Catholics should enjoy same rights as others

IF there is something that academics hate more than Tories it’s Catholics. Kicking Catholics has been a sport in our universities for 500 years and it’s time to stop.

Recently, Nottingham University declined to install Fr David Palmer as its Roman Catholic chaplain after he expressed his views on abortion and assisted suicide on social media. It allows him to celebrate mass for Catholic students once a week as a “guest speaker”.

Anti-Catholicism is symbolic of our woke academics and their easily led students who have adopted a “no-platform” policy to anybody whose views do not accord with their own.

Nottingham University has form when it comes to Catholics. A year or two ago, midwifery undergraduate Julia Rynkiewicz was suspended for belonging to a pro-life group. She was eventually allowed to continue her studies.

For the first time, the UK has a Roman Catholic Prime Minister. He and the Conservative Party are intent on restoring free speech to our universities and end the academics’ reign of terror over Brexiteers, Catholics, right-ofcentre politicians and others they consider against their woke values.

For the first time since Henry VIII introduced divorce as a means of changing one’s wife without having first remove the heads of the incumbent, Roman Catholics may soon be able to enjoy the same rights and freedom to practise their religion as anybody else.

Peter J Newton, Chellaston