Priest 'cancelled' by university for his pro-life statements
A priest has been blocked from becoming a university chaplain after refusing to “moderate his language” around abortion
Father David Palmer described abortion as the “slaughter of babies” in a post on social media and also said that an assisted dying bill would allow the NHS to “kill the vulnerable”. In response, the University of Nottingham has said that it will not recognise him as an official chaplain.
Fr. Palmer is a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham serving in the Diocese of Nottingham, England.
The University of Nottingham, in central England, confirmed on Aug. 25 that it had declined to give official recognition to Fr. David Palmer, a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
“Our concern was not in relation to Fr. David’s views themselves, but the manner in which these views have been expressed in the context of our diverse community of people of many faiths,” a spokesperson for the university.
Palmer, who serves in the Diocese of Nottingham, was named as chaplain to the Catholic community at the University of Nottingham by local Bishop Patrick McKinney. The bishop also asked him to serve as Catholic chaplain to Nottingham Trent University.
While Nottingham Trent University accepted the appointment, the University of Nottingham invited Palmer for an interview in June.
Following the interview, the university wrote to McKinney expressing concerns about the appointment.
At a further meeting in July, the university specified that the concerns related to Palmer’s posts on social media, highlighting one on assisted suicide and another on abortion.
“They referenced a tweet where I had referred to the proposed ‘assisted dying’ bill [introduced in Britain’s Parliament in May] as a bill to allow the NHS ‘to kill the vulnerable,’” said Fr Palmer.
“I was told it was fine for me to have this opinion, but they were concerned with how I expressed it. When I asked how they would suggest I express it, quite remarkably, they suggested I should call it ‘end of life care,’ which is a completely unacceptable policing of religious belief.”
The priest wrote on Twitter on Aug. 24 that the university also objected to a second post in which he described abortion as the “slaughter of babies,”
Fr Palmer said that he defended both posts as reflecting Catholic belief.
Fr. Palmer said that after the meeting where his social media posts were discussed, the university authorities contacted the bishop to say that they still had concerns, asking him to provide an alternative priest.
Palmer said that he rejected the university’s explanation for its decision to deny him recognition.
“The university says they have ‘no issue with the expression of faith in robust terms,’ but this is precisely what they had an issue with,” he said.
He added: “The university claims to support ‘diversity and inclusion,’ but it appears that diversity only goes so far, certainly not as far as the Catholic chaplain being able to express ‘robustly’ mainstream Catholic beliefs.”
The University of Nottingham was founded in 1881 and granted a royal charter in 1948. Its School of Medicine is the largest school in the university.
In November 2020, the university reached a settlement with a pro-life undergraduate student in a midwife program. Julia Rynkiewicz, a 25-year-old Catholic, received an apology and payout after she was blocked from entering her program's hospital placement phase after the university learned of her leadership of a pro-life student group. The university overturned its decision, but Rynkiewicz sought an apology.