Advent Group (UK)

Dear All

A number of us, Valerie Stroud, Myra Poole, Simon Bryden-Brook and I created this grouping to present an alternative view to the official Catholic Voices. Our objective is to present the voice of reform leading up to and during the visit of Pope Benedict in September.

In order to get things going prior to the Papal visit Myra and I had been making arrangements for a press conference, unfortunately this hit the buffers last week when she suffered her accident. However together with Pat Brown we have now made the following arrangements.

Catholic Voices for Reform will be holding a press conference on Tuesday 7 September 2010 10.30- 12.30 (the actual timing of the press conference will be 11.00 to 12.00) at Saint Andrew’s Church Hall, Short Street, Waterloo, London SE1 8LJ.

The central point of the press conference will be to present a number of questions which might be asked of the Pope by reform minded Catholics in the UK. Following the press conference perhaps on the evening of 15 September we are planning to arrange for a small group to hand in two envelopes at Archbishops House and containing the questions addressed to the Apostolic Nuncio and Archbishop Nichols having asked previously if someone will receive the messages.

We would like to invite you and your organisation to join us at the press conference and to submit appropriate questions. I attach a draft of a number of questions we have prepared, they should be treated as a few thoughts all of which are up for grabs with nothing set in stone. Please kick them about and let me have your revisions or alternatives.

We envisage as many as 12 questions but will only focus on 6 at the press conference so maybe you would also place your responses in priority order.

Structure of the press conference
 

The structure of the conference we envisage will have a number of people at the top table representing the Catholic Reform Organisations:

An opening statement

A couple of organisations will state why they are here and what they want to achieve

 We will read out each question (one at a time first six only) and a selected person from the audience will explain in no more than two minutes each, why they want to ask this question, (our idea is to present these people as typical Catholics asking a question they would ask given the opportunity)

We will announce details about when we will be handing in the questions to Archbishops House

Announce information about the showing of the film Conspiracy of Silence Tuesday 14 September

Remind people about the buses in Central London with the advert urging to Pope Benedict to “Ordain women now”

Open questions to the top table

Close of the press conference.

About one hour in total

Production of a press pack

We need to produce press packs to give out on the day they should include:

A cover headed Catholic Voices for Reform

An opening statement about who we are and what we want to achieve

The questions (full list)                

Brochures for each of the Catholic Reform Organisations who are participating including a brief statement of what they stand for and contact information

We hope that you will be able to join us and will also contribute to developing the questions. If you know of any other people/organisations who would like to receive this information please pass it on, we welcome anyone who broadly share our view about the necessity for the reform of the Church.

We hope to hear from all who wish to participate by Monday 23 August if possible with the documentation they want to include in the press pack in A4 format, by email if possible. If you have a brochure that does not meet this specification we would be happy for you to bring say 50 copies to the press conference to be placed in the Press Pack. But do let us know what you are doing. You are also welcome to invite a small number of people from your organisation to join you and it would be helpful if you could tell us in advance who will be attending

Thank you for your support.

You can contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 0208 850 6458 or Pat Brown on behalf of CWO (Catholic Women's Ordination) www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk

0113 2682887  07950048628

I should also tell you that I will be going on holiday tomorrow, back on the 19 August so if you need to get in touch before then would you please contact Pat. Once I return I will make very effort to complete the questions for the Pope and the Press Pack. I apologise that this may appear somewhat sudden but we had been hoping to get it out earlier but got held up for various reasons and then hit by Myra not being available.

Good wishes

Bernard