Letter

Newsbites

Men Grasp World Cup Opportunity for outreach                

Christian campaigners have called on churches to show the World Cup on big screens and invite football fans in for a beer. Christian Vision for Men voiced the idea when highlighting the dramatic fall in the number of men under 30 attending church. ‘The World Cup is when pretty much every bloke in the country bonds over a common goal,’ said Carl Beech of the CVM. ‘Why can that not be done in a church?’  The fall in church attendance was a problem of male culture versus church culture, he added. ‘Too many sermons talk about Jesus’ love, compassion and grace… Men want to know about his great decision-making and leadership. That is what they recognise.’  Also this week, Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, released a trinity of World Cup prayers – for those involved, for the host nations, and ‘for those just not interested’.

Sources: Times & Telegraph

CRB Checks a Waste of Time Says Bishop of Durham

The ‘excessive bureaucracy’ of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks have been criticised by the Bishop of Durham, Rt Revd Tom Wright. At a meeting in Pimlico, central London, he criticised the repeated demands for the checks as a ‘waste of time’, saying they were solely concerned with creating a paper trail. Highlighting the amount of legislation produced by the Home Office over the past 13 years, Dr Wright said, ‘most of it is microscopic, micro-managing rules and regulations. We are drowning in legislation. Rules and regulations are not the way to create a good, wise, human society.’  A new vetting and barring scheme, due to be introduced this summer, will require more than 9 million people to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority before working with children or vulnerable adults.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Vatican to Open Its wartime archive.

The Vatican archives on the wartime record of Pius XII are to be opened to scholars at the Holy See in Rome. Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Council for Christian Unity, was speaking at Liverpool’s Hope University when he announced that the records for the entire period of the Second World War would be available within the next six years. The records cover the papacy of Pius XII during a time when the church was accused of failing to do enough to help the Jewish people. Cardinal Kasper said, ‘It is our belief that we have nothing to hide. We do not need to fear the truth.’

Sources: The Times (25/5); Daily Telegraph (26/5)