religion in NY and requires that Andrew Cuomo close Nassau OTB ON ROMAN CATHOLIC PALM SUNAY IN PREFERENCE TO GREEK ORTHODOX PALM SUNDAY AND ROMAN CATHOLIC EASTER SUNDAY IN PREFERENCE TO GREEK ORTHODOX EASTER SUNDAY.
FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN NY IS NOT FOR ALL.
Saying Mass at Vatican, Dolan Urges Catholics to Look Beyond the Papal Conclave
By MICHAEL PAULSON
Published: March 3, 2013
VATICAN CITY — The cavernous nave of St. Peter’s Basilica was nearly empty when Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan
arrived Sunday morning, shortly after dawn, a fading moon still hanging
in the sky, and red streaks of sunlight illuminating the facade.
Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, is a morning person — most
days, he likes to get up at 5 and walk or exercise before his morning
prayers — and on this last quiet day before the process of selecting a
new pope begins Monday, he was raring to go — to celebrate a Mass, to
start the day, to begin the conclave.
“I’m eager to get started,” he said. “Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s get home.”
Cardinal Dolan is one of 115 cardinal-electors expected Monday morning at the Vatican’s
New Synod Hall, along with dozens of retired cardinals who are invited
to participate in the conversations but who cannot vote in the ensuing
conclave because they are over the age of 80. The cardinals plan to meet
for several days in what they call “general congregation” to get to
know one another and to discuss issues facing the church globally;
during their meetings, they will also pick a start date for the
conclave.
Cardinal Dolan has spent the last several days meeting with other church
officials, doing interviews with reporters, and taking care of more
ordinary tasks — on Saturday visiting a friend in the hospital and on
Sunday taking New York’s seminarians and priests in Rome to lunch.
Cardinal Dolan has said, “I never like to come to Rome without saying
Mass at St. Peter’s sometime during my stay,” so on Sunday that is what
he did. He employed a small chapel in the basilica’s grottoes, and invited about 20 people, including the author George Weigel and members of the New York news media, to take part. Anne Thompson, an NBC News correspondent, was a reader during the liturgy.
“We’re all here to follow the extraordinary events with the departure of
Benedict XVI, the election of a new successor of St. Peter,” Cardinal
Dolan said. However, he said, the celebration of Mass is more
significant.
“We’ve got to keep in mind — you know what, even more important than the
pope is what we’re doing right now,” he said. “The life of the church
goes on, and the life of the church centers around what we’re doing
right now.”
He celebrated the Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady Queen of the
Hungarians, a contemporary worship space that honors the experience of
Hungarian Catholics. Cardinal Dolan, a fan of sports metaphors, noted
that the chapel was “just a 9-iron shot from the tomb of St. Peter.”
In his brief homily, the cardinal made a passing reference to the mass
shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., saying
that in biblical times individuals tried to discern what God was doing,
just as people today look at the massacre and “try to figure out what
happened,” or try to understand God’s role in “tragedy and sickness and
suffering in our own life.” Those are understandable questions, the
cardinal suggested, but, he said, “Don’t try to be figuring out God’s
will out there all the time — try to figure out what God is asking you
to do inside.”
The cardinal said the task of the next pope was not to make change in
the church but to preserve the church’s traditions.
“That’s the very nature of the papacy, is to hand on faithfully what God
told us of Jesus, what Jesus told his apostles, and what his apostles
hand on to us — tradition, with a capital T,” he said.
“Many of you professional, excellent journalists ask, very often, ‘Do
you think the new pope will make changes in the church?’ ” he added.
“The church is in the business of change, big time: change of human
heart. Jesus through his church calls us first and foremost not to
change structures, not to change all this stuff out there — we’ll get to
that, if first of all we let God change us inside.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 4, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Saying Mass at Vatican, Dolan Urges Catholics to Look Beyond the Papal Conclave.
Saying Mass at Vatican, Dolan Urges Catholics to Look Beyond the Papal Conclave
By MICHAEL PAULSON
Published: March 3, 2013
VATICAN CITY — The cavernous nave of St. Peter’s Basilica was nearly empty when Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan
arrived Sunday morning, shortly after dawn, a fading moon still hanging
in the sky, and red streaks of sunlight illuminating the facade.
Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, is a morning person — most
days, he likes to get up at 5 and walk or exercise before his morning
prayers — and on this last quiet day before the process of selecting a
new pope begins Monday, he was raring to go — to celebrate a Mass, to
start the day, to begin the conclave.
“I’m eager to get started,” he said. “Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s get home.”
Cardinal Dolan is one of 115 cardinal-electors expected Monday morning at the Vatican’s
New Synod Hall, along with dozens of retired cardinals who are invited
to participate in the conversations but who cannot vote in the ensuing
conclave because they are over the age of 80. The cardinals plan to meet
for several days in what they call “general congregation” to get to
know one another and to discuss issues facing the church globally;
during their meetings, they will also pick a start date for the
conclave.
Cardinal Dolan has spent the last several days meeting with other church
officials, doing interviews with reporters, and taking care of more
ordinary tasks — on Saturday visiting a friend in the hospital and on
Sunday taking New York’s seminarians and priests in Rome to lunch.
Cardinal Dolan has said, “I never like to come to Rome without saying
Mass at St. Peter’s sometime during my stay,” so on Sunday that is what
he did. He employed a small chapel in the basilica’s grottoes, and invited about 20 people, including the author George Weigel and members of the New York news media, to take part. Anne Thompson, an NBC News correspondent, was a reader during the liturgy.
“We’re all here to follow the extraordinary events with the departure of
Benedict XVI, the election of a new successor of St. Peter,” Cardinal
Dolan said. However, he said, the celebration of Mass is more
significant.
“We’ve got to keep in mind — you know what, even more important than the
pope is what we’re doing right now,” he said. “The life of the church
goes on, and the life of the church centers around what we’re doing
right now.”
He celebrated the Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady Queen of the
Hungarians, a contemporary worship space that honors the experience of
Hungarian Catholics. Cardinal Dolan, a fan of sports metaphors, noted
that the chapel was “just a 9-iron shot from the tomb of St. Peter.”
In his brief homily, the cardinal made a passing reference to the mass
shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., saying
that in biblical times individuals tried to discern what God was doing,
just as people today look at the massacre and “try to figure out what
happened,” or try to understand God’s role in “tragedy and sickness and
suffering in our own life.” Those are understandable questions, the
cardinal suggested, but, he said, “Don’t try to be figuring out God’s
will out there all the time — try to figure out what God is asking you
to do inside.”
The cardinal said the task of the next pope was not to make change in
the church but to preserve the church’s traditions.
“That’s the very nature of the papacy, is to hand on faithfully what God
told us of Jesus, what Jesus told his apostles, and what his apostles
hand on to us — tradition, with a capital T,” he said.
“Many of you professional, excellent journalists ask, very often, ‘Do
you think the new pope will make changes in the church?’ ” he added.
“The church is in the business of change, big time: change of human
heart. Jesus through his church calls us first and foremost not to
change structures, not to change all this stuff out there — we’ll get to
that, if first of all we let God change us inside.”
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