Meetings ... !

One of the very great things that has happened since becoming a Catholic priest (in contrast with my ministry in the Church of England) is that there has been far fewer meetings to attend. It is not that I disliked the people at the meetings, nor that I was uninterested in the business of the meeting, but rather that the 'meeting' seemed to take over and was less a means to an end, but for its own sake. Perhaps it is a defect of my memory, but I cannot really remember a meeting when the outcome was something that dramatically advanced the aims and purposes of the Church.

In this interesting video of Fr Robert Baron, he reflects on the great meeting of Vatican II, but how the Church has mistakenly, since then, tried to perpetuate the spirit of this meeting in the myriad of committees and meetings that has blossomed since the 1960s. He suggests that this is one reason why the Church has neglected evangelisation - it has been in committee instead!