It's all kicking off in Carlisle!

So the good people of Carlisle, and those lucky enough to live within striking distance, as we do, are spoiled for choice.

On the 4th of June, there is a sung Mass in the Extraordinary Form, with a polyphonic choir, for the Feast of Corpus Christi. That will be celebrated at 7pm followed by all night adoration praying for Christian families: Our Lady and St Joseph's Church in Warwick Square.

That very same evening is the second of the Faith on Tap meetings, with the Dominican, Fr Lawrence Lew, speaking on the Liturgy, at 8.00. That will be at St Margaret Mary Parish Community Centre, on Scalegate Road. You may be a a little late for this, if you go to the Mass, but it is just about practical.

Then, of course, you can return to Warwick Square for all night adoration.

Not only that, but they have also just returned John Stevenson, a very sound, pro-Life MP.

And I hear that the first Faith on Tap meeting, which I sadly missed as I was working away from home, was a great success, with Sr Roseann Reddy (of Glasgow’s Sisters of the Gospel of Life) a truly inspiring speaker.

Carlisle is clearly the place to be!

Faith on Tap

Fr Michael Docherty, the parish priest at The Sacred Heart parish in Carlisle, is organising a series of Faith on Tap meetings - that is to say, vibrant Catholic discussion, starting (and accompanied) with a pint or two...

Here's what the parish website has to say:

Commencing Thursday 7th May, we will begin a series of monthly evenings at 7.30 pm in the Parish Centre.  The aim of the evenings is to enable exploration of the Catholic Faith - there will a talk for enquiring minds from gifted speakers!  On Thursday 7th May, Sr. Roseann Reddy of Glasgow’s Sisters of the Gospel of Life will be with us for a talk followed by opportunities for questions.  

Future speakers include Bishop John Keenan, Fr. Lawrence Lew OP, Dr. Caroline Hull, Canon Luiz Ruscillo, Rev. Dr. Andrew Pinsent and Sr Julian Eikman.  A wonderful opportunity to come along in a relaxed setting and explore our wonderful Faith!

--

These sound like an excellent idea, so anyone lucky enough to live within striking distance of Carlisle should put them in the diary at once.

The Anglican Problem

There is a lot to love about Anglicanism, and more about Anglicans.

The Anglicans have some wonderful traditions, not least musically, and many wonderful people.

Yet it is founded on error, and remains error-strewn.

I have been reflecting on this following the visit of Justin Welby to the Holy Father, and the various comments and reports on the visit.

On the one hand, of course, charity demands courtesy and respect for the leader of the Anglican communion.  On the other hand, charity also demands that we do not risk any confusion about the true situation.

The soi-disant Church of England, for all its wonderful people and wonderful traditions, is a body established in defiance of, and in some ways in opposition to, the Church that Christ founded.

That has real implications for those who adhere to it.  Without for a second questioning their good faith, one can see that at the objective level, Anglican doctrines are faulty, Anglican orders and sacraments are illusory, and Anglican moral reasoning corrupted.

Therefore we do nobody any favours if we pretend that there is any equivalence between Anglicanism and the Church.

Now that the possibility of collective reunion seems so much more remote, following the decision to admit women to Anglican orders and other similar moves away from their own Christian heritage, we surely have a responsibility to work and pray for the conversion of individuals.

The challenge is how to make clear the claims of the Church to Anglicans, in a way that they may be able to hear.

It won't help to pretend it doesn't matter if one is Anglican or Catholic, but I can easily believe that confronting people with the truth too baldly will simply put up barriers.

Apologetics again

Before Easter I posted about Apologetics, and said that I would do so again after Easter.

I have been thinking and praying about this (though not enough of either) throughout Lent and Eastertide, and also discussing various aspects with a number of people.

There seems to be a strong consensus amongst many (and this is also reflected by hits on Ttony's blog when the topic has been raised)  that this is a high priority for the Church in England and Wales: equipping adult Catholics to know and be able to present, convincingly, a Catholic philosophy and world-view.

Whilst the final form any initiative might take is far from certain, I am keen to learn from the rigour of the Catholic Evidence Guild, though street-corner evangelism is not part of my ambition.

But the wisest comment on this (I think) that I have read was that it must be first of all a spiritual apostolate. Without a base in prayer, it is likely to fail.

Therefore I think the first priority is to recruit prayer warriors. So if anyone is prepared to pray daily for this intention, that would be excellent. Also, if anyone knows any orders of nuns, monks, or other top pray-ers who would give this some serious support, that would be even better!

As the prayers go up, I will continue to think, pray and discuss with others (out of the public eye, at this stage) various ways in which this might be furthered.  Please contact me if you wish to be part of that discussion.

The Redemption - in brief

Why did Our Lord have to suffer and die to redeem us?

It's a big question.  A commenter on Mark Lambert's blog suggested that: 'The Father, in demanding that Jesus submit to such an evil and cruel scheme (and what the Father willed to go forward there was cruel and evil, make no mistake) renders whatever nobility there was in Jesus' grand submission absurd and repellent.' 

Whilst that is a strong statement of it, I can sympathise with the sentiment behind it.  So how are we to understand the need of Christ's suffering?  Mark, as one would expect, has posted a very well-read approach to this both in his initial post, and in a further one answering the commenter's points.

Here I offer a few personal reflections, really responding to Mark's challenge: How would you answer this? A chance to practise your apologetics.  

Of course, ultimately, it is a mystery, something that we cannot fully comprehend due to the limitations of our intellects as created beings, and what's more, fallen created beings.  However, to recognise that fact does not absolve us from looking as deep into the mystery as we are able to.  So, as so often, I will leap in, in the hope and expectation that anyone who reads this and spots error or heresy will let me know.  And so, I may learn something.

I think that to understand the Redemption, one has to understand the Fall, and to understand the Fall, one has to understand the nature of Men and Angels, and indeed God, and His plan for creation.  So a short snappy answer is pretty well impossible.  But here goes. 

In essence, I think the redemptive act had to be a few things: it had to be love-in-action and it had to be truth-in-action and it had to be justice-in-action

It also had to accomplish a few things: to forgive Adam's Original Sin and all our actual sins, to restore to humanity the capacity to enter heaven, to conquer death, and break the Devil's domination.

One could argue that the Father could have done all of this merely by Divine Fiat.  But would that have met the criteria of love, truth, and justice?

I would argue that it would not have done.

What we see in Our Lord's passion, death, and resurrection is:

Love: Christ's willingness to suffer and die for us, 

Truth: sin is deadly; but both death and sin have been conquered

Justice: the enormity of man's offence (from Adam via Stalin to me...) is offset by the enormity of Christ's sacrifice.

It also confronted precisely those areas in which we are damaged and prone to sin: pride is confronted by Christ's humility and humiliation; power is confronted by his powerlessness; the flesh is confronted by his choosing to suffer; and so on.

Of course there is much more to be said, but I think this is a start. As ever,I'm interested in comments and corrections.

Learning from the past

As a traditionally-minded sort of chap, I am interested in learning from the past; indeed it strikes me as the height of folly not do so. A mind that declares 'History is bunk' is only revealing its own paucity of understanding.

With regard to my recurring theme of the need for Apologetics, (and here) that means, as Ttony has pointed out, considering the example of the Catholic Evidence Guild.  I have been doing this mainly in the introduction to the CEG Training Outlines, but also reports such as this.

I am not quite clear if the CEG is still active anywhere: recent links seem harder to find.  Further, I am not sure that their particular approach to the apostolate is now the best one: outdoor talks seem to me less and less likely to attract listeners.

However, I do think that their approach to training apologists is something from which we can learn a great deal.

To give some idea of that, here is a quick sketch of how volunteers were expected to prepare to talk about just one aspect of the Faith: The Visible Church.

First, they were given a reading list:

Tixeront: Apologetical studies (most important)
Sheehan: Apologetics (Ch ix)
Knox: Essentials of Spiritual Unity
Sertillanges: The Church (Chapters l, ll and V)
Adam: Spirit of Catholicism
Hughes: History of the Church (Vol l, Ch ii)
Rousselot: Life of the Church
(For the Mystical Body)
Sheed: Map of Life (Ch vi)
Benson: Christ in the Church.

They were also expected to be thoroughly familiar with relevant passages of Scripture, such as:
Matthew: xvi, xxviii; Mark iv 11; John, xvii 11, 20 -23; xxi; Acts: viii 17-19; xiii; xv etc  1 Timothy, iii 5 and 15, iv 14; Titus i 5, iii 10 etc; Ephesians iv 11-3; 1 Corinthians xi 34; and Galatians i 9.

They would then attend a talk by an experienced speaker and trainer on the topic, and ask questions.  They would also present on the topic themselves and be asked questions.  Sample questions that might be thrown at them included:

1) If visibility is an outstanding feature of the Church, why is the Church so difficult to find among all the conflicting sects? and how is it that so few find the Church?

2) The Kingdom of God is within you.

3) Why do we need an organisation to teach us Christ's Gospel?

4) Where two or three are gathered in My Name - nothing about a Church there.

5) The visibility of the Church is a mere political development

6) Visibility is but an ideal to be worked and prayed for

7) The Salvation Army is as much a visible body as your Church

8) I have the voice of God within telling me that I am right. What more do I need?

9) St John says: 'You need not that any man should teach you.'

10) Churches are only a means to an end: why do you worry so much about the means, when it is the end that matters?

11) Christ said: 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Why the Church?

(and so on - another six are listed, and speakers in training were encouraged to think up the hardest, most realistic questions they could think of - so in our times that would doubtless include issues of abuse, cover-up, corruption, dissent and so on).

Only when they were able to answer all questions quickly, succinctly and accurately were they put forward to be tested by a priest, and only then allowed to speak for the CEG.

Moreover, they were also offered spiritual formation, and instructed that for every hour they intended to practice their apostolate, they should spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

They were expected to attend two training sessions every week, as well as the actual commitment to speak...

As I said above, I am not seeking to recreate this, but to learn from it.

I suspect that I am not alone in recognising that faced with the questions listed above in the pub or the workplace, I might not have good answers to offer on the tip of my tongue (backed up by appropriate quotations from Scripture, and examples from the lives of the saints of the lived reality...).  And I feel that I should.  The CEG were clear that their task was not to convert people: that is God's responsibility; but rather to be able and willing to give a clear, comprehensive, accurate, positive and compelling account of the Faith.  To plough the soil, as it were, and scatter the seed: the miracle of germination is God's to work...

So the question I keep returning to, is how do we accomplish that, given (on the one hand) the difficulties of modern life (eg as highlighted by Joseph Shaw here) and (on the other) the opportunity presented by the social media?

Keep praying about this throughout Lent, please, and contribute any ideas.

Apologetics

It strikes me, as I have suggested before, that a pressing need in the Church in the UK is good apologetics.

That is, a widespread ability, amongst ordinary Catholics, to be able to explain their Faith, accurately and convincingly, to others.

In the first instance, I think to other Catholics who have not been well educated in the Faith; but also to other Christians and people of other faiths, and of course to those who have no faith at all, those who never think about such things, and those who are actively hostile to the Faith.

There is, of course, a lot of good work going on already. Maryvale continues to lead the way, but an MA in apologetics from Maryvale takes a lot of concentrated study, requires a lot of money, and while excellent is likely always to be an option for relatively few people.

Likewise many parishes, particularly in this Year of Faith, are running programmes to look more deeply into the Faith, and many of these are very good.  But understanding alone, while important, is not sufficient to be able to defend and promote the Faith in the public square (or at the workplace, or in the pub).

I suspect that many of us find it hard to defend the Church's teaching on morality, for example, and many more to articulate clearly the broader social teaching of the Church, or to understand and refute the various Protestant errors, in a way which will be heard by those who adhere to them.  I know that last point is unfashionable, and may strike some as against the spirit of ecumenism.  But ecumenism is about working for Our Lord's wish that all may be one; that finally implies that all should be united under the Holy Father in the One True Church.  When one thinks what Protestants are deprived of, (eg the Sacraments and the fullness of Faith), how could one not wish to convert them?

What I would like to see, therefore, is a programme, made widely (and if possible freely) available that would help lay Catholics throughout the UK to develop as apologists.  It seems to me that some of the important elements of this would be:

• Good spiritual direction and formation;
• A structured programme of study of the Faith (possibly based largely on resources already freely available), supported by both philosophy and rhetoric;
• Local support, possibly small groups meeting both to discuss and check their understanding, but also to practice putting it across convincingly and dealing with questions and objections;
• A wider community of support, where issues can be discussed, and questions raised and answered;
• A small team to make it happen.

The growth of the Catholic presence on the internet clearly supports some of these well, but others are best done on a local level (subsidiarity and all that!)

This would, of course, be a long term programme; indeed, I think it would need to be a lifelong one, so inexhaustible are the riches of the Faith.  But that is no reason not to start; quite the contrary.

So I would like to ask you to pray about this, as I shall do, throughout Lent.  And at Easter, I will revisit the topic and if others believe it to be a worthwhile project, explore how we can make it happen.  But 40 days of prayer seems to me the best way to start.

I would also be interested in any comments, suggestions, and so forth about any aspect of it.

But prayer above all, for the harvest is great, but the labourers few.

A New Evangelisation?

Just before leaving for Mass, I heard Fr Marcus Stock interviewed on the Sunday programme on Radio 4.  It was about the recently re-published guidelines on the appointment of senior staff and governors to positions in Catholic Schools.  The guidelines include some clarification of the requirement that they be practicing Catholics, pointing out that the term precludes those who are living in open and deliberate contradiction to the moral teaching of the Church (eg by co-habiting, living in a 'second marriage' whilst still married to their true spouse, and so on).

Fr Stock seemed to me to be rather vague and defensive.  All the media training I have done has always stressed the importance of identifying three or four key messages you wish to get across in an interview, and ensuring that you cover as many of them as the questions and time permit.

I struggle to identify Fr Stock's key messages.  The nearest I could get to them would be:

The timing of this coincides with the 'Same Sex Marriage' debate purely by coincidence;
The guidelines are deliberately non-specific in terms of application, because it is all very difficult in practice;
This is not a snoop's charter.

I think he could have gone in on a more positive tack, stressing the role of leader as a role model, talking more about the integrity of an individual who is teaching Catholic truth in these areas and so on.

I know that media interviews are not easy, and that the presenter on the Sunday programme had his own agenda, but that only underscores the need for proper training and preparation.

I mention all this, not to criticise Fr Stock, but to illustrate a much bigger concern.  I am continually reminded, in this Year of Faith, of the need for far more work to be done on the New Evangelisation: and specifically better training in apologetics.

Another example: the Catholic response to the proposed dismantling of marriage was very slow off the mark and very poor initially. It has got rather better, but even now I am troubled that we arguing against the changes on the grounds that they have no democratic mandate.  True though that be, it moves the debate into the wrong territory, and indeed, risks implicitly conceding that with a democratic mandate the government would have the authority and competence to re-define marriage; which is not, in fact, what we believe.

As a political argument, it is reasonable enough, and if the measure is thrown out by the Lords for that reason, I would be happy.  But of course, all it would take would be for a party (or more likely, all parties) to include it in their manifesto next time around, and we have nowhere to go.

No, the Church should argue from fundamental principles of Faith and Human Reason, such as Natural Law.  Yet we are ill-equipped to do that due to decades of inadequate formation, both of the laity and the clergy, and also a sapping of the will to do so from a desire to be more accommodating of, and comfortable with, broader society. The Second Vatican Council's throwing open of the windows of the Church was surely with the intention of letting more of the holiness of the Church out into society, not letting the corruption and errors of society enter the Church.

That is the challenge to which we have to rise.  The Catholic Voices project was well-intentioned, but perhaps shows the limitations of a quick-fix approach to these issues.  I am talking about something longer term: a serious re-evangelisation of ourselves, a training in apologetics such as the Catholic Evidence Guild used to offer, grounded in prayer and study.  Only in that way, I think, can we really hope to proclaim the Faith effectively and reverse the terrible trends we see around us both within the Church, in terms of lapsation and apostacy, and in civil society.

The harvest is great, but where are the labourers?  Let us pray, therefore, that the Lord of the harvest send labourers: and let us pray for discernment about our own role in this great work.