in today's tablet. 

. . . . . .Many people have issues with the Catholic Church: the status of gays, the divorced and remarried, the abused, the terminally ill campaigning for euthanasia. The list is endless.

Most remain faithful and often feel disappointed, disillusioned and dismayed with the sloth-like slowness of the Church's response to change, but they recognise that the Church is semper reformanda, if not in their lifetime then in that of the community to which they belong. . . . . . Just because change is not forthcoming in one's own lifetime within the Church one should not assume that it will never arrive. We have seen how many of the concerns which provoked Martin Luther and alienated our Methodist brethren have lately been acknowledged and resolved.

The life of Christ should be our insight as to how the Church will be. Yes, it is far from his vision, but as St Paul reminds us "Now we see as through a glass darkly". We have to compete with so many dissident voices and contradictory images that it is a continued struggle to see the wood for the trees. But we must keep faith, particularly at a time when the media and other so-called influential and intelligent voices of reason decry the very existence of the Church. . . . . .

Daniel Kearney, via email

more again in the tablet this week about the new translation of the liturgy. I cannot comment because I have not yet heard it in situ and will not do so until next summer when I get back to England. I did read through the eucharistic prayers and was in two minds. Some things seemed better and some things seemed worse.  Some things jarred and others did not. But it is one thing to read through, and another to hear spoken so we shall see. The storm rages on on both sides. The Americans seem as unhappy about it as people in the UK going by this site.

But here also is someone who firmly believes the changes to be an improvement.

Perhaps the main change in the years since the vernacular was first introduced in the 70's is the degree to which people (both happy and unhappy with the new translation) are able to communicate their feelings, plus, of course, the fact that people now are less willing to roll over and accept - especially at the present time. Could the church have chosen a worse time to institute these changes? Probably not, but any big change is always a challenge . . . . .

for the moment I will keep an open mind. As someone commented in one endless list that I was ploughing through: "the words may change but the mass does not."

from a talk by Christopher Jamison, former abbot at Worth.

"Pope Benedict . . . . uses the image of the Court of the Gentiles, that part of the Jerusalem Temple that was open to all peoples, the part that Our Lord cleared of money changers: "Today too, he says, the Church should open a sort of ‘Court of the Gentiles' in which people might latch on to God, without knowing him and before gaining access to his mystery ... there should be a dialogue with those to whom religion is something foreign, to whom God is unknown and who nevertheless do not want to be left merely Godless, but rather to draw near to him, albeit as the Unknown.""

a new year's resolution:

you

a new year's resolution:

you.