ROCCO BUTTIGLIONE DEFENDS PRO-LIFE PLAN I AM NOT BETRAYING THE CAUSE , SAYS LEADING CATHOLIC POLITICIAN PAGE 5

No. 6415

www.catholicherald.co.uk July 31 2009 £1.20 (Republic of Ireland €1.70)

Pray for all the world’s grandparents, urges Pope

BY ED WEST

POPE BENEDICT XVI has asked thousands of faithful gathered outside his cottage in the Italian Alps to pray for “all the grandparents of the world”.

The Pope said that grandparents were witnesses to fundamental values and played an important educational role for young people, especially in today’s world.

Benedict XVI gave the advice to several thousand people who had travelled to see him at his holiday cottage in Les Combes. The midday prayer on Sunday was the last public appointment the Pope was scheduled to hold in the Italian Alps, where he has been on holiday since July 13, before he went to his summer villa at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

In his Angelus address, the Pope noted that July 26 was the feast of Ss Joachim and Anne, “the parents of the mother of God and, therefore, the grandparents of Jesus”.

The feast, he said, “invites us to pray for grandparents, who are the depositories and often witnesses of the basic values of life within the family. The educational role of grandparents is always very important,” especially in situations where one or both parents are frequently absent.

He stressed the educational role of grandparents, which became even more important “when parents are not able to be with their children during the early part of their life”.

“With a special blessing I place all the grandparents of the world under the protection of St Anne and St Joachim,” he said. “May the Virgin Mary, who according to a beautiful iconography learnt about the Holy Scriptures on the knees of her mother Anne, always help them nurture the faith and instill hope from the sources of the Word of God.”

The Pontiff concluded his address with a “special blessing for all the grandparents of the world”, adding at the moment of taking his leave a thought “for the elderly, especially those who might be alone or in diffi

culty”. Pope Benedict also spoke about priests, commenting on the day’s Gospel reading about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and saying that priests could see themselves in the disciples who wonder what they can do to feed such a huge crowd.

“In this Year for Priests,” he said, “how can we not remember that especially we priests can relate to this Johannine text, identifying with the Apostles when they said: ‘Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?’ Indeed when we read about the boy who had five barley loaves and two fish, we too can say: ‘What good are these for so many?’ In other words, what am I? How can I, within my limits, help Jesus in his mission? The Lord himself has the answer. Precisely by placing themselves in his ‘holy and venerable’ hands do priests, however small they may be, become tools of salvation for so many, for everyone.”

Pope Benedict also told the crowd he was grateful to be staying “amid these beautiful mountains of yours” and thanked God for giving him “an opportunity to enjoy these days marked by true relaxation – despite the small accident you all know about”, a reference to his breaking his right wrist two weeks ago after slipping in the bathroom. He then raised his right hand and smiled.

Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said that doctors used a portable X-ray machine brought to the Pope’s Alpine chalet last Friday to check that his wrist was healing well.

Fr Lombardi also said the Pope had been using a Dictaphone to keep up with his writing during his holiday. The Pope had been expected to work on the second part of his book about Jesus, and Fr Lombardi said he had “equipped himself with a recorder so as to be able to dictate his reflections”. The Pope has a laptop, but Fr Lombardi said “in creative work he prefers to use a pen”.

Leading Article: Page 13

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Irish priests face 10 per cent pay cut after diocese loses £6 million

BY WILL HEAVEN

AN IRISH diocese has lost £6 million worth of investments in the stock market, forcing the bishop to cut priests’ salaries by around 10 per cent.

Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe said the financial crisis was to blame.

“All of us thought that bank shares were a safe as possible place to put money,” he said. “Obviously in hindsight, they weren’t.”

Over the past 100 years the

diocese has invested in shares from money bequeathed to the Church by individuals.

The Diocese of Killaloe owned €9 million (£7.8 million) worth of bank shares which have plummeted in value to just €2 million (£1.7 million). This has massively reduced the dividends received by the diocese, leaving a gaping hole in the annual budget.

Bishop Walsh said the dividend income had accounted for about a third of the dio

cese’s annual expenditure of a million euros.

He said that priests currently receive a salary of between €20,000 (£17,000) and €25,000 (£22,000) and that the cuts would save the diocese more than €200,000 (£170,000).

The financial problems will also affect parishes, which are being asked to increase their diocesan contribution from 12.5 per cent to 18 per cent of their annual income.

Bishop Walsh told the Irish

Times : “The Gospel never depends on finances. It is not about finance. The Church isn’t going to win or lose, survive or thrive or die on the basis of money. We will survive, there are none of us going to go hungry.”

He also said the response from parishes had been sympathetic. “They accepted the fact that even the wisest people, who have more knowledge than us of the stock market, lost money through shares,” he said.

Pupils campaign against clip-on ties

Burnley’s new hero is a teetotal Catholic

BY ED WEST

PUPILS at a Catholic school in Yorkshire have protested against plans to introduce clipon ties to stop them strangling themselves.

Pupils at McAuley High School in Cantley, Doncaster, say wearing the clip-on ties is a waste of money and leads to a decline in uniform standards. It was reported that the decision was made on health

and safety grounds, in case pupils were strangled during playground games or the ties caught fire in science lessons.

Another reason was that too many pupils were loosening their ties, wearing them in the scruffy style of fictional characters like comedian Catherine Tate’s character Lauren.

However, more than 700 past and present pupils have joined the McAuley Against Clip-on Ties group on the social networking site Facebook demanding that the traditional tie be reinstated.

Nick Thomas: Page 12

BY ED WEST

THE MANAGER of newly promoted Burnley FC is a practising Catholic who never drinks, rarely swears and who believes Sunday Mass is as important as the Saturday match, it emerged this week.

Owen Coyle was raised in Glasgow’s East End, close to Parkhead, the home of Celtic.

He took Burnley to the

Premiership this year, leading to fans holding banners with the slogan: “Owen Coyle is God.”

Mr Coyle told Alastair Campbell, a Burnley fan, in an interview for the Guardian newspaper, that he does not mind the blas

phemy.

“I don’t think there is any insult to God in there,

just an indication of

how much football means to people,

and how much

this club means

to the people here,” he said.

DON’T MISS: FR PETER MALONE ON THE ‘ANTICHRIST’ FURORE P12

Herald cartoonist John Ryan dies at 88

BY WILL HEAVEN

John Ryan, The Catholic Herald’s cartoonist for 40 years, has died aged 88.

The much-loved cartoonist was best known for having created the celebrated character Captain Pugwash and the scheming but wonderfully inept Cardinal Grotti.

Friends and former colleagues have paid tribute to the artist, animator and author.

Luke Coppen, editor of the Herald , said: “This has caused great sadness at the Herald. John was one of our longest-serving and best-loved contributors. He created a hilarious visual chronicle of the post-Vatican II Church. No other Catholic cartoonist, it is safe to say, depicted the period with such consistent wit and insight. He will be greatly missed.” William Oddie, a former editor of the paper, recalled a period when Mr Ryan had been briefly unwell and had been unable to submit his weekly cartoons. To his surprise, the paper was then snowed under with letters demanding that the cartoonist was “reinstated”.

“John Ryan had a fantastic loyalty from his readers, which he reciprocated,” Dr Oddie said.

His agent, Jane Gregory, had known Mr Ryan for 20 years. She said: “He was an absolute delight to work with and his imagination constantly astounded me. He really was fabulously creative, and having known his books as a child it was a privilege to eventually become his agent.”

To his family, especially his three children, John Ryan was a man of extraordinary patience and kindness.

His son, Christopher, recalls his father as having a remarkable visual imagination, which he imparted to his children in made-up bedtime stories and wonderful answers to the sorts of questions children were bound to ask.

He said: “My father had a marvellous way of communicating things to children. It was a special quality which he made use of

Continued on Page 3

Tribute: Page 8 Leading article: Page 13 Stuart Reid: Page 20

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