The Mystery of Christmas

With each year, it feels like Christmas is less about the Nativity as we’re taught during our childhood, and more a celebration of something deeper and harder to express in words, as if there is a great mystery to be uncovered. The more I reflect on it, and try to find that connection with God, the less sure I am of what actually transpired 2,000 years ago.
I’m still just as prone to using Christmas as an opportunity bring whatever happiness I can to others through the giving of material things, though, and I’ve sort of overdone it again this year, but as I get older, my thoughts are less focussed on that, and more on pondering the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Contrary to what popular atheism would have the world believe, Christmas isn’t about the pagan understanding of death and rebirth, or the Winter solstice itself – though it could be, if that’s specifically what one decides to celebrate. In the readings and carols during Mass, we don’t speak of an abstract pagan deity, distant and uncaring, but of a God who knew what it was to be human, who experienced the range of human emotions, weaknesses, strengths, difficulties, etc.
We’re celebrating a singular event that apparently happened at a specific point in history, and it involved something special, divine and intimately connected with humanity coming into this world. God removed whatever barrier existed between Himself and humankind, and showed us that a relationship with the transcendent is possible. We need to find that connection for ourselves.

I have a persistent desire to understand what God is, and the more I try to understand, the more certain I am that something much deeper, and elusive to the rational mind, is being communicated through the literal stories of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. I have no doubt that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were flesh-and-blood people who lived 2,000 years ago, but did God use them as characters in a story to communicate metaphorical truths to us?
I guess it’s not without good reason that these are called ‘Mysteries of faith’.

Advent Week 3: Call to Holy Action

This section opens with the assertion that ‘Just as actions speak louder than words, so too faith without deeds is dead’. I think Archbishop Stack, et al, borrowed from James 2:14-17:

‘What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.‘

So here we have what seems an unambiguous claim that faith unaccomanied by action is dead. Does this mean that we believe salvation is earned through works instead of faith alone? Personally I don’t think so. I think the point here is that life presents us with situations in which the sincerity and integrity of our beliefs are tested, and we’re judged by our behaviour and actions – this is true for those of us trying to live a religious life. In other words, good works should follow from genuine faith. If our actions and behaviour aren’t reflective of our beliefs, how could our faith be considered to have any relevance in the world?

Another observation is that Jesus Himself evangelised primarily through action, aside from taking on a human existence in the natural world, rather than impose rules and ideas to a listening audience. Likewise, we’re called upon to evangelise through action, make the Word flesh, as Jesus did, rather than preaching abstract ideas.

Advent Week 2: A Cry from the Wilderness, A Call to Repentance

To someone outside the Catholic faith, the terms ‘repentance’, ‘confession’ and ‘penance’ can seem negative, because they imply things such as guilt, shame, punishment, etc. as consequences for transgressing arbitrary rules. However, that’s actually not the game we’re playing. Repentance, and the process of reconciliation actually has little to do with punishment or the human concept of justice, and it has everything to do with development of the virtues and self-discipline required to live a good life. Also, it’s actually an empowering message, since it implies that everything we do matters, and that we do influence the world around us in subtle but real ways.

What are Christians called to repent of, exactly? In seeking an answer to this, I’ve decided the following are characteristic of sin: Firstly, we’re all internally conflicted between subconscious impulse and conscious virtue, and sin appears to be synonymous with impulsive behaviour. Secondly, as it’ll become apparent, another characteristic of sin is that it’s often the easier or gratifying option in a given situation, but it degrades our quality of life in the longer term.
As far as I can determine, the conflict between sin and virtue seems fundamentally biological in nature – the lower parts of our brain determine primordial instincts for short-term survival, acquisition and pleasure, and in the remote past, humans started to develop powers of reasoning, judgement and intellect, and with it the capacity to know good and evil. The higher and lower parts of the brain, to put it abstractly, are in conflict, and this manifests itself as a struggle between sin and virtue in the choices we make in daily life. St. Augustine hinted at this in his Confessions, when he attempted to understand why he continued to have dreams of a sexual nature long after his conversion.

What makes it hard to live virtuously is our tendency is to act on impulse, our impulses are subconscious, and impulsive behaviours can become habits and addictions that seem to require a super-human level of resolve to overcome. And maybe it goes deeper than that, if the primitive parts of our brains become ‘hard-wired’ to repeat actions that give us gratification.
Many of us smoke 20+ cigarettes a day, even in the knowledge our health would likely be seriously damaged. Many of us spend our nights gaming and searching for pornography, even though it undermines self-confidence and screws with our ability to maintain relationships. Many of us impulsively spend money on things that don’t bring us lasting satisfaction or happiness, knowing the cumulative effect on our financial status. Often it feels so much easier to stay home and watch TV instead of celebrating Mass or working out at the dojo. We can feel trapped by those patterns of behaviour, or in other words, ‘slaves to sin’.

What could be done?

In Jesus and the saints we find human representations of the highest good, and a belief in God enables us to project what we consider to be objective morality. No matter what our mistakes, addictions and weaknesses, there is a process that allows us to orient our lives towards becoming saints ourselves. And since we have the Internet, we have access to so many resources published by others who are trying to achieve the same, to help us along that journey.
The process begins with repentance, a recognition that we’re not living up to who we could be, and a decision to turn away from sin. This can begin a journey of self-discovery and improvement, a journey that leads to living a better life. Even though it seems humanly impossible to be entirely without sin, we can certainly order ourselves to the highest good.

When preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I’m asking myself questions like:

• Since my last confession, when did I act in a way that’s in conflict with my conscience? If so, what were the underlying weaknesses that led to that?
• Is my behaviour often driven by impulse, instead of reason and rational judgement?
• What am I not doing in life that I should be doing?

I think my biggest sins (in no particular order) are a) getting annoyed at aggressive motorists while driving to/from work, b) swearing, c) occasionally not showing up for Mass, d) not being patient as I should be with others, and e) procrastination. Whether they’re trivial or serious sins wouldn’t be relevant here, since the point is they’re behaviours that affect others in subtle and negative ways, and they’re behaviours indicating character flaws that detract from the capacity to live a good life.

As we can see, repentance, contrition and confession, when it’s sincere, marks the beginning of something positive, a process of improvement and healing, and the possibility of redemption so we can be who God made us to be. As I understand it, this is why we’re expected to undertake confession with a priest before the Lent period begins, because the idea is that after that period, we should be in a better place than we were.

Advent Week 1: The Promise

We haven’t begun to sing carols during Mass yet, and Christmas doesn’t officially start for us until Midnight Mass. We are, however, in the first week of Advent, and the theme was the promise of Jesus’ coming – for us today, the promise of His second coming, whenever that turns out to be.

It is also time to start this Advent’s ‘Walk with Me‘ book, which opened with the call for us to be ‘holy’. What does it mean to be ‘holy’, and how could average people like us ever hope to achieve that? Well, the Pope says that being holy consists of living our lives with love, and ‘bearing witness in everything we do’. He also wrote in Gaudete et Exsultate that ‘God wants us to be saints and not settle for a bland or mediocre existence’.

For most of us, this is a very difficult undertaking, as we’re faced with the temptations, frustrations and problems that come with being in the world. However, maybe we could see those challenges as a journey to develop the attributes of holiness, as we take on the challenge. I think the trick is to push ourselves to follow our conscience and stand for what we believe is right, no matter how much we’re tempted to act on impulse, self-interest and even cowardice.

The section dealing with the first week of Advent is titled ‘Holy Longing’. I think it’s appropriate for our times. Some might be yearning for renewal, meaning, the spiritual and something better in their lives. Some might be yearning for stability and direction when the world around them seems uncertain. Maybe there are others who want all those things.
Jesus has promised He will come again, but I believe that it’s something that requires a change of heart to manifest itself in the world, a real effort to achieve holiness. After all, every person is a participant in God’s ongoing act of creation, and everyone has therefore a part to play in bringing about the coming.
By the by, I was chatting to some Mormon missionaries earlier this evening, and their church is running a ‘Light the World’ programme over the advent period to encourage people to manifest Jesus’ love through acts of kindness. Whether they realise it or not, it’s a message that’s empowering because it has real potential to transform the world around us in a subtle but very real way.

Not in My Diocese

I have to make liberal use of the term ‘hierarchy’ when composing this, because most Catholics and priests would feel disgust, anger, perhaps genuine disbelief and betrayal after discovering what’s come to light in two reports exposing the crimes that were perpetrated at Ampleforth Abbey’s school and at dioceses across Pennsylvania.

After viewing the reports, I can no longer accept the possibility that the hierarchy was merely incompetent at handling allegations (there certainly wasn’t a lack of evidence), or merely prioritising the reputations of clergy over the welfare of the victims. No, it’s clearly evident now that networks within the hierarchy deliberately facilitated actions of predators and ensured they continued, and there was even a methodology for that. As Catholics, we’re confronted with one graphic account after another of children being horrifically abused, and sometimes raped, of clergy systematically ensuring the perpetrators remained in positions of trust, and of how it appeared to have become accepted behaviour in the institutions concerned. In Pennsylvania, 301 ‘priests’ were directly involved, and there were ~1,000 known victims.

How could this have been allowed to happen? The ‘progressives’ would approportion blame to ‘outdated’ doctrines on marriage, sexuality and celibacy. Conservatives, on the other hand, would argue that it’s because the hierarchy became too accepting of homosexuality within its ranks.
I think a more plausible explanation is that predators infiltrated the Church, with the priestly vocation offering them a means to gain power, deference and trust without accountability, and word must have circulated that anyone with a sexual interest in children would find a network of sympathetic individuals to cover up their transgressions. I believe this to be the case because the predators, impersonating priests, demonstrated a spiteful contempt for the Catholic faith and a blatant disregard for human dignity. Some of the incidents involved acts of desecration. For example, in forcing victims to have abortions, forging marriage certificates to cover up crimes, misusing the confessional, in one case taking pornographic images of a child in a ‘Christ-like’ pose, and using ‘holy water’ to wash the mouth of a child after a sexual act.
The perpetrators have operated in the shadows. Like the predators they were, they targeted the vulnerable when nobody was around to protect them. They committed their crimes behind the backs of the ‘laity’ and outside agencies. The sodalities, fraternities, community groups, associations, parents – the community around the Church who might have exposed these crimes – were conspicuously absent in the reports. Every (adult) Catholic should read the reports as case studies, and attempt to understand what we’re up against.

Many of us are now calling for the establishment of an investigative organisation to operate independently of the hierarchy – Bishops Robert Barron and Scharfenberger support this idea. Nobody believes that an internal inquiry would be instrumental in bringing anyone to justice.
In Bishop Barron’s words: ‘The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has no juridical or canonical authority to discipline bishops. And even if it tried to launch an investigation, it has, at the moment, very little credibility. Only the Pope has juridical and disciplinary powers in regard to bishops.‘
Barron then suggested: ‘that the bishops of the United States—all of us—petition the Holy Father to form a team, made up mostly of faithful lay Catholics skilled in forensic investigation, and to empower them to have access to all of the relevant documentation and financial records.‘ Of course, Barron was speaking in the context of the McCarrick scandal, but why limit ourselves to that? And why wait for approval from The Powers That Be?

What We Could Do

We must take the issue into our own hands, and hold those in authority accountable. In concrete terms, it could mean investigating allegations ourselves, and turning whatever evidence we can gather to the police. The Church is not the hierarchy itself, or an institution, or a place we visit on a weekly basis. The Church is an international (should that be ‘pan-national’?) body composed of the faithful, with countless sodalities, brotherhoods, religious orders, ventures, fraternities, charity organisations, etc. We already have a framework for doing what needs to be done, and there are ways of infiltrating and bringing to justice networks that prey on children.

My own diocese is a good example of one where strong safeguards exist – not because we’re honourable people, but because there’s less separation between the hierarchy and community. Almost every position of trust requires a background check against an internal and and external list, one of those being the DBS. We follow the ‘two person rule’, because we know, as facts of life, that abuse does happen and false allegations are made. We attend training sessions to better recognise signs of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. We also have a co-operative relationship with other churches, the police and local authorities. If that could be replicated in all dioceses and institutions, it would go a long way to discouraging predators.

If, God forbid, something does happen, it’s important to remember the doctrine of reconciliation, penance and restitution. This isn’t about punishment or our persnal ideas of ‘justice’, but about seeking the best outcome for everyone. It is critical that our initiative does not become a witch hunt, that lives and careers are not ruined because of mere accusation. There must be due process, and the ideal way to get that is through law enforcement and the justice system. If you encounter sexual abuse or harassment, dont make accusations on social media, but instead report it to the police, so, at the very least, there’d be a record that could potentially be vital to an investigation.

Street Pastor Training: Good News

From the title I assumed this was going to be one of those Bible Study things, but it was actually more a follow-up to the Changing Face of Society session. It presented the question: What exactly is the ‘Good News’, and what does it really mean in today’s society? The presentation material is available for download here.

The session went off on so many tangents, it took a while to make a coherent post on this.

A CityToCity project’s mission statement is this: ‘[…]A movement for the planting of highly contextualised, Gospel-centred, church-planting churches[…]‘

Let me try to explain what this means in more concrete terms: The definition and nature of evangelism has changed in recent years. Long ago (say about twenty years ago), it was common to encounter preachers evangelising on the streets in a language that might be considered rather condemning and judgemental. Basically their message was to accept Christ or be condemned to eternity in Hell, because mankind deserves the latter by default, for reasons nobody seemed to understand.
The biggest problem for myself was the absence of logic or reason in what they were presenting as ‘Good News’. How on Earth could one person be absolved of wrongdoing because another man was executed in a distant land 2,000 years ago? How is being a slave to ‘sin’ any worse than being a slave to a man-made religion? How could the idea of Hell be reconciled with the concept of a loving God? Surely liberalism and tolerance are preferable, certainly in the 21st century, than adherence to religious dogma? And what of those who profess to be devoutly religious but aren’t living up to the standards they hold others to? People are right to ask these questions, and I never found satisfactory answers to them outside the Catechism.

So, it is for those reasons I don’t evangelise by speaking of Jesus dying for peoples’ sins, or of repentance, for those words have no traction in in a secular world, and neither am I aiming to convert anyone.
I’m more interested in causing people to question materialism and consider the mysteries our faith presents us with, because that’s where the battle between secularism and religion seems to be. I hint at ideas that are somewhat occulted, and sometimes discouraged, in a postmodern and highly individualistic society. In everyday life, I attempt to bring the Good News into the world by trying to bring happiness to others and through the subtle use of symbolism – these are far more effective than any amount of street preaching. And, if the words ‘pastor’ and ‘church’ become associated in the public consciousness with kindness, hope and compassion, that would count as successful evangelism.

For myself, the Good News is that God lived amongst humanity because He loves us, that everyone is involved in the continual unfolding of creation, and that everyone can have a relationship with something much greater – these, in my belief, are the core truths behind the dogma. And they’re life-changing truths if you can believe them.

Another reason we don’t evangelise by preaching is that preaching is not effective communication. People (myself and other Street Pastors included) have the human tendency to talk instead of listen, to pause during a conversation only for the opportune moment to voice our opinions. By listening to another person and asking questions, instead of merely exchanging opinions, conversations can be made more meaningful. Interestingly enough, Jesus seemed to be aware of this – you’ll notice that He rarely answered a question directly, but instead usually countered with another question, and His teachings were usually communicated using imagery and practical demonstration.
Taking a broader view, I’d argue that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection left humanity with a profound mystery, a huge unanswered question that our best philosophers and theologians struggled with for centuries.

The Good News and the Social Condition

The way I see it, social problems arise because we’re not in harmony with what we’d call ‘natural law’ – this is something that’s better understood by reading/listening to ‘apologetics’ resources rather than your typical homily. Natural law is often described as an immutable law that’s written into the hearts of men. It is independent of, and above, secular laws, and it determines the consequences of our behaviour, individually and collectively. On a large scale, natural law governs the rise and fall of civilisations. On a personal level, it determines whether we live a good life according to our life decisions.

What has Christianity to do with natural law? Well, Christianity promotes a way of living, a pattern of individual and social behaviour that’s in harmony with natural law. We believe that every person is made in the image of God, and therefore has certain inalienable rights – the right to life, dignity and freedom of expression being chief among them. Every child should be raised by a mother and a father, and that family unit would exist within a support network of extended family and community. You’ve probably come across the truism that it takes a village to raise a child. Far from being disempowering or constricting, this pattern of society would give everyone a connection to something greater, a means to act within the world and influence it as they see fit, and even an obligation to participate in local politics. This is the essence of subsidiarity.

Like the traditionalists and conservatives, I have a tendency to refer to a sort of ‘golden age’ of society being modelled on Christian values and the aforementioned ideals, but it seems simplistically naive to think this happened without reason, and for more than a very brief period in human history. It seems, certainly in Wales’ mining communities, that strong community and the traditional family existed because of the hardships experienced by previous generations, and working men needed to involve themselves in local politics because rights for the working class had to be fought for.

The Good News, then, would include the proposition that our collective sense of disempowerment, the disconnect between the average person and how the country is run, is an illusion. Anyone could indeed change the world around them, and our individual actions do indeed affect the world more than we’re aware of.
As a case in point, who would have thought that a small group calling themselves ‘Street Pastors’, dedicating just four hours per week, could reduce crime by 40% in a town and save the NHS £millions? Who would think that a simple gesture of kindness to a homeless person early one morning would be emulated by several others?

Spirituality

We cannot really discuss ‘Good News’ without exploring spirituality and contemporary attitudes to it. In a couple of the training sessions, it’s been pointed out that, according to a fairly recent YouGov survey, most people still believe, or at least profess to believe, in a ‘higher power’ and some form of afterlife. Most the others at the sessions took this as evidence that our society is spiritual and, deep down, believes in God, but I don’t agree.

First, as Dr. Jordan Peterson has pointed out, it actually depends on the definitions of ‘believe’ and ‘God’, since those terms usually mean very different things to the religious and the secular.
Secondly, what we do know is that church attendance has been on the decline for several decades. It’s a general trend spanning most denominations, which suggests a societal reason for this. The problem is there are a myriad of possible societal reasons. Some of them are understandable and entirely valid, such as the disillusionment with organised religion and the loss of trust in authorities. And perhaps attending Mass simply isn’t something most people are into – even I sometimes need to force myself to attend Mass and do whatever is needed in my ministry.

One of the possible societal reasons for the decline in church attendance is the fact most the population are living in cities and urban areas, and with the weakening of communities that, before, would have perpetuated traditions. This would obviously have an effect on the spiritual outlook of society.
Increasingly our senses are barraged with the artificial, synthetic and man-made. Many of us spend most our waking hours staring into a monitor, a smartphone or a TV screen. We’re far less grounded in truth and reality than our ancestors were, even now to the point of political discourse being casually dismissed as ‘fake news’ or the work of Russian propagandists.
As a talking point, a short video was played during the session listing some of the technological advances that are anticipated for the coming decade. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most the advances were in some way related to virtual and augmented reality, further abstracting our experience and interactions with the world.

What’s my point here? Spiritually, I think we’re collectively in danger of becoming rather like the prisoners in Plato’s Cave, refusing to accept the truths behind the shadow of reality presented to us, whether those truths be religious or political. As an aside, one of the more pressing consequences of this is our ignorance of the environmental impact of consumerism, and the (in)humane treatment of animals used in food production, and the welfare of those involved in the manufacture of things we take for granted.

So, the ‘spirituality’ that is common in society is actually a byword for spiritual apathy. We don’t see many becoming disillusioned with the Church and seeking gnosis in Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, psychadelics or suchlike, but instead accepting a non-committal and relativistic kind of agnosticism. What’s commonly referred to as ‘spiritual’ today is vague, post-modernist, worldview that doesn’t really have a significant influence on how one lives. It takes a back seat to all other material things.

Street Pastor Commissioning and First Shift

Despite my mixed feelings about my first patrol as an observer, and the tentativeness of my expression of interest, I pressed ahead with the training, and before I knew it I had become a commissioned Street Pastor. That’s not to say there wasn’t a considerable amount of paperwork, training and other admin involved, but it all seemed to have happened fast. A couple of years ago, I would never have even entertained the idea of becoming an evangelist. Taking Christianity out on the streets, becoming a bridge between the Church and the secular world, is such a big step. The position does indeed come with a load of responsibility and no doubt there’ll be the occasional emotionally challenging situations, though the public will only see us handing out stuff and cleaning up glass. I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who’s already been doing it for several years.

Generally the training was pretty good. Some of the sessions were the standard volunteer induction about drugs, alcohol, safeguarding, mental health. That sort of thing. Most of that, particularly the mental health and alcohol/drug-related issues, are learned very quickly on the job anyway, especially working in a night shelter. Safeguarding is primarily about covering our asses, about setting boundaries, about avoiding situations that could lead to awkward legal issues. If there’s one thing one should take away from these sessions, it’s the contact details of local organisations – business cards wherever possible. A lot of my work involves ‘signposting’. Other than that, I was rather surprised at the intellectual and philosophical depth of a couple of the sessions.

The commissioning service was a big deal for most the people there – the mayor, a couple of police officers, the local Anglican priest and a rep from the Ascension Trust showed up. Next week I’ll be meeting up with Les Isaacs. We made a few affirmations, put on our caps and then officially became Street Pastors.

My First Shift

And last night I went out on my first real patrol. There’s not as much trouble in our relatively small town as there was a decade ago, when there were a few notoriously dangerous spots here on a Saturday night – glassings and stabbings at 2:00AM weren’t uncommon, and the restaurant/club I worked at was one of the four main places they would happen. Things have changed. Now most the town is dead quiet, with about a hundred people milling around outside the one pub by the station – there weren’t even as many there as I’d expected this time of year.
So, last night’s shift was uneventful. We handed out roughly 50 lollipops, which for some reason everyone keeps asking us for, plus all the bottles of water. Several people stopped us to say what a good job we’re doing

Kit List

It’s essential to be prepared by having the right kit with you. Among other things, I carry:

• Cellphone: In the very unlikely event you find drugs lying around, or your team is involved in a physical confrontation, it’s important to cover yourself by logging that fact with the police as soon as possible.
• Notebook and pen: If something isn’t documented in writing, it didn’t happen. Don’t rely on anyone else to record something hours after the fact.
• A good flashlight: The one I have is of the ‘tactical’ variety, which I always have in my car. It has an SOS beacon capable of getting the attention of police and ambulance crew, and it has a strobe capable of blinding and disorienting an attacker long enough to get away. The toothed bezel is capable of breaking glass in an emergency.
• Standard military-issue field dressing: Known in the civvy world as ‘trauma dressing’, this is the most valuable first aid item one could carry, in my opinion. An ambulance might not be available for several hours on a Saturday night, even for serious injuries.
• Card holder: Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is provide someone with contact details to a local charity or other organisation. Have business cards for these handy.
• Sanitising gel: We could be picking up needles, glass, administering first aid, etc.

Why Ireland’s Repeal of the 8th Amendment Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing

While both the pro-choice and pro-life campaigners clearly frame the abortion issue in entirely different terms, the salient question, though the debate leading up to the referendum was deflected from this, was whether the freedom of the individual outweighs the unborns’ right to life. More specifically, on what basis could we argue objectively that both have an equal right to life, as the 8th Amendment of Ireland’s Constitution asserts?

I don’t think many of us are opposed to abortion because of religious dogma, though we could argue that any constitution that appeals to the sanctity of life must invoke something transcendent and absolute, a ‘necessary being‘, to put it in Catholic terminology, to place it above the consensus of lawmakers and politicians, and above utilitarian thinking. We claim that man is created in the image of God, and it’s upon that concept that the sanctity and dignity of human life are predicated, and in turn human rights and social justice. Therefore, one person’s freedom is secondary to another person’s right to life. The more society devalues human life to justify a societal demand, and the lives of the unborn sacrificed to consumerism and individualism, the more our convictions about human rights and social justice become subject to question.
The effects of this are already maniftested in our politics. Society today seems bitterly divided between conservative populism and the pseudo-liberal manipulations of George Soros billionaire lobbyists. Both exploit prevalent individualism and our base instincts, while the lobbyists’ demands for society are marketed as ‘progressive’ causes – I think that’s descriptive of the recent pro-choice campaign.

So, yes, I am firmly and unapologetically pro-life, though I still wonder if the 8th Amendment should have existed in the first place. A constitution should generally prohibit the state from violating its citizens’ fundamental rights, and the unborns’ right to life is already implicit in the wording and spirit of Ireland’s Constitutition. The 8th Amendment, conversely, seems intended to pre-empt conscience, reason, judgement and case law, which is just about the worst way of approaching situations that aren’t black and white. Secondly, one only needs to look up the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign’s background on Wikipedia to see the campaign for that was established by a number of overtly religious organisations with a decidedly exclusive membership. Effectively it was lobbying to enforce religious beliefs on a society.

The execution and outcome of last week’s referendum saddens me for another reason. There was a time when it was deemed progressive to campaign for the right to life and human dignity, while speaking truth to power. We had a political left that campaigned on things that really mattered – the arms trade, homelessness, oppressive regimes, animal cruelty, etc. We wanted the social justice that Martin Luther King dreamed of, not the vicious identity politics and race baiting that today passes for ‘left-wing’ opinion, or peurile campaigns to affirm our base mentality. For a while it seemed humanity could aspire to a world in which everyone had a decent quality of life, that collectively we could do something about the scenes of war, famine and poverty that were shown on our televisions.

Reasons for Optimism

What next? The referendum heralded the decline of the Church’s authority in Ireland, and a change in the society’s values. Roughly 60% of the voters opted for the repeal, and ~30% voted against it despite a strong campaign to preserve the Amendment. This ~30% is roughly the same percentage of the population who attend Mass regularly, and it has been in decline since the 1970s. Despite this, I really think some good will come of this situation.

History is replete with examples of what happens when the separation between Church and state is violated, when religious authorities think they’re above the law and when state authorities attempt to override individual conscience. Among these, we know, is the institutional cover-up of child abuse within the Church hierarchy, which I reckon was enabled by the power and the lack of accountability that priesthood offered. We can also look at churches that became irrelevant by trying to become acceptable to the secular world.

The Church has gone from being part of the establishment to being counter-cultural. No longer is Catholicism a tradition that people blindly conform to, but an engaging faith that must survive by changing hearts and minds. It’s up to the saintly to rebuild the Church for this age. The first Christians managed this in a world that was entirely at odds with their faith.

The pro-life campaign is far from over. Abortion would still be illegal in Ireland until legislation is passed to actually legalise it, and there’ll very likely be debates and campaigns during that timeframe. The issue will be framed somewhat differently then.

Street Pastor Training: Mental Health

Like most training sessions on mental health I’ve attended, this one was mainly about identifying signs of mental illness and how to get professional help for someone who’s facing a crisis – I’ve listed these further down. Most of us, as Street Pastors (actual and aspiring) will already bring plenty of experience to the role, either first-hand, from our careers or from previous community work, and we’ll be in a position to help in ways the emergency services don’t have the time or resources to.

I’m not sure how religion could be brought into this, but I do know Christianity, or more broadly spirituality, can play an important part in recovery, because it speaks to something deep within everyone, something that’s intrinsic to human psychology.
Christianity can provide a constructive way out for someone trapped in a cycle of self-pity, or lacking a sense of self-worth because they’re comparing themselves to others around them, or because they’re surrounded by negative influences, or simply because they feel alienated in society. To attend Mass is to be surrounded by positivity and to celebrate something greater than ourselves. Christianity can also provide a framework for understanding human nature, the world and our place in it.
Another reason I bring that up is that many young people today are highly vulnerable to radicalisation, I argue, because extremist movements, often under the guise of religion, offer the illusion of identity, community, meaning and mentorship – all human needs that modern society is failing to provide. Radicalisation is not the problem, but it’s symptomatic of a dysfunctional society that’s in conflict with the human condition. Certainly we can mitigate the problem by reporting instances of radicalisation to authorities, but actually solving it would require a return to traditions that held communities together.

Of course, drugs were mentioned as a factor, as they affect mental health to varying degrees and often there’s an underlying reason for becoming addicted to drugs like heroin. On this point, I think there’s a major generational difference between myself and most the other Street Pastors in our understanding of drugs, but this will change with experience. Often you’ll hear them say how dangerous drugs are, and all sorts of horror stories about cannabis that might have come straight from the Daily Mail. Most of them have never seen the green before, let alone tried it. To me, smoking green is just about the most mundane thing anyone could do, and the outlawing of cannabis and edibles do more harm than good.

Things to look for

• Appearance: Is the person well-groomed or are there signs of self-neglect?
• Body language and posture: Does the person appear confident and outgoing, or is the demeanor one of timidity or fear.
• Eye movements: Is the person avoiding eye contact?
• Delusions/Hallucinations: More common is auditory.
• Motivation to do normal things in life. Has the person lost interest in socialising, has a social person suddenly become withdrawn and unmotivated?
• Biological signs: These include extreme changes in eating or sleeping habits.
• Self-harming: A tricky one, as opinions vary on whether it’s an addiction or coping method.
• Consciousness and orientation: Is the person aware of identity and surroundings?
• Speech patterns: Is the person’s speech pattern incoherent, erratic or non-sensical?
• Ideation: Has the person indicated a serious intent to harm themselves or someone else?
• Head injury: A very important one. If someone appears mentally ill following a head injury, it should be considered a medical emergency.

What to Do

• Accident and Emergency: The person gets referred to a mental health team after arriving at A&E. This probably wouldn’t be the ideal course of action, because it usually means waiting several hours in a very stressful environment.
• Ambulance: Also not ideal, especially on a Saturday night, as there could be quite a long wait if the operators don’t consider it an emergency. An ambulance could arrive very quickly, but could also arrive several hours later.
• Police: They can detain and section a person who might reasonably be considered a threat to him/herself or others, and they’ll usually respond very quickly.
• Get the person to a place of safety. Could be that person’s home, or a hospital or a police station.
• Samaritans. They might refer a person in need, and offer advice. It’s important for us to be able to signpost people to available sources of help.

Listening and Mentoring Skills for Street Pastors

Many years ago, on the streets of Cardiff, it was common to see impassioned street evangelists with their placards and loudspeakers, exhorting passersby to repent and accept Jesus into their lives, and punctuating that with a repertoire of Bible verses. Sometimes I stopped and chatted with them, as that seemed the courteous thing to do, but I never came away understanding why anyone should indeed repent, and the concept of someone ‘dying for my sins’ 2,000 years ago made almost no sense to me then. I wasn’t quite sure whether they knew themselves.

If there’s a lesson for us here, aside from knowing our ‘apologetics’, it’s the importance of ‘meeting people where they are’, to borrow an often-repeated motto. Obviously that requires knowing where people are, and that in turn it requires listening to them. If we’re to reach anyone, we must make our faith relevant to their circumstances, and I don’t mean ‘relevant’ in the sense of becoming acceptable to the secular world and presenting what we think would be relevant to young people. Evangelisation is largely about where Christianity and faith might fit into the life of the individual, about what they can believe in an emulate. And usually it’s the case that religion is not even mentioned during our interactions, because they’re simply not oriented to that.

As you can probably tell, Street Pastors are working largely as counsellors, not preachers, and our mission statement is one of listening and caring. So, we spent the day with someone from a counselling service based in Newport to focus on this aspect of our ministry.

Non-Verbal Communication

One of the first things we discussed was non-verbal communication, as everyone expresses more visually than they do verbally. A lot can be determined about a person’s psychology from their clothes, facial expressions, body language, eye movements, etc. Rightly or wrongly, this will bias our interactions, and that’s another reason why it’s important to listen to what that person is actually saying.

But what do we communicate as Street Pastors? Hopefully that we’re a form of authority people can turn to without fear of being judged or reported to the police, that we can be trusted to provide a safe environment, that we can protect a vulnerable person from harm, and that we’d express the love Christ has for them. These are things we hope the uniform communicates. Maybe that is all we need to express.
A person travelling alone through the town centre after closing time would feel relieved to see police or Street Pastors. A person who’s out drinking to escape the bad patch they’re currently going through, which I’ve done myself, might feel happy to encounter someone who’s genuinely concerned about their situation.

Proxemics

Next, we covered ‘proxemics’ – proximity and personal space. Why is this important? Well, I’d argue it’s about our survival instinct. We reserve our personal space for people we know aren’t threats – relatives, close friends, etc. and we react badly when that personal space is invaded or disrespected. I also think the routine invasions of our personal spaces contributes to the stress and subtle aggression that’s prevalent in the city.

Early on the issues around hugging came up, which turned out to be a contentious subject of discussion in our group, and difficult because strangers do hug us as a show of genuine gratitude and affection. My opinion is that a Street Pastor isn’t under any obligation to allow intimate contact, and I think it’s important to set boundaries from the outset. Conversely, it’s important to remember that we’re the ones approaching people and putting ourselves in a situation in which we might encounter verbal abuse, groping, unwanted physical contact, or whatever some of us might consider upsetting – I’ve never experienced any of that on patrol or working at the Night Shelter, to my recollection. We don’t really have the right to enforce our expectations of appropriate conduct or behaviour on the streets at 01:00, unless a crime is being committed, but again, we can assert our own boundaries and personal space.

As a martial artist, as a matter of habit, I avoid being within striking range of someone I don’t know, and I’ll usually avoid facing that person directly. Also, I might have my arms folded or a hand close to my face when interacting with someone. As well as being advantageous for self-defence, these also work as psychological tactics for discouraging physical contact. Another good thing about this is you’re respecting the other person’s physical space.

Active Listening

When listening, we should have an attitude of acceptance, try to understand the person’s perspective, perhaps occasionally ask questions that invite further exploration, and basically act as a means for the person to reflect.
We covered open and closed questions. This is important during counselling, as open questions invite conversation, enable the other person to reveal more to you, and more importantly to themselves, about their circumstances, and they tend to be less loaded with your opinion.

One thing I think was missing from the session was the importance of sometimes relating your own experiences. Often it’s the case that people draw strength and encouragement from solidarity, knowing they’re not alone in whatever adverse situation they’re facing.