Friday Dec 1st

Whenever I have a little time to work on this Blog, practise techniques like linking to websites etc, or simply to write up something in a reasonably well-researched way, my wretched email goes down....

After a brief glorious reconnection yesterday morning (which at least meant I was able to write my Christmas feature for the CATHOLIC TIMES, which includes a quiz - do make sure you buy a copy) we are now out of email and internet contact again......so I am writing this at the local Internet Cafe, where I am by now rather well-known. I have my luggage beside me as I am off to Liverpool tonight, by a late train, to take part in the Northern Festival of Catholic Culture at Liverpool Cathedral tomorrow.

I desperately want to get in touch with some of the kind people who have contacted me via this blog....please understand that this must wait, as working under presure in an email cafe allows for so little time!!!!!!!

The H. Father sems to have done well in Turkey, and - best of all - is now safely on his way home again.

Yesterday evening, after spending the afternoon with a friend I hurried to Westminster Cathedral as I wanted to pick up a copy of the Catholic Herald. It was about 2 minutes to 7 and the Cathedral had just closed.... outside the CTS bookshop a nice chap sudenly asked if I was Joanna Bogle....had seen me on EWTN etc etc....we got chatting and, on observing that staff were still in the shop, he suggested I try pleading with them as copies of the CH were visible on the counter.....so I made pathetic faces through the glass and the nice chap there grinned and let me in, and for £1 there was the Herald in my hands. Now that's what I call service.

Although it is frustrating working in libraries and email cafes, it does mean I get about....read a scary piece in yesterday's Daily Mail about a (Catholic!) teenager who got totally hooked on computer games, skipped school, barely ate or washed....

If any Catholic blogger spends more than an hour at a time on the computer - I mean on just trawling the Net, blogging etc - he should get a life, and go off and do something else. Help your mum with the hovering, have a bath, go for a run, or something!

Last night, Jamie presided at the AGM of the CATHOLIC UNION (he is Chairman). The CU has done a fine job in fighting euthanasia and the Govt's loathesome Mental Capacity Act (killing off unconscious people by withdrawing water and food) and has stuck up for Catholic rights in education. Today's newspapers have further news on a topic the Union needs to tackle: The Govt is trying to race through horrible legislation which will force all Christian groups and organisations (and yes, this includes Catholic schools, welfare agencies etc) to treat homosexual couples as if they were male/female married couples, eg allowing them to adopt children via Catholic agencies etc. Archbishop Nicholls of Birmingham has spoken out firmly on this, saying the Church will close down its agencies rather than act contrary to Christian principles.....we all need to speak out, to, and demand that Christians are not forced to deny fundamental principles: Catholic schols must be allowed to teach that homosexual activity is wrong, Catholic residential institutions must be alowed to arrange all accomodation on the basis that accomodation for married people means accomodation for male/female marriage only.....Catholic organisations must be allowed to affirm, publicly, their support for the unchanging Christian teaching on this subject.....Catholic parishes must be allowed to deny the use of their halls to homosexual loby groups.....in short, we must be allowed to live out our historic faith and its moral teachings without some Government-imposed mandate to defer to new sexual obesesions.

IT IS WORTH EMAILING YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ABOUT THIS.

Some day, when the history of these times is written, it will be of note that the Church remain firm and true, even though it cost something.