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FREE www.catholicvoiceoflancaster.co.uk The Official Newspaper to Inside this month: the Diocese of Lancaster p5 Open wide the doors p6 Singing for their supper Issue 233 + October 2011 p10 Priestly jubilees © Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk The Importance of the Eucharist in Our Lives Celebrate!Come andoth my Granddads workedAdore! in Barrow Second Vatican Council expresses it: Bshipyard and every work day they went to Mass; Granddad Jim went to the early ‘Really partaking of the body of the Lord in the morning Mass at St Patrick's, Barrow breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are taken Island, and Granddad Joseph went to lunch up into communion with Him and with one time Mass at St Mary's, Duke Street. Since another. “Because the bread is one, we though I was a boy my dad taught me that every many, are one body, all of us who partake of Deacon time I passed a Catholic church, if possible, the one bread”. In this way all of us are made I should go in and say a quiet prayer members of His Body, “but severally members Nick Donnelly before the Blessed Sacrament. one of another” (Lumen Gentium, 7). Diocesan organiser, This story of the importance of the Eucharist This vitally important theme will be explored International to my family is also the story of so many and prayed in a number of very Catholic ways: Eucharistic Catholic families the length and breadth of Congress 2012 the Diocese of Lancaster. The Mass has been • The Eucharist will be celebrated and at the heart of our marriages, a consolation adored every day, culminating in a great at the funerals of our loved ones, the Mass for the World, the Statio Orbis. purpose and passion of our lives as priests • There will be catechesis on the and deacons, and the mainstay of our Eucharist by bishops from around the weekly lives every Sunday, with all our joys, world, including personal testimony struggles and sorrows. from invited speakers on the importance of the Eucharist in their lives. It is out of this recognition of the • Meetings with other Catholics to pray importance of the Eucharist to our lives that and reflect on the Eucharist, including and accommodation. Information can Lord Jesus, Bishop Campbell invites you and your parish sharing with Catholics from around be found at the International Eucharistic to come with him to the International the world. Congress website: www.iec2012.ie You were sent by the Father to gather Eucharistic Congress to be held next year, • A solemn Eucharistic Procession as an together those who are scattered. in Dublin, Ireland June 10-17th. act of public witness. • Why not register your interest in You came among us, doing good and attending the International Eucharistic bringing healing, announcing the Word What is an International As the organisers of the International Congress with me by of salvation and giving the Bread which Eucharistic Congress? Eucharistic Congress explain: email: [email protected]; lasts forever. Be our companion on One thing the International Eucharistic by phone: 01229 821866 (Please leave a life’s pilgrim way. Congress isn't is a talking shop with loud ‘In the Eucharist we are invited to a personal message if you get the answer machine); people arguing about religion! The act of encounter with the Lord who gives or by post Deacon Nick Donnelly, May your Holy Spirit inflame our hearts, Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of himself for us, in Word and Sacrament. That 3 Croft Park Grove, Barrow-in-Furness, Catholics from around the world, of all ages encounter opens the path for new relationships Cumbria LA13 9NJ. enliven our hope and open our minds, and backgrounds, to celebrate and focus in which we, as Church and as individual so that together with our sisters and on the place of the Eucharist in our lives Christians are invited to engage in a social • Why not tell other Catholics in your brothers in faith we may recognise you and the life of the Church. mission, in which we in turn are given for parish about the Congress, and see if in the Scriptures and in the breaking of others. The Eucharist, as the theme of the others are interested in attending as a bread. May your Holy Spirit transform What happens at an International previous Congress (Quebec 2008) reminds us, parish group. Talk to your parish priest us into one body and lead us to walk Eucharistic Congress? is “the gift of God for the life of the world” and if there is interest in going as a humbly on the earth, in justice and love, The theme of the 50th Eucharistic Congress (cf. Jn. 6:51).’ parish contact me. as witnesses of your resurrection. in Dublin is ‘The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with one another’. Communion is a What is the Diocese of Lancaster • Please pray for the success of the personal relationship of love and self-giving. doing to prepare for the International Congress at your parish Masses, and In communion with Mary, whom you This theme will help us to explore not only Eucharistic Congress? during your personal prayer. The Church gave to us as our Mother at the foot of how our relationship with Jesus can be • The Diocese is planning to arrange in Ireland has composed this prayer of the cross, through you may all praise, deepened in the Eucharist, but also how the coaches to take pilgrims to Dublin via the 50th International Eucharistic honour and blessing be to the Father in Eucharist challenges us to look more closely the ferry. Alternately, individuals can Congress, inspired by the story of the the Holy Spirit and in the Church, Now at how we live with one another. As the make their own arrangements for travel two disciples on the road to Emmaus: and forever. Amen. 2 + The Catholic Voice of Lancaster + October 2011 www.catholicvoiceoflancaster.co.uk EDITORIAL he past two months have seen a number of social and Liberal Democrat MPs, setting out reasons why all coalition Tlegal developments in our country that represent ad- health ministers disagreed with the amendment. This has vances for the culture of death and further attacks on the been seen as the Coalition government imposing a whip on civilisation of love, as Blessed John Paul the Great expressed MPs voting. the conflict between secularism and the pro-life culture of Christianity. Also in September, Lord Falconer, the zealous campaigner for euthanasia, claimed that assisted suicide would no longer be prosecuted in our country. The reason for his claim was the admission by the Crown Prosecution Service that since 2009 While it is true that taking“ of life not yet born they had investigated 44 cases of assisted suicide and decided or in its final stages is sometimes marked by that, though proven, that they would not bring a prosecution against offenders. Though it is still, in theory, illegal to assist a mistaken sense of altruism and human another person to commit suicide, the CPS decision not to act compassion it cannot be denied that such a means that, as the Catholic journalist Christina Odone puts it, culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a the UK has ‘legalized assisted suicide when no one was looking’. Contact us completely individualistic concept of freedom, The final victory for the culture of death was the announcement The Catholic Voice of Lancaster which ends up by becoming the freedom by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to is published on the last Sunday of the reverse its decision to support the cases of two Christians month previous to publication date. of "the strong" against “the weak” who claiming religious discrimination before the European Court of have no choice but to submit. Human Rights. The two Christians have been sacked for refusing, The Catholic Voice of Lancaster is on conscientious grounds, to provide services to homosexuals, published by its owners. The Trustees Evangelium Vitae asking instead that other colleagues provide the services. of the Roman Catholic Diocese of (One of the Christians had been instructed to officiate at the Civil Lancaster, a registered charity, Partnership of two homosexuals and the other one had been (No. 234331), and is wholly independent The Catholic Voice of Lancaster sincerely” believes that it is essential required to give sexual counselling to homosexuals.) of and separate from any previous that Catholics and people of good will are informed of these developments not out of any sense of reactionary rage but newspaper published by or on behalf The EHRC had announced that they would support these two rather to make clear the advances and defeats in the on-going of the diocese. Christians, arguing that employers need to make ‘reasonable war that we are all called to fight, through prayer, protest, and accommodation’ to protect the rights of religious believers. pro-life campaigning. EDITOR: However, as a result of a ferocious campaign from the gay lobby, Edwina Gillett the EHRC has now decided that they will not support these cases In early September the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and 01253 736630 / 07969 967268 before the European Court of Human Rights, but instead will the Liberal party were crowing that they had defeated Nadine [email protected] argue, with the National Secular Society, that it is right to ignore Dorries MP and Frank Field MP's modest pro-life amendment to www.catholicvoiceoflancaster.co.uk these Christians’ rights to religious freedom, and right to the Health Bill that sought to break the monopoly of pregnancy sack them.