Catholic Leader Claims Poles Could Split Church

Catholic leader claims Poles could split Church

The leader of the country’s Roman Catholics has sparked a row by accusing immigrants of creating a separate church in Britain.Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, urged the Polish community to do more to learn English and integrate into local parishes, claiming the Catholic Church in the UK was in danger of dividing along ethnic lines as the number of Polish-speaking churches rose.

Leading Polish community figures said they felt “violated” and “spiritually raped” by his words and called for talks on the issue.

New research, revealed last week by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that an influx of eastern Europeans boosts numbers attending Mass above those at Church of England Sunday services.

The research ended a momentous week which saw Tony Blair formally convert to Catholicism, while official figures to be released in the new year will show a rise in Mass attendance in 2006.

The number of churchgoers fell 40 per cent between 1963 and 1991, but the arrival of immigrants from Catholic countries in eastern Europe halted the decline and led to an increase in weekly Mass attendance from 917,500 in 2005 to 927,154 last year.

However, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said: “I’m quite concerned that the Poles are creating a separate church in Britain. I would want them to be part of the Catholic life of this country. “I would hope those responsible for the Polish church here, and the Poles themselves, will be aware that they should become a part of local parishes as soon as possible when they learn enough of the language.”(real all)

About the only thing that is not keeping me from being 100% enraged over what Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor is supposed to have said is the fact that this is written up in an British paper. The nation that has given us Ruth “Too-Dangerously-Incompetent-For-My-Job” Gledhill hasn’t enjoyed much positive press in the blogosphere in the unbiased religious journalism front.

But I have been around liberal-church-speak long enough to smell right through this really genteel garbage. I’d respect it more if he just said “Hey you dumb polacks, speak English and quit being so damned pious and overly devotional.” Insulting, sure, but why not be blut? Why mince words? If you are going to insult and alienate, don’t go half-dupa.

The pious Slavs who have filled English Churches to the point that Catholics outnumber the Church of England (not an amazing feat) in average Sunday attendance… They need and deserve this condescencion like a second dupek!

Am I the only one that finds it a supreme irony that someone - first name “Cormac” and last name(s) “Murphy” & O’Connor” is concearned about the ethnics in England? (What is that I hear feintly in the background?)

I don’t worry about the Poles in England much though. They have a decent friend where it counts. Frankly, I hope and pray that they NEVER conform to the local Church IN England’s current standards. I hope the locals see the light and begin to conform to the Polish standards.
Ven. John Paul Pope of Rome, pray for us.

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This entry was posted on December 31, 2007 at 7:47 am and is filed under Group Events, Growth, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Catholic Leader Claims Poles Could Split Church”

  1. NiceneHobbit Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 8:28 pm

    I say God bless the Poles and their piety! It’s about time someone shook up English religion…both Catholic and Protestant. Sounds to me like the Poles are starting to make England what it once was…very Catholic. Alleluia!

  2. Rob Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 9:15 pm

    I join you in your barely frustrated rage.

  3. Fr. J. Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    Absolutely. Viva Polonia!

    I owe more than I can say to the Polish faithful. I was a completely unredeemed liberal by my own admission until my first assignment to a Polish parish. There I witnessed the Catholic piety that had utterly eluded me entire life until that time. The Polish and the Mexicans taught me what it means to be Catholic and what it means to be a priest. I am forever in their debt.

    English Catholicism with its staid and overly sober, almost hidden piety is the product of the English persecutions which forced Catholic expressions underground. Gone were the opulent public processions and ceremonials.

    English Catholicism is not to be mocked at it has produced so many martyrs and suffers to this day from common English disdain for all things Romish. Nevertheless English Catholics would do well in this time of ascendancy to learn to relish the fullness of Catholicism’s pious traditions. And who better to teach them than the Poles!!

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