One of my pleasures this year was to ‘discover’ the works of Anglican priest-poet Malcolm Guite. Here he writes on today’s feast from “Sounding the Seasons”, his sequence of 70 sonnets following the course of the Church’s year. Learn more about him at malcolmguite.wordpress.com

Our King is calling from the hungry furrows
Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty, Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows, Our soundtracks drown his murmur: “I am thirsty.” He stands in line to sign in as a stranger
And seek a welcome from the world he made,
We see him only as a threat, a danger,
He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead. And if he should fall sick then we take care
That he does not infect our private health,
We lock him in the prisons of our fear
Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth.
But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing
The praises of our hidden Lord and King.

Malcolm Guite “Sounding the Seasons”, Canterbury Press 2012

It was not only Donald Trump who was elected on Tuesday! On the same day Archbishop Stack gave me two pieces of news. I had been elected Dean of Cardiff by the city’s clergy, and our 3 Churches were being sent Rev Daniel Stanton, a deacon, in January to see him through the last phase of training before hopefully ordination as a priest sometime next year.

Each diocese is divided into deaneries – we have six. Cardiff deanery includes the parishes of the city plus Penarth/Dinas Powys and Barry. There are at present about 17 or 18 priests serving the area. The Dean’s job description includes “to promote and coordinate pastoral action” and keep an eye on the clergy – their behavior (!), health, etc. It’s all in canons 553 – 556 of the Code of Canon law. It seems to me it’s what you make of it. I’m following Canon Pat O’Gorman and John Maguire in the role. Regarding Daniel, in the formation of a priest great importance is given nowadays to the practical experience of working in parishes. Seminarians will spend a shorter time each year, very often the summer, in a parish, and then during the last year they will have an extended placement. By then they will have been ordained a deacon, sometimes called a “transitory deacon” to distinguish them from the permanent deacons who also minister in each diocese, like Steve Melhuish in our Northern Arc.

Deacons can preach, celebrate Baptisms, Marriage Services and Funeral Services, and the idea is to get an all round experience of life in a busy pastoral situation. He will live with me at St Brigid’s Presbytery. Our deacon, Rev Daniel Stanton, was here on Vocations Sunday back in May, so some will have already met him. He hails from Maesteg and has been in formation at St Mary’s College, Oscott outside Birmingham. He will join us after Christmas, and stay hopefully until closer to an as yet undecided date for ordination as a priest.

Both these developments will have consequences, but I am sure that as usual we will move on, and especially that we will give Deacon Daniel a warm welcome – and a thorough pastoral experience,

without putting him off!

Fr Matthew

The US election this week is clearly of great importance for the world. I was searching to find a Catholic view on voting for this front page. The American Bishops’ own guidelines, entitled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”, published last year have been accused by some of ignoring Pope Francis’s teaching. See for yourself at

I settled for this”outsider’s” piece from Fox News

“[A month ago] Pope Francis weighed into the U.S. elections Sunday, urging American Catholics struggling to choose a president to study the issues, pray and then vote your conscience. Francis was asked by reporters on the way from Azerbaijan how he would counsel the American faithful who are being asked to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Francis added that he would never interfere in an election campaign, saying “the people are sovereign.” “I’ll just say this: Study the proposals well, pray, and choose in conscience.”

Francis, prefacing his words by saying he was talking about a “fictional situation,” appeared to say that the U.S. was among the countries that have lost what he described as a culture of politics. “When in any country there are two, three or four candidates who don’t satisfy everyone, it means that perhaps the political life of that country has become too politicized and that it does not have much political culture,” he said. “People say ‘I’m from this party’ or ‘I’m from that party,’ but effectively, they don’t have clear thoughts about the basics, about proposals.”

Francis did intervene in the campaign earlier this year when, on his way home from a visit to the U.S. – Mexican border, he was asked about Trump’s proposal to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. Francis said anyone who builds a wall isn’t Christian. Trump fired back, saying it was “disgraceful” for a religious leader to question someone’s faith.

Many American Catholics have been struggling to decide between the two candidates over a host of issues that makes each one unpalatable on faith-based and other grounds.”

Fr Matthew