Secret Fanatics In High Places.

Christian churches are uniting in saying that they would rather see kids up for adoption in children's' homes rather than with same-sex parents. And Ruth Kelly is in the headlines again.

Not this time for taking her son out of the state system and sending him to a fee-paying Catholic school. But because she has said that Catholic adoption agencies should be exempted from the recent legislation that prevents discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Ruth Kelly is 'Minister for Communities' (?!?). She is also a member of Opus Dei.

Just because Opus Dei is the subject of a bad novel and an even worse film, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it isn't as sinister as it is portrayed. It is a highly secretive organisation that holds to a fundamentalist and very reactionary version of Catholicism. Founded under Franco's Fascist regime in Spain, it recruits lay Catholics in prominent positions to use their influence to do 'God's work'.

With a military-like structure and discipline, they are a modern day equivalent of Loyola's Jesuit vanguard in the sixteenth century counter-reformation. (Ironic given that modern Jesuits are now very much on the left of church, having adopted the liberation theology of social justice).

So just where do Ruth Kelly's loyalties lie ?

With the constituents she represents ? With the governments whose policy of non-discrimination she presumably subscribed to at some point ? With the wider community of all (and no) faiths that she is minister of ? Or with the shadowy and fanatical organisation she has taken vows with ?

Now re-read all of the above and substitute 'Moslem' for 'Catholic' and ask yourself if Ruth Kelly would still be Minister for Communities.