As a spiritual director in a couple of praesidia of the Legion of Mary, a lay organsation founded by Irishman Frank Duff in the 1920s, I have had the opportunity of going on PPC (Peregrinatio Pro Christo) a twice, both of them in England.

A few days ago I read Simon Caldwell’s article ‘Turn all parishes into hubs of mission’ in The Catholic Times (Archdiocese of Westminster) issue of July 10. Caldwell quotes Cardinal Vincent Nichols as saying: “We don’t go in for doorstep evangelisation because it is impossible without a relationship and you don’t begin to form a relationship of lasting quality if it stays on a doorstep.”

Earlier on Caldwell also wrote: “He said there would be no place for proselytising, ‘door-stepping’ or ‘cold calling’ in an attempt to win converts.”

I have to be honest enough and say that I am slightly confused after reading this article. Duff, whose cause for beatification is hopefully moving forward, stipulated in the most formal of manners that Peregrinatio Pro Christo, which basically involves knocking door to door and evangelising, is at the very heart of our faith and he promoted it as substantial to the spirituality of the Legion of Mary.

Cardinal Nichols is saying otherwise and he obviously has a good reason for saying it, as he himself explained. Can both ‘visions’ be reconciled?