News Briefing: from Britain and Ireland

Teacher murder report
A recent report into the killing of Leeds schoolteacher, Ann Maguire (above), who was stabbed to death by a student at Corpus Christi Catholic College in 2014, has concluded that “no one could have predicted or prevented the murder”.

The report, published by the Leeds Safeguarding Children’s Board, said that despite the threats made by 15-year-old Will Cornick “none of the young people in the class or friendship group had believed that he would carry out an assault”.

Mrs Maguire’s family, who have previously called for a full public inquiry, told the BBC they would need time to consider the findings before commenting, but added that the review “appears to be significantly different from an early draft report which we viewed some months ago”.

Forced adoptions apology
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has apologised for the role that the Catholic Church played in placing babies with adoptive families in the decades after the Second World War.

Before the law was changed in 1976 to give local authorities responsibility for adoptions, more than half a million adoptions were overseen by organisations with religious connections. Many of those involved babies born to young, unmarried mothers, some of whom have said they were pressured into giving up their children. This week Cardinal Vincent Nichols told an ITV documentary entitled Britain’s Adoption Scandal: Breaking The Silence that the practices of adoption agencies “reflected the social values at that time, and were sometimes lacking in care and sensitivity”.

His apology – “for the hurt caused by agencies acting in the name of the Catholic Church” – was aired on Wednesday and came as lawyers called for the launch of a public inquiry.

The Anglican Church in Wales has elected its first female bishop. The Revd Canon Joanna Penberthy (above) will be consecrated as Bishop of St Davids on 21 January, three years after the province opened the episcopacy to women. “This is an historic moment for the Church in Wales,” said Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, who made the announcement last week. “What is important to stress is that Joanna wasn’t elected because she is a woman but because she was deemed the best person to be a bishop.”

A Christian couple has been barred from adopting the two foster children already in their care because they expressed views about same-sex parenting. According to The Sunday Times, the unnamed couple from the Midlands told social services that they felt the children would benefit from having a mother and a father after finding out that a gay couple were being put forward as prospective parents. Social services said that this view could be “detrimental to the long-term needs of the children” and rejected an application made by the parents to adopt the children themselves. The couple has appealed the decision made by social services in a letter to their local council, saying they had “not expressed homophobic views, unless Christian beliefs are, by definition, homophobic”.

Jesuit Father Rodolfo Cardenal gave the keynote speech at this year’s Romero Lecture. Speaking in dioceses across the country last week, the Central American historian and biographer explained the similarities between the two martyred Salvadoran priests Rutilio Grande and Blessed Oscar Romero. “One cannot understand Romero without Rutilio,” his address began, “Rutilio and Archbishop Romero announced the Kingdom of God and tried to establish effective signs of its presence, in a reality dominated by economic exploitation, social oppression and state repression.” Fr Rutilio Grande was assassinated in March 1977 and is now on the road to beatification. Fr Cardenal chaired the History Commission that documented Rutilio’s story for the cause.

During a nine-day Westminster Diocese pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Cardinal Vincent Nichols praised Christians in Gaza for their strong faith. The Archbishop of Westminster called on the Virgin Mary to pray for the protection of the Christian community in the territory during Mass at the Holy Family Church in Gaza on Sunday. “The whole world is worried about the stability of the Middle East,” he added, describing the region as a place where both Christians and Muslims “are persecuted and murdered by the extremists”.

In a speech to Muslim and Christian leaders in Abu Dhabi last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said that “serious progress” must be made to ensure religious freedom in the region. He contrasted the integration of Muslim communities in British society with the marginalisation and “outright hostility” with which Christians were treated in many parts of the world, in particular the Middle East.

Opt-out review
The Scottish Government will consider new guidance to schools on whether older pupils (aged 16-18) can be allowed to opt out of religious observance without parental permission. Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) has been seeking a judicial review of the existing policy in light of a UN committee finding on the rights of the child, which highlighted mandatory religious observance in Scottish schools. HSS chief executive Gordon MacRae said: “There are many people of faith who also recognise that it’s not helpful to force young people to attend religious observance against their will.” Barbara Coupar, director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service, said that it was “recognised that when parents choose to send their children to a Catholic school they are choosing a school based on the heritage and traditions of the Church”.

The outgoing Bishop of London, Richard Chartres (above), has taken part in the first live-streamed service at the City of London’s oldest church, All Hallows by the Tower. The Eucharist was broadcast online in an effort to reach out to the elderly and house-bound.

The charity Catholics for AIDS Prevention & Support, is one of 13 agencies awarded a grant by Public Health England as part of its HIV Prevention Innovation Fund. The £28,500 award will be used to develop a film project, “Love Tenderly, Act Justly: Stories of HIV and Christianity ” for the internet.