Archbishop Derek Worlock always had a hankering to be a journalist. It is not inappropriate therefore to let him help me with my column this week. His is a voice we need to hear as the working document, or instrumentum laboris, for October’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family was due to be published this week. Worlock, who died in 1996, was probably the most influential English Catholic leader of the post-Second World War era. With Cardinal Basil Hume, he was present the last time a Rome synod of bishops addressed similar questions, in 1980. On behalf of the bishops of England and Wales and indeed of the whole Catholic community, which had been fully consulted, Worlock made an impassioned contribution to the synod. He began by saying that the economic stresses on family life caused b
26 June 2014, The Tablet
Hume and Worlock returned from Rome having had the door slammed on their fingers
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