On Ash Wednesday on 22 February a group of Christians and partners, including CND, will process through Liverpool city centre to begin Lent with prayers for peace and repentance, based on the traditional Ash Wednesday service.
The procession is intended as a public expression of repentance for the collective sin of possessing nuclear weapons, and for our government’s decision to spend more than £205 billion to renew the Trident nuclear weapon system.
A longtime commentator on the Catholic Church in Scotland has estimated that Mass attendance has dropped by 40-50 per cent over the last four years.
Writing last week in The Times on the legacy of Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, who stepped down from his public roles in 2013 after allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct were made against him, Stephen McGinty, author of a 2003 biography of Cardinal Winning, said that Sunday Mass numbers in Scotland are “down from about 130,000 in 2019 to an estimated 65,000 to 90,000 today”.
More than 1300 Catholics attended a conference on evangelisation last Saturday, 11 February, in central London, addressed by “bishop of social media” Robert Barron.
“Sharing the Church's Story,” organised by the UK’s Catholic Voices and the American Word On Fire Institute, featured an opening prayer by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, a keynote address by Barron, Bishop of Winona-Rochester diocese in the United States, and a dialogue between Barron and UK historian and broadcaster Tom Holland.
Speaking to The Tablet, Brenden Thompson, chief executive of Catholic Voices, said he was “delighted” at how the conference went and praised the team of young organisers.
A Catholic priest is the third pro-life activist facing a legal battle after being criminally charged for breach of an abortion clinic “buffer zone” – in this case by private prayer, holding a sign saying “praying for free speech”, and having a sticker on his car stating “unborn lives matter”.
Father Sean Gough of the Archdiocese of Birmingham was charged with “intimidating service-users” despite the fact, according to Gough, that it happened while the abortion facility was closed.
Similar to the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, the charges were later dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service, but with a warning they could be pursued at a later date.
The prisons charity Pact has issued an illustrated booklet for a Stations of the Cross liturgy devised last year with the words of prisoners and their families.
The booklet features images from the Benedictine Sisters of Turvey Abbey to accompany the text, which was first used in Lent 2022 by Bishop Richard Moth at the chapel of HMP Send, a women’s prison.
It will be circulated to prison chaplains and Pact supporters, as well as to the women of HMP Send. Parishes can contact the charity for a copy of the booklet.
The General Synod of the Church of England last week welcomed proposals to enable same-sex couples to receive a blessing in church after a civil marriage or civil partnership.
Synod members also voted to “lament and repent” of the failure of the Church to welcome LGBTQI+ people and for the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in churches.
Synod members also met in small groups to consider a set of draft texts known as Prayers of Love and Faith, to be used voluntarily in churches for couples who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or civil partnership.
Christian campaigners have deplored the record-breaking profits of oil giants Shell and BP amid the climate and cost of living crises.
Christian Aid expressed its disgust when Shell delivered a record $40bn (£32.2bn) profit in 2022. It capped a tumultuous year in which a surge in energy prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine allowed it to hand shareholders unprecedented returns. Christian Aid called on companies to “pay up to repair the damage they have caused to the climate.”
Dr Ruth Valerio, the Global Advocacy and Influencing Director for Tearfund, pointed to the campaign of Global Witness which accuses Shell of inflating its overall investment in renewable sources of energy. It says just 1.5 percent of capital expenditure has been used to develop genuine renewable energy. Dr Valerio said that in a climate emergency this lack of action is “inexcusable”.
Christian Climate Action has announced that on Sunday 5 March, nonviolent action will be seen at cathedrals to demand that the Church of England and the Catholic Church disinvest from fossil fuels.
Mary Queen of Scots’ secret prison letters have been found and decoded. The 57 encrypted messages, written during the Catholic queen’s 19-year English captivity, were found in online archives at the National Library of France.
Mary wrote about trying to secure her freedom, her health, her son James and other matters in the years before she was executed in 1587. Most of the messages were sent to Michel de Castelnau, the French ambassador to England for six years, and around 50 are new to historians.
John Guy, author of a 2004 biography of Mary, said: “This is the most important new find on Mary, Queen of Scots, for 100 years.”
Bishop William Crean has paid tribute to Trócaire, the aid agency founded 50 years ago by the Irish bishops in February 1973.
In a statement, the Bishop of Cloyne, who is Chairman of Trócaire, said the Irish and British Governments had been a wonderful support to the work of the agency. “It is truly a testament to the co-operative work of Church and State while respecting our respective spheres and competencies,” he said.
He also paid tribute to the sustained generosity across the decades of people in the pew who heard the cry of the poor. Over the past 50 years countless numbers of people, the poor and the oppressed, had been helped in over 26 countries in which Trócaire has laboured.
He said the agency’s mission was and is twofold, firstly to respond to the immediate humanitarian need and secondly, to tackle with the people the cause of their hunger and poverty and together enable and empower them to develop livelihoods that were sustainable.
A universal energy credit is not the best way to address the impact of rising energy costs as one-off payments will not resolve issues of income adequacy, according to Social Justice Ireland.
In a statement, Susanne Rogers, Research and Policy Analyst with the think tank said the recent increase in deprivation rates among Ireland’s most vulnerable groups, such as one parent households, people with a disability, and people who are unemployed, must guide policy in relation to cost of living supports.
“These groups are among those most impacted by the rising cost of living, and they need ongoing, targeted support in the form of adequate social welfare rates rather than one-off payments,” she said.
According to Social Justice Ireland, increasing core social welfare rates by €8 per week, not a further universal energy credit, must be central to any additional Government supports to address cost of living challenges.
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