A Message from St Paul to the Diocesan Pastoral Council

.......we will have none of the reticence of those who are ashamed, no deceitfulness or watering down of the Word of God, but the way we commend ourselves to every human being is by stating the truth openly in the sight of God.....(from My Previous Blog

 A Diocesan Pastoral Council is to be held soon to discuss how to bring baptised Catholics back to the Church.   It is another initiative by our Bishop that I applaud.   One of the 'notorious' things I have done in the past is write to the previous bishop drawing his attention to the falling Mass attendance which was taking place.  I mentioned that this would have serious consequences on Diocesan Finance.    The figures were published in the Diocesan Year Book.  The only response I got was that these figures disappeared in future publications.   A revolution was started in Catholic schools and parishes in the  seventies and although it proved an utter failure nobody wanted to take responsibility and of course it was all blamed on the values of the secular society.  But surely a revolution should have achieved something.

I recall before the attack on Catholic teaching in the schools and the refusal to teach anything to the children about the Blessed Sacrament.    The RCIA programmes which put forward a strange notion that you 'take people from where they are' , but the trouble was that when thy left the RCIA they were taken no further.   But four out of five usually never came to be baptised because they were taught nothing, taking someone from where they are implies you know where they are and in fact the majority were much further on and felt cheated.     What this really was about was ensuring that Catholic Faith was watered down, in the world of St Paul we had the reticence of this shame of Catholic teaching, deceitfulness, and an unwillingness to state the truth openly in the sight of God.   We must own up to the fact that many Catholics do not come to Church because they have never been taught the Catholic Faith.    Some of the programmes designed at that time unfortunately are still being taught.   Even Catholics are being still treated as simpletons.   Well we have ben told many times that we are stuck, we are immature, we are 'living in the past'  

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