Landings is a lay-led programme which offers a safe, comfortable "landing place" for Catholics who feel distanced from the Church and who are thinking about coming back. These people are Catholics who may no longer attend Sunday Mass but who do come to Church for weddings, baptisms and funerals - and who perhaps also feel drawn back at Christmas and Easter. They will have left the church for all sorts of different reasons. Some may have had unpleasant experiences within their Church community, others will have simply drifted away

It is a fact that less than 10% of baptised Catholics in England and Wales attend Mass regularly. Pope John Paul II said: "We have to enflesh the truth that there are no strangers or aliens in the Family of Families". Jesus tells us that we must leave the 99 and seek out the lost ones. Canon law specifies that one of the responsibilities of a parish is to "Bring the Gospel to those who have stopped practicing" (Canon 528).

So there is clearly a need to attract distanced Catholics back to the Church, but why do they need a programme like Landings to help them return? As long as there is no obstacle to them receiving the Sacraments they could come straight back to the Eucharist via Reconciliation. However, many seem to feel a real need for support and friendship within a small, friendly group before venturing into the wider parish community.

Landings does not compete with existing evangelisation or catechetical programmes for people who wish to become Catholics or for practising Catholics who wish to deepen their faith. Instead it exists alongside them, complementing them and offering something new and exciting to the substantial numbers of Catholics who are open to returning to the Church but who need structured help and support.

There are a number of programmes designed to reach out to inactive Catholics, many of them developed in the USA. Landings has been developed after extensive research and is suited to the British Catholic culture. It has proved to be as successful in the UK as in the USA.

Over the last twenty or so years, Landings has been very successful in America and its potential is now being discovered in the UK. Parishioners return from one of our workshops not only with their training and materials, but full of enthusiasm to immediately begin a ministry of Welcome and Reconciliation.

Ideally a team of three or four interested and active parishioners and the parish priest will attend the workshop. Having received the Workshop Training, they will then be able to offer a Landings series within their parish.

We are at present able to offer Landings at a reduced fee of £150 per parish group. This includes attendance at a one-day workshop as well as all materials and license to run the Landings programme.

Recognising that not everyone will be able to come as a parish team we will welcome individuals for the Workshops at a cost of £20 each [not including materials].

Future Workshops

Westminster
Portsmouth
Southwark
Salford
Liverpool
Lancaster
Middlesborough
Leeds
Brentwood
Shrewsbury
Arundel and Brighton
Dublin
Edinburgh
Shrewsbury
Cardiff

Originating in April 2006 at St. Cuthbert's, Slateford Road, Edinburgh, Landings has been adopted by parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and the Diocese of Aberdeen in Scotland.

St. Francis Xavier parish, Falkirk, St. Marie's in Kirkcaldy and Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Dunfermline - all in the Archodiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh - are "Landings parishes".

In August 2010 a training workshop was given at St. Mary's Cathedral parish, Huntly Street, Aberdeen, by the newly-formed Landings Scotland team*. The programme was launched there in January 2011 and continues to date.

*Fr Tom Mullen, Director, Landings Scotland
Margaret Johnston, Co-ordinator
Pat Carrigan
Margaret Wallace
Alan Johnston - Technical Support

For further information about the programme, please contact Margaret Johnston 01383 728 844