Nobody's Child (17 page)

During our regular chats, I had told Father John of my thoughts of becoming a priest or a monk. Like Sydney Clayton, he did not relate too well to monks, but he
urged me to seriously consider becoming a priest. They needed priests in the diocese, he said.

I was very happy with his guidance and decided to telephone the Salford diocesan recruiter to arrange a meeting.

There was a local
Catholic Directory
in the nursing home, which the goldfish-eating rag-and-bone man had brought back from one of his daily scavenges, and I searched in there for the number I needed. I wanted the Diocesan Director of Vocations to the priesthood. Inevitably, being me, I picked out the wrong number and found myself speaking to Father Tony Grimshaw, the Diocesan Director of Missions, who arranged to come round and see me.

We met in Nanny’s house, and it says a lot for Father Tony’s charm and personality that she actually offered him refreshments while he was there. She had been disgusted by my switch to the Anglicans and almost speechless when I announced my return to the despised Catholics, and for her to welcome one of the ‘enemy’ into her home was a rare favour.

Father Tony, it turned out, was a Diocesan priest in Manchester who was on loan to the African missions by the Bishop of Salford. He was in his mid-thirties but looked to be still in his early twenties, dashing, energetic and full of enthusiasm. He was a truly dynamic character, very good-looking and with longish, blond hair. His uncle was the Archbishop of Birmingham.

Father Tony explained that he had just come back
from a mission in Africa and that they were in urgent need of priests out there.

‘What about priests here?’ I asked.

‘We have plenty of priests here,’ he assured me. ‘What we really need are priests in Africa. That’s what you should think about.’

I hit it off with Father Tony from the outset, and he introduced me to a special Sunday-evening prayer meeting for priests which took place at about eight o’clock, after the usual services, in a church in Bolton run by an enormous man called Monsignor John O’Connor.

There were about 15 priests and me and we would have extemporaneous prayers and sing a few songs. It was not typically Catholic, for we were what is called ‘charismatic’. This was a style which originated in the Pentecostal churches. Happy-clappy, they call it now, and it is very like the black churches in America. This charismatic movement had come into the Catholic Church in the late 1960s.

I had gone from not knowing any Catholic priests to being part of a regular prayer meeting with a whole group of them. After prayers, we would have something to eat and drink and chat to one another. I was extremely happy to be one of them and found I was gradually, and contentedly, becoming more and more deeply immersed in my newly rediscovered religion.

Towards the end of that summer of 1975, shortly after I had turned 18, Tony introduced me to the vocational
director, or recruiter, for a French religious order called the Society of African Missions (Sociètè des Missionnaires d’Afrique). In Britain, the SMA’s members were nearly all Irish priests and the recruiter, Father Denis O’Driscoll SMA, came from Cork.

We met in a Bolton pub and, amazingly, he accepted me on the spot.

‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘But you have only just become a Catholic and I want to make absolutely certain this is right for you. We’ll try you out in Manchester at the centre for the homeless and the very needy and see how you get on. Our British headquarters is almost next door, so we’ll be able to stay in touch and keep an eye on you. Consider this a sort of preparation.’

So that is how I came to leave my job at the nursing home and join the Morning Star Hostel in Manchester.

Things were moving fast. Too fast perhaps. I was a bit nervous of ending up defenceless in the centre of Africa, surrounded by savagery, snakes and man-eating wild animals.

For my peace of mind, I telephoned the man I had intended to call at the outset, Father Kevin Kenny, Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Salford.

Father Kevin, a traditional priest who always wore a full cassock, was secretary to, and lived in the residence of, the Bishop of Salford, the same one who had confirmed me as a child. I visited Father Kevin there in the Bishop’s House, Wardley Hall, a beautiful Tudor
house, and he agreed to help and counsel me if ever I felt the need.

Confident of his support if needed, and encouraged by my prayer-meeting priests in Bolton, I entered the Morning Star Hostel in Nelson Street, Manchester, just a few yards away from the Holy Name Church, where my real mother had taken me to be baptised. Now I found myself going there every Sunday for Mass. It was very odd, almost déja vu. Why, of all places in the world, should I find myself going there for Mass?

It was in Manchester that I met, for the first time, other young men who were about to train for the priesthood. Two young Jesuits were also working in the hostel and we became good friends.

The hostel was a desperate place, run by a lay Catholic movement called the Legion of Mary. They operate nationwide, wherever you find the most vulnerable, the needy and the poorest people. The Legion take collections for them and support them, and in some cases, such as the Morning Star Hostel, provided a shelter run by legionnaires.

It was my first introduction to a formal life. The day would begin at six o’clock with special prayers, followed by meditation and Mass and then breakfast. Some of the homeless would join us for one or more of these sessions.

Then came the work. I helped in the kitchen preparing food or washing up, then in the laundry or changing beds, setting tables, mopping floors or
cleaning toilets. I had to be ready to turn my hand to whatever was needed.

There was a big dormitory for the homeless and a large dining hall and everywhere was kept immaculately clean. It was very hard work but somehow we managed to keep the hostel and the residents looking spotless.

The University of Manchester was directly opposite the hostel and some of the undergraduates volunteered to help. One of my jobs was to explain to them what to do. I found myself mixing with a group of serious intellectuals and didn’t feel at all inadequate. Far from it. On some subjects, I even found I knew far more than them.

I would go to a special weekly Mass held in the chaplaincy of the University, presided over by some very trendy priests, and the students believed I was one of them. They saw no difference and I felt their equal. These were heady times for me.

They would talk of Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and I could converse on them all knowledgeably and often with far more understanding and a deeper interpretation of their philosophies.

I was also expected to know a great deal about the Catholic Church, which was difficult as I had only just become a member. I carried dozens of scribbled notes in my pockets and somehow I managed to get through. I am ashamed to say, though, that occasionally I made up the answers.

I was expected to say the Rosary every night, and I didn’t even know the Rosary. Some nights I was charged with reading the prayers and even had trouble with that. A rummage through my notes usually provided an answer of sorts.

That three-month period between September and Christmas was one of the happiest I can remember. The work was manual and didn’t involve any thinking and I had nothing at all to worry about.

My excitement at being told, early in December, that I had been accepted by the Society of African Missions as a candidate and would be starting on a pre-seminary course at college in January was also tinged with regret to be leaving such a happy environment as the Morning Star Hostel.

St Mary’s College was in Aberystwyth, halfway up the west coast of Wales on Cardigan Bay. It was run by Carmelite friars who wear the full habit with hood. Many of the Catholic orders and some of the dioceses send their students there if they feel they need a certain amount of preparation before entering a seminary. Some students were there for one or even two years, others for just a term or two.

The man in charge of the college was Father Prior Flanagan, an absolutely ferocious Irishman, known to everyone as ‘Spuds’, and I think he was wary of me from the start because he didn’t consider me a proper Catholic.

One of the first students I palled up with was Alan, a graduate who was enrolled for a year to do further
studies. He was a former strict Welsh Baptist and as an ex-Baptist myself we hit it off tremendously and quickly became the best of friends.

Our friendship was soon noted by the Prior Flanagan and he summoned me to his office.

‘You are not to associate with Alan,’ he told me bluntly. ‘He is not a proper Catholic and you are not a proper Catholic, so you must not associate. You must only associate with proper Catholics who have been Catholics all their lives.’

If I disobeyed him, he said, he would throw me out.

It was an irresistible challenge to both Alan and I, and we continued to meet secretly in various parts of town. We shared an interest in other denominational churches and visited most of them in Aberystwyth. College rules insisted we wear cassocks most of the time, so it was virtually impossible to make ourselves invisible, even in a crowd.

Alan was slightly eccentric and suggested we leave little medals of Mary, called ‘Miraculous Medals’, in the fonts, pulpits and pews of all the churches we visited, partly as a calling card and partly in the slight hope that we might convert their congregations. It was wonderful, harmless fun.

We also used to enjoy a drink in the local pubs and would often be late back to college after the doors were locked. But even in our cassocks it was not difficult to climb in through one of the windows and we became very adept at sneaking in and out after dark.

Alan is now a highly respected monk and I am a friar,
but in those days in 1976 we were just two silly young people doing the kind of silly things young people have done for centuries.

It was inevitable, of course, that someone from college would spot us together and report us to the Father Prior, and that is exactly what happened.

Father Flanagan was almost apoplectic with rage. He ranted and raved at me for a good 15 minutes and I felt like a little schoolboy back in primary school, expecting him at any moment to produce a cane and command me to bend over.

He did write a letter of complaint to the Mission directors in Manchester, but in their kind wisdom they chose to take no further action. I do believe, though, that they, and certainly Father Flanagan, did not approve of my dabbling with other orders.

During the Easter break at Aberystwyth, I arranged to stay with the Dominican friars in Oxford for a week. I had met a Dominican priest who was also residing at St Mary’s College and his stories had roused my interest in his order.

In Oxford, I met Father Timothy Radcliffe, then in his early thirties, who went on to be world leader of the Dominicans. He was even then a dynamic, charismatic figure and seemed to carry his destiny for greatness like an aura around him.

I made tentative suggestions about my becoming a Dominican friar and the Novice Master told me in a kindly but firm response that I didn’t have enough
studies behind me. The Dominicans are very big on studies and are all deeply intellectual.

But I enjoyed my week there and my contact with some of the young novices and it prompted me to dabble further into other orders.

Within the month, I had arranged to spend a weekend at the Birmingham Oratory, a Catholic community founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman in homage to St Philip Neri, whose first Oratory community was established in Italy in the 16th century.

I was desperate to find something I felt really called to. Although I was being sponsored by the Society of African Missions, I was still very uncertain if missionary work was the right vocation.

After Father Flanagan discovered about my dabbling and reported me to the SMA, I once more feared the worst. But again they decided to keep me.

Another student at Aberystwyth with whom I formed a lasting friendship was John Griffiths, who invited me to spend holidays with his family in South Wales and would remain my friend for 31 years. He is now a canon in the diocese of Cardiff.

Surprisingly, at the end of my first term, the SMA declared they were so pleased with my results and progress that they had decided to accelerate my entry into the novitiate. I would start as a novice in Ireland in September.

To our mutual delight, I was able to spend the summer with my grandmother, who had, by this time,
moved to a controlled bungalow for the elderly in the middle of Bolton. She had become reconciled to my switch to Catholicism and was even beginning to show an interest in the religion. But, meanwhile, she continued to attend services with the Strict and Particular Baptists and, at the age of 82, was still turning out to protest against Sunday football matches and other such sins against the Sabbath.

I spent my last night in the UK with John Griffiths and his family in Aberdare and he drove me to Swansea docks the next morning to catch my boat to Cork.

The novitiate house was about a mile and a half from the centre of Cork. It looked very intimidating and austere – and very formal. Even the nuns who looked after us were strict. The place scared me at first.

We were put in large double bedrooms, each containing two single beds, two small wardrobes and a small bedside table and chair. The walls were painted white and the floors were scrubbed wooden boards with a few little mats scattered about on them. Everywhere was scrupulously clean.

To begin with, I walked about as though on eggshells, frightened of doing or saying the wrong thing. But, after a few days, I began to relax, and within a week I was beginning to enjoy myself.

The novitiate is the period, usually a year, during which a novice or prospective member of a religious order, who has not yet been admitted to vows, has to undergo training in order to be found eligible or
qualified for admission. It is a very ancient tradition dating back to at least the 5th century.