NOTEBOOK Rich pickings?
THEY ARE already schooled in helping to raise millions of pounds for dioceses in Scotland and England. Now, Community Counselling Services (CCS), an American fund-raising firm, appears to be on the verge of taking on a major new project for the Archdiocese of Westminster. Over the past few months, CCS has been consulting with priests, deacons and lay leaders on how best to go about raising money for the diocese. “We were asked if we knew someone who could give a one-off donation of a) £20,000, b) £15,000, c) £5,000-10,000 and d) how about you, Father?” said one priest who took part.
It is believed that the target figure is £10 million although a statement from the diocese said no decision has been made by the arch- diocese as to whether or not a campaign will take place. According to a letter from Archbishop Vincent Nichols to priests last month, funds are needed to support parishes, train priests, care for elderly clergy and work for social justice. CCS, which has offices in nine major US
cities, as well as in Canada, Britain and Ireland, does not charge commission but is paid a set fee.
Popemobile goes green IT HAD TO come sooner or later: Pope Benedict is to be presented with an eco- popemobile. The vehicle is being hand-built for him at the Mercedes works at Sindelfingen, in the southern Germany state of Baden- Württemberg. The car is a hybrid with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which enables it to travel at up to 30 km per hour emission-free. It can, however, switch to a petrol engine should there be a danger of attack and a speedy escape become imperative. The Ökopapamobile (as it is being called
in Germany) will have the usual bullet-proof glass top and is pearly white like its numerous predecessors. Mercedes has supplied vehicles for pontiffs for more than 80 years. In Rome, Pope Benedict’s press spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the papamobile is on order, but while reports in the German media suggest that Pope Benedict will use his new “company car” on his visit to Germany in September, Fr Lombardi was not so hopeful. He thinks the vehicle will not be ready until the end of the year.
So much for laïcité … DURING THE French Revolution, Sr Marguerite Rutan was accused of “attempting to corrupt and to weaken the republican and revolutionary spirit” and was promptly exe- cuted by guillotine in 1794. Now, in an event
18 | THE TABLET | 25 June 2011
that would have had Maximilien Robespierre and Georges Danton turning in their graves, the Daughter of Charity has been beatified as a martyr. The ceremony, which took place last Sunday at Dax, in south-west France, was attended by so many people that the town’s amphitheatre had to be used rather than the local cathedral. Despite the celebrations, an activist group, Laïcité 40, criticised the atten- dance of the French Justice Minister, Michel Mercier, at the ceremony. The new blessed, who was born in Metz in
1736, was appointed head of the Hospital of St Eutrope of Dax in 1779, where she opened a school and worked with orphans.
Glittering gathering BRITISH Museum director Neil MacGregor won huge acclaim for his recent BBC Radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects; its genius, broadcaster Edward Stourton told a reception at the museum on Tuesday night, was to let you into the minds of people from other ages. And that, said Stourton, is also the achievement of the museum’s latest exhi- bition, “Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe”. An eclectic gathering attended the opening
on Tuesday, including historians Eamon Duffy and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke, former Conservative politician and headhunter Baroness (Virginia) Bottomley, writer A.N. Wilson, novelist Colm Tóibín, comedian Frank Skinner, the Earl and Countess of St Andrews, financier Michael Hintze, former BP chief Lord (John) Browne, the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and Archbishop Vincent Nichols. It is the first time that a show at the British Museum has been funded by an indi- vidual. Hedge-funder and Catholic philanthropist John Studzinski, the sponsor, told dinner guests later that he was delighted that the curator fixed the opening date for
Midsummer’s Day; while the pagans danced at Stonehenge, he said, people had gathered to see a remarkable collection of items of Christian faith and he was convinced many people would be deeply moved by them. Might a visitor be so moved that they might want their own reliquary at home? The museum’s shop can’t provide one, but it has produced a fridge magnet of a sixteenth- century Dutch reliquary containing a relic of an unknown saint, probably a companion of St Ursula. Just the thing when you reach for a pint of milk.
(See Neil MacGregor, page 9.)
Play it again FORGIVE US our short memories. A reader has pointed out that this week’s performance of Karol Wojtyla’s play, The Jeweller’s Shop, at the Leicester Square Theatre will not be his first in London’s West End, as we suggested last week. Fr Oliver Skelly, of County Westmeath,
Ireland, pointed out that the then future Pope’s play was staged at the old Westminster Theatre from March to May 1982, the same month that John Paul II visited Britain. The cast included Hannah Gordon and Lalla Ward, who earlier had appeared in Dr Who and went on to marry the atheist high priest Richard Dawkins.
Hallowed ground STUDENTS AND staff at Allen Hall semi- nary in Chelsea have watched in awe as a magnificent Tudor-style palace has gone up next door. Crosby Hall has been described as Britain’s grandest self-build project and has been constructed on the site of St Thomas More’s house and garden next to the Thames. Its creator is Christopher Moran, a financier with a fortune estimated at £234 million who bought the site for £100,000 in 1988. His new mansion is now complete and sits alongside an original Tudor building on the site that gives the palace its name and which has its own separate association with St Thomas More. The old Crosby Hall dates from 1466 and was originally located in Bishopsgate in the City of London until it was moved to Chelsea brick by brick in 1910. The great hall was once owned by the saint and some believe he wrote Utopia there. The rector of Allen Hall, Mgr Mark
O’Toole, told us this week that he and his colleagues had been watching the development of the historic site with interest, saying: “We ourselves occupy part of the garden of St Thomas More’s original house, and we are very pleased to encourage anything that perpetuates and builds on his memory here in Chelsea.”
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