Belfast Telegraph Censorship and Cover-Up of Anti-Catholicism in England’s Highest Laws.
Posted By: May 14, 2023
Belfast Telegraph Censorship and Cover-Up of Anti-Catholicism in England’s Highest Laws.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” … Said the Belfast Telegraph, NOT, to the Irish National Caucus—but more exactly, perhaps, to Fr. Sean Mc Manus, a Catholic Priest.
Yes, that’s the implication of yesterday’s posts and emails by the Irish National Caucus: “BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY EXPLAINS ENGLAND’S STATE-SPONSORED ANTI-CATHOLICISM.”
newseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk Unsubscribed by Constant Contact on May 12, 2023, at 11:03 am EDT.
You see, clicking the “unsubscribe button” can for a newspaper be the new name for CENSORSHIP.
But then Fr. McManus was just quoting British law, the British constitution, and the WEBSITE OF BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY—
https://www.royal.uk/encyclopedia/succession ——regarding the coronation of King Charles III.
So, then, was the Belfast Telegraph censoring the Royal Family, the British constitution, albeit unwritten and uncodified, and the British Parliament? (And, by the way, the Royal Family Website helpfully points out that “… succession to the throne can be regulated by Parliament”).
Or was the Belfast Telegraph just enraged that an “uppity Catholic, a Kinawley Fenian,” on Capitol Hill was drawing attention to the best-kept secret in the modern world. That despite all the coronation’s splendor, pageantry— and solemnity of the religious part of the service—an ugly truth was embedded and enshrined: Church and State-sponsored anti-Catholicism at the highest possible level, and the foundation stone of the Royal Family?
And, was the Belfast Telegraph even more enraged that Fr. McManus had the effrontery to use the Website of the British Royal Family, which points out: “A Roman Catholic is specifically excluded from succession to the throne.”?
Fr. Mc Manus responds: “Wherever in the world there is institutionalized state violence, discrimination, oppression, and the denial of freedom, key and powerful newspapers and media, comparatively, have to be complicit. This has always been true (with some exceptions), especially in the history of the far-flung British Empire—and particularly true of England’s 854 domination of the island and nation of Ireland. Since England’s partition of Ireland—enacted unilaterally by the London Parliament, on December 23, 1920, with the assent of King George V, the great-grandfather of King Charles III— the Belfast Telegraph has hardly distinguished itself by speaking truth to power. It has hardly risked its position and power by fearlessly exposing British injustice, anti-Catholic discrimination, and bigotry in Northern Ireland. It hardly campaigned against the B Specials, the RUC, the British Army, British Intelligence,
State-sponsored assassinations, and the corruption of the judiciary in Britain and Northern Ireland. Did its campaign against the appalling Special Powers Act, internment (imprisonment without charge or trial), and the torture of political prisoners? The sad list goes on and on.
Fr. McManus, then turned to King Charles: “Over the years, I’ve had a favorable impression of Prince Charles as a person. I thought of him as a decent, empathetic young man, self-effacing, and likable. I think it has been clear over the years that he was uncomfortable with England’s history of anti-Catholicism, since the English Reformation, as distinct from the European/Luther Reformation. And, I think he might be the King to abolish State-sponsored, legal, and institutionalized anti-Catholicism.
So, my raising of all this issue is no personal disrespect to the new King Charles. Indeed, in my Memoirs: My American Struggle for Justice in Northern Ireland, I write:
‘I knew Bobby Sands was going to die. Twelve days before his death, I embarked on my own hunger strike right outside the British Embassy. Because I did not hold any poster, and because I was by myself, I did not have to remain at the mandatory distance of five hundred yards. Prince Charles was staying at the Embassy, and each time he left in the car, he had to drive right past me. I could see him peering out of the darkened car windows—not without empathy, or so I thought. Certainly, he was not glaring with hostility.’ (Pages 183-184). That was my impression 42 years ago of Prince Charles, and it has essentially remained unchanged.
So, I wish King Charles the best. And I ask the Belfast Telegraph and the Belfast New Letter to join me in urging King Charles III to eliminate this ugly, sectarian, anti-Catholic law.
Finally, I ask wise men and women, ethicists, moral philosophers, etc., this: While email marketing and social media should honor and accept the protocol to cease and desist from sending stuff to those who “unsubscribe,” should one, also, have to accept this protocol if it is simply the new name for newspapers and media censorship? And if the news media has been complicit in racial, sectarian, anti-Catholic bigotry? Or for anti-Black, anti -Semitic, or anti-Islam bigotry? Or would that be, in effect, to collude with censorship and cover-ups?
That is the question!
