Issue 10 - The Pilgrim - October 2012 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

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Features The Pilgrim October 2012 Catholic storyline in Downton Abbey The third series of the acclaimed drama Downton Abbey, which begins this month on ITV, will include a Catholic storyline. However, writer Julian Fellowes, a Catholic, has refused to give any details of what this might involve. What is known for definite is that the series will be set in the Roaring Twenties and Academy Award-winning actress Shirley MacLaine will be joining the cast. Film review It’s not often the life of a saint gets the big screen treatment. The latest is There be Dragons, directed by Roland Joffee. The saint in question is Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002. His story is told through the eyes of a journalist who sets out to write a book about him. He discovers his father had grown up with Escriva and they had ended up fighting on opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War. The film somehow fails to give us a real sense of Escriva the man. The acting, the script and the dialogue don’t feel natural enough. And it lacks the drama of Joffee’s other Catholic film, The Mission. However, it has some good moments. As the Communists start attacking churches, we see Escriva holding confession in a park, with people sitting next to him on a bench. When a young woman offers him shelter, adding that she only has a single room, he says, “I’m a priest. But also I’m a man. But thank you for your offer.” And the film has one especially memorable line: Every saint has a past and every sinner a future. Greg Watts Correction The article on page 10 in the September edition of The Pilgrim about being a Catholic writer was written by Joanna Bogle. Making news on the net Independent Catholic News has become one of the leading Catholic news web sites. Its founder Jo Siedlecka, who runs it from her flat, explains how it works. I set up ICN in 2000, because I felt there was a real need in the UK for a professionally run Catholic news service on the internet. The idea was a response to Tertio Millennio Adveniente, which called for lay people to play a more active role in the work of the Church. This was one way to make a contribution. Three other journalists with web design experience: Mary Carson, Christy Lawrence and Christopher Sleight, helped to get the site off the ground. Since we went live, hundreds of writers have contributed to the site and we went on to a content management system two years ago – which makes it much easier to work on. Our readership has grown enormously. From a few thousand to start with, we now get more than 4.8 million hits each month. I’m expecting we will reach the five million mark each month this autumn. ICN publishes all the official Church news from the Vatican, Bishops Conferences, reports from the missions and so forth. But we also like to have stories from parishes, schools, community groups and individuals. More and more students are writing for us and several teachers, governors and pupils have started sending in news. The great thing about the internet is that it can be extremely immediate. People send in reports and personal accounts from pilgrimages or ongoing events and we are able to post them up immediately. We are getting more and reports with links to You Tube films, web cams or sound clips. Besides carrying up-to-the minute news, the website has reflections, a saint of the day, listings, letters page, shop, and a huge portal of links to other Catholic sites.We also run an e-mail service, which is especially useful for people in the developing world who may have trouble accessing the Internet because of a shortage of electricity. Several schools and seminaries overseas print our news and saint of the day each day and put it on their notice boards. Others reprint pieces in their newsletters and websites. We want to be a useful resource for everyone. The site is mainly funded by donations. In the past two years we have begun publishing classified ads and adverts on the front page, which are beginning to increase our income. I chose the patron saints of journalists, St Francis of Sales and Maximilian Kolbe, as ICN’s patrons. They were both prolific writers. St Francis once said: “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than you can with a bucket of vinegar” – which I try to remember. Our job is to report news and leave the comments to others. St Maximilian, a Polish Franciscan priest, set up a Catholic publishing house and newspapers in Poland and Japan. He died in Auschwitz when he swapped places with a young married man with children. The Vatican is supposed to be naming a patron saint for computers. I hope Cathedral concerts they choose one soon, because the technical side of running a website can be a bit hair-raising at times. ICN is a work in progress. If any readers would like to contribute to the site or make suggestions about ways it could be developed please write to: news@indcatholicnews.com or jsiedlecka@gmail.com www.independentcatholicnews.com St George’s cathedral is hosting two Saturday concerts. Peter Wright, organist and director of music at Southwark Anglican Cathedral will be performing on 17 November and Norman Harper, organist at St George’s, on 15 December. The concerts take place, just after the end of 12.30 Mass. And last for 40 minutes. The Universe Catholic weekly newspaper is now available on your computer, iPad or smartphone. Annual subscription £34.99. A 3 month subscription is also available for just £8.75. Visit our new website www.thecatholicuniverse.com to subscribe. New! Page 10
The Pilgrim October 2012 Feature School days: Jeremy de Satge Changes in China The theme of this year’s annual conference of the National Justice and Peace Network Conference, held in July at the Swanwick Conference Centre in Derbyshire, was “A New World Order China today and our response.” Rosalind Shea reports. Home Camberwell. Job Freelance singer, composer and music publisher. School I’d rather not mention, it was so bad and I was so unhappy there – it was a boarding school. Favourite subject Music. Worst subject Sport, if that is a subject. Otherwise biology. Favourite teacher No one springs to mind. Favourite school dinner They were all dreadful. Guilty secret I used to disappear in the afternoons to avoid playing sport. What lessons about life did you learn That education really only starts once you leave school. What do you wish you had been told That learning should not be seen to be a chore. What did you do immediately after school I was lucky enough to do a gap six months in France to learn to speak French fluently. What career advice would you give to a young person To try to do something that is useful in life and – if you possibly can – something you enjoy doing. So much of an adult’s life is spent working and so many people hate what they do and see work as simply a means to an end. If work can somehow be vocational, then so much the better – and that is a very Catholic view as well. One of the most moving parts of the conference was a workshop run by Xinran, highlighting the trauma experienced by Chinese women and girls, both traditionally and because of the government’s one child policy. She has worked as a radio journalist in China interviewing women. Her books, including the best seller The Good Women of China, publicise and celebrate these hidden, voiceless and despised women whose girl babies were usually killed or abandoned. Her charity, The Mothers’ Bridge of Love, connects the 120,000 babies, mostly girls, adopted in the West, with their Chinese heritage. So that when these children ask ‘Why didn’t my Chinese mummy want me” the answer is often, ‘Well actually she did.’ Our keynote speaker, Martin Palmer, founder of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), painted a vivid word picture of the results of the cooperation between the Chinese government and ARC. Together they promoted the “Three Sticks Movement” requiring pilgrims to burn only three sticks of incense to reduce pollution. And in 2008 a Chinese monk announced that the birds are now returning to the Sacred Mountains. “The curtain of smoke around the temples was removed. And we want even more birds to come back,” he said. I was amazed to learn that there are 12 million Catholics in China, openly attending Mass with men training as priests in spite of certain restrictions. A poignant moment came when all 300 of us at the conference shared a Skype call with Sister Mary Liu, a newly professed contemplative nun in a Chinese convent, officially described as a care home. One of the best aspects of any NJPN Conference is the many excellent workshops. Some of us enjoyed Tai Chi, Chinese calligraphy, and Chinese poetry, and also gained insights into many aspects of Chinese life, politics, and culture. And did you know that Cafod is at work in China Jim Simmons from its Southwark office showed slides of his work in China, where a HIV / Aids programme, approved by the local government, is supported by Cafod. We were exhilarated and exhausted by Sunday afternoon having experienced an exciting dialogue with Chinese university lecturers, priests, sisters, lay people and students. It was a steep learning curve. It was good to hear a Chinese scholar, new to NJPN, declare, “I am so impressed that…. so many people are so positive about China and ways to engage with it.” For further information go to www.justice-and-peace.org.uk Seeing the bigger picture RUNNING A BUSINESS You can reach 60,000 London area customers by advertising in our Westminster and Southwark papers Tel. 0161 214 1216 and ask for Andrea Laverne Hunt Some film makers can inspire us and help us to see the bigger picture. Internationally acclaimed director Ousmane Sembene, who died in 2007, aged 84, was someone who did this. The Los Angeles Times considered him one of the greatest authors of Africa. And he has often been called the father of African film. He illuminated the way for ordinary people. He was a director that always sought to promote social change and often had a satirical take on life. His career began small, with two short films that reflected his preoccupations: in Borom Sarett (1963), a taxi driver has his cart confiscated for entering an expensive housing estate previously occupied by the French and now by the new African bourgeoisie. In his second film, Niaye (1964), he denounced the hypocrisy of traditional African chiefs. His most comedic film was Xala (1975), made in the wake of Senegal’s independence from France. It looks at financial control of the government and in particular one official’s quest to secure a third wife with money illegitimately gained. When he discovers on his wedding night that he has been struck with a “xala,” a curse of impotence, he goes to comic lengths to find the cause and remove the xala. But Sembene’s success only came after many struggles in life. He was expelled from a colonial school for striking a French teacher and was sent to his father’s family in Dakar. He worked in a variety of dreadful jobs. In the evening he would spend his time reading and going to the cinema. He returned to Senegal with an ambition to make films to reach a rural, often illiterate, public, and was offered a scholarship. At the time, Africans were being represented as “jungle bunnies” in many mainstream Hollywood films. It was difficult to shift audiences to accept the intelligent narrative in his films. Sembène's themes – religion, colonialism, tradition, capitalism, patriarchy - can seem a little dated. However, if we look a little more closely they all represent the portrayal of power and its use and abuse. He sought to speak to “all those exploited and silenced by the combined external forces of colonialism and the internal yoke of African ‘traditions’.” Sembène’s films can encourage young people to contribute positively to society in small ways and make the world a better place in which to live. They can help young people to think about the bigger picture and less about what society can give them but more about what they can do for it. Page 11
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Issue 10 - The Pilgrim - October 2012 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

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