A day in the life of Pope Benedict

Putting together a book about the Vatican offered a chance to see how the pontiff lives, beginning with 7am Mass and ending with prayers in the grounds.

It was 7am on the last day of February 2008, and the cold seeped through my shoes as I stood in a greenhouse in the Vatican Gardens, wondering why Italians like to get up so early. 

I was waiting for Paolo Ferrara, the Vatican’s head gardener, as part of a series of interviews for a book.

The mainly photographic volume would give accounts of a typical day in the life of a number of people in the Vatican: a choir boy from the Sistine Chapel, a curator in the papal sacristy, a cardinal, a Swiss guard, an art restorer, a nun and so on. I had also gained permission to follow Pope Benedict for a day. I could not enter the private apartments, but I would witness most activities.

Paolo greeted me with an enthusiastic handshake, offering coffee from a flask. 

I asked if he saw much of the pope. 

“I bring the holy father a floral arrangement for his desk in the Apostolic Palace once or twice a week, depending on the season. I go up around 9am. I knock and go in; he is usually sitting at his desk by then. He stands up and comes over to see what arrangement I have done. He loves flowers and always pays a compliment.” He added: “Pope John Paul never even noticed flowers.”

The Apostolic Palace, built by Domenico Fontana in the 16th century, has been the residence of the popes since 1871. Pope Benedict and his staff occupy several rooms on the uppermost floor.

The apartment opens on three sides of an interior courtyard. The pope’s reception room, his study and his bedroom face St Peter’s Square. The dining room, chapel and parlour open on to the internal courtyard of St Sixtus.

Four women take care of the papal apartment, including cooking. The women’s rooms overlook the Vatican Museums. The secretaries’ accommodation and guest rooms are tucked away in a converted attic. The pope and his assistants can stroll along the roof on an open-air planted walkway designed in the 1970s.

Pope Benedict’s daily routine followed a pattern. He rose each morning shortly after 6am and celebrated Mass an hour later. He breakfasted with his two priest secretaries at 7.45am and was normally at his desk by 8am. An hour later, one of the secretaries brought him documents and briefed him on current affairs.

Private audiences, usually with bishops or occasionally with political figures, took place on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 11am until lunchtime.

Tuesday was generally the pope’s day off, although Benedict rarely left the Vatican. Wednesday morning was reserved for the general audience, a ticketed event that allowed the faithful to pray with and be blessed by the pope. Lunch was served at 1.30pm. In contrast with his predecessor, Benedict rarely invited guests.

After a short siesta there was generally time for reading, followed by a visit to the Vatican Gardens. At 5pm another round of appointments began, usually with senior curial cardinals.

The working day concluded at 8pm with dinner. Relaxation for Benedict consisted of playing the piano or watching television.

Permission to attend 

On Friday, February 29th, 2008, the pope had two morning audiences. I was given permission to attend with officials from the papal household. 

The first audience was with Mary Ann Glendon, the new US ambassador to the holy see. 

The second was with participants of the Pontifical Council, which oversees the charitable bodies of the Catholic Church.

I accompanied Msgr Paolo De Nicolò, head of the protocol office, to the papal apartment; it was De Nicolò’s job to accompany the pontiff to his audiences. We arrived at the third-floor loggia, with frescos painted by disciples of Raphael in the early 16th century, and I waited outside, out of view.

The oak doors opened, and the pope stepped out. His German secretary, Msgr Georg Gaenswein, walked a couple of steps behind. The Swiss guard outside the door saluted; the pope smiled and greeted him in German. 

The doors closed, and pontiff, regent and secretary walked down the marble corridor towards the lift. The pope wore the magenta mozzetta, a shoulder-length cape used during private audiences.

I recalled the words of a nun I had met the previous day who was responsible for the pontifical robes. 

“This holy father is the best,” she had said approvingly. “He does exactly what he is told, and wears what I lay out for him. I was here when Blessed John XXIII was pope . . . He was so fussy . . . much more demanding than this man.”

In the Hall of St Peter and Paul, the pope greeted the US ambassador with hands outstreched. Cameras clicked, then entourage and photographers were ushered out, leaving the two to discuss the pope’s April 2008 visit to the United States.

At the end of the audience, the ambassador presented her family and staff to the pope. A short exchange of gifts followed before the end of the audience.

The whole encounter, which took less than half an hour, was noticeably relaxed, with a lot of laughter. As he returned to the library, the pope was given a small glass of tea.

The pope then continued to the adjacent Sala Clementina, where more than 100 members of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum – One Heart – waited for him. After a brief address by Cardinal Paul Cordes, the pope read a short speech in English, and met most of the participants, before posing for a group photograph.

Afterwards, the pope returned to his apartment for his frugal Lenten meal. In the afternoon, he took a walk in the Vatican Gardens. Shortly after 4pm, a black Mercedes pulled up at the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. The pope opened the right rear door and stepped out, wearing a white quilted parka jacket, brown casual shoes and flat cream cap.

The pope and Georg Gaenswein entered the grotto and knelt for a few moments. After a while secretary and pope walked up and down briskly in the sunny but cold day. This was the only time in the day he was not surrounded by people, and even then he was in company.

Little could I think five years ago that this sprightly octogenarian would take the startling decision to abdicate the papacy and spend his sunset years on the hill overlooking St Peter’s tomb.

---

Fr Michael Collins serves in St Mary’s Parish, Haddington Road, Dublin. He is the author of Vatican: Secrets and Treasures of the Holy City (Dorling Kindersley, 2008)

Robust questioning of a loyal opponent of the church

RELIGION: No Lions in the Hierarchy: An Anthology of Sorts, By Joseph Dunn, The Columba Press, 270pp, €14.99 

Since its establishment, in the early 1980s, the Columba Press has produced almost 800 books, many of which openly challenged the dominant religious orthodoxy in Irish society. 

Joseph Dunn’s No Lions in the Hierarchy, first published in 1994, is one of the titles chosen for inclusion in the new Columba Classics series. 

It has lost none of its prophetic charge, and many of the issues raised, such as celibacy, the silencing of theologians, leadership in the church, birth control, liberation theology, Vatican politics and the appointment of bishops, are as relevant today as they were nearly 20 years ago.

Dunn was a Catholic priest who worked for many years in television, most notably as part of the Radharc team that was responsible for producing award-winning documentaries. 

Through his work, Dunn had the opportunity to meet priests in various countries, some of whom had gone so far as to take up arms against tyrannical regimes.

He was acquainted with the widely varying types of church that can be found in different parts of the globe and was friendly with several members of the Irish hierarchy, especially the Dublin archbishops John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Desmond Connell. It would appear that very little happened in the Irish church or in Rome that escaped Dunn’s attention.

In his preface the author acknowledges that he was freer than most to express his views, being “neither a professional theologian nor a practising parish priest”. The critical stances he adopted derived from what he terms “loyal opposition” to the church.

In an interesting introduction, Fr Tom Stack describes his friend’s “uncanny gift of being able, simultaneously, to write critically of the institutional church and still somehow retain the confidence of church authorities”. To achieve this balance requires one to be a shrewd operator, which Dunn undoubtedly was.

The book covers a broad canvas. 

The opening chapter deals with seminary life in the 1950s and 1960s. Dunn notes how young men contemplating the priesthood had to sacrifice a lot, such as having recourse to sex and the comfort of a wife and children. 

Given his rather liberal views on a number of issues, it might come as a surprise to learn that he regarded celibacy, when freely chosen, as a blessing that should not be discarded lightly. 

He made no attempt to downplay his own occasional struggles with loneliness and coping with normal sexual urges.

Like many Irish people, Dunn was a huge fan of the charismatic Pope John XXIII: “John for me is proof that the papacy can work. That it can be the centre of unity. That it can inspire people to believe in the goodness of God and of his creation. That it can generate optimism. 
And in the end help us to love God and one another better.”

This unbridled admiration clearly coloured his view of a more recent pope, John Paul II, of whom Dunn can find nothing positive to say. He is at odds with John Paul’s autocratic style, his promotion of conservative bishops (many of them from Opus Dei), his paranoia about Marxism and his well-publicised disagreements with highly regarded theologians, such as Leonardo Böff and Bernard Häring, who were not prepared to follow the Vatican line on certain key issues.

All of which leads to a stark summation: “As a Catholic priest I hate to say it, but . . . pretty well everything I have seen and everybody I have met in the course of my work have led me towards a negative judgment on the pontificate of John Paul II.”

Such a blanket dismissal could be said to lack restraint and objectivity. 

In a similar vein, writing about the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, which underlined the pontiff’s unconditional support of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, he concludes that if one were to take the views expressed in this text seriously, it would mean that the vast majority of the Catholic laity are living in sin and that many theologians are also incorrect in their interpretation.

Dunn was undoubtedly correct to point out the gaping contradiction between professed teaching and daily practice in the area of family planning. In his view, this contradiction engendered scepticism and a growing crisis of faith that could easily have been avoided.

Dunn believed in and loved the Catholic Church, and the last thing he wanted was for his book to weaken anyone else’s love or belief. A man of keen intellect and strong convictions, he felt it necessary to point out certain issues that he believed were harming the institution to which he devoted his adult life. Loyalty, for him, was not synonymous with silent acquiescence; rather, it required robust questioning from within.

No Lions in the Hierarchy is a timely reminder that deep divisions remain within the Catholic Church and that clerics of courage and conviction, such as Joe Dunn, are needed as never before.

The book invites readers to re-examine and to question what the church presents as absolute truths. It also contains fascinating anecdotes and insights about theologians and members of the hierarchy.

Columba has done an excellent job producing this attractive new edition of a genuine classic, which whets the appetite for the other titles in the series.

Catholic scholar: 'Absolutely no chance' of celibacy law change overnight

A call by a Scottish cardinal for the Catholic Church to end its celibacy rule for the priesthood will “raise some eyebrows” in the Vatican in the run-up to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, historians have said.

Catholic scholar Michael Walsh said there was “absolutely no chance” of the celibacy rule being changed overnight in the Church following remarks by Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who said many priests struggle to cope with celibacy and should be able to marry and have a family.

Cardinal O’Brien, 74, who has been known until now for his outspoken defence of orthodox Catholic views on issues such as gay marriage, was speaking ahead of a trip to Rome where he will be the only British Roman Catholic cleric able to vote in the upcoming conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI following his decision to resign.

“It is a most extraordinary thing for him to say because he (Cardinal O’Brien) is normally conservative. I think it is something that people might well welcome,” Mr Walsh, an expert on the history of the Vatican, said.

“I have been asked if he has said this because he believes that it will cut down on child abuse. Statistically, that is not likely. Married men are just as likely to commit child abuse as celibate men, it is not really the issue.

“But I think he may feel that the clerical culture which has created the possibility for people to hide their abusive behaviour would be ameliorated by having married clergy, certainly.”

Mr Walsh added that he believed the Church might in the future consider ordaining older married men.

“The situation may change, the Catholic Church is a bit like an enormous oil tanker which takes a long time to change course,” he said.

“I think the most likely thing to happen is for them to decide they will ordain elderly married men.

“They might decide in cases of extreme shortage of clergy, which there are increasingly in certain parts of the world, they may consider the possibility of ordaining older married men.”

Professor Nicholas Lash, Norris-Hulse professor emeritus of divinity at the University of Cambridge, described Cardinal O’Brien’s remarks as “surprising” but also “most refreshing”.

“I think there are plenty of bishops who would welcome a change to the celibacy law but at the moment, if they do, they keep their views to themselves. I thought Cardinal O’Brien’s remarks were most refreshing,” he said.

“I welcome his plain speaking. Most bishops tend to be cagey in public about matters that are disputed.”

Prof Lash added: “I think that apart from anything else, demographically I think it is inevitable that we should allow married men to become priests.

“If it is the case – I believe it to be the case – that the celebration of the Eucharist is at the very heart, the centre of Catholic Christianity, then if you have not got any priests you are starving the Church to death. This is what is happening throughout Latin America especially at the moment.”

Cardinal O’Brien told the BBC: “I’d be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should be married.

“It’s a free world and I realise that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood, and felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own.”

Cardinal O’Brien said marriage was not considered when he was studying for the priesthood but added he would be happy to see it introduced.

“I would like others to have the choice. In my time there was no choice, you didn’t really consider it too much. It was part of being a priest when I was a young boy, priests didn’t get married and that was it.

“When you were a student for the priesthood, well it was part of the package, as it were, that you were celibate, that you didn’t get married and you didn’t really consider it all that much. You just took your vows of celibacy the way someone else would naturally take their vows of marriage.”

Cardinal O’Brien welcomed Pope Benedict when he visited Scotland in 2010.

He has been an outspoken opponent of Scottish Government plans to legalise same-sex marriage and was controversially named “bigot of the year” by a gay rights charity last November.

Stonewall said he was given the title because he went “well beyond what any normal person would call a decent level of public discourse” in the debate.

The Catholic Church criticised the charity’s award, saying it revealed “the depth of their intolerance” and a willingness to demean people who do not share their views.

Castel Gandolfo receives first retired Pope

Residents of the town that is home to the Pope’s summer residence say they are happy Pope Benedict is living there.
“The Pope will find his apartment the same as always, but also the affection and devotion of everyone here,” said Saverio Petrillo, director of the pontifical villas in Castel Gandolfo,(pictured).
Pope Benedict officially ended his ministry at 8:00 p.m. on Feb. 28, and at 5:00 p.m. he left the Vatican by helicopter and travelled to Castel Gandolfo. When he arrived he was greeted by the mayor, the pastor of the local parish and town residents. He also offered a short greeting from the window of his residence.
Popes spend part of the summer in the town of 9,000 residents, which is located 18 miles southeast of Rome and looks over Lake Albano.
This will be the first time the building is used by someone who is not the Pope.
Pope Benedict will live there for at least two months before moving to Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican, which is currently being refurbished.
Petrillo explained that Pope Benedict will be living in the same room that he has used the past eight summers.
The audience hall on the top floor, which is in a separate wing of the Pope’s apartment, is currently being restored.
According to the director, his flat includes a chapel, a bedroom and a dining room and “has the right dimensions” to accommodate the Pope, his secretaries and the staff that helps run the household.
“This is like all flats that just needs a bit of dusting, so there is nothing extraordinary being done now in preparation for his coming,” said the director of the pontifical villas.
Petrillo said that he is “in a state of confusion like everybody else because we have before us an unforeseen historical moment.”
“I’ve been working for the Vatican for a long time, since the papacy of Pius XII, but clearly I would have never imagined such a thing,” said Petrillo.
The pontifical villas occupy 136 acres, of which 74 make up a garden and 62 are used for farming.
Locals told CNA they are looking forward to having Pope Benedict stay with them during Easter, although there was a mixed reaction to his resignation.
“We are happy, although this is a very difficult situation,” said an elderly man sitting outside a coffee shop on the square outside the papal residence.
“I’m a practicing Catholic and his resigning has displeased me because to reach this point there are many things that the cardinals needed to fix and it will be very hard,” he added.
Another man said he was also happy his town is hosting Pope Benedict.
The Pope has stayed in Castel Gandolfo for the past eight summers, which this Italian described as “full of a beautiful presence.”
“The step he has taken is important with everything that’s happening nowadays in society because he’s been more attached to problems than the previous Pope and he had a different sensitivity,” said the man in his mid-thirties.
“He will bring the most important presence we can have with us, and I hope others here will also be happy with this gift,” he added.
A coffee shop owner in the Piazza della Libertà said it is “a unique world privilege” for the town whenever Pope Benedict arrives and that it will greatly benefit local business.
“It’s a privilege because he could have simply returned to his hometown in Bavaria, but he chose to come here,” he said.
“There will probably be more movement here because he’s always an attraction and it’s an important event for all of us whenever he comes here,” he noted.
One local shopkeeper said locals are “Pope Benedict’s fans” and the eight summers he has spent here have been “a very positive experience” for him.
“It’s helped us, not only for our businesses, but also spiritually. And we’re very accustomed to his presence and he’s very accustomed to ours,” he said.
“We also hope he’s not always indoors and that we see him outside every now and then,” he added.

Church Helps Fill a Void in Africa

Behind its high spiked iron gates in this frenetic megalopolis of anywhere between 11 million and 21 million, the church of Christ the King is protector, feeder and healer. 

In the 6 a.m. darkness, this working-class church is already filled with parishioners in shirt-sleeves and T-shirts, a pool of hymn-singing light in a blacked-out neighborhood. 

Six Masses are celebrated here each Sunday for up to 10,000 people, and 102 people were baptized last Saturday. The parish priest, the Rev. Ikenna Ikechi, dreams of building a multistory community center to accommodate his growing flock. “Our only limitation is space,” he said.

The Roman Catholic Church’s explosive growth here and across Africa has led to serious talk of the possibility of an African cardinal succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, and clerics from Nigeria, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the continent’s largest Catholic population, have been mentioned as top contenders. 

With 16 percent of the world’s Catholics now living in Africa, the church’s future, many say, is here. The Catholic population in Africa grew nearly 21 percent between 2005 and 2010, far outstripping other parts of the world. 

While the number of priests in North America and Europe declined during the same period, in Africa they grew by 16 percent. 

The seminaries, clerical officials here say, are bursting with candidates, and African priests are being sent to take over churches in former colonial powers.

Untainted by the child sexual abuse scandals, the church here draws parishioners, many in their 20s and 30s, who flock eagerly to services, which can last hours, with no complaints.

“After work, a lot of young people come to Mass,” said Chinedu Okani, 29, an engineer in Lagos who was attending a service at the Church of the Assumption in the Falomo neighborhood. “It provides a serene environment.”

He acknowledges another attraction, too: that the church is a functioning institution in a country that lacks them. “The welfare system is not working here,” Mr. Okani said. “We find a way to make up for it: the family, and the church.”

In Nigeria, at least 70 percent of the people live below the poverty line, and 80 percent of the country’s oil wealth goes to 1 percent of the population. The police do not respond to calls, and electricity is spotty.

Outside Christ the King, on the dirt streets of the Mushin neighborhood, there are armed robbers and no lights. It is little wonder that the priest must gently shoo away parishioners lingering to read or chat in the church’s arcaded meeting spaces under generator-powered lights.

“A lot of it is the challenge of living in Nigeria,” said Father Ikechi, who was educated at Fordham University in New York. “We can’t rely on the government for water, light, security. Whatever you want, you have to provide for yourself.”

For his parishioners, he said, “what they face is huge. So they tend to come to God as their last resort. You can’t go to the police. Who will you go to? You will go to God. Some of them, where they sleep is so bad, they just come to sleep here during the day.”

After a devastating bus accident recently the church paid parishioners’ hospital bills, the priest said. “Otherwise they would die,” he said.

In this way the church is fulfilling a role it played in its distant European past, providing for the people where the state cannot, but some question whether the African church’s growth and size can be sustained as the continent’s institutions develop.

“When people say Africa is the future, I say, ‘Oh, isn’t it the past?’ ” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I see it as a repeat of the past, what happened in Europe centuries ago. What’s going to happen in Africa when everybody gets a television set, when modernity comes?”

For now, that question is largely academic here.

“Almost every system has collapsed,” said Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto, in northwestern Nigeria. “The entire architecture of governance has collapsed. The church remains the only moral force.

“The church offers the best schools, social services, medicine. The God talk in Africa is a mark of the failure of the economic, social and political system,” Bishop Kukah added, “We are being called left, right and center to mend the broken pieces of what are considered the failing states of Africa.”

In a continent rife with corruption, the church also provides a singular moral voice. Bishop Kukah, for example, has played a large role in good governance and human rights commissions, including the investigation into the 1990s military dictatorship.

In Congo, where the number of Catholics has more than tripled in the past 35 years, Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa has fiercely criticized the government, including the tainted election results that secured President Joseph Kabila’s re-election in 2011. 

The Catholic Church deployed an extensive network of independent observers during the December elections, and the bishops’ council later denounced the “culture of treachery, lies and terror.” 

“It’s the church’s engagement on behalf of the Congolese people, the promotion of the whole man, you’ve got to bring forth bread and the Gospels,” said Bishop Bernard-Emmanuel Kasanda of Mbuji-Mayi in Congo. “We have to be with the people. Moral authority, yes. This is what pushes people towards us.”

In Nigeria, where over $5 billion was reported missing from a minerals ministry on Friday, the latest in a series of seemingly endless government scandals, the church offers an alternative to a life mired in corruption, poverty and hopelessness. 

Laurence Emeka, 30, who sells telephone accessories at an open-air stall, rose at 5 a.m. last Sunday to attend Mass at Christ the King before going to work. 

The service gave him a kind of sanctuary. 

“Peace, satisfaction, confidence in God,” he said. “It helps me cope with the circumstances of daily life.”

Wales and England celebrate patron St. David on March 1

Among Welsh Catholics, as well as those in England, March 1 is the liturgical celebration of Saint David of Wales.
 
St. David is the patron of the Welsh people, remembered as a missionary bishop and the founder of many monasteries during the sixth century.
David was a popular namesake for churches in Wales prior to the Anglican schism, and his feast day is still an important religious and civic observance.
Although Pope Benedict XVI did not visit Wales during his 2010 trip to the U.K., he blessed a mosaic icon of its patron, and delivered remarks praising St. David as “one of the great saints of the sixth century, that golden age of saints and missionaries in these isles, and...thus a founder of the Christian culture which lies at the root of modern Europe.”
In his comments, Pope Benedict recalled the saint's dying words to his monastic brethren: “Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things.” He urged that St. David's message, “in all its simplicity and richness, continue to resound in Wales today, drawing the hearts of its people to renewed love for Christ and his Church.”
From a purely historical standpoint, little is known of David’s life, with the earliest biography dating from centuries after his time. As with some other saints of sixth-century Wales, even the chronology of his life is not easy to ascertain.
David’s conception is said to have occurred as a result of rape – a detail that seems unlikely to have been invented by later biographers, though it cannot (like almost all of the traditions surrounding his life) be established with certainty. His mother Saint Nonna, or Nonnita, has her traditional feast day on March 3.
David appears to have been the cousin of his contemporary Saint Teilo, another Welsh bishop and monk. He is described as a pupil of the monastic educator Saint Paulinus, who was one of St. Teilo’s teachers as well. There are doubts, however, about the story which holds that David and Teilo traveled to Jerusalem and were ordained together as bishops.
It is clear that David served as the Bishop of Menevia, an important port city linking Wales and Ireland in his time. His leading role in two local councils of the Church is also a matter of record.
Twelve monasteries have their founding ascribed to David, who developed a reputation for strict asceticism. His monks modeled their lives on the earliest desert hermits – combining hard manual labor, silence, long hours of prayer, and a diet that completely excluded meat and alcohol.
One tradition places his death in the year 601, but other writers believe he died in the 540s. David may well have survived to an advanced age, but evidence is lacking for the claim (made by his 11th-century biographer) that he lived to the age of 147. Pope Callistus II canonized St. David of Wales in 1120.

Difficult path to papal conclave as Rome prepares for new era

When Pope Benedict XVI tendered the first papal resignation in almost 600 years, the more hopeful of his flock said it would help the Roman Catholic church make a break with its recent past and usher in a new era of missionary vibrancy untainted by intrigue and scandal.

The headlines of the past fortnight, however, have shown quite how unlikely that is. Not only has anger built over the role of several compromised cardinals in the choosing of a papal successor, but increasingly lurid claims have emerged about why Benedict chose to stand down in the first place.

A major new controversy, therefore, is the last thing that the Vatican needs. 

Rather than heralding a bold new dawn, the most unexpected and unpredictable conclave in centuries looks increasingly likely to be overshadowed – just as much of Benedict's papacy was – by scandal.

The clerical sex abuse scandals that dominated Benedict's eight years as pope have left several prelates due to take part in conclave facing questions over how they handled the affairs.

They include Cardinal Justin Rigali, the former archbishop of Philadelphia, who retired in 2011, five months after the archdiocese was stunned by an abuse scandal, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, who last week was questioned over the abuse of children by priests in his former archdiocese of Milwaukee. 

Lawyers are interested in knowing when Dolan learned of the allegations and when he made them public.

Closer to home, Cardinal Seán Brady, the primate of All Ireland, has come under pressure not to attend conclave next month. The prelate has faced calls to resign over his failure in the 1970s to report the activities of a serial abuser and his apologies have done little to quell the anger. 

Last week Christine Buckley of the Aislinn Centre for abuse survivors in Dublin told journalists Brady would express his apology best "by not going to Rome". 

Her appeal, however, will not be heeded; Brady has confirmed he will take part in conclave as planned.

Amid all these names, there is one in particular that has attracted most anger: the American Cardinal Roger Mahony, whose transgressions have emerged more recently and caused outrage among Catholics in Los Angeles, where he is archbishop emeritus. 

Last month, a court ordered the release of files relating to over 120 priests accused of child sex abuse which showed that Mahony, along with other officials, had protected the clerics. 

He was publicly reprimanded by his successor as archbishop of Los Angeles and stripped of his public and administrative duties.

But, in spite of incredulity at the grass roots, he has steadfastly insisted on his right to vote in conclave, claiming he has been "scapegoated" and unfairly disgraced. 

On Friday night, before he was due to be questioned under oath about a visiting Mexican priest accused of abusing 26 children, he posted a message on Twitter that read: "Just a few short hours before my departure for Rome. Will be tweeting often from Rome, except during the actual Conclave itself. Prayers!" 

His determination has infuriated Catholics in the US: thousands have signed a petition demanding Mahony recuse himself from the conclave – or, in its words, "stay home!"

It also appears to have caused consternation in the Catholic establishment in Italy, with the influential magazine Famiglia Cristiana running a poll asking readers if the American cardinal should attend or not. The answer was no.

In recent days conclave has not been the only cause of controversy. 

Benedict's surprise resignation has generated intense speculation over the internal machinations of the Vatican, with the latest report claiming he chose to quit after reading of a network of gay prelates in the church, some of whom were vulnerable to blackmail. 

According to La Repubblica, the pope decided to resign in December after receiving a report into the so-called Vatileaks affair which claimed that one of many "factions" within the church was a group of priests "united by sexual orientation".

Last week the pope's spokesman Federico Lombardi declined to confirm or deny the claims. 

But on Saturday he went on the attack against what he said was a rumour mill working overtime to discredit the church.

Writing on the website of Vatican Radio, he condemned the "gossip, misinformation and sometimes slander" that had been swirling in the wake of the announcement.

"Those who consider money, sex and power before all else and are used to reading diverse realities from these perspectives, are unable to see anything else, even in the Church, because they are unable to gaze toward the heights or descend to the depths in order to grasp the spiritual dimensions and reasons of existence," he wrote. "This results in a description of the Church and of many of its members that is profoundly unjust."

CARDINAL O'BRIEN

Cardinal Keith O'Brien is the leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland and has acquired a reputation for speaking his mind on homosexuality, abortion and secularism. 

In 2007, he compared the rate of abortion to "two Dunblane massacres a day" and last year called for women who want terminations to be shown ultrasound scans of their unborn baby. 

The Northern Irish-born 74-year-old is never short of an inflammatory remark, but it was his outburst on homosexuality last November that led gay rights lobby group Stonewall to award him its Bigot of the Year prize.

O'Brien was appointed archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in 1985 and was initially thought to be somewhat liberal, defending the rights of gay teachers to work in Catholic schools. 

In 2003 Pope John Paul II made him only the third Scottish cardinal since the Reformation. 

He was part of the conclave to appoint Pope Benedict and will take part in the appointing of his successor next month.

In recent years O'Brien has been known for a more strident tone. He has vigorously opposed civil partnerships and says gay marriage is "like slavery". He also attacked the government over the 2008 embryo bill, calling it "monstrous" and "evil".

Last week, to general surprise, he said he believed priests should be allowed to marry: "It's a free world and I realise that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they have lived out their priesthood and felt the need of a companion, a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own."

Born in County Antrim, O'Brien moved to Scotland as a boy. He was ordained in 1965 and trained as a teacher, working as a science teacher, then as spiritual director in two seminaries. He suffers heart problems and has a pacemaker.

Speak truth to power and banish abuse from society (Contribution)

Oscar Wilde says no man is rich enough to buy back his past. 

Some cannot resist the temptation. 

And I would do the same if I could buy back the part of my past during which I failed to make an RTE film about the Irish gulags of the Magdalene Laundries.

The last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996. 

By that time all of us born before 1966 were over 30 years old. Old enough for our children to ask: Why did you stay silent? Why did you not speak truth to power?

How could those of us working in the media not know what was going on in the industrial schools and Magdalene Laundries? And if we did know, why did we not do something about it? Let me start with what we knew.

Growing up in Cork in the Fifties, I was vaguely aware that there were some institutions for orphans and others for bad boys and girls. A few adults would speak critically, but cryptically, about beatings by brothers and nuns and with cursory pity about the rough regime in these places.

But back in the Fifties every national school had at least one cruel teacher, and most had rough regimes. A teacher in my local school was a legend because of his daily sadistic beatings of boys whose parents lacked the social clout to challenge him. Cruelty and class were woven into the very fabric of our lives, and seldom spoken about.

The chief source of the silence, however, was the social consensus that all things sexual were sinful. As Diarmaid Ferriter's Occasions of Sin reminds us, Irish society was sick when it came to sex. The Roman Catholic Church bears the brunt of responsibility for creating that pathology.

Given the social control of the Catholic Church it was not surprising so few spoke truth to power. Even so, I had less excuse than most. Because my mother had befriended a maid, whom I shall call Bridey, an unmarried mother who had been in the Bessborough mother-and-child home.

Bridey was no passive victim. She had willingly given her child up for adoption, got herself out of Bessborough, and worked as a jobbing maid to keep herself in Woodbine cigarettes and cheap nylons. A cheerful soul, she laughed more than she cried.

But Bridey had seen some bad things, and heard a lot more. She knew that most of the pious women for whom she worked did not want to hear anything bad about nuns. So she was grateful my mother gave her a good hearing.

Like all young boys I listened for taboo topics. So I could guess what girls like Bridey were going through. And yet, as a teenager, I only got worked up about the suffering of Pearse and his comrades. Like most of my generation, I felt the sufferings of those ghostly girls were somehow part of the natural order.

My mother, Margaret Beirne, never accepted their sufferings as natural. A natural peasant radical from rural Roscommon, she spoke continually and caustically about two subjects: class distinction and clerical abuse of power. The road to hell, she would regularly remind her large brood, is paved with the heads of priests.

Although she had only a national school education, my mother's main reading matter consisted of the Bible, Shakespeare – and Ireland's Own. The latter was her last link to rural Roscommon, which she had left at the age of 15 to work in Cork as a bar maid. This daily diet of Old Testament, Othello and Irish folklore gave her a firm theoretical grip on human nature.

At the same time, her early life in rural Roscommon furnished her with many practical examples of servility. She was particularly sharp about the part played by cash and class in the life of the clergy. And on wet winter afternoons she would regale her large brood with blackly comic stories on the subject.

One of her funniest was about a visit home in the Thirties by a local IRA man, whom I shall call Kelly, who had left hurriedly for America after the Civil War, done well for himself during prohibition, but in the process became a bit too fond of his product, and was seldom sober. During his legendary visit he wore a white suit from whose pockets he liberally dispensed whiskey to his thirsty followers and dollars to the local parish priest at the church collection.

One Sunday morning at Mass the priest fumbled to find the correct tabernacle key. Kelly, swaying above him in the small gallery, produced a huge bunch of keys and flung them down on the altar slurring: "Try one of these father!" The congregation held its breath and waited for the priest to call down bolts from heaven.

But instead – and here my mother acted out his motions in a manner that caused us to cry with laughter – the priest turned to the gallery, half- bowed with a deferential smile, bobbed his head, swished his backside, picked up the keys and pretended to try them in the tabernacle.

My mother's mordant parables about the stratagems of servility were life lessons I have never forgotten. 

To this day, when I watch people bob and swish to wealth and power, I think of the priest on the altar picking up Kelly's bunch of keys. And I am never surprised when they surrender their soul.

These life lessons also gave me a feel for the dynamics of class struggle during the War of Independence. They were fleshed out by men like the late Michael Guthrie, a former IRA man, then a forestry worker, with whom Brendan O hEither and myself would drink in Tadgh O hAragain's pub in Ennistymon during the late Sixties.

Michael was then the only man I had met, outside Dublin left-wing circles, who proudly proclaimed himself both a socialist and an atheist. Like many atheists, Michael seemed to know the Bible backwards. Its rich intonations and his naturally deep voice made him a compelling raconteur when he spoke about class politics during the War of Independence.

Michael recalled how the column officers, mostly strong farmers' sons, went missing on the morning of one planned attack. I can still recall the sound of his deep and sarcastic sonorous voice: "The day of the ambush dawned wet and cold, and with the dawn came the stories from the sons of the farmers: 'I have hay to save, cattle to milk, I married a wife. . .' So it was left to the labourers to go out and face the Tans."

Looking back over my life I realise how seldom I have seen what the Quakers call "speaking truth to power". In practice, when class and wealth conspire to conceal the truth, most people come up with urban versions of having hay to save, cattle to milk, or having married a wife. Confronted by coercive and corrosive power both individuals and societies settle for silence.

That servile silence destroys a society as surely as it destroys an individual. 

That is why the best tribute to the Magdalene women would be to identify current abuses of privilege or wealth in contemporary Irish society, summon our courage to the sticking point, and, like them, speak truth to power.

Emer O'Kelly: Religious must pay for warping our society

'Sacred heart o' Jesus, take away our hearts o' stone an' give us hearts o' flesh." 

In 1924, Sean O'Casey put that passionate prayer into the mouth of Mrs Tancred, standing on the stairs of a Dublin tenement. 

Nobody listened then to his cry for the voiceless; we remained deaf for generations.

But last Tuesday a group of women sat in the visitors' gallery of our national parliament, moved to tears and cheers as a Taoiseach who had listened broke down on the floor of the house. 

The women had spoken often of a "stigma". 

The only stigma is that they had to wait until most of them were old before the moment came.

The women incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundries were there against their will. 

According to several of the women's representatives, the report delivered by former Senator Martin McAleese fell short in many ways; one of the most glaring was to write of "self-referral".

Was a destitute woman thrown on the street by her parents "willing" when her choice was between selling herself or a hell-hole of slave labour?

Was a motherless child "willing" when a Catholic priest took her from the care of her widowed father because to have her free in society left her open to "moral hazard"?

More importantly, if every woman still alive who was ever locked in one of those dark, fearful places was a prostitute; if every woman there had given birth to children "out of wedlock", there should still be no "stigma". 

They were human, that's all: human like the rest of us. And they were ignorant of the world and its ways, the ignorance as enforced as was their incarceration.

The stigma is ours, and ours alone, to be shared by all of us except the women victimised and brutalised by Irish society as a whole. That the women could have perceived themselves as bearing a stigma for their incarceration reflects on us, not on them.

We have heard from people who remember what it was like in our closed Irish society of generations past: an engineered regimentation of the population that described ignorance as innocence, and equated deprivation with purity and nobility of soul: the essence of fascism.

Many of the people who lived in those times have been protesting that their lives too were hard: that conditions within the laundries were not much inferior to those on the outside.

Yes, in our authoritarian, right-wing society, parents felt free to beat their children unmercifully: they were encouraged to do so by the all-powerful Catholic Church if the children displayed a less than conformist spirit.

Times were hard: hunger was endemic. Times were joyless: a Jansenist mind-set frowned on beauty, in people or their surroundings. Ugliness and bitterness were the marks of rectitude.

It was the way of the Irish world. But only the women in the laundries had their identities denied: given new names, or merely numbers, never to be addressed as they had been in the world.

Only the women were forbidden to speak while at work; and work lasted from the early morning Mass ending of "Ite, missa est" (Go, the Mass is ended) until they retired, exhausted, malnourished and blue with cold.

Only the Magdalene women's parents were promised by the forked tongues of priests and nuns that their children would be educated, however inadequately, only to have even that hope for the future denied them. 

 The sodden heaps of laundry became their text-books, the damp dark halls of the laundry- room their classroom.

Like their sisters and brothers in the industrial schools, the women lived under lock and key, convicted of no crime, not even charged with one other than the "danger" of moral turpitude if they remained outside.

They paid for their "refuge" with their freedom. In turn, their slave labour contributed to the coffers of Church and State. And they suffered incessant humiliation and punishment for their very existence.

Until recently, official Ireland denied that they were punished inhumanely for infringement of the dreadful rules under which they lived: no corporal punishment was used, it was claimed.

But women had their hair hacked off in a hideous symbolic piece of sadism that denied their womanhood; women who dared speak in whispers during the night to prove their humanity in their hellish world were placed in "holes", punishment cells without light or heat where they were denied food and became disoriented.

When that is done to prisoners in wartime the perpetrators are called torturers and

are put on trial for crimes against humanity.

The catalogue of miseries Ireland has inflicted on the helpless and hopeless over the generations since independence is as long as it is sickening. With each new revelation, each parading of repressed grief and hurt, each dreadful witness to our inhumanity, we have squirmed and exempted ourselves from blame.

We have done it with cowardice, meanmindedness and defensiveness. Because as each terrible fact and case comes to light, we allocate blame everywhere except to ourselves: it was the fault of the State; it was the fault of the Church, it was the fault of dysfunctional families. It was "nobody's fault".

We fail to get down on our collective knees and say to those we have hurt and betrayed that every element of Irish society is almost equally guilty: none of us has a right to wash our hands of our history.

We were proud of the system that produced the Magdalene Laundries. It is part of our psyche: a cruelty of vision, of unbridled power, of a terrible coldness in our hearts towards those whose weakness threatens our smug security as the children of "god".

Unfortunately the "god" that we claim to serve is indeed a lesser one when we see what we, all of us, did in his name. That is why the religious orders are, in my opinion, far more blameworthy than the State itself, or even the families who committed their sisters and daughters, or allowed the church to do so on their behalf.

The religious orders claimed (and claim to this day) to represent and speak for a merciful god: they claim the moral high ground, answerable to a greater power than State or human brotherhood. 

They were all-powerful in Irish society, because they controlled (and still control) the formation of the Irish character. They may have been "doing their best" as is being claimed by their apologists; if that was "best" there is no just god.

The religious formed the minds of those who drafted the Constitution, of those who made (and make) the laws. They gave them the "moral formation" that made them cruelly complacent in the face of misery. Further, they profited financially from the bleak hopelessness they imposed in the name of their "merciful" god.

Theirs is the moral turpitude. And as in the case of restitution for the thousands who suffered in the industrial schools, they must, in decency, be made to pay for the manner in which they warped our society.

They cannot be allowed to plead poverty, or be allowed an indemnity against payment. Nor must they be allowed to put their vast property beyond the reach of the State.

We, the people, who are the State, must ensure reparation is made by those responsible for what our society became: the weapon of malignant oppression of the women for whom the Taoiseach wept last Tuesday.

Get thee behind me, Satan: the secret world of Irish exorcists

Their work is usually done in secret, and it is often frowned upon. 

They may be called in to deal with bizarre paranormal phenomena – holy water boiling up unaccountably, prayer cards suddenly going up in flames and crucifixes flying around living rooms.

Ireland's exorcists tend to shun publicity, but they have been given new recognition and respectability during the papacy of Benedict XVI.

This week, the world's best-known exorcist, Gabriele Amorth, expressed his gratitude to the retiring Pope for his encouragement. 

The man, who casts out demons for the Diocese of Rome, recalled how Benedict had welcomed exorcists from all over the world at a special audience.

Ireland currently has at least three practising Catholic exorcists, who are given the task of banishing evil spirits and things that go bump in the night.

Fr Pat Collins, a Vincentian priest based in Dublin, is the most prominent cleric in the field and has been called in to deal with many cases of demonic disturbance around Ireland. 

According to church authorities, exorcisms are also carried out by a Jesuit priest based in Galway and a Capuchin friar in Carlow.

Fr Pat Collins declined to talk publicly about his work this week. However, it is believed that he receives regular calls from tormented people, and the number of cases has increased recently.

The priest is often contacted because of unexplained phenomena in homes, such as objects moving about or electrical gadgets turning on and off.

Some householders are so terrified that they flee their homes. Others suspect that someone is possessed.

In one case in Co Derry, Fr Collins and a Church of Ireland exorcist, Canon William Lendrum, were called in to cast out a "malevolent spirit".

A young couple were frightened and moved out of their house after rosary beads and a crucifix were said to have flown around a room.

Holy water was reported to heat to boiling point, and then just as quickly, it froze. 

A prayer card to St Michael the Archangel is said to have burst into flames as the man of the house started vomiting.

At the scene, Fr Collins and Canon Lendrum said a cleansing prayer, and this supposedly helped to rid the home of the undesirable spook.

The authors, David Kiely and Christina McKenna, documented 10 cases of Irish exorcism in their book, The Dark Sacrament.

Christina McKenna said she was encouraged to write the book after her own experience of an exorcism as a girl in Derry. 

"When I was 11 we had a poltergeist in our home. After my great-aunt died we heard a tapping sound under the bed where she had been. Priests came and prayed, but they didn't have the power to stop it. A special exorcist came from England and he performed some magic in the room for a long time and we were free of it."

McKenna said exorcism in Ireland was very different to the image popularised in Hollywood.

"I have never come across a head spinning like in the film The Exorcist," she said. "Usually the priest would deal with the problem by saying prayers. They would bless the house, and bless the victim with holy water."

According to Irish experts in the field, cases of "complete possession by the devil" are rare.

In the vast majority of cases, according to one Dublin priest, only a part of the personality is subject to demonic influence. A simple exorcism is all that is required.

In more serious cases of suspected possession, the case can only be investigated by a trained exorcist with the permission of a bishop.

A spokesperson for the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference said: "The church recognises exorcism and there is an updated rite that has been put in place. Courses on exorcism for priests have been run in Rome."

Critics of the practice believe that there is a danger that medical conditions could be treated as demonic possession.

However, church authorities say they are on their guard against this.

One diocesan church official said: "We don't have a diocesan exorcist, but we normally refer people to one or two priests with training and expertise in that area. In most cases it will emerge after meetings that it may be a medical, psychiatric or psychological problem and they are referred to medics with expertise in that area."

No Irish exorcist is as prolific as the Italian Gabriele Amorth, former president of the International Association of Exorcists. He claims to have cast out the demons of 70,000 people and has given some vivid descriptions of the devil and all his works

"I have seen many strange things," Amorth said of one incident. "The devil told a woman that he would make her spit out a transistor radio, and lo and behold she started spitting out bits and pieces of a radio."

Amorth also caused a stir when he suggested that Pope Benedict had unwittingly carried out an exorcism on two men at a public event in St Peter's Square. Their teeth reportedly chattered and they trembled as the Pope blessed them.

Some of Amorth's claims are treated with scepticism within the church, and not all priests believe it is desirable to dwell on casting out demons.

But exorcism has only grown and grown under the current Pope.

Cardinal 'has right to choose Pope'

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric should be allowed to help choose the next Pope despite facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour, the former archbishop of Westminster says.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor expressed sadness at the claims - which have been denied - made against Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the church in Scotland.

Three priests and a former priest have complained to the Vatican about behaviour towards them going back 30 years, according to the Observer. 

They are reported to be demanding Cardinal O'Brien's immediate resignation.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said: "I was obviously very sad to hear that. The cardinal has denied the allegations, so I think we will just have to see how that pans out. There have been other cases which have been a great scandal to the church over these past years. I think the church has to face up - has faced up - to some of them very well indeed."

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said it was up to Cardinal O'Brien - who is reported to have sought legal advice - "how he faces the allegations".

He pointed out that Cardinal O'Brien was due to retire when he turns 75 next month.

Asked whether the cardinal should still be able to go to the Vatican to take part in the selection of Pope Benedict's successor, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said: "That is up to Cardinal O'Brien to decide... it will be up to him, and I think rightly so. The allegations have not been proved in any way, so he will have to decide whether he wants to go."

The claims emerged just days after Cardinal O'Brien called for the Catholic Church to end its celibacy rule for the priesthood. He said that many priests struggle to cope with celibacy and should be allowed to marry if they wish.

The cardinal is the only British Roman Catholic cleric able to vote in the upcoming conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI following his decision to resign. 

He told the BBC: "I'd be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should be married. It's a free world and I realise that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood, and felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own."

Priesthood 'challenging', says Martin

BEING a priest today is "challenging and not easy", said Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin at the ordination of Brendan Kelly in the University Church.

Dr Martin said there were fewer priests but more work, adding: "It is one of the temptations of our times that we all like to be busily doing things, but forget that we easily get lost in the hectic – and get frustrated when we fail."

Fears over costs leave Protestants without redress

Abuse victims in "Protestant Magdalene Laundries" with links to the State were not included in the redress scheme for fear of the financial cost, contrary to the official policy that money would not be a factor, official documents suggest.

Church of Ireland survivors are also convinced that they have to date been excluded from any redress scheme because they were not Catholics, but are demanding justice and are preparing a legal case against the State if not included.

Following the State apology to the Magdalene survivors, the Government is under mounting pressure from within its own ranks and from the opposition to include Protestant victims, such as survivors from Bethany Homes, in a compensation scheme, currently being extended to Catholic survivors in the Magdalene Laundries.

There are less than 20 survivors left who went through Bethany Homes, and they have argued that their inclusion in the Quirke scheme would result in a very small additional cost to the State.

A number of Bethany Homes survivors are to address a gathering of TDs next Thursday, in order to highlight their case. The gathering is being organised by Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald who has said that the State owes the Bethany victims a "full apology" for the "disgraceful abuse" they suffered.

However, the Department of Justice is excluding the Bethany Homes survivors from the list of institutions under consideration by Mr Justice John Quirke, for fear of the precedent it would set.

Documents obtained by the Sunday Independent under Freedom of Information show that between 2003 and 2005, senior officials across several government departments were "reluctant" to include such homes on the list for fear of further cost exposure, which abuse victims say is contrary to the stated policy of the redress scheme.

Discussions between officials about the Protestant Mrs Smyly's Homes for Necessitous Children reveal that consideration of it was done on financial grounds.

"The Tanaiste would be unlikely to include the Smyly Homes on the redress list, as we are reluctant to agree to a further indemnity," one senior adviser said to another in May 2005 by email. Another email between officials, sent during the drafting of Parliamentary Questions, reveals that because of an inability to get a clear estimate of how much the institution was willing to contribute to the scheme, it was being left out.

"Regarding the Mrs Smyly's Homes, we have been unable to get any 'beyond doubt' information on their assets. It now looks as though we have to go ahead now without them," one official sent to another in May 2004.

Separate documents released show how officials decided to include a number of Protestant homes because they knew there would be no claims from centres which "operated in the 1800s".

According to documents released, officials included the homes on the grounds there would be no claims from those institutions. One official wrote to his colleague: "I would be inclined to include them in the schedule as they were used as residential centres for children. I think it is safe to assume that there will be no applications for those centres which operated in the 1800s!"

According to Derek Linster, chairman of the Bethany Homes survivors' group, the documents confirm his suspicions that he and his fellow survivors were excluded on religious and cost grounds.

"All we want is the same treatment. We are Irish citizens too. It is simple justice we want," he told the Sunday Independent.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, having previously said there was no reason to include the Bethany Homes survivors, said on Tuesday that he hoped they now would be part of the redress scheme.

Prayer to St Joseph

O St. Joseph whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the Throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires.

O St. Joseph do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers.

O St. Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart.

Press him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath.

St. Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for us.