{"id":5682,"date":"2011-03-27T15:42:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T15:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5682"},"modified":"2011-03-27T15:42:01","modified_gmt":"2011-03-27T15:42:01","slug":"honors-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/honors-for-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"Honors for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Milan-Cemetery-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Milan-Cemetery-1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Milan, Sept 1988 (AS)\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5683\" \/><\/a>A traditionally British form of fundraising appears to have been given a fresh twist. The <em>Mail on Sunday <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1370323\/Tony-Blairs-priest-fixed-papal-knighthoods-cash.html\">reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of Britain\u2019s most high-profile Catholic priests has admitted arranging papal knighthoods for wealthy businessmen for money. Father Michael Seed, who regularly celebrated Mass for Tony Blair and his family in Downing Street, now faces questions from his religious order\u2026 Papal knighthoods are awarded to lay men and women for conspicuous service to the church and society. They are among the highest honours the Pope can bestow. Tonight a source close to Fr Seed\u2019s order, the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, said his superiors were \u2018appalled\u2019. Although he failed to solicit funds from Mr Bezalel [an arms dealer mentioned earlier in the story], at least four wealthy Britons were impressed by his overtures. Fr Seed admitted they made donations to an Archbishop friend\u2019s charity in Serbia to become papal knights. <\/p>\n<p>It was unclear last night if the four, who are each understood to have contributed between \u00a325,000 and \u00a350,000, had done anything else to merit their honour\u2026 Fr Seed, who has taken a vow of poverty, denied profiting from any of the deals\u2026 <\/p>\n<p>\u2026Fr Seed is honorary chaplain to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dignitatishumanae.com\/#\/about-us\/4535904649\">International Committee on Human Dignity<\/a>, based at the European Parliament in Brussels. But it was as unofficial Catholic envoy to Parliament that he acquired many well-connected friends. He was praised by Cherie Blair for turning \u2018the great into the good\u2019 and helped to convert Tony Blair\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A traditionally British form of fundraising appears to have been given a fresh twist. The Mail on Sunday reports: One of Britain\u2019s most high-profile Catholic priests has admitted arranging papal knighthoods for wealthy businessmen for money. Father Michael Seed, who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/honors-for-sale\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[468],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5682"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5686,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions\/5686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}