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A very human Cardinal
- Written by: Alex Walker
A very human cardinal
John Wilkins
In Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor faces a very different challenge than in Arundel and Brighton, where he was a much-loved bishop for 22 years. The toughest questions about the Church and society confront him. A year after his installation, he shared some reflections with The Tablet's editor.
It is not surprising that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor does not always seem at home in the marble halls of Archbishop's House, Westminster, where he now resides. For this is an exceptionally human man who does not take to palaces. He has a gift for conviviality, and he meets you on your level. His predecessor, Cardinal Hume, was a monk, who seemed to carry his cell with him wherever he went, and to speak from it, as it were. With Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, what you see is what you get.
He has a brother and a cousin who are priests, and it is as a priest that he is at his most impressive. When he goes to a parish and preaches about the true freedom that is the Christian life, the congregation knows that they are listening to someone who is testifying from experience. When he is talking about the Gospel, he speaks directly heart to heart. When I met him recently in Archbishop's House, beside Westminster Cathedral, he started musing at one point about the sins of modern society. "Money, sex and power: it always comes back to those three. Lust for power is the worst, because it is shaming in a different sort of way. âI am me', people say, âand it is my truth and my will and my wants that matter.' The Lord said he couldn't forgive that, not because he didn't want to, but because people didn't feel contrite about it."
At the age of 68, when most people are enjoying retirement, he finds himself plucked out of the rural environment of the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, where he was bishop for 22 years, and plunged into the urban stress of cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic London.
He interrogates himself constantly about modern society. "There is a deep unease amongst good people all round the country. There is concern about marriage break-up and the disintegration and fragmentation of the family. And there is anxiety about the young people, caught in the consumerism that consumes them also."
He has made marriage and the family a central plank of his platform. Does he ever have a feeling that William Hague's domestic policies are more attractive than Tony Blair's? He laughs. "I am not going to be drawn into party politics. But just as under Margaret Thatcher the Church of England was a sort of opposition, so the Catholic Church needs to be able to oppose tendencies in government or society." He is particularly concerned that abortion and genetic engineering negate the sanctity and gift of human life. But isn't there a danger that the Catholic Church will come to be seen by society as a pro-life pressure group? "That would be a great pity. Our March statement on the Common Good makes it clear that Catholics should not regard the coming general election as a single-issue referendum. Life issues are of supreme importance but we stress also the dignity of every human person and the perspectives of family and society."
He thinks the political parties are genuine in the surprising initiatives they are taking to court faith groups. They are not just out to catch votes. "The party leaders have a real worry about the fragmentation of society. They want to reanimate the sense of community. That is why they seek to enlist the faith groups, because these are the only people who meet regularly once a week in every town in the country."
The cardinal seems to have recovered from the baptism of fire he underwent at the beginning of his time at Westminster, when he came under concentrated BBC attack, accused of naïvety in his treatment of the paedophile priest Michael Hill. Now he wants to move on, and as part of that process has set up the Nolan inquiry into the Church's guidelines for cases of clerical sexual abuse. He understands the anger he encountered, he says (he admitted at the time that in seeking to rehabilitate Hill he made "a serious mistake"), but thinks one cause of it was that "this society is not familiar with real forgiveness. It lets the News of the World name and shame, but even in paedophile cases we must have forgiveness somewhere." And he would not be human, after his experience, if he did not retain some fear of the media. "The media are very powerful and very important. In a way too important. Suppose for example they switched over and proclaimed that Britain should join the euro zone. People would be swayed."
A suspicion of the media could be an obstacle to evangelisation, however, particularly since the cardinal is determined to speak out on the national stage. "I will try to strike a chord about the kind of society we are breeding. What have we to do if we are to be a healthy nation? What is it that seems to be breaking up? What is it that people feel deep down? I have been heartened to find that people do want to hear about that, and they can't hear it in the same way from politicians."
So perhaps it may not ultimately matter that this is a man without the delicately tuned political antennae of Cardinal Hume. He will try to speak the truth, and people should surely therefore make allowances if he does not go in for slick soundbites. His many friends and admirers will wish him well, for already a year of his term at Westminster has gone by, and there is much to do.
The recent reports by the Queen's Foundation in Birmingham painted a disturbing picture of the Catholic Church in Britain. This survey under the aegis of an ecumenical institution and backed by Catholic bishops found that there was "no national strategy" for dealing with the structural problems such as the decline in vocations, the difficulty in reaching young people and the gap between Church and world. Is he as alarmed about this as the report was? "The answer is no." But surely the Church has to work out a strategy for the future? "The answer is clearly yes. We have to be proactive."
But what then is the strategy? He stresses the growing co-operation between priests and lay people, and the role of women. "In running every parish nowadays, there should be a team of men and women, some of whom will be religious sisters, working with the priest. This collaborative ministry has developed in an extraordinary way over the last 30 years."
Nevertheless, at national level the picture so far remains as it was under Cardinal Hume: there is no pastoral institute to promote renewal and train lay facilitators, no biblical institute, no catechetical institute, no institute for spirituality, and only an embryonic liturgical institute. The Corpus Christi catechetical centre in London, which in the late 1960s and early 1970s promised so well, was later allowed to fade away by Cardinal Heenan, and has never been replaced. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor is not short of recommendations about what to do, and is exploring the options. He will need to show that he can consult widely, in a way that was not similarly required in his previous diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Any day now he will be receiving two new bishops as auxiliaries, and other changes of staff are imminent.
He refuses to be deterred by the alarming forecasts for the supply of clergy in England and Wales 10 or 15 years from now, during which time the present number of priests is expected to halve. He brushes aside my question about closing down parishes. "England and Malta have a higher proportion of priests to Catholic people than anywhere else in the world. The Church here is not going to crumble because of the shortage of priests." He explains that part of the reason for the drop is the changed situation in Ireland. "When
I was first a bishop 22 years ago, I had many priests who had come straight from Ireland, and most of the older priests were Irish-born. Today, most have been born and bred in England. So has there in fact been such a fall-off in vocations? I doubt it, particularly in the south of England."
Yet there is only one new seminarian in the English College this year, and for the first time for four centuries the Jesuits in England and Wales have no novices. The cardinal does not believe that the celibacy rule is at the root of the vocations crisis, though like Cardinal Hume before him, he has no difficulty in principle in envisaging the ordination to the priesthood of married men. But "you could have married clergy tomorrow and not meet the challenge. Because I think it's really a crisis of faith".
But what strategy do you adopt, then, when you have fewer priests? The cardinal, who has drawn attention by praising Opus Dei, thinks the Church should be more like one of the new movements. "When I was a curate many years ago, I organised in my small parish a community meeting once a month. The participants read the word of God, and looked at how it related to their daily lives. The parish became more itself, a living community. It was less structured than one of the movements, but it developed a much more communitarian communion. If the parishes were to develop in this way, we could use the movements better than they are used now, when they tend to be élitist."
In his homily in Westminster Cathedral for his installation Mass on 22 March last year, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor made joy and hope - the opening words of the Second Vatican Council's constitution on the Church in the modern world, which he chose for his motto - the keynotes. "I do not believe these are gloomy times for the Catholic Church in this country", he told the congregation on that occasion. "When the skies are dark, the light shines more brightly."
The Catholic Church in England and Wales has always had its folk memory, he points out, of being a persecuted minority, and indeed of almost ceasing to exist in the eighteenth century. It knows, therefore, that numbers are not ultimately what counts. "Whether the number of Catholics is going to be great or small, that is up to God and up to the spirituality and the sense of evangelisation of the Catholic people. What concerns me most of all is that we in the Catholic community today should have the generosity and courage which comes from faith. That ultimately is what will draw people to the Church and to priesthood."
This is a good man. Can he recognise, in a Church that has gone too far towards identifying itself as a counter-culture, that the signs of the times are positive as well as negative, as shown in the spiritual search that is widespread, the deepening religious enquiry? Can Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor make that joy and hope real to the Catholics whom he leads?
Concerning married Anglican Priests
- Written by: Alex Walker
Pastoral Message of Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
to be read at all Masses on Week-end of 1 - 2 July 1995
Concerning Married Former Anglican Clergy
My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ
At the present time the Catholic Church is welcoming into full Communion married clergymen of the Church of England, often together with their wives, and in some cases, their children. We, the Bishops of England and Wales, are of one mind in welcoming them.
Many of these clergy wish to be ordained priests in the Catholic Church. We are engaged in discerning God's will for each one of them. We are convinced the the minsitry of these men, whether married or unmarried, will enrich the Church.
With the full approval of the Holy See, arrangements will shortly be in place in this country for considering the application for the ordination to the priesthood of these former married Anglican clergy. Permission for each ordination has to be given by the Holy Father, but in thes new circumstances, the procedure leading to this decision have been entrusted to this Bishop's Conference.
The Holy Father has asked us to be generous. We are confident that you also will welcome and appreciate these new priests when, in due course, they begin to sreve in different capacities in the life and mission of the Church.
The permisision being given for the ordination of these married men is by way of exception and in recognition of the journey of faith which they have made. Such permission does not take away from the general norm of the Catholic Church which requires priests to live celibate lives.
It is not the thin edge of the wedge of change. In fact all who are ordained, whether single or married, are required to express their consent to this discipline of the Church. The commitment made by the celibate priest, which gives shape to all his friendships and experience of love, speaks eloquently of this total dedication to the Lord and the hope of the fulness of life and love which is the promise of heaven.
A sensitive issue at this time is the situation of those Catholic priests who have left their minstry as priests in order to marry. They, and many who wish to speak on their behalf, may feel hurt by this inclusion in the priesthood of those who are married while they themselves are excluded from its ministry. While acknowledging thes feelings, it is important to note that the two situations are not quite the same. One involves those who gave the solemn undertaking of life-long celibacy; the other does not. What is being permitted now is in response to a personal journey of faith from a Church which permitted the marriage of its clergy. The Catholic tradition has not included such a permission. Even the Orthodax tradition permits such marriages, but only before ordination and never after that irrevocable step has been taken. At this time it is important that we are sensitive to those who feel so excluded, while encouraf=ging them to continue in their life of faith and service, as the disciplines and practices of the Church permit.
The special provision under which married former Anglican Clergy will be ordained priests are being granted for a period of four years. During thhis period, we have been asked by the Holy Father to be generous in our response to those of the Church of England who find themselves in difficulties of conscience. As your bishops we are confident that such generosity will be forthcoming and that we weill be ready not only to welcome our new priests, and their wives and families, but also to be enriched by the experiences and insights which they will bring to us all.
With an assurance of my prayers and kind wishes,
Yours devotedly in Christ,
Bishop of Arundel and Brighton
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