Portsmouth Roman Catholic

 Listening is a very important word.   It is used so often in the Church over the past fifty years.    There are people a confused person entering into the Church is told to listen to, and there are people from whom a resounding "Don't listen to him or her" is almost spoken in anger.    I fit into the latter category but I prefer it that way.    I do not advertise my blog too much for the followers I seek are not supporters, I prefer in England a small number of people to read my blog my detractors, for I know that they will always look in, just in case they can catch me out on something or contradict me.   I am a constant reminder to them of the folly of their ways.   I get good support from America, and there are three people in Portugal who constantly look into the blog.     I now have about 500 reads a month, so I am not a top blog by any means.   I once wrote a blog where overnight 800 people ...

 So where do we start?    Well it is difficult for many but my experiences over 50 years where I found myself in places I should not have been and listening to catechists being instructed in the Faith, gives me an advantage. But first let me go to a Teachers Training College which used to be in this Diocese.   There I listened to a talk which was then delivered by a Lesbian who was telling the upcoming teachers that the Church had it wrong on sex.    They also had sessions I attended where old women in 'bunned' grey hair would bewail their fate that they could not be a priest.   I met another few later in the local school who were attending a lecture by someone who had written a book, book writing was all the rage at the time, but he had discovered that priests do not actually change the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.  He became a travelling celebrity.   "Gosh, I knew that when I was about 7" I thought to ...

 The Journeying Companions Listening Speaking Out Celebrating Co-responsibility in the Mission Dialogue in Church and Society With the Other Denominations Authority and Participation Discerning and Deciding Forming Ourselves in Synodality It has been decided by the Bishop, and I am not criticising him, for this is the task he has been given, that every parishioner will be given t questions on a sheet with spaces given to answer them.   The majority will of course have no idea what the questions mean, although those who have been engaged in the war of the two sides in the Church, Catholic and Modernist, will be well aware.   The question of course is who will be allowed to speak and guide the people? Let me make a distinction.   Catholics are people who go to confession, who adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and wish to adore when they receive the flesh of Christ on their knees.   There is no law in the Church which says that they cannot....

 I  have been looking through some approaches to the parish synods that Pope Francis has demanded as part of the new church.     I already have a 'deja vue' feeling about it all.    You see my faith is not 'sola scriptura'.  I have learned from several Catholic Catechisms, that the Catholic Church follows the bible, which the Catholic Church is responsible for putting together, but also tradition, that means what the Early Church Fathers believed.    My parish was changed with the anti-catholic revolution in the sixties and seventies.    The Synod is supposed to help us attract other people into the Church but what this previous revolution did, was to divide the Church into two groups and there were fierce attacks on the Catholic Faith and indeed on individual faithful Catholics.   I heard an 'expert' telling us that the Sacred Species was not meant to be adored, and this was followed by an attack on the Blessed Sacra...

 And Jesus said to him "ONCE THE HAND IS LAID ON THE PLOUGH, NO ONE WHO LOOKS BACK IS FIT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

 It is happening again.   I have been reading of another organisation that is going to teach us new ways to connect the old with the young.    Well at least they know there is a problem, which is more than those who caused the problem will admit.    They just carry on pretending that they are following Jesus, and everyone else is to blame, these 'traditionalists' for example. But there is no new way.   "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" said Jesus "No one gets to the Father except through me" John 14:6. But wait.   Those teachings of Jesus on chastity and marriage, on divorce and abortion, surely mature adults living in the world must adapt themselves to the conditions of the world.      And where did I get my information from?    From a group of Catechists preparing children for Holy Communion and Confirmation.    I was treated like a fool in the midst of these intelligent people as they decl...

 Are you following the true Jesus?     Or is there a true Jesus?    I remember at a Ecumenical Gathering last year on behalf of Ecumenism I was handing out a leaflet which directed people, if they were interested in Christianity, to talk it over with some people in a tent who would look at your preferences and decide what kind of Christianity suited you, and what Church you should attend.   Now there are all kinds of Christians, some are described as very fundamental and take Jesus too seriously.  They do not believe in 'grey areas' when it comes to sin, and try to follow Jesus on matters such as Divorce and Adultery, since they believe that that is how they show their love for Jesus.  "If you love me keep my commandments".    Others see the Jesus of compassion.   The man who is all loving and merciful and merely guides us how to live our lives, but leaves it to us to make our mistakes as long as we worship Him and ar...

 It was sad that the Year of the Eucharist was largely forgotten when we had the Pandemic.    Then we had the Year of St Joseph, still at a time when the corona virus was sweeping the country.   So what will it be like in England during the Year of Our Lady?   But maybe I am getting ahead of myself.   Was there to be a Year of Our Lady?   Or am I just one of those nasty 'traditionalists' who believe there should be?   Certainly when I organised the 'Rosary on the Coast' about two years ago, I found myself in difficulties which were challenging since 'paying for people from other Basingstoke parishes to go on a coach to pray to Mary was not received charitably by some.    Even giving talks on Mary after Mass was an affront to many.  And at a local ecumenical meeting someone who told of how she prayed to Mary was told off afterwards.   So Mary is very much an 'ecumenical matter'. Yet how misinformed ...