The Bishop of Shrewsbury has urged Catholics to raise their "prayers and voices" in defence of human life in the face of new attempts to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales. In a pastoral letter issued just days after the Assisted Dying Bill, a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Baroness Meacher, received its first reading in the House of Lords on Wednesday 26 May, Bishop Mark Davies warned the faithful that the proposals would turn “care-givers into life-takers”. He warned that a new law that permitted the killing of patients would corrupt the medical profession and, by crossing “a moral line”, would create the conditions for incremental advances towards horrific instances of euthanasia now witnessed in other jurisdictions in which assisted suicide or euthanasia were introduced, initially with strict safeguards, to allow killing as a means to end suffering.
Bishop John Sherrington, lead bishop on life Issues, has issued a statement outlining the Catholic Church’s opposition to the Assisted Dying Bill. He warned that the proposal would “fundamentally change the relationship between the doctor and the patient, as it would change to it from treatment and care to assisting another’s death”. The “Day for Life”, to be celebrated on Sunday, 20 June 2021 in England and Wales, will call on Catholics to pray for good care of those who are elderly, sick and dying and to oppose such legislation.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, CAFOD, is calling on faith communities to gather online, on the eve of the G7 summit, in an act of witness, sending a message that people of faith in the UK and around the world expect leaders at the summit to put in place plans for a global and green recovery from the crisis which leaves no one behind. Speakers at the interfaith event to be livestreamedf rom Truro Cathedral ahead of G7 summit on 10 June include Bishop of Plymouth Mark O’Toole, Priya Koria of Hindu Climate Action, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of Masorti Judaism and Imam Qari Asim, chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board.
In the last of their “Cannonball Conversions” series of talks, the team at The Edinburgh Jesuit Centre invited the British Ambassador to The Holy See, Sally Axworthy, to discuss ”Ecological Conversion Co-operation between the UK and the Vatican”. Sally, about to leave the post after five years, described what she saw as “definitely a change in the Holy See in their approach to women”. She said: “There are more senior appointments now… women are increasingly being appointed to positions of real responsibility in the Vatican.”
The welcoming by Boris Johnson of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to Downing Street was condemned by figures representing many of the groups targeted by his regime along with anti-racists, human rights campaigners and trade unionists. A protest took place outside Downing Street organised by Stand Up To Racism, Jewish Socialists’ Group and GR8, representing Gypsy, Roma and eight other ethnic groups, and supported by others. Protestors included Hungarian activist Olivia Virag, who condemned the shutting down of democracy in Hungary through rule by decree, describing Orbàn as a “dictator” who can now do “anything he wants”.
The Anglican Bishop of Blackburn Julian Henderson has raised a question in the House of Lords about the icorrelation between areas with high Covid-19 infection rates and high levels of poverty and what steps the government intends to take to address this as part of their levelling up agenda. Lord Bethell, on behalf of the Government, answered: “My Lords, the facts are heartbreaking. Covid, like many diseases, has hit hardest those who are most vulnerable: the poorest, the most disabled and those who work in some of the most difficult jobs.The vaccine rollout and community testing programmes have shown what the country can do, but there is much more to be done. That is why we are publishing a levelling-up White Paper, and health inequalities will be central to that.”
The Diocese of Cork and Ross is the latest Irish diocese to suffer “a dramatic decline” in parish funds as a result of church closures during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bishop Fintan Gavin discussed the situation at a recent meeting of parish finance committees and clergy. At the meeting it emerged that the average parish income in 2020 was just 46.6 per cent of the donations received in 2019. Some parishes experienced a drop of up to 60 percent in donations while most parishes were down at least 30 per cent.
The Scottish Lourdes community has responded with deep sadness to the death of Mgr Tony Duffy, who had served the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh as pilgrimage director since 1983. Mgr Duffy died peacefully at the Western General hospital in Edinburgh and was buried in the city’s Mount Vernon Catholic cemetery on May 25, two days before what would have been his 74th birthday.
The Scottish Bishops have said that they will establish a “Care of Creation Office” ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow this autumn. It will be headed by Fr Gerard H. Maguiness, the general secretary of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland. The announcement coincides with a national pastoral letter sent to all parishes in Scotland for Pentecost Sunday on the theme of caring for creation and marking the sixth anniversary of Laudato Si’ which set out Pope Francis’s imperatives on the environment and the role of the human family in it. Bishop William Nolan of Galloway, who serves a s president of the National Peace and Justice Commission said that “The Office’s aim will be to give practical advice and guidance: helping dioceses and parishes assess their carbon footprint and discern how to work towards carbon neutrality. God has honoured us by giving humanity the task of being a co-operator in the work of creation. We hope our lives enhance and build up that creation and pray that the meeting of world leaders in Glasgow later this year bear fruit for our planet.”\
Police Scotland is investigating a video circulated on the social media platform TikTok that purports to show Rangers FC players and officials adding a sectarian chant to a song, writes Brian Morton. The clips appear to show team members in a hospitality suite within Ibrox Stadium singing along to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” but adding a three-word chant that insults the Pope. Former justice secretary Humza Yousaf, who has since been appointed health secretary in the cabinet reshuffle, has called on the football club to sack any player or member of staff found guilty of “anti-Catholic hatred”. The call comes on the back of a full-scale riot by jubilant Rangers supporters in Glasgow’s George Square following the last league game of the season: the second time in three months that fans have breached Covid restrictions to celebrate the club’s first league win in 10 years.
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