In Congo, the Church is doing the government’s business

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on

I step inside letting the door thud shut

The opening lines of Philp Larkin’s ‘Church Going’ sum up a common interaction with churches for most British people. We like them better when they’re empty; at least then we can imagine what we’d like to be happening inside. Most of us now see churches, church-going and general matters of faith as a fringe concern. If the Church does take centre-stage, it’s usually because they are on the wrong side of the current social argument.

Take the example of the Roman Catholic Church in the West of Scotland, where one priest told me that he avoids walking through the town centre in clerical collar for fear of verbal abuse from passers-by. The Church is now viewed more often villain than hero.

Perhaps that is why – as a card-carrying Roman Catholic – it was so refreshing to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF), to see the work the Church is supporting there.

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Simon Cook

Pensioners have never had it so good

You could try telling the 2,000 or so parishioners jammed into Mater De Dei’s sanctuary atop a hillside in Bukavu that the Church was irrelevant, but you might have difficulty being heard.