My First Blog - February 1914

 I came to the Portsmouth Diocese in 1979 when I was newly married and I raised a family here. Great things were happening in the Church at the time. The Charismatic Movement was very strong in my parish and I willingly participated, and I was carried along with what was called `The Spirit of Vatican II`. I was probably too immature at the time to distinguish between Vatican II and what was called the `Spirit of Vatican II` but a number of things began to happen that shocked, and like all those who discover the difference, I became angry. The first thing was when I went to a rehearsal of the Charismatic Choir. I thought it was meeting in the Church, but when I arrived I found the parish priest sitting on the altar on his own waiting for someone to arrive so that he could say Mass.    I remained so that Mass could be said, but I asked myself why this particular form of the Charismatic Movement thought their choir was more important than the Mass? I then began to take a serious look at what was happening. The First Communicants were  taught nothing about the presence of Jesus and adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Saturday morning Mass followed by Confession was stopped and later hypocritical cries went up about people no longer using Confession. One leader of the Charismatic Movement told me he had once been a faithful Cathoolic but had now matured.    Meetings were held to demonstrate there was no need for the Pope. The revolutionary zeal took the same form as any revolution, the thoughts of sin, yes and we even worshipped Mary. But OK if this was just an argument that affected only myself and those who thought as I did then perhaps we would eventually come together again. Unfortunately the Fruits of the Spirit of Vatican II were also sown in the schools and since no teaching specifically Catholic was taught in any detail, and pupils saw the hypocricy that was taking place, Catholic Schools provided fewer and fewer Catholics after pupils left school. From 50 per cent leavers abandoning the Faith after school it jumped to 95 per cent. With the Church in this diocese losing 1,000 Mass attenders every year over the past 25 years and more the finance they provided was lost and the Diocese was facing bankruptcy. But still the `Spirit of Vatican II' people refused to look at the damage they were doing and were content as long as the Church was run in accordance with their wishes.   The first objection to this article of course is that it was the secular society that was responsible and who was I to believe I know better. An acceptable criticism. So let us go to Belgium. Belgium has 9 Catholic Dioceses and in 2012 there were in that country 71 young men training for the priesthood. 35 of these came from one diocese - Namur. I am tempted to talk about Namur but no it is enough to say that the Bishop Leonard has become a Cardinal who does not 'follow his conscience' but supports everything Catholic and indeed is persecuted by fellow Catholics for this reason. When he visited the 'former Catholic' University of Louvain he was jeered and eggs thrown at him by what I will call Catholic christians. In America we can see the same holding on to the Faith in Diocese like Nebraska and as a result the flourishing of vocations.  We do not really have to travel outside England to see the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The seminaries here have changed over the past 10 years. There are no longer `feminist experts` on he loose, and the young men coming forward to be priests are not of he `Spirit of Vatican II` but rather they are of the traditional spirit. That is he real reason why Portsmouth Diocese must change - there is only one way forward..