Northstowe new town gives community faith site to Church Network – disappointing Hindus
Northstowe Church Network has been awarded a 999 year lease for the first of the new town’s four Faith and Community Land sites. The lakeside site includes space for Christian worship, community activities, and provision for Islamic prayer and education. Northstowe is the largest town to be built since Milton Keynes and is around eight miles north-west of Cambridge. It’s expected that 10,000 new homes will house a population of some 25,000 people, in a development completed by 2040. The CofE pioneer minister the Rev Beth Cope said they “look forward to ongoing friendship and practical collaboration” with the community. But Hindus in Cambridgeshire are “disappointed” that their bid for a Hindu Temple and community centre lost out to the Church Network. A spokesperson for Hindu Samaj Northstowe said 150 Hindu families in the region are “devastated”. They were hoping for a centre because the nearest temple is in Birmingham or Wembley, which means that celebrating festivals is difficult. The council says bids were selected according to set criteria relating to the need for a project and faith practices, and this is the first of four opportunities for faith and / or community groups to secure land in the town. Times of India report here
Dalai Lama celebrates 91st birthday
The Dalai Lama celebrated his 91st birthday yesterday at the Shewatsel teaching ground in Leh, Ladakh, north-west India. Followers lined the route from his home in Dharamshala, where the Tibetan government in exile is based, to the teaching centre, waving white silk scarves to greet him. Dancers and drummers welcomed him, and an audience of around 25,000 people heard him speak. He said people have been praying for him to live a long life, and he still has a mission to spread the Buddha’s teaching of compassion. The Dalai Lama has made clear that his successor will be chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a religious body linked to his office, without external interference. The Chinese government’s claims that it must approve the successor have been firmly rejected by the Dalai Lama. Pics here
10,000 Punjab WWI soldiers to be recognised by Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The BBC reports that the names of almost 10,000 soldiers from pre-partition India who served and died in World War One are to be added to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission casualty database after they were uncovered by researchers. They were not given war grave status at the time, but that decision has been reversed. The records indicate that 25 per cent are Sikhs, another 25 per cent are Hindus, with around 40 per cent Muslim. The search is now on for their British descendants.
Two sentenced for filming abuse of Jewish man in Hackney
Two men who filmed themselves shouting antisemitic abuse and harassing a Jewish man in a predominantly Jewish area in Hackney, east London, have been given six week prison sentences, suspended for 12 months. Adam Bedoui and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, both 21, pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated intentional harassment in May this year. Thames Magistrates’ Court heard that Bousloub started shouting abuse at the man while filming it on a mobile phone, while Bedoui stood by laughing and harassing the man. The Crown Prosecutor said the men intended to load the video onto TikTok. They were arrested by police at the scene.
The miracle of gold coins stashed under the altar which could help save the church
Kaya Burgess in The Times tells the story of the story of a stash of gold coins, now valued at £30,000, which were found by accident in a 14th century church that is under threat of closure because it can’t afford the repairs. The vicar of St Wilfrid’s, in the village of Melling in Lancashire, the Rev Jane Lee, and a parishioner, were cleaning the church for its last Easter services, when they found a bag behind the wedding kneeler under the altar, with a note dated 2022 saying: “Hi there, I’d like to donate these nine gold Britannias to Melling church”, and signed “James, servant of the living God.” Three churches and a school in the area have also reported finding gold coins, but the identity of the donor is unknown. The money will not pay in total for the repairs estimated at £750,000, but the injection of cash has also brought hope and the local community has started a heritage fund to try to save the church. Rev Jane lee said the find was “just like a miracle”
New moderator of the United Reformed Church
The new Moderator of the United Reformed Church is the Rev Neil Thorogood, minister of Thornbury and Trinity-Henleaze URCs near Bristol. He was ordained aged 28 and has served in various churches, and as Director of Pastoral Studies, then Principal, of Westminster College in Cambridge, a theological centre for the United Reformed Church. He is a writer and artist, publishing daily sketches on Twitter / X during the Covid lockdowns. The outgoing Moderator, Catriona Wheeler, told the church’s general assembly that the main worries she heard in churches she had visited “were members growing older without as many of a younger generation following behind; how they are becoming part of larger groups sharing a minister and what this will mean in practice; and responsibilities for church buildings”. Her own church closed in January this year. But she also welcomed the ways in which local congregations often work with other churches and the wider community on social action projects.
US Catholic bishops appeal to Society of excommunicated bishops to ‘come home’
The traditionalist Catholic agency EWTN News reports that a number of US Catholic bishops are instructing church members to avoid sacraments celebrated by the Society of St Pius X, after six bishops were excommunicated by the Pope for consecrations without his authority. The bishops are also urging followers of the Society to seek spiritual guidance and return to the Catholic church. The Society was formed in opposition to changes in Vatican 2 and offers the Latin Tridentine mass. In Great Britain and Ireland there are 30 chapels and mission centres, meeting in former houses and churches. Fr Sebastian Wall, Prior at St. Andrew’s House in Carluke, Scotland, said the episcopal consecrations announced by the SSPX in February are “one of the consequences of the wound opened in the Church by the last council and by the liturgical reform that followed”.
Norwegian priest and diplomat is new vice chancellor of St Mary’s University, London
A Norwegian priest and diplomat, Dr Øystein Lund, has been appointed as the new vice-chancellor of St Mary’s University, the Catholic university in London. He succeeds Professor Anthony McClaran who will be leaving this month. Dr Lund is currently Counsellor for Research and Education at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London, where he has worked on UK-Norway cooperation in higher education, research, innovation and skills since 2022. He held senior leadership roles at NOKUT, the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, and was Deputy to the Rector of the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo. He is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Oslo, ordained in 2014.
