Monday, September 21, 2009

Bishops must help priests follow their vocation faithfully

Our bishop, Seamus Cunningham, is at this study week for new bishops although I couldn`t see him on this extract. `Bishops` boot camp` was the term our late bishop, Kevin Dunn, used to describe this week.

11 comments:

Discreet Observer said...

It is not obvious from the video, but as Latin is the official language of the Church and these new bishops are the leaders of their priests and flocks, I am sure that the Holy Father must have addressed the group in Latin. It is the obvious choice when these new bishops are from all parts of the world and their native languages are many and varied.

Fr Michael Brown said...

Discreet Observer, the Holy Father is speaking in Italian on this video.

Em said...

But, but, Italian is an impossible language - how can they understand it?

Fr Michael Brown said...

Impossible language? Why do you say that?

Em said...

I have tried to learn it twice and it will not go in. I can only retain the words for a couple of hours before they are gone again and I have to start all over from the beginning! I know musical Italian and that is it.

Fr Michael Brown said...

I have that problem with German. I found it infintely more complicated than Italian.

Em said...

German is initially much more complicated than many other languages but once you have learnt all of the rules everything slides beautifully into place and you can construct sentences mathematically. There are no nasty surprises with it. The vocab is easy too because it has so much in common with English and the compound words are pure genius. I also love the separable verbs - so cute!
Italian, on the other hand, is incomprehensible!

Fr Michael Brown said...

Em, I`ll take your word about German. I gave up with the definite article. I couldn`t remember what gender anything was. Italian I found much simpler.

1569 Rising said...

To settle this argument, we could call on the assistance of the well known Uncle Joe (see History Society blog). He is fluent in Russian, so I am sure he has an opinion on this discussion.

em said...

There are rules for the gender as well. You look at the noun ending and that gives the game away. There are very very few exceptions to the rules.

gemoftheocean said...

Lots of luck to the Holy Father where the San Diego bishop is concerned...ditto LA and Orange county.