The Bremen Bod Blog

  ‘Let us pray for each other, let us pray together that the Lord will grant us unity and help the world so that it may believe.’ Pope Benedict XVI It has been said that the during the 19 th century, the women of Gweedore in County Donegal used to wear brightly coloured Paisley shawls to Sunday Mass. It is believed that these beautiful Paisley shawls were brought back from Paisley by Irish textile workers returning to Donegal. Contemporary Traditional Latin Mass enthusiasts might be surprised to learn that the women of Gweedore also wore Paisley pattern handkerchiefs as head coverings, rather than Spanish lace mantilla veils. This quirky little historical fact points to a long standing and well established, two-way movement of people between the counties in the north of Ireland and Paisley, over many centuries.   Indeed, in 1812 Fr William Rattray of St. Mirin’s records that almost 73% of all marriages in Paisley were Irish born couples, mostly coming from Antrim, Doneg...

  'His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is... where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all.' Captain Faramir The Two Towers   I'm assuming we're all just going to carry on as normal, as if North Koreans aren't on European soil? North Korea is participating in the invasion and occupation of a sovereign European nation and yet it has barely made the news. Obviously, there's the usual omerta from all the Morning Star, Socialist Worker and Stop the War, Trots and Tankies. Similarly, there is an equal measure of silence from all those supposedly virulent anti-communists, who like to hysterically brand any form of socialised healthcare and welfare as 'communism', amid an actual communist invasion of Eastern Europe. There is also silence from the so-called 'defenders...

I am making this fraternal appeal for solidarity to all trade unionists, socialist friends and ‘comrades’ in Scotland on the Left, who care about defending the marginalised and fighting against inequality, because this issue is truly a social justice issue. I appeal, not on behalf of social conservatives or religious fanatics but on behalf of ordinary families with elderly relatives who are concerned about the new Assisted Dying Bill. I appeal on behalf of parents and grandparents of disabled children and grandchildren, who are deeply worried about the future implications of this proposed legislation and the message this most recent Assisted Dying Bill sends to their loved ones. At first glance, the Assisted Dying Bill Scotland looks and sounds a little like the type of good end of life care that goes on in all our fine hospices, with its somewhat misleading language around freedom from suffering being made available to all those who are terminally ill. Or assisted dying only being off...

Someone recently asked me why I don't write columns and articles for magazines and other publications anymore and why I now mostly post banter, junior football, hiking, cycling and music stuff on my socials, rather than serious theology and political content.  The answer is simple, the climate of online debate within both faith and political circles, is increasingly toxic and I am done with rancour and resentment, it is totally unhealthy and unfruitful. I am done with theological bickering and polemics, it is embarrassing for us Christians to be slagging each other off so much (myself included).  Especially, while we all sit back and watch an ongoing genocide in Gaza unfold and wait to see how Iran will respond to Israel's recent strikes against Hezbollah. Or how Putin will respond to Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory in the last few days, or how the UK race riots will eventually play out, or what the diabolical Trump-Musk alignment means for the world. It is also ...

  It’s probably worth stating from the outset that I am not actually opposed to Orange Walks and I didn’t submit an objection to the upcoming parade through Gourock. This is because, like many people on the west of Scotland, my own identity, religious heritage and ethnicity is a rich mix of Scottish Free Church Presbyterian, Irish Catholic and German Lutheran, alongside Episcopalian, Welsh, Ulster Scots and Highland Gael on my wife’s side.  As such, I can generally see things from both perspectives and I often suspect that much of the tension which surrounds marching season, is rooted in suspicion, rather than reality. For instance, a significant number of Scottish Catholics feel that those banging the big Lambeg drum outside the chapel each summer, are the descendants of the very same ‘Peep-o'-Day Boys‘, who once carried out the mass wrecking of Catholic cottages and burned their Irish forefathers out their homes, centuries ago. For some within the Catholic community, the...

  Today's object is my 1842 edition of John Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress which was first published as a Christian allegorical work of theological fiction in 1678. The Pilgrims Progress is important and significant for some Christian Socialists because it influenced the Beveridge Report. William Beveridge’s lifted Bunyan's same allegorical language contained in The Pilgrim’s Progress, to inspire his own ‘Beveridge Report’, written in 1942. Like Bunyan, Beveridge speaks of slaying the five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. The Beveridge Report, together with Archbishop William Temple’s ‘Christianity and the Social Order’, formed the basis of the post-war settlement and the creation of the Welafre State, NHS, Council Houses, National Insurance etc all implemented by Clement Attlee’s 1945 Government. Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour Government’s was quite Christian in both its ethos and origin. All the new council houses built after 1945 were rega...