Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Lambeth Diary: Ecumenicals condemn 'with love'

The Archbishop of Canterbury is shown here at last night's ecumenical service chatting to Russia's Archbishop Hilarion and the Greek representative. Cardinal's Kasper and Diaz from Rome are not here yet. As we touch on at the end of our Sunday Times story today, the messages to Dr Rowan Williams from the guests were light incarnate, but this merely to sweeten the bitter pills within. Will the Anglican Communion take their medecine? I doubt it. The letters were helpfully printed at the end of the order of service, some extracts are below. See also Riazat Butt's excellent and fuller report in The Observer.

(Photo by George Conger. See his report in Christianity Today on the 'crack-up' of the Communion. Many thanks to Peter Crumpler and staff for finding a way at the final hour to get the grateful press into the service in the Big Top.)

Abortion and the value of life

As Parliament prepares today to debate whether or not to lower the abortion time limit, Birmingham's Archbishop Vincent Nichols is being taken to task by the head of SPUC. Archbishop Nichols appears to have given a radio interview  where he implied that the value of an unborn child might not be equivalent to that of a fully-fledged adult human.

Protestant or Catholic: Anglicans must decide

Hard words for Anglicans from the head of the Council for Christian Unity in Rome. Cardinal Walter Kasper has told the Catholic Herald that now, with Lambeth approaching, is the time for Anglicans to decide whether they are Catholic or Protestant. 'Ultimately, it is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong?' he said. 'Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox - or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions.' The genius of Anglicanism has always been its ability to straddle the divide, but maybe the Cardinal is right and the Communion's present difficulties reflect the impossibility of continuing to do this.

Photos: ACNS Rosenthal

'Benedict the Benign'

This picture of Pope Benedict XVI, one of many that have come into The Times that we've not found room for in the paper, is so typically American. More pictures below, including my favourite, one of a levitating pilgrim. My own views on this extraordinary visit were published in the paper yesterday. I was among those who trembled when Ratzinger the 'rottweiler' was elected Pope, and have been gladly amazed and confounded by his transformation into 'Benedict the Benign'. But as Christopher Hitchens notes in Slate [ht to Damian], when we religion journalists have finished genuflecting, we need to think a little harder about the continuing ramifications of the child sex abuse scandals, and why the Pope continues to shelter Cardinal Bernard Law. This blog by Bill O'Reilly typifies what many loyal and faithful Catholics think on this.

'Benedict the Benign'

This picture of Pope Benedict XVI, one of many that have come into The Times that we've not found room for in the paper, is so typically American. More pictures below, including my favourite, one of a levitating pilgrim. My own views on this extraordinary visit were published in the paper yesterday. I was among those who trembled when Ratzinger the 'rottweiler' was elected Pope, and have been gladly amazed and confounded by his transformation into 'Benedict the Benign'. But as Christopher Hitchens notes in Slate [ht to Damian], when we religion journalists have finished genuflecting, we need to think a little harder about the continuing ramifications of the child sex abuse scandals, and why the Pope continues to shelter Cardinal Bernard Law. This blog by Bill O'Reilly typifies what many loyal and faithful Catholics think on this.

Tony Blair: why we didn't 'do God'

Tony Blair spoke at Westminster Cathedral this evening. Our earlier reports are in this blog and this article. You can download the full speech here. But one thing of interest came early on, when he explained for the first time that I can recall why Alastair Campbell once said: 'We don't do God.'
 

Cistercian monks signed to Universal

These are the monks of the 12th century Cistercian Abbey of the Holy Cross, just outside Vienna. They are overflowing with vocations from young men. And they've just been signed to Universal, joining stablemates such as Amy Winehouse and Eminem. They'll be doing a CD soon of Gregorian chant. Universal advertised for some holy singers after noting the demand for Gregorian chant following the success of the XBox Halo game, which uses chant-type music as its soundtrack. The Cistercians were too busy entertaining Pope Benedict XVI on his visit last summer to respond, but they did post a couple of clips on YouTube which were seen by record company chiefs. The cash will go to the work of the monastery in being a permanent intercessory witness of the word of God in our secular world.

Cardinal: stop this 'Frankenstein' evil

'This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. In some other European countries one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal. I can say that the government has no mandate for these changes:  they were not in any election manifesto, nor do they enjoy widespread public support. The opposite has indeed taken place – the time allowed for debate in Parliament and indeed in the country at large has been shockingly short. One might say that in our country we are about to have a public government endorsement of experiments of Frankenstein proportion – without many people really being aware of what is going on.'

Read on for the full Easter Day sermon at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh to be delivered by Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Our news report is here.

Radical orthodoxy rising on 'the third way'

John Milbank, founder of the increasingly-influential Radical Orthodoxy movement, is here receiving communion from a Catholic Ukrainian bishop, Hlib Lonchyna, at a conference in Lviv in 2006. Check out the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at Nottingham which he heads, and you can also read the paper, Paul against Biopolitics, that he delivered at the Lviv ecumenical conference. Technically, of course, as an Anglican, he was not allowed to receive communion at a Catholic service. But perhaps that is partly what Radical Orthodoxy is about - remaining orthodox while breaking some of the rules.

(Update: Peter Carrell has written an interesting post picking up on a comment on this blog.)

Kidnapped Archbishop murdered

Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop in Iraq who was kidnapped last month, has been found dead. This was the outcome feared by all, including Persecuted Church, which had urged prayers for the missing Archbishop. Vatican Radio has a detailed report.

Pius XII 'assisted Zionist cause'

Was Pope Pius XII an anti-Semite or not? He has variously been branded Hitler's Pope and the Nazi Pope, and Benedict XVI has slowed down the beatification process and requested a review of the 3,500-page dossier. The relevant Vatican post-1922 archives have not yet been made available to scholars. Will they ever be? What has the Roman Catholic Church to fear? But while our own dear Cardinal Newman moves closer and closer to canonisation and, possibly, becoming a Doctor of the Church at the same time, it seems unlikely now that Pius XII will be beatified in the near future.

'Oremus et pro Iudaeis'

Under pressure from all those concerned to help put an end to centuries of Christian-inspired anti-Semitism, the Pope has amended the traditional Good Friday prayer for the 'conversion of the Jews' in the old Latin rite which he recently authorised for wider use. References to the 'blindness' and 'darkness' of the Jewish people in the 1962 Roman Missal have been excised, but the prayer still contains pleas for the Jewish people to recognise Jesus Christ and for Israel to be saved. The other prayers for heretics, pagans and schismatics also remain.  David Rosen  of IJCIC in Israel and David Gifford of the UK's Council of Christians and Jews were both 'saddened' and 'disappointed' by the new prayer. Read their comments in full at the end of the TimesOnline news story.

The Pope and the Devil

Speculation that the Pope is to set up 'exorcism squads' in each diocese to fight the growing problem of demonic possession, various sites in Rome and elsewhere was denied by the Vatican. These sites claimed he was going to urge bishops to mandate a 'stable' number of priests to do the  ceremonies.  (I've updated this post to take into account that this story was denied by the Vatican when it first surfaced in late December, as is apparent from the comments below. I missed it then, being on hols at the time. rg)

Jesuits warn against demonising Islam

After a week of discussions behind closed doors, Jesuits from around the world meeting in Rome will tomorrow elect their new leader, known as the 'Black Pope' because of the robes he wears, in contrast to the white worn by the Pope. To the regret of many, the Jesuits no longer wield the kind of power that earned them this sobriquet, but nevertheless were still warned by Cardinal Rode earlier this week to remember that they were the servants of the Church, and not the other way around. By coincidence, in London this evening, the order's British religious are launching their new online journal, which carries an interesting article calling for tolerance to be shown towards Islam by Australian Jesuit Father Dan Madigan. Read our report on the faith page.

Jesus 'saves'....

... but has he saved up enough to save Westminster Cathedral? This great building, not even finished yet, is appealing for £3 million to prevent its enforced closure in a decade or so. We report this in TimesOnline. Down there this morning for the launch of its £3 million restoration appeal, I was interested in the banner strapped across the door: 'Westminster Cathedral is in urgent need of your help.' This notice is so counter-intuitive in the UK, where normally the boards outside churches are keener to tell us how much we need their help, or Jesus' help. It reminded me of all the 'Jesus saves' jokes, like 'Jesus saves, Moses invests', or the old one about Satan wondering why he kept deleting files on his laptop by mistake. (If you don't know it, work it out...)

John Henry Newman to be saint 'soon'

This is an original nineteenth century photograph of Father John Henry Newman (1801-1890) taken in around 1865 by RW Thrupp of Birmingham, from the archives of the Birmingham Oratory, Edgbaston. It was one of three given to Pope Benedict XVI by outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair MP at the end of a his private audience with the Pope in the Vatican on Saturday 23 June 2007. Newman was created a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. The picture, used here courtesy of the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory, does indeed show Newman in a saintly pose and his numinous expression reminds me here of the late Cardinal Basil Hume, another saintly figure of the English Church.

Pope prepares to pounce as Anglican haemorrhage begins

Looks welcoming doesn't he? Temptingly so. And it seems as if he is preparing to be just that. Rorate Caeli reports that tomorrow, Pope Benedict XVI will, on the eve of the consistory for creating new cardinals, hold a meeting of the existing ones. And on the agenda is how to deal with the numerous requests for reception from Anglicans deserting their own fast-sinking ship. Meanwhile, in Canada tonight, the Anglican Network, headed by the back-from-retirement orthodox Bishop Donald Harvey is to announce shortly that it has formally left the Canada province and re-aligned as a fellowship under the Southern Cone's Gregory Venables. Another retired bishop, former Bishop of Brandon Malcolm Harding, has joined Bishop Harvey under the oversight of Archbishop Venables and is helping lead the exodus. As many as 20 parishes are expected to go with the Network. At least one priest anticipates immediate deposition and a lawsuit. Anglican Mainstream has outlined some of the expected repercussions.

'Better the Prophet's turban than the Pope's tiara'

This headline represents the traditional response among some of the older-generation Greek and Turkish Orthodox to attempts to heal the ancient schism of 1054. Which could be precisely why, as we report, Patriarch Bartholomew is so eager to 'climb into bed' with the Pope. Especially if it means leaving the Russians behind, making him the unrivalled 'Eastern Pope' and strengthening his hand immeasurably in dealing with Islam. (You can also read our story on VirtueOnline.)

Nuns sacked for refusing to render 'physical' services to priests

Three sisters of the Missionary Congregation of St Gemma Galgani have been sacked by their bishop for refusing to do render physical services to the priests in the parish. There appears to have been a clause in their contract stating that they had to serve as 'home helps' of the parish and assistant parish priests of Aprilia. I guess this is not what is meant by handmaiden's to the Lord, then. This post has stretched my Italian a little, so apologies for any errors, but Adista has the full story of these reluctant 'brides of Christ'.

JPII in 'trip hop' trance video

A composer who began his career writing the scores for Italian horror movies has set the life of the late John Paul II to music. The result, as we report on our online faith page, is a DVD described as 'trippy' by the Guardian and the latest in the succession begun by John, Paul and Ringo in The Spectator. Composer Simon Boswell describes it as 'trip hop'. My own description would be 'ambient'. Here are a couple of clips:

Blair will be a Catholic 'by Christmas'

As we reported earlier this year, and after a decade of speculation, Tony Blair is to convert at last. As usual his office are declining to comment on what they say is 'speculation'. But significantly, when I spoke to them today they did not trot out the usual line that he is 'still a member of the Church of England.' The story, reported this time by Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster, is being taken seriously by the media and clergy of London. It is in the Mail and the Telegraph this evening and Damian Thompson has blogged it. There are television vans camped outside Westminster Cathedal, where this week's Tablet is already on sale and where Blair is to be received in a few weeks, in Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's private chapel. And then there's my own news story as well! Musn't forget to mention that, nor indeed the Tony Blair freebie China junket where he got £237,000 for a speech that was by most accounts simply beautifully platitudinous.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia meets Pope

As we report, Pope Benedict XVI can be trusted to speak his mind when he meets King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today. But I doubt he'll go as far as Peter Tatchell on the King's earlier visit to Britain. Tatchell said: 'As well as flogging and executing gay people, Saudi leaders are guilty of detention without trial, torture and the public beheading of women who have sex outside of marriage. Migrant workers are de facto slaves. The media is heavily censored. Trade unions, political parties and non-Muslim religions are banned. The country is a theocratic police state.'

Cherie Blair: in time for a new Reformation

Cherie Blair's comments today , that we report on TimesOnline , make me wonder whether it is time our world had a new Reformation, not just in Christianity, but in Islam. Her full speech is now online. A friend has sent me this musical reflection on the last one:

Vatican doesn't buy football club

My new Facebook friend Ronnie Convery has drawn my attention to an amusing tale that I wanted to share with all of you. In a declaration released yesterday afternoon, according to VIS, Holy See Press Office Director Father Federico Lombardi S.J. denied recent reports that the Vatican or the Italian Episcopal Conference have bought the Italian football team Ancona, which plays in the third division. (Update: Matthew Syed has covered it in our Thunderer column in today's Times, Thursday. And the Pope actually had an audience with the club, as the International Herald Tribune reports.)

Nuns on the run

Two stories concerning women religious this week are examples of disputes that must be highly distressing for those involved, but appear highly amusing to an increasingly secular world. The first, reported for The Times by Sarah Delaney in Rome, concerned the three nuns in Italy who ended up in a fight after two of them turned on their Mother Superior for her 'authoritarian ways'.

An end to 'godliness' at Oxford

  As we report today, Sir Colin Lucas' review of the seven permanent private halls at Oxford is about to be published in the university's Gazette. And it is not good news in the long run for religion at Oxford, least of all for evangelical Christianity. Whatever the strength of the Global South on the world Anglican stage, the review signals that England's intellectual elite are firmly on the side of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or at least Rowan Williams as he was when he was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford. We've obtained a copy of the review. Its most important recommendations are that Wycliffe and St Stephen's are to lose their school-leaver undergraduates, which the review admits will have a 'critical' effect on the student body in the theology faculty but which also has huge symbolic significance as well. All seven colleges - two Anglican, one Baptist and four Roman Catholic - are to have their licences reviewed and ultimately removed if they do not fall in line with Oxford's tradition of a liberal education. Richard Dawkins and all who wish to see an end to theology at Oxford will be quite satisfied I think. For a hint of how this will end, see the Philosophy blog. This picture shows the Lollards' John Badby being burnt at the stake. Lollardy grew out of the teachings of John Wycliffe. (Update 27/9: the review has now been published in the university Gazette.)

Is covenant a route to Papacy?

Growing Together in Unity and Mission has been published by ACNS along with accompanying commentaries. That by Bernard Longley, an auxiliary in Westminster, is particularly interesting. He floats an idea that might explain why my (admittedly slightly over excited) reporting of this document in the midst of the Primates' meeting at Dar es Salaam back in February provoked such a flurry of hostile comment. Bishop Longley says that some Anglicans will have concerns that the proposed Covenant will need a jurisdictional framework 'and that this might fall within the pastoral care of a re-received ministry of universal primacy.' In such circumstances, he asks, how might the 'legitimate patrimony' of Anglicans be honoured, preserved and promoted? David Sims at Covenant Communion, the new Anglican body aimed at encouraging reconciliation through the covenant, has already picked up on this.

The tallest mitre in the world

This is Bishop Edward Slattery of Oklahoma, processing out of Pontifical High Mass at Oxford last week. The New Liturgical Movement has more pictures and a video from the Latin Mass Society conference at which 47 young and not-so-young priests were trained in how to say the traditional or "extraordinary" rite, recently freed for wider use throughout the Church by Pope Benededict XVI. Bishop Slattery is wearing a set of pre-Vatican II vestments topped of by what is said to be the tallest mitre in the world. 'A vision of heaven earth,' John Medlin of the LMS told me.

Atonement

Yes, I've changed the title. This is because Atonement, the film based on the book, is topping the search list of Times Online and I want to piggy back on Ian McEwan's novel, which I didn't enjoy, to get my own readers back again and some new ones after the break. Previously this post, which is actually about atonement for our environmental sins and the launch of a new Catholic Eco-Confessional by Dom Anthony Sutch, was titled 'I'm begging you please, on my knees.' This is the phrase that has supplanted the ubiquitous 'I need' among five-year-olds in Kew. I can't resist it, perhaps because of the Prayer Book overtones of kneeling humbly on my knees to confess my sins. But now a new form of guilt has come into my life, a guilt that I have in common with surely every other literate Westerner. It is the guilt of living an eco-unfriendly lifestyle, a guilt reinforced by the 'green lies' we all tell to convince our friends and neighbours we are greener than we are as our green eyes take in their water butts, solar panels, their city-bonus-black £40000 Lexus 3.0 congestion-charge free hybrid 4by4's and their dim, expensive (like them) but ultimately eco-lightbulbs.

Amnesty's abortive move

From one perspective, the bold step taken by Amnesty International earlier this month in supporting abortion in particular circumstances, such as where a woman caught up in a war is pregnant through rape, is to be admired. From another, perhaps more serious point of view, it could be regretted. As we report on our faith page online, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the most senior Catholic bishop in Scotland, is the latest to resign from Amnesty after more than 40 years as a member. The Bishop of East Anglia went a few days ago.

Latin Mass 'Indult' Leaked

Whispers in the Loggia has the Latin text of the Motu Proprio and has published an analysis. Christopher Gillibrand has translated the first two paragraphs for readers of this blog. There will be much rejoicing in traditionalist circles over this. Expect the Lefebvrists to be welcomed back into the fold soon. B16 - a man who knows how to do unity. We Anglicans could learn a thing or two I fear. Read the opening pars of the indult below.

Tony Blair's catholic tastes

Guest blog by Richard Owen, Rome

Goodness, what a media frenzy over Tony Blair's plans to convert to Roman Catholicism. It has been known for months, if not years, that he was as close to being a Catholic as an Anglican be: it was also known that he would meet the Pope last Saturday. Put the two together and - according to some of the more excitable headlines in the UK press at the end of last week - you have a "Pope to bless Blair's conversion" story. (Update: We ran this letter from the head of press at the Vatican this week. Richard Owen responds, at the end, below.)

Another seedling going over to Rome?

It's the annual Catholic Communications Day Mass today in London and I've been asked to do the Bidding Prayers. Yes really! I'll update this post this evening with a report on who was there, what was said, all the printable gossip. But it does seem one of those odd (Godly?) coincidences that this be the day we run our story, based on a remark made by Father Michael Seed at a recent memorial service, about Tony Blair becoming a Catholic. (Cartoon from unkemptwomen) (Update: In the Church Times media column of 25 May Joe Jenkins is almost as amusing as Andrew Brown but sadly has made an error. No 'letters of apology' have been sent to Michael Seed, the Blairs or the Cardinal, nor will they be.)

Latest on Tridentine Mass

This picture shows Pope Benedict XVI meeting Alice von Hildebrand in a private audience at the Vatican on 26 March. That was when he indicated, as we report today, that the indult, or permission, for universal celebration of the Tridentine Mass could be published this month. That meeting did however take place before the German bishops sent a seven-page letter outlining their objections. Another person who witnessed the audience tells me that when she asked Pope Benedict XVI to grant the indult, his precise reponse to her was: 'Something is coming in May.' (Update: confirmation here from Cardinal Hoyos.)

Pope canonises Brazil's first saint

The Pope has canonised Brazil's first native-born saint, Galvao, an 18th-century monk who handed out tiny rice pills inscribed with prayers. Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country, home to more than 120 million of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics. Observers there have described the canonisation as "huge". You can watch our slideshow on TimesOnline and see more links on our faith page. This picture shows him speaking to thousands of young Catholics, instructing them to avoid premarital sex, remain faithful once they are married and to promote life from 'its beginning to natural end'.

Dog plus God leads to dog choler

Owning a dog can increase the stress of a Catholic priest so much that it sends him over the edge, according to new research. Bangor university researchers who set out to see if owning a pet could ease the loneliness of the celibate priest were astonished to discover that the burdens of caring for a pet actually made priestly stress even worse. More than 1,400 Roman Catholic priests were surveyed to discover if  “companion animals” could serve as an antidote to the “personal and social loneliness of single celibate men.”  (Pic from pet expert Celia Haddon.) The story has been picked up around the world, including by Spiritual Seeds in Italy.

BBC celebrates gay Mass

As we report today, the BBC's Sunday Service on Radio 4 tomorrow morning will be a “gay Mass” from San Francisco as part of Radio 4’s Sunday Worship programme. Anglican Mainstream is among those to condemn the broadcast, describing it as a broadcast that "will knowingly cause offence to the overwhelming majority of Christians." San Francisco is home to the renowned Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, two of whom are pictured here. (Update: a number of posters have understandably queried why I've included the infamous Sisters here. I should have explained in the original post and apologise for not doing so. It is because, according to the Mail report, until stopped by the Archbishop of SF, they regularly staged "lewd and irreverent bingo nights" on the Holy Redeemer church premises, handing out prizes of a "sexual" nature. More details also in this story, which makes it clear that the RC SF diocese has in no way endorsed the "Mass".rg)

Climate change in Rome

Guest blog by Richard Owen

An interesting two day Vatican conference on climate change ended yesterday, Friday, with some 80 participants, including both clergy and scientists. It was opened by Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and attended among others by the Rt Reverend James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool (Anglican) and the Rt Reverend Patrick Kelly, Archbishop of Liverpool (Catholic), as well as David Miliband, the remarkably young looking Secretary of State for the Environment. He is 41 and a possible future Foreign Minister under Gordon Brown, or so they say.