Portsmouth Roman Catholic

Some years ago I visited a neighbouring parish to hear a talk on the History of the Bible. The speaker was one of the well paid diocesan bureaucrats. She started off by telling us how Cathoics had been forbidden to read the bible until of course Vatican II. I pointed out that this was not true and roused derision on all sides. There were people of my age present in the Church but colluded in this lie by their silence. She went on to talk about `them`. They did this, they did that, they decided the Canon, et. I asked someone to ask who she was referring to by `they` since I was out of favour, but nobody bothered. As I said in my title the whole thing was a scam and this scam was being played out in parishes where only those who had moved on to this kind of thing were given any power. The Catholic church was blasted for keeping the people in ignorance and in my parish to prove the point they invited a Protestant Minister to talk to poor ignorant Catholics. Great prophets were t...

I was baptised in 1937 into theCommunity of St Columba, Maryhill, Glasgow. Of course in those days we used the word parish but I am not sure that changing words actually changes reality. In those days where people lived was pretty static so it was the Church my Father had attended and his Father, my mother and his mother. I immediately knew it was somewhere quite special because when I entered before or after Mass or when there was no liturgy, the place was silent. It was explained to me that in that tent like object altar was the real presence of Jesus in the host and we should not disturb the people who were praying to Him. Sometimes I was taken from school to the Church to pray to and later adore Jesus in the host now displayed on the altar where it was surrounded by candles not only on the altar but in the sanctuary itself. It was an awesome sight for young people. To believe in the Real Presence presented no difficulty it was just something we grew up with. Then there was t...

What happened was exactly what happened at the Synod on Marriage a few weeks ago - dishonesty. Those reviewing what was said completely distorted the Fathers views. A committee which would destroy Catholic Education and bring it into line with ecumenism was set up and the purge began. A trusting Cardinal Heenan appointed Father Hubert Richards to run Corpus Christi College in Westminster and teachers and administrators were sent from all over England to be betrayed by this priest. Since the Devil was in charge it became a place of scandal with nuns and priest forsaking their vocations to marry. Indeed Hubert Richards himself ran off with a nun. Cardinal Heenan who was as trusting as the lay people eventually acted and closed the College but the damage had been done and teaching the catholic faith in Catholic schools became a thing of the past. In colleges and seminaries the new ideology was embraced and God help any of the faithful who quoted the Bible or the Catechism. They wer...

It was 1942 when I first started my Catholic School. A thin little chap I was terrified. But I soon settled in with the help of a very nice teacher called Miss Harkins. I was on he bright side so I picked up reading and writing very quickly. At 12 o`clock every day we would stop and say the Angelus and for the next half hour we would have our religious lesson. I loved hearing about Jesus and Mary, the lives of the saints, and we were taken through the stories of the bible. We also had the penny catechism and we learned to repeat the answers. In later life I was to be thankful for this since in difficulties the wisdom of the catechism comes back to my mind. One such occasion happened to my wife. We had a boy with learning difficulties who had to be removed into care. My wife suffered much and one day cried out in despair "Why did God allow him to be born? The answer came to her `To Know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the ne...