Today has been one of those days.
Saturday 6th March marked the launch of www.catholicvalues.co.uk – a price comparison website with a difference. The difference being that all profits net of running costs made through the website are to be donated to UK charities who support the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.
The general public have become accustomed to using price comparison websites. As consumers have sought to attain greater discounts on motor insurance, other forms of financial services and their utility bills, commission levels generated by the websites having grown to an annual figure of over £450 million.
Catholic Values Ltd, the company behind the national initiative hope to take a share of this considerable sum by persuading the UK’s Catholic population and other likeminded individuals to use their financial power to help causes that value the dignity of life. Because the organisation is non-profit making, at least 90% of the commission generated will be passed on to these causes.
The company plans to distribute funds on a quarterly basis and has already had meetings with the church hierarchy and contacted leading pro-life organisations to inform them of their plans.
Founder and Director of Catholic Values Ltd, Agostino Di Falco comments, “We think the public will welcome the sheer simplicity of our offering. The ability to save money on essential services combined with the opportunity to pass commission in their transaction onto charities they feel so passionate about.”
Martin Foley, former CEO of Life and Luke Parsons, long-time pro-life campaigner and barrister, will sit with Di Falco as Directors of the venture.
Catholic Values’ partner in this venture is beathatquote.com, an established company in the price comparison field.
For more information please contact Agostino Di Falco by email or on 07771847601
As this Saturday was the first in the month, we had our usual visiting schola along to sing the Missa Cantata at Our Lady of the Rosary. As it was also the anniversary of Fr. Adolph Koch, first Parish Priest of Blackfen, it was decided to celebrate a Requiem Mass for him, with Absolutions at the catafalque.
Chants of the Ordinary (Cantus Angeli) Volume 1 is the first of three educational CDs of Gregorian Chant designed for use in parishes. The Chant is performed by a small group of singers from the Choir of St George's Cathedral, London, under the direction of Nick Gale. Nick is a UK-based teacher of Gregorian Chant and the Director of Music at St George's Cathedral. Volume One features complete performances of seven Gregorian Masses, the Ambrosian Gloria, the Asperges and Vidi Aquam, three Credos and a selection of alleluias with verses.We, the undersigned, call upon the Bishops of England and Wales and the Catholic Education Service to fulfil their duty as guardians of our Catholic Faith and unequivocally reject recent Government measures forcing Catholic schools to teach what is explicitly condemned by the Church, viz: presenting active homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, and providing information on the nature - and provision - of contraception and abortion services. Compliance on the part of the Bishops and the CES in such measures would effectively render our schools no longer Catholic in any meaningful sense, and would place the faith and moral life of our children in jeopardy. As Catholic parents, teachers and pastors, we earnestly beg of you, our Shepherds in Christ, that you do not allow this to happen.
My colour laser printer had been acting up for a while, with plain black text coming out unevenly, some bits being very dark and slightly smudgy-looking, and other parts (on the same line) being much paler. I assumed it was the toner running low, and replaced the cartridges.Archbishop Smith has said today that he "welcome[s]" new guidelines on assisted suicide published today by Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions (DPP). Archbishop Smith highlighted positive changes in the guidelines and made no mention of any negative aspects.
Paul Tully of SPUC Pro-Life, which was officially represented before the courts in the Debbie Purdy case, told the media this evening:
"...today's guidelines still represent a significant shift towards judging the suspect's motive ("compassion") in committing the crime, rather than his/her intention (to help cause death). This shift clearly undermines the protection that the law affords to those who might commit suicide, and leaves prosecutors with a very difficult task, when faced with relatives who claim to be grief-stricken by the death of someone they loved, but helped to commit suicide."
Tomorrow (Tue 23 February 2010) is the the final main day (report stage and third reading) in the House of Commons on the government's sex education bill. (The bill has yet to be debated in the House of Lords.) The Conservative opposition has tabled a new amendment (no.60) which seeks to exclude sex and relationships education (SRE) from primary schools.
Please email or telephone your MP immmediately to urge him/her to(a) sign and support amendments 2 and 60, tabled the Conservative opposition for report-stage (see below for more info) and(b) vote against the bill as a whole at third reading. (A widely-reported government amendment on sex education in faith schools is mere window-dressing - see SPUC's 19 February 2010 media release)
What you need to know:
* The government's Children, Schools and Families bill would force all state schools to provide sex and relationships education (SRE) for all primary and secondary school pupils.
* The government want SRE to include signposting and links to abortion and other anti-life/anti-family services in schools, including faith schools.
* The bill would force schools to teach SRE according to principles of "equality", "diversity" and "rights."
* The government's draft SRE guidance interprets those principles to include abortion, birth control, homosexuality and "a wide range of [sexual] practices."
* Schools, if challenged, may well have to prove their SRE programmes accord with the bill's principles and that they had "regard" to the government's anti-life guidance.
* Faith schools may argue that they are entitled to protect their ethos, but the government has demanded that schools accept its sexual health agenda. The government says schools may adapt "the way things are taught", but it insists that all aspects of SRE will have to be delivered in all schools.
* Conservative opposition amendment no. 2 would delete the bill's proposed SRE principles of "equality", "diversity" and "rights". Amendment no. 60 seeks to exclude SRE from primary schools. Whilst these amendments are neither perfect nor comprehensive, they seek to lessen the damage of the sex education proposals.Please ask your MP to show his concern by signing these amendments (which will increase the chance of their being selected for debate) as well as opposing the Bill as a whole.
You can contact your MP by:
* email via the SPUC MPs web page
* telephone via the parliamentary switchboard on (020) 7219 3000.
Please forward any replies you receive to SPUC by:
* email, or post to Paul Tully at SPUC HQ
More information can be found in:
* SPUC's leaflet "Government sex education: priming children for teenage sex and abortion?"
* SPUC's briefing on the government's draft SRE guidance
* SPUC's critique "Sexual health in schools"
"... should, as all Christians, promptly accept in Christian obedience decisions of their spiritual shepherds..." (Lumen Gentium n. 37)
"...This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra." (LG n. 25)
Dear editor,
In his letter (Lack of nurtured Catholics, 6th February 2010) Frank Regan makes a number of claims about the Stand up for Vatican II meeting which don't tally with my memory, or the detailed notes I took of the event.
First, if Frank Regan thinks the meeting he chaired was a "significant experience of an inclusive church", he needs to get out more. In contrast to the multi-ethnic, socially-diverse reality which is the Catholic Church in the Britain, the meeting's attendees were all white, mostly aged over 70 and in the main middle class.
Secondly, when he claims that those present spoke "without rancour, with love for their Church" he is being economical with actualité. One of the speakers, Sister Myra Poole, recently publicly compared Pope Benedict XVI to BNP leader Nick Griffin. As an active anti-fascist whose great-grandfather was murdered by Nazis in Dachau, I find that comparison contemptible. At the meeting she gave a vainglorious speech, much of which involved her praising herself. When she wasn't doing that she was delivering a paranoid Dan Brownesque rant about the supposed influence Opus Dei has at the Vatican, complaining that the Vatican caused a lot of trouble at the World Council of Churches, insisting that "misogyny is so deep in this Church" and saying that she should tell her congregation that if they get anything from the Vatican "they should bin it".That's not my definition of speaking without rancour, with love for the Church.
It's true that the laity were spoken of in disparaging terms as "knowing nothing" at the meeting but such sentiments are a function of the fact that groups like Catholics for a Changing Church which organised the meeting have little, if any, grassroots support in British parishes.
"As age and growing independence brings young people ever closer to pressures, advertising and coercion to behaviour which can undermine the healthy life of young people, we are comforted in the knowledge that our schools and colleges will do an exceptional job in providing Sex and Relationships Education, set within the teachings of the Catholic Church."
"The proposals announced by Ed Balls today confirm that, from September 2011, Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, including Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), will be compulsory in all schools. We welcome the government’s reiteration of its support for the important principles underlining SRE, which emphasise that schools continue to have the legal right to determine the content of what is taught in PSHE within their schools and that governing bodies retain the right to determine what is taught, and must determine this in line with the ethos of the school."
"Let's be absolutely clear, faith schools cannot opt out of statutory PSHE and SRE (sex and relationships education) lessons when it comes into effect in September 2011.
"All maintained schools and academies will be required to teach the full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the Bill including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity."
"Let's see how forthcoming my blog buddies are. Leave a ONE word comment that you think best describes me. It can only be one word. No more than one word. Then copy & paste this post on your blog so I can leave a word about you. This should be interesting."
"In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate. It is the truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free."
