Father Richard Whinder gave an excellent talk on Bishop Richard Challoner at the annual meting of the Association of Catholic Women today at St James', Spanish Place. Challoner was the heroic bishop who was Vicar Apostolic of the London District during extremely difficult years in the 18th century. The slaughter of priests by hanging, drawing, and quartering had ended but it was still illegal to be one, so he lived a life of semi-secrecy, ministering to Catholics up and down the country, travelling from place to place.....he wrote several books and Fr Whinder pointed out that it is thanks to him that we know the facts about the martyrs of the 16th century, as he collected together information from documents and from family histories, from information passed down, from eye-witness accounts written and hidden in attics and cupboards. He also wrote prayer-books and a catechism that sustained people and engaged non-believers, starting a debate that even achieved some conversions to the Church: no mean feat given the extraordinary difficulties that all Catholics in England had to endure. Challoner - as Fr Whinder concluded by reminding us - has several mesages for us today, of which the chief is the importance of prayer, and another is the virtue of patience. At the end of his long life - he died aged over 90 at the time of the Gordon Riots - the Catholic Church in England had survived....it had not increased in numbers, but it had not declined either. The scene was set, tho' Challoner did not know it, for a "Second Spring".....

At the ACW meeting we also heard from Jeremy de Satge of The Music Makers : this excellent organisation offers training in singing plainchant, sells CDs of good church music, encourages those who are getting young Catholics to sing, and more. Latest venture is sessions in seminaries training future priests to sing the Mass. What joy to hear a lectuire on church music that was full of positive and practical ideas: it is a given that we have all endured ghastly music for far too long....the experience of liturgical and musical horror in church has become something that we all know needs tackling, and it's so refreshing when we find the tools available: like discovering a good brand of disinfectant or something that really does get rid of nits in children's hair.

Many thanks to all who have commented on this blog, especially from America and Australia: well done the chap who answered correctly about the tradition of a white sheet hung on a hedge - this was the signal, in recusant time, that a priest was be at that house and Mass available.

A chap called Joee Blogs has asked me to link to his blog and I do so gladly.

Piers Paul Read has an excellent piece in the latest Spectator about the Holy Father. Press here in Britain is largely silent on the topic now: presumably the next thing will be a rash of hyped and tiresome features, plus TV and radio discussions, by lefty shallow thinking whdoesn'tthechurchchangeallitsteachingsotsuitmywayofthinking types, linked to whatever is the next papal statement that they want to denounce.

Am I alone in wishing for a little more support for the Pope and the Church on the topic of Islam from some of our Evangelical friends - often so militant in private conversation?

I started this blog because of the excellent Fr Tim Finegan's blog hermeneutic of continuity: a crucial read and setting the pace for what Catholic writing of the future is going to be like. The blogosphere is where the discussions are taking place, so despite an instinctive sense of dontwanttodolearnsomethingdifficult I knew I had to get on with it. I take this opportunity of thanking Fr Tim for his encouragement - and for being a simply splendid priest, one of several really excellent priests in London for whom we are all hugely grateful.

I decided that my blog would be an action blog: my opinions and insights aren't particularly valuable, but working as a Catholic journalist does give me access to isdeas, contacts, and information worth passing on.

Have you visited the Association of Catholic Women website yet?

Have you ordered a couple of books by Pope Benedict from your local library? Why not? Inertia? Or just a desire to play your part in keeping useful and helpful teachings away from the general public?

Have you bought a copy of the current Catholic Herald and either passed it to a friend, or left it deliberately on a train for others to read, or sent it to some one housebound? Do you think it is better to leave good Catholic papers unread in stacks at the back of Catholic churches?

I love getting comments on this blog, but won't publish the next ones unless they start with a brief note explaining that the writer has done at least one of the three things I have listed above.