If you are a four month old baby here in the UK, since your birth you will have lived through four Chancellors, three Home Secetaries, three Prime Ministers and two monarchs. On Tuesday the UK got its youngest Prime Minister of modern times who, also, happens to be one of the shortest – he’s just…
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Married Clergy?
For almost five decades now, the Movement for Married Clergy (MMaC) has been making the case for the ordination of married men to the Catholic priesthood (and also for priests who have married but wish to return to active ministry, to be allowed to do so). Over all this time, we have been trying to…
Homily, 30th Sunday C 2022
For the second Sunday running our Gospel reading today contains Jesus’ teaching on prayer. Last Sunday he encouraged us to be persistent in placing our needs before God. Today he speaks of the attitude he wants us to have when approaching God in prayer. He does this by telling a little story about how two…
Homily 29th Sunday of the Year C 2022
Once again, in today’s Gospel, we have St Luke presenting a woman as the heroine in a story told by Jesus. In this case, the woman, who is not named, is a widow. The word for “widow” in the Bible means “silent one” or “one unable to speak.” In the Mediterranean world of Jesus’ time…
Homily 27th Sunday C 2022
The question posed by the prophet in the first reading is the same as one asked in the last century by millions of Jews and other victims of the Nazis rampaging through Europe and perpetuating the Holocaust. It’s being asked today by Ukrainian Christians suffering at the hands of the invading Russian army. And it’s…
Homily 26th Sunday C 2022
The story about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) was based on a popular folk tale of the time. However, Jesus gave it a surprising ending to enforce his teaching on the Christian attitude to wealth and possessions. It is not suggested that the rich man had acquired his wealth…
Homily 25th Sunday of the Year C 2022
Last Sunday I quoted the following from the late Queen’s Millennium Christmas Message: To many of us, our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn…
Homily 24th Sunday of the Year C 2022
‘To many of us, our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.’ ~ Queen Elizabeth…
Homily, 23RD Sunday C 2022
According to the United Nations, about 40 million people are currently caught up in the modern slave trade industry. It is a multibillion-dollar business with estimates of up to $35-$40 billion generated annually. Despite being illegal in every nation, slavery still exists in many modern forms – the most common ones being forced labour slavery, forced…
Now the young are priced out of marriage
by Janice Turner in THE TIMES, 13 August 2022 We married within six weeks of discovering I was pregnant. There was no shotgun; we’d been together nine years and co-owned a flat; we didn’t fear the stigma of having an “illegitimate” child; the only guests were our witnesses and I would not take my husband’s…
Sunday Mass: Saturday 4pm, Sunday 10am 