The Churches

Catholics resist

Catholics got their back up in the United Kingdom:

Here in Britan intense pressure from the Catholic Church has led to a dramatic U-turn by the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, on the issue of faith schools. Last week Mr Johnson announced that all new faith schools would be obliged to admit a quarter of pupils from outside their faith community but by last night he had abandoned the plan. What happened? Though The Tablet was printed before the U-turn, James Macintyre’s article leaves readers in no doubt that the quota-plan caused deep divisions at the heart of the Government with many Labour backbenchers fearing a huge backlash from Catholic voters. The chairman of the Catholic Education Service, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, who led opposition to the proposal, also spells out the seriousness of the threat it posed to faith schools.

Are there bishops in the United States so bold and competent?

posted by Jim Bowman @ 10/27/2006 03:49:00 PM links to this post

Brothers' month

Born in Spain in 1533, Alphonsus inherited the family textile business at 23. Within the space of three years, his wife, daughter and mother died; meanwhile, business was poor. Alphonsus stepped back and reassessed his life. He sold the business and, with his young son, moved into his sisters’ home. There he learned the discipline of prayer and meditation.

Years later, at the death of his son, Alphonsus, almost 40 by then, sought to join the Jesuits. He was not helped by his poor education. He applied twice before being admitted. For 45 years he served as doorkeeper at the Jesuits’ college in Majorca. When not at his post, he was almost always at prayer, though he often encountered difficulties and temptations.

His holiness and prayerfulness attracted many to him, including St. Peter Claver, then a Jesuit seminarian. Alphonsus’s life as doorkeeper may have been humdrum, but he caught the attention of poet and fellow-Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, who made him the subject of one of his poems.

Alphonsus died in 1617. He is the patron saint of Majorca.

posted by Jim Bowman @ 10/09/2006 12:54:00 PM links to this post