This can be found on Ecclesdon Square on Pope:no commentDamian Thompson said...
I have just posted an update on this shocking story to my Telegraph blog. The Catholic Herald has now complained to the relevant Pontifical Commission about the English bishops' negligence. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/march07/silence.htm
Thank you for your kind comments, Father.
15/3/07 12:28 PM
This is what appears on his site
Shameful silencing of the Pope
This was the week that the leadership of the Catholic Church in England and Wales disgraced itself. Pope Benedict XVI issued one of the most significant documents written by a pontiff for many years – and the English bishops’ “communications network” effectively killed the story.
The Pope's pronouncement has not been embraced
Real anger is building up in the parishes over the bishops’ behaviour, which led to the document – Sacramentum Caritatis - a historic, 60-page statement on the Eucharist and the Liturgy – receiving minimal coverage in most secular newspapers.
The Pope’s pronouncement, an Apostolic Exhortation, was a huge story for my newspaper, The Catholic Herald, which will publish full coverage of the document this weekend.
I can’t tell you how infuriating – and downright weird – it was to discover that our bishops just weren’t interested in talking to us about its contents.
So, yesterday, we took an unusual step. The Catholic Herald lodged a formal complaint with the Vatican’s worldwide head of communications, Archbishop John Foley, Prefect of the Pontifical Commission for Social Communication.
Why did the Bishops of England and Wales keep silent? Inevitably, conspiracy theories are already forming, suggesting that they didn’t like the contents of the document. And I’m sure that some of them didn’t.
Pope Benedict calls for all new priests to be trained to say the new rite of Mass in Latin – he has yet to pronounce on the future of the Old Rite – and for a return to Gregorian chant. He also seems to shut the door on the prospect of married priests.
Not the sort of thing that the English Church’s right-on employees like to promulgate.
But those are side issues. The real point of Sacramentum Caritatis (Sacrament of Love) was its fabulously lucid and intellectually daring synthesis of Catholic teaching on the centre of the Church’s life – the Eucharist, or Holy Communion.
Reading the exhortation, I was awestruck by the quality of Benedict’s thinking: this is the most intellectually gifted pope for centuries. He spent months working on the document.
Today, two days late, the English and Welsh bishops’ website finally posted THREE WHOLE PARAGRAPHS on the subject. The Irish bishops, in contrast, issued a long and comprehensive response, setting out all the key points, on the day of publication.
So far as I am aware, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, has yet to say a word publicly about Pope Benedict’s exhortation. It is inconceivable that his predecessor, Cardinal Basil Hume, would have been guilty of such an omission.If you can be bothered to read the piece on the Bishop's website it really does show a very lack lustre approach, I support Damian in his complaint.
This is appalling. This is it, in all its glory:
The Sacrament of Love
Pope Benedict XVI's first apostolic exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis - The Sacrament of Love, has just been published.
This exhortation is the Holy Father's reflection on the work that took place during his recent Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. It picks up on the themes of love and charity that he began in his first
encyclical God Is Love.
The Sacrament of Love focuses on the relationship
between the Eucharist, the Trinity, the sacraments, and the Mass. The Holy Father highlights the social implications of the Eucharist and firmly connects it with the Church's social teaching.
