Catholic Herald report–

The beatification Cause of Fra’ Andrew Bertie, who led the Order of Malta for 20 years, has opened.

Fra’ Bertie was Grand Master of the order from 1988 until his death in 2008, having joined in 1956. He was the first Englishman to become Grand Master since Hugh Revel in 1258.

During his tenure the Order, which was founded in the 11th century to protect pilgrims, expanded its activities around the world, delivering ambulance and disaster relief and setting up hospitals and homes for disabled children. In 1990 it built a maternity hospital in Bethlehem.

If Fra Bertie’s Cause progresses he would be the first Blessed with a black belt in judo.

Educated at Ampleforth College, he worked as a financial journalist and a teacher. A skilled linguist, he spoke five languages fluently and understood half a dozen others, including Sanskrit and Tibetan.

In an address last week current Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing said his predecessor was a saintly man who had inspired him, along with many others, to join the Order.

He recalled Fra’ Bertie tending to his orange groves in Malta and teaching local children judo, saying: “Even in his declining years, former students would come to visit him, never forgetting the kindness and wisdom they had experienced at his hands, as a teacher, as a coach, as a wise friend.

“His personality was quiet – that famous British reserve! – but he had a natural authority and a serenity deeply rooted in his Christian beliefs. He also had a fine sense of humour – a quiet amusement at the ridiculousness of much of life. Those who were privileged to have worked around him were always aware of his calmness and his profound faith.”

Today the Order of Malta is supported by 80,000 permanent volunteers and backed by a staff of 13,000 doctors, nurses and auxiliaries.

Address by Fra’ Matthew Festing on the occasion of the Mass for Fra’ Andrew Bertie

The Order of Malta is gathered in this magnificent Archbasilica to celebrate a historic occasion: the opening of the diocesan enquiry into the Cause of the Beatification of Fra’ Andrew Bertie, 78th Grand Master of the Order. It is a fitting place for such a celebration – this is the oldest of the four great papal basilicas of Rome, consecrated in the fourth century (324 A.D.) as ‘Domus Dei’, House of God, and Fra’ Andrew was head of one of the oldest Orders of the Catholic Church, dating from the eleventh century.

I wish to thank His Eminence Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome, for his generosity in welcoming over a thousand of the Order’s members and volunteers here today. And I wish to thank His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, our Cardinalis Patronus, for his celebration of Mass, which we have heard with great joy.

Today is a proud day for Fra’ Andrew’s family – for his brother Peregrine and Susan, his wife, for their children, grandchildren and extended family – and for us, too. As I look around this congregation, I note how many members of the Order of Malta have come together from many parts of the world, to acknowledge and celebrate this event. You have travelled from 35 countries to join with us to express your affection and respect for an outstanding and deeply spiritual man, and I extend my gratitude to you all. It is a sign of special devotion to Fra’ Andrew as Grand Master who meant so much to the Order and to each of you personally.

Fra’ Andrew Bertie served the Order of Malta with great distinction for almost all his adult years – and twenty of them as Grand Master, the first time an Englishman had been elected to the position since 1258. He was a reformer and moderniser for an Order which has existed for nearly a millennium. He was a polymath and a multi-linguist. After a Benedictine schooling, and then Oxford and London universities, he was in the army, then a journalist, and a teacher. But above all, in all his endeavours, he was dedicated to the service of God and to the service of the poor and the sick. These qualities shone through everything he undertook.

Fra’ Andrew was one of the founders of the young British group of volunteers of the Order, known as the OMV, and he maintained his engagement in the welfare of young people and their concerns all his life. At his home in Malta, summers were passed happily tending his orange grove, but also teaching local children judo. He was a black belt, excelling in that, too. Even in his declining years, former students would come to visit him, never forgetting the kindness and wisdom they had experienced at his hands, as a teacher, as a coach, as a wise friend. He inspired many of the young to join the Order and work for the poor and the sick and he inspired, too, many to consider the vocation to become a professed member of the Order. Indeed, I am one of those.

Fra’ Andrew’s confessor, Mons. Azelio Manzetti, recalled in his last illness the strength of the faith of this 78th Grand Master, of his love of the Rosary, in particular the glorious mysteries, his love for the Church and the Order, his piety, but above all his devotion to Our Lady of Philermo, saying: ‘She is the Madonna of the Order’s Grand Masters.’ And he recalled his serenity in returning to the Lord. Pope Benedict XVI, in mourning his passing, described Fra’ Andrew as a ‘man of culture’ and recalled his generous commitment to those most in need, and his ‘love for the Church and his shining witness to evangelical principles.’

His personality was quiet –that famous British reserve! – but he had a natural authority and a serenity deeply rooted in his Christian beliefs. He also had a fine sense of humour – a quiet amusement at the ridiculousness of much of life. Those who were privileged to have worked around him were always aware of his calmness and his profound faith. It was very uplifting. Fra’ Andrew carried out his official duties with great commitment, but it was in his communications one-to-one that he was more comfortable. In those moments he was probably at his most expansive and those who had this privilege will never forget his modesty, his wide-ranging knowledge of things both spiritual and temporal, his generosity of spirit and his understanding of what commitment to caring for those in need means. He practised this charity all his life, he inspired so many of us, and he has left us a shining example: tuitio fidei, obsequium pauperum. The one with the other.

Thus it is with great joy that the Sovereign Order of Malta acknowledges and honours Fra’ Andrew Bertie, an exceptional servant of God.

Source: Catholic Herald

Christian Today report– The Dean of St Paul’s has called for the Church of England to consider what accepting same-sex marriage would mean for the future.

The Church of England is seen by many as “toxic” and “oppressive” because of its stance on women and gays, he said. Some gay Christians had even committed suicide because of the pressure of being told they had to be celibate.

Dr David Ison says today: “We need to consider what the acceptance of same-sex marriage in the Church would mean in reality, and how it would be understood in relation to the theology of Christian marriage and the chequered history of that institution, as well as contemporary social practice around sexuality.”

Dr Ison, who was brought up in the conservative evangelical tradition but changed his mind about homosexuality after meeting gay Christians at university and witnessing first-hand the damage done by the traditional teaching, added: “We are in a situation where because of its views about women and about gay people, the church has been seen as toxic or oppressive.

“That breaks my heart, that that should be the case, when the church is there to bear witness to freedom, life and hope in the world. Let’s see what we can do to change that.”

He was speaking to Christian Today on publication of his open letter about sexuality on the website of Accepting Evangelicals, the organisation now headed by former Archbishops’ Council member Jayne Ozanne, an influential evangelical who recently came out as gay.

Dr Ison, married with four children, says in the letter he is promoting the idea of “good disagreement” where groups in the church agree to disagree but to live together. The concept underpins the “shared conversations” which enter their second phase soon and continue until 2016 in an attempt to hold the Church together.

There is suspicion in some quarters that the conversations have an agenda pre-determined towards change. Already the conservative evangelical group Reform have said they will not take part.

However Dr Ison says that although he himself changed his own mind, all he hopes is that the warring parties will find a way to live together, while disagreeing, and avoid schism. As Dean of St Paul’s, the fact that he is not a bishop leaves him in a key position to speak out freely. His views will carry great weight across all levels of the Church, government and society.

Dr Ison told Christian Today: “I’ve seen in my pastoral work plenty of angst around the whole area of sexuality, particularly dealing with people who are homosexual, about how the double life they’ve felt pushed into has been a huge strain, an emotional and mental strain. I’ve known one or two people who’ve committed suicide because of the pressure they’ve been under.”

These were people who had “faithfully” tried to live out what the church asks for in terms of sexual morality, which for homosexuals is celibacy.

There was no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus differentiated between homosexuals and heterosexuals, he said.

“The reality of my encounter over the years, particularly with Christian gay people, has led me to question the rightness of the interpretation of Scripture, that simply to be gay means you must be celibate.”

He admitted the conservative view was the one with 2,000 years of tradition on its side. “And yet, the question doesn’t go away and you have to ask the question, is it actually working? And where we are now raises the questions in a different kind of way from the kinds of questions St Paul was facing in the culture he was in.”

One example of an older culture on the Church was everyday sexism. “I was talking to somebody about a statue of a bishop in St Paul’s. He’s safely dead, many many years ago. And they said oh yes, he was well-known as a bottom pincher. You just think, how can you square that with being a christian minister, that you will trespass upon the person of women.”

Although he admitted that passages in the letters of St Paul were against homosexuality, he called for a broader approach today.

“You look at the lists in St Paul’s letters about the things that you should get upset about. Maybe one or two are about sex. Lots of them are about things like anger and hostility and greed and other things which we don’t make anything of in terms of how we should, say, associate with a person because they are greedy or unkind. Where you draw the line is very much determined by what your particular fashion of the moment is. We need to have a much broader approach to scripture rather than fixing on a few texts which seem to determine the argument one way or the other.”

In his open letter, Dr Ison questions why the focus is on homosexuality. “After all, far more damage is done in and to the Church by misbehaving heterosexuals than by gay people,” he writes.

He recommends the strategies used to consecrate women bishops, or to engage in dialogue with other faiths, could be adopted over the gay issue.

“I have seen and heard of so much pain and spiritual destruction that has come out of the Church’s refusal to embrace the equality of women and gay people before God, and from its refusal to accept the reality of its own discrimination against people for who they are,” he writes.

He adds: “The Church still struggles with how to affirm in practice people of black and minority ethnic and Jewish backgrounds: but if we were to be discussing the question of whether or not they are equal before God, we would rightly be condemned for our racism or anti-Semitism, even though such prejudices have been scripturally justified in Christian history.

“Why then do we think it still acceptable in parts of the Church to speak about and treat women and gay people as a ‘them’, as a problem to work around rather than as a part of our own Christian body?”

Jayne Ozanne, director of Accepting Evangelicals, warmly welcomed the open letter and described it as a “seminal contribution” to the shared conversations process. She told Christian Today: “As David has so powerfully explained – we need to find a new way of engaging with each other on this highly sensitive topic. Too many lives have been permanently scared – and sadly many tragically lost – over this heart breaking issue. We need to humbly recognise and honour that, no matter what our theological position. I think we would also do well to remember that although the gospels make no mention of Jesus addressing the issue of homosexuality directly, they make plenty of references to his confrontations with those who lived by the letter rather than the spirit of the law.”

Source: Christian Today