As I walked out of the Tate Modern, from the UK AIDS Quilt Memorial, I was thinking back to people I knew living with HIV in the 1980s and 90s… Some stories I’d like to share, here, are for particular people who didn’t have a quilt, well, not one that was visible that day. I am hoping that the reason there was no quilt is because they are still alive.
Category: Priestly days
Bella Italia
I am sure I had never thought such words before, but with a raised, stern and firm voice, I equally wagged my fingers at my legs as I said “Padre! Questi gambi sono fatto da Dio!”
If you don’t want babies …
This story is to do with contraceptive and reproductive health. ‘Oooh, now why should that be the concerns of priests?’ I hear you ask: quite so!
Have you heard the one about a nun, a priest and a clairvoyant?
“Do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I walk round and come back again?”
Love is …
There’s a time for living, and a time for dying.
[Not] The angel of death!
This is one of two stories I’ll tell you about a hospice I used to visit as a priest. I used to visit the hospice every couple of days or so. The staff new I was a registered nurse, as well as a local Catholic priest. Some days I’d go in early in…
Hoc est corpus … hic est sanguinis
Similar to Damian’s story, Cosmo was a patient on the same ward, in and out with every new opportunistic infection or tumour his HIV could lay its grubby hands on. In the end he developed severe Kaposi’s sarcoma, with the classic bodily marks, from the tip of his nose, then dotted all over his body,…
Compassion in nursing care – we’re nothing without it!
Over the past few years, nurses and midwives in the UK have been reminded of the “6 Cs” of nursing care. I first heard my friend Joanne Bosanquet (MBE, Queen’s Nurse, Deputy Chief Nurse, Public Health England) promote the model. On the one hand, it’s great – especially for those new to the profession, to…
Tu es sacerdos in aeternum
The 9th of May 2017 … … marked the 30th anniversary since my ordination to the Catholic priesthood. I’ve been teaching sexual health for 27 years now; many people may not even know about the ten years spent for the priesthood, a decade in my past life. These days, I am more inclined to consider…
On the number 64 to the Vatican
Just after I was ordained priest in 1987, four of us friends (including one other priest) went to Rome on holiday. The other priest and I were so amazingly happy to celebrate Mass on the altar at the tomb of St Peter. Sadly, we couldn’t have any photos back then, but my name is etched…
“It’s you boys who know all about these things!”
On the 25th August 2016, I visited Buckingham Palace for what I’m sure must be over a dozen times in these past 23 years of summer openings. In my more pious days as a teenager, a good little Catholic boy, whenever I would visit the outside of the palace railings, I would say the Pater,…
Tales of the Coleherne
My heart would be pounding as I got on the underground and headed for Earl’s Court … it seemed that there were more men ‘like me’ … some even used to wear pretty coloured hankies in their back pockets!
Trilogy of a beautiful Princess
From Diana to Harry:
HIV matters!