Religion

The inside story of the deeply divided Conclave and the election of Karol Wojtyla who got just a single vote on the first ballot.

Gian-Carlo Zizola

The last great medieval rite of the modern world is about to be reinacted as over a hundred aged bachelor men of similiarly confined and blinkered backgrounds meet in secret to appoint from among themselves the leader of the world's largest religious community.

ONE of the most curious elements in the election of the new Pope was the amazingly swift publication of L'Osservatore Romano within an hour of the first official announcement. The officiel Vatican newspaper heralded the election of Albino Luciani with a large front page photoograph, another photograph on page 2 (both taken long preeviously), and a detailed bioography of John Paul I.

The election of Albino Luciani as the Catholic church's 263rd Pope was the product more of intense pre-conclave lobbying than of divine inspiration. Vincent Browne has been to Rome to examine the problems facing the new Pontiff, to analyse the uneasy coalition of forces that now constitute the Catholic church and to probe the electioneering and arm twisting that resulted in the surprise swift election.
 

NINE YEARS AGO, the National Council for the Apostolate of the Laity was set up by the Irish Hierrarchy in accordance with the wishes of Vatican II. The Council was to redefine the role of the laity within the Church, giving the flock genuine, not merely connsultative, power.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, in the relatively brief period of a decade, has totally changed its public liturgy, its education of priests and its pastoral organisation. It has even more significantly altered its theological understanding of itself.

THERE have only been two significant surveys on the beliefs and cultic practices of Catholics in Dublin initiated in the last decade. The first was commissioned by Dr. John Charles McQuaid in a working-class housing estate. The findings of this report were repressed, it is said, because of the gloomy picture it painted of current religious practice among young working-class Dubliners. The second report was conceived and drawn up by Brian Power, C.C., who until mid-1968, was a highly popular Chaplain in U.C.D.

IT IS A MARK of the irrelevance of much of the modern Irish Church that whenever a crisis in the North erupts the Churches cease to be of paramount significance. In between crises the leaders of the Churches receive a great deal of publicity for their efforts to patch up wounds created by their ancestors. Such was certainly true when representatives of the four main Churches visited the BQgside and Fountain Street in Derry. Their reception was friendly on all sides and liberal newspapers hailed the visit as one of enormous significance.

What is probably a unique event in the annals of ecclesiastical diplomacy took place last month. Last month, without wanting to, George Otto Simms became the head of a Church. Perhaps only Pope John equalled this. Dr. Simms could, in charity, be called a modest, gentle, scholarly and timid man. He embodies the essence of Anglican spirituality. This spirit, like Dr. Simms, is fostered in a cloistered, academic atmosphere and thus is knowledgable, wise and lacking in social courage.

ON OCTOBER 11th, the second consultative assembly of the world's bishops meets in Rome. Once again the Synod will assemble under the presidency of Cardinal Conway, who will attempt to steer it safely through the troubled waters of episcopal discontent as he did so effectively last time. On that occasion the Curia hadarranged the agenda before the bishops Once again they have arranged the arrived.