Peter Kearney, Spokesman for the Scottish Bishops, provoked an angry  response from at least one priest  – Fr Paul Morton, St Bride’s Cambuslang (Diocese of Motherwell) – when he claimed, in an interview in The Herald, that Scotland is a hostile place for Catholics to live.  Fr Morton took Peter Kearney to task via the Herald letters page next day and, with the usual ecumenical double-speak, painted a glowing picture of life among the heather for Catholic Scots. So, what do you think – IS Scotland a hostile place for Catholics to live?

Odd, though, that no letters appeared in similar shock at the news that Kearney still intends to vote for the SNP, architects of the same-sex marriage legislation, despite the high profile Catholic support for the Campaign for Marriage. Peter Kearney – representing the Bishops – interviewed well on TV news broadcasts to oppose the immoral SNP legislation yet he seems not to be aware of his inconsistency in pledging to vote for the Nationalists in the future.  His rationale? “You can’t agree with everything, and it’s the party I have most in common with. I still personally support independence for Scotland.”  God help us all, if this is the way the “senior Catholics” in Scotland think.

Will sanity ever return to the Church? Anywhere? Especially here in Scotland where it’s almost impossible to find a fully believing, fully practising Catholic, lay or ordained. Increasingly, I’m meeting thoroughly protestantised laity – described as “Roman Protestants” in one very interesting article of that title sent to me by an English reader some years ago..

Is there anything more that concerned laity and clergy can do to hasten the return of said sanity?

The president of Germany’s bishops’ conference called last month for the creation of a new specific office for female deacons. Here, a leading biblical scholar supports the idea and dismisses objections that it would inevitably lead to women priests

Reacting to recent proposals in Germany about a diaconate for women, the new Bishop of Regensburg, Rudolf Voderholzer, has stated on his website that the office of deacon is inseparably bound to that of priest and bishop, and therefore to the sacrament of ordination. He added: “The tradition that only men can be ordained is based on the Bible” (The Tablet, 4 May).

Bishop Voderholzer seems to have overlooked not only a document co-authored by his predecessor in Regensburg, Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (now Archbishop Müller and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), but also an addition to the canon law of the Western Church made by Pope Benedict XVI.

As a member of the International Theological Commission (ITC), Bishop Müller belonged to a subcommission of seven theo­logians who produced a 100-page study of the diaconate, the fruit of five years of research into the history and theology of the diaconate. Published in late 2002, “Le Diaconat: Evolution et Perspectives” reached two major conclusions. The first was: “The deaconesses mentioned in the tradition of the Ancient Church – as evidenced by the rite of institution and the functions they exercised – were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons.” This implies the recognition of some equivalence, even if it was not “purely and simply” a perfect equivalence. The other major conclusion was: in “the unity of the Sacrament of Holy Orders”, there exists a “clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other”. If one stresses the “clear distinction” , a door could be opened for ordaining women as deacons.  Read more…

To the best of my knowledge,  women in the early Church were not “deacons” at all – certainly not as we understand the term today. They were helpers, in various roles, but not holders of any office equivalent to that of deacon.

My own first reaction on reading the above article was “why on earth, when it’s virtually impossible to fill the pews, would bishops waste their time worrying about giving (even more) titles to women?”  What is the point of this perpetual seeking after novelty? I’m with Pope Saint Pius X who said: “Far, far from our priests be the love of novelty”.  Where do they get the time to dream up these pesky ideas?

Or, put another way: a word in the ear of the President of the German Bishops’ Conference – gerragrip!

That’s what I’d like to say to him (or, at least, that’s the polite version) – what about you?

The Annual Cardinal Winning Lecture will take place at 10.30am in the Bute Hall, University of Glasgow on 15^th June 2013.  This year the lecture will be given by Archbishop Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, to mark the launch of the new St. Andrew’s Foundation for Catholic Teacher Education. Read more

I‘ve written to Archbishop Müller ahead of his visit here, informing him of the dire state of affairs that describes itself as the Catholic Church in Scotland. I encourage others to do the same; here’s the address –

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller.
Prefect for The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Piazza del S. Uffizio ll
00l93 Rome Italy
Europe

Time is short, so I recommend getting your letter off to Rome as soon as possible. This thread is to provide an opportunity for everyone to offer suggestions about what to write, ask questions etc.  Here’s one question that springs to my mind: out of all the scandals we’ve suffered over recent years, which one(s) would you include in your letter?  And don’t forget to tell the Archbishop why you are writing to him – to ask him to DO something, use his authority to deal with the crisis of the Church here in Scotland, and by that I don’t just mean the Cardinal O’Brien scandal. Get it?