Quarter of Scots prison population is Catholic Report, page 38
Ordinariate ‘marks start of conversion of England’
Christopher Lamb
THE ORDINARIATE is the only hope for reunion between the Catholic Church and the Church of England and is an early sign of the possible conversion of England and Wales, according to the official newspaper of the Diocese of Lancaster. An editorial in The Catholic Voice of Lancaster states that the new vehicle for departing Anglicans to join the Catholic Church “represents the first, tentative shoots” for the conversion of England and that it “is the only viable opportunity for reunion [between the Churches], and should be embraced with enthusiasm and practical sup- port.” The editorial says that while dialogue between the Churches should continue, differences over contraception, abortion, divorce and remarriage, women priests, homosexuality, papal authority, Mary and the Eucharist mean there is a widening gulf between Churches. The comments have been challenged by the Anglican Bishop of Guildford, Christopher
Hill, who is a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (Arcic). “I don’t accept we are at the end of the road and the goal is the union of two Churches. Saying that the ordinariate is the answer to the Lord’s prayer for Christian unity is not right at all,” he said. Arcic III is due to open in Bose, Italy, in May, and one of the Catholic participants, Professor Paul Murray of the University of Durham, said: “Of course it is the case that there are riches for Catholics to receive from Anglican tradition and practice through the ordinariate, but we must be extremely cautious of suggestions that the provision for the establishment of ordinariates is in any way a replacement for or alternative to the continuing goal of full communion.” The Bishop of Lancaster, Michael Campbell, declined to comment as to whether he agreed with the points made. On Ash Wednesday, hundreds of lay Anglicans left their parishes in order to join the ordinariate. Sixty priests are estimated to be joining the group and among them is Fr Ian Hellyer, a father of eight from Devon.
Lord Guthrie opposes Libya no-fly zone
THE FORMER Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord (Charles) Guthrie, has warned against imposing a no-fly zone over Libya as the country descends into civil war, writes Christopher Lamb. Speaking to The Tablet prior to delivering
a lecture on Just War theory at Westminster Cathedral Hall, Lord Guthrie, a Catholic, said that the no-fly zone, under consideration by the international community to protect civil- ians from air strikes, would be unwise. “I think it’s something that must be thought about, most certainly. But I think the diffi- culties of doing it are much greater than some
■Two bishops have urged Catholics to return to confession during Lent, writes Sam Adams. In pastoral letters, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies, and the Bishop of Leeds, Arthur Roche, called on the faithful to make renewed and regular use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as they
people think and I don’t think that at the moment it should be done,” he said. In his lecture on Tuesday, Lord Guthrie addressed the question of Just War theory and how it can be applied to contemporary circumstances. He argued that interventions in the Falklands, the 1991 Gulf War, Sierra Leone and the Balkans and Kosovo were just causes. However, he said the war in Iraq was “much, much more doubtful” and that while Britain and America were right to enter Afghanistan initially, they should have left the country years ago. As a result, the army now had a moral duty to stay in Afghanistan.
prepare for Holy Week and Easter. Their suggestion follows a call by Archbishop Vincent Nichols for Catholics to give up meat on Friday during Lent and is another sign of a desire to return to traditional practices among the bishops in England and Wales. Bishop Mark Davies said it was his prayer that Catholics can “rediscover
confession” during this period. “We live in a society where we are used to hearing public confessions,” he said. “Yet when it comes to ourselves, we can find confessing our sins so humanly difficult even though the priest represents, not that often unforgiving public, but the only one who can save us from our sins.”
IN BRIEF
Tax system ‘unfair to family’ A bishop has called for the tax system to be made fairer after a survey found that the traditional UK family gets a worse deal than in any other developed country. The new study, carried out by tax analysts on behalf of the Christian charity Care, shows the tax burden on married couples with two children, where one spouse stays at home, is higher, as a percentage of the equivalent wage earned by an unmarried person, than elsewhere in the West. Bishop John Hine, chairman of the Committee for Marriage and Family Life for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said the Government needs to “look again” at the system in light of the report.
Nichols warns against neglect of RE Excluding religious education from the new English Baccalaureate could lead to a more unstable society, according to the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols. He said during a homily at Westminster Cathedral to mark the pres- ence of the Torch of St Benedict in London: “The risk of RE and RS being neglected in schools in this country if they are excluded from the core subjects of the proposed new Baccalaureate is one that must be carefully weighed. To fail to [include them] is to weaken the cause of peace at a crucial moment.”
Blasphemy laws reviled There should be no such thing as a crime against God, the historian Simon Schama argued in a lecture this week. Professor Schama, who presented the BBC docu- mentary series A History of Britain, claimed that tolerance was an “invidiously loaded term” as it presupposed the inferiority of a group that is to be tolerated. He was speaking in a lecture at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, that looked at the treatment of Jewish minorities among Christian and Muslim majorities.
Ash Wednesday vigil for peace Christian peace activists were due to hold a peace vigil on Ash Wednesday to protest against threats made by past and present governments to use nuclear weapons. Groups including Pax Christi, London Catholic Worker and Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament planned to gather outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence in London for the Ash Wednesday Gathering in Resistance to and Repentance of Nuclear War Preparations.
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