Two priests from Colombia have become the first Tyburn Monks in history, and the newest male religious order in the Catholic Church.
The establishment of a male equivalent of the Tyburn Nuns follows the discovery of a 33-page document in the Tyburn Covent, London, in 2017, which sets out the vision of the order’s founder, Mother Marie Adèle Garnier, for an order of monks living under the Rule of St Benedict.
Fr Manuel Agudelo Marin and Fr Hector Nagles Santa were made postulants at a private ceremony in a chapel near Dijon, France.
Catholic academic slams IPPR
An academic and expert in Catholic Social Teaching, Philip Booth, has criticised a new report that says the British economy is not working and needs fundamental reform.
Professor Booth, director of Research and Public Engagement at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, said that the Institute for Public Policy Research’s report, “Prosperity and justice: A plan for the new economy”, was flawed because “its analysis is faulty”.
The IPPR’s report says that the “UK’s poor economic performance” can only be tackled by “incremental change” and calls for better wealth distribution.
The former principal of the now closed Heythrop College, John McDade, last week told the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain that the Church’s “New Evangelism” would not work.
Speaking at Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, he said that Catholicism had lost its persuasive power in a society that regards religion as “absolutist, assertive, divisive and irrational”.
Instead, McDade said that the sort of evangelism that would work was typified by a YouTube video of Dutchman Martin Hurkens entrancing the public in a Maastricht shopping centre and filling their faces with joy and hope, as he sang the song “You raise me up.”
Former Taoiseach John Bruton has called for the Irish Republic’s proposed abortion bill to be amended in order to better safeguard the rights of doctors opposed to abortion. In a keynote address to the Pro-Life Education dinner at the weekend, the former Fine Gael party leader said no one should be forced to be involved in ending a human life against their religious convictions by a threat to their employment, or of criminal sanctions.
Clogher cuts down on Masses
The Diocese of Clogher in Northern Ireland is to reduce the number of Sunday Masses celebrated in its parishes from 113 to 96 because of a decline in the number of priests. In some cases, churches will only have Mass on certain Sundays of each month. In a recent pastoral letter, the diocesan administrator, Mgr Joseph McGuinness, said that the ageing profile of the clergy, “makes it increasingly difficult to maintain the level of service to our people that has prevailed in the past”.
A government-funded pilot programme to repair and enhance England’s listed places of worship was launched on Monday by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, Michael Ellis, in Manchester. The £1.8m scheme is in response to Bernard Taylor’s review last year of the sustainability of England’s churches and cathedrals, which concluded that these buildings played a “vital role” in providing a sense of identity to communities.
The 18-month scheme will test the recommendations made in the Taylor review across Greater Manchester. The Bishop of Salford, John Arnold, said: “I am hopeful that the pilot will help to explore the idea that churches can serve the needs of wider audiences. Particularly as places of beauty, quiet and peace, they can provide much value to visitors of all faiths or none.”
A life-sized icon of Christ designed by students from Bethlehem is to hang from the ceiling of the nave of Lichfield Cathedral as part of a series of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The cross was to be dedicated at a Holy Cross Day service yesterday.
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