Archbishop of Glasgow William Nolan has urged the chancellor to prioritise poverty reduction in next month’s budget. He said, “We see the needs of the communities where we live and serve on a daily basis.” St Vincent de Paul Society last week published a report highlighting its role in delivering locally-based support to “left behind” communities. It highlighted a 49 per cent increase in the number of requests for help to SVP’s support line. Key recommendations included a call for the social security system to be strengthened and greater acknowledgement for the role charities play in tackling poverty. Last Sunday, Caritas Salford marked Caritas Sunday, inviting people to donate to its work and “pray for people across our diocese who are experiencing poverty in its many forms”. On Monday Caritas Westminster said that too many people are living in cold, unheated homes and put out information about warm spaces being offered in parishes.
The Church of England bishops of Worcester, Durham and Chelmsford are encouraging churches and individuals to engage in activism to tackle poverty ahead of the General Election. A new Lent 2024 course “Act of Poverty” has been produced by the Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist Church and United Reformed Church in partnership with Christian Aid, Church Action on Poverty, The Trussell Trust and others to provide study ideas and practical actions for Christian communities to work for change at home and overseas. The resource pack contains agendas for six sessions. Almost 1,000 churches have signed up already.
Stella Maris has launched an initiative aimed at helping to tackle modern slavery in the UK maritime sector. The “Cross Port Anti-Slavery Steering Group” will oversee a series of workshops in six ports, Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool and Portsmouth, highlighting the issue and bringing together stakeholders from ports, shipping, law enforcement agencies, anti-trafficking bodies, and other welfare agencies. National director Tim Hill said, “Stella Maris’ port chaplains and volunteer ship visitors are often first responders in cases of modern slavery within the port setting, and this puts us in a perfect position to be a galvanising force in tackling this issue.” On 8 February, the feast of St Josephine Bakhita, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Sudan when young, Stella Maris will draw attention to those trapped and exploited on fishing vessels around the world.
Mgr Canon John Weatherill, above, parish priest of Our Lady of Loreto and St Winefride in Kew Gardens in Southwark archdiocese, has been appointed by Pope Francis as one of his chaplains with the title, Monsignor. Mgr Weatherill, who was previously a parish priest in Purley, served as episcopal vicar for finance in Southwark before moving to Kew, where among other projects he is planning a parish pilgrimage to the National Shrine of St Winefride in North Wales in May and another to Loreto and Assisi in Italy in 2025. He told The Tablet: “As priests we don’t look for recognition for what we do, but what is more of a challenge for us is that we can rarely measure for certain how effective we have been, whom we have helped, whom we have affirmed, and so on. Being honoured in this way is at least an acknowledgement that I have done a good job somewhere along the way, most specifically, I think, for the more pastoral approach I took in the finance and property office of our diocese for eighteen years.”
The Bishop of Leeds Marcus Stock is to explore what the Church can do to welcome female ex-prisoners. Bishop Stock said he would discuss the subject with the charity PACT (the Prison Advice and Care Trust) after visiting New Hall women’s prison in West Yorkshire. A prisoner who met Stock with PACT members said: “The quiet prayer and meditation just helps me to cope.” Others voiced concerns about finding a Catholic community after leaving prison which would offer them a sense of belonging.
A nun living near the frontline in the Ukraine has addressed 40 women attending a National Board of Catholic Women webinar exploring hope. On January 20, Sr Lucia Murashko of the Order of St Basil the Great told 40 women of the challenges she faces living in Zaporizhzhia, just 50 kilometres from the fighting. Jacintha Bowe, vice-president of the NBCW said: “The main challenge that the sisters face is being able to meet all the physical, social, and psychological needs of people displaced from outlying towns and villages and who have sought refuge in Zaporizhzhia. Initially, there was a lot of humanitarian aid, but this is diminishing.”
In a message to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, Bishop of Clifton Declan Lang declared the Church was committed to standing “against antisemitism, injustice and prejudice wherever it might be found”. Lang, who is chair of the Bishops’ Conference’s International Affairs department, observed: “Each one of us has the capacity for both immense good and for evil. As we take a moment to pause from our daily lives, let us reflect upon our own responsibility to prevent future genocides and consider how we view marginalised people in our communities.” Speaking on this year’s theme Ordinary People, Lang said the Holocaust had involved “ordinary people” who “fell victim to ordinary people perpetrating evil acts.”
Bishop of Nottingham Patrick McKinney said he is “saddened and deeply sorry that child sexual abuse occurred within Catholic organisations residing and operating within the Diocese of Nottingham in the 1970s”. He offered sympathy to the victims. He was referring to the “horrific crimes” of Steven McNally, who has been jailed for 26 years for historic sexual abuse of young boys in Nottingham. McNally, now aged 67, abused five children between 1974 and 1979 when he worked in Nottingham at a Nazareth House Children’s Home and as a Scout leader for the Bishop’s Own Troop.
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, has written to the Interfaith Network confirming that he is planning to withdraw government funding from it. Gove said on 19 January this is because the network has a trustee who is a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, which the British government refuses to engage with. The network has replied to Mr Gove, identifying the circumstances around the appointment and defending it.
Hot button issues were dealt with “honestly” at the Synodal Assembly in Rome according to Bishop Alan McGuckian who took part with Bishop Brendan Leahy on behalf of the Irish Church. In a Zoom dialogue with Sr Denise Boyle hosted by We Are Church Ireland, Bishop McGuckian was asked if he had highlighted the emphasis in the Irish National Synthesis on the role of women and the desire for their ordination to the diaconate and priesthood. The bishop said the National Synthesis did not represent the voice of all women. “In my diocese, many women stand with me in the tradition [on priesthood]”.
“Our world is enthralled by success but God is committed to fruitfulness,” Archbishop Dermot Farrell has said. In his homily for the diaconal ordination of Bro Antony Kurian at the Capuchin Friary in Dublin, Archbishop Farrell told the congregation, “The cross is not a success. The cross is fruitful.” Noting that as St Mark’s Gospel narrative progresses, Jesus becomes less powerful, he asked, “Should it surprise us then, that this is the road God is bringing the Church?” He reminded Bro Kurian that St Francis was a deacon, “an effective visible sign of Christ who came to serve rather than to be served”.
Knock Shrine received more than one million pilgrims in 2023, matching its pre-Covid numbers. “We were very happy with that and we are hoping it will be another busy year ahead,” Knock’s parish priest Fr Richard Gibbons told the Western People. He said that the shrine was working to install pods for a “youth village” on its grounds, to accommodate private retreats. Last summer, Fr Gibbons told The Tablet that the shrine needed to present itself to people who “might not know Knock is, or might not have heard about it since they were at school”.
James Macintyre, the journalist and biographer, has spoken of recent his brush with death on The Art of Dying Well podcast, describing the episode of severe pancreatitis he suffered last year that led to a five-week coma and four months in hospital. Placed in a medically-induced coma, he nearly died when doctors performed an emergency tracheostomy and eventually awoke to the devastating news that his mother had died while he was unconscious. “You drift through life, you think that you’re invincible at the age of 30 or 40, but it’s incredibly awakening and sobering to have a privilege of realising that you can come incredibly close to death." https://www.artofdyingwell.org/podcasts/
The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Michael Jackson, has paid tribute to Jesuit Fr Conor Harper following his death in Dublin. In a statement, Dr Jackson described the priest, who was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres as “a lifelong friend of the Church of Ireland and fearless in his expounding and living a gracious ecumenism”. He said Fr Harper was “known throughout Ireland and worldwide” for his advocacy of the cause Blessed John Sullivan SJ who “in so many ways lived the best of both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic traditions”.
The Bar Convent in York has launched a petition advocating the canonisation of the Venerable Mary Ward (1585-1645). More than 6,000 people have signed the online petition, under the social media hashtag #MaryWardForSaint. In 1609, Ward founded the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary which in 2003 changed its name to Congregatio Jesu. Now 1,400 CJ sisters reside in 24 countries spread across four continents. According to the Bar Convent, which describes itself as the UK’s “oldest living convent”, Ward was a” trail-blazing Yorkshire woman”.
Fr Stephen Ortiger OSB, a former abbot of Worth Abbey and headmaster of Worth School died on January 27, a fortnight after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Born in Delhi in 1940, he was educated at Worth preparatory school, Downside School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1961, he entered the novitiate at Worth, making a solemn profession of vows in 1965. Ordained a priest in 1967 he taught history at Worth School in West Sussex, serving as headmaster from 1983 to 1993. The founder of the Worth Abbey Retreat Centre, he was abbot from 1994-2002. He was titular abbot of Bury St Edmunds from 2002-2024. The Funeral Mass will take place at Worth Abbey on 17 February at 10.30am.
Loading ...
