The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI

Two Cardinals, the Protestant head of the Czech Ecumenical Council, a Roman Catholic Bishop, & a Protestant layman. But only Cardinal Duka, (second left), will vote in the papal conclave © Old catholic Church in the Czech Republic
Two Cardinals, the Protestant head of the Czech Ecumenical Council, a Roman Catholic Bishop, & a Protestant layman. But only Cardinal Duka, (second left), will vote in the papal conclave © Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic

I was going to write about something completely different, but as today’s news media is most unusually, full of a story about one part of the Christian Church, I think I’ll be topical instead. Yes – most unexpectedly, Pope Benedict XVI has this day announced his intention to resign his office at the end of February – the first Pope to do so for nearly 600 years.

What is one to make of all of this? The official reason given for Pope Benedict’s decision to resign is his increasingly frail health. He is nearly 86 years old and in recent times, has been pushed around St. Peter’s Cathedral in what might best be described as a ‘papal trolley’. Those who support this explanation point out that he oversaw the decline in health of his predecessor Pope John Paul II and the paralysis this brought upon the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Some even say that he actively suggested to John Paul II, that he should resign, and that he is now acting upon his own advice.

There is always the alternative view of the conspiracy theorists. These suggest that Pope Benedict has been the victim of an internal power struggle within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. That he jumped before he was pushed or he was aware of some new sexual or financial scandal breaking and wants to get out before it does. Whilst personally, I am perfectly happy to accept the former official explanation, I do find it interesting that two Irish former members of the RC Church who are now part of my Prague Anglican congregation, have both suggested to me today that there is much more going on behind the scenes than the official explanation. Maybe they are right in recognising what they believe is happening from their own personal experiences of the Roman Catholic Church.

A big religious news story such as this, has once more revealed the religious ignorance of so many journalists. The best one I’ve seen so far is on the BBC News website, who have a quotation from ‘the newly enthroned Archbishop (of Canterbury, Justin) Welby’. Please note BBC, that Bishop Justin Welby is not being enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury until 21st March 2013. You could try checking his website 🙂

What I have also seen and read today, is what I have experienced many times when visiting the next of kin of a recently deceased person for whom I’ve been asked to officiate at their funeral. Everybody is full of what a wonderful person Pope Benedict is and has been. No quoted speakers are being critical of his pontificate, with the obvious exception of a few total secularists. Yet whilst I would not want to question Pope Benedict’s own personal Christian faith or his devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, I have to say that I am not unhappy to see him resign. However, I will say that I fully respect and admire his stated reasons for doing so. He has now set a precedent for his future successors by indicating that they are not required to stay in office until they die!

Like many practising Roman Catholics and others, I believe that the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, has taken the Roman Catholic Church away from the major reforms instigated by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. One of the most telling examples of this is the fact that his resignation announcement today, was made in Latin! Whilst he has made positive ecumenical statements, especially when visiting countries which do not have a Roman Catholic majority population such as the United Kingdom, his actions speak louder than words. The creation of the Ordinariate for disaffected Anglicans, behind the back of Archbishop Rowan Williams, is a particular example.

Inevitably, the news media is already full of suggestions as to who will be elected as the successor to Pope Benedict. As I mentioned earlier, such discussions once more show the ignorance of many journalists. But whoever is elected as the next Pope, is going to have to face up to a number of pressing realities if they really want the Roman Catholic Church to survive into the 21st century. Many of these have been articulated by the Austrian Pfarrar Initiative which I’ve written about previously on this blog. It will be most interesting to see who is elected and how that person sets about addressing issues such as the declining number of priestly vocations in Europe and North America, pastoral care and admission to the sacraments for divorced and remarried believers, etc, etc.

I finish this post with a joke from a German website, posted well before today’s announcement. The current Pope and God are having a discussion.

Pope Benedict asks God, “Will there ever be married priests?” God answers, “Not in your lifetime”.

Pope Benedict then asks God, “Will there ever be female priests?” God answers, “Not in your lifetime”.

Pope Benedict then asks God a final question. “Will there be another German Pope?” God answers, “Not in my lifetime!”

The Czech Presidential Election

Karel Schwarzenberg election poster on the bar at Restaurace U Topolu © Ricky Yates
Karel Schwarzenberg election poster on the bar at Restaurace U Topolu © Ricky Yates

On Friday and Saturday of this coming week, the Czech electorate will vote in the second and final round of voting to choose their new President. The first round, in which there were nine candidates, took place on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th January. Because no candidate got over 50% of the vote in that first round, the top two candidates are involved in a run-off in the second round.

The winner will replace the current President Václav Klaus, whose second five-year term of office expires in March. This is the first time that the Czech President has been directly elected by the people. Previously, the appointment was made by a joint vote of the two houses of the Czech parliament – the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Whilst the President wields very little political power, he is meant to represent the Czech state. President Klaus has become increasingly unpopular in recent times, both for expressing very Euro-sceptic views – this despite the considerable benefits the Czech Republic has received since becoming part of the European Union in 2004. He has also attracted great notoriety ever since the famous pen-stealing event in Chile, went viral across the internet.

The two candidates in the second round of voting are Miloš Zeman, who got 24.21% of the vote in the first round, and Karel Schwarzenberg, who got 23.40%. Whilst Zeman was expected to top the poll in the first round, Schwarzenberg’s performance well exceeded expectations and the predictions of opinion polls.

There is a real contrast between Zeman and Schwarzenberg. At a simplistic level, it is a contrast and contest between the political left and political right. Zeman is a former leader of the Social Democratic party(CSSD) and was Prime Minister from 1998-2002. In 2007, he left the CSSD and has been in the political wilderness for some years. Schwarzenberg is leader of the centrist pro-European TOP 09 party and currently Foreign Minister in the centre-right coalition government.

However, the greater contrast lies in their respective life histories and background. Zeman was born in Kolín, an industrial town east of Prague, in 1944. He has lived the whole of his life in the protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia/Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. He was briefly a member of the Communist party between 1968-1970, but thrown out for opposing Soviet ‘normalisation’ policies imposed after the crushing of the Prague Spring.

Punk Karel :-) © Ricky Yates
Punk Karel 🙂 Please excuse the timetable for Tram 8 pinned at the bottom! © Ricky Yates

Schwarzenberg was born in Prague in 1937. He and his family left Czechoslovakia in 1948, when the Communists came to power and moved to Austria, only returning to Prague in 1990, following the Velvet Revolution. He is a titled prince, officially Karel, Prince of Schwarzenberg. Or if you really want his full title in German, it is Karl Johannes Nepomuk Joseph Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Menas Fürst zu Schwarzenberg 🙂 Like many educated older Czech people, and because of his time living in Austria, he speaks fluent German with his Czech being described as ‘slightly archaic and often earthy’.

Schwarzenberg is particularly popular in Prague, which is why this post only has pictures of his posters. I have seen Zeman posters when driving to and from Brno, but didn’t get the opportunity to photograph them. Schwarzenberg is also very popular amongst young people, helped I’m sure, by some clever graphic design work, portraying him as a punk 🙂 But all Schwarzenberg’s publicity features him wearing his most recognisable trademark – a bow tie!

Schwarzenberg also seems to have the support of most of the Christian community in the Czech Republic, and from right across the spectrum. He is an active and practising Roman Catholic, but without advocating the very conservative views of the current Pope. He has also strongly endorsed the modern Czech translation of the Bible published in 2009 as ‘Bible 21’, and encouraged people to read it, thus making himself equally popular with the Protestant community.

Election board at Fraktal Bar-Restaurace © Ricky Yates
Election board at Fraktal Bar-Restaurace © Ricky Yates

If the election was taking place in ‘Fraktal‘, the bar-restaurant where I took this picture, Karel Schwarzenberg would be the very clear winner! The result this coming weekend, is likely to be far closer.

A weekend in Brno

Sv Jakuba / Church of St James, Brno © Ricky Yates

As I explained in my previous post, we spent the last weekend of our recent holiday, in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic. Brno is just over 200 kilometres south-east of Prague and is situated at the confluence of the Svratka and Svitava rivers. With a population of about 400,000, the city is about one third of the size of the Czech capital.

Within the historic centre of Brno, there are a whole variety of different Churches. The one pictured on the left here, is dedicated to Sv Jakuba / St. James and is a fine example of baroque architecture. According to my ‘Brno City Guide’, the top of the spire is 92 metres high.

We were pleased to be able to walk around the interior of the Church and observe the very high pillars which in turn, support a fine vaulted roof. Being a Church dedicated to St. James, we were not surprised to find a photographic display of a group of parishioners who had made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela a few years previously. But they clearly had started walking to Santiago at some point in Spain, unlike their mediaeval forebears, whose pilgrimage would, no doubt, have begun at the west door of this Church!

Cervený kostel /Red Church, Brno © Ricky Yates

The Church pictured on the right is known as Cervený kostel or in English as ‘The Red Church’. It is one of several similar red brick Churches that can be found in various parts of the Czech Republic, all dating from the second half of the nineteenth century. They were built following a ‘Toleration of Protestants’ act of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1850s, which for the first time allowed protestant groups to build and own church buildings which actually looked like Churches with towers or spires and bells.

When first built, this Church was used for worship by German-speaking Lutherans. There was a large German-speaking population in Brünn, (as German-speakers still call Brno), until the expulsion of the Sudetendeutsche in 1945 following the end of the Second World War. It now belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the largest Protestant denomination in the Czech Republic who came into being in December 1918, when the Czech-speaking Lutheran Church amalgamated with the Czech-speaking Presbyterian/Reformed Church.

Below is pictured the Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Although situated on the site of previous Churches dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the building obtained its current Neo-Gothic appearance when it was reconstructed in the early years of the twentieth century.

The Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, Brno © Ricky Yates
Entrance to Špilberk Castle, Brno © Ricky Yates

 

Immediately west of the historic centre of Brno, is a rocky outcrop on which stands Hrad Špilberk / Špilberk Castle. Founded in the second half of the thirteenth century, the castle has been altered, extended and rebuilt many times since. It also has a chequered history, (please excuse the pun), which in many ways, reflects the experience of the Czech people over the centuries. One of its many claims to fame is resisting a siege lasting four months, by Swedish troops in 1645, thus changing the eventual outcome of the Thirty Years War.

The fortifications are impressive which I hope will be well illustrated by the photograph below. At various times Špilberk Castle has been both a prison and a military barracks. Since 1960, it has been part of Brno City Museum and we spent most of our Saturday afternoon in Brno, visiting two different exhibitions within the castle – one explaining the numerous centuries of central European history – the other, a wonderful collection of art work from the late nineteenth century through to the beginning of the Second World War.

 

 

The fortifications of Špilberk Castle © Ricky Yates

Below are two photographs that I took when exploring the castle complex. One shows the depth of the moat that surrounds the central part of the castle. The other shows part of the casements, a series of rooms constructed within the castle walls which have been used over time as both prison cells and for the storage of military armaments.

Moat of Špilberk Castle, Brno © Ricky Yates

Casement within Špilberk Castle, Brno © Ricky Yates
Decorated building in Brno © Ricky Yates

Just as in Prague, it is possible to walk the streets of the historic centre of Brno, and see a whole variety of different styles of architecture and artistic decoration on the exterior of buildings. This one photograph doesn’t do justice to the wealth and variety that there is to be seen.

 

Historic tram in Brno © Ricky Yates

Likewise as in Prague, Brno has an excellent public transport network including many trams. At weekends, this historic tram runs along a central circuit, a reminder of how public transport used to be many decades ago.

Over the weekend, we enjoyed the company and hospitality of our friends Lynsey and Johnny who walked around with us all day on Saturday 28th July. Late in the afternoon, they took us for some well-earned drinks at one of their favourite Brno cafés.

Lynsey & Johnny relaxing in a Brno café © Ricky Yates

As you can see, Johnny’s friend Pfeffer, who travels around with him in his shoulder bag, took a fancy to my beer 🙂

Pfeffer enjoying my beer! © Ricky Yates

Kutná Hora

The Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates

The historic small city of Kutná Hora lies about 70 kilometres east of Prague and it took us around an hour and twenty minutes to drive there on Tuesday 24th July. It is a popular place to visit on a day trip from Prague and of all the places we visited during our recent ‘staycation’, it was the one where we saw greatest number of other tourists.

The west end of the Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates

During early mediaeval times, Kutná Hora was as significant a settlement as Prague, its wealth coming from the mining of silver in the surrounding hills. It was here that silver groschen were minted which was the hard currency of Central Europe during that time. However, a combination of the silver ore being depleted and the city being ravaged by both sides during the Thirty Years War, led to the city’s decline. It now has a population of 21,000 as against Prague with 1.3 million!

The crowning glory of Kutná Hora is its Cathedral, dedicated to St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners. It was begun in the late fourteenth century and was mainly completed by the middle of the sixteenth century. Its current form dates from restoration work undertaken in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when a series of impressive stained glass windows were added.

Stained glass window © Ricky Yates

Stained glass window © Ricky Yates

Whilst the stained glass is relatively modern, frescos such as these below, date from mediaeval times. The sheer height of the nave, looking towards the high altar, is extremely impressive.

Mediaeval frescos © Ricky Yates

The nave & high altar © Ricky Yates

Following the upheavals of the Thirty Years War, the Jesuits arrived in Kutná Hora in the latter part of the seventeenth century, as part of the re-catholization of Bohemia that followed the defeat of the Hussites and their supporters. They were responsible for building a very large Jesuit College and various other buildings and Churches within the city. On the opposite side of the street that runs alongside the Jesuit College towards the Cathedral, is a wall with a series of statues of a variety of saints, the arrangement being apparently inspired by the statues on Charles Bridge in Prague.

The Jesuit College at Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates
The Church of St. James at Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates

Everywhere you look around Kutná Hora the architecture is quite stunning. In writing and illustrating this post, it is difficult to know what to leave out 🙂 However I couldn’t omit this Church, dedicated to St. James. If you look closely, you will see that it is incomplete. It was supposed to have a second tower but only the base was ever built which now has a simple roof and cross constructed on top of it.

Located in the outer suburb of Sedlec is the other main visitor attraction in Kutná Hora – probably the most famous ossuary in the whole of the Czech Republic. It is far better known and receives far more visitors than the ossuary at Melník that we visited the previous week. It is to be found in the crypt of All Saints Church and was created in the late nineteenth century by a local woodcarver, after the Schwarzenberg family purchased the buildings making up the former Sedlec Monastry.

Within the crypt, the remains of about 40,000 people have been rearranged to create, (amongst other things), a chandelier and the coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family. In both a leaflet we were given and in a guidebook that I have, there is great emphasis that this creation is to remind us all of the transience of human life and the undeniable fact of death. It is right and proper that we are reminded of these things but I have to say that it is a rather unusual way of doing so.

Chandelier made of human bones in the Sedlec Ossuary © Ricky Yates

The coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family in the Sedlec ossuary © Ricky Yates

 

All Saints Church, Sedlec © Ricky Yates

The Austrian Pfarrer Initiative/Priests’ Initiative – a call for honesty

Bechyne Church © Ricky Yates

At the end of my recent post about the Ecumenical Service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I mentioned the Pfarrer Initiative in Austria, that calls for radical reform within the Roman Catholic Church. I did promise a future blog post about it. So here it is!

The Pfarrer Initiative is an open call to disobedience by nearly 400 Roman Catholic priests and deacons in Austria. As such, they constitute roughly 10% of the Austrian Roman Catholic clergy. You can read their original ‘Appeal to Disobedience’ in English, by following this link. However inevitably, most other online material about this radical reform movement is only available in German.

This initiative arises out of two major issues that increasingly face Roman Catholic priests across Europe and North America. How to offer the sacraments and pastoral care, to the ever increasing number of people whose lives do not conform exactly to official Roman Catholic doctrine. And how to overcome the ever increasing shortage of priests. What the Pfarrer Initiative calls for is radical change. But it is also a call for honesty rather than the hypocrisy that exists at present

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that anyone who has been married in Church and later divorced and remarried in a civil ceremony, cannot be admitted to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Likewise, it is only paid-up members of the Roman Catholic Church that can be admitted, not members of any other Christian Church.

With the ever increasing number of Roman Catholics who are divorced and remarried, the official position creates major pastoral problems for Roman Catholic priests. Many overcome the problem by simply ignoring official RC teaching and allow those who are divorced and remarried to receive the sacraments. Alternatively, these individuals take themselves off to a Church two or three parishes removed from where they live, where their past marital affairs are unknown.

Likewise, I have received the sacrament of Holy Communion from a Roman Catholic priest, with his permission, on numerous occasions. The most memorable occasion was in Spain where the priest was a paid-up member of Opus Dei. When administering Holy Communion, he gave the consecrated host/communion wafer to each individual and invited them to take the consecrated wine by intinction. But when he came to me, he insisted that I should take the chalice in my own hands and drink the consecrated wine, ‘because I was a priest’. Of course, the official Roman Catholic position is that all Anglican orders are invalid!

In Austria, the problem of the shortage of priests is currently being dealt with in one of two ways, both of which are causing increasing anger and frustration from clergy and laity alike. Parishes are being amalgamated and priests are being forced to run around between Churches, celebrating mass one time after another, with little time for pastoral conversations following worship. Or African clergy are being imported who cannot speak German properly, let alone Österreichisch, and who inevitably have little understanding of the people or their culture.

The Pfarrer Initiative calls for ‘the admission of women and married people to the priesthood’ as a very practical way of addressing this problem. But even if the official Roman Catholic position on this matter were to change overnight, and under the current Pope that most certainly will NOT happen, it would still take many years for such people to undertake theological training and then be ordained.

It is what then follows this call that I find most interesting. ‘We express solidarity with colleagues no longer permitted to exercise their ministry because they have married, and also with those in ministry who live in a permanent relationship’.

By implication, those behind the Pfarrer Initiative are saying that, if those priests forced to cease their ministry because they have fallen in love with a woman and have chosen to marry her, were allowed to resume their ministry, the number of available, already theologically trained priests, would promptly increase. They are also acknowledging what many people already know, including many in the RC hierarchy – that many supposedly celibate Roman Catholic priests, actually live, ‘in a permanent relationship’. Once more, what we have here is a clear call for honesty and an end to hypocrisy.

It is those Roman Catholic priests who openly admit that they have fallen in love with a woman and do the right and proper thing and marry the lady, who are being honest. Yet as things currently stand, such individuals are promptly deprived of their right to minister. Yet those priests who have a girlfriend three parishes down the road, or a live-in lover whom they declare to be their housekeeper – they are allowed to continue in ministry.

I found a news report on the BBC News website three years ago, absolutely fascinating as it bears out everything I’ve written in the previous paragraph. It relates the results of a survey of Roman Catholic priests in Poland, carried out by a sociologist. Responding to a questionnaire, aided by the cloak of anonymity, more than 30% admitted to having had sexual relations with a woman and 12% said they were living in stable relationships with a woman.

I am very aware that all of us, myself very much included, can be guilty of hypocrisy – of saying one thing and then doing another. The liturgy of Ash Wednesday in two days time, spells it out clearly. ‘We confess to you, Lord…. all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives’. In response we ask, ‘Lord, have mercy’.  I for one, welcome all that the Pfarrer Initiative calls for. It is a clear call for honesty, in place of hypocrisy. However, whether the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church will ever take heed of it, is a very open question.