A human rights activist who was jailed for more than a year in Burma has been ordained as a Catholic priest.
Fr James Mawdsley was freed in 2000 after 415 days in solitary confinement. Fr Mawdsley was sentenced to serve 17 years in Insein jail for protesting against the Burmese government’s slaughter of ethnic minorities. He was released after his family’s campaign efforts.
Fr Mawdsley said he had a difficult time while incarcerated, at one point sustaining a broken nose and two black eyes after a severe beating from one of his guards.
The Lancashire-born activist said he survived his imprisonment – in which he was only allowed to leave his cell for 20 minutes a day – through his faith.
In an article for the Daily Telegraph in 2008, he recalled: “The greatest help came from Christ. The Crucifixion makes sense of suffering. Jesus turned my misery into joy, even in that earthly hell, Insein prison.”
A Bible and missal were the only two objects Fr Mawdsley was permitted to keep in his cell.
The plight of the Karen tribe was revealed to Fr Mawdsley on a chance encounter with some refugees while he was in New Zealand. After hearing their stories of suffering, he decided to go to Burma to see the situation for himself. He was deported from the country twice before being imprisoned. After his release, Fr Mawdsley wrote two books about his experiences.
He celebrated his first Mass in July, and is now assigned to the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in Warrington as assistant to Fr Armand de Malleray.
New eparchy in Preston for Syro-Malabar Catholics
Catholics of the Syro-Malabar Rite will gain a new leadership structure in Britain, with the creation by the Pope of a new eparchy based in Preston.St Ignatius church, recently reopened to serve the community, will become a cathedral.
An eparchy is a territory governed by the Eastern churches, usually by a bishop. It is similar to a diocese.
The first eparch will be Fr Joseph Srampickal, at present vice-rector of Propaganda Fide College in Rome.
The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is one of the 22 Eastern (Oriental) Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome. With 4.6 million Catholics, it is the second largest of the Eastern Churches.
Nearly 40,000 Syro-Malabar Rite Catholics live in England, Scotland and Wales, served by 23 priests. Numbers have increased in recent years.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, president of the Scottish bishops’ conference, welcomed the news, saying that the community was known for its “devotion and for the seriousness with which they regard Catholic family life and the transmission of the faith to their young people and children”.
Appeal to save Welsh recusant house
A crowdfunding campaign is underway to save the Gunter Mansion in Abergavenny, a recusant house where two martyrs celebrated Mass not long before they were arrested.Philip Evans and David Lewis, both Jesuits, were executed in 1679. They were subsequently canonised, the last Catholic martyrs of Wales.
The site is now in urgent need of protection and refurbishment. The Welsh Georgian Trust aims to raise £10,000 through crowdfunding. The Trust needs need £150,000 before the end of the year.
