An English cardinal shares memories of the two new saints

(Vatican Radio) An enthusiastic crowd in Venice cheering Cardinal Roncalli and Archbishop Montini. A pope and an Anglican archbishop stepping inside Canterbury Cathedral for the first time since the Reformation. These are just two of the most striking memories that the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor shared with Vatican Radio on the eve of the canonisations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

As a bishop in the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, Murphy-O’Connor was on hand to welcome the Polish pope on that first historic visit of a pontiff to the Britain since the Church of England broke from Rome in the 16^th century – a visit that the 81-year old cardinal recalls brought tears of joy to his eyes. But sitting down with Philippa Hitchen at the Venerable English College, Cardinal Cormac beings by by sharing the memory of a trip he made to Venice back in 1956, the year that he was ordained to the priesthood.....

Listen:

“I was in my last year here as a student and four of us went on a holiday up to Venice…..I still remember very well the patriarch being rowed over in a gondola by the gondoliers across the lagoon, dressed in scarlet, and he presided at the Mass….but the priest who said the Mass was the Archbishop of Milan, Archbishop Montini…..and after the Mass both of them came out on the balcony of St Mark’s…..what I remember was him pushing Montini forward and saying to the crowds, ‘You clap him! He’s the up and coming man who’s going to be the next pope!’……

You know he said on being elected, he took the name John and reminded people, mischievously that all the popes John had short periods in office, and he had five years but, goodness me, didn’t he do a lot!

What endeared him to so many people was his humanity….he talked to everybody and he was funny…..but also, for me, his spirituality….I devoured the book called ‘Journey of a Soul’, his reflections on his priestly life and what nourished him….

How do you start with Pope John Paul?....I first met him when I was rector here at the English College…..I remember him coming to lunch….I gave a little welcome speech and he got up and spoke and I thought, gosh, here’s a man to content with…I think I would say such a free man, speaking from the heart…..

I had to go on the plane and greet him (during his visit to Britain in 1982) and I remember tears coming to my eyes as I watched him walk into Canterbury Cathedral with Archbishop Runcie and I thought, goodness, we are going places… together!”