Cardinal Vincent Nichols and senior Muslim clerics launch a new Muslim Certificate in Religious Studies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols (pictured) and a number of senior Muslim clerics were on Tuesday launching a new Muslim Certificate in Religious Studies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and also opening a new interfaith prayer room.
The certificate is the product of long-standing interfaith dialogue and is aimed at those teaching religious education in Muslim schools. Imams Moulana Raza, Moulana Rizvi, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra and Moulana Sayed Razawi have been in discussions to develop the concept and St Mary’s is now working in consultation with academics from universities across the UK to develop the programme.
Cardinal Nichols, chancellor of the university, said: “I am delighted to welcome our distinguished guests to St Mary’s and pleased that they can join us in celebrating our continued commitment to promoting interfaith dialogue in the UK and ensuring that our university provides the most welcoming environment for students of all faiths.” In March the cardinal travelled to Rome with the four imams for an audience with the Pope.
Decline in trust
Trust in the clergy is declining, according to a survey conducted by Ipsos Mori as part of a long-running poll on trust in professions. About two thirds of those asked – 65 per cent – said they trusted senior clerics to tell the truth, compared with a high of about 85 per cent in 1983. The head of political research at Ipsos Mori, Gideon Skinner, said: “Groups such as professors, scientists, police, trade union officials and civil servants have become more trusted but the clergy are the notable loser.”
Faith workers join union
Clergy in need of help with stress are opting in growing numbers for union membership. The Unite union has seen a surge in its faith workers division in the past year. Almost 1,500 people, including Anglican priests, rabbis and a few imams are now members, a rise of almost 200 or 16 per cent on the year before. Internal disciplinary procedures and bullying were frequently expressed concerns.
The papal environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’, was the inspiration behind a series of events organised by the Jesuits in Oxford this week. Campion Hall hosted “Connecting Ecologies”, starting with a public lecture on Wednesday, followed by an academic symposium and a music recital. The master of Campion Hall, Fr James Hanvey SJ, told The Tablet: “The environment is a major issue of our time and Jesuits have been talking about it extensively. We thought the best way forward was to offer a lead by bringing together climatologists, scientists, ethicists, theologians and lawyers – to get people thinking in a connected way.”
Bible back
The oldest complete Latin Bible (above) in existence is returning to the UK for the first time in over 1,300 years. The giant Bible was produced in Northumbria by monks in 716 and on completion was taken to Italy as a gift for Pope Gregory II. It is currently housed in a library in Florence which has agreed to lend it to the British Library for a landmark exhibition in 2018 on the history, art, literature and culture of Anglo-Saxon England. Codex Amiatinus was one of three produced; one is lost, the other exists only in fragments. It took more than a thousand animal skins to make the manuscript’s parchment.
A priest based in North Yorkshire will this week come to the end of a three-month stint as a poet in residence at his former alma mater, Carlow College, in Ireland.
Fifty-four years after first entering the college as a seminarian, Fr Michael McCarthy returned to what is now a lay college, to run creative writing workshops and tutorials. Fr McCarthy, who started publishing poetry collections and children’s books in his fifties, told The Tablet he felt “honoured” to be back. “The first two weeks were a time of adjustment and felt rather strange,” he said, “as if my 72- year-old self and my 18-year-old self kept bumping into each other, in the daylight hours, and in my dreams … The culture in Ireland has changed hugely over the last half century, but human beings remain the same, with similar fears, hopes and expectations.”
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