...has not had good echoes in recent days.The Parliamentary financial scandals are reverberating around, and the sense that Parliament has in recent years lost its authority is much discussed: we are only just beginning to grasp the full implications of all of this.
But there is another Westminster in the news today, as the new Archbishop was installed at Westminster Cathedral. Yesterday evening I attended the Solemn Vespers attended by the Archbishop - evening light pouring through the Cathedral windows, voices chanting. Lots of lovely titles of Our Lady in the litany - Our Lady of Hal, our Lady of Westminster - and lots of English saints: Erconwald, Elphege, Etheldreda...
Today, the Mass was broadcast to people outside in the piazza, and with a young relative I dropped by...it was rather marvellous to hear the prayers pouring out into London, and to be caught up in them. The new Archbishop took up, in his sermon exploring St Paul, the theme of faith and reason, echoing the H. Father on this subject.
London was bathed in sunshine - we spent the afternoon in St James Park, our sandwiches the first picnic of the year.
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7 comments:
It sounds glorious, Joanna. May your new shepherd lead the people of England & Wales to new heights of holiness.
Yes Vespers was special and processing to all those English names amazing, all the parishes and schools. Nice to hear too from someone who was outside yesterday. From in one could sense as you said,the prayers going out to London and the country. Liz and John.
Hi Joanna
I have been strangely intrigued by some of your articles. Although I do not support some of your convictions or some of your politics, I do have the utmost respect for you and do believe that we need more people like you to say what you believe without fear of criticism.
I really do hope the new Archbishop takes on board the hidden issue of child abuse within Catholic Institutions within the UK. I have had the unfortunate duty of acting as a witness on behalf of a victim of a Catholic Priest at a boarding school in relation to serious assualts committed in the 1980s. The case was heard at Crown Court in 2003.
To my horror I later found out (from the Detective Inspector running the case) that the Catholic authorities were obstructive to the police who ended up using a search warrant to obtain monastic records. These records then uncovered further serious sexual assaults. The obstruction ran to the highest levels and possibly further afield. In addition I gather that the Catholic Church paid for an unsuccessful legal defence although I could not confirm this.
While this was only one amongst a community and does not reflect the majority, the manner in which the hierarchy dealt with the issue still suggests an attitude of cover up (led in part by the current Pope in his last post). It does seem that each residential institution has at least one member who has committed serious offences.
As I stated I really hope that the new Archbishop tackles the issue head on. I think this is one of the most serious issues that the church needs to address, and quickly.
Lastly, I do support the Catholic Church as a Christian organisation, but perhaps not all it's beliefs; indoctrination was attempted at school - and failed on everyone!
Yes. There is a great deal one could say about the horrific matter of child abuse carried out by those in the Church. It is, as Pope Benedict has said, something of which we are all deeply ashamed. The revelations about the children's "industrial homes" in Ireland in the 1950s are particularly dreadful.If my own angry diatribes against those who have wounded children in this way would make any difference, I would put them all on my blog... I will, however,just comment that a sort of "clericalist" mindset, which is always a danger within the Church (and about which Chaucer, for example, is scathing, and also Thomas More some centuries later) was particularly strong in the first half of the 20th century for various reasons. Its effects lingered and remained strong when much else in the Church changed in the 1970s. I do believe that the very different approach, in style and in background asssumptions,on this, made by both John Paul II and Pope Benedict, is ushering in a new era. Both were influenced as young priests in the immediate post-WWII years by a strong sense of the ways in which an ultra-clerical and formalist style were dangerous for the Church, throttling healthy questioning and failing to see deep human needs.
I think you can assume that the horror of recent revelations has struck home. We will all be living with the massive consequences of dreadful child-abuse for a long time: the damage done to the Christian case has been huge.
Joanna
Your comment has highlighted history that I am not familiar with. Also I have now become somewhat confused. All the articles that I have read have accused Pope Benedict of inaction and covering up any scandal when a Cardinal. So ... I have ordered your book from Amazon on Pope Benedict to learn more about a man who at the moment I am sceptical of.
For many years I have been at war with my mother on Catholicism (I think you would love her!), but I would like to learn more about the church from a general viewpoint. Any book suggestions would be welcome so I can at least understand her convictions.
If you send me - in confidence, I will not publish it - an email address at which I can write to you,I would really love a proper correspondence...going via a Blog sometimes feels too much like using a megaphone. Meanwhile,you might care to try the books by Peter Seewald "God and the World", "Salt of the Earth" and his latest one, explaining the background to the previous two, "Benedict XVI - an intimate portrait". Seewald is a good journalist and a good read...
Reading your post has brought back wonderful memories of evening Mass in Westminster Cathedral when I visited the UK a few years ago. Makes me want to go back again. And a lovely conclusion to a wonderful day, a picnic at St. James's Park. London is such a terrific place, even with all the political uncertainty. As as Scots visitor wrote in the 15th century, "London, thou'rt the flower of cities all!" And of course there's Dr. Johnson's famous view that "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life".
regards from Canada,
Patricia Gonzalez
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