The Usual Suspects
Sitting with them around a Chinese Dinner table, they seemed rather ordinary, the usual collection of suspects one has come to expect as clergy gatherings in China. Men all in their late thirties or earlier, with only the veneer of a third level education to differentiate themselves from their mainly rural flocks. Their daily lives are very simple and rooted in a vision of Church strong on external pieties. In case, gentle reader, you imagine, I am dismissive of externals, I have seen how these expressions of faith were the glue which kept rural communities going in difficult times. What fascinates me is how the changing circumstances of today, invites new pieties to help address new challenges. These men sharing rice with me have the responsibility to articulate these new responses, but they have locked into, by circumstance, to the round of pastoral services usually associated with the dismissive term “sacristy priest”. Continue Reading »