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PHOTO: J PHOTO: JOZEF SEDMAK, ALAMY Pastoral Review Editorial Office Ashley Beck (Editor) ashley.beck@stmarys.ac.uk Natalie K. Watson (Publishing Editor) Tel. +44(0)77 6674 4011 pastoralreview9@gmail.com Stephen McKinney (Reviews Editor) stephen.mckinney@glasgow.ac.uk Amanda Davison-Young (Chief Executive Officer) Tel: +44(0)20 8748 8484 adyoung@thetablet.co.uk Malgorzata Chylinska Pequeno (Design and Production) mchylinska@thetablet.co.uk To subscribe or to manage your subscription Tel: +44(0)1858 438736 thetablet@subscription.co.uk One year: £27 (UK), £35 (Airmail) To advertise Lisa Smith (advertising manager) Tel: +44 (0)1903 534 041 lisa@ottwaymediasolutions.com Head Office 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London, W6 0GY, UK Tel: +44(0)20 8748 8484 publisher@thetablet.co.uk Editorial Board Ashley Beck, Amanda Davison-Young, Lynda Dearlove Raymond Friel, Maureen Glackin, Dominic Howarth, David Albert Jones, John Lydon, Stephanie MacGillivray, Stephen J. McKinney, Tarcisius Mukuka, Káren North, Thomas O’Loughlin (Chair), Martin Pulsom, Peter Tyler, Natalie K. Watson © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited ISSN1748-362X www.thepastoralreview.org Hope and the Jubilee Year Ashley Beck ‘Journeying from one country to another as if borders no longer mattered, and passing from one city to another in contemplating the beauty of creation and masterpieces of art, we learn to treasure the richness of different experiences and cultures, and are inspired to lift up that beauty, in prayer, to God, in thanksgiving for his wondrous works…The coming Jubilee will be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope, a harbinger of new heavens and a new earth, where men and women will dwell in justice and harmony, in joyful expectation of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises. Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!”. May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever.’ (Francis, Bull of Indiction for the Great Jubilee, Spes non confundit (May 2024), 5 and 25) The Catholic Church has just begun a Holy Year of Jubilee – these words are from the conclusion of Pope Francis’ document establishing the year, Spes non confundit. It is not always easy to live in hope; we can see so many signs of despair in the world, so many that it is difficult to know where to start listing them. Perhaps the most overwhelming sign is the persistent and worsening sinfulness of war and violence. Not only is this bleak in itself, shown so vividly in the
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Editorial PHOTO: ABACA PRESS / ALAMY STOCK terrible casualty figures emanating from the Holy Land, Ukraine and elsewhere, but we see all the time how our capacity as the Church for resisting or challenging this culture of death is not being strengthened. Pope Francis has insisted on raising the issue again and again, and thankfully this is ref lected in many of the documents surrounding the Synod of Bishops: some people are listening to what he says. But at other levels of the Church Catholics all over the world still collude with the militaristic ethos of so many countries, never challenging, never causing offence. The rituals of the civitas terrena, the ‘earthly city’, are so insidious, carefully designed to engender unquestioning loyalty; and there are plenty of court prophets happy to support this. The theology of hope which needs to inspire us in this new Holy Year has to be rooted in a rejection of where evil is in the world, for which we need discernment in identifying it. So often we don’t experience this in our parishes and communities. So often the Church’s narrative remains what it has been for so long – suspicious defensiveness, an identification with the rich and the powerful, and above all an inward-looking insularity. This is fed not by hope but by fear. In such places, the Holy Year, and indeed anything said or done by the wider Church – the pope, bishops, Catholic charities, religious orders, the Synod of Bishops – is ‘out there’. Battening down the hatches is always a comforting thing to do, but something which offers a false sense of security. This journal exists in so many ways to try and open up the hatches, to invite communities to look beyond themselves, to draw strength from the knowledge that we are not isolated, but there are many examples of how this is being done. Sacred Scripture can always give us strength. Perhaps for all of us the pall-like presence of war and violence is like the ‘thorn in the f lesh’, of which St Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, ‘a messenger from Satan to torment me so that I should not get above myself ’. When we denounce war, it is easy for us to overlook the need for humility, especially when we look at Christianity’s chequered past; but if we’re challenging the false idols of power and physical strength, we need not to be ashamed of weakness and vulnerability, and of our own weaknesses. When we condemn the falsehoods of war, we are given strength by the words ‘I am content with weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake. For whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Cor. 12.7–10) January/February/March 2025 | Pastoral Review Vol. 21 Issue 1 | 5

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PHOTO: J

PHOTO: JOZEF SEDMAK, ALAMY

Pastoral Review Editorial Office Ashley Beck (Editor) ashley.beck@stmarys.ac.uk Natalie K. Watson (Publishing Editor) Tel. +44(0)77 6674 4011 pastoralreview9@gmail.com Stephen McKinney (Reviews Editor) stephen.mckinney@glasgow.ac.uk Amanda Davison-Young (Chief Executive Officer) Tel: +44(0)20 8748 8484 adyoung@thetablet.co.uk Malgorzata Chylinska Pequeno (Design and Production) mchylinska@thetablet.co.uk

To subscribe or to manage your subscription Tel: +44(0)1858 438736 thetablet@subscription.co.uk One year: £27 (UK), £35 (Airmail) To advertise Lisa Smith (advertising manager) Tel: +44 (0)1903 534 041 lisa@ottwaymediasolutions.com Head Office 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London, W6 0GY, UK Tel: +44(0)20 8748 8484 publisher@thetablet.co.uk Editorial Board Ashley Beck, Amanda Davison-Young, Lynda Dearlove Raymond Friel, Maureen Glackin, Dominic Howarth, David Albert Jones, John Lydon, Stephanie MacGillivray, Stephen J. McKinney, Tarcisius Mukuka, Káren North, Thomas O’Loughlin (Chair), Martin Pulsom, Peter Tyler, Natalie K. Watson © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited ISSN1748-362X www.thepastoralreview.org

Hope and the Jubilee Year Ashley Beck

‘Journeying from one country to another as if borders no longer mattered, and passing from one city to another in contemplating the beauty of creation and masterpieces of art, we learn to treasure the richness of different experiences and cultures, and are inspired to lift up that beauty, in prayer, to God, in thanksgiving for his wondrous works…The coming Jubilee will be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope, a harbinger of new heavens and a new earth, where men and women will dwell in justice and harmony, in joyful expectation of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises. Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!”. May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever.’ (Francis, Bull of Indiction for the Great Jubilee, Spes non confundit (May 2024), 5 and 25)

The Catholic Church has just begun a Holy Year of Jubilee – these words are from the conclusion of Pope Francis’ document establishing the year, Spes non confundit. It is not always easy to live in hope; we can see so many signs of despair in the world, so many that it is difficult to know where to start listing them. Perhaps the most overwhelming sign is the persistent and worsening sinfulness of war and violence. Not only is this bleak in itself, shown so vividly in the

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