The priest at the church

on the hill - the church the Senior Cat attends - has been spending some time in the shopping centre lately. 
The idea has been that he will just be there and his parishioners and others can just stop and chat about anything.
Recently the same priest also sent out an email asking for people's views on the various mid week church activities. As the Senior Cat does not use email I printed it off for him to think about at leisure. He can tell D.... what he thinks on Sunday if he wants to say anything.
But I sent D.... a message yesterday. I might or might not bump into him in the shopping centre tomorrow but it won't be the best place to tell him what I had to say.
Let me start at the beginning though. The first priest the Senior Cat knew at the church was a gentle, kind man. I have never known anyone to say an unkind word about him. No, he wasn't perfect. Nobody is. He was and is loved. He still lives in the district but, rightly, goes elsewhere to church. Once in a while he has officiated by invitation. He is old now but he has not lost the capacity to listen. It's not unusual to see him having coffee with people in the shopping centre but he could never be accused of interfering. I got to know him quite well. Would I run the book stall at the church fete? Of course. He is the sort of person you don't mind doing things for because he always said thank you to people - and meant it.
His support was welcomed by the next priest, a much younger man. We got on well too. On more than one occasion we would meet in the shopping centre and he would run an idea past me for the thesis he was writing. His curate, also writing a thesis, would do the same. I didn't (and don't) pretend to know anything about theology but perhaps that helped me pick the flaws in their arguments?
He left too and was replaced by a man I never got to know. We spoke face to face once and on the phone once. This was before the "prayer circle" messages were emailed out and when I told him the Senior Cat was not available he said something along the lines of he supposed I could take the message as I had apparently doing it for years. Well yes, I had. It was hardly a ringing endorsement but I simply took the message.
And then D.... arrived. Cat gets the messages? He simply accepted it. They are confidential messages. You don't pass them on - except in my case to the Senior Cat. 
But it means that I know things. I am told things. Those others who are involved know that I know. They can tell me more if needs be. That's important. The congregation, like congregations in many other places,  is older and dwindling. There are often people who are ill, who have lost someone close to them, or simply need just a little extra "TLC". 
I thought of all this when D... sent his request for thoughts about mid-week activities. Then I responded by telling him that I thought the most important thing he had done this year was to start coming to the shopping centre for "coffee and conversation".  It means he is out there in the community. He's visible. He's available - available to anyone. That's far more useful than a mid-week service which must, at most, be attended by four or five people.
I have no idea how many people actually talk to him but there always seems to be at least one.  It isn't "church" or "religion" - I caught him with someone one day and they were looking at cruises on his i-phone.
That isn't what matters. What matters is that he's there. He's available. People can recognise him.
He's not the only priest I know by any means. One or two others have other ways of getting to know not just their congregations but the people they live among.  I know it's hard work. Priests haven't had a good press lately.
But, the vast majority of them are good, caring people. If they choose to trust me with confidential information then I need to trust them as well.