Nigeria’s Mothers’ Union rejects child marriage: The Church of England Newspaper, August 16, 2013 p 7. August 25, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Marriage, Youth/Children.Tags: child marriage, Girls not Brides, Mothers Union
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The President of the Mothers’ Union of Nigeria has joined civil and women’s rights activists in the West African nation in denouncing the country’s senate for blocking a bill to that would have banned child marriages.
On 6 August 2013 Mrs Nkasiobi Okoh, president of the MU and wife of the primate Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, told a women’s Christian conference in Abuja Anglican women were “categorically” opposed to allowing child marriage.
The question of child marriage was brought before the legislature this month when the senate debated a series of constitutional amendments proposed by the Constitution Review Committee. A proposed amendment to Section 29 of the constitution states that a citizen must be of full age in order to renounce his or her citizenship, and clause 29(4)(a) clarifies that “full age” means 18 years or above; however, clause 29(4)(b) adds that “any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.”
The Review Committee recommended striking the latter clause as discriminatory against women and the measure was approved by vote of 75 to 14, receiving the necessary two-thirds majority.
However on 28 July the Sunday Trust reported that Deputy Minority Leader Ahmed Sani Yerima objected to the removal of the clause as it implied that 18 years was the minimum age for marriage. He told the senate “under Islamic law, any woman who is married is of age, and if you say 18 years is the minimum age for marriage, then you are going against Islamic law.”
The senate voted to reconsider the amendment, which received only 60 votes in its second reading – 14 short of the two-thirds majority.
In a statement following the vote the NGO “Girls not Brides” said: “This does not mean that senators voted to legalize child marriage in Nigeria. The contentious clause has been part of the constitution since 1979, and its scope has always been limited to the question of renunciation of citizenship. However, the senators’ decision to retain the clause, particularly in view of the arguments that convinced them to do so, has been considered by many as an implicit legitimization of child marriage.”
The Child Rights Act adopted by the Senate in 2003 sets the minimum age of marriage at 18. However only two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states have endorsed it, and in some Muslim-majority states girls may be married as young as 12 years of age, “Girls not Brides” reports. And according to a UNICEF report, 39 per cent of Nigerian brides in 2000-2008 were under 18.
Mrs Okoh said Anglican women were opposed to child marriages, as they fostered the oppression of women and robbed girls of their future. “We have always been emphasising that girls should be trained, when they are trained, we are influencing not only their home, but the wider community, that is my belief and I know that, that is what our women believed,” she said, according to the Vanguard Newspaper.
Catho-style: Get Religion, May 21, 2013 May 21, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Marriage, Politics, Youth/Children.Tags: Catho-style, Cathos 2.0, France, Le Nouvel Observateur
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Let me draw your attention to this fascinating article in the Parisian weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur about the new generation of Catholics arising in France.
The article « Plongée dans la galaxie “catho-réac-décomplexée” » in Le Nouvel Obs(with a circulation of over 500,000 it is France’s most widely read general information weekly) asks the question who is leading the charge against the Socialist government’s gay marriage agenda — and finds that it is the “cathos 2.0″ generation. The 20-25 year old:
Enfants de Jean-Paul II et de Benoît XVI, … une nouvelle génération catho à la tête haute, grisée par la découverte de la militance, est née, très éloignée de la pudique discrétion de ses aînés.
Children of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, … a new generation of Catholic has arisen, intoxicated by their discovery of militancy that is far different from the modest discretion of their elders.
Deconstructing this article has proven to be a hard task. On the surface the story of the Cathos 2.0 generation is so strong that it cannot be killed by a skeptical or hostile presentation. It is a French man bites dog story — student revolutionaries in Paris as ultramontane Catholics.
On the surface Le Nouvel Obs seems to have framed the story against the interest of the subject. While it allows the young Catholics to tell their own story, the analysis and commentary is drawn from the left — academics and liberal Catholics who bemoan the conservative political and doctrinal views of Cathos 2.0. Nor do we hear from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in France. This packaging should have made the issues unattractive and painted the subjects in an unsympathetic light. But by the end of the story these young people come off well. You like them.
The article starts off in a critical yet cinematographic mode – – were this a film the opening paragraph would be accompanied by an accordion and perhaps Edith Piaf.
Trois garçons arrivent à Vespa. Un jeune couple veste treillis-capuche-fourrure traverse la place depuis le Café de Flore, situé juste en face. Une grappe de caqueteuses s’approche joyeusement de l’entrée tout en échangeant bises et potins. Une retardataire en talons hauts et breloques diamantées aux oreilles les rejoint en trottinant. Un concert ou un spectacle ? Pas du tout. Comme tous les dimanches soir, la jeunesse chic et branchée de la rive gauche a rendez-vous avec… Jésus ! Le clocher bat le rappel, c’est l’heure de la messe à Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Dans une église bondée, les jeunes gens, moyenne d’âge 20-25 ans, s’agenouillent devant le saint sacrement comme les bigotes d’autrefois. L’encens brouille la vue, et le choeur entonne un chant latin repris par une assemblée sagement recueillie. Non, nous ne sommes pas chez les traditionalistes de la Fraternité Saint-Pie-X, mais à l’une des cérémonies dominicales destinées à la jeunesse francilienne.
Three boys arrive on a Vespa. A young couple wearing hooded fur jackets crosses the square from the Café de Flore, located just opposite. A cluster of prattling girls happily approaching the entrance while exchanging kisses and gossip. A latecomer in high heels and diamond earrings hurries in. A concert or a show? No. Every Sunday night the chic and trendy youth of the left bank have an appointment with … Jesus! The bell sounds. It is time for Mass at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
In a crowded church, young people, 20-25 years of age, kneel before the Blessed Sacrament like the bigots of the past. Incense blurs vision and the choir sings a Latin chant taken up by a by the congregation.No, we are not in the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, but one of the Sunday ceremonies for Catholic youth.
The article continues with this skeptical, near derogatory tone. Traditional Catholic readers are likely to feel the bile rising in their throats as the read the story. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and act of « les bigotes d’autrefois »?
On les croyait effacés, et de fait ils nous étaient devenus invisibles. Depuis six mois, on les découvre par centaines de milliers battant le pavé sans relâche contre le mariage gay, veillant à la lumière des bougies sur les Invalides, créant happening sur happening grâce à la force de leurs réseaux, formant le gros des troupes de ces défenseurs acharnés de la famille dite traditionnelle.
Were not these people erased from French life? Had they not become invisible? But for six monthshundreds of thousands of them have pounded the pavement tirelessly protesting against gay marriage, lighting candles on the Invalides, creating event after event in the streets on the strength of their social networks, forming the vanguard of defenders of the so-called traditional family.
The presentation and the structure the first three quarters the story follows the conventional secular thinking of the French elites. Yet by the end of the piece you’re hooked by these kids – – their enthusiasm, their excitement, their faith. I cannot tell whether this was an accident or was calculated move to bring the reader on board. Perhaps what we are seeing here is a conscious bait and switch.
How do you get a middle-aged left-liberal secular audience to read a story about a youth movement that detests the values and agenda of the ’68 generation now in power? You do it by couching the story in tropes and phrases that are comfortable to the audience — and then you slip them a story about young attractive — chic — students at France’s elite universities whose faith is changing France and shaking up the French church.
Am I reading too much into this article? What say you GR Readers? For those whose French has faded away since High School, Worldcrunch has a shorter version of this article in English. Beware! The Worldcrunch version is not a translation but a re-write in English and has been de-Francofied for an American audience.
First published in Get Religion.
£25 million raised for church youth work: Church of England Newspaper, April 21, 2013 p 7. April 24, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Youth/Children.Tags: Arthur Eze, fundraising, philanthropy
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Arthur Eze
A fund-raising dinner in Nigeria last month has raised over £25 million (Nairas 6 billion) for the St. Stephen’s Anglican Deanery and Youth Development Centre in Otuoke, in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region. Leading the list of donors was philanthropist and oilman Arthur Eze, who donated £7.8 million (1.8 billion Nairas) to fund the construction of the Anglican training institute, Forbes magazine reported.
Nigerian Pres. Goodluck Jonathan, whose hometown is Otuoke, told those attending the dinner that he was grateful for the gifts given by wealthy Nigerians to support the development of impoverished communities in their own country. Private philanthropy strengthened the nation and empower individuals. This will create an “opportunity for the younger ones to grow. Even if we die in the next 100 years, people will remember that those before them have something for them,” the president said.
Teen cannabis use linked to permanent brain damage: The Church of England Newspaper, September 9, 2012, p 5, September 12, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.Tags: cannabis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Cannabis use by teenagers leads to permanent brain damage, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences reports.
Teenagers who smoked pot on a daily basis were found to have a significant neuropsychological decline that persisted even after they stopped using the drug. Researchers from Duke University, King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, and the University of Otago found that early-onset regular pot users had IQs 8 points lower than their counterparts who never smoked or started after they were 18 years of age.
The study examined data on 1,037 New Zealanders who were tracked by researchers from birth to age 38. Cannabis usage was measured at ages of 18, 21, 26, 32 and 38, while tests for intelligence, memory and attention were given at the age of 13 and at the age of 38.
The study found that heavy and regular cannabis use was linked to neuropsychological decline across virtually all domains of functioning with the greatest damage found among those who began smoking marijuana before the age of 18.
The “findings are suggestive of a neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain and highlight the importance of prevention and policy efforts targeting adolescents,” the report said.
In a 2001 submission to Parliament, the Church of England’s Board for Social Responsibility urged the decriminalization of cannabis arguing the current laws:
It leads to disrespect for the law among young people; it is enforced in a random manner; there is no link between cannabis and the use of hard drugs except for a tiny minority … Indeed the criminalisation of cannabis makes the association with hard drugs perversely more likely. Legislation is being used here to govern morality, and the indication is that it sets up greater problems in the future. We do take seriously the point that young people may be encouraged to use cannabis more heavily if this legislative change takes place, and we believe that even greater drug education is necessary in schools and with young people.”
However, drug education programmes warning of the harmful effects of cannabis appear not to be working. Study leader Madeline Meier of Duke University observed that persistent cannabis use among American high school students is higher than it has ever been, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The Church of England’s 2001 submission noted that “Alcohol inebriation has long been associated with violence in some cases, and it is possible that cannabis abuse could sometimes have harmful effects. However that is a matter for personal responsibility, guided by moral imperatives. Abuse, which is a sin, is not necessarily a crime: adultery is wrong, but it is not a crime. Murder is both a sin and a crime, by definition. We believe that it is time to decriminalize the possession of cannabis.”
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Bishop defends intervention in benefits debate: The Church of England Newspaper, December 11, 2011 p 7. December 13, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Development/Economics/Govt Finances, Youth/Children.Tags: John Packer, John Sentamu, Julian Smith
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Bishop John Packer
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds and a Conservative MP have exchanged sharp words over a letter criticizing the government’s welfare reforms.
The member for Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith, told the Ripon Gazette that Bishop John Packer was ignorant of economic reality and out of touch with ordinary people. Bishops should stay out of politics, Mr Smith said, and focus on topics with which they were familiar.
On 20 November 2011 the Observerprinted a letter signed by Bishop Packer and 17 other bishops calling for amendments to the welfare reform bill before Parliament that would cut aid to families with children.
The bishops said they were “compelled to speak for children” in response to a planned £500-a-week benefits cap for families. Such a reduction was “profoundly unjust” and would result in children facing “severe poverty and potentially homelessness.”
Mr Smith said he was “stunned” by the bishops’ intervention into the welfare reform debate. “It shows a complete disconnection with the reality of how hard people and businesses are having to work at the moment to pay the taxes that fund the benefit system and how popular the Government’s decision to cap benefits has been amongst the majority of voters,” he said.
A £2,000 a month cap on benefits was “not only reasonable but generous,” he argued, adding that this was the “third high-profile interference by the Church of England into politics in the past year. It is time democratically elected Government Ministers are left to run the country and church bishops stop these political forays which just don’t represent the facts on the ground.”
Criticism of government policy was well within the Church’s competence, Bishop Packer said. “Politics is concerned with the welfare of people, and the Church is concerned with the welfare of people. So it is important the Church is involved in political debates that could affect the welfare of thousands of children in this country.
“It is the care of children which is particularly important to me in this whole debate about welfare and the way in which people are treated in our society,” the Bishop said, adding: “we hope the Government will listen to the concerns that we, and indeed many others, are voicing, and act for the sake of some of the most vulnerable in our society.”
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has added his voice to the chorus of criticism of the proposed benefit cap. “I hope the Government will listen to the concerns that are being raised regarding the Welfare Reform Bill,” Dr Sentamu tweeted last week.
“The Government must ensure that children, especially the most vulnerable, are protected from cuts to family benefits,” the Archbishop said.
British teen drinking ‘spawning a violent and promiscuous generation’: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 7. August 22, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.Tags: alcohol abuse
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Binge drinking among teenage girls has become a serious public health problem for the UK and a source of public disorder, a report compiled by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University has concluded. It warned that Britain’s alcohol culture was spawning a violent and promiscuous generation with 30 per cent of teenagers bingeing at least weekly.
The study of over 11,000 15 and 16-year-old teenagers in the North West found that 88 per cent of teen girls had consumed alcohol, as compared to 80 per cent of boys. “Compared to European neighbours, 15 and 16-year-olds [British teens] are far more likely to drink alcohol and do so more frequently,” the report found.
“We estimate that 65.9 per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds drink at least monthly and that their total overall consumption is 83,943,726 units,” the report said, noting “this is equivalent to 44.2 bottles of wine (117 pints of beer) per year for every 15 and 16-year-old.”
More than half of those who drank alcohol consumed more than ten units a week, and 7 per cent had more than 40 units, and of these “39 per cent of females and 42 per cent of males had been involved in violence.’
“Such drinking can place girls in situations where they are too drunk to properly consider whether they wish to have sex or take the appropriate precautions to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, the report said.
“The consequences of this are both immediate – such as poor school performance and violence – and long-term, such as alcohol-related health problems in later life and pregnancy,” the study concluded.
In a pastoral letter published in parish magazines in June in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Geoffrey Annas, the Bishop of Stafford commented that alcohol abuse had become “one of the major sins of our time.”
“I am not advocating a temperance revival,” Bishop Annas said. “Jesus drank wine and I see alcohol as a gift to enjoy. But I am calling for a more responsible use of this gift.”
“When I hear of older people afraid to go out at night because of drunken rampages; when I have to tread carefully in the street to avoid the pools of vomit; when I am told by young people going away from home for the first time that every single event of Freshers’ Week at their university is focused on pub crawls; when I see ‘reality’ shows on the TV that glorify drunken and degrading obscenity as the ‘Brits’ (both male and female) go on holiday in Europe, and when I join the Night Church or Street Pastors and see beautiful but vulnerable young people become more depressed or aggressive as the night wears on, then I think that Church and Society together need to speak out,” he wrote.
“There has been a seismic shift in attitudes towards smoking – we need the same in our approach to alcohol,” the bishop said.
Mothers’ Union presents petition to 10 Downing Street: The Church of England Newspaper, March 25, 2011. March 30, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Mission Societies/Religious Orders, Popular Culture, Youth/Children.comments closed
MU Worldwide President Rosemary Kempsell presenting a petition to the Prime Minister
The Mothers’ Union (MU) has delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street calling upon the government of Prime Minister David Cameron to ban sexually explicit advertising directed towards children.
On March 14, a delegation led by MU President Rosemary Kempsell, supporters, and a cross party group of MPs: Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Lab), David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale, Cons.), Fiona Bruce (Congleton, Cons.) and Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton, Lab.), presented the petition of 18,500 names.
Mrs. Kempsell said she was “delighted” the government was taking “action to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood through the Bailey Review. We would like to see this Review make strong recommendations to Government to ensure childhood can remain a precious time free from commercialisation.”
In February, the government asked Reg Bailey, MU Chief Executive, to undertake a review that looked at the pressures on children to grow up too quickly.
The Department for Education asked Mr. Bailey to submit his findings to the government in May, and focus on four issues.
“Whether and to what extent sexualised imagery now forms a universal background or ‘wallpaper’ to children’s lives; whether some products are inappropriate for children, and others in dubious taste: parents are anxious about what is appropriate; whether businesses sometimes treat children too much as consumers and forget that they are children too, with particular concerns about the kinds of marketing techniques associated with digital media; how parents can tell advertisers, broadcasters and retailers about the things they are unhappy about and how they can make an effective complaint.”
The Bailey Review will also incorporate research conducted by Prof. David Buckingham on the impact of the commercial world on children’s wellbeing, by Dr Linda Papadopoulos on the sexualisation of young people, and by Professor Tanya Byron on child safety in a digital world.
The March 14 petition is part of the MU’s Bye Bye Childhood campaign to “hold the UK government accountable” to its pledge to fight the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.
Speaking after the event Helen Goodman MP said “Once again Mothers Union is at the forefront of a really important campaign to support families. I’m giving the Bye Buy Childhood campaign my total support.”
Scouting a cure for the Caribbean’s social ills: The Church of England Newspaper, March 11, 2011 p 8. March 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Youth/Children.comments closed
Bishop Alfred Reid of Jamaica
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Scouting can turn around the moral and social decline of the West Indies, the Bishop of Jamaica said last week at a service marking the centenary of the Scout Association of Jamaica.
Jamaica and the West Indies had seen a sharp increase in gang and drugs related crime over the past twenty years and many young men had grown up without strong male role models or moral formation, the bishop said, adding that “young females, at this time, would appear to have more personal ambition than the boys.
Scouting had been proven to build character among boys and strengthened their families and the community and was “needed today more than (it was) 100 years ago,” the bishop said on Feb 27 at the Kingston Parish Church.
He called upon the scouts to take the lead in combating the allure of gangs among the island’s young men and commended the next hundred years of scouting saying, “I hope this centenary will signal the revival of a new and effective rescue mission for the young men of our nation.”
Founded in 1907 by Robert Baden Powell, the scout movement was introduced to Jamaica in 1910 by the Rev. Joseph Graham, and has long been associated with the Anglican Church in the Caribbean.
Parliament warned local govt cuts a threat to youth programmes: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 6. February 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
Mark Pritchard MP
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Local government spending cuts will have a deleterious effect on Church-sponsored youth work, the Second Church Estates Commissioner told Parliament last month.
On Jan 18, the member for The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard (Cons), the deputy chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, asked Second Church Estates Commission Tony Baldy what recent discussions the Church Commissioners had had with “local authorities on Church-sponsored youth groups.”
In a written statement, Mr. Baldry responded there was “still a desire to work in partnership” with local government to provide services to young people, “but most recent conversations” have focused on how budget cuts “will impact on projects undertaken by the Church and other voluntary sector organizations.”
The Lincolnshire County Council was seeking a 60 per cent cut to the “youth budget of children’s services and there are similar stories from across the country,” Mr. Baldry said. The Church of England’s concern was “not only for young people within it but also those in the wider community.”
The Second Church Estates Commissioner highlighted the extent of youth services provided by the Church, noting the Church of England currently provided activities “outside church” for over 439,900 children and young people.”
In addition, “approximately 440,000 children and young people up to the age of 25 [were] attending church-based activities and youth groups which are staffed by 116,000 volunteers and an additional 4,900 employed adults,” Mr. Baldry said.
Church call for sex education in primary schools: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 February 4, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Education, Youth/Children.comments closed
Bishop Calvin Bess of Trinidad (left) Archbishop John Holder of the West Indies (right)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Church has joined in National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) of Trinidad in calling for sex education classes for under-12s.
On Jan 20, the Rt. Rev. Calvin Bess, Bishop of Trinidad said the education minister’s statement last week to the island’s senate that seven primary schools students were compelled to suspend their schooling after they became pregnant was troubling.
Notwithstanding the moral issues at play of children having children, “this state of affairs” was “most regrettable as it will impact on those students’ academic career, and ultimately their future,” the bishop said.
The Anglican Church in the West Indies welcomed plans to combat teen pregnancy, “even if it means introducing some measure of sex education in the school system,” he said.
Trinidad & Tobago follows the British education system, with children enrolled in either state or church-affiliated primary schools from age 5 to 12, and in secondary schools until aged 16. At the end of their primary school education, children sit for the Secondary Entrance Assessment exams, which govern where they will be educated for secondary school. After completing secondary school, children sit for their CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) examinations, akin to the GCE O levels, and those with high scores may continue in school for two further years and sit for their A level exams. The free and compulsory education system has given the island one of the highest literacy rates in the world, exceeding 98 per cent.
The president of Trinidad’s NPTA, Zena Ramatali, last week urged the government to introduce Health and Family Life education programmes as “young people are being bombarded with sexual encounters and teenage pregnancy at an early age.”
However, Bishop Bess said the church believed it was important to have the right programmes in place. A poorly designed curriculum could “produce opposite effects than those which were intended,” prompting children to experiment with sex.
Young people “need to understand that their body is something sacred and that it was a gift from God, so it must be carefully looked after and not abused,” the bishop said.
Family breakdown is the root cause of violent crime, West Indian churchmen tell govt: The Church of England Newspaper, Oct 8, 2010 p 7. October 13, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Crime, Youth/Children.comments closed
2010 Independence Day ceremony in St Kitts Cathedral
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Absent fathers and the breakdown of the family are the greatest threats to society in the West Indies and the root causes of crime, the leaders of the government of St. Kitts and Nevis were told at an Independence Day ceremony last week.
In an ecumenical ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of independence of the West Indian nation held at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Basseterre, the Rev. Christopher Archibald from the Anglican Church of St Kitts told the Governor General, the Prime Minister and cabinet, members of the opposition, judiciary and chiefs of the police and army, that the government’s legislative agenda for the coming session of parliament, “Strengthening families for positive nation building” was a worthy goal.
The family was under attack in St Kitts and Nevis, and across the Caribbean, Fr. Archibald told the assembled worthies on Sept 30. “We are experiencing serious threats to our family and family life and unity by both internal and external forces.”
He singled out North American culture with its emphasis on individualism and materialism, which had led to an increase in gang related activities, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, crime, violence, truancy, delinquency and indiscipline.
Crime has been the principal political issue across the Caribbean in recent years, with nations from Trinidad to the Bahamas experiencing a sharp rise in gang and drug related criminal activity. Speaking to the 25th annual Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police conference in May, Jamaica’s Deputy Police Commissioner Jevene Benet stated that “a climate of disorder is like a fertile ground” for violent crimes.
Commissioner Benet stated that while Jamaica witnessed 1,680 homicides in 2009, the country’s annual murder rate did not break 100 until the early 1970s. “The argument is that such a rise in the number of homicides was aided and abetted by a rise in the climate of disorder, a climate in which little misdemeanors, small infractions that went unchecked, permitted bigger infractions,” she said.
In 2008 St Kitts, with a population of 46,000 saw 23 homicides and its first hanging in ten years. On Dec 9, 2008 Charles Elroy Laplace was hanged for murdering his wife.
Over the last decade, Jamaica consistently has had one of the highest homicide rates in the Caribbean, but this year, the Virgin Islands’ killings per capita are on-track to outpace Jamaica’s homicide rate.
Dr. Olaf Hendricks, a psychiatrist who works with violent criminals in the Virgin Islands—which has a homicide rate of 84 per 100,000 compared to Jamaica’s 60 per 100,000, warned the Caribbean police conference that dysfunctional households were “hatcheries of murderers and rapists.”
Dr. Hendricks said that low intelligence, mental instability and substance abuse were common among violent criminals. “Once a child is born with something like fetal alcohol syndrome, you’ve got a lifelong struggle on your hands,” he said. “Once a child comes out of a mother’s body and hears bad words and starts recoiling and gets a bad touch, we’re too late.”
In his Independence Day sermon, Fr. Archibald said the “breakdown in family values” led to a “a moral decline in society and a less peaceful country.”
“Realise that once the family has been eroded, then everything else that is good in our society is likely to decline as well,” he said.
Mothers’ Union launches ‘Bye Buy Childhood’ campaign: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 10, 2010 p 4. September 16, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Mothers’ Union has announced the kick-off date for its new campaign to combat the “commercialisation of childhood” in the UK.
On Sept 13 the Mothers’ Union will roll out its “Bye Buy Childhood” campaign designed to “hold the UK government accountable” to its pledge to address the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. A booklet is also being prepared to provide talking points for members of the Mothers’ Union in the UK and Republic of Ireland to lobby local and national government.
The Mothers’ Union “believes children should be valued as children, not consumers,” said the 4 million member international Christian charity centered on supporting marriage and family life.
“However, childhood has become a marketing opportunity worth £99 billion in the UK. Marketers target children’s natural inexperience, through methods such as celebrity endorsement, in order to reach not only children’s pocket money but also the household purse,” it said in a statement released this week.
Advertising encouraged a “materialism which negatively affects children’s wellbeing, family life and peer relationships, and can encourage values that Jesus taught against,” the Mothers’ Union said.
“Families can feel overwhelmed by this commercialisation of childhood and unsure how to challenge powerful marketing initiatives,” it said on the campaign website: http://www.byebuychildhood.org
Archbishop wants laws on advertising aimed at children tightened: CEN 10.30.09 p 6. November 6, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide has called upon the Australian government to institute a code of practice for advertising directed towards children, arguing that the reliance upon sex to sell products to children was a form of “corporate paedophilia.” Speaking to the opening session of the Diocese of Adelaide’s annual synod on Oct 23, Archbishop Jeffrey Driver denounced marketing that presented children in sexually provocative ways. |
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“Children have a right to their childhood, but it is being taken from them through the hyper-sexualised environment in which they now grow up,” he said, adding that “at an increasingly early age,” children were being “caught up” in a culture of sex, violence and drugs.
Girl’s clothing often was a “highly sexualised, mini versions of adult fashion,” while some child’s magazines advised five- and six-year-olds “how to look hot and catch a boy,” the archbishop said.
“There are strong suggestions that this premature sexualisation of children could play a role in grooming children for paedophiles, preparing children for sexual interaction with older teenagers or adults,” Archbishop Driver said. The archbishop’s concerns about the debasement of children have also been a matter of concern for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. In 2007 Dr Williams endorsed the Children’s Society report entitled Commercialisation of Childhood that found that children were being “engulfed” by sexually suggestive images about how they should look and feel, and what items they should own.
Dr Williams said there was “an increasing political and social consensus that something needs to be done to safeguard children from the worst excesses of direct marketing and the pressures of commercialisation.”
New Zealand refuses to overturn ‘smacking’ ban: CEN 9.04.09 p 8. September 7, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A referendum to overturn a 2007 law criminalizing corporal punishment has won the support of an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders, however Prime Minister John Key stated his government will not change the current laws that allow police to arrest parents for “smacking” their children. The leaders of the Anglican and Methodist churches in New Zealand had urged voters to support the current laws, while the Roman Catholic aid agency Caritas also urged a “yes” vote on the Aug 21 referendum, saying the current law was working. However, following a three-week postal ballot that saw 54 per cent of eligible voters participate, only 11.81 per cent of voters followed the advice of the country’s mainstream church leaders, with 87.6 per cent of voters, 1.42 million people, responding “No” to the question: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” |
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Opponents of the 2007 law claimed the corporal punishment ban improperly insinuated the state into an area of responsibility reserved for the family. The current law forbids parents from using force to discipline their children but gives police the discretion not to prosecute complaints “where the offence is considered so inconsequential there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.”
On Aug 23 the Dean of Auckland’s Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Very Rev Ross Bay said those who turned to the Old Testament to support corporal punishment were ill-informed. He disputed the contention that the Bible grants parents the right to exercise unfettered control over their children and that it is a “God-given right to use corporal punishment in the discipline of their children.”
The “Christian image of God is what we find in the New Testament of the Bible, and is the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ,” he said, noting “this is the God who does not wield power to force human beings to conform to divine purposes.”
The Old Testament “approach founded in the ancient proverb of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’” had “too often been characterised as ‘the’ Christian view,” he argued, urging Christian parents to model their behaviour on the image of the God of love and mercy revealed in Jesus Christ.
The current law was working, Dean Bay said, urging the government to stay the course.
However “No” campaigners have disputed their opponents’ contentions claiming there had been six prosecutions of “good parents” in the courts for smacking their children. Family First director Bob McCoskrie said the “evidence is there” the law is not working.
“We’ve sent evidence of families being referred to Child Youth and Family and children being removed while investigations are taking place just for smacks. “In fact, there’s a case today in the Lower Hutt District Court of a father trying to get his son on to the rugby field and giving him a few shoves and he’s being prosecuted for common assault.”
Kiwi Party leader and “No” campaigner Larry Baldock said the vote sent a clear message to the Prime Minster. “They want the authority back in the home and he is foolish to suggest this law is working,” he said.
New Zealand refuses to overturn ‘smacking’ ban: CEN 9.04.09 p 8. September 3, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A referendum to overturn a 2007 law criminalizing corporal punishment has won the support of an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders, however Prime Minister John Key stated his government will not change the current laws that allow police to arrest parents for “smacking” their children. The leaders of the Anglican and Methodist churches in New Zealand had urged voters to support the current laws, while the Roman Catholic aid agency Caritas also urged a “yes” vote on the Aug 21 referendum, saying the current law was working. |
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However, following a three-week postal ballot that saw 54 per cent of eligible voters participate, only 11.81 per cent of voters followed the advice of the country’s mainstream church leaders, with 87.6 per cent of voters, 1.42 million people, responding “No” to the question: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”
Opponents of the 2007 law claimed the corporal punishment ban improperly insinuated the state into an area of responsibility reserved for the family. The current law forbids parents from using force to discipline their children but gives police the discretion not to prosecute complaints “where the offence is considered so inconsequential there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.”
On Aug 23 the Dean of Auckland’s Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Very Rev Ross Bay said those who turned to the Old Testament to support corporal punishment were ill-informed. He disputed the contention that the Bible grants parents the right to exercise unfettered control over their children and that it is a “God-given right to use corporal punishment in the discipline of their children.”
The “Christian image of God is what we find in the New Testament of the Bible, and is the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ,” he said, noting “this is the God who does not wield power to force human beings to conform to divine purposes.”
The Old Testament “approach founded in the ancient proverb of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’” had “too often been characterised as ‘the’ Christian view,” he argued, urging Christian parents to model their behaviour on the image of the God of love and mercy revealed in Jesus Christ.
The current law was working, Dean Bay said, urging the government to stay the course.
However “No” campaigners have disputed their opponents’ contentions claiming there had been six prosecutions of “good parents” in the courts for smacking their children. Family First director Bob McCoskrie said the “evidence is there” the law is not working.
“We’ve sent evidence of families being referred to Child Youth and Family and children being removed while investigations are taking place just for smacks. “In fact, there’s a case today in the Lower Hutt District Court of a father trying to get his son on to the rugby field and giving him a few shoves and he’s being prosecuted for common assault.”
Kiwi Party leader and “No” campaigner Larry Baldock said the vote sent a clear message to the Prime Minster. “They want the authority back in the home and he is foolish to suggest this law is working,” he said.
‘Stop scapegoating social workers: CEN 2.20.09 p 8 February 21, 2009
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THE FORMER Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Rt Rev Richard Holloway, has come to the defence of social workers, saying the profession has become modern Britain’s scapegoat for society’s ills.
In a robust defence of the social work profession in the wake of the Baby P case — the London toddler who was visited by workers and other professionals 50 times before he lost his life at the hands of his mother, her partner and a lodger in 2007 — Dr Holloway argued that society vents its “frustrations” for failed families on social workers.
There was a “noisy culture of blame at work in Britain today” he argued that was “stoked and orchestrated by the tabloid press.” Social workers needed “broad shoulders and secure personalities today, if they are to bear the unfair criticism they often attract,” Dr Holloway argued. However, recent surveys found that almost three quarters of those who used social work services were satisfied with the help they received.
It was, however, within the government’s grasp to turn things round. “The banking crisis and a couple of colossally expensive wars have shown that when we want to, or think we need to, we are capable of putting money and ideas to work to deliver the outcome we want,” Dr Holloway said.
“Why can’t we get society to apply that same urgency to the social problems that confront us and attack them with deep, imaginative, well resourced, evidence-based responses that will achieve slow generational change, the only kind of change that will endure,” he noted.
Speaking in Edinburgh on the 40th anniversary of the Social Work Scotland Act of 1968 Dr Holloway traced the breakdown of society to the collapse of traditional social and employment structures, and a failure of parenting and schooling of children.
The changing industrial face of Britain over the last 40 years contributed to the decline of social standards, he argued. “The institutions that once gave [the poor] a motive for responsible living, such as holding down a tough, demanding job with its own culture and honour, and presiding, however clumsily, within a marriage and family that was the primary context for the nurture and socializing of children, have largely disappeared, and with them the main ways the human community traditionally disciplined and integrated children into the social contract.”
This “shattering of the structures” had led to the “breeding ground for despair” that gave rise to destructive social behaviour. Many children in these post-industrial, postmodern homes had never learned the “necessary disciplines and constraints of living alongside others in civil society.”
As they grow, “inevitably, they offend against society’s norms and come to the attention of its authorities, presenting either as offenders or as being themselves at risk because of parental neglect, cruelty or both. These moral orphans are thrown to the state to deal with, and it is social workers, and to some extent teachers, who are called upon to do remedial catchup with inadequate resources, in the context of a society increasingly uncaring in its attitudes to troubled, often feral children,” he said.
“That is tough enough; but social workers are sometimes called upon to fulfill another role in society, that of ritual scapegoat,” Dr Holloway argued.
Nigerian Primate hits out at feminism: CEN 1.09.09 p 5. January 14, 2009
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The two-parent family is the central building block of society, the Archbishop of Nigeria has argued in his Christmas address to the church. Feminism and absentee fathers were contributing to the social breakdown in Nigeria, he warned, for bad parenting produced bad children which led to a bad future for all.
Absent fathers and neglectful mothers had spawned children who were “bundles of evil and vices due to improper upbringing,” Archbishop Peter Akinola said.
The result of these absent or neglectful role models could be observed “even on Sunday mornings” when children who are “supposed to be in the Church to worship God” can be found marking “their attendance at pitches where they gather for the game of football or go to pubs to drink, smoke and sniff hard drugs.”
The breakdown of family life was a “frightening development,” he said, made worse by those who “take pride in being single parents. If by death a partner is snatched away, this is understandable. We pray for people of such experience that they will be comforted.”
However there were “some men in our society who are utterly irresponsible with carefree attitude and who will not pay attention to their children,” Archbishop Akinola said. “Likewise are the so called societal ladies, the feminists” who have “little or nothing to offer our younger generation in morals or values.”
Drawing upon the Nativity story, Archbishop Akinola said that in Palestine, as in Africa today, “culturally and religiously” it was “a sin for unmarried females to be put in the family way.”
Yet God sent the angel Gabriel to “reveal His plan and purpose of redemption to Joseph and required him to take care of Mary.” Joseph “handled the situation so well that Mary was saved from embarrassment, shame and untimely death. The husband and wife lived together happily raising the Holy Child as a family. Every child needs constant loving parental care (mother and father playing their roles jointly),” the archbishop said.
Modern Nigeria needed to follow this example, for it is in the best interest of “our Nation and Church” that “we call all parents, fathers and mothers to make it a point of duty to jointly nurture the children in the fear and love of the Lord,” Archbishop Akinola said, for “if our Lord, Jesus the Christ, God incarnate enjoyed full parental care, we mortals can do no less.”
Archbishop hits out at rise in ‘repugnant’ child sacrifice practices in Uganda: CEN 1.02.09 January 3, 2009
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Child sacrifice is an abomination the church must eradicate through the preaching of the Gospel the Primate of Uganda declared in his Christmas letter to the nation, saying the greed for money and lust for power that lay behind witchcraft were repugnant to the Lord.
“Many are the crying mothers who have lost their children to child sacrifices,” Archbishop Henry Orombi said on Dec 11. “Some think: If I sacrifice human blood I shall have money – then have peace and happiness.”
“God is grieved by such ignorance,” he declared as the shedding of “innocent blood is a curse to the Nation and brings barrenness to social achievements.”
Reports of child sacrifice have played across the pages of Uganda’s newspapers this month, following the arrest of a prominent Kampala property developer, who allegedly engaged two witchdoctors to decapitate a 12-year old boy in a ritual ceremony. The head of the child was to have been buried under the foundations of a building under construction, providing magic protection for its owner, the Kampala press reported.
On Dec 4 Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo told reporters “child sacrifice has confronted the nation with its ferocity, barbarity as well as frequency,” and had “become a national danger.”
“Witchdoctors deserve special condemnation,” the government minister said.
Greed was the culprit, Archbishop Orombi said. The message of Christmas was one of peace, he said, but “many in our society have lost their peace because of greed. The desire to have more creates imbalance and those without resent those who have more than their fair share.”
God “never blesses corruption and stealing,” he said. “The Prince of Peace has been born that your hearts may know contentment and learn to give rather than take.”
For Uganda to break free from the grip of sin and pagan practices, “this country [must] face and deal with the ugly face of corruption if health should come to the nation.”
“There is need for change in the way we treat one another,” he said, as “we must pursue love and not violence in our streets.”
The Archbishop’s call for an end to the culture of corruption and repudiation of witchcraft and paganism, however, was not a call for the Anglicizing of Uganda. Archbishop Orombi has championed the inculturation of Anglicanism within the context of African worship, urging church leaders to take what is good from local cultures to help propagate the Gospel.
The Diocese of Northern Uganda last week reported that Archbishop Orombi upbraided Bishop Nelson Onono-Onweng, asking why the royal bwola dance had not been performed during his visit to several rural archdeaconries. Performed only on the orders of a chief, the bwola dance is one of the highpoints of the culture of the Acholi people of Northern Uganda. The dance is performed at state ceremonies, funerals of local dignitaries and during the visit of important guests to the region.
The bishop responded that his archdeacons had declined to authorize the dance, as they thought it would be disrespectful to offer “pagan” dances at Christian worship services.
Archbishop Orombi told the Northern Uganda clergy that it not only was permissible, but desirable to used “sanctified local songs and dances to worship the Lord,” the diocese said.
Auckland synod called to speak out on drug use: CEN 9.19.08 p 8. September 20, 2008
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The Bishop of Auckland has urged his diocesan synod to back an education campaign to combat the use of methamphetamines.
“Gangs and others push this addictive stimulant, and teenagers are often the targets of free samples,” the Rt. Rev. John Paterson said on Sept 13. A chemical stimulant known by the “street” name P in New Zealand, it is also called Meth, Speed, Pure, Crystal, Ice, Crystal Meth, Crank and Glass in the UK and US.
Methamphetamine release high levels of the brain chemical dopamine, stimulating brain cells, enhancing mood and body movement and is a controlled substance in most developed countries.
While its users take the drug for its “high”, it also causes increased alertness, paranoia, hallucinations, insomnia, loss of appetite, while the long term effects include fatal kidney and lung disorders, brain damage, depression, violent and aggressive behavior, lowered resistance to illness and weight loss.
“Labeling it as P is a cynical marketing ploy, giving the impression of a clean and wholesome drug, when it is nothing but evil,” Bishop Paterson said.
He urged the members of synod to speak out about the dangers of the drug. “The church needs a loud and caring voice against this drug as the community suffers from criminal offending and addiction,” he said.
“There are frightening challenges for our schools and young people and we run the risk of becoming blasé about it as criminal offending linked to methamphetamine continues to rise.”
Archbishop hails childhood inquiry: CEN 4.18.08 p 5. April 23, 2008
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has welcomed the Good Childhood Inquiry panel to Lambeth Palace, participating in its investigation of good childhood practices for Britain.
The work of the panel, set up by the Children’s Society, comes amidst concerns over a growing breakdown in family life. On April 14, a cross party parliamentary inquiry led by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith reported that the breakdown of family life was creating a permanent “under class” in Britain.
In some areas of Britain, sixty percent of families were without fathers. The lack of social and parental interaction was leading to a generation of children doomed to dysfunction, Mr. Duncan Smith said.
“The evidence shows if a child is born into a home where they are nurtured, where conversation takes place, where they are read to, even at an age where they can’t understand, what happens is that the child’s brain develops.”
“If they don’t have any of that, if they are not challenged, if they’re sat in front of a TV for hours and hours on end, if there’s anger and shouting, if they witness their mother being abused or some boyfriend takes a dislike to them, then studies show that child will arrive at nursery school often not able to speak properly,” Mr. Duncan Smith said.
These neglected children fall behind their peers, and are “likely to end up involved in crime or drugs,” he said.
To stem the societal dysfunction identified by Mr. Duncan Smith’s inquiry the Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry seeks to initiate a debate on what makes for a good childhood and to shape future government policy. Dr. Williams said he was “grateful” for the opportunity of hearing “how their work has been progressing” and looked forward to the publication of their report on April 24. “This is a timely and significant Inquiry, which will be of great value and resource to those looking to shape future policy for children and young people,” he said.
The chief executive of the Children’s Society, Bob Reitemeier, reported the Inquiry had heard from 15,000 people, including 10,000 children. “Rethinking childhood is one of the most important issues facing the UK. We’re extremely grateful for the Archbishop’s insights on childhood and his participation in the Inquiry which has helped us shape the debate around childhood,” he said on April 7.
Child poverty blamed on family breakdown: CEN 1.04.08 p 4. January 4, 2008
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The problem of child poverty in Britain was a function of broken families and absent parents, the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham said in Parliament last week.
Speaking in the House of Lords on Dec 18 during the second reading of the government’s Child Maintenance Bill, Bishop George Cassidy applauded the government’s commitment to “ending child poverty by 2020.” However, putting the government to work at tackling the problem of broken families would have a more immediate and lasting effect, he argued.
A significant factor in the rate of child poverty was the failure of absent father’s to provide for their children. Only “one in three” one-parent families “receives any support from the non-resident parent, Bishop Cassidy said.
“If we are going to achieve the Government’s targets on child poverty, it is vitally important that this issue of maintenance is sorted out properly, particularly for the most vulnerable in our communities. Children are a gift, but creating a child also creates positive responsibilities towards that child. I sincerely hope that the Bill creates a commission that will play its part in helping parents to live up to their responsibilities, with enforcement as a last resort.”
He also supported the government decision to increase the “maintenance disregard for those on benefits” and for having understood that the child welfare agency’s “main purpose is to promote the welfare of the child rather than to claw back benefits. That should directly affect child poverty,” he said.
Moral values ‘are needed in reforms’ : CEN 12.07.07 December 7, 2007
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| THE BISHOP of Portsmouth has pressed the government not to overlook the moral foundations of education in its plans to reform primary school curriculums.
Speaking in the House of Lords during the debate on primary schools testing on Nov 27 initiated by Lib-Dem peer Baroness Sharp, the Rt Rev Kenneth Stevenson observed the government’s reform plans called for a ‘widening and deepening’ of educational standards. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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First UK Christian skate conference held: CEN 11.27.07 November 28, 2007
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| BRITAIN’S first conference dedicated to Christian outreach to the skate community was held last week in Scotland.
‘Skate ministry’ leaders from the US, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Jamaica, Ireland and the UK met at Dundee’s Factory Skatepark from Nov 9-11 and explored ways of using the sport of skateboarding to reach young people with the Gospel. Speakers at the Conference spoke of how God was changing the lives of young people through skating. At the close of the gathering participants resolved to form a skate ministry for the UK. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Planned reforms ‘long overdue’: CEN 11.16.07 p 5. November 17, 2007
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The paramount duty of government is to protect the “most vulnerable” members of society, the Bishop of Leicester told the House of Lords on Nov 8 in response to the Queen’s speech.
Bishop Tim Stevens, who also serves as chairman of the Children’s Society, welcomed the Children and Young Persons Bill and the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill, saying reform of the government’s child care system was “long overdue.”
“The Government’s aspiration to reduce the outcome gap between children in care and their peers and to improve the experience of education for children in care is clearly right,” he said, but noted strict attention must be paid to the details of the legislation as “for successive generations we have not satisfactorily looked after our children and young people in care.”
The Children and Young Persons Bill gives councils powers to organise children’s care and ensure children do not move schools in Years 10 and 11, except in exceptional circumstances. By raising the standards for those children placed in care the Queen said the government would see that young people were not “forced out of care before they are ready.”
The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill creates a Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to replace the Child Support Agency. The government says it will have tougher powers to force absent parents to pay for their children.
Bishop Stevens urged the government to fund the progammes as “policies without people and resources, however, are empty shells and doomed to failure.”
The government’s plans reflect “high ideals about what children need,” but council taxes alone would not cover the costs. “I wonder how the local authorities are going to find the money to make these proposals work, when the Pre-Budget Report failed to show how we are going to make the painful decisions needed about the redistribution of wealth,” he asked.
Bishop Stevens noted the Child Maintenance Bill was a “focus of enormous concern.” He urged the government not to replicate the failed policies of the Child Support Agency, and to pursue a “radical rethinking” of the child maintenance system, encouraging parents to be “generous towards their children according to their own means.”
He also urged the government “to be bolder” and create a “right to advocacy for children with disabilities.” The 13,300 disabled children living outside their homes needed to “get their views heard” and to take a “proper part in the decisions that affect their lives.”
“This is what gives them dignity, respect and independence, which they are so often unintentionally denied, and it can provide a source of protection by ensuring that their voices are heard within what is otherwise experienced by them as a closed system,” he said.
Bishop backs raising school leaving age: CEN 11.16.07 p 4. November 17, 2007
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The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds has backed the government’s Education and Skills Bill announced in the Queen’s speech last week.
On Nov 8 Bishop John Packer endorsed the government’s plans to require by 2015 all 16 to 18-year-olds to be enrolled in school or vocational training programmes, however, he urged the government to ensure that provisions for their moral and spiritual education not be overlooked in the new bill.
By raising the school-leaving age, the Queen said the government would “raise education standards and give everyone the chance to reach their full potential”. The speech also announced new rights to skills training for adults and draft legislation to reform apprenticeships.
Bishop Packer told the House of Lords the Church of England had “long been committed to a full and engaging educational experience up to the age of 18. We welcome the opportunity to work with the Government to meet those aims in schools and FE and HE institutions.”
“This Bill will provide opportunities for those from deprived backgrounds to achieve greater status and recognition because of the higher status that should be accorded to skills education from 16 to 19,” he argued.
Bishop Packer urged the government “to correct the anomaly over the entitlement to provision for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, which 16 to 19 year-olds have in schools but not in colleges.”
It would be “extraordinary to concentrate on specific skills and not to take account of those moral and social values that need to be at the heart of our community culture and therefore of our education system,” he said.
The contribution of young people to society was fostered by a sound provision for
“education in moral and social matters within the work of the FE colleges,” Bishop Packer argued.
Opportunities to “celebrate and value faith and to explore social development” were an important task of higher education. “It cannot simply be left as an optional extra. Values appropriate to our multi-faith society need to be inculcated in the overall provision made through these groundbreaking proposals,” he argued.
Reach the young people Caribbean Churches urged: CEN 8.17.07 p 4. August 18, 2007
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The Primate of the West Indies has urged the members of the Anglican Churches of the Caribbean to take constructive steps to bring more young people into the life and work of the church. Speaking to a Barbados newspaper, Archbishop Drexel Gomez said the Anglican Church must be prepared to come up with funding, training, and leadership opportunities to equip the church’s next generation of leaders.
The church must raise up more youth leaders, he told the Nation, “persons who will be given the necessary expertise to plan and to lead projects in which there would be outreach to young people.”
“In the past we have left too much to chance. We need to spend some money to equip people properly to do this,” he said, adding that the Diocese of Nassau and the Bahamas had recently sent two of its youth workers to Britain to train.
Congregations must also create space for young people, he said, as in many parishes “older persons tend to call the shots and determine everything that happens,” he said.
He said the Church should strive for “inter-age collaboration” and adopt a “holistic” model of decision making that involves the young.
Young people are now included as full participants in the deliberations of General Synod, he noted. “They must be part of it, not necessarily in charge, but be part of the decision-making,” Archbishop Gomez said.
“The church as the body of Christ means that every member is important,” he said. “It is the interconnectedness of the body that must be translated into the way the church lives and functions,” the West Indian archbishop concluded.
JK Rowling reveals Christian basis for ‘Harry Potter’: CEN 8.07.07 August 9, 2007
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| CHRISTIAN motifs play a central role in the Harry Potter stories, author JK Rowling told an American television audience on July 29.Participating in a question-and-answer session on the NBC news magazine show Dateline, Rowling was asked by a child in the studio audience what the significance of her calling Harry Potter the “chosen one” might be.“Well, there — there clearly is a religious — undertone,” to the stories, Rowling said.
She added that it had “always been difficult to talk about that because until we reached Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on” an explicit discussion of the books’ Christian motifs “would give away a lot of what was coming.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper |
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Bishops unite to warn on youth restraints: CEN 7.27.07 p 4. July 26, 2007
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The Bishops of Norwich and Worcester have called for the repeal of regulations permitting the use of physical restraints upon youthful offenders.
The Rt Rev Graham James and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Peter Selby endorsed the proposal made by Lord Carlile, the president of the Howard League for Penal Reform, that would rescind the Secure Training Centre (Amendment Rules) 2007 statutory instrument, which came into force earlier this month.
The new regulations, which permit children held in STCs to be placed in restraint for reasons of “good order and discipline,” superseded rules allowing restraint only in cases of risk of harm or flight.
The new regulations were “frankly awful and inadequate” and if “taken at face value” would permit “physical violence towards teenage prisoners” when in the “subjective opinion” of a warder “violence is necessary, to ensure good order and discipline,” Lord Carlile said.
The use of physical restraints would become one of the “first choices available in any secure training centre, whenever there is a sign of trouble. That is simply unacceptable,” he added.
Bishop James supported Lord Carlile’s call for reform, noting he was “not sure how training and physical restraint go together. While physical restraint may be necessary sometimes, it is quite as likely to breed resentment, bitterness and further violence as much as it is compliance.”
“If it is now impossible to maintain good order and discipline” in STC’s, the “last thing we need is more permissive regulation” that permits “even more extensive use of physical restraint,” he said.
The Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Peter Selby stated he would be “happiest if these rules were annulled,” noting he was “disquieted even by the thought that these rules will be on the statute book.”
“Statutory frameworks” create an “ethos, climates of opinion or cultures,” he explained where “using physical restraint where necessary for the purpose of restoring order” becomes possible.
This “opens the way for rogue officers to feel that there is a sneaking level of public support for them doing what we believe to be unacceptable,” he said.
“This is not a debate between people who think that looking after disturbed young people is easy and those who think it difficult,” Dr. Selby said, but a dispute over government sanctioned violence.
Justice Minister Lord Hunt told the peers the regulations were not “an attempt to open the door to the inappropriate use of restraint.” He said, “A threat to good order and discipline is more than a simple refusal to follow an instruction from a member of staff. It must involve behaviour which puts the safe running of the wider establishment at risk.”
The government promised it would create an independent review panel to review the use of restraints on youthful offenders and clarify the new regulations.
Lord Carlile asked the review not be a “major delaying tactic” while evidence was “there to be acted upon.” Dr. Selby stated the government’s promise of clarification of restraint rules was “positively Orwellian.”
Church called to speak out for the plight of children: CEN 7.13.07 July 14, 2007
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The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham has raised the question of teen violence in the House of Lords, and has urged the government to view the matter not simply as an issue of material deprivation, but of moral and relational collapse.
Speaking on July 3, Bishop George Cassidy asked Home Office minister Lord Bassam what priority his department had given to the rise in violent death among teenagers. The government replied that it saw the violent death of any young person as “a tragedy” and stated it “continues to give, the issues of guns and knife crime the highest priority.
The government took a “three-themed approach of policing, powers and prevention” to alleviate the problem of youth crime Lord Bassam said.
Bishop Cassidy questioned whether the “these violent incidents are the result as much of relational poverty as of material poverty?” and urged the government to adopt policies responding to the moral causes of youth crime.
Youth crime arose from a “variety of issues, such as family conflict, low achievement at school, the availability of drugs or weapons, and a lack of social commitment,” the Home Office minister responded, and were being actively addressed by the government.
The Bishop of Worcester urged the government also to “pay tribute” to charitable social initiatives such as the Damilola Taylor Trust campaign to combat youth crime. Bishop Peter Selby said the Trust was engaged in a campaign to invite young people to “respect your life, not a knife.”
It had much success in mentoring young people, he argued, by promoting the life and work of those who had turned their back on violence.
Bishop Attacks Human Trafficking: CEN 7.06.07 p 4. July 6, 2007
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The Bishop of Liverpool has condemned the “deplorable social evil” of human trafficking and has urged the government to invest further funds in international development to address its root causes.
“It is appalling to contemplate that within our own country there should be the trafficking of children at this stage in our nation’s life,” Bishop James Jones said.
Speaking to the House of Lords on June 28 in response to a debate on the causes and impact of human trafficking introduced by Lord Sheikh, Bishop Jones conceded that “preventing human trafficking is difficult, not least because at some stage many of the victims collude with the traffickers, for they are trying to escape conditions of extreme poverty.”
However, he urged a coordination of efforts between the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and NGOs to “the work together in those areas with the poor and vulnerable communities to develop the potential of the people in order to remove or minimise the risk of trafficking.”
The Church of England supported the government’s aims of preventing trafficking, enforcing laws against traffickers and protecting its victims, he said.
“The victims that we are particularly concerned for are those who are subjected to sexual exploitation, and children,” Bishop Jones said.
In 2003 approximately 4000 women were “trafficked into the United Kingdom for sexual purposes,” he said, noting that there were a number of “projects providing safe places for such victims, including CHASTE, which is the Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking Across Europe.”
CHASTE provides “safe homes” for these women, he said, but the costs for such programmes were high. “We know that there are many demands on the taxpayer, but our failure to stop the trafficking brings with it a moral responsibility to care for its victims. We urge the Government to match their laudable intentions with the money to implement them.”
Ban All Advertising Aimed at Children: CEN 6.15.07 p 4. June 16, 2007
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, House of Lords, Youth/Children.comments closed
The Bishop of St Albans has urged the government to tighten bans on TV advertising to children. British society was “producing fat and greedy children with thin and starving souls,” Bishop Christopher Herbert said in support of the Television Advertising (Food) Bill during its second reading in the House of Lords on June 8.
The media, advertising and popular culture presented society “as being obsessed by self. Vanity has become the ruling metaphor of our age and is accompanied by its first cousin, greed,” the bishop said in support of a stronger ban on “junk food” advertising to children.
Introduced by Labour peer Baroness Thornton, the proposed bill would end TV advertising before 9pm for foods high in fat, salt and sugar. Under Ofcom regulations introduced in April, advertisers cannot market these products around TV programmes aimed at children less than nine years of age.
Baroness Thornton told Parliament the current ban was “”inadequate given the scale and urgency of this problem,” adding that “all the good work of schools and the efforts of parents are being undermined by the torrent of advertising for less healthy food.”
Conservative peer Baroness Bunscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, opposed the bill, saying “advertising bans have unintended consequences and won’t tackle the root causes of the problem of obesity.”
Bishop Herbert condemned treating children as “consumers”. Children were bombarded “in supermarkets and on billboards, the internet and TV with suggestions that what they need is to learn how to consume.”
He urged the government to consider the Swedish model of banning all advertising to under 12s. “The Wordsworthian child trailed clouds of glory, but the 21st-century child trails crisp packets, designer-label trainers and drink cans,” said Bishop Herbert.
“It is a horrible image. Surely, childhood is a place where things of the spirit need to be given room to grow, because at that stage children are spiritually delicate,” he said.
“If we do not enable virtues relating to truth, gentleness, compassion and care for others to take root, we treat them simply as dustbins,” Bishop Herbert said.
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