...staying with dear friends...sunshine on villages with that sleepy shuttered look, lines and lines of vines , long agreeable talks late into the warm summer night with the sound of crickets. Lots of children at Mass this morning, several evidently due to be baptised and being catechised and invited to take part in a sort of pre-baptismal ceremony. "This is pagan France, and the priest is working hard, finding ways to evangelise" sighed my friends...
There is good news in the French church - the New Movements are gathering strength and support: among the announcements at Mass was one about a forthcoming ordination in one of the new communities. And there is a massive sense of opposition to the government's schemes to redefine marriage: the "Everyone together" movement to support true marriage has united people across divisions of race and religion and region...
But there are also huge challenges. Islam is growing and flourishing as it is here in Britain. "Twenty years ago, I was working with Islamic friends and colleagues and that was all normal and unremarkable" said a friend "It's different now: women in full-length veils, a very strong sense of Islamic identity and strength: it's a completely different situation."
While in France, news of the Pope's new encyclical, so we printed it off and read it. You can read the influence of BXVI all the way through, with the references to Nietzsche, and Dante, and with some of his favourite quotations ("Nous avons cru en l'amour").... The whole style and "feel" of it seemed to me to be v.v. BXVI, and I love it! Also joyful, JOYFUL news that Papa Francis has approved the canonisation of John Paul the Great.
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