Scottish Catholic Observer

Monday October 22

I got a day off. I went shopping in the morning, had a quiet afternoon and in the evening visited a Roman family whom I know. It was salutary to be in more normal circumstances.

Tuesday October 23

Back to work with a plenary session in the Synod Hall. We saw the fruit of our group work and of the work of the group secretaries—the propositions which at the end of the synod will eventually be presented to the Holy Father, asking him to write a document on the New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith. At this stage, there are 57 propositions in all (that number could change) covering the range of our discussions in plenary and in groups: (1) the nature of the New Evangelisation; (2) its context in the contemporary world; (3) pastoral initiatives for evangelisation; and (4) the agents and participants of the new (the local Church, the lay Faithful, the family, women, consecrated persons, youth, other Christians, people of other faiths and so on). The propositions are composed from the texts submitted by all 13 language groups. It was exciting and gratifying to see a number of passages which came word-for-word from the laptop of the secretary of English Language Group C—guess who?

The Pope was with us for a time this morning and gave us all the gift of a silver pectoral cross specially created for the Synod Fathers of the XIII Synod of Bishops in the Year of Faith. Thank you very much Pope Benedict XVI.

In the afternoon we went back into our groups to start considering amendments to the propositions, which must be handed in to the Synod Secretariat tomorrow evening at 7pm. We got through 17 propositions.  That’s 30 to do tomorrow—we will need to move along smartly. In the evening, I went to the Beda College—an English language college in Rome for later vocations, where there are a few Scots as well as English speakers from overseas. Mgr Rod Strange, the rector, a colleague in priestly formation from when I was rector of the Scots College was, as always, a very welcoming and gracious host at this latest dinner on the circuit for the Synod Fathers.

Wednesday October 24

I was gutted that Celtic lost 2-1 in Barcelona last night. So close and such a wonderfully brave display. The Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona Lluís Sistach Martinez, who is a great supporter of his team too, approached me in the sacristy before Mass and spoke animatedly about the match, which he had watched on TV. He was very gracious about the Celtic performance… and relieved that his team snatched a winner at the death. Ah well, on to Glasgow.

I was moved at Mass when we sang the hymn Adoro te Devote—Oh Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore—in Latin. It must be the most perfect hymn ever written, for Faith, spirituality and sheer love of the Lord, combined with perfect musical pace and a superb words-to-music fit. It makes my heart swell with emotion. St Thomas Aquinas was a genius.

With a cold coming on, I had an intense day of work in my language group, noting the amendments they agreed to the propositions, recording the voting on each of the amendments and then writing them up on the official synod forms. At the deadline hour of 7pm precisely I handed in 68 amendments.

At Cardinal Pell’s invitation, I had dinner with the Synodal Fathers of Oceania—Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga—in Australia House, a very fine hotel-cum-conference centre situated in Rome’s Via Cernaia, not far from the Stazione Termini, just recently set up and owned by the Bishops’ Conference of Australia. Oh—and just to round things off—today my friend Archbishop James Harvey, Prefect of the Apostolic Palace—a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US—was named a cardinal and appointed cardinal priest of the Basilica of St Paul’s-outside-the-Walls, where he will take up residence in due course. Congratulations, Cardinal Jim.

Thursday October 25

My cold kicked in today. I hate the miseries. Nonetheless I participated fully in the group secretaries’ work and we finished by lunchtime, which was great, because we were scheduled to work on this afternoon. That is all my special work as a group secretary concluded: reporting for the language group, helping to sort, fuse and finalise the propositions, helping to sort, fuse and finalise the amendments. So we are all set to receive the newly amended list of propositions which will be subject to one final scrutiny in plenary session and then the final voting on the definitive and absolutely final set of propositions takes place. I was working again with Archbishop Bruno Forte and a Chilean bishop whose name I noted wrongly last week: this bishop is in fact Santiago Jaime Silva Retamales, Auxiliary Bishop of Valparaiso.

I went to the chemist to get something for my cold. I am not sure if it will work but it will make me feel better—an effervescent compound costing €6 euros and change.

I had a couple of invites for dinner tonight, but discretion was the better part of valour, and I stayed in and gave my cold a chance to calm down. It is still quite warm in Rome but I thought I felt it slightly cooler today.

Friday October 26

On the way to the Synod Hall today, I found myself walking with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal. I was telling him I would be coming to the Holy Land with a pilgrimage from Scotland next October and he said we must be sure to visit the Latin Patriarchate. So there is something to put on the agenda.

The final draft of the synod message was read in five languages to us this morning. It was approved by acclamation. One Catholic news agency described it as ‘stirring.’ We went back in the afternoon to hear the final texts of the propositions being read—in Latin—after the amendments had been inserted. We only got to 34 out of 58 when, to our relief, the very accomplished Croatian General Secretary, Archbishop Nicola Eterović, brought proceedings to an end for the evening.

I took out to dinner my newly appointed Cardinal-friend, James Michael Harvey. I met Jim in the Cortile San Damaso in the heart of the Apostolic Palace. The Swiss Guards were on duty there. One of them was carrying a briefcase from one place to another. As a light-hearted remark, I asked him with a smile if the briefcase contained the nuclear codes. He smiled, a little wistfully I thought, and said: “No, Your Excellency, we don’t have that kind of power.”

Anyway, Jim and I went to a very good restaurant we know near the Borgo Pio run by a family from Brescia, northern Italy, where we had tagliatelle alla salsiccia e nocciole, followed by sword fish and baby tomatoes—well it was Friday, and then warmed pineapple in a syrup. Because of what we were celebrating, the lady of the house made us a gift of a bottle of an Italian champagne wine—I know, I know, but that’s what she called it—from the north of Italy, which went down very well.

I have been inviting Jim to Scotland for years. He has always declined because of the demands of his service to the Pope. He agreed that, now that he will be moving away from the Vatican, he will be freer to travel, so I will expect to have him as a guest before too long. I am just sorry that I will not be able to go to the consistory on  November 24 at which the famous red biretta will descend upon his head—my diary is just too busy at that time.

Tonight there was persistent heavy rain, which you sometimes get in Rome and can be a nasty surprise for visitors. I was glad I had bought a new raincoat the other day when I went shopping.

Saturday October 27

The last working day of the 13th Ordinary General Gathering of the Synod of Bishops began well for me in St Peter’s Basilica where I met Mgr Christopher McElroy and his pilgrimage group from St Andrew’s Cathedral, Glasgow, for morning Mass at the tomb of Blessed John Paul II.

At the synod, it was at last time to vote. The official vote was done by each Synod Father in written form in a booklet containing the 58 propositions which he must sign for his vote to be valid. But there was also an electronic vote taken in the Synod Hall in order to give everyone an idea of what the vote on each proposition looked like. In the armrest of each person’s seat in the Synod Hall, there’s a smart little handset which is used at every session to register presence at the synod and the numbers are shown on-screen round the hall. This handset is also a digital and electronic vote counter. On the handset in Latin you are invited to press the Placet—In Favour—or Non placet—Not in favour—buttons for each of the 58 propositions. It was quite a compelling experience to see the votes register on the screens for each proposition.

There were 252 Synod Fathers voting. The vast majority—90 per cent—voted on every proposition. There was huge consensus on the propositions. There was a laugh when three Non Placet votes registered against Proposition 4 which stated that the Holy Trinity was the source of the new evangelisation!

The largest number of Non Placet votes I can remember on any one propositions was 20. The next after that was 18, 14 and 13. The propositions are essentially confidential because they are given by the Synod Fathers to the Pope, for him to write in due course an Apostolic Exhortation. However the Pope has given permission for an unofficial English translation to be made available on the website of the Synod of Bishops. We were delighted to hear that we would not have to come back for an early evening session as was planned.

But it was not over for me just yet. I was not altogether chuffed to hear my name among others being called out to be part of a commission of scrutineers to check the written votes. One of the other bishops on that commission that I had got to know over the time of the Synod was Bishop Charles Edward Drennan of Palmerston North, New Zealand. Well, was that scrutiny careful or was it careful? Two commissions of six groups each were there for two solid hours, checking and cross-checking votes, listing Placet, Non Placet, Albano vote—and Nullus—null votes—and making sure all the figures added up. We complained that we were missing our lunch. “Mangiate più tardi,” came the unsympathetic reply—“You can eat later.” I have to say that those who were responsible for the implementation of the synodal processes made every effort to be faithful to the established norms and to make sure that the authentic voice of the Synod Fathers would be heard. I had hinted previously that there might be some moves to have the Synod endorse only one pattern for the Confirmation of Baptised children, but that never gathered any momentum and the Synod, I think quite rightly, limited itself to repeating in Proposition 38 more or less what Pope Benedict XVI had said in his post-Synodal Exhortation on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis 18, that the differences in practice were more pastoral than doctrinal, and that ‘concretely, it needs to be seen which practice better enables the Faithful to put the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the centre, as the goal of the whole process of initiation.’ And most of the bishops appeared to think that there is no one answer to that.

Sunday October 28

The Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona Lluís Sistach Martinez came to breakfast this morning with a print out from a Spanish blog entitled: “A religious brother founded Celtic in a sacristy to help poor Catholic children.” I was amazed and gratified that the cardinal should have bothered to bring this to my attention—and to the puzzled attention of several other bishops who were enjoying their morning caffé latte and panino. Of course, this is all to do with the fact that Celtic and Barcelona are drawn this year in the group phase of the Champions League. The blog also says: “Brother Walfrid never imagined that his humble work of charity could arrive at the point of being transformed into one of the best known football teams in the world, and with such tradition and class too.” I couldn’t agree more—despite yesterday’s result.

But back to the synod. The final act was a glorious Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, where the Synodal Fathers were seated in semi-circles around Bernini’s magnificent high altar and under the dome around whose circumference are inscribed in giant letters Jesus’ words to Peter: “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam mean”—”You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” I could see for myself at the Synod that the Petrine ministry is the indispensable magic ingredient which makes the collegiality of bishops operational and fruitful. The Holy Father, with a strong voice, offered us a typically lucid and yet profound reflection on the Gospel passage about the Lord restoring the sight of the blind man Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus, said the Pope, is the image of the disciple who follows the Lord with a new vision, which is given by faith. The New Evangelisation has to aim at restoring that new vision of faith in the Church. After Mass there were many firm handshakes, manly embraces and sincere promises to keep in touch. Sufficit. Enough. It is time to go home. After more than three weeks in Rome, I feel so excited about getting back home to Glasgow. Deo Gratias!

n The September 8 Episcopal installation of Archbishop Tartaglia of Glasgow will be broadcast on EWTN throughout Europe on Nov 4 at 7pm.

-To read part 1 of Archbishop Tartaglia’s synod diary, click here.

-To read part 2 of Archbishop Tartaglia’s synod diary, click here.