Friday, August 17, 2007

English Bishops neglect Papal honours system

Local action as appropriate: in an article in the Catholic Herald (10/8/07), Guy Stair Sainty laments the small number of papal knighthoods being awarded, and priests being made 'monsignori', in England and Wales.

In the last few years the Papal Orders have been awarded in just 12 out of the 32 dioceses. One may conclude that the other 20 bishops do not believe exemplary service to the Church or Holy See should be publicly recognised.

Serving the Church can be a thankless task: laity and clergy should not forget to nominate worthy recipients of papal awards to their diocesan bishop and/or the Papal Nuncio, who have the role of recommending them to Rome. There is a series of ranks of monsignor, for clergy, and a number of different 'orders' (and see here), with different ranks within them, for laity. For ordinary laity in Britain (ie not heads of state etc.) the two appropriate ones are the Order of St Gregory and the Order of St Sylvester.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Gosh, no!

Surely a nice 'Thank You' letter from a bishop is much better than all that Roman stuff.

Pope Leo XIII's Prayer to St Michael

Holy Michael, Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust down to Hell Satan, and all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen