Riot police storm rebellious Polish convent

By Matthew Day in Warsaw
A rebellion that pitted an order of Polish nuns against the might of the Vatican has ended after police forced their way into their convent, evicting 64 people and arresting two.
With a battery of television cameras rolling, about 150 officers, many in full riot gear, moved against the Sisters of Bethany after they refused to comply with a court order requiring them to leave their convent in the small town of Kazimierz Dolny, south-east of Warsaw.

The eviction ended a revolt that dated back to 2005 when the Vatican sacked the then mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka, after she claimed that she had had "private inspiration by the Holy Spirit". Attempts to replace her triggered the confrontation. Loyal to their spiritual leader, the Bethany sisters locked the doors of the convent, cut themselves off from the world and failed to follow the Church's orders. The rebels refused to comply with the Vatican's demands even when 10 of them were defrocked and the diocese banned the administration of the sacrament in the convent.
Faced with ex-communication, they adopted a siege mentality, hired security guards, changed the locks on the gates and shunned all contact with the outside world.
Cut off from the Church and without electricity, the women had to rely on food parcels brought by well-wishers and family members.
Officers used a ladder to scale the convent walls after the women had refused to unlock the gates.

While some of the black-habited rebels sang religious songs and played guitars, other hurled abuse and swore, according to a police spokesman.
The former mother superior and a renegade monk, Roman Komarczyko, whom police described as "very aggressive", were arrested.
Speaking on behalf of the Polish Church, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, admitted that the affair had damaged the Church but added that it had been left with no choice but eviction.
"It was the last resort that nobody wanted," he said, "but we had to do it."

The Pope: Hilary of Poitiers

Picture: ordination of St Hilary

Todays General Audience, the Pope said:

In 356, Hilary took part in the Synod of Beziers, in southern France, which he himself called ‘the synod of the false apostles’, since the synod was dominated by Arian bishops who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.
These ‘false apostles’ asked Emperor Constantius to condemn the Bishop of Poitiers to exile. Thus, Hilary was forced to leave Gaul in the summer of 356.
Exiled to Phrygia in present-day Turkey, Hilary found himself in a religious context that was totally dominated by Arianism. But even there, his pastoral solicitude impelled him to work strenuously for the re-establishment of unity within the Church, on the basis of the correct faith formulated by the Council of Nicaea.
For this purpose, he started the draft of his most important and best-known dogmatic work, De Trinitate (On the Trinity). In it, Hilary discloses his own personal journey towards getting to know God and concerned himself with showing that the Scriptures clearly attest to the divinity of the Son and his equality with the Father - not only in the New Testament, but even in many pages of the Old Testament, in which the mystery of Christ is already foreshadowed.
Against the Arians, he insisted on the truth of the names Father and Son and developed all of his Trinitarian theology starting from the formula of Baptism given to us by the Lord himself: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The Father and the Son are of the same nature. And if any passages in the New Testament might be thought to indicate that the Son is inferior to the Father, Hilary offers precise rules for avoiding such misleading interpretations: Some Scriptural texts speak of Jesus as God while others highlight his humanity. Some refer to him in his pre-existence with the Father; others take into account the state of ‘abasement’ (kenosis), his descent to human state carried through to death; still others see him in the glory of his resurrection.
In the years of exile, Hilary also wrote the Book of Synods, in which he reproduces and comments for his brother bishops of Gaul the confessions of faith and other documents of the synods convened in the East in the mid-fourth century.
Always firm in his opposition to radical Arians, St. Hilary showed a conciliatory spirit towards those who agreed to profess that the Son resembled the Father in essence, hoping, of course, to lead them towards the full faith, which teaches that beyond mere resemblance, there is a true equality of divinity between the Father and the Son.
I find this characteristic of Hilary: the spirit of conciliation that seeks to comprehend even those who have not yet arrived and helping them with great theological intelligence, to reach full faith in the true divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Red Shoe Cult

I was very amused, I have twice been nominated as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, by people I recognise as commenters on this blog on a national journalist's blog.

I know I would be an absolutely brilliant, but my money is on the Dalai Lama.

Unfortunately I think that people might think I am JARay, or even John Fitzgerald, which is an anagram of ..., I am not of course.

Statue of Our Lady in Chelsea?

Catholic Action: please pray today for the meeting tomorrow. See the promoters site here.

From an email: Please pray for a meeting on October 10th 2007 of the Westminster City Council which is in the process of deciding whether to give Frances Scarr permission to erect a beautiful statue of Mary Most Holy on the Chelsea Embankment as a focus for prayer, as a national memorial in atonement and reparation to God for the burning of the statues and destruction of the monasteries and the national rebellion against God and his holy Church
during the Reformation.

It is hoped that this statue will be erected almost on the exact spot where Thomas Cromwell ordered the statues of Our Lady that had been seized from shrines all over England to be destroyed on bonfires, the ashes of which were then thrown into the Thames. One of those statues was that of Our Lady of Walsingham.

500 Spanish martyrs to be beatified

On Sunday, 28 October. in St Peter's Square in Rome, there will be the largest number of beatification in Church history, among them almost 500 martyrs of religious persecution in Spain in the 1930s. Fr Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, spokesman of the Spanish Bishops' Conference said during an conference on 5 October in Rome at the Pontifical Agustinianum Institute called: "The century of martyrs and religious persecution in Spain (1934-1939)", this beatification "will be an extraordinary event and a reminder that the testimony of martyrs is a great sign of hope".

Fr Martínez Camino said the Celebration will be exceptional for three reasons: the number of the Blessed "never have so many servants of God been beatified together: this is the most numerous beatification in Church history"; the organisation: this is the first experience of networking among the various postulators, and with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; from the pastoral point of view because "practically all the dioceses in Spain, because of the place of birth, apostolic life, or martyrdom of the new Blessed, are the main actors of this great celebration of faith and holiness". Although it is the most numerous beatification in history every case has been given careful individual attention.

With these new Blessed a total 977 Spanish martyrs have been recognised by the Church, and 11 of them are already Saints. "Many more cases could be proposed" said the spokesman of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, because in Spain at that time about 10,000 people were martyred. Processes of beatification have already been started for about 2,000.

Fr Camino said nearly every Spanish Bishop will be present for the occasion. "They all, with their respective diocesan Churches, feel involved in the event" and "they thank the Holy Father for allowing this beatification to take place in Rome". The celebration will "strengthen the faith of Spanish Catholics at this time of great difficulty and enable them to be builders of justice and reconciliation in the light of the testimony of our martyrs, witness of faith and forgiveness". Among those present at the academic act,

Andrea Riccardi, founder of the S. Egidio Community and Vicente Cárcel Ortí, scholar in History of the Church in Spain, who said that religious persecution in that epoch "was the most widely known in the history of Spain and perhaps in the history of the whole Church". He also recalled that "Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Dilectissima nobis 3 June 1933, denounced to the world the situation of authentic religious persecution being experienced by the Church in Spain ".

Plans to outlaw inciting gay hate

from the BBC
Plans to make inciting hatred against gay people a crime have been announced by Justice Secretary Jack Straw.
The law would cover gay, lesbian and bisexual people and may be extended to cover disabled and transgender people.
Mr Straw said it was time for the law to recognise society was "appalled by hatred and invective" directed at people because of their sexuality.
He told MPs the changes would be made as amendments to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.
He said: "It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last 10 years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality.
"It is time for the law to recognise this."

I am rather proud that Bosey, Oscar Widle's friend, used to come to Mass here in his old age, some people still remember him. I certainly don't think we want homophobic rap lyrics, which is what Stonewall claim it is about.
I was actually brought up to believe it was bad manners to discuss individuals sexuality.

The trouble is I do not trust our government and especially I don't trust Mr Straw. I don't trust what they will do in our schools. I don't trust what they want to do with our civil liberties, our government is not good on them, we have seen them eroded and eroded, time and time again.

I am worried that I will not be able speak about the politics of the Gay Movement. I am concerned that we will not be able to speak about the superiority of a life long marriage open to children. I am concerned that we will not be able to suggestion that being "Gay" is actually not according to God's order or plan and is not a good or moral "lifestyle choice".

I suppose what I am really worried about is the margnalisation of any concept of sexual morality in our society.

An Aussie on an English throne?

The Catholic Herald last week suggested Cardinal Pell might be in line as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, frankly, I don't believe it. But on Ttony's blog Pell is in the Paddypower odds at 10-1

Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 2-1 (7-2)
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 5-1 (7-2)
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 11-2
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Bishop William Kenney 15-2 (6-1)
Cardinal Pell 10-1
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 10-1 (12-1)
Fr Aidan Nichols 11-1 (5-1) (6-1)
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 12-1 (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 12-1 (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 12-1
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 16-1
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 16-1
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Bishop John Rawsthorne 20-1
Bishop John Patrick Crowley Non-runner (33-1)



In Italy of course, it is not unusual to transfer Cardinals from one See to another, but Sydney is not an insignioficant See, next year it is hosting World Youth Day.

I would love to have Pell here in England, I have been trying to think of why it might take place. When people I know complained to the Cardinal Ratzinger abo0ut the Church in England he certainly recognised that things were not perfect with the English heirarchy, but then they are certainly not as off the wall as many Europeans are, a bit wet but not absolutely dripping, certainly not in the vanguard of liberalism, none appear to deny the divinity of Christ, or seek to overthrow the Church's authority, indeeed most, all even, seem to be good Christian men.



If Pell were to come to Westminster it would be a sign in Europe and the rest of the Church, that the Church is Universal, Catholic and that although there migh certain cultural differences Catholiscism in one part of the world is, or should be, the same throughout the world.



I know that as far as the English speaking world is concerned England has a certain linguistic pre-emminence, but that battle seems to have been won, at least as far as the liturgy is concerned, for now, at least.



It could be that Pell might be seen as the great enemy of Relativism; I suppose the pope could see that England is a bridge between the English speaking world (which in a way includes not only North America and Australasia but also parts of Africa and to some extent India and the rest of Asia) and Europe.



I am trying to think of other reasons, mabe you can help in the comments box.