Bishop hails ‘courageous’ decision

THE decision of Pope Benedict to retire has been described as “courageous” by Bishop of Killaloe Kieran O’Reilly, who also believes an African successor to the pontiff could be a possiblity.

With the announcement of Pope Benedict’s retirement on February 28, the focus now turns towards who will take over as leader of the Catholic Church. With a successor due to be nominated before Easter, two names that have been speculated on as possible candidates are Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson and Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja in Nigeria.

 

Both cardinals are personally known to Bishop O’Reilly, former Superior General of the Society of African Missionaries, who says it is inevitable that there will be a pope from outside of Europe in the future.

“Even if there is another pope from Europe, the inevitability is it is going to move out of Europe anyway because it is a world church. South America and Africa are going to be the main areas and the church itself has to look more towards Asia, with Pope Benedict very keen on the relationship with China. Sub-Saharan Africa will be the Catholic Church in the next 30 to 40 years numbers-wise, the most prominent and dominant, so the question is how is that going to influence things,” he said.

According to Bishop O’Reilly, following the resignation, a gathering of cardinals will meet to discuss the state of the Church at the moment.

“I would presume the reality of South America and Africa as being where the Church is very strong and the question of India, Asia and North America will be presented at that. They will discuss what is likely to be the future needs of the Church and try and discern the best person.

“In a sense the discussion of whether it will be someone from Africa or other places is a bit of a red herring because the main focus will be on the mission of the Church into the rest of the century and who will be the best person to lead it at this stage. It could be an African, it could be a South American, but what they will first look at is the mission now and who is the person who can do that. That’s the real challenge.

“They saw Benedict was the right one after John Paul II, and in a way when you look back now, he was kind of the obvious candidate as he had been so close to John Paul II. I don’t know if there are any obvious candidates now. It’s interesting times and a universal Church we are dealing with now. The surprise was the announcement of the retirement but there could be many surprises to come. We are all in a state of waiting now.”

Speaking about Pope Benedict’s decision to retire, Bishop O’Reilly said, “I was surprised that he made the decision at this time. It is a busy time with the Lenten observences in Rome and the Easter ceremonies. Clearly, I suppose, he just felt he couldn’t go on and when you are an older person like that and you have a huge programme, even though it has been much reduced, I suppose he just said ‘I can’t do this’. There was certainly an element of surprise, it really came out of the blue”.

He went on, “He has a great sense of the church. It was a couragous thing to do, to step aside and know that you will no longer be in the limelight. But I think he never really loved the limelight like John Paul II. He was a quieter kind of man, of quieter disposition. I remember when I was living in Rome you would often see him just walking across the square or going into St Peter’s with friends. Then coming into the papacy and you come out onto the balcony and the world is looking at you, from that moment on you are no longer Joseph Ratzinger.”

According to Bishop O’Reilly, Pope Benedict had a special interest in Ireland.

“He really tried with the calling of the bishops to Rome and the special letter to the Irish people. He tried to address the scandal with the child protection issues, apologised and acknowledged the mistakes that were made and asked for forgiveness. He has done all of that and tried to put the Church here on a firmer footing towards addressing what he would call secularism,” he said.

Bishop O’Reilly concluded, “He was special and unique with a huge theological background. He certainly carried on the tradition of John Paul II and his going has been very courageous. He has certainly laid down for the future different kinds of options. It’s a different kind of papacy now.”