Posts By Date - Catholic Herald

September 12, 2019

Vatican: German synod plans ‘not ecclesiologically valid’

September 12, 2019

In a letter sent to German bishops last week, the Vatican has said that plans for a binding Church synod in Germany are “not ecclesiologically valid.” Plans for a “binding synodal process” were first announced by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German episcopal conference, earlier this year. CNA reported last week that draft statues

Vos estis: why is it being applied in Crookston but not in Buffalo?

September 12, 2019

Interesting times got more interesting this week, when the Archdiocese of St Paul-Minneapolis confirmed to the Catholic News Agency that the Congregation for Bishops has authorised an investigation into the conduct of a sitting bishop, Michael Hoeppner of Crookston, Minnesota, under the procedures outlined in Pope Francis’s reform law, Vos estis lux mundi, which went

Dutch doctor cleared in case of euthanasia without final consent

September 12, 2019

A Netherlands court acquitted a doctor involved in a controversial euthanasia case who had been accused of breaching the consent requirements for ending a woman’s life. A district court in The Hague issued a decision on Wednesday. Judge Mariette Renckens said the now-retired doctor – whose name was not given – did not need a

Morning Catholic must-reads: 12/09/19

September 12, 2019

A Christian library set on fire by ISIS has reopened in the Iraqi city of Qaraqosh. Church leaders have appealed to the governor of India’s Jharkhand state after a 500-strong mob vandalised a Jesuit mission. Pope Francis has elevated the Diocese of Dili in East Timor to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese. Rod Dreher,

Why thousands of children have never heard of the Good Samaritan

September 12, 2019

Once a year, in January, I sit around a table with an eclectic group that includes Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, Anna Sapir Abulafia, professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at Oxford University, and a smattering of religious publishers. The setting is a modest room at Oxford University, the occasion is the meeting

Our cultural roots are in Latin and Greek

September 12, 2019

Teenagers are studying Latin in large numbers. Some 7,000 pupils took the GCSE this year, 150 more than in 2018, according to the exam board OCR. Greek also appeals to intelligent pupils, to judge by anecdotal evidence. A website for studying classical Greek, Basil Batrakhos – the word means “frog” – has had 631 visits

What role should the clergy play in a Catholic education?

September 12, 2019

In David Lodge’s 2001 novel Thinks, the protagonist Helen Reed muses on her Catholic schooling: “I’m deeply grateful that I had a Catholic education … and in retrospect I feel only nostalgic affection for the nuns who taught me even though most of them were more or less deranged by superstition and sexual repression, which

Leading Catholic school headmaster: ‘Boys will turn off if you patronise them’

September 12, 2019

Every year the London Oratory School, a boys’ academy which takes girls at sixth form, has 1,000 applicants from across London for the 160 places available. Places are so coveted, in fact, that one hopeful parent urged us not to run this article lest the publicity raised the competition. It hardly needs mentioning that the

We’re in danger of breeding a generation of namby-pambies

September 12, 2019

“The little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom,” says John Proctor as fear and vengeance stalk the village of Salem in The Crucible. This is an idea that often haunts me in my life as a school teacher in rural Somerset. Not so much in reference to any particular class or child

Will Catholic schools resist state pressure on sex education?

September 12, 2019

In 2007, the government shut down Catholic adoption agencies. They didn’t put it like that, of course: they just insisted that, as a result of the Equality Act, agencies would be legally required to place children with same-sex couples. As a result, agencies which wanted to stay Catholic had to close their doors. It was,

Editor’s letter

September 12, 2019

While researching our schools supplement I spoke to a gentleman who, despite not being a Catholic himself, had chosen to send his children to Downside because he liked the idea of them being brought up in a Catholic environment, where kindness, hard work and contemplation were valued above all else. In this first edition of

Catholic Good Schools

September 12, 2019

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