The Catholic Education Service has expressed concern over proposed changes to Religious and Relationship and Sex Education in Wales that include teaching “world views” as part of Religious Education and allowing parents to withdraw their children from sex education. The CES said in a statement: “Parents are the primary educators of their children and schools exist to support, not replace them. This is particularly important when dealing with sensitive and deeply personal topics such as faith and RSE. To remove the right of withdrawal would, therefore, be huge erosion of parental rights and represent regressive step in the relationship between parents and the state.” The CES said that teaching children non-religious world views as part of their religious education amounted to a “dumbing down” of the subject. “Including a range of non-religious 'world views' into, what is in Catholic schools, an academically rigorous theological discipline, would water down RE and reduce it to an over-simplistic comparison exercise which fails to understand the deep fundamentals of faith and religion,” it warned.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has criticised Catholics who “spend all day attacking and responding” on social media in the belief that they are “defending the integrity of Church teaching”. In his homily for a Mass to mark the canonisation of St John Henry Newman at Dublin’s University Church, Archbishop Martin said he was astonished by the content and tone of messages on social media by Catholic pundits on the left and the right, which he said were “anything but kindly”. He referenced St John Henry Newman by observing: “The kindly light will never be defended by nastiness and bitterness” and warned that negativity and polarisation reflects “a pointless retreat into self-defined false certainties”. Archbishop Martin also asked “Where would Newman place himself in the situation of the Church in today’s Ireland?” Irish Catholicism, he said, was for many a culture of religious certainties, but for others was a culture of determining one’s own beliefs. Newman would belong to neither culture, he said. “Conversion is always the roadway of a whole lifetime. A Catholicism of self-defined certainties will lead eventually to a doubt about all certainties and thus to emptiness. A Catholicism of self-defined certainties and self-importance led to an authoritarian and harsh Irish Catholicism, with consequences we know only too well.”
The Bishop of Brentwood, Alan Williams, has launched a year-long celebration of scripture in his diocese as part of The God Who Speaks, an initiative by the bishops’ conference intended to encourage Catholics to engage with the bible. Among the events to be celebrated at Christ the Eternal High Priest, Gidea Park, Hornchurch, are a talk on advent by Fr Nicholas King SJ of Campion Hall, Oxford, and on the joy of the Gospel by Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP.
Fr Jerome Bertram, of the Oxford Oratory, has died. Well-known for his spiritual and academic writing, particularly his work as a translator of Medieval Latin, he was the director of the GK Chesterton Study Centre and Library in Oxford.
Catholic schools under the patronage of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore in Ireland have been told by their bishop not to practise yoga in the classroom because it is not Christian. In a letter sent to diocesan schools this week Bishop Phonsie Cullinan said yoga was not suitable for a parish school setting, “especially not during religious education time”. Explaining to school staff that he had been asked by several people to speak about yoga and mindfulness, the bishop indicated that schools need to incorporate Christian mindfulness which he said was “not mindlessness but is meditation based on Christ”. Elsewhere in his letter, Dr Cullinan reminded staff that October is the “month of the Rosary” and he encouraged principals and teachers to pray the Rosary and help children to spend time with Jesus in adoration or in quiet meditation in the classroom.
A Glasgow man who works for SPUC Scotland has been elected president of the International Alliance of Catholic Knights, the first time a Scot has held the office. A former supreme knight of the Knights of St Columba, Charlie McCluskey was elected to the office at the biennial IACK conference in Glasgow, and the appointment, which Mr McCluskey described as a “great honour and privilege”, was announced at a special Mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral. IACK is a confederated organisation consisting of fifteen autonomous orders from all over the world.
Christian peace groups participated in an international peace conference last Saturday organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the International Peace Bureau in Central London. Christian CND celebrates its 60th Anniversary next year and has been an integral section of CND since 1960. Both CCND and Pax Christi were delighted to cheer veteran peace campaigner Bruce Kent as he received IPB’s Seán MacBride Peace Prize. “Bruce continues to inspire and educate us on peace issues,” said Pax Christi’s Director Theresa Alessandro. “He is recognised and respected by such a wide range of people and groups because his work for peace”.
Pax Christi Scotland has launched with the support of Pax Christi International, the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Scottish Justice and Peace Commission. The group employs no paid workers but relies on a steering group of five volunteers. One of them, Marian Pallister, told The Tablet that Britain’s nuclear weapons base at Faslane will be a focus for campaigning. “In a world that seems to be more aggressive in every area of life, exploring ways to bring the concept of nonviolence into our actions, our words, our approach to life will be core to our work” she said. The first AGM and annual gathering, The Language of Nonviolence, will be held over the weekend 8-10 November at Coatbridge.
Archbishop Michael Bowen, emeritus of Southwark, has died aged 89. Archbishop Bowen, who taught theology at the Beda College in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, was responsible for implementing many of its reforms in this country, in particular in the Archdiocese of Southwark, where he was installed as Archbishop in 1977.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has published its report into Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School on Thursday. The report forms part of the English Benedictine Congregation case study, within the wider investigation into the Catholic Church. Public hearings into abuse in the Catholic Church, at which Cardinal Vincent Nichols, and Fr Paul Smyth, the President of the Conference of Religious, are expected to give evidence, begin on Monday 28 October]
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