After all the hilarious silliness over the prospect of my "elevation" the Muniment Room has a serious take on the succession, do read it.Ttony has been reading the biography of Archbishop Worlock, who seemed to be the likely successor of Cardinal Heenan, had it not been for a determined effort by many people simply stating their hopes for the Church in England and Wales.
If you are a blogger, after reading the Muniment Room have ago at the Meme: If I were the Cardinal Archbishop I would ..., be realistic, remember you are dealing with human beings and having to work with fellow bishops, and you don't have the right to send anyone off to the Penal Monastery of St Alcatraz, nor are you the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, just His frail servant!
Frankly it is a ghastly job, its present, and future incumbent needs our constant prayers.
5 comments:
Father, this is the bit I find hard. But Ttony is right. We really do nned to get heard. There has been so much hurt and so much scandal.
It's time to start again.
But father, in all seriousness, I know I for my part was being very serious that you would really be a good candidate in that with all the church has been through in recent years. The church, as a whole, needs priests who are not afraid of being orthodox on the important points (fervor for important points of orthodoxy, without being overly right over left thumbs only) but someone not ashamed to do the noble work in the trenches with compassion.
In the past 20 years in particular, too many folks in high places all trying to CTA. The folks in the pews would like some good men of stout heart and character to man the helms. Yes, the "admin." types who know where all the bodies are buried can be useful - but never at the expense of leadership that has the best interests of shepherding the flock foremost.
Many of us in our respective countries have all too frequently seen the "admin" types and the old boy's clubs, and have had to suffer with what they've created. We need shepherds who never lose touch with why they became priests in the first place. The diocese can find plenty of people to remember to pay the electric bill. Priests/bishops willing to personally see home the most vulnerable and battered of us, with little regard for "how it looks" are in shorter supply.
The last Nuncio made a point of tacitly ignoring letters from the laity concerning episcopal appointments and hardly looked at letters from priests. Whether his successor follows the same policy is unknown, but don't expect to be taken seriously in these quarters. Unless the Holy Father makes a direct intervention over the appointment of the next Archbishop of Westminster, it is likely to be more of the same, as it has been for the greater part of the c20, Cardinal Hume excepted. Rome likes safe men who won't make waves.
Father, you need to look at your sitemeter to see who visited at about 1039 this morning and then clicked on to my page.
Ttony is right - we need to make ourselves heard, but I'm not sure we will get very far by deluging His Excellency with names (if 1000 of us write, we are likely to come up with 995 names).
For myself, I will be content with anyone the Holy Father appoints, as long as he demonstrates a fraction of the entusiasm for his priesthood that the Holy Father demonstrates for his.
I'm afraid this means eliminating from consideration all of the authors of those dire diocesan pastoral plans with the zappy titles that belie their utterly defeatist contents (if a church is in a neighbourhood that is no longer populated by Catholics, you don't see it as an opportunity for mission and evangelisation, you just close it).
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