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| 20 minutes (free morning paper): "Retirement" |
His Eminence Cardinal Archbishop André Vingt-Trois of Paris speaks for millions, including your thunderstruck correspondent, who were first stupefied and then filled with admiration by the news that Pope Benedict XVI is courageously to resign his office at eight o'clock on the evening of the 28th of February 2013. This is monumental and completely unexpected news, which naturally transcends national borders but directly concerns millions of Frenchmen. The papers here have reported thus:
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| Le Figaro : Special Edition: " I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter". |
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| From Wales Online. |
This quiet Bavarian theologian, who had as Cardinal wanted only to retire to Mozart and his books, has borne his tremendous office with humility, generosity of intellect, quiet but heroic courage and (most importantly) personal holiness. Millions, including many here in France, who are saddened by the Holy Father's resignation must trust and admire his wisdom. It cannot be easy to make a public concession of physical weakness, but he does so because of the urgency of the Church's task in this burdensome century. His successor will have a hard act to follow.
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| From the Daily Telegraph: two very great people. |
Among his many strengths is a gift for languages: his being fluent in (at least) French, Spanish, English, Italian, Latin and of course his native German has been tremendously helpful on his travels around the world. It was incidentally the competence in Latin of the Italian journalist Giovanna Chirri which enabled her news agency Ansa to 'scoop' the news, delivered as it was by the Pope as an afterword to an ordinary meeting. Have I ever mentioned that Languages Matter?
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| Vigil at Hyde Park in London, 18th September 2010, on the eve of the beatification of Bl. John Henry Newman. No relation: he is a Blessed, after all! |
Pope Benedict knows too, unlike those who mock him or spread untruths about him or scream insults at him, that careful use of language is invaluable in the pursuit of truth. Perhaps this manifests itself most notably in his manner of treating and speaking to the young. Which other public figure in our era's vain and brittle superficiality will, for example, begin an address with the simple sincerity of "Dear young friends!", and mean it? Who else will refuse to patronise them or to water down his wisdom for them? Who else will, as he did at World Youth Day in Madrid, decline to flee a freak thunderstorm and instead remain with the million-strong gathering of young pilgrims? And who else knows that this works? Who would have thought that an uncharismatic and grandfatherly gentleman could earn these cheers of 80,000 young people (and your correspondent's) in Hyde Park, during the magnificent and unforgettable Papal Visit to Britain in 2010? It works of course because it is not really about him: he never forgets that he is the servant of the servants of God. And since what he is bound to teach is as true for the young as it is for the old, he can say with conviction in his introduction to the new Youth Catechism:
"Many people say to me: The youth of today are not interested in this. I
disagree, and I am certain that I am right. The youth of today are not
as superficial as some think. They want to know what life is really all
about."
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| At the church of Saint-Martin in Meudon. |
JEAN-MARIE, after Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris and Cardinal Vingt-Trois's predecessor,
MAURICE, after Maurice de Sully who laid the first stone of the present cathedral,
BENOIT-JOSEPH, after Pope (Emeritus from today onwards, alas) Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, 
ETIENNE, after St Stephen, the first martyr, to whom the present cathedral's predecessor was consecrated,
MARCEL, after St Marcel, the ninth Bishop of Paris,
DENIS,
after Dennis le Menace, no, St Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, who, having been beheaded on Montmartre, picked up his head and walked to where
now stands the Basilique de Saint-Denis, delivering a sermon as he
walked.
GABRIEL, after the Angel Gabriel, 
and MARIE, the buttery-biscuit-bourdon (founded at Asten in the Netherlands).
All of the bells but Marie were cast at the Cornille-Havard foundry in a Norman town called Villedieu-les-Poêles. Its curious name translates literally as "City-of-God-the-pots-and-pans", and by coincidence I visited it two years ago. It has had copper-work as its main industry for centuries and as well as its bell-foundry still makes and sells metalware. It is delightful and well worth a trip.
