Photo credit: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk
Pope Benedict yesterday accepted the resignation of Bishop Brian Noble upon his having reach the age of retirement. I would like to wish Bishop Noble well in his retirement. Bishop Noble is succeeded by Coadjutor Bishop Mark Davies. Let us assure Bishop Davies of our prayers as he assumes full pastoral responsility for the flock in the Shrewsbury diocese.
A slideshow of his episcopal ordination can be found at flickr.
News items about Bishop Davies can be found at:
Catholic Herald
Independent Catholic News
Local Pastoral Area 24
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a wonderful holy and Faith-full Bishop they have....a good man in Salford who is radically centred on Christ and deeply faithful to the Blessed Mother and the Successor of St Peter....
ReplyDeletei believe he has proclaimed this coming year as a Marian Year begining December 8th!!!!!
not happened in a long while!
Fr Charles - a Northerner
Father Boyle
ReplyDeleteOff topic I know, but I just want to ask you something as a Canon Laywer. Remember your paper re: the internal forum at the beginning of your new blog, and the inclusion of the Pope's statement of divorced Catholics being included in the life of the parish and for them to be encouraged to take this up, well, is the following allowed (from Parish draft meeting minutes) re our new UK "Parish in Communion":
"14.Why not shared social activities? Or perhaps a joint Three Schools Choir Festival to include
extended families so that all can belong.
I've had quite an old fashioned up-bringing and in the Catechism there is something about co-operating with sin", culpability. Now let's say people are living as brother and sister,that's OK, but what if not. scandal etc? If I let my son go to the said choir would he be in the presence of manifest hardened mortal sin. I don't want to sound medieval (lol), but "something's" making them persist in the situation, so, you must be able to guess what I'm getting at here. If this idea has been put up publicly is this allowed? Hence,can they use a "school" choir in this way? Doesn't a Catholic school have a mandate to teach the Faith? Isn't there something called "bearing negative witness"? Is my son being made to confront this? Would I find myself having to explain things? What with LifeSite News recently reporting about the Bishop's E&W directive re "equality and diversity", "I don't know" regarding homosexuality, I'm not sure what's going on any more. With reference to the above quote's "all belong", in all honesty don't we all belong, we can all go to Sunday Mass no matter what. There's always confession. People know how to belong, don't they?
Apologies if I'm going over the top on this. I was away from the Church for a couple of years (depressed) when my boy was little and I just want to bring him up right in the Faith now. Maybe I'm just being an over-fussy mother. Also because me and my husband are old-fashioned, things going on in parish life/church don't seem to be adding up any more. I'm sorry, but I could just be blowing this up way out of proportion. I myself once encouraged a neighbour, a woman who had a couple of kids with her divorced husband to go to church. She didn't want to though. Also my parents were friends with a divorced and remarried couple for many years, but they didn't take communion and didn't go to a different church. They didn't have a car/couldn't drive, but they did take part in parish occasions, the wife would make cakes and so on. It was quite strict in those days, especially in a Polish community parish. See, over here we say 'living in sin', yes we all know what that means, but in Poland you say (to mean the equivalent) 'living outside the Faith'. So it's quite clear cut, and when a parent tells a child this, then, well the meaning's obvious. Honestly, if they just put up a note about a choir for all kids to attend, I'd have no probs about him attending.
I look forward to your reply, please could you delete my email after you've replied. (Erm, do I have to do that?)
Thank you, Father.
Could the person who left a comment about divorced and remarried contact me directly by email (jboyle1502 at gmail dot com). Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: I'm not sure how relevant your comment is since it is a question, the answer to which could be found by asking the Bishop himself.
ReplyDeleteDamask Rose: I'm afraid I have only just found your comment of 4th October in the spam box. I hope you can get to read this response.
ReplyDeleteAll of us must face up to the fact that not all Catholics are in the situation that you, I and indeed God would like them to be in, yet we do want to acknowledge our fellow Catholics. They are still part of the family, even if they cannot partake fully in the life of the family. Already by their exclusion from the sacraments, a point is being made about their situation. Yet we earnestly want to be one with them and show them we love them.
As a parent, sooner or later you will have to explain to your children that, although we wish to show charity to everyone and especially to the children of those in irregular unions, such unions are not in accordance with God's plan. And the reasons will have to be given.
I very much understand your predicament. By including people in the life of our churches and schools, we do not necessarily condone their situations, but hopefully they will see how attractive the truth is when it is presented in charity.
The church community obviously has a right and even a duty to ask these people to accept and respect our beliefs and not to behave in any way that might provoke scandal and harm the innocence of our children. If they did not agree to abide by certain 'ground rules' they could be asked to cease involvement. (Of course, the diversity and equality laws which you refer to might make this difficult, but some things are worth being martyrs for.)
I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me directly by email (address shown near the top of the sidebar).