The horrific death of Catholic MP David Amess at the hands of a suspected Somali Islamist is shocking enough, but the further shocking detail of police denying him the Last Rites adds a further level of tragedy to the whole affair.
The priest in question, Father Jeff Woolnough, has confirmed this horrible event on social media today and was very diplomatic towards the police, despite his obvious disappointment at not being able to get to devout Catholic Amess before he passed.
Many exasperated Catholics on social media struggled to talk sense into ardent British secularists who seemed determined to find reasons to deny the Last Rites to a Catholic. A number of people suggested that it was a crime scene and hence every clue mattered, however, where a terrorist runs amok with a knife, apprehending them is rarely down to a loose hair on the ground spotted with a microscope. One person even suggested that the police were right to be wary of potential imposter priests arriving to cause more harm. Any good police officer would be well aware of who were the faith leaders in the area, not these evidently.
In this instance, anger is not the right emotion. Instead, pity.
When British police raided a Polish church in London earlier this year at Easter, they stormed the altar and demanded that the service be put to an immediate end.
This insensitivity belongs to a police force that regularly boasts of its apparent unlimited woke credentials. When the raid happened against the Polish community earlier in the year, the commissioner did the right thing ans met with church leaders to patch things up and to promise that it would not be repeated. It was a very encouraging and professional move on behalf of the police.
One can only hope that such a move takes place again now, but it will only paper over the wider cracks of British society.
Amess died in a church, murdered by a Somali Muslim, with ignorant police refusing to allow him the most basic of his rights as a Catholic. Given his nature, he would of course forgive the police, but he would likely have been horrified by their refusal to allow him to receive the Last Rites.
In 2017, Kyle Lawler spotted terrorist Salman Abedi inside the Manchester Arena. Despite thinking that Abedi was suspicious, Lawler did not approach Abedi, leading to the deaths of 22 people, mostly children. Many others were horrifically injured.
The political correctness of British society is not well though out, it is not altruistic and it is completely selective based upon fears of which groups it fears backlash from.
