NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

A variety of emblems and posters have set the tone for the Pope's visit to Cagliari.


Site for today's Papal Mass - in front of the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria - as police check out the area with bomb-sniffing dogs.


(This also serves as a placeholder for the translations of the preparatory articles in OR today -
inasmuch as the Pope's visit is now well under way, and I have to catch up with the coverage.]

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PASTORAL VISIT OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
CAGLIARI, SARDINIA - September 7, 2008

PROGRAM

ROME- CIAMPINO

08.30 Departure from Ciampino airport for Cagliari.


CAGLIARI

09.30 Arrival at Cagliari-Elmas airport.

10.00 Visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria

10.30 EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION in front of the Basilica of Bonaria
- Homily by the Holy Father.

12.00 TNE ANGELUS
- Remarks by the Holy Father.

12.45 Visit to the Chapel of the Regional Seminary of Cagliari.

13.30 Lunch with the Bishops of Sardinia at the Seminary.

16.30 Greeting members of the Organizing Committee for the visit, at the Seminary.

17.00 MEETING WITH PRIESTS, SEMINARIANS AND THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF SARDINIA,
at the Cathedral of Cagliari.
- Address by the Holy Father.

18.15 MEETING WITH THE YOUTH at Piazza Yenne.
- Address by the Holy Father.

19.30 Depart from Cagliari-Elmas airport for Rome-Ciampino.


ROME-CIAMPINO

20.30 Arrive at Ciampino airport.

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Pope arrives in Cagliari






Cagliari, Sept. 7 (Translated from Apcom) - The plane carrying the Holy Father landed at Cagliari-Elmas airport at 9:25 this morning, for a 10-hour pastoral visit in the capital of Sardinia.

Waiting to welcome the Pope was Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who arrived a few minutes earlier at Elmas, along with Renato Soru, president of the region; Mons. Giuseppe Mani, Archbishop of Cagliari; and the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Antonio Zanardi Landi.

The Pope descended at 9:35. Also travelling with him from Rome was the Undersecretary of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, Gianni Letta.

Three girls - Chiara, Valeria, and Georgia - welcomed him with a bouquet of flowers. The Pope caressed them in thanks.

He then got into a blue car towards the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria where he was scheduled to say Mass at 10:30.


CAGLIARI WELCOMES THE POPE


CAGLIARI, Sept. 7 (Translated from AGI) - A very warm welcome from the Sards as Benedict XVI arrived from Elmas airport at the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria in the Popemobile (he transferred to the Popemobile from the car that brought him to the city from the airport).

The Popemobile received great acclaim from crowds on both sides of the route in the center of Cagliari and along the seaside boulevard leading to the Shrine.

At the Shrine, 20,000 guests had seats. At least 70,000 came in to represent all the dioceses of Sardinia outside Cagliari. A total attendance of about 150,000 was expected.

Most notably, the edge of the bay in front of the Shrine was ringed by boats belonging to sailors and fishermen 'attending' the Mass.

Maxiscreens were set up around the Shrine for the convenience of the crowd.



Pope Benedict breaks protocol
before Mass to greet
the sick and centenarians
Translated from

Sept. 7, 2008


Before the Mass this morning, Benedict XVI first greeted sick and handicapped people, along with a special group of Sardinians who are aged 100 or more, inside the Basilica of Bonaria.

The Papal Mass is the highlight of the jubilee year celebrating the proclamation in 1907 by Pope Pius XI of Our Lady of Bonaria as Supreme Patroness of Sardinia.

"This is a very important occasion to pay homage as well to the Pope, and we did not want to miss it," said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who arrived at Cagliari's Elmas airport a few minutes earlier than the Pope to lead in welcoming him to Sardinia.

Despite the meticulously established program, the Pope chose to greet the sick and the aged inside the Basilica before starting the Mass, resulting in a 20-minute delay.

Before the start of the Mass, Mons. Giuseppe Mani, Archbishop of Cagliari, greeted the Pope in the name of all the Sards.

Earlier, the Pope was welcomed on his arrival at the shrine by the Mercedari fathers who have been in charge of it since they established it in the 13th century.

Fr. Salvatore Mura, Superior General of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, as the Mercedari are formally known, presented the Pope with a Sardinian car-registration plate in silver, which the Pope's profile and the emblem of the centenary inlaid in gold.

The entire Mercedari community, whose convent is adjacent to the Basilica, were present to greet the third Pope to visit their hilltop Shrine in 38 years. (Paul VI visited in 1970, John Paul II in 1985).
The order was established in by St. Peter Nolasco in Barcelona with the primary mission then of rescuing Christians captured by Muslims or slave traders.

Before the Pope arrived, the image of Our Lady of Bonaria was carried out of her shrine and placed on a special van that took the image through the crowd before placing it on a stand near the altar where the Pope would celebrate Mass.

On the penultimate stage of the multi-level approach to the shrine from sea level, artisans of the parish of Santa Vittoria di Telti executed a portrait of the Madonna of Bonaria using colored rice grains.

I will be posting the rest of the coverage from Cagliari DIRECTLY in the thread PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY.

I continue to post significant reactions to Christian persecutions on this thread because the Holy Father took the lead, as usual, in calling the world's attention to recent events in India, and the Italian bishops have promptly mobilized in support of the Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy.



Silence in the West
over Christian persecutions
by Angelo Panebianco

Sept. 7, 2008


Outside of the Catholic press, the communications media never pointed out that yesterday was designated a day of prayer and fasting by the Italian bishops conference, in solidarity with Christians persecuted by Hindu fundamentalists, and that a torchlight procession is planned for this Wednesday for the same reason.

As if this were only an internal matter for the Church.

Of course, the media have been reporting on the killing of Christians that have been taking place in the Indian state of Orissa, and yesterday, four sisters belonging to Mother Teresa's order were the victims of attacks.

Likewise the secular media also generally report on the occasional killing of Christians in some Muslim countries.

But they limit themselves to reporting the facts, most often without any comments.

An exception was the killing of a priest in Turkey in 2006, but the commentary was inspired not only by the fact that the victim was Italian but because Turkey has been seeking admission to the European Union, so it had a 'political' relevance.

It seems that for Italy, and for Europe, the fact that Christians are persecuted in various parts of the world, and frequently killed, is not an issue around which to mobilize public opinion.

And yet the facts are quite clear. In an era of a generalized religious revival, the religious wars have re-started in many places, with the singularity that in these wars, the Christians are only victims, never the executioners.

Why such lack of interest for their fate? Many reasons are operative.

The first is that Pharisaic attitude according to which one must not make too much of Christian persecution lest one fuels a 'clash of civilizations'. As if it was all right that in the world today, various fanatic groups use their religion (Muslim, Hindu or other) to kill each other and to kill Christians.

On the other hand, one simply has to recall the European reaction to Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture. It was the Pope who came to be blamed, rather than the fanatics who used the lecture as a pretext to inflame the Muslim world against Christians.

There is a second reason. Underneath all the indifference, there is also the idea that if one is a Christian in Pakistan, in Iraq, in India or in Nigeria, and something bad happens to you, it is because you brought it on yourself!

The reasoning of the Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists that Christianity is nothing more than an ideological instrument to serve the Western determination to dominate the world appears to be shared here in Italy, at least, by quite a few opinion makers.

These are persons who believe that Europe should still be doing penance for the sins (some real, others not) accumulated during its centuries of dealing with the world outside the West.

That explains the silence over the denial of religious freedom to Christians, especially in the Muslim world, and the lack of interest in the persecutions they experience in so many places, Muslim and not.

It also accounts for a sort of optical illusion which makes many in Italy fear more any sign of Christian 'awakening' (which is completely peaceful) in Italy, rather than any manifestations of religious barbarism elsewhere.

In the meantime, 'other' religions, through immigration, are gaining more weight in our society. It is difficult to imagine that one can come to 'clear agreements' with the representatives of these religions. At least, not until we understand that the world has changed, and that our reactions - for the most part, automatic and ill-considered - to these changes are dated and inadequate.



It is not directly related, but in the same way, the Holy Father called the world's attention today - as L'Osservatore Romano did yesterday - to the extreme consequences in Haiti of three hurricanes in a row. Cuba and other Caribbean countries may soon be equally affected to a critical point.

Usually, the United States leads in active disaster relief anywhere in the world, but when its own southern states are victims of the same catastrophe, why isn't anyone else in the West taking the lead? Not necessarily to help suffering Americans, but to help the poor nations of the Caribbean.

Even in the Georgian crisis, it seems it was only the Catholic international organization Caritas that mobilized to assist displaced persons and refugees in any significant way.

No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with
- Bishops of Paraguay on ad-limina visit
(2 groups - one in the morning, one in the afternoon).

The Vatican also announced that the Holy Father has formally named Mons. Giuseppe Betori, secretary-general of the Italian bishOps conference, as Archbishop of Florence.

This had been speculated on when the Pope named Cardinal Ennio Antonelli to be president of the Pontifical Council for the Family last June, on the death of Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Portillo.

The Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's letter to the Bishop of Brescia on the 30th anniversary of the death of the Servant odf God, Pope Paul VI, a native of Brescia.

The letter was dated July 28, and the actual anniversary was on August 6, but a commemorative Mass for the late Pope was offered in Brescia last Sunday by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who expressed his hope that Paul VI may soon be beatified.



Benedict XVI to mark 50th anniversary
of Pius XII's death on October 9
Translated from

Sept. 6, 2008

When the Holy Father's liturgical calendar for September to October was released last week, it was officially announced that on October 9, he will offer a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII.

One of the events leading to the celebration is the previously announced international conference on Pius XII in Rome on Sept. 15-17 sponsored by the US-based Jewish association Pave the Way.

The specific objective is to refute the 'black legend' about the Pope who has been accused of saying and doing nothing about the Nazi genocide of the Jews in World War II.

In November, a special exhibit on Pius XII, also called 'Pastor Angelicus', will open at the Charlemagne Wing of the Bernini Colonnade in St. Peter's Square.

Before the end of the year, the Pope may decree the 'heroic virtue' of Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII's secular name), a decisive stage before the process of beatification. [The 'heroic virtue' of both Paul VI and John Paul II was previously decreed, meriting for them the title 'Servant of God'. Representatives of the Jewish world have formally written to the Pope asking the Church to hold off any beratification steps for Pius XII.]

Also coming up is a conference in genoa next weekend on the city's beloved late Archbishop, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, one of the leading Church protagonists in the second half of the 20th century, and who had great personal ties with Pius XII.

A book of Siri's homilies, Omelie per L'Anno Liturgico, has just come out, edited by Mons. Antonio Filipazzi, with a preface by Bishop Luigi Negri, currently auxiliary bishop of Genoa, and a message by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa, honoring his predecessor who led the diocese for over 20 years.

The book is an illuminating experience. Siri's homilies are striking for their incisiveness and, let me point out, for their brevity - an example more priests should take into account.

Typically, the Italian media today, in reporting on the Holy Father's pastoral visit to Cagliari yesterday, focused on a single line towards the end of his homily when he said:

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May she (Mary) help you to be capable of evangelizing the world of work, of the economy, of politics, which needs a new generation of committed lay Christians who are able, with competence and moral rigor, to find solutions for sustainable development.

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Some inevitably said the Pope was directly attacking the present Italian government under Prime Minister Berlusconi, especially since the latter was present at the Mass. (As if the Pope would stoop to any such boorishness!)

Here is one of the more sober commentary-reports about the Cagliari visit.


'Politics needs a new generation
of committed Christians'
by Alberto Bobbio
Translated from

Sept. 8, 2008


The Pope is concerned about it [the involvement of Catholics in public life].

He spoke to Sardinia but he also spoke to all of Italy. He insists on the need for evangelization, a pastoral strategy of the Church for the whole nation.

He spoke on his usual themes: family, formation, the educative emergency.

Yesterday in Cagliari, Benedict XVI once again spoke with passion of the Gospel, saying that families today "more than ever need confidence and support, on both the spiritual and social levels".

The Pope looks at Italy during a difficult period, re-stating his call for a new evangelization in "the world of work, of the economy, of politics", adding that politics "needs a new generation of committed lay Christians who are able, with competence and moral rigor, to find solutions for sustainable development."

There is a profound analysis of the present situation in Italy, in the words which Benedict XVI said yesterday in the course of a homily at the Mass he celebrated at the top of the theatrical staircase leading from the sea to the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria.

More than 150,000 attentive faithful were present.

In the first row, besides the Governor of Sardinia, Renato Boru, was the President of the Council of Ministers, Silvio Berlusconi, and the undersecretary of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, Gianni Letta.

The words of the Pope took the form of an appeal similar to the "liberi e forti" (free and strong) appeal of Don Luigi Sturzo. [Sicilian priest, 1871-1959, considered one of the founders of Christian democracy in postwar Italy].

He did not cal for 'new Catholic politicians' as many Internet sites and news agencies reported right away, manipulating his words.

He was addressing himself to all laymen, with the premise that politics is a good thing for whoever thinks it worthwhile to be involved in - but with responsibility and rigor, and above all, without forgetting the problems of the people, which today have to do with precarious employment, and an economy that ignores the poorest. Rather, that politicians must concern themselves with 'sustainable development' that does not compromise human dignity.

It is the same appeal that Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops conference, made in an interview with the magazine Tracce [organ of Comunione e Liberazione, C&L) before last month's Meeting at Rimini (sponsored by C&L).

But this is a theme that Benedict XVI has constantly woven into his pastoral preaching in Italy. He said it at the decennial convention of the Italian Church in Verona in 2006, and he has repeated them during his pastoral visits to the Italian dioceses of Pavia, Genoa and Brindisi.

He also spoke about the need to protect the family in his Angelus message yesterday, in almost poetic words, when he said that 'every mother on earth' must be protected - "those who, together with their husbands, educate their children in a harmonious familial context, and those who, for various reasons, find themselves facing this arduous task alone".

He was not referring only to single mothers, but even to widows or those who have been separated for reasons that are often traumatic.

The family was also at the center of the Pope's propositions to the youth he met before going back to Rome. He asked them to defend 'family values' to be "guarded like an antique and sacred legacy", even if "a different mentality prevails in reality."

The Pope pointed out, in this context, that today "other forms of living together have become acceptable" and that "often, the term family is used for unions which are, in fact, not a family at all".

Papa Ratzinger observed that "the ability of spouses to defend the nuclear family even at the cost of great sacrifice has been greatly diminished".

And so, he practically implored the young people: "Take back for yourselves the value of family, love your family not merely out of tradition, but out of your mature and conscious choice."

He then asked them to prepare themselves to love that family "which with God's help, you too will form" because "true love cannot be improvident."

The Pope spoke clearly to the young people. He asked them to watch out for those who look down on "intellectual and moral formation" because "they do not wish you well".

He said that "the crisis of a society starts when it no longer knows how to transmit its cultural patrimony and its values to the new generations".

He made clear he was not referring only to the scholastic system: "The question is much wider." He spoke of the 'educative emergency', which "in order to be met, requires parents and educators capable of sharing the good and the true that they themselves have experienced and felt deeply at first hand."

He then took up another key theme of his Pontificate, disputing those who maintain that "there is no truth, opening the way for disposing of the concepts of good and evil, making them interchangeable".

"When the sense of God's presence is lost, everything is flattened out... (and) things and persons are of interest only to the degree that they satisfy needs and not for and in themselves".

Benedict XVI also spoke of the Church of Sardinia and its great Marian devotion. His trip commemorated the centenary of the dedication of Sardinia to Our Lady of Bonaria, patroness of the island.

And when the Pope said in the Sard language the words about Mary taken from the Sard 'hail Mary" - «Sa Mama, Fiza, Isposa de su Segnore» - not just applause but a triumphal roar erupted from his audience of 150,000 Sardinians. It was the first time a Pope had spoken their language.


NB: L'Eco di Bergamo is an influential regional newspaper (for northern Italy) published in Bergamo, hometown of Blessed John XXIII. It was the first newspaper - and so far, the only one - to carry the Sunday edition of L'Osservatore Romano as a supplement to its own Sunday issue. Alberto Bobbio, its Vatican correspondent, is also one of the editors of the national magazine Famiglia Cristiana[/C]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/09/2008 15:23]

Interview with Vittorio Messori:
'Don't tug the Pope
to the right or the left'
by Giacomo Galeazzi
Translated from

Sept. 8, 2008


"Don't tug him to the left or the right. The Pope has no intention of reconstituting the DE [I gather these are the Italian initials for a political grouping - I have not been able to figure it out so far] but to block the way in Italy for (Spanish Prime Minister) Zapatero's anti-clerical model of government."

"The solution would be to have committed Christian politicians in all the political parties".

Vittorio Messori, who wrote the 1984 interview-book Rapporto sulla Fede with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, attributes the Pope's call for a new generation of Catholic politicians the merit of "overcoming provincial disputes between believers of the right and left by calling for an innovative program of action".


Is the Pontiff expressing nostalgia for political unity among Catholics?
No. He wants a fresh start in order to extend the Catholic presence in politics and other social spheres. It is significant that he singled out two emergencies: support for families, and intellectual and moral formation through the school system.

Benedict XVI is indicating the priority tasks for a generation of politicians who are both competent and morally rigorous. It is not an invitation to create new parties faithful to the Church.

The proposal for a euthanasia law by the previous democratic coalition [Prodi's government] did good because it roused believers across the entire constitutional and political spectrum.

At this time, the Pontiff intends to redefine the public position gained (by the Church in Italy) in the past 15 years and to overcome the degeneration of the political system in order to return to the 'young and strong' spirit of Sturzo [See preceding article by Bobbio] and the impeccable rigor of De Gasperi [1881-1954, Italian statesman who was one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union along with Germany's Konrad Adenauer and France's Robert Schumann; he was Italy's first President when the present Republic was constituted in 1946 and served eight years as Prime Minister and head of the now defunct Christian Democratic party, which was often sympathetic to the positions of the Catholic Church].

The DE is history - it would be fanciful to resuscitate a midget. Better to renew everything and 'distribute' serious, well-prepared young people in various political and social levels.


What about the rupture between Romano Prodi's 'adult Catholics' and 'theo-cons' like Marcello Pera?
St. Josemaria Escriva, who founded Opus Dei, taught that there are no dogmas in politics, therefore one can do good whether one is on the left, center or right. The Pope does not lead any single nation or church and is above and beyond these Italian counter-positions.

His words cannot be used by one side or the other as the political parties have been trying to do in seeking to 'impoverish' the words of the president of the Italian bishops conference.

Political choices are not choices of faith, so it is legitimate for believers to make different choices.

But Benedict XVI made it clear that the new Catholic politicians to be sent forth and dispersed must be capable of defending non-negotiable values like the sacredness of life, the centrality of the family, and educative freedom. In short, these are no longer the times of Sturzo's Partito Popolare or De Gasperi's Christian Democrats. The way proposed by Papa Ratzinger is for our post-modern times.


And this way is...?
Benedict knows that in Italy, unlike in France or Spain, anti-clericalism, can be abjured simply by the widespread presence of Catholics. No Italian party would ever take on Zapatero's anti-clerical program because its Catholic components would never accept such a secular drift.

The Pope has focused on transmitting to the youth a patrimony of culture and values that does not take shortcuts, and he entrusts the future to the intellectual and moral formation of persons who will be the yeast of society.

In this sense, a generation of free politicians who are committed to the truth is the only adequate Catholic response to the serious crises of society.

Benedict XVI: 'He gains
by making himself known',
says Archbishop of Paris

PARIS, Sept. 8 (Translated from the French service of AFP) - Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris and president of the French bishops conference, said Monday the Pope would 'win by making himself known', a few days before Benedict XVI comes to France for a visit to Paris and Lourdes From Sept. 12-15.

"The French will discover him with a great deal of interest. I think he is a man who gains by being known," Mons. Vingt-Trois said at a news conference.

He said: "One is always interested to hear him, to meet him and to see him because his personality is in fact so distant from the image people have of him: he is a welcoming man, a man of dialog, modest, and very attentive to others."

Mons. Vingt Trois disputed that the Pope is 'reactionary' as some have described him. "He is trying to promote unity within the Church. He is sparing no effort to bring together different positions within the Church...It is all part of a strategy that is a strategy of communion," he said.


Italian APcom had this report:


Cardinal Vingt-Trois:
'I don't think the Pope
will talk about secularity'



PARIS, Sept. 8 (translated from Apcom) - Benedict XVI's visit to France on on Sept. 12-15 will help fill up a 'lack of image' often attributed to Papa Ratzinger.

The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois made this remark at a news conference to officially present the program for the Pope's visit to Paris Sept. 12-13, after which he proceeds to Lourdes.

"The Pope is a very welcoming person," the archbishop underscored. "He is coming to meet the French people, the Catholics in particular, but more generally, all our citizens."

"It is often said that the Pope suffers from a lack of image. Well, thanks to this visit to France, we will get both the image as well as the reality," the Archbishop assured.

He added: "I don't think the Pope is making this apostolic visit" in order to get into the merits of secularity, which is a sensitive issue in France.

"The first objective of his visit," said the archbishop, who is also the president of the French bishops conference, "is to allow us to discover him through his different activities, and to discover his personality, his voice, his way of presenting himself."
[That may be the cardinal's view of this trip, but it is a disservice to say that of the Pope. It is never about himself - it is about God and getting his flock to encounter God in Christ. "Presenting himself' is only important to the degree that he is able to present God and the truths of the Catholic faith!]

The main reason for the Pope's visit to France - his first as Pope - the celebration of the 150th jubilee year of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes.

"It is for this jubilee that he is coming as a pilgrim," Vingt-Trois said.

As L'Osservatore Romano does not come out on Mondays, coverage of the Holy Father's weekend pastoral trips gets pushed to the 'double issue' that comes out on Tuesdays. So it is with the Cagliari trip.



While Page 1 of the September 8-9 issue of OR may not look it, the issue is a compendium of the Cagliari trip: a Page 1 editorial and wrap-up story, and in the inside pages, the texts of the four discourses delivered by the Pope, as well as the brief tributes from the Archbishop and Mayor Cagliari at the Mass, Archbishop Mani's introduction at the Pope's meeting with the clergy of Cagliari, the testimonials of the two youth representatives at the youth rally, and two other news accounts - one on the trip as pilgrimage, and the other, on the youth as the face of the island.

A translation of all four texts delivered by the Holy Father in Cagliari has been posted in the thread PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY.[


From Sardinia
to the whole nation
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Editorial
Translated from the
Sept. 8-9 issue of





A visit that was truly warm and very significant. In extreme synthesis, that is how one might summarise the day spent in Cagliari yesterday by Benedict XVI.

Not only because of the climate, obviously, and not only for the fact, in itself already quite relevant, that a Bishop of Rome had come to Sardinia for the third time in less than 40 years, after the visit in 1970 of Paul VI and in 1985 - for three whole days - of John Paul II.

Even this time, as 38 years ago, the visit was only for a few hours - but they were extraordinary and marked by an affection that confirms yet again the hospitality and friendship of which the Sard people are rightly proud.

An affection to which the Pope, Primate of Italy, responded equally: showing, from the moment he arrived, who he really is, as a bishop attentive to the needs of the people entrusted to his care, and in the succeeding events, addressing himself to Sardinia but also to the entire nation of Italy.



Two facts attest to the warmth of the visit: a delay in the morning program because of the numerous crowds that had descended to the streets to welcome the Pope; and the applause that punctuated and interrupted the Pope's homily in front of the shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria and his address to the youth - at least 30 times during the homily, and 20 with the youth.

This was welcome and a reception that also reflected the careful preparations for the Pope's visit to the Sardinian capital, with particular thanks to its Archbishop.

Benedict XVI, in fact, succeeded in grasping very well the identity, richness and problems of a population of women - the "Sard women" exalted by the Pope - and men, in whose spirit, he said, faith in Christ lives on as a 'constitutive element'.

The same faith which underlies the Sard devotion to Mary: a devotion rooted in the history of the 20th century, and which the Pope has been underlining during his trips, as the Deputy Secretary of State (Mons. Fernando Filoni), recalled during the Pope's visit to the Salento (Leuca and Brindisi).

Alongside his attention to the problems of Sardinia was equal attention for the entire nation of which Benedict XVI, as Bishop of Rome, is also the Primate.

The context is that of excellent institutional relations [between the Holy See and the Italian state] - underscored on this occasion by the participation of Sardinian authorities, represented by the Mayor of Cagliari and the President of the region - and even by the presence yesterday of the head of the Italian government and his cabinet undersecretary.

The words of the Pope were directed primarily to Sardinians but they went beyond the island's confines when Benedict XVI spoke of the need to evangelize the world of work, the economy and politics by "a new generation of Christian laymen" who are capable of looking for the truth.

It is doubtless a positive sign that these words have inspired an informal consensus and seem to transcend divisions and the usual political instrumentalization.

Nonetheless, the Pope's appeal was not generic, as his speech to the youth showed. When Benedict XVI spoke of hope that does not ignore difficulties, when he criticized the consumer society and its idols, when he re-proposed the three values of family, formation and faith - these messages were addressed to Sardinia, while speaking to the entire nation.


NB: Photos shown illustrated the Cagliari articles posted online by OR.

The post-visit coverage and commentary in the Italian press on the Pope's pastoral visit to Cagliari is voluminous and impressive. I will post translations of the more significant and interesting ones in PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY as I am able to make translations.

Pope Benedict posts message on Xt3.com, the Catholic answer to Facebook

Benedict XVI today joined the ranks of social network site users

Bess Twiston Davies
Times Online
September 8, 2008

First came Facebook, the popular social networking site. Then, the believers' version, Faithbook. And today Pope Benedict XVI made an unlikely addition to the ranks of social network users. He has posted for the first time a message on a networking site for young Roman Catholics, asking for prayer during his forthcoming visit to France.

Each of the 35,000 users of Xt3.com (the letters stand for Christ in the third Millennium) today received a personalised version of this message from Pope Benedict:

"Dear Friends, Fifty days ago we were together for the celebration of Mass. Today I greet you on the birthday of Mary, Mother of the Church. Empowered by the Spirit and courageous like Mary, your pilgrimage of faith fills the Church with life! Soon I am to visit France. I ask you all to join me in praying for the young people of France. May we all be rejuvenated in hope!"

Xt3.com was founded 50 days ago in Sydney during World Youth Day, the international papal youth rally attended by nearly half a million young Roman Catholics. It offers users the chance to build a personal profile with access to groups including "Theology on Tap" and "John Paul II, we love you", as well as the opportunity to visit an "ask a priest" section to resolve moral dilemmas. Another function is a global prayer wall where users - who need not be Catholic - can post requests for prayer, and ask others to pray with them.

The director of Xt3, Ampleforth-educated Robert Toone, said: ‘We are delighted and deeply honoured to receive the Pope’s message. His Holiness is displaying his usual readiness to use the latest technology in his desire to communicate with young people.”

Xt3 is the merely one of a plethora of faith-based social networking sites now flourishing on the internet. muxlim.com which boasts "tens of millions" of young users in more than 190 countries offers a lively mix of polls, blogs, news and views such as polls on users' favourite 'Iftar' snack to break the daily fast during Ramadan, and groups including "Newbie Hijabis" for "Ladies new to hijab", as well as the more strident-sounding "Niqabis Unite".

The Jewish Chronicle, the weekly British newspaper is also to relaunch its website this week with a social networking function for users.

Visiting Pope hopes to give Church shot in arm

By Catherine Field
New Zealand Herald
4:00AM Tuesday September 09, 2008

Pope Benedict will hold a Mass at Lourdes to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Photo / AP
PARIS - Pope Benedict XVI visits France this week in a bid to push back anticlericalism and revive Catholicism in one of the world's most secular countries.

The four-day tour, starting on Friday, will be crowned by a papal Mass at Lourdes to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to a 14-year-old miller's daughter, Bernadette Sourbirous.

The visit comes in a context of mounting concern in the Vatican about falling numbers of faithful in a country that once was a Catholic bastion - a decline the conservative pontiff clearly links to France's hard-edged secularism.

On Friday, the 81-year-old Pope is scheduled to make a speech in Paris to guests from France's cultural scene, when he is expected to pound out the message that loss of faith leads to national regression.

"There's no doubt about it, this speech is going to be a big moment," said a source in the French Catholic Church.

The speech will be about "restoring trust in human reason when it opens to the transcendental", but the sub-text is about papal concern about secularist extremism, the source said.

France believes strongly in having a public arena where worship and religious symbols are banned. Politicians may be devout Catholics in private, but are careful never to make references to their faith in public.

In the face of a perceived rise in Islamism, the state has acted firmly to defend secularist principles, banning notably the wearing of crucifixes and Muslim headscarves in state schools.

In the latest controversy, a public prosecutor in the city of Rennes has been blasted for postponing a criminal case after one of the defendants, accused of armed robbery, said he observed the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which entails daytime fasting, and thus would be too weak to stand trial.

Defenders of France's secularism say it is essential to have a space open to all that is free of the toxicity of religious extremism and rivalry.

Critics say it panders to anti-clericalism, which emerged among French intellectuals and leftwingers in the 19th century and persists to this day, sometimes to the point of intolerance.

As guardian of the Catholic doctrine under his predecessor John Paul II, the Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has long had France in his sights. In a speech in 1992, he warned the country of the danger of ignoring its Christian roots.

"For a culture and a nation to cut itself from the religious and ethical forces of its history is tantamount to suicide," the future Pope said.

Friday's speech to the artistic elite comes exactly two years after a landmark speech in Regensburg, in the Pope's native Bavaria, that slammed contemporary Western culture for its focus on "positivistic reason" and the shunning of God.

The other big goal of the papal visit will be to rally the faithful at a time when the numbers of French churchgoers and men entering the priesthood are hitting record lows.

The shortage of clerics has become so acute that France has had to import them temporarily from Poland, rather as it has been doing with its plumbers.

Rural areas, once the backbone of the church, have been hit hardest. Thousands of villages, already badly hit by the exodus to the towns, no longer have the resident priest who was one of the big figures of local life, overseeing Mass in a full church.

Instead, a rural priest must tend to as many as a dozen or 14 villages, scheduling a Mass in each one every two months or longer, in churches that are usually three-quarters empty.

To fill the gaps, some dioceses have set up a training programme by which devout lay members of the community take on some of the duties traditionally assumed by priests.

At the Venaco diocese in Corsica, for instance, lay women will be in charge of administering funerals.

"We are moving away from an ecclesiastical structure that belongs to the 19th century and it won't be done without pain," the head of the Catholic Church in France, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, told Le Figaro newspaper last week. He insisted, though: "The Church in France isn't dead, it is going through a transition."

Other figures attest that parts of the Catholic faith are flourishing, especially among young urban people, drawn to evangelising meetings that include prayers and Bible reading.

A Christian rock festival is held in Chartres and a Festival of Charity in Paris, and the Church mounted a successful challenge to Halloween (darkly viewed as a heathen import) with a youth movement called Holywins.

Among adults, monasteries are staging a comeback, offering a retreat for reflection, and the 1000-year-old pilgrimage across the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where St James is buried, has become hugely popular.

But one of the Pope's tasks will be to balance this spiritual resurgence among the liberal young and the rise of fringe Catholic groups with the Church's traditionalist wing, with which he has an instinctive sympathy.

MATTER OF FAITH

* 65 per cent of French people are baptised Catholics, compared with 80 per cent in 1960.

* Only 4.5 per cent of the population go regularly to church, compared with one in five in 1960.

* In 1996, there were 28,000 priests in France; today, they number only 20,000.

* Last year, just 101 priests were ordained in French, compared with 595 in 1960.

OR for 9/8-9/9:

As mentioned in the earlier post, today's double issue contains the complete reportage on the Holy Father's pastoral visit
to Cagliari. But the top Page 1 story in terms of prominence is Benedict XVI's letter to the Bishop of Brescia to mark
the 30th death anniversary of Paul VI, entitled 'The invaluable legacy of Paul VI's Pontificate'. Other Page 1 stories
are an editorial and wrap-up story on the Pope's Cagliari visit; the US federal government bails out mortgage loan giants;
the Holy Father's condolence for the death of 93-year-old Cardinal Antonio Innocenti; and Europe seeks to consolidate
a peace plan for the Georgian region of the Caucasus.


THE POPE'S DAY

Unusually for a Tuesday, the Holy Father met today with
- Bishops of Paraguay on ad-limina visit (in two groups).




The Vatican Press Office also announced that the Holy Father has named Cardinal George Pell,
Archbishop of Sydney, as one of the presiding officers of the XII General Assembly of the Bishops
Synod next month in place of Cardinal Osvaldo Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, who will be unable
to participate.

The two other presiding officers of the Synod are Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop
of São Paulo, Brazil. The synod will be held Oct. 5-26 in the Vatican on the theme "The Word of
God in the Life and Mission of the Church."

******

The Vatican released the text of the SMS message sent out by the Holy Father yesterday, Feast of
the Nativity of Mary, to the youth of the world to mark the 50th day since the concluding Mass
of the World Youth Day celebration in Sydney. Here it is as received on XT3, the WYD Facebook:



Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office, gave a briefing on the Pope's trip
to France starting Friday, Sept. 12.


HONOURING THE MEMORY
OF THE SERVANT OF GOD PAUL VI


VATICAN CITY, 9 SEP 2008 (VIS) - The text of a letter from the Pope to Bishop Luciano Monari of Brescia, Italy, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death of Pope Paul VI, has been published in L'Osservatore Romano's issue for Sept 8-9.

In the letter dated July 28, the Holy Father describes how Servant of God Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini), a native of the diocese of Brescia, "was called by Divine Providence to guide the Church during a historical period marked by no small number of challenges and problems".

In recalling his predecessor's pontificate (1963-1978), Benedict XVI remarks upon "the missionary ardour that animated him and encouraged him to make demanding apostolic journeys, even to distant countries, and to perform acts of great ecclesial, missionary and ecumenical significance.

"This Pontiff's name", he adds, "remains linked above all to Vatican Council II. ... With the passage of the years the importance of his pontificate for the Church and for the world is becoming ever clearer, as is the priceless heritage of teaching and virtue which he left to believers and to all humanity".

Pope Benedict express his own appreciation for the trust Paul VI showed in him by appointing him as archbishop of Munich, Germany, in March 1977, and in making him a cardinal three months later.

Recalling Paul VI's death (6 August 1978), he writes: "I give thanks to God for having granted the Church a pastor who was a faithful witness of Christ the Lord, so sincerely and profoundly enamoured of the Church and so close to the hopes and expectations of the men and women of his time".

The Holy Father concludes his Letter by expressing the hope that "each member of the people of God may know how to honour his memory through commitment to a sincere and constant search for the truth".

President Sarkozy had a private audience with the Pope at the Vatican last December.

President Sarkozy will break protocol
to meet the Pope at Orly airport



VATICAN CITY, Sept. 9 (Translated from Apcom) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will break protocol by meeting Pope Benedict XVI at Orly airport when the Pope arrives Friday morning for a four-day apostolic visit to Paris and Lourdes.

Sarkozy will most likely be accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni, according to Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director, during a briefing at the Vatican today in anticipation of the Pope's trip.

"By protocol, it is the Prime Minister who would receive the Pope (as a visiting head of state) and accompany him to the Elysee presidential palace," Fr. Lombardi said, "but this time, President Sarkozy himself will do the honors. Later, they will have a private meeting at the Elysee, where the Pope will give his first official address during the visit."

The exceptional protocol echoes the gesture of President Bush who came to Andrews Air Force Base to welcome the Pope when he arrived for his visit to the United States last April.

It is very possible that Sarkozy will also take part in the Pope's other public events in Paris, such as his meeting with the world of culture Friday afternoon at the newly-restored 13th century College des Bernardins.

Two days to the day since Benedict XVI's historic Regensburg lecture, he is expected to speak about faith and culture to an audience of 700 intellectuals and cultural leaders, including Muslim representatives.

There will be no public statements made at the airport, and it is expected that the Pope will pass briefly by the Apostolic Nunciature in Paris, where he will be staying, before proceeding to the Elysee.

During the Pope's courtesy visit with Sarkozy, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and his deputy, Mons. Dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with other states, and the Apostolic Nuncio to France, will be meeting with the Prime Minister of France.

Afterwards, both the President and the Pope will give their respective addresses before an audience of French government officials.

The addresses are widely anticipated because of possible references to the relationship between Church and State and the issue of secularity in France, which passed a law in 1908 decreeing the strict separation of Church and State.

This will be Benedict XVI's tenth apostolic trip outside Italy, and his seventh in Europe.

John Paul II travelled to Lourdes twice during his long Pontificate, and his pilgrimage there in August 2004 was his last trip abroad.

In fact, the primary reason for Benedict XVI's trip to France is to take part in the 150th jubilee year celebrations of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous.

Early in his papacy, Papa Ratzinger had assured the Bishop of Lourdes, Jacques Perrier, that he wanted to make this pilgrimage. Paris was added after President Sarkozy invited the Pope formally to visit France when he came to the Vatican last December.

Three French cardinals from the Roman Curia will be part of the papal entourage - Cardinal Jean Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog; Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, emeritus president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace), and Cardinal Paul Poupard, emeritus president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Additional reporting on Fr. Lombardi's briefing, translated from

the news agency of the Italian bishops conference:

Fr. Lombardi said it was quite likely that during his visit to France, the Holy Father will refer to the address President Sarkozy made at the Lateran Basilica last December advocating 'healthy secularity', and therefore, "to the question of the relationship between Church and State" and ultimately, to the principle of secularity.

In this connection, Fr. Lombardi said, one must recall "the letter sent by John Paul II to Cardinal Jean Paul Ricard and the French bishops in 2005 on the centenary of the 1905 law that established separation of Church and State in France". The letter, he said, is a 'summarizing document' that is 'very positive'.

After the Pope's morning visit with President Sarkozy at the Elysee presidential Palace soon after he arrives in Paris on Friday, his next appointment will be an afternoon meeting with Jewish representatives at the Nunciature before the start of the Sabbath.
The Pope will meet separately with Muslim representatives at the College des Bernardins after his address there to the world of culture, and then with representatives of other Christian confessions after the Vespers at Notre Dame Cathedral that evening.

After meeting with the Jewish group,the Pope will proceed to the Bernardins, a 13th-century Cistercian abbey, which, Fr. Lombardi said, "has a great history, including the fact that the late Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger, as Archbishop of Paris, worked for its restoration and use by the Catholic Church as a venue for cultural encounters between the Church and contemporary society."

The restored abbey was formally opened on September 5, and the Pope's address will mark its first public use as a place for cultural encounter. Among the 700 invited guests to the event are officials of UNESCO, which has its headquarters in Paris, and of the European Union.

"The Pope's address at this event has been widely anticipated," Fr. Lombardi said. "The Pope worked very hard on this text, which he drafted in German."

From the Bernardins, the Pope will proceed to Notre Dame to celebrate Vespers with the clergy of Paris, followed by the ecumenical meeting with other Christian representatives.

He will then address a youth gathering from the steps of Notre Dame, to mark the start of an all-night prayer vigil and torchlight processions through the streets of Paris by the youth, culminating in the papal Mass the following day on the esplanade of the Invalides, the French military museum complex where Napoleon Bonaparte and other French military heroes are buried.

Fr. Lombardi said up to 200,000 faithful are expected to attend the Mass.

The Pope will leave for Lourdes after the Mass, and is expected to arrive there around 6 p.m.

"In Lourdes, the Holy Father will be a pilgrim among pilgrims," Fr. Lombardi said. In fact, his first act will be to walk the first three stages of the Jubilee Way which passes through the places that were significant in the life of St. Bernadette.

He will give his first address after the customary torchlight procession held near the Basilica every evening.

On Sunday, September 14, he will celebrate the Mass to mark the 150th Jubilee Year of the Virgin Mary's apparitions to St. Bernadette.

"It will be Mass for France," said Fr. Lombardi, but it will have international dimensions because of the pilgrims to Lourdes who come from all parts of the world."

All the bishops of France will be present. After the Mass, the Pope will meet with them at the St. Bernadette Hemicycle.

"At this meeting," Fr. Lombardi said, "the Pope will confront the various problems related to "the presence and mission of the Church in a secularized society".

Before going back to Rome on Monday, Sept. 15, the Pope will complete the fourth and last stage of the Jubilee Way, and then, offer a Mass for the sick, during which he will impart the sacrament of Extreme Unction to a representative few.





The Pope in France:
A chance for the French people
to get to know Benedict XVI
Translated from




LYONS, France, Sept. 9 (SIR) - The Pope's visit to France will allow the people of France to understand who Benedict XVI really is - "It will be an encounter with the man" - according to Jean-Dominique Durand, a historian at the University of Lyons, who spoke to SIR about the expectations and stakes of the Pope's coming visit on Sept. 12-15.

"The principal challenge," he said, "is for them to know and understand this Pope whom the media have often depicted as a hard man, rigidly doctrinaire, while some Frenchmen have already had the opportunity to perceive in him a complex personality that is rich in nuances."

Thus, he said, there is great curiosity among the public about Benedict XVI who, "among other things, has had very close links with our culture. Not only does he speak our language perfectly, but he is also a member of the Institut de France's Academy of Moral and Political Sciences".

One of the focal moments of the Pope's visit will be his encounter with the world of French culture at the College des Bernardins in Paris, during which he will address 700 selected guests representing Catholics, members of other religions and non-believers.

Durand notes, "It is difficult to predict what he will say, but in a moment of crisis for Western culture, the Pope will probably reiterate its irreplaceable value in the formation of the individual - a formation which, in order to be integral, must also have a high intellectual and spiritual level."

Another central point in the Pope's visit, adds Durand, is "the issue of secularity. This issue was already underscored in the preceding visits by John Paul II, and it must be said that something is changing in the direction of a more open secularity, seen less as a dogma and more as a way of coexistence among very different cultures."

"France, more than other nations," he points out, "has been for some time strongly multi-cultural, and secularity has always been exercised as an instrument against the Church and religion, rather than as a way of coexistence [between church and State]. "

The process of evolution is already under way, Durand believes, "as with the now famous address given by President Sarkozy at the Lateran Basilica during his trip to Rome last December, and in France, it is already opening up the relationship between the State, society and religion, particularly with the Catholic Church."

The process has not been sudden, Durand points out. "Already in 2002, the socialist government under Prime Minister Jospin set up a so-called institutional dialog with the Catholic Church - a new dialog aimed at an exchange of ideas over the most critical social problems in order to identify possible solutions."

"Benedict XVI's visit will take place in the atmosphere created by this important new openness, and I believe it could be an opportunity to underline the calm and 'non-aggressive' presence of the Catholic church, and of other religions, in French society. This would be a credible way of showing that religions really have something to say even in a secular society where there is clear separation between Church and State. Their message could be a proposal for the good of all, about which all sides can confront each other calmly, without the prejudices and rockbound attitudes that make any such discussion impossible."

I had thought that EWTN would be presenting the Vespers at Notre Dame, but I cannot seem to find it on their schedule. Does anyone else have information on this?

Here we go again - and this won't be the last we will hear of the malicious and gratuitous media game of 'Let's compare Benedict to the Great John Paul II', which is an injustice and disservice to both Popes.


John Paul II, Benedict XVI and France:
An analysis
by Henri Tincq
Translated from

Sept. 9, 2008


Jean Paul II had a 'carnal' relationship with France. As a young Polish priest, he had first come to the Hexagon [the map of France is shaped like an irregular six-sided figure] to study the experience of laborer-priests which fascinated him.

Haunted by the loss of faith in a nation of martyrs, missionaries and saints, he came to France seven times. As Pope, it was the country he visited the most after Poland. He felt for France a kind of 'star-crossed' love.

"France, what have you done with your baptismal vows?" he asked on his first visit to Paris in 1980, when the distance was quite evident between 'the oldest daughter' of the Church that had become its 'sleeping beauty', and this Pope from a Slavic culture, herald of popular and traditional Catholicism.

Lisieux, Lourdes, Saint-Denis, Reims, Paray-le-Monial, Alsace and Lorraine, Brittany and the Vendée: secular France has found it hard to understand the sense of this thread of Christian memory and the devotion for Thérèse of Lisieux, Bernadette Soubirous, the Curé (parish priest) of Ars (St. John Vianney), Grignon de Montfort - names evoked by the Pope as witnesses to the Christian roots of France.

It required the international aura of John Paul II to activate a current between John Paul II and a skeptical Hexagon.

Benedict XVI has a relationship that is more intellectual than physical with France. He too is a Francophone and a Francophile, but more like Paul VI who was moulded by French culture and was a friend of Maritain, Guitton and Danielou, than John Paul II who was much more the product of German culture. [Did Tincq re-read what he wrote? The German Ratzinger is certainly much more the product of German culture, no matter how much and how well he assimilated French culture early on - which was, after all, part and parcel of German upbringing in his time.]

Benedict XVI knows French writing (Claudel, Mauriac, Bernanos, Peguy), he is part of intellectual networks in France, he has addressed tribunes as prestigious as Notre Dame de Paris, the Sorbonne and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, of which he is an associate member. [I find it significant that Tincq does not provide all the relevant information about this membership, as though it were a casual affair - that it dates to 1992, when he was elected to take the seat of Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov on this death, and that Joseph Ratzinger is an associate member, because only French citizens can be full members.]

The choice he made - beyond his obligatory pilgrimage to Lourdes - to meet in Paris on September 12 with 700 French intellectuals leaves no doubt about the primary significance of his trip: to confront France about the crisis of faith in a secularized culture.

This Pope is little known in France, 'misunderstood', as La Croix Vaticanista Isabelle de Gaulmyn says in her book Benoît XVI, le pape incompris (Bayard, 216 p., 14,50 €).

The comparison with his predecessor will be inevitable. One will contrast the Prophet with the Doctor. The prophet John Paul II, able to speak to the world in lofty language, to contribute to the fall of Communism, to cut through the class logic of capitalism, to hold out his hand to other religions.

His funeral lives on in the collective memory: the coffin on the pavement, a stripped-down liturgy, the litany of heads of state, religious leaders, intellectuals and common folk who came to pay him homage, etc.

"Our generation experienced Catholicism for the first time as a religion of modern man," observed the Jesuit Henri Madelin.

But Joseph Ratzinger is the Doctor of the Faith. A more arid job. This man has studied, taught, read the most difficult authors, writes abundantly, gives lectures, and has been disputed by other theologians.

As Pope, he has not changed very much from what he profoundly is - modest, shy, reserved. This does not mean laxity or weakness, nor does it rule out the naivete of a professor who was obliged to retract ['oblige de se retracter'] what he said in Regensburg which inflamed the Muslim world, or what he said in Aparecida, Brazil, where he said that "the evangelization of America never involved, at any time, the alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures".
[So many things terribly wrong with this statement. First, how can a professor with the sterling academic qualifications Tincq just rattled off then be accused of 'naivete'? Second, the Pope never retracted what he said in Regensburg or in Aparecida - he simply clarified the context in which he said them, because third, both cases were reported - and widely disputed - outside the total context of what he was really saying. Fourth, I believe Tincq chose the wrong citaiton from the Aparecida speech; I will check it out.]

Three years after his election, Benedict XVI has found his place and holds it with a disarming freedom: not that of a bad imitation of John Paul II [A totally gratuitous remark seeing as Benedict never set out to imitate his predecessor - starting with his choice for a papal name - and that someone as naturally blessed with the gifts he has, and as humble, would never have even thought of it!], but the freedom of a Pope who does what he knows to do, says what he has to say, manages his time parsimoniously (he is 81), and has renounced any outsized plans such as a reform of the Curia.

John Paul II gave Catholicism a 'visibility'. Getting out of his protective shadow ['Protective' shadow? - not that he ever needed it - or 'mediatic' shadow?], Benedict XVI has brought back the exercise of the papal office to what is essential.

He governs without a communications strategy, looks after the unity of the Church, and teaches the faith, as his does in his very well-attended 'catecheses' every Wednesday on St. Peter's Square.

He expresses this freedom in the reduced frequency of his travels and his writings. In October 2006, he said that his mission was as not to 'promulgate' new documents, but to see to it that those of his predecessor are well 'assimilated'.

His first trips to his native Germany and to the Poland of his predecessor seemed to demonstrate this. His trips to the United States and to Brazil were to Churches in crisis, the first shaken by the scandal of pedophile priests, the other by the competition from evangelical movements. His recent trip to Sydney was an exercise imposed by World Youth Day.

Nor has this Pope overdone the use of encyclicals, which, in the Roman tradition, are papal 'letters' occasioned by a pressing situation. Very well received, his two encyclicals on love and hope (Deus caritas est and Spe salvi) read more like lectures. The third on 'globalization', much announced, keeps being pushed back.

He prefers more personal works like JESUS OF NAZARETH, signed Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI , the success of which unleashed a storm: "It is the first time in the history of the papacy that a Pontiff publishes a work that is not part of his Magisterium," writes Philippe Levillain in his book, Le Moment Benoît XVI (Benedict XVI's Moment)(Fayard, 320 p., 20 €).

Benedict XVI attributes the freedom he has claimed for himself to having the right associates. He has instituted a 'dyarchy' which has few precedents in the history of the Church - in which the Pope takes charge of preaching the faith and the great issues like reconciling with traditionalist Catholics, reviving dialog with the Russian orthodox Church or with China - while delegating to his Secretary of State questions of diplomacy, supervision of the Curia, trips abroad, as well as meetings with political and religious leaders or groups of faithful, whom Benedict XVI cannot meet himself. Already called the Vice-Pope in Rome, Cardinal Bertone often rises to the charge, writes Isabelle de Gaulmyn. [The term Vice-Pope, while dear to journalists who cover the Pope as if he were an ordinary politician and not the Vicar of Christ, is so inappropriate, almost offensive. There is nothing in the Gospel nor in Church tradition that lends any justification for the term. The Vatican Secretary of state has traditionally been the Number-2 man in the Vatican in terms of administration - that does not make him Vice-Pope. In this case, Cardinal Bertone simply carries more of the formalities to relieve the Pope of non-essential exertions.]

Benedict XVI's first visit to France as Pope promises to be difficult because the Church of France is, as they say in Rome, on the brink of 'collapse'. Because it is in France where the pressure of Catholic 'fundamentalists' is strongest, and because this nation continues to go through 'secularist' outbursts.

But, as with John Paul II, stereotypes can be lifted, to the degree that France gets to know this intellectual Pope who is clear in thought and speech, and who shows a rather disconcerting freedom. [Tincq has not demonstrated why Benedict's 'freedom' is disconcerting to him! I should think it would be welcome, because it shows a man who is able to make practical adaptations - in the exercise, not the substance, of the Papacy - according to circumstances, and is not blindly bound by the traditional way of doing things. Maybe he is disconcerted simply because he did not expect it of Benedict XVI.]


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


And not a word about Benedict XVI's almost singlehanded battle to defend and preserve Western culture and its Christian derivations, nor about the Pope's singular moral authority and unfailing voice of duty on the international scene, in a world that is being buffeted almost daily by new crises and catastrophes - as though Benedict XVI's Pontificate had no extra-ecclesial dimensions!


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here is one of those secularist outbursts now, as reported in the same issue of Le Monde:


Pope's visit stirs concerns
and criticism from secularists
by Stéphanie Le Bars
Translated from

Sept. 9, 2008


Papal visits to France have traditionally been the occasion for demonstrations by associations that advocate a strict separation of Church and State.

Benedict XVI's visit on September 12-15 to Paris and Lourdes has aroused concerns [Why mince words? It's outright kneejerk opposition!] among the different secularist movements, associations in defense of women's rights and the labor unions.

The national federation of free-thinkers, led by the former secretary- general of the Force Ouvriere (a labor party), Marc Blondel, is protesting any public funding for the Pope's visit.

Although he is the spiritual leader of the world's Catholics, the Pope is also a head of state (the Vatican), who is entitled during his travels abroad, to the protocol given to other heads of state by the foreign ministry of the host country.

Thus, the costs related to the official welcome for the Pope and the transportation of his delegation are borne by the host country. At the same time, public authorities have already pre-billed the Catholic Church in Paris for the costs (a few hundred thousand euros) of using the Ecole Militaire as a press center and for the use of the gardens and some halls of the Invalides for the papal Mass.

The entire private cost of the visit in Paris - some 3 million Euros - is borne by the Church and paid for by donations from the faithful. Much of the cost will go to install giant TV screens that will allow the public to follow the Pope's major addresses and the papal Mass.

In Paris, the Pope will stay at the Nunciature (the Vatican embassy), and in Lourdes, at accommodations that are part of the Shrine complex.

The Free-thinkers are also concerned about the security deployment for a guest who is considered to be one of the world's greatest security risks. Some 6,000 policemen and gendarmes will be mobilized to protect the Pope and prevent hostile demonstrations, as is customary during each of the Pope's foreign trips.

The association charges that "the government, in submission to the Vatican, plans to prohibit any discordant voices". It is organizing a meeting in Paris to protest "the public funding for 'cultic' activities" and to advocate "secularity in Europe and the separation of states and religions".

Under the slogan "Remballe ton pape' (Pack up your Pope), organizations for the defense of women's rights have issued an appeal for protest demonstrations on Friday "against the interference of the Catholic Church in public affairs and the Pope's opposition to abortion and contraception", and calls on 'responsible French officials' to have a 'welcoming ear' to their appeals.

They have not failed to target the pre-announced presence - even in a private capacity - of the Prime Minister, as well as the Ministers of the Interior, Education, Housing and Culture at the Mass to be celebrated by Benedict XVI in Paris.


The protests sound rather perfunctory to me - as in "Yeah, well, this is what we are expected to do" - and will probably end up (I hope) being as trivial and trifling as the gay protestors at the Sydney WYD.

Not just another papal visit to France

AUTHOR: AUSTEN IVEREIGH
America Magazine
POSTED AT: 2008-09-09 08:11:00.0

I'm going to take a punt. Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to France, beginning this Friday, is set to be one of the defining moments of his pontificate.

The theme of his papacy has always been to challenge the "dictatorship of relativism" -- his memorable term for the newly-invigorated European secularism which sees faith as hostile to reason, equality and tolerance.

Here's the moment when the challenge is issued clearly and dramatically.

This is above all an exercise in communications, for that is any pope's solemn task: to communicate Christ, and the Church, to the world, smoothing the paths to the reconciliation of humanity with God.

Sticking to the communications brief, one might describe his efforts so far as "neutralising the negatives" -- overturning the stereotypes of authoritarianism and dogmatism which accompanied his election, and showing himself to be a gentle, compassionate listener. He has not always been successful in the effort, but overall there's a firm tick in that box.

The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, has been underlining this effort by telling Le Figaro that the Pope "deserves to be known as he is -- a man of welcome and of dialogue, who is very attentive to others". But the old "the Pope is not who you think he is" line is getting stale.

Now is the moment to crank up the strategy: not just earning the right to be listened to, but attempting to reclaim some of the territory swamped by secularism. There is no country more apt for this than France, and within France no theatre more apt than the south-west mountain town of Lourdes, where he will celebrate Mass this weekend.

And now is the time: not just because this is France, but because of two contemporary French paradoxes.

The first is that the radical exclusion of religion from the public sphere known as laïcité is increasingly being questioned. There are many reasons: social breakdown and high levels of Muslim immigration are causing the French to see the Church as "theirs" more than they did, while church-led social movements are among the most prophetic and energetic in France.

Whatever the reasons, it is France's own president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is recognising this shift in his call for a "positive laïcité", calling for the state to have a "structured dialogue" with faiths and for Catholics and others to play a greater role in public life. This is an attempt, not without its risks, to move the French model more in the direction of the American one -- towards Church-state separation as a means to protect the freedom of faith rather than to put it into a box marked 'private'.

Seven hundred leading intellectuels -- scientists, philosophers, artists -- will attend Pope Benedict's address to the College des Bernardins in Paris on Friday. Both Pope and President will be seeking to strengthen France's ties between society and faith, steering through the minefields of a painful past, and no doubt slaying a few shibboleths along the way. Expect from Benedict XVI one of the great speeches of his pontificate.

The second contemporary paradox is that France is the Catholic country with the strongest-declining congregrations and clergy while also being the Catholic country with most vigorous Catholic "revivals" and movements.

Lourdes is not a movement, but a nineteenth-century shrine; yet its extraordinary popularity -- six million annual visitors make it the most visited religious site after Rome and Mecca -- gives it much in common with the ecclesial movements which increasingly dominate the French church scene.

Because France has long been the signpost to where the rest of the European Church will follow, the vitality of its pilgrimages, movements, new religious communities, and new forms of ecclesial allegiance allow Pope Benedict XVI to argue that there is nothing more "modern" than reason open to transcendence.

There's nowhere better for that message than Lourdes -- the ultimate gentle rebuke to the closed narratives of rationalism. For it was there that 150 years ago an unlettered, impoverished, asthmatic 14-year-old at the margins of the modern world saw visions of the Virgin, and stuck to her story in the face of astonishing pressure. She was never less than reasonable, while those around her who made a god of reason made ever more irrational attempts to quash her.

Compare -- as the Pope will surely be tempted to -- the fates of each today. On the one hand, Positivism -- looking decidedly shaky and unsure of itself; on the other, the faith of Lourdes -- unmistakably alive, and more popular by the day.

What better stage? What better moment?

Meanwhile, I'll be doing my bit here in London -- taking the part of Vital Dutour, the imperial prosecutor, in a parish play about Lourdes based in part on the Song of Bernadette. Our opening night is Friday.

Vraiment.





Austin Ivereigh goes beyond Henri Tincq's rather parochial look at the possible impact of Benedict XVI's visit to France but still does not go far enough. I think it takes someone like Spengler or Fr. Schall to define the over-arching perspective of Benedict's thought.

I do appreciate Ivereigh's juxtaposition of the paradox of Lourdes in a maniacally secular nation like France. One can only see a divine plan in the number of Marian apparitions in France - other than Lourdes: La Sallette, Laus, Rue du Bac in Paris (St. Catherine Laboure of the Miraculous Medal), not to mention Marguerite Marie Alacoque and her visions of the Sacred Heart. Divine manifestations in the land of Voltaire and the 'goddess' Reason (but the blinded Reason of the so-called Enlightenment, closed to the idea of the transcendent).

TERESA

Why the Pope is renewing
traditional liturgy:
On Saturday, French Catholics will
see the return of 'forgotten things'
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

08/09/2008






ROME - In the sacristy, it is he who watches over the liturgical vestments of Benedict XVI. The Pope enters, they smile at each other, but they are already focused on the Mass which the Successor of Peter is about to celebrate.

Mons. Guido Marini, a 43-year-old Italian prelate, is the master of pontifical liturgical celebrations. His boyish face nonetheless has an eye for precision. No detail seems to escape him. Tall and slim, he respectfully helps the Pope put on his vestments and ornaments. Then, they pray together. After that, the Mass can begin.

On Saturday morning, behind the altar to be set up on the Espalanade of the Invalides in Paris, Mons. Marini will be helping Benedict XVI in exactly the same way, as he has done since the Pope named him in October 2007 to this extremely sensitive position.

He is in charge of orchestrating, almost to the littlest detail, the Pope's Masses - from the choice of liturgical garments and accessories to the songs, not to mention the Mass vessels and even body postures. The formal style of the Eucharistic celebration rests in his hands.

Knowing Benedict XVI's attachment to beautiful liturgy, he could not have made a random choice to replace the first Mons. Marini, Piero, whose face is more familiar because he was John Paul II's liturgical master of ceremonies for over 20 years. Indeed, the papal cerimoniere is always two steps away from the Pope during important celebrations.

Thus, Mons. Marini occupies a very exposed position - certainly media-wise, but even more significantly, in the ecclesiastical sense. For some months now, he has earned much praise, but also criticism, because he embodies a return to liturgical tradition.

At issue are the 'innovations' he has introduced to the Papal Masses, all of them a renewal of liturgical elements that have been all but forgotten. But in matters of litrugy, the smallest sign is heavy with meaning.

So on Saturday morning, Parisians, as well as those who will be following the Pope's later Masses in Lourdes, should not be surprised to see that the Pope will be giving Communion by placing the Host directly on the tongue of communicants who will be kneeling (unless they are handicapped).

That Benedict XVI no longer uses the silver pastoral staff made famous by John Paul II, which was first created by the sculptor Lello Scorzelli in the 1960s for Paul VI. Benedict XVI now uses a Greek cross, without the crucified Christ, which belonged to Pope Pius IX (Pope from 1846-1878).

That a Crucifix will be at the center of the altar - after it was taken out, during John Paul II's Pontificate, because it was thought to get in the way of TV shots during the Mass.

That the tens of thousands of consecrated Hosts for Communion will be in ciboria of gold or silver, and not in ceramic cups.

One must also point out the use at the major feasts of historical papal mitres, ornately fashioned, which have been gathering dust in the Papal sacristy. And even on some occasions, of grand thronelike papal chairs.

Quite a few 'innovations' from the past which are reassuring for some Catholics but are disquieting for others, some of whom have denounced them as a 'step backwards".

It is said that some in the Church of France were somewhat shocked at his requests when Mons. Guido came in mid-June to check out local preparations for the Pope's scheduled liturgical events. Particularly, about the Pope's preferred way of giving Communion .

Although Mons. Guido has no small say in these changes, it would show ignorance about how the Vatican functions to think that he alone is responsible for it. Especially since there is a 'ministry' in the church that is responsible for these questions: the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Disciplime of Sacraments.

He may make some suggestions, but the Pope decides. It is Benedict XVI himself who wants these changes. His new cerimoniere was suggested to him by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, whom Mons. Guido had served in this function when he was Archbishop of Genoa (and continued to serve as such under his successor, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco).

The young priest had earned a reputation in Genoa for his pastoral initiatives, with his gentle temperament and attentiveness to everyone. These were certainly qualities not lost on the Vatican. He holds two doctorates - in civil law and in canon law - and a diploma in the psychology of communications.

In his sunlit office at the Vatican, right off a corner of St. Peter's Square, Mons. Marini explains: "Benedict XVI wishes to underscore that the norms for giving Communion in the Catholic Church continue to be as they were before [the liturgical reform of 1969-70]. People have forgotten that receiving the Host in one's hands was originally an indult by the Holy See - an exception granted, one might say - to some bishops conferences that had requested it. So the norm is still what it was for centuries."

But while acknowledging that Benedict XVI clearly prefers the norm to the 'exception', "use of this modality does not take anything away from the other way, receiving the Host in the hands".

However, "receiving the Host directly in one's mouth brings to light the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist - it intensifies devotion among the faithful and is conducive to creating a sense of mystery. These are aspects which are important to underscore today and which we have an urgent need to recover."

So, these changes are not papal whim. The renewal of certain litugical forms and practices come within the purview of Benedict XVI's very clear vision of liturgy, which he has expressed explicitly to many of those who are close to him: "To realize, in time, a liturgical synthesis between the Mass of Paul VI and what tradition can contribute to enrich it".

As for the method of getting there, he wishes to avoid a new liturgical war, but intends to rely on patience and teaching by example.

To begin with, he wants to make up 'by example' for those deficiencies in the New Mass which he has always denounced since the 197s: the lack of spaces for meditation and silence; the loss of the 'sense of the sacred' - which he also calls the cosmic sense of the liturgical celebration, in which, according to Catholic as well as Orthodox theology, "God himself through his son's incarnation, truly makes himself present in the consecrated Host."

Mons. Guido continues formally: "This is not a battle between old and new, much less one between pre-conciliar and post-conciliar. We have gone beyond this genre of ideological distinction. Old and new both belong to the common liturgical treasury of the Church. Liturgical celebration should be a celebration of the sacred mystery of the Lord crucified and resurrected. It is for us to find, within this liturgical patrimony, a continuity that can serve the sense of the sacred".

He observes, in passing, that much attention has been given to changes introduced in the past several months without seeing that he has been working as well with the 'legacy' from his predecessors, including Mons. Piero Marini.

"There is no rupture with what went before," he assures us. "As for the use of historical miters and the papal thrones, it is not a systematic practice. They are only used for certain solemnities."

Of course, there is no rupture, but this slow introduction of changes in the liturgy, although they may appear simply symbolic, is solidly anchored in the thinking of Benedict XVI, which he never concealed before he became Pope.

In his memoirs, Ma Vie: Souvenirs 1927-1977[published in English as Milestones], which came out in France ten years ago, Joseph Ratzinger made this clear when he recounted how he reacted to the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform in his early 40s: "I was dismayed by the prohibition of the old Missal, since nothing of the sort had ever happened in the entire history of the liturgy. ... A renewal of liturgical awarenss, a liturgical reconciliation that again recognizes the unity of the history of the liturgy, and that understands Vatican-II, not as a breach, but as a stage of development - these things are urgently needed for the life of the Church. I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy... We need a new liturgical movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council."

In the words of a refined connoisseur of Roman life, Fr. Federico Lombardi, an experienced Jesuit who has been running Vatican Radio and the Press Office, one "must distrust" interpretations which tend to consider these evolutions as a revolution.

But everything leads us to believe that the 'new liturgical movement; has in fact been launched, and that Benedict XVI does not envision it as being spread through regulatory means but by force of example.


In this way, the 'Benedictine' altar - with its six (or seven candles) and Crucifix - has gained widespread emulation; some priests now unquestioningly give Communion on the tongue to parishioners who choose to receive it this way, and some parish priests are even beginning to introduce Masses offered 'ad orientem'. As Father Z says, 'brick by brick', Benedict XVI is re-laying the liturgical foundation with respect for tradition and the intended reforms of Vatican-II.




I thought I would add this item here from La Porte Latine (the Latin gate) the site of the Lefebvrian (Society of St. Pius X, SSPX) district of France, and is intended to be a welcome letter to the Pope. While I am surprised at the profession of loyalty to the Pope and the Holy See in the first paragraph, the summarily doctrinaire character of the third 'paragraph' expresses quite well - almost offensively - the SSPX monomania about 'the errors' of Vatican-II:

Here is a translation:

---

On the occasion of the visit to our country o the Sovereign Pontiff, we assure him of our lasting ['indefectible', which has two meanings - lasting (not subject to failure or decay) and flawless] attachment to the Apostolic See.

We rejoice that Pope Benedict XVI, on this 150th anniversary of the apparitions in Lourdes, so dear to the heart of all Frenchmen and all Catholics, will come to meditate at the Grotto.

Through the rosary, let us pray to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary that the Successor of Peter - in this very difficult time during which he must carry on the government of the Church, may find in Lourdes the lucidity and the strength to recognize, denounce and extirpate the Conciliar errors which are essentially the cause for the crisis in the Church.

Let us pray that the Catholic faith, outside of which no one cna be saved, may be granted to souls and that Christ the King may reign anew over nations and societies.

Abbe Regis de Cacqueray-Valmenier
Superior for the District of France

---

I can't wait to see Papa's address to the College des Bernardins in Paris on Friday. Hopefully its the same as this which EWTN has on their schedule- MEETING WITH AUTHORITIES OF STATE 60 mins
Fri 9/12/08 7 AM ET & 4 AM PT LIVE
Fri 9/12/08 4:30 PM ET & 1:30 PM PT ENCORE

I also hope they show more events. I would say check back b/c they might update that page w/ more things they will show. The article from Le Figaro is very good, thanks for posting. Yes, one can see that others are copying the 'Benedictine' altar arrangement; some send their pictures in to NLM. Papa is leading by example. I am wondering is when he will celebrate the Extraordinary Form. Weren't their certain things that were present (or went along w/) the Extraordinary Form that have been abolished? For ex. the Papal court?

Benedict XVI girds for
a Regensburgian lecture in Paris
by Riccardo Piol
Translated from

Sept. 9, 2008


The Pope who has made the reason-faith binomial one of the key points of his Magisterium is visiting the country of the Goddess Reason.

Benedict XVI arrives in Paris on September 12, and on the same day, he will address 700 intellectuals representing France's world of culture. [NB: It will be two years to the day since he delivered his epoch-marking lecture at the University of Regensburg.]

The main reason for his trip to France is the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, but his two preceding days in the French capital will not be just a simple appendix to his Pyrenean pilgrimage.

His program in Paris is quite substantial: a visit with President Sarkozy, separate meetings with Jewish and Muslim representatives [as well as an ecumenical meeting], Vespers at Notre Dame with the clergy of Paris, an address to the youth to start a nightlong prayer vigil for them, and a Mass on the great Esplanade of the Invalides on Saturday.

But particularly anticipated is his address to the world of culture at the College des Bernardins. He will speak in French in a context where he feels most at home, that of academe, but in speaking to France, he will be addressing once more the 'old' continent of Europe.

Everything leads us to think this may well be a new 'Regensburg' [I suppose in terms of import, not in terms of the unfortunately misguided reactions to the Regensburg lecture]..

The France which awaits the Pope is somewhat a mirror of Europe today - it lives acutely the same questions and the same crises that characterize the rest of the continent.

Benedict XVI arrives in France at a time when the secular trinity of the French Republic is not in the best of health. The value of secularity based on the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity has become creaky: vulnerable before issues of civil coexistence -think of the crises in the [migrant-rich] Parisian suburbs; and mute on the essentials of life, as in the case of the request for euthanasia of Chantal Sebire, a young woman afflicted by a disfiguring tumor.

In a nation which its own President has said is in need of regaining the ability to hope, Benedict XVI's visit is of interest to everyone, believer or not.

French Catholics - 75% of the population, according to the latest data - have been suffering for a time under a crisis whose most proximate causes are in 1968. If, on the one hand, it is true that "the churches of France are not empty", as the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, insists, the scenario offered by the low number of future priests is equally true: There are less than 1,500 seminarians in the entire country.

But the fact that in recent years, a tiny uptick in the number of vocations has been noticeable leads many to hope that the Pope's meeting with the bishops of France, to take place in Lourdes, on Sunday, Sept. 14, will be an invitation asking them to raise their sights higher.

But for the moment, the litmus test of the state of health of the Church in France will be the papal Mass on the Esplanade of the Invalides on Saturday. As many as 200,000 pilgrims are expected to attend, and if there are that many, it would be a good sign of its vitality, a new jolt to which this time, there must be a better follow-up than what happened after that oceanic tide of participants in the World Youth Day of 1997.

But it is not just the Catholic masses who will be watching Benedict XVI's visit with interest. Certainly, the visit is awaited by President Sarkozy, whose December 2007 visit to the Vatican the Pope is returning with a courtesy visit at the Elysee on Friday.

Sarkozy is no champion of Catholicism. But much water has gone under the bridge since a President Mitterand who, in the name of secularity, snubbed the title of honorary canon of the Lateran Basilica, to a President Sarkozy who did accept it and, at the conferment ceremony, gave a speech on the Christian roots of France, and who told L'Osservatore Romano that Christianity is 'a message of extreme audacity and total hope' that cannot be 'announced in an extenuated manner'.

France, which at one time was considered 'the oldest daughter of the
Church', is a nation today which, despite its history (the Grand Mosque of Paris dates back to 1926), is laboring to settle its accounts with the Muslim world.

It is a nation which continues to debate the separation of Church and State decreed in 1905, where secularity and civil coexistence are both a creed as well as a wound.

Sarkozy has said that France today "lacks Christian intellectuals, the great voices that can make themselves heard in debates over how to make progress in society".

On September 12, Benedict XVI arrives to be such a voice.