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CARDINAL

NO BODY IS FOUND IN HIS GRAVE

BUT HIS CAUSE GOES ON PAGE 3NEWMAN

No. 6374

Bishop gives ultimatum to agency over gay adoption

Lancaster charity could be evicted from Church property if it complies with law

BYSIMONCALDWELL

ACATHOLICBISHOPhas threatened to evict an adoption agency from Church premises after its trustees said they wanted to comply with new gay rights laws. Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster also warned the Catholic Caring Services that he would begin legal action to recover thousands of pounds left by Catholics in legacies and wills if it did not imminently change it position. In a letter to the trustees, Bishop Donoghue said the agency could no longer consider itself to be Catholic if it assessed same-sex couples as potential adopters or foster parents. “I find it unthinkable, indeed heartbreaking, that Catholic Caring Services, so linked to the Catholic Church since its inception, would abandon its position and capitulate to recent same-sex adoption legislation,” he said. “As your bishop I cannot give permission to an agency of the Catholic Church to act in opposition to her teaching and her long and rich experience of the placement of children with adoptive parents.” He added: “On grounds of conscience, formed by faith, we believe that same-sex partnerships do not provide the essential characteristics necessary for the well-being and development of the child. I remain convinced that the best interests of children are served when they live with and are brought up by a married couple. Any dilution of this fundamental principle can harm children and undermine their paramount place in the whole question of adoption.” The bishop has given the adoption agency a week to reconsider its position

before he instructs lawyers to force the organisation, which each year finds new families for about 25 children in Lancashire and Cumbria, to formally break from the Lancaster diocese. This would involve informing the Charity Commission that the agency is no longer Catholic and ordering the removal of the word “Catholic” from its title. The agency would also be banned from raising funds through Catholic schools, parishes or organisations. Bishop O’Donoghue has also told trustees that there would be a review of leases of three Church-owned properties in Preston, Lancashire, used by the agency, including a children’s home, to determine “whether there is any breach of the terms of occupation”. The bishop said: “I would imagine that many of you may consider my insistence on these actions harsh and even extreme, but this would be to underestimate the seriousness of your decision to reject, thus far, the teaching of the Catholic Church and your failure to uphold your responsibility as trustees of a Catholic agency. “Surely you must have realised that when you made such a decision there would be tragic consequences.” The agency first decided to assess samesex couples in spring after Parliament approved the Sexual Orientation Regulations last year without any exemptions for Catholic organisations. Catholic adoption agencies were given until New Year’s Day 2009 to find a way to comply with the law banning discrimination in the provision of goods and services to gays or to close down altogether. Continued on Page 2

www.catholicherald.co.uk

October 10, 2008 £1 (Republic of Ireland €1.50)

Benedict XVI gives Communion to a young girl during the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops

CNS

Pope: Bible is a stronger foundation than money

BYANNAARCO

POPEBENEDICTXVI has said that the global financial crisis is proof that people should build their lives on the more solid foundation of the Word of God. Speaking to the Synod of Bishops in Rome the Pontiff said that the collapse of the great banks showed that material things were secondary and did not offer the stability of the Word of God. On the same day, October 6, the European stock markets took a plunge after the news came that more banks needed to be bailed out by governments. Benedict XVI made the impromptu comments at the first meeting of the 244 fathers of the Synod of the Word of God. He said that the morning’s Bible readings had inspired him. The Holy Father, who has criticised materialism in secular societies repeatedly this year, drew a parallel between the economy and the parable of the wise man who builds his house upon the rock and the fool who builds his on the sand. He said: “We should change our idea that matter, solid things we touch, are the most solid and secure reality. “He who builds only on things that are visible and tangible on success, a career, money; he is building on the sand. Apparently these are the true realities, but one day they will pass away. And in this way, all these things that do not have a true reality to count on... he who builds his house on these realities, on material things, on success, on everything that seems to be, builds on sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality; it is stable like the heavens and more than the heavens. It is the reality. Therefore we should change our concept of realism. The realist is he who recognises in the Word of God, in this reality apparently so fragile, the basis of everything.” The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications Archbishop Claudio Celli told the press afterwards that the Holy Father was pointing out how flimsy the material world was compared to the Word of God.

Synod report: Page 4 Editorial comment: Page 11

Composer criticises ‘aggressive’ atheists for attacks on religion

BYEDWEST

ONEOFBRITAIN’Sleading composers has warned that liberal atheists are using “increasingly aggressive” methods to drive religion out of public life. James MacMillan said in a speech that the hostility to religion shown by “metropolitan arts, cultural and media elites” risks making society bland and uniform, and that pop culture was leading to greater

conformity in the young. In a lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Sandford St Martin Trust, a charity which promotes radio and television programmes about religion, Mr MacMillan said that embracing spirituality was the most radical and counter-cultural move a musician could make. Mr MacMillan came to prominence after a perfor

mance of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, a work about a woman executed for witchcraft in the 17th century. He has also written many sacred works with strong Catholic themes such as Magnificat and Seven Last Words from the Cross, as well as several Masses. “The ignorance-fuelled hostility to religion, widespread among secular liberal elites, is in danger of colouring society’s value-free ‘neutrality’ in

ways that are both bland and naïïve,” he said: “They are also impractical, unattractive and, I suggest, oppressive. A true sense of difference, in which a genuine pluralism could thrive, is under threat of being reduced to a lowest common denominator of uniformity and conformity, where any non-secular contribution will automatically be regarded as socially divisive.”

Editorial comment: Page 11

Nuns provide clue to curing breast cancer

Scolari asks God to heal player’s knee

BYANNAARCO

EIGHTEENTHCENTURYnuns are helping unlock the secrets of a possible breast cancer vaccine as a large study conducted at Oxford University examines the links between child-bearing and cancer. Early data, from the 1700s, showed that nuns were the most likely women to die of breast cancer. Today the Million Women study, led by Valerie Beral of Oxford University’s clinical epidemi

ology unit, has shown that there is a relationship between breast cancer and child-bearing, breastfeeding and the arrival of menopause. The newest study shows that childbearing and breast feeding are important protective factors against breast cancer. Women have a seven per cent decreased risk of breast cancer per child and the risk drops by another four per cent for every year of breastfeeding. Dr Beral said the evidence demonstrates that it should be possible to develop hormonal treatment or a vaccine which serve a similar purpose as child-bearing to protect women without children from the risks of breast cancer.

BYMARKGREAVES

LUIZFELIPESCOLARI, the manager of Chelsea football club, has said he prayed to God that star striker Didier Drogba’s knee injury would not be too severe. Mr Scolari, a Brazilian Catholic, told journalists: “I prayed for Didier as Didier is part of my family. All of these players are my family. “When I saw the injury, I

asked my God ‘Look out for this player. He has tried to play for three months and he has worked hard’. “I think God listened and he gave to Didier one more chance to play next month.” Chelsea have recently been plagued by injury woes, with several star players missing from the line-up. Didier Drogba, from the Ivory Coast, was the Premiership’s top scorer in the 2006-7 season.

INSIDE: PARISH REBELS AGAINST LEEDS BISHOP PAGE 2

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ChristiansinIraq–

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