{"id":1745,"date":"2009-08-08T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-08T09:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/08\/the-vicar-writes-on-being-catholic\/"},"modified":"2014-12-24T10:44:01","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T15:44:01","slug":"the-vicar-writes-on-being-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/08\/the-vicar-writes-on-being-catholic.html","title":{"rendered":"The Vicar Writes on Being Catholic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is our guest blogger. Rev\u2019d Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University where he earned a degree in ornamental horticulture. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great Snoring Morris Dancers.<\/p>\n

\nThe other evening down at the Goose and Garter, Dave, one of the lads asked a very good question. \u201cVicar, my missus is a Catholic and she\u2019s wondering why the vicar of St Denis calls hisself \u2018Father Bruce\u2019. She said, \u2018He ain\u2019t a father, so why\u2019s he call himself one?\u201d\n
It\u2019s not always easy to explain complicated theological concepts to the lads down at the pub, so I took a moment, sipped my lager shandy and thought of the best reply.<\/div>\n
\u201cWell, lads, it really comes down to what happened about five hundred years ago. You see, the Catholic Church had become rather corrupt. It was full of fat and jolly monks who were living the high life at the people\u2019s expense. Lots of them had lady friends in the local convents and they sold something called indulgences which were pieces of paper which were rather like a ticket out of hell. They sold these indulgence thingies to help the Pope in Rome build bigger and bigger churches and palaces for himself. Then along came somebody who finally decided to clean things up a bit. King Henry VIII closed down the corrupt monasteries and put things right. The Pope didn\u2019t like that much so he kicked King Henry out of the Catholic Church.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYeh, but why does Father Bruce call himself \u2018father\u2019 when he ain\u2019t?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019m coming to that\u2026\u201d I said, \u201cSo you see, the Church of England has been Catholic all along, it\u2019s just that we\u2019re Reformed Catholic. We\u2019re the old Catholic Church in England, but we\u2019ve got our act together and cleaned things up. You can see we\u2019re the original Catholic church because we still have all the old cathedrals and churches. Some vicars like doing things more in the way of Roman Catholics, and so they like to visit Italy together and dress up in fancy clothes like Roman Catholics and they like to worship the Virgin Mary and so forth and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. If they like that sort of thing, it\u2019s perfectly alright in my book. I\u2019m sure that what they do is perfectly harmless. \u00a0I myself don\u2019t go in for all that superstitious fol de rol. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s manly. But I wouldn\u2019t want to stop them.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYeh, but why does Father Bruce call himself \u2018father\u2019 when he ain\u2019t?\u201d<\/div>\n
I could see that I wasn\u2019t really getting through. \u201cWell, Dave, I think it\u2019s a good thing that Father Bruce calls himself \u2018father\u2019.\u201d I said. \u201cIt helps to remind us all that in a way we\u2019re Catholics too and always have been. We may not do things just the way Father Bruce does, but in our own way we\u2019re all Catholics aren\u2019t we? After all, \u2018Catholic\u2019 simply means \u2018universal;\u2026<\/div>\n
Kevin, who I\u2019m afraid is not one of the brightest buttons, interrupted, \u201cYou mean like when we go to the pictures and there\u2019s this globe going around and it says, \u2018Universal Pictures\u2019. Does that mean all them movies we see are Catholic?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNot quite\u201d I smiled, \u201cCatholic means \u2018universal\u2019 because it includes everyone, and in that sense we are speaking about the great brotherhood of man which includes people of every race and religion. You see Dave, all of us, you could say, are \u2018Catholics\u2019\u2013why even our Muslim and Hindu friends, if they are sincere in their religion are also Catholics.<\/div>\n
So when we see Father Bruce we\u2019re reminded that we\u2019re all Catholic in our own way because we all belong to God\u2019s family. \u00a0Just because I don\u2019t worship Mary or wear\u00a0lacy\u00a0cottas or kiss the Pope\u2019s toe doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not Catholic, no indeed! Remember Father Bruce and I have both been ordained by the Bishop of Jeeves and Wooster so we\u2019re both equally Catholic in that sense. Does that help Dave?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNah. Not really, but don\u2019t worry about it Vicar. Do you want another half pint of lager shandy?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019d better not. Mrs Vicar is waiting at the Vicarage and she\u2019ll be wanting to watch Keeping Up Appearances.<\/span> She\u2019s very fond of Hyacinth Bucket you know.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is our guest blogger. Rev\u2019d Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University where he earned a degree in ornamental horticulture. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[4,21,94],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-vicar","tag-alter-egos","tag-anglicans","tag-humor"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Vicar Writes on Being Catholic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Rev'd Humphrey Blytherington is our guest blogger. Rev'd Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda's, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. 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