“You can take a million catechetical courses, a million courses in spirituality, a million courses in yoga, Zen and all these things. But all of this will never be able to give you the freedom of being a child of God,” so said Pope Francis delivering a homily during Mass last Friday. His comments are rather awkward when surveying the large number of courses on offer in the contemporary Church. At the Domus Mariae Retreat House in Chigwell, Essex, for example, two week-long “Christian Zen Retreats” are on offer this year run by a Jesuit. Then there are the numerous catechetical courses including Evangelium.  But Fr Marcus Holden, the co-founder, told us he thinks Francis’ diagnosis is correct. “If you take a 20-week Evangelium course and leave it in