THE Benedictine Order. unlike many others, was founded in a secular age, said Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Archbishop of Monmouth, at a concelebrated Mass at Belmont Abbey on Tuesday to mark the golden jubilee of the abbey's independent status.
Archbishop Sheen was preaching on the Benedic. tine Order and the reform of the Church. The order was always dying and always rising. It had seen the secular age succeeded by the religious age, which was once again being succeeded by a non-religious one. He suggested that the perennial message of the Benedictines could well appeal even in such an age.
Among the 700 guests esent at the MaNs and reception were many parents and Old Boys of Belmont School. Members of the hierarchy present included Archbishop Murphy of Cardiff and his auxiliary, Bishop Mullins; Archbishop Dwyer of Birmingham, Bishop Petit of Menevia and his auxiliary, Bishop I.angton Fox.
Also present were the Lord I.icutenant of Herefordshire, the Anglican Bishop of Hereford and the Benedictine Abbots of Downside. Douai and Nashdom.
Bell-ringing tour by 15 students
FIFTEEN members of
Bristol University's Society of Change -Bell Ringers are spending this week cycling from one church to another in South Devon ringing bells They will have rung bells in 26 churches by the time the tour ends on Sunday.
The highlight was on Monday when they played Stedman Cinque,. at Buckfast Abbey. This needs 12 bells and can thus be done at very few churches.
Mass for Blessed Cuthbert Mayne
BISHOP RiESTIEAUX of Plymouth will lead the annual pilgrimage on Sunday in honour of Blessed Cuthbert Mayne at Launceston, Cornwall, where he was martyred. Bishop Restieaux and Bishop Rudderham of Cliftq.n, who will preach, will concelebrate Mass.
Blessed Cuthbert, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1577, was the first Anglican clergyman to become a Catholic priest. and the first "seminary priest" from Douai to suffer for the Faith.
Priests released
FOLLOWING protests by Bishop Cirarda, acting Bishop of Bilbao, Spanish military authorities have released eight of the nine Basque priests imprisoned earlier this month by a military court. Retford church consecrated (AN Wednesday Bishop Ellis of Nottingham. consecrated St. Joseph's Church, Retford, marking the 75th anniversary of the opening of the previous and first Catholic church in the town.
The present church, completed in 1959. was built at a cost of £22,000, although the land was paid for through the generosity of a local nonCatholic doctor. It can hold 300 people.
Under its present parish priest, Fr. George Tutto, the sanctuary has been completed and an organ installed. Among the guests at the consecration was Mrs. Hannah Holland, the Only survivor of the group of parishioners present at the opening of the earlier parish church in 1895,