The founders of the “Sunday Assembly” in London say they’re not forming a new church, though they do meet on a Sunday. And they say they’re not trying to create a new religion, but their movement has a growing number of followers around the world.
There's no God, no deities, no doctrine ... so what is it?
Sanderson Jones, co-founder of the Sunday Assembly, describes the group as a godless congregation that celebrates life. He started it along with Pippa Evans.
“We've got an awesome motto: live better, help often and wonder more. And our mission is to help everyone live this one life as fully as possible,” say Evans and Jones, speaking together, at times in unison.
The pair say they felt there weren’t any Sunday morning communal events that brought people together to celebrate life — at least events that didn't include God or religion.
Still, you can't help but notice the similarities to a traditional church service. Again, it meets on a Sunday. Someone delivers a sermon of sorts. There's chanting and, of course, choral singing. It’s Freddie Mercury, though, not your standard church fare. When all that's done, there's a moment given over to silent contemplation and giving thanks — a prayer if you will.
It even held its first meetings in a deconsecrated church in North London before increased attendance forced them into bigger premises.
“We put out about 50 chairs, and over 200 people turned up, so it was pretty big from the get go,” Evans says.
And it's getting bigger: They recently ran an international outreach tour called “40 days and 40 nights” — another religious association, this time to the tale of Noah’s Ark. Their efforts have led to satellite assemblies in other cities in the UK, as well as in the US and Australia.
“Due to the wonders of the Internet and social media, people heard about what we were doing and said, ‘Oh, that sounds great.' They got in touch with us and we thought, look we're clearly doing something people like, we'll help other people do it too,” said Jones.
Jones and Evans don't shun the term atheists, but prefer to call themselves “non-believers.” Evans adds, though, that believers are also welcome.
Last month, four assemblies in Britain met in different cities on the same day. Each group subscribes to the same idea.
“This is about trying to get people back together, connecting with each other and trying to help people live their life to the full,” Evans says.
Of course, Jones and Evans aren’t the first to found a non-religious church with religious undertones.
“The idea of atheist religions, or at the very least non-Christian religions, is quite an old one really,” says Nik Spencer, the research director at Theos, a religion-focused think tank based in London. He's also the author of a new book about the history of atheism.
Spencer said organized alternatives to the Catholic Church sprang up in the wake of the French Revolution, keeping the model of a traditional service.
“Particularly in the 1830s when certain thinkers developed what you could call Catholicism without God, in which people celebrated humanity, in which humanity replaced God as the object of worship,” he adds.
These movements started enthusiastically, but without God as the headline act, support eventually waned. The Sunday Assembly may be hot right now, but Spencer says these movements need a center of gravity.
“If, as is the case in a lot of these movements, their center of gravity has effectively been an absence — that is often not quite strong enough to hold them together,” he says.
For now, though, people attending the Sunday Assembly in London are enthusiastically embracing it. Those I met describe it as a more positive experience than a traditional church service.
“I like the sense of community, I like that it's not a lecture, that it's freer,” says one participant.
“I think it's inspiring, actually, to help people be their best selves,” adds another.
And the founders of The Sunday Assembly stress their first, and really only, commandment - to keep their movement growing: Thou shalt have fun.
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WHY I HATE RELIGION
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PAT SAYS:
It's always good to highlight the massive difference between RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY.
Many religious people have no spirituality.
Many spiritual people reject religion.
Many of our churches are populated with religious people who follow blindly whose religion is only a habit or the result of brainwashing.
In fact much religion kills the spirit.
The emergence of Church Without Religion, or Atheist Churches is a sign that churches no longer are "doing it" for thinking people.
The coming together of communities of people that are trying to achieve enlightenment, goodness etc, with or without God, Can only be a good think.
Anything that encouraged goodness and love is good in itself.
Churches should ask: "What are we doing so wrong that people are abandoning us"?
It's always good to highlight the massive difference between RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY.
Many religious people have no spirituality.
Many spiritual people reject religion.
Many of our churches are populated with religious people who follow blindly whose religion is only a habit or the result of brainwashing.
In fact much religion kills the spirit.
The emergence of Church Without Religion, or Atheist Churches is a sign that churches no longer are "doing it" for thinking people.
The coming together of communities of people that are trying to achieve enlightenment, goodness etc, with or without God, Can only be a good think.
Anything that encouraged goodness and love is good in itself.
Churches should ask: "What are we doing so wrong that people are abandoning us"?
RAPHOE CLERICAL CHANGES
Most Rev. Alan McGuckian, SJ, Bishop of Raphoe, has announced the following clergy appointments in the diocese.
- Canon Dinny McGettigan, PP, Raphoe retires after 53 years of priestly ministry in the Diocese.
- Fr Eamonn Kelly, Adm, Conwal and Leck to be PP, Raphoe.
- Mgr Kevin Gillespie, CC, Conwal & Leck to be ADM, Conwal & Leck and Vicar Forane.
- Canon Francis McAteer retires as PP of Carrick to be AP, Glencolmcille.
- Fr Denis Quinn, PP, Falcarragh to be PP Carrick.
- Fr James Gillespie, CC, Irish Martyrs, Letterkenny to be PP, Falcarragh.
- Fr Brendan Ward returns from Rome to be CC, Irish Martyrs and Official of the Derry Marriage Tribunal.
- Fr Paul McGeehan, CC, Glencolmcille to be CC Glenvar.
- Fr Damian Nejad returns from being on loan to Dromore Diocese to be CC, Conwal and Leck.
Appointments take effect on the 20th August 2018
The interesting appointment in Raphoe is the appointment of Monsignor Kevin Gillespie as Administrator of Letterkenny Cathedral.
He came from Rome a short while ago where he was one of the papal masters of ceremonies.
Many thought he would have been given a diocese instead of a curacy.
He is now on the move and may yet get a diocese.
CASHEL AND EMLY APPOINTMENTS
The interesting appointment in Raphoe is the appointment of Monsignor Kevin Gillespie as Administrator of Letterkenny Cathedral.
He came from Rome a short while ago where he was one of the papal masters of ceremonies.
Many thought he would have been given a diocese instead of a curacy.
He is now on the move and may yet get a diocese.
CASHEL AND EMLY APPOINTMENTS
Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly announces clerical appointments for the Archdiocese of Cashel & Emly
Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly has today issued the following Diocesan Clerical Appointments for 2018. These appointments will take effect from Saturday 18 August 2018:
1. Very Rev John McGrath, PP Mullinahone, to be AP Cashel & Rosegreen, resident in Rosegreen
2. Rt Rev Mgr Christy O’Dwyer, PP, VG, Cashel & Rosegreen to be AP Templetuohy & Moyne, resident in Moyne and continuing as Vicar General of the Archdiocese
3. Very Rev John Beatty, PP Anacarty & Donohill, to be AP Tipperary Town
4. Very Rev Edmond V O’Rahelly, PP, Ballina & Boher to be AP Ballina & Boher
5. Very Rev Liam Holmes, PP, Knockaney & Patrickswell to retire
6. Very Rev James Kennedy, Adm. Templetuohy & Moyne, to be PP Anacarty & Donohil
7. Rev Fr Enda Brady, CC, Cashel & Rosegreen to be PP Cashel & Rosegreen
8. Rev Fr Thomas Lanigan-Ryan, CC, Tipperary Town to be PP Ballina & Boher
9. Rev Fr Edward Cleary, CC, Hospital & Herbertstown to be PP Knockaney & Patrickswell
10. Rev Fr Daniel O’Gorman, CC, Killenaule & Moyglass to be PP Mullinahone
Love that video, 'Why I hate religion'.
ReplyDeleteBut why does MAGNA hate religion? Because it goes hand in filthy hand with clericalism.😆
Pat, I went to the Sunday assembly a few weeks ago. My partner had been there already and persuaded me to go. Although I’m a bit religious I gave it a try anyway. Best Sunday morning ever.
ReplyDeleteYou’re right Pat. Spirituality at its best. No religion. I hada better feeling when I came out that I ever got at church.
Edinburgh churches watch out.
Without wishing to be disrespectful, for me your description is part of what I would see as the weakness of a spirituality-only approach. It can become overly tied to a person's own subjective emotional state. Anything that challenges of discomforts the individual becomes avoided or dismissed. I think faith carries with it demands, exemplified in the story of the rich young man in the Gospel who went away distraught by the challenge he received from Christ (Mark 10:17-31). I think religion, at its optimal best, provides the challenge through communal expectations, and spirituality, at its best, balances the tendency of religion to become legalisitc. I think having either one without the other means that something is lost. Religion without spirituality can become empty legalism. Spirituality without religion can become a form of solipsism where the primary goal becomes feeling good.
DeleteYou've been highly presumptious here, 11:03. How do you know that a 'spirituality-only approach'...'can become overly tied to a person's own subjective emotional state'? Have you evidence for this? Have you tried this approach? And for long enough to know sure?
DeleteIf you are right (or even partly so), then the same criticism can be applied to nearly all Christian denominations, except that the 'emotional state' here is a collective one: the governing body of any Christian denomination.
These denominations have each attributed to God their own moral codes which are directly contrary to the teaching of Christ as recorded in the Gospel.
This makes your statement ('Anything that challenges or discomforts the individual becomes avoided or dismissed.') all the more bizarre. Isn't this what most Christian denominations, including Roman Catholicism, have done with such teachings of Jesus as love of enemy? The cognitive dissonance this has created in Christian minds between Jesus teaching here and contrary secular opinion has driven Christians to set aside Jesus explicit instruction and to morally rationalise, beginning with Augustine of Hippo, the killing of one's ememies.
Religions' weakness (especially those, like Roman Catholicism, with a strict clerical hierarchy) is that cohesion among its members depends on absolute faith in that hierarchy's ability to express faithfully the will of God.
But if history has taught us anything it is that this faith is not empirically based.
What a load of baloney. That post just smacks of false nonsense. Any fool could see that.
DeleteThere’s room for this kind of religion/philosophy. If it’s agnostic on the existence of God it’s like a Buddhist form of Christianity. If it’s atheistic, then it’s a form of secular humanism.
ReplyDeleteI suspect such non religious gatherings provide a sense of fellowship similar to orthodox churches, and it is this aspect which, when combined with tribal like allegiance and childhood indoctrination, maintains many within the fold of standard religious observance: nominally at least. I suspect much religious practice to derive from such influences rather than thought through religious convictions. MMM
ReplyDeleteFear, MMM. You didn't mention the fear factor.
DeleteInstitutional Roman Catholicism has controlled (yes, 'controlled') people through inculcating in them, from a very early age, a fear (or terror?) of eternal damnation. It's an insidious form of child abuse, but not the only one.😆 And it has put, and kept, bums on pews, Sunday upon Sunday, for generation after generation. (It has also helped line 'Father's' pockets with cash as fearful...and fearfully immature... congregants paid these parasites to bring them God's grace through the sacraments they were led to believe were the only channels of it.)
Away with the useless lot of them!
(Just a thought, like.😆)
Tribal? Indoctrination? Nominally? Not thought through?
DeleteRather judgemental wouldn’t you say!
Good to see the Raphoe priests in Rome and Dromore returning to serve in parishes in their own diocese. That's how it should be.
ReplyDeleteCashel & Emly appointments are out. Curates are an endangered species there. At least the PPs who retire are moving to new parishes, thereby giving the new man a chance.
https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2018/07/16/archbishop-kieran-oreilly-announces-clerical-appointments-for-the-archdiocese-of-cashel-emly/
Yes indeed, curates are disappearing.
DeleteMany years ago a curate of 73 in Kerry was described as:
"The oldest curate in captivity".
10:05 Why is that as it should be? A parochial attitude! We belong to a global (catholicos) church.
DeletePat, in Killaloe's recent changes their newly ordained priest went straight to co-PP, bypassing the curate stage altogether.
DeleteIn response to 11:02, candidates for the diocesan priests are trained for their sponsoring diocese with the expectation they serve there. There's far too much parish dodging still going on. Eg Fr Billings in Lancaster diocese.
At 11:23 The church is a universal entity. Open your mind a bit more.
DeleteQuite correct Magna. Indeed the fear and guilt imperatives start being embedded in impressionable seven year olds inveigled into "First Confessions " as I recently commented. And Anon@ 10:29: how can I not have strong opinions about such matters? Don't you understand what I refer to? But if you do, and disagree, then the floor is yours. Kindly explain why. Thanks. MMM
ReplyDelete11:04 Having strong opinions is healthy. However, that’s very different from disparaging those who may disagree with you.
DeleteEarly in the day to have to scroll past postings with the Cacna Márta heading.
ReplyDeleteThe ranks are thinning. It's sad 9n a way.
ReplyDeleteI agree Anon@ 11:37, and it would help me to better avoid any personal disparagement if you could kindly indicate where I may have inadvertently personally criticised those who disagree with me rather than their opinion or comment, if indeed as you may be suggesting I have. Thank you. MMM
ReplyDeleteWhy does MMM write in such an ornate, rococco style?
DeleteE.g if he wanted to say "Young children need good schools if they are to learn properly" MMM would write:
"High-quality learning environments are a necessary prerequisite for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process of pre-adolescants."
MMM's style isn't very elegant. He has at least one split infinitive in his most recent contribution.
DeleteYes indeed. When he was undergoing his mediocre schooling in Ireland, by contrast with his Scottish and English university studies he won first prize for the English essay, which concluded with this sentence:
Delete"At the end of each day, my mother extinguishes the cat by the narrative."
MMM at 12:19
DeleteHere are four examples of personal disparagement and a judgemental attitude towards your interlocutors:
tribal,
indoctrination,
nominally
not thought through
It seems a while, +Pat, since we had any tales from Mo’nooth.
ReplyDelete12:46
DeleteVoyeurism is a pathology.
@12:46
DeleteYou are filth, pure filth.
12.19: MMM , what are you always trying to impress with long, pseudo, supposed interesting questions? Then when you don't like responses, you sneer, ridicule and make caustic, condescending comments. Stay on the mountainside.
ReplyDeleteCome down from the mountains Mighty Michael,
DeleteCome down from the mountains Michael do,
Come down from the mountains Mighty Michael
And share with us your wisdom as you do.
:-)
14.08; Pat, stay with your day job - priesthood. You are no poet.
DeleteIts not a poem, Stupid.
DeleteIts a new verse for the song: Come Down From The Mountain Katie Daly.
BECAUSE smeone told MMM to stay up the mountain.
never call anyone stupid. its a horrible word.
Delete- Irish Teacher
MMM should remember Christy Moore's song - "Don't forget your shovel when if you want to go to work". Keep digging MMM on the mountainside. You're in a deep hole, and the deeper the better with your smarmy comments.
DeleteSo there you have it! - - Get God completely out of the going to church... Is that the idea?? And it's all intended to entertain you on a Sunday morning . make you feel good? Well I suppose that's all right then.. but why not just play a round of golf.. go to the pictures . go to Bingo? At least that would be an honest way of proving that you're a lapsed Catholic
ReplyDelete(Honestly.. you couldn't make it up!)
This is a completely personal opinion but the gathering strikes me as very middle class.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's middle class or higher. Set up by someone called Pippa, lol
DeleteTo be fair to them, one of their principles is to do good.
DeleteMy Dear Faithful, ignore all the hate filled rhetoric spouting from the mouths of all the haters of Our Holy Faith.
ReplyDeleteWhen these reprobates are roasting in the fires of hell. Our Holy Mother The Church will continue until the end of time. We have the promise of Our Blessed Lady "In the end My Immaculate Heart shall Triumph" Eviva Maria!
Bellarmine. Are you in for a quare gunk when you wake up dead to bugger all.
DeleteBarking Bellarmine.🐶
DeleteAnonymous at 18:28
DeleteOh! you poor soul, you'll get an even bigger gunk, when you're standing at The Judgement Seat, awaiting your sentence!
Well Bellarmine. Can you tell me or point to any instance or give irrefutable proof of anyone who has stood before the judgement seat. No fables please. No self serving scriptural quotations please.
DeleteNothing poor about this soul. The poor soul is you sunshine. Bless!!
Mad Magna at 19:51
DeleteWoof! Woof! Polly love you too,love the selfie I'm sure it's a great likeness! X
Polly put the kettle on and suki take it off again.
DeleteAnonymous at 22:07
DeleteWell Anonymous "O ye of little Faith." Can you give me an instance or irrefutable proof of anyone who woke up dead! to bugger all. You remind me so much of "The Great Apostate" Polly. is that you Polly? You are a poor soul with no sunshine in your life. Bless!!
Barking.
DeleteNo wonder why Cashel & Emly is in the state it is with a slippery clerical snakes. Some of them would stab you as quick as look at you. Why do these old farts and fossils have such responsibility. Doesn't say much for the previous bishop toad and the present one.
ReplyDeleteCashel priests needed nerves of steel to deal with clifford.
DeleteCashel priests hadn't the balls to stand up to Clifford and challenge him.
DeleteKevin Gillespie was a huge embarrassment in Raphoe for he was strikingly effeminate and female in his thinking. I remember her I mean him from the 90s when he was a seminarian.
ReplyDelete18:51 Stereotyping of the worst sort. Chauvinism at its best.
DeleteWell done Kieran O' Reilly in Cashel.......at least he's giving younger men a chance in appointing them as PP to bigger parishes - Enda Brady to be PP in Cashel parish. Well done Enda.
ReplyDeleteClogher diocese is in crisis. Joe Mc Guinness won't challenge older guys who are 75& older. They refuse to retire so he doesn't bother! When they do retire they refuse to move to a new parish. It's gridlocked due to the need for someone growing a set of balls and taking the bull by the horns.
and Mc Guinness is tipped to be a Bishop, but wouldn't he fit in great having his own Diocese, spineless and a coward and could not grow a set of balls in a month of Sundays. Perfect to be a Bishop.
DeleteJoe McGuinness's nerves are shredded by the long wait for the nod. He's been comfort eating and has piled on the pounds.
DeleteJoe Duffy, ever ready with a cutting remark, has been commenting on it and wee La Flynn has taken to calling the bishop-in-waiting "Big Mac" behind his back. Sean Cahill actually slapped his own thighs, like you see in pantomimes, when he first heard this.
I hear the priest in Belcoo might be forced to move in Clogher. Where is our regular clogher Curate contributor gone to.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 13:47: May I make a suggestion: politely? Go read, and think about James. verses 5-9. MMM
ReplyDeleteMMM at 20:52 Faulty reference - probably the result of mediocre Irish schooling.
DeleteAnon @ 21:46: New International Version: "Do not complain brethern against one another or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door."
DeleteMMM
11:13 That is James 5:9.
DeleteThe situation in Irish dioceses always strikes me as very different from here in England. Did I read here of a curate in his seventies? Here a couple of years as curate is usual and most parishes only have one priest if that. Also parish priests are just Rev and the Very Rev thing is very strange. Is this just a historical difference or what else is going on?
ReplyDeleteEnglish Bishops are Right Reverend whereas in Ireland it's Most Reverend. Weird. I think English Catholic priests are more humble and less power crazy than their Irish counterparts.
ReplyDeleteRight Reverend is a title used by the Church of England bishops. In the English Catholic Church, bishops are titled Most Reverend, for example Most Reverend Malcolm McMahon, the Bishop of Liverpool. I have never heard an English Catholic bishop called Right Reverend. I know the Church of England Bishop of Southwark for example is titled Right Reverend Christopher Chessun.
ReplyDelete21.29 You are totally wrong. English Catholic Bishops are Right Reverend except Archbishops who are referred to as Most Reverend. That is why the Archbishop of Liverpool is Most Rev. If you've never heard an English Catholic Bishop being referred to as Rt Rev then how long have you been asleep all these years.
Delete20:55 You are right. Pope Francis had something similar in mind when he abolished the monsignor title for under 65s. The ink was barely dry on his signature when the curia managed to retain the title for people who were employed there in Rome for 5 years. At least he reduced the number of categories from four to one.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar vein, in the past, Irish RC bishops tended to refer to themselves and to be referred to as Dr, and to put DD after their name, whether they had earned a doctorate or not. That custom seems to have died out now. Eamon Casey was probably the last to use it. That didn't happen in the UK I believe.
Indeed. It was often the custom in Ireland to ‘pump up’ the bishops’titles. Thus you had many pompous twats who regaled in such titles as His Lordship, the Most Reverend Patrick Joseph Bollox,D.D., Lord bishop of ............All to remind the adoring and subservient faithful that they should know their place. And to think that my poor innocent grandparents held these shites in high esteem and threw money onto plates on a Sunday to keep perpetuating this caste.
DeleteWhatever happened to the example of the child born in poverty, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
22:28 Most of didn't know that child.
DeleteNor did they want to.
And nothing has changed.
22:28
DeletePresumably, you mean revelled, an intransitive verb, by the way, in place of regaled.
But, judging by the coarseness of your language elsewhere, perhaps the distinction has gone over your head.
Pat, perhaps it's time for a formal assessment of the late Mo Ledwith.
ReplyDeleteWill the Requiem be in Enniscorthy Cathedral or above in Maynooth. Will he be laid to rest in the College cemetary?
Delete21-29. You don’t know what you are talking about. Both catholic and Anglican bishops in England and Scotland are Right Revs. Mc Mahon is an Archbishop and they are titled Most Rev. There are 5 of them in England and Wales. Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham and Southwark. The man in Westminster is also a Most Rev but is usually also a Cardinal thus Eminence. Scotland has two Abs, Glasgow and St Andrews and Edinburgh.
ReplyDeleteNow 21`29 go study your hierarchy before making yourself appear completely silly.
2117 and 2129. An English Catholic Bishop is styled Right, not Most,
ReplyDeleteReverend. The more exalted title is reserved for Archbishops. The
title Dr is never used, even when the prelate holds a (properly earned)
doctorate.
Aul Joe Duffy of Clogher styled himself Dr, even though a Maynooth MA was his highest academic award.
ReplyDeleteAll the bishops of Australia (the country has far too many bishops) are DD.
As for Rt Rev for bishops, it's the GB bishops who are out of step in the English speaking world where Most Rev is the norm. English Catholics in their usual inferiority complex way when it comes to the "CofE" have aped Anglican uses in this as in other matters.
Italian, Spanish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and South African bishops are all Most Reverend.
DeleteMost Reverend and Very Reverend are both superlative degree of the adjective in English. Therefore it is impossible to differentiate between them in other languages such as Italian and Spanish. i. e. The words in both those languages which you claim is ‘most rev’ can also be translated ‘very rev.’
Delete23:39 Are you sure about Joe Duffy?
DeleteTake it up with the Catholic Encyclopedia, 10:41
Delete@10:44 yes, I'm quite sure about Joe Duffy. His highest earned theology degree is a Maynooth Pontifical Univetsity BD, though he got the customary honorary DD from the Dunboyne Establishment when he was appointed +Clogher.
DeleteHis other degrees are a BA in Celtic Studies and French, and then an MA on the Irish dialect of south co Tipperary. Both were awarded by the National University part of Maynooth in 1960. Though what that had to do in preparing a future priest of Clogher is a bit of a mystery.
The Dunboyne Establishment is a strange term to use. Dunboyne House was the residence of post-graduate students in Maynooth. It was never a degree-awarding institute.
DeleteHonorary DDs were not actually granted to bishops by the Pontifical University. i.e. Such matters didn't figure in the conferring ceremonies.
In other words, presumably what you mean is that on his appointment as bishop in 1979 he assumed the DD.
Pat's friend, Phonsie, has a DD. He kept his postgraduate studies quiet when he was in Maynooth, where he is remembered chiefly for his bombastic manner and for singing "My Way" in the Maynooth Song Contest.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.waterfordlismore.ie/bishop/
Phonsie did the DD after Maynooth at the Alphonsianum, though he may have preferred to have done it at Opus Dei’s Santa Croce.
DeleteHang on here. What is up with the complete rudeness when someone just gives their view, opinion. I am a member of the Church of England, but I have Roman Catholic friends and relatives, indeed some of my cousins are Catholic, and that is who I consulted about this, and just gave the information they provided me.
ReplyDeleteDon't blame me if I got it wrong, when I asked a Roman Catholic cousin of mine this issue.
Calling us "Roman Catholics" is rude, as you well know.
DeleteAren't you Roman Catholic? What do you call youself? Catholic? Independent Catholic?
DeleteRoman Catholics are those catholics operating under Rome.
DeleteOthers of us are catholics operating freely of Rome :-)
But all catholics surely, should speak out about wrong?