The former northern seminary of Ushaw, near Durham, which is now a cultural and heritage centre, has been awarded nearly £500,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Emergency Fund. Ushaw House and Gardens, which reopened in September after being closed for six months, will receive the money as part of the government’s drive to assist cultural organisations seriously affected by the pandemic. The grant will help Ushaw’s future plans to make greater use of its grounds, while some of the money will be spent on repairs to the Grade I listed chapel complex designed by Augustus Pugin and his eldest son, Edward.
The Archbishop of Southwark, John Wilson, newly appointed grand prior of the lieutenancy of England and Wales of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, has urged Catholics to support Christians in the Holy Land who are struggling financially after pilgrimages to the region were cancelled because of Covid-19. He suggested purchasing products made by Christians in the Holy Land as Christmas gifts. Groups that stock such handicrafts in Britain and Ireland include Pax Christi, Zaytoun and Hadeel.
The Bishop of Paisley, John Keenan, has called on the Scottish government to lift Covid restrictions for 24 hours over Christmas, comparing this to the Christmas Day truce that took place in the trenches during the First World War. Bishop Keenan wrote in The Sunday Times: “Couldn’t we allow for one day of normality in the midst of our relentless war against the virus?”
LGBT+ Catholics Westminster has welcomed Pope Francis’ support for same-sex civil unions and couples’ right to be in a family. The pastoral council, which supports LGBT+ Catholics in London, said his remarks “affirm that gay and lesbian Catholics are welcome in the life of the Church”.
In Wales, the Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack, marked the anniversary of the canonisation of two of Wales’ martyred priests by holding Mass in the bare stone cell at Cardiff Castle where they were held before their execution on 22 July 1679. The archbishop and pilgrims carried statues of Sts Philip Evans and John Lloyd to the execution site, then called the Gallows Field.
Jesuit priests joined a protest outside the High Commission of India in London last weekend calling for the release of Fr Stan Swamy SJ, an 83- year-old human-rights activist arrested in India earlier this month. Fr Swamy has worked for five decades for vulnerable communities in Jharkhand.
The Bishop of Plymouth, Mark O’Toole, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the canonisation of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales last weekend with a pastoral message urging Catholics who are not shielding to return to Mass. Recalling the martyrdom of St Cuthbert Mayne, a patron of the diocese, he wrote: “When the fear of the present, or of what is to come, seems to overwhelm us, it is into the hands of the Lord that we entrust ourselves.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s treatment of censured Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery has been likened to terrorism by the theologian Professor Thomas O’Loughlin. Speaking at the online launch of Fr Flannery’s new book From the Outside: Rethinking Church Doctrine, the University of Nottingham academic said that the freedom to think, the freedom to talk and the freedom to engage in continual dialogue are basic human rights. “Some terrorists have a knife and they wield it using kinetic force; others use psychological knives and they wield them through a variety of other systems – legal systems or control systems. But they are engaged in exactly the same activity,” said O’Loughlin.
The Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland has written to the Irish bishops’ conference expressing concern that the English Standard Version (ESV) translation proposed for the new lectionary does not use gender-inclusive language. Just eight of the 26 Irish bishops responded; the ACP said the matter is to be discussed by the conference.
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