Diocese of Westminster First Podcast

I have been listening to the Diocese of Westminster's first podcast. If you follow the link, you'll find three features, one on being an airport chaplain, another on the Year of St Paul and a third given by my very own parish curate, Fr Schofield of the Roman Miscellany, on the 1908 Eucharistic Congress which was held in London.

The music is wonderfully dull and the presenter earnest and well meaning, even if he insists upon referring to the Roman Catholic Church at the beginning of the podcast. His other big moment is to refer to the "rich and sometimes difficult history of Catholicism in Britian."!!

Fr. Nicholas is, of course, very interesting. He may not think so, but he has a great radio voice. As for the 1908 Eucharistic Conference - the Catholic Church has, thankfully, come a long way since then. In 1908, the Prime Minister wanted to ban the Eucharistic procession from the streets of the capital and there were fears that a visiting cardinal might be arrested as soon as he stepped onto English soil. Oh, and there is an amusing story about how, when the foundations of Westminster Cathedral were being dug, some people thought that that is where the dungeons would be!

The pocast is about twenty minutes long: far too short. All the subjects could have been given more time. By the way, the above photograph comes from Idle Speculations, which also contains a very useful account of what happened that year. Read it here.