Archbishop Nicholls and the Catholic Education Service: An Apology

The Catholic church should be boycotted for sex discrimination. They don't allow women to be priests or cardinals. And they don't allow women to control their own bodies and have the "right to choose".

It's well known that the Catholic Church covered up sexual abuse, and let priests who were child sex abusers to continue in the priesthood. Why did the Catholic Church censor the truth about pedophile priests? Why do they let the victims of abuse by priests suffer? - That's sick to protect an abuser and not the victim. I also know someone who was physically and mentally abused by nuns in Ireland, when they were a child.

I don't know why anyone who believes in equality for women would belong to the Catholic Church. And my comments aren't against individual Catholics, but the abuses of the institution of the Catholic church. There are other christian churches or alternative religious organizations.

"Upon due consideration of these remarks, I have therefore decided to unreservdely apologise to Archbishop Nichols and to Mr. Martin Bradshaw of the Catholic Education Service. As a Roman Catholic, my remarks were intemperate, lacking in charity and injudicious.
Nevertheless, I conscientiously believe that my remarks were fuily justified and true in every respect. and this remains my unalterable view. "

So you're saying that your remarks were intemperate, lacking in charity and injudicious, AND fully justified and true in every respect? And you unreservedly apologise for your fully justified and true remarks?

I don't get it.

I think it's called sarcasm.

The criticisms of the Catholic Church are of course undeniably true.

But as Catholics we believe that we enjoy a spiritual encounter with Christ in the Eucharist and that the Catholic Church is vested with the authority to administer the sacraments through which this is made possible. It's as simple as that.

Many in the priesthood and hierarchy of the church however, forget that their spiritual authority is exercised vicariously and clearly abuse that authority in a variety of ways.

In my experience, the generality of priests in the Catholic Church are sincere and kindly men but there are some who quite clearly, are unscrupulous liars and hypocrites.

Once again John Rhys Burgess is getting ideas above and beyond station. Like many meglomaniacs before him he believes his own 'Press'. Hardly surprising really.... he wrote most of it himself !

He was NEVER the head of the PCF . He was a company secretary who managed to cost this worthwhile institution the sum of £15.000 by claiming that he could fight, and win, a case against the Trustee's of the former Plater College. He has no legal standing in this country just an ego the size of the Isle of Wight.The members of the PCF, trusting souls that they are, believed him. Plenty of self-promoting and 'hail fellow well met' followed but when it came to the fight he turned and ran, metephoricaly speaking, without a shot being fired !

Resulting in the PCF being £15.000 down and more debt to come because of this. He offered to resign as company secretary but then withdrew the offer. It behove the Directors to dismiss him from the post as the only recourse left to them. Mr. Rhys Burgess is now claiming to be the rightful owner of the PCF. This will inevitably drag on until he tires of it, or the PCF run out of money contesting his totally bogus claim, all this from the man who never tires of spouting his sanctimonious { I'm a religious Catholic Blah- Blah -Blah } clap-trap at every oportunity yet see's no wrong in trying to destroy probably the only decent cause he's ever been associated with. 'Nero fiddling while Rome Burns' springs to mind.

His reputation such as it was, or have us believe anyway, is in tatters already because of this. Do the decent thing { try the Oxfod dictionary this will explain the meaning of decent} John and go back to where ever it is you came from and wait for your old age pension to arrive.. Joe Hall

No John this isn't called sarcasm ...It's called Backing Down! This usually occurrs after you have opened your mouth and stuck your foot in it up to the hip.A regular occurrence in your case as a founder member of the 'all wind, piss and bull-shit' club.

John Rhys-Burgess studied Politics and Economics at Plater College, Oxford between October 2003 and June 2004 for which he received a Certificate in Higher Education with Distinction, attaining an average grade of 86%, which according to his tutor, Dr. Hugh Macdonald, was probably the highest grade of any student that had ever completed this course. The CHE which is validated by the Open University is equivalent to the first year of
an undergraduate degree and a Distinction is at the level of First Class honours. John's academic standard would have been equivalent in standard to a double first at Oxford.

Whilst a student at Plater College, John was commissioned as a Eucharistic minister for the Roman Catholic parish of St. Anthony of Padua in Headington and was also a member of the parish's Justice and Peace Group.

After completing his course at Plater College, John studied Human Rights at the Institut International des Droits de l'Homme at Strasbourg. This is an intensive postgraduate course euqivalent in standard to the Human Rights module of a Master of Laws degree. After this, John successfully applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for permission to practice at the bar of the Court as an advocate, following which he returned to Oxford to complete a one year Master of Laws degree course at Brookes in International Law.

Whilst at Brookes, John concurrently attended classes in Latin, Moral Theology and Canon Law at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.

In October 2003, John was admitted to the Postgraduate Training Committee of Oxford Brookes University's Law Department.

In February 2004, following completion of the European Law module of his degree course, John was elected as an Adjunct Member of the European Affairs Committee of the New York City Bar.

In May 2004, John was accepted for membership of the International Bar Association and became a member of the IBA's Human Rights Law Committee and several other committees of this association. The IBA is the largest and and one of the oldest established bar associations in the world.

In June 2004, John was admitted to membership of the Human Rights Commission of the Union des Avocats Europeens, Luxembourg and in the following month was elected to membership of the European Bar Human Rights Institute, Paris.

In July 2004, John was elected to membership of the Barreau Penal International (or International Criminal Court Bar) at The Hague and in the following month was elected to membership of the European Circuit of the Bar of England and Wales.

In November 2004, John was elected to the Legal Affairs Committee of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs, which is part of the United Nations Association for Wales in Cardiff and in April 2005, he became a member of the Wales Public Law and Human Rights Association.

Although he is not a barrister or a solicitor, John sometimes undertakes cases in the courts of England and Wales with special permission of the court. He appeared in a case before the Chancery Division at the Royal Courts of Justice before Mr. Justice Evans Lombe, Mr. Justice Lindsay and Master Moncaster, during January 2004, which was indeed his first case as an advocate. He acted in other proceedings in the Cardiff County Court in October 2004, before District Judge Singh and in the Swansea County Court before His Honour Judge Wyn Williams, QC. During 2005, he has acted in cases in the High Court in Birmingham, before His Honour Judge Norris, QC, in the Administrative Court at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, before Mr. Justice Moses, and in the Court of Appeal before Lord Justice Lloyd. Additionally, John has conducted Immigration and Asylum applications and appeals in Liverpool and Newport, and in other cases at Manchester Employment Tribunal and Sheffield Magistrates Court. He currently has several cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court where John represents victims of war crimes.

John started his first international law firm in St. James's, London in 1992 which is now part of Cassin Monnet Schuman of which he is senior partner.

In November, John was invited to attend a symposium at the House of Lords at the request of of the People's Mujahadeen Organisation of Iran.

In spite of his busy work schedule, in September, John obtained his postgraduate Diploma in Human Rights Law and Practice from the International Bar Association and during the coming year will be completing research for an M. Phil degree at Cardiff University.

In February 2005, John was the founder of The Plater College Foundation, a company which he set up entirely at his own expense with a view to taking over the management of Plater College which the trustees of the college had without good reason decided to close.

There was no intention on John's part, to head Plater College as its principal, if the trustees had agreed to transfer the college's assets to the Foundation. The constitution set out very clearly the basis on which the college's principal and court of governors were to be appointed.
It is however true that John would have liked to have taught at Plater College which he loved deeply. He was very hurt and disappointed that he was not successful in becoming the law tutor at the college after Len Chantry left during 2004, though John had the consolation of knowing that he had been short-listed for the position.

Contrary to Joe Hall's denials, John was the sole author of the Foundation's constitution. All of its directors were appointed by him and the only reason why he did not himself initially choose to act as a director because he did not think it appropriate to act as a director of a company to whom he knew he would be giving legal advice.

John later took on responsibility for mounting a legal challenge to the conduct of the trustees of Plater College but during October 2005 was obliged to remove the board of directors that he had appointed to run the Foundation for their mismanagement of the Foundation's business. As a result, the Foundation was unable to proceed with its case against the trustees of Plater College.

The Foundation has now changed its name to the Charles Plater Endowment for Human Rights and Social Justice which John continues to run as its sole director. Following impending changes in the regulation of legal services in the United Kingdom, John hopes to float his law firm on the London Stock Exchange and intends to donate part of his profits from this venture to the Foundation to enable it to open a new Plater College in Oxford as well as to provide study facilities in the fields of politics, Human Rights, trade and social justice.

Disappointingly, John has not yet received his Masters degree from Oxford Brookes University due to the late submission of his dissertation and was granted additional time for its completion. John is terminally ill with prostate cancer and diabetes and may not have long to live. He was 60 years of age on November 28 and has three daughters and is a grandfather of three. John and I live together in the village of Peillon near Nice in southern France and in the Mid Wales town of Llandrindod Wells near Hereford. I am his personal business manager and we are engaged to be marriied.

The allegations made my Mr. Hall appear to be part of a general smear campaign propagated by former Labour councillor, Mick McAndrews. Mr. McAndrews was formerly the chairman of The Plater College Foundation until dismissed from his position by John Rhys-Burgess on October 8.

John did in fact, call a lawyer working for the Catholic Education Service, an unscrupulous liar and a hypocrite and did so because he believed and still believes his comments to be justified. John did later apologise because he felt that as a practising Roman Catholic he ought not to have expressed himself so forthrightly and in such a public manner.

John says that he remembers Mr. Hall very well and expresses the hope that Mr. Hall's new career as a professional Mackenzie Friend has met with success. He is sorry that Mr. Hall appears to have so readily joined in the despicable calumnies that Mr. McAndrews and others have now spread through their self-evident malice and envy at his success.

I am checking web entries for John, following his death, and have stumbled on a piece signed by me. I did write to defend John against Joe Hall and Mick MacAndrew's vindictive remarks and clearly recall certain expressions I used, but it seems that John has rewritten it, much to my embarassment and annoyance. There are some details which make my head spin, though I won't point them out, here. Regarding me, John appears to have affirmed as fact what was merely a pipe dream filled with romantic notions which sprang to his mind defensively. Such dreams were his weapons against the misery of absolute betrayal and injustice.

In fact, he was trapped in Nottingham for the treatment of his prostate cancer, which was intrusive and fatiguing; he was stuck with a timetable and agenda he couldn't avoid, on a diet which cut out almost all the yummies which had (in the first place) triggered type II diabetes. It was dangerous, too. When chemotherapy failed, and metastases lodged in his bones, the pain grew stronger as the tumours progressed. He was given radiotherapy in March 09, which wiped out a large proportion of his bone marrow. To check the effectiveness of this treatment, he was given a CT scan about 3 weeks later.

The CT scan triggered an allergy to his own blood and blood regulating enzymes. His blood could no longer clot and coagulate. He was covered, like St Sebastian, in weeping bruises which showed the separation of blood components which drifted through his tissues, on the surface and throughout his body, at different rates. The weeping tails and tendrils of his many bruises were inky, like the ink stains he usually made on his shirt pocket and cuffs. He was a writer.

He was given platelet preparations very late in his treatment, 4 days before his death. New bruises and needle pricks no longer drifted as they separated. Two days before his death a bruise shaped like The Jolly Roger appeared on his upper right arm; by then John could no longer speak. Did he chose this means to express himself? Considering the many unhappy events of his last years, I am almost convinced of it.

Why would he tatoo himself with The Jolly Roger? He had every excellent reason to, if he could possibly manage it. He was robbed and piratised. Robbed of his reputation by former colleagues' envy and spite, and then piratised by criminal liars who seized on a quarrel in which they had no stake (and no wish or ability to comprehend) to gain financial advantage.

These posts are all that remain on the web of the original quarrel to which he owed his very personal disaster. I am relieved to discover that its authors have withdrawn offensive and libellous material.

I can't leave this particular exchange hanging out there without appending my comment.