Buffer zones and abortion clinics: why this English bishop is concerned

London, England, Feb 21, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- You may recognize the sound of the London Oratory Schola Cantorum Boys Choir from epic motion picture soundtracks like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or The Phantom of the Opera.

But the heart of the world-renowned Schola, which includes voices of boys ages 7-18, has always been liturgical music.

Now, the boys choir hopes to bring the sacred tradition of Renaissance liturgical music to a wider audience with their debut album, “Sacred Treasures of England”, produced in a partnership with AimHigher Recordings/Sony Classical, a sister label of De Monfort Music.

AimHigher Recordings CEO Kevin Fitzgibbons said he was impressed with the choir “from the first note.”

“Mirroring the majestic beauty of The Oratory itself, the repertoire from this debut recording is gorgeous and timeless,” he said.

The album features English Tudor-era motets by composers such as William Byrd and Thomas Tallis, as well as the magnificent Missa Euge bone by Christopher Tye, and is the first part of a series of albums of sacred music the choir will be producing.

Charles Cole, Director of The London Oratory Schola Cantorum Boys Choir, told CNA that the idea for the album series came from a desire to share the Schola’s large repertoire of liturgical music, comprised largely of music from Renaissance composers, with the world.

“The Schola’s primary role is the singing of this Liturgy at the Oratory and we will always be focused above all on that,” Cole said.

“However, the opportunity to work on new recordings gives us a wonderful opportunity to work with great intensity on particular areas of the repertoire and hopefully bring these wonderful works to be heard by a far larger audience.”

The album series is grouped by region or country, he said, allowing listeners “to delve into a particular sound world, and the English music on this first recording has some very beautiful characteristics.”

Fr. George Bowen, Chaplain of the London Oratory School and a priest of the London Oratory, said the album series offers the Schola a unique chance to evangelize.

“St. Philip Neri (founder of the Oratory brotherhood of priests) always wanted the Oratory to be outward looking; to evangelise. Sacred Music has always played a vital part in the work of evangelisation, and we hope that this CD will continue the tradition,” he told CNA.

The London Oratory Schola Cantorum Boys Choir, founded in 1996, is one of three choirs associated with the London Oratory. It provides school age boys with an education immersed in the experience of learning and performing sacred liturgical music.

The choir is in high demand, and sings frequently on tours throughout the world and for projects such as the CD, movie soundtracks or philanthropic concerts for organizations such as Aid to the Church in Need. They also sing for every Vigil Mass at the London Oratory during the school year.

It all takes an incredible amount of hard work and discipline, Cole said. The boys choir rehearse every morning before school for an hour, as well as several other times throughout their school day at the Oratory.

This discipline transfers into other areas of the boys’ lives – academics, athletics – but most importantly, their immersion in the liturgy “gives them a heaven-sent opportunity to develop a love of their Faith.”

“It is a very immersive experience for them, both musically and liturgically, allowing them to experience the beautiful repertory which adorns the major feasts of the Church year,” Cole said.

“We hope that this album will bring more and more people into contact with the beautiful musical treasures of the Church.”

The Schola will be going on tour to promote their new album, which will include a leg in the United States in October. For more information about the album, including the track list, visit: http://aimhigherrecordings.com/loscbc.php/. The album is available on Amazon and iTunes.

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Rome, Italy, Feb 25, 2017 / 03:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will tomorrow become the first Roman Pontiff to set foot in an Anglican parish in Rome, marking a symbolic act the church’s pastor said is hugely significant, yet surprisingly normal for two communities that are close to one another.

“Personally, as a parish priest of 17 years in this place, I can’t imagine a more fulfilling moment in my ministry,” Jonathan Boardman, pastor of All Saints Anglican Church in Rome, told CNA.

“It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened, except it isn’t,” he said, explaining that it’s a very “natural and normal thing” for a group of Christians to welcome the leader of their brethren to their house.

For Pope Francis to become the first Roman Pontiff to step inside an Anglican parish in Rome, then, is “the most exciting thing, and it’s the most normal thing,” he said, saying it’s a gesture “that explains a truth about our Christian living.”

Both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he said, have to find “the excitement of the Gospel and the fulfillment of it” in everything they do, “from the most rare thing to the most ordinary thing,” such as giving to the poor and offering prayers together.

Pope Francis’ visit coincides with the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Anglican parish community in the heart of the Eternal City, and will consist of a short choral Evensong service, during which the Pope will bless and dedicate an icon of “St. Saviour” commissioned for the occasion.

The symbolic “twinning” of All Saints Anglican Church with the Catholic parish of “Ognissanti” – the only Catholic parish in Rome dedicated to All Saints – will also take place during the liturgy, forming strong ecumenical ties between the two.

Ognissanti is the parish where Bl. Paul VI, on March 7, 1965, celebrated the first Mass in Italian following the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

After the singing of Evensong during his visit to All Saints, Pope Francis is expected to deliver a brief homily before taking questions from the congregation.

Established in 1816, All Saints contains the largest Anglican congregation in Italy, and is headed by Boardman and his assistant chaplain, Dana English. Both pastors will be present to welcome the Pope for his visit Sunday, as well as Robert Innes, the Anglican Bishop in Europe, and his suffragan, David Hamid.

In his comments to CNA, Boardman said that in his opinion, the reason a papal visit to an Anglican parish is possible now rather than in the past is likely due to “the fact that we’ve got Pope Francis.”

Francis “really determinately seeks to exhibit, to show the way in which he’s the Bishop of Rome and how that can be celebrated by other Christians who are present in Rome,” he said, noting that the visit builds on 50 years of dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans.

This positive dialogue the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have enjoyed shows that Anglicans “are serious in giving honor to the Pope, in recognizing him as the leader of Christendom in some way, although obviously not in the juridical way,” Boardman said, explaining that this point “still keeps us separated.”

But from both the Catholic and Anglican sides, “I think both the Pope’s ability to recognize and accept and celebrate that (dialogue) with us, and our willingness to receive him and celebrate that (dialogue), are the two factors that have led us to where we are today.”

Pointing to Benedict XVI’s establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate in 2009 as a means of helping Anglicans who wish to become Catholic while maintaining certain elements of their liturgy and customs, Boardman called the move “a real generosity and attempt to meet some of the deficiencies, as they were conceived, of what kept us apart.”

While some on the Anglican side initially viewed the act as “hostile and invasive,” the pastor said for him that wasn’t the case, and that in his own personal view, the time has come “to settle down” and appreciate the gesture as “an act of generosity”.

“The degree to which Anglican patrimony truly has been inserted into the Roman Catholic world is something that’s ongoing,” he said, and noted that after the Pope’s visit to his parish this weekend, a Choral Evensong of the Anglican rite will be sung inside St. Peter’s Basilica March 13.

When it comes to progress Catholics and Anglicans have made toward unity, Boardman said he thinks the communities have grown closer, and that in his view “we’re closer to unity than we ever were before simply because time has passed and we’re nearer to God’s gathering us all in.”

“In that sense we’re nearer,” he said, but added that if they want to continue growing closer to one another, it can’t happen without taking on a more prayerful attitude.

There has to be greater openness “to God’s surprising demands on us, and our alignment with his will where all of us, all Christians” make the sacrifices and take the steps needed in order “to truly align ourselves with God’s will.”

Dialogue “has flourished” in the past 100 years, particularly after the Second Vatican Council, he said, acknowledging that unity is closer, but there is still a long way to go.

“We’re only just beginning truly to be real friends and being able to talk about our differences and our problems as friends,” he said, adding that “we’ve got a ways to go to resolve them.”

Some of the biggest hurdles that still need to be overcome exist on both a spiritual and practical level, he said, noting that the first challenge is always “to be faithful to God and to grow in spiritual depth.”

Apart from this, major issues from the Catholic standpoint include the ordination of women and homosexual individuals, whereas for Anglicans, how to accept papal primacy without “changing the nature” of Anglicanism is still a looming concern.

But putting the hurdles aside, Boardman said he hopes the twinning of his parish with the Catholic parish of Ognissanti will help to foster “greater friendship between our two communities.”

The gesture will offer both communities a way to experience the spiritual life of the other while staying “true to our … disciplines” and growing together through various activities, such as service to the poor.

“We’ve already started in sharing some of the feeding programs to the homeless in Rome,” he said, explaining that Ognissanti has already launched various projects, “but now we are participating in them.”

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Rome, Italy, Sep 16, 2017 / 12:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, the Salesian missionary released this week after 18 months of captivity, thanked Saturday all those who have prayed and made sacrifices on his behalf, saying he recommits himself to the service of God.

“With your prayers and sacrifices you have brought me from God and have brought me here,” he said Sept. 16. “I do not know how to thank you all. May the Lord God bless you and reward you and give you courage to go through whatever difficulties may come as we go on in this world.”    

“And one day we will all be together to praise God, that should be our aim, that is actually our aim. May that happen… We all rejoice, thank God for my freedom. I am at the service of the Lord God. Let him continue to use me as he wants.”

Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, who became known around the world through social media and news outlets as people prayed for his release, spoke to journalists during a press conference at the Salesian headquarters in Rome.

An Indian native, Fr. Uzhunnalil, 59, was kidnapped March 4, 2016 from a Missionaries of Charity home in Aden. In the attack 16 people were killed, including four religious sisters.

Throughout his 18-month captivity, several photos and videos of the priest were released, showing a thin Fr. Uzhunnalil with an overgrown beard, pleading for help and for his release, saying that his health was deteriorating and he was in need of hospitalization.

In the press conference, Fr. Uzhunnalil emphasized that despite the great stress he was under and his inability to move about freely, being kept in one room, his captors did not physically harm him.

He was provided with adequate food and water and even some small amount of medical treatment for his diabetes. He went on to explain that if in any of the videos it appears that his captors hit him, it was not a real blow, but acting which they planned in advance, telling him it was to quicken a response from authorities.

Fr. Uzhunnalil said he has no knowledge of who it was that took him or what group they belonged to, but said that “God has been with me.”

“The whole world must have been praying, you all might have made sacrifices. The fruits of all (this) must be that they have not injured me right from the first day,” he said.

From the moment he was taken he was not afraid, he continued. “I said to myself: with the knowledge of God, nothing will happen to me. For Jesus has said, not a hair will fall from your head without the heavenly Father’s knowledge.”

“Those words, that phrase flashed in my mind. Maybe that’s what gave me strength, kept my mind serene, calm.”

In the press conference Fr. Uzhunnalil was calm, but did become emotional when he noticed the presence of a number of Missionary of Charity sisters, to whom he gave his condolences for the loss of their four religious sisters.

“I’m sure they feel the pain of their loss, but their loss is for themselves and for the world; I am sure that these four who have gone are in heaven,” he said.

Witnessing the death of those in his presence was a very traumatic moment for him. “He didn’t want to speak about that moment,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay told CNA Sept. 14.

Cardinal Gracias had the opportunity to speak with Fr. Uzhunnalil soon after his arrival to Rome and was present when he met Pope Francis Sept. 13 after the Wednesday General Audience.

Pope Francis was himself very touched by Fr. Uzhunnalil’s expression of faith in their meeting, Cardinal Gracias said. The Holy Father told the priest: “The whole world has been praying for you, everybody has been praying for you.”

Fr. Uzhunnalil repeated over and over to the Pope that “Jesus is great, Jesus is great.”

In the press conference Fr. Uzhunnalil recounted a detail from the day he was kidnapped. After the initial attack and killings, which took place while they were having adoration in the chapel, the attackers covered his head and locked him in a car, and then left to re-enter the chapel.

At some point later he heard them return open the door of the trunk and place something heavy near his feet.

His hands weren’t tied, he explained, so he “lifted the cloth, just looked to make sure, and it was the tabernacle.” He knew that it contained consecrated Hosts from the Mass he had celebrated the evening prior.  

Although he did not have bread and wine with him in captivity, Fr. Uzhunnalil said he was still able to peacefully pray the Mass every day from memory. He said he would pray to God to spiritually give him the gifts of bread and wine for the Eucharist.  

Another line he said he prayed frequently was: “One day at a time, sweet Lord. Give me the grace to live this day. I thanked God for that day. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not sure, so give me the grace to live this day.”

While in captivity the Salesian lost more than 60 pounds, he said. But in the few days since his release has already gained back more than 11. He will, however, continue to remain in Rome for 8-10 more days for continued medical tests and recovery time before returning to India to see his family.

“I thank in the name of the Lord God even my captors who have been understanding to me and have not hurt me,” he said.

“It’s God’s intervention. And that is due to the prayers and sacrifices of all my brothers and sisters, all of you around the whole world, my own country, other countries, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, all men of good will. I’m sure each one has made sacrifices.”

“I don’t believe in arms,” he continued. “The best weapon against any enemy is love, prayer, forgiveness.”

Comments from Cardinal Gracias contributed by Elise Harris.

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