A Catholic church confession box has been sponsored by a bookie.
Paddy Power, the Irish betting firm, has paid £10,000 in the deal with Our Lady & St Etheldreda Church in Newmarket, Suffolk, after being approached by its fundraising committee.
Newmarket is widely regarded as the home of British horse-racing.
Paddy Power spokesman Ken Robertson told Mail Online: 'It was just before Christmas when we got an unsolicited call from a man on the fundraising committee at the church.
'He said Newmarket was the home of flat-racing in Britain and he asked would we sponsor an event to help pay for a new confession box .
'I half-jokingly floated the idea that if we paid for the confession box could we put our name to it - and he spoke to the priest, who was well up for it.'
The box, which has green curtains branded with Paddy Power's logo and the words 'Sin Bin' on the outside, was officially opened yesterday by jockey Frankie Dettori.
The Italian rider was married in the church, and was the first to say confession there yesterday.
Mr Robertson said he saw no issue with a betting firm sponsoring a Catholic confession box.
'There has been a temporary confession box there since the church was built in the 1960s,' he said.
'The church approached us - and at the end of the day, Newmarket church now has a confession box, which they wouldn't have had.'
(Read the complete report here)
From November 2001, when Bishop Wilton Gregory was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he was known as a good listener. At the time, he was the shepherd of the small 107,425-member Belleville Catholic diocese. He had served in Belleville since 1994 when Pope John Paul II had dispatched him to clean up a sex abuse cesspool involving 10 percent of the Belleville diocese's priests.Here's just a short passage from Spotanski's lengthy memo, but I heartily encourage you to read the whole of it. You'll find a link to the PDF file for the complete text here.
Today the Beacon is making public a 10-page memo, a cry from the heart, read aloud to Gregory on Feb. 22, 2002, by a Catholic father of three children.
This influential document laid out ideas that evolved into the church's wider protection policy; it has never been publicly acknowledged or published. Its author is David R. Spotanski, 47, the Belleville chancellor for all matters except canonical issues that require an ordained priest. Before he worked in Belleville, Spotanski had worked for the St. Louis archdiocese.
In January 2002, Spotanski felt he had a special role as a father of three to help his boss lead the church and its children to safety.
The memo "served as a very important touchstone for me," Gregory, 62, now the archbishop of Atlanta's archdiocese, told the Beacon Monday in a phone interview. "I learned from David. I have had a world of respect for David Spotanski from the day we started working together. I think he is a great man with a great heart. He spoke to me on two different levels: as someone on my staff that I depended on but also as a father."
You went out on a limb, Wilton, as Bishop O'Donnell had in the Archdiocese of St. Louis before you, when you placed a lay person in a traditionally clerical job, I went out on a limb when I accepted it. I have happily tagged along as you've restored faith, hope and pride in the traumatized families of the Diocese of Belleville, and I never balk at an opportunity to share with people that you exude the same pastoral presence away from the crowds and the cameras as you do before them. For whatever reason I have found myself in a special place at a unique and difficult time in the Church, and I do not take that lightly. I have been blessed with the freedom (and, I believe, the obligation) to share daily with the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops a perspective to which he cannot relate. I can speak as a parent.The whole memo can be found in a PDF file here.
You should know by now that our children are more important to Sharon and me than anything in the world. Let me repeat that in bold Italics: Our children are more important to Sharon and me than anything in the world. With all due respect, though you probably come as close to understanding the significance of that statement as any bishop in the Church, you don't. You can't. No priest, no religious, no lay person who is not a parent can truly appreciate the incredible weight of that single sentence any more than I could before Erin was born. Three children later, I'm not sure I fully grasp it yet, and I know I can't adequately articulate it for you in a simple memorandum. Similarly, I could never hope to fully comprehend how your pastoral ministry is the most important thing in the world to you. I can witness your vocation and try to appreciate the extraordinary commitment you have made to the Church, but I am not and will likely never be a priest. I may work in your chancery, but I am, above all else, Sharon's husband and Erin, Jonathan and James' dad.
WASHINGTON— In solidarity with the Catholic bishops of Arizona, Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration, issued a statement April 27, opposing the enactment and implementation of Arizona SB 1070, which criminalizes undocumented immigrants.
“This new law, although limited to the State of Arizona, could have impact throughout the nation, in terms of how members of our immigrant communities are both perceived and treated,” Bishop Wester said in the statement. “SB 1070 gives law enforcement officials powers to detain and arrest individuals based on a very low legal standard, possibly leading to the profiling of individuals based upon their appearance, manner of speaking, or ethnicity.”
Bishop Wester called SB 1070 “symptomatic of the absence of federal leadership on the issue of immigration” and called for “the Administration and Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to enact comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible.”
Full text of the statement here.
Now I leave the office, jump into my car and start making phone calls...
The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has today (4/22/10) formally accepted my resignation as Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin, which I offered on 23rd December, in the wake of the Murphy Report.In the wake of the Murphy Report, Moriarty is the second Irish bishop whose resignation has been accepted by the pope, the first was Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick who resigned last December.
The decision to offer my resignation was the most difficult decision of my ministry. I did not anticipate resigning when I first read the Murphy Report, because I was not directly criticised. However, the Murphy Report covers far more than what individual Bishops did or did not do. Renewal must begin with accepting responsibility for the past. I served as an Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Dublin from 1991 until my appointment to this diocese in 2002. I was part of the governance of the Archdiocese prior to when correct child protection policies and procedures were implemented. Again I accept that from the time I became an Auxiliary Bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture. Once more I apologise to all survivors and their families...
(Read the rest of Bishop Moriarty's statement here)
CatholicTV® (CatholicTV.com), America's Catholic Television Network(TM), has announced that it has signed an affiliation agreement with Comcast Corporation, the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communication services in the country."Every day, CatholicTV hears from viewers around the country who are anxious to benefit from the programming our network provides," said Father Robert Reed, CatholicTV Director. "We are honored to provide Comcast with uplifting entertainment and compelling family programming that reflects the diversity of our nation."
CatholicTV has been an industry leader for more than 55 years, offering a broad spectrum of faith-based programming aimed at children, teens and adults. With news, talk, entertainment, international event coverage and devotional series, as well as live Sunday Mass from the University of Notre Dame and a full slate of Video On Demand, CatholicTV is unparalleled in its outreach to the religious community.
On the cutting edge of technology, CatholicTV has developed the "CatholicTV" iPhone app and is offering both television programming and special sections of CatholicTV Monthly magazine in 3D.
"We are very excited to partner with Comcast and are grateful for their affirmation of the CatholicTV Network. We look forward to being part of the already impressive Comcast lineup," said Jay Fadden, CatholicTV General Manager.
(Read the complete story at CityBiz)
