who have remarried

FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
THE latest of several American dioceses to set up procedures for allowing Catholics who have remarried after a divorce to receive the sacraments is Baton Rouge, Louisianna. Bishop Tracy announced the decision in a pastoral letter read in churches throughout his diocese.
The diocesan weekly, Catholic C'ennotentator said: "By this process the local Church will officially recognise the possibility of good conscience on the part of a Catholic who is divorced and now involved in a stable second marriage." Bishop Tracy said in his letter: "The Church has a pastoral responsibility of healing and forgiveness, following the example of Christ. without giving the impression that she condones divorce and remarriage or that she has given up any of her firm beliefs in the sanctity of life-long character of the marriage vows and married life."
RECOGNISED
Fr. Joseph Peplansky, chaplain at Louisiana State University, and member of the diocesan "good conscience committee," said that the process of extending a good conscience decision to a divorced Catholic who had remarried was a recognition of the person's right to receive the sacraments without any official decision being made on the validity or invalidity of any previous marriage. By such a decision, Fr. Peplansky said, the Church also recognised that any guilt the person might have for his or her present situation was so slight "that the excommunication possible in such a case simply does not apply to this individual." Fr. Peplansky said the archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, had processed about 400 "good conscience" cases, the diocese of Boise, Idaho, about 60 or 70. The process had also been instituted in the archdiocese of Chicago and the
Eight chosen for Fr. Weston memorial
FIGHT boys have been selected to benefit from the memorial set up by the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, after their padre, Fr. Gerard Weston, MBE, was killed in the Aldershot bomb blast earlier this year. The eight, from the Liverpool Archdiocese, were chosen from 76 applicants. They will spend four weeks at the Outward Bound German Mountain School at Berchtesgaden. They are: Arthur Christopher Bradburn, 17, of Springview, near Wigan, Brian K. Owens, 18, of Little Crosby, near Liverpool, Stawomir Peter Smolen, 16, of Churchtown, Southport,' John Joseph Jones. 17. of Kirkby, Thomas Patrick Murray, 16, of Parr, St. Helens, Michael Lenden, 17, of Cantril Farm, Liverpool. Charles John Hitchen, 16, of Pemberton, near Wigan, and lerence Alexander Rimmer, (7. of Bootle, The party will he seen off at Liverpool tomorrow by representatives of the Army and of the Archdiocese of Liverpool. They will return on August 19.
Austria schools agreement
THE VATICAN and Austria have ratified an agreement under which Austria will pay 100 per cent of the expenses for 'teachers in the nation'saCatholic schools. The agreement supplements were made when Austria agreed in 1962 to meet 60 per cent of the salaries and other expenses of teachers in Catholic schools, which were short of funds.
diocese of Birmingham, Alabama.