INSIDE: BISHOP MICHAEL EVANS’S POIGNANT MESSAGE OF HOPE

REPORT: PAGE 3

No. 6488

CatholicHerald.co.uk

January 7 2011 £1.20 (Republic of Ireland €1.70)

Ex-Anglican bishops to be ordained next week

BY SIMON CALDWELL AND ANNA ARCO

THREE former Anglican bishops will be ordained to the Catholic priesthood next week just days after the Pope formally establishes the world’s first personal ordinariate.

Andrew Burnham, John Broadhurst and Keith Newton will be ordained as Catholic priests a week tomorrow. Their ordination will come only two days after they are ordained to the diaconate and just two weeks after they were received into the Catholic Church.

Their resignations as bishops of Ebbsfleet, Fulham and Richborough took effect at midnight on December 31 and they were received into the Catholic Church on the afternoon of January 1 during a Mass in Westminster Cathedral. On January 13, the three will be ordained to the diaconate at Allen Hall seminary and enter the priesthood at Westminster Cathedral on January 15. At their diaconal ordination, they will be incardinated into the English ordinariate, which is expected to be formed by papal decree in the second week of January, with Pope Benedict XVI also appointing an ordinary.

The ordinariate will be the first to be created since the Pope issued the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus on November 4 2009 to allow the group reception of Anglicans into the Catholic Church. Similar to a military diocese, the structure permits former Anglicans to retain much of their patrimony and liturgical practices.

Also received into the Church were Judi Broadhurst, the wife of the former Bishop of Fulham, and Gill Newton, the wife of former Bishop of Richborough.

Three former Anglican nuns, Sister Carolyne Joseph, Sister Wendy Renate and Sister Jane Louise, who had left their small community to join the ordinariate, were also received into the Church during the Mass, along with an unspecified number of former lay Anglicans.

The Mass was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster, the most senior former Anglican cleric in the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The ceremony was not publicised by Catholic authorities and was described by observers as “low key”.

Andrew Burnham said: “It was a wonderful occasion. Our reception simply took its place within the main celebration of the day, the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God and it just happened very quietly. Keith and I were received and given confirmation.”

John Broadhurst, who was confirmed in the Catholic Church as a boy, was reconciled during the same Mass.

One of those present at the Mass, Fr Seán Finnegan, a Catholic priest from Shoreham by Sea in West Sussex, wrote on his blog that the former Anglican bishops wore suits and ties.

After they were received into the faith they were given the Sacrament of Confirmation and “returned to their places to gentle applause”, Fr Finnegan wrote.

“One of the Sisters, descending the steps, grinned at the congregation and gave two thumbs up,” he said.

“We all received Communion ... and, lo, it was done. We are in communion. The ordinariate is launched very quietly and gently, slipping almost unnoticed into the water.”

The three former Anglican bishops were among five who in November declared their intention to join the ordinariate.

The other two, Edwin Barnes, the retired former bishop of Richborough, and David Silk, the former bishop of Ballarat, Australia, had already retired but will be ordained Catholic priests before Lent.

In December the three Sisters of the Anglican Society of St Margaret left the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham, the site of the Marian shrine in Norfolk, to discern whether their future lay in the ordinariate.

The provisions of Anglicanorum coetibus extend to religious orders as well as groups of lay people with their clergy. The ordinary has the authority to set up new institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life but it is not yet known if a female religious order for former Anglicans is envisaged in England and Wales.

The three bishops are expected to be followed into the ordinariate by between 500 and 800 people in the first wave, including around 50 members of the clergy. There are at least 24 existing groups discerning the ordinariate with 20 to 30 members.

Most will be received into the Catholic Church during Holy Week after undergoing an intensive period of instruction.

Anglican clergy who wish to become Catholic priests will be ordained and incardinated into the ordinariate by Pentecost.

Discussions to form possible personal ordinariates in America, Canada and Australia are also under way.

Editorial comment: Page 13

Number of pilgrims seeing Pope rises again

BY CAROL GLATZ IN ROME

MORE THAN 2.27 million pilgrims and visitors came to see Pope Benedict XVI in person at the Vatican or the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo in 2010.

The crowds included people who attended a weekly general audience, a special audience with the Pope, a liturgy he celebrated or his Sunday Angelus gathering at the Vatican or papal villa, according to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household.

The total figure for 2010 was higher than in 2009 when more than 2.24 million people came; in 2008, there were more than 2.21 million pilgrims and visitors. While those numbers show a steady rise, they are down from 2007 and 2006, when more than 2.8 million and 3.2 million visitors, respectively, came to see the Pope. According to the 2010 statistics, 493,000 people attended one of the Pope’s 45 weekly general audiences. Another 178,150 people attended special audiences.

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his Urbi et Orbi message to the city of Rome and the world in St Peter’s Square on Christmas Day AP Photo/ L’Osservatore Romano

Consultors clear the way for the beatification of Pope John Paul II

BY ANNA ARCO

POPE JOHN PAUL II could be beatified this year after the Vatican approved a miracle attributed to his intercession, reports in Italy suggested this week.

Medical and theological consultors of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have found that the healing of a French nun from Parkinson’s after praying to the pope is scientifically inexplicable.

The miracle must still be approved by the bishop and cardinal members of the congregation and the Pope, but the approval by the consultors overcomes a major hurdle in the beatification process.

Pope Benedict XVI would celebrate his predecessor’s beatification in Rome, despite his usual practice of leaving it to local bishops and dioceses.

Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican watcher who first reported the story, said the most likely dates for a beatification would be the anniversary of John

Paul II’s death on April 2, the anniversary of his election to the papacy on October 16 or his birthday on May 18.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun who was diagnosed with aggressive Parkinson’s in 2001, was forced to leave her job at a maternity ward in Arles because of her illness. After the pope’s death in 2005, her order began praying for John Paul II’s intercession. According to the testimony, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre woke up with her condition cured after having written John Paul II’s name on a piece of paper. Reports suggested that the nun’s condition had worsened again. According to Mr Tornielli, one of the specialists had questions about the diagnosis of Parkinson’s and wanted to verify that the nun had been indeed cured from that disease.

Pope Benedict waived the five-year waiting period normally required after death before the process of beatification can begin.

Bishop ‘optimistic’ about Rome talks

British actor to play US priest in war film

BY MARK GREAVES

THE HEAD of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) has said he is “very optimistic” about a return to full communion with Rome.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the SSPX, said “an act of Rome” on its own would be enough for full communion to be achieved. He added: “This will happen.”

He was speaking to Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes, a newspaper based on the French island of New Caledonia in the Pacific.

His comments come 15 months after the start of highlevel doctrinal talks between the SSPX and the Vatican.

Asked if the SSPX still sought communion with Rome, Bishop Fellay said: “Yes, we have always maintained that we do not wish to go our own way... An act of Rome suffices to state that it’s over and that we re-enter the Church. This will happen. I am very optimistic.”

BY MARK GREAVES

BRITISH actor Christian Bale is to play a heroic American priest in a new film about the Rape of Nanking, one of the worst atrocities of the Second World War.

The Hollywood star will play a priest who sheltered prostitutes and young female students in Nanking (now Nanjing) during the massacre of at least 150,000 Chinese civilians by the

Japanese army.

The film, The 13 Women of Nanjing, will be directed by Zhang Yimou, whose previous work includes Hero and

House of Flying Dag-

gers.

Bale is best known for playing Batman in The Dark Knight and serial killer Christian Bateman in American Psycho. He was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

DON’T MISS: FR JOHN ZUHLSDORF’S WAKE-UP CALL PAGE 12