Faithful Environment for Study is the Best Beginning for a Faithful Life

At this time of year, when so many young people are deciding which university or college to attend, perhaps it is well to consider not only the content of the course one hopes to follow, but also the quality of the Roman Catholic chaplaincy at the college or university.

A particular course can - hopefully - offer great benefits for one's future success in life. However, it is an unavoidable fact that the guidance received in the practice of one's Faith during further education - a time when one is often vulnerable as never before - can sustain or destroy one in life for many years to come - if not forever.

The year 1968 saw great upheavals everywhere - not least on university campuses. Many young people were swept up in the new ideologies of supposed 'freedom' and 'permissiveness'. These included many young people who had been committed Catholics when they left school, but were ill-equipped in the knowledge of their faith to withstand the anti-religious (particularly anti-Catholic) stance of the new society they found themselves in. Sadly many left the Church, believing it to be out-dated in its teaching. The publication of 'Humanae Vitae' seemed only to confirm this, as the 'infallible' secular world never ceased to remind us. Very few young people actually read the encyclical, but the majority of an entire Catholic generation turned its back on its Faith, without knowing of the deep compassion (to say nothing of the bravery) of Pope Paul Vl that is so evident on reading it.

These young people are nearing retirement now - the promises and excesses of the 1960's now seem nothing if not an illusion.. broken marriages and a deep unhappiness are the lot of the majority.
I believe that many would turn back to their Faith now if they understood that Almighty God is still searching for them and offering them the life they rejected years ago...

Maybe we need a Youth 2000 for 'Oldies'.... !

Gabrielle

We Must Conform Ourselves to Christ's Church

In the early 1970s, many Catholics chose to ignore what seemed to be the 'impossible' demands made by Humanae Vitae,. noting that ultimately use of contraception was 'up to the individual conscience'... as Cardinal Heenan mentioned in an interview at the time (some would say his words were misrepresented - Editor). Few considered the necessity of an informed conscience in such a situation. In the 'Permissive Society' of that era, flooded with new secular values, very few people realised just how right Pope Paul VI was in foreseeing the disasters of a contraceptive mentality for society.

When Pope Paul died, much was made of the fact that a new Pope would 'almost certainly' change Church teaching on contraception - after all, the Church would have to move with the times.... It came as something of a disappointment that Pope John Paul II was such a great supporter of Humanae Vitae - at the time the only encyclical every one had heard of - but sadly no one had read - or one might have discovered that it was far more than simply 'the Catholic Church saying no to contraception'.

However, a (non-Catholic) journalist who had closely followed the events of the last years of the Communist Eastern Bloc who offered new light on the new pope's staunch defence of Church teaching.

Surely, argued the journalist, any bishop having Auschwitz within the boundaries of his own diocese would not be credible as a pastor of souls at all if, having reflected on the terrors that had existed therein, he did not conclude that utter and profound respect for all human life from conception until natural death was the only way man could truly save himself from the tyranny of an new and even more horrific ideology - however difficult or inconvenient this might appear to be to us.

Therein was the truth of Church teaching - our task has to be be to conform our lives to the requirements of the Church - for the Church to cease to guide us for fear of unpopularity would be disastrous for us all.

Gabrielle

Pray for Priests for Europe, a "Continent of Devastation"

‘In the 20th Century, great efforts were made to stop people believing, to make them reject Christ. Towards the end of the century, the end of the millennium, those destructive forces were weakened, yet they left a trail of devastation behind them. I am speaking of the devastation of consciences, with ruinous consequences in the moral sphere - affecting personal and social morality and the mores of family life. Pastors of souls, who engage every day with the spiritual lives of their flocks, know this better than anyone… Sadly one could describe Europe at the dawn of the new millennium as a continent of devastation. Political programmes, aimed principally at economic development, are not enough to heal wounds of this nature. On the contrary, they could even make them worse. Here an enormous task opens up for the Church. The evangelical harvest in today’s world is great indeed. We have only to ask the Lord, and to ask insistently, that he send labourers for this harvest, ready and waiting to be reaped.’ From Pope John Paul II’s Memory and Identity

In these final days of the Year of the Priest, please remember to pray for these ‘labourers for the harvest’. If you could spare some time to pray in the Good Counsel Network Chapel, you would be very welcome.

Gabrielle