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There has been little change in the composition of the College of Cardinals lately, but then suddenly one change follows another. One day after the 80th birthday of Belgian Cardinal Danneels (more on that later), the Church mourns the passing of Stanisław Kazimierz Cardinal Nagy.
The half-Polish half-Hungarian theologian was born in 1921 in the southern Polish town of Bieruń Stary, which had been German until earlier that year.
In 1937, young Stanisław answered his religious calling and joined the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, better known as the Dehonians, named after their 19th-century founder, Fr. Léon Dehon. As a member, he was sent to study Catholic theology and philosophy at the renowned universities of Kraków and Lublin.
In 1945, Nagy was ordained as a priest of the Dehonian Congregation, and was appointed as seminary rector in Kraków and Tarnów. He continued his studies at Lublin and in 1952, Fr. Nagy received a promotion in moral theology. He remained at the university as a professor in the same subject.
Over the course of the years, Fr. Nagy’s theological career saw him as a member of the International Theological Commission, the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commission and the editorial staff of the Catholic Encyclopedia, all in the early 1970s.
He also authored several books on topics such as ecumenism and his countryman, Blessed Pope John Paul II. In recognition of his contributions to the field of theology, John Paul II chose to include Fr. Nagy in the College of Cardinals. He did so in the consistory of October 2003. Prior to this, Fr. Nagy was consecrated as Titular Archbishop of Hólar.
Cardinal Nagy, already 82 at the time of his creation, became cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria della Scala. He never participated in a conclave, due to his age.
With the passing of Cardinal Nagy, and the 80th birthday of Cardinal Danneels, there are now 203 cardinals in the Church, of whom 112 are electors.
What a month it has been. Beginning with the farewell of Pope Benedict XVI, we rode the waves of the sede vacante, the conclave and the election of Pope Francis, and various other events that added some lines to this blog. All in all, it took quite some work to keep these pages filled as things developed, so I hope that a few days of less communication is forgiven. But all the effort brought its own reward, as there was interest from across the globe in my writings. In total, I could chalk up 15,933 visits to these pages. That’s triple the number of a regular quiet month. Thank you!
On to the top 10 of most popular blog posts of March:
1: Countdown to papal Twitter launch 745
2: Meeting of the Popes 431
3: Enter the electors 329
4: The fall of Cardinal Piacenza 318
5: Continuity – Pope Francis’ coat of arms 214
6: Church teachings – the clash between authority and respect 147
7: ‘Bel Giorgio’ takes over the household 82
8: First Sunday – the Dutch cardinals in Rome 80
9: Holy Week 2013, an overview of cathedral celebrations 79
10: The seagull vigil 77
March has been crazy as far as the blog was concerned. I write these words in my free time, which is not always available in abundance. If you like what you read here, and appreciate the information I try to provide and keep as up to date as possible, think of making a donation to this blog’s upkeep. You will find a PayPal donation button in the left sidebar, and also below. Any donor can count on prayers and much appreciation from my part, and will contribute to a continued Catholic voice in new media.
Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. I have special confidence in you. You are powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me, to your intercession. By the love you have for Jesus and Mary, do not abandon me during life, and assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the immaculate Virgin, Foster-father of Jesus Christ, obtain for me a pure, humble, and charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: In gratitude for the election of Pope Francis, that he may receive love and charity from both above and below.
Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I am confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. I have special confidence in you. You are powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me, to your intercession. By the love you have for Jesus and Mary, do not abandon me during life, and assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the immaculate Virgin, Foster-father of Jesus Christ, obtain for me a pure, humble, and charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: May the reign of Pope Francis be a blessing for Church and world.
Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I am confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
In his address to media representatives yesterday, Pope Francis pointed out that, while the Petrine ministry is of course important, it is not what the Church is ultimately about:
“Christ is the Church’s Pastor, but his presence in history passes through the freedom of human beings; from their midst one is chosen to serve as his Vicar, the Successor of the Apostle Peter. Yet Christ remains the centre, not the Successor of Peter: Christ, Christ is the centre. Christ is the fundamental point of reference, the heart of the Church. Without him, Peter and the Church would not exist or have reason to exist. As Benedict XVI frequently reminded us, Christ is present in Church and guides her. In everything that has occurred, the principal agent has been, in the final analysis, the Holy Spirit. He prompted the decision of Benedict XVI for the good of the Church; he guided the Cardinals in prayer and in the election.”
In these days and weeks it is only understandable that much time and energy is devoted on the Pope. We need and should take the time to get to know him, and that will go on for some time yet. But let’s not limit ourselves to his person. After all, he is simply the shepherd who will lead us to the Good Shepherd.
No shepherd is a carbon copy of other shepherds. Pope Francis is not Pope Benedict XVI. But their ministries do compliment each other. We can’t see them in isolation, nor should we engage in competitions to see who is the better shepherd.
In many of his recent words, as in the quote above, Pope Francis reminds us of what his predecessor taught. In a sense, he is building his own ministry on that of Benedict, and that means we can’t put everything the latter taught and did behind us. Just like we can’t ignore what John Paul II taught, or Paul VI, or John XXIII…
The pontificate of Pope Francis exists in a continuity, and that continuity is the journey of “the Holy People of God … to encounter Jesus Christ.”
Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. I have special confidence in you. You are powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me, to your intercession. By the love you have for Jesus and Mary, do not abandon me during life, and assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the immaculate Virgin, Foster-father of Jesus Christ, obtain for me a pure, humble, and charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: for the new Pope: May Pope Francis receive the strength to fulfill his new duties as chief shepherd of the Church.
Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I am confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. I have special confidence in you. You are powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me, to your intercession. By the love you have for Jesus and Mary, do not abandon me during life, and assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the immaculate Virgin, Foster-father of Jesus Christ, obtain for me a pure, humble, and charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: That the faithful may grow in love under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the clergy, the episcopate and our new Pope Francis.
Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I am confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
In his meeting with the cardinals who are still in Rome, Pope Francis brought the conclave period to an end today. In his address, which was characteristically filled with unscripted asides, the Holy Father looked back on the conclave, calling it a “period … filled with meaning not just for the College of Cardinals but also for all the faithful.”
In addition to the usual words of thanks to both the cardinals and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, “a wise and humble interpreter with his gaze always fixed on Christ, the Risen Christ, present and alive in the Eucharist”, Pope Francis also touched upon various matters of faith. He likened the unity experienced in the conclave to the unity in the Church, which results in an openness to the Holy Spirit:
“As someone told me: the Cardinals are the Holy Father’s priests. But we are that community, that friendship, that closeness, that will do good for every one of us. That mutual knowledge and openness to one another helped us to be open to the action of Holy Spirit. He, the Paraclete, is the supreme protagonist of every initiative and manifestation of faith. It’s interesting and it makes me think. The Paraclete creates all the differences in the Church and seems like an apostle of Babel. On the other hand, the Paraclete unifies all these differences – not making them equal – but in harmony with one another. I remember a Church father who described it like this: “Ipse harmonia est.” The Paraclete gives each one of us a different charism, and unites us in this community of the Church that adores the Father, the Son, and Him – the Holy Spirit.”
And from his words we may perhaps also glean some idea of what the papacy ahead may bring, as Pope Francis outlined the mission of the Church: “to bring Jesus Christ to humanity, and to lead humanity to an encounter with Jesus Christ: the Way, the Truth and the Life, truly present in the Church and, at the same time, in every person.”
And although the subsequent conversations with each cardinal was heartwarming to watch, the content of the what the Pope actually said must not be ignored. It is easy to consider him a nice and humble man with his heart in the right place, he is also a staunch Catholic, with a living faith in the Lord. That is what makes him tick, it’s the foundation of his identity. In that sense, Cardinal Napier’s gift of an armband with the text “I believe in God” is as suitable as can be for Pope Francis.
I have a Dutch translation of the Pope’s address.
As the enthusiasm, even in the secular media, for Pope Francis hasn’t much waned since his election, here are some interesting facts about the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.
First of all there is his choice of name. No other Pope before him was called Francis. The last time a Pope chose a name that had not been used before was in 1978, when Pope John Paul I was elected, although he chose a combination of two existing names. For a fully new name, we have to go back to 913, when Pope Lando started his reign of less than a year. Unlike John Paul I, Pope Francis does not have a “I” after his name, since there is no other Pope Francis in past or present to confuse him with. John Paul I did add the “I” to indicate that he was neither John XIV or Paul VII.
Pope Francis is also the first Pope from the Jesuit order. The last Pope to come from a religious order was Leo XIII in 1878. He was a Secular Franciscan. The last Pope to have made public religious vows was Gregory XVI in 1831, who was a Camaldolese monk.
Pope Francis’ age is only slightly noteworthy. At 76, he is two years younger than Benedict XVI was at his election. In fact, he is the second-oldest Pope since Blessed John XXIII, who was some 7 months older at his election. In general, Popes have rarely been in their 70s when elected. The aforementioned John XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis are among them, but the next one we encounter if we go back in history is Pope Clement XII, who was 78 when he was elected in 1730.
As has been widely reported, Pope Francis is the first Pope to hail from the New World. None before him have come, as he himself put it in his first public words after his election, “from the ends of the earth”. The last Pope from outside Europe was St. Gregory III in 731. He came from what is now Syria. Pope Francis is the third Pope in a row from outside Italy, although he does have Italian roots.
Lastly, in the style of my earlier overview of modern conclaves:
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12-13 March 2013: 115 cardinals elected Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as Pope Francis. The election took 5 ballots.
Photo credit: l’Osservatore Romano
Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. I have special confidence in you. You are powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me, to your intercession. By the love you have for Jesus and Mary, do not abandon me during life, and assist me at the hour of my death.
Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the immaculate Virgin, Foster-father of Jesus Christ, obtain for me a pure, humble, and charitable mind, and perfect resignation to the Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
Loving Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special grace I now implore: That the faithful have received the Pope they need and not who they deserve.
Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I am confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God.
