Showing posts with label Archbishop Nichols. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archbishop Nichols. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Another Evil Appointment to New Dicastry on Laity, Family and Life

[VOTF]Voice of the Family is aware of reports, from credible sources, that Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, is being considered as a candidate to head a Vatican’s new dicastery, which will be responsible for Laity, Family and Life.
Cardinal Nichols’s approach to Catholic teaching on human sexuality has caused the pro-life, pro-family movement grave concern for many years. Serious questions have been raised about his approach to issues as diverse as abortioncontraceptionthe rights and status of the embryosex educationhomosexual unions and the reception of Holy Communion for the “divorced and remarried”.
The possibility that he might be appointed as head of the new congregation, which will replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Academy for Life, is very alarming for pro-life pro-family groups who fear that his dissent from Catholic teaching will seriously weaken the Church’s witness worldwide.
http://voiceofthefamily.com/is-a-cardinal-open-to-homosexual-unions-to-be-given-top-family-post-at-vatican/

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

BREAKING NEWS! Cardinal Nichols Changes His Tone!

As many of our readers know, Cardinal Nichols of Westminster isn’t always the most honest, tasteful, or concise member of the College of Cardinals, and recently many of his priests have offered him a vote of no confidence by publishing a letter in which they demand that the next Synod in Rome remain firm on doctrine. (You can read about the letter and his Eminence’s response thereto here.) Such a response is not surprising insofar as the Holy Father has now opened the floodgates for public debate and thereby granted conservatives and traditionalists license to imitate their liberal brethren by publicly airing their minds. Happily, it happens that Cardinal Nichols has now himself learnt a lesson from the priests of his diocese who were bold enough to sign the letter and has in fact changed his tone. In October last year, Nichols published a pastoral letter in which he speaks of the Synod approvingly and with relish. (It may be read here.) Now it seems his Eminence has learnt something of the preconciliar art of concision, precision, and brevity, and publicly changed his mind by publishing a revision, which may be read below. 

The full, revised text of Cardinal Vincent Nichols’ Pastoral Letter is as follows:

To all our brethren and spiritual subjects in Christ, both laics and clerks:

During this season of Lent wherein our holy Mother the Church ever exhorts her children unto increased vigilance, prayer, and penance, our grief and sadness compel us to make known unto you, dear brethren, the machinations of the recent Extraordinary Synod of Bishops held in Rome on the theme of the tribulations afflicted upon the family in these foul days of ours. Although fain would we have abstained from such a conventicle of many who have fallen from the sweetness of truth, duty bade us stay and offer unto God the sacrifices of a heart contrite and pierced by the infidelity of so many of our fellow churchmen.

As you have heard or read, many of the Synod fathers were intent upon changing the teaching of the Church (which God forbid!) on marriage and family life. Such, alas, is the case. Superficially, the enemies of truth discussed questions of ‘pastoral care’ that the Church with maternal solicitude ever owes to repentant sinners. Such was all for the good. The primal error afflicting nearly all, however, was the intentionally willed ambiguity whereby almost none distinguished between the repentant and the unrepentant. Whereas the Church must always offer care for the sick of soul, that she might cure the spiritually infirm all the more, from time to time she must rebuke the proud and prod the unrepentant to turn and believe. The universal call to repentance was, we must report, sadly lacking from the Synod Fathers, especially those from Germany. Such widespread lack of faith, is especially disheartening as we consider the ever increasing number of listless souls for whom Christ died, yet who know him not; or who know him, yet love him not.

You may also have heard that the Holy Father was disappointed at the Synod’s outcome. At present, we are not altogether sure what the Supreme Pontiff’s attitude towards the Synod proceedings were or whether he was satisfied with its work. We were, however, taken aback at his refusal or at least unwillingness to reveal his own mind as to what precisely he would have done.

At Synod’s end, Pope Francis spoke at length about his joy, satisfaction, and frustration with its work. He told the assembled Fathers to take to heart how Divine Providence had touched the Synod through its proceedings, and to see how we may have been tempted to reject the promptings of the Holy Ghost. The Synod, he insisted, must needs be a spiritual journey, not a debating chamber. Yet debating is so often all we did. Our “journey” was nothing but a facile glance and glib perusal at some of the trials afflicting the family in the contemporary world. With the desultoriness of chimpanzees, certain speakers moved from topics like concubinage, polygamy, and whoring, to fornication, adultery, and even the sin against nature, with seemingly little cognizance that for sins such as these, innumerable sinners fail to attain salvation. The vagueness of the proceedings and the sins it refused to name was, at times, intolerable.

In the course of the proceedings, the Synod Fathers contributed to the veritable deluge of mindless dribble that passes these days for so-called ‘magisterial’ texts, which seek to appease all by saying little. By the end, it seems, the German revisionists and their allies had hit their mark and drafted the 'Synod Report' on which the Synod Fathers voted, paragraph by paragraph. Quite simply, the votes indicate the gap between the many who have rejected the faith once delivered and those who have remained firm. Unfortunately, this Report now constitutes the matrix from which will emerge the next Synod to be held this October on the predictably ambiguous theme of 'The Vocation and Mission of the Family Today'.

At the end of the Synod, in his closing address, Pope Francis said this: 'Dear brothers and sisters, now we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families......May the Lord accompany us and guide us in this journey for the glory of His Name.'

That, apparently, is what our loyalty to the Supreme Pontiff requires of us in this present moment. It is our earnest hope, in the meanwhile, to exhort you, faithful souls, during this Lenten season to join your hearts and minds to our Crucified Lord, stretched and nailed, rejected, dying, and alone, who is offered in every Mass and ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, that he avert from us the full measure of the Father’s wrath stirred up by the willful impenitence of wretched and degenerate men who prefer the path of perdition to peace.

With our Apostolic Benediction, we remain

Yours devotedly,
X Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Catholic Primate of England Offers Requiem for Suicide at Westminster

Ben Barboza, husband of the late Jacintha Saldanha, with
the couple's children Junal, 16, (l.) and Lisha, 14 (r.). @AP

Edit:  if Ordinaries like Archbishop Nichols don't actually follow established rules because they're too cowardly to face a media storm, what's the point of having laws which even the ordinaries themselves don't follow?

A nurse who committed suicide as the result of a phone prank was also Catholic.  She was found hanging in her room on December 7th three days after a prank was played on her by Australian DJs.  It's not known if she was a practicing Catholic, but there will be a scandalous Requiem Mass for her in London to placate the sentimental and soft-hearted.  This will be done at the expense of the Catholic religion.

The man responsible for this scandalous act, Archbishop Nichols, has often been long on sentimentality and short on orthopraxis. In 2009, he appeared at a Hindu Temple in London and received a "blessing", and he still hasn't put the brakes on the notorious Soho Masses.  It must be things like this which have prevented this Prince of the Church from receiving the honor of a Cardinal's hat.

Here's the following citation from the Church's Canon Law which ++Nicholas has most likely perjured himself over when he swore he would uphold it:

CHAPTER II : THOSE TO WHOM CHURCH FUNERALS ARE TO BE ALLOWED OR DENIED

Can. 1183 §1 As far as funeral rites are concerned, catechumens are to be reckoned among Christ's faithful.

§2 Children whose parents had intended to have them baptised but who died before baptism, may be allowed Church funeral rites by the local Ordinary.

§3 Provided their own minister is not available, baptised persons belonging to a non-catholic Church or ecclesial community may, in accordance with the prudent judgement of the local Ordinary, be allowed Church funeral rites, unless it is established that they did not wish this.

Can. 1184 §1 Church funeral rites are to be denied to the following, unless they gave some signs of repentance before death:

1° notorious apostates, heretics and schismatics;[Suicides]

2° those who for anti-christian motives chose that their bodies be cremated;

3° other manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.

§2 If any doubt occurs, the local Ordinary is to be consulted and his judgement followed.
Can. 1185 Any form of funeral Mass is also to be denied to a person who has been excluded from a Church funeral.
Here's the story from New York Daily News...

Friday, July 15, 2011

Archbishop Nichol's Private War on Catholic Truth

Archbishop Nichols' pastoral centre to host conference for dissenting Catholic gays

[SPUC]Next week Quest, "a group of lesbian and gay Catholics", will be holding its annual conference. The conference venue is the All Saints' Pastoral Centre at London Colney. The centre is both owned by, and part of, the Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster, headed currently by Archbishop Vincent Nichols. Quest's website gives a clear indication of how Quest and those commentators who support it dissent defiantly from Catholic teaching on sexual ethics*:
  • "[H]omosexual sex is not an incomplete or less perfect expression of human sexuality ... I also want to affirm that I regard heterosexual and homosexual sex as having the same potential and value ... I disagree fundamentally with Church teaching on this issue." [link]
  • "[T]he teaching of the Vatican Congregations....is incompatible with the Gospel" [link]
  • "Quest, an association for lesbian and gay Catholics, welcomes in general the government's proposals to provide for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships." [link]

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Top UK Catholic Bishop: We Fight Poverty not Gay Unions

By Hilary White

ROME, September 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A day after the departure of Pope Benedict XVI from Britain, his senior archbishop, the unofficial head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, told a BBC interviewer that the English bishops had supported legalizing homosexual civil partnerships. (Download the audio here)

Attempting to defend the Catholic hierarchy from accusations of being opposed to the homosexualist political agenda around the world, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster hastened to assure the BBC’s Huw Edwards, “That’s not true.”

“In this country, we were very nuanced. We did not oppose gay civil partnerships. We recognized that in English law there might be a case for those. What we persistently said is that these are not the same as marriage.”

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

UK Archbishop backpedals on aide's statement

Archbishop's aide calls Britain a 'hedonistic wasteland'

Edmund Adamus under fire from equality and secularists groups for criticising the UK's 'gay agenda'

Riazat Butt
religous affairs correspondent
www.guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 1 September 2010

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster has distanced himself from an aide who said gay rights and the commercialisation of sex had turned Britain into a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland" and "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".

The comments from Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, have angered gay rights and secularists groups and provoked embarrassment among the Catholic hierarchy weeks before the pope visits Britain.

Senior figures, including Lord Patten of Barnes, have been keen to stress that the UK, while secular, is not anti-Catholic and that the pope is not flying into hostile territory.

Adamus told the Catholic news agency Zenit there was an "aggressive anti-Catholic bias towards the church and the pontiff" in this country that exceeded even countries that violently persecuted Christians.

"Historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular, London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death.

"Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years or more have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking, than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."

He also talked about marriage and the role of men and women, urging Catholics to "exhibit counter-cultural signals against the selfish, hedonistic wasteland that is the objectification of women for sexual gratification."

"Britain in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialisation of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the 'gay' agenda, is such a wasteland."

A spokesman for Nichols said the views expressed by Adamus "did not reflect the archbishop's opinions".

Ben Summerskill, from the gay rights group Stonewall, said the comments were "gratuitously offensive".

He told the Independent: "The gratuitously offensive comments being made by the archbishop's adviser are hardly likely to promote sensitive debate about respect for religion in the 21st century. You would think that, given its present status, the Roman Catholic church in Britain would be slightly more sensitive about wagging its finger at other people".

Read further...

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Archbishop Williams is worried about non-existent threats when he might be more involved with spiritual ones.

Archbishop Nichols has greater interest in advocating the socialist agendas of climate change and "social justice" than in promoting the honor of God, indeed, it's hard to descry any visible spiritual dimension within his concerns that the environment can harm the poor.

LONDON, DEC. 8, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Westminster is affirming that helping the poorest persons should be at the center of the climate change debate.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said this Saturday at a "Time to Pray" ecumenical service regarding the environment and climate change.

The service, which featured addresses by various Christian leaders, was planned in conjunction with "The Wave," a demonstration in central London aimed at drawing attention to climate change issues prior to the U.N. Copenhagen summit.

Representatives of some 190 countries have just gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a two-week conference to seek a global pact on climate change.

Archbishop Nichols addressed the topic by expressing concern for "all those whose lives are directly affected by climate change, the world's poorest and the most disadvantaged."

"This is an important perspective which we must not lose in the midst of all the other concerns expressed in recent weeks," he stated.

"We know that issues of world poverty and development cannot be separated from concerns for the environment," the prelate said. "They are intimately connected."

There is "much to do before we achieve sound and sustainable relationships between the peoples of this earth and with the environment of the created world," he acknowledged.

Lifestyles

"We sense within us never-ending demands," the archbishop affirmed, "often provoked by the culture of our consumer society."

He continued: "But we must look hard at the way we live our lives and consider again those whose future is threatened by the effects of our own lifestyles.

"Only when we are clearly prepared to change the way we live will politicians be able to achieve the change we say we want to see."

"To love God is, among other things, to give thanks and praise for the gifts of creation and to recognize that they are destined for all people," Archbishop Nichols stated.

Among these gifts, he said, is that of technology, and thus "technological advance is a crucial part of the way we will find solutions to the problems caused by climate change."

Technology is "not morally neutral," the prelate pointed out.

"Rather," he explained, "its proper use is guided always by its effect on the common good."

Thus, the archbishop continued, "let the genius of our finest minds serve the needs of all, and the needs of our environment."

"At the center of our world stands the human person," he affirmed, "every single one made in the image and likeness of God and deserving, for that reason alone, respect, freedom and cooperation."

Archbishop Nichols concluded: "It is hope that inspires us; faith that sustains us. Our union with Christ in prayer is our source of energy, of a new life for our effort as his disciples."

Link to original...

Monday, November 23, 2009

Archbishop Nichols visits Europe's first traditional Hindu temple

After wagging an admonishing finger to the incoming Traditionalist Anglicans that they may not "pick and choose", Archbishop Nichols chooses to go to Europe's first Hindu temple to receive a pagan blessing.

Archbishop Nichols with the Temple's spiritual leader Yogvivek Swami


The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, has made an official visit to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Europe's first traditional Hindu temple in Neasden, north London.

The visit took place on Saturday, 21 November during Interfaith Week and on the birth anniversary of the worldwide spiritual leader of the Hindus who pray at the Mandir (Hindu Temple) at Neasden, His Holiness Pramukhswamiji Maharaj.

Archbishop Nichols was greeted by the Mandir's spiritual leader, Yogvivek Swami, ( Head Sadhu, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (UK & Europe)) and the Trustees of the Mandir. He was welcomed in traditional Hindu style - with a red vermillion mark applied to the forehead and the tying of a sacred thread on the wrist, symbolising friendship and goodwill.

Read further...

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Archbishop Nichols warns against "pick and choose" approach to religion

Anglicans should not become Catholic to protest against female clergy or sexual ethics, the archbishop of Westminster said today, as he warned traditionalists against adopting a "pick and choose" approach to the religion.

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic in England and Wales, was speaking ahead of tomorrow's meeting in Rome between Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Pope Benedict XVI. The pair will discuss the recent initiative by the Vatican to allow Anglicans to become Catholics and retain parts of their spiritual heritage – set out in an apostolic constitution – as well as its impact on ecumenical relations.


Link to... Guardian.