Coming back from holiday is strange. In the parish, I sometimes felt that I was sort of punished for having been away – as if all sorts of crises stored themselves up for the week after I came home. It’s different now. I don’t think it would make much difference if I stayed away for another while. But I come home to a tidal wave of E Mail and post – probably take me about two weeks to get on top of it again.
Meanwhile there are interesting things going by – I read the response of Catholic bishops and others to the change of view on abortion by Amnesty International – but I missed the original debate which changed that view. We’re going to have pictures of dead bodies on the cigarette packages – and there were wrecked cars on display outside Ikea yesterday. It’s a bit like the hell-fire sermons of old and, I suspect, not much more effective.