Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Lou Buchan (Month's Mind) & Billy Buchan, (Anniv)
12.00: Mrs. Ellen Reynolds, (Anniv).
6.30: Sadie Mitchell, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

What's in a name? For a Catholic choosing a special name, be it to mark Confirmation, or membership of a Religious Order, or as happened with Joseph Ratzinger this week, to mark his election as pope, is a moment of great significance, a sign of what the person stands for. And, in a Church where symbols and signs are so significant, the person making that choice knows how closely the meaning will be scrutinised.

The new pope decided after his election to be called Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger has been called many things in his time. Those who have criticised him for his hard-line stance on moral issues dubbed him 'God's Rottweiller'. But both they and his supporters who perceive him as the voice of authority and tradition in the church, might have expected him to opt for John Paul III, a sign of regard for his predecessor, and therefore a symbol of continuity in the Church. That he choose not to do so suggests a man who wishes to step from the shadows and to make his own mark.

But why Benedict? Why not Augustine, if I may ask as a neutral observer? After all, by his own admission, Augustine is his great hero. He completed his doctoral thesis in 1953 on 'The role of the People in Augustine's doctrine of Church'. In 1969 he wrote "I have developed my thinking in dialogue with Augustine, though I have tried to conduct this dialogue as a man of today." Bear in mind that Roman civilisation was disintegrating during Augustine's final years. Did the saint's notorious pessimism rub off on his 20th century admirer? Ratzinger claimed that, if he were banished to a desert island, (and he did admit that not a few people had made this suggestion!) the two books he would bring with him would be the Bible and The Confessions of St. Augustine. Why not Augustine then? Would that saint's dramatic conversion have sent out signals that were too strong? Would that choice of name have elevated expectations to an unrealistic level? Perhaps.

The choice of Benedict suggests at least that this German Pope may wish for a change in mood, if not full-scale revolution! The last Pope Benedict was elected in 1914 as Europe embarked on a war that would tear it apart. That Benedict sought to be a peacemaker, and he also brought to an end the papacy's long hostility towards secular governments. Now that the conservative Joseph Ratzinger, scourge of today's secular Europe, has chosen the name Benedict, it might yet mean a willingness for reconciliation with more liberal Catholics which could surprise us yet. For choosing the name Benedict also brings to mind the great St. Benedict, founder of western monasticism, and patron saint of Europe. The first word of the Rule of St Benedict, the 15 hundred year old guide he wrote for his monks, is the most important. It is: 'LISTEN!' It requires the monks to listen, to understand the meaning of authority. But it also requires the abbot to be a shepherd, a father of loving kindness, to listen too, and to understand the needs of his monastic flock.

Cardinal Ratzinger, the theologian, now becomes Benedict XVI the pastor, called to follow in the footsteps of Christ and of Peter, the first shepherds of the Church. Catholics will long for him, like the first Benedict, to listen, to hear the calls for continuity, but also heed the cries for change.

-Dick Lyng.

BENEDICT XVI

Madam, - In the present debate about the new Pope, Benedict XVI, it is consoling to remember the statement of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, brilliant adviser to Cardinal Frings at the Second Vatican Council, when he summed up perfectly the teaching of the Catholic Church after the Council. He wrote:

"Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism."

(In Herbert Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. V, p. 134).

- Yours, etc.,
SEAN FAGAN SM, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2.

(Letters Page of IrishTimes, 21st April, 2005)

HAPPENINGS THIS WEEK

PROPHESIES OF MALACHY AND SO ON...

Much superstition surrounds the papal elections and the identity of the chosen one! St. Malachy of Armagh has earned a reputation for himself as a Papal See down through the ages. He took the precaution of never actually naming a pope. He simply devised an enigmatic motto that could (or could not) be applied to him. He prophesies allowed for 266 popes. We are on number 265 so let' s pray he will hang around for a long time! Incidentally, the motto he devised from the now new pope is Gloria Olivae (The Glory of the Olive). A branch of the Benedictines were at one time called Olivetans! We now have Benedict XIV. Now that is stretching matters!

The number 13 is generally thought be unlucky. When the Dominican Pietro Orsini was elected Pope in 1724, he created somewhat of a stir. While he opted for the name Benedict, he shied away from the number XIII. In fact he succeeded Innocent XIII who had had a very bad time. As you will conclude from the photo to your left, he was not at all a very happy camper! In fact he himself called himself Benedict XIV.

The number 13 may be thought to be unlucky but it is claimed that it has been highly significant for both our present Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor. It has been pointed out that on Tuesday night white smoke emerged at 17.50 and the bells sounded at 18.04. Each set of numbers adds up to 13. The magic number is also arrived at by adding up the date of John Paul II' s death - 2.4.2005 and the time - 21.37. To cap it all, the first apparition at Fatima happened on 13 May 1917 and the last was on 13 October of the same year. John Paul II thought it more than a coincidence that the attempt on his life in 1981 happened on the anniversary of the first Fatima apparition. The oldest of the seers, Sr Lucia dos Santos died on 13 February this year. Now make what you will (or will not!) of that!

MORE PROPHESY!

There are indeed many conservative elements in Irish society, much maligned in the Dublin 'liberal' media and much reported overseas (and invariably reported as if they were only elements of the equation): but these are largely understandable in reactions against the extreme modernity of the underlying situation. There is, however, an immense difference between this surface conservatism of bruised, baffled minorities and an underlying social progress which is openly and dynamically traditional. Back in the 1970s, in any course given on literature and identity, I would tell students that there were three keys with which they could unlock the secret sources of the Irish mindset - language, religion and nationalism. I don' t do this any more. Instead, I urge students to consider the fate of each of these forces. My conversion experience came during a debate with Fr Peter Connolly, a liberal priest-professor of English at Maynooth, who had opposed literary censorship in the 1950s but subsequently become apprehensive about the hedonistic Ireland which seemed to be taking its place.

Our debate in the autumn of 1980 led him to make a shocking prediction: 'Religion will go in Ireland in the next generation: and when it goes it will go so fast that nobody will even know it is happening.' At that moment, his comment seemed ridiculous, for Pope John Paul II, had on a visit in the previous year been acclaimed by hundreds of thousands all across the island; but after the debate, I asked Peter Connolly what he meant. 'Exactly what I said,' he smiled. 'After all, look at the speed with which our people got rid of their own language when it no longer seemed of practical use to them.' It was then that I realized that the papal visit of 1979, far from signalling the Church Triumphant, was a symptom of and panic reaction to the gathering crisis. For no Pope had ever felt the need to secure the green island with a personal appearance in the past. Peter Connolly was right. The Irish are among the least sentimental people on earth and have little compunction about dumping a once-sacred core-value or identity-marker. The fate of the Irish language in the nineteenth century is indeed indicative.

-The Irish Writer and the World, Declan Kiberd, UCD.