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The Church's Option in Hull

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Patrick J. Doyle
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Let us not forget that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head: that Jesus, the Father of the Poor, had less than the foxes with their holes; and always remember that Jesus worked among the lepers, the prostitutes, the sinners, the outcasts. Yes, Jesus caused scandal by his work among those marginalised by society.

Jesus too was called ‘the Nazarene’: ‘Jesus the provincial’; He could just as easily have been Jesus from Middlesbrough, or Jesus from Hull. If Jesus walked the face of the earth today, would He weep again over the city? Over Hull or Middlesbrough? How would He react to such contemporary problems as Aids, the apparent breakdown of family life, the scourge of unemployment, the plight of the homeless, and the tragedy of young drug addicts? Of one thing we can be sure, if he was to visit Hull, he would be on our outer estates of Bransholme, Orchard Park and North Hull—and he would react. But this, of course, begs the question.

Jesus is still with us; by his own promise he is with the Church, and in his own words he is in our fellow men and women. ‘Whenever you do it to the least of my brethren you do it to me.’

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 69 , Issue 813 , February 1988 , pp. 80 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Leader of Middlesbrough Council.

2 Gustavo Gutierrez: The Power of the Poor in History, 1983.

Leonardo Boff: Church, Charisma and Power: Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, 1985.

3 Anthony Archer: The Two Catholic Churches: A Study in Oppression, 1986.

4 New Blackfriars February 1987 (special issue: ‘Class and Church after Ghetto Catholicism’).

5 Kevin McNamara, Labour M.P., North Hull, and Sir Patrick Wall, the then Conservative M.P. for Beverley and Haltemprice (he retired at the last General Election).

6 Patrick J. Doyle: ‘Religion, Politics and the Catholic Working Class’. New Blackfriars, May, 1983.