(Vatican Radio) The president of European Union leaders is to issue draft guidelines on how the EU intends to negotiate Britain's divorce from the bloc amid concerns that populist parties will try to trigger similar departures in other member states. European Council President Donald Tusk was due to send the proposals to the governments of the other 27 remaining EU members Friday morning, after British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered Britain's departure from the block, known as Brexit, by sending the Article 50 notification.Listen to Stefan Bos' report: Tusk's negotiating guidelines of some six or seven pages will set the tone for two years of tough talks to come.Possibly the toughest phase of talks on a totally new relationship in the future will be the 60 billion 'divorce' bill Brussels plans topresent to London. Another issue is securing the rights of both millions of mainly East European EU citizens in Britain and British people livin...
(Vatican Radio) The president of European Union leaders is to issue draft guidelines on how the EU intends to negotiate Britain's divorce from the bloc amid concerns that populist parties will try to trigger similar departures in other member states. European Council President Donald Tusk was due to send the proposals to the governments of the other 27 remaining EU members Friday morning, after British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered Britain's departure from the block, known as Brexit, by sending the Article 50 notification.
Listen to Stefan Bos' report:
Tusk's negotiating guidelines of some six or seven pages will set the tone for two years of tough talks to come.
Possibly the toughest phase of talks on a totally new relationship in the future will be the 60 billion 'divorce' bill Brussels plans to
present to London.
Another issue is securing the rights of both millions of mainly East European EU citizens in Britain and British people living in other
member states. It will also look into how to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state.
Several EU leaders first want several months of talks on a broad agreement on the terms of separation.
French President Francois Hollande has already told the British Prime Minister that the withdrawal agreement should come first.
NATIONALIST PARTIES
Hollande and other European leaders say they will not allow "cherry-picking" by London.
Tusk also wants to send a clear message to euroskeptic and nationalist populist parties. "We must challenge the populists. We must say loud and clear that nationalism and separatism which try to weaken the EU are the opposite of modern patriotism," he said. "Those who want to take aim at EU unity threaten also their own communities, weakening their own state sovereignty," Tusk explained.
He earlier made clear that he is sad about Britain's planned divorce. "After all, most Europeans, including almost half the British
voters wish that we would stay together, not drift apart... And what can I add to this? We already miss you," he said.
And analysts warn that it will be a difficult transition as it involves topics of huge controversy in Britain, including freedom of movement of people and the role of the European Court of Justice.
Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...
Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, VermontCNA Staff, Apr 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New England prelate is urging Catholics to both minister to transgender-identifying individuals in the Catholic Church while still continuously affirming "the goodness of human creation" as male and female.Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, told CNA last week that he would make it a point not to challenge a transgender-identifying man or woman when they present as the opposite sex.Coyne appeared on Connecticut Public Radio earlier this month arguing against the basic claim of gender ideology, which argues that men and women who "identify" as the opposite sex should be treated as such."Biology is biology. You're either XX or XY. That's a scientific fact. You can't un-prove that fact," the bishop told public radio. But, he argued, the LGBT debate has "pulled me more into a place of understanding and care," including regarding trans...