Skip navigation

The Tablet

Last updated: 9 February 2010
Log in

Search

Current issue


Previous issues


Archive


Further Reading

Liturgical Calendar


The Tablet Radio Show


Manage your Subscription


Newsletter

The Pastoral Review
Subscribe to the news feed RSS feed

Latest news

Pope tells Scottish Catholics to adhere to Church’s moral teachings

8 February 2010

Pope Benedict XVI has told the Catholic bishops of Scotland they "must continually call the [lay] faithful to complete fidelity to the Church's Magisterium", especially on moral issues, and that they should remind them that their main vocation is to "sanctify" their families, homes and workplaces, rather than take up ministry better left to priests. In an address to the bishops on 5 February, the Pope also lamented Scotland's "increasing tide of secularism", the rising support for euthanasia and other worrying developments in medical ethics and the field of embryology.


C of E synod to discuss women bishops

8 February 2010

Women bishops are likely to be created in the Church of England without a separate structure within the church for those opposed to the idea. A revision committee charged with presenting viable options to the church’s General Synod, which meets this week, has been unable to agree an approach. The synod is expected to be told that “flying bishop” posts offering Episcopal oversight will be abolished. Any woman bishop who is appointed will be asked to delegate a male suffragan to carry out essential duties, such as confirmations, in parishes which refuse to accept her authority.   


Environmentalist priest suspended

8 February 2010

A prominent environmentalist priest has been suspended from wearing his Roman collar or publicly celebrating Mass or the sacraments in public. Bishop José Carmelo Martínez Lázaro of Cajamarca in north Peru said Fr Marco Arana Zegarra had been participating in politics and had not qualified his assertion that abortion is “an issue of conscience for women”. Fr Arana is the head of a small leftist political party, “Land and Freedom”, and founder of an anti-mining lobby group. He was named one of Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment 2009”.


Bishop makes U-turn on Holocaust slur

8 February 2010

A Polish bishop who last week said "the Shoah as such is a Jewish invention" on Monday apologised for his remark. “Of course my unfortunate statement, which was the result of a mental shortcut, does not express my views," Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek said in a statement. He also withdrew an accusation that the pontifex.roma.it news agency that published the interview "manipulated" his words.


For other recent bulletins, select from the list here: