HOPEFUL CATHOLICS

God SHAPING THE FOUNDATIONS In Hopeful Catholics Ministry we publish articles on this website exploring the increase in numbers of people looking seriously to the Catholic Church which many are joining. It is a great paradox in our age that we have such spectacular developments in the sciences with vast potential for benefiting humanity, yet these very developments are shaking the basics of society itself. One example of this is the difficulty young people experience in finding employment appropriate to their qualifications, because Artificial Intelligence is taking over those activities. This is making it difficult for them to start families. Many of them are drifting. Pope Leo points to this in his recent highly important Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. (We quote him in the article, Young People Today .) This is only one of the stresses in our society today. There are many others like the Godless human pride which has producing a culture where the old vices of greed and insensitivity are rampant, while at the same time ways of monopolising wealth and developing weapons of mass destruction are racing ahead. These are not the first times of massive change bringing distress. It happened long ago when hunter-gatherers became restricted by land being converted to agriculture, also when the great swathes of tribes from the east like the Anglo Saxons, Franks and Germans descended on the Roman Empire. More recently it occurred with the industrial revolution, when people left the land and gathered in massive urban sprawls. All of this is part of the human race developing which God intends , even though for many it has brought great hardship. But his Holy Spirit broods over each development as he did over the chaos at the beginning of creation. Ultimately each development has been a way for humanity to progress. And that progress is designed by God to provide seed-ground for the Church to form humanity more and more after the pattern of Christ. Does that statement seem facile in the face of all the wrong which is coming up to meet us? We need to look deeply into the signs of the times. Why do you think the Holy Spirit, in the Vatican Council, inspired such huge changes in the Church before all the recent alarming developments became apparent? Was he preparing his people to meet and sanctify the modern age? Why is there a renewed turning to God and his Church in today’s young people? Did he plan that they would see through the hollow materialism of their parents' generation? Then again, why is the media increasingly mentioning the Pope and the Church, when they were recently so determined to dismiss them as irrelevant? Is it not possible that God who alone is in charge of human history is doing something special in our age? On this website, we publish articles seeking to illustrate what God is doing, as he is energetically working through and in his Church, shaping the foundations of a new and great age of world-wide Christianity. The Church is his programme for drawing the human race into the life of the Trinity.

YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY Fr Brian writes: This is a particularly difficult time for young people. Unemployment and limited life chances threaten their very mental health. Pope Leo spotlights these problems in the new Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas . I quote him here. The numbers are those of paragraphs in the encyclical. "167. For young people, job insecurity is particularly devastating. As the Bishops of the United States of America have recalled, work is not merely a source of income but a crucial sphere in which identity is formed, friendships and relationships are forged, practical responsibilities are learned and one’s vocation is discerned. When access to work is hindered by high levels of unemployment, inadequate systems of training or structural barriers, many young people find the path to their human and professional fulfilment blocked. 151. St John Paul II recognized that unemployment is a grave evil. Indeed, when it reaches massive proportions, it becomes a true social calamity that especially requires the State to exercise responsibility. In some contexts, there is a legitimate fear of a significant and rapid contraction in available jobs that would create a chain reaction deeply impacting families, young people and local economies. In many sectors, this can already be seen in new forms of job insecurity and inequality, characterized by outsized remuneration for a highly specialized minority alongside declining wages for a large portion of the workforce. 152. It is certainly desirable for technology to relieve humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks and to provide intelligent support for human activity. Yet, the protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual must remain the general rule. The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good." Fr Brian writes: A consequence of job insecurity is that young people are finding difficulty in starting families. This is also aggravated by weird cultural and economic theories. Governments often actively marginalise family life. Pope Leo writes about the family. "165. The family is a primary social good. Founded on the enduring union between a man and a woman, it is the first environment in which all persons develop their potential, become aware of their dignity and learn the earliest forms of truth and goodness, internalizing the habits that prepare them for life in society. As the first natural society, endowed with foundational rights, the family is the fundamental and irreplaceable cell of every community organization. Consequently, when political projects and major economic decisions relegate the family to a marginal or secondary role, the authentic growth of the entire social body is compromised."

AFTER MY OWN HEART We visited Knock last month. I was privileged to offer Masses in the Chapel of the Apparition and the Basilica. On each occasion I met Seminarians from Maynooth, the national Seminary of Ireland. They were on work experience as sacristans. They told me that there are 30 students there this year, and there is a growing number of men entering the seminary. There used to be hundreds in the past, and recently there have been as few as 13. This year’s intake is 12 (September 2025 to July 2026). Next year there will be more, bringing the full college complement to 40. God is producing a gradual increase of vocations to the priesthood in Ireland. This is mirrored in the English College Valladolid, where men go for a propaedeutic year. That is a time of spiritual formation and discernment before entering seminary. This year there were 12 students from England and Wales, next year there will be 30. We visited there in Holy Week. We were very impressed with the atmosphere of deep prayer, the foundation on which all priestly life must be based. Also, in talking to the staff, the principle of personal individual development of one’s own potential was stressed. The days of training a regiment of priests in the same mold have passed. Today, the Church needs priests who are authentically true to the unique image of God that they are individually created to be – in other words, mature. We have been through a time of painful cleansing in the Western World, which was the cradle of Christianity. One feature of this has been that the number of priests has plummeted, It has been God’s preparing a new and greater age of the Holy Spirit to flourish. Today’s laity must be much more mature in faith and understanding to bring their witness to the world which is so full of potential. For this to happen the clerical monopoly of Church matters had to change into clerical nurturing of the laity into that maturity, which is what the apostles describe as normal. That change of culture takes time and can seem frustrating – even painful. The gradual increase of mature modern men entering the priesthood is one sign that God’s preparations are nearing completion. God renews his Church from the depths and gradually. It is right that the numbers are increasing gradually. We might desire spectacular increases, which can in fact be a hidden desire to retreat into former Church models. What is needed is profound development, and that is what God is doing. In Jeremiah 3:15, God promised: “I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and these shall feed you on knowledge and discretion”.

At the end of May part of Salford became Walsingham for a weekend as Our Lady of Walsinghm was honoured. The Prince of Peace Community who have relocated to Salford provided a whole weekend of prayer and praise for 350 people.

You have to admit that looking at the news gives you plenty of reasons to be alarmed. Very little of the enormous good which happening throughout the world is reported. Bad news attracts subscribers to social media and sells papers. Continual bad news also presents us with enormous problems, which few individuals feel capable of remedying, which produces the sick reaction of people clamouring for quick fixes. Christ never advocates quick fixes. He calls members of the Church to set out daily following him on the long journey of carrying the cross. But he guarantees that his burden is easy and light and we will find rest for our souls. Remember that you are part of the Church, a member of Christ’s own Mystical Body. In the widespread climate of alarm and worry, Pope Leo offers the world the Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. Some commentators accuse him of being utopian, an optimist, a dreamer of a golden future. His teaching is not wishful thinking; it is based on the victory of Christ. Christians know that God is in charge of human history and leading himanity into fully sharing the love-life of the Godhead. We cannot fail to be people of hope. I quote directly from two paragraphs at the end of Encyclical:  Paragraph 243 . "Mary’s song (The Magnificat) accompanies our commitment. Before Elizabeth who announces to her that she has become the mother of the Lord, Mary bursts into a hymn of praise and joy. Her soul magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior, for he chose a young, poor and humble girl for his plan of salvation. Mary suddenly sees all of history through the lens of this revelation. Nothing has changed around her; the socio-political situation of her time remains the same. The Romans continue to control her land, and her people are still subjugated and humiliated. Yet, everything has changed within her, and this allows her to see what is invisible. God has already shown the strength of his arm; he has already scattered the proud, cast down the mighty, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has already helped Israel, his servant. God takes the part of the lowly. His plan is one that is often hidden beneath the opaque context of human events that see ‘the proud, the mighty and the rich” triumph. Yet his secret strength is destined in the end to be revealed. Paragraph 245 . With the same faith as Mary, let us become “weavers of hope” in our world, sharing who we are and what we have, so that the presence of Jesus may grow among us and his Kingdom take shape. In the humble fidelity of daily life, even the era of AI can become a time in which the Holy Spirit brings about the civilization of love in our lives. Indeed, the Lord continues to make all things new and offers every era the possibility of becoming part of salvation history in the light of the Incarnation.

It is interesting that, shortly after the publication of Magnifica Humanitas , a large group of academics from all over the world, calling themselves The World Inequality Lab , published a document entitled The Global Justice Report . They seek to recommend approaches which will make our world more equitable in the face of the economic and climate-change crises facing our world today. They point to the following facts: 1 The share of global wealth held by billionaires, who make up only 0.001% of the world population is 6%, while the share of the bottom 50% is 2%. 2 The average national personal income in sub-Saharan Africa today is £250 a month, whereas in North America/Oceania it is £3965 a month. 3 Globally, education and healthcare spending today is 13%. 7% of all government expenditures goes on arms. They criticise the short-term approach of mainstream political parties to the problems facing the world, including: 1 Traditional left-wing parties tend to base their politics on materialistic principles. 2 Traditional right-wing parties advocate more and more exploitation of the worlds resources. 3 Many ecologists propose questionable policies of scaling back the growth that is necessary for improve d living conditions. 4. The United nations Panel on Climate Change does not take into account the social impact of their policies on populations. 5. Nationalists and billionaires accept widespread use of fossil fuels, climate disruption and inequality. They emphasise the need for international cooperation, serious research and thinking, which is the secular form of synodality. Their Report is just one example of the many voices increasingly rising today calling for cooperation between people of good will. The Church is finding more and more agreement from people outside it with her Social Teaching, which has always focused on the God-given wonder of humanity. People are beginning to take her seriously and look for guidance. Only the Church’s form of solidarity contributes the enormously essential spiritual ingredient in this cooperation. She brings the wisdom proceeding from 2000 years of listening to the Holy Spirit in prayer. The Church (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) is the massive spiritual beating heart by which God is developing this world which he has created and found to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31). The writers of the report stress that one important aspect of this cooperation/synodality is the need for national states to coordinate the regulation needed to counteract the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few. For example: the power of AI to shape peoples thinking is in the hands of a few tech barons who have told governments to back off. Their aims are not for the good of humanity.

Pope Leo asked an atheist, Christopher Olah, to join the panel introducing the Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas at the Vatican on 25 th May. Christopher is a founder member of Anthropic , the biggest AI tech company in the world. It is famous for its insistence that we need to explore the ethical use of this promising but dangerous technology. Christopher Olah stressed in his remarks that experts in technology are not experts in ethics, and they urgently need help in establishing guidelines. The pope was making the point that we have to listen to and dialogue with all people of good will to construct a future which is beneficial to all humanity. The supreme contribution of the Church is to add listening to the Holy Spirit to the much-needed world-wide dialogue and collaboration. People of good will are listening in their own way to the Spirit, but their hearing is impaired by insufficient knowledge of God. We have to provide the fruits of 2000 years of the Church listening to the Spirit. In the Encyclical Pope Leo calls for a deepening of this synodal listening in our day. He stresses that we in the Church will not be able to lead the people of today on the path of synodal cooperation unless we seriously practice synodal listening to eachother and the Holy Spirit within the Church itself.  There is a lot of work needed here, because many of us do not really understand the practical ways of synodality. Each one of us is called in our own way do what we can to further good practice here. This is no time to shrink by the wayside while Christ and his purposes move forward.