De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Fr. Jon Bielawski was Ordained in 1990 and is a Parish Priest of the Plymouth Diocese in the UK. Fr. Jon’s first experience of evangelising was with the Franciscan Friars of Renewal in London when they took to the streets handing out prayer cards and engaging people in conversation. “I found it exhilarating and it made me realise that the biggest hurdle to overcome in reaching out to others, is no greater than the sum of our own fears and pre-conceived ideas”. In 2015, Fr. Jon combined the role of Episcopal Vicar for Evangelisation and Catechesis with running a busy parish. Haunted by the phrase “the church exists to evangelise” Fr. Jon recognised there is a huge gap between knowing we should evangelise and how to go about it. Fr. Jon’s mission in making disciples is to work on the God given potentiality of the person and to group them within a parish to be the core of dynamic outreach. “We are all looking for full parish renewal and in the meantime there is a whole world that is ...

The Latin Mass Society advise: +++ THIS SUNDAY IN PLYMOUTH DEVON+++A MISSA CANTATA AND A BISHOP! 2nd Sunday in Advent 10th December, Bishop Mark O'Toole will be attending the 11.30am Old Rite Latin Mass at St. Edward the Confessor, Peverell, Plymouth. He will be sitting in choir and giving the sermon. The Mass will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Fr. Anthony Pillari’s ordination. This is a wonderful occasion for the parish and for the diocese to see the Bishop showing support for the Latin Mass. There will be a refreshments in the church hall afterward, and all welcome to attend. Do come along If you want to know more about the parish and the Latin Mass read more here Bishop Mark with myself in October “while the new Mass can be celebrated in a reverent way that directs us to the transcendent, “there is nothing in the rule governing the way the Novus Ordo is to be said that ensures the centrality of the celebration of the Paschal mystery.” In other words, ...

Bishop Mark O'Toole with Abbot David Charlesworth & Cardinal Pell In huge contrast to yesterday's worrying and nasty blog subject, today I am pleased to bring you something very encouraging! Bishop Mark O'Toole, recently Ordained to Plymouth Diocese, continues to delight and impress with his Catholicity (it seems incredible that I even have to say that of a Catholic bishop really doesn't it?) When I received the LMS Magazine at the weekend, I was delighted to read an interview with Bishop Mark which is available here . In it he articulates a clear plan of action which seems to follow on naturally from his recent excellent Pastoral Letter on Vocation . In that letter, he stated his belief that the challenge faced by the Church today is not a lack of vocations, but rather a lack of responses. The solution to this problem seems obvious to me, and I'm no bishop! Mark O'Toole is, and thankfully he seems to see it clearly. Young men will not answer the ca...

That Vocations to the Priesthood are in crisis is an internationally accepted reality. I don't think it is rocket science to work out why either. To be a Catholic today is to be attacked by Catholics. I think Pope Benedict XVI went a long way to sorting this out, by making the essentials of the faith clear and that led many who felt disenfranchised in a community which no longer practised what it preached to feel part of the Church once more. However I do think the fundamental malaise remains and that is that many don't like other Catholics who take their faith seriously, some priests as well as lay people! As Father Alexander Lucie-Smith points out in The Catholic Herald today: "People who oppose Catholic teaching from within the Catholic Church, particularly from within the institutional Church, always feel a huge amount of pain when challenged, and are never reticent about sharing it. They usually ignore, however, the pain they cause to ordinary believing ...

I was so glad to hear from a member of his diocese, that the recently ordained ninth Bishop of Plymouth, The Rt. Rev Mark O'Toole has also spoken out on the Assisted Dying Bill which is due to be debated in the House of Lords on Friday, 18 July. The Bishop, ordained on 28th January this year at the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Boniface, was formerly rector of Allen Hall seminary in West London. I have to say, I keep hearing good things about the work he is doing in Plymouth--Deo gratias! In a pastoral letter issued last weekend, Bishop O'Toole warned that the Bill raises "serious questions" about what sort of society we want to be: "Our faith teaches us that all human life is sacred. Respecting life means that every person must be valued for as long as they live. Whilst we believe every person should be given appropriate treatment in their suffering we do not always use extraordinary means to extend life at all costs. "At the same ...