Terrence Higgins Trust's philosophy is "incompatible with Catholicism”

The decision by The London Oratory School to drop an AIDs charity from their list of beneficiaries has been met with surprise and in some instances anger.

The school announced that the Terrence Higgins Trust would no longer the nominated charity for a World Aids Day concert which will feature the school's internationally acclaimed Schola, because “its aims and philosophy were incompatible with Catholicism.”

The actor Simon Callow has threatened to resign as patron of a choir at a top Catholic school following a decision to drop the Terrence Higgins Trust as the nominated charity for a World Aids Day concert.

In a letter to parents, Mr McFadden outlined the reasons for the change. He said: "The London Oratory School will always want to make sure its charitable fundraising work and its work ... are done with organisations whose philosophy, aims and practices support Christian values. The nominated charity does not meet this criterion, it would be inappropriate for the school to financially support this charity from the proceeds of the concert."

The charity Surf, which helps survivors of the Rwandan genocide who had been "deliberately infected" with Aids, will be the new beneficary.

Director of the London Oratory Schola Foundation, Hal St John Broadbent told The Guardian, "The reasons are less the incompatibility of the activities of the Terrence Higgins Trust with the Catholic objectives of the school and more concern that certain rightwing elements in the Catholic community would expose a more embarrassing incompatibility which they have threatened to do, namely, that one of the Oratory fathers themselves died from the AIDS virus."

Mr Broadbent said it was against Catholic social teaching to make a "scapegoat of an organisation" that endeavoured to "relieve the pain suffered by those who have contracted the virus".

A spokesperson for the Terence Higgins Trust called the decision 'disappointing'.

November 8, 2007