VENI, VIDERUNT,VICI

Benedict has been and gone; the atheist establishment has excelled itself in vituperation; the Catholic community stands now in readiness to avail itself of the inspiring example that Benedict gave; when will it get it? Hopefully, the wisdom and religious commonsense that he showed to us will be drawn into the Catholic bloodstream by some kind of osmosis for there are few signs of a church inspired 'Benedict bounce'.

There are great lessons to learned from the experience of 1982, with the visit of Pope John Paul to our country. A whole explosion of enthusiasm and exuberance, deeply tinged with triumphalism, was set off. Twenty eight years later, it is not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that we are getting closer to a tipping point in terms of practising numbers. Officially these are given as 185 000, a figure that may be a little out of date. We needed Benedict to come. We need his continued influence.