The international development charity Progressio, which is inspired by Catholic social teaching, is considering closing. The charity is struggling to raise necessary funds.
Martin McEnery, chairman of Progressio, said the charity needed £2 million of unrestricted funding – that is, money that can be used for any purpose – by September. Its income last year was £6 million.
Mr McEnery said: “The past five years have been increasingly challenging for Progressio and our projects overseas. We have continued to deliver good work through these challenges, but it has been difficult to secure the funding – particularly unrestricted income – necessary to ensure a sustainable future.
“This is in spite of the best efforts of our staff and a number of close supporters.”
The charity’s funding comes mostly from the Department for International Development and Voluntary Service Overseas. But with many of its projects coming to an end, it is facing a shortfall.
Progressio has begun a consultation period, in which it will seek donations and consider whether it may have to close next spring or change its operations.
Mr McEnery said: “We must remain realistic and act responsibly.” The consultation period will end on September 14 with a trustees’ meeting.
Progressio works in some of the world’s poorest countries, including Haiti, Yemen and Zimbabwe. It describes its approach as “people-powered development” – that is, sending development specialists to work with local groups “that authentically represent poor and marginalised people”. The group also campaigns for political change.
It was formerly known as the Catholic Institute for International Relations, and was originally founded by Cardinal Arthur Hinsley.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has written to priests in the Diocese of Westminster discouraging them from celebrating Mass facing east.
He issued the message to clergy after the Vatican’s liturgy chief Cardinal Robert Sarah invited priests to celebrate Mass ad orientem from Advent onwards. Cardinal Sarah made the remarks at the Sacra Liturgia conference in London last week.
In a message sent on Sunday, Cardinal Nichols told priests: “The General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM], approved by the highest authority in the Church, states in paragraph 299 that ‘The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. The altar should, moreover, be so placed as to be truly the centre towards which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns. The altar is usually fixed and is dedicated.’ ”
While he noted that the Congregation for Divine Worship had confirmed in 2009 that this instruction still allowed for Mass to be celebrated facing east, the cardinal wrote: “But it also ‘reaffirms that the position towards the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier’. Thus the expectations expressed in GIRM 299 remain in force whenever the ordinary form of Mass is celebrated.”
Cardinal Nichols said that Mass was not the time for priests to “exercise personal preference or taste”, and “as the last paragraph of the GIRM states so clearly, ‘The Roman Missal, though in a diversity of languages and with some variety of customs, must in the future be safeguarded as an instrument and an outstanding sign of the integrity and unity of the Roman Rite.’ ”
Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, told the Sacra Liturgia conference: “It is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction – eastwards or at least towards the apse – to the Lord who comes.” The cardinal asked priests “to implement this practice wherever possible.”
He said that “prudence” and catechesis would be necessary, but told pastors to have “confidence that this is something good for the Church, something good for our people”.
“Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come’ and ‘who will not delay’.” These words were followed by prolonged applause in the conference hall.
Cardinal Sarah had spoken on previous occasions about the merits of ad orientem worship, saying that from the Offertory onwards it was “essential that the priest and faithful look together towards the east”.
But his specifying of the first Sunday of Advent – which falls this year on November 27 – gives a new urgency to his calls for this form of worship.
Speaking after Cardinal Sarah, Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon said that he would celebrate Mass ad orientem at his cathedral, and would encourage his priests to do the same.
The historian John Charmley has been appointed as pro vice-chancellor of St Mary’s. He joins Francis Campbell, former ambassador to the Holy See, and Ruth Kelly, former education secretary, on the university’s senior team.
Professor Charmley, a specialist on Winston Churchill, previously taught at the University of East Anglia for 37 years and has held several senior positions at the university.
He is a frequent contributor to the Catholic Herald.
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