Wed Oct 18th
Yesterday a meeting of the Board of Aid to the Church in Need UK (look up their website!) - there is always a lot to discuss as this Charity is really thriving and doing so much good work. Sales of Christmas cards have been a bit slow due to the warm weather!! (WHY NOT ORDER YOURS FROM ACN NOW?) ACN helps Catholics wherever they are persecuted - including assistance to people in countries we can't even name in our publicity material etc because it would endanger people too much. In the past, much help went to Eastern Europe......we raised funds, for example, for the big church at Nowa Huta in the archdiocese of Krakow, where the foundation stone was laid, in defiance of Communist efforts to prevent the building, by the then Archbishop Karol Woytila.....today, Poland has its own branch office of ACN which collects funds to help Catholics suffering under Islam.....

We had a lively and talkative lunch after the meeting, and it was a delight to have with us Maria from the HQ in Konigstein who is in charge of the Children's Bible project, which has sent thousands and thousands of Bibles in over 60 different languages to children in Africa and Asia and Latin America..... here's idea for Christmas. Why not buy some nice book for your godchild/nephew/niece/grandchild and send an equivalent donation to ACN (it has an American office too! Look it up on Google!) to fund a Bible for child in Congo or elsewhere who has never possessed a book in his life and will treasure this little paperback? Tell your godchild that you have done this - eg by means of a nice note written in the front of your Christmas gift......We discussed this at our meeting and will probably in due course create a nice sticker/certificate for this sort of donation, but meanwhile why wait? Children in bitter poverty in some dusty African township could have the life-changing joy of books they can own and take home, sent to the local parish by ACN.....if you read some of the letters we get back from priests in such situations, you'd rush for your cheque book and want to do more.....

On to Victoria to catch the bus to OXFORD. I arrived in St Aldgates as the pells of the Cathedral were pealing out for Evensong. I walked into the gardens that lead to Christ Church meadow.....this first stretch of garden is dedicated as a war memorial, and somehow among the falling leaves one sensed the blood-red splash of poppies....all those irreplaceable young men......and the state of our poor country now.....

I was there to address the Newman Society at The Old Palace, the University Catholic chaplaincy. Warm welcome from the excellent Fr Jeremy Fairhead....a delicious dinner in the lovely panelled dining-room, and among the guests was a frind of Jamie's from Sandhurst, whom I last met 20 years ago when they were both cadets at the Royal Military Academy.

In the large and beautiful - and crowded! - drawing room in the Old Palace, I gave my talk on "Does the Church oppress women?" (from the CTS booklet on the same theme). I always want to emphasise the great and thrilling range of women saints, esp during the Middle Ages across Europe....and the martyrs of the early Church whose names we hear in the Roman Canon, Agatha Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, and our great English women saints.....women who founded hospitals and schools and leprosaria and religious orders, women who changed the histories of nations (Elizabeth of Hungary, Hedwig of Bavaria), women who died for the Faith, women whose husband's names and parish priests' names and fathers' names are forgotten, but whose own names live on in all the glorious work they did for God and for us......all this in a Church which is now accused of denigrating or "maginalising" women..... also important to note what we lost at the Reformation in England (all those abbesses who ran great estates, cared for the poor and sick in their territory and beyond, ran great centres of learning and art and agricultural and medical knowledge) and the injustice done to women when Mary's image was ripped out of our churches and women saints removed from our prayer-books and their wonderful life-stories from the history and traditions taught to the next generations.....

It's crucial, too, to emphasise that God didn'ty make two sexes by mistake. He doesn't make mistakes. And our bodies are sacred to him, and are part of his plan, which is why He took human flesh and lived among us.....so being male or female is obviously all part of his great scheme of things, and we ought to seek his wisdom and ask of Him what he wants for our lives.....

The priesthood? In Christ's day, all the religions in the Roman Empire and around it had priestesses....it was standard in the pagan religions of his day and Christianity was unique in NOT having them, something which God had planned from the beginning, as a male priesthood was always central to the Nuptial message he was giving the world....Bridegroom, and Bride....Christ and his Church....and this union is indeed fruitful, for all of us who are baptised are the children of Mother Church......this is crucial in our understanding of male and female, and of the dignity of each....

Some day, I really want to study and explore all this a lot more. It seems to me that what generally happens in Church history is that a heresy (in this case, women priests) comes along, the Church refutes it and gives the true teaching....and then over the next couple of hundred years or so, there is a great flowering of new and richer teaching so we grasp more profoundly the truth of what the Church had always taught....it's almost as if this is the way God wants us to understand the fullness of doctrine, like a father postively encouraging massive family discussion round the dinner table to get good teaching to his offspring.....

It was so encouraging seeing all the delightful young people, the packed room, the sense of a lively Catholic chaplaincy with so much going on....Fr Jeremy took me into the weekday chapel dedicated to St Thomas More, where a goodish number go to daily Mass....

Caught the bus back to London - it was late by this time and it is rather nice whizzing down the motorway in the dark. I am re-reading Newman's essays on "The current position of Catholics in England" (new edition, Gracewing Books, 2000, edited by Andrew Nash) as it felt right to be reading some Newman when visiting Oxon.....

In London, caught the last Tube to Wimbledon, where I collected my bike and cycled home. I was tired by then, so kept going by singing. It was 1.30 am by the time I got into bed, and I had to be up very early as I was due to catch the train to Lancashire.......