John Waters has again generated a small hurricane of hostility with his column in The Irish Times this week. “The greatest ‘sin’ committed by Irish Catholicism was its failure to explain itself properly to the people. I have in mind not any recent reluctance to comply with demands for accountability or penitence, but something deeper: the failure to explain that Catholicism is fundamentally an understanding of human nature as it engages with reality, and that the ‘point’ is not social control, but personal self-understanding.”  It is a good article.

Perhaps something more of the transcendental might have figured in his analysis – and thus lift the vision beyond the earth-bound realm of the majority of those who responded to him in online comments. However, it did give our spiritually impoverished little society something to think about. What was, however, very saddening about it all was the unpleasantness and abusiveness of the tone and language of so many of those who objected to him. Would I like to spend much time in their company? I don’t think so.

Collectively it constituted something of an atheist-fest, where every brick-bat to hand was thrown at the Catholic Church which was now, by their common consensus, a fatally injured Leviathan in its last agony. Waters used the Catholic teaching on contraception as an illustration of what he saw as its failure to meet the challenge of giving its Irish flock a proper understanding of human nature as it engages with reality.

One respondent complained that he took the soft option by illustrating his point with the Catholic position on contraception as opposed to that on homosexual practices. Do they not understand that the Catholic position on both is rooted in the same integral view of the nature and purpose of human sexuality?

I couldn’t help connecting the tone of these forces arrayed against Waters with Michael Gerson’s comments in The Washington Post (Thursday, April 21) on the movie Atlas Shrugged, adapted from Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel by the same name. The movie, he said, perfectly reflects both the novel and the mind behind it.

Rand is a libertarian heroine. Her novels are described by Gerson as “vehicles for a system of thought known as Objectivism. Rand developed this philosophy at the length of Tolstoy, with the intellectual pretensions of Hegel, but it can be summarized on a napkin. Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible. ‘The Objectivist ethics, in essence,’ said Rand, ‘hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.’”

When we probe the thought behind practically the entire army of atheist and militant secularists now ranged against religion in the world today – all religion – we essentially find this philosophy. They offer us a very bleak and shallow landscape – where we fearfully suspect that the land ruled by such a philosophy should be, as history has already shown us at such terrible cost, one where life would truly be “nasty, brutish and short”.

That this philosophy is juvenile and full of inherent contradictions would seem to guarantee it a short life. Strangely this is not happening. That it is not may be the result of that other phenomenon of the modern world which attracted some attention recently. Mankind seems to be caught in a trap of permanent adolescence.

Gerson tells us : “If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence. Many of us experienced a few unfortunate years of invincible self-involvement, testing moral boundaries and prone to stormy egotism and hero worship. Usually one grows out of it, eventually discovering that the quality of our lives is tied to the benefit of others. Rand’s achievement was to turn a phase into a philosophy, as attractive as an outbreak of acne.”

Rand was virulently anti-Christian. The Cross, she said, is “the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. . . . It is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.” But the Cross is much more than a simple way of correcting our tendency to excess or a way of enhancing our happiness in the moment when we lay it down for a while. Even the secularist can understand it on that level. Hence the anger at John Waters’ suggestion that this is something for which they should acknowledge a debt to Christ or the Church.

Gerson says that many libertarians trace their inspiration to Rand’s novels, while sometimes distancing themselves from Objectivism. “But both libertarians and Objectivists are moved by the mania of a single idea — a freedom indistinguishable from selfishness.” Selfishness is a menace which at all times and in all places lurks in the shadow of our consciousness. But without religion, without that vision which shows us the Other which is the source of meaning for everything, the self and selfishness is all there is. That is when we are really in trouble.

They say this is a first. It may be, but it should not be a surprise. It is in fact a symptom of the chronic disconnect which is now commonplace between the key institutions in Western society – families, schools, government. About 70 teachers in a school in Lancashire, England, are on picket duty outside their school and are refusing to return because of a breakdown in school discipline. The Daily Telegraph (April 7) reports that staff at Darwen Vale High School in Darwen are angry over a lack of backing from the head and other management at the school when they confront unruly children.

Simon Jones, a local National Union of Teachers official manning the picket line, said: ”This is not a strike against pupils. It is about management, and management failure to support staff in dealing with challenging behaviour. No one wants to demonise the children here; they are no better or no worse than any other.” Pity the poor teachers, pity the poor pupils. In a broken society all are victims. Few know why and even fewer know what to do about it. This is by no means a “sink” school. In fact, in the latest report on the school from the Office of Standards in Education last June, Darwen Vale was rated a good school where pupils’ behaviour was given a good rating.

Something really terrible has happened when an entire body of teachers in a school has felt compelled to down tools and walk out of their classrooms because they find themselves no longer able to do that which should be second nature to them – relate humanly and affectionately to the body of students in that classroom. What the exact circumstances in Darwen Vale are may be special, but there is no doubt but that the reaction of those teachers is mirrored in thousands of classrooms around the Western world today where teachers feel they can no longer cope. Why? It is not a deficiency in their skills, or in their training, or in their good will. It is nothing less than a breakdown of civilised human behaviour.

What has happened has been happening for a long time and is deeply rooted in the culture of individualism which permeates Western society. A good and wise man – who died back in 2005 – diagnosed a good deal of this malaise in the course of his work for children and the American education system over the second half of the last century.

Urie Bronfenbrenner, born in Moscow to Jewish parents in 1917, came to

the United States at the age of six. After graduating from high school he received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell in 1938, completing a double major in psychology and music. He went on to graduate work in developmental psychology, completing an M.A. degree at Harvard, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1942. After the Second World War he returned to Cornell where he remained for the rest of his professional life.

Bronfenbrenner’s observed that interpersonal relationships, even at the most basic level of  parent-child relationship, did not exist in a social vacuum but were embedded in the larger social structures of community, society, economics and politics. These, he maintained, hold the key to understanding our  current sad state of affairs. Already in the early 70s he pointed out in his book, Two Worlds of Childhood, how a chronic erosion of the basic processes of true human learning was taking place in the US as a result of rampant individualism. His study consisted of  a comparison between the broad educational culture of the US and the broad educational culture of the Soviet Union – and, strange as it may seem, it was in the US that the more worrying trends showed themselves.

In 1979 he wrote: “In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help. . . . No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings.” (The Ecology of Human Development)

In Two Worlds of Childhood he described how a self-inflicted generation gap in the US was cultivated had been through the constant separation of generations in that society’s relentless catering for generational tastes and interests, exclusive of each other. This led to the breakup of family life, the break-up of cross-generational community life, all with unforeseen but dire consequences.

“Children need people in order to become human”, he wrote. “It is primarily through observing, playing, and working with others older and younger than himself that a child discovers both what he can do and who he can become—that he develops both his ability and his identity…. Hence to relegate children to a world of their own is to deprive them of their humanity, and ourselves as well.” (Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R., preface)

The civilizing effect of work and the life of work – not only on the person working but on all those sharing his or her life – was one of the casualties resulting from the segregation of society along generational lines which he saw all around him in the US in the ‘sixties and beyond. “One of the most significant effects of age-segregation in our society has been the isolation of children from the world of work. Whereas in the past children not only saw what their parents did for a living but even shared substantially in the task, many children nowadays have only a vague notion of the nature of the parent’s job, and have had little or no opportunity to observe the parent, or for that matter any other adult, when he is fully engaged in his work.” (Two Worlds of Childhood)

This was for him one of the consequences of a merciless imposition by society of pressures and priorities that allow neither time nor place for meaningful activities and relations between children and adults, which downgrade the role of parents and the functions of parenthood, and which prevent the parent from doing things he wants to do as a guide, friend, and companion to his children.

In a 1977 paper for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Conference on Parent Education, “Who Needs Parent Education?”, he pointed out a central fallacy in American thinking which he saw as leading to our present predicament. This is essentially the thinking which is at the heart of all individualism.

“Witness the American ideal: the Self-Made Man”, he said. “But there is no such person. If we can stand on our own two feet, it is because others have raised us up. If, as adults, we can lay claim to competence and compassion, it only means that other human beings have been willing and enabled to commit their competence and compassion to us—through infancy, childhood, and adolescence, right up to this very moment.”

The failure to recognise these essential needs of the child, he argued, manifested themselves in practical decisions by planners and policy makers. What was critically needed, he wrote in Two Worlds, in the planning and designing of new communities, housing projects, and urban renewal, both public and private, was that explicit consideration be given to the kind of world that is being created for the children who will be growing up in these settings. “Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children with persons both older and younger than themselves.”

At the Flint conference he called for recognition of the need for re-education about the necessary and sufficient conditions for helping human beings to be truly human. They need to be re-educated not as parents—but as workers, neighbours, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards. The informal networks that control social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for families and children need to understand all this. There simply had to be, in his view, clear recognition that a child’s development occurs through a process of progressively more complex exchange between a child and somebody else—“especially somebody who’s crazy about that child”. The poor teachers, and the poor students, of Darwen Vale High School find themselves far removed from this beneficent and crazy love.

Urie Bronfenbrenner foresaw the crisis now being experienced by our society. “If”, he said, “the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.” Are we there yet? We can only hope not.

There was a piece of good news in Europe last week. It came from – of all places, some would say – the European Court of Human Rights. We didn’t read much about it in the newspapers but it was picked up by the ever-vigilant Iona Institute in Dublin.

The Court ruled that the 47 member-states of the Council of Europe are not violating anyone’s rights by displaying religious symbols like the crucifix in public places like the walls of State classrooms. The decision overturned a previous ruling by the same court in November 2009 when it found in favour of a Finnish woman living in Italy, Soile Lautsi, an atheist, who complained that her right to freedom of religion had been violated because her children were exposed to the crucifix in State schools.

The ruling means that those who, over the last few years, have banned religious symbols from public places, extending even cribs, can no longer look to the Convention for comfort. No-one’s rights are violated because they see a particular religious object in a public place, even if the public place is owned by the State. The argument, ‘I’m offended’, isn’t going to work anymore.

The decision caused uproar in Italy and was even condemned by parties that are traditionally anti-clerical. Twenty other countries as diverse as Norway and Greece joined Italy in condemning the decision and ten joined Italy’s appeal against the ruling.

On Friday, by a margin of 15 to 2 the Grand Chamber of the Court found that the initial decision was flawed. It held that member-states should be free to decide these matters themselves, meaning it fell within their “margin of appreciation”. It held that displaying the crucifix did not in itself amount to “indoctrination”.

The Court declared: “There is no evidence before the Court that the display of a religious symbol on classroom walls may have an influence on pupils and so it cannot reasonably be asserted that it does or does not have an effect on young persons whose convictions are still in the process of being formed.

“[I]t is true that by prescribing the presence of crucifixes in State-school classrooms – a sign which, whether or not it is accorded in addition a secular symbolic value, undoubtedly refers to Christianity – the regulations confer on the country’s majority religion preponderant visibility in the school environment.

“That is not in itself sufficient, however, to denote a process of indoctrination on the respondent State’s part and establish a breach of the requirements of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1.”

It held that, when dealing with sensitive cultural and religious issues, States who are members of the Council of Europe have “a wide margin of appreciation”. The Grand Chamber rejected the original ECHR finding that the Crucifixes represented “powerful external symbols” which unduly influence pupils. It held that, “the decision whether or not to perpetuate a tradition falls in principle within the margin of appreciation of the respondent State”. It added: “The Court must moreover take into account the fact that Europe is marked by a great diversity between the States of which it is composed, particularly in the sphere of cultural and historical development.

The decision recognised State sovereignty in this area, and accepted that States are allowed to give recognition to the majority religion of the State and to their national and cultural heritage, meaning in the case of a country like Italy, Poland or Ireland, Christianity.

My first feedback on There Be Dragons from a friend, Ivan Garcia Bermudez  in Madrid:

“Yesterday I had the opportunity to seeo the Special Screening of “There be dragons” for World Youth Day volunteers. The Screening was in Palafox Cinema of Madrid, just very close to where the first center of Opus Dei was sited. We were very privileged as most of the movie team was present at the event: Charlie Cox, Wes Bentley and producers Ignacio Nuñez and Ignacio Gómez Sancha. They shared some thoughts with us about the movie and the “dragons” they had to face to accomplish this movie, especially to raise the 40 million Euros for this project. Being a film that takes faith seriously and doesn´t criticize the Church, you cannot expect much funding from the Spanish Government.

I think the movie is great. You can see they have spent a lot of money on this project – excellent plot, sophisticated narrative and a lot of ideas that can help in your life. I think this is a movie that entertains but is also good for the mind and for the soul. This movie can be applied to everyone’s life as everybody is facing their own difficulties, their own mistakes and their own inner dragons. It is an encouraging thought that there is always an opportunity for hope.

I was afraid that the movie would give an unreal and romantic version about priesthood but not at all It reflects the hard conditions in which the first members of Opus Dei  had to live.  Another aspect that attracted me was how well the director depicts the determination of St. Josemaria to be faithful to the project of God, no matter how harsh the conditions were.  Sometimes you cannot see God in the midst of difficulties but when we have leaders with such a great determination to go on, who are beacons for the rest of us (We need more Josemarias).    Also the spirit of the Work is very well  captured in the movie, not bad for an agnostic director. I think I need to see the movie again to extract more food for the mind. Probably I will bring my atheist friends to watch it, I think it will be a great opportunity to introduce God to them.

He was described as “a towering figure in the history of the United States”. That is, as they might say in the United States, an “awesome” accolade. Who was he? He was Dr. Bernard Nathanson. The words were those of Fr. Gerald Murray, in his homily at the Requiem Mass for Dr. Nathanson in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City. He died last month.

The twentieth century has any number of truly “Pauline” conversions, but very few match the scale of Bernard Nathanson’s. He was born in New York to Jewish parents. He became a doctor – like his father – and specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology and was for a time the director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), at that time the biggest abortion provider in the world. During his career there and elsewhere he claimed that he was responsible for more than 75,000 abortions.

Throughout these years he was one of the leading activists in the pro-abortion campaign which eventually came to a head with the US Supreme Court judgement in the Roe V Wade case which legalised abortion across the country and gave the lead to so many other western states to do the same. He professed himself to be a Jewish atheist, was married four times and admitted in one of his books to taking the life of his own child in one of the abortions he carried out.

But then in the 1970s, with the development of ultrasound, he was able to observe a real-time abortion. This shocked him to the core of his being and he ceased to perform any more abortions. This was his first conversion, his ethical conversion. He continued to be an atheist. In his 1996 autobiography, Hand of God, which was quoted by Fr. Murray, he tells of the experience. He wrote: “Ultrasound opened up a new world. For the first time we could really see the human foetus, measure it, observe it, watch it, and indeed bond with it and love it. I began to do that.”

Dr. Nathanson wrote: “By 1984 … I had begun to ask myself more questions about abortion: What actually goes on in an abortion? …I said to a friend of mine, who was doing fifteen or maybe twenty abortions a day, ‘Look, do me a favour, Jay. Next Saturday, when you are doing all these abortions, put an ultrasound device on the mother and tape it for me.’ He did, and when he looked at the tapes with me in an editing studio, he was so affected that he never did another abortion. I, though I had not done an abortion in five years, was shaken to the very roots of my soul by what I saw.”

He continued “Having looked at the ultrasound, I could no longer go on as before”. For him the abortion movement was then seen as “the most atrocious holocaust in the history of the United States”. From then on he became the implacable foe of the movement he himself had spent his life up until that time promoting. Consequently he became its number one source of embarrassment by exposing what he called “the dishonest beginnings of the abortion movement”. He was now declaring: “After my exposure to ultrasound, I began to rethink the prenatal phase of life… When I began to study foetology, it dawned on me, finally, that the prenatal nine months are just another band in the spectrum of life… To disrupt or abort a life at this point is intolerable – it is a crime. I don’t make any bones about using that word: Abortion is a crime.” He humbly confessed “I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age.”

In 1984, he directed and narrated the pro-life film which galvanised anti-abortion forces across the globe. This film, The Silent Scream opened people’s eyes to the reality of the “procedure”. It removed any doubt that what was in fact being “terminated” was not just the clinical condition of pregnancy but a human being’s life. His second documentary, Eclipse of Reason, dealt with horror of late-term abortions.

One of the battles which Nathanson and others now began to fight was the battle against the corruption of language, meaning and truth which was part and parcel of the pro-abortionists’ campaign in their efforts to win over and consolidate public opinion on their side. Fr. William Smith, one of his companions in the struggle was another great hero of the pro-life movement. His axiom was: “Social engineering is always preceded by verbal engineering.” For them abortion was the killing of new life and had to be called that.

Then in 1996 came his second conversion. Some time before that he met an Opus Dei priest, Fr. C. John McCloskey. Already deeply troubled by the memories of the work he had been doing for so many years he was searching for some kind of peace – and could not find it. He had, however, the example of one man whose memory haunted him. His medical school professor had been Karl Stern, also Jewish, but a convert. He wrote of Stern later: “…he possessed a secret I had been searching for all my life – the secret of the peace of Christ”. With the help of Fr. McCloskey’s spiritual guidance he arrived at the moment of truth and grace.

In December 1996, Nathanson was baptized by Cardinal John O’Connor in a private Mass with a group of friends in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He also received Confirmation and first Communion from the Cardinal. When asked why he converted to Roman Catholicism, Nathanson affirmed simply that “no religion matches the special role for forgiveness that is afforded by the Catholic Church”.

In his homily Fr. Murray described Dr. Nathanson as “a fearless advocate of the self-evident truth that it is a grave injustice to kill people before they are born. The unjust decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton mandating legalized abortion in our country cry out for the counter-witness of those who will not abide this injustice. Heroism is called for. True heroism is never easy and is only possible through God‟s grace.”

Dr. Nathanson reminded Fr. Murray of another great champion of truth and a witness against evil in the twentieth century, Whittaker Chambers. Chambers renounced his membership of the Communist and confessed to being a Soviet spy. He suffered for it, he was vilified, but he stood firm. He spoke the truth. Chambers wrote of himself in the foreword to his famous book, Witness: “I do not know any way to explain why God’s grace touches a man who seems unworthy of it. But neither do I know any other way to explain how a man like myself – tarnished by life, unprepossessing, not brave – could prevail so far against the powers of the world arrayed almost solidly against him, to destroy him and defeat his truth. In this sense, I am an involuntary witness to God’s grace and to the fortifying power of faith.”  

Fr. Murray went on to tell a haunting story in Chambers’ book which he connected to Dr. Nathanson’s rejection of abortion. Chambers wrote: “The daughter of a former German diplomat in Moscow was trying to explain to me why her father, who, as an enlightened modern man had been extremely pro-Communist, had become an implacable anti-Communist. But she loved her father and the irrationality of his defection embarrassed her. ‘He was immensely pro-Soviet’, she said, ‘and then –you will laugh at me – but you must not laugh at my father – and then, one night, in Moscow he heard screams. That’s all. Simply one night he heard screams’.

“A child of Reason and the 20th century, she knew that there is a logic of the mind. She did not know that the soul has a logic that may be more compelling than the mind’s. She did not know at all that she had swept away the logic of the mind, the logic of history, the logic of politics, the myth of the 20th century, with five annihilating words: one night he heard screams.

“The scream Dr. Nathanson heard was a silent scream. A silent scream uttered by an unseen victim; that is, until the ultrasound machine brought the truth of abortion into plain view for this medical doctor who had expended great effort to make this horror legal and widespread in America. That doctor thereafter boldly decided to make the reality of human life in the womb visible for the whole world to see.”

This was inevitable – and it is only beginning. Everyone is blaming the judges for the decree handed down by the High Court in Britain on Monday that Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple, married almost 40 years, could no longer foster children aged between five and 10. They are deemed unsuitable, in law, to do so any longer because they are unwilling to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a child. Neither Mr nor Mrs Johns has anything against gay people but they are not in favour of sex before marriage, whatever an individual’s orientation.

But this is not the fault of the judges. The law is not an ass. That is too easy. It is the law-makers who are asses. As soon as the steamroller of “gay liberation” got rolling on its relentless way and sought to have legislation to back all the rights it set itself up as having, the law-makers began to make asses of themselves. And this goes for every other politically correct tom-foolery which late twentieth century men and women allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by and sought legal standing for.

Commonsense has been abandoned. These laws are so flawed and so full of inherent contradictions in the context of the whole fabric of the common law system that they inevitably lead to the kind of judgement which has just been handed down from the British High Court. The confusion, the anguish and the distress of two innocent people is the outcome of this debacle

The statement issues by Owen and Eunice Johns after the judgement reveals the depths of their anguish. “We are extremely distressed at what the judges have ruled today. All we wanted was to offer a loving home to a child in need. We have a good track record as foster parents. But because we are Christians, with mainstream Christian views on sexual ethics, we are apparently unsuitable as foster parents.

“The judges have suggested that our views might harm children. We have been told by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that our moral views may ‘infect’ a child. We do not believe that this is so. We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do, was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.”

But all this is part of a campaign to obliterate any common sense and rational approach to dealing with ourselves as human beings. The language of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the moral views of the Johns may ‘infect’ a child says it all. This is now a society where the Church of the Equality and Human Rights is the arbiter of morality and all other moral viewpoints are dangerous infections against which society must be immunised. British society – and by extension and in time all western societies – are now being defined in such a way that the Church of Human Rights will rule supreme.

These two British judges have now solemnly declared and defined English society to be a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”. The judges remarked that it was not yet “well understood” that in British society the law really has no place for Christianity. “Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century,” they said.

Homosexual rights campaigners of course welcomed the judgment which they describe as putting “21st-century decency above 19th-century prejudice”. The ruling in this case is only the latest in a series of judgments in which Christians have been defeated in the courts for breaching equality laws by manifesting their beliefs on homosexuality. Part of the problem here is that the question of homosexuality is being kept in the realm of “belief”. This protects the lobby from having to engage in rational debate about this issue on health, scientific or simple sociological grounds. As soon as anyone raises these issues there are screams of homophobia, prejudice, and bigotry.

All one has to do to get a glimpse of the depth of hatred towards anyone who questions the politically correct orthodoxy on this matter now is to read the comments on the story in the newspapers. The Daily Telegraph in London, as I write, has already clocked up over 1500 responses to just one of its stories on the subject. An Irish parliamentary candidate in the election there last week who has a somewhat nuanced position of the gay rights issue – she supported civil union legislation but considers marriage per se to be, in the interests of children, something for a man and a woman. The volume of hate mail and abuse which descended on her smelt very much like a jihad.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former bishop of Rochester, described the High Court judgment as absurd. “However, what really worries me about this spate of judgments is that they leave no room for the conscience of believers of whatever kind. This will exclude Christians, Muslims and Orthodox Jews from whole swaths of public life, including adoption and fostering.”

The judges saw their predicament as follows: “We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to ‘do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’.”

It was in this context that the Daily Telegraph leader article put the blame firmly in the court of the law-makers. It had no qualms about declaring that we were now witnessing the emergence of a modern, secular Inquisition. “The reason that they were even asked about their views on homosexuality was because Parliament passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations, making it an offence to discriminate on the grounds that someone is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. These are the same laws under which Peter and Hazelmary Bull, Christian owners of a guest house, were fined last month for refusing to let a gay couple share a room. But in the case of Mr and Mrs Johns, where is the victim? They were not turning anyone away. Quite the contrary – they were offering a home to children who will otherwise end up in care, and there are precious few people who will. Furthermore, since the children would be aged under 10, matters of sexuality are hardly relevant – or is it being suggested that they should be? Astonishingly, the High Court suggested that it was not so much their Christian faith as the moral certainties of the Johns that were potentially harmful to children.

“There is another troubling aspect of this case, the Telegraph concluded. “Equality laws are supposed to uphold the rights to religious belief. Yet the High Court ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds. Why has it been left to judges to decide whose rights trump those of others? This should have been decided by Parliament but, yet again, another sloppily drafted measure will have far-reaching consequences for freedom of conscience in this country. Already the Roman Catholic Church has had to close its adoption agencies because they cannot conform to the law. Perhaps there is a historical irony here, because we are witnessing a modern, secular Inquisition – a determined effort to force everyone to accept a new set of orthodoxies or face damnation as social heretics if they refuse. Parliament and the courts should protect people like Mr and Mrs Johns, but have thrown them to the wolves. It is a disgrace.” But then, what do asses really know about human nature?

Olga Kurylenko thinks her latest movie, Roland Joffé’s There Be Dragons, is important for everyone and not just another piece of escapism – and Olga knows what escapism is all about having been Daniel Craig’s love-interest in James Bond’s last outing – A Quantum of Solace.

Why is it important? “Because”, she says, “it just treats the most crucial questions. This movie speaks about love. And it concerns all of us. It speaks about searching for the purpose in life. That’s what we all look for, I hope. It looks for happiness, which is what we’re all looking for in life. It’s about making choices, and we’re constantly, everyday, brought to make choices. It’s about actually struggling with negative feelings; it’s about struggling with hatred and anger. And it is about trying to be a better person.”

Kurylenko, Ukrainian-born actress and model, grew up in poverty sharing a Soviet flat with her aunt, uncle, grandparents and cousin. In her own life she has been no stranger to struggle. Her mother and father were divorced soon after her birth and her mother struggled to survive as an art teacher. Young Olga was brought up by her mother and her grandmother, Raisa. During her youth, Olga had a humbling experience of living in poverty and recounts how she had no choice but to wear rags and had to darn the holes on her sweater. During the years in Ukraine, she studied art, languages, did 7 years of musical school studying piano and went to a ballet studio.

When she was 13, Olga and her mother made a trip to Moscow. There, she was spotted by an agent who approached her at a subway station and offered her a job as a model. Initially, Olga’s mother was suspicious but, eventually, Olga started training as a model. By age 16, she moved to Paris, learned French in six months, and was signed by the Madison agency. Then, in 2005, she made her debut in films and in 2008 hit the big-time with A Quantum of Solace. Next came There Be Dragons which has its world premier in Madrid on 25 march and then goes on release across the US on 6 May.

Since making this movie over six months in 2009 she has spoken about its impact on her. “One of the main characters”, she says, “is extremely angry and full of hate. He is totally lost. And I think that’s something that’s extremely common in our world today, and always was. Let’s agree that we’ve been struggling with it for… centuries. It’s something that’s still worth talking about, because it’s still our problem! And that’s what sanctity is, I guess. As Roland said, there’s no sanctity without struggle and fight and suffering. It’s not just a person who sits in his chair and does nothing and just has great ideas.”

She sees Josemaría Escrivá, who is one of the central characters in this semi-historical portrayal of personal conflict between its protagonists during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, as representing this kind of human being. It is about a man “who gets up and goes and does something. In spite of the hatred that directed at him, he keeps believing in a better world; he keeps doing good. That’s something easy to say but not very easy to do at all.” But there are people like that, and Josemaria was one of those people. When people were spitting on him and throwing stones at him, he was still turning back with a smile and kept loving those who were doing these things to him. And there are lines in the movie, where he says ‘Well, we still should love them.’ That’s something! It’s very idealistic, but it is possible, because there are people like that.

I never met Josemaría, but I’ve actually met people like that in the present life, nowadays. There are people like that. And those are the people who chose not the easy way but rather the difficult way. That’s what makes life more interesting, rather than those who choose the easy way, that’s what gives sense to life.