Catholic church launches Operation Get Bums on Pews

The Catholic Church church in England and Wales has launched its first outreach campaign to get people back into the pews, with its lapsed membership thought to number as many as five million.

Starting at the weekend in York Crossing the Threshold is national tour of talks and workshops to help clergy and parishioners re-evangelise friends and family. Around a million people regularly attend mass on Sundays, but church leaders say there are many more who are baptised but do not go to church.

Kieran Conry, bishop of Arundel and Brighton, said no-shows were more likely to do with laziness and children's extra-curricular commitments than controversies surrounding the pope or clerical sexual abuse scandals. Conry said: "We have something we're trying to market and we're just reminding people there's something that can bring you happiness, satisfaction and friendship. There are probably people out there who would like to come back but don't know how to go about it. There is a fear of standing out, of doing the wrong thing."

The tour will also take in Birmingham, Crawley and Cardiff. Catholic churches could be intimidating places, said Conry, and it was important for those taking part to offer a personal invitation to lapsed Catholics to come back.

"Some congregations can be entirely white, middle-class and wealthy and if you don't fit in you might not feel comfortable. I don't think clergy are always friendly and sometimes Catholics appear quite cold. We had a tradition of not speaking out of respect: you said your prayers and minded your business. We have to be careful about that."

Last year the Pope opened a new Vatican department to try to reinvigorate belief among Catholics in developed countries where church attendance has dropped.

I think Conry will have to think a bit harder about the reasons why people no longer to to Church. I have not been inside a place of worship, except for Weddings and funerals for over 30 years.

Clerical abuse was not one of the reasons why I stopped attending mass, it was the Church's stand on social issues, including contraception and abortion, the general support among the hierarchy for repressive regimes ( think of Central and Latin America at the time and the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero), the Pope's oppostion to Liberation Theology, the Church's brutal history,,,, and so on.

Lesser reasons included the sheer nonsense of Transubstantiation (The hell with symbolic  cannibalism!) and the utter meaninglessness of the ritual to a teenager.

There is absolutely nothing the Church could do to get me back on a pew every Sunday (or even the odd Sunday!)

One thing that does piss me off is the Church's insistence on considering me a "Lapsed Catholic". I am most definitely an EX-CATHOLIC!

A good old fashioned curse

I saw this little story last week in the Guardian

A group of Franciscan friars, absolutely fed up with the theft of bibles from their church in Florence, have taken the unusual step of praying for the thief to be struck down by diarrhoea.

Friars at the church of San Salvatore al Monte were angered when a rare and expensive bible disappeared from the lectern. THe were positively icandescent  when a replacement bible donated by a worshipper also went missing and within a few hours.

In a note, pinned up in full view of worshippers, the friars say they hope the thief sees the error of his ways. But in case he does not, they add: "We pray to God that the thief is struck by a strong bout of the shits."

This turn of events will, they hope, "encourage him to carry out no further thefts".

 "It is not exactly clean language," one of the friars said, "but we couldn't put  up with it any longer. The Lord and the faithful will understand."

Despite my general anitpathy to the Catholic church I m heaartened to see that some parts are still in touch with its traditional heartlands. If not quite fire and brimstone the friar's actions are certainly cascara and syrup of figs!

While I do hope that the thief returns the bibles it would be good to think that he suffers  a long bout of explosive diarrhoea for his sins.

If he is wise the thief will be making offerings to saint Polycarp for protection, Polycarp being the patron saint of dysentry sufferers!

More woes for Irish church?

The Irish Examiner  carries a short item about another report that will cause trouble for the Catholic church in Ireland. The report, into the diocese of Raphoe in county Donegal  is expected to reveal how 20 priests abused hundreds of children in a Co Donegal diocese over 40 years.

The report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church will be published later this month.

Worse still, the report will also severely criticise the Church for a continued cover-up.It is reported to have found that the Church was "uncooperative, obstructive and misleading when gardaí became involved in a number of investigations".
Although there have been plenty of other damning reports into abuse in the Catholic church in Ireland I wonder how this one will be received given the  reaction to last month's report on the diocese of Cloyne.

Relations between Ireland and the Vatican are rather strained at the moment. I wonder if this report will add further fuel to the fire

A priest is not an employee, diocese claims

A lot of stories have slipped by in the slipstream of the NOTW scandal, largely unnoticed by the media. One of these stories (covered by Channel 4, the Guardian and local papers) has potentially huge ramifications for sex abuse claims against the Catholic Church.

At present the Roman Catholic church's is testing its liability for the wrongdoings of its priests. According to theGuardian, Mr Justice MacDuff has been asked to decide if the relationship between a bishop and a priest is similar to that between employers and their staff.

The case relates to an abuse claim being brought against the diocese of Portsmouth. A woman has alleged that one of its priests had abused her while she was a resident at a Catholic children's home, The Firs, in Waterlooville, Hampshire. A trial in respect of these claims is scheduled to take place in December.

The hearing does not focus on the abuse claims but on the issue of corporate liability.

The basis of the case against the diocese is that Father Wilfrid Baldwin was able to gain access to The Firs and have contact with its residents through his work as a priest. These duties establish a connection between the diocese and the priest.

"In effect, priests are carrying out their working assigned to them by their bishop and furthering the cause of the diocese," Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC, counsel for the woman, argued. "As the correspondence between Father Baldwin and his bishop demonstrates, he was dependent on the bishop to assign him a post and to control when he moved from one post to another and even to control when he was permitted to retire. The degree of control was, if anything, in excess of that in the typical employer/employee relationship."

Lawyers for the alleged victim say it is the first time a court has been asked to rule on whether the "relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship".
If the answer is "no" there would be "no circumstances where the Roman Catholic church is liable for the actions of one of its priests whether deliberate or careless and however closely connected those actions were to the role of priest".

Gumbel told the judge this would place the church "in a unique position as far as avoiding responsibility for the acts or omissions of any priest working within the church organisation in whatever role".


The diocese denies it is vicariously liable and is defending itself against the claim. A ruling in its favour would mean the church could avoid paying compensation to victims of clerical sexual abuse.

And it is not just sexual abuse. If the court rules that there was no employment relationship between a priest and his diocese then the diocese could be immune from liability from any act perpetrated by a priest in the course of his normal duties.

Given the that some bishops seemed to move heaven and earth to cover up the gross criminal acts of some priests complicity a decision in their favour would be an utter disgrace.

The Catholic Church comes kicking and screaming into the 1960s

The Church comes kicking and screaming into the 1960s

Wonders never cease but it seems that the Pope is finally softening its ridiculous stance on the use of condoms.

Acoording to the Guardian the Pop has said in a new book that their use can be justified in some cases, such as for male prostitutes seeking to prevent the spread of HIV.

The pontiff makes the comments in a book-length interview with a German journalist, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," which is due to be published on Tuesday.

The church has long opposed condoms on the basis that they are a form of artificial contraception, while the Vatican has been harshly criticised for its position given the AIDS crisis. Benedict says in the book that, for male prostitutes for whom contraception isn't a central issue, condoms are not a moral solution. He also says that condoms could be justified "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection."

This is a major shift in position since last year when he told reporters while flying to Africa that condoms would not resolve the AIDS problem there but, on the contrary, increase it.

Austin Ivereigh, a British Catholic commentator "The Pope is not actually saying anything that would surprise moral theologians. What is surprising is that it is coming from the Pope… The church's teaching on contraception predates AIDS and predates new kinds of moral possibilities, which is that condoms can be used not as a means of preventing a conception but as a means of preventing transmission of a virus…Rome has been silent on this for some years. The difficulty has been how they can clarify this teaching without it looking like they are lifting the ban on contraception.

Well at long last. The Church’s attitude on contraception has been appalling.. Better late than never for this shift, I suppos

Five Anglican Bishops jump on the Vatican Express

The Telegraph reports that five Church of England bishops are leaving to join the Catholic church in a protest over the ordination of women bishops.

The Roman Catholic Church backed their move, and promised a "warm welcome" to all Anglicans who decide to switch allegiance to Rome.

Senior Catholics are finalising plans for the English Ordinariate, a new body created by the Pope to accommodate Anglican converts who cannot accept women bishops.

The Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, Alan Hopes, the Roman Catholic representative leading the development of the Ordinariate,

“We welcome the decision of Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate for England and Wales,” he said.

The move was precipitate by a decision at the General Synod of the Church of England in July to support plans for women to be ordained as bishops in England for the first time. The five bishops are said to be “dismayed” at the liberal reforms to the Church in recent decades and will join the Ordinariate in pursuit of “unity” with Rome when the new body is established next year.

Other members of the Church of England are expected to follow their lead. St Peter’s in Folkestone, in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s own diocese, became the first parish to declare publicly that it intended to join the Ordinariate last month.

Holy Trinity church in Reading is expected to make a decision on whether to follow in the next few weeks. Meetings are also planned at St John the Baptist church in Sevenoaks, Kent, and Holy Trinity, Winchmore Hill, in north London.

To be honest I find the move rather stupid. Personally I just don’t see the problem, given that an all male clergy in the past was a simply a reflection of the status of women more than anything else.

The ship jumpers are not guaranteed a universally warm welcome in the Catholic church. There are many people like my father who do not care for people changing religion for something as trivial as this.

Needless to say the new converts will not be forced to be celibate, making the rule on existing catholic priests more of an insult.

I’m wondering if the Catholic Church will have an ad campaign

Anglicans! Are you sick of female priests? Hate the idea of them becoming bishops?

Well join the Catholics. We’re bloody terrified of women!

This is a Bishop Brennan that deserves a kick up the arse

Unsurprisingly victims of clerical sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland have reacted angrily to an appeal by a bishop for parishioners to help to pay spiralling compensation claims.

According to the Times Bishop Denis Brennan of the diocese of Ferns (South east Ireland) told parishioners that the diocese had so far paid €8 million (£7.5 million) to settle 48 civil actions arising from decades of sexual abuse by priests. He said another 13 actions against the diocese were pending.

Dr Brennan is the first bishop to give details on how much compensation has been paid to victims. He said that his official residence had been remortgaged to cover nearly €2 million in legal fees. A request for financial help from parishioners was not about sharing blame, he said, but about “asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility”.

Eugene Doyle, the chief financial officer of the diocese, said that the Church had no option but to ask its members to help to foot the bill. He estimated that the diocese’s 100,000 members in 80 parishes would be asked to collectively contribute €60,000 a year for the next 20 years. No money would be taken from normal weekly collections, he said.

What barefaced nerve of the bishop to ask parishioners to bail the church out after the church singularly failed in its duty to deal with abusive priests. As for calling the enormous costs a God-given responsibility, Bloody hell!

The Catholic chirch got itself into this mess, so its first port of call should be its own assets and not the pockets of parishioners who I bet are disgusted at the behaviour of the priests in question, as well as the leadership that brushed the abuse under the carpet.

The plagiarising Polish priest prison palaver.

Poland's 28,000 Roman Catholic priests have been told by church authorities that they may be fined if they are discovered to have plagiarised their sermons from the internet, and could even face up to three years in prison. The church has published a self-help book on writing sermons to lure parish priests away from stealing the words of their fellow clergy.

Father Wieslaw Przyczyna, the co-author of To Plagiarise or not to Plagiarise, told Polish media that the guide had been written to address what had become an increasingly common problem, as more churches put their sermons online and an increasing numbers of priests used the internet. Przyczyna, a sermon expert at Krakow's Pontifical Academy of Theology, added that the book's aim was to shame culprits and prompt them to confess what they had done. "Unfortunately the practice has become more usual than not," he said. "But if a priest takes another priest's words and presents them as his own without saying where he got them from, this is unethical and against the rules of authorship."

The church authorities have said they will start to carry out systematic checks in an attempt to clamp down on the practice and will rely on sharp-eared parishioners to compare online texts with those in Biblioteka Kaznodziejska, a monthly magazine that publishes sermons which have been delivered from the pulpit in Poland.

Przyczyna has already faced a backlash to his anti-plagiarism crusade. He told the online Catholic News Service that he had received complaints for "harassing priests and exposing their weaknesses".

Well there you have it. The Polish church will be clamping down hard on plagiarism among their clergy. I presume a prison sentence will only be applied if the priest also uses litotes while genuflecting with a rubric. Luckily for me they have not set out the sentence for awful acts against alliteration....