This week I have been at a two day ecumenical meeting. The programmed business centred on how the ecumenical body can achieve its core task of calling all churches into the goal of visible unity. This has to be done in ways that will work and with structures and policies that can be supported and resourced by the member churches.
It is easy to see what has not worked in the past. It is much less easy to define precisely the tasks that we are wanting to undertake today and the structures that will be needed. How are the churches, who all are struggling with their own denominational problems (mostly about manpower and resources but also all challenged in different ways by sex!), able to look above their denominational parapet and take a wider view? Those of us who are convinced ecumeniacs may say that part of the answer will involve looking creatively beyond ecumenical boundaries.
At our meeting we looked at the example of the churches in Wales with a new covenant and the churches in Australia that have similarly signed up to a covenant. Superficially it is easy to say that these other places have got their act together while we are still in the process of going round and round the same old ground in long and boring meetings.
On the other hand these covenants are just further stages on the journey. They are tools or instruments for creating the space to allow churches to grow together rather than being a destination in themselves. They are agreements for a loose federality that in themselves do nothing. Yet without structures of some sort churches can't work together. The best structures should be almost invisible.
We need similar structures to facilitate and promote engagement on the deep and substantial things that matter to us. We are all agreed on the need to work together. It seems there may well be many more hours of debate to come before we are clear about how this can best take place.
"Burned" by Thomas Enger is a debut crime fiction novel that has become a best seller in its native Norway and other Scandinavian countries. It is in the popular genre of nordic noir: books that examine the dark reality of the downside of living the Scandinavian dream.
The protagonist Henning Juul is
an investigative journalist who has not worked since a traumatic incident in his life two years previously which has left him with scars both real and mental. Returning to work Henning's first investigation is the murder of a young female student in what looks like a ritual sharia killing. Her Muslim boyfriend is arrested but Henning thinks he is innocent.
Set in Oslo, Henning's investigation, using traditional journalistic methods, stays one step ahead of the police. The ethics of journalism emerge in the narrative, particularly the tension between ethics and sensationalism under the constant pressure to attract more and more readers. The book touches on issues of immigration and prejudice, particularly Islamophobia, without preaching at the reader.
Henning is an intelligent and intuitive damaged hero who works best alone, though he becomes more appreciative of human contact as the story develops. Hennings obsession with smoke alarms is understandable once the nature of the trauma and loss he has lived though have been explained. A violent criminal drug smuggling and people trafficking gang are on the periphery of the plot and they pose a constant threat as they know Henning is the only eyewitness to a murder.
The novel is well written and translated and the plot is solid with some nice twists. This is one of the best crime books I have read for a while. There are many hints and references to past cases which I am sure will be developed in future novels about Henning Juul.
St Peters Basilica, Rome
I had a short but meaningful conversation with a Roman Catholic priest that I have known for many years recently.
One very interesting part of our conversation concerned the future of the Roman Catholic church. He described the huge geographical area for which he is now the only full time working priest. There are other retired priests who help cover the masses on Saturdays and Sundays but many of them are very elderly. There has only been one ordination of a new priest in his diocese in the last twelve years.
He said that it is interesting to see the resilience that is emerging in the parishes that are, for the most part, being left on their own to get on with it. Some of them are coping and coping very well. Others who have been heavily priest dependent are coping less well and are floundering like a headless chicken. The lay people all know of the crisis they are in and my priest friend knows that if asked what should be done they would suggest two solutions. They would suggest that the church should allow priests to marry and should ordain women.
Do you have a problem with that I asked? He replied that with his dioceses finance hat on he wonders where on earth they will get the money from to pay enough to support the wives and families of priests! That was not the answer I was expecting.
The pressure is building - in all sorts of places and all sorts of different ways. The Roman Catholic church does not do gradual change - it changes by sudden revolutions and he believes that there is a revolution coming. It is now fifty years since Vatican II.
And what do you think will be the tipping point I asked? It will come after Benedict he said. Benedict is not a administrator he added, he has done nothing to reform or change any of the curia (The Vatican civil service with its built in conservatism). He finished by saying that the log jam will burst suddenly with a new broom coming in that will sweep much that is now taken for granted and then who knows.
Interesting times.....
