Locally, faithful pray in silence as Benedict’s papacy ends

DETROIT — Comparing the historic departure of the pope to St. Paul’s final departure from Ephesus in the Book of Acts, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron led nearly 700 faithful in prayer Feb. 28 at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament as the final bell tolled on the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI.

As the clock read 1:59 p.m., Archbishop Vigneron concluded his remarks at the Eucharistic Holy Hour held to commemorate the occasion.

“Are we not, in this cathedral, like the elders at Ephesus, as they said goodbye to Paul?” the archbishop asked. “We too kneel down to pray, just as they did. The text goes on to say ‘they were all weeping loudly as they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him, for they were deeply distressed that he had said they would never see his face again. Then, they escorted him to the ship.’”

“Just as it was 2,000 years ago,” he said, the cathedral bells beginning to chime, marking the moment of the Holy See’s vacancy, “in that way we escort the apostle in our midst, Pope Benedict, we escort him on his way.”

The resignation of the pope, announced Feb. 11, became official at the stroke of 2 p.m. Feb. 28 — 8 p.m. Rome time. After his final meetings with cardinals at the Vatican earlier in the day, Benedict flew by helicopter to the papal summer retreat of Castel Gandolfo, where he will live until his permanent residence, a monastery inside the Vatican walls, is completed of its renovations.

For Jack Kiley, 25, a parishioner of St. Joan of Arc in St. Clair Shores who attended the Holy Hour, Benedict’s resignation was a flashback to the first moments of his papacy.

“He was the first pope who was elected during my lifetime, and it was a really exciting moment of reinvigoration, of a combination of faith and reason in the modern world and in the Church,” Kiley said.

Sarah Jorgensen of St. Anselm Parish, Dearborn Heights, said Benedict had been instrumental in bringing people back to a Church that’s been perceived by many as in decline.

“He’s come in at a tough time, and I think he’s shown a lot of strength,” Jorgensen said. Peg Moore-Jones, a parishioner at the cathedral, agreed: “He’s made people look at what Christ is saying and what does it mean.”

Following the archbishop’s remarks, the cathedral was silent for nearly 15 minutes as the faithful prayed in adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament for Benedict and his eventual successor.

After the popular and “high-level” pontificate of Blessed John Paul II, Benedict was the perfect follow-up for the Church, said Matthew Hill, a member of St. Josaphat in Detroit. “The saying has been, ‘people went to Rome to see John Paul, and they go to Rome to hear Benedict.’ It’s sort of like bringing it down and making it applicable, and I think that’s what he’s done,” Hill said.

In his homily, Archbishop Vigneron suggested that a spirit of thanksgiving should guide the faithful’s prayers for the now-Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, saying the Holy Father was “one who supports us and loves us even though he may not know our names.”

“’Each day I held each of you in prayer with a father’s heart,’” the archbishop quoted the pope as saying, adding: “How could we not also pray for him at this hour?”

Elsewhere in the Archdiocese of Detroit, several parishes also had their own prayer services to mark the end of Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

Some, such as St. Genevieve-St. Maurice Parish in Livonia, had holy hours similar to that at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Others, such as St. Joan of Arc in St. Clair Shores and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Wyandotte, offered prayers for the pope in daylong adoration on or shortly after the day of his resignation.

Catholic schools, too, acknowledged the end of Benedict XVI’s papacy. Several schools held rosary services around the time of the pope’s Feb. 28 resignation.