Netherhall News October 2011

netherhalloctober news 2011

firm in the faith world youth day 2011

contents Cover page: World Youth Day 2011 saw young people from all over the world make their way to Madrid, inspired by Pope Benedict’s call to build our lives on faith and get to know Christ better. Over 1.5 million people joined the Pope on 16th-21st August

CONTENT EDITOR Zubin Mistry MANAGING EDITOR, DESIGN & SETTING Luke Wilkinson IN-HOUSE CORRESPONDENT Simon Jared CONTRIBUTIONS AND ADVICE Peter Brown, Fr. Joseph Evans, Simon Jared, Paul Rogers, Luke Theobald, James Osborn, Stephen Pattie, Prakarsh Singh.

PHOTOGRAPHY Simon Jared CIRCULATION Netherhall News is sent by e-mail to current and past residents of Netherhall House. It is also available at http://www. nh.netherhall.org.uk/magazine/magazine.htm CONTACT US Would you like to be included in our mailing list, contribute to or express your opinion on Netherhall News? Write to: LUKE WILKINSON C/O NETHERHALL NEWS, NETHERHALL HOUSE, NUTLEY TERRACE, LONDON, NW3 5SA, U.K. or E-MAIL: alumni@nh.netherhall.org.uk DISCLAIMER All opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors concerned and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors of Netherhall News, of Netherhall House or of Opus Dei.

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regular features editorial

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zubin mistry on the sad story of bus 174

director’s notes

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peter brown on the joyful insomnia of wyd 2011

deadline for next edition! please send in articles for publication in the december edition by november 10th. we are particularly keen to feature more news from former residents, so do get in touch!

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13 firm in the faith: energised by wyd 2011

firm in the faith: hearing the message of wyd 2011

willpower: the way to development

blisters, galician style: pilgrimage to santiago

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22 youth of today s challenging stereotypes

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editorial zubin mistry is jolted by the story of an individual who did something terrible and the society that produced him

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n 12th June 2000, twenty-two year old Sandro Rosa do Nascimento boarded a bus in a quiet, affluent area of Rio de Janeiro brandishing a gun. He probably intended to rob those on board. Signalled by a passenger, a passing police vehicle intercepted the bus, which soon ground to a halt. Nascimento impulsively decided to take the passengers as hostages, though the bus driver escaped through a window. As the bus became surrounded by more police officers, passers-by and television crews, Nascimento made assurances that he did not intend to kill anyone while demanding a new driver and some weapons so that he could escape from the scene. The denouement of the Bus 174 hijacking was caught on multiple cameras and broadcast live on Brazilian television.

Nascimento grew increasingly jittery as his changeable demands fell on deaf ears. He loudly and repeatedly threatened to kill a hostage at 6pm, insisting that a passenger scrawled this in lipstick on the window. As time passed, Nascimento paraded up and down the bus in his cap, hood and sunglasses, grabbing hostages and placing them conspicuously in front of himself as human shields. (Members of the police later revealed that the state governor, who was watching the situation unfold on screen, had called the chief of police to insist that the hijacker was not to be shot and killed on television). Perhaps playing to the cameras, Nascimento shouted sometimes contradictory, sometimes cryptic messages: ‘I won’t be around to see it, but you will.’

The spectacle had an element of theatre about it and hostages were strangely encouraged to act the part. At some time after his 6pm deadline had passed, Nascimento staged the execution of one hostage, Janaina Lopes Neves, much to the horror of the huge crowd that had gathered nearby. Following his instructions, after he had fired his gun, Neves fell and played dead while the fellow passengers acted as if an execution really had taken place.

And ten minutes before 7pm, Nascimento finally and suddenly exited the bus with another female hostage, Geisa Firmo Goncalves.

As Nascimento walked away from the bus with Goncalves in front of him, a police officer armed with a machine gun snuck behind him. Nascimento happened to turn around. Seeing the officer, he flinched and fell to the ground, dragging Goncalves with him. The officer fired off two or three rounds, none of which struck Nascimento, as his colleagues swooped upon him.

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In the midst of the struggle Goncalves was shot four times almost certainly unintentionally – once in the face by the officer, and three times in the back by Nascimento as he fell back.

Nascimento was bundled into the back of a police car as baying crowds rushed onto the scene looking every bit ready to lynch him. The cameras caught this moment before the car drove off.

These were the last images of Nascimento alive. By the time the car arrived at the police station, Nascimento had died of asphyxiation. Subsequently charged with murder, the officers who had taken him into custody were found not guilty.

Like millions of other Brazilians, José Padilha had watched events unfold with bewilderment. ‘When I saw what was going on,’ he explained, ‘I was so mad because the hijacker had his gun cocked at a hostage’s head and the police weren’t doing anything about it.’ A film producer, Padilha quickly realised that the taking of Bus 174 was probably the ‘best-documented hijack ever captured on film.’ He obtained the footage from the various television stations whose crews had covered events and began sifting through more than 30 hours of tape. The searing documentary Bus 174 was the result. It told the story of those who survived the ordeal

above: Sandro Rosa do Nascimento with a hostage and those who tried to police it. Most of all, Bus 174 added a layer of tragedy to the remarkable events and the explosive juxtaposition of real life and reality television that was enacted on that day in the figure of the hijacker: Sandro.

As a young child, Sandro had witnessed the horrific murder of his own mother. He ran away from his home a bewildered boy and soon became one more of Rio de Janeiro’s many street-kids.

A naturally shy child, on the streets Sandro encountered a world of petty crime, glue-sniffing and cocaine. But he also encountered some friendships and adult warmth. Padilha managed to uncover two different videos of a young Sandro. In one, he is seen dancing in a capoeira group set up at a university. Another shows street-kids, including Sandro, and a social worker outside the Candelaria, a renowned cathedral in the city around which street-kids congregated, prostitution thrived and drugs abounded.

One experience deeply shaped him. At midnight on 23rd July 1993, a group of men, including some police officers, drove up in cars in front of the Candelaria, which was surrounded by scores

of street-kids as usual. Shots rang out and the children, including a fifteen-year old Sandro, fled for cover. Altogether eight were killed, the oldest twenty years old and the youngest just eleven.

The massacre was almost certainly retribution for the previous day when a group of street-children had thrown stones at a police car. Years later a social worker who knew these kids subsequently inquired into what had happened to the sixty-two children who survived the shooting: thirty-nine of them had been killed either by the police or the street. This was the world in which Sandro had been reared and schooled, as one of the loathed, despised street-kids of Rio, and in his scattered pronouncements during the hijacking he referred back numerous times to the Candelaria massacre.

Watching Bus 174 is a gut-wrenching and perplexing experience.

We watch the bizarre and unpleasant events unfold as we slowly learn more of Sandro’s life; we see the paving upon which he slept as a child, the horrifically overcrowded prisons in which he spent time for small-time misdemeanours, and the sparse bedroom in the house of a new-found maternal figure whom he had encountered months before the hijacking. Uncomfortably, Sandro is a

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figure of pathos, one of the city’s invisible underclass who came to the surface in a dreadfully conspicuous way. Bus 174 emphasises how an individual’s unjustifiable actions and the terrible consequences that spring from it intentionally or otherwise can at the same time become a revelation of a society’s hypocrisies and blindness.

I happened to watch Bus 174 after the riots that swept across London and other English cities in early August and, strangely, it emphasised to me that the riots ought to disrupt, rather than confirm, narratives. Images and words from those shocking, compelling days – from images of blazes, damage and violence to the grieving father Tariq Jahan’s moving plea for peace on the morning after his son’s murder – will be familiar to many. If unified by the chaotic energy unleashed over a few summer days, the riots were nonetheless discrete and distinct in different localities: the raw destruction wrought in Tottenham on the first night, the opportunistic looting which ransacked more than one London high street, and the simmering ethnic tensions in Birmingham.

“The massacre was almost certainly retribution for the previous day when a group of street-children had thrown stones at a police car” One noticeable tendency was the facile way in which the riots were simply inserted into long-standing narratives. Name your pre-existing gripe about contemporary Britain – welfare dependency, the cuts, multiculturalism, the Tory future, the Labour past – the riots were almost distastefully co-opted into confirming them. At root, most of us know that unravelling the riots is more complicated than that. They were not monocausal – on a sidenote, I am not entirely sure whether ‘criminality’ is anything other than a question-begging explanation for behaviour – and we are still awaiting full details of all those brought to justice.

The indications are that there are two (not altogether surprising) correlations represented among rioters and looters together with one tendency: they are more likely than average to have previous criminal convictions, more likely to hail from deprived areas, and are largely teenagers and young adults.

In the wake of the riots, with ashes still smouldering, the charity leader and founder of Kids Company Camila Batmanghelidjh invited people to become ‘curious’ about the dislocated world which so many young people inhabit today. Such an invitation might seem distasteful to some, a ‘soft touch’ perhaps, though it may help to think of the numerous young people who shared neither in the spoils of the looting nor in the anger of those disgusted by the looting:

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‘I got a call yesterday morning. The kids gave me a run-down of what had happened in Brixton. A street party had been invaded by a group of young men out to grab. A few years ago, the kids who called me would have joined in, because they had nothing to lose. One had been permanently excluded from six schools. When he first arrived at Kids Company he cared so little that he would smash his head into a pane of glass and bite his own flesh off with rage. He’d think nothing of hurting others. After intensive social care and support he walked away when the riots began because he held more value in his membership of a community that has embraced him than a community that demanded his dark side.’

above: A mosaic memorial to the Massacre of Candelaria One sad consequence of the riots has been a misguided, if understandable, tendency to problematise any attempts to understand what lay behind them in terms that go beyond indignation. To do so is not to justify looting, arson or violence, nor is it to reject the anger that many felt at what was being enacted on their streets any more than searching questions about Rio’s despised street-kids and inhumane prisons somehow justify Sandro’s hijacking of the Bus on the 174 route. There is such a thing as righteous anger. One thinks, for instance, of shopkeepers who lost all of their businesses.

At the same time, the fact of injustice does not render all anger righteous. As Batmanghelidjh realises, the riots brought to the surface things which many of us (I include myself ) cannot or will not otherwise see, most obviously a disruptive energy which threatens to interrupt the consent by which society usually functions and emanates from the lives of those whom we would prefer to remain invisible. In Batmanghelidjh’s words: ‘It costs money to care. But it also costs money to clear up riots, savagery and antisocial behaviour. I leave it to you to do the financial and moral sums.’

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director’s notes peter brown on the joyful insomnia of world youth day 2011

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ithout any doubt the highlight of my summer was the four days spent in Madrid in August in the run up to the World Youth Day. You can read all about the event, from the Netherhall point of view, in the articles by James Osborn and Paul Rogers.

From my own perspective, I was in Madrid from Monday 15th August to Thursday 19th, when I returned to London to allow Alvaro Tintore to travel out. Despite missing all the Papal events I was over there long enough to be greatly impressed by the huge crowds of enthusiastic pilgrims and the wonderful Madrid hospitality.

Something of both the hospitality and the difficulties of those days were evident in the events of the evening of Wednesday 17th, my last night in Madrid. On the two previous nights I had slept in the comfort of an Opus Dei centre near the middle of the city. But on Wednesday 17th circumstances meant that I had to spend the night at Tajamar, the school run by members of Opus Dei where 1,100 pilgrims (including our group) were staying.

At about 9pm school parents served paella to the entire group of 1,100. Huge paella dishes were set up down one side of a field as parents ladled out great quantities of food. In another section of the field other parents were serving drinks. It was an inspiring example of Christian hospitality and joy, and a logistical operation that seemed to pass off without the slightest hitch. Everywhere one looked there were people eating and chatting and little kids (children of the parents serving us) playing around. It was a wonderful sight. How great it would be, I thought, to be able to do this in London.

At 10pm a show started. A special stage had been erected in the school grounds and people finished their food and drifted over to see the entertainment. Others, already exhausted by the WYD’s first few days, started to make their way to their sleeping areas. The show went on for about an hour until, at around 11pm, an Indian group from New Delhi and Mumbai concluded the entertainment with an energetic dancing display. That, I thought, was it. It had gone 11pm and people were shattered. Indeed there was a general movement of people in the direction of the classrooms to settle down for the night.

But in Spain, I discovered, life doesn’t stop at 11pm. I can’t have got more than four hours sleep that night. The first thing to stop me sleeping was the heat. The temperature was still around 30ºC at 11pm.

Then there were the Indians who earlier had danced so wonderfully. Their chatting and laughing on the halfway line of the football pitch we were trying to sleep on was the next factor to keep me awake. And when they finally decided enough was enough I couldn’t believe my eyes when, at about 2am, a small group of lads started playing football on the same pitch. I was forced to retreat back to the classroom which, by then, had cooled sufficiently to make it bearable. It was no wonder that when the main group returned to London on Monday 22nd they were on a high but absolutely exhausted after a week of being with a million and a half young fellow believers from every corner of the planet!

Back in London term is just kicking off. We are delighted to welcome about 40 returning residents and 50 new residents. I hope you have a fantastic time in Netherhall and that in the future you will be able to look back, as many former residents do, and see your stay here as one of the best times in your life.

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above: the kind of night’s sleep peter brown longed for throughout world youth day below left: some people were lucky enough to sleep on the football pitch below right: the colegio tajamar in madrid

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‘firm in the faith’ paul rogers listened closely to the message of world youth day 2011

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acked tightly on Madrid’s Metro in stifling heat as we travelled to Cuatro Vientos Airport for the closing World Youth Day Mass with Pope Benedict XVI, it was hard to see anything other than the back of the person pressed up against you. The throng was thicker than even the most crowded of tube rides. Yet, suddenly enough space was made for a guitar to whip out and a thick Brooklyn accent yelled across the train, ‘Play something, whydonchya!?’ A few residents from Netherhall made eye-contact and so we began to sing our own made-up chant, ‘Oh, my Pope, Oh, my Pope, when shall I see my Pope?’ Formerly oppressed by the heat and discomfort the entire car brightened with the sound of merry voices. Smiles and laughter spread throughout the train, and once again the great joy of the occasion, the World Youth Day of 2011, surfaced.

A group of 28 Netherhall residents, current and former, and friends of Netherhall joined over 1.5 million young people to descend upon Madrid for the World Youth Day convened by Pope Benedict XVI from 18th to 21st August. WYD is an international event of faith and culture celebrated

by Catholic youths and open to all young people whether Catholic or not. The first WYD came about through the initiative and inspiration of Blessed Pope John Paul II, who in 1985 invited young people to come to Rome to pray and be together during the International Youth Year. At this event, Bl. Pope John Paul II entrusted young people with the cross of the youth, a wooden crucifix, which is still carried by young people to the site of every WYD. Following the great enthusiasm and number of youth who accepted Pope John Paul II’s invitation, every two or three years since 1985 there has been an international reconvening of young people to celebrate and grow more deeply in their faith in Jesus Christ. Catholics as well as other Christians and even non-Christians since that time have been coming to the various cities chosen by the Pope for the event. For the 2011 event WYD, the Spanish capital proved itself a worthy, competent and welcoming host.

The Netherhall group included pilgrims from the universities of Kent, London, and Exeter along with an outstanding contingent from Warwick University, who ensured there was no lack of Union flags flying through the streets of Madrid. The group also had a strong international flavour, itself reflecting a miniature cross-section of the WYD gathering. There were Netherhall pilgrims coming from as far as Malaysia, New Zealand, the USA, Poland, France, Iraq, and of course, some Spaniards too. Amid the throngs, flags from what seemed nearly every nation of the world waved and fluttered throughout the week in the avenues of Madrid and for the final two days in Cuatro Vientos Airport, where Pope Benedict presided over an evening prayer vigil and the closing Mass on Sunday morning. Staring across the vast airfield covered with young people from almost every part of the globe, the words of the Psalmist seemed to be realized before our eyes: ‘There are no languages or dialects whose voices are not heard; their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world’ (Ps. 19:3).

The city of Madrid had a distinctly festive atmosphere. Spontaneous cheers and songs would often break out along the city’s boulevards and in trains; countless banners were carried through the plazas, and draped in the windows of local homes and shops were Spanish and Papal flags.

While, as already said, the favourite marching song of our stalwart group was the repetition of the refrain, When will I see my Pope?, the more realistic (and indeed more fruitful) question should have gone, When will I hear my Pope? And in fact the true highlights of these days came from the words of Pope Benedict himself. In many of his addresses and homilies, the Pope returned time and again to a simple invitation to allow one’s life to be built on faith in Jesus Christ.

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above: some of the very international Netherhall group with the flags of their respective countries at Cuatro Vientos aerodrome as they waited for the evening vigil.

At his opening address at the Plaza de Cibeles, the Pope encouraged us young people to use the days in Madrid to get to know Christ better and to have confidence that trusting in faith, our enthusiasm and happiness, our desire to better the world, will always have a sure future. This future is secure because of what is contained in the gift of faith: ‘the fullness of life’ itself. Building our lives on faith, he said, was like the man in the Gospel who builds his home ‘on solid rock’; he becomes ‘resistant to the onslaught of adversity.’ He contrasted this with the person who builds his house on sand, who allows the essentials in his life to be ‘inconsistent’ and who follows fashionable ideas that take shelter in the here and now neglecting true justice. The Pope warned us of the dangers that lie in thinking we can lay the foundations for our lives on ourselves alone, allowing ourselves to be the sole judges of good and evil, of truth and falsehood.

The words of the Pope, clear and certainly always gentle, were challenging ones. While he knew he was addressing young people, there was an air of serious urgency in his message. He was, in fact, asking the young people of today to grow up quicker than perhaps their parents had – and even to know their faith better than these, a point he specifically made – but without losing the joy and enthusiasm so characteristic of youth.

Urgent in his message was the role young people must play if Europe is to rediscover its Christian roots - a theme that has been present in many of the writings of Pope Benedict in the past decade. These roots can be restored not through activism, even less still by violence but only through daily conversation with Christ in prayer, in the reading of Scriptures, and careful study of the faith.

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Part of the WYD events included three mornings of catechesis (a Greek word meaning ‘to sound deeply’) sessions given by bishops to teach about particular aspects of the faith. One Friday session was given by the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, who spoke of the need for Christians to promote in society an authentic atmosphere of religious liberty. Only when faith and religious beliefs are given the freedom to have a full hearing in the public square can society begin to be transformed from within by the message of the Gospel into a civilization of love.

At his homily at the closing Mass on Sunday, the Pope also highlighted the importance of cultivating our relationship with Christ within the Church. ‘We cannot follow Jesus on our own,’ he said soberly. ‘Anyone who would be tempted to do so ‘on his own,’ or to approach the life of faith with that kind of individualism so prevalent today, will risk never truly encountering Jesus, or will end up following a counterfeit Jesus.’ Instead, he encouraged us all to draw ‘support from the faith of your brothers and sisters, even as your own faith serves as a support for the faith of others.’

“There are no languages or dialects whose voices are not heard; their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps. 19:3) This support was felt travelling with a group, in which there was great camaraderie. Whether it was in enduring the Spanish heat or the stone-hard mattresses that we slept on, there was often ready good cheer that helped greatly to pick others up, especially late in the day.

Many in the group were impressed by the warmth of the Spanish welcome and the indulgence of the good people of Madrid.

Whether it was the friendly volunteers in their distinctive green shirts offering directions, or the local restaurant owner finding room for a table of 15, or the family simply turning on their garden hose to give a cool drink of water to passing pilgrims walking in the parching heat of the Castillian summer, the gracious hospitality of this generous people left an indelible mark upon the hearts of everyone.

Paul Rogers is doing a doctorate in theology at Cambridge University. He is a frequent visitor to Netherhall.

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top: on the way back from Cuatro Vientos after the vigil and Mass with the Pope - tired but very happy! middle: Quique, Pawel and James blaze the British trail right: The Holy Father arrived to a great reception. below: it wasn’t all prayer! Who could go to Spain with sampling its culinary delights?

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despite the sweltering heat, and a storm, James Osborn found himself energised by wyd 2011

appear to be cursed when flying on low cost airlines. On two previous occasions I have suffered delays and so it was no surprise to me that the plane taking Fr Joe, Pablo and myself to Madrid was delayed – this time for three hours. Having eventually arrived at the Tajamar School, our base for the next few days, at some time near 3am, I was woken up two hours later by a shower of water from some sprinklers behind where I was sleeping (given the heat, I was sleeping outside). Not an ideal start, but for all its minor trials it was the first day of a wonderful World Youth Day in Madrid as part of a 28 strong group from Netherhall House.

Having arrived so late, and lacking sleep, it was a superb decision to visit the house of the parents of a former Netherhall resident on Tuesday afternoon. The morning was spent in the centre of Madrid which was an early experience of the unique atmosphere of WYD, joyful, youthful and exciting, with cheery young pilgrims wherever you turned. The house was conveniently equipped with a swimming pool, superbly cooked paella and plenty of water, providing a perfect chance to catch up on sleep and adapt to the searing heat of Madrid. In the evening,

several members of the group went off to see the opening Mass of WYD but I chose the lazy option of returning to school to get yet more sleep – a typical Englishman on holiday!

All this meant that come Wednesday morning, I was up and ready to go. Our first attempt to join in the WYD activities was to try to attend the English speaking catechesis session. Despite our best efforts to get in, we concluded that rather than standing at the back of the church it would be a better idea to have our first sample of Spanish beer and tapas. This was gratefully received by those already starting to wilt in the heat! In the afternoon, three of us visited the Prado museum in the centre of Madrid, which lived up to its considerable reputation. It was from here that the group went to a get-together with Bishop Javier, the Prelate of Opus Dei, at a former bullring turned exhibition and conference hall. I was personally struck by the size of the arena, and, whilst on one hand somewhat wishing that I could visit for a bullfight, the get-together was excellent. Fr Joe provided the translation, and Bishop Javier provided insightful answers and encouragement on living one’s Christian life.

Thursday was to be the Holy Father’s first day in Madrid and it was immediately obvious what the plan should be: to get as close as possible to the road as the Popemobile passed by. Finding a suitable street corner, we waited for about an hour and a half for the Popemobile. In this time our group’s full repertoire was sung (‘O When the Saints’, ‘Yellow Submarine’, etc) but, once again, the joy of seeing so many people lining the streets, the atmosphere created and the sense of one big family shone through, as did the sun!

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above: Matt and Quique seek refreshment from the blazing eat. Menix looks on perplexed (or would he like a beer?!)

Following this we made our way once again to Cibeles, or as close as we could get to Cibeles, for the welcoming ceremony in Madrid’s famous square. Having found a suitable ‘base’, six of us set off through the crowds to get as close as we could to the Pope.

It was lovely to meet amongst the crowds several friends from England, to join in a UK conga line, as well as being refreshingly showered with water by the fire brigade (which was to become a regular feature of WYD). Concluding that we were not going to get a very good view, we returned to the base, and passed some more time in the bar with a very good pint, before settling down for the welcome ceremony. And despite the heat and the tiredness of a long day, the happy atmosphere continued on the Metro line back to Tajamar.

Friday started with catechesis in the morning led by Archbishop Chaput of the USA, and was typically excellent. After a delicious barbeque, we made our way to the Via Crucis. There seemed to be even more young people at this event and this time I didn’t even attempt to get close to the front! The Via Crucis itself was very moving and it was clear from this ceremony just how much preparation had gone into WYD. The Holy Father gave a beautiful meditation on suffering and there was a more reflective atmosphere at this event which noticeably contrasted with the lively atmosphere during the rest of the week.

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There was only one place to be on Saturday: Cuatro Vientos Airport for the Vigil with the Holy Father. Even walking up to Cuatro Vientos – and in the blazing heat crammed together with an enormous number of people trying to enter the airbase, this really was a walk – the sight of seemingly every national flag under the sun reinforced the family feeling and a true sense of community. So many pilgrims were there that the police appeared to abandon any form of ‘check-in’ to the event and once inside, having found our pilgrim picnics and set up our ‘base’, we looked forward to the vigil. It was at this point that I was presented with a pass to be on the stage for the vigil, and so my evening was made, and what an evening it was.

The lucky seven of us picked our way through the vast crowds until we made it ‘backstage’, and then onto the stage itself. This was the closest I have ever felt to being like a rock star, though this was no ordinary gig. Everywhere I looked there were young people, an enormous sea of youthful humanity, gathered together under the intense sun. But, the weather was to change dramatically as night fell and the blazing heat of the day would give way to a short but ferocious night-time storm.

The Holy Father eventually arrived to a great reception. By this time it was raining, and then during the Gospel reading, sounds of thunder were heard and the wind picked up. By now suitably wet, there was only one thing we could do and that was to start

up the chants of ‘Benedicto!’ I am convinced this saw us through and dried us out! The vigil was cut short due to the weather with much of the Pope’s speech omitted but, once we were able to resume, the silence during Eucharistic adoration and the continuous joyful atmosphere despite the weather will live with me for a long time.

Sunday morning was the first time I’d ever woken up in an airport with nearly two million people inside! The final part of WYD was the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father. The Pope passed through the crowds before the Mass and though Holy Communion could not be distributed due to the damage caused by the storm to the tents where the Eucharist was kept the previous evening, the Mass was made special just by the sheer number of people present. At the end, the Holy Father announced that WYD 2013 would be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and it then became clear just how many Brazilians had come to Madrid! On the walk out of Cuatro Vientos, we at last were able to oblige the Italians (many of whom had asked on numerous occasions to exchange flags) by swapping our flags with them, and thoughts turned to either getting home, or walking the pilgrim way to Santiago (see ‘Blisters, Galician Style’ below).

For me, WYD was one of contrasts. Just before we left for Madrid, London had witnessed scenes of rioting by disaffected youth, but in Madrid it was a delight to be amongst young

above: crowds of youngsters before the royal palace below: Young people filled Madrid those days bringing Christian joy over and underground

people infused with the joy of the Catholic faith. There was the contrast of the tiredness of the first few days with the infectious and high energy atmosphere of the Vigil and final Mass. It was a week to remember, and as the new academic year approaches, I can say with confidence that WYD has given me a big boost for the year ahead. Roll on Rio 2013!

James Osborn studies theology at King’s College. He is in his second year at Netherhall

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blisters, galician style with his pilgrim passport stamped, stephen pattie discovered that the journey is the destination After a week sleeping outside on concrete basketball courts and at an airfield near Madrid, three Netherhall residents teamed up with five Warwick University students for a pilgrimage in late August to Santiago de Compostela.

Everyone was tired in some form or another, except for Luke who had arrived directly from England after his brother’s marriage. He was the lucky one because a lack of good sleep is not the ideal preparation for walking 186 kilometres along the Camino de Santiago. This was no stroll in the Spanish hills!

However, after making our way north from the World Youth Day Mass with the Pope, we started with a brief overnight stay in the Opus Dei residence in Oviedo. The hospitality shown by the Spanish, here and throughout our trip, was very much appreciated. Even so, it is hard to imagine the delight on our faces when presented with a midnight meal and beds(!) after arriving in the early hours of Monday morning. We were then ready to undertake ‘The Way of St James’, as it is known in English, perhaps the most famous pilgrim path on earth, boasting over a thousand

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years of history and the most gorgeous scenery, particularly in its Galician and Asturian sections, much of which we followed ourselves.

A short rest did the group a world of good and we visited the spectacular Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo. From there, we got a bus to Grandas de Salime in western Asturias - our official starting point. Alvaro, never one to seek the easy option, had chosen the more challenging and less popular Primitive Route and the walk began with an evening stroll, straight from the bus, to a hostel six kilometres outside Grandas.

This was a great start to test out our 55-80 litre backpacks (and Quique’s 15 litre one). At our destination we had a meal and were presented with the choice of sleeping in tents or in the shed - where the dog was having his dinner. The shed was slightly favoured in a 60-40 split, but there were no options on Tuesday’s wake-up time: 5.30am. The reason? To avoid the midday heat and to arrive early enough to guarantee a place at the next pilgrim hostel.

Nonetheless, it worked out well. Following morning prayers, we were well on our way before 7am and 15 miles later, plus or minus a wrong turn due to Quique, we arrived in Fonsagrada. The local parish priest greeted us and allowed us to celebrate Mass in the church. He was a very kind man and even treated the group to a meal, Galician octopus at a local restaurant, which helped energise tired legs. The hostel there was more of an inn with beds and had a few more pilgrims than the first night. It was here that Matt would start to implement the ‘pilgrim brotherhood spirit’ which he had very much missed since his last Camino trek some years before. Alvaro also gave his first reflection on World Youth Day in a thought-provoking evening talk.

Fonsagrada is on the western border of Asturias, which meant that on Wednesday we moved into Galicia in the most northwestern corner of Spain. The description that was read out at the start of the day was that we had a flat fourteen mile walk.

The words ‘very stiff climb’ seemed to have been be left out, but everyone soon found out after the morning break. Although the distance was one of the shorter ones, it was the most physically challenging and how Father Joe got his six foot frame up the two climbs with his backpack is beyond me. The option of a siesta was gladly taken when we reached Cádabo Baleira!

above left: uphill was always the hardest, despite the beautiful scenery left: our lads with the local parish priest on the roman bridge opposite: the typical yellow arrow direction marker that guided us throughout our trip

above: the triumphant team just arrived in santiago. l-r: stephen, quique, menix, luke, vincent, matt, alvaro, fr. joe netherhall news 17

Cádabo was a pleasant little town and Father Joe concelebrated Mass in Spanish in the evening. Later on, we had our evening reading from a book on Saint Josemaria’s life and his escape over the Pyrenees during the Spanish Civil War – a bit steeper than our hills – which was a fantastic way of demonstrating the power of prayer and deep faith in dark times.

But we had our own dark time on Thursday. It was our 4am waking-up time (not surprisingly, at Matt’s insistence) as we attempted to reach the Roman town of Lugo - a whopping 18.8 miles away. However, with Quique setting a fantastic morning pace and Vincent’s boundless energy continuing through the later stage, we had reached the edge of Lugo by the time of the midday Angelus.

Later in the evening we had Mass in Lugo Cathedral. After getting our daily portion of Compostela stamps (pilgrims get their ‘passport’ stamped at various places on the way to prove they are really doing the Camino), we left to sit outside on the plaza and listen to an evening talk on virtues by Quique. By accident we sat on the steps leading up to the Bishop of Lugo’s residence and he stumbled upon the group! He gave us his blessing and wished us well for the journey.

Our fourth day was unfortunately dominated by walking on roads which started to bring out any little aches and pains we had begun to develop. It finished at Palas de Rei where we had Mass in a small country church. It had a lot of history, and the local priest lead us to an authentic Roman bridge, which was a dream come true for Classics student Matt.

On Saturday we finished at Melide, which joined us up with the French Way for the final part of our pilgrimage. By now, the blisters had formed, most of us had pains somewhere on the body and there were many more pilgrims. Again, we said Mass at a beautiful cathedral and Alvaro found a fantastic restaurant. He also gave another great talk which formed a part of the spiritual routine that no doubt benefited everyone on the trip.

Sunday was the penultimate day of walking and the longest yet!

It was a twenty mile hike and it was one of the days on which a morning coffee stop was essential. When we arrived in O Pedrouzo we had the sun on our faces and a handful of Italian scouts had already arrived at the lively hostel. We had Mass in Italian and were treated to music sung by the scouts with their rather unique version of the Alleluia, with hand symbols and all.

Finally we reached the last stretch of the Camino. Pumped up to power throughout the last day, Matt and Quique destroyed the section with a blistering walking pace! However, the group gathered to finish with the long walk through the city to the Cathedral together.

We made it in time to visit the relics of St James before attending the Pilgrim Mass at midday. Soon afterwards we received more fantastic hospitality at the Opus Dei residence.

There were lots of things to see and visit on the rest day before leaving and somehow Father Joe managed to say Mass for the

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group in the Crypt of St. James – where no-one else gets to go.

It was a fantastic treat to finish an enriching and worthwhile pilgrimage and all credit must to be given to everyone for the brilliant teamwork and to Alvaro for organising the trip. Also to Menix for waking Alvaro up in time so that he didn’t miss his flight!

Written by Stephen Pattie using notes from the daily trip diary kept with painstaking accuracy by Luke Theobald. Stephen studies mathematics and Luke economics at Warwick University.

right: the route of the camino primitivo below: alvaro blazing a trail with menix in hot pursuit

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willpower: the way to development if we want the capacity to spend more we need the personal strength to be able to spend less, argues prakarsh singh

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eligious paradigms almost always involve the concept of selfcontrol. That willingness to give up today for a better tomorrow. That ‘denying oneself ’ temporal pleasures leads us to appreciate the timeless virtues. But what does science tell us about self-control?

Psychologists believe that a person’s willpower can be measured through observation. This can involve recording how people behave in a laboratory setting. For example, a recent experiment in-

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volved people getting the choice between radishes and choc-chip cookies after they were forced to skip a meal. Those who were able to exert willpower to avoid the choc-chip cookies were able to exercise greater self-control in other areas of life too. Another experiment in economics involved children who were asked to resist the temptation of candy to get more candies. Those who were able to restrain were also more likely to be richer adults.

Psychologists have shown that one way to improve one’s willpower ‘muscles’ is to have more glucose because a brain short on

Thus, willpower is like an axe. It can get sharpened through activities like meditation and imposition of self-discipline (learning) but it can also get blunt through mundane activities when self-control is lacking (fatigue). Recent economic studies also find that increasing mental fatigue in a poor person’s life when he or she has to make several mundane choices may in turn lead to an (irrational) lower investment in human capital. In one of my field experiments on child malnutrition, I correlate how much ‘junk food’ a young child eats and the mother’s self-control as measured by her proclivity to save for the future. Although this is still a work in progress, I expect that the mother will ‘give in’ more easily to a child’s demands if she also likes to buy other items (like a TV) now rather than later, all other things remaining equal, for instance the average income of the family, location and education.

What determines a person’s willpower? Is it inborn or can it be acquired? These questions are still at the frontier of research, but it appears that those who are religiously and spiritually inclined show higher levels of willpower. Just as countries grow faster in the long run with greater investment into education, machinery and technology, we may show quicker personal growth if we learn to be more spiritual. The paradox here is that to be more spiritual, one needs to have more self-control. Spirituality and self-control feed off each other and this prompts the question as to what may be driving both spirituality and self-control. They can come through building of institutions. Where families enforce discipline and at the same time allow inner growth. Where there is selection: you do not want even one bad apple to spoil the rest. Where there is punishment for sinning and incentive for being disciplined. Where there is more stick for vices that are addictive and have greater spillovers. Where there are more carrots for giving up choc-chip cookies. Where these rules are clear to everyone from an early stage. Where there is a sense of community such that everyone can monitor each other. Only then, can we move towards a utopian world.

Yet again, the paradox is that in order to build such institutions, one needs enormous willpower.

glucose and sugar is likely to be fatigued and so more prone to take irrational decisions. In other words, to exercise candy control, one may need more candies.

The exercise of restraint can differ according to person, time, object and environment. People easily give in to temptation in certain dimensions, such as choc-chip cookies, and not in others, such as addiction-forming habits like drinking, smoking or drugs. Moreover, these can change over time and space. Often, these habits will have spillover effects on the surroundings. Thus, even a libertarian might argue that government intervention is necessary because individuals may harm each other by not taking into account the result of their actions. Several governments have banned smoking in public places. This has the upside of not only avoiding passive smoking but also strengthens the average person’s willpower who otherwise might have taken up smoking influenced by the habits of others.

The irrepressible Prakarsh Singh is now teaching economics at Amherst College, near Boston, USA.

right: Despite his debonair manner and popularity, the Cookie Monster has privately struggled with impulse control problems for many years netherhall news 21

youth of today? simon jared on the distorting lens through which young people are viewed today

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ave you ever gone on holiday in the UK? If the answer to this is yes, then allow me to make an assumption; that you were not a 21-year-old old male travelling with four other 21-year-old males when you went? Or, like me, you persevered against adversity.

At the beginning of August four friends and I decided that we deserved a holiday before we all went back to university to do our Master’s degrees. All of us had been working in various summer jobs until Friday 2nd September so we decided to leave on the 3rd and come back on the 7th September as these were the only few days we all had free. I have always wanted to go to Cornwall but with such little time we didn’t want to waste so many hours driving so we decided on Devon. Hence, I started looking for campsites and rental properties: apartments, cottages, houses, whatever we could get at relatively late notice. Campsites were the first on my list. I began online searches and soon discovered something: that the South of England is not very welcoming to groups of 21-year-old males. In fact, I could find only one campsite in the whole of Devon that would or could take us. But it was in a bad location and had terrible reviews.

My search then took me to properties. Normally holiday rental properties are booked months in advance on the South Coast but the lack of a discernible summer this year seems to have left many properties unoccupied. I began my enquiries, calling and emailing owners and agencies. But quickly I discovered that as soon as I mentioned the sexes and ages of my friends and I, the response was ‘I’m sorry but we don’t accept single sex groups’ or, ‘we only rent to families’ or, just ‘no’. It took two weeks of searching and enquiring before a lovely man who had a holiday home in Axminster, Devon, said ‘yes’. We booked and paid within minutes of his acceptance and had an incredible time walking, sightseeing, even sunbathing (yes sunbathing in England!).

We cooked together every night and cleaned the kitchen after every meal. We left the house in the same state we found it, the neighbour was friendly and never had to tell us to shut up, we didn’t have a house party, we didn’t burn the place down, break anything, stain anything, or leave the house smelling of booze, vomit or cigarette smoke. In short we had fun. And according to many people, therein lies the paradox.

I can understand why people wouldn’t want five 21-year-old guys holidaying in their house. If you’ve watched the TV or read a paper this summer you may have seen stories of a few young people (mostly guys) rioting, looting, burning, and committing every crime in between. In this country you do not see stories of

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more than 1.5 million young people going on holiday to pray with each other and Pope Benedict XVI in the World Youth Day that happened in Madrid in August. We get a bad press. I could tell the holiday-home owners of Devon that in our group of five we have three people with first-class undergraduate degrees all from top UK universities, two of whom come from Oxford and Cambridge. I could tell them that we are all doing Master’s Degrees (again, two in Oxford and Cambridge). But this means nothing. We are students. We are 21 years old. We are all guys.

Therefore we are not welcome. If I did not even mention that we were students, which was usually the case as most people did not ask, they were just as suspicious and often vicious: we were still rowdy youths.

I could have sent them CVs and personal statements complete with references but somehow I think this would have made little difference. If you experienced the distrust I did in trying to book a holiday, or saw how angrily society has condemned the rioters, how we young guys have been labelled ‘disaffected’, or have noticed how the good things young people do in society are largely ignored, then you may be starting to ask the same question I am asking: just how are young people and especially young men viewed by society?

The short answer seems to be that we are viewed as ‘youths’.

This word has become an umbrella term which has been used so much in the last few months throughout events like the riots that it has now acquired a harsh and biting tone. Ask residents of Tottenham and they may say we are ‘yobbos’, ‘thugs’, ‘gangsters’, or a whole tirade of increasingly ruder words. Ask people how they see students and they’ll usually say they are lazy and they drink too much. A lot of people will tell you we are spoilt and disaffected from too much exposure to video games, the internet, music, smartphones, social media, etc. We are viewed through one of several negative stereotypes.

Is this a new phenomenon brought on by the recent riots? Read some Victorian fiction and you’ll discover that more than a century ago people held young men in much the same light. If these inter-generational tensions are not new, then surely there is a problem somewhere. Either young men really are to be feared or the fearful people have a perception problem. But this is no binary issue. Some young people, like the 3000 or so who decided to riot and loot for a few days, or the students who spend their summers on ‘drinking holidays’ in places like Zante or Ibiza, are probably not to be trusted with a holiday home in Devon. But there are many who can be trusted for that and more.

above: simon jared (crouching) and friends challenge stereotypes by visiting beer rather than drinking it to excess below: a picture of the looting in hackney. this scene typifies the image young people have been branded with after the summer’s events.

“If older people in society think that all young people are rioters and criminals then they will develop a deep distrust of young people which unfairly discriminates against the innocent” It is important to try to expel these binary stereotypes. If young people think that the whole world is against them and that this is having a significant negative impact on their lives, then they act out. We know this all too well after the riots. If older people in society think that all young people are rioters and criminals then they will develop a deep distrust of young people which unfairly discriminates against the innocent. This can then make young people feel victimised leading to them acting out which then justifies the fears of the older generation, and so on, and so on. It is this problem that one of the editors of this magazine, Luke Wilkinson, is tackling with his new theatre company called ‘Angry Young Men’ as he explained in the last issue. I hope that

Luke does his part to change this perception whilst genuinely helping young men to find their place in society.

Young people always exist but they are also always growing up.

If, when we grow up, all of us treat young people with more trust and less fear then maybe in twenty years or so another group of five 21-year-old lads might just be able to go on a cottage holiday in Devon without too much hassle.

Simon Jared is doing an MA in Shakespeare Studies at King’s College London and The Globe Theatre. He is a former resident of Netherhall House.

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and finally...

A group of Netherhall residents travelled to Manchester in mid-September to get to grips with the key question ‘Can we trust the Gospels?’. The weekend course, entitled ‘Building on Benedict’, took place at our brother residence in the North West, Greygarth Hall , and also involved talks and seminars on how to put in practice the ideas of Pope Benedict XVI at the World Youth Day in Madrid in August. The Scripture seminars were led by Netherhall chaplain Fr Joe Evans. In addition there was a wide range of other activities including sport, a walk in the Peak District, get-togethers and a visit to a local pub. In the pictures we see Fr Joe with his attentive students and Ben, James, Matt and Fran in a moment of leisure.

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