Refugees sleeping rough
A large number of destitute refugees have had to sleep rough at some point in the past year and one in five has been forced to spend more than a month on the streets, according to a new report from the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
More than a third of those with accommodation also reported that they did not feel physically safe. The research found there was a pattern of “sporadic homelessness” affecting men and women of different ages and backgrounds, as they struggled to gain status as refugees, yet were unable to leave the UK, had no government support and were barred from working.
Sarah Teather (pictured), the director of JRS UK said current policies were creating a “hostile environment” for migrants and she called on the government to repeal the policies that were fostering this atmosphere. JRS provides a short-term “hosting” scheme for destitute refugees.
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales will make their “Ad Limina” visit to Rome in September where they will meet Pope Francis and report on the issues facing their dioceses. While each bishop is obliged to make this trip every five years, the last ad limina visit made by the England and Wales bishops took place in 2010. Ahead of these visits, bishops are required to compile reports about their respective dioceses which provide a detailed insight into the state of the Church in their country. During the 2010 meeting, Pope Benedict XVI urged the bishops to “ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended” and to “recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate”.
Abortion law amendment fears
Two former leaders of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Revd Dr Trevor Morrow and Revd Dr Norman Hamilton, have written to Irish parliamentarians saying they are “gravely concerned” about the recommendations by the All Party Parliamentary Committee on the Eighth Amendment.
The Committee has recommended that the Amendment to the constitution be abolished, so removing the protection of the unborn, and that abortion be introduced with no restrictions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. The two former moderators warned that even if the recommendation of abortion on request is excluded, the health proposals on their own would create similar provisions to those in Britain; these had “in practice brought about abortion on request”, they said. They also stressed that the Committee’s recommendations would effectively undermine any assurances that Ireland will not introduce abortion for disability; the experience of other countries demonstrated that many people with unborn children with Down’s syndrome, or other conditions, obtain terminations on health grounds. The Irish government has yet to decide the referendum wording.
An Irish bishop has issued new funeral guidelines, stating that the church is not a suitable place for a wake and that the coffins should not be opened or closed in the presence of the family in the church. In his introduction to “Guidelines for the Celebration of Funerals”, Bishop William Crean of Cloyne warned that “some well-intended but mistaken ‘novelties’ have crept into our practice of funeral celebrations”. He said the guidelines, which also address the issue of eulogies, were aimed at keeping the “focus on the essential and most important elements of the funeral rites”. The church, as the place where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, “is not a suitable place for the wake”, the guidelines state.
Ringing endorsement
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, has promised new measures to protect the sound of bells after some churches across the country were issued with night-time noise abatement orders following complaints from neighbours. Mr Javid said: “Churches have been part of British life in towns and villages for centuries.
“Their bells should not be silenced by new housing going up, which is why planning policy will be strengthened to ensure it will be up to developers building new properties nearby to identify and tackle noise problems.”
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