News aggregator

Extradition laws to be reviewed

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:50
The government orders an independent review of the UK's extradition laws, which will examine if the US-UK treaty is "unbalanced".

Dino clue to 'earliest feathers'

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:50
Palaeontologists uncover a new dinosaur with what may be the earliest evidence of feathers.

Second Iraqi TV presenter killed

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:48
Gunmen in Iraq have killed an Iraqi TV journalist - the second in as many days - while four other people were killed in two attacks in the capital Baghdad.

Pressure mounts against Koran burning

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:46
A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary.

Garden-burial murder son guilty

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:41
A man is found guilty of murdering his father, whose remains were found in concrete in a garden in Buckinghamshire.

'No guarantees' over Moray bases

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:23
The Scottish Secretary says he can give "no guarantees" about the future of two Scottish RAF bases.

Ferrari escape further punishment

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:15
Ferrari have avoided further punishment for using banned team orders, a Formula 1 disciplinary hearing in Paris has ruled.

Higgins cleared of fixing claims

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:12
John Higgins is cleared of all match-fixing allegations but admits bringing snooker into disrepute, resulting in a £75,000 fine and a ban until November.

Islamic centre imam vows openness

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:06
The imam of an Islamic centre planned near New York's Ground Zero vows to name its financial backers amid accusations it is funded by extremists.

Britons drown off Spanish coast

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:00
A Briton is thought to have drowned after going to the aid of his father, who also died, while the pair swam in the sea off Spain's Costa Tropical.

MPs to debate phone hacking claim

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 18:00
Parliament is to debate allegations that MPs had their mobile phones hacked into by News of the World journalists.

Live text - Federer v Soderling

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:57
Roger Federer takes on Robin Soderling in the US Open quarter-finals after earlier wins for Caroline Wozniacki and Novak Djokovic.

Barack Obama on US economy

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:46
US President Barack Obama is giving a speech on the US economy.

New-style device killed soldier

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:38
A 29-year-old soldier on foot patrol in Afghanistan was killed by a sophisticated explosive device which was hard to detect, an inquest hears.

One in four gives fake net names

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:33
A survey shows a majority of web users have suffered cybercrime, but many respondents were themselves less than honest.

Woods & Mickelson 'could team up'

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:29
United States Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin refuses to rule out pairing world numbers one and two Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson at Celtic Manor.

Damilola killer freed from jail

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:20
One of the men convicted of killing 10-year-old Damilola Taylor is released from prison.

Reforming Catholics send questions to pope ahead of UK visit

Christian News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:19

Catholic campaigners seeking reform within their Church have published six questions for the Pope to consider during his visit to the UK next week.

Catholic campaigners seeking reform within their Church have published six questions for the Pope to consider during his visit to the UK next week.

They include questions on the “present over-centralised Church structure” and the lack of accountability highlighted by the child abuse crisis. There are also questions on women's ordination, sexuality, priestly celibacy and the Church's new English-language liturgy.

Catholic Voices for Reform, an umbrella organisation for pro-reform groups, delivered the questions yesterday (7 September) to Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. They asked him to pass them to the pope during his trip.

Benedict XVI will visit Glasgow, London and Birmingham during his state visit to the UK from 16 – 19 September.

Speaking at a press conference prior to handing in the questions, Simon Bryden-Brook of Catholics for a Changing Church urged the Pope to listen more carefully to his flock. He said, “A pope who does not listen to the sheep is not doing his job properly”. Pat Brown of Catholic Women's Ordination (CWO) added, “If the institution doesn't start listening, I really don't see a future for it”.

Bernard Wynne of the group Stand up for Vatican II added, “Lay people are denied a role in the central government of the Church. They're also denied a role in the diocesan and sometimes the parish government of the Church.” Bryden-Brook criticised a system that allowed power to be concentrated in “one person and his cronies”.

Bryden-Brook described the requirement for priests to be celibate as "incredibly damaging" and pointed out that it appears to be waived when it comes to Anglican clergy converting to Rome. He emphasised that "we do not denigrate celibacy for those priests who wish to adopt it,” but argued that it should not be compulsory.

Empowering the laity is a central theme of the reformers' agenda. Valerie Stroud of the group We Are Church bemoaned the lack of adult education in the Roman Catholic Church and suggested that there is a “vast swathe of Catholics who've never learnt any more about their faith than what they learnt when they were seven years old”.

Asked if they were abandoning church teaching in favour of secular notions of human rights, Bryden-Brook insisted that Christianity is about the incarnation and “God being revealed in humanity”. He said that such Christian teaching fitted naturally with a commitment to human rights.

Brown was challenged on the level of support for the ordination of women. She insisted that it is not only a western concern and that she has worked with Catholics from various parts of the global south calling for women's ordination. She admitted that CWO could not give a precise membership figure because of the fluid nature of its membership, but Wynne said that they would welcome an independent opinion poll to measure support.

The panel were asked by Ekklesia's reporter if they also wished to see change in the Vatican's approach to economic justice, given the current Pope's campaign against liberation theology in his previous role as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Wynne admitted that, “The Church was very peremptory in the way it handled liberation theology” but argued that “compared to many governments”, the Church's position on social justice has been “pretty good”.

The groups that make up Catholic Voices for Reform are keen to emphasise that Catholic opinion is much broader than the views promoted by the Vatican. Bryden-Brook yesterday encouraged grassroots Catholics to take the initiative, insisting that, “change at the top will only come from pressure from below”.

[Ekk/1]

House giant enters administration

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:18
Property giant Connaught formally enters administration, putting thousands of jobs at risk.

European police in pirate raids

BBC News - Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:00
Premises across Europe, including a Swedish university, have been raided by police in a piracy crackdown