Portsmouth Diocese e-News Issue 469
Welcome to this week’s e-News, the First Week of Advent 2024. Our world here in the UK has now changed, unfortunately not for the better. Last Friday, MPs voted to legalise assisted suicide, 330 in favour with 275 against. As people of reason and people of faith, we know this is a truly bad move. It will put pressure on the elderly and the dying, making them feel they are a burden. It will undermine palliative care and the trust that should exist between patients and doctors. More, the range of eligibility is bound to expand over time so that death by suicide will become normal. Although not unexpected, this vote poses a grave danger. Britain is now crossing a line from which there will be no return. Yet even so, all those of good will must continue the fight and the argument. As the bill goes through its lengthy committee stages, we now need to pray earnestly, and to work tirelessly, to contain its range and its reach, to ensure that people of conscience are not forced into participation. Indeed, given that some MPs who voted in favour are now wavering in their support, we should contact our MPs to urge them to vote against the bill at its Third Reading.
This legislation, however, makes one thing crystal clear. Britain is no longer a Christian country. To be a Christian in future will not be easy, if ever it was. More and more, as in ages past, we will stand out from the crowd and from others in our society who see human life, its dignity and value, in a radically different way. It is my hope that God will give us the grace to live our discipleship ever more authentically so that the true beauty of our Catholic faith might become even more evident. I pray that the splendor veritatis, the beauty of the Truth, the hope it gives, especially to the vulnerable, and the Gospel vision of the human person – fallen but redeemed, an incarnate spirit called to live a good life here on earth and one day to be with God for ever in Paradise – will shine out for all to see.
The Church is the Ark of Salvation. I pray that this sinister legislation and the bleak future it unleashes will cause such a reaction that many more people will be drawn to the Person of Christ and the glorious communion of His Church. [Image: Institute for Government]
Fr. Donald Clements RIP
From the Bishop
On 22nd November 2024, Fr. Don Clements died – may he rest in peace. Fr. Donald was born on 30th September 1937 in Goole, Yorkshire. He trained as a British Railways steam locomotive cleaner-fireman, before answering the call from the Lord to be a priest. He studied at the Seminaire St Sulpice in Paris and was ordained to the priesthood on 29th June 1968, initlaly for the Diocese of Menevia by Bishop Langton Fox. He held a number of posts, including parishes in North Wales and training for a teaching post for maladjusted senior boys at a residential school in Lincolnshire, before he was incardinated into the Diocese of Portsmouth in March 1976. Donald first served as assistant priest in Basingstoke until 1979 and then in Wokingham until 1981. From 1981 to 1984 he became Parish Priest of Crowthorne before moving to Twyford where he was Parish Priest until 1994. He then moved to Lymington until his retirement in September 2003. He spent eight years in Jersey with the Little sisters of the Poor, before retiring to Mount St Joseph’s Home in Headingley, Leeds, under the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor where he stayed until in 2022 he was moved to a care home nearer his family. His other roles included chaplain to Wellington College, Crowthorne. He was also chaplain at Broadmoor specialist psychiatric hospital. Donald passed away on Friday 22nd November 2024, at the age of 87.
Let us thank God for his loving service to the people whom he was called to serve. May the Lord grant him eternal rest in the love that he so generously served through his ministry.
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