The Prince of Wales was the principal guest at Archbishop’s House for a reception marking the centenary of the Society of St Augustine of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, hosted the event for the charity founded in 1922 by Cardinal Bourne to assist in the maintenance of the archbishop’s residence, a Grade II listed building. Cardinal Nichols ran an auction which raised £6,000 towards the society’s centenary appeal, which will raise £100,000 towards the cost of reducing energy consumption at Archbishop’s House, including the installation of solar panels, with an aim of reducing carbon emissions by 40 per cent.
St Paul’s Cathedral is marking Mental Health Awareness Week with an event on recovering after the pandemic on 7 June. Sponsored by CCLA Investment Management, the event is chaired by Bishop of London Sarah Mullally and speakers include Deborah Bull, vice president of Communities and National Engagement, Stephanie Flanders, senior executive editor for economics at Bloomberg News and Victor Adebowale, chair of Social Enterprise UK. Free tickets to the event can be booked here.
The Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, has urged Catholics in Jersey to “mobilise” against proposals to legalise assisted dying. In his pastoral letter for the sixth Sunday of Easter, Bishop Egan encouraged voters to challenge candidates in the island’s forthcoming elections on their position on assisted dying, which the legislature approved in principle last November. He appealed “to all people of good will to overturn the grim proposals”, which he said were “fundamentally subversive and dangerous, however well-intentioned”. “Assisting someone to die prematurely or to commit suicide, even when they earnestly request it, can never ever be a compassionate action,” he wrote.
The Church faces many dilemmas in a society that has grown to distrust authority and is drifting towards secularity, former prime minister Sir John Major told the National Cathedrals Conference at Newcastle cathedral. “There are those in our nation who prize celebrity, wealth and fame more than values once believed to be inviolate. This cultural change presents an extraordinary challenge to a Church that does have eternal values: it is both a threat and an opportunity. But – if the opportunity is to be taken – the Church must be bold in its actions, and outspoken about its concerns.” He also criticised the plan to deport some refugees to Rwanda. “I cannot believe that is the right way forward: such a policy is not a moral advance, and I hope the Government will look again.”
Every parish has been urged to pray for the Queen at all Sunday Masses on 4-5 June to mark her Platinum Jubilee. The Bishop of England and Wales have suggested an intention in the Prayer of the Faithful and reciting at the end of Mass the prayer for the Quee. Parishes may also wish to sing the chant Domine, salvum fac and the National Anthem, they say.
The Church of England has launched a new £1 million project and is recruiting a team of four to “change the narrative” around Christianity. The Centre for Cultural Witness is the brainchild of Bishop of Kensington Graham Tomlin, who told the Religion Media Centre that the church does good things at local level in communities across the country but these are not often brought to public attention. He said: “Very often, the public profile of Christian faith is a little bit negative. Maybe people think that the church is dying, and that they don’t often hear Christian voices in public. The initiative came out of a sense that this is something we need to pay attention to.” Suggesting it will be like a Christian version of Unherd, he said it will be aimed at people outside the Church. It is funded by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Charitable Fund and the McDonald Agape Foundation, whose founder converted to Catholicism.
Participants at the recent Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Religious Links annual conference sent a letter to the home secretary criticising the latest government policy to send refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda. “We regard this policy as morally wrong; treating people in an inhumane manner; and consider it is illegal,” said 24 representatives of religious groups including Brigidine Sisters, Sisters of St Joseph of Peace and Columban Missionaries. Professor Anna Rowlands, who holds the St Hilda Chair in Catholic Social Thought and Practice at Durham University, was guest speaker at the event on 14-15 May in Hertfordshire. Anna's presentations were based on Pope Francis' writings, especially 'Laudato Si', 'Let us Dream' and 'Fratelli Tutti'. She felt now is a good moment to be revisiting the principles of Catholic Social Teaching because there is a notable resurgence of its principles in global politics: human dignity, the common good, care for creation, a fairer distribution of wealth and material goods, the dispersal of power, and solidarity.
Members of Pax Christi, Coventry Justice and Peace Group, Coventry Quakers and Christian CND gathered outside Coventry Cathedral on 19 May to ask Coventry and other West Midlands Councils to divest from the manufacture of arms, particularly nuclear weapons. They carried a banner, 'End ALL investments in Nuclear Weapons', and distributed leaflets to those attending Coventry City Council's AGM informing that Council Tax payers in the region are giving millions of pounds to arms companies including Airbus and BAE Systems. The West Midlands Pension Fund and its investments are the responsibility of elected councillors. “Despite 10 years of suggesting to Councillors that these investments are incompatible with Coventry being the City of Peace and Reconciliation and a City of Sanctuary, our call has been ignored,” said Ann Farr of Pax Christi England and Wales.
A senior Holyrood politician has called for a Scottish cardinal. Donald Cameron, Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands has said that a red hat would give the Catholic voice greater weight in public debate. Mr Cameron pointed to the example of Cardinals Gordon Gray and Thomas Winning, who he described as “fearless” in making clear the Catholic position on important social and political issues. Writing in the Scottish edition of the Times Mr Cameron said that while every diocese had its bishop, “the country needs a single, courageous Catholic voice...to represent the church in national discourse and to lead Scotland’s Catholics through a difficult period ahead”. He listed issues such as euthanasia, poverty and gender identity, as well as the current war in Ukraine, as areas in which a figure with the authority of a cardinal would be able to speak for the Church in Scotland as a whole.
A church in Pembrokeshire founded by St Madoc, a pupil of St David, is to hold a final service as a result of the congregation dwindling to two. Believed to have been started in 583, St Madoc of Ferns in Haroldston West has been a place of worship for nearly 1,500 years. Church warden Diana Thomas, said, "I’m devastated - I've been using the church for 40 years and I have had a lot of family connections with it - marriages and funerals, that sort of thing.” Yet, she accepted that, "things change and that is the position we are in", adding that, "I'm 80 years old for God's sake, and I feel it; I'm just unable to do it all the time and the other church warden feels the same way." She reported that because so many properties in Pembrokeshire are holiday homes there are not enough people to sustain the church.
A leading Christian charity has warned that London is amongst the major cities facing drought if climate change continues unabated. In a new report, entitled Scorched Earth: The Impact of Drought on 10 World Cities, Christian Aid, an official relief and development agency of 41 UK Churches, warned that without action "some of the world's major cities face running out of water". Combined with a growing population, the report claimed, droughts in the South-East of England "could place serious stress on London's ageing water supply." Along with action on emissions the report recommends new urban planning protocols, financing initiatives to help cities adapt to drought - and loss and damage policies for poor nations impacted by climate change.
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