Position Papers – December 2018

Number 524 December 2018 €3 · £2.50 · $4

A review of Catholic affairs

What are you waiting for?

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

Reflections for Christmas PAT HANRATTY

Book: Inspiration from the Saints FR DONNCHA Ó hAODHA

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Number 524 · December 2018 Editorial

by Fr Gavan Jennings

In Passing: Rudegund

by Michael Kirke

What are you waiting for?

by Bishop Robert Barron

A transit of common sense

by Carolyn Moynihan

The First Sunday of Advent

by Fr George Rutler

Reflections for Christmas 2018

by Pat Hanratty

Books: The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a post-Christian Nation

by James Bradshaw

Books: Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh, Inspiration from the Saints

by Fr Donncha Ó hAodha

Films: Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch

by Joseph McAleer Editor: Assistant editors: Subscription manager: Secretary: Design:

2 6 12 19 23 25 28 35 38

Rev. Gavan Jennings Michael Kirke, Pat Hanratty, Brenda McGann Liam Ó hAlmhain Dick Kearns Eblana Solutions

Contact us The editor, Position Papers, P.O. Box 4948, Rathmines, Dublin 6 email: editor@positionpapers.ie; website: www.positionpapers.ie Tel.+ 353 86065 2313 For new or renewed subscriptions contact: info@positionpapers.ie

Articles ©Position Papers, who normally will on application give permission to reproduce gratis subject only to a credit in this form: ‘Reprinted, with permission from Position Papers, Dublin’. Please note: the opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect those of the editor nor of the Opus Dei Prelature of which he is a priest.

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Editorial

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t Luke reports how at one point in a journey which Christ was making from Galilee in the north southwards towards Jerusalem, they passed through a Samaritan village which refused to receive him “because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (such was the mutual hostility between Jews and Samaritans). On seeing this James and John asked Jesus if they should call in an “airstrike” and zap the village: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” The response they received was a rebuke from Jesus, and undoubtedly an interior sigh from Jesus thinking that he had a long way to go with these men. The “airstrike” reaction to the stubborn rejection of Christ is a perennial temptation, and I would suggest it has been on the increase since our terrible abortion referendum result last May. It is the temptation – which I suspect we all feel – to grow bitterly dismissive of the establishment figures set on dismantling the last vestiges of our Christian heritage. And with the temptation comes a grim defeatism: the conviction that there is no way back for our little country, that after a millennium and a half the Christian project has finally floundered in Ireland.

After the “airstrike” comes the circling of the wagons, or maybe the digging of a catacomb in which to sit out the final days of our tottering civilisation. This is the temptation to disengage from a society which seems so to want the final disappearance of Catholics from its midst. The hostility is not violent of course – at least here in Ireland – but is grindingly relentless. The media commentaries during the visit of Pope Francis to the country in August is a case in point: even non-practicing friends of mine were startled by the wall-to-wall denigration of the Catholic Church during those bitter-sweet days. What happens on the air waves is a constant feature of our universities, and other institutions I’m sure as well. People young and old speak of the unabashed hostility towards all things Catholics voiced in their social circles.

In the face of this, one could be forgiven for bowing out, for disengaging from social life to spare oneself all that unpleasantness.

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We feel that there’s nothing to be done in a society which appears to have become tone deaf to anything beyond an animal existence; all that is left is to disengage from an irredeemably sordid and hostile world. But for the Christian, this is simply not an option. Christianity is a religion of engagement with the world, for the simple fact that it is the religion of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is “the greatest love story ever told”. Each Christmas we try to get our heads around it: God comes into our dark, savage little world. But God doesn’t come “holding his nose” as it were, he comes into this world loving it. What a declaration of love is contained in the Gospel line: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

And what a world God declares his love for: the world of the bloody Roman amphitheatres, of Corinthian brothels, of human sacrifices on Irish bogs, of Julius Caesar’s gruesome wartime atrocities in Gaul…. God’s declaration of love for the world is not conditional on a big clean up. That kind of love we might be able to get our heads around, but such love for such a sinful world surpasses our comprehension. And in Bethlehem Christ came into just such a world. And God’s excessive love pays off; from the very outset it melted the cold hearts of sinful men, and has been melting such hearts ever since. Christ does not so much abolish the sin of mankind as drown it in an abundance of good.

And it appears to me that one of the most important things about the Incarnation is that through it God tells a dark world that he has not given up hope on it; even more, he continued to love it. The very presence of Christ in a fallen world is an infallible statement that the world is capable and worthy of redemption.

We, as followers of Christ, must be the continuation of this divine engagement with an apparently irredeemable world – through our families, jobs, friendships, social circles, cultural interests, political action etc. God’s infallibly restorative love is present now in each Christian’s continued presence in – and love for – the world. If we were to respond to

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the hostile environment by disengaging, we would in effect be condemning it to death.

Sometime in the second century a Christian apologist penned a brief letter usually entitled The Letter to Diognetus. It may be one of the earliest example of such Christian writing. In it the anonymous author compares the Christians to the soul in the body: To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen.

The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together.

The whole letter is wonderfully simple, and of course unmistakably relevant, even two millennia later. But one of its key points is that Christians love the world – otherwise they could not play the role of soul to the world: “Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body”. These words could have been penned for Ireland of the twenty-first century.

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The soul – Christians – love the body, because there is so much that is lovable in the body. Sometimes our disappointments might lead us to a pessimism which blinds us to the good in society. It is not all bad! It strikes me that the insights of St Josemaría Escrivá in this regard are more necessary than ever for Catholics tempted to despondency and disengagement in hostile times. However in hostile times it is more important than ever for Christians not to abandon the world, as he puts so clearly here: Many things, whether they be material, technical, economic, social, political or cultural... when left to themselves, or left in the hands of those who lack the light of the faith, become formidable obstacles to the supernatural life. They form a sort of closed shop which is hostile to the Church.

You, as a Christian and, perhaps, as a research worker, writer, scientist, politician or labourer... have the duty to sanctify those things.

Remember that the whole universe — as the Apostle says — is groaning as in the pangs of labour, awaiting the liberation of the children of God (Furrow, 311).

And in doing this, the Christian becomes a great source of hope for others who are otherwise tempted to think that whole fields of human endeavour and experience are simply rotten: “It is a time of hope, and I live off this treasure. It is not just a phrase, Father,” you tell me, “it is a reality.” Well then... bring the whole world, all the human values which attract you so very strongly — friendship, the arts, science, philosophy, theology, sport, nature, culture, souls — bring all of this within that hope: the hope of Christ.

This is the task that awaits us Christians in the Ireland at the end of 2018: to be the continuation of the inextinguishable hope that Christ brought into the world with his humble birth in Bethlehem.

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In Passing: Rudegund

by Michael Kirke

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to another level on behalf of the law of God.

If Robert Bolt and Fred Zinnemann did it for the rights of conscience in the public square with A Man For All Seasons in the middle of the last century, Malick is going to do it for our time. While Bolt and Zinnemann nuanced their treatment of St Thomas More’s faith and convictions with an emphasis on human character, Malick’s subject takes the issue

The Irish secularist parliament is currently passing legislation permitting the termination of pregnancy – which really means the termination of innocent human lives. This legislation was wilfully sanctioned by two thirds of the Irish electorate in a clear Yes / No referendum last May. A suggestion that practising Catholics who ticked Yes on the ballot paper might have something on their consciences afterwards was much mocked in the weeks that followed. If they dare to reflect on the hero of Malick’s new film they may be inclined to mock less. Their

reland, indeed all countries in the world plagued with errant secularism, is in the throes of a battle over the issue of freedom of conscience for its citizens.

Now, the great film director and auteur, Terrence Malick, is about to raise the stakes for the protagonists in this war.

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decision last May and the legislation now being built on it, will not only terminate lives but will require medical professionals – doctors, nurses, hospital staff and more – to cooperate in each of those killings in violation of their consciences.

Of all his heroes – or antiheroes – Franz Jägerstätter is the one who by the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, can be said definitively to have achieved just that. He was beatified on 26 October 2007, at Linz, Austria by Pope Benedict XVI.

Malick’s new film, Rudegund, chronicles the life of a martyr of the twentieth century who was executed by guillotine in 1943 for refusing to take the life of another, and refusing to accept as just a government which had made unjust and inhumane laws.

He was born on 20 May 1907 to his unmarried mother, Rosalia Huber, and to Franz Bachmeier, who was killed during World War I. After the death of his natural father, Rosalia married Heinrich Jägerstätter, who adopted Franz and gave the boy his surname in 1917.

The film takes its name from the small Austrian village of Sankt Rudegund. It was the birthplace of Franz Jägerstätter, who was executed at Brandenburg Prison in 1943.

The choice by Malick of this subject for his tenth film in 45 years is, one might suspect, to round off his exhaustive exploration through all his work of the struggles of men and women on this earth in their pursuit of happiness.

Franz received a basic education in one-room schoolhouse of his village – Rudegund still has a population of a little over 500 souls. Rosalia’s father helped with his education and the boy became an avid reader – but not in any way a “saintly” child or teenager. He was the first in his village to own a motorcycle and he flaunted it to great effect – winning the hearts of

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the local girls, with not very moral consequences.

Then came the Nazis, the annexation of Austria by Germany, the Anschluss, and war. In the gathering storm of the mid to late 1930s, while much of Austria was swept along by the tide of Nazism, Franz became ever more rooted in his Catholic faith and placed his complete trust in God. He began thinking deeply about obedience to legitimate authority and obedience to God, about mortal life and eternal life and about Jesus’ suffering and Passion.

However, things changed when in 1936 he married a young girl in the village. She was part of the gift of graces which God gave him and which would eventually flower in his martyrdom. They went to Rome for their honeymoon and there a kind of conversion took place under the influence of what Franz saw in both the city and in his young wife’s simple piety and devotion.

He returned to his small farm – left to them by his stepfather – and worked as hard as any small farmer must. They had three daughters and Franz took on the job of sacristan in the local church to add to their small income. He now went to Mass and Holy Communion every day that he could. The character and depth of his piety could be sensed from his resolve to refuse the customary offering for his services at funerals. He preferred the merits from the spiritual and corporal works of mercy over any remuneration.

Franz was in no way political nor part of any resistance movement, but in 1938 he was the only local citizen to vote against the Anschluss, because his conscience prevailed over the path of least resistance.

When war broke out and the Nazi grip on Austria became vice-like, Franz was called up for military service and sworn in on 17 June 1940. His resistance to active service on the field of battle for conscientious reasons was known, and for a period, with the help of some officials, he

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managed to serve while still working his farm.

Bolshevism, these other things – minerals, oil wells or good farmland – would not be a factor”.

He had, however, by now become convinced that any participation in the war was a serious sin and decided that any future call-up had to be met with his refusal to fight.

He wrote:

Jägerstätter was at peace with himself despite his witnessing the masses’ capitulation to Hitler. Mesmerized by the National Socialist propaganda machine, many people knelt when Hitler made his entrance into Vienna. Catholic Churches were forced to fly the swastika flag and subjected to other abusive laws.

“It is very sad to hear again and again from Catholics that this war waged by Germany is perhaps not so unjust because it will wipe out Bolshevism…

But now a question: what are they fighting in this Country – Bolshevism or the Russian People?”

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from 23 August 1942 until 2 February 1943. It was the largest confrontation of World War II and decimated the Wehrmacht. The debacle increased demand for soldiers in the field and in February 1943 Franz was called up again for military service. He presented himself at the induction centre on 1 March 1943 and announced his refusal to fight.

“When our Catholic missionaries went to a pagan country to make them Christians, did they advance with machine guns and bombs in order to convert and improve them? … If adversaries wage war on another nation, they have usually invaded the country not to improve people or even perhaps to give them something, but usually to get something for themselves…. If we were merely fighting

He was held in custody at Linz in March and April, transferred to Berlin-Tegel in May and

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subjected to trial on 6 July 1943, when he was condemned to death for sedition. The prison chaplain was struck by the man’s tranquil character.

On being offered the New Testament, he replied: “I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord, and any reading would only interrupt my communication with my God”.

gives so much strength that it is possible to bear any suffering…. People worry about the obligations of conscience as they concern my wife and children.”

“But I cannot believe that, just because one has a wife and children, a man is free to offend God.”

After his sentence one last attempt was made to get him to relent, since his protest was an embarrassment even in that murderous regime: his wife and parish priest were brought to the prison to dissuade him.

The techniques of persecutors never change. Thomas More faced the same challenge to his faith.

On 9 August, before being executed, Franz wrote: “If I must write… with my hands in chains, I find that much better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his free will. God

Franz Jägerstätter, would not bow his head to evil. No mercy was shown. He was laid on the platform of the guillotine, facing the blade and without a blindfold.

This is the man whom Terrence Malick has now chosen to portray for us, a reminder that, as Franz Jägerstätter explained to his interrogators who tried to probe and probe why he was taking the path he had chosen, no matter what the season the grace of God is sufficient for every man and the ultimate cause of his salvation.

Malick, an auteur who probes consciousness and consciences like no other filmmaker of our time, is a worthy successor to

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his great influencers, both of whom left us with masterpieces on the life of an earlier martyr for conscience: Carl Theodor Dreyer, with The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and Robert Bresson, with The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962).

The film is scheduled for release in Germany before the end of the year. Worldwide release will follow soon after.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Kirke is a freelance writer, a regular contributor to Position Papers, and a widely read blogger at Garvan Hill (www.garvan.wordpress.com). His views can be responded to at mjgkirke@gmail.com.

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What are you waiting for?

by Bishop Robert Barron

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dvent is the liturgical season of vigilance or, to put it more mundanely, of waiting. During the four weeks prior to Christmas, we light the candles of our Advent wreaths and put ourselves in the spiritual space of the Israelite people who, through many long centuries, waited for the coming of the Messiah (“How long, O Lord?”).

In the wonderful avant-garde German movie Run Lola Run a young woman finds herself in a terrible bind: She needs to gather an enormous amount of money in a ridiculously short period of time.

Throughout the movie she runs and runs, desperately trying through her own frantic efforts to make things right, but nothing

works. Finally, at the moment when she finds herself at the absolute limit of her powers, she slows to a trot, looks up to heaven and says, “Ich warte, ich warte” (I’m waiting, I’m waiting).

Though she does not explicitly address God and though there has been no hint throughout the movie that Lola is the least bit religious, this is undoubtedly a prayer. And in the immediate wake of her edgy request a rather improbable solution to her problem presents itself.

Lola’s prayer has always reminded me of Simone Weil, that wonderful and mysterious twentieth century French mystic whose entire spirituality is predicated upon the power of

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waiting, orin her language – of expectation. In prayer, Weil taught, we open our souls, expecting God to act even when the content of that expectation remains unclear. In their curious vigilance and hoping against hope, both Lola and Simone are beautiful Advent figures.

his enemies and the pitying glances of his friends? Probably.

But he waited, and in time the promise came true.

Hold Your Horses Their attitude is, of course, deeply rooted in biblical revelation. From beginning to end of scripture we discover stories of people who are compelled to wait.

The patriarch Abraham received the promise that he would become, despite his old age, the father of a son and through that son the father of descendants more numerous than the stars in the night sky. But the fulfillment of that promise was a long time in coming. Through many years, as he and his wife grew older and older, as the likelihood of their parenthood became increasingly remote, Abraham waited. Did he doubt? Did he wonder whether he had misconstrued the divine promise? Did he waver in his faith? Did he endure the taunts of

Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph, the wearer of the multicolored coat, saw in a dream that he would be a powerful man and that his brothers would one day bow down to him in homage. But the realization of that dream came only after a long and terrible wait.

He was sold into slavery by those very brothers, falsely accused of sexual misconduct, humiliated, and finally sent to prison for seven years. Imagine what it must have been like to endure years in an ancient prison – the discomfort, the total lack of privacy, the terrible food in small amounts, sleeplessness, torture, and above all, hopelessness. This is what Joseph had to wait through before his dream came true in a most unexpected way.

The people of Israel were miraculously delivered from slavery in Egypt, led across the Red Sea by the mighty hand of Moses – and then they waited. A journey that normally would have taken only a few weeks stretched

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to forty years as they wandered rather aimlessly through the desert. The book of Exodus frequently gives us indications of what this time of vigil was like: “The people grumbled against Moses, ‘We are disgusted with this wretched food… Why did you lead us out into this desert to die?

Were there not graves enough in Egypt?’” (Exodus 16:2-3) They were hardly models of patience.

Even poor Noah had to wait, cooped up in the ark with his irritable family and restless animals while the waters slowly retreated.

small band of followers and leading them through the Spiritual Exercises. Only at the end of this long sojourn – founding the Company of Jesus – did he realize the great thing God called him to do.

In Dante’s Purgatorio, the theme of waiting is on prominent display. Dante and Virgil encounter a number of souls who slouch at the foot of the mountain of Purgatory, destined to make the climb to heaven but compelled for the time being to wait. How long?

As long as God determines.

God Has No Express Lane

In the course of the Christian tradition, there is much evidence of this spirituality of waiting.

Relatively late in life Ignatius of Loyola realized he was being called by God to do great things.

But before he found his path he passed through a wide variety of experiences in the course of many years: a time of stark asceticism and prayer at Manresa, wandering to the Holy Land and back while living hand-to-mouth and sleeping in doorways, taking elementary courses in Paris alongside young kids, gathering a

All of this, I submit, is very hard for most of us. I suppose we human beings have always been in a hurry, but modern people especially seem to want what they want when they want it. We are driven, determined, goal-oriented, fast-moving. I, for one, can’t stand waiting.

As a Chicagoan I find myself unavoidably in a lot of traffic jams, and nothing infuriates me more. Usually stuck behind a massive truck, you have no idea

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when you will get where you want to be, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I hate waiting at doctors’ offices; I hate waiting in line at the bank; I hate waiting for the lights to come back on when the electricity fails.

So when I’m told that waiting seems to belong to the heart of the spiritual life, I’m not pleased, for here, too, I want answers, direction, clarity – and I want them pronto. I desire to feel happy and to know what God is up to; I need my life to make sense – now.

I’m pleased to live a spiritual life, but I want to be in charge of it and to make it unfold according to my schedule: Run Barron Run. All of this is profoundly antipathetic to the mood and spirit of Advent.

So what sense can we make of the countercultural and counterintuitive spirituality of vigilance? The first thing we have to realize is that we and God are, quite simply, on different time tables. The second letter of Peter states this truth with admirable directness: “To you, O Lord, a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

To the God who stands outside of space and time and who orders the whole of creation, our hours, days, years, eons have a radically different meaning. What is a long time to us is an instant for God, and hence what seems like delay to us is no delay at all to God. What seems like dumb and pointless waiting to us can be the way that God, in a unique and finally mysterious manner, is working God’s purposes out.

Theologian Richard Rohr summed up the spiritual life in the phrase “your life is not about you,” and this insight is particularly important in terms of the present question. “Why isn’t God acting how I want and when I want?”

Perhaps because your life is part of a complex whole, the fullness of which only God can properly grasp and fittingly order.

But we can make things even more specific. Is it possible that we are made to wait because the track we are on is not the one God wants for us? Author G. K. Chesterton said that if you are on the wrong road, the very worst thing you can do is to move

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quickly. And there is that old joke about the pilot who comes on the intercom and says, “I have good news and bad news, folks: The bad news is that we’re totally lost; the good news is that we’re making excellent time!” Maybe we’re forced to wait because God wants us seriously to reconsider the course we’ve charted, to stop hurtling down a dangerous road.

preciousness of the gifts. After all, the Israelites had to wait thousands of years before they were ready to receive God’s greatest gift.

Or perhaps we are made to wait because we are not yet adequately prepared to receive what God wants to give us. In his remarkable letter to Proba, Saint Augustine argued that the purpose of unanswered prayer is to force expansion of the heart.

When we don’t get what we want, we begin to want it more and more, with ever greater insistency, until our souls are on fire with the desire for it. Sometimes it is only a sufficiently expanded and enflamed heart that can take in what God intends to give.

What would happen to us if we received, immediately and on our own terms, everything we wanted? We might be satisfied in a superficial way, but we wouldn’t begin to appreciate the

Even if we are on the right track and even if we desire with sufficient intensity what God wants to give, we still might not be ready to integrate a particular grace into our lives or to handle the implications of it. Joseph the dreamer clearly wanted to be a great man, but if he had been given political power and authority when he was an arrogant kid, the results would have been disastrous both for himself and for those under his control. His many years of suffering – his terrible wait – made him a ruler with both wisdom and deep compassion.

And so, when his brothers did indeed finally bow down to him as he foresaw in his dream, he was able to react not in vengeance, but in love: “I am Joseph, your brother.”

Three Advent Practices What practically can we do during the season of waiting and vigil

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keeping? What are some practices that might incarnate for us the spirituality described here?

How about the classically Catholic discipline of eucharistic adoration? To spend a half-hour or an hour in the presence of the Lord is not to accomplish or achieve very much – it is not really “getting” anywhere – but it is a particularly rich form of spiritual waiting.

As you keep vigil before the Blessed Sacrament, bring to Christ some problem or dilemma that you have been fretting over, and then pray Lola’s prayer: “Ich warte, ich warte.” Say, “Lord, I’m waiting for you to solve this, to show me the way out, the way forward. I’ve been running, planning, worrying, but now I’m going to let you work.” Then, throughout Advent, watch attentively for signs.

Also, when you pray before the Eucharist, allow your desire for the things of God to intensify; allow your heart and soul to expand. Pray, “Lord, make me ready to receive the gifts you want

to give,” or even, “Lord Jesus, surprise me.”

A second – and more offbeat – suggestion: Do a jigsaw puzzle.

Find one of those big, complex puzzles with thousands of small pieces, one that requires lots of time and plenty of patience, and make of it an Advent project. As you assemble the puzzle think of each piece as some aspect of your life: a relationship, a loss, a failure, a great joy, an adventure, a place where you lived, something you shouldn’t have said, an act of generosity. So often the events of our lives seem like the thousand pieces of a puzzle lying incoherently and disconnectedly before us. As you patiently put the puzzle together meditate on the fact that God is slowly, patiently, according to his own plan and purpose, ordering the seemingly unrelated and incongruous events of our lives into a picture of great beauty.

Finally, take advantage of traffic jams and annoying lines – really anything that makes you wait.

And let the truth of what 18thcentury spiritual writer JeanPierre de Caussade said sink in:

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“Whatever happens to you in the course of a day, for good or ill, is an expression of God’s will.”

Instead of cursing your luck, banging on the steering wheel, or rolling your eyes in frustration, see the wait as a spiritual invitation.

the time through one of those savoring prayers.

When you are forced to slow down, pray one of the great, repetitive vigil prayers of the church, such as the rosary or the Jesus prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”). With this resolution in mind, hang a rosary around your rearview mirror at the beginning of Advent. Consider the possibility that God wants you at that moment to wait and then sanctify

The entire Bible ends on a note not so much of triumph and completion as longing and expectation: “Come, Lord Jesus.” From the very beginning of the Christian dispensation, followers of the risen Jesus have been waiting. Paul, Augustine, Chrysostom, Agnes, Thomas Aquinas, Clare, Francis, John Henry Newman, and Simone Weil have all waited for the Second Coming and have hence all been Advent people. During this season let us join them, turning our eyes and hearts upward and praying, “Ich warte, ich warte.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR This article is taken from the archives of: www.wordonfire.org. Bishop Robert Barron is an author, speaker, theologian, and founder of Word on Fire, a global media ministry. This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of the editors.

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A transit of common sense

by Carolyn Moynihan

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gainst the noonday sun of transgender affirmation in Britain a dark object was seen to pass this week. It was a question mark, or rather, several marks in close succession. Two psychotherapists, a retransitioned woman and a member of parliament cast doubt on what, in a few short years, has become standard practice among health professionals: putting children on the transgender path.

In the Daily Mail Bob Withers, a psychotherapist of thirty years standing, made an impassioned plea for a halt to the surgical transitioning of teenagers, “hundreds, possibly thousands” of whom are being enabled along

this path in the public health system. He warns that “in twenty years’ time, I believe we will look back on this folly as one of the darkest periods in the history of modern medicine.”

On public service television (Channel 4) another psychotherapist, Stella O’Malley, presented a documentary, Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk, in which she worries about the children who might be prematurely given the options of body-altering surgery and a lifetime of hormone pills. It’s something she escaped herself, she believes, only by being born a half-decade too early for the trans wave.

In her programme, “Cale”, 25, talks about her youthful

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obsession with “passing” to the opposite sex, her realisation that it was a mistake, and her later “re-transition” to female. She also talks about the denial and exclusion she met with when she tried to discuss her problems with the trans community.

about the huge increase in young people receiving irreversible medical treatments after declaring themselves transgender. Radical feminist groups have been increasingly vocal about their space being invaded by trans-women.

And since these manifestos are prompted by the government’s proposal to change the law concerning official recognition of a gender change, Conservative MP David Davies has chipped in with the complaint that transgender activists have created an atmosphere of menace that is stifling the debate around gender issues that the government asserts it wants.

Nor are the rebels necessarily moral conservatives (social conservatives have largely fallen in with the trend). Bob Withers thinks society should “celebrate gender variance” and agrees that “conversion therapy” (a term used to discredit all therapy geared to overcoming same-sex attraction) “should be banned.”

These people are by no means the first to air their concerns about the social mania that has seen a 2,500 percent increase over nine years in the number of children accessing the UK’s National Health Service for gender services – including seventeen in one secondary school.

In April, psychiatrist Lucy Griffin became the first NHS doctor to publicly voice fears

OK, but now he finds that the term has succumbed to mission creep: “Now, powerful bodies including the NHS and major counselling organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding – an agreement on how to practise – which extends the definition of conversion therapy to cover patients who might be transgender.”

“And this well-meaning memorandum is being used by

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trans activists to stop therapists, psychologists and others from asking rigorous questions about whether or not a patient does, in fact, have genuine ‘gender dysphoria’.”

This is Withers’ first point: the need to distinguish genuine cases of dysphoria from other mental health issues.

Second point: when it comes to treatment, surgery should be a last resort. “We should always begin by working to help the mind fit better with the body before we start altering the body to fit the mind.”

sexuality to abuse to self-harm -we are allowing them to change sex.”

A therapist should be able to explore what is behind a teenage boy’s desire to become a girl; or whether the “attraction of popularity” might be behind several girls in the same school saying they are trans. “Yet none of these possibilities can now be safely raised by psychotherapists, psychiatrists or teachers.”

Some are scared that if they do their job properly they will be denounced as homophobic and struck off. Others are all too anxious to “signal their progressive views.”

Third point: there is a wider problem of unhappy children.

“What is happening is this: we are bringing up a generation of children who have quite complex mental issues.”

Such is the power, coercive or persuasive, of trans activism.

Says Withers:

“Identifying as trans can feel like a way to explain that suffering.

Rather than understanding where it might be coming from – feeling lonely or isolated, being bullied, having an autistic spectrum disorder or struggling with any number of issues from

“Recently 650 trans activists signed a letter published in Therapy Today, the house magazine of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, calling on anyone not practising ‘affirmation therapy’ to be booted out. If the Government

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presses ahead with plans to allow people to ‘self- identify’ as whatever gender they like, without external validation, I fear that would strengthen the hand of those arguing for transaffirmative therapy.”

That’s a question for other articles, but O’Malley’s documentary contains one clue.

“Cale”, the young woman who detransitioned, had experienced family breakdown, something that is very common and a cause of much unhappiness among children. Broken or not, there is bound to be something in the family background that makes a child or adolescent want to be “someone else”.

None of the trans groups and activists Stella O’Malley contacted for her TV documentary would agree to take part in the programme. But when she attends a feminist event with various trans-critical speakers, black masked figures burst in to shout it down.

Again, she meets an academic whose research on “detransitioners” — those who reverse the process — was turned down by a university because “it is better not to offend people.” Spineless academics and virtue signalling professionals do young people no favours.

In the best fairytales they can.

But in real life we have to address the source of the trouble.

But the great unanswered question in all this is, why so much distress among young people? Why do we have “a generation of children who have quite complex mental issues”?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article by Carolyn Moynihan was originally published on MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit MercatorNet.com for more.

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The First Sunday of Advent

by Fr George Rutler

T

he explanation for your sense of expectation is that you have an imagination. Unlike animals guided by instinct, we can imagine past and future.

Advent is the time of expectation. Since Christ is not limited by time, he can be born again in our lives at every Christmas.

Expectation requires thinking about the four most important matters of existence: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.

These are the primary mysteries that arrest the attention of minds awake, more compelling than holiday shopping and attempts at partying before Christmas begins.

To look at death at the start of Advent is what we do on a small scale when we look at the end of anything, whether it be the end of the day or the end of some project we have been working on, or even the end of a movie or a song. The question is: Does the end of life have a purpose? C.S. Lewis answered that in a typically lucid way: “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.�

Along with the sense of expectation is the intuition that

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what is expected is more vital than what we now have. On the day after Christmas in 1941, Winston Churchill stood before the joint houses of Congress and spoke of “. . . my life, which is already long, and has not been entirely uneventful.” Then a full twenty-four years later, his dying words were: “I’m bored with it all.” That was really wonderful because, though skeptical about the Gospel, he knew that things as they are, are not enough. He was a bit like Benjamin Franklin who, while far from an orthodox Christian, playfully wrote his own epitaph as a printer, comparing himself to a worn old book: “For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new and more perfect

Edition, Corrected and amended, By the Author.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Father Rutler is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He has made documentary films in the United States and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published twenty-one books on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints. This article first appeared on fathergeorgerutler.podbean.com and is published here with the kind permission of the author.

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Reflections for Christmas 2018

by Pat Hanratty

A

few days ago I saw a woman walking down from Communion with a very young (like a few days’ old) baby in her arms. The way she was holding it we could see its cute little face and hands, and she herself looked a picture of happiness with her newly born infant. It naturally made me think of Christmas approaching though this baby looked smaller than the images usually created for us by the cribs in our homes, churches and public places. It also reminded me of a grandson born in September last – another beautiful example of humanity.

Alas another thought did occur to me: soon the killing of unborn

babies will take place in Irish hospitals and clinics, paid for by our taxes and encouraged by almost all political parties, now that the protection of the unborn by the 8th Amendment has been removed. I don’t want to dwell on the sadness this causes me but I had to mention it in the context of Christmas; will the irony of rushing through the most inappropriately titled “Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018” even occur to our politicians as they (as many no doubt will) attend Christmas ceremonies celebrating the birth of our Saviour as an innocent little child, or join in singing hymns such as When a Child is Born or Mary’s Boy Child not to

25

mention the line “Round yon Virgin Mother and Child” in the classic Silent Night? Maybe some will. Maybe reflecting on the baby in the manger will leave an impression that will prevent some contemplating an abortion in the New Year from going ahead with it. That would be something.

To move on: 2018 left some very positive memories. Who could forget the atmosphere in Croke Park when the Popemobile carried Pope Francis into the stadium to a tumultuous welcome? Or the reception as he was driven round the streets of Dublin? He rose to the occasion manfully in every way during the day and a half he was with us – in his address in Dublin Castle, in his visit to survivors of abuse, with the homeless in Church Street. He earned our love, affection and admiration at all stages, perhaps never more so that in his Act of Contrition at the beginning of the Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. One could bemoan the fact that after three months of almost unbroken sunshine the weather in Knock and Phoenix Park was

inclement, but it did mean that those who were there really wanted to be there! Thank you Pope Francis for lighting up our year.

A few days ago, I attended the funeral of a former teaching colleague. That funeral was a celebration of an inspirational life, dedicated to God and her fellow human beings. Coming in the month of November already dedicated to the Holy Souls I sensed that this lady must definitely have vaulted over Purgatory. Though sad in one way, it was wonderful to reflect on seventy years commitment to her vocation as one of the very first members of Opus Dei in Ireland.

So as we near the end of 2018, we could quote O’Casey’s Captain Boyle and say that the world is in a state of chassis, or we could go back to the Gospel readings of these days close to the end of the Liturgical Year which mention judgment a lot, but also reward – the reward of being faithful whatever the cost.

This country kept the faith for 1,500 years from the time of

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Saint Patrick and while there may be fewer Christians in the years ahead, the vacuous and uninspiring leaders of this generation will pass on and a new dawn will come from the embers of faith left among the indigenous Irish, and perhaps stoked back to a flame by newcomer Irish of Polish, Filipino, Brazilian or Nigerian ethnicity.

into our hearts this Christmas more than ever.

2019 will bring challenges to all of us. Bring them on!

Happy Christmas!

Because the Christian message is a message of salvation. We need it, and however much it is drowned out by other considerations, let’s just pare things back to the birth of that little child, born to be our Saviour. And let’s welcome him

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pat Hanratty taught Science/Chemistry in Tallaght Community School from its inception in 1972 until he retired in 2010. He was the school's first Transition Year Co-ordinator and for four years he had the role of home School Community Liaison Officer.

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BOOKS

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a post-Christian Nation

by James Bradshaw

Photo: Rod Dreher

R

eleased early last year, Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a post-Christian Nation has been heralded as one of the most important books about religion in recent times.

Its author has acquired a large following on both sides of the Atlantic, and given how it was published shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, many readers have looked to it to get a sense of what conservative Christians in America are thinking at this tumultuous time.

Yet as its full title might suggest, this is not a political

book. Nor is it a particularly positive one for Christian readers. “The light of Christianity is flickering out all over the West,” Dreher writes early on. “There are people alive today who may live to see the effective death of Christianity within our civilization. By God’s mercy, the faith may continue to flourish in the Global South and China, but barring a dramatic reversal of current trends, it will all but disappear entirely from Europe and North America.”

Critics of Christian values or mores might take heart from this, and Dreher is well-placed to make such an assessment,

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given his long career as a leading writer on religious, political and cultural matters in the US. The evidence which he cites for his proposition is all around us: in the plummeting rates of church affiliation and attendance among younger people; in the growing hostility towards any public manifestation of faith; in the alarming ignorance on the part of professed Christians about their own religion; as well as in the widespread acceptance of ideas by supposedly Christian populations which are antithetical to Christianity as it has existed for 2,000 years.

Dreher writes as an astute observer of the “culture wars” in the United States, which have over the last forty years seen most ardent Christians – be they Evangelicals or Catholics – allying themselves to the Republican Party in the hope of preserving traditional values. This trend still exists today, and is one of the main reasons why Hillary Clinton is not President and Donald Trump is.

However, the author does not view this as a significant point in history at all, and he sees Trump as a symptom of America’s moral degradation, rather than as a possible cure.

To Dreher, the culture war was lost long ago, along with the public square, and many of the great institutions which had previously passed on values and beliefs for centuries.

To try to remedy all of this would be a hopeless effort.

Instead, Dreher summons up a biblical metaphor by referring to the rising tide, and the need to build an ark in which Christianity can be preserved come what may. This, he argues, should take priority over any other type of political engagement.

“Rather than wasting energy and resources fighting unwinnable political battles, we should instead work on building communities, institutions, and networks of resistance that can outwit, outlast, and eventually overcome the occupation,” he writes.

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He suggests that such communities could take inspiration from St. Benedict of Norcia, a sixth-century saint venerated for his role as a founder of the monastic tradition within Christianity.

Benedict lived in Rome in the dying days of the Empire.

Though it was still the political and cultural centre of Western Europe, the young man felt the need to leave a city overcome with sin and vice. He retreated to the mountains, and to a life of work and prayer. His example inspired many others to join him, and the precepts outlined within the Rule of Saint Benedict have been used throughout the world’s monasteries ever since. Had he stayed in Rome, Benedict would surely have never had such an influence, and Christianity might not have survived the Dark Ages which were to follow.

Much of the rest of the book focuses on examples of small groups of Christians who attempt to live their lives in communities imbued with a

similar spirit, but which exist outside the confines of traditional monasteries. The communities which he examines are from the three main branches of Christianity – Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism – and Dreher highlights the importance of building ecumenical links between the churches (hardly surprising for a cradle Protestant from Louisiana who converted to Catholicism before moving on to Eastern Orthodoxy).

One group of Italian Catholics whom he meets are known as the Tipi Loschi. This official association was formed by a coming-together of some families and friends twenty five years ago. Now, the two hundred members operate their own school, and several co-operatives. The focus is on living, working and praying together, and the community has stood the test of time.

Dreher also writes about Christian campus centres in America which exist to provide a social support for young

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people in universities. Every disparate group of Christians which he encounters and puts forward as an example of how the Benedict Option can be applied faithfully is alike in a number of important ways, regardless of where they live or what particular creed they profess. Though they are part of the world, they remain distinct from it in important ways, and the social support infrastructure which is in place allows community members to raise their children in an environment where they have a good chance of passing on their faith to them.

schools which are ostensibly Christian.

Interestingly, the need to improve Christian education, and the declining quality of schools and universities, is a recurring theme for Dreher. So too is the sizeable shift towards homeschooling which has occurred among American Christians over the last few decades – many of whom were concerned about the negative influences which their children were being exposed to in traditional schools, and even in

This has particular relevance to Ireland, as the coming months will determine whether or not GPs and other medical professionals will be forced to participate in abortions, or to refer patients to other doctors who will. Heartbreaking as it will be to many, it may be the case that young Christians looking to pursue such careers may be forced to do so elsewhere, or to choose alternative career paths. Events in Irish student unions in

Never one to sugar-coat, Dreher does not shy away from writing about the financial and professional costs which Christians might have to pay in the coming decades. To mitigate this problem, he recommends greater economic solidarity among Christians, while cautioning believers to be wise in their choice of battles in the years to come, and warning that some professions may well be off-limits entirely in the short to medium-term future.

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recent years have already set a precedent for driving Christians out of certain roles, just as they have demonstrated that a significant percentage of the population has no objection to such overt bigotry.

The book poses other questions to Irish readers, too, and it deserves particular attention from younger Christians. The referendum in May was ample proof – if ever it were needed – that Ireland is now in a postChristian era, and one which requires careful navigation in both the professional and social spheres. Could the approach which Dreher advocates be a means of preserving Christian belief in an Ireland which frowns upon it? There is some evidence to suggest that communities moulded along similar lines have already begun to take shape.

True, the churches here are growing emptier, and will continue to do so for the next few decades as older generations depart this earthly stage. But some churches are

not witnessing such declines, particularly in parishes and church organisations where a defeatist attitude has not been allowed to set in, and where congregations are bound together by a sense of shared belief that some things are worth fighting for, and that some concessions cannot be made.

St. Kevin’s Church in Dublin’s Portobello area is one example of this. Located in one of the most socially liberal communities in the country, regular church services are sparsely attended. But on Sunday morning, the Latin Mass draws a very different congregation, one which is unusually large, unusually young, and unusually attentive.

Many travel from far away to attend the Mass as it was said for centuries: for them, the option of “moving with the times” does not appear to be attractive. Some other churches throughout Dublin exhibit similar features.

There are also a wide range of activities aimed at young

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people going on throughout the city: Living Water events in St. Teresa’s Church just off Grafton Street sometimes attract hundreds of visitors; the Notre Dame – Newman Centre for Faith and Reason is a hive of activity on Stephen’s Green and events in the city centre such as The Encounter or Nightfever are also popular.

The home-schooling issue also presents an interesting comparison. Though this is rare here, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is growing in popularity. Interestingly, two of the most articulate and wellknown Catholic voices in modern Ireland – Maria Steen and Breda O’Brien – homeschool their children. Perhaps that is a sign of a growing trend. None of this should mask the fact that Christians in Ireland are now witnessing the twilight era of their religion, which was once widely practiced, and which will become ever-more marginalised in the coming decades.

But Irish history is replete with examples of how the faith which St. Patrick sowed has endured catastrophic defeats, only to rise again. What the Norse, the Tudors, Cromwell and the Penal Laws could not stamp out is unlikely to be extirpated entirely in the coming years either, dark and difficult though they may be.

Dreher has lived through a much slower process of decline in the United States than here in Ireland, but in observing the growing community spirit among Ireland’s Christians, he would likely see hope as well.

And it is very noticeable that The Benedict Option, having contained such a gloomy overview of the current period, ends on an optimistic note. Dreher describes how the modern-day monks of Norcia recently escaped death when their monastery was destroyed by an earthquake. But it will not remain in that condition for long.

“Now they can begin rebuilding amid the ruins, their resilient

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Benedictine faith teaching them to receive this catastrophe as a call to deeper holiness and sacrifice. God willing, new life will one day spring forth from the rubble.

Because they lived the Benedict Option in the good times, they built within themselves the stability and resilience to endure the worst time – and to begin again, in God’s time.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Bradshaw works in an international consulting firm, based in Dublin.

This review originally appeared in The Burkean (see: www.theburkean.ie) and is reprinted with the kind permission of the author.

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BOOKS

Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh, Inspiration from the Saints

by Fr Donncha Ó hAodha

“T

he Lord asks everything of us, and in return he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were created. He wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 19 March 2018, 1).

The emphatic teaching of Pope Francis that all are called to holiness in his recent Apostolic Exhortation and throughout his pontificate, is in total continuity with the thrust of the Second Vatican Council.

The recently canonized St Paul VI wrote that “this strong invitation to holiness could be regarded as the most characteristic element in the whole Magisterium of the

Council, and so to say, its ultimate purpose” (Sanctitatis Clarior, 1969). Ultimately of course the teaching of the Council is but an echo of the Lord’s invitation addressed to all in the Sermon on the Mount: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

In this context Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh’s work, Inspiration from the Saints. Stories from the Lives of Catholic Holy Men and Women (Angelico Press, New York 2018, 239 pages) is particularly timely. This well written presentation of a wide variety of holy women and men from a great variety of places, cultures and times serves to

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present the universal call to holiness in a very attractive way.

That saints were and are real people is borne out by the way the book is structured. The different chapters look at various saints through the prism of their humanity and normality.

See for example the chapters on “Childhood”, “Marriage”, “Family” and “Mirth”. Striking too is the chapter entitled “Losers” which shows the paradox of holiness: the greatness of being little before God, the grandeur of humility, the superhuman strength of human weakness when it is open to divine grace. This chapter features such victorious “losers” as St Jean Vianney, St Thérèse of Lisieux, St Charles of Mount Argus and Blessed Solanus Casey.

The effectiveness of holiness as a supreme force for good in the Church and in the world is shown in such chapters as “Boldness”, “Catechetics”, “Evangelization” and “Prayer”.

Throughout the book the author shows himself ever mindful that

each and all the baptized are called to holiness in and through their ordinary life.

St Josemaría Escrivá figures prominently among the saints depicted and the book echoes his teaching that the Lord “calls each and every one to holiness; he asks each and every one to love him: young and old, single and married, healthy and sick, learned and unlearned, no matter where they work, or where they are” (from the homily, “Towards Holiness”).

The book contains an interesting Appendix on the Servant of God, G.K. Chesterton, whose Cause opened in 2014. Here as elsewhere in the book the author reveals something of his own life and faith. In fact the author is the founder of the G.K. Chesterton Society of Ireland.

As a variegated presentation of holy men and women, this book is a mirror of the beauty of the Church. As the author notes: “The history of the Catholic Church is the greatest love story ever told. The saints were lovers,

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consumed by the love of Christ” (p. 231).

Always the Christocentric nature of holiness is underlined. After reading the book we can fully concur that “the lives of the saints are all about Christ” (p. 10).

This book is indeed an “inspiration” since it introduces us, through an abundance of anecdotes to some of the personalities among that “great cloud of witnesses” who lovingly surround and support us as we “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rev. Donncha Ó hAodha is a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature, author of several CTS booklets and a regular contributor to Position Papers.

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FILMS

Dr. Seuss' The Grinch

by Joseph McAleer

S

omewhere Theodor Geisel may be spinning in his grave over the latest treatment of one of his most famous character creations, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (Universal). If so, he’s only revolving gently.

Geisel, who died in 1991, wrote his children’s story, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” in 1957. Hollywood has served up multiple adaptations of the classic tale. But the most memorable version remains the 1966 CBS cartoon special helmed by Chuck Jones and featuring the voice of Boris Karloff as the lead.

Now directors Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney present an

extravagant animated bigscreen take. Like a giant piece of sticky taffy, the original 69page storybook has been stretched and twisted in all directions by screenwriters Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow, with new characters and subplots, and a backstory that casts the eponymous grump in a sympathetic light.

Bah humbug? Not really.

Purists will fret and insist that less is truly more, but parents will be delighted. Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch is perfectly acceptable holiday fare for all ages, an amusing and entertaining romp with eyepopping visuals and Geisel’s core lesson about the

38

redemptive power of kindness and forgiveness intact.

The bare bones of the original story remain in place, narrated

by Pharrell Williams. The Grinch (voice of Benedict Cumberbatch) is a fuzzy green creature who lives high above the hamlet of Who-ville in a cave on Mount Crumpet, with his loyal dog, Max, by this side. With a heart “two sizes too small”, he wants nothing more than peace and quiet and to be left alone.

In this version, though, the Grinch is no recluse. He travels down the mountain to do his shopping at “Who Foods Market” (one of a plethora of puns) and frighten every child he encounters, including Cindy-Lou Who (voice of Cameron Seely).

Cindy-Lou is no longer “no more than two”, as Geisel cast her. Now she’s a rambunctious pre-teen with a posse of friends, who devise a scheme to trap Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

The Grinch has other plans, determined to put a halt to the incessant joy and goodness of the Whos by masquerading as Santa and stealing every Christmas present, tree and decoration in sight.

Without spoiling an ending that surely everyone knows, someone will eventually discover that “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store”, a heart will grow three times larger, and a “roast beast” will be carved.

Viewers of faith will be delighted by the singing of two classic carols, “Silent Night” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. The latter’s verse, “Remember Christ our Savior/ Was born on Christmas Day”, is repeated twice, a rare Hollywood reminder that, amid the commercial trappings on display, the true meaning of the holiday should not be overlooked.

The film contains mild cartoonish action. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I – general

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patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG –parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

ABOUT THE
 AUTHOR

Joseph McAleer is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service. Copyright (c) 2018 Catholic News Service. Reprinted with permission from CNS. www.catholicnews.com

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CATHOLIC CHAPEL EXPANSION PROJECT Lenana School, Nairobi, Kenya Lenana School is a public school at the outskirts of Nairobi. We are expanding our school oratory to accommodate the 350 students who come to Sunday Mass. We still need to build a gallery to cater for 120 more students. This will cost €30,000.

This final phase will help the evangelization of Kenya’s young Christian women.

The chapel before Phase 1 of our project

If you can help, please contact Rev. Francis Rimbau francisrimbau@gmail.com Euro Bank account: 0241081432003 SBM BANK KENYA LTD Standard Chartered Bank Frankfurt.

Germany SWIFT CODE: SCBLDEFX IBAN: DE31500700100954257200

The chapel after completion of Phase 1