The hospital as a place of evangelisation

“Hospital as a place of evangelization, a human and spiritual mission”: will be the theme of the 27th InternationalConference organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers that will be held in the Vatican this year from 15 to17 November.

See here for the Vatican Information Service report.

It will be interesting to see how the conference addresses the situation of hospitals in countries like the United Kingdom, where state run hospitals are the norm. It is possible to see an evangelising role for Catholics engaged with such hospitals, be it as staff or patients, but it is a role undertaken in a rather different way (presence in charity) than might be the case in a Catholic hospital.

I want to see this!

In 2007-2008, the British Museum hosted an exhibition of The Terracotta Army. This included a number of original figures from the archaelogical site itself. The exhibition was stunning, not just because of the rarity of the opportunity to see these figures in London, but because of the way they were displayed. Having weaved your way through the first part of the exhibition, the highlight was the display of the full size figures themselves, which "appeared" as you rounded the corner. They were displayed in the centre of the room and you were able to walk round them (at a short distance, and on the other side of an alarmed cord!) and view them from all sides. The figures would have probably gripped the visitor anyway; but the manner of their display meant that they fascinated and held the visitor completely. I can still visualise it now, some four years later.

Her Majesty the Queen has today opened the newly restored Cutty Sark at Greenwich. It, too, looks as if it is now being displayed in a quite stunning way.  A set of images can be seen here, the first image giving a real sense of the ship floating on a glass roof that gives the impression of being water. The video report here also helps give an idea of how it looks. The website of the Royal Maritime Museum has a page with visitor information for the Cutty Sark.

It will be hard to resist going to see it this weekend, even if I can only see it from the outside.

It does not seem like seven years .....

... since Pope Benedict XVI was elected to the See of St Peter.

The homily that Pope Benedict preached at a Mass celebrating together his 85th birthday and the start of the 8th year of his pontificate represents personal testimony to three key"signs" that have given a guide to his life of faith: the witness of the saints Bernadette of Lourdes and Benedict Joseph Labre, and the Paschal mystery. In the year of his birth, and according to the then-current calendar of the Church, the feast days of these saints and Holy Saturday coincided. The Italian text of the full homily is here, with a summary in English here. I trust that a full English translation will be available in due course, because it is worth reading the full homily. Referring to a particularity of the former liturgy, Pope Benedict observed:

The day I was baptised ... was Easter Saturday. At the time it was still customary to hold the Easter vigil in the morning, followed by the darkness of Easter Saturday without a Hallelujah. This singular paradox, this anticipation of light in a day of darkness, can almost be seen as an image of the history of our own times. On the one hand there is the silence of God and His absence, yet the resurrection of Christ contains an anticipation of God's 'yes'. We live in this anticipation, through the silence of God we hear His words, and through the darkness of His absence we glimpse His light. The anticipation of the resurrection in the midst of evolving history indicates the path we must follow and helps us to continue the journey.

He began the concluding paragraph of his homily with the words (my own adaptation of the English translation based on the Italian original):

I find myself before the final stage of my life journey and I do not know what awaits me ...

This prompted in my mind two thoughts. I do from time to time meet people who, either through age or because of illness, are coming to the end of their lives and recognise that this is the case. Spending time with such people is very moving, particularly when one can see that they have come to terms with their situation and are able to live it in a positive way rather than just suffer it. I usually come away from such a visit wondering just how I will react when I reach that time in my life - not that I am expecting to soon. And not that I am expecting Pope Benedict to die soon, though he is now less strong than in the past.

The other thing it reminded me of was a story of the day of Pope Benedict's election as Pope. So the story goes, and I do not know how true it is having just heard it from somenone else, Joseph Ratzinger was trying to contact Georg Ratzinger by telephone just after his election. No answer. And this continued for most of the day. Joseph Ratzinger became very worried, and put out an urgent call to find Georg Ratzinger, who he thought must be ill. It transpired instead that Georg Ratzinger had heard the news of Joseph Ratzinger's election to the See of St Peter, and was extremely annoyed. The plan had been that the two brothers would retire together, and the white smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel had just put paid to that plan. Georg Ratzinger was so annoyed he was refusing to pick up the telephone to take Joseph Ratzinger's call.

SSPX: Yes, No or Maybe?

The response of the Superior of the Society of St Pius X to the "doctrinal preamble" has been received at the Holy See. The guarded official comment of the Pontifical Council Ecclesia Dei reads as follows:

"The text of the response of Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, as had been requested at the meeting of 16 March 2012, was received by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on 17 April 2012. The text will be examined by the Dicastery and then submitted to the judgement of the Holy Father.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican Press Office, said that, with the latest response, “steps forward have been taken, that is to say, that the response, the new response, is rather encouraging. But there are still developments that will be made, and examined, and decisions which should be taken in the next few weeks.”

The gossip says:

The superior of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) has signed a doctrinal preamble set out by the Vatican as a basis for further reconciliation talks, a top Vatican commentator said yesterday.

Andrea Tornielli, journalist for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, said Bishop Bernard Fellay had signed the document “with some slight modifications”.

The Society of St Pius X have issued a very cautious communique in response to the press coverage: Communiqué de la Maison généralice de la Fraternité Saint-Pie X (18 avril 2012, citing the statement of the Pontifical Council Ecclesia Dei, and denying that Bishop Fellay has given a "positive response" to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying that he has replied to the request made of him by Cardinal Levada for clarifications with regard to the doctrinal preamble.

More detailed coverage can be found at La Croix: Les lefebvristes acceptent la main tendue du pape.

I have previously commented on the "doctrinal preamble" here and here; and my views on it can be summarised by these three points:

1. Since we all have a stake in the content of the Doctrinal Preamble, should it not at some point become the subject of public discussion in the Church rather than just of private discussion between a dicastery of the Holy See and the SSPX?

2. If the rule of faith considered appropriate for those joining the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and so "achieving full reconciliation with the Apostolic See", is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, why should this same catechism not provide the rule of faith to which the SSPX are expected to adhere?

3. The speculation is that, should the SSPX accept the Doctrinal Preamble, their canonical status in the Church might become that of a Personal Prelature. This might be diplomatically convenient, but I am not sure that it represents the status best reflecting the nature of a priestly society.

I find it difficult to believe (though would be happy to be proven wrong) that any modifications made to the "doctrinal preamble" (previous discussions seemed to accept the possibility of "clarifications", but not modification) by Bishop Fellay are just slight as Andrea Tornielli suggests, or that they are without some doctrinal or pastoral significance. The report at La Croix quotes the Holy See's spokesman, Fr Lombardo, as saying that :

"la réponse contient des demandes ou propositions de précisions sur le texte du Préambule doctrinal proposé à la signature" [the response contains requests or suggestions for clarifications of the text of the doctrinal preamble put forward for signature].

I therefore trust that the Pontifical Council Ecclesia Dei will be suitably critical in its examination of any such modifications/clarifications, and thereby respectful of the needs and interests of those who have faithfully adhered to the teaching and life of the Church as expressed in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and in the pontificates since that Council.

Good news or bad news? Let's wait and see.

Pluscarden Photographs

Pluscarden Abbey looked like this last week.

The first three photographs were taken from part way up the hill that stands behind the monastery. The Church is at the centre of the first two photographs, partly hidden by trees. The Abbey's website contains more photographs and details about the Church building. My photographs were taken from the right of the orientation of the photograph on the Abbey website home page.

This photograph was taken on the track that runs along the top of the hill. This is Forestry Commission land, so the timber is grown comercially.

And is this Sunday lunch for the brethren? Pheasant were in plentiful evidence in the Abbey grounds and surrounding fields and hill side.

No sooner ....

... do I return to the aether than I disappear again.

I have gone here for four days.

Wearing a Cross

Cardinal Keith O'Brien's homily for Easter Sunday attracted considerable media attention. An example of that attention is the BBC News coverage: Cardinal Keith O'Brien urges Christians to 'proudly' wear cross. The Scottish Media Office news release, which includes the full text of the homily, can be found here: Cardinal's Easter Homily.

There is a political and cultural background to Cardinal O'Brien's remarks, and these are indicated in the BBC report and in the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI in Westminster Hall, to which Cardinal O'Brien made reference. It is very easy to see Cardinal O'Brien's remarks exclusively in this kind of context, and to then interpret them as being a call for Christians and, among them, Catholics to be assertive in visibly wearing the Cross in the face of a secularising world around them. Undoubtedly the wearing in public of a sign of Christian belief does have this dimension to it, but I would want to suggest that it is a dimension, and not of the essence of wearing a sign of Christian belief.

Within Cardinal O'Brien's homily, it is interesting that he quotes Pope Benedict's observation that:

 “Religion is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalisation of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance”.

While the second sentence of this quotation draws attention to the political/cultural context, it is the first sentence on which I would like to focus in reflecting on the significance of wearing a sign of Christian belief in the world. "Religion is not a problem ... to solve". The wearing of the Cross, or of another sign of Christian belief, should not represent a problem to others and, for the vast majority of our fellow citizens, this is precisely the case: someone wearing a sign of Christian belief does not represent a problem for them. Cardinal O'Brien's reference to those who already wear a Cross " not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work or recreation" recognises the need to wear a sign of Christian belief in a way that does not create a problem where there is not really a problem. Immediately following this Cardinal O'Brien observed that such people wear a Cross as:

..a simple indication that you value the role of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, that you are trying to live by Christ’s standards in your own daily life and that you are only too willing to reach out a hand of help to others, as did Jesus Christ when he was on earth.

This seems to me to capture what is of the essence of the idea of wearing in public a sign of Christian belief, as Cardinal O'Brien suggests it, a Cross. One can decide to wear a Cross in response to Cardinal O'Brien's words, in a kind of obedience. But the decision to wear a Cross in a way that really expresses the meaning contained in that act belongs to the individual member of the lay faithful. That decision can take encouragement or inspiration from Cardinal O'Brien's words, and rightly so; but it will be an effective sign of witness only if others can see in it that the person wearing the Cross is expressing the three-fold meaning described by Cardinal O'Brien.

It is interesting that the three-fold meaning of the wearing of a Cross as described by Cardinal O'Brien is also a good descriptor of the particular mission of the lay faithful in the Church and in the world - the evangelisation of culture, achieving holiness through the work of our daily lives and charity towards others. In line with this, my view is that the decision to wear a Cross or other sign of Christian belief, particularly in a place of work, lies firmly within the competence of the lay faithful and not within the competence of the ordained or religious states (who have their own forms of public witness). The full text of Cardinal O'Brien's homily seems to respect this; the media coverage - "Britain's most senior Roman Catholic Church cleric has called for Christians to wear a cross every day" - misses that subtlety.