ENGLISH, Irish and Scots men training for the Catholic priesthood in Rome
will be unable to meet the Queen at the Vatican next week because their
teachers will not allow them to wear the appropriate clothes.
They were hoping to greet her in a Vatican ante-chamber just after her
half-hour audience with the Pope on Tuesday, part of a four-day official visit
to Italy. But the rectors who run Rome's British seminaries are believed to be
vehemently opposed to their charges sporting the black button-down
cassocks which are de rigueur in the Vatican.
One highly-placed English priest in Rome said: "The rectors actively
discourage English seminarians from going to the Vatican because it means
they will have to wear cassocks."
The anti-cassock policy reflects a growing theological divide between young
traditionalist seminarians and their liberal Sixties-trained teachers. Students
who back hardline papal teaching on sexual morality claim they are frequently
accused of "divisive and disobedient" behaviour by their rectors.
Beleaguered black cassock-wearers at one American seminary recently
posted up a notice calling for "Equal Rights for Blacks". Students from the
Venerable English College, the Beda College, Pontifical Scots College and
Pontifical Irish College will wave at the Queen wearing normal clothes on a
corner near Rome's Anglican centre, her next port of call.
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Ahern meets princess(Electronic Telegraph)
PRINCESS SAYAKO of Japan met Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister,
on the first day yesterday of a four-day visit to Ireland. The princess, 31, also
visited the ancient burial monument at Newgrange, Co Meath.