APOSTOLIC VOYAGE TO BRAZIL

www.visitadopapa.org.br/
www.celam.info/


Great pictures, nice to see the flags & signs of the young people. Thanks for posting! The Youth event was very good. The young people were very enthusiastic when the Pope came in & cheering at many parts of his speech but I don't see too much mention of that in the articles... Anyways Papa did great! Viva Papa!!

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Dear Lori...Don't count on the wire-service reports to describe anything like enthusiasm for the Pope from the crowds! They all have the mindset that Benedict could not possibly be as 'loved' by or as 'charismatic' to people as JPII was and refuse to see the evidence of their eyes, much less report on it. Just be thankful we can see some of it ourselves on TV and in the photos - and live, as those who have been there all attest - the electricity and the enthusiasm when he appears even at Angelus, where all they can see is a tiny white blur!


5/11/07 Let me further use your space, Lori, to add a few tems about Day-2 that have not been reported by the Anglophone media, but which I picked up from the Italian press. TERESA

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THE SPONTANEOUS POPE

Pope Benedict did many unscheduled things yesterday:

First, he appeared at the balcony of San Bento monastery in the morning to greet and bless the crowd of faithful outside. According to an Italian wire service report, the square in front of the monastery has been constantly populated by pilgrims hoping to get a glinmpse of the Pope as he comes adn goes.

On his way out to go to his meeting with President Lula, he shook hands with some lucky pilgrims just outside the monastery gate.

After his meeting with President Lula, he visited Sao Paulo's Museo d'Arte Sacra.

He then returned to the monastery for two scheduled activities: his meeting with religious leaders, and luncheon with the officials of the Brazilian bishops conference.

In the afternoon, before leaving for Pacaembu stadium, he met at the monastery with the governor of Sao Paulo state; the mayor of Sao Paulo; a group of benefactors and coordinators of the papal visit in Sao Paulo; and significantly, Cardinal Paulo Arns, emeritus Archbishop of Sao Paulo, who had been a leading advocate of liberation theology in his day, and who reportedly "clashed" with Cardinal Ratzinger over this issue.

On the way to Pacaembu stadium, which Avvenire's correspondent describes as "lined on both sides with impenetrable crowds", the Pope made a brief stop at the Memorial to Latin America.

And this morning (Friday) - as Sue shows in a picture below) - he appeared once more on the balcony of San Bento before leaving for the Mass at Campo di Marte.

And this:

POPE DONATES $200,000
FOR AMAZON FOREST FUND

At his luncheon meeting yesterdday with the new officers of the Brazilian bishops conference elected last week, Pope Benedict XVI contributed $200,000 to their Amazon conservation project.

In his informal remarks to the bishops, the Pope said he was very glad for this visit to Brazil, because as Pope, he thought it he should visit Brazil and Mexico, which are often represented by large celebratory groups of pilgrims at St. Peter's Square.

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I think those who planned the schedule for this visit did very well in limiting the formal schedule to essential events, not knowing exactly how an 80-year-old man would bear up to the long trans-Atlantic flight and other stresses accompanying a major pastoral visit abroad.

This has then allowed the Pope to add other activities to the degree that he feels up to it - and thank God, it seems he's doing very well indeed. Every prayer counts, and he has the prayers of all the faithful with him. God bless!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/05/2007 0.02]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/05/2008 00:40]

Here is the Vatican's English translation of the Holy Father's address to the youth of Latin America at his encounter with them Thusrday night at Sao Paulo's Pacaembu stadium. It is a remarkable pastoral document - and one Italian newspaper was right in calling the Pacaembu event "the WYD of Latin America."

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]“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor…and come, follow me”
(Mt 19:21)

My dear young friends!

1. I was particularly eager to include a meeting with you during this my first journey to Latin America. I have come to inaugurate the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America which, according to my wish, will take place at Aparecida, here in Brazil, at the Shrine of Our Lady. It is she who leads us to the feet of Jesus so that we can learn his teachings about the Kingdom, and it is she who stirs us up to be his missionaries so that the people of this “Continent of Hope” may have full life in him.

In their General Assembly last year, your Bishops here in Brazil reflected on the theme of the evangelization of youth and they placed a document into your hands. They asked you to receive that document and add your own reflections to it in the course of the year.

At their most recent Assembly, the Bishops returned to the theme, enriched now by your collaboration, in the hope that the reflections and guidelines proposed therein would serve as a stimulus and a beacon for your journey. The words offered by the Archbishop of São Paulo and the Director of Pastoral Care for Young People, both of whom I thank, confirm the spirit that moves your hearts.

While flying over the land of Brazil yesterday evening, I was already anticipating our encounter here in the Stadium of Pacaembu, anxious to extend to all of you a warm Brazilian embrace and to share with you the sentiments which I carry in the depths of my heart, and which are very appropriately indicated to us in today’s Gospel.

I have always felt a very special joy at these encounters. I remember especially the Twentieth World Youth Day at which I was able to preside two years ago in Germany. Some of you gathered here today were also present! It is an emotional memory for me on account of the abundant fruits of the Lord’s grace poured out upon those who were there.

Among the many fruits which I could point to, there is little doubt that the first was the exemplary sense of fraternity that stood as a clear witness to the Church’s perennial vitality throughout the world.

2. For this reason, my dear friends, I am certain that today the same impressions I received in Germany will be renewed here. In 1991, during his visit to Mato Grosso, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, of venerable memory, said that “youth are the first protagonists of the third millennium … they are the ones who will be charged with the destiny of this new phase in human history” (16 October 1991). Today, I feel moved to make the same observation regarding all of you.

The Christian life you lead in numerous parishes and small ecclesial communities, in universities, colleges and schools, and most of all, in places of work both in the city and in the countryside, is undoubtedly pleasing to the Lord. But it is necessary to go even further.

We can never say “enough”, because the love of God is infinite, and the Lord asks us — or better — requires us to open our hearts wider so that there will be room for even more love, goodness, and understanding for our brothers and sisters, and for the problems which concern not only the human community, but also the effective preservation and protection of the natural environment of which we are all a part.

“Our forests have more life”: do not allow this flame of hope which your National Hymn places on your lips to die out. The devastation of the environment in the Amazon Basin and the threats against the human dignity of peoples living within that region call for greater commitment in the different areas of activity than society tends to recognize.

3. Today I would like to reflect on the text we have just heard from Saint Matthew (cf. 19:16-22). It speaks of a young man who ran to see Jesus. His impatience merits special attention. In this young man I see all of you young people of Brazil and Latin America. You have “run” here from various regions of this Continent for this meeting of ours. You want to listen to the words of Jesus himself—spoken through the voice of the Pope.

You have a crucial question — a question that appears in this Gospel — to put to him. It is the same question posed by the young man who ran to see Jesus: What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?

I would like to take a deeper look at this question with you. It has to do with life. A life which — in all of you — is exuberant and beautiful. What are you to do with it? How can you live it to the full?

We see at once that in the very formulation of the question, the “here” and “now” are not enough; to put it another way, we cannot limit our life within the confines of space and time, however much we might try to broaden their horizons.

Life transcends them. In other words: we want to live, not die. We have a sense of something telling us that life is eternal and that we must apply ourselves to reach it. In short, it rests in our hands and is dependent, in a certain way, on our own decision.

The question in the Gospel does not regard only the future. It does not regard only a question about what will happen after death. On the contrary, it exists as a task in the present, in the “here” and “now”, which must guarantee authenticity and consequently the future.

In short, the young man’s question raises the issue of life’s meaning. It can therefore be formulated in this way: what must I do so that my life has meaning? How must I live so as to reap the full fruits of life? Or again: what must I do so that my life is not wasted?

Jesus alone can give us the answer, because he alone can guarantee us eternal life. He alone, therefore, can show us the meaning of this present life and give it fullness.

4. But before giving his response, Jesus asks about a very important aspect of the young man’s enquiry: why do you ask me about what is good? In this question, we find the key to the answer. This young man perceives that Jesus is good and that he is a teacher — a teacher who does not deceive. We are here because we have the very same conviction: Jesus is good.

It may be that we do not know how to explain fully the reason for this perception, but it undoubtedly draws us to him and opens us up to his teaching: he is a good teacher. To recognize the good means to love.

And whoever loves — to use a felicitous expression of Saint John — knows God (cf. 1 Jn 4:7). The young man in the Gospel has perceived God in Jesús Christ.

Jesus assures us that God alone is good. To be open to goodness means to receive God. In this way, he invites us to see God in all things and in everything that happens, even where most people see only God’s absence.

When we see the beauty of creation and recognize the goodness present there, it is impossible not to believe in God and to experience his saving and reassuring presence. If we came to see all the good that exists in the world — and moreover, experience the good that comes from God himself — we would never cease to approach him, praise him, and thank him. He continually fills us with joy and good things. His joy is our strength.

But we can only know in an imperfect, partial way. To understand what is good, we need help, which the Church offers us on many occasions, especially through catechesis. Jesus himself shows what is good for us by giving us the first element in his catechesis: “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19:17).

He begins with the knowledge that the young man has surely already acquired from his family and from the synagogue: he knows the commandments. These lead to life, which means that they guarantee our authenticity. They are the great signs which lead us along the right path.

Whoever keeps the commandments is on the way that leads to God. It is not enough, however, simply to know them. Witness is even more important than knowledge; or rather, it is applied knowledge.

The commandments are not imposed upon us from without; they do not diminish our freedom. On the contrary: they are strong internal incentives leading us to act in a certain way. At the heart of them we find both grace and nature, which do not allow us to stay still. We must walk.

We are motivated to do something in order fulfil our potential. To find fulfilment through action is, in reality, to become real. To a large extent, from the time of our youth, we are whatever we want to be. We are, so to speak, the work of our own hands.

5. At this point, I turn once more to you, young people, because I want to hear you give the same response that the young man in the Gospel gave: all these I have observed from my youth. The young man in the Gospel was good. He kept the commandments. He was walking along the way of God. Jesus, therefore, gazing at him, loved him. By recognizing that Jesus was good, he showed that he too was good. He had an experience of goodness, and therefore of God.

And you, young people of Brazil and Latin America, have you already discovered what is good? Do you follow the Lord’s commandments?

Have you discovered that this is the one true road to happiness?

These years of your life are the years which will prepare you for your future. Your “tomorrow” depends much on how you are living the “today” of your youth. Stretching out in front of you, my dear young friends, is a life that all of us hope will be long; yet it is only one life, it is unique: do not let it pass it vain; do not squander it. Live it with enthusiasm and with joy, but most of all, with a sense of responsibility.

Many times, we who are pastors feel a sense of trepidation as we take stock of the situation in today’s world. We hear talk of the fears of today’s youth.

These fears reveal an enormous lack of hope: a fear of death, at the very moment when life is blossoming and the young are searching to find how to fulfil their potential; fear of failure, through not having discovered the meaning of life; fear of remaining detached in the face of a disconcerting acceleration of events and communications.

We see the high death rate among young people, the threat of violence, the deplorable proliferation of drugs which strike at the deepest roots of youth today. For these reasons, we hear talk of a “lost youth”.

But as I gaze at you young people here present—you who radiate so much joy and enthusiasm— I see you as Christ sees you: with a gaze of love and trust, in the certainty that you have found the true way. You are the youth of the Church.

I send you out, therefore, on the great mission of evangelizing young men and women who have gone astray in this World like sheep without a shepherd.

Be apostles of youth. Invite them to walk with you, to have the same experience of faith, hope, and love; to encounter Jesus so that they may feel truly loved, accepted, able to realize their full potential. May they too may discover the sure ways of the commandments, and, by following them, come to God.

You can be the builders of a new society if you seek to put into practice a conduct inspired by universal moral values, but also a personal commitment to a vitally important human and spiritual formation.

Men and women who are ill-prepared for the real challenges presented by a correct interpretation of the Christian life in their own surroundings will easily fall prey to all the assaults of materialism and secularism, which are more and more active at all levels.

Be men and women who are free and responsible; make the family a centre that radiates peace and joy; be promoters of life, from its beginning to its natural end; protect the elderly, since they deserve respect and admiration for the good they have done.

The Pope also expects young people to seek to sanctify their work, carrying it out with technical skill and diligence, so as to contribute to the progress of all their brothers and sisters, and to shed the light of the Word upon all human activities (cf. Lumen Gentium, 36).

But above all, the Pope wants them to set about building a more just and fraternal society, fulfilling their duties towards the State: respecting its laws; not allowing themselves to be swept along by hatred and violence; seeking to be an example of Christian conduct in their professional and social milieu, distinguishing themselves by the integrity of their social and professional relationships.

They should remember that excessive ambition for wealth and power leads to corruption of oneself and others; there are no valid motives that would justify attempting to impose one’s own worldly aspirations — economic or political — through fraud and deceit.

There exists, in the final analysis, an immense panorama of action in which questions of a social, economic and political nature take on particular importance, as long as they draw their inspiration from the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church.

This includes building a more just and fraternal society, reconciled and at peace, it includes the commitment to reduce violence, initiatives to promote the fullness of life, the democratic order and the common good and especially initiatives aimed at eliminating certain forms of discrimination existing in Latin American societies: avoiding exclusion, for the sake of mutual enrichment.

Above all, have great respect for the institution of the sacrament of Matrimony. There cannot be true domestic happiness unless, at the same time, there is fidelity between spouses. Marriage is an institution of natural law, which has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament; it is a great gift that God has given to mankind: respect it and honour it.

At the same time, God calls you to respect one another when you fall in love and become engaged, since conjugal life, reserved by divine ordinance to married couples, will bring happiness and peace only to the extent that you are able to build your future hopes upon chastity, both within and outside marriage.

I repeat here to all of you that “eros tends to rise . . . towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing” (Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, 5). To put it briefly, it requires a spirit of sacrifice and renunciation for the sake of a greater good, namely the love of God above all things.

Seek to resist forcefully the snares of evil that are found in many contexts, driving you towards a dissolute and paradoxically empty life, causing you to lose the precious gift of your freedom and your true happiness.

True love “increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to ‘be there for’ the other” (ibid., 7) and therefore will always grow in faithfulness, indissolubility and fruitfulness.

In all these things, count upon the help of Jesus Christ who will make them possible through his grace (cf. Mt 19:26). The life of faith and prayer will lead you along the paths of intimacy with God, helping you to understand the greatness of his plans for every person.

“For the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12), some are called to a total and definitive selfgiving, by consecrating themselves to God in the religious life — an “exceptional gift of grace”, as the Second Vatican Council expressed it (cf. Decree Perfectae Caritatis, 12).

Consecrated persons, by giving themselves totally to God, prompted by the Holy Spirit, participate in the Church’s mission, bearing witness before all people to their hope in the heavenly Kingdom.

I therefore bless and invoke divine protection upon all those religious who have dedicated themselves to Christ and to their brothers and sisters within the vineyard of the Lord. Consecrated persons truly deserve the gratitude of the eclesial community: monks and nuns, contemplative men and women, religious men and women dedicated to apostolic works, members of Secular Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life, hermits and consecrated virgins.

“Their existence witnesses to their love for Christ as they walk the path proposed in the Gospel and with deep joy commit themselves to the same style of life which he chose for himself” (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, Instruction Starting Afresh from Christ, 5).

I pray that in this moment of grace and profound communion in Christ, the Holy Spirit will awaken in the hearts of many young people an impassioned love, prompting them to follow and imitate Jesús Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, totally devoted to the glory of the Father and to love for their brothers and sisters.

6. The Gospel assures us that the young man who went to meet Jesus was very rich. We may understand this wealth not only on the material level. Youth itself is a singular treasure. We have to discover it and to value it. Jesus appreciated it so much that he went on to invite the young man to participate in his saving mission. He had great potential and could have accomplished great things.

But the Gospel goes on to say that this young man, having heard the invitation, was saddened. He went away downcast and sad. This episode causes us to reflect further on the treasure of youth.

It is not, in the first place, a question of material wealth, but of life itself, and the values inherent in youth. This wealth is inherited from two sources: life,transmitted from generation to generation, at the ultimate origin of which we find God, full of wisdom and love; and upbringing, which locates us within a culture, to such an extent that we might almost say we are more children of culture and therefore of faith, than of nature.

From life springs freedom, which manifests itself, especially in this phase, as responsibility. There comes the great moment of decision, in a twofold choice: firstly, concerning one’s state of life, and secondly concerning one’s profession. It is about providing an answer to the question: what do I do with my life?

In other words, youth appears as a form of wealth because it leads to the discovery of life as a gift and a task. The young man in the Gospel understood that his youth was itself a treasure. He went to Jesus, the good Teacher, in order to seek some direction. At the moment of the great decision, however, he lacked the courage to wager everything on Jesus Christ. In consequence, he went away sad and downcast.

This is what happens whenever our decisions waver and become cowardly and self-seeking. He understood that what he lacked was generosity, and this did not allow him to realize his full potential. He withdrew to his riches, turning them to selfishness. Jesus regretted the sadness and the cowardice of the young man who had come to seek him out.

The Apostles, like all of you here today, filled the vacuum left by that young man who went away sad and downcast. They, and we, are happy, because we know the one in whom we believe (cf. 2 Tim 1:12). We know and we bear witness with our lives that he alone has the words of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:68). Therefore, we can exclaim with Saint Paul: Rejoice always in the Lord! (cf. Phil 4:4).

7. My appeal to you today, young people present at this gathering, is this: do not waste your youth. Do not seek to escape from it. Live it intensely. Consecrate it to the high ideals of faith and human solidarity.

You, young people, are not just the future of the Church and of humanity, as if we could somehow run away from the present. On the contrary: you are that young man now; you are that young man in the Church and in humanity today.

You are his young face. The Church needs you, as young people, to manifest to the world the face of Jesus Christ, visible in the Christian community. Without this young face, the Church would appear disfigured.

My dear young people, soon I shall inaugurate the Fifth Conference of the Bishops of Latin America. I ask you to follow its deliberations attentively; to participate in its discussions; to receive its fruits. As was the case with earlier Conferences, the present one will also leave a significant mark on the next ten years of evangelization in Latin America and the Caribbean.

No one must stay on the sidelines or remain indifferent in the face of this ecclesial initiative, least of all you young people. You are full members of the Church, which represents the face of Jesus Christ for Latin America and the Caribbean.

I greet the French speakers who live on the Latin American continent, and I invite them to be witnesses of the Gospel, and to be actively engaged in the life of the Church.

My prayer is addressed to you young people in a particular way: you are called to build your lives on Christ and on fundamental human values. Everyone should feel invited to work together in order to build a world of justice and peace.

My dear young friends, like the young man in the Gospel who asked Jesus: “What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?”, you are all seeking ways to respond generously to God’s call. I pray that you may listen to his saving words and that you may become his witnesses for the peoples of today. May God pour out upon all of you his blessings of peace and joy.

My dear young people, Christ is calling you to be saints. He himself is inviting you and wants to walk with you, in order to enliven with his Spirit the steps that Brazil is taking at the beginning of this third millennium of the Christian era. I ask the Senhora Aparecida to guide you with her maternal help and to accompany you throughout your lives.

Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ!

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None of the wire-service stories nor the wrap-up stories of Day 2 conveyed the depth and breadth of an address that the Holy Father obviously took pains to formulate for his young audience. A major address of this weight - and yet so direct and accessible - for the youth of Latin America indicates the apostolic, pastoral nature of this visit by the Holy Father. Let us pray that the youth may ponder these words, act on them and somehow keep it in mind as a guide through life.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 20.51]

Day Two: Benedict strikes softer tone
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 10, 2007

If Benedict XVI’s tough comments about excommunication for pro-choice Catholic politicians marked day one of his May 9-13 trip to Brazil, day two had a softer tone, focusing on pastoral moments and issues where church and state in Brazil are in broad agreement.

In their meeting in a government palace in São Paulo, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Pope Benedict steered clear of potential flash-points such as abortion and contraception, focusing instead on efforts to support families, education, and environmental concerns.

Benedict also held a brief meeting with 10 representatives of other Christian churches and other religions. The group included a rabbi, a Muslim leader, and eight heads of Christian churches.

Sources in the Brazilian church told NCR that the session almost didn’t happen. Vatican officials on three occasions had proposed taking it off the schedule, in an effort to avoid overtaxing the 80-year-old pope in light of a 13-hour plane ride the day before and a busy schedule once he hit the ground.

Local church officials, however, insisted that the meeting take place, arguing that Brazil has a unique commitment to ecumenism in Latin America, where Catholicism has long been a monopoly and relations with other Christians therefore not a top-tier pastoral priority. Brazil has a national-level body bringing together the various Christian bodies for formal dialogue, a relativel novelty in Latin America.

“It would have sent a false signal if the pope had not had the meeting,” one senior church official in Brazil said. “The work of dialogue is important in Brazil, and cancelling the meeting would have suggested that this dialogue is not approved by Rome.”

This official said it would have been even more satisfying had the group been able to accommodate more representatives of other religions, noting that Buddhism is a growing presence, due in large measure to high levels of Japanese immigration. With almost one million residents of Japanese descent, São Paulo is today considered the largest Japanese “colony” in the world.

After lunch with the officers of the Brazilian bishops’ conference, Benedict XVI also held a brief, but highly symbolic, meeting with the emeritus Archbishop of São Paulo, Cardinal Paulo Arns. During the battles over liberation theology in the 1970s and 1980s, Arns and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger often locked horns. When four new dioceses were split off from São Paulo in 1988, in a fashion that Arns himself had opposed, it was widely taken as a sign of Vatican disapproval.

In that light, Benedict’s choice to put an encounter with Arns on his schedule was seen as a gesture of reconciliation.

The day’s highlight came with Benedict’s encounter with Brazilian youth at the Municipal Stadium of Pacaembu. Before speaking, the pope sat through a lengthy, though decidely upbeat, program of popular Brazilian music and dance.

In his remarks, Benedict XVI avoided hard-hitting political rhetoric, focusing primarily on a call to Catholic young people to see themselves as “apostles to youth,” and to discover in Jesus Christ to roadmap to personal fulfillment.

Speaking in animated Portuguese, Benedict also urged the youth to confront the full range of challenges facing their society: the “environmental devastation of the Amazon,” various “threats to human dignity,” the defense of life “from its beginning to its natural decline,” care of the elderly, corruption, violence, and building a society “more just and based on solidarity, reconciled and peaceful.”

The pope exhorted the young people to be models of Christian virtue in their personal and professional lives, and to cherish the Sacrament of Matrimony. He also urged young Brazilians to be generous in responding to the call to the priesthood and religious life.

“My appeal today to you young people who have come to this meeting is, don’t waste your youth,” Benedict XVI said. “Don’t try to flee from it. Live it intensely. Consecrate it to the high ideals of the faith and of human solidarity.”

Benedict framed his remarks as a reflection on Matthew 19, and its account of the young man who asked Jesus what he had to do in order to obtain eternal life.

The crowd, estimated at roughly 35,000 on a chilly evening in São Paulo, interrupted Benedict with applause 28 times. One of the loudest cheers of the night came when Benedict mentioned the name of his predecessor, John Paul II. The youth broke out in chants of “Santo! Santo!,” signaling a desire to see John Paul formally declared a saint.

At one point, the crowd also chanted "No to abortion," reflecting the highly charged nature of political debate in Brazil in the wake of proposals to liberalize the country's abortion law.

At present, abortion is legal only in cases of rape and threats to the health of the mother, although the number of "clandestine" abortions is thought to be somewhere between one and two million.

Noteworthy from the Italian papers are the wrap-ups by Marco Politi in Repubblica and Luigi Accatoli in Corriere della Sera - to be translated.

Meanwhile, for the record, here's how the New York Times reported Day 2 of the visit:

Pope Addresses Brazil’s Youth
and Meets With the President
By IAN FISHER
Published: May 11, 2007


This is the picture they used with the article, published on page A-10 of the paper.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 10 — The 80-year-old pope, Benedict XVI, filled a stadium here on Thursday with 30,000 or more young Brazilians, whom he called “the future of the church and of humanity.”

“My appeal to you today, young people present at this gathering, is this: do not waste your youth,” he told the crowd at the stadium in the Pacaembu area of São Paulo. “Live it intensely. Consecrate it to the high ideals of faith and human solidarity.”

On the second day of his visit to Brazil, on his first trip to Latin America, Benedict was reaching out to a large demographic sector here and around the developing world, where Roman Catholicism is stronger than in Europe. In Brazil, nearly half the population is under 25.

That outreach, plus the fact that this is Brazil, seemed to dictate the format, which was livelier than many of the ceremonies the pope officiates. People danced to religiously spiced samba. Nuns did the wave. The reserved pope received group hugs.

His message, lengthy and delivered in Portuguese, was full of moral instruction: on the importance of marriage and chastity before it, engaging fully in church life, respect for life from its “beginning to its natural end.” The crowd, many of its members from church groups and holding banners from their parishes, seemed receptive.

“Yes to life! No to abortion!” they chanted while awaiting the pope in the early evening.

While Benedict did not specifically refer to abortion in his speech on Thursday, the issue had dominated the start of his trip here as the Brazilian church and government had a spat over it.

Abortion was not raised either in an earlier formal meeting here between the pope and Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, though each recently made opposing statements on a matter that has become increasingly pressing in Latin America.

On his flight from Rome on Wednesday, Benedict commented on a new law legalizing early-term abortion in Mexico City, and he seemed to leave open the possibility that Catholic politicians who voted for it had excommunicated themselves. The Vatican quickly clarified his remarks, saying that such politicians should rather abstain from communion.

Early this week, Mr. da Silva suggested that he could, in theory, become one of those Catholic politicians in favor of legal abortion.

He said in a radio interview on Monday that while he was personally opposed to abortion, “the state cannot abdicate from caring for this as a public health question, because to do so would lead to the death of many young women in this country.”

Meantime, the nation’s minister of health has supported a referendum on abortion, prompting strong protest from Catholic bishops.

But the pope and the president, in their half-hour meeting here on Thursday, sidestepped the issue, tackling instead concerns on which, one Brazilian official said, they largely agreed. Those included supporting families, moral education for young people, protecting the environment and changes in international trade that would benefit poor countries, Vatican and Brazilian officials said.

The pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he did not expect the pope to make abortion a central theme of his speeches during his four days here. He said the pope had not sought to comment on the law in Mexico, but rather answered a question at a news conference.

“This was a question posed on a trip in an airplane,” Father Lombardi told reporters here on Thursday. “It is not a theme in the speeches of the pope or of his trip here.”

After his visit with Mr. da Silva, Benedict met briefly with 12 members of other faiths, including a rabbi and a Muslim. The Muslim, Armando Hussein Saleh, gave the pope a white cloak “as a symbol of friendship,” Father Lombardi said.

Not invited to the meeting were representatives of the evangelical Protestant groups that have been responsible for a deep erosion in the number of Catholics in Brazil and Latin America. That decline is one of the pope’s major themes during his visit here, as he addresses a convention of Latin American bishops.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 21.25]

So, Osservatore Romano continues to be a day behind in reporting the papal visit; Here's today's issue:


Osservatore Romano's front page for May 11 (right) and the Page 1 picture.

This issue does have a rather comprehensive story on Day-1, which merits translation. I will insert it here eventually.


AVVENIRE's Papal coverage in its issue for today, May 11:


NB: Right, part of the paper's centerfold featuring a poster for Family Day tomorrow, May 12, in Rome.




Full coverage of Pacaembu rally and the text of the Pope's address.

Will post Avvenire stories as soon as translated. They have details ignored by Anglophone news agency reports.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 20.01]

The centerpiece of the Pope's day today is the canonization of Frei Galvao, but AP has this perfectly legitimate but also questionable as to intention, today of all days. ...anyway, if the popular media, the MSM, have been so ready to advocate the popular 'Santo subito' demands over John Paul II, why does AP now douse popular fervor over Frei Galvao - a fervor that began when he was still alive at the beginning of the 19th century and tht has persisted and grown over the past almost two centuries?


Skepticism surrounds
Brazil's first native-born saint
By Stan Lehman

SAO PAULO, Brazil - The Franciscan monk who will become Brazil's first native-born saint is credited with 5,000 miracle cures, but doctors are skeptical of his works and even a former Brazilian archbishop laments the healings as fakery.

Despite the doubts, the canonization of Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao by Pope Benedict XVI at an open-air mass today is sure to please the more than 1 million Catholics expected to be in attendance.

The Vatican has officially certified the medical cases of two Brazilian women as divinely inspired miracles that justify the sainthood of Galvao.

Both of these women spoke of their faith with the Associated Press, claiming that their children would not be alive today were it not for the tiny rice-paper pills that Friar Galvao handed out two centuries ago.

Although the friar died in 1822, the tradition is carried on by Brazilian nuns who toil in the Sao Paulo monastery where Galvao is buried, preparing thousands of the Tic Tac-sized pills distributed free each day to people seeking cures for all manner of ailments. Sandra Grossi de Almeida, 37, is one such believer. She had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months. But in 1999, after taking the pills, she gave birth to Enzo, now 7.

"I have faith," Grossi said, pointing to her son. "I believe in God, and the proof is right here."

Nearly 10 years before that, Daniela Cristina da Silva, then 4 years old, entered a coma and suffered a heart attack after liver and kidney complications from hepatitis A.

"The doctors told me to pray because only a miracle could save her," Daniela's mother Jacyra said recently. "My sister sneaked into the intensive care unit and forced my daughter to swallow Friar Galvao's pills."

A few days later, a cured Daniela was discharged from the hospital.

But doubters remain.

"That was no miracle," said Roberto Focaccia, an infectious disease expert at the hospital where Daniela was treated. "Statistics show that an average of 50 percent of these patients die and the other 50 percent recover completely. She was lucky to be among the 50 percent who survive.


The next piece from London's Daily Telegraph was entitled "Bishops at odds with Pope over Internet Mass" - which misrepresents what the article itself says. It does pose a very relevant problem.

But if the problem is reaching Catholics in remote areas, what are the chances they have Internet, to begin with??? And for the Church to officially say ""Going to Mass via TV or Internet is OK", then that will give a reason to many Catholics, especially young people, not go to Sunday Mass at church "because I can do it at home" - but what are the chances they will then find the time to 'hear Mass' at home?


Is the Internet Mass valid?
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
11/05/2007


As Benedict XVI addressed 40,000 youths in Sao Paolo yesterday on the first day of his tour of Brazil, the country's Catholic leaders said that the Church had to embrace new technology to win back worshippers from the burgeoning evangelical movement.

They want remote communities and younger worshippers to be able celebrate Mass live over the internet. Celebrants would take communion by placing unleavened bread in front of their computer monitors to be consecrated.

The idea will be discussed on Sunday at the first Episcopal Conference of South American bishops to be held for a decade.

Monsignor Dimas Lara, the general secretary of the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, said: "It is pointless to talk about the evangelisation of the youth without discussing the internet.

"It may be a new thing for all of us, but it is necessary."

The move could counter the severe shortage of clergy in some areas. Evangelists are winning over remote and poorer communities because they have 17 times as many pastors per worshipper as there are Catholic priests.

However, the Pope has already dismissed the idea. In Sacrementum Caritatis, a document on the Eucharist which he issued in February, Benedict insisted that communion over the internet, or any other media, had "no spiritual value".
[But what an ignorant statement to make! The Pope never said any such thing about Communion - he said it about the Mass - because there is no way anyone can take Communion virtually!]

The Vatican said yesterday that internet Mass was "no substitute" for going to church, but seemed prepared to turn a blind eye to the practice.

"I am sure internet Mass already exists," said Father Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman. "I believe it is a way of involving more people, but it is obviously important to keep going to church and to personally participate. This is part of church life and the Internet cannot replace it."

The Vatican is aware of the need for the Church to embrace new ways of engaging worshippers and the Pontifical Council for Social Communication has instructed priests not to "shy away" from using the internet as a means of communication. Vatican Radio now offers podcasts and gave Benedict an iPod to listen to them.

Ironically, the Pope's five-day tour is likely to be the most technologically-savvy in history. [What is ironical about that? The Church accommodates both tradition and technology - but both in their right place.] He will be broadcast on giant screens, streamed live over the web and recorded in high-definition television. Even the 17th Century monastery where the Pope is staying in Sao Paolo has wireless internet throughout.

When he appears in Sao Paolo today, he will be followed on stage by Father Marcelo Rossi, who will perform a Christian pop concert. Father Rossi has radio and television shows and his songs and sermons can be downloaded from a website.

Internet Mass is also being considered in the Philippines, where the Catholic Charismatic community at Edsa Shrine said it would help those "with disabilities or who work all day long".

However, Benedict himself has given no indication himself that he approves of technological initiatives. On the contrary, he has stressed repeatedly that too much importance is placed on technology and that it dims the connection between Man and God. "Is a 'Saviour' still needed by a humanity which has reached the Moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe?" he asked in his address last Christmas.
[OH, PUH-LEEZE! The Pope's statements on technology are being taken completely out of context here!]

But let me post here Zadok the Roman's blog today reacting to the Telegraph story - this blogger follows the British press for some reason, and knows all about the Telegraph's penchant for misinformation on all things Catholic:

Mis-reporting surely...

I can't believe that this article from the Telegraph has its facts straight: [He goes on to quote the first five paragraphs of the story, up to the sentence "It may be a new thing for all of us, but it is necessary."]

I cannot believe that any group of bishops could be taking seriously the idea of transubstantiation over the internet, and I suspect that Msgr Lara's comment is probably taken out of context. I expect he was just talking about the internet in general and its use in evangelization and/or the broadcasting of services.

[Next he quotes this paragraph:]

---

The move could counter the severe shortage of clergy in some areas. Evangelists are winning over remote and poorer communities because they have 17 times as many pastors per worshipper as there are Catholic priests. However, the Pope has already dismissed the idea. In Sacramentum Caritatis, a document on the Eucharist which he issued in February, Benedict insisted that communion over the internet, or any other media, had "no spiritual value."

---

How nice! An actual quotation from Sacramentum Caritatis. Let's go to the English version to find the words "no spiritual value."

Hmmmm... a text search shows that the supposed quotation from Sacramentum Caritatis doesn't appear in the document. What the Pope actually says is:

---

Participation through the communications media
57. Thanks to the remarkable development of the communications media, the word "participation" has taken on a broader meaning in recent decades. We all gladly acknowledge that the media have also opened up new possibilities for the celebration of the Eucharist. This requires a specific preparation and a keen sense of responsibility on the part of pastoral workers in the sector. When Mass is broadcast on television, it inevitably tends to set an example. Particular care should therefore be taken to ensure that, in addition to taking place in suitable and well-appointed locations, the celebration respects the liturgical norms in force.

Finally, with regard to the value of taking part in Mass via the communications media, those who hear or view these broadcasts should be aware that, under normal circumstances, they do not fulfil the obligation of attending Mass. Visual images can represent reality, but they do not actually reproduce it. While it is most praiseworthy that the elderly and the sick participate in Sunday Mass through radio and television, the same cannot be said of those who think that such broadcasts dispense them from going to church and sharing in the eucharistic assembly in the living Church.

---

So what else does the Telegraph has to tell us?

---

The Vatican said yesterday that internet Mass was "no substitute" for going to church, but seemed prepared to turn a blind eye to the practice.

"I am sure internet Mass already exists," said Father Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman. "I believe it is a way of involving more people, but it is obviously important to keep going to church and to personally participate. This is part of church life and the internet cannot replace it."

---

Again, the Telegraph seems to be totally missing the point - it doesn't sound like the "Vatican" is turning a blind eye to anything. I seriously doubt that Fr Lombardi's idea of "internet mass" has anything even remotely to do with what Malcolm Moore seems to think it is.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 22.10]

Up to one million expected
as pope canonizes Brazil's first saint
by Gina Doggett


SAO PAULO, May 11 (AFP) - Up to a million faithful are expected to throng a Sao Paulo park as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a mass to canonize Brazil's first saint, a Franciscan monk still credited with miracle cures nearly 200 years after his death.

The Church hopes that elevating Antonio de Sant'Ana Galvao to sainthood will help reverse major inroads that evangelical faiths have made not only in Brazil, but also across Latin America, which is home to almost half the world's population of 1.1 billion Catholics.

A giant wooden cross dominates the venue for the open-air mass, the Campo de Marte, where Benedict's predecessor John Paul II beatified a 16th-century Canarian Jesuit missionary to Brazil, Jose de Anchieta, in 1980.

The canonization mass follows close on the heels of a rally late Thursday attended by tens of thousands of Latin American young people at a Sao Paulo football stadium where Benedict urged them to "be apostles of youth."

"I send you out ... on the great mission of evangelizing young men and women who have gone astray in this world like sheep without a shepherd," the German pontiff said, urging youths to draw their inspiration from "universal moral values."

The former head of the Vatican's top doctrinal body as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reiterated his strict line against abortion and euthanasia with his frequent phrase, "promote life from its beginning to its natural end."

Benedict, 80, also urged young people to respect marriage and practice chastity. "Inside and outside marriage, chastity should be made a bulwark."

The speech - coupled with a debate over abortion after Benedict and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva traded public comments on the sensitive subject - prompted a cartoon in a Sao Paulo newspaper Friday showing a dour-looking pope carrying a staff with a hammer at the top instead of a crucifix.

Homosexuals and pro-choice Catholic women are staging scattered protests in major Brazilian cities against the pope during his five-day visit, blasting the Vatican for influencing government social policies.

The Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals published an open letter Wednesday saying that religious convictions "cannot influence government policies, much less be used to discriminate."

The Franciscan monk to be sainted at Friday's mass lived from 1739 to 1822, founding monasteries and convents throughout Brazil. But Friar Galvao is best known today because of his reputed healing powers.

A first miracle attributed to him and recognized by the Church occurred at the start of the 19th century when a patient was cured of kidney stones after he had her swallow three small pieces of paper on which he had written prayers for divine intercession.

Beatification is the step before sainthood, which requires at least two miracles attributed to the candidate.

Two much more recent miracles attributed to Galvao have been recognized by the Vatican: In 1990, a four-year-old girl recovered from what was considered incurable hepatitis, and in 1999 a mother and child survived a high-risk birth in what the Vatican called a "scientifically inexplicable" case.

Both had swallowed the celebrated paper "miracle pills" that have led, according to Sao Paulo's Monastery of Light, to 8,057 cases in which supplicants' prayers to Galvao have been answered since the priest was beatified by John Paul II in 1998.

Sister Claudia told AFP at the monastery: "And now that he will be declared a saint the number of followers will grow."

Later in the day the pope will meet around 430 Brazilian bishops in Sao Paulo's Cathedral da Se, after which he will travel to nearby Aparecida to open a conference of Latin American bishops on Sunday, the final day of his trip.

That meeting will be aimed at giving impetus to the missionary reach of the church in the region.


Pope's outdoor mass in Brazil
draws huge crowd
By Todd Benson


SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians gathered in Sao Paulo on Friday to see Pope Benedict canonize the first native-born saint in the world's largest Roman Catholic nation.

The faithful came from all over Brazil and several other Latin America countries. Many camped out overnight on the Campo de Marte military airfield on the edge of the city, braving bitingly cold weather.

Police said close to 1 million people turned out to see the Pope, who on the first two days of his visit to Brazil has firmly reinforced the Church's opposition to abortion and called for a return to traditional family values.

In a service aimed at helping him in his mission to revitalize the Catholic Church in Latin America, he will canonize the 18th-century Friar Antonio Galvao, making him the first Brazilian-born saint.

Brazilians hoping for a miracle often swallow so-called Friar Galvao Pills, tiny pieces of paper with prayers written on them.

Prior to his visit, the Pope was seen in Brazil as a distant figure lacking the warmth and charisma that made his predecessor Pope John Paul so beloved. But he appeared to be winning hearts and minds.

Lucilene Gutierres, a 21-year-old student, and her boyfriend spent the night at the airfield waiting to see him.

"We thought he was going to be a disappointment but he surprised us. People say he's authoritarian, but he's just a bit shy and sweet."

Francisco Fortes, 60, said he was a direct descendent of Friar Galvao and lived in his hometown Guaratingueta.

"This Pope has turned out to be a surprise. He seemed to be more reserved. But he's coming out of his shell here in Brazil," he said.

The Pope will meet Brazilian bishops in Sao Paulo's Se Cathedral later on Friday and then travel to the holy shrine city of Aparecida, where he will deliver the opening address to a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 21.27]

These are two of 5 stories filed yesterday (Day-2 wrap-up of the Pope's day was one; then there's one about Mexican Cardinal Carrera's on the abortion issue in his country, and a second one about an apparently impending social encyclical from the Pope) by the industrious and resourceful John Allen on Day 2 of the papal visit, in which he makes use of his being in Brazil to make further inquiries for his book in preparation about 'mega-trends in Catholicism' at the start of the third millennium.

A new era of Catholic/Pentecostal 'good feelings'?
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 10, 2007

Though part of the unspoken logic for Benedict XVI’s trip to Brazil is to offset Catholic losses to Pentecostalism, now estimated at almost 20 million Brazilians and growing, political realities in the country on issues such as abortion and gay marriage in some sense make the Pentecostals the pope's best friends.

Such are the ironies of life in Latin America.

Under current Brazilian law, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or when a woman’s life is at risk. Nevertheless, there are thought to be somewhere between a million and two million “clandestine” abortions in the country each year, and the Brazilian Minister of Health, Jose Gomes Temporao, has floated the idea of widening the scope of legal abortion.

Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a Catholic, has said that he is personally opposed to abortion, but that “the state cannot abdicate from caring for this as a public health question, because to do so would lead to the death of many young women in this country.”

On the papal plane on the way to Brazil, Benedict XVI seemed to indicate that Catholic politicians who support expanding abortion rights should be considered excommunicated under the terms of Canon Law.

During his remarks to Lula at the welcoming ceremony at the São Paulo airport, Benedict called for “respect for life from the moment of conception until natural death as an integral requirement of human nature.”

That’s where the Pentecostals come into play.

Of all the political and social forces in Brazil, it’s the Pentecostals who are most likely to be receptive to Benedict’s pro-life message. They are not an inconsiderable force in Brazil’s political galaxy; at the moment, the Pentecostal “block” in the national legislature represents about 10 percent of the total, roughly 60 members. While the Pentecostals come from different parties and hold different positions on issues such as tax policy and international relations, they are compactly in favor of conservative positions on social questions such as abortion.

While some Pentecostal legislators and ministers were damaged by corruption scandals in 2005 and 2006, they still represent a potent political force in the country.

The Vice-President of Brazil, who was Lula’s running mate in the 2002 national elections, José Alencar, is a member of the Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and is perhaps the most prominent pro-life member of the administration. It will be Alencar who will say goodbye to Benedict on the country’s behalf Sunday evening when the pope departs from São Paulo.

Thus Benedict XVI, as well as local Catholic leaders, face a dilemma in terms of how they relate to what have until recently been know, pejoratively, as “the sects.”

On the one hand, the Catholic church clearly hopes to stop the attrition towards Pentecostalism, and, if possible, recapture some lost ground. That’s part of the implied subtext whenever Benedict and other Catholic leaders call for a renewed commitment to “evangelization.”

Yet Benedict does not want to alienate the Pentecostals either, because on a range of issues, they are his best natural allies.

“It’s not just the specific question of abortion or homosexuality,” one Brazilian journalist explained today. “It’s the broader question of the ‘religiousness’ of Brazil. If the pope had to rely just on the Catholics, the country would actually be much secularized than it already is.”

How Benedict walks this tightrope – promoting healthy competition for adherents, but also fostering strong working relationships at the level of political and cultural debates – may have a great deal to say about the future of Catholic/Pentecostal relations in Latin America.

In the end, one of the ironies of the pope’s Brazil trip may turn out to be that, having come to Brazil to encourage Catholics to resist Pentecostalism, his battle against the dictatorship of relativism may actually usher in a new era of Catholic/Pentecostal “good feelings" instead.


Hopelessness, not Pentecostalism,
as Brazil's mega-trend in religion
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 10, 2007
Although much conversation surrounding Benedict XVI’s trip to Brazil has focused on defections from the Catholic church to Pentecostalism, one expert on Brazil’s religious situation says the more important, albeit less discussed, phenomenon is the striking rise in the percentage of Brazilians with no religious faith at all.

Fr. Jose Oscar Beozzo, who directs the Center for Evangelizing Services and Popular Education in São Paulo, told NCR May 10 that between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of the Brazilian population that identifies itself as “Protestant,” with most of that number being Pentecostal, rose from 12 to 17 percent.

Over the same period, Beozzo said, the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation went from 0.7 percent to 7.3 percent, a ten-fold increase. Those numbers, he said, come from Brazil’s state-run Institute of Geography and Statistics.

“This is the infinitely more important movement in the Brazilian religious situation,” Beozzo said.

The decline in religious affiliation is unevenly distributed across Brazil, he said. In rural areas, relatively small percentages have abandoned religion, while the total rises in urban zones such as Rio de Janiero, where Beozzo said it’s 15 percent.

What’s especially noteworthy about this phenomenon, which Beozzo said is still growing, is that it’s not really a sign of “secularization” in the classic Western sense, though he said one can find elements of secularization on university campuses and in more middle- and upper-class segments of urban society in Brazil.

For the first time, he said, increasing numbers of Brazilian poor are simply saying that they no longer have any faith.

Beozzo said there have been three waves of growth in religious non-affiliation in Brazil’s history. The first, he said, came at the end of the 19th century among the liberal and intellectual classes. The second came in the first half of the 20th century, with the rise of anarchism and Communism among the working classes. Today’s wave, he said, is the first time that non-affiliation has become a “mass phenomenon.”

Beozzo attributes the progressive abandonment of religion among the country’s poor to the intersection of two factors. First is Brazil’s economic development over the last thirty years, which has created new affluence at the top of the economic ladder but left millions of people behind. Over 10 million jobs have been lost, he said, in the last 25 years, fueling a “dramatic increase in desperation.”

The second factor, he said, is the rapid urbanization of Brazilian society, which has created new urban peripheries where the traditional social networks of family, community and church have broken down.

“I talk to these people,” Beozzo said. “What they tell me is that they do not believe that religion has any meaning for them. They don’t believe it has any capacity to change their lives.”

In that sense, Beozzo said, the rise of religious non-affiliation among the Brazilian poor can be read as an index of hopelessness. It’s not so much a specific lack of faith in God or the church, he said, as a collapse of faith in virtually everything.

Beozzo said the rise of Pentecostalism, which he insisted is relatively modest, is connected to the same two factors. The Catholic church, he said, is generally “not present” in the new urban peripheries, which has created a religious vacuum. Some Brazilian poor have responded by embracing Pentecostalism, while a growing percentage have turned their back on religion altogether.

Beozzo said he was not optimistic that in the short run, Benedict’s pastoral visit would do much to reverse these trends.

“I’m a historian,” he said. “Religious phenomena develop over a long arc of time. Isolated events, even the most important, generally have only a small impact. They can’t really change the underlying social fabric.”

If change is going to come, he said, it must be the result of long-term, grassroots efforts which “unfold in the lives of the people.”

Towards that end, Beozzo said that it’s important for the church to realize that “clerical” solutions, meaning relying primarily on clergy to carry forward the church’s pastoral efforts, are, in his view, doomed to failure.

“We have only 18,000 priests for something like 140 million Catholics,” Beozzo said. “Meanwhile, the Assemblies of God have eight and one-half million faithful in Brazil, and over 52,000 pastors.”

In light of those discrepancies, Beozzo said, the only option is for the church to fully embrace the laity as protagonists of the church’s various ministries. In some sense, he said, this is already reality; 80 percent of Sunday celebrations in Brazil, he said, are currently led by laity due to the absence of priests.

On the other hand, he said, sometimes church authorities, especially in Rome, are sometimes slow to embrace this more lay-led pastoral model. He cited the case of a set of directives for popular liturgical celebrations developed by the Brazilian bishops, and intended for use by various grassroots groups in the church – above all, the thousands of “base communities” throughout the country.

When the directory was reviewed in the Vatican by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, he said, they ordered its use suspended.

“It’s still officially suspended,” Beozzo said, “but in reality it’s widely used. When the people show up on Sunday, many times it’s a choice between this or nothing. Our future is as a lay-led church.”

“That’s not by choice,” Beozzo said. “It’s simply the church we’ve got.”

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 14.39]

Mexican cardinal says
pope repeated bishops' line on abortion
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 10, 2007


Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City, the place where recent debates over communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians formed the background to Benedict XVI’s Wednesday comments aboard the papal plane, said today that the pope “only repeated what we bishops already had said.”

Rivera is in São Paulo for the pope’s visit to Brazil, and will also be in Aparecida to take part in the General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM).

Rivera told NCR that he did not know what impact the pope’s comments have had in Mexico City, because he’s been in Brazil since the story broke. He insisted, however, that Benedict’s statement did not amount to “anything new,” but was rather a repetition of the position taken in Mexico City.

On April 24, legislators in Mexico City voted to legalize abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in the city’s public hospitals. The law does not require private hospitals or clinics to perform abortions.

At the time, the Archdiocese of Mexico City issued a statement indicating that doctors and nurses who perform abortions, as well as the lawmakers who support abortion, were to be considered excommunicated. Pressed by reporters at the time, Rivera said that he had not excommunicated anyone, nor did he plan to do so.

Sources said what Rivera meant is that by virtue of their involvement in abortion, the doctors, nurses and lawmakers had instead excommunicated themselves.

By way of inference, Rivera's response today seemed to mean that Benedict had affirmed this position.

Rivera said that based on what he gathered from Mexican press accounts, there was some confusion about the pope’s position because during his airborne press conference, he gave two different answers to essentially the same question.

The first time a Mexican reporter asked him about excommunication, he spoke in positive terms about the beauty of life, and the need to have confidence in the future. Only when pressed by an Italian reporter did he respond specifically to the question of excommunication for politicians who support abortion rights, saying that it was not “arbitrary,” but based on the law of the church.


Meanwhile, here is how Catholic News Service reported on the Vatican's editing out the word 'yes' from the Pope's answer (and other alleged tweaking) regarding excommunication in the transcript of the Pope's in-flight news conference on May 9.


Vatican tones down papal remarks
on pro-abortion Catholic politicians
By John Thavis


SAO PAULO, Brazil, May 10 (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI's comments on excommunication for pro-abortion Catholic politicians touched on huge and sensitive issues - so sensitive that the Vatican issued a toned-down version of his remarks the following day.

Speaking with journalists on the plane taking him to Brazil May 9, the pope left the impression that he agreed with those invoking excommunication for Catholic legislators in Mexico City who had voted in April to legalize abortion.

When reporters pressed the pope on whether he supported the excommunication of the Mexican deputies, he answered: "Yes, this excommunication* was not something arbitrary, but is foreseen by the Code (of Canon Law). It is simply part of church law that the killing of an innocent baby is incompatible with being in communion with the body of Christ."
[We've already pointed out how this is a wrong translation of the 'La scomunica...', which means "Excommunication.." in the general sense, not "this excommunication". John Allen has unwittingly started a new media 'myth' - which will now live on indefinitely - by his prompt but misleading translation of that simple two-word phrase! Unless, of course, the Vatican' editors' went beyond just dropping the word "Si...' before the phrase to also change 'questa' into 'la'! This may seem like quibbling to many, but translations can become critical over such apparently minor points. ]

Referring to Mexican bishops, the pope continued: "Therefore, they did not do anything new, surprising or arbitrary. They only underlined publicly what is foreseen in (canon) law, a law based on the church's doctrine and faith, on our appreciation for life and for human individuality from the first moment."

On May 10, the Vatican press office released the official transcript of the pope's 25-minute session with reporters. The pope's opening "yes" to the direct question about excommunication had disappeared, and so had the references to Mexican bishops.

The tweaked version of the pope's remarks began: "Excommunication is not something arbitrary, but is foreseen by the Code (of Canon Law.) Therefore, it is simply part of church law that the killing of an innocent baby is incompatible with going to Communion, in which one receives the body of Christ."

In the rest of the edited version, some of the pope's verbs were changed to make his remarks more generic. [Hmmm...let me go over John Allen's original translation again and compare it with the Vatican 'transcript' to see where and how that might have happened.]

Asked about the changes, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters May 10 that it was routine for the Vatican Secretariat of State to review the pope's extemporaneous remarks and clean them up a little for publication.

That the pope's comments had potential for controversy was apparent immediately after he made them. Father Lombardi quickly circulated among reporters on the plane and told them that the pope was not announcing a new policy on Catholic politicians.

Father Lombardi also noted confusion over what the Mexican bishops had and had not done. The Mexican bishops had not announced the excommunication of anyone, he pointed out.

"And if the bishops haven't excommunicated anyone, it's not that the pope wants to do so," Father Lombardi said.

Later May 9, after consulting with the pope, Father Lombardi said the pontiff was only reiterating the teaching that Catholic legislators who promote initiatives like the legalization of abortion exclude themselves from the conditions needed to participate fully in the Eucharist.

But for many media, those distinctions meant less than the pope's apparent "yes" to the penalty of excommunication for Catholic politicians. The next day's banner headline in one of Brazil's leading newspapers, Folha de Sao Paulo, read simply: "The pope supports the excommunication of pro-abortion politicians."

In Brazil and in several Latin America countries, there are increasing pressures to legalize abortion. Its adoption in Mexico City, which now allows abortion for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, was seen by church leaders as a major defeat.

Some of the church's statements following the vote in Mexico City have appeared inconsistent, however.

Carlos Villa Roiz, a spokesman for Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, told Catholic News Service May 9 that the Mexican church did not yet have an official position on the matter.

Immediately before the law's approval April 24, local press quoted a Mexico City archdiocesan statement that said when the law took effect "any baptized assembly members will automatically be excommunicated and therefore be excluded from the Catholic Church."

However, Cardinal Rivera backed off this stance May 6, saying that excommunication was not necessary.

"The only official position of the archdiocese is the one the cardinal announced on Sunday," Villa said. "During Mass, he said that he hadn't considered excommunicating anyone."

Villa added that Mexican clergy were still debating whether the lawmakers had been excommunicated "latae sententiae," meaning excommunication may have been automatic following their vote, with no need for a formal church declaration.

He said Mexican church officials would be ready to follow any orders from the pope.

"When Rome speaks, the discussion is over," Villa said. "Even if Cardinal Rivera hasn't excommunicated them, the pope is making it understood that the legislators have committed a serious, mortal sin."

Politicians who supported the abortion bill have downplayed the excommunication discussions.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a member of the Democratic Revolution Party, told reporters May 9 that he "hadn't lost any sleep" over the possibility of being excommunicated.

"I am going to fulfill my duties," he said. "Above the law, there is nothing more important."

The issue of politicians and Communion has ramifications beyond Mexico.

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign, about 10 to 12 of the approximately 190 diocesan bishops spoke out in favor of denying Communion to politicians who favored abortion. The bishops are scheduled to discuss the issue again this November when they vote on a new statement on "Faithful Citizenship."

Pope will say something 'very important'
on social justice, Martino promises
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 10, 2007

In places such as Brazil, where poverty, violence, and environmental devastation are front-burner pastoral and political concerns, it’s natural to ask if Pope Benedict XVI might be contemplating some major new social message.

Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, offered a simple, if slightly enigmatic, response to that question on Thursday: “Have patience … something big is coming.”

Martino spoke to reporters in São Paulo during Benedict XVI’s May 9-13 visit to Brazil.

Asked specifically if he was referring to a rumored new social encyclical from Benedict XVI, Martino was to quick to say, “I didn’t use that word.”

Nevertheless, Martino promised that “the pope will say something very important” about the church's social teaching, and that when he does, “You will not be disappointed … You will be more than satisfied.”

Speculation has long swirled in Rome that Benedict XVI might issue an encyclical on social justice themes such as poverty, armed conflict, and environmentalism in 2007, to mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1967 social encyclical, Populorum Progressio.

While Martino’s comments do not amount to a formal confirmation of those rumors, they do suggest that Benedict is preparing some sort of major message on social themes.

In general, Martino said that it’s possible for the Catholic church to embrace a strong commitment to social justice without awakening the ghosts of battles from the 1970s and 1980s over liberation theology.

“We don’t need liberation theology, because it relies on Marxist analysis,” Martino said. “We can’t accept it. We have all the principles we need in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.”

In that context, Martino referred to the Compendium of the church’s social teaching published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace three years ago. Since its appearance, Martino has relentlessly promoted the volume as a cornerstone for the church’s social justice activity.

That teaching is important, Martino said, because “we find in every country a big gap between the rich, who are too rich, and the poor, who are too poor. That situation must change,” he said. He appealed to the church’s understanding of the “universal destination of goods” as a bedrock for social reflection.

================================================================

Cardinal Martino has been known to make a few verbal gaffes now and then, but let us hope he is right this time. If not an encyclica, he might be referring to what the Pope will say in his speech to open the bishops conference in Aparecida.

Papa showing himself (again) in the window





Too much emotions....




Papa gets "brasilian"

[Modificato da .Sue. 11/05/2007 15.12]

post in progress...





















Pope canonizes 1st Brazilian-born saint
By VICTOR SIMPSON


SAO PAULO, May 11 Brazil (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI canonized an 18th-century Franciscan monk as Brazil's first native-born saint Friday, as hundreds of thousands cheered and waved flags from all corners of South America.

Seated on a throne of Brazilian hardwood and surrounded by Latin American bishops and choirs of hundreds, Benedict pronounced the sainthood of Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao, an 18th-century Franciscan monk who is credited by the church with 5,000 miracle cures.

The canonization makes Galvao the first native-born saint from the world's largest Roman Catholic country, home to more than 120 million of the planet's 1.1 billion Catholics.



"Do you realize how big this is?" asked Herminia Fernandes, who joined the multitude that jammed an airfield for the open-air Mass. "It's huge, this pope is visiting Brazil for the first time and at the same time he is giving us a saint. It's a blessing."

Friar Galvao began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people seeking cures for all manner of ailments.

Although he died in 1822, Brazilian nuns still toil in the Sao Paulo monastery where Galvao is buried, preparing thousands of the Tic Tac-sized pills for free daily distribution. Each one carries these words: "After birth, the Virgin remained intact. Mother of God, intercede on our behalf."

After canonizing Friar Galvao, the pope embraced Sandra Grossi de Almeida, 37, and her son Enzo, 7. She is one of two Brazilian women certifed by the Vatican as divinely inspired miracles justifying the sainthood. She had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months, but after taking the pills, she gave birth to Enzo.

"I have faith," Grossi recently told The Associated Press. "I believe in God, and the proof is right here."






Pope gives Brazil its first saint
at Sao Paulo open-air mass
by Gina Doggett

SAO PAULO (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands celebrated Friday as Pope Benedict XVI gave Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, its first native-born saint at an open-air mass in a sun-drenched Sao Paulo park.

A giant wooden cross dominated the Campo de Marte, where a roar went up as the 80-year-old Benedict rode to the altar in his Popemobile for the biggest event in his five-day trip to Brazil.

The event echoed a beatification mass celebrated at the same venue by Benedict's charismatic predecessor John Paul II in 1980 which drew a million faithful.

But unlike John Paul II's celebration, which resonated with Brazilian music and dance, Friday's mass canonizing Antonio de Sant'Ana Galvao, a Franciscan monk, followed a sober, classical liturgy.

"Brazil is great, Brazil is beautiful and today we have a saint," said 17-year-old pilgrim Juliane Oliveira de Souza.

Thousands had spent the night in the vast Campo de Marte huddled under blankets and coats to be assured a good position for the mass, the biggest event so far in the pope's five-day visit to Brazil.

In this same place, Benedict's predecessor John Paul II beatified a 16th-century Canarian Jesuit missionary to Brazil, Jose de Anchieta, in 1980.

"Thanks to God I can see the pope. I came Monday from (northeastern) Sergipe, and we've been in Campo de Marte since 11 last night," said Mara Clara Machado Dotti, three children in tow.

Demilson Goncalves, a 32-year-old nurse, told AFP he had been cured of a hernia by Friar Antonio de Sant'Ana Galvao, a Franciscan monk still credited with miracle cures nearly 200 years after his death.

The Church hopes that elevating Galvao to sainthood will help reverse major inroads that evangelical faiths have made not only in Brazil, but also across Latin America, which is home to almost half the world's population of 1.1 billion Catholics.

A first miracle attributed to him and recognized by the Church occurred at the start of the 19th century when a patient was cured of kidney stones after he had her swallow three small pieces of paper on which he had written prayers for divine intercession.

Beatification is the step before sainthood, which requires at least two miracles attributed to the candidate.

Two much more recent miracles attributed to Galvao have been recognized by the Vatican: In 1990, a four-year-old girl recovered from what was considered incurable hepatitis, and in 1999 a mother and child survived a high-risk birth in what the Vatican called a "scientifically inexplicable" case.

The canonization mass follows close on the heels of a rally late Thursday attended by tens of thousands of Latin American young people at a Sao Paulo football stadium where Benedict urged them to "be apostles of youth."

"I send you out ... on the great mission of evangelizing young men and women who have gone astray in this world like sheep without a shepherd," the German pontiff said, urging youths to draw their inspiration from "universal moral values."

The former head of the Vatican's top doctrinal body as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reiterated his strict line against abortion and euthanasia with his frequent phrase, "promote life from its beginning to its natural end."

Benedict, 80, also urged young people to respect marriage and practice chastity. "Inside and outside marriage, chastity should be made a bulwark."

Later in the day the pope will meet around 430 Brazilian bishops in Sao Paulo's Cathedral da Se, after which he will travel to nearby Aparecida to open a conference of Latin American bishops on Sunday, the final day of his trip.

That meeting will be aimed at giving impetus to the missionary reach of the church in the region.






Here's Reuters- watch out for the usual venom.

Pope canonizes Brazil's first saint,
decries hedonism
By Todd Benson

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Pope Benedict canonized Brazil's first native-born saint on Friday before hundreds of thousands of flag-waving followers in the world's largest Roman Catholic nation.

The Pope urged the faithful to follow the example of the new saint, the 18th century Friar Antonio Galvao, in helping the poor and needy in a world he said was "so full of hedonism."

He also attacked the media for undermining family values and glamorizing sex.

Catholics came from across Brazil and other Latin American countries for the open-air mass, many camping out overnight in chilly weather on the Campo de Marte military airfield on the edge of Sao Paulo.

Pope Benedict's canonization of Friar Galvao was an important part of his mission on this trip to revitalize the Church in Latin America, home to nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.

Brazilians hoping for a miracle often swallow so-called Friar Galvao Pills, tiny pieces of paper with prayers written on them.

He is considered a guardian of women in labor and the Vatican has attributed two miracles to him - the curing of a 4-year-old girl who was believed to have an incurable disease and the survival of a mother and child in a high-risk birth.

"He was renowned as a counselor, he was a bringer of peace to souls and families, and a dispenser of charity especially toward the poor and the sick," the Pope said in his homily.

The 80-year-old Pontiff has firmly reinforced the Church's opposition to abortion and called for a return to traditional family values on his visit to Brazil and he repeated the message at the mass.

"The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure," he said.

He also criticized the media business, saying: "It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage."

In a country where sex outside marriage is common, birth control is widely used, and divorce is not frowned upon, the Pope's message has had a mixed reception.

Police estimated the crowd numbered 1 million people but reporters said it looked to be smaller.

"This pope is a little too rigid, especially when it comes to issues like marriage," said Elisangela do Nascimento, 33-year-old divorced housewife from Sao Paulo in the crowd.

The trip, his first to Latin America, is also a test of the Pope's personal appeal as he tries to staunch the flow of followers away from the Catholic church to Protestant groups, a huge concern for the Vatican.

A conservative theologian who has spent most of his career in the Vatican's corridors of power, he has been seen as lacking the warmth and charisma that made his predecessor Pope John Paul so beloved.

However, Pope Benedict appeared to be winning some hearts and minds.

"We thought he was going to be a disappointment but he surprised us. People say he's authoritarian, but he's just a bit shy and sweet," said Lucilene Gutierres, a 21-year-old student, who spent the night at the airfield waiting to see him.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 18.27]

That was quick, Teresa! I've just switched on here. The Mass has got as far as the Gospel Acclamation.
Boy, can those Brazilians sing!!!!! A huge choir sang out the Gloria as I don't think I've heard it sung before! Certainly the setting was new to me - but it really was a triumph, coming just after the joy of having their first Brazilian-born saint canonized.
It's windy in Sao Paolo. I just hope it's not too cold. I was tempted to go into geographical detail about the climate, but I don't think I'll bore you all with that! It shouldn't be cold, that's all I'll say.
I love Papa's new cream-coloured chasuble; I always like the roll necks and this one has a lovely design on the border and different length stripes down the centre.
Nearly forgot the special hymn composed for Papa's visit. It's been arranged in several settings - from rock to traditional Brazilian to a more solemn setting suitable for today's Mass. I wonder if it's going to be available on CD????????????
Does anyone know anything about this?

Not coincidentally, Avvenire's editorial today on Frei Galvao, written by theologian Elio Guerriero, is entitled "The life of this friar was a manifesto of authentic liberation."

Day Three:
Benedict holds up a model
of authentic liberation theology
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 11, 2007


Benedict XVI has canonized the first saint born in Brazil, an 18th century Franciscan named Frei Antônio de Sant’Ana Galvão, popularly known as “Frei Galvão,” whom the pope praised as a model of Eucharistic piety, priestly sacrifice, and charitable service of others.

Though Benedict did not put it this way, Frei Galvão is an icon of what the pope considers an authentic form of liberation theology: one that puts God and the life of the spirit first, direct charitable care of others second, and only then draws consequences for a just social order.



Right, the Holy Father receives a relic of St. Galvao from the Archbishop of Sao Paulo at the Canonization Mass.


In that sense, Benedict held up Frei Galvão as an illustration of what the pope regards as a deep truth: That no program of social service or political action will ever bring lasting justice and peace, if it is not rooted in the full truth about the human person expressed in Jesus Christ.

To underline the point, the pope quoted himself, from his homily in Cologne during his first foreign trip: “Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world.” He called the saints of our epoch as the "true reformers."

“United with the Lord in the supreme communion of the Eucharist and reconciled with him and our neighbor, we will thus become bearers of that peace which the world cannot give,” Benedict said in his homily for the canonization Mass at São Paulo’s “Campo de Marte,” before a crowd in the hundreds of thousands.

“Will the men and women of this world be able to find peace if they are not aware of the need to be reconciled with God, with their neighbor and with themselves?” Benedict asked rhetorically. “The action of the church and of Christians in society must have this same inspiration.”

In keeping with his pastoral emphasis on Catholic fundamentals, the pope urged Brazilians to renew their devotion to Mary, their reverence for the Mass, the importance of marriage, and their consciousness of the need to confess their sins.

Benedict stressed Galvão’s sense of sin, quoting a phrase from his formula of canonization: “Take away my life before I offend your blessed Son, My Lord!” The pope said these are “strong words” which should form part of the spiritual life of every Christian.

The pope urged Brazilians to “oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.”

In a Catholic culture heavily influenced by the charismatic movement and by progressive currents in the church, where observance of the fine points of Catholic liturgical law has never been a towering priority, Benedict added that Christians must learn from priests, inspired by Galvão, through the “exemplary manner in which they carry out the prescribed rites.”

Given that Galvão was a Franciscan, Benedict praised the Franciscan charism and offered special greetings to the members of the Franciscans present at the Mass. He also praised the Conceptionist Sisters at the Monastery of Light in São Paulo who spread devotion to Galvão.

Interesting, in his public references to Galvão, Benedict XVI has never mentioned what for many Brazilians is the most important aspect of his devotion – the paper “pill” which he instructed devotees to ingest while reciting a prayer to the Virgin Mary, in hopes of various miracles.

The miracle which cleared the way for his canonization, for example, involved a woman with a blockage in her uterus which should have prevented her from carrying a baby to term, but who become pregnant after ingesting one of Galvão’s pills and was able to give birth to a healthy son.

Benedict’s reticence may reflect the fact that while he has a healthy respect for popular religiosity, it’s not at the heart of the personal spirituality of this more cerebral and reserved pontiff.




Pope canonizes Brazilian friar
renowned for charity, healings
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNS) - Pope Benedict XVI canonized Brazil's first native-born saint, an 18th-century Franciscan friar renowned for his charity to the poor and his legacy of miraculous healings.

At an outdoor Mass May 11, the pope read a decree proclaiming sainthood for Father Antonio Galvao, prompting a surge of applause among the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered at Sao Paulo's Campo de Marte Airport for the liturgy.

As the saint's relics were brought in procession to the altar, the crowd sang and waved banners and flags in the sunshine. In the front row, wearing bright blue habits, were Conceptionist nuns, whose order used St. Galvao as a spiritual adviser in the late 1700s.


Nun presents relics of Frei Galvao to the Pope.

In his homily, which the pope read in Portuguese, he said St. Galvao, who died in 1822, was a model of Christian charity and service in Brazil, especially toward the poor and sick. He was sought out as a confessor and inspired people by his attitude of constant devotion to God, the pope said.

"The renown of his immense charity knew no bounds. People from all over the country went to Frei Galvao, who offered a fatherly welcome to everyone," the pope said.

The pope did not mention a unique and popular form of devotion begun by St. Galvao, in which people seeking cures are given tiny rice-paper pills inscribed with a prayer, which they ingest.

Although the church hierarchy has not encouraged the practice, the "miracle pills" are distributed today by the cloistered nuns at the monastery where the saint is buried and have been credited by devotees with thousands of healings.

The pope said St. Galvao reminded people above all of the importance of God in their lives. That has significance for those seeking social progress and justice today, he said.

"Will the men and women of this world be able to find peace if they are not aware of the need to be reconciled with God, with their neighbor and with themselves?" the pope asked.

He said St. Galvao's devotion to Mary and his commitment to purity and virtue are also exemplary in a modern age "so full of hedonism."

"The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure. It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage," the pope said.

Those words prompted one of the strongest bursts of applause during the homily.

The pope said that today Mary remains "the best defense against the evils that afflict modern life." He encouraged Marian devotion, saying: "There is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady."

The pope closed his sermon by quoting from a talk he gave to young people in 2005: "Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world."

On his flight to Brazil, the pope listed the canonization as one of the highlights of his trip and said he hoped the new saint would stand as a model for those who want to create peace and social harmony.

Shading his eyes against the morning sun, Franciscan Brother Fabio Tadeo Becasse called the canonization "a gift and a blessing from God." He added, "It is a source of pride for Brazilians because he was a son of our land, and for all Franciscans this is a very special moment."

Jurandy Boa Morte, 22, who had traveled to Sao Paulo with a dozen other people from the Diocese of Juazeiro in the northeastern state of Bahia, called the canonization Mass "a moment of faith, a gathering of the faithful, a time to rethink, reaffirm and strengthen the faith."

The canonization "is important because Brazil is a Catholic country," he said. "People have come from all over, even from the Amazon region. Catholicism is a religion that embraces the entire country. We have enough people of faith here to have our own saint."

St. Galvao was the 10th person canonized by Pope Benedict; it was his first canonization liturgy outside the Vatican.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/05/2007 20.26]

Too late now to avail of it as Live-cam, but Nessuna provided this link to a site that has video clips of all the footage it shot of people coming to the plaza in front of the monastery at all hours during the Pope's two nights and two days there - and the Pope's unscheduled appearances to bless them.

aovivo.terra.com.br/noticias/aovivo/new/pop_aovivo_destaq_narr...



Pope Benedict bid goodbye to San Bento Monastery
this afternoon as he left for his last appointment
in Sao Paulo - a meeting with Brazilian bishops at
the Cathedral of Sao Paulo, after which he leaves
for Aparecida by helicopter.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/05/2007 22.22]

Pope tells Brazil bishops
to help poor, stop exodus
By Alexandre Caverni and Todd Benson


SAO PAULO, May 11(Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Friday the Roman Catholic Church was facing a "difficult time" and that priests must work harder to stop people abandoning it across Latin America.

He also told Brazilian bishops gathered in Sao Paulo's main cathedral that they must focus on helping the poor. He criticized Brazil as a country blighted by poverty in which many politicians and rich people cared only for themselves.

The tough talk was delivered on the third day of his visit to the world's most populous Catholic nation, aimed at reversing the waning influence of the Church in Latin America.

After leading a festive mass to canonize Brazil's first saint, Pope Benedict railed against slack morals, rampant sexual activity and abortion.

He also turned his attention to another prime concern - the exodus of millions of people from the Catholic Church.

"Certainly the present is a difficult time for the Church," he told about 250 bishops seated in pews between the Cathedral da Se's magnificent arches.

He complained that Protestant groups were aggressively courting new members and many people were turning away from religion altogether. "No effort should be spared in seeking out those Catholics who have fallen away."

The millions of poor people living on the edges of cities or the countryside need to feel the Church provides for their needs and defends their rights, he said.

To applause from the bishops, he bemoaned the ills in Brazilian society such as huge income inequalities and he implicitly condemned corruption.

"There is a need to form a genuine spirit of truthfulness and honesty among the political and commercial classes," the 80-year-old Pontiff said.

Brazilian politics have long been riddled with corruption. The first term of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who himself rose from a humble background and is popular with the working class, was marred by a string of scandals.

The Pope's forthright words were likely to be welcomed by priests working in Brazil's notorious slums, or favelas, who had previously seen him as a conservative figure more concerned with enforcing a hardline Church doctrine.

He is known in Latin America as the man who led the Vatican's crackdown on the Liberation Theology movement of leftist priests in the 1980s.

"It was a speech of support, a message of courage, with clear points for the bishops," said theology professor Fernando Altemeyer of Brazil's Pontificia Catholic University.

Earlier on Friday, Pope Benedict said a mass for hundreds of thousands of flag-waving faithful at a military airfield to canonize Friar Antonio Galvao, a Franciscan who lived in the 18th century and founded an order of nuns.

The canonization of the first Brazilian-born saint was an important gesture in the Pope's mission to revitalize the Church in Latin America, home to nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.

He hammered the theme of combating loose morals, urging Catholics to spurn media portrayals of life that glamorize premarital sex and undermine the traditional family.

Next on his agenda is a two-day stay at the holy shrine city of Aparecida, where he will deliver the opening address to a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops before returning to Rome on Sunday night.


AFP's Gina Doggett led off her Day-3 wrap-up with her account of the Canonization Mass (posted earlier) and added a full story on the Pope's meeting with the Brazilian bishops:

Meeting with Brazilian bishops
by Gina Doggett

...Later Friday, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics met with Brazil's 430 bishops to lay out a blueprint for rebuilding the Church in its stronghold, home to some 155 million faithful. [Strange, she does not mention where this took place!]

The Church hopes to reverse the major inroads evangelical faiths have made not only in Brazil, but also across Latin America, a region that represents nearly half of the world's Catholics.

In the speech, the German pontiff urged: "No effort should be spared in seeking out those Catholics who have fallen away."

Acknowledging that "the present is a difficult time for the Church," the pope spoke of the "worrying disorientation" of society, with marriage and the family under attack and "crimes against life (that) are justified in the name of individual freedom and rights."

Within the Church, the pope also lamented the growing questioning of the requirement of priestly celibacy, which he reiterated "is a gift which the Church has received and desires to retain."

Benedict said desertions from the Catholic fold were due primarily to the "the lack of an evangelization completely centered on Christ and his Church."

He said people who are "insufficiently evangelized (are) most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of (evangelical) sects" adding that such people "are easily influenced because their faith is weak, confused, easily shaken and naive, despite their innate religiosity."

Friday's canonization mass was the biggest event in Benedict's five-day trip to Brazil, which is to end Sunday in the nearby sanctuary town of Aparecida, where he is to open a Latin American bishops' conference.

That meeting will also be aimed at giving impetus to the church's missionary reach in the region.

In recent years in Latin America, the Church has lost ground to rival evangelical faiths, as well as to a growing number of people who have abandoned religion altogether.

In Brazil, 64 percent of the population is Catholic, but the figure has fallen from 74 percent a decade ago, according to a recent study. At the same time, the number of evangelical followers has risen to 17 percent from 11 percent, the Datafolha institute said.

Benedict proposed "on every level, a methodical evangelization aimed at personal and communal fidelity to Christ."

He added: "What is required, in a word, is a mission of evangelization capable of engaging all the vital energies present in this immense flock."

Benedict urged that missionaries be sent "to homes on the outskirts of the cities and in the interior," the two areas where Brazil's poor are concentrated.

"The poor ... need to feel that the Church is close to them, providing for their most urgent needs, defending their rights and working together with them to build a society founded on justice and peace," he said.

Benedict also addressed the severe lack of priests in Brazil, where in some places the ratio can be one to 15,000 faithful. While Catholic priests must complete an elaborate seminary education, evangelical pastors need little training.

One response to the problem is to train lay ministers to perform certain priestly functions.






And this was John Allen's account:

Day Three:
Pope calls Brazil's bishops to order
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Posted on May 11, 2007

While Benedict XVI is too genteel a figure to engage in what political writers call “taking someone to the woodshed,” his speech this afternoon to some 430 Brazilian bishops came about as close as he’s likely to get.

Wrapped in gratitude for the bishops’ service, and for the warm welcome he’s received in Brazil, Benedict’s message was nonetheless an unambiguous call to order. He began with a reflection on the obedience of Christ, and that set the tone for much of what followed.

Brazilian Catholicism is famous for its social commitment, but Benedict pointedly reminded the bishops that the ultimate purpose of the church must remain “the salvation of individual souls."

He urged them to "strict vigilance," warning that "the integrity of the faith, together with ecclesiastical discipline, is and always will be a theme that requires the attention and commitment of all of you."

Benedict weaved philosophical, programmatic and disciplinary messages into his roughly 4,000 word text, delivered in Portuguese in São Paulo’s Catedral da Sé.

At a philosophical level, Benedict made an argument that runs like a leitmotif through his pontificate, and which formed an important element of his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth: Without the full truth about God and human life revealed in Jesus Christ, no program of social action can succeed.

“Wherever God and his will are unknown, wherever faith in Jesus Christ and in his sacramental presence is lacking, the essential element for the solution of pressing social and political problems is also missing," he said.

For that reason, the pope said, it’s important to teach the faith “without interpretations motivated by a rationalistic ideology.” The bishops, he said, must take care that this doesn’t happen.

In terms of pastoral programs, Benedict analyzed the problem of Catholic defections to Pentecostal churches, which he called a source of “just concern,” as the result of a lack of evangelization and catechesis which places “Christ and his church at the center of every explanation.” He therefore urged an urgent program of missionary outreach, stressing “personal and communal adhesion to Christ.”

"In fact, the integrity of the faith, together with ecclesiastical discipline, is and will always be an area requiring careful oversight on your part," the pope said.

Specifically, Benedict urged new missionary efforts in the peripheries of Brazil’s sprawling megalopolises, as well as in rural areas.

“The poor people of the peripheries and of the country need to feel the closeness of the church, both in terms of helping them with their most urgent needs, as well as in defense of their rights and in the common promotion of a society founded on justice and peace,” he said.

With respect to the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches, Benedict asked the bishops to embrace a “frank” approach to ecumenism, capable not merely of dialogue but also of defending the Catholic faith.

Paraphrasing liberation theology’s famous “option for the poor,” Benedict said that “the gospel is addressed in a special way to the poor.”

The pope also endorsed the growth of lay movements and associations that can play a role in expanding the church’s network of pastoral care, as long as those groups take their cues from their pastors and bishops.

At the disciplinary level, Benedict urged the bishops to “a strict vigilance” across a variety of fronts:

• Defending life against “offenses justified in the name of individual liberty”;
• Opposing divorce and “free unions”;
• Defending priestly celibacy (the pope mentioned this point twice);
• Offering deep evangelization and catechesis to Catholics, to protect them from the “aggressive proselytism of the sects”;
• Ensuring that individual confession, rather than communal rites, remains the normal form of the sacrament;
• Restoring a sense of the sacred to liturgies, and ensuring that liturgical rules are observed;
• Ensuring that the faith is transmitted “without reductive visions and confusion about the mission” of the church;
• Avoiding “the risk of deviations in the area of sexuality” among candidates for the priesthood and religious life.

Benedict concluded by saying that these were the most important themes that “clamor for my attention as pastor of the universal church.”

In his welcoming address to the pope, Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha of Mariana, President of the Brazilian bishops’ conference, thanked Benedict for a gift from the pope to churches in Brazil’s Amazon region.





==============================================================

The news agencies showed photos today of pilgrims hiking to Aparecida for the Papal Mass on Sunday.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/05/2007 23.32]

Here is the Vatican translation of the homily delivered by the Holy Father at the Canonication Mass for Frei Galvao on Friday, May 11, in Sao Paulo.


HOMILY AT THE CANONIZATION MASS

I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise always on my lips (Psalms 32:2)

My Venerable Brothers in the College of Cardinals,
Archbishop Scherer of São Paulo,
Bishops of Brazil and Latin America,
Distinguished Authorities,
Sisters and Brothers in Christ!

1. Let us rejoice in the Lord, on this day when we contemplate another marvel of God, who in his admirable providence allows us to taste a trace of his presence in this act of self-giving Love that is the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar.

Yes, we cannot fail to praise our God. Let all of us praise him, peoples of Brazil and America, let us sing to the Lord of his wonders, because he has done great things for us. Today, Divine Wisdom allows us to gather around his altar with praise and thanksgiving for the grace granted to us in the canonization of Frei Antônio de Sant'Ana Galvão.

I would like to express my thanks for the affectionate words spoken on behalf of all of you by the Archbishop of São Paulo. I thank each one of you for your presence here, whether you come from this great city or from other cities and nations.

I rejoice that, through the communications media, my words and expressions of affection can enter every house and every heart. Be sure of this: the Pope loves you, and he loves you because Jesus Christ loves you.

In this solemn eucharistic celebration, we have listened to the Gospel in which Jesus exultantly proclaims: "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes" (Matthew 11:25). I am glad that the elevation to the altars of Frei Galvão will always remain framed in the liturgy that the Church presents to us today.

I greet with affection all the Franciscan community, and especially the Conceptionist Sisters who, from the Monastery of Light, from the capital of the State of São Paulo, spread the spirituality and the charism of the first Brazilian to be raised to the glory of the altars.

2. Let us give thanks to God for the lasting benefits obtained through the powerful evangelizing influence that the Holy Spirit impressed upon so many souls through Frei Galvão.

The Franciscan charism, lived out in the spirit of the Gospel, has borne significant fruits through his witness as an ardent adorer of the Eucharist, as a prudent and wise guide of the souls who sought his counsel, and as a man with a great devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, whose "son and perpetual servant" he considered himself to be.

God comes towards us, "he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path" (Deus Caritas Est, 17).

He reveals himself through his word, in the sacraments and especially in the Eucharist. The life of the Church, therefore, is essentially eucharistic. In his loving providence, the Lord has left us a visible sign of his presence.

When we contemplate the Lord at Mass, raised up by the priest after the consecration of the bread and wine, or when we devoutly adore him exposed in the monstrance, we renew our faith with profound humility, as Frei Galvão did in "laus perennis", in a constant attitude of adoration.

The Holy Eucharist contains all the spiritual wealth of the Church, that is to say Christ himself, our Passover, the living bread come down from heaven, given life by the Holy Spirit and in turn life-giving because it is the source of Life for mankind.

This mysterious and ineffable manifestation of God's love for humanity occupies a privileged place in the heart of Christians. They must come to know the faith of the Church through her ordained ministers, through the exemplary manner in which they carry out the prescribed rites that always point to the eucharistic liturgy as the centre of the entire task of evangelization.

the faithful, in their turn, must seek to receive and to venerate the Most Holy Sacrament with piety and devotion, eager to welcome the Lord Jesus with faith, and having recourse, whenever necessary, to the sacrament of reconciliation so as to purify the soul from every grave sin.

3. The significance of Frei Galvão's example lies in his willingness to be of service to the people whenever he was asked. He was renowned as a counsellor, he was a bringer of peace to souls and families, and a dispenser of charity especially towards the poor and the sick. He was greatly sought out as a confessor, because he was zealous, wise and prudent.

It is characteristic of those who truly love that they do not want the Beloved to be offended; the conversion of sinners was therefore the great passion of our saint.

Sister Helena Maria, the first religious sister destined to belong to the Recolhimento de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, witnessed to what Frei Galvão had said to her: "Pray that the Lord our God will raise sinners with his mighty arm from the wretched depths of the sins in which they find themselves."

May this insightful admonition serve as a stimulus to us to recognize in the Divine Mercy the path towards reconciliation with God and our neighbour, for the peace of our consciences.

4. United with the Lord in the supreme communion of the Eucharist and reconciled with him and our neighbour, we will thus become bearers of that peace which the world cannot give.

Will the men and women of this world be able to find peace if they are not aware of the need to be reconciled with God, with their neighbour and with themselves?

Highly significant in this regard are the words written by the Assembly of the Senate of São Paulo to the Minister Provincial of the Franciscans at the end of the eighteenth century, describing Frei Galvão as a "man of peace and charity". What does the Lord ask of us? "Love one another as I have loved you."

But immediately afterwards he adds: "Go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (cf. John 15:12,16). And what fruit does he ask of us, if not that of knowing how to love, drawing inspiration from the example of the Saint of Guaratinguetá?

The renown of his immense charity knew no bounds. People from all over the country went to Frei Galvão, who offered a fatherly welcome to everyone. Among those who came to implore his help were the poor and the sick in body and spirit.

Jesus opens his heart and reveals to us the core of his entire saving message: "No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). He himself loved even to the extent of giving his life for us on the Cross. The action of the Church and of Christians in society must have this same inspiration.

Pastoral initiatives for the building up of society, if directed towards the good of the poor and the sick, bear within themselves this divine seal. The Lord counts on us and calls us his friends, because it is only to those we love in this way that we are capable of giving the life offered by Jesus through his grace.

As we know, the Fifth General Conference of the Latin-American Episcopate will take as its fundamental theme: "Disciples and Missionaries of Jesus Christ, so that our Peoples may have Life in Him".

How can we fail to see, then, the need to listen with renewed fervour to God's call, so as to be able to respond generously to the challenges facing the Church in Brazil and in Latin America?

5. "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest", says the Lord in the Gospel (Matthew 11:28). This is the final recommendation that he makes to us.

How can we fail to recognize here God's fatherly and at the same time motherly care towards all his children? Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, stands particularly close to us at this moment.

Frei Galvão prophetically affirmed the truth of the Immaculate Conception. She, the Tota Pulchra, the Virgin Most Pure, who conceived in her womb the Redeemer of mankind and was preserved from all stain of original sin, wishes to be the definitive seal of our encounter with God our Saviour. There is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady.

In fact, the saint that we are celebrating gave himself irrevocably to the Mother of Jesus from his youth, desiring to belong to her for ever and he chose the Virgin Mary to be the Mother and Protector of his spiritual daughters.

My dearest friends, what a fine example Frei Galvão has left for us to follow! There is a phrase included in the formula of his consecration which sounds remarkably contemporary to us, who live in an age so full of hedonism: "Take away my life before I offend your blessed Son, my Lord!"

They are strong words, the words of an impassioned soul, words that should be part of the normal life of every Christian, whether consecrated or not, and they enkindle a desire for fidelity to God in married couples as well as in the unmarried.

The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure. It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.

In our day, Our Lady has been given to us as the best defence against the evils that afflict modern life; Marian devotion is the sure guarantee of her maternal protection and safeguard in the hour of temptation. And what an unfailing support is this mysterious presence of the Virgin Most Pure, when we invoke the protection and the help of the Senhora Aparecida!

Let us place in her most holy hands the lives of priests and consecrated laypersons, seminarians and all who are called to religious life.

6. My dear friends, allow me to finish by recalling the Vigil of Prayer at Marienfeld in Germany: in the presence of a multitude of young people, I spoke of the saints of our epoch as true reformers. And I added: "Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world" (Homily, 25 August 2005).

This is the invitation that I address to all of you today, from the first to the last, in this Eucharist without frontiers. God said: "Be holy, as I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44).

Let us give thanks to God the Father, to God the Son, to God the Holy Spirit from whom, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we receive all the blessings of heaven; from whom we receive this gift which, together with faith, is the greatest grace that can be bestowed upon a creature: the firm desire to attain the fullness of charity, in the conviction that holiness is not only possible but also necessary for every person in his or her own state of life, so as to reveal to the world the true face of Christ, our friend! Amen!

[Original text: Portuguese]
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/05/2007 22.29]

DAY 4: VISIT TO FACENDA ESPERANCA - 1











Be Open to Christ's Light,
Pope Urges n Visit to "Farm of Hope"

GUARATINGUETA, Brazil, MAY 13, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI exhorted young people at a drug rehabilitation center to be "open to the desire for God" in order to receive the light of Christ.

The Pope traveled Saturday morning to a "Fazenda da Esperança" (Farm of Hope) in Guaratingueta. The center - the first of 42 such centers in the world - is located 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the shrine of Aparecida.

The Pontiff arrived at 10:30 a.m., accompanied by the Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Father José Rodríguez Carballo, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, and Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo, archbishop of São Salvador da Bahia.

The young people - who have recovered from or who are receiving treatment for drug addiction - played music and prayed while awaiting the Holy Father.

Benedict XVI first blessed a chapel dedicated to St. Antônio de Santa'Ana Galvão - the first Brazilian to be canonized. The chapel is also dedicated to Argentinian St. María Crescencia.

The Holy Father then addressed the community of Poor Clares who have a monastery at the rehabilitation center. He spoke to them of hope: "We need to build up hope, weaving the fabric of a society that, by relaxing its grip on the threads of life, is losing the true sense of hope."

"My dear Sisters," he continued, "make it your task to proclaim that 'hope does not disappoint.'"

Franciscan Father Hans Stapel, who founded the first "Fazenda da Esperança " in 1979, welcomed the Holy Father before several youth of the center performed a skit that alluded to the struggle to break free of dependency. Afterward, five young people recounted their personal battle to overcome drug addiction.

Benedict XVI applauded at the end and gave his blessing.

The Pontiff donated an image of the Virgin Mary to the "Fazenda da Esperança " along with $100,000.

Some of the young people, representing the various countries where the centers are present, gave the Pope gifts that they themselves had made.

After the final blessing the Holy Father spoke for a while with the young people, which set back his schedule by 40 minutes.

[Note that most of the basic facts about the elements that went into the Pope's visit to Guaratingueta are not even mentionwed in the lengthy news agency reports that follow!]



Pope: God will punish drug dealers
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON

GUARATINGUETA, Brazil, May 12 (AP)- Pope Benedict XVI warned drug traffickers Saturday that they would face divine justice for the scourge of illegal narcotics across Latin America, telling them that, "God will call you to account for your deeds."

Speaking before a crowd of 6,000 at a drug treatment center, Benedict urged "the drug-dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society."

Brazil is the second-largest consumer of cocaine after the United States, according to the U.S. State Department, and big cities across Latin America's largest nation are plagued by drug violence.

Driven by gangs that control street-corner dealing, the problem is particularly acute in the teeming slums of Rio de Janeiro, where gangs lure children into lives of violence and engage in near-daily shootouts with police that kill innocent bystanders.

"Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way," the pope said.

The treatment center where the pope spoke was founded by a Franciscan friar and claims an 80 percent success rate, giving addicts spiritual guidance as they milk cows, tend apple orchards and work as beekeepers.

It is just a short distance away from the shrine city of Aparecida, where Benedict on Sunday will open a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops aimed at finding ways to reverse the erosion of the church in the region.

Addicts who listened to the pontiff said his visit was important because Brazilian drug users are often ostracized and left to beg on the streets for drug money.

"We are excluded from society, but we are the ones the pope is coming to see," said Diego Cleto, a 19-year-old who started taking drugs at age 13.

The Garatingueta treatment center in a remote hilly region at the end of a dirt road was founded by Friar Hanz Stapel in 1983. There are now 31 similar farm/treatment centers in Brazil and 10 more in countries such as Russia, Mexico and Mozambique.

Before traveling from Sao Paulo Friday night to the hallowed Catholic religious site of Aparecida, Benedict lamented "difficult times for the church" in Brazil amid "aggressive proselytizing" by born-again Protestant congregations.

Brazil's census shows the percentage of citizens characterizing themselves as Catholics plunged to 74 percent in 2000 from 89 percent in 1980, while those calling themselves evangelical Protestants rose to 15 percent from 7 percent.

The backdrop to the bishops' conference is Aparecida, 100 miles east of Sao Paulo, and home to the mammoth Basilica of Aparecida — as well as the three-foot-tall statue of a black Virgin Mary, called "Our Lady Who Appeared," the patron saint of Brazil.

The statue was pulled from a river in the 18th century by poor fishermen who were not catching any fish, and then caught loads in their nets. Miracles were subsequently attributed to the statue, and so many pilgrims flocked to Aparecida that the church built the basilica and inaugurated it as a shrine in 1955.

On Friday, the pope canonized Brazil's first native-born saint in a Mass before about a million people. He held up 18th century Friar Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility "in an age so full of hedonism."

Benedict was cheered by flag-waving crowds in the world's largest Catholic nation as he canonized the new saint, continuing a push for saints in the developing world that began under John Paul II, who sought role models as part of the church's worldwide reach. John Paul canonized more saints than all of his predecessors combined.

Benedict also called on Catholics to "oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage," picking a tough crowd to confront about hedonism and permissiveness.

More than 70 percent of Brazil's 190 million citizens may be Catholics, but sex before marriage is common.

Scantily clad actresses are the norm on hugely popular TV soap operas, and women on the beaches wear bikinis that leave little to the imagination. Plastic surgery to reshape breasts and buttocks is nearly as popular as orthodontia.

The pope may be popular among Brazilian Catholics but most probably will not heed his call when it comes to sex, said David Gibson, author of "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World."

[Gibson hsa apparently become the American MSM's go-to guy for dependable disparaging remarks about Benedict masked in seemingly objective language. For God's sake, balance him off with someone pro-Benedict at least!]

"This is enormously frustrating to Benedict or any pope; they want to have more impact," Gibson added. But "how do you go against a culture like that? It's tough."

While polls show Brazilians oppose expanding access to abortion, they overwhelmingly support using condoms to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases — in firm opposition to church doctrine. The government, in fact, hands out millions of condoms for free every year, especially ahead of the debauchery that is an integral part of Brazil's pre-Lent carnival.

"Nothing could be more countercultural than his message in Brazil, the land of the thong," said Gibson, a former Vatican Radio reporter. [That qualifies him to be 'the' go-to guy about Benedict????]
















Pope meets drug addicts in Brazil,
warns traffickers
By Terry Wade and Philip Pullella


GUARATINGUETA, Brazil (Reuters) - Pope Benedict met recovering drug addicts at a rehabilitation center in Brazil on Saturday and he warned traffickers they would pay a heavy price for the damage they sow across Latin America.

The Pope, on a five-day visit to Brazil in which he has railed against the slack morals and hedonism of modern society, said drug abuse was a scourge in the region.

"I therefore urge the drug dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society," he said in a speech to recovering heroin and cocaine addicts at the Farm of Hope (Fazenda da Esperanca) rehabilitation center in the rural town of Guaratingueta.

"God will call you to account for your deeds. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way," he said.

Thousands of followers sang and waved flags as the Pope, surrounded by bodyguards, then walked through the crowd, smiling and shaking hands.

The drugs trade has caused havoc and bloodshed in Latin America for the past few decades, from Colombia, the world's main source of cocaine, to Brazil, where rival trafficking gangs control many of the impoverished slums.

Although the United States was long the key market, Latin American countries now suffer from increasing addiction among their own youth, compounding the social woes of poverty and violence. Rival drug gangs in Mexico have killed about 800 people so far this year in brutal turf wars.

About one-in-four of the 6,000 people who heard the Pope's address on a sports field at the farm, nestled in a lush valley about 10 miles from the shrine city of Aparecida, were from various rehabilitation centers in Brazil.

Patients went up on the stage to tell the Pope their stories. He offered them encouragement, urged them to embrace the Church's teachings and hugged one woman.

"The Lord has given you this opportunity for physical and spiritual recovery. In turn, society expects you to spread this precious gift of health among your friends and all members of the community," the 80-year-old Pontiff said.

Founded by Franciscan friars 25 years ago, the Farm of Hope helps addicts from as far away as Russia and the Philippines kick their habit with a year-long program that includes working as farm hands and reading the bible.

Among the crowd was Andrei Shirshkin, a 26-year-old from Moscow, Russia, a patient at a treatment center in Rio Grande do Sul state. He said he had used heroin for 12 years, starting as a teenager. His arms were scarred with cuts from suicide attempts before he started the program.

"Now I'm happy because I have peace and love in my heart."

Throughout his trip to the word's most populous Roman Catholic county, the Pope has exhorted people to lead more moral lives in a society he sees as under threat from evil.

He has spoken out against promiscuity, sex outside of marriage, and divorce and reiterated the Church's unflinching opposition to abortion.

He is also trying to rebuild the Church's waning influence in Latin America, home to nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, and stem the tide of people turning to Protestant groups or giving up on religion altogether.

The Pope led hundreds of thousands of followers in a mass to canonize Brazil's first saint on Friday but his visit has not drawn the wild enthusiasm that his charismatic predecessor,8Pope John Paul, inspired on three trips to the country. [Have they compared videos????]

On Sunday, the Pope will give the opening address to a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops in Aparecida, the site of Brazil's holiest shrine and largest cathedral visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

He also will celebrate an open air mass with hundreds of thousands of people at the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil's national saint.

===============================================================

Sorry...I am working in emergency mode here, from a strange computer at a strange hospital, and in between watching a critical patient, so I am postinng what I can, when I can, as I can, with no apparent system. I hope other members can chip in.
PLEASE....

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/05/2007 6.53]

Day Four:
Benedict issues dramatic warning
to drug dealers,
but his real message is Christ
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Guarantinguetá, Brazil
Posted on May 12, 2007


Day four of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Brazil was designed to be the one when the pope immersed himself in the social trauma of Latin America, visiting a rural center for young victims of alcohol and drug addiction, many of whom were driven into dependency as a result of poverty and hopelessness.

The pope delivered on those expectations, issuing a rare papal threat – this time, to drug pushers. He called the drug traffic “evil” and warned that, “God will demand an accounting of what they’ve done. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon like this.”

Yet even in this setting, the pope did not pull back from what has been the heart of his Brazilian message: If the spiritual fundamentals are missing, no program of attending to material and social needs – however worthy in itself, such as the fight against drugs – can offer an ultimate solution to human suffering. That solution, he insisted, stems from only one source, Jesus Christ.

In that sense, Benedict XVI’s Brazil trip has had a decidedly Christological emphasis.

His message on drugs resonates in today’s Latin America. Once considered a scourge of far-off, First World countries, drug addiction has reached epidemic proportions here over the last two decades.

In Brazil, World Health Organization estimates are that the cost of health care related to drug abuse in the 1990s soared from $900 million to almost $3 billion, and the percentage of AIDS cases caused by intravenous drug use rose from 2.5 percent to 25 percent.

The pope’s comments on the drug scourge came at Fazenda Speranda, or “Farm of Hope,” a recovery center founded by a German priest named Fr. Hans Stempel. It draws on the spirituality of the Franciscans and the Focolare movement.

To reach the spot, Benedict traveled by car roughly an hour into the Brazilian countryside from Aparacida, to a bucolic agricultural setting distinguished by rolling hills, a small river, and the occasional cow mooing at passer-bys.

The beauty of the setting, and the obvious enthusiasm of the crowd of roughly 3,000, most of them young people from the Fazenda Speranza, did not distract the pope from his Christological focus.

In a brief session with Poor Clare Sisters who work at the Farm of Hope, Benedict said their efforts offer “a clear witness to the Gospel of Christ amid a consumer society far removed from God,” and complimented them for attempting to “vanquish the prisons and break the chains of drugs that bring so much suffering to God’s beloved children.”

“We need to build up hope, weaving the fabric of a society that, by relaxing its grip on the threads of life, is losing the true sense of hope,” the pope said.

At the center itself, Benedict stressed that most important work done by the Farm of Hope is not physical and psychological recovery, valuable as that is, as but spiritual conversion – “returning to God, and to participation in the life of the church.”

“It’s not enough to cure the body,” Benedict said. “One has to adorn the soul with the most precious divine gifts acquired in baptism.”

Citing Jesus’ promise in the Gospel of John that whoever follows him “will have the light of life,” Benedict said that his mission is to “renew in people’s hearts this light that never goes out, so that it will shine in the most intimate corners of the souls of all those who seek true goodness and peace, which the world cannot give.”

“God does not compel, does not oppress individual liberty,” the pope said. “He only asks the openness of that sacred place of our conscience, though which all the noblest aspirations pass, but also the disordered feelings and passions that obscure the message of the Most High.”

Benedict told the Poor Clares that, “It is the risen Christ who heals the wounds and saves the sons and daughters of God, saves humanity from death, from sin and from slavery to passions.”

The bottom line for Benedict XVI in Brazil thus seems to be this: If you want to give life to the suffering peoples of Latin America, give them Christ.

Downplaying the specifically “religious” dimension of the church’s message not only betrays its mission, he believes, but in the end it fails to produce the desired social results.

“It is God alone whose essence is love, and whose glory is man fully alive,” Benedict said.

Stempel, the founder of Fazenda Speranda, is from the Paderborn diocese in Germany. He arrived in Brazil in 1972, and later became a Franciscan. Serving as a parish priest in the rural community of Guarantinguetá, he decided to find a social center, initially for victims of alcohol and drug abuse, and later expanding to serve other vulnerable populations, including young unwed mothers and poor families.

Stempel was the architect of Benedict’s visit to Fazenda Speranza. In January 2006, he traveled to Rome to meet with Benedict, and delivered letters from 80 bishops asking that the pope add a stop here, and in December 2006 he received confirmation that the pope would come. Today, he was the host and emcee of the event with the pope.

Paderborn is one of the wealthiest dioceses in Germany, which funds many projects in Brazil, including the Fazenda Speranza. A large banner above the entrance the day of the pope’s arrival captured the German influence, wishing Benedict Herzlich Willkommen, Heilige Vater!, or “Hearty Greetings, Holy Father!”

Prior to the pope’s remarks, five young people told the pope their stories of recovery from drug addiction, anorexia, and other maladies. Several choked back tears as they spoke. Adding an ecumenical note, one of the youths was Lutheran and another Orthodox. After each spoke, the pope wrapped him or her in an embrace.

At the end of the roughly hour-long event, it was announced that Benedict XVI had donated $100,000 to the Fazenda Speranza. Added to the $200,000 that Benedict earlier donated for churches in the Amazon, that brings the total for papal generosity in Brazil to $300.000.








A note about the books given out by the Pope:

Before the trip, the Vatican confirmed to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that Pope Benedict XVI will hand out copies of the ACN Child's Bible during his visit
to a Fazenda da Esperança in Brazil. In so doing he will bring the total number distributed in Brazil to 10 million copies.

During his visit to the Fazenda da Esperança in Guaratinguetá on 12 May, Pope Benedict XVI will be formally handed the Child's Bibles by Antonia Willemsen,
the niece of ACN’s founder, Father Werenfried van Straaten, and current president of the German section of the Charity, and will then hand these on to four
Brazilian children, who are the children of recovering addicts here on the Fazenda.

Recently, the Brazilian bishop of Caicó, Dom Manoel Delson Pedreira da Cruz, expressed his enthusiasm and gratitude for the book in a letter addressed
to ACN: "You have supported so many projects for our pastoral work that we are infinitely grateful to you. Now the Child's Bible has even become a fixed
part of the catechetical programme at diocesan level", he writes.

The Child's Bible is used for catechetical work with children and in poor and remote chapel-based communities, and it has been distributed in Brazil in
three different languages - Portuguese, Guaraní and Tukano, the language of the Tukano Indians who live along the upper reaches of the Rio Negro.

Since 1979, the International Year of the Child, ACN has printed and distributed no less than 45 million copies of the Child's Bible, in 153 languages
and in 138 different countries. This year alone, given the great demand, more than a million Child's Bibles will be printed.




Pope slams Latin America's drug cartels
By Philip Pullella and Terry Wade


GUARATINGUETA, Brazil (Reuters) - Pope Benedict warned Latin America's ruthless drugs cartels on Saturday that they would face God's harsh judgment for wrecking countless lives across the region.

After hearing moving stories of hardship and recovery from former cocaine and heroin addicts on the fourth day of his visit to Brazil, the Pope said drug abuse was a scourge throughout Latin America.

"I therefore urge the drug dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society," he said in a speech to recovering addicts at the Farm of Hope (Fazenda da Esperanca) rehabilitation center in the rural town of Guaratingueta.

"God will call you to account for your deeds. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way," he said.

Thousands of followers sang and waved flags as the Pope, flanked by bodyguards, then walked through the crowd, smiling and shaking hands.

The drugs trade has caused havoc and bloodshed in Latin America, from Colombia, the world's main source of cocaine, to Brazil, where rival trafficking gangs control many slums.

Although the United States was long the key market, Latin American countries suffer from increasing addiction among their own youth, compounding the social woes of poverty and violence. Rival drug cartels in Mexico have killed about 800 people so far this year in brutal turf wars.

About one-in-four of the 6,000 people who heard the Pope's address on a sports field at the farm, nestled in a lush valley about 10 miles from the shrine city of Aparecida, were from various rehabilitation centers in Brazil.

Patients and former addicts went up on the stage to tell their stories.

Ricardo Correa Ribeirinha, 31, said he was a former street kid whose mother was a prostitute. As a teenager, he sniffed glue, took cocaine and crack and was shot twice, but he now runs a government anti-drugs program and is finishing college.

"Many people thought I'd end up in jail or in a cemetery but I started to walk on the correct path of life that led me to God," he said.

Sylvia Hartwich, a 20-year-old from Berlin, wept as she described how she had tried to commit suicide several times. Now she is a volunteer for a German branch of the program.

"Now I'm a light for other girls. They receive strength from me to become women," she said.

The Pope hugged her as she left the stage.

One recovering addict in the crowd said that though he welcomed the Pope's warning to traffickers, the drug trade was a complicated business.

"He condemned the people working in trafficking but everyone is involved -- institutions, even the police," said Roberto Pereira, aged 33.

Founded by Franciscan friars 25 years ago, the Farm of Hope helps addicts from as far away as Russia and the Philippines kick their habit with a year-long program that includes working as farm hands and reading the bible.

Throughout his trip to the word's most populous Roman Catholic county, the Pope has railed against the hedonism of modern society and exhorted people to lead more moral lives.

He has spoken out against sex outside of marriage, and reiterated the Church's unflinching opposition to abortion.

He is also trying to rebuild the Church's waning influence in Latin America, home to nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, and stem the tide of people turning to Protestant groups or giving up on religion altogether.

On Sunday, the Pope will address a conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops in Aparecida, the site of Brazil's holiest shrine and largest cathedral visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

He also will celebrate an open air mass with hundreds of thousands of people at the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil's national saint.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/05/2007 2.05]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/05/2008 00:46]

This is out of chronology because it was too long to be accommodated in the same post as the homily at the Canonization Mass, and I had reserved only one slot for both.

Here is the Vatican's English translation of the Holy Father's address to the Bishops of Brazil at the Cathedrla of Se in Sao Paulo on Friday, May 11:




ADDRESS TO BRAZILIAN BISHOPS

"Although he was the Son of God, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him." (cf. Hebrews 5:8-9).

Dear Brother Bishops!


1. The text we have just heard in the Lesson for Vespers contains a profound teaching. Once again we realize that God's word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword; it penetrates to the depths of the soul and it grants solace and inspiration to his faithful servants (cf. Hebrews 4:12).

I thank God for the opportunity to be with this distinguished Episcopate, which presides over one of the largest Catholic populations in the world. I greet you with a sense of deep communion and sincere affection, well aware of your devotion to the communities entrusted to your care.

The warm reception given to me by the Rector of the Catedral da Sé and by all present has made me feel at home in this great common House which is our Holy Mother, the Catholic Church.

I extend a special greeting to the new Officers of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops and, with gratitude for the kind words of its President, Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha, I offer prayerful good wishes for his work in deepening communion among the Bishops and in promoting common pastoral activity in a territory of continental dimensions.




2. With its traditional hospitality, Brazil is hosting the participants in the Fifth Conference of Latin American Bishops. I express my gratitude for the kind welcome given to its members, and my deep appreciation for the prayers of the Brazilian people, particularly their prayers for the success of the Bishops' meeting in Aparecida.

This meeting is a great ecclesial event and part of the missionary outreach which Latin America needs to undertake, beginning here - on Brazilian soil. That is why I wished to speak first to you, the Bishops of Brazil, evoking these words, so rich in content, from the Letter to the Hebrews: Although he was Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him" (Hebrews 5:8-9).

Filled with meaning, these verses speak of God's compassion for us, as expressed in the passion of his Son. They speak of Christ's obedience and his free, conscious acceptance of the Father's plan, which appears most clearly in his prayer on the Mount of Olives: "Not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42).

Jesus himself teaches us that the true way of salvation lies in conforming our will to the will of God. This is what we pray for in the third petition of the "Our Father": that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, since wherever God's will reigns, there the Kingdom of God is present.

Jesus attracts us by his will, his filial will, and so he leads us to salvation. By freely accepting the will of God, in union with Jesus Christ, we open the world to God's Kingdom.

We Bishops have come together to manifest this central truth, since we are directly bound to Christ, the Good Shepherd. The mission entrusted to us as teachers of the faith consists in recalling, in the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, that our Saviour "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).

This, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls. For this reason the Father sent his Son, and in the Lord's own words transmitted to us in the Gospel of Saint John, "as the Father has sent me, even so I send you" (John 20:21).

Hence the mandate to preach the Gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

These words are simple yet sublime; they speak of our duty to proclaim the truth of the faith, the urgent need for the sacramental life, and the promise of Christ's continual assistance to his Church.

These are fundamental realities: they speak of instructing people in the faith and in Christian morality, and of celebrating the sacraments. Wherever God and his will are unknown, wherever faith in Jesus Christ and in his sacramental presence is lacking, the essential element for the solution of pressing social and political problems is also missing.

Fidelity to the primacy of God and of his will, known and lived in communion with Jesus Christ, is the essential gift that we Bishops and priests must offer to our people (cf. "Populorum Progressio," 21).

3. Our ministry as Bishops thus impels us to discern God's saving will and to devise a pastoral plan capable of training God's People to recognize and embrace transcendent values, in fidelity to the Lord and to the Gospel.

Certainly the present is a difficult time for the Church, and many of her children are experiencing difficulty. Society is experiencing moments of worrying disorientation.

The sanctity of marriage and the family are attacked with impunity, as concessions are made to forms of pressure which have a harmful effect on legislative processes; crimes against life are justified in the name of individual freedom and rights; attacks are made on the dignity of the human person; the plague of divorce and extra-marital unions is increasingly widespread.

Even more: when, within the Church herself, people start to question the value of the priestly commitment as a total entrustment to God through apostolic celibacy and as a total openness to the service of souls, and preference is given to ideological, political and even party issues, the structure of total consecration to God begins to lose its deepest meaning.

How can we not be deeply saddened by this? But be confident: the Church is holy and imperishable (cf. Ephesians 5:27). As Saint Augustine said: "The Church will be shaken if its foundation is shaken; but will Christ be shaken? Since Christ cannot be shaken, the Church will remain firmly established to the end of time" ("Enarrationes in Psalmos," 103,2,5: PL 37,1353).

A particular problem which you face as Pastors is surely the issue of those Catholics who have abandoned the life of the Church. It seems clear that the principal cause of this problem is to be found in the lack of an evangelization completely centered on Christ and his Church.

Those who are most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of sects - a just cause for concern - and those who are incapable of resisting the onslaught of agnosticism, relativism and secularization are generally the baptized who remain insufficiently evangelized; they are easily influenced because their faith is weak, confused, easily shaken and naive, despite their innate religiosity.

In the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, I stated that "being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (No. 1).

Consequently, there is a need to engage in apostolic activity as a true mission in the midst of the flock that is constituted by the Church in Brazil, and to promote on every level a methodical evangelization aimed at personal and communal fidelity to Christ.

No effort should be spared in seeking out those Catholics who have fallen away and those who know little or nothing of Jesus Christ, by implementing a pastoral plan which welcomes them and helps them realize that the Church is a privileged place of encounter with God, and also through a continuing process of catechesis.

What is required, in a word, is a mission of evangelization capable of engaging all the vital energies present in this immense flock. My thoughts turn to the priests, the men and women religious and the laity who work so generously, often in the face of immense difficulties, in order to spread the truth of the Gospel.

Many of them cooperate with or actively participate in the associations, movements and other new ecclesial realities that, in communion with the Pastors and in harmony with diocesan guidelines, bring their spiritual, educational and missionary richness to the heart of the Church, as a precious experience and a model of Christian life.

In this work of evangelization the ecclesial community should be clearly marked by pastoral initiatives, especially by sending missionaries, lay or religious, to homes on the outskirts of the cities and in the interior, to enter into dialogue with everyone in a spirit of understanding, sensitivity and charity.

On the other hand, if the persons they encounter are living in poverty, it is necessary to help them, as the first Christian communities did, by practising solidarity and making them feel truly loved.

The poor living in the outskirts of the cities or the countryside need to feel that the Church is close to them, providing for their most urgent needs, defending their rights and working together with them to build a society founded on justice and peace.

The Gospel is addressed in a special way to the poor, and the Bishop, modelled on the Good Shepherd, must be particularly concerned with offering them the divine consolation of the faith, without overlooking their need for "material bread".

As I wished to stress in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, "the Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the sacraments and the word" (No. 22).

The sacramental life, especially in the celebration of Confession and the Eucharist, here takes on a particular importance. As Pastors, it is your primary task to ensure that the faithful share in the eucharistic life and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You must be vigilant to ensure that the confession and absolution of sins is ordinarily individual, inasmuch as sin itself is something profoundly personal (cf. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Reconciliatio et Paenitentia," 31, III).

Only physical or moral impossibility exempts the faithful from this form of confession, in which case reconciliation can be obtained by some other means (cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 960, Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 311).

It is appropriate, therefore, to instil in priests the practice of generously making themselves available to the faithful who have recourse to the sacrament of God's mercy (cf. Apostolic Letter "Misericordia Dei," 2).

4. Starting afresh from Christ in every area of missionary activity; rediscovering in Jesus the love and salvation given to us by the Father through the Holy Spirit: this is the substance and lifeline of the episcopal mission which makes the Bishop the person primarily responsible for catechesis in his diocese.

Indeed, it falls ultimately to him to direct catechesis, surrounding himself with competent and trustworthy co-workers. It is therefore clear that the catechist's task is not simply to communicate faith-experiences; rather - under the guidance of the Pastor - it is to be an authentic herald of revealed truths.

Faith is a journey led by the Holy Spirit which can be summed up in two words: conversion and discipleship. In the Christian tradition, these two key words clearly indicate that faith in Christ implies a way of living based on the twofold command to love God and neighbour - and they also express life's social dimension.

Truth presupposes a clear understanding of Jesus' message transmitted by means of an intelligible, inculturated language, which must nevertheless remain faithful to the Gospel's intent.
At this time, there is an urgent need for an adequate knowledge of the faith as it is presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its accompanying Compendium. education in Christian personal and social virtues is also an essential part of catechesis, as is education in social responsibility.

Precisely because faith, life, and the celebration of the sacred liturgy - the source of faith and life - are inseparable, there is need for a more correct implementation of the liturgical principles as indicated by the Second Vatican Council, as well as those contained in the Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops (cf. 145-151), so as to restore to the liturgy its sacred character.

It was with this end in view that my Venerable Predecessor on the Chair of Peter, John Paul II, wished "to appeal urgently that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the Eucharist be observed with great fidelity ... Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated" (Encyclical Letter "Ecclesia de Eucharistia," 52).

For Bishops, who are the "moderators of the Church's liturgical life", the rediscovery and appreciation of obedience to liturgical norms is a form of witness to the one, universal Church, that presides in charity.

5. A leap forward in the quality of people's Christian lives is needed, so that they can bear witness to their faith in a clear and transparent way. This faith, as it is celebrated and shared in the liturgy and in works of charity, nourishes and reinvigorates the community of the Lord's disciples while building them up as the missionary and prophetic Church.

The Brazilian Episcopate has an impressive structure based on recently revised and more easily implemented statutes which focus more directly on the good of the Church.

The Pope has come to Brazil to ask that, through following the word of God, all these Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate truly become messengers of eternal salvation for all those who obey Christ (cf. Hebrews 5:10).

If we are to stay true to our solemn commitment as successors of the Apostles, we Pastors must be faithful servants of the word, eschewing any reductive or mistaken vision of the mission entrusted to us.

It is not enough to look at reality solely from the viewpoint of personal faith; we must work with the Gospel in our hands and anchor ourselves in the authentic heritage of the Apostolic Tradition, free from any interpretations motivated by rationalistic ideologies.

Indeed, "within the particular Churches, it is the Bishop's responsibility to guard and interpret the word of God and to make authoritative judgments as to what is or is not in conformity with it" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, 19).

As the primary Teacher of faith and doctrine, the Bishop will rely on collaboration with the theologian, who, in order "to be faithful to his role of service to the truth, must take into account the proper mission of the Magisterium and collaborate with it" (ibid., 20).

The duty to preserve the deposit of faith and safeguard its unity calls for strict vigilance so that the faith may be "preserved and handed down with fidelity and so that particular insights are clearly integrated into the one Gospel of Christ" (Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, 126).

This, therefore, is the enormous responsibility you have assumed as formators of your people, and especially of the priests and religious under your care. They are you faithful co-workers.

I am aware of your commitment to seeking ways of forming new vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Theological formation, as well as education in sacred sciences, needs to be constantly updated, but this must always done in accord with the Church's authentic Magisterium.

I appeal to your priestly zeal and your sense of vocational discernment, especially so that you will know how to bring to completion the spiritual, psychological and affective, intellectual and pastoral formation needed to prepare young people for mature, generous service to the Church.

Good and assiduous spiritual direction is indispensable for fostering human growth and eliminating the risk of going astray in the area of sexuality. Always keep in mind that priestly celibacy "is a gift which the Church has received and desires to retain, convinced that it is a good for the Church itself and for the world" (Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests, 57).

I would also like to commend to your care the religious communities which play such an important role in the lives of your dioceses. They offer their own valuable contribution since "there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:4).

The Church cannot help but show its joy and gratitude for all that religious men and women are able to contribute in universities, schools, hospitals, and other works and institutions.

6. I am familiar with the dynamic of your Assemblies and the efforts involved in formulating the various pastoral plans so that they give priority to the formation of clergy and those who assist them in their pastoral work.

Some of you have encouraged evangelization movements to assist in the work of gathering groups of faithful together to carry out certain types of action. The Successor of Peter is relying on you to ensure that the preparation you give them is always based on a spirituality of communion and fidelity to the See of Peter, so that the work of the Spirit is never in vain.

In fact, the integrity of the faith, together with ecclesiastical discipline, is and will always be an area requiring careful oversight on your part, especially when it comes to living out the consequences of the fact that "there is only one faith and one baptism".

As you know, among the various documents dealing with Christian unity, there is the Directory for Ecumenism published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Ecumenism - or the search for unity among Christians - has become in our time an increasingly urgent task for the Catholic Church, as is evident from the growth of intercultural exchange and the challenge of secularism.

Consequently, given the rapidly growing number of new Christian denominations, and especially certain forms of often aggressive proselytism, the work of ecumenism has become more complex. In this context, a good historical and doctrinal formation is absolutely essential, so as to foster necessary discernment and lead to a better understanding of the specific identity of each of these communities, the elements that divide them, and those elements that can be helpful on the road to greater unity.

The greatest area of common ground for collaboration should be the defence of fundamental moral values - transmitted by the biblical tradition - against the relativistic and consumerist cultural forces that seek to destroy them.

Another such area is faith in God the Creator and in Jesus Christ his incarnate Son. Moreover, there will always be the principle of fraternal love and the search for mutual understanding and rapprochement.

Yet we must also be concerned with defending the faith of our people, confirming them in the joyful certitude that "unica Christi Ecclesia … subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, a successore Petri et Episcopis in eius communione gubernata" ["The one Church of Christ … subsists in the Catholic Church which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him"] (Lumen Gentium, 8).

In this way, through the National Council of Christian Churches, you will be able to move towards candid ecumenical dialogue, committing yourselves to complete respect for those other religious confessions that wish to remain in contact with the Catholic Church in Brazil.

7. There is nothing new in the observation that your country is living through a historic deficit in social development, whose extreme effects can seen in the vast cross-section of Brazilians living in need and the great inequalities in income, even at the highest levels of society.

It is your task, my dear Brothers, as the hierarchy of the people of God, to promote the search for new solutions imbued with the Christian spirit. A vision of the economy and social problems from the perspective of the Church's social teaching should always bring us to consider things from the viewpoint of human dignity, which transcends the simple interplay of economic factors.

Hence, it is necessary to work untiringly to form politicians, and all Brazilians who wield a certain influence, be it great or small, as well as all members of society, so that they can fully assume their responsibilities and learn to give the economy a truly human and compassionate face.

There is a need to form a genuine spirit of truthfulness and honesty among the political and commercial classes. Those who take on leadership roles in society must try to foresee the social consequences - direct and indirect, short-term and long-term - of their own decisions, always acting according to the criteria that will maximize the common good, rather than merely seeking personal profit.

8. God willing, my dear Brothers, we will find other opportunities to explore these questions that call for our joint pastoral concern. For now, without pursuing them in an exhaustive way, I have tried to put forward the more significant themes that clamour for my attention as Pastor of the universal Church.

I offer you my affectionate encouragement, which is at the same time a fraternal and heart-felt plea: that you will always work and act - as indeed you are doing now - in a spirit of harmony, building yourselves on the communion that finds its highest expression and inexhaustible source in the Eucharist.

Entrusting all of you to Mary Most Holy, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, I cordially impart to each of you, as well as your respective communities, my Apostolic Blessing.

Thank you!

[Original text: Portuguese]
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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For some reason, the preceding post is not accepting any more pictures. I had intended to use these pictures to break up the text blocks in the address.





Then the Pope takes his leave of the bishops, the Cahtedral, and Sao Paulo for now:

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