Archbishop of York to retire
Dr John Sentamu (above) is to retire from his position as the Archbishop of York on 7 June 2020, three days before his seventy-first birthday.
Explaining his decision, he said: “I have decided to announce my retirement now in order to provide the Church of England with the widest possible timeframe to pray, discern with wisdom and insight and put in place a timetable for my successor and to consider fully the work they will be called to do in service to the national church, the Northern Province and the Diocese of York.”
Scots Labour in Catholic slur
The Scottish Labour Party leader, Richard Leonard, has sought to reassure Catholics that the party does not tolerate sectarianism.
Mr Leonard apologised to Catholics after a senior party figure at the Labour conference in Liverpool last month appeared to mock a delegate for “crossing herself”.
Andy Kerr, chair of the National Executive Committee has stood down after telling a female delegate that he might not call her to speak during a debate because she had made the Sign of the Cross.
While Mr Kerr said that the remark was intended to be light-hearted, he admitted it was “ill-judged”. Mr Leonard said there was “absolutely no room” for such comments at party events.
A spokesman for the Church acknowledged that Mr Kerr had apologised unreservedly, “recognising that such casual slurs on Catholic practice are not acceptable”.
Fr Tim Mulroy, from County Mayo, in Ireland, has been elected Superior General of the Missionary Society of St Columban. Fr Tim, 54, who was a primary school teacher before he joined the Columbans in 1987, has been working as regional director of the Columbans in the United States since 2012.
Responding to the news of his election, he said: “As Columban Missionaries conclude the celebration of the centenary of our founding and at the same time prepare for a new century of mission, I feel both humbled and honoured to be given this leadership position.”
Former President of Ireland Mary McAleese was this week appointed Professor of Children, Law and Religion at the University of Glasgow.
The announcement follows the successful defence of her canon law doctoral thesis at the Gregorian University in Rome last week in front of an audience that included Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.
After making her defence in Italian, she told The Tablet that the thesis, titled “Children’s Rights and Obligations in Canon Law”, focuses on the juridic consequences of Baptism in the Latin Catholic Church.
In the thesis, to be published shortly as a book, Dr McAleese criticises the Vatican for its failure to respond to the call by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for canon law to be updated to bring it into line with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Ship disaster remembered
A memorial service was held in the Outer Hebrides last Sunday to mark the 165th anniversary of one of Britain’s worst maritime disasters.
The merchant ship Annie Jane was carrying about 450 emigrants from Liverpool to Montreal in Canada when it ran on to rocks off the island of Vatersay in a fierce storm.
It sank, killing 350 men, women and children. Their bodies were buried in two unmarked, mass graves in the dunes behind a beach on the island.
The catastrophe on 28 September 1853 led to the survivors demanding what was to become the first public inquiry into a major disaster.
Barra Catholic priest Fr John Paul Mackinnon and the Revd Dr Lindsay Schluter, the Church of Scotland minister for Barra and South Uist, led the outdoor service on Vatersay.
“The shipwreck, impacting on Vatersay and Barra, countless families throughout Britain, Canada and Switzerland, also left its mark on the life of the nation by establishing the practice of public inquiries following major incidents,” Dr Schluter said.
A new stained-glass window at Westminster Abbey, commissioned to celebrate the Queen’s reign and designed by the British artist David Hockney, was dedicated formally by the Dean of Westminster, Dr John Hall, on Tuesday last week.
“The Queen’s Window”, housed in the abbey’s north transept and created by Yorkshire stained-glass specialists, Barley Studio, depicts a vividly coloured rural scene reflecting the Queen’s affection for the countryside. Commissioned by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, it is Hockney’s first artwork in stained glass.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is to take part in an historic ecumenical service at St John the Baptist Catholic Cathedral in Norwich at the start of a three-day visit to Norfolk in November.
After a welcome by the Catholic Bishop of East Anglia, Alan Hopes, Archbishop Welby will give a reflection in what is believed to be the first time that an Anglican Church leader has spoken at the cathedral.
Explaining the aim of the service, the chaplain of the Anglican Bishop of Norwich, the Revd Susanna Gunner, said: “At the start of the archbishop’s visit, we wanted to give the opportunity for all Christian denominations to come together in an act of unity and reconciliation – the perfect launch pad for his travels around our region.”
The influential British Catholic theologian and former parish priest Fr Kevin Kelly died aged 81 on 25 September. Fr Kelly, who was born in Crosby, near Liverpool, in 1933 and was ordained in 1958, juggled his parochial pastoral ministry with an academic career as a moral theologian.
The author of seven books and more than 100 articles tackled difficult issues facing the Church, such as HIV/Aids, remarriage after divorce, bioethics, sexual ethics and pastoral theology.
He was a co-founder of the Association of Teachers of Moral Theology in 1967 and, in the late 1990s, a co-founding member of the International Catholic Theological Coalition for HIV/Aids Prevention.
In 2007 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity by Liverpool Hope University. Fr Kelly’s Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Our Lady of Compassion church, Formby, on 9 October at noon.
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