A bishop has used his Lenten pastoral letter to link the problems facing the Church to the failure of individuals to respond to God’s call to holiness. In his pastoral letter, to be read on the first Sunday of Lent (10 March), the Bishop of Shrewsbury cites the call made by Emeritus Pope Benedict to a group of schoolchildren during his visit to Britain in 2010, in which he urged them to “grow in holiness”. The Bishop continues: “I fear that so many of the problems the Church faces today arise from losing sight of this goal.” Though he does not mention explicitly the recent clerical abuse scandals, the Bishop, the Right Reverend Mark Davies, goes on to quote Pope Francis on the call to holiness. He invokes the Pope’s apostolic exhortation of 2018, Gaudete et Exsultate, in which he declared that the path to holiness was a battle against the devil, who is a “living being, perverted and perverting”. Those who do not realise this would be “prey to failure and mediocrity”, he said. The Bishop of Shrewsbury states that failing to recognise “the gravity of this situation” leaves us “in the greatest danger of deception.” He continues: “The Devil is not an imaginary figure. The Gospels show us a constant confrontation with this spiritual creature who is powerful and yet limited in seeking to lead us to reject God’s call.” The Bishop ends his pastoral letter by urging people to renew their struggle for holiness this Lent with what Pope Francis has called “the powerful weapons the Lord has given us”; prayer, meditation, the Eucharist, the sacrament of reconciliation and charity.