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

The clocks go back this weekend, a sure sign that we are heading towards winter. The mornings and evenings darken, the weather often likewise. To cap it all, standing just at the entrance of November is Hallowe’en, which also seems to have been captured by darkness, in however light-hearted a way – or not – it is observed.

Yet Hallowe’en is the Eve of All Hallows, or in modern English, All Saints, and that is certainly not a dark feast! The day celebrates those who, in the words of the Mass for the Feast are at “the banquet of our heavenly homeland” (Prayer after Communion). The light of Easter shines throughout the year, yes even in Lent and November! So let us begin the month on Tuesday by gathering for Mass together to “celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, where the great array of our brothers and sisters already gives you eternal praise” (Preface)

The next day we pray that the faithful departed “may pass over to a dwelling place of light and peace” (Prayer after Communion). This is All Souls, properly called “The Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed”. As at all funerals we pray for lux perpetua – perpetual light – to shine upon them all.

We bring these prayers closer to home with our Mass of Memories, at 10am this coming Saturday at St Brigid’s. Each year more come to remember, to seek mercy, to pray for peace… and for light, both for our loved ones and for ourselves. Names of those who have died since our last Mass of Memories are read out, and we have the chance to light a candle for them.

Equally personal are the November Memorial Books which will be available in all 3 Churches, and in which we can write the names of our loved ones. th
By the end of November we will have honoured Christ Our King – and Our Light – on the 20 , and then a week later we will begin our Advent journey to Bethlehem, guided, like the Wise Men and Shepherds by Lux Perpetua – God’s Everlasting Light. In the depths of winter darkness we will find that Light burning with love for us, in a manger at Bethlehem.

Fr Matthew