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ABOUT THE VOICE
In addition to the monthly newspaper, The Voice also publishes a weekly update of diocesan news called The Buzz. This is emailed to anyone who requests it. If you would like to receive it, please email us at the address given in the How to Contact us box below. In order to comply with the AOL rules for the sending of bulk email we need you to request us to send you The Buzz.

Purest Love
In his article in the January edition of The Voice entitled, “Save our Schools” Deacon Dominic Hyland comments, “What kind of love is it that does things from obligation?” I would say, probably the purest kind. The love that is best in us, cleaning, scrubbing, making “do,” rearing children, teaching, working, caring for the sick and elderly, clearing up everyone else’s mess in every sense of the word. This is the love that arises from duty and obligation, selfless love.
Maria Molloy
St, Anne-on-Sea

Clergy on Marriage
I was delighted to read in October's "Voice" that the Lancaster clergy had been on a course on marriage at Ushaw in October. It sounded very well organised and comprehensive.
My wife and I are members of a volunteer team that has been presenting marriage preparation workshops in the English Martyrs' deanery, Preston for about seven years. This scheme was launched in response to a request from Bishop John Brewer as a pilot for the Diocese. He was very keen that all parishes should provide good marriage preparation. The work is enjoyable and rewarding for us, and generally gets a good response from the couples attending. Many couples comment on the professionalism of the presenters and say they have enjoyed themselves.
The workshops, held at the Tabor retreat centre in Fulwood, focus on ideas and techniques that are proven to help to forge happy and lasting partnerships. Tabor’s fees and any other incidental expenses are paid for by a charge per couple on the parishes; it is up to the parish to decide whether to pass this on to the couple. Topics covered are expectations of marriage, communication, surviving and growing through conflicts, and commitment. All the presenters are given training, and supervision is provided by a small team of experienced people. To prevent undue pressure on presenters, a “booking agent” ensures that couples are booked onto a workshop at a time that suits them and that no workshops are under- or over-booked. Our own experience is that marriage is wonderful and at the heart of our spirituality. True, it needs working at to make it successful but I would echo Pauline Lavery's sentiments, mentioned in the article, that married love is an overwhelmingly positive experience. It would be great to see every parish doing more to celebrate marriage and family life as an important part of the Catholic faith.
Peter Towers
Preston

DIOCESAN RESTRUCTURING

Open & Frank
Happy New Year to the Voice. I feel that it is making a strong and essential contribution to the life of the Diocese. It can only be for the good that so many and diverse opinions are able to be openly aired. Long gone are the days, thank goodness, when a parish or congregation could be dictated to. Many issues face our Church such as the decreasing numbers of priests, declining attendances, a married priesthood perhaps, celibacy, evangelisation, contraception and so on. Open and frank discussion by all members should lead to a more involved and engaged Church in which honesty and integrity are the norm. Discussions and decisions taken behind closed doors only lead to secrecy and abuse of authority. Thanks to Bishop Patrick, the financial situation of the Diocese is in the public domain where it belongs but it is sad and regrettable that it is accompanied by redundancies and the apparent downsizing of the Education Department.
Rev Tom Butler
Fulwood
Preston

Getting away with it
Thank you for the Money Matters article in the January issue. Particularly telling is the statement that "This information [that the Diocesan administration had been helping itself to parish funds without permission and in breach of Canon Law] is new to the Trustees, clergy and laity." Has the obscurity of the published accounts been used to conceal the situation from us all?
It is not enough to be told the purposes for which the funds were "borrowed" (as if there were any realistic prospect of repayment!). I mean no disrespect to the unquestioned good intentions of the present administration by pointing out that after the practice has been so effectively hidden, neither can a mere assurance of its abandonment restore much confidence. We need to know how those responsible - never mind who they were - could get away with it year after year, and taking that into account, what is being done to prevent future raids.
Peter Wilson
St. Jospeh’s Seascale

“Full of Empty”
It seems an odd decision to hammer on about evangelising and then sack the staff that enables it to happen. Since Rome has been hugging exclusivity to its bosom and playing cat and mouse with lay involvement these past few years, we need the Education staff to help us make sense of it all. Education, finance and property will now be subsumed into the general pool of ...what? We have been focussing on our mission and indeed evangelisation starting with our own wells of ignorance. Now we feel we have no recourse since the Educational department is full of empty. We await the next mystifying decision with breath bated and loins girded.
Georgina Protheroe Beynon
Ravenglass,
Cumbria

Voice of Experience?
Fourteen years priestly work here after over twenty years as bishop in Hexham and Newcastle enables me to be much more positive than you and some readers about Lancaster diocesan finances. It took me over two years to understand 1970's Hexham accounts and explain them after publication. Three years after coming here in 2001 Bishop Patrick could not understand how central expenses were being met; they had consumed £8m parish and other monies lodged with the diocese; the report he commissioned revealed that.
Draconian measures immediately adopted have not worked well enough to leave the Trustees any option but to reduce the number of employees. They could not increase the overdraft nor ask the parishes for more than the current levy of 22 of parish income.
I remember insisting Hexham would only employ a much-needed third catechetical expert if we could certainly afford it. I presumed your finances were sounder than ours, your staffing numbers were more than we could afford. (Even a gift of £20,000,000 would not avoid some central economies in the long run). The Charity Commission insistence on combining parish and diocesan finances in the annual accounts had disguised your scale of loss for too long. Our Bishop adopted a simpler way of life before the problem arose, so I hope we will not treat him and the Trustees like Eastern rulers who used to punish the carriers of bad news but do as they ask, 'Please bear with us in the meantime'.
Hugh Lindsay
Boarbank Hall,
Grange over Sands

Not in My Name
The hoped for joy and peace of this Christmas season, was overshadowed by sadness at the news of the final demolition of the Education Centre, as we knew it. The two page centre spread in The Voice (January) did nothing to help me to understand the ‘why’ or the ‘how’ of all this. Diocesan finances are a closely guarded secret. Is the provision of professional expertise for schools and for adult formation not considered to be a legitimate charge on diocesan funds while we pour money into buildings used only for 3-6 hours a week?
We hear much talk of evangelisation in a world where many are searching for meaning. Evangelisation by whom, where, how? Surely in the home, the school, the work place, in places of leisure and through parish Sacramental programmes, by lay people. The interface is outside the walls of the church building yet we have cut off the funding to a source of formation for the laity. Where are these evangelists to turn for help in their task? Only clerical education for the very few survives.
In Lancaster we have taken a regressive step back to the days when the only recognised role of the laity was to be there. Once again decisions have been taken and nothing we say can make any difference. I cannot, however, by silence, imply agreement or consent.
June Rogan
Blackpool

Lost for words
The longer I live the more I feel that the church does not really understand or come to grips with the lives and aspirations of lay people who through their Baptism share in the risen life of Christ and who look for help in living out their Christian vocation. Offering just such help was the vision that lay behind the establishment of the work of the Diocesan Education Centre.
Of course the vision was not accepted by all in our diocese and some parishes did not avail of what was on offer. Was it a problem that the experts were mainly lay and some of them women or was it a deep-seated feeling that with some that ‘Father knows best’ always.
In any case that vision now seems to have changed. It is very difficult to say anything useful at present. Decisions have been made which are not going to change and as far as some are concerned, to criticise is a disloyal act. How very sad! Sad for those lay persons immediately involved, for no matter how generous the severance terms to lose ones job is a traumatic event in life. Sad for the many, the very many, for whom the centre was such a source of support in their spiritual lives and of help in their search for the Kingdom of God.
May we at least hope that the Spirit of Vatican II is not being lost and that the vision of the church as ‘People of God’ rather than ‘Institution’ will prevail!
Eddie Rogan
Blackpool

A Question of Loyalty 1.
Two issues arise from the current debate. Firstly, many people, including some anonymous clergy, have responded to a decision that they cannot alter with non-constructive comments. These people are only interested in cooking up a storm; they have no need to comment publicly on diocesan politics and in remaining anonymous do not even leave themselves open to a response.
Secondly and perhaps more concerning, having already encountered an article in The Tablet, I was later shown a two page spread in the Blackpool Gazette. The article, with a larger than life Bishop Patrick super-imposed on Blackpool's promenade, was the largest I have seen the Church achieve in a local paper for a long time. How wonderful it would be if we could spread the Gospel with large articles in the Blackpool Gazette, how sad is it then that somebody felt the need to give this negative story to the paper complete with a photo of Simon Stewart to add a little extra drama? As a Church we have so little positive press coverage, it is very sad that we should feed the papers with stories that have nothing to do with who we are and what we stand for. They will not know we are Christians by our politics.
Michael Allman
Warton

A Question of Loyalty 2.
I have been an ardent supporter of the VOICE. I see it as an essential communication medium in the diocese; a vehicle for knowing and understanding the mind of the Bishop and the diocesan strategies for evangelising; ensuring that the laity sees the diocese speaking with one voice with an opportunity for feedback. I have appreciated the robust and entertaining style of its editor. Recently I have become disillusioned, detecting a personal agenda in the editorial comment, at odds with the direction that the Bishop/Diocese is taking to resolve the problems of it in effect being bankrupt. The VOICE is not in the same category as other publications where the editor and his agenda dictate the success or failure of the publication. If the VOICE cannot be loyal and supportive where else will we find this loyalty? I don’t expect uncritical comment; I do expect even-handed and objective comment where opposing or critical comment is sustained by sound argument and a positive contribution to the solution of the problems. The VOICE is not the vehicle for personal agendas or anonymous clerical or lay criticisms: the VOICE does not accept anonymous letters, rightly. More than that, when intemperate and disloyal editorial comment is given to a Catholic national weekly it is time to call a halt. I think we deserve an explanation.
C.A.Ivinson, K.S.G.
Wasdale, Cumbria

Award of the Halo
Simon Stewart should be declared Venerable straight away. If he remains a Catholic, he should be declared Blessed. And if he can persuade any lay person to accept a paid job with the diocese in future, he should be canonised.
John Echevarria.
(Parish of Our Lady of Lourdes,
Carnforth)

Need for Dissent
Of the people I know recently declared redundant by our diocese, I know the two Simons, Stewart and Thorrington, very well. They have both been dedicated to the spiritual life of our church and I have little doubt that the others have too.
For these to be treated in the way they have been is wrong and un-Christian. It shows our church to be uncaring and more concerned with the false god of finance. These are hard working professional people and do not deserve to be treated in the way they have been. It is becoming increasingly clear that involvement of lay people is less than welcome in this diocese.
We hear so much about having to look to the future when there will be fewer priests. But the message here seems simply to be that we will be expected to be at the beck and call of clergy. Jesus clearly advocated that those in authority should be servants and it would appear this diocese has got that message back to front – it is the lay who are expected to be servile and do as they are told!
Frank Miller
Garstang

Turn again, please
Surely it cannot be true that people of such calibre and experience in our diocese are, more or less, thrown out of work after the quality and service they have given over the years. If the problem is only a matter of finance, I for one, would be willing to give £1 per week to keep them going. I am sure that many more would provide enough financially to keep these excellent workers. I beg the powers that be to reconsider the decision.
Margaret O’Neil,
Fulwood, Preston

Short sermons needed
Over the last few years your paper has had complaints concerning the length of Sermons. The guide from the bishop is approx 6 mins. Mind you I know he's Irish but his letters last for a lot longer, we are given one and told to read it at home. My local church at Christmas day, the Priest went on and on, 10.30am mass. No consideration to the fact that the Women had to cook lunch and other members of the family would be arriving. And children were restless. When are these Priests going to come out of their own little world and realise we don't want long boring sermons. They are emptying their own churches but won't listen. Its not the people in church that need telling to go to church its people outside, let them go knocking on a few doors to try to get non-worshippers back to church like in the old days, these Priests had the guts to do this.
My daughter and her friend sometimes go to a catholic church in Penwortham to Sunday Mass, note I say sometimes, this depends who the Priest is on the day, she'll get a phone call from her friend, not going this week, its so and so, the one that goes on and on. So they really don't do themselves any favours Short Sharp and to the Point is what we want. If they want to rave get a Box and stand on Preston market then I can at least walk away when I have had enough. And maybe we will get a few young ones back to Mass.
P.W.Molloy
Preston