Rosary Prayers For October

Invocation to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary 

This short invocation to Mary, the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, is an appropriate prayer for the Month of the Holy Rosary, as well as for reciting at the end of the rosary.

To Our Lady of the Rosary

In this prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary, we ask the Virgin Mary to help us to cultivate a habit of interior prayer through the daily recitation of the rosary. 

This is the object of all of our prayers: to arrive at the point where we can "pray without ceasing," as Saint Paul tells us to do.

To the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary

This theologically rich prayer to Mary, the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, calls to mind our Blessed Mother's protection of the Church - as, for example, at the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571), when the Christian fleet defeated the Ottoman Muslims through the intercession of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.

For the Crusade of the Family Rosary

This prayer for the Crusade of the Family Rosary was written by Francis Cardinal Spellman, the cardinal archbishop of the archdiocese of New York in the mid-20th century. 

The Family Rosary Crusade was originally an organization, founded by Fr. Patrick Peyton, dedicated to convincing families to recite the rosary together daily.

Today, we can pray this prayer to spread the practice of the daily recitation of the rosary.

In that vein, it is especially appropriate to add this prayer to our daily prayers for the Month of the Holy Rosary.

Gerry O'Sullivan: Can a gentle nudge from Vatican rescue Irish church?

The Vatican has finally turned its attention back to Ireland. 

Preoccupied with the Papal visit to the UK and caught by the summer break, it is only now as early October approaches that the Vatican is ready to begin the Visitation promised by the Pope last March.

The four Irish bishops have been asked to go out and attend the meetings but much of the work on the terms of reference of the Visitation are believed to have been worked out already. 

It may well be the case that the meetings will serve to cross the 'T's and dot the 'I's and make sure that the four Irish archbishops are fully informed in order to ensure full compliance.

Most, if not all, of their work will be in secret, which will add to the speculation that Rome is taking a hard line with the Irish bishops in what will be seen as an audit of their stewardship, which has, in all fairness, been found wanting.

However, seasoned Church watchers will know that Visitations are almost always less dramatic than they seem at the start. There will be no upheaval -- this is not a draconian exercise -- and will most likely produce a molehill, not a mountain.

In 2002 a Visitation of US Seminaries was announced in the wake of sex abuse scandals there and that began in 2005. It was predicted that heads would roll -- but five years on it is difficult to point to any major changes that happened. Visitations are often a softer pastoral exercise than imagined.

Few outside of religious life understand the concept of 'fraternal correction'. This is more likely to be the style of approach in the Visitation, helping the Irish Church back onto a better path with a gentle nudge instead of a blunt blow. 

The Pope has said that he hopes the Visitation will be "an occasion of renewed fervour in the Christian life" and that it may strengthen hope "in Christ our Saviour".

The Visitors themselves are not known as heavy- handed law makers but as pastoral men, and some, such as Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, have had their own problems with abusive clergy. 

Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley -- a Franciscan -- and Fr Joe Tobin are known as kind, gentle pastors, so it is unlikely that they will want to make things worse.

 

Purpose

Next week, the Visitors will sit down with the four Irish archbishops in the Vatican and finalise the format of the Visitation and to whom they will be talking.

It is expected that there will be a wide latitude given to the Visitors -- after all if the bishops here are allowed to choose to whom they speak it would invalidate the purpose of the exercise. It is hoped that lay voices will be listened to in the Dioceses being visited.

The Visitation then is important to Bishops, priests and lay people as a process that will allow the context of the abuse crisis to be examined in more detail than it has been to date. There may well be no big result from it, no 10 point action plan, but it will allow people to have their say.

It is also an opportunity for the Irish bishops to allow their voices to be heard in their individual dioceses and to reflect with their clergy and laity on this process and use it to expunge some of the hurt of the past and slowly, gently point the way forward as the clouds of anger slowly lift.

SIC: EH/IE

Almost half of the people believe that Cardinal Brady should resign says poll

ALMOST half of people believe the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, should deliver his resignation to Rome, according to a new opinion poll.

The 71-year-old Archbishop has faced a lot of criticism in the past year amid revelations over his role in the cover up of the serial abuser Fr Brendan Smyth.

At the height of the controversy in March, parents of children in the Blackrock area of Dundalk asked that Cardinal Brady not perform confirmation in the parish – a move that outlined his unpopularity in certain areas.

Cardinal Brady still has the support of many Catholics, of course, but despite admitting last month that he would not be resigning his post, many feel that that is the wrong decision.

Around 45pc of respondents to the TV3/Millward Brown national opinion poll believe he should relinquish his role.

Opinions were divided, however, with 31pc saying they felt he should remain in the job.

Around a quarter of the 1,000 people quizzed last week were undecided.

 

SIC: DD/IE

Sloppy records cast Galileo's trial in new light

When it comes to bad record-keepers, no one expects the Roman Inquisition — but that's exactly what one historian discovered while trying to resolve a centuries-old controversy over the trials of Galileo. 

The Roman Catholic Church's second trial of the famed Italian astronomer has come to symbolize a pivotal culture clash between science and religion. 

But a broad examination of 50 years’ worth of records suggests the Roman Inquisition viewed the case more as an ordinary legal dispute than a world-changing philosophical conflict.

The study also showed that the Inquisition's records often carelessly left out crucial information.

That understanding helps reconcile an apparent contradiction in the records on Galileo's trial, said Thomas Mayer, a historian at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.

"The notion that Galileo's trial was a conflict between science and religion should be dead," Mayer told LiveScience. 

"Anyone who works seriously on Galileo doesn't accept that interpretation anymore."

Galileo Galilei had argued in favor of the heliocentric model developed by Copernicus that shows the Earth going around the sun, rather than the geocentric view placing Earth at the center of everything. He ended up recanting the heliocentric view when summoned to Rome for the second trial in 1632-33.

Records riddled with holes  

The Roman Inquisition began in 1542 — 22 years before Galileo's birth — as part of the Catholic Church's Counter-Reformation against the spread of Protestantism, but it represented a less harsh affair than the previously established Spanish Inquisition.

Galileo's first trial ended with the Inquisition issuing a formal order, called a precept, in 1616 demanding he stop teaching or defending the heliocentric model. His decision to ignore the precept ultimately led to the second trial 15 years later.

But some people have argued that Galileo never actually received the precept from the Inquisition. By their logic, the astronomer misunderstood the formal order as a mere rap on the knuckles.

A few scholars have even tried to suggest that the Inquisition forged the precept during the second trial of 1632 to better incriminate Galileo. They point to a record of an official Inquisition meeting on March 3, 1616, that merely mentions Galileo being warned rather than having received a precept.

Yet Galileo's dossier and other documents reveal that the Inquisition operated as a human organization prone to careless errors and bureaucratic sloppiness, rather than as a monolithic, omnipotent organization conspiring to bring down the astronomer. That provides perhaps the best evidence that conspiracy-seekers had it wrong, Mayer said.

Mayer found many Inquisition meeting records to be incredibly messy. Notes often ended up scribbled in the margins or crammed in at the end.

More than a warning  

It is possible the notary recording the meeting did not bother to actually record the precept, describing it as a warning instead, Mayer said.

However, at least five other documents actually mention the precept. They include Pope Paul V's order concerning the precept; a dated record of the precept being issued; legal briefs and summaries from Galileo's 1632 trial; and the document that pronounces Galileo's sentence.

These documents again reflect careless note-taking, given that they can't even agree on the exact wording of the precept, Mayer pointed out. But he added that they all have historical consistency in mentioning the precept's existence.

Another old scholarly theory has suggested the precept given to Galileo was a unique and unlawful order that specifically targeted Galileo to muzzle him.

But Mayer cautions against that theory as well. He found examples of more than 200 precepts given out in Inquisition decrees from the late 1590s to 1640.

"The idea that this was unique is not true," Mayer told LiveScience. "They were a very familiar device — many of which are incompletely recorded in the registers."

Galileo's mistakes  

When Galileo appeared before the Inquisition at his second trial in 1632, the inquisitors focused largely on his crime of ignoring the earlier precept. They did not harp on how the heliocentric model went against biblical teaching.

"Whoever [raised the issue of the earlier precept] was doing it in very narrow legal terms," Mayer said. "The reason is they were trying to give Galileo an out."

Galileo could have negotiated a settlement — a common occurrence in the Inquisition records, and one that would have been relatively easy for him considering the precept’s narrow terms, Mayer said.

Instead, Galileo "didn't know the rules and deliberately kept himself ignorant of them," according to Mayer.

The astronomer clumsily tried to claim he had merely received a warning, before contradicting himself by stating, "I do not claim not to have in any way violated that precept." 

He dug himself into an even deeper hole by then quoting the strong form of the precept 

 during his arguments.

"When push came to shove in the second part of trial, he made every imaginable mistake," Mayer said. "A lawyer could have told him not to do that."

Only human  

The study of the precept comes as part of a much larger project aimed at understanding the Roman Inquisition as "human beings as opposed to cardboard cutouts," according to Mayer.

He hopes that his recent study, detailed in the September issue of The British Journal for the History of Science, can help cool down unnecessary heat between modern science and religion.

"The problem is just misconceived," Mayer said. "What I'm trying to do is get at the legal dimension of what happened."

That may be an uphill battle. Galileo represents an incredibly powerful symbol today as one of history's most revered thinkers, and everyone wants a piece of him.

In the eyes of secular Europeans, he ranks as "a myth bigger than George Washington," alongside Charles the Great, Mayer noted. The Roman Catholic Church has also attempted to "rehabilitate" Galileo's image by reclaiming him as a man of faith.

Even creationists have hailed Galileo as an example of a man ahead of his time – implying that their views on the creation of life are in a similar position.

"Poor Galileo is in the crosshairs," Mayer concluded.

SIC: MSNBC/INT'L

Irish archbishops called to Rome to prepare Vatican probe into abuse

Irish archbishops will travel to Rome in early October to meet with Vatican officials about the apostolic visitation of their dioceses ordered by Pope Benedict XVI in response to the priestly sexual abuse scandal, the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference announced.

The four archbishops were called by the leadership of the Congregation for Bishops to help prepare for the visitation, which the pope said would help them address the sexual abuse scandal, improve assistance to victims and perfect preventative measures.

The Irish church leaders -- Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland; and Archbishops Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Dermot Clifford of Cashel and Emly, and Michael Neary of Tuam -- will meet with the prelates conducting the visitations and with Vatican officials for a "preparation and planning meeting," Martin Long, spokesman for the Irish bishops' conference said.

The visitation is a "work in progress," Long said.

The October meeting is not expected to include a meeting with the pope, he said. Irish bishops met with the pope in February, after an independent study known as the Murphy Report said the church operated with a "culture of secrecy" in dealing with charges of abuse by victims and their families in the Archdiocese of Dublin from 1975 to 2004.

Other reports showed the problem was widespread throughout other dioceses and often involved the complicity of Irish authorities.

In a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics in March, Pope Benedict called for the apostolic visitation, promising to root out the problem that the church had ignored in the past.

In the letter, he acknowledged that there had been "a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church and the avoidance of scandal" on the part of church authorities.

The exact date and length of the Irish archbishops' visit to Rome was not given.

The apostolic visitors named by the Vatican to conduct the investigations are: British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, retired archbishop of Westminster; Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston; Archbishop Thomas C. Collins of Toronto; and Archbishop Terrence T. Prendergast of Ottawa, Ontario.

SIC: CNS/EU

Bid to boost religious tourism product

Fáilte Ireland has launched a new initiative to boost visitor numbers to Irish religious tourism sites.

Last week, a seminar in Co. Mayo was attended by sixty tourism businesses from the west and north-west, and representatives of a number of European religious heritage destinations.

A spokesperson for Fáilte Ireland said that, two years ago, the agency had turned its attention to pro-actively developing the west of Ireland’s religious tourism product.

“We commissioned the development of a strategy initially, and this told us of the huge potential for the religious heritage tourism market in the west of Ireland.  Estimates on faith or pilgrim tourism reveal a burgeoning market,” the spokesperson explained.

“The World Religious Tourism Association has estimated that 200 million visitors engaged in pilgrimage journeys in the 1990s and by 2000, this had increased to 240 million.  Other estimates state that faith-based tourism serves 300 million travellers and produces 18 billion dollars in revenue each year.”

Fáilte Ireland said that there are three distinct segments to the market.  

These are so-called ‘sacred tourists’, for whom faith is the primary motivation for visiting a spiritual site, 

Christian and cultural tourists, who go to spiritual sites as part of a wider holiday and ‘spiritual interest’ tourists who want to connect with the traditions and values of a destination by seeing attractions with a spiritual dimension.

The agency spokesperson said that Ireland “has wonderful religious sites that are easily accessible by road, rail and airports.  This, combined with a growing interest among many of our tourism businesses to package and sell this, has prompted us to make this a priority.”

“In 2009, we delivered a year-long training programme to over sixty businesses in the region and [we] are now in the process of delivering a new brand for this niche area”

Fáilte Ireland is also involved with other European tourism promotion organisations in developing an EU-funded project called Sailing to St James, which is to promote maritime pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Campostela in Spain.

SIC: CIN/IE

Archbishop ‘pained’ by number of people in Britain’s jails

The Archbishop of York has said that more must be done to educate people on being better citizens rather than resorting to imprisonment and heavy sentences as a deterrent to crime.

In a lecture to the Prisoners Education Trust, Dr John Sentamu said that putting people behind bars and handing out longer sentences did nothing to help society or criminals.

“In modern culture, the rights of the individual are now paramount – but you cannot have these rights without obligations and responsibilities,” he said.

“We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours – and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed, a cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim and a cost to the community.”

The Archbishop said he was “pained” by the size of Britain’s prison population, currently just over 90,000. He said that many of the prisoners were people who had “given up on community” and felt that the community had also given up on them.

“What we need is to educate people about how they can be better citizens – not encouraging people to turn their back on society, as some sort of perceived underclass,” he said.

Dr Sentamu argued that the stated aim of all justice and penal systems should be reintegration, as he warned that a culture of blame and condemnation led to feelings of alienation in the perpetrator and the victim.

“We need to show love and compassion while ensuring justice is served and seen to be served,” he said.

He praised the work of churches and church initiatives in tackling violent crime in their communities.

Many churches have focused their efforts on addressing the problem of gangs and anti-social behaviour in recent years and Street Pastors and Words 4 Weapons are among the initiatives to have received the praise of community leaders and the police.

Just last week, the Words 4 Weapons project was awarded the Peace Award for Community Engagement. Project founder Michael Smith received the award from Tim Bissett of Church Urban Fund at a ceremony attended by London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Rev Nims Obunge of the Peace Alliance.

 
The project invites people to hand their knives over in exchange for a bag containing a Bible and information on how to leave gangs and a life of crime.

SIC: CT/UK

Spanish archbishop will lead visitation of Legionaries' lay movement

A Spanish archbishop, who was part of the Vatican-led investigation of the Legionaries of Christ, will be the apostolic visitor of the congregation's lay movement, Regnum Christi.

Archbishop Ricardo Blazquez of Valladolid, Spain, is one of a number of appointees named recently to help the papal delegate, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, in his task of governing the Legionaries and helping reform the order.

The four advisers who will help Archbishop De Paolis are Bishop Brian Farrell, a member of the Legionaries and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and three canon lawyers: Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Sacred Heart Father Agostino Montan, and Msgr. Mario Marchesi, according to media reports.

The Vatican confirmed the list of appointees on Sept. 30.

The papal delegate, Italian Archbishop De Paolis, has broad powers of authority over the Legionaries of Christ as part of a major Vatican-led reform of the order.

Archbishop De Paolis will lead a commission in charge of revising the order's constitutions, and all members of the order have been encouraged to take an active part in the reform.

The role the advisers will play is flexible. According to the Vatican decree published in July detailing the papal delegate's role, "the delegate will have four personal advisers to aid him in carrying out his work, according to the circumstances and possibilities. These aides may be assigned specific tasks, particularly visits 'ad referendum.' With their help, the papal delegate will identify, discuss, and clarify the principal topics as they arise during the process he is called to lead."

Archbishop De Paolis, who will coordinate the visitation of the Legionaries' Regnum Christi movement, was in charge of naming the movement's visitor, Archbishop Blazquez.

Archbishop Blazquez, 68, served as president of the Spanish bishops' conference from 2005 to 2008 and headed the bishops' commission for the doctrine of the faith from 1993 to 2003.

The former professor of theology was one of five bishops appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 to conduct a visitation of the Legionaries of Christ. He led the investigation of the congregation's centers and institutions in Europe, excluding Italy.

Among the four advisers to Archbishop DePaolis is Bishop Farrell, 66, who was born in Dublin, and was ordained a priest for the Legionaries in 1969. He served from 1970 to 1976 as director of the Legionaries' U.S. novitiate in Orange, Conn.

Italian Msgr. Marchesi is the vicar-general of the Diocese of Cremona and has taught canon law at the Legionaries' Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University in Rome.

Father Montan, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is episcopal vicar of the Rome Diocese's office for consecrated life and a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

Father Ghirlanda is a canon lawyer and the former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

The papal delegate and his four advisers have had the chance to work together before in their roles as advisers to several important Vatican agencies.

Archbishop De Paolis, Father Ghirlanda and Father Montan are consultors to the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Msgr. Marchesi and Fathers Ghirlanda and Montan serve as consultors to the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Archbishop De Paolis and Father Ghirlanda also are members of the Vatican's Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and the Pontifical Council Legislative for Texts.

The Vatican-led investigation into the Legionaries and Regnum Christi came in the wake of revelations that the Legionaries' founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, had fathered children and sexually abused seminarians.

His "most grave and objectively immoral conduct" called for "a path of profound revision" in the order, the Vatican said. Father Maciel's "true crimes" reflected "a life devoid of scruples and of authentic religious sentiment," it said.

SIC: CNS/INT'L

Bishops of Spain launch official website for upcoming papal visit

The Bishops’ Conference of Spain has launched an official website for the Holy Father’s November visit to the country. 

The website, available in four languages, will provide complete complete coverage of the Pope’s activities in Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona.

The website www.visitadelpapa2010.org is available in Spanish, Italian, English and French and features the official schedule of events, biographical information on Benedict XVI and statistics on the Church in Spain.

The website will stream the Pope’s visit live and includes links to additional information about the sites the Holy Father will be visiting.

SIC: CNA/EU

European bishops to reflect on demographics and the family

The Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe will meet September 30 to October 3 in Zagreb, Croatia to reflect on the theme, “Demography and the Family in Europe.” 

Thirty-six bishops, including many conference presidents, will participate in the meeting.

The council will also study the question of dialogue with the European Union and the Council of Europe, and it will hear reports on the upcoming World Youth Day in Madrid and on the work of the “Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians.”

The second part of the meeting will focus on the service the council provides to the Church in Europe and on the different activities the council’s committees have planned for the next year.

 
On Friday, October 1, the bishops will meet with Croatian President Ivo Josipovic.

SIC: CNA/EU

Protection of life requires 'love without measure,' Portland archbishop teaches

Announcing this year's initiative to protect life in his archdiocese, which will begin October 3 on Respect Life Sunday, Portland Archbishop John Vlazny penned an empathetic plea to all citizens of Oregon. 

His column in last Tuesday's Catholic Sentinel urged the faithful to consider the dignity and value of all human life, making a “love without measure” their motivation for choosing rightly even in the most difficult dilemmas.

“Sometimes the challenges can be formidable when our sisters and brothers are confronted with life issues,” he acknowledged, describing a number of situations in which individuals must make choices of a life-or-death nature.

“It’s very tempting for a college girl to seek an abortion,” he offered as an example, “when she barely knows the father and he offers to help pay for the abortion but in no way cares to be involved with raising a child.”

Likewise, “busy families with an aging grandparent who slips into a 'persistent vegetative state,'” may be “encouraged, even by physicians, to withdraw the food and water that keep him alive.”

The archbishop described a situation perhaps even more painful, involving a similar choice. “A young couple … suddenly finds they are pregnant again and this time with a little girl. But a second trimester ultrasound reveals that the girl has a genetic abnormality that won’t let her live beyond her first or second birthday.”

“There are no easy answers, but there are indeed some good answers that we know are right,” Archbishop Vlazny wrote. “Undoubtedly,” he continued, “sacrifices are going to be required in each instance. But we know that every human being, at every stage and condition is loved by God.”

He went on to describe how individuals facing those tremendous difficulties made the right choices: “A child was born and adopted. An elderly man died of natural causes and the devotion of the family inspired many. The short life of the little girl strengthened family life and helped parents to be truly thankful for the gifts and graces God had given them.”

“How we deal with these situations reflects the depth of our own humanity,” the archbishop pointed out. He explained that the U.S. bishops' Respect Life Program, conducted every October through Respect Life Sunday, “proclaims a consistent ethic of life, one which embraces a number of life issues” and stresses that “every human life is sacred.”

Highlighting examples of this ethical imperative in action, Archbishop Vlazny pointed to the growing pro-life movement among youth. “Once young people are aware of the gravity of abortion,” he observed, “they are eager to join the campaign to build a 'culture of life.'” He also praised the work of Martha and Mary Ministries, a group of nurses, clergy, doctors and others who help and comfort the terminally ill in Oregon.

“This month,” he proposed, “we Catholic people recommit ourselves in the protection of all human life, from conception to natural death.” He especially urged Catholics in Oregon and across the nation to “pray (the) rosary every day, within the family if possible, for the cause of life.”

 
“After all,” he concluded, recalling the theme of this year's national Respect Life Program, 

“The measure of love is to love without measure.”

SIC: CNA/USA

Pope’s October prayer intention focuses on Catholic universities

The Holy Father is asking for prayers in the month of October that universities might provide an environment that bears witness to the Gospel message.

Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for October is: "That Catholic Universities may more and more be places where, in the light of the Gospel, it is possible to experience the harmonious unity existing between faith and reason."

His mission intention is: "That the World Mission Day may afford an occasion for understanding that the task of proclaiming Christ is an absolutely necessary service to which the Church is called for the benefit of humanity." 

SIC: CNA/INT'L

Disgraced Anglican bishop failed in his duty church tribunal finds

THE former Anglican bishop of the Murray was found guilty of disgraceful conduct by a church tribunal in Adelaide yesterday.

The body rebuked him and recommended that he be prohibited from acting as a bishop.

The special tribunal found Ross Davies had failed to deal appropriately with sexual misconduct allegations against an archdeacon, displayed a lack of commitment to the Anglican Church and used threatening and aggressive language towards parishioners.

Bishop Davies, who quit his position last week and received a $150,000 payment from the church, was not at the tribunal when it delivered its findings after a two-day hearing.

The bishop had faced nine internal charges brought by Adelaide Archbishop Jeffrey Driver and Bishop of Willochra Garry Weatherill relating to behaviour dating back to 2003.

The tribunal heard Bishop Davies had treated parishioners in a "dictatorial manner" and publicly expressed a desire to join the Catholic Church.

It also heard he had aligned himself with archdeacon Peter Coote, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by three female parishioners.

The tribunal found Bishop Davies had allowed Mr Coote to continue to hold positions of responsibility in the diocese, used his powers to subvert proper professional standards processes and failed to act on recommendations for action against the archdeacon.

"The tribunal regards breaches or interference in professional standards protocols as serious failures of duty," the tribunal said.

Bishop Davies tried to relinquish his holy orders on the weekend but failed because his attempt did not comply with church rules.

He could not be contacted for comment.

He had written to the tribunal denying the allegations.

The tribunal was told the bishop had been diagnosed with depression.

It said it would have recommended he be removed from office had he not already resigned.

Outside the tribunal, church warden Lee Lyons said parishioners felt betrayed by the bishop's behaviour.

"There's a lot of people that feel quite let down," she said.

Dr Driver said he was saddened and relieved by the findings.

"It is always a matter of great sadness when it becomes necessary for the church's disciplinary processes to be used in regard to a clergy member, particularly a bishop," he said.
"I am grateful that the careful processes of the special tribunal have provided an opportunity for the concerns and grief of people to be heard."

SIC: TA/AUS

3 traditional Anglican bishops have 2nd thoughts about union with Rome

The three newest bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion are having second thoughts about union with the Holy See and are instead engaged in merger talks with the Anglican Province of America-- a separate body of disaffected Anglicans-- according to a letter released by Archbishop John Hepworth, primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion.

“The College of Bishops [of the Traditional Anglican Communion] has been committed to seeking unity with the Holy See since the inception of the Traditional Anglican Communion,” said Archbishop Hepworth. 

Recalling that the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion formally assented to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and that Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus-- which provides for the establishment of Anglican ordinariates-- was a response to that petition, Archbishop Hepworth added:

There is no urgent pressure on individuals to join an Ordinariate. Individual discernment and a response in conscience undergird the corporate reunion that is at the heart of Anglicanorum Coetibus. 

There is no such luxury permitted to bishops, who have the sacred obligation by virtue of their office itself to teach in such a way that clergy and people form a true conscience. 

A bishop who cannot teach what the College has defined (and what is the universal teaching of the East and the West) has only one option, and that is to stand aside until he can teach in accord with the Church.

SIC: CC/AUS

Belgian bishops pledge to prevent further abuse

Belgium’s Catholic bishops say they are learning from their errors after an independent report highlighted hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by clergy. 

The bishops said the church would work with the government to prevent abuse and bring past cases to light. 

They said church officials would honor victims’ demands to be personally involved in new “healing initiatives.”

They pledged to set up a “center for recognition, healing and reconciliation,” staffed by four experts who would work with church and state institutions and draw up plans for financial compensation. 

They also pledged to establish guidelines for all church personnel working with children and young people.

The report recounted sexual abuse in most Catholic dioceses and all church-run boarding schools and religious orders.

SIC: CS/EU

Anglo-Catholicism crumbles as traditionalists prepare to enter the Ordinariate (Contribution)

Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England is dispersing like a cloud of incense rolling down the nave. 

Those Anglicans who have decided to take advantage of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic offer of special privileges within the Roman Catholic Church are already constructing a network of Ordinariate communities that will bear fruit in new Catholic parishes. 

Crucially, they are led by two “flying” Anglican bishops, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet and the Rt Rev Keith Newton of Richborough.

Meanwhile, Anglo-Catholics who don’t feel ready to make the move yet, or perhaps at all, have muddied the waters with the creation of a body called the Society of Saint Wilfrid and Saint Hilda (SSWSH) whose role is unclear, to say the least. 

Depending on who you listen to, it’s either a group of traditionalists who want to stay in the Church of England, playing the role of Japanese jungle fighters who don’t know the war is over, or a holding body for people who will join the Ordinariate eventually but need more time to prepare. 

[Update: I see from the thread below that SSWSH has already been christened "The Society of St Hinge and St Bracket".]

As Anna Arco of the Catholic Herald revealed on Friday, the Ordinariate could exist in embryo by the beginning of next year. In the words of Bishop Burnham: “It is expected that the first groups will be small congregations, energetically committed to mission and evangelism and serving the neighbourhood in which they are set.”

Over on Fr Ed Tomlinson’s blog, Burnham has some sharp observations on the subject of the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda. He asks why a new body should succeed in preserving the future sacramental integrity of Anglo-Catholics inside the C of E when Forward in Faith has received nothing but rebuffs from the General Synod.

Good question. 

The mission statement of SSWSH describes itself as “a new Society for bishops, clergy, religious and laity [founded] in order to provide a place within the Church of England where catholics can worship and minister with integrity without accepting innovations that further distance the Church of England from the greater churches of the East and West.”

Some Anglo-Catholics are trying to present SSWSH as a “safe haven” for Anglicans who need time to plan the far-reaching adjustments to their lives required by the Ordinariate. But doesn’t Forward in Faith already perform that function? It sounds to me like an organisation for conservative Anglo-Catholics who don’t accept the authority of the Pope. That’s a perfectly respectable position to take, but let’s make two things clear.

First, any Anglo-Catholic parish that decides to stay in the Church of England has effectively de-Romanised itself. It should take down its pictures of Benedict XVI and stop inserting the name of the Pontiff before the prayers for its bishop. You can’t recognise the primacy of the See of Peter and then say “no thanks” when the Pope goes out on a limb – and he has – to welcome you into full communion with him.

Second, Anglo-Catholics are of course entitled to fight to preserve their sacramental order as Anglicans rather than as Roman Catholics. They are the heirs of Pusey and Keble. But the notion that the Church of England will grant them “a place … where they can minister with integrity” without compromising that sacramental order is fantasy. How many more times does the Synod have to tell them that they won’t be allowed to reject the authority of women bishops and priests before the message sinks in?

Ask yourself this question: how can a seminaran who believes that women cannot be priests now put himself forward for ordination in the Church of England in good conscience? The answer is that he can’t do so without performing the most peculiar theological acrobatics. And, indeed, very few seminarians will go down this route – as the C of E is well aware.

Anglo-Catholicism as we used to understand it – that is, as a fully functioning part of the Church of England that rejects the ordination of women – may not be dead, but it is terminally ill. 

Its adherents can stay where they are and resign themselves to extinction. 

They can soften their beliefs, in which case a very warm welcome awaits from “Affirming Catholicism” and its Kim Philbys. 

They can reconstruct their communities as a “continuing Anglican Church”. They can convert to Rome, either individually, like Blessed John Henry Newman, or as part of an Ordinariate whose primary purpose – as Bishop Burnham emphasises – is to evangelise.

But, as the bishop also makes clear, the Ordinariate will recognise the Petrine ministry as it is currently (and will always be) exercised. 

Anglo-Catholics who have a “different understanding” of papal primacy have a number of options open to them, including the mysterious SSWSH – but none of them is the Roman one.

SIC: TC/UK

Cardinal Turkson says church's policies are consistent

Peter Cardinal Appiah Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, has said   consistency and coherence in the formulation of policies and their implementation in the Catholic Church were very important.

    

He said policies of the Catholic Church were not targeted to benefit the society now but also for future generations also.

    

Cardinal Turkson said this at a press briefing in Accra at the end of a four-day seminar of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Accra on Tuesday.

   

He said the seminar was to address social issues affecting African countries and the world at large.

    

Cardinal Turkson said the seminar would also improve the lives of the people since steps had been taken to tackle economic, political and social problems.

    

He said because faith was not only to come from the mouth but also be put into practice, all branches of the Pontifical Council would try as much as possible to implement policies and decisions reached at the seminar in their various countries.

   

Cardinal Turkson gave the assurance that the basic principle of the Catholic Church, that is respect for human dignity and good, was at the forefront of every deliberation at the seminar.

    

The Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace was set up in 1967 to promote justice and peace in the world in accordance with the Gospel and the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

    

It also assembles and evaluates information and the results of research on justice and peace, the development of peoples and violations of human rights as well as heightens awareness on the need to promote peace.

    

The council is duplicated in all dioceses in the world, and serves as departments that monitor events that need immediate intervention.

SIC: GNA/AFRICA

Catholic Church seeks limit on sex abuse payouts in Germany

The Catholic Church called Thursday for Germany to agree to a ceiling on compensation payouts by sports clubs, boarding schools and religious organizations to sex abuse victims.

The Catholic bishops did not disclose how high they thought the ceiling should be. They made the proposal at a government-headed meeting with other institutions and victim groups.

Abuse by pedophile German priests from the 1950s to 1990s came into the open this year, after similar scandals in Ireland and Belgium. Victims have alleged that the church covered up the abuse.

In Germany, the scandal quickly widened with similar disclosures by other churches, non-religious groups and sporting organizations of crimes against children, ranging from violence and exhibitionism to serial rape.

Berlin summoned the victims, who are now adult, and groups that employed the pedophiles to negotiate a broad settlement.

The church, with 26 million members among Germany's 80 million population, said compensation should be proportionate to each victim's present-day need for psychological counseling.

It should not be equal across all the cases, nor should it cover past counseling, said the proposal. The meeting, headed by three cabinet ministers, is discussing cases that are so old that the victims can no longer sue in the courts.

Victim representatives have said a sliding scale between 5,000 and 80,000 euros ($7,000 and $106,000) would be appropriate.

Germany's legal system does not provide for punitive damages such as the millions of dollars paid a decade ago by U.S. Catholic dioceses for sex abuse, or the big sums paid last year by Catholic bodies in Ireland.

Bishop Stephan Ackermann, the Catholic envoy on the issue, said before it met, "I can understand that many victims are getting impatient and that nobody wants this put off forever."

But it would torpedo the talks if amounts were named outside the meeting, he said. Small groups with modest finances, such as sports clubs, would simply walk out if they could not afford to pay, he said.

SIC: KSC/EU

CBCP chief denies saying Aquino should be excommunicated

The head of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has claimed that his statement on having President Benigno Aquino III excommunicated was taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

Bishop Nereo Odchimar of Tandag, Surigao del Sur, said his interview on church-owned Radio Veritas focused on some forms of birth control that could be considered as abortion.

Abortion is a ground for excommunication from the Catholic church, but the move will have to depend on other factors, he added.

He said that he did not specifically call for Aquino to be excommunicated.

"He [Aquino] must consider the position of the Catholic Church because we are approaching these issues from the moral aspect like the unborn. Abortion is a grave crime. Excommunication is attached to it. That is an issue of gravity, that is a violation of God's commandment," the prelate said in the radio interview.

“As a matter of fact, excommunication is attached to those who commit abortion,” he added.

The President is supporting contraceptive use.

He said he has not changed his position to provide couples an informed choice in planning their families despite the excommunication threat.

“We are all guided by our consciences,” Aquino said in a statement. “The state's duty is to educate our families as to their responsibilities and to respect their decisions if they are in conformity to our laws.”

Odchimar, meanwhile, invited the President to hold a dialogue with the Catholic Church.

He said that he has yet to talk to CBCP members regarding the religious body’s official stand on Aquino’s position on family planning.

Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon said Odchimar’s statement was a personal opinion and did not reflect the CBCP’s official stand.

Bastes said excommunication in the church is a long and complicated process.

He added that the sanction is a serious punishment because it means that the excommunicated person is totally separated from the church.

Any excommunication declaration will come from Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, said Bastes

SIC: ABS/INT'L

Revised Protestant Bible unveiled in Hong Kong

The Revised Chinese Union Version (RCUV) of the Bible was published with modern readers in mind and a closer meaning to the original text.

Chris Chow, marketing manager of the Hong Kong Bible Society, told ucanews.com that many words in the old Chinese Union Version were different from today’s terms and the translation work done 91 years ago might not be able to bring out the true meaning of Scripture.

He cited an example in which Jesus is described as “rallying” in Galilee (John 7:1) in the old version. 

“This is now revised as Jesus ‘visits’ Galilee, since the word ‘rally’ nowadays carries the meaning of protest and confrontation.”

The RCUV will also reflect more contemporary understanding of the original text of the Bible, Chow noted.

The old version, published in 1919, was translated by Bible societies in Britain and the US as well as some mission societies and Chinese Christians. Over the years, it has become the authorized, canonical version used by 70 million Chinese Protestants around the world.

However, the call for a revision has existed since the 1950s.

After consulting Chinese Church leaders in Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and in Southeast Asia, the United Bible Societies decided to begin revision in 1983 but later turned it over to the Hong Kong Bible Society in 2000.

“Since revising the Bible requires huge resources, it took 27 years and 40 scholars to complete the project,” Chow added.

Observing that there are more iPhone users, mostly young people, in Hong Kong, the local bible society also hopes to introduce an RCUV app by the end of this year as “we always strive to provide different platforms for Bible readers,” he noted.

The dedication ceremony of the RCUV was conducted by Archbishop Paul Kwong of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Church) at the St. John’s Cathedral on Sept. 27.

Chow Lien-hwa, the RCUV project’s chief editor, and Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, along with representatives of the Bible societies conducted a scroll-opening rite in the ceremony.

Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming, vicar general of the Hong Kong Catholic diocese told the media in the ceremony that the Studium Biblicum have also been revising the official Chinese Catholic Bible for 20 years and the revision of the four Gospels have been finished in 2000.

SIC: CTH/IND

Atheists beat Catholics on religious knowledge

A US survey has found that atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming Protestants and Catholics.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers, the Center says in a statement.

Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively.

Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge. Jews and atheists/agnostics stand out for their knowledge of other world religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism; out of 11 such questions on the survey, Jews answer 7.9 correctly (nearly three better than the national average) and atheists/agnostics answer 7.5 correctly (2.5 better than the national average).

Atheists/agnostics and Jews also do particularly well on questions about the role of religion in public life, including a question about what the U.S. Constitution says about religion.

These are among the key findings of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, a nationwide poll conducted from May 19 through June 6, 2010, among 3,412 Americans age 18 and older, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish. Jews, Mormons and atheists/agnostics were oversampled to allow analysis of these relatively small groups.1

The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey shows that large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions – including their own. Many people also think the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are stricter than they really are.

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity.

SIC: CTH/ASIA

Vatican bank bosses questioned

Italian prosecutors have questioned the Vatican bank's two top officials as part of a money-laundering probe that resulted in the seizure of £19 million from a one of its accounts.

Chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and the director general Paolo Cipriani spent about four hours at the prosecutor's office a week after authorities seized the account as a precaution.

The chairman said as he left the meeting the allegations resulted from a "misunderstanding" that he hoped would be cleared up.

He said the men had asked to be interrogated.

The Vatican has stood by Gotti Tedeschi and Cipriani and insisted that its bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works, was actually in the process of trying to come into compliance with international norms to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Vatican bank's finances have long been shrouded in secrecy. Most famously, it was implicated in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases.

Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that remain mysterious.

Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of 1.3 billion dollars in loans the bank had made to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.

While denying any wrongdoing, the Vatican bank agreed to pay 250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

The Ambrosiano scandal and other cases of shady dealings, including alleged bribes passed on to Italian politicians via Vatican bank accounts, were outlined in depth in the 2009 book "Vatican SpA," based on a treasure trove of documents left behind by a former Vatican bank official.

Author Gianluigi Nuzzi said this week that the Vatican had undergone a shift in trying to come clean following the scandals of the past and seemed legitimately intent on reforming.

He said the investigation launched by prosecutors could merely have been a "warning shot" from the Bank of Italy to get its finances in line.

SIC: BT/UK