THE P RTAL
November 2014
Page 3
Portal Editorial
Will Burton looks back at some events last month
and is encouraged and puzzled in equal measure
O
ne of
my favourite walks is along the Old West River from Hermitage Lock at Earith to the bridge
at the isolated hamlet of Aldreth and on to the charmingly named Twenty Pence Bridge at Cottenham.
It is about seven miles and these days I need a friend with a car to meet me at Cottenham!
Time was when I could cross the river and walk
back to Earith, but age and fatigue overtakes us all
eventually. Still the Cambridgeshire fens are wonderful
walking country, and I find walking aids thinking.
Newman
This month I have been thinking about John
Henry Newman. According to the Catholic Herald,
Pope Francis has sent his blessing to those working
for Newman’s canonisation. This will be good news
to the members of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of
Walsingham. I hope we are all praying for that day to
come when we can call our patron “Saint John Henry
Newman”.
The blessing of Pope Francis is welcome. It is,
perhaps, a pointer that in the corridors of power in the
Vatican the cause has some support.
That Synod
What are we to make of the report of that Synod in
Rome? I for one, am not at all sure. The Ecclesiastical
Blogs have been in full flow, as was the secular press,
but I tend to agree with Fr Ed Tomlinson who, in his
Blog on 15th October, quoted Cardinal Vincent Nichols
who urged caution, and Pope Pius X to this effect in
Entrance to Hermitage Lock 1
his blog which you can read at:
want it here, but ought we not to help merely because
www.tunbridgewells-ordinariate.com/blog/
help is required in West Africa?
Ebola
Those of us with links in West Africa will be worried
by the Ebola crisis. So many dead, so ma