Recently BBC4
showed a three-part series on Catholic life in England
with the simple title `Catholics`. The BBC
is often accused of having an anti-Christian and specifically an anti-Catholic
bias so it was going o be interesting to see what this series would bring.
The first episode was about the
life of the seminarians at Allen Hall in London.
Any worries that this was going to be a programme with an axe to grind soon
faded as the interviewer spoke to seminarians at various stages of preparation
for the priesthood. I must say I was rather impressed by the life at Allen Hall
and the attitude of the men and their teachers to the priesthood.
I was interested to see practical
advice in pastoral classes, clerical dress, Latin lessons the Ordinary Form of
Mass celebrated well and people who were comfortable with the primary role of
the priest being a sacramental one. It was good to hear a couple of the
students speak about their path to seminary.
The second of the series focused
on three children from St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School in Chipping, Lancashire
preparing for their First Holy Communion. Here was an idyllic view of Catholic
life. Fr Grimshaw (who many will remember as director of the English College
summer villa at Palazzola), is a caring pastor, a grandfather figure who read
Winnie the Pooh stories to the school children and was wholly clear in his
presentation of Catholic doctrine. I was somewhat alarmed by the low attendance
at the Good Friday service but otherwise all looked good: the parish appeared
to be a model of sanity.
Non-Catholic viewers may have
been worried that the only subject the children studied in school was RE but as
this was a programme about preparing for their first Holy Communion it was
reasonable to focus on their religious education. And I know one of the
teachers spoke about receiving the bread and the wine which always makes me
cringe when I hear it but from what she said at other times it was clear she
was not a heretic but had maybe fallen into that way of speaking which many use
which can be confusing to the outsider who may well only think the Eucharist is
only bread and wine.
The last episode focused on Westminster
cathedral and interviewed women who worship or work there. I thought it gave a
fair reflection of the opinions found among lay people today. The few young
women interviewed seemed happy with being Catholics. The older ones were less
so although there were exceptions: Rose, the sacristan, seemed very comfortable
with her Catholic life. Some of the older ones complained about the Church`s
teaching on marriage and contraception. However particularly sad was the lady
who won`t go to Communion because she married again eight years after her
husband left her and when her second husband died is now free to go to
Communion but won`t as she would need to go to confession and confess her
second marriage as a sin which is something she won`t do. Moving was the lady
who had had a stroke and had come back to Mass after sixty years of being a
lapsed Catholic during which time she had even managed to live in Rome for four
years and never go to Mass.
Westminster
cathedral is hardly a typical Catholic parish. I`ve heard similar remarks
being made about the rural parish in the second episode too. It`s not even at
every Catholic cathedral in the land let alone a parish church where putting
out the reliquaries on the altar for a major feast would be regarded as normal!
We also saw a priest setting off to say Mass alone in the crypt which again is
not a common sight in most churches. However while this was the most
challenging of the series as it was the only programme where signs of
discontent within the Church came to the surface it wasn`t done in a
sensationalist way.
Overall I thought this was a good
series which looked at the Catholic Church in a sympathetic light and, apart
from the unusual locations for the last two programmes, gave a fair insight
into Catholic life in England
today and some of the challenges the Church faces.
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