What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Hope of my Roman Catholic Friends

25/02/2013

I know so many Roman Catholics. I minister to a lot of Roman Catholics. A number of Roman Catholics minister to me, bringing me life and joy and love.

Those relationships mean that I live with their hope.

The news that the pope was going to retire brought that hope out into the open. It is an extraordinary moment where a conservative pope has, in his last major act, redefined the papacy as we know it for our lifetimes. From now on, those who select a pope will not presume that person must go on through the weariness of old age to death. They have new expectations that could well lead to younger popes and that makes the hopes of those I love rise.

And that hope is almost unbearable to behold.

I’ve just heard that Keith Patrick O’Brien has resigned in the wake of a number of allegations being made against him by three priests and an ex-priest. (Such talk has been doing the round privately for some time). I understand that he disputes these allegations.

The Roman Catholic Church needs now to say how these allegations will be investigated. The now ex-Cardinal’s resignation doesn’t remove the need for those who have brought these allegations to hear the truth spoken, whatever that truth may be.

Though I am not immediately with Roman Catholic friends, I can feel their hope rising for a different kind of leadership.

The opposition that the Roman Catholic Church has made to gay couples being able to be married has been pretty vile and some things that have been said have come from the mouth of Keith Patrick O’Brien who was named a Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year in 2012. If these allegations are proved to be true, people will call him worse than that this time. If not, then he has been unjustly and horribly accused.

I take no pleasure from his departure and I don’t think I know anyone in any of the churches who will. This brings none of us any good.

Today I bind my prayers with the aching hopes of so many Roman Catholics I love. And I leave all I say and think about these things there.

hope, Keith Patrick O’Brien, Pope, Roman Catholics

6 responses to “Repeat post – wiki video”

Tim

20/02/2009

Ah goodie. I’m sure you’ll let us know how it goes 🙂

(What an *awful*ly annoying voice-over on the video…)

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Erp

20/02/2009

Do you have the critical mass of people times effort/person to get the wiki going?

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Stewart

20/02/2009

Sounds a wonderful idea – now what topic can we use and discuss to improve our worship.

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kelvin

20/02/2009

That is a good question ERP. At the moment, the wiki is really working as an intranet. (Or perhaps an extranet). It means that several of us can work together on a page without being physically located together.

One of the things that are very prevalent in churches is the presence of dispersed teams. Keeping everyone one track by e-mail can be quite hard.

A good example of what we are doing at the moment, is using a private, protected part of the wiki so that I can work on wedding bookings with our weddings organiser.

In time, and with help from others, I will be developing various bits of cathedral documentation. We are good at doing things in St Mary’s but less good at writing them down.

Thus, a liturgical manual is one of the goals of the wiki project.

Also things like “How to organise a ceildih in St Mary’s” and “How we organise champagne for Easter Day”.

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Lay clerk

20/02/2009

“How to choose the post-Evensong pub”

And the answer to both the ones you posed is obviously “get the choir to do it”!

😉

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Robin

21/02/2009

I remember signing up for “St Mary’s Hub” a while back, but I didn’t record its URL, and I can’t now find it. Is that the wiki you’re talking about, or are you now starting from scratch with something different?

I’m just curious to see how you’re using the technology, in case there’s anything we can learn and apply up here.

Robin

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