NEWS & VIEWS
NEWS & VIEWS Basil of Westminster The Economist appears to have been the only British publication, to speculate successfully on the new Archbishop of Westminister, Benedictine Abbot Basil Hume of...
...The Manchester Guardian -pleased, incidentally, to the point of saying Hume "would look well" in either the Catholic or Anglican church-suggested the inspiration might have come from a couple of laymen...
...The Tablet reflected that British Benedictine spirituality derives not only from the tradition of centuries, but from the fact that, through Benedictine schools and university chaplaincies, it "is refreshed by constant contact with youthful experience...
...Protestants are being asked to come up with 25 million pesos ($2 million) for a Billy Graham Crusade, Goff reports...
...Hume was such an outsider that British bookmakers-they bet in England on dogs, horses and new Archbishops of Westminster-weren't even quoting odds on him...
...Pesos for the Virgin Organized religion is costly in Mexico this year, James E. Goff writes in Latinamerica Press, and in the scramble for the peso the Virgin is easily outdistancing Billy Graham...
...If anyone went looking to kiss it, he would remark jocularly, "I carry it in my back pocket...
...Their pique unrequited, the bishops turned down the request, presumably because they do not want the government to get credit for the basilica...
...The Catholic campaign, by contrast, rolls along to what Goff calls "high pressure techniques": "Collection boxes are in churches as well as Mexico City's subway stations...
...The bishops had their inning, however...
...The Virgin's credit is good," the banks announce, as they push the sale of Guadalupe bonds...
...Mexico City's Cardinal Miguel Dario Miranda was then summoned and informed of the plan...
...If this has slowed down contributions, no one seems particularly concerned...
...Suppose somebody had tried to make Shakespeare or John Donne more readable...
...JOHN DEEDY .To which, Amen...
...Who supplied the inspiration for this so widely acclaimed appointment...
...That is to say," the paper explained, "it lay the emphasis on the spiritual character of the church rather than putting it on the institutional character...
...The Bishops' Conference was not consulted...
...It reported that "Archbishop Bruno Heim, the Pope's man in London, carried letters to Rome supporting the Abbot's candidature from Mr...
...If anyone can turn the situation around, it is Hume, thinks The Economist...
...NEWS & VIEWS Basil of Westminster The Economist appears to have been the only British publication, to speculate successfully on the new Archbishop of Westminister, Benedictine Abbot Basil Hume of Ampleforth, so it seems logical to return to The Economist for its reaction...
...More than 900 laborers are on the job, and work goes on from 7 a.m...
...If it isn't good enough to raise the whole amount, the government is expected to pick up the tab...
...There are plenty of churches around for the semiliterate...
...JOHN DEEDYY...
...But Catholics are being asked to raise six times that amount, at least 150 million pesos ($12 million), for a new Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe...
...With construction half-finished and dedication scheduled for next October, Echeverria sought, through the Apostolic Delegate, to have the bishops invite Pope Paul for the ceremonies...
...To which, Amen...
...Norman St...
...He must, in short, be left free for his real task which is to speak the faith for Catholics, and for other Christians: in his own way, for he is no orator...
...Last year, The Economist noted, only half as many babies in England and Wales were baptized as 10 years ago...
...TV commercials remind the people that 'All Mexicans are Guadalupans.'" Apparently enthusiasm for the new basilica is more governmental at the moment than it is ecclesiastical...
...The Vatican could not often be praised in recent years for its wisdom," The Economist stated...
...The Times commented editorially that the appointment was Johannine...
...However, it warned, "he has somehow, to fend off that yen for administration and purple which is the Catholic hierarchy's curse...
...The Economist's enthusiasm was shared by the British press generally...
...This week it can be...
...Its construction was decided upon by President Luis Echeverria and the Abbot of Guadalupe, Guillermo Schulemburg, O.P...
...The Economist was pleased...
...John-Stevas MP...
...Some priests, as those of the Diocese of Cuernavaca, have expressed misgivings over the basilica project...
...Hume, the journal said, was "the best of several good men" and arrives at Westminster, Britain's pri-matial see, "at a fairly desperate moment in the church's fortunes...
...A touch of Newman after a strong dose of Manning will do the Catholic church in England no harm," The Economist concluded...
...William Rees Mogg, the editor of The Times, and Mr...
...Odds and Ends -The New York Times, in noting the death of Archbishop Thomas d'Esterre Roberts, recalled that in his campaign against ecclesiastical pomp, he divested himself of his episcopal ring...
...to 11 p.m...
...A Schenectady man, commenting in the March 1 Time on its earlier piece on the modernizing of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: "Anyone who thinks a new prayer book will help us Anglicans should attend his nearest Roman Catholic church next Sunday to see what a mess they made of their English translation...
...All Mexican banks are selling 'Guadalupe bonds' in small and large denominations...
...A man of considerable, if masked, political subtlety, his real calling is to fight secularism with his evident saintliness rather than with manoeuvring...
...over half the Catholic boys have lapsed from the faith by the time they are 15 years old...
...There's little chance, by the bye, of the new Guadalupe basilica becoming a schedule casualty in the fashion of the new Olympic stadium in Montreal...
...The Tablet, Catholic weekly journal of opinion, was caught up by Hume's Benedictine background, and conceded that it was optimistic about Hume for the example two of Hume's Benedictine predecessors in the modern British hierarchy -Ullathorne and Hedley- gave of "unhurried, instructed judgment," as well as for the "calm, courageous confidence" which Benedictine spirituality produces...
...converts have dwindled to a trickle...
...The Protestant fund campaign is quiet and subtle, says Goff, accenting spirituality and the need to hear the Gospel...
Vol. 103 • March 1976 • No. 7
