Irish priests ready to play their part
Among the estimated two million people who will be trying to get into St Peter’s Square will be one of their friends, a seminarian, who vows to be up at three in the morning to bid for a place in the crowd.
“When you go to St Peter’s you bring with you the prayers of the people at home. So many people have emailed and phoned us and asked us for prayers,” explains Aiden O’Brien.
Aiden, aged 33, and from Ballygarvan, Co Cork, is a first-year student at the Pontifical Irish College, which serves as both seminarian and postgraduate research centre for students from all over the world.
Fr Padraig Kelliher, 31, from Longford town, was ordained last summer and is doing postgraduate work at the college, as is Fr Gearóid Dullea, 30, from Bandon, Co Cork, who is six years a priest and is back at the books doing a doctorate.
Getting to study in the home of the Church, which happens to be in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, sounds like an experience sufficient to provoke at least one of the seven deadly sins but the three are adamant it is no Roman holiday.
“The academic demands are no different from a regular university. There are exams to be passed, research to be done, essays to write,” says Fr Gearóid. “There has been a tendency to see Rome as all pomp and glory but there is the humdrum about it as well.” “Our morning starts at 6.30am,” adds Aiden, affecting a grim tone by way of further explanation.
They are not looking for, or expecting, violins, however. They relish the opportunity to live abroad and share their studies with students from a multitude of different nationalities.
All three have warm memories of the Pope even though they were “farmed out to relatives” when he came to Ireland in 1979 as their parents felt them too young to face the crowds.
Despite all the tributes to John Paul and the unavoidable excitement over the election of a successor, they say they have not felt tempted to indulge in imagining themselves ever being the subject of a Habemus Papam (‘We Have a Pope’) declaration.
“We are trained to serve people. It goes against everything we train for and believe in to start off with that perspective at all,” Fr Pádraig laughs.
“John Paul’s title was ‘the servant of the servants of God’. That’s why he waited after every Wednesday audience to meet the people individually. That’s why he spoke in 80 languages at Easter. He said from the Gemelli Hospital: ‘I will continue to serve the Church’.
“He said serve, not lead.”
Fr Gearóid points out that the red of the cardinals’ robes symbolises their willingness to serve as martyrs “even to the shedding of blood” as doctrine puts it. “An added title means added suffering,” he says.
In some ways little has changed in the job since the Pope started out in the priesthood.
“The essentials remain the same,” says Fr Gearóid. “The Pope said: ‘Each new generation is a whole new continent to be evangelised.’ The work remains the same but the challenges facing every generation are different.”
Fr Pádraig is living example of generational change. Before entering the seminary, he spent five years studying biotechnology - a field of scientific study barely heard of 26 years ago. It gives him a good insight into the urgent questions of bioethics facing the modern Church.
He is also deeply interested in the current day problems of suicide, depression and lack of commitment in society and hopes to address some of those issues in his work as a priest, saying that would be all the reward he needs.
Aiden is also eager to find a way to reach into today’s homes and communities and provide a channel for the good to come out.
“One image I will never forget [from the night John Paul died] was a young couple who arrived in St Peter’s Square at three in the morning. They must have come from a nightclub because they were all dressed up. They walked in together, said a prayer and then hugged and walked away. The Pope brought this out in people.”
