Everybody's Welcome 2006

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A special leaflet designed for parishes to help those suffering mental health difficulties was launched in Wolverhampton on October 20^th 2007 to mark World Mental Health Day. What is Life Like if You or Someone in Your Family has a Mental Health Problem? was developed as part of the Everybody’s Welcome initiative of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales. Bishop John Hine, Chair of the Bishops Committee for Marriage and Family Life described the leaflet as "an incredibly useful starter" for parishes who were taking seriously the need to become more welcoming, friendly and family-sensitive.

Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of MIND and a member of the group who developed the leaflet, welcomed delegates from dioceses across England and Wales to the national awareness-raising day arranged to accompany the launch. “In my own experience as a Catholic, and in the experience of my family and friends who are Catholic, we know that the issue of mental health is something that touches all our lives,” he said. “1 in 4 of us has sought help at some point in our lives for a mental health problem: things like depressions, anxiety and other more serious mental health problems like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. That’s not to forget the broader range of emotional distress experienced by people who feel pretty unwell but who for some reason don’t want to seek help. We gathered as a group at High Leigh to develop this leaflet, very encouraged that the Everybody’s Welcome initiative had recognised that mental health is an issue for many parishes, both at a pastoral level in terms of the support that is being offered and at a personal level in that issues of mental health affect all of us.”

The day began with an orientation session facilitated by Julia Head, Bishop John Robinson Research Fellow at The Maudsley Hospital, in which delegates were invited to consider their own preconceived ideas about mental illness. “What have we learned? What have we been socialised into thinking about this? Where does it come from? And who has it?” she challenged. “There is a notion that there are a lot of people out there who are mentally and emotionally disturbed but not me.” Following a screening of 'Myths About Madness', there were a number of responses from the floor: “Prejudice often stops people going for help - there is a fear they will be stigmatised.” “We are too ready to define people by their illness rather than seeing it rather as just one part of who they are.” “There is often a difference between how a family responds and how the parish responds, in terms of acceptance.” “I realise my own views have been informed by the media.” “These are issues that are likely to increase in frequency as there are so many more pressures now on young people.” “10% of the young people I see are unable to move forward in education or skills or training because of their mental health needs.”

Before lunch delegates heard from two Catholic people with personal experience of mental illness, one from the point of view of a service user and the other as a carer. Christopher Danes, a former RE teacher, drew on Luke 8: 26-39 (Jesus heals a man with demons) to illustrate his experiences of bipolar disorder before making an impassioned plea for more support: “There is a huge hole in our provision which is damaging our response to Christ’s call to go out to the ill and to heal them. Whereas we used to provide in the old psychiatric hospitals, chaplaincies for people who were in the hospitals, now that we have care in the community we don’t have that resource anymore and nothing has taken its place. A couple of years ago, I had a major operation for which there is a 20% survival rate. My medical care was fantastic, my pastoral care was fantastic, and rosaries were being prayed for me! In ten years of mental illness, with an identical 20% mortality rate and I have never once, never once, had anyone to talk to. It’s a pretty damning indictment of the church’s ministry and it needs looking at.”

Edna Hunneysett, whose daughter was diagnosed with a life-threatening depressive illness at the age of 13, reported similar experiences: “People with mental illnesses in our society today are amongst some of the most marginalised people. They lose their self-esteem, their self-worth, they don’t feel very lovable, they don’t have status and many people don’t want them in their back yards. I think if Christ were walking this earth today he would be with these families.”

Vanessa Scott, Head of Nursing in Wolverhampton City Mental Health Primary Care Services concluded the morning with an overview of the statutory services available to those with mental health problems and their families.

After lunch delegates could choose between a variety of practical workshops. Peter Gilbert facilitated a workshop on spirituality and mental health; Richard Allen of the Association of Pastoral Care in Mental Health provided a guide to setting up befriending schemes; Edna Hunneysett described how a support group could be established and Dilys Barrel shared her experience of organising an awareness event in a parish, with the aim of reducing stigma and developing a more welcoming community.

The day concluded with a series of recommendation for further action: delegates from Hexham & Newcastle, Southwark, Cardiff and Brentwood all identified a need to replicate aspects of the day’s programme in their own areas to raise awareness among pastors and lay people. The value of networking locally with Churches Together, mental health chaplaincies and local MIND or Rethink organisations was recommended by others. Christopher Danes called for every archdiocese to have an annual celebration of mental health and for dioceses to set up health and social services commissions to plan better for mental health support. He also identified a need for each deanery to have access to a Catholic counsellor, whether clerical or lay, able to respond to the concerns of patients and parish priests and support both of them. In a final word from Julia Head, delegates were cautioned always to keep service users and carers at the heart of all pastoral care for mental health.

In evaluating the day, delegates made a number of points: “I didn’t know what to expect and was very apprehensive but I found it very interesting indeed & particularly appreciated how the speakers were prepared to share their own stories – testimonies are so powerful. I hope it has made me more open both to my own mental health and that of others and made me less afraid of this whole area.” “I appreciated the opportunity to see mental health/illness as something which is relevant to us all. Also hearing people’s personal experience of their own or a close personal relative’s mental illness and how they coped with it. It was good to realise that, of course, mental illness does not define a person, it is merely a part of them, that someone can at the same time be functional/professional/responsible.”

‘Making Everybody Welcome’
Mental Health Care in the Catholic Community
by Diana Russell, Diocese of Portsmouth

“People are not ‘schizophrenics’, but people with schizophrenia. Labels dehumanize people!’ This plea came from Edna Hunneysett, the mother of a once clinically depressed teenager, whose husband could not cope with the situation, whose other children did not understand and whose parish priest felt unable to offer help. Not knowing where to turn, she decided to start a prayer group for carers. In 2001 she published ‘Carers in the Community: Why have you forsaken me?’ based on research for her Master’s degree on carers of people with mental illness and the amount and degree of Church support available.

Edna was one of a number of people who met in Wolverhampton in October to speak about and discuss mental health care in the Catholic Community, at the third national ‘Everybody’s Welcome’ weekend. We watched a film called ‘Myths about Madness’ which showed how the media often represents extremes of mental illness, the TV associating 70% of the mentally ill with violence towards others when, in fact, they are far more likely to be violent towards themselves. There is an unsubstantiated belief that the closure of mental hospitals has led to an increase in violence by the mentally ill and that, if you have a mental illness, you are ‘crazy all the time’. Mental illness is only part of the whole person, but there is a tendency to stigmatize by labelling. Who, for example, would refer to someone with cancer as ‘cancerous’?

Chris Danes was a deputy head teacher who had to retire as a result of manic depression. He read us the account of the Gerosene demoniac, with whom he has felt much in common: alienation from his community, including his church community, homelessness, a desire to self-harm, severe feelings of guilt and problems of identity. The Gerosene demoniac found healing from Christ, but Chris has had no experience of healing from within the Church, although it supported him well when he developed colo-rectal cancer (which, incidentally, has a 20% mortality rate, the same as manic depression).

How can the Church community support people such as Chris and Edna, those with a mental illness and their carers? Since it is estimated that one in four people will experience severe mental distress in their lives, it is a pertinent question, but this is an area surrounded by fear. Films such as ‘Myths about Madness’ help to dispel prejudice. Accurate information about mental illness and its effects on the individual and his family need to be available at diocesan and parish level, with further information about the support which is available, both within the Church and outside it. This is also a wonderful opportunity to work ecumenically with other denominations. Above all, it should be remembered that mental illness does not just affect the individual, but the whole family. As one speaker emphasised, when one member of a family has a mental illness, the whole family has it but, sadly, it is often felt to be a stigma that must remain hidden.

Listen to Edna Hunneysett's presentation (edited slightly for length)

Celebrating Family in Wolverhampton
A report by Breda Theakston, Diocese of Leeds Family Life Ministry

About fifty people from England and Wales, as well as one from as far away as Broken Bay Diocese, Sydney, Australia, convened at the Britannia Hotel in Central Wolverhampton at the weekend to review the national Celebrating Family initiative, consider the resources for Home is a Holy Place and consider in more depth the ways in which we as church welcome people with mental health problems. Read more....

Spirituality and Mental Health
Workshop Facilitated by Peter Gilbert; Report by Roberta Canning

This was a clear and helpful presentation of the place of spirituality in mental health. Spirituality is not the same as religion. Religion creates a framework within which people may understand, interpret and make sense of themselves and their lives. Professor Gilbert pointed out that some faith communities can be welcoming, integrative and supportive while others can be exclusive and stigmatising of people experiencing mental ill-health. Church communities, like health and social services, have to start with “I am human: you are human.”

Peter Gilbert began by exploring the meaning of spirituality – and spirit! Spirit inspires us, keeps us going in tough times, gives us our value base. We all have a personal pilgrimage to find meaning in life. Speaking of his own experience of depression he said that what helped was:

A good GP and appropriate medication
A friend who could absorb sorrow And anger
A place of spiritual asylum – for him, Worth Abbey
A friend who had experienced similar problems
Running, as a club member

Spirituality is about what we do with the fire inside us and how we channel desire. It is associated with the human quest for meaning, purpose, identity, meaningful relationships, love and a sense of the holy.

Increasingly it is understood that spirituality has an important place in healing, as it can help people in distress to find purpose and meaning, strength and understanding of their human value – or as a child of God.

Families, Mental Health and Pastoral Care in the Catholic Community
A report written by Veronica Harnett of Middlesbrough Diocese for the Catholic Voice.

On Saturday October 20th four delegates from the Middlesbrough Diocese attended a National Conference on Families, Mental Health and Pastoral Care in the Catholic Community organised by The Marriage and Family Life Division of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales . Myself and Frs. John O’Gara and Peter Corcoran set off from Hull very early in the morning to make it to Wolverhampton for the start of the conference. After a few failed attempts at navigating our way around the city centre and a call out to the AA (least said on that!) we arrived safely to meet fellow delegate, Edna Hunneysett, who was also at the conference to speak about her own personal experience of caring for her daughter.

The conference was set up to look at the challenges of supporting families affected by mental illness and the opportunities offered by adopting a family-sensitive approach to family life. Chaired by Paul Farmer of Mind, speakers included Julia Head, a chaplain of the Spiritual and Pastoral Care Service of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; Chris Danes, who suffers from bi-polar disorder; and Edna, who spoke movingly about her experience of supporting her daughter, Elizabeth , through a significant mental illness. A number of workshops later in the day also allowed participants to reflect on aspects of Spirituality and Mental Health, the needs of pastoral leaders in supporting those with mental illness, and practical approaches such as befriending and support groups that have been developed across the country.

All four of us went to the conference with a different perspective, Fr. John as a busy parish priest, Fr. Peter as a former hospital chaplain, Edna as a carer, and then me. I had never met the two Marist Fathers prior to the conference, and didn’t really think it a good idea to explain at 6.45 on a misty morning, that I was going there to reflect on my own personal experience as someone who has suffered first-hand the devastation that mental illness brings. Having experienced a prolonged period of clinical depression and severe anxiety, followed by a formal diagnosis of agoraphobia, I didn’t feel able to share the shame of that with total strangers, priests or not! Now was not the time to tell them of the temptation of suicide or my perceived failure as a loving mother to my three children. Life is precious after all.

As the day progressed, although I struggled with the practicalities of staying in a large room with other delegates because of my own ongoing condition, I was strengthened by the courage of others’ testimony. I will never forget the emotional account of one woman’s experience of living with her mum’s OCD, or of Chris Danes’ retelling of “going publicly mad in front of fellow parishioners”. Chris spoke of receiving “hot and cold running sacraments” when diagnosed with cancer, yet being largely ignored and denied the same privileges when his bi-polar condition branded him a madman. When a person is debilitated by mental illness there is rarely a “get well” card to display.

Over time, in the supportive environment of the conference, I was able to share some of my experience and reflected similarly on my torturous absence from my beloved church, a disastrous trip to Lourdes shattered by misunderstanding, and my ongoing struggle with the stigma that mental illness brings.

We all came away inspired and energised by what we have heard. Mental illness has no shame. It reflects a physical imbalance in the brain that is not within the immediate control of the sufferer. So why did I feel so guilty that this had happened to me? Perhaps the reactions of those around me; the “get a grip” brigade, really didn’t help. But my experience is so common. 1 in 4 of our parish congregation will experience a form of mental illness at some stage in their lives.

Christ’s message is very clear. However much we may struggle to understand the situation of our neighbour, we should love always and never judge. Compassion is at the heart of our parish response to mental illness.

And so, as a group, under the guidance of Fr. Gerry Dasey, we will work to produce a resource pack for parishes that will help to dispel the myths around mental illness and ensure that, however difficult the challenge, we reach out with compassion to those who may find themselves in the dark and often lonely place that sufferers find themselves. It is our responsibility to end the isolation of those experiencing mental distress, and to be the arms of our loving God that embrace those who are suffering and to walk alongside them with courage and unconditional love.

What would I like the Church to do for me?
Theological Reflections and Practical Ideas from a Catholic Mental Health Patient

When I was a Head of RE at one of our secondary schools, one of the things I had to do was to arrange assemblies. Sometimes we would have outside speakers, and one of those was a man who came to talk to us about the nature of forgiveness. Every inch the retired Christian gentleman, during the Second World War he had been a POW in a Japanese camp. While in assembly I was a bit surprised that he did not talk more about his wartime experiences. But then at coffee afterwards he explained to the Headmaster and me that over the years he'd learned that to speak about the atrocities too much was not a very good idea, because people went away only remembering the horror, and he felt that his real message had been lost.

Rather in the same way, I think, when one's asked to give a talk about what is now often called a service user perspective on mental illness, there's a danger of allowing oneself to be trotted out as a sort of Tame Catholic Nutter expected merely to give a kind of illustrative story for the real business of the day by referring to one's own sufferings. Afterwards people go away tut-tutting and saying "poor you" and being kind, but one's left with a kind of empty feeling in the knowledge that probably nothing will change.

So today I am going to try a rather different kind of approach. By fact that you are here at all (or reading this article) it is pretty obvious that you are united by an interest in mental health. You don't need me to tell you that mental illness hurts, and of course it has hurt me and those I love.

What I want to do instead is three things, (although I promise to give you some gruesome tidbits)

I want first to return to an absolute foundation of the Christian tradition, the narrative of Jesus's life and teachings in the Gospels.
Then I am going to try to relate the story from the Gospels to the story of what I think is happening to the mentally ill in our parishes today.
Finally, I want to make some suggestions from a Catholic mental patient’s point of view about how I think the Church in England and Wales might move forward in its apostolic mission of healing. These will be in the form of specific practical steps we can be making in at both national and local level. For just as Professor Gifford has told us about the very exciting and long overdue recognition of the importance of spirituality in psychiatry, it seems to me that there are the beginnings of a parallel reassessment of mental health issues within the Church which need to be celebrated and encouraged. In this context it is worth remembering that the Ministry of Healing commanded by Our Lord was for centuries carried out by the Church in very practical ways, and that while Christianity has been a major influence in the idea in the idea that the State has a responsibility for the sick, we can’t really wander off thinking it’s a job well done and we’ll leave it all to others now.

Let’s look then at a story from the Gospel. It’s the account traditionally known as the Gadarene Swine (although where it happened differs among the Synoptic writers.)

[Jesus and his disciples] went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no-one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No-one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me! For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you evil spirit! Then Jesus asked him, What is your name? My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in he town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man— and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. (Mk 5:1-20)

There is of course something rather uncomfortable for post enlightenment people like us in this story with all its talk of evil spirits and the terrible fate of the poor piggies who, let’s face it, were presumably innocently minding their own business being pigs. Nonetheless I think we can accept that every age and culture has its dominant mythology and language by which it expresses and understands universal experiences. I have a sneaking suspicion that the language of Freudianism, which so dominated psychiatry so much in the last century, is rather the same sort of thing, Just like believing in evil spirits, Freudianism has some distinctly dodgy bits. Only God is truth all through, after all. I’m not quite sure that let’s me off the hook about the pigs thing though, so I’ll be saying something about that right at the end.

If we strip the story of the mythological language of its day we get something like this:

The man’s condition had led to unsuccessful attempts to alter his behaviour by the use of force. He’s been chained up and begs Jesus not to torture him.
His illness and consequent alienation from his community had led to his homelessness, and in his hopelessness and despair he dosses around tombs, among the unclean bodies of the dead. Why? Is it because he wants to join them? In the depths of clinical depression many of us have felt that way.
He screams and gets very angry, and can’t be bothered with even clothing himself properly. He wouldn’t been like that if he’d taken the drugs I’m on.
He is a self-harmer. So have I been, engaging in self destructive and dangerous behaviour.
His illness and his alienation from the community has led to his experiencing severe feelings of guilt: “For God’s sake, don’t punish me!” He says to Jesus. No need to underline that one, I think. For many of us depression takes the form of crushing guilt and self hatred.
He has severe problems with understanding his identity: when Jesus asks who he is, he more or less says, “There’s a whole crowd of us in here.” Pretty obvious.
Jesus heals him. The love of my wife and children is sacramental to me, and the medication and other NHS care works too. Both are surely expressions of the love of a healing God even when the people doing the giving may be unaware of it.
Now clothed and in his right mind, he is pretty pleased with what’s happened and tells other people about it. In such a way the Kingdom of healing and saving love is spread.

I don’t know if any of our medics would want to attempt a diagnosis at so great a historical distance, but I would think that our Man in the tombs is not very well, and when you take out all the Gospel writer’s odd language he’s exhibiting symptoms that are pretty familiar from modern psychiatric textbooks.

I could now make the obvious point that since Jesus heals the man, and as St Theresa of Avila says, “Christ has no hands on Earth now save yours,” part of our Christian commitment is to be informed and thoughtful about the mentally ill and to be kind to them. But I’m not convinced that’s a good enough conclusion, true as it may be. We need to delve more deeply, and since the Church is about Community, to ask ourselves, what exactly is the one from which the Gadarene demoniac has been excluded to walk among the tombs, and how can this help us to understand better what we should do?

Pretty clearly the man at Gerasa was separated from his family and former friends, his job if he had previously had one, and so on. But it’s worthwhile pondering the fact that both Judaea and Samaria were not merely provinces of the Roman Empire , but were communities where belonging was to identify oneself strongly with an historical religious, theological and liturgical tradition. Our man among the tombs was therefore not merely alienated from the things I have already listed. He was alienated from what he had been brought up to think of as the People of God itself.

Is it the same today? Rather predictably, I’ve never really been asked about it. But I cannot believe that I am the only mental patient who has have often felt, and still feels, similarly alienated from what I have been taught to think of as in some way the People of God, the Pilgrim Church helping the world to the Kingdom which is love and peace. The pain that brings is made all the worse by a fierce intellectual assent to Catholicism. The Church’s teachings, and most importantly her insistence that wilful suicide is a sin against charity, have been more than once served to prevent my illness becoming a terminal one, as it is in 20% of bipolar people. And I know now that because you are nice people, there are all sorts of things you want to say to me to make me feel better and to reassure me, and I thank you, but you know in your hearts that I need more help than that.

Why I feel so alienated from the Church has many complicated reasons that I badly need to discuss with someone educated in both psychology and theology. This is very difficult when one is persistently being told by priests that it’s not in their area of expertise. But believe me when I say that for some of us who are mentally ill you might as well ask a man with two broken legs to walk to hospital than to tell us to go to Mass. When I manage to attend I often end up weeping and making a fool of myself, but it is other stuff stopping me as well, not least the knowledge that many of the people in our small rural congregation witnessed me at the very peak of my madness. Not going to Mass brings more guilt, which feeds the depression, and round and round we go. I try to hang on to two things: that Jesus did not ask the man in the tombs to go to synagogue before he healed him, and that similarly the Catechism says that the seriously ill are exempted from the Sunday obligation. But without Christian friendship and support it’s rather a miserable way to live and I need more reassurance. Am I, for instance, severely ill enough to get away with it? But I’m on the Parish prayer list and get the Sacrament of the Sick before Christmas if somebody remembers. I am tempted to say, Wow, thanks. And it’s simply not good enough, as a lay pastoral worker told a recent local meeting of ours, to say, “People alienate themselves from the Church, and our door is always open.” I often think I get the most support from my atheist friends.

At the centre of all of this is that adoption of Care in the Community for psychiatric patients has provoked an unnoticed crisis of pastoral care for the Church in England and Wales . Under the old NHS system of caring for mental illness in hospitals, it was easy enough to arrange for a priest to be attached to the hospital, to say Sunday Mass, to bring the Sacrament of the Sick to those who needed it, and to be available for a patient to talk to. But most of the hospitals except for the very acute cases have now gone. This has left a gaping hole in our provision that without help from both the laity and the magisterium, the parish priests simply cannot hope to fill, not least because of their other commitments and because they are not trained for it.

A couple of years ago, I was foolish enough to grow a colorectal cancer and had to have it cut out in a rather scary operation in our local general hospital. From a pastoral point of view as well as a medical one, my care was irreproachable. For this serious physical illness the chaplain came in every day to see me bringing me hot and cold running sacraments, and every time he arrived he told me of a rosary group who’d been thinking of me, or of how I’d been remembered at Mass somewhere. It was absolutely wonderful. Yet in ten years of diagnosed mental illness, about which I have never been silent, I have never had similar care, and am passed over largely unnoticed despite the fact that the mortality rates of both illnesses are just about the same and I live in a parish of which I was an extremely active member. So despite all the benefits of Care in the Community, we in the Catholic Community of England and Wales have really have not caught up with it. Nor can we shrug our shoulders and say that it’s the same all over Europe . Most notably the shrine town of Gheel in Belgium, dedicated to the patron of the mentally ill St Dymphna, has a magnificent tradition of care in the community going right back into the middle ages. Don’t think the politicians dreamt it up.

So what would I like to happen in the Church, if I could wave a magic wand? Here is my Christmas list:

I should like to see really big celebrations of mental health in the Cathedrals of the Archdioceses, and regular mental health friendly healing services in all Cathedrals
I would like each Diocese to have its own health and social service commission with responsibility and planning for mental health chaplaincy work. This might draw on the bank of knowledge from priest specialists, former mental hospital chaplains, sympathetic psychiatrists and service users. These should be kept separate from Commissions for Justice and Social responsibility.
I would like to see each deanery have access to a Catholic counsellor, whether clerical or lay, who could respond to the concerns of both patents and parish priests and support both of them. In the case of patients this should be done in liaison with the NHS.
I should like each parish to work with its local council of churches to set increase the level of awareness about mental health issues and to offer a welcoming, Christian response and openness to those with mental health problems. This may well take the form of a part time welcome centre offering a variety of services and liturgical celebrations.

Finally, I should like the Church in England and Wales as a whole to consider taking a far greater presence on the Internet in the manner of the American Church . Last year I found a Catholic friend in a secular chatroom who has a similar illness to mine. In the absence of formal help from the Church we try to support one another every day and both of us find it very helpful. While the sites of the Bishop’s Conference, individual parishes and Cathedrals are often very well designed, they are primarily aimed at delivering Liturgical information, news, readings and architectural information. There is a total absence of interactive material which would be very helpful for those of us who, like me, more or less stuck at home. Properly moderated chat groups for mental health issues (as well as for other areas of the life of the Church) could be a real channel of the Holy Spirit as new friendships are made, advice given and loneliness overcome. Some of us may have problems with the possibility here of our encouraging a form of communication which is supposed to be fraught with moral dangers, but people said that about the printing press and we lost the Reformation. For those of us who find it difficult to go to Mass, it would be marvellous to see Mass from different places streamed on the Net. Not least we would have an alternative to the extreme American conservatism of EWTN. There are a whole host of opportunities here.

Like any Christmas list, all of this would of course, cost money. Perhaps as a community we need to think carefully about our priorities. Our Lord, of course, told the Apostles to heal the sick. I don’t notice him having said very much about some of the things we seem to get up to.

I nearly forgot about the pigs. They are the swine of stigma and indolence.

Chris Danes was educated at Comprehensive school and read Theology at Brasenose College Oxford, where he got a First. He was forced to leave the University during his doctoral research when he had his first acute phase of illness. With his brother Simon he is the co-author of several popular RE textbooks, and was deputy headteacher of a Catholic comprehensive school until his forced retirement from teaching on health grounds at the age of 36. He now writes and broadcasts on mental health issues. His first novel, “On Balance”, is to be published by Chipmunka in the Summer of 2008 and deals substantially with issues about sexuality, bipolar disorder, and a delightfully gory murder.