Refugee crisis escalates on Sudan’s north-south borderlands Report, page 30


GREECE


Politicians blamed for national crisis


Jonathan Luxmoore


A GREEK Catholic Church leader has said the country is becoming a “colony” of the EU, as a result of the irresponsibility of the political class. “We now find ourselves in a truly difficult situation,” said Archbishop Nikolaos Foskolos of Athens. “From the moment we joined the single


market, our politicians have consumed all the money flowing in from the EU, instead of using it in line with EU directives for the country’s development.” The 74-year-old archbishop was speaking as talks continued in Brussels on a further


EUROPE EU is ‘more open than ever’ to Churches


A LEADING European Protestant has wel- comed growing co-operation between European institutions and Christian Churches, and predicted a growing advisory role for reli- gious communities, writes


Jonathan


Luxmoore. “I think we’re seeing a greater openness today than ever before,” said the Revd Rüdiger Noll, director of the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches. Mr Noll said the latest meeting between


political and religious leaders was triggered by the Arab uprisings and the European response, and by Europe’s financial and eco- nomic crisis. In both areas the EU presidents were very clear, he said, feeling that “what’s needed is a new value-based, community approach in Europe, rather than just an eco- nomic system”. “They’re turning to the Churches for this,” he explained. The German Evangelical pastor was speak-


■LIECHTENSTEIN: The head of the Catholic Church in one of the world’s smallest countries has said he will refuse to celebrate a National Day Mass in August, in protest against current government moves to separate Church and State. “Church-State separation


ing after a recent Brussels meeting between religious leaders and the Portuguese president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, as well as the European Council’s Belgian President, Herman van Rompuy, and the Polish President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek. Mr Noll said religious leaders now had reg- ular “institutionalised meetings” with senior European officials, including the EU’s rotating presidency, and “dialogue seminars” on issues of common concern, in line with Article 17 of the EU’s 2008 Lisbon Treaty, which guar- antees Churches an “open, transparent and regular dialogue” with EU institutions. “EU leaders have said they didn’t need the Lisbon Treaty to have a relationship with us,” said Mr Noll, whose conference, founded in 1959, groups 125 Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic Churches, and 40 associated organisations.


should be regulated by a Concordat and equivalent agreements with religious communities,” said Archbishop Wolfgang Haas of Vaduz in Liechtenstein, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. Catholics make up


four-fifths of the 36,000


inhabitants of Liechtenstein. Church-State separation would be established under the new Religion Act. Liechtenstein’s 25-member Landtag, or parliament, has also faced Catholic criticism for proposed bills to legalise abortion and same-sex partnerships.


25 June 2011 | THE TABLET | 29


EU bailout for the crisis-ridden Greek econ- omy, amid violent protests in Athens and elsewhere against austerity measures intro- duced by the centre-left Government of premier George Papandreou. In a Vatican Radio interview, Archbishop


Foskolos said the riots signalled rising dis- satisfaction with the “fraud and irresponsibility of the political class”, which had “cut the pen- sions of ordinary people while those who stole from the state never lost a cent”. “We are becoming an EU colony, where others will take decisions for us – for me as a Greek, this is a very sad prospect,” Archbishop Foskolos said. “For years, Greeks have treated the EU as a milch-cow, [that gives] money and demands nothing back.” The church leader added that the Catholic


Church, whose six dioceses and archdioceses claim 350,000 members in the predominantly Orthodox country, had extended its charity work and was currently providing food for over 500 people at two separate soup kitchens in the capital.


AUSTRALIA


Morris disputes paper’s heresy allegations


BISHOPWilliam Morris has taken a Catholic paper to task for accusing him of heresy in a leader about his forced resignation as Bishop of Toowoomba last month, writes Mark Brolly. In a letter to the Perth diocesan paper,


The Record, published in the weekly’s 16 June edition, Bishop Morris wrote that there were a number of untruths in the paper’s editorial and news article on 18 May about his resignation as leader of the Queensland Diocese. Bishop Morris wrote that in an 18 May editorial headed “A bishop that had to go”, the paper had over-stepped the line and delivered a personal attack. The editorial said in part: “The problem for Bishop Morris, in the end, was that he had to make a choice –his way or the Catholic Church way. The problem for the Church was how to handle a bishop well down the road in effectively promoting what might now reasonably be called heresy in his diocese.” The Record reported that Bishop Morris’ 2006 Advent pastoral letter stated that he would be prepared to ordain married priests and women priests “if Rome would allow it” and that, due to an ageing clergy, the Church should be open to recognising the validity of Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church Orders. He complained that the Perth paper was mistaken in stating that he was advocating such steps. The managing editor of The Record,


Peter Rosengren, told The Tablet that The Record’s report and editorial were both factually true and reasonable. ■ The ordinariate for former Anglicans in Australia will not be established until next year, the Australian bishops’ delegate for it, Bishop Peter Elliott, has announced.


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