Thursday Oct 19th
Just back from a MOST useful and enjoyable time with a young fellow-Catholic blogger who, in an Internet Cafe, took me through some basic blogging techniques, and also arranged for me to have a site-meter on my blog which is v. exciting as it means I can see how many people read it!! We also talked and talked....gosh, some of the young active Catholics in London just now are really very good value and make one feel quite cheerful about the future of the Church in our poor country.....

Had spent the morning with Jamie talking away on the telephone to all sorts of people in his capacity as Chairman of the Catholic Union re the Govt's plans for Church schools.....all most worrying, and the Catholic Union website now carries details of what we can and must do to make our opposition known.....

Yesterday I was at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire for lunch with the new headmaster. At Euston, catching a dreadfully early train, I saw a Capuchin Franciscan habit - and it was Fr Mark Elvins, who had been in London for the launch of his new book on chivalry(published by Gracewing )....he was travelling to Preston, too, on my train, so we had a very delightful journey: he is a v. good companion and we talked about a great many things. Fr Mark founded the St Thomas Fund for the homeless which now runs several houses. In Preston, he's involved with University chaplaincy work: he spoke with huge enthusiasm of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal who are making a real impact on the Church in Britain.

Stonyhurst is breathtaking when you first see it - after a taxi ride through glorious countryside there is the great sweep of the view, with its wide green lawns and Rugby pitches and the ornamental stretches of shining water with the great house standing majestically beyond. We lunched in the Stuart Room, with pics of Henry Duke of York (Bonnie Prince Charlie's brother) and Clementina Sobieska looking down on us. The College has a strong Jacobite tradition. Girl pupils at Stonyhurst wear skirts of Bonnie Prince Charlie's tartan - a square of the original is one of the treasures in the vast collection of items in the College's vast archives and museum. Curator Jan Graffius, who is a friend of long standing, showed me some of them - fabulous vestments embroidered in the 16th century by loyal Catholic women who held fast to their Faith in the face of great trials,, small pewter chalices used by hunted priests, hand-written letters from St Robert Southwell, a prayer-book made for Queen Mary Tudor and subsequently used by Mary, Queen of Scots....

For over 150 years, Stonyhurst was rarely consulted by museums or galleries - it was part of the marginalised Catholic world, hidden in its Lancashire bastion. Today, Jan takes some of the fascinating and beautiful items to exhibitions around Britain and in the USA....and discovers, when consulted by all sorts of people including museum staff, deep wells of ignorance about not just Catholicism but Christianity, for example when explaining the use of various vessels for Communion:"The problem is that they aren't familiar with Christianity at all, not even, say, the Anglican Communion service. So one has to explain things from the basics. "

The new headmaster is the third layman to be appointed since the Jesuits gave up running the College some years back. He seems confident and full of energy - he will need both these qualities to be running a large modern Catholic boarding-school which, if it is to do its job properly, should be training and inspiring young people to challenge many of the values and ideas pushed at them by the rest of society.....