They're not all bad eggs!

Last week we had to say goodbye to a very special person. His name is Father Chris and for the last eight years he has been our Parish Priest. He celebrated his 75th birthday and retired in the same week and whilst we wish him many years of happy retirement, he will be sorely missed. I’m a cradle Catholic. In other words I had no choice as a child as I was baptised into the religion of my Irish mother’s family. My dad was not a church goer but promised on marriage to my mum that he would be happy to raise any children in the Church of Rome. I’ve had numerous shaky moments over the years when I’ve doubted my commitment to the Church. But I’ve always been drawn back, even when after my mother’s death I was unable to enter a church or sing the beautiful hymn, “Our God Reigns”, (it was sang at her funeral Mass), for a full eighteen months. Unfortunately not all Catholic Priests sit easily in their role. No one can deny that it’s a difficult vocation. Not all young men who takes vows of chastity, humility and poverty in their late teens or early twenties can stay true to those promises for the remainder of his life. Anyone who believes in God must by default believe in the Devil and for every good deed there is an opposite evil one. The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for, that’s true. Perhaps they have finally learned that by burying their scandals under the carpet for years they only made the problem grow and fester even more. However, for every rogue Priest or Religious there are thousands of good, pious and decent people who have sacrificed their own selfish ambitions to lead their flocks. They have given up the chance to have a family of their own and have sought to help hundreds of other families find their way in an ever increasingly bewildering secular world. Father Chris was one of these people. He encouraged me to return to the Church When I thought I had lost all hope of recovering my faith. I even toyed with the idea of embracing a new religion. Then I remembered the words of a fellow Catholic during an Alpha course several years ago. What would happen if you arrived at the Pearly Gates having abandoned your religion for a new regime only to find at the eleventh hour you had “backed the wrong horse?” Two months short of my 64th birthday, I think I’ll stay right where I am and take my chances when Saint Peter asks for my CV. First posted October 2015