For so many of us, our religious education ended when we left school.

As we grow older, we increasingly question things. It is quite common to become curious about God, His Church, its teaching, other branches of Christianity and other faiths. This curiosity may spring from many sources; being close or married to a Catholic, being inquisitive about ‘faith’, wanting to know more about the Good News of Scripture, discovering The Church and its teaching, and, of course, being sceptical about faith and religion and, in good heart, wanting to address that scepticism.

For several years, we have been running a series of talks and events in the parish to address these questions, which are open to everybody, especially:

1. Those who are curious about Catholicism and wish to know more. They include those Catholics who have drifted away from the Church over the years and are thinking of returning as well as those who are not Catholic who would like to know more about Catholicism. For the latter these talks and events can lead to participation in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (“RCIA”) and becoming members of the Catholic Church, though there is absolutely no pressure to do so. The topics addressed range from the fundamentals of religious belief to the specific aspects of our Catholic faith.
2. Those who are curious about lives of faith. We have invited Catholic priests and Religious as well as Ministers and senior members of other Christian churches in Aireborough to come along and speak about their Journey of Faith and ministry. These have included members of the Church of England, The Methodist Church, The Baptists, Quakers and Evangelical Protestants. We have also invited representatives of non-Christian faiths to speak about their tenets of faith. We are not actually ‘scratching the surface’, but more correctly ‘scratching the surface of the surface’, as it all serves to increase our knowledge, not only of other churches and faiths but also of their adherents, who we have found have a very similar outlook to ourselves.
3. Catholics who wish to gain a deeper knowledge of their faith and the Church, not only in terms of theology, Sacred Tradition and teaching but also developing their spirituality. We have held parish Day Retreats, hosted talks by Religious and visited an enclosed convent (where the nuns do not leave the convent grounds except for very necessary reasons).

Details of Developing Faith talks and events are published in our Weekly Bulletin