PN'S NEW BISHOP: MARIAN VESTMENTS

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The new Bishop of Palmerston North, +John Adams

It wasn't what you'd call a fiddleback, but the vestments worn by Palmerston North's new Bishop John Adams for his Consecration yesterday, at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, spoke volumes about his spirituality. And it's not what we're used to. 

A traditional  fiddleback might have raised clerical and/or feminist eyebrows in 'Palmy'. This diocese has been for many years - some would say ever since its inception, even during the oh-so-brief tenure of +Cullinane's successor, +Charles Drennan - the demesne of modernist Bishop Emeritus Peter Cullinane, who was one of the prelates present to bless the long-awaited new incumbent.

In a nod to +Cullinane's wholesale embrace of all things Te Reo, Bishop Adams donned a korowai (cloak), but his Novus Ordo, nightie-styled chasuble (and his mitre) were lined with Marian blue and embellished centre front with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They seemed to  prophesy a new direction for Palmerston North. 

And, one wondered, where were the Archbishop of Wellington, +Paul Martin, and Cardinal John Dew? One did think they'd be very glad to celebrate shedding responsibility for the Diocese of Palmerston North at last. 

On a horrible (some might unkindly say typically so) Palmy day, the cathedral was crowded to the extent that half an hour before take-off the nave was full and the overflow directed to adjacent halls and meeting rooms. 

A reader of this blog found herself in front of a screen instead of the Blessed Sacrament as she'd hoped - and accordingly had donned a hat. She had a word with the Lord to the effect that she'd offer her sequesterment up for Bishop Adams' intentions. But the Lord had other plans. 

The chap seated beside her identified himself as a distant cousin, with a claim to relationship to +Cullinane. "Snap," she said. Not only that, but he spotted on the screen two empty seats centre-front in the nave of the cathedral.

They decided it was worth a try. They crept out of the meeting room and spoke to the lady-in-charge of the foyer. She wasn't happy, not even when the chap said they were cousins of Bishop Cullinane. She said she'd have to speak to a higher-up  - literally, in the choir. After some minutes she returned and reluctantly gave permission to venture into the nave, by a circuitous route. 

Her new-found cousin, the reader said, was a gentleman and let her go first - to the empty seats, centre-aisle, right in front of the assembled bishops (and the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Novatus Rugambwa). 

So her hat had proved appropriate, after all. And so she gathered her wits and genuflected to the Blessed Sacrament, which in this cathedral is also sequestered, as she'd been. 

Our Lord is relegated here to a glorified cupboard on a side wall (the flowers on the tabernacle-less high altar are there, it seems, simply as staging. It's been said, moreover, that the high altar itself is destined for demolition, just as soon as all the rellies of those who stumped up for it have departed this mortal coil. But who would believe such a thing?)  

Anyway. Let's pass over the opening address, by Bishop Stephen Lowe, president of the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops (aka The Snickers Bars Bishop), except to note his contextualisation of the Mass as "the Upper Room, overshadowed by the Cross". You know, that Protestant imagery of the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross as a meal shared with friends. 

Nice friends, of course. Not any whose souls might be in danger and in need of saving. Divorced and 'remarried' Catholics, for example. Or sodomites. 

Oh, and Bishop Lowe did think also to drop the name of Fr Timothy Radcliffe O P, the trendy heterodox friar nominated by Francis to lead the retreat for the bishops and participants at - ta-dah! - the Synod. One suspects however that that Fr Radcliffe's name might not have resonated as much in Palmy as it would in Auckland with Bishop Lowe's usual congregants.

 

Fr Timothy Radcliffe - the name just didn't seem to resonate

The name Nicholas Dillon on the order of service ("Oh, you mean the brochure!" said the schoolgirl handing them out), would not have resonated either, but the whole of the nave did, when Fr Dillon took over at the organ in the choir loft to play a voluntary to conclude the ceremonies. Fr Dillon, on loan from the Dunedin Diocese to Melbourne where he's parish priest at St Philip's, and who has played the organ in cathedrals with a much greater claim to fame than Palmerston North's, was in seminary with Bishop Adams. 

That's all by way of getting around to the fact that Bishop Adams demonstrated a fine singing voice, which this morning apparently was augmented by a crowd of choristers from Christchurch who'd made the trip across the Strait to see their friend from the Christchurch parish of St Peter Chanel in Rangiora consecrated as bishop. 

At least one P N Diocese parish newsletter described the affair as an "ordination and installation". Maybe that's acceptable N O-speak, but Bishop Adams was ordained a priest quite some time ago and a new bishop is surely not for installation, like electrical wiring or fibre. For centuries in the Catholic Church he was consecrated to God. "Ordination and installation" is so Anglican, so Vat II.

Fr Nicholas Dillon - world class concert organist 

It was noted that yesterday in the cathedral, an unusually large proportion of the congregation knelt for the Consecration. More than ever in living memory of those catechised by Bishop Cullinane on the significance of standing at that moment when the priest (or in this case the bishop) calls the Son of God down on to an earthly altar (ah - a table), instead of kneeling as Catholics did for centuries. 

It's become common in Palmerston North to be exhorted to "please be seated " - especially at Requiems (oh, sorry, funerals). One doesn't want to make non-Catholics uncomfortable. Or, in PN Diocese, Catholics either.  

Incidentally, it seems that on Friday at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, in the annexe decorated with very large Maori carvings, a "powhiri" was held for the new bishop. 

Coming from Christchurch as he does, Bishop Adams is apparently unfamiliar with such goings-on. He said as much, "as a Pakeha". He was told, "You'll learn".

There was a lot of Te Reo in the ceremonies yesterday, but perhaps not quite as much as there might have been. And one wonders whether in Christchurch they have what's called karakia right after the most solemn moment the Mass, the Consecration. 

For the benefit of those outside the confines of PN Diocese, what happens is, a Maori woman wearing a korowai intones a few words in Te Reo, to welcome the Person of Our Lord. It's done very solemnly, suddenly and in the confines of a church, it's very loud. It's effective. But Pakehas are likely to wonder what these words in Te Reo mean. We would explain, but Aunty Google doesn't know.

So who does?  

https://ourladyofguadalupechurch.org/about/our-patroness/

Our Lady of Guadalupe, please pray for the Diocese of Palmerston North and  its new Bishop John Adams