Bishops release pre-election document

Choosing the Common Good, the bishops’ pre-election document has just been released. Our news editor Simon Caldwell was at the presser. In the document, the Bishops of England and Wales call for a wholesale reform of public life. The document’s emphasis on marriage has prompted speculation that the bishops are urging Catholics to vote Conservative, but the bishops are calling for the return of virtue to public life. Read the whole thing here.

Both parties have recently been seen to be courting the religious vote.

First lay woman in curia, dies aged 94

The first lay woman to serve in a Curial office has died at the age of 94. Rosemary Goldie was involved in the pre-Concilliar Permanent Committee for the International Congresses of the Lay Apostolate set up in Rome by Pius XII in 1952. She became the executive secretary of the committee, which would later form the “>Council for the Laity created by Paul VI in 1967 and served as the Curial office’s under-secretary until 1976. She died at the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Randwick in Sydney on Saturda said the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Here is the full article.

To read about other women who were also among the first to hold positions in the Curia, click here.