Sabbatical Blog 4 - Cardinals

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

I have never seen a Cardinal Archbishop before, let alone been introduced to one. And just to prove the point here I am with the Cardinal Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Christopher Collins. It was on the January 6, 2012, that Pope Benedict XVI announced his appointment to the College of Cardinals; he is the 16th cardinal in Canadian history.

The chance meeting came about because my nephew’s wife, Michelle works as a part time secretary at St Augustine’s Seminary which was celebrating its centenary by hosting a college open day. The Seminary was established in 1913 as the first major seminary built in English-speaking Canada for the training of diocesan priests. For more than eight decades, the seminary has been a renewing source of study and reflection enabling men of faith to mature both in knowledge and commitment. It was interesting to note that the college chapel is modelled on the refectory of Queen’s College Oxford.

The 17^th World Youth Day, July 2002, a Catholic Youth Festival was held in the Seminary’s grounds in 2002. An estimated 400-500,000 young people from all over the world participated in the week-long festival which was attended by Pope John Paul II. It was to be his last World Youth event. He led the Saturday evening vigil and presided over Mass on the Sunday, delivering a homily which focused on entrusting the future of the Church to the youth. A crowd of over 850,000 was in attendance.  

I was introduced to the Cardinal as a reformed minister (I jokingly said we were still good friends). The subject of our conversation centred on Pope Francis, whom we agreed was proving to be a pontiff of surprises. He may be conservative on doctrine but he is the opposite in style. We agreed his grand gestures of humility – carrying his own suitcase, making calls on his mobile, staying in a hostel, washing the feet of prisoners including Muslims, providing food for the homeless endeared him to a wider audience outside the church. On Copacabana beach he attracted 3 million people – perhaps more than World Cup beach viewers. His series of new appointments in the Vatican, removing the old guard and replacing them with more open minded officials was to be welcomed as indeed his rejection of small minded rules and the rule of the Curia. Pope Francis has shown both imagination and resolution for change within his church. Although he is not abandoning traditional teaching he is urging his church to get its priorities in order. He is a Pope reintroducing the essence of Christianity to the world. He is a transforming Pope, of this we both agreed.

As I walked through the seminary I was interested to see on the walls of the cloisters annual photographs of catholic priests ordained to the priesthood, ranging from the multitudes of priests ordained in the 30/40s to the present day. Last year the 2012 photograph revealed two priests had been ordained that year. Despite the popularity of Pope Francis the latest figures from the Vatican show that there are 300,000 fewer nuns and priests in religious orders than there were 40 years ago with a marked decline in Europe, the US and Oceania. In my own church the roll of ministers admitted to the ministry of word and sacrament for the years 2012 – January 2014 was 21, averaging 10 ministers a year to serve the three nations; their average age 40+. As churches face declining numbers they look to new ministry models to make ends meet.

For many years it was accepted that Christianity was all but dead, its foundations destroyed by modern science and rationalism, left behind by the cultural and sexual revolution of the Sixties. The figures seem to bear this out. Church attendance — which stood at around 50 per cent in the middle of the 19th century – had declined to around 12 per cent in 1979, or 5.4 million. Despondent churchmen judge that in an era of materialism and selfishness there were just too many alternative attractions — Sunday shopping, sports fixtures and the relentless secularism. 

But change is afoot.  The dramatic decline in church attendance over the last few decades has nevertheless slowed. Peter Oborne, writing in The Telegraph, January 2012 states in an age of austerity there is still that yearning for faith. Giles Fraser, who famously resigned as the Canon of St Paul’s argues that a hunger for spirituality and meaning lies behind the recent rise in church attendances. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, agrees: "When the material world gets knocked people are forced to think again and that’s when Christianity does have something important to say. The ground is now more fertile for the spread of the Christian message.”

This new hunger for faith has spread into Britain’s cathedrals too. According to Lynda Barley, the head of research at the Archbishops’ Council, attendance at Britain’s 43 cathedrals rose by seven per cent last year, with 15,800 adults and more than 3,000 children attending Sunday service.  

Churches today are also finding new kinds of ways of connecting with the local community; and more than 1.5 million people now use their churches as a base for voluntary work, according to the National Churches Trust.

There are wistful and positive signs that there may well be a return to church going in our changing culture, perhaps not in a traditional sense, but nevertheless churches of the future shaped by the message of the gospel. As seminaries and ministers training colleges close in today's recession-dominated ministry where funds are not as easily available for stipend-dependent ministry, new models and leadership of church life are beginning to emerge. That surely must be encouraging news for Cardinals and the United Reformed Church.

Ray Anglesea

Toronto June 2014