Richard Kornicki, a former senior Home Office civil servant who serves as parliamentary coordinator for the bishops, said the Church could also be open to prosecution for sex discrimination if it turned away women or sexually active gay men who presented themselves as candidates for the priesthood. \u201cThe Government is saying that the Church cannot maintain its own beliefs in respect of its own priests,\u201d\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
But if the Bill became law and the bishops defied the Government and stepped in to discipline errant clergy they could not only be sued for sexual discrimination but, in the worst-case scenario, they could also face imprisonment, unlimited fines and have Church assets sequestrated.<\/p>\n
Miss Harman\u2019s proposals will inevitably put the Catholic Church on a collision course with the state \u201d\u201c particularly in the form of the powerful Equality and Human Rights Commission \u201d\u201c over the issue of religious freedom if they become law.<\/p>\n
The latest warning of the threat posed by the Bill was sounded in a briefing prepared this week by the Bishops\u2019 Conference of England and Wales for Catholic peers ahead of the Second Reading of the Equality Bill in the House of Lords on Tuesday.<\/p>\n