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Follow the Catholic Universe on twitter @ukcatholicpress News03The Catholic Universe | Friday 23rd November, 2018

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Feel goodaboutgiving thisChristmasInspired by a tripto Uganda whereshe had witnessedthe power of asingle goat, LizDene from OurLady and Saints ofGuernsey parishdecided she wantedto take action. After seeing that the Goat that Gives fromCAFOD’s World Gifts range cost just £28, she decided tofundraise in her parish.Expecting to fundraise just 30 goats, Liz’s parish outdid

themselves and were able to raise over £3,000 to buy morethan 100 goats, changing the lives of people like Shuff inKenya (pictured).The Goat that Gives not only provides manure to help

overseas communities to grow crops, but milk to drink andsell at the market. Liz said: “It worked because people werehappy to give £28. And if they weren’t, we joked with them:‘You can buy the hind quarters and someone else will buythe front!’”

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Memo from CAFOD

West failingto counter religious oppressionContinued on pg 1

The report says the danger fromsuch terrorists is “universal, imminentand ever-present”.

Religious Freedom in the World2018 also underlines the growth ofIslamophobia and anti-Semitism inthe West.

Summarising the report’s main find-ings, Editor-in-Chief John Pontifexsaid: “Aggressive ultra-nationalism –be it by hard-line governments or vi-olent extremist groups – means manyminority faith groups feel like aliensin their own country.

“They are easy targets in a new eraof ignorance and intolerance.

“True, there are some like the Ro-hingya Muslims, whose plight has re-ceived due attention in the West, butso many others – such as Christiansin Nigeria, Ahmadis in Pakistan andBaha’is in Iran – feel abandoned bythe West, where religious freedom hasslipped down the human rights pri-ority rankings.”

‘Religious freedomhas slipped downthe human rightspriority rankings’John Pontifex

Longley accepts Churchlet the victims down butinsists it has learnt fromits past mistakesSimon CaldwellThe Archbishop of Birmingham,Bernard Longley, has publicly apolo-gized to the victims of child abuseduring a government-backed inquirythat shed light on allegations againstpriests over half a century.

Some of the allegations were madeagainst Fr John Tolkien, the son ofJRR Tolkien, the best-selling authorof The Hobbit and The Lord of theRings trilogy.

Archbishop Bernard Longley ofBirmingham, England, acknowledgedfailures of the Church to protect chil-dren in his testimony to the Inde-pendent Inquiry into Child Sex Abusein London on 16th November. He as-sured the inquiry of his commitmentto the protection of children and vul-nerable adults.

The inquiry is investigating childabuse throughout various institutionsand heard evidence of abuse in theBirmingham Archdiocese during afive-day hearing.

“I am deeply sorry. I apologise. Iapologise to those survivors and thosevictims of abuse for what they havesuffered with the archdiocese overthe years,” the archbishop said.

“I apologise to them and I wouldcertainly wish to seek some way oflifting the burden. I know that apolo-gies feel that they come too late andare inadequate and I accept that,” hecontinued.

“I believe that being here this weekhas been revealed some serious mis-takes and I wish to learn from them,”Archbishop Longley added. “I canonly say that I hope it’s not too late. Irepresent a Church whose messageis that it’s never too late but that’s notfor me to say in relation to victimsand survivors of abuse.”

Archbishop Longley was questionedfor hours about the Church’s childprotection procedures and about hisown attitude toward child protection,

answering that he has met victims ofabuse of numerous occasions.

The archdiocese is one of the worstafflicted by clerical abuse in Englandand Wales and was nominated in 2016as a case study to represent the Churchnationally.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of West-minster, president of the Bishops'Conference of England and Wales andArchbishop of Birmingham from 2000to 2009, was expected to face the in-quiry but fell ill during the Remem-brance Sunday service in London andwas unable to attend.

He will attend the inquiry on 13thDecember to answer questions aboutthe way the archdiocese handledabuse allegations laid against severalpriests, including Fr Tolkien, who diedin 2003.

Tolkien was alleged to have orderedBoy Scouts to strip while working ina Birmingham parish in the 1950s.

The archdiocese was made awareof similar complaints against him in1968, according to a note from thetime which was cited by the inquiry,but declined to pass them on to thepolice even though there were strongindications the priest might have ad-mitted the abuse.

Instead, there was a suggestion thatFr Tolkien was sent for treatment andhe returned to active ministry soonafterward only to be accused of sexoffences against another boy in 1970.

Jacqueline Carey, legal counsel forthe inquiry, revealed that in 1993 Arch-bishop Maurice Couve de Murville,serving in Birmingham at the time,told a complainant that he would notact against Fr Tolkien as the priestwas in poor health and was going toretire.

Police finally were alerted in 1994,but no action was taken until 2001.An investigation resulted in a decisionnot to prosecute bwfore another al-legation was made against Fr Tolkienin 2002. Christopher Carrie, a formerBoy Scout from Birmingham, was paidmore than £15,000 in compensationin 2003 after he sued the Church overthe abuse he said he suffered at thepriest’s hands.

Archbishop issues heartfeltapology over abuse failings

‘I represent a Church whose messageis that it’s never too late to apologise,but that’s not for me to say in relationto victims and survivors of abuse.’Archbishop Longley

No, they’re the royals...The Duke and Duchessof Cambridge arepictured during a visit tothe Centrepoint charityin Barnsley, where theyprepared soup and breadfor young people whohave been helped by thehomelessness charity.The couple lookedrelaxed as they chattedwith staff and youngpeople, with the dukejoking it was far from anormal lunch as hegestured to thephotographers in frontof him.

A new lead co-ordinator has been ap-pointed to manage Catholic Voices(CV) in the UK following a decisionby its two founders to concentrate onboosting the project internationally.

Brenden Thompson, its publicspeaker’s programme co-ordinatorfor the past two years, will take overfrom Jack Valero as lead coordinatorof CV. Both Valero and co-founderAusten Ivereigh will stand down astrustees.

The third founder-co-ordinator,Kathleen Griffin, sadly died in Sep-

tember after a long illness.The project began in 2010 in the

UK to train speakers for media inter-views, initially focussed on the papalvisit that year. Since 2011 it has or-ganised workshops in cities acrossthe UK, training more than 150 peoplein media interviews.

Thompson, 28, studied theology atSt Mary’s, Twickenham and OxfordUniversity and qualified recently inleadership & management at Lead-ership College London. He works parttime for the Diocese of Brentwood as

a training and resources co-ordinatorfor a thriving youth service.

Thompson said: “I have becomemore convinced than ever that theCV method is a great gift to the Church,helping people to articulate their faithand build bridges in the workplaceand day-to-day life.

“It is a great privilege to take Jackand Austen’s work forward into theproject’s next stage.”

Since 2011, the project has also ex-panded across the world, with Valeroand Ivereigh giving training in 24

countries. Valero is leaving to focushis time and energies on growing bothexisting and fledgling CV groups acrossthe world.

The idea for the new organisationcame out of a “CV Global” meeting of15 of the international groups in Romein May this year.

Valero said: “I am excited aboutthis new phase for our mission.”

Ivereigh, the former lead co-ordi-nator, will also resign as trustee andgive support to the new internationalorganisation.

The Campaign to Protect Rural Eng-land (CPRE) has warned that the cur-rent focus on eliminating plasticsmust not lead to the public overlookingthe damage done by other kinds ofcontainers.

A government proposal for a depositreturn scheme to be introduced forplastic vessels must include all typesof containers, the CPRE said, after itsown survey of 35 ‘green clean’ litterpick collected 11,212 drinks containersof various materials and sizes.

While much of the focus is on plasticpackaging polluting the countrysideand the oceans, plastic accounted forjust over a third (35 per cent) of thedrinks containers picked up, while

half were aluminium cans, 14 per centwere glass and one per cent were car-tons.

The drinks containers collected bythe volunteer litter pickers in Englishtowns, cities and the countryside alsoranged in size, CPRE said.

Among the plastic litter, more thanseven in 10 (71 per cent) were 500mlcontainers, the size of an averagebottle of water, while 10 per cent weresmaller, and 19 per cent were large orextra large bottles.

Less than a third of cans (29 percent) were 330ml, the size of an aver-age fizzy drink, while more than half(53 per cent) were bigger – an averagebeer can – and 18 per cent were small-

er, such as energy drinks.A quarter of glass bottles collected

were smaller than 330ml, such asstubby or regular beer bottles, 42 percent were 400 to 750ml, the size of alarger beer bottle and a third werewine or large spirits bottles.

The Government is planning tobring in a deposit return scheme fordrinks containers which adds a depositwhen the drink is bought which is re-deemed when the bottle or can isbrought back to a return point for re-cycling.

But CPRE claims the packaging anddrinks industries are trying to dilutethe system and limit the type and sizeof containers that will be included.

Not just plastic that’s a threat – CPRE

Leading Catholic peer Lord David Al-ton has criticised the Government forfailing to step forward immediatelyand offer Pakistani-Christian Asia Bibiasylum in the UK.

His comments come after ScottishChurch leaders from across the de-nominations made a similar call.

Speaking at the launch of the Reli-gious Freedom in the World 2018 re-port (see pg 1) Lord Alton said thelack of action by the UK governmenton behalf of Bibi was typical of theway western governments handledreligious persecution.

Asia Bibi is a Christian who wasthreatened with the death penalty inher native Pakitan after a groundlesscharge of blasphemy was laid againsther by her Muslim co-workers. Afterbeing freed from jail nearly four weeksago she is currently in hiding some-where in Pakistan, amid fears thatshe will be murdered by Islamic hard-liners if her whereabouts is exposed.

Her family have made repeated callsfor western nation to offer her asy-lum.

Lord Alton said: “The Religious Free-dom in the World 2018 report identifiessystematic violations of religious lib-erty around the world – whether it bethe lynching of Muslims in India orthe rapidly growing number of attackson Christians in Egypt. What I foundmost damning was that it identifiedthe ways in which we in the West arefailing to help members of religiousminorities who are suffering becauseof their beliefs.

“Readers of The Universe will havebeen following the case of Asia Bibi. 

“When I met Chief Justice SaqibNasir who presided over Asia Bibi’sappeal case, during a visit to Islamabadlast month, I was struck by his courage.He had put his life on the line torectify this appalling injustice. He wasonly too aware that Minister ShahbazBhatti and Punjab Governor SalmanTaseer were murdered for speakingout against the incarceration of AsiaBibi and the abuse of the blasphemylaw.

“But the UK has failed to show sim-ilar courage in dealing with this case.Asia Bibi’s husband made an impas-sioned appeal to several countries in-

cluding the UK, begging for asylumfor his wife and family.

“Asia Bibi is still in danger, makeno mistake about that. A frenzy ofhate was whipped up after she wasacquitted with demands made for herexecution. Surely it is precisely peoplelike Asia Bibi that should qualify forasylum? But fears about the securityof British diplomatic staff in Pakistanhave led the UK to hold back fromoffering a safe haven to her and herfamily.”

“As was noted by one speaker atthe parliamentary Foreign affairs Com-mittee on 13th November, Govern-ment policy is being effectively dic-tated by a lynch mob who have beenbaying for Asia Bibi’s blood.

“And this failure of courage is sys-temic. When Asia’s husband anddaughter were in the UK last monthas guests of Aid to the Church in Needthey were treated abominably by thegovernment. A meeting with a Gov-ernment Minister was cancelled atscandalously short notice.

“After passing through security atthe government building where theMinister works, the family arrived atthe reception desk only to be told

that they should have been informedthat the meeting was not happening.Checking their mobile phones theyfound that a voice message had beenleft while they were passing throughsecurity cancelling the appointment.No one from the Government wasprepared to meet them. This speaksvolumes about the Government’s con-cern for those around the world beingtargeted because of their faith.”

Meanwhile, Scottish church leadershave also urged the UK Governmentto offer asylum to Bibi.

Seven Scottish church leaders in-cluding Rt Rev Susan Brown, Moder-ator of the General Assembly of theChurch of Scotland, and Most RevLeo Cushley, Roman Catholic Arch-bishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh,have now signed an open letter whichhas been sent to Home Secretary SajidJavid urging him to grant her asylum.

“The threat to Asia and her familyand supporters is real.”

“With all respect, we urge you andthrough you, the Home Office, to grantasylum to Asia Bibi and her family inrecognition of the United Kingdom’scontinuing commitment to freedomof religion and belief.”

New Voice to lead Catholic response in the mediaBrendenThompson

Lord hits out at UKrefusal to help Bibi

In Rome, supportersshow their solidarity forAsia Bibi with postersproclaiming ‘We are allAsia Bibi’

People affected by terrorism are beinglet down amid a “profound crisis” inmental health services, campaignersclaim.

Survivors of attacks have beenforced to pay for their own treatmentor wait months for an appointment,according to a report.

The paper, published by SurvivorsAgainst Terror, interviewed 271 peoplewho were injured in or witness toterror attacks, and relatives of victims

who were killed or injured.The report said: “The survey reveals

major gaps in service provision, chiefamong these is the lack of adequatemental health provision.”

Three quarters of those surveyedsaid mental health services requireimprovement.

One respondent said: “Mentalhealth services are diabolical here, Istill have not seen a psychologist 14months after the event.”

Terror survivors feel ‘let down’by mental health services