In 1998 Pope John Paul II invited all the new lay movements and ecclesial communities to come together to celebrate Pentecost with him in St Peter’s Square. At this meeting he publically affirmed their importance. He also called them to a new ecclesial maturity and asked them to co-operate together for the good of the Church. Chiara Lubich the founder of Focolare took the initiative in this and over the last twelve years there have been various joint gatherings of leaders of the movements, exploring each other’s charisms and work. These have included small national gatherings of movement leaders at the Focolare Centre of Unity in Welwyn Garden City and much larger international ones, involving particularly Charismatic Renewal, Focolare and the St Egidio movement.

Just as the Holy Spirit prompted the leaders to come together in dialogue, so on a grassroots level there has also been a coming together informally among the younger generation (20-45 year olds). This is particularly noticeable in the London area, where there is a greater mass of people than elsewhere. Whereas the older generation have tended to be more committed to their particular movement and are the mainstays of them, so the emerging generation have a more pick and mix attitude to spirituality. Instead of being identified with only one lay movement, group or parish this age group tend to go to wherever they feel something good is happening. This attitude has been facilitated by the new technology – texting and facebook, which enables large groups of people to hear about events at quite short notice and simply turn up if it suits them.

Not identified with one Movement

Thus for example, this group might go to St Charles Borromeo Church in Ogle Street, to hear Fr Alan Fudge, from the Neocatechumenal Way, preach on a Sunday morning or to St Patrick’s in Soho Square to hear the Gospel choir. Then they might also be involved with pro-Life activities with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in Canning Town or help the Missionaries of Charity with their outreach to the homeless. They might do the Life in the Spirit Seminars with Soul Food or do a weekend retreat at Worth Abbey. Some might go to Holy Trinity Brompton, the famous Anglican Church for their praise and worship on Sunday afternoons or they might attend the Catholic Underground evenings at Holy Ghost, Balham. Many would also find inspiration at Lourdes or Medjugorje or go to the annual Youth2000 gathering at Walsingham, as well as attending Celebrate or New Dawn or other charismatic gatherings. Part of this fluidity comes from the fact that probably in their own parish there is no critical mass of like-minded people of their age group, and their generation’s desire to always keep options open to ensure they don’t miss out on anything good. Also in the light of the growing secularization and decadence of society at large, as single youngish people, they feel the need of like minded friends, who share their values and love of God to just hang out with.

Thus under the radar, in London over the last decade or so there has been a growing mass of well educated, committed and dynamic youngish Catholics who all know each other through the events they attend rather than through their identification with a particular movement or group. It seems that this group is now being galvanized around a new push in evangelization.

Informal circuit of Young Catholics

The catalyst for this is a 40 year old Italian from Rome called Mauro Iannicelli. Technically he is part of the Neocatechumenal Way, but he is also part of this informal London circuit of Catholics. Having had a nominal faith for many years and leading a typical yuppie life of work and pleasure, 12 years ago at a difficult time in his life he went on a retreat in Lourdes. Here he had a deep spiritual experience with Our Lady which changed the direction of his life and brought him back to the practice of his faith. He became hungry to know more about God. He comments, “I was nourished in Rome by many things in the Roman Catholic Church – Opus Dei, the Jesuits, the Charismatic Renewal - through the Community of Beatitudes, the “New Horizons” Community (founded by Chiara Almirante) - as well as a wonderful course called The Ten Commandments created by Don Fabio Rosini, a diocesan priest in Rome.”

In 2006 Mauro came to London to work for the investment bank JPMorgan as a software developer, and became part of the capital’s dynamic catholic friendship circle. Seeing the swathes of young people, however, becoming disaffected from the Church and generally feeling the need of a much stronger vision for evangelisation in the Catholic community, he felt God calling him to give up his well paid job, and set to work to do something about it. Thus in February 2010, he resigned from the bank and began networking and researching the different evangelistic tools available to find the one he felt was best suited to the needs of today.

Growing acceptance of Alpha in the Catholic Church

He was particularly impressed by the success and professionalism of the Alpha course, which over the last twenty years has grown from being simply a local parish course in a central London church (the famous Holy Trinity Brompton) to a world wide phenonema with 40,000 courses running in 169 countries, and an estimated 15 million people having attended. He found that although Alpha originated in the Anglican Church, it was now being used in many Roman Catholic churches too, particularly overseas.

A sign of this growing acceptance of Alpha in the Catholic Church was the attendance of over 20 Catholic Archbishops, bishops and priests at the international Alpha conference in June 2010. The participating Archbishops, together with the other Catholic delegates at the conference, were invited to a special reception at Archbishop’s House in Westminster hosted by Archbishop Vincent Nichols.

No point in re-inventing the wheel

Mauro comments, “I felt there was no point in re-inventing the wheel. The Alpha team have discovered a way to present the Christian faith in a context that resonates with people of this time. Its focus is on friendship and it is very effective in communicating the basic gospel message because it has something for the mind, the heart, the conscience and the will.” He thus determined to bring together a small group of people who might be prepared to help him run Alpha in a Catholic context in London. He hoped that among his friends and connections he might get half a dozen or so people to help him. But as he networked and shared his vision on the London Catholic scene, to his amazement he gathered over 50 people who said they would be willing to help. He comments, “It can be easy to get names on a list and I wanted to see how many would be really committed.”

So he insisted that those who wanted to be involved had to not only attend an Alpha course themselves at Holy Trinity Brompton, which happened this spring, but also attend the two day International training conference that Holy Trinity Brompton runs annually in June. He adds, “I was interested to see how many would be prepared to take two days off work and pay £45 to attend the conference.” To his amazement 34 people happily did this. He comments, “I think they have all been waiting for something like this.” The eclectic group includes those with links with of Soul Food (CCR group), the Neocatechumenal Way, Youth2000, Notre Dame de Vie, Verbum Dei, St Patrick’s School of Evangelisation, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and Spirit in the City. About 50% are British and 50% from overseas, the majority are single and in the 25-45 age group.

Mauro & Team at Spirit in the City

The group, who have come up with the name “VISION – Excellence for Evangelisation”, had their own stall promoting Alpha for Catholics at the Spirit in the City outreach in Leicester Square on 5th June 2010. Here Mauro says, 45 people gave their contact details saying they would be interested in attending a Catholic Alpha, and two priests approached them, interested in them running the course in their parish. He is looking at these and exploring other parishes too. He comments, “it is important to get the right parish, where the priest is behind the course and where there would be general support for it from people there too.” Realizing the importance of follow up, he has also been investigating different catechetical material that might be suitable for follow up after the Alpha course. Among those he is currently looking at is the bible course “The Great Adventure” on DVD (presented by Jeff Cavins), two Italian courses, “The Ten Commandments” and the 4 day “Vocation” course run in Assisi by Fr Giovanni Marini, as well as the parish cell system used at St Eustorgio in Milan, (and pioneered in England at St Jospeh’s in Guildford, which has over 100 people in home groups. See Goodnews March/April 2006) Interestingly St Eustorgio now use Alpha extensively as an entry point into their cell system.

One light in the night

One of the big challenges for Alpha in a Catholic context has always been finding a way to bring people along to the course in the first place. Drawing on his personal experience, Mauro is considering using the evangelisation method called “Una Luce nella Notte” (One Light in the Night) created in Italy by Fr Andrea Brugnoli, which is used very successfully by St Eustorgio and other Italian churches. This is an evening event that runs from 8pm to 1am in a suitable church. Here people are invited by evangelists on the street to come to the church and pray and bring their petitions. A path of lighted candles then leads the guests inside, where they are met and welcomed, offered prayer or a chat, while in the background a worship band plays gentle music and priests are available for the sacrament of reconciliation.

As long time readers of Goodnews will know, this is actually not the first time there has been a big push of the Alpha course by Roman Catholics. In 1996 the National Service Committee for CCR delegated David Payne to set up the Catholic Alpha office to promote Alpha in a Catholic context. This met with great initial success but one of the problems that emerged shortly afterwards was the lack of good quality, user-friendly post Alpha materials suitable for Catholic parishes. So it was agreed that Holy Trinity, Brompton church, would themselves take on the promotion of Alpha among Catholics, and Catholic Evangelisation Services under David Payne’s direction would focus on producing Catholic resources. These have been the very well received CAFÉ resources, consisting of a wide variety of short programmes some of which can be used before an Alpha course, some as a follow-up, whilst others are specifically for sacramental preparation or the development of parish groups.

It seems that we are now in a new time, however, and the Lord is raising up a new army of young Catholics to evangelise, using the Alpha course again, but now being able to draw on the Catholic tools that have been developed over the past decade both here and abroad.

Further details about the Vision group and the courses they will be running, contact vision4evangelisation@ gmail.com

For further enquiries about Alpha in a Catholic context:
Email: catholics@ alpha.org Tel 020 7052 0468