Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Anarchist bookfair reply to Catholic Workers' "Open letter"

Anarchist Bookfair | 10.10.2001 09:15

The organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair are replying to London Catholic Worker's "Open letter" sent yesterday to Indymedia

Reply from the organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair to the “open letter” from Ciaron O’Reilly of the London Catholic Worker

We have just read Ciaron O'Reilly's "open letter to the Anarchist Bookfair", on the UK Indymedia website. We are quite depressed that Ciaron feels he needs to put out these lies and misrepresentations about us. As organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair, we were approached by Ciaron on behalf of Catholic Worker for a meeting space. We had not heard of the group and were slightly concerned how a group can reconcile Catholicism and Anarchism. We did not want to give limited meeting space (which is different from banning) to views that were in conflict with the general ideas of anarchism. We therefore e-mailed Ciaron asking for some clarification about Catholic Workers' views on issues such as abortion, same sex relationships, contraception and original sin, before we offered them meeting space.

Unfortunately, all we got back from Ciaron was abuse and accusations about us "banning" him. He has also accused us of being merely retailers of the movement rather than activists, when he knows nothing about any of us. We do not know Ciaron. We have not banned him from the bookfair. We do not have an axe to grind regarding Ciaron. We have simply asked for clarification on Catholic Workers' views on a number of issues we all feel strongly about.

In the numerous e-mails between ourselves and Ciaron and his supporters, we have constantly stated that we are happy to discuss these issues with Catholic Worker. We have offered, on a number of occasions, to meet with members of Catholic Worker to discuss our concerns. We are not banning Catholic Worker, but if their views on certain issues (mentioned above) follow those of the Catholic Church we would not want to give them a space to air these views, as we would not give meeting space to groups pushing the ideas of say the Labour party, anti-abortion groups, Trotskyism or any organised religion.

In the past, we have explained to Ciaron that a number of points in his "open letter" are in fact incorrect. However, this does not seem to have stopped him repeating the same facts in the "open letter" on the Indymedia site. We find this a shame, and would question why he feels the need to repeat facts that he now knows are incorrect.

If anybody wants to see our full reply to Ciaron, then they can read it on our website www.anarchistbookfair.org

The organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair.

Anarchist Bookfair
- e-mail: mail@anarchistbookfair.org
- Homepage: www.anarchistbookfair.org

Comments

Display the following 24 comments

  1. none — sweet jesus
  2. Do Popes shit in the wood? — Dave
  3. Clarification — Ciaron O'Reilly
  4. What about some answers then? — Johnny Mushroom
  5. Ciaron! — Mary
  6. It's sad that anarchists are excluding anarch — A Christian Anarchist
  7. the origninal open letter, in case you didn't — Christian Anarchist
  8. Catholic Worker activists in action this week — Aussie activist
  9. agree with Chr. A. — An Atheist Anarchist
  10. The LEFT must keep itself free of CHRISTIANS — Bill Bore
  11. Further Clarification — Ciaron O'Reilly
  12. Peace? — River
  13. anarchism or what? — michael
  14. CW seems a screwy outfit, fankly — bill bore
  15. Anarchist Dogma? How amusing — Bruce Friedrich
  16. Organiser comments — Martin
  17. An oxymoron — River
  18. be careful when... — frivolous or maybe not
  19. To Martin & Management — Ciaron O'Reilly
  20. Bored, Are We? — Alaidh
  21. Re Catholic Worker exclusion — Moana Cole
  22. The "Anarchist Club" — Jim
  23. Information — Martin
  24. Irish Catholic Church — Jim
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech