“Today promises to be one of the most significant events for the laity in the history of the Catholic Church.”

In making this statement about their July 20th conterence, leaders of Voice of the Faithful cannot be accused of excessive modesty. After all, the history of which they speak stretches back some 2,000 years and includes at least a few other events of note.

However, these leaders and their associates have certainly begun with a bang that has resounded across the Boston area and, they would say, the country and the world. To sit in the Hynes Auditorium, as I did, among the 4200 Catholics who took part in the conference,  was to feel an excitement at something unprecedented in the life of this faith community.

Being there for a day of impassioned speeches and theological reflection was heady. So were personal contacts with friends long experienced in social action. And so was the enthusiasm expressed in the Mass that concluded the formal program. These features reminded me forcibly of the peace movement of the sixties and seventies, and especially of the atmosphere created by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

If, as reported, people over age 50 were in the majority at this gathering, many of them could remember the excitement Catholics felt when Vatican II brought about radical changes in the church. I, for one, recall being astonished by the decision of the council to substitute the language of each country for the Latin with which I had grown up. And that was only one such change among many.

Those days were different from the decades that have followed. The open-hearted John XXIII was pope, far-reaching change –  – in both mentality and practice –  –  filled the air, and many church  members felt the future full of promise. For people like me, at least, the first half of the 1960s was the most dynamic time we had ever known as Catholics.

The years since then have brought great disappointments through retrenchments of the hopes held out by Vatican II. Of course, they have also brought events deeply gratifying to most people, especially Pope John Paul’s reaching out to the Jewish community in apology and love. But the spirit of openness that so marked the Council has been replaced, in the Vatican and elsewhere, by a narrowing of outlook.

What is distinctive about the Voice of the Faithful is its character as a movement of  Catholic laity. Beginning only five months ago in the basement of a Wellesley church, it has already grown to some 19,000 members (in large part through the adroit use of the Internet.)  This new organization arose from outrage at the abuse of children and adolescents by Catholic clergy and the cover-ups of these criminal actions by the bishops.

Though outrage at what happened to the young victims fueled its formation, Voice wants to accomplish much more than to express indignation. Among its principal goals, it lists three: to support the abused; to support priests of integrity;  and to shape structural change within the church. This last purpose is obviously highly ambitious and will be sure to bring determined resistance from church leaders.

The radical change that Voice most wants to bring about was laid out at the conference by Jim Muller, the founding president. Dr. Muller is a cardiologist who shared in the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985. Using graphs, he contrasted two models of church, the first from the top down, and the second from the bottom up.

The top-down structure is what Catholics have been used to since the church’s early centuries but that has to change, says Dr. Muller. Currently, all the power and authority is centralized and that includes the basic three kinds: executive, legislative, and judicial. The pope and the bishops have it all and members of the laity have virtually none.

Other speakers echoed the same call for lay people to take power in the church. Father Tom Doyle, the canon lawyer who first called attention to clergy sexual abuse 18 years ago, portrayed this disaster as “the deadliest symptom of the unbridled addiction to power.” With applause-provoking irony, he spoke of the bishops as themselves suffering from  that addiction, and welcomed the opportunity to “help them free themselves from their chains.”

Jim Post, current president, envisions nothing less than the time when there will be a Voice of the Faithful chapter in every parish in the whole world. “We will not give the bishops a free ride,” he promised. And he claims Voice will hold fast: “We will not negotiate our right to exist, to be heard, to free speech for American Catholics.”

Is Voice of the Faithful going to succeed with its ambitious agenda and bring about a radical change in Church structures? At this point, no one knows what its chances are. A prudent person would not place a heavy bet on this David and Goliath struggle. Members and supporters will no doubt have frequent need to remind themselves who won that epic biblical battle.

Richard Griffin

“It’s almost an out-of-body experience. We’re still floating.” This is what Helen Pfeltz of Bloomington, Indiana says of the feelings she and her husband Cliff still have about a Elderhostel program earlier this month.

She is talking about the six days they spent at Simpson College, in Indianola, Iowa, some 20 miles from Des Moines. Not only did they take two courses, one focusing on opera, the other on Islam and the Middle East, but they also attended “Candide” and “Turandot,” and heard other music as well.

Helen generalizes about the experience with enthusiasm: “There couldn’t be a better time to grow older and to go to Elderhostel, wherever it may be.” And she quotes her son approvingly: “That’s the way aging ought to be.”

Though I did not take part in this Elderhostel experience myself, I did travel independently to Indianola on the previous weekend and saw all three of the operas staged by the Des Moines Metro Opera Company this summer. “Candide,” “Turandot,” and “Salome” pleased me immensely and made me glad for having accepted an invitation to visit a longtime Des Moines friend, Nick Tormey.  

If anything, Nick is even more enthusiastic than I about his local opera company. He often sees the same production several times, sometimes preparing for the formal performance by watching the dress rehearsal. If it is good to have a passion for something in later life, as wise elders often suggest, then opera, full of passion itself, is a fine candidate.

This year marks the thirtieth since the Des Moines Metro Opera Company’s founding. The founder, Dr. Robert Larson, a music professor at Simpson College, continues to be the driving force behind the success of organization. His skill at bringing together dozens of singers and coordinating complicated stage business in extravaganzas like “Turandot,” all the while conducting the orchestra, excites admiration from just about everyone who sees the performances.

This is Elderhostel’s fourteenth year at Simpson College; that means older learners have been part of the opera scene there for almost one-half the company’s life. Michael Patterson, another member of the music faculty at Simpson, has taught participants for all of this time, much to his satisfaction.

Of the Elderhostelers he says enthusiastically: “They infiltrate this place; they talk to everyone; people like them here.” Professor Patterson admires these elders for their spirit, citing the determination of a woman in a motorized wheelchair who keeps coming back despite less than adequate facilities for her. “They shove their physical difficulties aside,” he says.

Michael Patterson also loves teaching these older learners. Because he starts class at eight o’clock in the morning, he wears bright shirts to help wake people up. “I enjoyed your classes, but hated your bright shirts,” wrote one woman in an evaluation. Undeterred, he says: “I get a kick out of the group dynamics, which change from year to year.”

The educational experience for this professor – – a relative youngster at age 49 – – has offered him much stimulation. Of his adult students, he says: “They may have an observation that I may not have noticed.” They also keep him honest: “I can tell when I become too pedantic in class,” he confesses.

Opera was not the only reason the Elderhostelers I interviewed felt enthusiastic. They also benefited from the second course called “Muslim Middle East Background of Conflict.” A feature of this experience for Mimi Nord, a 75-year-old resident of Park Forest, Illinois was the visit to the Islamic center in Des Moines and the opportunity to learn more about the worship and teachings of the Muslim tradition.

But music remained the chief focus of the week, with extras thrown in such as performances from young apprentice singers who put on scenes from various operas. A Des Moines Metro Opera trademark is the way singers make themselves available in the lobby at the end of each performance. There you can talk with them and snap pictures, posing with them, as I did.

Clearly the participants in Elderhostel had fun. The people I talked to also liked the food, with one mentioning meals featuring prunes and oatmeal. “They waited on us hand and foot,” reports Helen Pfeltz’s husband Cliff.

But they also took the learning experience seriously. The beauty of it all can be found in older people discovering the rewards that always come with taking in new knowledge for its own sake. And the social dimension of learning remains vital. As Mimi Nord told me: “You’re missing something (if you don’t have this experience), especially if you like people.”

Further information about the program at Simpson College is available online at www.elderhostel.org. or at 877 426-8056. The cost this year was $534 for a shared room, $584 for a single; these prices include everything but transportation. Elderhostel does give scholarships based on need, judged on a case-by-case basis for expenses other than transportation to the site of the program.

Richard Griffin

As William Maxwell approached 90 years of age, his interior life changed. “These days, it’s more that I’m rowing around on an ocean of experience,” he said, “and the ocean is memory. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about the past, and it’s as if I’ve put on the record player, and there’s no way stop it. It’s a form of reliving, and I can’t stop reliving it.”

Maxwell’s words appear in the book, My Mentor, published this year by his much younger friend, Alec Wilkinson. This modest volume celebrates the life of a man who was famous in New York’s literary world, enough so that his obit made the front page of the New York Times. Novelist, essayist, and editor, William Maxwell worked for much of his career at the New Yorker magazine where he was highly regarded as a judge of good writing.

My Mentor emerges as a combination of short biography – – Boswellian in rich anecdote and sayings of the master –  –   and the record of an unusual friendship. It has a worshipful tone about it that, despite its secular content, reminds me of the life-of-saint literature I used to read in my younger days. What especially interests me about the book, however, is its wealth of gerontological detail . Wilkinson first met his mentor when Maxwell was 68, and remained close to him until his death at age 91, giving him  the opportunity to observe close-up how it was to grow old.

Other people receive some attention in the book too, notably Wilkinson’s father and Maxwell’s wife. The latter, Emily Maxwell, was reputed to be one of the most beautiful of women and retained much of this beauty throughout her long life. The marriage between her and Maxwell was also beautiful, echoed in the statement she wrote on the small box she gave him  on his 90th birthday: “Each day I am as glad to see you as I am to see the sun rise in the morning and the moon cross the sky at night.”

Wilkinson first met Maxwell through his father who was one of the editor’s  best friends. The relationship between Wilkinson and his father lacked the untroubled intimacy that the writer would have liked. Knowing Maxwell as he did, the author found it difficult to understand how his mentor could have found his father so charming and amiable.

In words that evoke something of my feelings about my own father, Wilkinson writes: “What I ended up feeling toward my father is sadness for the relationship I wish we had had. We had failed to make some fundamental connection when we should have, and after that, nothing that should have happened between a father and his child had gone right.”

Back to Maxwell’s late life psyche: “In old age experience is prismatic,” he explained. “It’s as if you’re holding your life in your hands, turning it this way and that, and what you see are the sides of a prism. It’s half recollection and half a visual re-enactment of moments from the past, whereas when you’re younger, you’re simply living the experience.”

Toward the end of his life Maxwell gradually lost his facility for sustained literary effort. One explanation the author gives for this falling off was this: “He seemed to have lost touch with the place where stories and novels come from.”   

To all appearances he accepted his slowing down quite gracefully, and yet some indications suggest otherwise. As Wilkinson remembers it, “He sometimes said that when people asked him what he was writing, even though he knew they only meant to be polite, he wanted to pick up something and throw it at them.”

But Maxwell did consistently exhibit the kind of benevolence that characterizes the later life of many people. Both he and his wife took pains to serve the needs of other people even when things could not have been so easy for themselves. Of this charming couple Wilkinson observes: “What was so admirable to me about the manner in which they conducted their lives –  – the courtesy to others, the care for other people’s difficulties, and their belief that we should do what we can to help each other.”

Maxwell did not profess any religious faith but had a spiritual view of the world. About his view of death, Wilkinson writes: “He said you never lose people you love when they die, because you incorporate parts of their personalities into your own as a means of keeping them alive.” But somewhat in contradiction he also said about two old literary friends who had passed on: “I will never again love an old man. They die on you.”

Wilkinson spent much time with his mentor during Maxwell’s own final days. What he writes about Maxwell serves as a kind of eulogy: “His great dignity, so natural and unforced, so courageous, never faltering when his death was near. His being so present in his mind. His compassion. His sympathy. His great capacity for friendship.”

Richard Griffin

“You just go from day to day; you wake up and you’re still here.” This is how Janet Irving describes the view from 100.

This resident of Manchester-by-the Sea enjoys remarkable vitality, highlighted by the gifts of good hearing and eyesight. On a hot summer day she graciously received this visitor and regaled me with good humor and rich memories.

“I just keep on going,” she adds about her current life. If she has a secret formula, it’s probably this: “You must keep on working at something that interests you; otherwise you become dull.”

No one would ever accuse Janet Irving of being dull. She sparkles with feisty and sometimes acerbic wit as she talks about her career and the fascinating people in her long life.

Among these people, Mary Garden looms large. In the first half of the 20th century, to those who knew anything about opera , hers was a household name. After her debut in 1900 at the Opéra-Comique, this Scottish-American soprano enjoyed a smashing career, and had the distinction of pioneering roles in Charpentier’s Louise and Debussey’s  Pelleas et Melisande.

Janet Irving became a close friend of this diva, after first meeting her in 1937. She even sang for Mary Garden, a woman who could be intimidating in her bluntness. After hearing Janet perform, Mary told her: “I hate that song; you need more work.”

Thanks to Janet Irving, this interviewer had the pleasure of handling the rhinestone bracelet that Mary Garden wore when she performed Tosca. For a confirmed opera fan like me, it was stirring to touch a famous diva’s jewelry. Her friend Janet plans to give it to a charitable group hoping this piece of memorabilia will fetch a good price.

After considerable voice training in France and Italy, Janet Irving had the opportunity for a career as a singer but opted instead to join her husband, James Irving, in South Africa. She then decided to become a teacher of singing instead of a performer. This teaching career she continued for 40 years, most of it at the Longy School in Cambridge where she is legend.

Born in New York City on June 22, 1902, Janet Irving takes no great pleasure in having people know her current age. “I wouldn’t mind being 99 or 101,” she says. She did, however, much enjoy the party given her by friends to celebrate her most recent birthday.

Asked if other members of her family were long-lived, she cites her great-aunt Sarah Curtis Hepburn who lived to 101. She once inquired of this venerable relative if she had ever seen President Lincoln. Her aunt’s disappointing answer: “I was never allowed to walk alone in the streets of Washington.”

That memory prompted my asking what Janet Irving remembered of World War I. “We were too far away,” she responded. “It was something that happened way over there; it was something very remote.”

World War II was another story, however. She spent most of it in Capetown, South Africa where she had gone to be with her husband. The latter was a physician and a professor of physiology who taught in South Africa until 1960. But getting to that country in 1939 involved for Janet an interminable  zigzag voyage on a ship fearful of encountering the German battleship Graf Spee.

Turning back to of her childhood memories, Mrs. Irving  recalls  the unconventional debut she made at the Metropolitan Opera at age eight “when I screamed the place down.” It was a performance of Hansel and Gretel which she and five of her friends viewed from a box given by the manager to her father. When the witch was being put in the oven, Janet was horrified and screamed “You can’t burn the witch!” Thereupon an usher came to the box and “lifted me out to the corridor, where you could still hear me screaming.”

Mrs. Irving has many other anecdotes about opera and its often temperamental stars. About my boyhood favorite tenor, Jussi Bjoerling, she recalls his visit to South Africa and his fondness for parties there. She loved hearing the pair of Wagnerian singers, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior, at the Met and recalls the former’s advice about how best to handle long demanding Wagnerian roles: “Buy a comfortable pair of shoes!”

But music has provided Janet Irving with much more than entertaining anecdotes.  “I’m lucky to have music,” she says. “It’s something you give out to people; it doesn’t pull you in.”  

No one has a surefire formula for living to 100. Although good genes and wise lifestyle habits can prove invaluable, much depends on luck. The philosophy expressed by Janet Irving, however, would seem to serve longevity well.

The passion she feels for what she loves evidently impels her forward. From all appearances, she relishes the persons, places, and things that have loomed large in her life and seems to find in them abundant reasons for continuing to cherish the world.

Richard Griffin