Sunday Oct 15th
The other day I was invited to lunch at St Anne Line church in Essex. If you don't know about her, it's time you found out. She was one of heroic band of women who, during penal times, helped priests to hide from the authorities and to celebrate Mass for hard-pressed Catholics. Fr Francis Coveney of St Anne Line parishhas sent me a lovely prayer-card which tells her story: it carries a pic of the large stone statue of her which he has in the church. She was a convert to the faith, and was disinherited by her deeply Calvinist father. She married a fellow-convert, Roger Line, but they had only a short time together before he was arrested for attending Mass and after a time of imprisnment exiled. Alone and ill, Anne nevertheless worked hard to do all she could for the Faith - she was finally arrested after Mass vessels were found at her house. Unbroken by imprisonment, she refused to renounce her Faith and was hanged in 1601. Next time some one tells you that the Catholic Church oppresses women ask why a woman like that would go to her death for it, and what the Faith meant to her.

I thought of Anne Line today as Mac McLernon - who gave a lift to my mother at yesterday's Rosary Rally - and I went on a delightful (and unintentionally hilarious) pilgrimage to find her shrine a couple of summers ago. Driving merrily along in the direction of what we hoped was Essex, two women happily chattering on a day out, we found we were going in precisely the opposite direction ("Er...Mac....isn't that Canary Wharf ahead of us? Um...I thought we were driving out of London?"). But we got there in the end, and Anne Line has become something of a favourite of mine ever since....

Spent this morning at Brompton Oratory handing out leaflets at all the Masses about....all right, all right, I won't mention its details again, but if you are in or near London on Nov 4th don't even think of missing the Festival at Westminster Cathedral Hall......

Spent the rest of the day in domestic activity. Problem in kitchen.....massive damp area on floor near door, lino tiles gently rising and making as if to float away, doors of cupboard swollen and won't fit ....it turns out to be a leak from the pipe to the washing-machine... J. explored the problem, and we now have to keep the water turned off except when we are using the machine in which case a strategically-placed milk bottle, removed every half-hour to be emptied, tackles things We now have to call the local plumber - who rather endearingly is called Mr Plumb, and even has a son working with him, so it's just like Happy Families.

Have been sent a scary report Islam in Britain, produced by a group called The Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, director Patrick Sookhdeo. It is a detailed survey of Moslems in Britain done in Feb 2005 and just published. Its quotations from The UK Islamic Mission, and its information on what it describes as "radical Islam" in Britain" are rather chilling to read. The most interesting section covers Government policies on Islam, and reveals how support and encouragement (and funding) have been given to precisely the groups that are the most extreme and which have the least interest in good community relations or any sense of shared values with others. There is a call for a new approach, which includes a recognition of the many disparate strands within Islam, the strong and well-funded tendency towards extremism, and the huge dangers this poses. It calls upon Moslems to accept the need for dialogue and for change , especially on issues such as the persecution of those who convert from Islam to other faiths (which at present carries the death penalty). I wonder if this report will get any publicity? So far I've seen none.