Daphne McLeod described Cardinal Burke’s abrupt pulling-out of the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice conference as ‘a blow’. Cardinal Burke had planned to give a talk on the restoration of Church discipline and evangelisation. But indefatigable as ever, Daphne found a replacement speaker - Canadian Fr Kramer. But the venue, the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster has cancelled the conference on the grounds that ‘they’ don’t want to be associated with such speakers as Fr Kramer and Robert Sungenis. It’s another guilt-by-association theme with the authorities at Westminster Central Hall snobbishly fearing “their reputations would suffer if the conference were allowed to go ahead.” Fr Kramer is branded a conspiracy theorist while Mr Sungenis is called an anti-Semite because he has criticised Zionism. – but I don’t know the details of this well enough to comment.
I do, however, have personal experience of Fr Kramer who lives in my hometown of Cork. He’s a brave soul and did prevent a pro-euthanasia talk in a hospital by calling the about-to-speak professor ‘Nazi Eugenicist! Nazi Eugenicist!’ This is no urban legend – I witnessed the whole thing. The scheduled talk was called; ‘Why Euthanasia should be legalised’ and was to be held in Cork University Hospital (‘CUH’). The CUH and the Irish ‘HSE’/Health Service Executive (a loose equivalent of the NHS) confused their role of caring for the sick by bringing in Professor Len Doyal who was supposed to speak in favour of euthanasia.
It happened on Holy Thursday 2009. I walked into CUH, and took a seat in the lecture hall. I had scribbled a few notes of ‘argument’ to say to Professor Len Doyal. The lecture hall was rather full of pro-lifers who were opposed to the talk going ahead. But as Len Doyal walked into the hall, and as he went to the podium to advocate that euthanasia be legalised to save money and free-up beds, Fr Kramer stepped out and called him ‘a Nazi eugenicist’.
It happened on Holy Thursday 2009. I walked into CUH, and took a seat in the lecture hall. I had scribbled a few notes of ‘argument’ to say to Professor Len Doyal. The lecture hall was rather full of pro-lifers who were opposed to the talk going ahead. But as Len Doyal walked into the hall, and as he went to the podium to advocate that euthanasia be legalised to save money and free-up beds, Fr Kramer stepped out and called him ‘a Nazi eugenicist’.
I remember seeing the shocked look of culpability on Len Doyal’s face, as he beheld Fr Kramer dressed in a soutane and Fr Kramer repeating ‘Nazi eugenicist!’ Fr Kramer looked Professor Doyal straight in the eye – and Doyal found no words to dissociate himself with the Nazis. The CUH organisers stood back speechless – they were silenced by the comparison to the Nazi regime. Fr Kramer said ‘Nazi eugenicist’ again, and Len Doyal wanted to get out of the hall, I could see the look of embarrassment and dread on Doyal’s face. Fr Kramer was the only Catholic priest who spoke out against Doyal, and at the time Fr Kramer was very unwell. The Irish news reported that the meeting had been broken up by ‘protesters…with Rosary beads’ - but didn't include that Fr Paul had stopped the speaker in his tracks by calling him 'a Nazi'. Interesting that the Nazi link had been left out, perhaps Fr Kramer’s correlation between the professor's extreme ideas on euthanasia and the practices of the Nazi eugenicists was too pertinent. It hit a nerve, so they say. But were I pro-eugenicist, I would still say that if Doyal wants to promote euthanasia, he had better get used to being associated with Nazis, there aren’t that many differences existing between his ideology and theirs on this subject.
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