The Bishops of England and Wales have published an outline of the local and national consultations that will take place ahead of the 2023 synod on synodality. The diocesan phase will take place between October 2021 and April 2022, followed by a national phase at the Bishops’ Conference level and then a continental phase. The bishops note that the process is not a “democratic debate”, but rather “a place of respectful mutual listening”, with the bishops leading on the discernment and summarisation of what is articulated.
A 31-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the violent assault on a priest at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. Jason Irvine, of no fixed abode, is being questioned in connection with the attack within the cathedral on Fr Jamie McMorrin, who was approached by a man carrying a bottle. After ascertaining that Fr McMorrin was a priest, the man attacked him, continuing the assault after the bottle was broken during the struggle. Fr McMorrin managed to fend off the man with a chair after being chased through the cathedral. He was unhurt in the incident.
Bishops in Northern Ireland have strongly criticised the Secretary of State’s directive to Northern Ireland’s Executive and the Department of Health to make abortion available by 21 March 2022, describing the decision as “gravely disquieting”. Last week in Westminster the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, announced the timeline for the roll-out of abortion services in Northern Ireland, using new powers introduced in March.
The Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Anthony McClaran (pictured), has been appointed to the Governing Council of the Holy See’s Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of the Quality of Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties.
Blairs Museum, Scotland’s National Catholic Museum, has launched an online museum with funding from the Scottish Government’s Covid Museum Recovery and Resilience Fund. The virtual galleries include exhibits from the Scottish Catholic Heritage Collections Trust Museum, and the historic Library and Archive, both of which are on loan to the University of Aberdeen.
Dr John Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York, will succeed Dr Rowan Williams as Chair of Christian Aid. Lord Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, will step down in November.
One of four whistleblowers who exposed Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s inappropriate sexual conduct during his time at a seminary, forcing him to resign as head of the Church in Scotland, has published a book in which he warns that the Catholic Church is “blinded by its fear of scandal”.
Brian Devlin, a former priest, writes in Cardinal Sin about his time at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange, a seminary near Melrose in Scotland, where Cardinal O’Brien served as spiritual director. In February 2013, The Observer newspaper revealed Devlin’s and three other priests’ accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by O’Brien. Announcing his resignation, O’Brien apologised to “all whom I have offended” during his ministry. He did not take part in the conclave to elect Benedict XVI’s successor. Cardinal O’Brien died in 2018, aged 80.
Cardinal Sin, published by Columba Books, has been hailed by former Irish president Professor Mary McAleese as offering courageous insight into how the Church’s hierarchical system protected O’Brien. “Silence and cover-up result in no lessons being learnt,” Devlin writes in the book. “There is no denying the enormity of Catholicism and its power and influence. It has lasted for 2,000 years, functioning as a vast organisation with an in-built hierarchy and does not like dissent. But organisations are run by humans. And humans are flawed.”
The Benedictine monks of Prinknash Abbey have given one of the properties on their Gloucestershire estate to the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, OSB, a community of nuns within the Ordinariate. The Prinknash community itself began life in the Church of England, before becoming Catholic in 1913.
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