Church in a spin

OK I'm back.. sorry for the one year gap. At a seminar recently I learned that a year is a bit too long between entries. Two or three days is better.

So I promise to be a bit better at blogging from now on.

In mitigaion m'lud, I have been doing a blog over the summer of 07 which is on http://www.johncarter.moonfruit.com/

It's great and amazing! And apparently several hundred people read it.. or may one person read it several hundred times. I could cheat and put it all on here, but instead here are some of my favourite bits..

... May 16 - Il meo compleanno (My birthday) Rome :

I stroll through the crowds to the Gregorian University and Jacob introduces me to Prof. Andreu Rocha Scarpetta who is leading the seminar on media and ecumenism. Having started to see the way different churches and traditions come together in Rome, this proves to be a fascinating, slightly mind-blowing seminar. Andreu is extremely helpful, discussing with me in English what he will be talking about in the seminar (which is of course in Italian), then in a break after an hour coming over to see if I was keeping up! Which I was, thanks to the power point presentation, and the subject – a detailed and fascinating study of the different strands and development in Protestantism, given to an entirely Catholic audience. Students again from many different countries where relations with protestants can be lukewarm at best, and sometimes antagonistic. But Andrew’s approach, using a model developed by Rodney Stark, is to develop understanding and empathy for different approaches. He confides that he is most worried when Catholic ‘fundamentalists’ refuse to entertain the subject and consider all protestants beyond the pail. By the end my brain is hurting from learning more about my own background than I had heard in years of experience and theological study – better still I can read more at my own pace because Professor Rocha Scarpetta has given me the password to all the course notes.

I come reeling out into the daylight and wander around Rome before ending up at Travestere. Its here on a Tuesday night that the St Egidio community meet (http://www.santegidio.org/en/index.html) and I catch the second half of the Tuesday night prayer and singing in the beautiful setting of the Basilica of Santa Maria. After I discover Tony and Benjamin from earlier in the day, along with some guys who have just flown in and Leonardo a member of the community for the past ten years who is showing them around. They invite me to join them for pizza at a nearbye trattoria, where in a mix of Italian and English Lonardo tells us about the St Egidio community and his love of baseball in equal measure. It seems only civil to offer to buy a round to celebrate my forthcoming Complianno (birthday) – see picture gallery!

To top off the day Leonardo offers to take me back to my hotel on his scooter – the ultimate Rome experience. There are moments as we weave through the traffic when I wonder if I will reach my next birthday, but it’s a great way to see the city. Even with your eyes closed.

May 21

Saturday is a day off so when in Rome do what the Romans do—head out of town to the Lido, buy a towel and a beach bag, hire a sun lounger on a suitably fashionable section of beach - surrounded by a lot of flesh - fall asleep, get burned, eat cannelloni, drink un birra, back to Trastevere for the evening, eat ice cream catch the 8pm St Egidio communion service, a pizza, and finally collapse into bed for a solid 8 hours sleep before Sunday.

Courses at the Greg (Gregorian University Faculty of Social Communications ) cover media and theology with a scope and depth that is the envy of the world – the small world of media theology practitioners anyway.

What’s unique here in Rome, is that the students being trained are either priests or lay people who have a clear intention to become Communications officers/directors of one sort or another back where they were sent from. Between classes today I meet an Indian priest, sponsored by his diocese to take a three year course enabling him to join an already established communications team on his return. Three years?! Three days would be our limit in England, I suspect. It’s the same with all the students, and today is for me an object lesson in how Roman Catholic Communications policy is developed and put into contexts in different cultures throughout the world.. yes, its Pastoral Communications Day. (Da,Dah!)

After another Guinness based lunch at the Trinity College Bar (where I note they will be screening tonight’s Champions League final), and a stroll through the Villa Borghese gardens where I read a book in the shade of the pine trees, its back for another Pastoral Communications class, this one led by Jacob Srampickal himself.

It’s clear I should have been to more of Jacob’s classes. He leads them with a relaxed jocular style, leading the discussions with humour but sharp and insightful comments, and the third year students, many about to return home, are open and friendly. This time its about parish strategies and Luis from Brazil presents his ideas – in Portuguese, of course. But although there’s lots of good stuff, Jacob picks him up for looking at wider issues of small groups and internal communication, with not enough emphasis on external and media strategies.

Well - loads more of course but its back to the present next time.