“United in body”: that’s how Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor summed up the biennial meeting of the 35 bishops of England and Wales, held in Leeds, from 10 to 13 November. In October the bishops had completed an ad limina visit to Rome, as a preparatory step for the meeting in Leeds. On that occasion the Pope has encouraged the English episcopate to “tackle the pervasive secularization” and religious indifference and pursue the “evangelization of culture”. Evangelization, indeed, as announced by the general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Msgr. Andrew Summersgill, was one of the priorities of the meeting in Leeds. But the bishops also discussed vocations, pro-life day and the young. The publication of a pamphlet on the moral teaching of the Church ( Cherishing Life) was also approved; it will be distributed at the beginning of the new year together with a declaration to “support Catholic schools and the Catholic educational service”. The assembly, lastly, appointed a new assistant secretary of the Bishops’ Conference. He is Father Andrew Faley, of the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. Faley will be given special responsibility for ecumenism and dialogue, thus substituting Msgr. Bernard Longley, who has recently become auxiliary bishop of Westminster in London.
