+William Gordon Wheeler (5.V. 1910- 21.II. 1998)
It was good to see a healthy number of people at Mass for Ash Wednesday this evening. I think this new later time will work better than the earlier teatime slot. Lent has got off to a good start.
My grandchildren were parading round the supermarket after Mass apparently proud of their ash crossed foreheads. The cashier asked them if they had been to church.
Mass for the first Sunday of Lent will be offered at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m. and confessions will be available for those wishing to perform part of their Easter duties.
Many letters, pamphlets, books and papers of various types are always on my desk demanding my attention and I usually have two or three projects on the go at once to keep me occupied when I am not teaching.
At the moment I am preparing lectures on the use of English Idioms and another on the history of the Berlin Wall with one about the Bradford Beck's contribution to the the life of the city is in the pipeline.
Recently somebody sent me an old CTS pamphlet which I had never seen. It is called "Let's Get This Straight. The Church after Vatican II". It is by Bishop William Gordon Wheeler who was the Bishop of Leeds from 1966 to 1985.
I remember him with great fondness. not only because he confirmed me, but because in my possession I have a lot of his personal correspondence with Mrs Agnes Rutherford, who was the rep for the Latin Mass Society during Bishop Wheeler's time and beyond. It is clear to me that if every bishop in the Church had been like Bishop Wheeler we wouldn't have been in the situation in which we find ourselves today, where it is almost as if the Church itself has become a scourge in the hand of God and we have to make more sacrifices to fulfil our baptismal promises.
To illustrate what I mean, I am going to produce excerpts from the bishop's pamphlet throughout Lent.
Bishop Wheeler's optimism and belief, when he produced the pamphlet in 1969, that there was a thirst for growth and development and that the implementation of the Council could feed these needs seem incredibly naïve today for those of us staring through the lens of hindsight. But Wheeler only knew how to look at things through the lens of the hermeneutic of continuity in the light of Tradition. This is something about which Pope Benedict frequently spoke.
The pamphlet is made up of nearly forty paragraphs. Each one addresses an issue about which we need "to get straight". Remember the pamphlet was written in 1969 before the introduction of the Pauline Mass and after Humanae Vitae. Abortion in England had already been legalised.
The World Today
Many people are saying, 'We are living in times of great uncertainty, and we don't know where we stand. Before the Council, our feet were on a rock. Now, we are moving on shifting sand. Nothing seems to be sure, nothing safe. Men say that God is dead; let us put back the clock before we lose everything.' You can not put back the clock and you shouldn't want to, for the new chaos, the doubt and uncertainty, come not from the Council but from the world of our time: from the affluent and 'all-sufficient' state, from the misuse of nuclear fission, from the failure to share the world's resources, from the pride and arrogance of twentieth century man.
The Church
The Church is the Good Samaritan who does not pass by on the other side, but by her loving encounter with the wounded world of our time pours out the oil and the wine, but also has to pay the price of the convalescence as in the Gospel.
It is almost 26 years to the day since Bishop Wheeler died. (21st February 1998). RIP.
Next time - the Council and Opportunities.
