Union flag to be seen at RC funerals

Luke Coppen and Patrick West report on last week's meeting of the Bishops of England and Wales THE UNION FLAG will be allowed to be draped over coffins of Catholic military personnel and ex-servicemen, it was announced at the Bishops' London press conference /ast Friday. The action is a reversal of a 1990 ruling which forbade all "non-Christian" symbols from coffins during the funeral rite, restricting churches to using a simple white pall instead.
However, this restriction raised objections from chaplains anxious to preserve what had been an age-old military tradition, and many bishops said this had caused distress to relatives of servicemen. The ruling had also been vaguely worded and priests decided for themselves on whether the Union Jack was permitted in the funeral rite.
The clarification last week stems from considerable pressure from the Catholic Bishop of the Forces, the Right Rev Francis Wahnsley.
Speaking at the press conference on Friday, Mgr Arthur Roche, general secretary of the bishops conference, said the eight-year-old ruling "wasn't clear rand] had clearly caused anxiety on the part of the military." He said the bishops were now considering allowing people to put other non-Christian symbols such as pictures or mementoes of a person's life on the coffin. though he said that he would not want to see coffins looking like "a sideboard at a birthday party."
In France it is common for the Tricolour to be draped over coffins of service personnel, as it is in Ireland, but the Irish Tricolour is forbidden from services for paramilitary person
nel, though they have no authority over what happens once the coffin enters a public cemetery.
• In the same week that Britain fired its first Trident missile, the bishops released a statement urging the Government to develop a clearer strategy on the world-wide elimination of nuclear weapons.
However veteran Catholic anti-nuclear campaigner Bruce Kent said he did not recognise the state of affairs implied by the Bishop's Statement about nuclear weapons. 'Though their statement is dated November 20 they do not mention that on November 13 this country voted, in the United Nations First Committee. against a Resolution calling on the nuclear states `to pursue without delay and in good faith and to bring to a successful conclusion negotiations leading to the elimination of such weapons'."
• The bishops also expressed satisfaction at the response to their teaching document on the Eucharist One &rad One Body, which has sold 40,000 copies since its release in October.
Mgr Roche described the document as a timely contribution to ecumenical dialogue. 'The document is a challenge to the other churches to put down as clearly as the bishops have in this document what their own beliefs are," he said.
One Bread One Body will be followed by a major teaching document on the Bible as the living word of God in the Church. Bishop John Brewer of Lancaster will work with a group of bishops and experts to prepare the text.
• Assistant general secretary Fr Frank Turner Si said that the Church in England and Wales has "grave concerns" about the ongoing Church crisis in Guatemala that has emerged in the wake of the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi earlier this year.
"We are concerned that a full and thorough investigation should be mounted into this death," said Fr Turner. "There are various good reasons to think that a considerable coverup is going on and there seems to be attempts to blackmail the Church there."
Earlier this year the Guatemalan Church issued the report Guatemala: Nunca Mas (Never Again). Two days after its publication, its co-author , Bishop Gerardi, 76, was bludgeoned to death with a concrete block in Guatemala City. Fr I Turner said that the authors of the report "live in fear for their lives every day".
He added: 'The bishops have said that they want the truth about this murder and they are not going to be blackmailed by these kind of threats. There's good reason to think that the authorities in Guatemala do not want this murder to be investigated properly and are trying to stop it being done."