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Advent Group - Supporting Priests & Religious since 1969

Michael Winters RIP

Written by: Michael Pendergast
Created: 24 April 2023
Last Updated: 27 April 2023
  Michael's Funeral will take place on Thursday, 4 May, 11am, in the Chapel of St Edmunds's College, Mount Pleasant, Cambridge, CB3 0BN, where he was Dean some years ago.  Michael Winter’s funeral  Mass will be livestreamed on the College Chapel’s FB page https://www.facebook.com/EddiesChapel from 11am. 

 MichaelWinter

Martin Pendergast writes:

Michael Winters has died. It is with great sadness that I received news this morning from Alison, Michael's wife, that Michael died last night, Saturday, 22 April 2023, aged 93. He had been in hospital for six weeks, and then got Covid on the ward. Michael Winter was ordained as a secular priest in 1955, following a conventional Catholic education and seminary training. The next 20 years consisted of a mixture of parish work, seminary teaching, and further studies in the universities of London, Cambridge and Fribourg. In 1968 he was summarily dismissed from a teaching post at the Beda College in Rome on account of this opposition to the birth control encyclical 'Humanae Vitae'.

In 1975 he became chaplain to London University, and then Dean of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. In 1986 he resigned from the clergy, and worked from then on with 'Pax Christi', and in university teaching.

He was married to Alison, a solicitor, they had two sons, and lived in north London. He was a prolific author including 'Mission or Maintenance' (1973), Mission Resumed, which suggested structural changes the Roman Catholic Church needs to make to become a missionary body in England, written as a successor to his book, Mission or Maintenance, for the National Pastoral Congress in 1980, The Atonement (Problems in Theology) (1994), providing an explanation of the Atonement which avoids metaphor and myth and the pitfalls of the theory of placating an angry God, and offers an intellectual solution which is compatible with the scriptures and tradition, as well as being acceptable to the reasonable expectations of the modern world, 'Misguided Morality' (2002/2022), Catholicism Retrieved (2011), and Recovering Catholicism - an overview review of the Catholic Church (2014), and Atonement by the Resurrection, with a Forward by Cardinal Vincent Nichols (2017).

He was a former Chairperson of the Movement for a Married Clergy. Until physical frailty prevented him, he regularly attended St Joseph's Catholic Church, Bunhill Row, which he saw as embodying much of what a Church in the 21st Century could be. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. Funeral arrangements to be confirmed ...

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/47010

The nun and the monk

The nun and the monk who fell in love and married

Written by: Aleem Maqbool
Created: 03 January 2023
Last Updated: 03 January 2023

Twenty-four years after becoming a nun, it was a brief touch of the sleeve of a monk in the parlour of the convent in Preston, Lancashire, that changed everything for Sister Mary Elizabeth.

The prioress of the order had taken her to meet the friar Robert, who was visiting from a priory in Oxford, to see if he wanted anything to eat. But Sister Mary Elizabeth's superior was called away to take a phone call, so the two were left alone.

"It was our first time in a room together. We sat at a table as he ate, and the prioress didn't come back so I had to let him out."

Sister Mary Elizabeth had lived a devout, austere and mostly silent life as a nun, spending most of her days in her "cell". As she let Robert out of the door, she brushed his sleeve and says she felt something of a jolt.

"I just felt a chemistry there, something, and I was a bit embarrassed. And I thought, gosh, did he feel that too. And as I let him out the door it was quite awkward."

She recalls that it was about a week later that she received Robert's message asking if she would leave to marry him.

Read more: The nun and the monk who fell in love and married

"Celibacy rule is depriving Church of excellent priests", says French bishop

Written by: La Croix
Created: 21 September 2022
Last Updated: 21 September 2022
"Even if there were married priests, it would still make sense to me... how can one not find meaning in what one lives?" 
https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/celibacy-rule-is-depriving-church-of-excellent-priests-says-french-bishop/16598
 
By Pascal Wintzer | France
The current synod, whose title may seem abstruse — a "Synod on Synodality" —, is perhaps best expressed by the three words that follow its title: "Communion, Participation and Mission".
 
I want to emphasize the call to mission. This is indeed what the Lord asks for in the final lines of the Gospels, including that of Saint Matthew.
 
We suffer when we see that there are people in the Church who are obstacles to the encounter with God.The urgency of a more faithful Church was received with such force that the synodal consultation began at the same time as France's Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published its report was published.
 
As for the whole of society, the difficulty lies in the exercise of authority.The Church is suspected of abuse, of not respecting minorities and even of covering up abuse, and Pope Francis has expressed this well by pointing out that the three types of abuse – abuse of power, as well as spiritual and sexual abuse – often feed off each other.Many words, or writings, conclude that the cause of all this is the specificity of priests and bishops, meaning both their lifestyle, including celibacy, and the authority they exercise in the Church.They say that changing both would be the remedy for the excesses that have produced so many offenses and crimes.

Read more: "Celibacy rule is depriving Church of excellent priests", says French bishop

Hidden children of the church

Written by: Alex Walker
Created: 15 June 2021
Last Updated: 15 June 2021

Many congratulations to Vincent Doyle, founder of Coping International, who features regularly in The Tablet. A BBC radio documentary on the thousands of children fathered by catholic priests has won this year’s journalism prize at the Sandford St Martin Trust awards.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gtnw

Pope Francis ordains new priests
Pope Francis at the ordination Mass for nine new priests in Rome yesterday, Vocations Sunday. CNS photo/Donatella Giagnori

Why so many Catholics might not pray for vocations any more

Written by: Fr Rob Esdaile
Created: 30 April 2021
Last Updated: 30 April 2021

There are two types of Catholic, I think: the select few who enthusiastically pray for Vocations – with a capital V – and everyone else, who at best pay lip-service to the intention. I’m not talking about individuals who have lost their faith but about something that is arguably more disturbing.

Of course, there are those in the Church who have become disillusioned, not least among the overstretched clergy; and it’s clear why some might feel defeated by the demands of their role, as the age profile of the clerical workforce creeps up, their numbers fall and yet the demands increase, simply in order to keep the system going – however unsustainable it may be.

But alongside the question of clergy morale there is this. I would wager that there’s scarcely a Catholic parent in the country who would take the initiative to encourage their son to become a priest, any more than they would encourage their daughter to join a religious order, even if in time they might become supportive of their child’s choice.

Read more: Why so many Catholics might not pray for vocations any more

  1. Congregation of Bishops announces symposium on vocations

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Latest News

  • Michael Winters RIP
  • The nun and the monk who fell in love and married
  • "Celibacy rule is depriving Church of excellent priests", says French bishop
  • Hidden children of the church
  • Why so many Catholics might not pray for vocations any more

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