Catholic and Loving it!

You know the score. Blogs are a bad thing and you people who read blogs are no better. All we do is cause trouble and strife and division.

Well, I thought we might like to do something useful.

Next year it's World Youth Day and we are trying to send some young people from West Hull to be with the Pope in Madrid. Let me give you a bit of context: We've had the floods and until very recently still had some people living in caravans, we've got massive unemployment and many of our parishioners are low earners. The cost of a trip to World Youth Day is £999.

Why should we send them? A trip to World Youth Day can and has changed a young person's life. Many times I've asked somebody in their early twenties how they came to take their faith seriously and the story has often begun "I always sort of just went along with my mum and dad to Mass but I was at World Youth Day and I heard/saw/felt/discovered..."

It also gets them out of the grim diocesan bubble where ageing congregations insist on the latest progressive worship from 1970. It puts them in front of a Pope who will give communion on the tongue to people who a kneeling, who will sing his blessings in Latin and who will do all sorts of other good things that our young people are currently (despite my best efforts) deprived of. Photos from the last World Youth Day...

We'll be doing a lot of fundraising around the parishes but as I say, we live in an area of the country that isn't exactly spilling over with spare change. That's where you come in - we need your help.

To encourage you a bit, Ella has agreed to turn this in to a sponsored event. This is Ella by the way (working on our Easter Tree)...

Ella is the one on the left! This blog hits over 250 unique visits a day. If you people can give over £250 between you (it's only £1 each) then Ella will dye her hair (and there's enough of it) pink.

Here's an artists impression of how that will look...

That's not really Ella by the way, that's Stephanie from LazyTown but you get the general idea.

Please support this endeavor by throwing a few quid our way. Go on, think how much money you spend on rubbish. If you have ever despaired over the state of Catholicism in England and Wales, now is your chance to do something about it. When Laurence England needed money for a good cause, I sent him £20. If I can find £20 for a good cause, surely you can find at least $10.

This handy PayPal button should make it easy for you to do it right now before you've had too much time to think about it...

If you don't want to use paypal then write out a cheque payable to "James Preece" (honestly, if you don't trust me then why are you sending money anyway) and post that cheque to "James Preece, c/o St Joseph's, 187 Pickering Road, Hull HU4 6TD". I'll make sure it gets to the people who need it.

Update:

Many thanks to those of you who have contributed so far including the person who left this message:

I met my fiancée at WYD Sydney. I wouldn't have been able to go without massive subsidy from generous benefactors. I'm delighted to help someone else see the Pope ... and maybe a future spouse.

So far we have £75! Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!