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Hoodie Dubsteppers, Ooberfuse successful in helping Catholic Church find new priests in the UK
<p>The Catholic Church’s innovative decision to ask Ooberfuse a four piece street savvy band from London, to help them show how God speaks to the young of the UK, perhaps to be the next generation of clergy ,has proved a huge success since its inception in the spring of this year.The initiative was the brainchild of Father Christopher Jamison , Head of the Catholic Church of England & Wales' National Office of Vocation, who decided that by using music appealing to a wide cross section of the public who might not ordinarily think of The Church as an employment route he could encourage the youth to view a life in the clergy as a serious life time option.</p><p> As Hal from Ooberfuse explains - Up until Father Jamison's initiative the church in many ways co-existed in splendid isolation from the world ie. It stood as a self-sufficient fortress in opposition. Catholics were found in corners, and alleys, and cellars, and attics, in the recesses of the country, some may say , cut off from the world around them, dimly seen, as if through a mist or in twilight, as ghosts flitting too and fro.</p><p> Now The Church wants to start a conversation with the world and has chosen the music of Ooberfuse as part of the language of that conversation. Through it Father Jamison hopes to engage with otherwise unreachable sectors of the population. Dub step, the national language of the hoodie state, is like Heineken...it reaches parts that other languages, like Latin and Greek, do not reach..</p><p> ‘We are forging a culture of vocation and a culture includes music and the arts.’ Explains Father Jamison ‘So the song from Ooberfuse is part of the new phase of vocational culture amongst workshops in deaneries and parishes’ </p><p>The Catholic Church’s desire to work with Ooberfuse clearly shows a strategy to target the street culture of the UK in their efforts to broaden interest and appeal . It is just one of the causes that the band have been asked to support including being asked to use their music to support the Pakistani Woman Asia Bibi imprisoned and on a death sentence for blasphemy. Just another strange story in the growing awareness behind the band whose members include relatives of Chairman Mau and an unbroken link within one of the band back to post Norman Britain. </p>
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