Cardinal Suenens says Holy Spirit is 'Like oil in a car'

From JO-ANN PRICE in NEW YORK The structures of institutional religion were like a motor car: eventually, they needed oil in order to run, Cardinal Leo Suenens of Malines-Brussels told a news conference in New York.
The oil that gave the Catholic Church and other Christian communions vigour to overcome internal dissensions and obstacles to reunion was the Holy Spirit, Cardinal Suenens said.
He was introducing the English-language edition of his new bcrok, "A New Pentecost?" The book, he said, was his "profession of faith and hope."
Cardinal Suenens has studied the various forms of the charismatic renewal movement in America and Europe. He has concentrated on Catholic
charismatics, who have been informally estimated at as many as 300,000 in the United States.
After the Second Vatican Council, he said: "I did what could to promote renewal in the structures of the Church."
Two of his books. "The Nun in the World" and "CoResponsibility in the Church," had a wide impact in describing the changing status of women in religious orders and the increasing influence of national bishops' conferences in toplevel decision-making in the Catholic Church.
As a long time supporter of revising the status of women in Church life, he offered cautionary advice about the question of ordaining women to the priesthood. He said: "We are at a moment where we see a multiplication of ministries, with or without ordination. 1 do not think we have to focus our attention on ordination."
Although there had historically been no theological bar to women being ordained deaconesses, there were several factors today, he said, that affected the idea of women as ordained priests. These included a "transformation in the style of the masculine ministry" and the strengthening of the permanent diaconate.
"Let us at least wait to see the changes in the style of the masculine ministry," he observed. The ordination of women priests also might cause "all kinds of trouble in relation to the Orthodox," who. he said. would never accept women priests. _
"So I do not see what the future will bring in the ordination question. I do not see it coming about yet."
Cardinal Suenens said he had begun his study of the Holy 'Spirit as something of a counterbalance to his 'extensive studies of the institutional Church when he heard about the Catholic charismatic movement in the United States, beginning about 1967. He, stopped writing and quietliy• began to do some exploring of prayer groups in America.
He travelled incognito at times, taking part in the phenomenon of "speaking in tongues," praying, analysing, visiting churches — Catholic and Protestant — speaking at Catholic charismatic rallies and studying such movements as marriage encounters.
"You see," he smiled broadly in discussing the charismatics, "something good came from America."
An ecumenist for many years, and friend of Dr Michael Ramsey, the retired Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Belgian Cardinal reiterated his view at the press conference that in prayer and in openiLig themselves to the Holy Spirit, there is "good ground" for separated Christians to "find each other."
He added: "Praying together is a positive ecumenical force — but you should respect your own identity, not take it to the lowest common denominator."
The receptivity of American Catholic bishops and people to the charismatic movement, as well as the openness of the Episcopal Church and other 'main Protestant Churches, he said, was a reason for optimism for Christians.