News Briefing: from Britain and Ireland

Catholic and Anglican bishops undertook an historic pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome to celebrate deepening relations between the two Churches. Thirty-six bishops from 19 countries met in Canterbury, where on Saturday the Suffragan Bishop in Europe, David Hamid, preached at Mass in the cathedral’s Undercroft and the Catholic Archbishop-elect of Regina in Canada, Don Bolen, preached at the Anglican Sung Eucharist on Sunday morning. They were then due to travel to Rome for a service on Wednesday jointly led by Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

CSAN, the social action arm of the Church, has welcomed the Department for Work and Pensions’ announcement that it will stop re-testing chronically ill benefits claimants. Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green last week announced that people with chronic health conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, will no longer have to prove every six months that they remain unfit to work. Philip McCarthy, CSAN CEO, said: “It makes good sense to stop frequent reassessments for people with progressive conditions that won’t improve. It allows them to plan for the future without the fear their support may be taken away.”

Abuse victims have threatened to withdraw their support from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales, after its most senior lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC, was suspended and subsequently resigned. The IICSA said in a statement that it had concerns about aspects of Mr Emmerson’s leadership, but Andi Lavery, of Catholic survivor group White Flowers Alba, said Mr Emmerson was “collateral damage”. He praised Mr Emmerson’s support for victims, calling him “the solitary light in the inquiry”. The inquiry is chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, a former panellist, and the fourth person to be appointed to lead it after three other chairwomen stood down.

Backing for married priests
A survey of the Irish farming community’s views on priesthood found a large majority in favour of married priests and women priests. The Irish Examiner/ICMSA Farming Poll was conducted at seven agricultural shows around Ireland. It found that within the farming community, Mass attendance remains high – 69 per cent of respondents attend Mass weekly – while 82 per cent agreed that priests should be allowed to marry.

The poll also showed that young adults were more conservative on the issue of women priests, with 70 per cent of those aged 34 and under supporting such a move compared to 87 per cent of those aged 55 to 64. Fr Sean McDonagh, of the Association of Catholic Priests, said the findings showed that lay people of faith believe the present rule is “not functioning and want to see a change to allow it to function better.”
However, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, said that as women priests were not present in the Church’s tradition, it was “very difficult to justify”.

Priest to be tried for fraud
A priest is to stand trial next spring accused of swindling his church out of £90,000 raised for charity work and building maintenance. Fr John Reid denied two counts of fraud by abuse of position as parish priest when he appeared at a preliminary hearing at Durham Crown Court last week. He faces a seven-day trial starting on 2 May. The alleged offences cover his time at St Cuthbert’s, Chester-le-Street, Co Durham, between 2009 and 2013. Fr Reid, 69, withdrew from public ministry when investigations started in 2014.

Archbishop Justin Welby has paid tribute to the former Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who died last week. Welby, who met Peres on a trip to Israel in 2013, described a man who had “profound hope for a better future” and who worked for “justice and reconciliation”.

Peres, 93, served as prime minister twice and then as the country’s ninth president from 2007 to 2014. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role in negotiating the Oslo peace accord with the Palestinians a year earlier, a prize he shared with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was later assassinated, and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

A row has broken out between Archbishop Eamon Martin (above) and representatives of survivors of institutional abuse in Northern Ireland. The Primate of All Ireland issued a statement last week in which he said he was “somewhat taken aback” by comments made to a Stormont committee regarding his meeting last July with survivors Margaret McGuckin and Jon McCourt. The Archbishop had asked for and hosted the meeting. He said he was motivated to “hear directly from survivors regarding their views about redress”.

However, Mr McCourt, of Survivors North West, and Ms McGuckin, of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA), said that when they met Archbishop Martin they felt “belittled” and “fobbed off”.

According to the Archbishop, these sentiments had not been conveyed to him at the time of the meeting, or at any time since.

Funeral costs spiralling
A Catholic member of the Church Funeral Poverty Committee in Scotland has called for “aggressive action” on the spiralling cost of funerals and on the criteria required for a so-called “pauper’s funeral”. Fr Jeremy Bath, of St Philomena’s in Whitburn, West Lothian, said that costs of up £3,800, double the 2006 figure, as confirmed by a new Citizens Advice Scotland report, were causing serious hardship and distress to the bereaved. Fr Bath was part of a Churches’ delegation to meet Angela Constance MSP (above), Communities secretary in the Scottish government, requesting that new social security powers be used to change qualifications for help with funeral costs.

Sacred Heart tour
The relics of two French seventeenth-century saints, St Claude de la Colombiere SJ and St Margaret Mary Alacoque, will visit London in November. The relics – two bones – will be taken to a number of Catholic churches from 9 to 13 November. St Margaret Mary related visions that led to modern devotions to the Sacred Heart; St Claude was her confessor. The visit is the initiative of the Emmanuel Community – founded in France in 1972 – in partnership with the Jesuits at Farm Street Church and the Sisters of Tyburn Convent.

The Mass to welcome the relics will be celebrated by Bishop John Wilson at Farm Street Church on 9 November. They will visit Wormwood Scrubs Prison, Tyburn Convent, St John and St Elizabeth hospice and London Oratory School, Fulham.