Disagreements escalate over Notre-Dame rebuilding project

Rome, Italy, May 7, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- A Eucharistic blessing of the city of Rome has been offered each day from the doorstep of Rome’s largest Marian basilica as coronavirus measures restricted the public from attending Masses.

The daily E… […]

Paris, France, Apr 6, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Institut Catholique de Paris hosted a conference Tuesday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the leadership organization for Catholic bishops’ conferences in Africa, at which the Church in Africa was invited to reflection on inculturation and its relationship with the Church in Europe.

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar will hold its golden jubilee in Kampala July 26-30.

Brigitte Cholvy, a professor who directs post-graduate courses at the Institut Catholique de Paris, discussed the April 2 conference with La Croix, a French Catholic daily.

She told the publication that the interation between African and European theology means there is a need to discuss “the task of inculturation within a globalized context.”

“We need to be careful not to lean towards exoticism, while preserving all that has meaning in a given culture at a liturgical, ecclesial and Christological level,” Cholvy told La Croix.

The professor noted that those to be evangelized must be considered, while remembering also “that even in the most remote places in Africa, globalization has already arrived.”

According to Cholvy, the Institut Catholique de Paris “welcomes 50% of all doctoral students of Sub-Saharan origin,” and La Croix noted that many African priests and religious are educated in Europe.

The conference discussed Africa’s responsibility for mission; the family; and the relationships between faith and culture, and the Church and society.

Among the speakers at the conference was Fr. Leonard Santedi, rector of the Catholic University of the Congo, who said that SECAM “pursues common reflection above all,” and that “our voice needs to become stronger, less timid and be raised as it has been against Boko Haram in Nigeria.”

According to La Croix, self-reflection on the Church in Africa is hardly a new phenomenon; it noted the 1956 publication of “Des pretres noirs s’interrogent” (“Black priests challenge us”), which has been called “the birth of African theology”. The work, which La Croix said “led to the launch of reflection on African Christianity”, is a collection of more than 10 essays, with a preface by the then-Archbishop of Dakar, Marcel Lefebvre.

In May 2018 SECAM met with representatives of the German bishops’ conference to discuss integral human development, with both groups affirming their need to continue the work of evangelization. Such meetings have been occuring every four to five years since 1982.

The bishops pointed to poverty, misery, disease, and despair in Africa “caused by human greed and corruption, injustices of all kinds and violence and fratricidal wars,” and in Europe, a “dearth of spiritual values, excessive materialism and consumerism, individualism, little or no of respect for the life and rights of the unborn, of the aged and the infirm.”

“All of these evils .. point to the fact that as Church we still have a lot to do in our evangelization mission,” they affirmed.

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Plymouth Bishop-elect Christopher Whitehead’s planned installation was cancelled in February. / Credit: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk|Flickr|CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED

CNA Staff, Mar 25, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

A diocese in England has announced that it will undertake “no canonical action” against a priest whose installation as bishop of Plymouth was canceled without explanation earlier this year.

The Diocese of Plymouth had said in a statement in early February that the ordination of Plymouth Bishop-elect Christopher Whitehead, at the time a priest in the nearby Diocese of Clifton, would “not take place” on Feb. 22 as had been previously scheduled.

“A canonical process is currently underway, and no further comments will be made until this has been concluded,” the diocese said at the time, noting that Whitehead himself had “stepped back from active ministry whilst this process is ongoing.”

In the wake of the announcement, the Plymouth Diocese had quickly moved to scrub its website of nearly all references to the bishop-elect. An earlier interview with Whitehead, as well as a Christmas message from the bishop-elect, were both missing from the site after the cancellation was announced, as was the December announcement of Whitehead’s appointment by Pope Francis. 

On Friday, the Diocese of Clifton said in a statement that it had “undertaken a preliminary investigation into the allegations raised against Canon Christopher Whitehead” and that “at the conclusion of the aforementioned inquiry, it was determined that no canonical action was warranted.” 

“The diocese communicates that Canon Whitehead has resumed his duties as parish priest of St. John the Evangelist in Bath,” the statement said. 

Reached for comment on Monday morning, diocesan spokesman Phil Gibbons provided CNA with an identical statement.

It is not clear if Whitehead is still slated to be installed as bishop or if another priest will fill that role. James Abbott, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, told CNA on Monday that the statement from the Clifton Diocese was “all we have just now.”

“As soon as we can provide anything further about Plymouth, we will certainly do so,” Abbott said. 

In its bulletin for Palm Sunday, meanwhile, St. John the Evangelist Parish in Bath announced that Whitehead “has been given the chance to return to St. John’s and resume his ministry here as our parish priest.” 

“He will, most probably, say something at each Mass, but he has tremendous gratitude for the concern, the love, and the prayer that has accompanied him across the last eight or nine weeks, prayers that have truly sustained him along the painful journey of this process,” the bulletin said. “It is good to enter into Holy Week with a shepherd to lead us.”

It was unclear on Monday if Whitehead had spoken of the incident at the past weekend’s Masses. The parish did not immediately respond to a query from CNA, nor did Whitehead himself. 

A parishioner at St. John’s, meanwhile, told the Catholic Herald that there was “nothing more to know” about the controversy. 

The inquiry into the canon has been “completed,” the parishioner told the outlet, and “nothing more needs to be said.” 

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