Catholic News Updates – Cradio

News from around the Catholic world for the week ending 4 April.

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• Queen Elizabeth II visits Pope Francis

• Jesuit priest killed in Syria

• French Catholic churches under threat of destruction

• Catholic schools offer free education to refugees

• Australian Catholic speaker releases resource for women

TRANSCRIPT

LUKE: Queen Elizabeth II has visited Pope Francis at the Vatican last Thursday.

It marked Her Majesty’s first international visit since she visited Australia in back 2011, and the fifth pope she has met, with her first being Pope Pius XII when she was Princess Elizabeth in 1951.

Queen Elizabeth gave Pope France gifts from the Royal Estates, including a dozen eggs and a bottle of whiskey. The Queen also gave Pope Frances a silver-framed signed photograph, jokingly commenting “I’m afraid you will have to have a photograph – it’s inevitable!”

The Pope gave Prince Phillip and the Queen an orb decorated with a silver Cross as a personal gift for their Great-Grandchild Prince George.

They spent 25 minutes talking in private as the heads of the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion, respectively.

The visit was dubbed as a push to improve Catholic and Church of England relations. The Church and The United Kingdom have had mixed historical relations due to a de facto split by King Henry VIII in 1536. Diplomatic relations have been more favourable in more recent times, with visits becoming a regular occurrence, including a visit to the United Kingdom by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2010.

For more information, see the News.va story.

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A 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit priest has been killed by unidentified gunmen in the besieged city of Homs in Syria. Fr Frans van der Lugt was a trained psychotherapist and ministered in Syria since 1966. Fr Van der Lugt refused to leave Syria during the civil war, which began in March 2011, choosing instead to help the poor and homeless in the war torn region.

At his general audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis issued a statement of condolence for his fellow Jesuit, and a plea for peace in Syria. The Holy Father said “From all my heart, I ask you all to join my prayer for peace in Syria and in the region, and I launch my heartfelt appeal to Syrian leaders and to the international community: silence the weapons! Put an end to violence! No more war! No more destruction!”

Jesuit Superior General Fr Adolfo Nicolas also expressed sorrow for the death in a statement, saying “[Fr Van der Lugt] always spoke of peace and reconciliation, and he opened his doors to all those asking help without distinction of race or religion.”

Fr Van der Lugt received international media attention in January this year after he was featured in a video posted to Youtube asking the international community to assist the city of Homs.

For more information, see the Catholic News Service story

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7500 Catholic church buildings across France are still being threatened as local cities do not see reason to keep them.

Currently churches built before 1905 in France, when Churches and State Seperation legislation was passed, are maintained by the local civil authorities. As French dioceses are unable to purchase these churches, some cities are undertaking plans to destroying the historical buildings in favour of smaller ones, or to replace them with other buildings such as mosques. Of the 100,000 Catholic buildings in France, only 5,000 were built after 1905 and belong to the dioceses. These however, are not exempt from the problem either, as it is expected that 25-50% of them will be sold – also due to expenses faced by their respective owners.

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Catholic schools in Sydney have announced that they will be offering free education to refugee children in the Archdiocese. Dr Dan White, executive director of Sydney Catholic Schools, announced the plan last Friday, stating the Catholic schools “stand ready to provide [refugee]children with an education.”

The plan will provide around $4000 to each refugee child, and will be available for any school in the Archdiocese with a vacancy. The money is expected to cover the cost of school fees and equipment for each child.

Dr White stated that he was inspired to make the offer due to...

News from around the Catholic world for the week ending 27 September.

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• Melbourne priest excommunicated

• Incoming Archbishop calls for moratorium on ACT bill to redefine marriage

• Tasmanian MPs to have conscience vote on euthanasia

• Archbishop calls for government to protect Christians in Pakistan

• John Allen Jr on ‘The Francis Effect’

TRANSCRIPT

SARAH: A Melbourne priest has been laicised and excommunicated by Pope Francis for teaching against Church doctrine and offering public Masses despite having his faculties removed.

Fr Greg Reynolds received notification of the Holy Father’s decision in a letter dated 31 May 2013. Fr Reynolds signed the decree, which effectively indicates that he is forbidden to have a ministerial role in the celebration of any sacraments or acts of public worship, receive any sacrament, exercise any Church ministry or hold any office in the Church.

Fr Reynolds resigned as Parish Priest of Westernport Parish in 2011 and was asked to step down from public ministry by Melbourne’s Archbishop Denis Hart following his persistent preaching against Church doctrine on issues such as the ordination of women. He later formed a community of dissident Catholics and continued to celebrate the Eucharist publicly, despite not having the faculties to do so.

Archbishop Hart stressed that the decision to excommunicate a cleric is never taken lightly and without attempts resolve the issue first through other means. In a statement sent to Cradio the Archbishop said “on this occasion I sought in a spirit of pastoral and fraternal concern to encourage Greg Reynolds to cease his activities contrary to the teachings of the Church but without success.” (View statement from Archbishop Hart)

In 2012 it was reported that at an illicit liturgy where Fr Reynolds was present, the Holy Eucharist was given to the pet dog of one of the attendees. It is not clear whether the host had actually been consecrated, owing to questions around the validity of the liturgy, which was led mainly by a lay woman.

The incoming Archbishop of Canberra & Goulburn, Most Reverend Christopher Prowse has called for a moratorium on a bill seeking to redefine marriage in the ACT. The Archbishop has asked that no new marriage legislation be passed until Australians have had more time to debate the matter in a calm and reasoned manner.

Archbishop Prowse said “I’m a person who is open to listening to people but I’ve also got plenty of opinions of my own and I think the Catholic Church’s opinion on such matters – we represent a reflection on humanity going over 2000 years ... I think that gives us a certain confidence to have our opinions heard and, in a reasoned way, debate with people,”

The ACT Marriage Equality Bill 2013 was introduced to the Legislative Assembly last week with debate expected to resume on 22 October.

Meanwhile in Tasmania, all three political parties have granted MPs a conscience vote on Euthanasia legislation tabled in parliament this week. Under the proposed bill patients would have to wait one week between making a written request and ending their own life using a lethal medication administered by the patient or their medical practitioner.

In a statement released yesterday, Hobart’s Archbishop Julian Porteous referred to the ineffectiveness of safeguards implemented in places such as the Netherlands where 300 people die each year without giving explicit consent. He reiterated the risk of making the elderly and infirm feel as though they are a burden on an under-resourced hospital system.

The Archbishop said “A good society will be identified by its preparedness to show respect for its vulnerable citizens: the elderly, the sick and those living with disabilities”. (View Archbishop Porteous’ Statement)

The debate on the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill is expected to take place in October. A similar bill was voted down in Tasmania in 2009.