Book review

PORTRAITS Popes, Family and Friends – Connor Court Publishing By Principal Chaplain to the Subpriory of the Immaculate Conception, Gerald O’Collins SJ, AC.

Gerald O’Collins, in his latest book Portraits Popes, Family and Friends recounts to a fascinating and inspiring cast of characters with whom he has shared his life. The tale is an honest and frank account at close range of how these fellow pilgrims helped shape and nourish Fr O’Collins on his life’s journey. As he says: “They were the music of my life”.

With his move to Rome in 1973, to begin a long teaching career at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, we have a front row seat view of the characters of Popes Paul VI , John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.

In Part I we experience his views and engagement across a broad range of events during that period from the great controversy surrounding the publication of Paul VI’s Encyclical Humane Vitae (Fr O’Collins’s stance on this matter comes as a surprise), to his having to front the then Cardinal Ratzinger at Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, and helping defend his friend and fellow Jesuit Fr Jacques Dupuis against charges of “dissent or heresy”. We see how these men led the Church in a period of dramatic change as it wrestled with its place in the modern world. Fr O’Collins offers his thoughtful assessment of both the shortcomings and shining features of each of their respective papacies.

In Part II, Fr O’Collins shares the history of his family, beginning with his father who grew up in Port Melbourne, through his military service, his legal practice and commercial ventures. From suburban Melbourne to the charms of rural life 30 miles away down Port Phillip Bay, we have a clear window on what life was like growing up in a large Catholic family schooled in love, friendship and, of course, discipline.

Of the many delightful stories about growing up, the best is perhaps a tale of his sister Moira with whom he rode horses and played golf.

From the book: “After dark one winter evening, Moira and I were alone at the farm when we heard noises coming from a shed half way along the front drive. I grabbed an unloaded shot gun, Moira armed herself with a heavy iron bar which was used as a poker for a huge central fire place in the sitting room. We crept close the shed and with shaky voices called out: “Who’s there?” It was a truck driver making a late delivery of grain for our cows and chickens. We slipped our weapons behind some lavender bushes and tried to chat to the driver in normal voices.”

A feature of the book is the emphasis on “courage” and the example and discipline of his father. His father tried to promote the virtue of courage in his children’s lives. One of his earliest recollections is his father saying to him: “cowards die many times.” (“He was encouraging me not to be afraid of the dark.”)

Part III features portraits of friends. It includes essays about many prominent Jesuits: Cardinals Avery Dulles and Carlo Maria Martini, Peter Steele, Jacques Dupuis, PeterHans Kolvenbach. His cast of heroes also includes Jan Gray RSM, publisher Geoffrey Chapman, Gene and Maureen McCarthy, Prince and Princess Frank and Orietta Doria Pamphili and St Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Of special interest to us is the chapter that relates to our own Frà Richard Divall. Fr O’Collins gives this in three parts, the homilies preached at Richard’s funeral and anniversary Masses, along with a never before published obituary.

An excerpt from the book:

Richard joined the Order of Malta in 1990, and in 2009, Frà Richard became a fully professed knight, the only one in Australia and, for that matter, in the entire Southern Hemisphere. Richard treasured his membership in the Order of Malta, joining in pilgrimages with sick people to the shrine of Lourdes in France…

Home in Melbourne, he was assiduous in

attending special celebrations of the Eucharist for the aged and sick at day-care centres and hospices around the city. For Richard, the ideal set before members of the Order of Malta to treat the sick and poor as nothing less than their “lords” was a lived reality. The sick and elderly felt cheered by the sight of Frà Richard and other knights and dames.

With his warm, attractive and amusing personality and constant networking, Richard enjoyed endless friends and admirers. He never allowed himself to be crushed by the onset of cancer in 2010. I lived only a short distance from his home. He became for me what he was for so many others – a wonderful human presence and spiritual blessing.

Reading the text, we are reminded of the words of Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, a friend and confidant Fr O’Collins, reflecting upon “courage”:

I exhort you: cultivate the virtue of courage in your life. Not only the courage to question yourself on the profound realities surrounding us, but the courage to freely follow paths founded on truth, justice, serious and competent scholarship, faithful and respectful friendship.

The rejection of every form of possessiveness and greed of the eyes and senses becomes a generous response to God’s love, desire, and word, as well as to the needs of our brothers and sisters and the calls for help which they raise in our presence and in our world.

The author’s hope is that we the readers will draw inspiration and courage from all these stories.

Sir James Gobbo AC CVO with Fr Gerald O’Collins SJ AC, and Lady Shirley Gobbo.