1.10pm Private visit to the Oratory of St Philip Neri, Edgbaston, BirminghamWhat seems to be different from visits elsewhere is the amount of time the Pope will spend with our Bishops, I don't know how much will be broadcast or even made public.
1.45pm Lunch with the bishops of England, Scotland and Wales and the papal entourage, Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield
4.45pm Meeting with the bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, seminary chapel, Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield
6.15pm Departure ceremony, Birmingham International airport
6.45pm Departure by air from Birmingham International airport
10.30pm Arrival at Ciampino airport, near Rome
I am sure for the bishops this visit which in so many ways has been a triumph will bolster their faith and courage to "Speak the Truth in Love". Like priests bishops today are so often surrounded by failure and discouragement, in fact maybe even more so, it is with them after all that the buck stops. They are the one's who have say to parishes, "I haven't a priest to send you", and to deal with priests aagainst whom there are allegations. It is good for bishops to receive cheers.
It is also good for them to see Mass and other liturgies celebrated well, even using a little Latin but more importantly where the liturgy itself is allowed to speak to hearts.
What the Pope will say to our bishops will probably echo what he said at the Ad Limina visit but with a little more force.
15 comments:
Father,
Speech to the Bishops:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100919_vescovi-inghilterra_en.html
Regards
John U.K.
I think being a priest or a bishop must be exceptionally hard jobs, both practically and spiritually. But especially our bishops have to juggle so many balls and be so much to so many different people, pulled in all sorts of directions and found wanting by their flocks for varying and often mutually contradicting reasons, and I pray that they will be encouraged and strengthened by this visit. It was lovely to see our own bishop on Lambeth bridge and cheer and wave to him as he and the other bishops went by in their coach.
Now that Cardinal Newman has been beatified, will he be commemorated starting next month, or has Rome not yet provided the Collect?
It occurs to me that, if the Holy Father had seen the results of a YouGov poll of a representative sample of 1636 Catholics released today, he might have lectured the Bishops with some choice German expletives.
74 per cent of respondents were more permissive of abortion than the 11 per cent who insisted that it should be allowed only as an indirect consequence of life-saving treatment for the mother.
4 per cent said artificial contraception is wrong and shouldn't be used, with one percent 'don't knows'.
11 per cent said homosexual acts are morally wrong; 28 said they didn't like it, but what consenting adults do in private is their business alone.
Once you subtract all the excommunicated from the official number of Catholics, how many Catholics are you left with?
Thanks John, I see the Holy Father is reiterating the message he gave to the bishops during the ad limina. Perhaps he felt it needed repeating.
I commented before the visit, when certain liturgical practices were mooted, that the bishops seemed to want to stick it to the Pope.
In fact, it was the other way round, with thousands of the faithful in support. Bishops take note. Catholics in the UK are not as lukewarm as you believe. Time to lead as the Pope urges.
I thought the Mass at Westminster Cathedral was overwhelmingly beautiful with soaringly glorious music. The prayer and music at the Abbey wondrous in its own way. The event at Westminster Hall memorable. The visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor home for the elderly incredibly touching.
Glasgow, the Beatification Mass, the Vigil and other events wonderfully reverent; I have to admit that was unexpected and i deserve a poke in the ribs for underestimating the outpouring of fervour from our Catholic community.
But I couldn't take my eyes off the main man, his rapport with young Catholics is astonishing. Most of all his speeches. If anyone knows the meaning of cor ad cor loquitur it's Benedict. Long may he reign.
This has probably been the best received State Visit in my lifetime.Julius Caesar in 47BC got it right" Veni Vidi Vici."
We got a bit impatient waiting for the Popemobile in Rotten Row but His Holiness was delayed by babies that were handed to him from the crowd.
I do hope we can keep track of these extremely blessed babies as they progress through life.
I would also like to add that the Magnificat which was issued was a stroke of genius and will be treasured for centuries
I would like to see a catch-up so that when the time comes for Newman's canonisation, Cardinal Manning is canonised at the same time.
It would take a miracle, of course.
At Hyde Park, the Bishops were on the Sanctuary waving at the crowds while the hymn, 'Save us, O God' blasted out of the PA system.
Very funny moment!
Physiocrat - who quotes Manning? many, including His Holiness, quote Newman. No doubt the former is much neglected. His good works were many, but his influence and his enduring legacy cannot be compared to his great contemporary whom he regarded with suspicion.
Manning was a man of action, eg he took a stand over the 1888 dockers' strike.
He is also thought to have been the author of Rerum Novarum, or possibly the first draft of it. If this is the case, then lots of people are quoting Manning or ought to be, without realising it.
Manning and Newman might have enjoyed mutual hostility but they complement each other and that is why it would be good if they were canonised as a pair like John Fisher and Thomas More are a pair - it was through their joint works that the nineteenth century revival of Catholic church was achieved.
The Catholic journalist Wilfred Meynell, who lived at Pulborough, Sussex and was part of the circle that included Chesterton and Belloc, introduced Manning to the American economist Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, which was also eventually influential in Catholic Social Teaching since it asserts the right to private property, subject to duties to the community on the part of property owners.
Find a miracle.
When Newman spoke of the "aggressive and insolent faction" who "caused the hearts of the faithful to mourn", he meant the ultramontanists led by Manning and Ward.
Manning was an accomplished politician, not least in the skill by which he elbowed aside Archbishop Errington in the struggle to succeed Wiseman.
As for his supposed input into Rerum Novarum, what is the evidence please? He had certainly been influential at Rome in the time of Pius IX, but was he so in that of Leo? After all Leo XIII elevated Newman, whom Manning always regarded with suspicion, to be a Cardinal.
Manning was a great man, like his friend and contemporary Gladstone- but a saint?
"As for his supposed input into Rerum Novarum, what is the evidence please?"
Private communication from someone. There may be more information on this at the Meynell library at Pulborough.
Chesterton's description of Manning, seen when he was a child, is revealing.
"I remember once walking with my father along Kensington High Street, and seeing a crowd of people gathered by a rather dark and narrow entry on the southern side of that thoroughfare. I had seen crowds before; and was quite prepared for their shouting or shoving. But I was not prepared for what happened next. In a flash a sort of ripple ran along the line and all these eccentrics went down on their knees on the public pavement. I had never seen people play any such antics except in church; and I stopped and stared. Then I realised that a sort of little dark cab or carriage had drawn up opposite the entry; and out of it came a ghost clad in flames. Nothing in the shilling paint-box had ever spread such a conflagration of scarlet, such lakes of lake; or seemed so splendidly likely to incarnadine the multitudinous sea. He came on with all his glowing draperies like a great crimson cloud of sunset, lifting long frail fingers over the crowd in blessing. And then I looked at his face and was startled with a contrast; for his face was dead pale like ivory and very wrinkled and old, fitted together out of naked nerve and bone and sinew; with hollow eyes in shadow; but not ugly; having in every line the ruin of great beauty. The face was so extraordinary that for a moment I even forgot such perfectly scrumptious scarlet clothes."
We passed on; and then my father said, "Do you know who that was? That was Cardinal Manning."
The picture they chose to use of Cardinal Newman looks like a double of Quentin Crisp.
Physiocrat - "private communication from someone", "there may be more information" . This does not sound like evidence to me, no doubt we would all be grateful for something more definite on a matter which is of some importance in an evaluation of Manning.
Edward Norman "Roman Catholicism in England"(1985)p. 92 does not think it likely that Manning had any input into Rerum Novarum, on the grounds that he was not popular at Rome by the time the encyclical was written and that the Pope had anyway a European body of ideas to work upon.
However one must not forget that Manning when he died was mourned by many, and Trades Unionists carried banners in his funeral procession. AS Norman says "The most ultramontane of prelates had been acclaimed by the most Protestant of peoples". (p.92).
Independent - I can give you the source confidentially via Fr Ray, that is, if I recall correctly. Ask him to ask me, if you want to follow it up. It was someone in the parish who works as an academic.
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