Dear Reverend Fenton,

Below is the e-mail I sent you over 3 weeks ago.  No reply.  Assuming the e-mail address was incorrect, I sent a fuller letter by post about a week later.  There was silence, and after speaking with your wife last week who suggested that I 'phoned back in the afternoon, I did that.  I left a message saying that I knew it was a central duty of a priest to visit the sick, the frail and the dying.  You would often hear about the care they were getting and I was keen to hear your witness be it bad or good, or a spectrum.  It is apt that the Reverend Marshall's TFTD today was on visiting the sick.

I have been deeply hurt by your failure to respond to me.  I assume you harbour some animus towards me but I can only guess as to its spring.  Perhaps my standing for the Palestinians  in their slow, quick, quick, slow crucifixion is the source.  As a Christian atheist since age 17, I know that I have followed Christ in this.

As a young doctor, I was taught to give particular respect and some privileges to 'men of the cloth'.  And I did earlier on.  My respect for both the Catholic and C of E churches declined step wise over the 40 years I practised and since.  Seeing surpliced C of E priests at altars in the Iraqi desert blessing the men and the conduct of an illegal war spoke loudly to me.  The concealment of the terrible crime of sexual abuse of minors by churchmen was another.  (See first link)

I take my responsibilities as a world citizen very seriously.  I would not judge a priest by his affiliation but as a man or woman.  But I judge the generality of churchmen poorly, and for many good reasons.  I ask what the churches are doing to stop the torment in our world and especially where it has existed for 66 years.

If you would like to read my words related to the silence = complicity in the 'churches' here is the list.  Recent first

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/4-articles/letters-to-the-media/180-child-abuse-and-the-bbc-s-responsibility-in-this 

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/41-articles/blair/71-the-vortex-sucks-ever-louder

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/6-articles/palestineisrael/171-what-is-archbishop-welby-s-response-to-these-acts   re Tariq Aziz  Christian

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/7-articles/political/63-the-paramount-war-criminal-tony-blair    (includes the  words of absolution)

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/6-articles/palestineisrael/14-why-i-sympathize-with-the-palestinians

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/2-articles/correspondence-with-politicians/12-letter-to-mr-younger-ross-mp-4th-may-2005

Attached a letter to Archbishop Rowan Williams pleading that he seek clemency for former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz who had been condemned to hang unlawfully.  His secretary, Tim Livesey a catholic, had served in No 10 with the paramount psychopath Blair.  Not one word of interest, and certainly no action.  Tariq Aziz still moulders in jail - 9 years after he was first incarcerated. 

Thank you Reverend Fenton. 

For truth

David Halpin MB BS FRCS

ps  This to be posted on my web site

Sent 11-11-14

Dear Reverend Fenton,

I am aware that you are very interested in the medical and social service upheavals that arise out of the Health and Social Care Act April 1st 2012.  I am too.  Indeed I spend about half my days reacting to it and fighting it instead of being in the woods I planted in Combe-in-Teignhead in 1986 >>> where we used to live.  Now at Haytor.

You see my drift.  I would very much like to hear your views - analysis and how we might act.  I am sure you were as aware as me that we were being asked to go through the motions with only the flimsiest of facts.

For truth, reason and justice

David Halpin FRCS

1 of 2 talks by me on Youtube: