News Briefing: from Britain and Ireland

Casey ‘did much good’
Bishops, more than 100 priests, relatives and the President of Ireland were among the 1,600 people who attended the funeral of Bishop Eamonn Casey in the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and Saint Nicholas in Galway last week.

In his homily, Bishop Brendan Kelly of Achonry acknowledged that the former Bishop of Galway and chairman of Trócaire “did much good”. On the national and international scene, he was “a defender of the rights of people who were oppressed and poor”. But, he added, the “emergence of other hidden realities in his life, beginning with the fact that he had a son, Peter, were profoundly upsetting for the Church and for people in general”. This had hurt and wounded some people, he acknowledged. Peter Murphy, who paid tribute to his late father in a statement issued along with other relatives, was not at the funeral. After the funeral Mass, Bishop Casey was interred in the Cathedral crypt.

College rescue package
A month after Ireland’s Cistercian College, Roscrea announced it would close in 2018, a rescue package and restructuring plan have been put in place by a group of parents and past pupils that will enable the 112-year-old school to remain open. The package is funded by personal financial pledges totalling €1.5 million. The Save Cistercian College Roscrea Action Group (CCR) is working on increasing enrolments, which had fallen by 45 per cent over 10 years. The school has 167 pupils. “This is one of the most joyous days in the history of Cistercian College,” Dom Richard Purcell, Abbot of Mount St Joseph Abbey, said.

Key job for African archbishop
An archbishop from Burundi will become the Archbishop of Canterbury’s first African representative to the Holy See and director of the Anglican Centre in Rome.

Lambeth Palace on Friday announced the appointment of the former head of the Anglican Church in Burundi, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi (above left) – a move that underlines the importance that Archbishop Justin Welby (right) places on relations with the Catholic Church. The new representative succeeds a New Zealander, Archbishop David Moxon.  

“The appointment of a former primate to this post for the second time running demonstrates the importance I attach to developing the increasingly close relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church,” Archbishop Welby said.

Priest shortage warning
The departing papal nuncio to Ireland has warned that the crisis in vocations to the priesthood has left the Irish Church at the edge of a “cliff”, poised for freefall. Speaking to the Irish Times, Archbishop Charles Brown, who leaves for Albania in April, described the age profile of serving priests and the lack of vocations as alarming. “We’ve a lot of priests in Ireland who are in their 70s, who are working right now. Some are in their 80s. In 10 years they’re not going to be working. We’re at the edge of a ... cliff.”

He defended the selection process that had appointed 11 new bishops in the Irish Church during his five years as nuncio, insisting that “the Pope appointed them”.

A so-called Marriage Tribunal Roadshow is to tour the Diocese of East Anglia to promote church teaching and help Catholics whose marriages have broken down.

Information evenings run by the diocesan tribunal are to be held in each deanery in the diocese, including Cambridge, Peterborough and at Norwich Cathedral - from 21 March and continuing into May.

Royals’ date with Francis set
Clarence House has confirmed that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will meet Pope Francis in Rome on 4 April and tour the Vatican. The trip will form part of a week-long tour of Europe that begins in Romania and ends in Vienna on 6 April. They will also visit the Italian town of Amatrice, which was badly damaged by an earthquake in 2016.

Sciaf famine appeal
The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (Sciaf) has launched an urgent appeal to help get food and water to thousands of people hit by severe famine in East Africa. The UN warned last week that 20 million people could face starvation.

An online petition is calling on Cardinal Vincent Nichols to prevent the destruction in the Diocese of Salford of a masterpiece by a notable Jewish artist. Georg Mayer-Marton’s mosaic of the Crucifixion, installed in the Holy Rosary church in the 1950s, may be lost as churches close across the north-west. Its destruction, the arts heritage body the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association warned, would be “a very regrettable loss, if not iconoclasm”.

Church of England Dean Jeffrey John has accused the Anglican Church in Wales of homophobia, saying that he was blocked from becoming the next Bishop of Llandaff on account of his sexuality. The Dean of St Albans, who has been in a civil partnership with another Church of England clergyman since 2006, claimed that the bishops considering his appointment had said they were just “too exhausted” to deal with the problems it would cause. This was “not a moral or legal basis on which to exclude me”, the dean said. A Church in Wales spokeswoman said that the bishops “strongly deny allegations of homophobia”.