Zak Feaunati, a parishioner at Holy Trinity, Sutton Coldfield and a retired professional rugby player (Zak played for Bath 131 times!) was chosen by Clint Eastwood to star alongside Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in the film Invictus. Morgan Freeman is Nelson Mandela, Matt Damon is Francois Pienaar and Zak plays Jonah Lomu. Invictus chronicles how President Mandela and Francois Pienaar joined forces such that the Springbok victory over the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup in 1995 was a defining moment of national unity and reconciliation.

The Right Reverend Monsignor Canon Thomas Joseph Gavin, MA, one of the longest serving priests in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, died in Coventry’s University Hospital, during the early hours of Christmas Day 2009, after a short illness, aged 87.

In general, our social teaching applies some well-established principles to key social, political and economic issues of the time. It therefore evolves in response to the different historical contexts in which it is written. We would not expect it to provide explicit endorsement for the labelling of certain goods by the Fairtrade Foundation.

Catholics in England and Wales have been urged to make the plight of Christians in the Holy Land an issue at the forthcoming General Election.

In November 2008, the Birmingham Catholic Primary Partnership sent a cheque to the Sisters in Rwanda for £23,000.