News Briefing: Britain and Ireland

The Catholic composer Roxanna Panufnik has been appointed to the Order of the British Empire (OBE)  in the King’s birthday honours for outstanding services to music and charity. Panufnik was commissioned by King Charles III to compose a Sanctus for double choir and organ for his service of Coronation in 2023. Panufnik, interviewed in The Tablet earlier this month, described the composition, later orchestrated and performed at the BBC Proms, as “festive and glittering”. Renowned for her choral and operatic pieces, Panufnik composed the Westminster Mass for the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume in 1997. Earlier this June, the premiere of Panufnik’s concerto Lunar Solar was performed at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Monsignor Peter O’Reilly, Vicar General of the Diocese of Clogher and parish priest of Enniskillen, has been included in the King’s Birthday Honours List and appointed OBE for services to reconciliation and peace building. The Church of Ireland Dean of St Macartin’s Cathedral in Enniskillen, Rev Kenneth Hall was also named. Paying tribute to the two clerics Bishop Larry Duffy of Clogher said, “As Christians, all of us are called to be beacons of peace in our troubled world. These two men, along with those whom they work with and encounter, are shining examples of that.”

The Lay Community of St Benedict is inviting parishes, monasteries and Christian communities to take part in St Benedict Week, marking the feast of Benedict on 11 July. “Awaken” is the theme of the 2026  week, comprising online talks and praying the Daily Office, podcasts, blogs, in-person community gatherings and two study days in Norwich at the University of East Anglia and Norwich Cathedral. The week runs from 6 to 19 July.

The Catholic Union’s Tech Group held its inaugural meeting on Wednesday 24 June. The group has been convened to look at developments in technology, in particular AI.

The Archbishop of Westminster, Richard Moth marked his first visit to Parliament since his installation by celebrating Mass in the Chapel of Saint Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster.

Christopher Brolly SJ was ordained to the priesthood on 13 June by the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, Stephen Wright. Born in Hexham, Brolly attended schools in Northumberland before taking a degree in history from King’s College London and later training  as a teacher. He has lived, studied and offered ministry in Britain, France and the United States since entering the Society of Jesus in 2015. He is currently completing his theological studies at Boston College, Massachusetts. He spent the night before his ordination with his brother’s family, later saying at his ordination Mass: “I may well be the first person about to be ordained who has spent the morning bouncing on a trampoline with an eight-year-old!”

The Anglican Diocese of Bangor is holding a festival on Ynys Môn (Anglesey) from 3-5 July celebrating the pilgrimage route of two sixth-century saints who founded monasteries on Anglesey: St Cybi, a Cornish bishop, and St Seiriol, who lived as a hermit on Puffin Island. The festival will include walks, talks about the religious history of Anglesey, music and heritage events held in churches, as well as a blessing at St Seiriol’s Well. The 57-mile pilgrimage route connects churches across the island, from St Cybi’s in Holyhead to the Priory Church of St Seiriol at Penmon, and passes through some of Anglesey’s most important religious, historic and natural landmarks.

For London Climate Action Week, Cafod organised a panel on the impact of the gold market on climate change and biodiversity, held at St George’s Cathedral on 25 June, in partnership with Spotlight on Corruption, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, Mighty Earth, the FACT Coalition, and the European forest conservation charity Fern. Exacerbated by geopolitical instability, gold is the leading mineral driver of deforestation, fuelling climate change and biodiversity loss. The panellists included a representative of Christian environmental charity A Rocha Ghana and of the Peruvian Indigenous Asháninka community, along with politicians and senior representatives of banks, including international development minister Anneliese Dodds MP.

Building work has begun on the site of the Good Habit Café run by the Dominicans of Blackfriars in Oxford. Due for completion this August, the café will sell coffee, cakes and light meals and takeaway fare for the public by day and operate as a dining and events space for Blackfriars’ students and community in the evening. 

A Scottish football fan is helping bring the World Cup to life for a group of New York nuns. John Patrick Mallon, co-founder of Catholic media company Sancta Familia Media, is staying with the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm in New York whilst travelling to watch Scotland’s World Cup games. Thanking them for their “kind and generous hospitality”, Mallon shared a clip of the nuns joining in with Scottish football chants such as “No Scotland, no party” and “Coming Down the Road”, which has gone viral. The Order was founded in 1929 by Venerable Mother Angeline, who was born in Scotland.

Magnifica Humanitas is “an encyclical born from listening” Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Culture Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, has said. At a webinar, “Unpacking Magnifica Humanitas”, hosted by the Loyola Institute, Bishop Tighe said Pope Leo was encouraging people not to be frightened of AI but to discover their agency, and create an environment in which the biases in algorithms and this developing technology are held to account. It was also asking, he said, what it means to be human and what makes life worthwhile. Professor Massimo Faggioli discussed the political impact and noted how AI is changing war in places like the Middle East and Ukraine. 

Bishop Ger Nash led ceremonies in Co Wexford to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Presentation Sisters in Ireland. In the grounds of St Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, the Bishop of Ferns and Sr Ann-Marie Quinn PBVM and Sr Imelda Wickham PBVM planted a commemorative tree to mark Venerable Nano Nagle’s first foundation in Cork in December 1775. It also marked the arrival of the order in Enniscorthy 200 years ago in July 1826. In 2000, Nano Nagle was named ‘Irish Woman of the Millennium’ for her work in female education. In 2013 Pope Francis recognised her heroic life of virtue.

There was a small decrease in the number of new allegations of clerical abuse notified to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland last year. Publishing its annual report NBSCCCI CEO Aidan Gordon said, “The total was 178 over the nine months covered by the report. The previous full year figure was 385 in 2024/25.” The 2025 report covers a nine-month period from 1st April 2025 to 31st December 2025 in order to allow the National Board adjust its reporting timeframes towards a January to December calendar next year, Dr Keith Holmes, Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist explained. As in previous years, the vast majority of the allegations relate to the period from 1960 to 1999. Only four relate to the period post-2000. Another 10 did not have a definite timeframe attributed to them.

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