Archives for February 2010

There's still time to watch Gerry Adams's documentary about the life of Jesus, part of Channel 4's The Bible: A History series. "For as long as I've had a memory, Jesus has been in there," says the Sinn Fein president at the beginning of the programme. He speaks to theologians, historians and other experts in an effort to piece together a credible narrative of Jesus's life, and, as a counterpoint, we learn something of Gerry Adam's life too.

In today's Sunday Times, AA Gill says he found Adams's Life of Jesus revealing in ways Gerry Adams certainly did not intend. He writes:

"Stepping through the story of the crucifixion, Adams plainly saw the IRA and his activism cast in the figure of Christ -- a freedom fighter sentenced by a cynical occupying power -- when, in truth, he was far more obviously and damningly suited to the role of Caiaphas, the expedient political operator willing to sacrifice his own people to maintain an orthodoxy and a grip on worldly power. Inevitably, what it reminded me of was Life of Brian and the squabbling of the People's Front of Judea: "What have the British ever done for us?" It was Adams 0, Christ 1 (own goal)."

The Charity Commission has launched an investigation into the charity at the centre of a row over claims of bullying at Downing Street. The Commission says it has received more than 160 complaints about the National Bullying Helpline and had moved to prevent any more details of calls being disclosed. The charity's chief executive, Christine Pratt, has been severely criticised for saying it had been contacted by Downing Street staff amid claims about the Prime Minister's behaviour. Her words were met with dismay and disbelief in many quarters as help organisations usually regard approaches from those seeking help as strictly confidential. So how absolute is confidentiality when it come to dealings between professionals and their clients? Or indeed between priests or pastors and those who come seeking help?

On today's Sunday Sequence, Fr Alan McGuckian explained why the "seal of the Confessional" means that Catholics have an absolute guarantee of confidentiality, and the solicitor Brian Speers explained a similar legal protection that exists for clients seeking counsel from a lawyer. But Dr John Jenkins, from the General Medical Council, a consultant paediatrician and a member of the GMC's working group on confidentiality, explored those very rare circumstances in which doctors may decide to override a patient's request for confidentiality. You can listen to the discussion on the BBC iPlayer.

The new prosecution policy, published this week by Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, applies directly to the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Similar guidelines were simultaneously published by the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland. We'll explore the new guidelines on tomorrow's Sunday Sequence with the legal expert Joshua Rosenburg.

Keir Starmer said: "The policy is now more focused on the motivation of the suspect rather than the characteristics of the victim. The policy does not change the law on assisted suicide. It does not open the door for euthanasia. It does not override the will of Parliament. What it does is to provide a clear framework for prosecutors to decide which cases should proceed to court and which should not. Assessing whether a case should go to court is not simply a question of adding up the public interest factors for and against prosecution and seeing which has the greater number. It is not a tick-box exercise. Each case has to be considered on its own facts and merits."

More than 5000 people contributed to the public consultation process which produced this new policy. In assessing the motivation of the suspect, the policy will consider 16 public interest factors in favour of prosecution, and 6 public interest factors against prosecution. I've listed these below the fold.

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Professor Christine Hayes's previous lectures on the Old Testament have provoked more than a little controversy in some sections of the Will & Testament community. I suspect there will be considerable reaction to the next lecture.

I say that because we now turn to the so-called "modern critical study of the Bible". That is an approach to the Old and New Testament that draws on historical, literary and archaeological methods to examine questions of provenance, context, authorship and consistency. In Professor Hayes's summary, she considers "source theories and Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis (see diagram), as well as form criticism and tradition criticism. The main characteristics of each biblical source (J, E, P, and D) according to classic source theory are explained. This lecture also raises the question of the historical accuracy of the Bible and the relation of archaeology to the biblical record."

Watch, read or listen to Lecture 5.
Find out more about this course.
Consult the course syllabus.
Why is the course on the Will & Testament blog?

Richard Dawkins has intervened in a dispute about the moderation of his official website. He says the nastiness of comments added to the site is a sign of "something rotten in the internet culture".

It appears that the site, which describes itself as a "clear thinking oasis" has been muddied by thoughtless abusiveness.

Doubtlessly, some will say that the stridency of the new atheism movement may partly explain the aggressiveness one finds on the Dawkins website; that if Dawkins's fan-base is populated by those who enjoy the sharpness of his verbal assault on belief and believers, then those acolytes might be tempted to outdo one another in futher sharpness.

But, to be fair, the Richard Dawkins I have met is a gentleman and a scholar, and I am not at all suprised by his stand against incivility.

Money quote:

"Surely there has to be something wrong with people who can resort to such over-the-top language, over-reacting so spectacularly to something so trivial. Even some of those with more temperate language are responding to the proposed changes in a way that is little short of hysterical. Was there ever such conservatism, such reactionary aversion to change, such vicious language in defence of a comfortable status quo? What is the underlying agenda of these people? How can anybody feel that strongly about something so small? Have we stumbled on some dark, territorial atavism? Have private fiefdoms been unwittingly trampled? Be that as it may, what this remarkable bile suggests to me is that there is something rotten in the Internet culture that can vent it." (Read the entire comment.)

What happened to the idea of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland? Queen's University Professor of Law Colin Harvey has been discussing the current status of the Bill of Rights proposals, and making a case for "Not simply any Bill of Rights, but one that respects this profound constitutional enterprise, one which leaves a lasting and positive legacy for future generations." I've published the full text of the speech below the fold, with Colin's permission, for discussion and debate.

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I wish there was a better way to describe my list of links to regularly-consulted blogs, which you can find on sidebar to the right of this page; but "blogroll", however unattractive, is the now-accepted descriptor. I've now updated the Will & Testament blogroll. If you have a moment, take a look at some of the new sites that have been added. These reflect my interests, which may overlap with some of yours. Many of them I consult on a daily basis, some less frequently. As you can see, they are philosophically and religiously diverse: blogs by academics, campaigners, news services, journalists, and passionate individuals. They are there because they are interesting, useful or distinctive; not because their content is endorsed by me or by the BBC. From time to time, I'll remove some links and add others. If you would like to suggest a link for a future update, please use this thread.

Since the press launch of the Murphy Report in November, four Irish Catholic bishops have resigned, a fifth is facing pressure to do the same, an already-retired bishop has been banned from participating in confirmations, and Pope Benedict has held an unprecedented crisis summit at the Vatican this week with all the remain serving bishops. The statement released following that meeting, which may be an indication of what we can expect to see in the pastoral letter the Pope is about to send to the Catholic faithful of ireland, has further outraged many victims and survivors. They say the statement represents a church leadership mired in clericalism and still in denial about the role played by bishops in covering-up the abuse of children over many years.

What's next for the Catholic Church in Ireland, after some of the most turbulent few months in its long history? And what should the Pope say to Ireland's Catholics in his historic pastoral letter?

On tomorrow's Sunday Sequence, we invite a studio audience to look at the options facing the church and debate the questions many are asking about how the institutions of the church should be renewed, reformed or retired. The Bishop of Down and Connor, Noel Treanor, joins us from 8.30 a.m., along with the theologian Fr Vincent Twomey, who said it was a "grave scandal" that all the bishops named in the Murphy Report had not resigned. His intervention may have encouraged some subsequent resignations. Others taking part include Baroness Nuala O'Loan, Gary O'Sullivan, Editor The Irish Catholic, and Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical abuse whose evidence proved extremely significant in the Murphy Report findings.

If you have a question you'd like me to raise at tomorrow's live, you can add it to this thread or send it to me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/williamcrawley).

This is Lecture 4 in our Yale University course in Old Testament studies. If you are new to this course, you are very welcome. The plan is that we watch, read or listen to each lecture then discuss the themes explored in each class in the thread below. (Watch the previous classes here.) In this lecture, Professor Christine Hayes from Yale University continues her look at the book of Genesis.

This class in summary: "This lecture continues the discussion on Genesis, including the familiar accounts of Cain and Abel, the Flood and Noahide covenant. The story of Cain and Abel expresses the notion of the God-endowed sanctity of human life and a "universal moral law" governing the world. Examination of the contradictions and doublets in the flood story leads to a discussion of the complex composition and authorship of the Pentateuch. These features as well as anachronisms challenge traditional religious convictions of Moses as the author of the first five books of the Bible."

Watch, read or listen to Lecture 4.

Priceless. Sky News presenter Kay Burley wonders if the "bruise" on Vice President Joe Biden's forehead was the result of a sporting accident. A minute later, after a producer explains in her ear that it's Ash Wednesday and the vice-president is a devout Catholic, the penny drops. Watch it here.

If you missed the first episode of Our Man in the Vatican, which was screened last night, you can still catch it on the iPlayer or on the programme guide. The series gives a rare glimpse of the diplomatic work of the Vatican as the cameras follow Francis Campbell, the British Ambassador to the Holy See. Francis Campbell, originally from Newry, is the first Catholic to serve as the UK's Ambassador to the Vatican since the Reformation.

Many congratulations to my colleagues Stephen Douds and Cara O'Doherty, who produced and directed the series, and to Martin O'Brien, the associate producer. You can read Stephen's account of filming this series here, and Martin's discussion of Tony Blair's decision to break with tradition and send a Catholic ambassador to the Vatican here.

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The thoughts, prayers and best wishes of so many people are with Derick Bingham tonight, and with his wife Margaret and their family. Just ten days after we broadcast an extended end-of-the year interview with Derick, in which he spoke so powerfully about his battle with Leukaemia, he was readmitted in the Belfast City Hospital.

A bone marrow biopsy revealed the need for further intensive chemotherapy, and Derick has been receiving intensive care since that admission to hospital. His body has struggled against an infection, which left him feeling drained, and, this weekend, his family and friends posted the following update on their support website:

"The medical news to-day about Derick is not good. His liver is failing and the doctors say that in human terms there is little that can be done. Derick's body is very weak but Margaret and the girls are encouraged that he is at peace and has been able to communicate words of solace to them. Please pray that as events unfold Derick will continue to experience divine peace and protection and the family will be given strength for whatever is ahead."

You can listen again to Derick speaking about his experience on the BBC Sunday Sequence website, and read more about the letters Derick has written narrating his response to his cancer diagnosis.

Update (19 February): I understand that doctors are pleased with the progress Derick has been making this week, with the help of antibiotics, to fight the infection he acquired. This has also been an extremely difficult time for Margaret and their family. Let's hope Derick is able to return home to them soon.

The National Secular Society say more than 22,000 names have now been added to its petition calling on the UK government to request that the Catholic Church foot the estimated £20 million bill for the 4-day visit of Pope Benedict later this year.

The petition reads: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ask the Catholic Church to pay for the proposed visit of the Pope to the UK and relieve the taxpayer of the estimated £20 million cost. We accept the right of the Pope to visit his followers in Britain, but public money would be better spent on hard-pressed schools, hospitals and social services which are facing cuts."

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The following is the full text of the statement released this afternoon by the Vatican press office following the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Irish Bishops. (Bold emphasis added by me.)

The statement has already drawn criticism from victims and survivors because it falls short of an admission by the pope that bishops actively sought to cover-up the abuse of children in Ireland. Instead, the statement refers to a "failure" by church authorities "to act effectively". There is a great difference, they say, between a failure to respond "effectively" to abuse claims and a deliberate effort to cover-up that abuse. Victims and survivors have repeatedly asked the church to state clearly and publicly that it accepts the findings of the Murphy Report, which alleged that bishops had acted to protect the institutions of the church at the expense of children's welfare. This statement, they say, falls short of that full acknowledgement.

Within the next few weeks, we will receive the text of Pope Benedict's pastoral letter to the Irish church. If today's press release is any indication of the likely contents of that document, victims and survivors will continue to be disappointed by the response of the church. In recent weeks, we've learned more about the divisions amongst Ireland's bishops; significantly, this statement acknowledges those divisions and calls on Irish bishops to unite. Critics of the statement are likely to read that section as evidence that the pope is more focused on unifying the hierarchy than directly addressing their failings.

The statement follows:

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If you are still in search of a Lent 2010 study guide, you might consider a free download course devised by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland in partnership with BBC Radio.

'People on the Edge of His Pain' explores some of the key characters in the Passion narratives in relation to some contemporary issues.

Find out more here.

Read texts and commentary on various themes and characters in the following links. These are planned weekly readings and meditations. The meditation for Week 1 begins next Sunday:

Introduction
Week 1: Jesus - In the wilderness, from the edge towards suffering
Week 2: Mary Magdalene - Soul Sister
Week 3: Judas - Cheating Heart?
Week 4: Mary - Grieving Mother
Week 5: Peter - Weakest Link?
Week 6: Barrabas - Daylight Robber

"It's not our business as individual bishops to discuss publicly a resignation. That's something that will happen or will not happen as a result of the overall discussion that will take place." That was as close as Bishop Joseph Duffy came to addressing one of the still-unresolved issues at the Vatican summit. Bishop Duffy is acting as spokesman for the Conference of Irish bishops while they meet Pope Benedict in what is widely described as an "unprecedented" encounter.

Popes meet bishops all the time, but no-one can remember a time when a pope summoned all the bishops of one national conference for a meeting like this. When Pope John Paul II summoned all the US cardinals for a crisis meeting in 2002, also dealing with the mishandling of clerical sex abuse, resignations followed. If any resignation follows the summit with Irish bishops, the first to go is likely to be the bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan. Of the five bishops still-serving named in the Murphy Report, Bishop Drennan is the only one who has so far refused to resign. He maintains that he did nothing wrong; that the only reference to him in the Murphy Report is a note acknowledging that he acted appropriately. This much is true. But campaigners say he must bear some responsibility for what he did not do. Bishops share collective responsibility for the actions, and inaction, of the church, they say. And they are not alone in calling for Bishop Drennan's resignation; the distinguished moral theologian Fr Vincent Twomey has echoed their calls.

A fifth resignation, even if it comes, will not be enough to deal with the culture of contempt that now confronts Ireland's Catholic bishops. Many devout Catholics are now saying, "Things have got to change." But there's the rub: what has to change? Drafts of the Pope's pastoral letter to Ireland's Catholics are doing the rounds at the Vatican -- and a pastoral letter addressed to a single country is also unprecedented in the recent history of the Holy See -- but early reports suggest that the letter will not mention structural or organizational change. Instead, we understand, the letter will be an expression of humility in the face of an overwhelming crisis, with statements of repentance, requests for forgiveness, a commitment to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again, and words of encouragement to the Catholic faithful.

Even the language of repentance could prove problematic for the Vatican. Campaigners say they want to hear the Pope apologize to victims and their families. Others say this is not about words: it's about the need for a full-scale reformation of the Irish church. They want the Vatican to oversee a massive reduction in the number of dioceses, in an effort to lift the quality of episcopal leadership. They want new structures to give the laity more of a say in the running of their church. They want more openness in decision-taking, more transparency in explaining the decisions that have been taken, and more accountability from those taking the decisions. In short, they want bishops to look, sound and behave like they are servants of the church, rather than Lords of the episcopal manor.

If reports of the draft pastoral letter are accurate, they are likely to be disappointed.

"Ridiculous . . . stupid . . . disciminatory" -- Tony Blair's description of a longstanding British government policy which prevented otherwise well-qualified Catholics taking up the post of Ambassador to the Vatican. In a new BBC TV series, the former prime minister explains why he decided to overturn that policy and appoint Francis Campbell, a Catholic from Northern Ireland, as the UK's representative to the Holy See -- the first Catholic to hold the post since the Reformation.

You can watch the first episode of Our Man in the Vatican, a behind-the-scenes look at a year in the life of the British Ambassador to the Holy See, on Wednesday at 10.45 p.m. on BBC One Northern Ireland.

Read more about Tony Blair's decision to change the UK's diplomatic policy on appointing Catholics to the Vatican in this piece for BBC News by my Sunday Sequence producer Martin O'Brien, who is also Associate Producer of Our Man in the Vatican.

Watch the trail for Our Man in the Vatican.

Welcome back to our introductory course in Old Testament. The plan is that we watch, read or listen to each lecture then discuss the themes explored in each class in the thread below. (Watch the previous classes here.) In this lecture, Professor Christine Hayes from Yale University begins to look at the book of Genesis. We will be reading and studying the book of Genesis for the next five classes.

This class in summary: "The basic elements of biblical monotheism are compared with Ancient Near Eastern texts to show a non-mythological, non-theogonic conception of the deity, a new conception of the purpose and meaning of human life, nature, magic and myth, sin and evil, ethics (including the universal moral law) and history. The two creation stories are explored and the work of Nahum Sarna is introduced."

Watch, read or listen to Lecture 3.

I recently live-tweeted my way through Ann Widdecombe's 'The Commandments and Me', which included some rather strained encounters between the Catholic MP and two opponents of religion, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry. My tweeting prompted one reader to send me the 'Atheist 10 Commandments', which were (inaccurately?) attributed to Richard Dawkins. What do you make of these moral precepts? Are they an improvement on the better-known list of moral commitments -- or do they miss the point?

(1) Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

(2) In all things, strive to cause no harm.

(3) Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

(4) Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

(5) Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

(6) Always seek to be learning something new.

(7) Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

(8) Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

(9) Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

(10) Question everything.

When it comes to issues of gender and sexuality the Church of England is a church divided. From women bishops to gay clergy Anglican leaders have papered over the theological cracks by avoiding taking decisive action. This week the church's governing body, the General Synod, meets in London. Stephen Sackur asks the Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst, how much longer Anglicans will stay together in a communion of convenience. Bishop Broadhurst replies: "The Anglican experiment is over".

You can watch the full interview on BBC News Channel on Tuesday 9th February 2010 at 04.30 and 23.30 GMT. And on BBC World News at Tuesday 9th February 2010 at 04:30, 09:30, 15:30, 21:30 GMT.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, says those Anglicans who respond to Pope Benedict's invitation to join the Catholic Church under the provisions of the new Apostolic Constitution, would not be "proper Catholics". You can listen to the interview in full on this week's Sunday Sequence (Sunday, from 8.30am).

In the same interview, Dr Sentamu also called for the banning of the British National Party and says he is "surprised that Parliament doesn't want to do it." He also says he has "every hope" that [Robert] Mugabe will be gone very soon."

Here's part of the exchange I had with Dr Sentamu on this week's Sunday Sequence:

Archbishop Sentamu: "If people genuinely realise that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics. This kind of creation [the Apostolic Constitution] -- well, all I can say is, we wish them every blessing and may the Lord encourage them. But as far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn't go into an Ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted."

William Crawley: "So those Anglicans who take advantage of the Apostolic Constitution, you're saying, would not be 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "Well, I mean, I'd be very surprised --"

William Crawley: "What would they be if they are not 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "They would be what they are: an Ordinariate of the Vatican."

William Crawley: "Anglican Émigrés?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "(Laughter) Well, if I was a Roman Catholic bishop and I had this group within my diocese being looked after by an Ordinariate whose reference was back to the Vatican, I'd have to ask a number of questions."

Listen to the interview with Dr John Sentamu on Sunday Sequence (starts at 1:15:20).

The were some press rumours this week that Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, might be created a cardinal sooner than expected. Previously, it was understood that Archbishop Nichjols would have to wait until 2012, when Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor reaches the age of 80 and loses the right to vote in a papal conclave. Now, some are suggesting that Pope Benedict might decide to give the archbishop his red hat before or during the papal state visit next September.

You can listen to a Profile of Archbishop Vincent Nichols on Radio 4 tonight at 7.00 pm, presented by Clive Coleman.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor is one of my guests on this week's Sunday Sequence.

David Cameron has told the Church of England that it should follow the lead of the Conservative Party and become more gay-friendly. He made the comment in an interview with the Independent's Johann Hari. Money quote:

"I don't want to get into a huge row with the Archbishop here ... but the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through - sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom-line, full essential."

Text of the Agreement at Hillsborough Castle
(5 February 2010)

Section 1 - Policing and Justice

Section 2 - Parades

Section 3 - Improving Executive Functions

Section 4 - Outstanding Executive Business

Section 5 - Outstanding St Andrews Review

1. This text is an affirmation of our shared belief in the importance of working together in a spirit of partnership to deliver success for the entire community.

2. We wish to see this agreement reflect our willingness to ensure the Executive and the Assembly reflect better this spirit of partnership, mutual respect and equality which remain vital for the success of devolution.

3. We recognise the importance of improving the efficiency of the Executive and greater inclusiveness. The outworking of this agreement will allow the uninterrupted functioning of the Assembly and Executive.

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Peter Robinson has announced that the DUP's Assembly group tonight gave his proposed deal with Sinn Fein its unanimous approval. After ten days of intense, and sometimes confusing, negotiations, we will soon know what the parties have been able to agree.

PUP leader Dawn Purvis was one of the first party leaders to respond to the late-night announcement. She wrote on Twitter: "Deal done! Glad to see the DUP doing what is good for the country."

TUV leader Jim Allister was quick to condemn the agreement: "The DUP MLAs who buckled tonight not only let themselves down, but, more importantly, let their country down as they gifted IRA/Sinn Fein their strategic goal of policing and justice to a terrorist-inclusive Executive. Sinn Fein could not have had this victory without them. The deal the DUP so meekly accepted tonight is the same deal they rejected on Monday. The deal hasn't changed, only the snowmen of the DUP who melted once the heat came on."

Tomorrow, we'll have reaction from other political leaders, and an opportunity to consider the details of the proposed agreement. The British and Irish prime ministers are also expected to arrive in Belfast tomorrow. I'll be presenting Talk Back, live from 12noon on BBC Radio Ulster.

The BBC understands that the DUP negotiating team has asked the Secretary of State to resolve the crisis facing the Presbyterian Mutual Society as part of a deal on policing and justice.

This will come as no surprise to Sunday Sequence listeners. Last month, the Presbyterian Moderator told the programme that a resolution of the PMS crisis could build "community confidence" among unionists for a deal on policing and justice. Dr Stafford Carson was joined on the programme by John McFall MP, chair of the Treasury Select committee and Sir George Quigley, who has been advising the church.

I am delighted that so many of you are watching, reading or listening to the our Yale University course introducing the Old Testament. Some of you have been taking part in the online discussion on the lectures on Will & Testament, and I hope more will join the discussion as we continue. (Catch up with Lecture 1 here.)

In the second lecture, Professor Christine Hayes examines the Hebrew Bible understood against the background of Ancient Near Eastern culture. For further details about this course, and copyright information, see here.

A summary of this lecture: Drawing from and critiquing the work of Yehezkel Kaufmann, the lecture compares the religion of the Hebrew Bible with the cultures of the Ancient Near East. Two models of development are discussed: an evolutionary model of development in which the Hebrew Bible is continuous with Ancient Near Eastern culture and a revolutionary model of development in which the Israelite religion is radically discontinuous with Ancient Near Eastern culture. At stake in this debate is whether the religion of the Hebrew Bible is really the religion of ancient Israel.

Watch, read or listen to the lecture here.

The discussion on this thread is focused on the themes and ideas examined in this lecture. Please join us.

I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but my form guide on the election of the Presbyterian Moderator proved to be remarkably accurate. The upshot is this: a split conservative vote has resulted in a re-run of the election at next month's presbytery meetings, with Presbyterians offered a choice between two Normans. No, it's not an invasion. It's a choice between the Reverend Norman Hamilton and the Reverend Norman McAuley.

Norman Hamilton, 64, minister of Ballysillan Presbyterian Church, is the better-known of the two candidates, largely due to the public profile he acquired as a result of his interventions in the Holy Cross dispute and for which he was awarded an OBE in 2007. A former national leader within the university Christian Union movement, he is a mainstream evangelical who has served on the advisory board of the Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland (now the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland). Norman Hamilton also writes a column for the News Letter, and his skills as a communicator are highly regarded within the church and beyond. He worked as a civil servant before entering the ministry in 1983. He has served as minister of Ballysillan Presbyterian Church since 1988 and is currently a member of the Presbyterian Church's Church and Society Committee. Listen to some sermons by Norman Hamilton.

Norman McAuley, 54, is theologically more conservative than the other Norman. He has served as minister of Greenwell Street congregation in Newtownards since 2004 and his ministry there is characterised by a strong commitment to traditional expository preaching. I am told that he regularly attends the Banner of Truth annual conference, and his church website contains teaching materials from that conservative publisher. Those who know his congregation well tell me that Norman McAuley is a popular pastor, who tends to steer his church away from disputes and is careful not to use his pulpit to engage with controversial current issues. He worked for some years as a civil engineer before being ordained in 1984. He served as minister of Union Road, Magherafelt and Lecumpher for seventeen years before moving to Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church six years ago, and was, in that same year, Moderator of the Synod of Derry and Omagh. Listen to some sermons by Norman McAuley.

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Our national debate about the moral and legal status of assisted euthanasia continues. Last night, the author Sir Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's, used his Dimbleby Lecture to make a case for the decriminalisation of assisted suicide, the establishment of suicide tribunals, and for himself as a test case. Money quote:

"I would also suggest that all those on the tribunal are over 45, by which time they may have acquired the rare gift of wisdom, because wisdom and compassion should, in this tribunal, stand side-by-side with the law. The tribunal would also have to be a check on those seeking death for reasons that reasonable people may consider trivial or transient distress. I dare say that quite a few people have contemplated death for reasons that much later seemed to them to be quite minor. If we are to live in a world where a socially acceptable "early death" can be allowed, it must be allowed as a result of careful consideration. Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice."

Watch Sir Terry Pratchet's televised Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
Read and edited transcript of Sir Terry Pratchet's Richard Dimbleby Lecture.

It was a big day for papal news. Pope Benedict finally confirmed what we've all been reporting for some time: that he will be making an official 4-day visit to Great Britain in mid-September. Northern Ireland is not part of the itinerary.

The pope made the announcement while greeting 35 British bishops on their five-yearly ad limina visit to Rome.

Minutes later, the pope was launching an unprecedented attack on the UK's secular equality culture and urging his prelates to fight back with "missionary zeal".

Remember Ted Haggard? The one-time leader of America's National Association of Evangelicals became a household name in 2006 when he was exposed as a hypocrite -- a preacher who opposed homosexuality in public while soliciting the services of a male prostitute in private. He resigned from the leadership of the church he founded, and many thought that would be the end of his public role within evangelical Christianity. Last September, I wrote about the HBO television documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, and suggested that he was fighting his way back into bosom of evangelicalism. That fight back continues. This month, his wife Gayle publishes a book explaining why she stayed with he disgraced husband (inevitably, it's titled "Why I Stayed"), and Haggard is accepting invitations to speak in churches. Take a look at this: an audience with Ted and Gayle Haggard at the increasingly influential Elevation Church, which could just as easily have been entitled Ted Haggard: The Rehabilitation Event.

P. Z. Myers is one of the world's best-known science campaigners -- and one of the most controversial voices in America's culture war over creationism and intelligent design theory. A biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, Dr Myers writes Pharyngula, one of the world's most widely-read science blogs.

P.Z. Myers will be giving a public lecture in Belfast on Friday at 6 p.m., in the Peter Froggatt Centre (Room G06) at Queen's University. The lecture, 'Complexity and Creationism: Promoting evolutionary biology to non-specialists', is open to theists, non-theists, creationists and evolutionists. It promises to be anything but dull.

How does faith shape the decisions and life-choices of Ireland's young people? A new survey has been trying to find out. It was commissioned by Summer Madness, Love For Life and Evangelical Alliance ahead of a major conference exploring relationships, sex and Christian values. The Valentine's week conference takes place on 10 February in Orangefield Presbyterian Church. Olwyn Mark from Love For Life tells Will & Testament more about their findings.

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