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So much emphasis was placed on presumed sexual morality and ideal families at these parishes that anyone who didn’t fit a rigid traditional mold was ostracized. Unwed, separated and divorced parents and their children were shunned. Families like mine — my parents were divorced — formed an outgroup that was systematically excluded. I experienced bullying. Read more
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The wedding invitation said ‘summer chic’. I smiled to myself as I read this request of the parents of the bride. I had to hope that my hosts would be very understanding. The black suit of a priest would hardly pass as ‘summer chic’! At any celebration, the hosts are very much in charge. They Read more
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Jesus once said: “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble… it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” To be a representative of institutional Christianity after last week is to feel the weight of that Read more
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Aileen Carlin Giannelli died on September 8. By itself, that’s probably not something most readers are interested in. Statistically, perhaps as many as 46,000 American Catholics died in September, and I am sure any reader of these words can name at least one of them. But this particular American Catholic was my wife’s mother and Read more
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The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon can be resolved only by the Catholic Church, says one of the world’s leading conflict-resolution organisations. Noting the Church is the largest religious group in the country, the International Crisis Group says there are few alternative prospective peacemakers. They say if the peacemaker role is not filled, the Anglophone separatist Read more
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A vicar who once built an ice rink inside his church has taken it a stage further this year with a toboggan run. Father Stuart Cadduck has installed a 30ft long inflatabe run next to the pews, just yards from the altar, stretching down one side of the ancient church. Read more Related Posts:Bishop apologises Read more
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As I wrote in The Gatekeepers are Gone: What’s Holding Your Ministry Back?, we need more churches taking advantage of online services, podcasts, livestreaming, social media, blogging, you name it. Online church is not just necessary, it’s important, even essential. The speed, convenience and world-wide reach of the internet is a wonderful tool. The digital world Read more
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The latest in a long line of studies, now numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, shows that church attendance is good for your health. Published in May by researchers from Vanderbilt University, the study found that middle-aged adults who attended religious services at least once in the past year were half as likely to die prematurely Read more
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ROME – Mothers and women have always had a central role in the Catholic Church. The Virgin Mary is the ultimate example of its devotion to motherhood, to the point that one could say that every day is Mother’s Day in the Vatican. Pope Francis, following the legacy of the previous two pontiffs, has taken Read more
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Stalin famously said of the Church, “The Pope! How many divisions has he?” Less well known is Churchill’s response that Stalin “might have mentioned a number of legions not always visible on parade”. Indeed, the reach and influence of the Church are not easily described by statistics alone, yet the raw statistics are staggering enough. Read more
