For Pope: A Cool Black Nun?

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Read Time:4 Minute, 59 Second

WHEN I was a boy, around the time Pope Pius XI died, in 1939, I remember my dad saying he could be the next pope if he got the votes. He said there were no rules saying the pope had to come out of the cardinal pool, or be a bishop or priest of some kind; he only had to be a Catholic — male, of course — of good standing in the church, to be elected.

My mother, Flora, normally a kind soul, would tell Elmore Sr., “Shush, you could never in the world be the pope.” It was the only subject I remember them arguing about.

I grew up Catholic, went to Mass every day in grade school and high school; was taught by the Jesuits; spent two and a half years in the Navy during the war; returned, and was graduated from another Jesuit school, the University of Detroit. I even taught catechism in the ’60s, although I just told stories for the most part.

My dad might have been qualified to be pope. He worked for General Motors.

I’ve wondered what papal-type name my dad would have chosen. No doubt it would be one with a zip in the sound of it. My dad was a dude, and I could not see him wearing a miter, that high, pointed hat that’s so popular with bishops, or carrying the gold crosier that indicates he’s the shepherd of his flock, over one billion Catholics.

My dad would have introduced change, brought the church up to date and the clergy out of their traditional raiment, and done away with the smoke signals that indicate whether the cardinals have selected the next pope or are still working on it. Why not pick up the phone and tell us where they stand?

My dad’s brother Urban might have been named for a pope. My only hope is that it wasn’t Urban VI, the last pope to be chosen from outside the College of Cardinals. Urban came along in 1378. He was so unpleasant that French cardinals split off and elected their own rival pope, who excommunicated him. The 14th century must have been a wild time in papal history.

My dad was technically right: the man selected as the next pope need not be a member of the clergy, though he would have to be ordained a priest and the bishop of Rome upon election. The church needs, I believe, someone like John XXIII, whose example of humility opened the door to a fresh way of thinking.

The Vatican is an old boys’ club. Tradition going all the way back to Peter says it’s a man’s job. But wouldn’t a woman, one who isn’t the least bit timid, be interesting in the role? Like a cool black nun who comes to the throne after 30 years doing God’s work with little recognition. She’d be the first pope in heels. Maybe from the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, in Harlem — the real Sister Act. Get a singing, swinging sister to jazz up St. Peter’s Basilica. I guarantee people would tune in.

In my novel “City Primeval,” a female lawyer has framed on her wall a quotation from Charlotte Whitton, who twice was the mayor of Ottawa, in the 1950s and ’60s, that states:

“Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”

Nuns who are friends of mine know this.

POPE BENEDICT XVI resigned because he lacked the strength to continue at his age, 85. I’m a couple of years older, and still banging out novels because I love doing it. Doesn’t Benedict still love being the pope?

What will become of him once he’s free to be himself?

We are told he plans to take it easy for a while at Castel Gandolfo, his summer retreat, and then settle into a four-story convent in Vatican City, previously occupied by cloistered nuns. Maybe get around the ban on pets in the Vatican. Benedict is well-known as a cat lover. Whether he would have to change the litter box is not known.

We don’t know if Benedict plans to advise the new pope on how to maintain his authority, so that factions loyal to each man don’t start duking it out. People get nervous when you have more than one pope.

When Celestine V resigned, some 700 years ago, his successor, Boniface VIII, had him imprisoned as he was about to leave for Greece. Celestine died in captivity in 1296, at the age of 81, but was declared a saint in 1313. So maybe stepping down was worth it.

I doubt Benedict is thinking about canonization, like the pope he followed, John Paul II, who is called “blessed,” which in the Roman Catholic Church is the first step toward sainthood. He’s probably not thinking about anything but retirement, a chance to pray all day and read the paper.

But people are asking: What if he gets his second wind?

I think my dad would wonder. I can hear him — presumed now to be in heaven — say to my mother, as he hands her a bourbon on the rocks with a twist, my mother never having had more than one:

“You see, we’re gonna have two popes at the same time — both infallible — and you don’t think there’s gonna be trouble?”

You know how she answers.

My mom tells him, “Shush.”

A writer of many novels, including, most recently, “Raylan,” and of short stories and screenplays.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Cardinal O’Malley, seen by some as contender, says no one goes to conclave with papal hopes

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Read Time:1 Minute, 39 Second

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, whose name has surfaced among some Italian Vatican-watchers as a possible candidate to be the next pope, told the faithful gathered at a Mass today that no cardinal goes to the conclave with the ambition of being pope.

“In these days there will be endless speculation about candidates and outcomes. I assure you no cardinal goes into the conclave with the ambition of being chosen for this overwhelming responsibility,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley presided at the noon Mass at the archdiocese’s Pastoral Center in Braintree. He is expected to leave for Rome soon, where he will be part of the conclave that will choose the next pope. About 200 people attended, listening and sometimes laughing at the wit of O’Malley’s homily.

O’Malley said of Pope Benedict XVI, who is taking the unusual step of resigning his position, that “I am saddened at the prospect of losing his eloquent clarity at preaching the Gospel to us.”

The Globe reported earlier this week that there was a growing buzz about O’Malley among the Vatican-watchers.

Asked at a news conference last week about whether he would be interested in the job, O’Malley said with a laugh, “I haven’t lost any sleep about it, and I have bought a round-trip ticket, so I’m counting on coming home.”

Asked if he wanted to be pope, O’Malley said, “I don’t think that it’s anything that I would aspire to. … It’s a very, very challenging position. It’s a very lonely position. It’s a very diffcult task, but we’re there as cardinals to pray and encourage each other, knowing that someone needs to do it and hopefully we will be able to serve what God’s will is.”

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Papal resignation linked to inquiry into ‘Vatican gay officials’, says paper

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Pope's staff decline to confirm or deny La Repubblica claims linking 'Vatileaks' affair and discovery of 'blackmailed gay clergy'

A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom – the report said – were being blackmailed by outsiders.

The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.

The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign – the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair.

Last May Pope Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with having stolen and leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting.

According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising "two volumes of almost 300 pages – bound in red" had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope's successor upon his election.

The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were "united by sexual orientation".

In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some Vatican officials had been subject to "external influence" from laymen with whom they had links of a "worldly nature". The paper said this was a clear reference to blackmail.

It quoted a source "very close to those who wrote [the cardinal's report]" as saying: "Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments."

The seventh enjoins against theft. The sixth forbids adultery, but is linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts.

La Repubblica said the cardinals' report identified a series of meeting places in and around Rome. They included a villa outside the Italian capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian archbishop.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: "Neither the cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations that are made about this."

He added that interpretations of the report were creating "a tension that is the opposite of what the pope and the church want" in the approach to the conclave of cardinals that will elect Benedict's successor. Another Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, alluded to the dossier soon after the pope announced his resignation on 11 February, describing its contents as "disturbing".

The three-man commission of inquiry into the Vatileaks affair was headed by a Spanish cardinal, Julián Herranz. He was assisted by Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, a former archbishop of Palermo, and the Slovak cardinal Jozef Tomko, who once headed the Vatican's department for missionaries.

Pope Benedict has said he will stand down at the end of this month; the first pope to resign voluntarily since Celestine V more than seven centuries ago. Since announcing his departure he has twice apparently referred to machinations inside the Vatican, saying that divisions "mar the face of the church", and warned against "the temptations of power".

La Repubblica's report was the latest in a string of claims that a gay network exists in the Vatican. In 2007 a senior official was suspended from the congregation, or department, for the priesthood, after he was filmed in a "sting" organised by an Italian television programme while apparently making sexual overtures to a younger man.

In 2010 a chorister was dismissed for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting. A few months later a weekly news magazine used hidden cameras to record priests visiting gay clubs and bars and having sex.

The Vatican does not condemn homosexuals. But it teaches that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered". Pope Benedict has barred sexually active gay men from studying for the priesthood.

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Nigeria: Beyond the Papal Exit

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Read Time:2 Minute, 8 Second

THE Catholic Church and indeed the world are coming to grips with the fact that Pope Benedict XVI will exit the Papacy by the end of February.

The impact of the rare decision on the future of the Papacy, the 1.5 billion people the Pope leads and the entire global community which his words and actions affect remains a matter of conjectures.

Even without such mounting concerns as nuclear armaments and authoritarian rules, the Papacy remains one of the most powerful social, political, and religious institutions in the world. The position is too entrenched to change with a new man in the saddle.

At 85, the Pope shocked the world with news of his retirement on grounds of failing strength to perform his papal duties.

By this action, Pope Benedict XVI followed after Pope Benedict IX, 1045 AD, Pope John XVII, Pope Gregory VI 1046 AD, Pope Celestine V, 1294 AD and Pope Gregory XII 1415 AD. The departure of the Pope also appeals to the moral hubris of civil politicians who see public service as a terminal enterprise.

We commend Pope Benedict XVI and wish him well in his deserved rest. He has played his part in the growth and development of the Catholic Church and faith in God.

His place in history is guaranteed, regardless of whatever facts that may surface about his leadership as the Vicar of Christ, one of the Pope's other numerous titles.

What is paramount now is who succeeds the Pope and the vision he brings to the Papacy.

The growing and embarrassing revelations of paedophile among the priests, and his butler's leakage of financial misdeeds in the Vatican seriously troubled Pope Benedict XVI and may have added emotional stress to the Pontiff.

It is doubtful if the exit of Pope Benedict XVI would douse attacks on the Catholic Church and on the Papacy.

We live in a world that has increasingly become scientific and secularised and the Catholic Church, which ruled the world for centuries, will remain a subject of curiosity, so will be the lifestyle of its priests.

The forces of liberalism feel offended by the haughty and puritanical stance of the Church – they would not relent in their assault on the Catholic Church, if only to weaken its authority on moral issues.

We support the views that an African or Asian should be the next Pope, considering that only these parts still pursue the moral traditions that sustain humanity. A Pope of these origins would also align with the Church's universality.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Pope Considers New Conclave Rules, Date Uncertain

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Read Time:2 Minute, 45 Second

Pope Benedict XVI may enact a new law governing the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope amid continued uncertainty over when the voting can begin.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Wednesday that he didn’t know for sure if the new law under consideration would address the timing of the conclave following Benedict’s Feb. 28 resignation. He said it would contain some “clarifications” on certain points. But given the crush of interest surrounding the conclave date, it seems only natural it might clarify the issue.

The current law says cardinals should wait 15 days after the papacy becomes vacant before launching a conclave to allow all eligible cardinals to arrive in Rome, making March 15 the presumed start. That delay, however, assumed a papal death and funeral. In this case, the cardinals already know that this pontificate will end Feb. 28 and can get to Rome in plenty of time.

Some canonists and scholars have said the current rules allow for some wiggle room on the 15-day wait given that most if not all the cardinals will already be in Rome for Benedict’s final general audience Feb. 27 and his farewell meeting with cardinals on Feb. 28.

“The document says that the cardinals present in Rome must wait 15 days for the arrival of the others,” noted Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library. “That can mean that if the cardinals all arrive before the 15 days there is no need to wait. The phrase ‘must wait’ doesn’t say that you can’t start before 15 days.”

However, leading U.S. canonist Edward Peters, an adviser to the Vatican high court, welcomed word that the pope himself might intervene.

“Advancing the conclave start-date would make obvious good sense, but actually doing so on anything less than express papal authority raises serious canonical and even ecclesiological problems,” he said on his blog.

The date of the conclave’s start is important because Holy Week begins March 24, with Palm Sunday Mass followed by Easter Sunday on March 31. In order to have a new pope in place in time for the most solemn liturgical period on the church calendar, he would need to be installed by Sunday, March 17, because of the strong tradition to hold installation Mass on a Sunday. Given the tight time-frame, speculation has mounted that some arrangement would be made to start the conclave on March 10 or thereabouts, earlier than a strict reading of the law would allow.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the No. 1 issue on the agenda is when the conclave would start.

Speaking Tuesday on his radio show on Sirius XM’s “The Catholic Channel,” Dolan said most cardinals would prefer to have a conclave sooner rather than later to avoid a long vacancy in the papacy.

“On the other hand you don’t want to rush it. We need prayer. We need to get to know one another. We need time to let Benedict’s departure sink in,” he said. “So we’re going to need the virtue of prudence here.”

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Pope Benedict to earn $3,340 retirement benefit per month

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Pope Benedict XVI who announced his resignation from office with effect from February 28  will be paid a pension of 2,500 euros a month, or about $3,340 according to several Italian media outlets, which quoted the amount of the pension usually paid to bishops.

The head of the Catholic Church does not officially have an income and doesn’t really get paid, the Vatican has said repeatedly in response to inquiries from the press over the years, adding that “he has his every need provided for by the Holy See”.

The Italian press however said, “but we know what Benedict will make once he relinquishes the papacy on Feb. 28. He will be paid a pension of 2,500 euros a month, or about $3,340.

There is no precedent for a papal pension. The last one to resign was in 1415; everybody else died in office but there are cases of retired bishops, and the pope is officially also the bishop of Rome.

The Vatican press office did not confirm the amount, but a spokesperson said that the pope’s needs, as well as those of whatever staff he might choose to retain in the Vatican monastery he is retiring to, “will be met.”

The 86-year-old Joseph Ratzinger plans to live out his days in prayer and meditation at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery. But first, he will spend the initial months after his abdication at the Castel Gandolfo papal residence, outside of Rome, as the monastery undergoes renewals.

He will not bring much with him from his eight years as pope, except for some books, letters, his piano and personal objects, according to a report by Italian site TGcom. His vast library and notes will be kept in the Vatican but will not be available to the public. Ratzinger himself will need to make a formal request with the Vatican library in order to consult them.

As for what the pope will do in the final days of his pontificate, they are going to be a preview of the rest of his life. The Vatican said he plans to spend most of this week in meditation, until Saturday, accompanied by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, a department that focuses on fostering the relationship of the Catholic Church with different cultures.

Pope’s resignation deepens doubt, despondency for Italians

Meanwhile nine days after the Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation from office, over his failing health, controversy had continued to trail the event.

Pope Benedict’s shock resignation is said to have robbed Italians of the one element of certainty in a time of deep doubt, with the country beset by graft scandals and heading for an election that will not bring the radical change so many crave.

The pontiff is believed to be the one stable element for Roman Catholic Italians in a modern state that has become a byword for political instability and flawed politicians. All that changed since Benedict announced he would be the first pontiff in 700 years to resign, causing alarm and despondency among many faithful in a country whose history has been shaped by the presence of the headquarters of the Church for 2,000 years.

“We are in a moment of social, ideological and cultural crisis and in a moment like that it is completely wrong for him to leave,” said Emanuele Vitale, 22, a Sicilian student who joined around 100,000 people packed into St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for one of Benedict’s last appearances before his resignation on February 28.

Another person in the square, pensioner Antonio Mingrone, 68, said: “It is unsettling. At a time when there are all these political conflicts and an economic crisis, it is one more thing weighing on our minds.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, himself a devout Catholic, referred to the “disorientation” of Italians over the pope’s decision. “It seems like an epoch is changing on both sides of the Tiber and we feel robbed of points of reference.”

Massimo Franco, a leading Italian political commentator and author of several books on the Vatican, told Reuters: “The resignation adds instability to instability. The Church which was a source of stability is now a major source of instability.

“Today the Vatican is a sort of mirror of Italy,” Franco said. “Before, it was the opposite. Now there is a chaotic Italy and chaotic Vatican.”

Italians will vote next Sunday and Monday in an election whose outcome is still unpredictable at a time when the country desperately needs firm and decisive government to address a major recession, stagnant growth and soaring unemployment.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI is nearly blind in one eye

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Pope Benedict XVI is nearly blind in one eye and was advised by his doctor to limit air travel because of his high blood pressure, the website Vatican Insider reported on Wednesday.
 
The report also said the 85-year-old pontiff often has problems sleeping and has fallen out of bed several times in recent years on foreign trips, making him tired in public appearances.
 
The report was based on indiscretions from papal aides that Vatican affairs specialist Marco Tosatti said he had promised to keep secret until the end of the pontificate on February 28.
 
"The picture is of a progressive deterioration of his health and his energy — a context that fully justifies the difficult decision that the pope has taken," Tosatti wrote after the pope said he would step down due to old age.
 
The report cited the pope's doctor Patrizio Polisca saying two years ago that Benedict's blood pressure was having "major jumps" and insisting that he spend "as little time as possible in a plane because of the dangers".
 
Tosatti added that Benedict had been expressly advised not to make the transatlantic flight to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day later this year.
 
In his report, Tosatti also said the pope could "almost no longer see" out of his left eye and therefore had to be helped up and down steps.
 
The report said Benedict even began using a walking stick to get around his own residence last year because his left hip and knee were hurting.
 
The Vatican last week revealed the pope had hit his head and bled during a trip to Mexico last year and underwent surgery three months ago to replace the batteries in a pacemaker he was fitted with while he was still a cardinal.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Cardinal O’Malley in “front row” as contender for pope

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Read Time:3 Minute, 14 Second

HIGH PRAISE: Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley has been named as a possibility to replace Pope Benedict XVI.

Vatican watchers buzzing over next month’s expected papal conclave say Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s name could emerge after the church’s famed white smoke clears, a long-considered pontiff impossibility experts now believe could be reality as concerns over an American pope subside and the Hub archbishop’s star rises.

The chatter about O’Malley kicked into widespread debate yesterday after John L. Allen Jr., a highly respected Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, wrote in a blog post that the cardinal’s name has been making the rounds in the Italian press, both in praise of his handling of the clergy sex-abuse scandal and his growing profile as a “prominent” non-European papal contender.

It’s made the notion of an American pope — long considered implausible given the country’s superpower status — now “thinkable,” said Allen, who pointed to Pope Benedict XVI’s Feb. 28 send-off as the real test of traction when gathering cardinals begin hashing out their favorites.

“For every major crisis that seems to pop up as a front-burner issue, Cardinal Sean brings some real gifts,” said Ernest Collamati, chairman of philosophy and religious studies at Regis College.

“His appearance is one of a man of simple habit,” Collamati added, noting that in light of the politicking that dominates the Holy See and scandals surrounding the Vatican Bank and church abuse crisis, “this might appear to be the kind of medicine needed. … And he has worked with immigrant communities as well. He would have a real feel for cultural diversity.”

O’Malley declined comment through an archdiocese spokeswoman, who referred a Herald reporter to comments he made last week at a press conference, where he said he wasn’t interested in the post.

That in itself could be a benefit, theologians said.

“There are 117 cardinals, and 116 of them want to be pope. I would say the only one that doesn’t want to be pope is Sean O’Malley,” said Thomas Groome, chair of the Department of Religious Education at Boston College. “I don’t think he would be looking for the trappings of power. I think the guys that are looking for it won’t get it — at least that’s the tradition — and the ones who aren’t looking for it are more likely.

“And that,” he said, “would put Sean in the front row.”

O’Malley’s work amid the clergy sex abuse scandal is perhaps his biggest draw, after he addressed crises in Fall River, Palm Beach, Fla., and Boston, where many lauded him in the wake of Cardinal Bernard Law’s mishandling of abuse claims. O’Malley then gained further renown on the international stage when he was tabbed to address the scandal’s explosion in Ireland.

“If one wanted to make a statement in regards to sexual abuse, he would be the ideal candidate,” said Francis Fiorenza, chairman of Catholic theological studies at Harvard University.

But O’Malley’s work also hasn’t come without criticism, including from victims advocate, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which chastised the Hub prelate for what they called the slow and “incomplete” release of names of accused priests.

“He gets an A-plus for symbolism,” said David Clohessy, director of SNAP. “But most people realize that he’s done very little with job one, and job one is making kids safer.”

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Shall I Tell the Pope? (A Short Story)

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Read Time:25 Minute, 32 Second

The first time Father Paul asked me to follow him to Bishop Shanahan Lodge after Sunday Mass, my right leg entangled with my left and I tripped. He stretched his long arms and caught me before I could reach the red soil of Nnobi. A wide smile on his face wiped off my embarrassment. As we made our way to the brick rectory, we passed what looked like a guard of honor mounted by lilies and hibiscus flowers. The scent of spring all around us made me feel I was on the road to Zion. It was soothing to my restless soul. The designers of the church's walkway must have had a moment like this in mind.

Paul had always appeared angelic in my eyes. But that day, he looked set for rapture. I took two quick steps to keep up with one step of his long legs. His head brushed the tips of the pine trees along the walkway and, for the first time, I marveled at his height. His cassock swung to the quiet jingle of the evening wind. Wild aroma of mango engulfed us the way holy spirit does in Lent. From a distance, the bees buzzed, the crickets chirped, the birds sang melodious tones and colorful male lizards scuttled across the yard in pursuit of dull females. I had my bible in my left armpit, but it was under my right arm that I was sweating.
 
“Isn’t it a glorious day?” Paul asked.
The way he said it told me he was just trying to make conversation.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“God is good,” he said
“All the time,” I answered, straight from the prayer book.
“Blessed is the Holy and undivided Trinity.”
“Now and forever.”
When not sure what to say, I always relied on that phrase. The race to heaven was always about short-changing now in order to secure forever.
“These wonderful creatures of God are meant to fill the heart of the faithful,” Paul said, pointing at a dozen tropical trees around us.
“Yes, they are,” I said. My eyes followed his hands up a guava tree nearby and stopped at the site of a wasps’ nest. For a moment I could not blink.
 
           
It was men like Paul that made me join the convent at the age of sixteen. I still remembered how my Mama cried of joy the day I told her. Mama felt blessed that her daughter had decided to be a bride of Christ. It seemed like a long time ago, but it had only been six years. Papa wasn't thrilled. Or maybe he just did not show it. After following the footsteps of his father to be the bell ringer at St. James, I was sure inside him there was joy that his only daughter had chosen to enroll in the ultimate service of the Lord.
 
It was men like Paul who won me over. Their holiness, their grace, and their sense of purpose were such a magnetic force I could not escape. Over the years, because of my father's job at St. James, I had the privilege of meeting many of them. I shook their soft hands in reverence. I wanted to breathe in the air they breathed out. At age ten, I stole a glance underneath their albs when they sat down. I saw only pants. I was disappointed that angels did not reside inside the vestment. As I grew older, I became fascinated with rubbing my finger across their albs, for blessings and healings.
 
I remembered all this as Paul opened the door to his mighty home. He held the door for me to walk in. He had an eternal smile on his face – the kind of smile that made one feel the catechism was always right. The colonial rectory was bigger than it looked from outside. Its roof was built high up as if there was an attempt to take it up to the stars. A statue of Jesus and those of the apostles were lined across the stairways that led to the living area. Pictures of saints and angels were on the walls of the dining area. At the peak was the picture of the Pope.
 
Before I sat down, I glanced through the pictures of men who over the years had Paul's job. It was an impressive collection of servants of the Lord, arranged in chronological order. It started with white men in black and white pictures to white men in colored photographs. And then down to black men like Paul. Theirs was arranged on a different row. A lower row. For the first time, I saw the photograph of John Cross Anyogu, the first priest ordained at Igbariam Seminary. His seminary was the same school that produced Paul. Looking at the pictures, it struck me that in a forest of men of vestment, Paul was as distinct as okazi leaf.
 
“So when did you know you wanted to be a priest?” I asked Paul as we sat down to share a bottle of Coca Cola.
“It was at the warfront,” he said.
“You fought in the war?” He looked too young.
“I just finished elementary school when the Biafran war started,” he said. “But I was well built to carry a gun. So I got conscripted.”
“That was it?”
“That was how I became a soldier at twelve.”
“Didn’t you show them your birth certificate?”
“Sister!”
“Never mind. I forgot. Those were back in the days.”
“Even if you had one, nobody would care to look at it. As long as you can carry that wood carved in the shape of a gun, you are in.”
“The we-owe-you-a-gun wood?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill anybody?”
“With the wooden gun?”
“Were you wounded?
“I escaped unscratched.”
“How did you survive the war unscratched?
“I was lucky to be unscratched. But nobody survives a war unscathed.”
I paused and gave that a long thought.
“So how did God touch you?” I asked.
“He used the things I saw at war,” he said. “I went in a boy and came out a man.”
 
I shrugged. I watched Paul’s slackened face and felt his pain. He did not want to talk more about it. Instead he talked about life in the Lord. He was deep, inspiring, and open. At a point, he was confessional. He let me see his fears and his insecurities. His intellectual curiosity mirrored mine in so many regards. It strengthened me in ways I didn't know were possible.
 
During subsequent visits, I could discuss a wide range of topics both of the church and of the outside world with Paul. He often talked about the documents of Vatican II and how the continuing changes in the condition of our time required continuous review of church positions. His favorite books were St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica and Pascal's Wager.
 
“So do you believe in destiny?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Were you destined to be a priest or was it an accident of fate?”
“It was the will of God.”
“So God designed a path for you that took you to war as a child and exposed you to atrocities that brought you to Him?”
“I guess you can say that.”
“Just like our Lord saw Judas and picked him as an apostle even when He knew Judas would betray Him?”
“Judas could have chosen a different path.”
“If he did, who would have fulfilled what was written?”
“Any of the apostles could have fallen.”
“And if none fell,” I asked.
“Some men always fall.”
“I think Judas had no choice in the matter.”
“He was born to betray Christ, you think?”
“Yes. And I wonder why he was punished for fulfilling what he was born to accomplish.”
“You think too much,” Paul said after a long pause.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I sometime think, to everyone his own.”
“But you cannot for our mission is to make sure everyone comes to our own.”
“Of course.”
“Maybe I should tell you something a smart philosopher once said – twenty years from now, we will regret not the things we did but the things we did not do.”
 
Paul stimulating effect on me was similar to what pepper filled yam porridge had on a nursing mother. He viewed the destruction in 1901 of the Arochukwu oracle called "Long Juju" as the beginning of Igbo Christendom.
“The Igbo got it half right,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Paul asked.
“They believed in one universal God.”
“Yes, but they did not know Jesus.”
“They had their interceders, too. Like Long Juju, Ogwugwu and Udo.”
“But they cannot get to that God except through Jesus.”
“Of course.”
 
By the fourth visit, Paul was sitting closer to me and no more on the opposite side of the table. Even though Paul had male and female servants at the rectory, I was beginning to do his laundry for him. He said his clothes felt better on his body when I washed them. My invitation to visit had become an open one.
 
"Sister Philomena," Paul said to me as he walked me out the fourth time, "come around anytime it pleases you." His infinite welcome was like sacrament. In no time, I began to feel as if I was having communion with the saints. I reigned with Paul. That was when my trouble with Sister Ruth began.
 
At first, I thought she was just jealous of my close association with Paul. So, I prayed for her. I asked Jesus to help her accept that I was the chosen one. I asked Jesus to find her an angel of her own. I tried not to gloat even when I felt like I was walking in harmony with Cherubim and Seraphs. Then she began to conspire with other sisters against me. When I approached them, they became silent. When I walked past, they spoke in whispers. One day, I confronted Sister Ruth.
 
“What’s infuriating you?” I asked her.
“What?” Sister Ruth asked.
“Why are you staying away from me as if I am a stinging ant?”
“I don’t know what you’re taking about.”
“We used to talk.”
“So?”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I do anything wrong to you?”
“No.”
“If I did, forgive me,” I said.
I was about to walk away when Sister Ruth called me. It was the first time she was calling my name in a long time. It sounded strange. Not like it sounded when Paul called my name.
“Do you believe in yourself or in God?” Sister Ruth asked.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you believe in God or in yourself?” Sister Ruth rephrased.
“I believe in both.”
“You cannot believe in both.”
“Why?”
“Because, like all mortals, you’re the opposite of God,” Sister Ruth said.
I gave her words a thought. I did not make sense to me.
“I don’t know what this is all about,” I said.
“One day you will,” Sister Ruth said.
 
The more I felt isolated, the closer I leaned on Paul. I reminded myself of what my grandfather used to say: "When an enemy kills a buffalo, his opponent calls it a sheep."
Sister Ruth and I got to Immaculate Heart of Mary Convent in Amakwa-Ozubulu the same day. We did everything together. We supported each other during Novitiate. When we left the convent, we both ended up at St James Catholic Church, Nnobi. In the past two years, Sister Ruth had a cordial relationship with Paul's predecessor. During that period, I was happy for her. She used to tell us how great it was to be close to a sanctified representative of the Lord. When Paul first arrived, she was the sister assigned to him.
 
For some reasons undisclosed, Paul did not like her. I, then, became her replacement.
One day, Mother Superior called me into her office. "You know you are young and bright," she began. "But I hope you know also that there are a lot of things you still do not know."  It was vintage Mother Superior. She was always concise, direct, and most often a parable churner, like Agbala, the priestess. "Whatever you do, don't pick your eyes with things meant for picking the ears."
"Why are you saying that?" I asked.
"Because the throat that eats everything either falls into the trap of the living or of the dead. And a rat that fails to run fast risks its tail being burnt," Mother Superior said.
 
Mother Superior was old and tired but wise. Lines of wrinkles gave her face an exotic look. The stories of her fierce past and accomplishments proved to us that she was now a shadow of her former self. Nobody we knew had been in the presence of the Holy Father but her. In her office wall hung an enlarged picture of her meeting the Pope. Though that Pope had since died, we knew that a Pope is a Pope. The changes in the church had left her disillusioned, but she hid her displeasure most of the time. All the sisters knew that she was just marking time, waiting for the Lord to call her.
 
I once asked her if the absolution of sins was permanent. And if permanent, could it be automated. Mother Superior looked at me with her piercing eyes and said, "Despite what you might have heard, an inquisitive fellow sometimes misses her way too." For a great Mother in the Lord that she was, on her mahogany desk was this plaque with an Igbo proverb that said, “A palm wine tapper does not reveal all that he sees on top of a palm tree.” It always made me wonder what Mother Superior knew that she was not telling.
I had no difficulty during my Novitiate. I took the vows of chastity and of poverty with no reservation. I accepted the name Philomena because my commitment to Lord's service was going to mirror those of Sisters de Louredes and Philomena, who lived a life of prayer, seclusion, and mortification with the lepers of Ogoja. I first deviated when I finished at the convent and decided to join the Daughters of Divine Love.
 
With Paul, another new feeling developed. It was something I had not felt before. In his presence, goose pimples crept across my belly. His zeal gradually smashed my resistance. It took weeks but, somehow, he freed me from my subservient training at the convent. He encouraged me to let my thoughts explore wide horizons. At first, it was scary. With his help, I began to enjoy it.
 
Paul was transferred to another parish weeks after Sister Ruth began to despise me openly. When Paul broke the news to me he said he would miss me. I cried, but I accepted that the Lord who brought him also took him and, if it was the wish of the Lord, he would bring another.
 
Before Paul left, we had a party for him. Members of the parish who all loved him came and showed their appreciation for the wonderful work he did in the parish and the surrounding community. His outreach program helped lessen the tension between the church and the pagan population around us. It was an emotional sendoff for everyone, especially me. He received numerous gifts, some of which he gave out to sisters; I got a gold plated bible.
 
When Paul left, I wrote him several times before he was sent to Rome for his Masters degree in theology. In Rome, Paul joined the order of the Jesuit.
Paul stopped writing.
 
Paul’s exit did not improve my relationship with Sister Ruth. Either she had gone far into her clique or I had gone into myself. I began to feel like a nun for sale. I began to wonder who would buy me and of what use I would be? I only knew how to weed and water, how to plant and pray, and nothing of use in the streets of the world. I had no doubt that I would be on sale for a very long time.
 
One summer day, Mother Superior called me into her office.
"Sister Philomena," she said in a coarse voice, "I have selected you to go to America to further your studies.”
I was surprised.
“You have been granted a scholarship to study Modern European languages at Boston College.”
“What are modern European languages?” I asked.
“You will learn Spanish, French and German,” Mother Superior said.
“Eh.”
 “You are a bright woman and I want you to go out there and learn new things. When you come back, I want you to help improve the lot of our people."
I was thrilled to be leaving behind the conflicting emotions of an old land where the new church was putting roots. I held strong that vow I made to Mother Superior to go home and make things better.
***
 
Fall had peaked. Crispy cold loitered around the compound of St. Steven’s church in Dorchester, Boston. Star shaped leaves of Sweetgum tree had turned purple, orange and yellow. At another end, the oval red Maple tree had turned into a burning bush.
“These trees are dresses in beautiful outfits with nowhere to go,” commented the first church member that came out of the church as soon as mass ended.
A group of Igbo women wearing sky-touching head gears and brightly colored wrapper streamed out of the stone-build church. Men in three piece suits, some in overflowing gowns, with red and black hat followed. Little children wearing the latest from Gap and Children Places ran into the parking lot filled with luxury foreign cars.
 
I have observed that on Sundays they came out to see God in their best.  As I had done in the last three years, I joined other sisters at the exit to greet the visiting priests who had said the Mass. There were three of them and they came from Europe.
 
I shook each hand, just as I did when I was a kid. The penance of the priest had not left my psyche. I was surprised to notice a familiar face hidden by well-groomed, bushy sideburns. I looked deeper but was not sure who he was.
"Rev Paul?" I asked, humbly.
"Yes, who am I greeting?" he said in Igbo. Then, he quickly recalled. He pulled me close to him and said, "Oh, my sister, how are you doing?"
 
It was a great surprise. That evening, I went on a holy pilgrimage. I visited Paul at his cozy lodge in Brighton. It was a little apartment at one of Boston College's guest houses. I was itching for an embrace and he gave me a long one. My emotion was pumping. In his arms, I felt I might explode. As our hearts beat in sync, my passion boiled over. He used his tender palm to caress my face. It sent a blazing sensation across my spine.
A belt of disarming weakness circled my stomach. It gulped down my strength in a way I never before imagined. Though my eyes were shut, an image of paradise began to revolve in my mind. His words became whispers in my ears.
 
"My body is sanctified," he said. "Your body is saved for the glorification of the Lord through his closest servants on earth."
 
It was delightful — the pounding heart, the eternal scent of his neck, and the overpowering draw of his cassock. As his cuddle became warmer and warmer, my pleasure expanded outside of my body. My heart began to melt like cold New England snow enveloped by a superheated air. My memories jostled around for treasures more delightful but knew nothing. Whipped clear of my soul was any sense of betrayal of a vow. In its place was a celestial sense of service and obedience. I was overcome by impotence. At the moment of doubt I recalled that great saying of his; that twenty years from now I would regret not the things I did but the things I did not do.
 
He was patient. He was gentle. His soft hands moved slowly. His fingers crawled on my body as if I was a chain of rosary. I thawed from within. His passion moistened my lips. My trembling veins were soaked in his dedication. From my eyes dripped tears of temptation untouched. The nibbling sound of his lips damped my thighs. As he began to tickle my nipples, I began to shake. My strangulation had begun.
 
His whispers became reckless. "Blessed Virgin Mary," he called me. "Caritas Christ urget nos," he said under heavy breath.
The temple of my yearning reached its first climax. I grasped for breath. I heard myself saying in Spanish, "Yo, la Peor de Toda."
 
He was sweet even as he sucked my fingers. He squeezed my breasts so violently that it poured ecstasy across my body. He gnawed on my ear lobes. It heightened my appetite just in time for the last of my habit to drop on the floor. A picture of scintillation flashed across his face as he looked at my skin without a piece of cloth on. Intermittently, he pastured at my nipples and grazed at the wilderness of my thighs. He removed my Mercy cross and my ring and dropped them on the side table. He mumbled some inaudible words. In my ears, they sounded like private baptism.
 
I helped him yank his cassock off his neck. I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. His skin was smooth and shiny. Tempest of sweat swelled around his chest. A hailstone of desire held my body at ransom. He crawled around me, incensing every part of my body with his tongue. Like a silent river suddenly dammed, I busted into Latin rhythm.
Agnus dei,
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Miserere nobis
 
I closed my eyes. With both hands, he held me a little up as if I was a censer. While his left held onto my chain, the right swung me forward. He swung to and fro for a deep and universal diffusion of the sweet odor of his incense. Invisible smoke of fragrant odor enveloped us and proclaimed my spirit of devotion. I felt my body levitating. I did not know when he sprinkled his holy water. I only saw him make the sign of the cross after he cooed, "I praise you. I bless you. I adore you. I glorified you. I thank you. You're truly great. You will be exalted."
 
For a long time, he took complete dominion over me. I quaked as consuming fire ate me up. My body vibrated like a rope perched on by a mighty eagle. I glowed from ear to ear. The only response I could give was a loud, "Hosanna in excelsis." I swooned. I slumbered.
 
And Mass was over.
****
 
I saw Paul two more times before he returned to Europe. When he left, I felt empty like a balloon sucked dry of its air. I stayed up most nights querying myself on my twin-sized bed. It was hard to control my mind.
 
In his first email, he introduced me to Teresa de Avila. He sent me this quote from her autobiography:
“I saw close to me an angel in bodily form… not very large, but small; very beautiful, his face a flame, he must have been one of the highest angels…In his hand I saw a golden dart, long, the tip red with fire. This dart entered my heart many times and reached my insides; in drawing out the dart it seemed he was taking my insides with it; he left me all inflamed in great love for God. The pain was so deep that it made me moan; and it was so excessive the sweetness this unbearable pain plunged me into, that there was no way for me to stop, nor was the soul satisfied with any less than God himself.” Reading it made me wet.
 
He also talked about Boston as the completion of the unfinished symphony of Nnobi. It made me flashback. I remembered Sister Ruth. I remembered her five letters to me, none of which I had answered. I read them again and replied to her. I told her that I had forgiven her for being mean to me during my last days at St James Catholic Church. Then I told her that I met Paul in Boston. I did not tell her the forbidden story.
 
Two weeks later, I got this email from Sister Ruth titled, My Everlasting Wound, that made me cry for hours.
 
Dear Sister Philomena,

I bring you Calvary love in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I agree with you that 1 Corinthians 13. 4-7 should guide us always in things that pertain to love. I was trying to be patient but my pain could not let me. I was trying to be kind but I could only achieve it by showing repulsion toward you. I was not trying to be envious; rather, I was searching for a way to bring the truth to you. I was overwhelmed by my resentment for Paul that I could not bear the simplest thing.

Remember that I was assigned to help him settle in. He made sexual advances, and I pushed him away. He spoke of his body being sanctified. He wanted me to succumb as a show of obedience to the will of God. Because I have heard about priests like him, I refused.

One day he overpowered me and raped me. I was full of shame that I did not tell anyone. His sympathy line was that young boys like him, raised in warfronts, were turned to animals by the war. He said things he saw were still untold. He said that tried as he could, once the genie is out, it is hard to put back in, even when covered with cassock.

I discovered that I was pregnant. I told him and he arranged for me to have an abortion. I was devastated after. I resented him. I later told Mother Superior who wrote a petition for his transfer.

I did not want you to suffer the same fate, but I did not know how to tell you. I am sorry for the way I behaved. Forgive me. The Sister Ruth that you saw in those last days was not the same sister you knew at the Convent. The sister had walked into Paul's parsonage and came out without her virginity and her dignity.

Each day, I pray not to face eternal damnation for all the bad ills Paul brought on my soul. Till today, I regretted why I did not run away the first time he fondled my breasts. He destroyed me much more than the damage I incurred when I learned that I was an illegitimate daughter of my father's sister.

What I could not stand most was going into the confession booth to confess to him. It was my heaviest trauma. I was confessing to a man who confessed to me that he used to visit prostitutes in Onitsha but stopped when AIDS outbreak became widespread. That was when he began to abuse sisters.

I make these unpleasant disclosures for you to know that I did not despise you; but, rather, the devil was luring you. I could not fight back because I was only one woman, and I have no right of dissent. I also wanted to avoid a scandal because I will be the one to be dismissed and disgraced. And you know that I have no home to go back to.

I have returned to a life of prayer and contemplation. Please pray for me and ask for forgiveness on my behalf.

Yours faithfully,
Sister Ruth.
 
I read Sister Ruth's email thrice and each time I cried as if I was reading it for the very first time. For strength, I recited Hail Mary:
 
I gathered my strength and drafted three different emails to Paul in quick successions. I did not sign my name on any of the drafts. Instead, I signed them in the name of Sisters of the Cross. Thereafter, I recited the prayer after rosary.
 
I had not yet sent any of the drafts out. Though the contents of the emails were different, the three had the same title:  Shall I Tell the Pope?
 
(Shall I Tell the Pope is part of Okonkwo’s upcoming collection of stories, Tomorrow is Pregnant. It was originally published by Kwenu.com as The Leavening of Sister Philomena)

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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UK: Conmen posing as priests to rob homes

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Read Time:1 Minute, 19 Second

FRAUDSTERS posing as priests collecting for charity have been targeting householders. Residents in Newbridge raised the alarm after being targeted in the scam.

The Gardaí caught a bloke strolling around Newbridge, Co. Kildare, wearing a collar and looking for money from good Samaritans, even though he isn’t a priest at all.

It’s one of the oldest scams in the book, but one man in Newbridge has had his collar felt after he took to the streets knocking door-to-door looking for money, all while dressing up like a priest. The unholy cheek of him.

Newbridge Gardaí have issued a warning to locals not to give money to callers who are collecting door-to-door with sponsorship cards unless they actually know them.

“It had been going on since Tuesday, March 20,” said Sgt Seamus Rothwell. “He was calling house-to-house pretending to be a priest with a sponsorship card looking for lines.

“We’re passing out advice that unless you know the person at the door don’t give them any money. He could have made off with a lot of money as people are very generous, but we caught up with him. He is not a priest at all and he wasn’t collecting for charity.”

A file is currently being prepared for the DPP. If the lad ends up going to jail he can at least  take solace in the fact that God is on his side… well, maybe he's not.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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