Whose Human Rights?

Yesterday, Bishop Elio Sgreccia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, was asked at a press conference for his view on the assault on the conscience of Catholics currently being made by the British Government in its refusal to guarantee conscience-based exemption for Catholic Adoption Agencies. Bishop Sgreccia said in reply:
I think that conscientious objection is fully justified and I would be surprised if a nation such as Great Britain, usually considered as the homeland of fundamental liberties, would refuse… to recognise this objection. I hope this won’t happen or that, if it does, it will give rise to an appeal before the [European] Court of Human Rights [translation slightly modified by me for greater clarity].

Meanwhile, the exemplary Bishop of Paisley, Philip Tartaglia, published a Pastoral Letter on Religious Freedom last weekend in which he urged his readers to write to their local Councillors, MPs, Members of the Scottish Parliament, and to members of the House of Lords making the point that regulations deriving from equality legislation are unacceptable if they damage religious freedom and the right of conscience.