towards a Catholic Europe is just as real," the article claims.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1430649,00.html

Tory nutter smeared to quash any links to organised crime in UK???? This smells of Opus Dei overkill.

Look at all the "Hot Button Issues" that the EU has been dealing with and one can see how they're in bed with the Catholic Church.
Gay Marriage: The EU is marching in step with the Vatican. The EU is in favor of it and the Vatican is...
Choice: EU is in favor of it and the Vatican is...
Moving Away from Religion in the Public Forum: EU wants to move further away from religion in the public forum and the Vatican...

See...It's so transparent. Thank God Adrian Hilton is here to enlighten us.

Adrian Hilton...Another idiot brought to you by the Conservative Movement.

...has a long history in the UK. :-(

Before the Reformation we had close links to Rome thanks to Gregory the Great and Augustine of Canterbury bringing Christianity here officially. However, things changed when Henry VIII wanted a divorce.

Elizabethan history is full of gibberish about Catholic plots and Catholics were only given emancipation in 1828, and that was only because of the strong chance of civil war in Ireland if they didn't.

The right has traditionally aligned itself against Catholicism in the UK, and we still have the likes of Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland. Call me what you will but it's time we stopped fighting and realized that first and foremost we are Christians, not members of a particular denomination.

http://www.rense.com/general41/render.htm

I think this too qualifies as 'gibberish'. More worrying than his status as a Conservative candidate, is that he teaches religious studies as school. Is this the kind of stuff they have to put up with every day?

need we say more really?