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Post date: 26-Aug-2018 20:22:21
There was lots of excitement at St Cyprian's when we went to the early mass this morning - especially among the Irish members of the congregation - about the pope's visit to Dublin. A few families have made the trip over there to see him for themselves, and old Mrs O'Roarke insisted on telling everyone over and over again about the time she went on the pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick then she was a girl. jonah asked Peter if he wished he could met the pope - him being a new convert and all - but Peter isn't interested in the church hierarchy; It's Our Lady (Mary, as he always calls her, which in a funny way always feels almost disrepectful to someone who was brought up among Catholics) that attracted him to Catholicism.
I remember my dad and some of the others - I think Joey included - going to see Pope John Paul II in Heaton Park in Manchester. It must have been one of the last outings he went on before he died. I didn't see the point at the time, but I suppose it was in a way symbolic that the pope had botehred to come to England, rather than confining his travels to majority catholic countries. I never felt teh "loyalty in adversity" that so many Catholics did, having a foot in both camps, so to speak.