Horrific ATTACK IN FRANCE..

 

....let's pray for the Church in France, now under vicious attack from Jihadists...

I echo the message of solidarity and prayer here

Meanwhile, you need to know...

 

..about some of the ghastly material being used in schools. You are paying for this revolting stuff, which is promoting  teenage sexual activity including the idea that they look up various perversion...

This is child abuse,

AND THERE IS GREATER CLARITY....

 

...when you find out what was actually said, and  in what context, and when: read here

NO, the Pope didn't announce a change in the Church's teaching on homosexual activity.

 

He didn't and he can't and won't.

Get the thing in context. Pope Francis was talking in an informal - and probably imprudent - way in a film celebrating his life and work. Bit of a vanity thing, really.

He was obviously trying to show himself in a good light, and emphasising that in opposing same-sex marriage he wasn't motivated by spite. He ended up giving a powerful message which he should have seen would be used by all who oppose the Church's teaching.

He should not have chattered on about this subject.  I fear he allowed his desire to look trendy to overrule common sense, prudence and a sense of duty.

A lot of damage has been done, and it may not be within his power to undo it. 

A walk along the Thames, on a most glorious Autumn day...

 ...to St Mary's University,  my first visit back since the Spring, when of course we had to cancel all plans for the celebratory launch of my History of the place. 

I loved working on the history, and it was a project well worth doing.  Various follow-ups now being pondered...

It was good to go into the chapel and to feel the same sense of belonging that I have  always felt there over recent years,, as post-graduate student and as Research Fellow... 

Walking dry-shod along the Twickenham bank of the river it seemed almost absurd to think back to Sunday and our extraordinary splashing and sloshing at High Tide on the Richmond side. Moral: check tide-tables before any walk.  The Twickenham side offers lots of history, and will be the route for the next Walk: Marble Hill House and Orleans House...links with the Georges and Mrs Fitzherbert and Alexander Pope and more...

Attempts to crush honest study of history are frightening. This was how history was treated in Eastern Europe in the 1950s-80s. I remember Polish people talking about how infuriating it was to be told about their country in jargon-laden rubbishy lectures...the Church has a role in countering this and  encouraging honest and authentic discussion and debate. In this, as in so much more, St John Paul gave us useful lessons...

Golden leaves postively glowing in afternoon sunshine, people exchanging friendly nods and greetings,  light piercing through trees and turning ripples on the Thames into silver, children shouting and playing on Richmond Green...oh I do pray there isn't another lockdown. 

I had the privilege of meeting the great St John Paul ...

 

...and am thrilled that CTS has used my piece about him on their current blog celebrating his feast-day...

WHY WALK ALONG THE RIVER THAMES...

 

...when you can walk IN the River Thames?

Today's History Walk began very comfortably at St Elizabeth's church, Richmond, warmly welcomed by the excellent parish priest Fr Stephen Langridge,  we  then walked - properly spaced, obeying all the corona-rules - down into the town and across the Green, with me explaining about how the town got its name, and about Henry VII and the Old Palace, and more...

And then we turned Old Palace Lane and headed for the river. It was seeping up across the bank, with tiny rivulets making their way across the towpath. But I led the way as we strode out towards  the boatyards and then the fields and Ham...

But we had hardly gone a few yards  before the rivulets became a serious puddle...and people ahead of us urged us to turn back...and attempts to go further were clearly absurd and had to be abandoned - and as we turned  the towpath was impossible as it had become part of the river .... Only by  squelching and scrambling scrambling right up against the garden wall of  Asgill House were we able to regain Old Palace Lane, and by then we were wading up to our knees in the Thames...

Everyone remained in good spirits - in fact one member of the party was laughing so much he could barely speak, and another lined us up as I was pouring water out of my boots, and photographed us...

I've promised to check the tide-tables before any other Richmond Walk. 

We will shortly be celebrating...

...the feast of St John Paul the Great.

Did you know he had thought of taking the name Stanislaus I?

Info here

 

YOU CAN LISTEN TO AUNTIE JOANNA....

 ....on Radio Maria England.

This is a new initiative: an independent radio station,  linked to a "family" network centred in Italy.  There is a good range of programmes, with Mass and various devotions, music, and all sorts of talks and discussions. Auntie Joanna's contribution is a regular "Feasts and Seasons" programme, which each week has info on the feast-days and saints' days that are coming up...

Tune in here....

or here

VINDICATED...

 ...Cardinal George Pell with the Pope at the Vatican this week.

A little while ago......

 ...I was told emphatically that the modern Church has produced no saints.

This was and is rubbish.  But it is glorious to be able to refute it with the dramatic scenes from Assisi this weekend. A London-born computer whizzkid has just been beatified, a Millenial saint.   Read here...

Lift up your hearts.

The 2020 CATHOLIC YOUNG WRITER AWARD....

 

....had fewer entries this year but produced two fine winners/. You can read all about it here

With St John Henry Newman's FEAST DAY coming up...

 ...thoughts turn to Maryvale, which was his home  when he left Littlemore to start a new chapter of his life.

Today Maryvale offers a wonderful opportunity to study the Faith  and to become an evangelist.  We can't all be as effective as Newman - but we can certainly open up our minds and hearts, and share the good news of the Gospel. 

There's a lot of talk today about the Church needing missionary disciples. Maryvale is where you can get trained to become just that.

There  is a great range of courses - all done by distance-learning, something which Maryvale has been doing for years and is, of course, exactly tuned for this Coronavirus time.  You can do a training course in Youth Ministry.   There are courses for parish catechists.  Or you can get an Ecclesiastical Licence empowering you for a leadership position in a Catholic school.  Some of the courses obviously require good academic qualifications.: there's a course starting in January on Philosophy in the  Catholic Tradition...

Maryvale itself is a fine old house set in its own grounds not far from Birmingham.  One of the most delightful things about attending a course usually is the hospitality and welcome of the house. Like many other students over the years, I have had the privilege of using the room that Newman used while he lived there - with its small hidden window looking on to the chapel, where he knelt to pray..

But Maryvale isn't just a place, it's a real community and a superb experience, with wonderful tutors.

If you are feeling dead-end coronavirus-ish...click on to the website and plan for something new. This is a good time to commit to a new project  and a new challenge  - with a real and practical usefulness to the Church's mission, which in our poor country has never been more urgent...

and on a different topic....THIS is useful....

 ...from the Christian Institute.

Please watch and make use of the info

It is a strange feeling....

 ...when something with which you have been actively involved becomes the stuff of memoirs..

Keston College was an excellent institution run by Rev Michael Bourdeaux, which chronicled the plight of Christians and other religious believers under Communism. It did a most useful job, and highlighted some of the courageous men and women who spoke up for truth and human dignity  under a cruel regime and often suffered hideously in prisons or labour camps in the USSR  as a result.

Michael's new book telling the Keston story is a good read. As I got into it, I was fascinated to learn how the project began, and  then rather moved to reconnect with people  who over the years became part of the story.  It felt strange to come across, suddenly, a quotation from a letter in the Catholic Herald by some one called Joanna Nash, calling for more public action on behalf of persecuted Christians...

Memories...standing outside the Soviet Union in vigils of prayer...especially one Christmas Eve, when passers-by stopped to give us their support...

And one particular memory: meeting Irina Ratushinskaya, the poet who endured imprisonment for  her courageous writing. She told us of a strange prison experience: being in a bitterly cold punishment cell at night, in solitary confinement, unable to sleep...and suddenly having a  sensation of warmth, and a deep understanding: "Some out out there is praying for me at this moment."

and here is some good news:

 

After an hotel in Northern Ireland rudely interrupted a speaker and stopped him addressing a group discussing marriage, the hotel has now climbed down,  apologised, and more...read here...

It is, of course, disgraceful that this incident should have occurred in the first place. What on earth did the hotel staff think they were doing?  I mean, literally - what did they think? What was in their minds? What had they been taught and told? Why did they imagine they had any right to prevent some one from speaking about marriage?

Boys and girls who have been attending schools in Britain over the past few years have not been encouraged to think freely and along large lines. They have been taught to pass exams, and to adopt words and phrases that will help them to do that. They have not been encouraged to read widely, to debate freely, to ponder history, to argue over ideas and ideology.

It's really rather frightening.  Thank God, at least, for the small mercy of this apology...and for what it now means for wider freedom...

On the subject of the political activities of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex...

 

....I'm inclined to agree with this comment. 

 ...

 A visit to the Royal Air Force Memorial overlooking the Thames at Runnymede

My Uncle John's name is on this memorial - Pilot Officer John Michael Campbell RAFVR. 

His name is on Panel 123.  He was killed in 1943.

There are 20,000 names on this memorial - airmen who died for our country in World War II and have no known grave.

Recently our family received some extraordinary news. Uncle John's aeroplane - a Stirling bomber - has been found deep in a lake in Holland where it fell. It was identified by its number...and the crew were identified when Uncle John's silver cigarette case was found, bearing his initials JMC. The Dutch army is now helping to recover the aeroplane, and a local museum honours the crew. The Dutch are grateful to the Royal Air Force for helping to liberate their country from Nazi occupation.

The Queen's words at the opening of the Runnymede memorial in 1953 have never seemed more important.  At Runnymede King John signed Magna Carta, establishing the freedoms that British people have treasured down the years. 

In London...

...extreme left-wing campaigners tried to stop newspapers being printed.

They call themselves "Extinction rebellion". But they are not rebelling., merely shrieking out the standard leftwing line on a range of issues, and using militant tactics in attempts to stop healthy debate and if possible to wreck Britain's economy, on the grounds that our industries damage  the world's ecological balance. 

Meanwhile China mines coal and launches new power stations month by month, and buys up large tracts of land across Africa, establishing ports and transport links on a massive scale, establishing her new empire.