My encounter with Cardinal Ratzinger: chance and the providence of God.

My children, and their children, and I myself, though more slowly, keep developing in our appreciation of my status. A seven-year-old grandson said to his mother the other day, "Can priests marry?". His mother said, "No." The boy must be related to Moses, who always said things like, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart," for he continued, "Did grandpa marry grandma?" His mother said "Yes." "Was that a sin?" "Yes." "Did God forgive him?" "Yes." Then his mother added, musingly, reflectively, "Boy, did God ever forgive him!"

Said her son, "By killing his wife?"

That is not the coincidence I refer to in the title, but my patient reader will need a little background to see where I am going.

I was born into a family of eight boys and a girl. Three of those boys became priests, the eldest and the two youngest. I, the second youngest, became the black sheep of the family, leaving the practice of my priesthood after nine years and marrying-out of the Church. Psalm 25 sums me up:

Lord for the sake of your name forgive my sin for it is great. (Ps 25:11).

At the time of this writing (April 28, 2005) only three others of that family survive on earth, the girl, Eleanor who will turn 92 in May, 2005, and the two youngest, both priests, as I say. The youngest, Vincent, a missionary in Colombia, South America and Joseph, myself, the subject of this bit of history, now incardinated into the diocese of London, Ontario, Canada.

Having married (before a Justice of the Peace), I lived with an unconscionable conscience for nine years until, thanks be to God and my then pastor, Father Calandra of the Scalabrini Fathers of St. Peter's parish in Sarnia, Ontario, I was married in the Church and able to get back to the sacraments.

About that time, on the recommendation of my brother Vincent, I made a Cursillo, another occasion of grace.

Almost twelve years ago, my wife, Helen, the mother of our eleven living children, died.

I had always wanted to get back to the practice of my priesthood, and I began at once to look into the matter.

I was turned down by the Basilians (my former Congregation), then by the diocese of Toronto, and three times by Rome. My coat-of-arms should be engraved with "I've been kicked out of better places than this!" The Basilians thought I should join a diocese; Toronto judged me "too old and too long away"; Rome (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose prefect was then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) kept telling me the same thing. And who can blame them? I lived in Toronto, and that was what Toronto said. How should Rome, half a world away, know any better? The diocese of London (where Sarnia is located) backed me. The then Bishop of London had the information from Sarnia, but I had not lived there for years, and Rome clearly relied on the word of the Archbishop where I lived.

Meanwhile, my daughter Patricia, whose husband was then playing hockey for the Berlin Cardinals, flew me to Berlin. I had scarcely arrived there when I received my third turndown from Rome. Patricia then said, "Let's go to Rome," which we did, arriving one day and returning the next. Father Comiskey, lately of Sarnia, who was in Rome at that time, hosted us like royalty, but our effort to get reinstatement could not even find the gear, and, in addition, the car began to sound as if it were out of gas.

Father Comiskey gave us a superb tour of St. Peter's Basilica; we galloped round a site or two (including the Pantheon), packed our bags and headed for the train that would take us to the airport.

Patricia had just said to me, "I wonder if we will have to wait till we die to find out why God brought us to Rome?" She said afterwards that I gave her a reasonable and even memorable response, but I have no idea what it was, because at that moment I raised my eyes, and there, coming towards us on the sidewalk, was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. My eyes wide and my mind full of what Patricia had just said, I realized even on the spur of the moment the crucial importance of this unexpected encounter, and I said, "And there's Cardinal Ratzinger!"

With his head tilted to the side in a gesture full at once of acknowledgement and courtesy, he said, "Yes!"

I asked, "Does the name 'Joseph Thompson' mean anything to you?" He replied, "No; but there are a lot of cases." He seemed to perceive without further words that his office was involved.

I told him, in short, about "too old and too long away." My ever-loyal Patricia, I remember, called his attention to the apparent ease with which I was carrying our heavy bags. His Eminence said, "Send me a letter" and I knew that those words were my key to his office.

Then he was gone, and we continued on our way to Azotus--I mean, to Berlin, but like the young man in "On the Street Where You Live" the pavement had always stayed beneath my feet before.

All at once was I seven stories high.

I had found the street where the Prefect lived--or walked. I knew its name: the Via della Conciliatione. I had even found the key to the Prefect's office.

Later I was to read in the words of Pope John Paul II (in the context of his pilgrimage to Fatima where his would-be assassin's bullet is now embedded in our Lady's crown), "There is no such thing as a coincidence in the Providence of God." The Holy Father was shot in the heart on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

I wrote, of course, as soon as I got back to Berlin. About eight months later Bishop Sherlock got a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith saying that they were "going to reconsider" my case--confirmation, if confirmation were needed, of what I knew in my bones was implied in the words, "Send me a letter."

A month or two later, I was asked to read The Documents of Vatican H with the rector of the seminary in London, which I did.

Then came the letter of reinstatement.

Far from being the work of "God's Rotweiler," this work resembles most the work of the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

For the above is not the end of the happy ending. That father is now Pope Benedict XVI. Long may he reign! My most heartfelt recommendation to my new reader is to pray to Our Lady of Good Counsel for our new Holy Father. For his name is "Ratzinger," German for "proclaimer of expert advice." May Our Lady of the same name, Good Counsel, be with him, and us all, now and forever!

Father Joseph Thompson is a retired high-school teacher and a member of Catholic Insight's Advisory Board,