As a man of 6ft 3in, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne is used to towering over people. But when it comes to preaching from the pulpit in his new cathedral he starts to get vertigo. “When I stand up there and realise how high up I am, my heart begins to race and I’m frightened of toppling over the parapet, and so I start stammering in the sermon,” he told the German tabloid Express. He wasn’t giving up though, he said, and wanted to practise going up a
19 February 2015, The Tablet
Slow ascent
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