The newly-appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, has used his first interview since being named by the Pope last week to denounce plans to permit television advertisements for condoms and birth control clinics.
Nichols, currently Archbishop of Birmingham, told the Press Association that Catholics should publicly oppose the proposals, which are out for consultation before being considered by advertising authorities later this summer. At present only Channel 4 is allowed to broadcast adverts for condoms, after 7pm.
He accused a current advertisement warning of the dangers of contracting sexually transmitted diseases through unprotected sex of demeaning young people.
Nichols said: "I doubt that any intended adverts would tell the whole truth of the effects of abortion in a woman's life. I seriously wonder if any advertisements for condoms would be tasteful, because the ones we have at the moment are demeaning of the young people.
"They depict casual sex on the street corner and drunken sex. I do not think these things do anything to genuinely help young people to understand themselves in their own dignity and the proper meaning of what human sexuality is about."
He added that abortion would no doubt be presented as a simple solution. But it had traumatic implications in women's lives. "Surely you would not expect it to be advertised alongside a packet of crisps."
The archbishop, who has led a successful campaign against plans to force Catholic schools to take more non-Catholic pupils and an unsuccessful one against the government's proposal that religiously based adoption agencies should consider placing children with same-sex couples, insisted that he understood the difficulties Catholics faced in living up to the church's moral teaching. He said respect was due to everybody, regardless of sexual orientation: "One of the things I regret is that too often in our society a person's whole identity is shaped by their sexuality, or by their sexual orientation. In good Catholic eyes a person's sexual orientation does not matter.
"Where morality comes in is in their behaviour, and we all struggle to behave in accordance with the dignity that God has given us, and there is nothing unusual about a struggle to live a good life, but respect is the first thing. That is due to everybody."
Nichols argues in an article in today's Tablet magazine - taken from a book he has written with the Catholic Conservative MP Edward Leigh - that social cohesiveness depends on the moral framework provided by church schools.
Taking issue with the Thatcherite line that there is no such thing as society, the authors claim: "There will never be a truly cohesive society that does not take seriously the spiritual quest of its people ... and which does not give space in its public culture for religious beliefs. The rigorously secular liberal project of community cohesion is mistaken in its fundamental view of the human person and simply will not work."
He told the Press Association: "There is no evidence in this country that faith schools are socially divisive; they as much as any mix children from different classes, from different ethnic groups, from different cultural groups and in fact are a positive force for social cohesion."
There are more than 4 million Catholics in England and Wales, though fewer than a quarter attend mass regularly. A survey of former pupils of Catholic schools in Liverpool, Nichols's home city, earlier in the decade found that more than 90% of them ceased their religious observance after leaving education.
Anne Quesney, of Marie Stopes International, said the organisation welcomed the advertising review. "Just as we teach children how to cross the road safely using advertisements, advertising condoms and pregnancy advice services could work to educate young people to be sexually responsible.
"A discreet advert highlighting where anxious women can access pregnancy counselling and abortion services is not going to demean young people or encourage young girls to become pregnant."
