With hearts filled with gratitude for his selfless ministry, his encouragement and inspiration, we pray for his eternal repose.

May Christ Our Saviour embrace him, take him by the hand,

and usher him to paradise.

+ Cardinal Edward Clancy

Retired Archbishop of Sydney

**********

Some Prayers for the Cardinals

as they seek to read the signs and the needs of the times.

*************

Kevin Bates SM, in his most recent email to subscribers to his website, has written:

"What a remarkable moment this event has become - the death of Pope John Paul, a man whose influence will surely endure long after his passing within the Church, and a man whose charisma will draw one of the biggest funeral crowds in history, including the largest gathering of World Leaders that the world has ever seen.

We thank God for the many gifts he has left with us, and we pray in hope for a new direction, a new energy and a healing of the divisions that still mark the Church's life. The unworthy struggle for power, doctrinally, politically and ideologically in the Church has been exacerbated over recent years, and despite the hopes of some that the new Pope will follow exactly in the footsteps of John Paul, I pray for a new direction, a certain healing and a gentler sharing of responsibility for the Church's life envisaged by the teachings of Vatican II."

          and William Johnston, on the Religion Report in ABC National 6.4.205

said:

"In these two and a half weeks before the next pontiff emerges, we're all enjoying the freedom of speech without a central voice and without the apparat  repressing anyone, that's why this moment is special."

Joan Chittister, in the USA also has words along the same lines:

It is time to engage again with the world as it is, not as a church in contention with it but as a church with the faith to believe that the things we fear now about science and government and globalism, about lay participation and collegiality and women, can become the stuff of a new kind of Christian sanctity at a new moment in history.

To have a transition going on in the church that does not also touch the world around it, is to have only public spectacle, not social transformation

In a different context, Hugh Mackay, in the Sixth Annual Manning Clark Lecture  says:

"It's a strange moment for us (Australians) - a dangerous moment - a time when we seem to have almost been encouraged to disengage; to indulge our darker impulses of xenophobia and intolerance; to think of ourselves as consumers and of our lives as being devoted to to expression of material values."

 

The following web offerings may affirm your point of view, or challenge it in some way, and may even stir further meditation and thought.  Please feel free to offer you own comments in response.

The Religion Report on ABC National  on 6.4.05 had two interviews - one with Peter Hebblethwaite (recorded before his death in 1994, and never broadcast during Pope John Paul II's lifetime) and another with William Johnston, now teaching at Yarra Theological College in Melbourne.     http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/

Hans Kung writes, in Der Speigel on 26.3.2005, on "The Pope's Contradictions"

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,348471,00.html

John Allen, in NCR , has an extensive obituary of Pope John Paul II

http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/conclave/jp_obit_main.htm

Joan Chittister OSB, in NCR

http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/conclave/jc040705.htm

The complete Sixth Manning Clarke Lecture: Social Disengagement - A Breeding Ground for Fundamentalism is here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1323906.htm