...the other day en route to St Mary Moorfields for a meeting of the Catholic Writers' Guild, I was hailed by a young friend near Kings College in the Strand. We stood chatting for a good while in the evening sunshine. We swapped news and a general enquiry about social life turned into real girl-talk, wherearealltheCatholicmen, the cry one hears so often.
Auntie worries about the difficulties young people seem to facer these days in simply finding a marriage partner! Am I alone in finding it irritating that Catholic young men seem to spend time saying (a) there are few nice Catholic girls around (when in fact there are dozens and dozens!) or (b) that in any case they are "discerning" the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood - this usually said by some one aged 30-plus, with an apparent inability to commit to anything specific, or (c) that one can't ask a girl out to a meal because feminism has made everything so fraught and complicated. (The answer to the last is: why not just try a pleasant straightforward suggestion of a meal and a film - and yes, there are some good films around - and see what response you get?)
As I cycled away, the bells of St Clement Danes' started to peal out gloriously, and then as I approached St Paul's Cathedral, they were ringing there, too. A happy sign. The sound was magnificent, drowning even the steady roar of traffic, pouring out over the office blocks and shops and banks and people...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I think you're being a bit hard on the blokes. 4 priests were ordained here in Sydney, Australia last night and three of them were over 35. People take longer to make up their minds, explore all options these day - especially young women who have so many options. Better to wait until they are sure - we have enough marital disasters as it is. For most women the idea of getting married before the age of 30 would be too constriciting.
Lots of nice single men at the Evangelium conference last year ... :-)
Post a Comment