The Church in Scotland is backing a scheme to assist pregnant asylum seekers with funds for travel to important appointments. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, in association with Justice and Peace Scotland, has donated £5,000 to Bump and Baby Bus Pass, an initiative of the Refugee Survival Trust. It is said that this will provide another 40 bus passes for heavily pregnant women, allowing them to access appropriate facilities and avoid walking long distances in poor weather while in late-stage pregnancy or carrying an infant. Bishop William Nolan of Galloway, who chairs JPS, said that in the season of Advent, “we might consider the plight of another young woman fleeing persecution, looking for sanctuary and safety for herself, her husband and her child. We celebrate the fact that that family found shelter and that child brought hope to the world.”
Pax Christi’s UK Director has welcomed Pope Francis’s message for World Peace Day, which falls on 1 January, and which laments conflict and lack of respect for the environment. It calls on Catholics and others “to reject systems of security, such as nuclear deterrence, built on fear of others”. The message “challenges us to dialogue and to renewed relationships of reconciliation, communal solidarity and hope in the future.” Theresa Alessandro told The Tablet this week: “Pope Francis has taken yet another opportunity to remind the world that peace and international stability are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation”. Pope Francis’ World Peace Day message will be shared widely in Catholic parishes around Britain on Peace Sunday, 19 January 2020. Pax Christi has prepared resources to help parishes articulate the gospel work of peace and Pope Francis’ message, and to raise funds for its work.
A Nativity in Aberdeen city centre that was vandalised earlier this month has re-opened after a replacement figure of the infant Jesus was found to replace the one that was badly damaged. Two teenage boys, one 17 and one 13, have been reported to the Procurator Fiscal and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration respectively in connection with the incident. Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen expressed his disappointment that young people should have been involved in the attack, but called on Catholics and others to pray for the boys and their families.
The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh has called on Catholics to take a break from Christmas shopping to go to Confession. Archbishop Leo Cushley said that “as Catholics, one of the best things we can do is prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord. A trip to Confession is a lovely way to do that”. An estimated half a million people visit Edinburgh’s Christmas markets each year, with similar figures in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Paisley.
A seven-year-old child suffered serious burns at a school Nativity performance last week when his costume was set alight by a candle. The accident happened on 11 December during an afternoon Carol Service at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Addiscombe, Southwark Archdiocese, and the pupils were from nearby St Thomas Becket Catholic Primary School. Headteacher Noel Campbell and a woman reacted rapidly to put out the flames. The boy was airlifted to hospital and was reported to be “stable but serious” as an investigation was launched. Noel Campbell has said, “our whole school community is devastated by the incident” and “our thoughts and prayers are with the child and his family at this difficult time.”
Professor Monica Grady, a Catholic and Professor of Planetary and Space Science at The Open University, is to become Liverpool Hope University’s new Chancellor. Professor Grady was made a CBE in 2012 for services to space sciences, and has an asteroid named after her. In a statement she said: “[When I visited Liverpool Hope] I was really impressed by how the two Archbishops – Sheppard and Worlock – worked together to establish Europe’s only ecumenical foundation. Liverpool Hope University is a really great example of how Christianity when it works, can work well.” Professor Grady will be installed as the next Chancellor at the University’s Foundation Day Service in January.
The Irish Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, has urged the Bon Secours Sisters to increase their contribution towards the cost of a forensic excavation, exhumation and reinterment of infant remains at the site of the Mother and Baby home in Tuam. The order, which ran the Co Galway home between 1925 and 1961, pledged €2.5 million towards the project but as the overall cost is estimated at between €6 and €13 million, Minister Zappone said the nuns’ contribution should be increased because of the order’s “ethical responsibility”. Her remarks followed the announcement of the Certain Institutional Burials Bill, draft legislation providing the legal basis for the excavation and reinterment of the remains of the infants. It also provides for samples to be taken from relatives of infants who died at the home for the purpose of identification. As many as 796 infants remain unaccounted for.
A new book that explores Irish teenagers’ attitudes to religion and diversity reveals little difference between young men and women when it comes to religious belief. "Religion and Education: The Voices of Young People in Ireland", is edited by Dr Gareth Byrne, Director of the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education, Dublin City University, and Professor Leslie J Francis, Warwick Religions and Education Research Centre, University of Warwick. It contains a series of surveys, conducted across time and different religions. The book’s research found that while young women are more likely to engage in prayer than young men, young women feel less positively about the Church and are more likely to feel alienated from institutional Catholicism.
Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh has said Northern Ireland’s Police Service needs the “very best young people” to “serve the community with generosity, concern, respect and courage”. Following his meeting with the new PSNI Chief Constable as part of a delegation on behalf of the Irish Council of Churches, Archbishop Martin wished Simon Byrne “every blessing in his important leadership role”. In a tweet following the meeting he called on young people to join stating, “We need our very best young people to join the #Police”. The PSNI is struggling to get Catholics to apply to join its ranks. In 2011 it ended its drive to reach a 50:50 recruitment quota as recommended by the Patten Report. Last June, the outgoing Chief Constable George Hamilton said that 32 per cent of PSNI officers are now from the Catholic community. But he warned that the figure is likely to fall. He added that both the application rate and success rate of Catholics with the police service “falls well below” what it should be. The PSNI was formed in 2001, replacing the RUC, whose membership was 92 per cent Protestant/Unionist.
The Church aid agency Cafod has asked supporters to send Christmas messages to environmental campaigners in Uganda, Colombia, the West Bank in Palestine and the Brazillian Amazon, who have spent the year protecting their land from industries like mining and logging. According to Cafod 164 people were killed last year while defending their land and communities. Personalised messages can be send via the Cafod website.
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