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

11 responses to “The Pink List”

Ryan

23/10/2011

Ooh, you’re in some illustrious company – there are worse places to be than beneath John Barrowman!

Congratulations 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  He and I are almost the same age, Ryan. It is why we look so alike.
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan
    
    23/10/2011
    
    Made more impressive by the fact that the praepostorial look is presumably, unlike Mr Barrowman’s, all-natural 😉
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      23/10/2011
      
      Mostly natural.
      
      Reply
Rosemary Hannah

23/10/2011

Yes, I’d quite like to be under … sorry, got lost in thought there. Well done, Kelvin, and yes, more church people, please. As long as they spell your name right, that is all that maters ….

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Revd Ross Kennedy

23/10/2011

I don’t think the paper got it wrong at all. St Mary’s is Glasgow’s Cathedral (that is if we ignore the chapel by the Clyde). The C of S place was a cathedral but not any more – it hasn’t had a cathedra for hundreds of years and so is merely a parish church now (nothing wrong with that). The C of E has done away with provosts (they were the head of the cathedrals which also functioned as parish churches). The boss priest in all the
C of E cathedrals is now called the Dean. And so it should be in SEC because the title ‘provost’ is the designation accorded to the head of toon cooncils.
Yes I know we have deans in the SEC dioceses but they could be retitled as archdeacons which is what (I think) is their function.

As to the pink list…how times have changed….. years ago it would have been called the black list! (sorry!)

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  Times have indeed changed, Ross. Something which is to be celebrated.
  
  I’ve no desire to be a Dean. Deans in Scotland do something quite different to what I do, and Provost described me nicely. The title of Dean is also used in secular life now too, in education, as is the term Rector.
  
  There are four cathedrals in Glasgow. St Mungo’s, St Luke’s, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s, each no doubt dearly loved by their people.
  
  Reply
Ryan

24/10/2011

Archdeacon is a great title tho, suggesting to the layperson that it involves deacons raising one eyebrow and making drily witty comments.

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chris

24/10/2011

I’d’a thunk you might have been a ‘national treasure’ by now…maybe next year. 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  24/10/2011
  
  I’m a National Treasure round about this blog. That’ll do for now.
  
  Reply
Uncle Al

25/10/2011

I seem to recall that at Coates Hall back in the very early 1970s the student charged with providing services at the Mission Church in Dean Village was known [tongue very firmly in cheek] as the Archdeacon of the Water of Leith. A resounding title but no gaiters came with it.

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