Gay cake victory
The UK’s highest court has ruled that a decision by the Christian owners of a bakery not to make a cake decorated with a slogan in support of same-sex marriage was not discriminatory.
The dispute began in 2014 when Asher’s Baking Company, run by evangelical Christians Daniel and Amy McArthur (above), refused to bake a cake iced with the words “Support Gay Marriage” for Gareth Lee, a gay man involved in the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court found in favour of an appeal by the bakery in Belfast, reversing earlier decisions made in the Belfast County Court and court of appeal. They had ruled that the bakery discriminated against Mr Lee on the grounds of his sexual orientation.
Campaigners have called for a British Jesuit accused of sexually abusing a schoolboy in South Africa in the 1980s to be extradited to the country to face charges.
William Segodisho told a press conference that Fr William MacCurtain, now 84, raped him when he was 13 at the Streetwise Children’s Shelter in Johannesburg.
Fr MacCurtain returned to Britain in 1990 and was removed from the ministry in 2001. A statement by the Jesuit Province in Britain said it had removed MacCurtain from ministry as soon as his abuse was reported to it in 2001. It also said it was aware that a police investigation was continuing in South Africa.
Women and lay people are critical to solving the crisis of sex abuse within the Church, the Bishop of Plymouth said during a strongly-worded intervention at the synod of bishops in Rome. Bishop Mark O’Toole also called for bishops to be held accountable for how they review cases of sex abuse, and said that lay experts and statutory authorities must be a routine part of how the Church reviews cases.
Former Tablet correspondent Rennie McOwan has died aged 85. A former editor of both the Scottish Catholic Observer and The Universe, he became the first Director of Communications for the Catholic Church in Scotland, a post he eventually left because he disagreed with the Vatican’s stance on birth control.
Papal documentary
A new documentary recalling the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979 contends that his emotional address in Drogheda sowed the seeds of the Northern Ireland peace process. In John Paul II in Ireland: A Plea for Peace, DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says the plea by the pope (above) at Drogheda for paramilitaries to turn away from the path of violence and return to peace “inspired some elements of the Catholic Church to take steps to try and influence those who were engaging in or directing the violence”.
However, the former president of Ireland, Dr Mary McAleese, has accused the late pope of using “highly offensive” misogynistic language in a new book launched this week. In Madam Politician – the Women at the Table of Irish Political Power, by RTE’s political correspondent, Martina Fitzgerald, Dr McAleese reveals that when they were first introduced during her presidency, the pope reached out his hand to her husband, Martin McAleese, and asked: “Would you not prefer to be the President of Ireland instead of your wife?” The pope insisted that this was meant as a joke. “I heard you had a great sense of humour,” he told Dr McAleese. She replied: “Nobody else thought it was funny”.
Priests have no rights and are dependent on the “goodwill” and even the “whims” of individual bishops for decent terms in their retirement, the AGM of the Association of Catholic Priests heard in Athlone last week.
Fr Mattie Long told more than 100 priests from around Ireland that “there is no consistency or certainty for priests over their retirement” and that “each bishop can act as he sees fit”. The Co Mayo priest warned there was “a very mixed bag” in how dioceses deal with priests who wish to retire and with those who are retired.
Retirement for a diocesan priest, he highlighted, means not just giving up a role in a parish but often giving up his home as well.
College sale
The Archdiocese of Dublin is to sell Holy Cross College, Clonliffe (above) and its land, currently the administrative headquarters of the archdiocese, to the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The site occupies prime land near the GAA’s 80,000-seat Croke Park stadium in the north of the city.
Writer and Tablet director Paul Vallely has been made an Honorary Ecumenical Canon at Manchester Cathedral, for services to journalism. Mr Vallely, a papal biographer, will be installed on 28 October.
Fall in seminarians at Maynooth
The introduction of a pre-seminary (propaedeutic) year for candidates who are discerning a priestly vocation has seen a drop in the national seminary in Maynooth’s intake for the second year running (writes Sarah Mac Donald).
Just five of 17 men beginning their studies for priesthood this autumn began their formation at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, down from six who commenced their studies there last year.
It is believed to be the lowest intake in the history of the seminary, which was founded in 1795. In 2011, 22 men began their studies in Maynooth.
However, another eight students have begun their propaedeutic year in locations in Ireland and abroad, while four seminarians will study at Redemptoris Mater Seminary, Dundalk, which was founded in 2012 and is run by the Neocatechumenal Way.
The pre-seminary propaedeutic year allows candidates in individual dioceses to discern if they have a vocation or not before they commence studies at the national seminary.
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