News briefings Britain and Ireland

Holiness is found not just in grand gestures but in the small, daily acts of kindness, generosity, and faithfulness that draw people closer to God and to one another, according to the Archbishop of Cardiff-Menevia Mark O’Toole.

In a pastoral message marking the feast of St David, the patron of Wales, on 1 March he said the day was an opportunity for us to reflect on the life and witness Saint David, “a man of profound faith, humility, and service, whose legacy continues to shape the spiritual and cultural heritage of our nation”.

His life was one of simplicity and devotion, the Archbishop said. “His example calls us to live with integrity, to care for our neighbours and to remain steadfast in our commitment to the Gospel.”

Bishop of Elphin and Achonry Kevin Doran has asked people to renew their solidarity with the people of Ukraine “who have suffered so much as a result of the unprovoked invasion by Russian forces”. He appealed for a redoubling of prayers for peace and said the Ukrainians “were victims of an unprovoked attack by the President of the United States”. He said the verbal attack on President Zelenskiy was “totally inexcusable”.

Meanwhile in a letter to The Tablet, New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, referring to Ukraine controversy and to the earlier intervention of J.D. Vance into the debate on the expulsion of migrants, said, “Now we know what J.D. vance meant by ordo amoris. In a performance that lacked both ordo and amor, it seems to mean appeasing your powerful enemies and bullying your vulnerable friends.” 

The battle of ideas that has engulfed Ukraine

Letters to the editor

The Southwark priest Fr Marcus Holden has been appointed Rector of the Beda College in Rome. Currently the parish priest at St Bede’s, Clapham Park, since 2020, Fr Holden served as episcopal vicar for evangelisation and catechesis in Southwark and dean of Lambeth. Holden succeeds Canon Philip Gillespie as rector this summer. Fr Steven Billington of the Diocese of Leeds has been appointed to replace Fr John Carlyle as spiritual director to the Beda, which trains mature candidates for the priesthood.

The Bishop of Dunkeld has asked a traditionalist Franciscan community to leave his diocese in Scotland and return to the Diocese of Portsmouth. In a statement. Andrew Mckenzie said that “after careful consideration of the facts” and “consultation with appropriate experts,” along with the diocesan council of priests it had been “mutually agreed” the Sisters of the Immaculate and St Maximilian Kolbe and the Friars of the Immaculate and St Francis would return to the Diocese of Portsmouth “in which they were constituted and to which they belong.” On social media, the community requested prayers, saying the decision would leave 50 people “homeless, very soon.”

The St Vincent de Paul Society has appointment Kate Nightingale as new chief executive officer. She has already worked with the SVP for more than 13 years, 10 of those as deputy CEO, and overseen the development of 11 community support centres across England and Wales.

She said, “It is a privilege to work alongside our incredible members, volunteers and dedicated staff every day. Recently the demand on our services has risen dramatically as more people feel the effects of the rising cost of living. That brings into the sharp focus the importance of our work, to find and help those in need, to champion those suffering hardship and to highlight the causes as we find them and call for real solutions.” 

SVP celebrates 180 years at event in Liverpool

St Vincent de Paul group in England helps impoverished Romanians

Ash Wednesday peace vigils took place this week in London, Coventry, Leeds and Liverpool Pax Christi organised the annual afternoon service outside the Ministry of Defence in London, in its 43rd year. Readings on peace came from Pope Francis and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Crosses bearing the names of countries suffering war and conflict were held up by participants. 

Friends of the Holy Land is running a Lenten campaign “Hope is Rising from the Ashes” to support resilience in the Holy Land’s Christian community and to inspire hope. Its website, www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk, offers spiritual resources from Holy Land clergy, videos of life in parishes and news of humanitarian programmes.

The Christian community is now less than one per cent of those in the West Bank and many have emigrated over the last 17 months. Brendan Metcalfe, chief executive of Friends of the Holy Land, said, “Our overriding mission is to foster hope so that the local Christian community remains in the land where Jesus walked.”

The Catholic Union is supporting a national prayer against assisted suicide on Tuesday 25 March, encouraging praying alone or with others. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is now in committee stage in Westminster.

On Monday, a webinar was organised by Our Duty of Care with Professor David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford and Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University in Twickenham, where he explained his research into rates of non-assisted suicide and how they can be affected in countries which have legalised euthanasia or assisted suicide. 

We cross this line in the sand at our peril: a bishop’s response to assisted dying

MPs weighed tangible pain against the hypothetical risk of abuse and coercion

A permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Birmingham has produced guidelines for Catholic parishes regarding people with autism and related conditions. Mark Paine said, “The more welcoming a parish can be made for everyone, the more it realises its potential.”

Advice includes greeting parishioners and providing them with a Mass sheet and hymnbook, avoiding the use of fluorescent bulbs as they can appear to flicker to Autistic people, thinking about smell and where people can be advised to sit if incense is used and informing in advance about any use of holy water. 

The sixtieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the declaration adopted at the Second Vatican Council establishing a new approach in the Catholic Church’s relationships with Non-Christian religions, was marked by a Jewish-Catholic dialogue in Edgbaston, organised by the Archdiocese of Birmingham Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and the Birmingham Council of Churches. Fr Jeremy Howard, parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in Hednesford, was a speaker.

The former Lord Mayor of Cork has criticised a proposal to abolish the reading of a prayer before each parliamentary session in the Dáil.

Mick Finn, who was formerly an independent councillor and served as Lord Mayor of Cork city between 2018 and 2019, hit out at the proposal tabled by the Social Democrats. The party called for the prayer at the start of each day’s parliamentary business to be replaced by a moment of reflection.

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