Claire Short at Hinsley Hall

Hmmm. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water. For most of this week I've been at Hinsley Hall - the pastoral centre of the Diocese of Leeds - for a meeting of the National University Chaplains group. I don't want to give a whole report on the meeting. I have to say I found it difficult. Anyone who has read this blog at all knows something of my understanding of priesthood, the Church, the mission of the Church, and key moral issues. It's easy, as a priest, to presume everyone else who calls themselves 'Catholic' more or less believes the same things, especially if you get involved in movements and organisations which are pretty well attuned to where the Church is today. Well, it was a little bit of a shock to the system to be transported back to some of the attitudes that were around when I was in seminary. Although not stated, these are some of the things I picked up (not in everyone I hasten to add):

1. Priests not concelebrating Mass because it's not important to them to celebrate Mass every day, and moreover not wanting to offend women who were there as it would remind them that they cannot be priests.
2. 'Spirituality' being a rather disincarnate search for another plane not really connected to the person of Christ or the spiritual tradition of the Catholic Church.
3. The ultimate importance of counselling and psychology in the Christian life almost in place of grace.
4. The ministry of a non-ordained 'chaplain' is much the same as that of a 'priest chaplain'.
5. Life as continuous stress which needs to be dealt with.
6. The centre being me rather than Christ, and my needs before those of the ones I serve.
7. The need to pat ourselves on the back for all we have done.

Now, I say it was a shock to the system, but only because it's a different 'Catholic' world to the one I live each day. What really did affront me was a talk given by Rt Hon Claire Short MP on Wednesday afternoon. She had been asked to speak but not with a particular title. She spoke quite eloquently on the subject of climate change, living sustainably, etc. All very good really. Also very good was her presentation of her views on international aid and foreign policy. BUT, all this was overshadowed by her throw away comments in support of distribution of contraception and availability of abortion, and her views that the Church would be better (and churches fuller on Sundays) if the Catholic Church got over "its obsession with contraception and abortion" and ditched dogmas which separate it from worldly aspirations, and just became a place of simple living and justice. I was immediately reminded of the words of Bl Teresa of Calcutta "There can be no justice while there is injustice for the unborn". I sought to ask a question (or make a comment) publicly, but I was not given the opportunity. I did approach her at the end to make it known that I could not support what she had said, and she replied with some bad grace telling me that as a male I had no right to an opinion on abortion, and the arguments against it are "utter rubbish". Well, in the end we agreed to disagree - she was in no mood for a debate. Just exasperation with me. What truly affronted me was that not one other single person in that room (with about 40 members of chaplaincy staff from various Higher Ed institutions) challenged her on what she said. More to the point, there was one bishop there too who took it all on the chin. Indeed, not only that, but there was an atmosphere of near hero worship by some, and much adulation for what she had said.

Let me not be unfair. I like a maverick. I like the way she does say what she thinks. Though one has to be rather circumspect when such a person remained in a government during a war which she characterises as evil. But it offends me that such a person (who is honest enough to call herself a 'cultural catholic' and, although going to Mass with her mother each week, does not go to Communion, which is at least an honest position) is treated with near uncritical adulation by Catholic University chaplains, who should be at the cutting edge of the dialogue between faith and culture, and leading the moral intellectual crusade against the culture of death. I pray for Claire Short. I pray more for our Universities.