De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Tis the season of bishop's pastoral letters! Our Bishop here in Brentwood Diocese Alan Williams sm, appears to really be working hard on the themes he considers Pope Francis to be prioritising, e.g.: It can sometimes seem impossible to glimpse the things of heaven in today’s world. We are confronted with the needs of refugees, the appalling struggles faced by victims of trafficking, the enduring realities of war and injustice. Sometimes there has been an absence of compassion and kindness even within the community of the Church which have caused great scandal regardless of faith. Young people notice and name most acutely this mismatch between aspiration and reality. It is often our young who have been prophetic in talking about climate change and its potentially terrible consequences. It's like he has squeezed all the Pope's "new religion" into one paragraph; climate change, immigration, our desperately uncatechised young people as prophetic leaders of th...

I was greatly heartened to read the pastoral letter from the Bishop of Shrewsbury, read out on the Feast of The Holy Family on December 28th. It presents a wonderful synthesis of Church teaching on family and asks that we look deeper at the gifts that the Church presents to us in this regard and reflect how we can engage more deeply with Church teaching. I have hi lighted some of the bits that really caught my eye: My dear brothers and sisters, I write to you today in the light of the Child born for us, the Saviour who was given to us within the love and unity of a human family. On this Feast of the Holy Family, as we celebrate the holiness of family life and begin a “Year for Vocations” in the Diocese, I want to reflect on the “Vocation and Mission of the Family.” This is the title Pope Francis has given to the Synod of Bishops to take place in the New Year. It will be a year for Catholics across the world to reaffirm our faith in God’s plan for the family, and to do so a...

We had a lovely pastoral letter here in Brentwood Diocese from our recently consecrated Bishop, Alan Williams on Sunday which is well worthing sharing with you all! Pastoral Letter of Bishop Alan Williams, SM First Sunday of Advent Last Sunday’s gospel talked of the difficulty in recognising Christ in our world - “Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison?” We can so easily forget God though he never forgets us. In the words of one Rabbi, “We are half-heartedly searching for God, but God is whole-heartedly searching for us.” As we begin the season of Advent today we are called to be ever more aware of God’s search for us and our response. We need to look upwards to the gaze of God, “for only in his gaze is our future to be found” [Pope Francis]. Advent is a graced time of waiting for the coming of the Lord - our children delight in Advent calendars; in our churches we light candles in the Advent wreaths - but in today’s gospel Jesus urges u...

I must share with you this wonderful pastoral letter from Shrewsbury Diocese which was read at all Masses there today. I have copied it from the Shrewsbury Diocesan website in order to further publicise this important message from the wonderful Bishop Mark Davies: My dear brothers and sisters, On this Remembrance Sunday we recall the great crises faced by generations before us in the conflicts of the past century. Last month, Pope Francis invited bishops from around the world to meet with him in Rome to address what we might call a crisis of our time: the crisis of the family. This is experienced in some parts of the world in poverty, war or persecution; but in western countries like our own, it is a crisis most often caused by ideologies opposed to the sanctity of human life and the institution of marriage and the family. The Catholic Church has long opposed these mentalities and the devastation they have wrought on individuals, societies and especially among the young an...

Today in Brentwood Diocese, we received our first Pastoral Letter from our new Bishop, Alan Williams SM. Louise and I have had a rather busy and joyous weekend attending the Priestly Ordination of Stefan Kaminski, the son of some dear friends of ours, Marie-Claire & Daniel. Marie-Claire and I studied together for five years at Maryvale. Subsequently, we have followed Stefan's progress through the English College in Rome with prayer and joy. We were very privileged to be invited and really did enjoy it—I'll write on it separately when I get a second—I have several posts in draft now and haven't finished any of them! The Ordination was such a joy, it needs to be shared, also in order that you might pray for Stefan and his family, as he begins his priestly ministry. I was also fortunate enough to meet Bishop Alan properly for the first time on Wednesday, when he visited St. Peter's Parish in Eastwood in order to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation. Again, I have a pos...