News briefings Britain and Ireland

The funeral Mass for Field-Marshal Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank was held at Westminster Cathedral on 15 October. Cardinal Nichols celebrated the liturgy where Canon Alexander Sherbrooke, a friend of Lord Guthrie. delivered the homily. Guthrie who died on 18 September aged 86, was chief of the general staff (1994-1997) and chief of the defence staff (1997-2001). HRH the Duke of Kent was among the 800 mourners. A 19-gun salute was fired in Guthrie’s honour by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery from First World War guns located at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea as his coffin left the cathedral after the Requiem to be placed in a hearse. 

Pupils in a Liverpool school met animals from a mobile zoo to learn about the values of St Francis of Assisi. Year seven pupils from St Francis of Assisi Academy in Liverpool were taught about the care of various species when Boo’s mobile zoo visited the school. The day began with a classroom reflection on Franciscan values of stewardship of creation and empathy in the light of world poverty and climate change. The headteacher, Teresa Bleasdale, said the school feast day on 4 October was a reminder of “the importance of kindness, generosity, and respect for all living things, values that St Francis lived by”.

Dr James Kelly has been appointed to the brand-new Clare and Hawley Chair in the History of Catholicism at the Centre for Catholic Studies of Durham University. The author of English Convents in Catholic Europe, c.1600–1800 and joint general editor of “The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism” Kelly recently published “The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction”. Kelly is Associate Professor in the History of Catholicism in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University and on 1 November will take up the chair. It is named after Mother Mary Clare, foundress of the Ursuline Convent at Brentwood, and Susan Hawley, foundress of the English Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre.

Coventry-based Ann Farr was given the Wilson/Hinks Peace Award during the World Week of Prayer for Peace on 12 October. It recognises individuals or groups of faith that further peace and reconciliation. As a teacher, Farr, former chair of Pax Christi England and Wales promoted peace education. She has also supported the Chapel of Unity in Coventry Cathedral, organising annual events for Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries and Coventry Peace Month. She has served on the Birmingham Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission and on Coventry Peace and Justice Group. In 2010 she became an ecumenical accompanier in Palestine and Israel and has co-organised exposure visits to Palestine with Pax Christi.

Fr Colin Carr OP has walked 106 kilometres to mark his 84th birthday and raise money for Mutemwa Care Centre in Zimbabwe, which tends to people suffering from leprosy, aids, epilepsy and other physical and mental disabilities and is supported by the John Bradburne Memorial Society. 

The National Churches Trust has granted more than £34,000 to seven parishes in Salford Diocese, including  St Mary’s, Manchester (The Hidden Gem), St Michael and St John’s, Clitheroe, St Mary and St John Southworth, Samlesbury in Preston, St James the Less, Rawtenstall, St Mary and St John, Pleasington, St Charles, Swinton and Lee House, which is home to the Church of St William of York in Thornley. Monsignor Anthony Kay, parish priest at St Mary’s said the grant “enabled the parish” to begin a phased approach to restoring the Grade II * listed building, and “specifically to undertake essential works to stop the ingress of water into the church” due to heavy rainfall.

 Pope Leo recognised Ingrid La Trobe from the Archdiocese of Southwark as a catechist along with 39 other catechists in Rome, making her the first English person to become an instituted catechist. The Ministry of Catechist was formalised by Pope Francis to recognise the role of the laity as teachers of the faith.

Baroness Monckton and Baroness Stroud will table amendments with other members of the House of Lords to overturn the abortion up to birth amendment (clause 191) to the Crime and Policing Bill and reinstate compulsory in-person consultations with a medical professional prior to abortions taking place at home. Clause 191 would change the law so that women would not be criminally liable for having an abortion after the 24-week limit. At the Second Reading of the Crime and Policing Bill on Thursday 16 October, 65 per cent of the 20 peers who took a position on clause 191 opposed it, according to Right to Life UK.

Hugh Allan O.Praem. will address clergy and laity as part of a “national conversation” on “reimagining baptism” on the 28 and 29 November. The days will explore how baptism is understood in the life of the Church today, aiming to “reawaken a baptismal mindset in our families and parishes” and “share the light of hope in our communities”.

A pair of silver reliquary caskets from Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire were due to be auctioned on Tuesday 21 October at Woolley and Wallis with an estimate of £6,000-£8,000. Created by the silversmith Anthony Nelme (1655-1723) in 1701, the caskets are rectangular in form, embossed with acanthus leaves and garland decoration, with covers adorned with winged cherub heads. Since the veneration of relics was unusual in eighteenth-century Protestant England, it is possible that they may have been made for Catholic clients. They were donated to Belmont Abbey’s novitiate chapel in the nineteenth century. 

The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT) held a gathering, attended by a member of the royal family, the Duke of Gloucester, at the Museum of the Order of St John on Monday 13 October to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ecumenical partnership of the Catholic Order of Malta and Anglican Order of St John to establish a care home in 1975. The OSJCT is now the second largest not-for-profit care provider in the UK, operating 66 care homes and fourteen extra care schemes, with more than 3,500 residents in its care. 

After thirty years of pilgrimage and service to the community, the Perth Italian Religious Association has announced that it will stop functioning. The ending of the association, also known as the Perth Italian Circle, was marked by a Mass of thanksgiving at Our Lady of Lourdes in Perth, celebrated by Mgr Aldo Angelosanto. The association has made substantial donations to charity over its life time. Its secretary Norma Giulanotti received the Medaglia d’Oro, the Italian community’s highest honour at an event in Glasgow hosted by the Italy’s honorary Consul General, Cav. Ronnie Convery. Miss Giulanotti said that integration had always been central to the Circle’s activities, with all members of the community welcome to take par, whether in pilgrimages or social events.

A 77-year-old former priest of East Anglia Diocese was sentenced by Cambridge Crown Court to eleven years in prison for child abuse. Dennis Finbow was already serving a six-year sentence for abusing a young girl in Peterborough.  He has now been sentenced in relation to a further 15 counts of indecent assault against five victims, two male and three female. Three of his victims were 8 and 9 years old at the time of the assault. The diocese said Finbow had not served in active ministry since 2001 and was laicised following his initial convictions in 2023. 

Five former pupils at St Colman’s College in Newry, Co Down, who allege they were abused as schoolboys between 1972 and 1984 by Fr Malachy Finegan, are to receive over £1.2 million in compensation. The men will also receive an apology from Archbishop Eamon Martin, who is administrator of Dromore Diocese. Separately, David Ryan, a survivor of abuse at the Spiritan-run Blackrock College in Dublin, has called for swifter redress from the order and a state apology. The Spiritans are to sell their lucrative farm holdings at Rockwell Co Tipperary to help fund the redress scheme.

Dom Kevin Taggart OSB, former abbot of the monastery of Our Lady Help of Christians, Worth in West Sussex died on 14 October at the age of 94. He was the last surviving member of the Benedictine community that founded Worth Abbey in 1957. In 2010, Taggart succeeded Dom Christopher Jamison to become fifth Abbot of Worth, a post he held until 2013. 

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