News in Brief
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
Converted
The interior of St Nicholas's, in Ipswich (right), which has been
turned into a conference and resource centre for £800,000.
Public view
A bas-relief of a Madonna surrounded by cherubs and holding two thorns,
attributed to the Rennaissance sculptor Donatello, is now on show for the first
time at the Palazzo Venezia Museum in Rome, after being in private hands for
400 years. AP/EMPICS
TV boss defends Channel 4
THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Channel 4, Andy Duncan, said this week that
Big Brother winners were role-models of honesty, integrity, constancy
and kindness. In a Faithworks lecture in Waterloo, London, on Tuesday, he
described himself as a Christian "on what might be called the Evangelical wing
of the Church". He defend the reputation of his programmes against Dr Williams'
s criticism last week (
News, 17 June;
press). Impartial, accurate broadcasting was a point of honour for the
public-service channels, he said. Channel 4 was "trusted to give a fair and
proper portrayal of sensitive religious material". It had "got closer to the
real issues where faith and politics, faith and society collide". But it was
not its job to "patrol moral or religious boundaries".
Bishop sees theology in Africa report
THE BISHOP of Coventry, the Rt Revd Colin Bennetts, in a debate in
the House of Lords on Monday, said that there was "implicit theology" in the
Commission for Africa's report. "There is an underlying assumption that the
universe has, in Gordon Brown's words, 'a moral trajectory'." The report was
optimistic that good could triumph. Faith-based communities had good networks
and were effective conduits of aid, but the report was unclear about how they
would be involved, how they would be structured, and whether they could
continue evangelism and teaching, he said.
Longest married man dies, aged 105
THE WORLD'S longest married man, Percy Arrowsmith, once a
chorister in Hereford Cathedral, died earlier this month, two weeks after the
80th anniversary of his marriage to Florence, aged 100. The Bishop of Hereford,
the Rt Revd Anthony Priddis, had visited the couple at the time of their
anniversary. He said that he was sorry to hear of Percy's death: the couple had
been churchgoers all their lives, and had been very much in love with each
other.
Destitute asylum-seekers sleeping rough
DESTITUTE ASYLUM-SEEKERS in Leicester are sleeping on the streets
and in doorways, train stations, squats, parks, corridors and car parks, says a
new report by the Leicester Forum and Refugee Action. The experience of 168
people, recorded at the start of the year, is recounted in
A Report of Destitution in the Asylum system in Leicester.
Corrections
In the report on the General Synod of the Episcopal Church of
Scotland (
News, 17 June), there was no formal acceptance of the Windsor report, as we
stated.
Two paragraphs in Tom Peryer's article on city academies (Education,
10 June) were mistakenly conflated. As Mr Peryer wrote originally, the
Government's academies programme had started a little before the publication of
The Way Ahead, and not as a result of it. Our apologies.