Revival of Latin in schools!

A world-leading language project based at the University of Cambridge is rekindling an international love of Latin.

Four million copies of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) have now been sold around the world, which have helped an estimated eight million students.

The course is part of the Cambridge School Classics Project which was set up 40 years ago and now supports 1,100 schools in the UK and 500 adult learners from China to Chile.

Worldwide, more than 85 per cent of all schools now use the Cambridge course which features the everyday life of Pompeiian folk before the volcanic eruption.

This, along with a wealth of online resource has brought global fame for its characters including Caecilius, the father, Grumio, the cook and Cerberus, the dog.

Director Will Griffiths said the project had helped revive the teaching of Latin, especially in state schools.

"Ten years ago around 150 state schools taught Latin. Now that figure is 650, including 58 state schools which joined in this academic year.

Ordinariate bound!

After much prayer, thought and consultation I have offered myself for ordination as a Catholic Priest within the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsinham. To this end I have resigned from my ministry within the Church of England from Sunday 6th March and expect to begin a course of formation with a view to ordination as a Catholic Priest at Pentecost. This will bring me into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

Although I live in Shrewsbury the Ordinariate Group with to which I belong is based in the Black Country area of the Midlands. I hope to be able, in the fullness of time, to form the nucleus for a new Group in Shropshire, Mid-Wales and across the Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury.

In November 2009 Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Constitution called Anglicanorum coetibus (“By groups of Anglicans”) which set out the structure whereby ex-Anglicans could be received into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining some of their identity as Anglicans.

It would not be true to say that this decision is motivated by any particular issues. It is rather the culmination of nearly half a century of spiritual journeying which has led me to this point. The offer of Pope Benedict is one which I know I must accept. His vision of the unity of the Church is what has inspired this initiative.

The move, like all moves and partings, is full of a mixture of sadness but excitement. I have no regrets about moving on after over thirty years as an ordained Anglican, nor do I see it as a negation of what has gone before. It is a whole new chapter in the spiritual adventure. Please pray for me and those taking the steps with me!

Murder of Shabaz Bhatti

This week, unidentified gunmen in Islamabad shot dead Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti.

The assailants sprayed bullets at Bhatti’s car after he came out of his mother’s home in a residential area of Islamabad to attend a cabinet meeting.

Bhatti, a 42-year-old bachelor, was Pakistan’s only cabinet-level Christian and an outspoken critic of the country’s widely condemned blasphemy laws. Suspected Islamic extremists from Pakistan’s Taliban and al Qaeda reportedly left a letter at the scene saying those who try to change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws would be killed.

The murder comes two months after Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was killed by his bodyguard for supporting Asia Bibi, the first Christian woman to be sentenced to death in Pakistan on blasphemy charges.

Bhatti had defied death threats after the assassination of Taseer, conceding in several interviews that he was ‘the highest target right now’, but vowing to continue his work and trusting his life to God. The federal government had provided bodyguards for Bhatti, but they were not present at the time of the attack.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Bhatti had said he was ‘ready to die for a cause’ as a Christian. "I am living for my community and suffering people, and I will die to defend their rights," he said. “These threats and warnings cannot change my opinion and principles."

The Right to Religious Freedom

Routledge has published Dr Anat Scolnicov's book The Right to Religious Freedom in International Law Between Group Rights and Individual Rights.

This book analyses the right to religious freedom in international law, drawing on an array of national and international cases. Taking a rigorous approach to the right to religious freedom, Anat Scolnicov argues that the interpretation and application of religious freedom must be understood as a conflict between individual and group claims of rights, and that although some states, based on their respective histories, religions, and cultures, protect the group over the individual, only an individualistic approach of international law is a coherent way of protecting religious freedom. Analysing legal structures in a variety of both Western and Non-Western jurisdictions, the book sets out a topography of different constitutional structures of religions within states and evaluates their compliance with international human rights law. The book also considers the position of women's religious freedom vis-agrave-vis community claims of religious freedom, of children's right to religious freedom and of the rights of dissenters within religious groups.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has announced plans to remove the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in places of worship, and a consultation on giving gays the right to marry. The latter move may mean changing the legal definition of marriage as a heterosexual institution. The Church of England won’t allow it’s churches to be used for civil partnerships, and said the proposals could have ‘unintended consequences for churches and faiths’. But the Archbishop of York gave the ideas a cautious welcome, provided churches were not forced to marry homosexuals. The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches and the Catholic Church rejected the plans, but Quakers, Unitarians and liberal Jews welcomed the news. The ban on night-time nuptials is also to be lifted, and civil partnerships may be offered to heterosexuals.

Campaign to save Afghan Christian Convert

An aid agency that supports persecuted Christians is calling on western governments to help a Christian sentenced to death in Afghanistan. Barnabas Fund has launched a petition to pressurise Afghan President Hamid Karzai to release Said Musa. Red Cross worker Said has been in prison for eight months after converting to Christianity, and faces execution if he does not return to Islam. Said has had no trial and death threats have made lawyers frightened to defend him. The one-legged man claims he has been tortured and sexually abused in prison. Barnabas Fund says Karzai should uphold the Afghan constitution which acknowledges human rights. Instead, his government’s policy towards converts ‘appears no different from that of the Taliban’.


* http://www.christiantoday.com/
* http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/

Lecture on free will and human responsibility

Tuesday 8 February 2011

An opportunity not to be missed!!

Free will and brain determinism, the idea that cognition is determined by prior events, are to be the topic of an upcoming lecture at the University of Cambridge’s Faraday Institute.

Professor Peter Clarke from the University of Lausanne will discuss the various approaches used in philosophical defences of free will and human responsibility. Libertarian positions imply freedom in decision making processes, for example, by invoking the existence of a disembodied soul and often using Heisenbergian uncertainty to support their argument.

In this seminar, Professor Clarke uses a variety of studies, including ones into the resistance of cells and thermal noise, to discount the potential perturbations of the uncertainty principle. He will reject the idea of behaviour as a product of soley genetic and environmental influences and argue for a compatibilist approach, the belief that free will and determinism are compatible and it is feasible to believe both.

The Faraday Institute Seminar is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 8 February at 1 pm (lunch from 12.30pm) at The Garden Room, St. Edmund's College, Cambridge. It is not necessary to RSVP but it is recommended that attendees arrive early to guarantee a seat.