{"id":1728,"date":"2015-04-20T16:49:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T20:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/?p=1728"},"modified":"2015-04-20T16:52:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T20:52:46","slug":"funeral-of-cardinal-jean-claude-turcotte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/funeral-of-cardinal-jean-claude-turcotte\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral of Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte"},"content":{"rendered":"

Address of the Apostolic Nuncio, Msgr Luigi Bonazzi<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral<\/p>\n

Montr\u00e9al, April 17, 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear brothers and sisters,<\/p>\n

Today, in this moment of prayer and thanksgiving,<\/p>\n

this is not only a farewell by the Archdiocese of Montr\u00e9al,<\/p>\n

it is not only a farewell<\/p>\n

by the Church in Qu\u00e9bec and in Canada,<\/p>\n

it is also a Catholic farewell,<\/p>\n

a farewell of the universal Church,<\/p>\n

which accompanies the mortal remains<\/p>\n

of our dear Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis is also with us,<\/p>\n

with all the sincere friendship which linked him to Cardinal Turcotte.<\/p>\n

The Holy Father remained close to the Archbishop Emeritus of Montr\u00e9al<\/p>\n

in the last months of his illness,<\/p>\n

(he even called him for news)<\/p>\n

and when he learned of Cardinal Turcotte\u2019s death<\/p>\n

he expressed his fervent condolences<\/p>\n

through the message he sent<\/p>\n

to His Grace, Archbishop Christian L\u00e9pine,<\/p>\n

Archbishop of Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

In his message, Pope Francis<\/p>\n

recalled Cardinal Turcotte with emotion<\/p>\n

as a \u201czealous pastor and attentive to the challenges of the contemporary Church … as a faithful pastor who served the Church<\/em><\/p>\n

not only in his diocese but also at the national level …<\/em><\/p>\n

as well as being a highly regarded member of the various Roman dicasteries.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Cardinal Turcotte always remained faithful to this friendship.<\/p>\n

I was able to visit him on Good Friday past.<\/p>\n

I was touched by his smile when opening his eyes, he recognized me.<\/p>\n

I had the audacity to ask him:<\/p>\n

“Your Eminence, you are joyful?\u201d “Yes!\u201d<\/p>\n

“You are in the light? There is light within you? “. “Yes!”<\/p>\n

And his bright face was expressing a “yes”<\/p>\n

that was even stronger than the “yes” of his weakened voice.<\/p>\n

We spent some time together<\/p>\n

and at the end, I asked him, “Your Eminence,<\/p>\n

do you want me to say something on your behalf to Pope Francis?<\/p>\n

Do you have something to say to him?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a moment, with a very distinct voice and bright eyes he whispered to me:<\/p>\n

“That I pray for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could not but tell him in my turn:<\/p>\n

“And Pope Francis prays for you.”<\/p>\n

And I withdrew.<\/p>\n

There was within me \u2013 as I told his family and those who attended him \u2013<\/p>\n

a profound joy:<\/p>\n

that of seeing a Christian, a bishop, who obviously<\/p>\n

was going through the last stage of his life<\/p>\n

with the awareness that he was going not to death,<\/p>\n

but towards the door that leads from life, from this present life<\/p>\n

to eternal life.<\/p>\n

Yes, brothers and sisters, thanks to the gift of faith,<\/p>\n

we can look upon Cardinal Turcotte<\/p>\n

not as one who is dead<\/p>\n

but as a brother alive in God<\/p>\n

who continues to look at us, to be interested in us, to intercede for us.<\/p>\n

And we discover that we are, here on earth,<\/p>\n

a large family of fathers and mothers, of brothers and sisters, of friends<\/p>\n

living in the expectation of being, one day, all reunited.<\/p>\n

Thank you, dear Cardinal Turcotte.\u00a0 Yes, indeed, a heartfelt thank you!<\/p>\n

Au revoir!<\/p>\n

We pray for you!<\/p>\n

Pray for Pope Francis!<\/p>\n

Pray for us!<\/p>\n

We need your prayers to resume, with serene hope and courage,<\/p>\n

the way that leads from this life to The Life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Address of the Apostolic Nuncio, Montr\u00e9al, April 17, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[45,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}