Derry youth scheme outstanding success; Foster: I share no blame over PMS; Senior Vatican prelate tells Cork Mass of ‘culture of death’
Derry youth scheme outstanding success
Derry Journal – Around 200 young people from across Derry last week came together to serve their city as part of an unique summer scheme.
Organised by the Church of Ireland Derry and Raphoe diocese and the Summer Madness Christian Youth festival, Streetreach On The Move brought together young people from across traditional divides but united in one purpose – to find practical ways of serving the people of the city.
“The only agenda that this cross-community team had was to serve,” Diocesan Youth Officer Martin Montgomery said.
“After spending each morning praying and training it was amazing to see young people cleaning, weeding and painting all around our community – finding practical ways of living out their Christian faith, helping to make our city an even better place for everyone.”
He said those who took part were a “group of people divided by nothing and united with a purpose.”
Five young teams did their bit for the city by getting involved in all sorts of practical action – everything from litter picking, painting, gardening as well as games such as lots of fun activities for local young people.
The cross-community teams worked in Clooney, The Brandywell, Tullyally, Steelstown and the city centre. As well as teams working around the city a city-centre team spent time each day praying for the city and for all the businesses in the area.
Streetreach On The Move created partnerships between churches and community organisations across the community.
Organised to mark the City of Culture year, planning has been ongoing since the start of the year and relationships and partnerships have been built with local community organizations.
More at –
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/your-community/streetreach-on-the-move-unites-derry-kids-1-5261462
Foster: I share no blame over PMS
News Letter – Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster has said that she will not take “any of the blame” for the Presbyterian Mutual Society (PMS) going under – four months after her department admitted to failings in the case.
In March, Mrs Foster’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) was found by the Northern Ireland Ombudsman to have been guilty of “maladministration” in its handling of the PMS – though he found that others also shared the blame.
In response, the department admitted that it “could have done things differently”.
But, in a UTV Insight investigation into the PMS crisis broadcast last night, Mrs Foster refuses to accept any blame.
She disputed the findings of the Ombudsman and said: “I don’t take any of the blame in respect of the PMS failure… the directors were allowing the PMS to take in huge amounts of money, to lend out huge amounts of money without due diligence.”
She added: “We know of loans that were granted essentially on the back of an envelope.”
The programme said that none of those who had involvement with the PMS – from the Presbyterian Church to the PMS directors to the accountants who audited its accounts – were prepared to accept any blame.
Former Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Stafford Carson, said: “It was a sad and tragic state of affairs that money entrusted to the PMS was really being gambled… You can imagine the anger and the worry – how some people were really left high and dry by the failure of the PMS.”
Around 9,500 people with money in the PMS were affected when it went under in late 2008.
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/foster-i-share-no-blame-over-pms-1-5260512
Senior Vatican prelate tells Cork Mass of ‘culture of death’
Irish Times – A senior Vatican prelate, Irish-American Cardinal Raymond Burke, advised Mass-goers in Cork yesterday not to be discouraged from living “faithful Christian lives in a society marked by the culture of death”.
The prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, effectively its Supreme Court, said “more and more, we witness the violation of the most fundamental norms of divine natural law, written upon every human heart by God, in the policies and laws of nations, and in the judgments given by their courts”.
In a sermon marking the sixth Fota international liturgical conference at a High Mass in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, he said: “We see before our eyes the evil fruits of a society which pretends to take the place of God in making its laws and in giving its judgments, of a society in which those in power decide what is right and just, according to their desires and convenience, even at the cost of perpetrating mortal harm upon their innocent and defenceless neighbours.”
It was, he said, “a society which has abandoned its Judeo-Christian foundations, and above all, the fundamental obedience to God’s law which safeguards the good of all. It is a society which embraces a totalitarianism masking itself as the ‘hope,’ the ‘future’, of a nation”.
Meanwhile, Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor has said the Taoiseach and Government have “dealt a fatal blow to the legitimacy of the political and legislative process” and “disenfranchised massive numbers of citizens of the Republic” through their handling of debate on abortion legislation.