Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has recalled the warmth of the late pope John Paul. He was speaking in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral on Saturday evening at an event to mark the first anniversary of pope John Paul's death.
Anniversary Masses took place all over Ireland yesterday, usually involving members of the local Polish community.
Recalling his friendship with the late pope, Archbishop Martin, who spent almost 30 years in the Vatican, said: "I remember his warmth at table, but also the way in which every meal was clearly a working session, a way in which to explore how the mission of the church could be developed."
He also remembered the day the pope was shot. "Only a few days beforehand I had come back from Poland from my first visit there. I met the pope on the Sunday afternoon and he immediately joked: 'You were in Poland and you never told me, you must tell me your impressions'. Three days later, I saw him again just as he entered St Peter's Square. Minutes later he was shot."
Dr Martin said the situation was "grave" in relation to vocations. "Last year was the first year in history in which we had no priestly ordination for the diocese of Dublin. I pray especially today as archbishop of Dublin for a renewed response by young people to the call to serve God in the ministerial priesthood or in religious life."
On RTÉ radio's This Week programme yesterday Archbishop Martin said he was told, after he gave a report on the state of the Irish church to the synod of bishops in Rome last October, "You really shocked the pope". He had explained to the synod that weekly attendance in some Dublin parishes was as low as 2 per cent. Pope Benedict questioned him on when the decline began and its history, he said.
The Pope also "expressed horror at the extent of paedophilia which has existed in places in the church", he recalled, when he told him about the State inquiry into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin.