It was fortuitous the Catholic Church in New Zealand had Hamilton priest, Fr Michael Gielen, who happened to be studying in Rome, to liaise with New Zealand media, commenting on the atmosphere, the scenes, the hopes and excitement as the world waited for a new pope.
Fr Gielen captured some of the excitement of the event and spoke with the Hamilton Diocese’s Kete Korero, diocesan and parish news.
How did you hear about Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation?
FrM: I was in the Chapel when a friend of mine came in and said “Pope Benedict has renounced his papacy!”. Because he said it in Italian (and his Italian wasn’t very good- we tend to speak a bit of pidgin Italian here) I thought “he’s died!”: it took quite a while to understand.
In hindsight people remembered that Pope Benedict had said in an interview a couple of years earlier that if he thought he couldn’t fulfil his duties he would resign and we had a couple of seminarians who were serving him at a Mass who said he was going blind in one eye and was extremely slow and laboured: they could see that he was unable to perform his office.
How did the election of the new Pope unfold?
Leading up to the conclave we had a Cardinal come here [to the student residence], Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland. That was really impressive and really brought it home because he was quite sombre. I was praying with him in the Chapel one day and it was pretty eerie thinking; “I’m sitting with one of the Cardinals who is going to be in the conclave in a few days time, choosing the next Pope- it could be him!”
There was a very active following of the conclave to the point where one of our classes finished early and one of the guys put on a live stream of the conclave from Italian television, of the Cardinals entering the Sistine chapel and the door being closed: that was really impressive! And every time the smoke went up guys would be watching and anticipating.
When it came to the actual period of voting guys were going down every vote, but I told everybody, “Look, it’s going to be a long conclave- it obviously won’t be quick!” Continue reading
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