Cardinal hopes visit will reinvigorate Catholics
Kathleen Nutt
BRITAIN’S MOSTsenior Catholic leader said he hoped that this week’s papal visit to Britain would lead to an increase in faith among Catholics. Cardinal Keith O’Brien said that in the way Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1982 had led to a huge programme of worship and reflection in parishes across the UK for many years, the same would be the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit.
“I think the immediate impact will be, as it was with John Paul II, a great enthusiasm, a fabulous outpouring of joy, a feeling of how can we remember it,” the cardinal told jour- nalists this week. He said that over the longer term Pope John Paul II’s visit had inspired Catholics to think about the fundamentals of their faith and that he believed the current papal visit would do likewise. The number of Catholics in Scotland fell from 813,000 to 695,116 between 1977 and
2008, while Mass attendance has dropped to around a quarter of the Catholic population. The cardinal’s views seemed to be at odds with those of Bishop Joseph Devine of Motherwell who said he did not believe the impact of Pope Benedict’s visit would be “great”. He said: “I think the visit will be inter- esting and quite important but I don’t anticipate that it will have a long-lasting effect.“ Meanwhile a Scottish bishop has questioned
Peter Tatchell’s credibility as a critic of the Church’s handling of clerical abuse given Mr Tatchell’s calls for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to 14. Bishop of Paisley Philip Tartaglia said Channel 4’s decision to broad- cast Mr Tatchell’s programme The Trouble with the Pope last Monday – in which he accused Pope Benedict of withholding details of sexual abuse by priests from the police – was “disturbing” given that the gay rights campaigner had said “not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful”.
Parishioners claim BBC branded them dissenters
PARISHIONERS HAVEcomplained that they were misrepresented in a BBC news report in which a supporter of women’s ordination was filmed in their church, writes Sam Adams. They say the woman, not a member of the parish, was “planted” in their congregation and that the report labelled them as dissenters from church teaching. The parishioners at St John Vianney’s in south Tottenham, London, were angered after their church was used as a backdrop for a report in news bulletins last Sunday about a BBC-commissioned poll. The survey by ComRes showed nearly half of the 500 Catholics questioned thought the Pope should drop his insistence on clerical celibacy while two-thirds said women should have more authority and status in the Church. In a letter of complaint to BBC director
general Mark Thompson, parishioner Barbara O’Driscoll said that by using footage of wor- shippers leaving Mass, religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott had given the impression that they shared the opinion of those who responded to the survey. She said Mr Pigott had told the parish priest, Fr Joe Ryan, that the report would include the views of parishioners on the papal visit, but that these interviews did not feature in the broadcast. Ms O’Driscoll said parishioners were mis- represented by the presence at the Mass, on Sunday, of Penelope Middelboe, a spokes- woman for Catholic Voices for Reform. She said Mr Pigott “escorted” her “to the front of the church and planted her in a prominent position [giving] the impression she was a parishioner and a spokesperson for the parish”.
School takes legal action against diocese
A TOP CATHOLICschool in west London has begun a legal battle to prevent the appoint- ment of four foundation governors by its local diocese, writes Elena Curti. A letter was sent out to parents of pupils at the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Holland Park this week to inform them of an injunction being sought against the Westminster Diocese Education Service (WDES) over the appointments. Signed by the school’s five parent governors,
the letter claims that the WDES is acting ille- gally and points out that none of the proposed new foundation governors are parents of chil- dren at the school. It singled out the
46 | THE TABLET | 18 September 2010
appointment of the WDES director, Paul Barber, as one of the new governors, saying he “would have a clear conflict of interest”. Mr Barber has been involved in a long- running row with the Cardinal Vaughan School over its admissions policy, and in particular the governors’ policy of giving preference to prospective pupils whose families were actively involved in their parishes. The WDES reported Cardinal Vaughan to the government- appointed schools adjudicator and in February the school backed down. A Westminster Diocese spokesman said the diocese was satisfied that all new appointments of gover- nors had been properly and lawfully made.
FROM THE ARCHIVE 50 YEARS AGO
While the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches … was considering a report … in which reference was made to the recent establishment by Pope John XXIII of a Secretariat to be responsible for relations with non-Catholics in the preparation for the Second Vatican Council, the President of that Secretariat, Cardinal Bea, was speaking to the press in his native town of Riedbohringen, in the Black Forest, about the nature of the task entrusted to him … The Cardinal said … that the Secretariat would include rep- resentatives of each country in which considerable numbers of Catholics and non-Catholic Christians live together. England, in the event, has three represen- tatives: the Archbishop of Liverpool is a member of the Secretariat, and Monsignor H. Francis Davis and Father Maurice Bevenot SJ are among its consultors. The task of the members and consultors of this Secretariat … will be to provide information about Protestantism in the country in which they live, and likewise to make sure that the various Protestant bodies are informed about the Catholic Church, this exchange of information leading gradually to a “dialogue”. The Cardinal said it was of the highest importance that “intercon- fessional dialogue, without any official character, such as has been conducted hitherto between Catholic and Protestant theologians”, shall continue. The Tablet, 17 September 1960
100 YEARS AGO
On Sunday last, the Bishop of Southwark made his annual visitation of the Franciscan Mission in the Kentish hop- fields. [At] Wateringbury … [he] was received on his arrival by a large body of hop-pickers, who unhorsed the carriage, and drew it amidst continual cheering to the Catholic Mission tent. Here his lordship celebrated Mass, assisted by Father Cuthbert, OSFC; the congregation of hop- pickers numbering nearly 800 souls. … In the afternoon accompanied by the Father Provincial of the Capuchin Franciscans, the bishop visited the mission stations at Canon Heath, East Farleigh, East Peckham, Benover, Collier-street, Horsmonden, Catts-place and Paddock- Wood – and at all these places had an enthusiastic reception. A touching incident in the visitation was his lordship’s reception at Catts-place, where, owing to local con- ditions, Mass has to be said on a plot of grass by the roadside; nevertheless, 150 Catholic hop-pickers had been present at Mass there in the morning. In the evening at most of the stations, sports for the hop- pickers were organised by the lay-helpers … The Tablet, 17 September, 1910
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