The challenges of the Church and the world yesterday and today

Ninety-two year old Cardinal Paul Poupard’s gaze lights up as soon as I mention the date: 11 October 1962. His blue eyes look at me, bursting with joy, a youthful enthusiasm, which is the theme of our conversation. “I remember that day as if it were yesterday. There had been a storm and then the sky had turned blue and white. I had been working on the third floor of the Secretariat of State for three years, and I remember that when I went downstairs to the bronze door, I saw a procession of bishops, a trail of white. It was like a vision, something incredible. It was like seeing the Church and truly seeing her as she was. As Cardinal Newman used to say as a young man, there is a difference between the Church in theory and the Church in practice”. “Then I see myself in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the section reserved for the authorities, ...