Reform group hold prayer vigil outside Westminster Cathedral
Church reform campaigners held a two-hour prayer vigil in front of Westminster Cathedral on Saturday afternoon. About 26 people gathered in a circle around a cross in the Piazza. They carried five tall poles, wrapped round with 'serpents' and bearing inscriptions including: 'barred' , 'abused' and 'overpowered'. During the vigil, the group conducted a liturgy affirming the gifts of those who felt abused, marginalised or excluded by the Church - including the divorced and remarried, lesbian and gay people, priests who have married and women seeking ordination. Accompanied with singing, drum and guitar music, the ritual included a 'Naming of Demons' in the Church which were symbolically 'cast out' at the foot of a 'Cross of Life and Renewal'. During the same afternoon, the Cathedral was filled to about two-thirds of its capacity for the first praying of the new 'Luminous' Decades of the Rosary, named by Pope John Paul II on the 24th anniversary of his papacy last week. Fr Michael Rear from Walsingham lead the prayers.