Twenty-Second Sunday of the Year - 28.08.2016

FATHER LIAM SAYS: Something that caught my eye recently was the fact that in 2013 the Foreign Office introduced diplomatic uniforms for women ambassadors as a mark of their equality with ambassadors of the male variety.  Most ambassadors however are not expected to wear them.  The Holy See is one of the very few postings where they are expected to don their official finery at official functions.  Mrs Sally Axworthy is about to take up her post as Britain’s first ambassador to the Holy See since the design of the official uniform.  It takes the form of a trouser suit with braid, plus a tricorn hat and a sword.  The first outing for the wool suit is expected to be on the occasion of the canonisation of Mother Teresa in a couple of weeks’ time.  Perhaps she might be dispensed by the Vatican from wearing it if the Roman temperature is too oppressive.

My mind wanders to another great Roman event in the autumn when priest Jubliarians from all over England and Wales are invited to gather in Rome.  Among the Diamond Jubilarians will be Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, who was ordained a priest in October 1956 while the Golden Jubilarians will include myself.  I will be very disappointed if such an august occasion does not warrant the appearance of the ambassador in all her finery, especially as the weather in early November should be ideal for displaying her woollen suit and tricorn hat.  I will chance bringing my camera along in any case.  There are occasions when risks – even of being run through with an ambassadorial sword – have to be taken.

On a more serious matter, experts from Kew Gardens produced an important report this summer called ‘State of the World’s Plants.’  The good news is that the scientists have identified 390,000 species of plants which provide food, fuel, medicine and are incredibly important for our climate regulation.  Birds, fish, insects, animals and humans would not be here without plants.  The bad news in the Report is that we are losing many plants through extinction.  These Kew experts believe that twenty per cent of all plants will become extinct – with major repercussions.  In the next few decades we could lose plants such as bananas, sorghum and eggplants from our diet.  In addition more than 17,000 plants are used in human medicines.  It is estimated that more than fifty per cent of one-hundred and fifty prescribed drugs with an economic value of more than £60 billion are derived from discoveries in the wild.  Edward Wilson, professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University has said: ‘it is no exaggeration to say that the search for natural medicinals is a race between science and extinction.’

In Laudato Si, Pope Francis bemoans that the Earth’s resources are ‘being plundered because of short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production.’  The call to protect biodiversity is at the heart of the encyclical.  ‘Soil, water, mountains, everything is, as it were, a caress of God.’  Francis tells us.

We should be wary of what we drink!  Bottled water sales are growing at a much faster rate than soft drinks.  It takes three litres of water to manufacture one litre of bottled water.  The number of plastic bottles used worldwide is staggering and it takes more than a thousand years for a water bottle to biodegrade.  Each year on our planet more than three million tons of plastic bottles are dumped into landfill.  Making enough plastic to satisfy the U.S. water market alone takes seventeen million barrels of oil.  In the U.S. a number of colleges do not allow bottled water to be sold on their premises and it is prohibited at more than twenty National Parks. 

.The brutal murder of an elderly priest as he was celebrating Mass near Rouen earlier this summer shocked most of the world – especially France.  The relation between the Church and the State is a very complex one in France where there is a strong religious heritage wedded to a modern secular state.  France possess some of the most beautiful churches in the world and its Catholic roots are seen in the Calvaries and roadside shrines - testament to the devotion of the faithful in earlier times.  At the time of the French Revolution in 1789 there was much awry with the Church.  Every one of its many bishops came from an aristocratic family.  The Church leadership was loathed by the Catholics in the pews and by those who had deserted the pews.  For more than a century the Church was subjected to much oppression.  In 1905 the French State took over the church buildings as part of the national heritage and took on the responsibility for their upkeep.  The Church was very much opposed to this law but it has turned out to be a blessing.  Any house of worship after 1905 had to be paid for and maintained by the religious community concerned.  The vast majority of buildings supported by the French State are former Catholic properties and Catholic churches.  The 1905 law was meant to shield the state from religious influence.  The law presents a major hurdle for the Muslim minority which arrived after 1905 and which therefore gets no official support.  This sense of grievance is a factor in the radicalisation of some French Islamists.