Memo For the Press
Someone needs to drop heavily underlined copies of this in every reporter and producer’s mailbox.
Before we entered the conclave the newspapers were totting up the votes expected for this or that cardinal, offering countless hypotheses about blocks and nationalities lining up behind each other. But that is not how it felt for us. We cardinals are brothers in Christ, and never more so than at the moment of making a decision to choose, under the gaze of God, one who will be the Pope. Whatever our differences, we were there to come to a common decision under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
A conclave is more like a spiritual retreat than a political election. A person who has a life-changing decision to make will often retire to a place of quiet and privacy in order to detach himself from the pressures and fears that might prevent him making a decision in total freedom. But Catholics do not believe that allowing God into a decision removes the human element.
No, the minds of the MSM have been so poisoned with the need for political intrigue, I don’t think they’ll ever understand that.
When we entered the conclave, I had a sense of my own grave responsibility, but also a reassurance that countless Christians were praying for us and would guide our minds and hearts to a final decision which would be for the good of the Church. And that is how it was. Immediately the new Pope reached his two-thirds majority all of us in the Sistine Chapel burst out in joyous applause. Benedict XVI - for that was the name he took - bowed his head, and appeared to pray.
Returning home, I am surprised at the picture painted of Pope Benedict in some of the British press reports. I have met him often to speak with him about matters relating to the teaching and mission of the Church. He was always extremely courteous, highly intelligent and invariably kind. Pope Benedict has, I know, a particular knowledge and concern for the Church in this country and a deep desire to further the cause of unity with fellow Christians here.
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger had the particular task of safeguarding the fundamentals of the Catholic faith. As Pope, Benedict XVI has a larger task: to be pastor of the universal Church, a bridge-builder and a peacemaker. Any attempt to paint him as belonging to this or that ideology will inevitably founder. It will become apparent, in his papacy, that this is a man who has drunk for a long time over many years from the wellsprings of the Catholic tradition, and that he represents only one party - that of Jesus Christ.
Again: surely incomprehensible to those twisted journalistic souls.
I looked for his column on Sunday and I swear it wasn’t there. But I found it last night. I think his piece after the death of John Paul II was my favourite (Peggy Noonan’s a bit too..effusive):
Telegraph - ‘John Paul II will leave us all orphans. I shall miss him’
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