Dear faithful people of Arundel & Brighton
I am writing this on December 12 – that’s seventeen or eighteen days ago, depending on which Mass you’re at. I have to do this so that it can be copied, put onto tape or disc, and sent to the parishes. And all this has to be done before the Christmas break begins.
It’s a bit of a risk, because things might happen in the meantime that ought to be mentioned and just won’t be. On the first weekend in January, 2005, when I sent out a letter like this, it must have seemed that I hadn’t heard of the tsunami that had killed so many thousands on Boxing Day. We don’t know what will happen next, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother planning for the future. The gospel is full of parables about planning – the most obvious one is the story of the wise and foolish virgins, and then there is the man who started building a tower.
So, how do we as a diocese plan for the future? We have been doing a great deal of that the past few years, principally in the restructuring of parishes to use fewer numbers of priests most effectively. But what of other plans? People have, on occasion, asked if I have a ‘vision’ for the diocese. This assumes a) that there hasn’t been one before now, and b) that I have some sort of inspiration denied to all others. Neither of these is true. But we do need to have a framework to use for our preaching of the gospel to meet the particular needs of our time and society.
For a few years now a small group of people in the pastoral centre in Crawley have been working on plans for a diocesan pastoral council. They looked at all sorts of other models all over the world, and we discussed all sorts of details in such a plan. Who would be on it? What would be the best size for such a group? How would it be chosen? Who should be represented? How often should it meet?
After a great deal of work, we have come to the point now when we can say that we plan to launch the diocesan pastoral council on the weekend on Pentecost, on Saturday 10 May, 2008. There will be lay representatives from each deanery, representatives from the schools, from the religious communities of the diocese, and the clergy, priests and deacons. Its first agenda item will be to determine its own agenda. In other words, nobody has set an agenda for it. It will decide how often it will meet, and it will suggest what the diocese’s priorities ought to be.
Someone asked me if we needed a group like this, and I said that I thought I did. I might have my own idea of priorities for us, but they might not be the most appropriate ones in all cases. In some ways it will be a model of the family of the diocese sitting down together to make plans for tomorrow.
I mention the word family partly because of today’s feast of the Holy Family. In the second reading, St Paul urges us, "Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom." That is an especially important part of the role of the church today. And although Paul doesn’t use the word family in today’s reading, he does talk of wives, husbands, parents and children.
And that role of teaching and advising is all the more important today because of the way in which the notion and reality of family is changing in our society, or has changed already. And if we feel that the family is under threat, we need to be clear enough in our own minds about just why that is a bad thing. It can’t be simply because the family has been around a long time, and it would be a pity to lose it now. It must be more to do with more profoundly important things: they are the raising of children, and the role that the family has in determining the shape of our society. And if it true that there is something of a crisis facing our society today, it is inextricably linked with what is happening to the family. And if many young people are under-performing in school and seeing no purpose or value for themselves, then this is not something that can be dealt with simply by setting more targets, producing more tests and tables, and reforming the curriculum. Teachers should be left to teach, but they can only be effective if a child has a stable base on which he or she feels secure and confident.
And some of the treats to the identity of the family might not appear immediately as family issues. Proposed legislation regarding research into embryos that are part human and part animal might not seem a family issue, so what are our objections? The sort of objection that is often pasted across the front page of the tabloid newspapers is "Scientists playing at God," or "New Frankensteins take over." But our objection to an idea like this can’t be one of simple moral repulsion – in other words, it’s not enough not to like the thought of it. Nor is "playing at God" a particularly strong objection. What is at stake, instead, is what we think we mean by ‘humanity’. What makes a human being, and why is that human being so important? The reason why some people think that the human identity is not very specific or important is that they don’t connect it with God. We do.
God’s care for the family of Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus is beautifully expressed in today’s gospel. Three times Joseph dreams and is told what to do in the dream: the first two times Matthew says that an angel appears in the dream. There is no need to say it the third time.
Perhaps we need to dream a little more and listen to that voice telling us what to do to protect our families and our children. The answer is not going to be found in the laboratory. The voice of the angel of God finally directed the Holy Family to where it was going to be safe for the child to grow, and the angel will do the same for us.
I hope that it is a good year for us all, that as the family of the diocese will we grow stronger, healthier and wiser.
With all good wishes.
Bishop of Arundel & Brighton
