Pope Benedict to resign in unexpected announcement

Cardinal Francis Arinze It is just been announced that Pope Benedict is to resign. This is very unexpected although it does not come as a total surprise as there has been speculation about his health and capacity due to age. He has been a good Pope, especially for traditional Anglican catholics. He understood the patrimony of classical Anglicanism at a time when the ravages of secularism descended on it. He is very minded of ecumenical necessity. He also is unafraid to stand up for the sacraments of the Church, the tradition of the Faith and the social witness of the Gospel. No doubt much will be said, much will be speculated. One thing that...

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Bishop Mark Lawrence accused and abused - Mrs Jefferts Schori flips her mitre!

Bishop Mark Lawrence Like a lot of people in the Anglican Communion I have come to realise that Katherine Jefferts Schori, the leading light currently in the Episcopal Church of the USA, is a rather unpleasant woman. Strong words, I know, but being pleasant means giving a sense of happy satisfaction or enjoyment. She does the opposite. I would not mind if she promoted her views with Christian charity and a degree of humility. But she seems incapable of doing so. Her secular agenda is the new gospel and this must at all costs supplant orthodox belief. It is well known that she is bankrupting the church with lawsuits aimed at throwing traditional...

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Chris Huhne quits as MP after pleading guilty to penalty points swap

Chris Huhne faces reality at last Chris Huhne has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by asking his ex-wife to take speeding points for him. Almost simultaneously he quit politics and will stand down as Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh. A by-election will now take place. This is not a contest I think either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats will relish. This is a golden opportunity for UKIP to provide a real alternative to the schemers and the schmoozers of the political elite. Today was the day that Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce were due to be tried by a jury. Instead of twelve of his fellow citizens hearing...

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Three new European routes for Birmingham Airport

On the day that the government announces where HS2 is going or not going, Birmingham Airport unveils three new routes to European cities. Airline bmi regional will be flying to - Gothenburg, Lyon and Toulouse. Now HS2 could be going to the two French cities but it peters out in London in order for the trudge and the trek to begin. If I wanted to go to Lyon from Birmingham I'd be tempted to go with bmi regional instead of having two high speed train train journeys and a low speed London sightseeing session in between! Read More http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/other-uk-business/2013/01/28/three-new-european-routes-for-birmingham-airport-65233-32680534/#ixzz2JHSsg3...

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HS2 northern rail route announced

HS2 going north or south or somewhere The government has announced where the northern rail route of the HS2 high speed railway will go. The £32bn rail project will have running northwards from Birmingham five stops. These are Manchester, Manchester Airport, Toton near Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds. The Sheffield one will apparently be happily sitting next to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre. If Manchester Airport gets a stop whats the point of Heathrow getting bigger? George Osborne sees this HS2 extension as the "engine for growth in the north and the midlands" but that depends on who is going to use it. And that is where the consultations...

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False hopes, false dawns in David Cameron's EU paradise

"A referendum not today, not tomorrow, but in 2018, but...." David Cameron is promising some jam today, a bit more in a few years time and a sticky dose of the stuff by 2018 in a referendum to decide whether Britain stays in or out of the European Union. Again, this is Humpty Dumpty stuff. Alice is getting annoyed with Dave as he keeps telling her things he wants to say in a way he wants to say them. Every time Alice thinks she understands Dave has shifted down the wall a bit and tells her she misunderstood him completely. So the gist of all this is that the Coalition government (with carping LibDems) will beaver away at getting enabling...

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Gay marriage in church after all - Cameron U-turns!

David Cameron is to go back on his word and try to foist the idea of homosexual unions onto the Christian Church. No doubt this is all part of his programme, which appears to be a heady mixture of secular themes and religious liberalism. Nothing much to do with sacramental belief. Now we are to be engaged in a second front, whereby the outside world, hostile to Christian doctrine, sees this issue as a means to get even with those they disagree with. David Cameron lives in a fantasy world if he thinks that "gay marriage" in church will somehow be an edifying prospect before God. A Christian marriage cherishes the union of a man and a woman. Is Cameron thinking that two people of the same sex can say "With my body I thee worship, etc, etc" and make it appear sacramentally sound. The theology...

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On Church and State and all that

Jeremy Paxman in his book The English : A Portrait of a People sums up the attitude of the English to the church as "they were not in any meaningful sense religious, the Church of England being a political invention which had elevated being 'a good chap' to something akin to canonization. On the occasions when bureaucracy demanded they admit an allegiance, they could write 'C of E' in the box and know they wouldn't be bothered by demands that they attend church or give all they had to the poor". Paxman once spoke to a Bishop of Oxford and asked about what one needed to believe to be a member of the church and he replied, with a slight look of bafflement on his face, that it was an intriguing question, as if it had not occurred to him before. Ralf Dahredorf said of religion in his adoptive...

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