MAY 2009 Issue No. 193 £2 Duns Scotus Seminary - set for closure. A SCOTTISH RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE OF COMMENT, OPINION AND REFLECTION EDITORIAL Penal Times Again. Page 1 Penal Times Again The Scottish Bishops appear to show no How did the post-Vatican II Church Edinburgh 1910 - The Birth of sense of accountability for the closure of (the People of God!) consult the laity, Catholic Ecumenism. the last seminary in Scotland. Rather formation staff and seminarians in the Page 2 than have a phased closure and a process? A lack of vision has ensured planned move to more practical that the Catholic Church in Scotland facilities, allowing the present students continues to live in the past rather than Bad Times Come Again. to complete their studies, no reason is to read the signs of the times and Page 3 given for the hastiness of their decision. respond to the needs of the Church in The Bishop of Paisley is credited with the modern world. The same short- the immediate move to Rome. If training sightedness and lack of imagination The Cafeteria Culture. of priests at home is not important then has blinded us from seeing the obvious. Page 5 why have we been doing it for hundreds It is not the national seminary that has of years? Apparently even troubled Iraq had its day. Rather it is the seminary Modus Vivendi. Page 6 Market Speculation, World Order and The Bible (Part 1). Page 7 The Gonzaga Lectures 2009 - Part 2. Page 9 Interior of the new Scotus College chapel which was built and opened in 1997. A Reflective Rant. has a home seminary with more system that is now and has been for Page 10 seminarians than Scotus and Rome’s years defunct, archaic and as such must Scots College put together! be confined to history. It is not fit for purpose. It does not equip student That the reasons for closure were not Publisher’s Notes. priests for parish life. Putting them in financial will comfort some. That it is Page 11 parishes, as the Archbishop of Paris due to staff being required in the did, would do so. At least the home parishes doesn’t square with Scotland formation process at Scotus had a still being one of the best in the world in Reviews strong and effective pastoral and terms of proportion of priests to people, Page 12 ecumenical bent. outstripping many traditionally Catholic countries with about 750 priests to The students who are coming to Your Letters: 750,000 Catholics. It is the present intake seminary are not staying and it’s not that is poor and the hierarchy must look difficult to see why. It may be worth Page 15 at their role in this and consider how bearing in mind that when the Royal they prioritise their ministry. Parishes Scots College in Salamanca closed all the Contact Details: must also promote vocations rather than students who were transferred to Rome Page 16 adopt an attitude of ‘leave it to others left within one year of arrival. To close and hope for the best.’ the Scots College in Rome would seem the more obvious option. If for whatever reason, other than plan for priestly formation before the prestige, students should train abroad then this could be creation of monster seminaries 450 years facilitated by one the many half empty seminaries in Rome. ago. St Charles Borromeo believed that The bishops should either reverse their decision to close student priests should undergo proper Scotus College and allow priests to train at home or, better formation in small numbers in houses still, admit that the cobwebbed seminary formation system is with their bishop. It is time for reform. a dinosaur of the past that is incapable of meeting the Only fans of H. G. Wells could applaud demands of the modern world. The ‘it was good enough for this decision as the hierarchy have made us, so it’s good enough for you’ attitude is no longer a time travel possible and taken the Church tenable position. The most suitable place to train priests for back to Penal times. It is time we parish life is and always has been in parish life - the original wakened up. MICHAEL T R B TURNBULL Edinburgh 1910 - The Birth of Catholic Ecumenism Next year, from 14 to 23 June, Resistance to Apartheid (Skotaville: Bonomelli (1831-1914) of Cremona took Edinburgh’s Assembly Hall will host Johannesburg, 1989) and the Truth a personal initiative to send the World Edinburgh 2010 in celebration of the first and Reconciliation Commission, Missionary Conference a strong message World Missionary Conference held at the Encyclopaedia of Public Administration of support. This intervention, although same venue exactly a century before. and Public Policy (Marcel Dekker: New not sanctioned by higher authority, Like the 1910 original, it will consist of York, 2004). marks the tentative beginning of the discussions on reports written by eight Catholic Church’s eventual involvement In the first quarter of the twentieth appointed commissions on a number of in the Ecumenical Movement. In recent century the Catholic Church deliberately key themes: Foundation for Mission; years, Cardinal Walter Kasper, secretary shunned joint ventures with other Christian Mission among other Faiths; of the Pontifical Council for Promoting churches. On 2 November 1914, for Mission and Post-Modernity; Mission Christian Unity, has described Bishop example, Robert Gardner, Secretary of and Power; Forms of Missionary Bonomelli’s intervention as ‘a prophetic the Commission of the Episcopal Church Engagement; Theological education and sign of the Catholic Church’s entry into in the United States, wrote to Secretary of formation; Christian communities in the ecumenical movement.’ contemporary contexts; Mission and State Cardinal Gasparri asking for an unity - ecclesiology and mission; Mission audience with the Pope for the purpose In his letter Bishop Bonomelli foresaw spirituality and authentic discipleship. of discussing the proposed Conference the tentative beginnings of a movement of all Christian Communions to discuss towards Christian unity: This Edinburgh 2010 project (see: ‘Faith and Order’ questions. This http://www.edinburgh2010.org/) is based .…from the various Churches and audience was granted and in May 1919, at New College, Edinburgh and headed religious denominations into which a delegation of five Episcopalians visited by International Director, South African you Christians are divided there Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922). Dr Daryl Balia, an ordained minister of arises a new unifying element, a the Methodist Church, who taught In spite of such polite diplomatic noble aspiration, restraining too missiology for ten years, worked in overtures, after the Stockholm Life and great impulsiveness, levelling Nelson Work Conference (1925) and the Faith dividing barriers, and working for Mandela’s and Order Conference in Lausanne the realisation of the one Holy government (1927), Pius XI issued Mortalium animos Church through all the children of for seven (6 Jan 1928) ‘On Religious Unity’, which redemption. years declared that doctrinal compromise for Msgr. John A. Radano, an American who promoting the purpose of union was unacceptable. served on the Vatican’s Pontifical public ethics After the formation of the World Council Council for Promoting Christian Unity and national of Churches (1948), the Holy Office for more than 23 years, points out that, integrity and issued An Instruction on the Ecumenical ‘while ecumenical initiatives took place is the author Movement (1949) to summarise and before, nonetheless in a special way of a number consolidate this position. of books, Edinburgh 1910 marks the twentieth- including In the face of this official aloofness, it is century beginning of several very Christian all the more remarkable that one far- representative embodiments of the Dr Daryl Balia sighted Catholic priest, Bishop Geremias Ecumenical Movement.’ These 2 : OPEN HOUSE : May 2009 include the Bonomelli had a strong sense of social on board the historical-critical methods International justice. In 1896 appalled by the plight of in biblical studies and other disciplines, Missionary Italian migrant workers whom he had was partly due to the influence of a Council (1921), met during his travels throughout group of Roman Jesuits who forced a the Faith and Europe, he issued a pastoral letter on change in the more liberal attitude OrderEmigration. Three years later he founded adopted by Pope Leo XIII. movement, the the ‘Opera Bonomelli’, an agency to Universal provide migrant Italian workers with Subsequent Popes, however, affirmed Christian material and spiritual assistance. the work of Bishop Bonomelli. In his Council of Life apostolic constitution Exsul Familia While Bonomelli’s courage and and Work and Nazarethana (1952), Pope Pius XII praised Msgr John A. Radano independence of mind (developed by his ultimately to Bonomelli’s apostolate to Italian migrant studies at the Gregorian University) can establishment of the World Council of workers in Switzerland, Austria, only be admired, some of his initiatives Churches in 1948. Germany and France and the agency he fell foul of the Vatican. An anonymous founded for their relief. Then, in 1994, in Bonomelli did not himself conceive the pamphlet he wrote in 1889, aimed at a letter marking the eightieth idea of writing a letter. He was invited to suggesting to the Vatican a way of anniversary of Bonomelli’s death, Pope do so by the American Episcopalian reaching an accommodation with the John Paul II wrote what must be Bishop layman, Silas McBee, who had visited new Italian state, was placed on the Bonomelli’s most fitting epitaph Bonomelli in Cremona a few months Index of Forbidden Books. An (recently translated into English by before the World Missionary Conference unguarded reference to the possibility of Annette Brydone). ‘With the passions of opened.