BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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TERESA BENEDETTA
00domenica 26 giugno 2016 11:10


Benedict XVI like Leo the Great
by Michelangelo Nasca
Translated from

June 24, 2016

"Before being a very great theologian and teacher of the faith, it is obvious that he is a man who truly believes, who truly prays. It is obvious he is a man who embodies holiness, a man of peace, a man of God."

These are the first observations Pope Francis sets in writing in a Preface to an anthology of texts on the priesthood by his predecessor, Insegnare e imparare l'amore di Dio, published by Cantagalli.

It is a document that highlights the great esteem that the reigning pope has for the emeritus pope, which he has widely shown from the start of his pontificate.

He continues: "Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has authoritatively stated that the theological work of Joseph Ratzinger and later of Benedict XVI places him among the greatest theologians who sat on Peter's Chair, like, for example, Pope Leo the Great, saint and Doctor of the Church.'

Pope Leo I was the first pope to be given the title 'the Great', subsequently given to Pope Gregory I (590-604) and to Nicholas (858-867). Hi biographers describe him as an energetic and generous man who had a great sense of duty.

Born in 4th century Rome, he contributed during his pontificate (440-461) to elevate the importance of the Petrine primacy, being the first to formulate the conviction that it is the Bishop of Rome who receives Peter's legacy and his authority from God.

He firmly opposed the currents of Pelagianism and Manicheism, and in 451, authoritatively sustained the arguments against the monophysite heresy which did not recognize the fusion of two natures, divine and human, in the person of Christ.

Much celebrated is the episode in which he was a protagonist against the advance of the Huns on Rome, going forth to meet Attila himself and, according to tradition, making him desist from sacking Rome.

Leo the Great showed a similar tenacity three years later in 455 with Genseric the Vandal, however failing this time to stop him and save the city of Rome.

In the years when the Roman Empire was approaching its end, Leo the Great successfully did all he could to defend the Christian faith from the heresies of his time and from the degradation of some part of the clergy.

The work of Leo the Great that remains with us - letters and about a hundred homilies - has great stylistic strength. He died on Novemebber 10, 461. In 1754, he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XIV. He became the first Pope to receive the title 'the Great'.

The juxtaposition of Benedict XVI to the historic figure of Leo the Great - underscored by Cardinal Mueller [not the first one to do so, since the comparison was quickly established from the first years of Benedict XVI's Pontificate in terms of their homilies] - is not at all disproportionate.

Indeed, in certain aspects, the theological and cultural contributions of Joseph Ratzinger as cardinal and Benedict XVI are greater, and doctrinally more detailed. A particular distinction that may well earn Benedict XVI himself the title of 'the Great'.




TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 27 giugno 2016 12:16

BREXIT was clearly the voice of Britain (and Wales), considering how it was virtually blanked out in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the two other
parts of the United Kingdom. As someone quickly noted, BREXIT appears to have halted at Hadrian's Wall...


A Europe that must be re-established:
Benedict XVI's warnings in 2007

by Robi Ronza
Translated from

June 25, 2016

The British people have chosen to leave the European Union. Now it remains to be seen what price the 'elites' of Europe will exact from them for defying their pretext that they had constructed a Europe that was also ours (that of the European peoples).

But the first thing that must be said is that the British referendum was a great act of freedom - which opens up great hopes. The voters voted above all against a politically and mediatically constituted order that had wanted [and expected] them to choose to remain in the EU, to which end the 'elites' literally did everything they could to defeat Brexit.

Speaking to RAI state TV and radio in a widely heard broadcast yesterday morning, former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called British Prime Minister David Cameron 'incautious' to have brought the issue to a referendum. On questions of this nature, Napolitano said, it is better to leave the people out of it. [Dear, dear! Spoken like a former militant Communist! In the so-called 'people's democracies', the people never decide anything, and everything is imposed on them from the top.]

And to prove a remarkable lack of common sense among our leaders, Napolitano's pupil, former Prime Minister Mario Monti, said something worse. A head of government who had been imposed on Parliament back in 2012 - and for that reason, named 'senator for life' before he formally took office as Prime Minister, Monti said that in calling the referendum, Cameron had 'abused democracy' no less!

In short, when a people vote their mind, as the British did - and not as the elites would have wanted them to, having been so used by now to consider European institutions 'cosa nostra' [our own thing, to adopt the Mafia slogan] - then the masks come off.

For the past two days, the Napolitanos and Montis all over Europe have been beside themselves with chagrin, to the point of failing to even hide the underlying authoritarianism - whether it is post-communist or masonic - which has characterized their political vision.

Brexit should be a healthy shock for the EU. It is doubtless extraordinary. As I said, the elites who did not want or expect the outcome of the UK referendum will seek to make, not just the UK, but the world, pay for the failure of their project [not that it is a failure they will ever acknowledge - how could they dismantle their gigantic bEurocracies lording it over the continent in Brussels and Strasbourg???]], seeking a scapegoat on which to unload irrelevant emergencies.

It is the case for instance with the stocks of the major Italian banking groups on which destinies one cannot see how Britain exiting the EU could possibly weigh. But one must take it for granted that days of turbulence on the world's financial markets await us, yet whoever is able to do that also has the responsibility to stabilize them.

Meanwhile, the 'machine' to falsify the profound significance of Brexit has already geared up. Because ultimately, the episode is a sensational sign negating their claim to have constructed a political Europe based only on contingent interests while obstinately rejecting the history and values that had shaped the continent.

Europe can save itself only if it resolutely changes direction by rediscovering the best of itself. On the other hand, the elites are already purveying the idea that the EU can get out of the crisis brought on by Brexit by not changing anything at all but simply forging ahead bullishly as if nothing had happened.

For obvious reasons, the key to solving this crisis is held in great part by men of faith. Provided men of faith are faithful to themselves and their faith.

In this light, let us turn to a document that is very relevant today: Benedict XVI's address to the participants of the Congress of the Episcopal Conferences of the European Community who met in Rome on March 24, 2007, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty that instituted the European Economic Community [or European Common Market, parent organization of the current proliferation of European institutions based in Brussels and Strasbourg.]

[The writer proceeds to quote large excerpts from the address, but I will reproduce the body of it in full].

ADDRESS BY HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS OF EUROPE
, 3/24/2007


At 11:15 today, in the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father greeted the participants of a Congress on the theme "50 years after the Treaty of Rome: Values and perspectives for the Europe of tomorrow", promoted by the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of Europe [COMECE from its Italian acronym].

...I am particularly happy to receive so many of you today, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

It marked an important new stage for Europe, which was just coming out of the extreme effects of a world war and which was desirous of constructing a future of peace and better social and economic wellbeing, without dissolving or denying its diverse national identities...

From that March day 50 years ago, this Continent has gone a long way, which has led to reconciling its two 'lungs' - East and West - which are linked by a common history but were arbitrarily divided by a curtain of injustice.

Economic integration has stimulated a policy and a still arduous search for an institutional structure that would be adequate for a European Union which now has 27 member nations and wishes to take a leading role on the world stage.

Through these years, the need has been increasingly felt to establish a healthy balance between the economic and social dimensions, through policies which could produce wealth and increase Europe's competitiveness, without neglecting the legitimate expectations of the poor and the marginalized.

But demographically, one must unfortunately take note that Europe appears to be on a path that could lead to writing itself out of history. Besides placing economic growth at risk, this could cause enormous problems for social cohesion and, above all, favor a dangerous individualism which is heedless of the consequences for the future. One would think that the European continent is, in fact, losing faith in its own future.

Moreover, insofar for example as respect for the environment, or the systematic access to energy resources and investments, solidarity is hardly given an incentive, not just internationally, but even internally within nations.

The process itself of European unification does not appear to be agreed to by everyone, the widespread impression being that various 'chapters' of the European project have been formulated without taking into account the expectations of the citizens themselves.

It emerges quite clearly from all this that one cannot think of building an authentic 'common house' for Europe by ignoring the identity of the peoples on our Continent.

This is a historical cultural and moral identity that precedes geographic, economic or political identity - an identity made up of a sum of universal values which Christianity helped forge, acquiring thereby not only a historic role, but a foundational one with respect to Europe.

Such values, which constitute the very soul of Europe, should be safeguarded in Europe during this third millennium to serve as a ferment for civilization. If these values were to play a lesser role, how can the 'old' Continent continue to be 'yeast' for the whole world?

If, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the governments of the Union wish to get close to their citizenry, how can they exclude an essential element of European identity like Christianity, with which a great majority of Europeans continue to identify themselves?

Is it not a cause for surprise that Europe today, while it aims to propose itself as a community of values, seems to dispute increasingly that there are any absolute universal values at all?

Does not this singular form of 'apostasy' of itself, even before it is a denial of God, lead it to doubt its own identity?

In this way, it will end up spreading the belief that a 'consideration of benefits' is the only criterion for moral discernment and that the common good is synonymous to compromise.

But although compromise may represent a legitimate balance among conflicting interests, it becomes a common evil every time it means sanctioning agreements that offend human nature.

A community that builds itself without due respect for the authentic dignity of man - forgetting that every person is created in the image of God - ends up by doing good to no one.

That is why it becomes even more indispensable that Europe guards against a purely pragmatic attitude, widespread today, that systematically justifies compromise on essential human values as an inevitable acceptance of a presumed lesser evil.

Such pragmatism, presented as balanced and realistic, is really not, essentially - precisely because it denies that ideal dimension of values which is inherent in human nature.

When such pragmatism is exercised in the context of secularistic and relativistic tendencies, it ends up by denying Christians their very right to engage in public discourse as Christians, or at the very least, their contributions are rejected on the grounds that they simply wish to retain unjustified privileges.

In the present historical moment and in the face of the many challenges that characterize our time, the European Union - in order to be a valid guarantor of rights and an effective promoter of universal values, cannot but recognize clearly the existence of a stable and permanent human nature, which is the source of common rights for every person, including those who would deny those rights.


In this context, the right to conscientious objection must be safeguarded every time fundamental human rights are violated.

Dear friends, I know how difficult it is for Christians to defend the truth about man strenuously. But do not tire of doing so, and do not be discouraged!

You know you have the task to contribute to build, with the help of God, a new Europe which is realistic but not cynical, rich with ideals and free from ingenuous illusions, inspired by the perennial and life-giving truth of the Gospel.

Therefore, be actively present in the public debate at the European level, knowing that it is also part of national debates, and couple such mission with effective cultural action. Never yield to the logic of power for its own ends.

Let Christ's own advice be your constant stimulus and support when He said: "If salt loses its taste...it is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot" (Mt 5,13)...


These are urgencies, we might observe, that were already at the center of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's reflections in a 1992 book published in Italy as Svolta per l’Europa (A Turning Point in Europe)(Edizioni Paoline, Milano, 1992) that deserves to be reread today.


Perhaps no European leader or intellectual has spoken and written so much about the crisis of Europe, and so prophetically, than Joseph Ratzinger. The address he gave in March 2007 could well have been given today and entitled 'Brexit illustrates the crisis of Europe'. (Did someone say 'Charlemagne Prize'? How much more out of the spirit of Charlemagne could those Eurocrat dimwits giving out the prize be!)

When Benedict XVI gave this fairly short address in March 2007 - the AP called it 'passionate - reports and commentaries on it took up almost a full page on the NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT thread in PAPA RATZINGER FORUM.

Speaking of Leo the Great (see post preceding this), I remarked once that a modern equivalent of Leo seeking to keep the Huns and the Vandals from sacking Rome was Benedict XVI trying to hold the new Euro-barbarians at the gate.


Brexit and the failure of Europe
The continent that once ruled the world seems adrift
as its soul is consumed by bureaucracy and political correctness

by Samuel Gregg

June 26, 2016

It’s difficult for most non-Europeans to grasp the scale of the devastation that overtook Europe twice in the twentieth century. Having descended into the abyss between 1914 and 1918, European nations were at it again twenty years later. They consequently endured an apocalypse of death and destruction from Normandy in the West to Stalingrad in the East.

“Never again!” became the lodestone of numerous European politicians, most notably Catholic statesmen such as West Germany’s Konrad Adenauer, Italy’s Alcide de Gasperi, and France’s Robert Schuman (presently being considered by the Catholic Church for beatification), all of whom headed Christian Democratic-led governments in the immediate postwar years.

It was against this background that European unification became seen as a surefire way of securing peace and damping down the fires of nationalism. And from a certain perspective, that made sense. For all their differences, European nations had much in common.

These ranged from a rootedness in Christianity and a substantial Jewish influence to the legacies of the Greeks, Romans, and the various Enlightenments. Then there was the fact that intra-European trade had existed for centuries, forging not-easily broken economic bonds.

The Treaty of Rome, which sought to create a common market by securing the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labor between the 6 original signatory countries, was signed on 25 March 1957.

It’s no coincidence that the ceremony was held at the Palazzo dei Conservatori on Rome’s Capitoline Hill. Built on top of a sixth century BC pagan temple and refurbished by no less than Michelangelo, the Palazzo functioned as a center for businesses and entrepreneurs from across medieval Europe to come together to engage in peaceful trade.

Given that the European continent had been laid waste by war only 12 years earlier, the establishment of the then European Economic Community (EEC) was seen as a great achievement and cause for celebration.

All this seems far removed from today’s European Union. The common market certainly exists and has even expanded to 28 nations. But the continent is flooded with political movements and parties which differ about many things but share a deep distrust of — and an increasing antagonism towards —the EU.

It’s a hostility that transcends more traditional divides such as right and left, employers and employees, Catholic and Protestant, Western and Eastern Europe, or Northern and Southern Europe.

Now it has claimed its first major victory, when Britain — the EU’s second-biggest economy — voted by a relatively comfortable margin to formally exit the supranational union.

It would be easy to dismiss all this as the result of resurgent nationalism and fear of immigrants, something accentuated by the EU’s inept handling of the 2015 migrant crisis and the outbreak of Islamist jihadist violence. Certainly, there is something to this.

But it’s also a distraction from an even bigger source of alienation: namely, the form assumed by the contemporary EU, especially its political leadership and bureaucracy. These groups are, in many Europeans’ view, deeply anti-democratic, downright contemptuous of anyone who expresses misgivings about their agenda, and inclined to insist that most problems can be resolved by giving the EU — and therefore EU officials — more power.

People in Britain voted for Brexit for many, often different reasons. It’s hard, however, to deny that the EU’s top-down approach to public life, its stealth supplanting of national laws, and, perhaps above all, the sheer arrogance of its political-bureaucratic leadership played a major role in causing 52 percent of British voters to say that enough was enough.

Any visitor to Brussels these days is bound to be taken aback by the sheer number of EU agencies and organs housed by the city. Leaving aside the aesthetically questionable architecture of many of the buildings inhabited by such organizations, the EU gives whole new meaning to the word “bureaucracy.”

Brussels teems with hundreds of EU politicians and representatives of member-states as well as thousands of assorted advisors, civil servants, and (invariably state-funded) NGOs. Only a handful of these people are actually elected by normal citizens.

It’s this world of unaccountable political insiders and the perception (fair or otherwise) that the only interests they serve are their own which drove many people in Britain to tick “Leave” on June 23. Yet it’s a world whose emergence was also predicted in the 1950s by one economist who, in this regard, truly merits the title “prophetic.”

Most early opponents of European political and economic integration were old-fashioned socialists. They worried that a common market might impede implementation of socialist policies. A rare exception to this rule was the German economist Wilhelm Röpke. Today Röpke is known as the foremost intellectual progenitor of the postwar German economic miracle.

A devout Lutheran deeply versed in Catholic social teaching, Röpke was also one of the very few free market economists who loudly and publicly criticized what would become today’s EU even before the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957.

Röpke’s proto-Euroscepticism didn’t arise from nationalist sentiments. His experiences as a highly-decorated combat soldier fighting in the German army on the Western front during the First World War left him with an enduring aversion to militarism and nationalism, especially its fascist varieties — so much so that Röpke was one of the first academics dismissed from German universities by the National Socialists in 1933.

Moreover, as an economist unusually well-read in other disciplines, Röpke recognized that modern nation-states have not, historically-speaking, always been freedom’s allies. Nevertheless, Röpke was highly critical of the Treaty of Rome and made several predictions about how the EEC was likely to develop.

It’s striking just how much Röpke got right about the character that’s been assumed by the European integration project. In 1958, for instance, Röpke forecast that it would eventually pit fiscally-responsible European nations against less-economically disciplined countries. In our own time, this division has become one of the major cleavages that, for instance, distinguishes fiscally-responsible Germany and Finland from economic disasters such as France and Greece.

On the topic of a single European currency, Röpke insisted that it would work only if member-states followed disciplined fiscal policies and that there were mechanisms available to oust any nation that violated tough rules regarding spending.

He doubted, however, that such conditions would be met in a Europe in which (1) governments were proving skilled at skirting rules, (2) generous welfare was increasingly regarded as a human right, and (3) political parties habitually used the government’s tax-and-spending powers to buy the electoral support of various constituencies. In retrospect, Röpke’s prediction proved, once again, to be spot-on.

Röpke also conjectured that the EEC would aggravate the bureaucratization of European life. Every postwar creation of supra-European institutions, he illustrated, had produced thousands of civil servants predisposed to expand their numbers and influence.

A mere 6 years after the EEC’s founding, Röpke observed that its executive organs had already become “an enormous administrative machine,” imposing thousands of regulations upon member-states.

Even worse, he added, the EEC’s various departments had been taken over by “socialists and ingrained interventionists” who regarded top-down planning by political-bureaucratic elites as superior to the workings of markets within a framework of rule of law, constitutionally-limited government, and a basic safety net.

Röpke was no naysayer about Europe. Indeed, he supported the continent’s economic integration. He maintained, however, that it should develop “from below” rather than be imposed from the top-down. It would be best actualized, Röpke held, by European countries unilaterally opening up their economies not just to each other but the rest of the world. That would, Röpke stated, remove any need for supra-European bureaucrats and organizations to “manage” the process.

At the same time, Röpke didn’t hide his conviction that the core of European identity went far beyond the world of supply and demand. To be European, he argued, meant affirming those specific religious, political and cultural traditions which made Europe different to those cultures shaped by other heritages. It wasn’t a matter of denigrating other societies. Rather, it was simply acknowledging those things that gave Europe, and therefore the West more generally, its distinctiveness.

Such notions are given short-shrift by contemporary EU officialdom. Any discussion of values is invariably dominated by words like “diversity” and “non-discrimination” and a near-obsession with equality. To be sure, such phrases can assume positive meaning, but only if grounded in a coherent understanding of the nature of man.

In an EU increasingly inclined to aggressively promote nonsensical concepts such as “gender theory”, all these things take on rather different meaning.

In as de-Christianized a country as Britain, it’s unsurprising that concern about these problems didn’t feature in the Brexit debate. The EU’s adoption of such specific ideological agendas are symptomatic, however, of a trend that many who voted for “Leave” did rebel against.

And this is the imposition of ideas simply assumed to be correct by the EU’s political classes, bureaucracies and their intellectual enablers. This goes hand-in-hand with an associated habit of labelling anyone who questions their positions as a troglodyte or words to which the suffix “phobic” is regularly attached. Rather than actually debating ideas, it’s much easier to suggest that someone’s views are akin to some form of mental illness.

Given the economic sclerosis, political inertia, and creeping bureaucratization that characterizes much of the EU today, it’s sobering to realize that, 100 years ago, this continent dominated the rest of the globe: economically, culturally, politically, philosophically — even religiously.

On June 23, 2016, however, a majority of British voters decided to detach their nation from what is, as no less than the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker conceded in a September 2015 speech, a “European Union [which] is not in a good state.”

In the short-term, negotiating the terms of the divorce — not least among which will be trade arrangements and the untangling of English and Scottish law from the labyrinth of EU law — will require considerable dexterity from Britain’s next prime minister.

Still, it’s difficult not to conclude that the United Kingdom has detached itself from a political experiment that once offered hope but presently appears
(1) incapable of substantive reform;
(2) disposed to take refuge in denial;
(3) awash in a fever-swamp of political correctness;
(4) beset by aging and falling demographics;
(5) enduring catastrophic youth-unemployment levels; and
(6) dominated by a political class that lives in an echo chamber and won’t acknowledge that many of their actions have helped reignite the very tensions which the European project was designed to obviate.

The future, alas, for Europe is not bright right now. One can hope that Brexit serves as a long-overdue wakeup call. Unfortunately, present trends don’t provide many grounds for optimism. Quite the contrary.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 27 giugno 2016 14:08
The pope on Brexit, gays,
female deacons and Benedict XVI

'He is the emeritus pope - he is not the second pope!"

by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

June 27, 2016

I have not yet seen a transcript of JMB's latest media performance at 30,000 feet, but thanks to Beatrice, I have read the excerpts that Jean Guenois published in Le Figaro, and I will start with his comments on Benedict XVI. (Obviously, someone asked him about Georg Gaenswein's controversial statements about an 'enlarged Petrine ministry, etc'.) This is what he answered:

At certain times, the Church has had three popes. Benedict XVI is the emeritus Pope. He said it clearly when on February 11, 2013, he announced his resignation as of February 28. And he has retired to help the Church through prayer.

He lives in a monastery. He prays. I have gone to see him there many times. I have been on the telephone with him. The other day, he wrote me a little note with his signature [who else would sign it???] to wish me bon voyage.

It is a grace to have a wise grandfather* in the house. When I tell him this, he laughs. For me, he is the emeritus pope, the wise grandfather. He's the man who watches over my shoulder with his prayers.

I will never forget the address he gave the college of cardinals on February 28: "One of you will be my successor, and to him, I promise my obedience". And he has done that.

Then, I have heard, though I do not know if this is true, that some had gone to him to complain about the new pope, and that he shooed them away. In the best way - Bavarian, educated - but he shooed them off... [This is the pope who always denounces gossip purveying gossip!]

It is a grace to have a wise grandfather in the house. That is who he is. He is a man of his word. He is a man who is correct, correct, correct. [Guenois uses the French word 'droit' - which in this context, means upright, straight, right. I have to wait and see what the pope said in Italian.] He is the emeritus pope. I have thanked him publicly for having opened the door for emeritus popes.

With longer life spans, can one effectively lead the Church at a certain age? He - with courage, in prayer, in conscience and in full theology, decided to open this door, and I think it is for the good of the Church.

But there is only one pope. Perhaps one day there will be to or three emeritus popes. But they will be emeritus.

On Tuesday, he will mark the 65th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. His brother Georg will be there because they were ordained on the same day. There will be a small gathering with the heads of the Curia. Not many people because he prefers it that way. He accepts the principle, very modestly. [What principle? That he is emeritus pope, or that he does not want a large gathering? Either way, isn't it obvious?]

I will be there, and I will say something for this man of prayer, of courage. But he is the emeritus pope, not the second pope. He is faithful to his word [How could he not be, in any way?], he is a man of God, very intelligent, and for me, it's like having a grandfather in the house.[dim]


*I've always wondered why JMB never refers to B16 as a 'brother' - they are brothers as pope (even if the other is now ex-), they are brothers as priests and bishops. And even in the literal sense, B16 is only 10 years older than he is. It is as if by suggesting he considers B16 a grandfather - as he does on every occasion - that he is exaggerating their generational difference (even if being born within 10 years of each other puts them chronologically, though not culturally, in the same generation). If he were talking about one of the older cardinals, for instance, would he not talk about them as 'his brother bishop'?

Anyway, I will post the rest of Guenois's report as soon as translated. What JMB had to say about 'gays' is undoubtedly going to grab the headlines.

Not only does he repeat 'Who are we to judge?' - even if this time he says 'we' not 'I' - though now it is very clearly said about persons with deviant unnatural lifestyles in general, but he says we - he means all Catholics - should all beg forgiveness from them for having treated them badly. Of the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, how many do you think have ever treated gays badly?... Once again, JMB is extrapolating from his limited personal experience, since he claims that growing up in Argentina, divorced persons were not allowed into Catholic homes!


'The Church should apologize
to the persons she has offended'

[It's not 'the Church' that offends anyone -
it's the persons in the Church because we are all sinners]


I shall repeat what I have already said and it is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: Homosexuals are not to be discriminated against. They should be respected and accompanied pastorally. [Of course, he carefully omits what else the Catechism says - that homosexual acts are sinful, and that Catholic homosexuals should choose to be chaste rather than to sin.]

One can condemn - but not for ideological reasons - certain manifestations that are too offensive for others, but that is not the problem. ['Manifestations that are too offensive for others'? The Church teaching that homosexual acts are sinful is not about offending others, but about offending God to begin with, because to offend nature by indulging habitually in unnatural acts is to offend God. And who has been using 'ideological reasons' to condemn - in this case, Catholic teaching about homosexuality - if not the LGBTs themselves and their militant advocates in the media and the so-called intelligentsia.]

The problem is that a person who has this condition, who has goodwill and seeks God. Who are we to judge? [But who is he talking about here? Has there been any great public outpouring of sexually disordered Catholics seeking God - or even just seeking out their local priest's help - to deal with their 'condition' as the pope calls it? No, all the publicity and the hype has been about sexual deviants asserting their right to be deviant and to practice accordingly. Does JMB call that good will and seeking God?]

We should accompany them as the catechism says. [But accompany them how? By indulging them in their sinful preferences and cooing to them, "Go ahead. Do what will make you happy!"? How about this pope saying, at least once, that indulgence in sexual deviancy is sinful and that is what the Church opposes?]

Some cultures or some countries have different mentalities about this question. I think that the Church should present her apologies to gay persons whom she has offended, as Cardinal Marx recently said, but she should also apologize to the poor, to abandoned women, unemployed youths, and for having blessed so much use of weapons! [This is so stupid it would be even more stupid of me to comment on it any farther!]

The Church should apologize - or let us say, Christians should, because the Church is holy, and we are the sinners. [Well, thank God, he remembered that! But why should I, sinner that I am in many other ways, apologize to anyone for the social ills of the world, for which I am not personally responsible in any way, and of which I am a victim myself in many ways???]

We Christians should apologize for not having accompanied so many heartbreaks in so many families... [As if the Church and other Christian organizations have not been doing all that is possible within their capabilities to help the less fortunate! For most other Christians, are we not dutybound to deal first with the problems that we ourselves and our families face daily and routinely? That's usually more than enough to deal with, and God helps those who help themselves.]

I remember the culture of Buenos Aires when I was a child - the closed Catholic culture, from where I came. A divorced family could not be admitted to your house. Catholic culture has changed, thank God, but Christians must apologize and ask for forgiveness. It's a word we often forget.

[Wait, how are we supposed to apologize and ask forgiveness? Not that anyone, starting with progressivist Catholics and of course all Catholic-hating persons, would forgive the Church for anything! Will the Church organize occasions for this specific purpose - gathering groups to represent all the categories of persons the pope says we have all collectively offended? Will Bergoglio formulate new prayers for this purpose to be incorporated into the Mass canon?

Are the Confiteor ("I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed, through my fault, through fault, through my most grievous fault") and all the other prayers at Mass ("to atone for my countless sins, offenses and negligences") not confession and daily reminder enough of our personal shortcomings and failures, for which we ask God - not other people - for forgiveness??? Don't we mean it, does every priest who offers the Mass merely mouth these prayers???

And yes, each of us is obliged to apologize and ask forgiveness from persons we have directly offended, but since when have 'mass confessions' become legitimate???
]


The priest as master, no, but the priest as father, yes. The priest who uses a club on the faithful, no, but the priest who embraces, pardons and consoles [by allowing the sinful - as in remarried divorcees, practising homosexuals and cohabitating couples - to go on sinning??? Mortal sin is mortal sin, so if JMB's church condones chronic states of mortal sin, why not condone all mortal sins - serial murders and child rape and the like?]

There are so many priests like this - hospital almoners, prison chaplains, so many saints we do not see because holiness is modest, it does not flaunt itself. The opposite is to call attention to oneself, so that one is noticed. And we have done that - Christians, priests, bishops.

But we also have Teresa of Calcutta and so many like her! So many sisters in Africa, so many laymen, so many holy marriages. The good grain and the chaff. It's the kingdom, and we should not be scandalized by it as Jesus said. We should pray that the Lord will make the chaff perish and that there will be more good grain.

We cannot set boundaries. We are all holy because we have the Holy Spirit but we are all sinners. Me first of all! But [we need] not just to make apologies but to ask forgiveness.
[From God, not from an abstract mass of human beings just as sinful as we are!]



An initial reaction from John Vennari at Catholic Family News:


Father Z, who reproduces Mons. Pope's last NCR blog decrying JMB's tendency to put down priests, also referred to one of his recent 'Action Items' that I had missed, but which is of course, very much apropos...

Fr. Byer identifies himself on his blog as a parish priest in the Appalachian region who has been named one of the pope's Missionaries of Mercy during this Holy Year. I find his prayer intention particularly significant - "May he begin his day dedicated to Jesus and free from all diabolical assault!" Wouldn't each moment for the Vicar of Christ be dedicated to Jesus? Perhaps for that, he is more subject to diabolical assault than any of us.

I certainly will add that thought to my own daily prayer for the pope, but I ask Fr. Byer: Who, apart from cloistered monks and nuns, would have one hour to spare everyday just praying for JMB? Things have come to a pretty pass in the Church indeed, when one of the pope's own missionaries of mercy thinks such an intensive prayer campaign for the pope rather than his intentions is necessary...

Me, I continue to pray for the intentions of Benedict XVI who would, I think, know best to formulate what we want for the Church, all who labor in the Lord's vineyard, and all men of good faith and good will.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 28 giugno 2016 01:54



A few days ago, Beatrice referred on her site www.benoit-et-moi.fr/2016 to an article by Vittorio Messori which was obviously his first reaction to Benedict XVI's surprise announcement on February 11, 2013, that he was renouncing the Papacy. And I realized with a shock that I had not seen the article before. My only excuse is that I was in a state of traumatic stress for quite a few days after that, trying to function on autopilot and kept more than busy by the flood of almost overwhelmingly benevolent and laudatory reactions that I wanted to have on record and post on the Forum...

So I am posting my translation of it, having recovered the original article from Messori's current website, www.vittoriomessori.it. It is also timely in view of the uproar that greeted Mons. Gaenswein's hypothesis of an 'expanded Petrine ministry'.

We can see in Messori's initial reaction to February 11, 2013, that, knowing B16 in a way few people do, he grasped immediately what Benedict XVI had in mind as a 'continuation', if you will, of his ministry - clearly not in any active exercise whatsoever, but in 'prayer and suffering', spiritual offerings no one can deny him from making, and which do not detract in any way from the full uncontested authority of the reigning pope [whose answer to the question asked of him on the flight back from Armenia about Mons. Gaenswein's hypothesis, was clearly intended to assert "Let there be no question - there is only one pope, and I'm it", after claiming that he had not read GG's statements at all!]
...


Benedict XVI's renunciation:
An offering of suffering and prayer

Translated from

Originally written for

February 12, 2013

There will be time enough for analysis, for assessments, for predictions. Today, still disconcerted, we can only seek to give a possible answer to three questions which immediately came up.

First, why such an announcement on this day in February?
Then, why during a consistory of cardinals that was meant to be routine?
Finally, why he has chosen to spend his retirement in the Vatican.

Upon reflection, after the almost brutal surprise at something that had been so unexpected (for everyone, including those in the Vatican hierarchy), I think we can attempt a possible explanation.

February 11, anniversary day of the first apparition of Our Lady in Lourdes, had been declared by his "beloved and venerated predecessor', as he always refers to him, World Day for the Sick.

He said, in the Latin of his brief but shattering declaration: "I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering."

Terence, and later Seneca, Cicero and so many others have said it: senectus ipsa est morbus (old age itself is a disease). And so, someone like him who is 86, is infirm. He added: "Both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me".

So what could have been a more appropriate day to let the world know of his infirmities as an old man than that dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, protrectress of sick people? Moreover, he also sends out a sign of fraternal solidarity with for all those who, because of actual sickness or old age, can no longer count on their own strength.

But why (the second question) the announcement, ex abrupto, at a consistory of cardinals who were to decide a date for the canonization of the 800 martyrs of Otranto, who were massacred by the fury of Ottoman Muslims? I don't think it had anything to do with recalling the violence of extreme Islamism which is actual today as it was in the 15th century for the Otranto martyrs.

Rather, one must think that in the past months, Benedict XVI has meditated on the first and only case of a formal papal abdication in the history of the Church, that of Celestine V on December 13, 1294. There had been, during the 'dark centuries' of the High Middle Ages, some cases of papal renunciation but these took place in obscure circumstances and under the pressure of threats and violence.

Only Pietro da Morrone, the Benedictine hermit literally dragged from his mountain retreat to be elevated to the Chair of Peter, officially abdicated with full freedom, also invoking his advanced age (about to turn 80) and the weakness that goes with it.

Before taking the unprecedented decision, he had consulted leading theologians who confirmed to him that resignation was possible, but that he had to do it "before many cardinals". And that too is what Benedict XVI decided, having only that precedent to go by.

A precedent moreover that was spiritually right because the good Pierro da Morrone was declared a saint of the Church shortly thereafter and had never deserved the accusation of cowardice made against him by Dante [a Ghibelline] for political reasons.

In short, in the absence of rules, Papa Ratzinger, ever respectful of tradition, looked back to what took place eight centuries earlier with his predecessor whose destiny he has chosen to share. And probably, it was not by chance either that he read his unexpected announcement in Latin, evoking that long-ago precedent.

But to come to the last question: why, after a brief stay in Castel Gandolfo (which is available during the sede vacante), would the ex-pope retire into what had been a cloistered monastery within the Vatican? At least, that is what Fr. Lombardi announced, and we do not know if it will be his final retirement home, but in any case, it could not have been a random decision.

The last words of Benedict XVI's announcement yesterday were: "With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer."

During his Pontificate, he often said: "The heart of the Church is not where one plans, administers and governs, but where one prays".

And so, his service to the Catholic Church will not just go on, but in the perspective of faith, it becomes even more important:
If he did not choose a far-off hermitage - perhaps in his native Bavaria or in MonteCassino which Papa Wojtyla had thought about as a last refuge - it was probably to bear witness, by his very proximity to the tomb of Peter, how much he wants to be close to the Church to which he wants to give himself to the very end.

Nor is it any accident that he has chosen to retire in a a former monastery for cloistered nuns whose walls are impregnated with prayer.


Nonetheless, if his retirement within Vatican walls proves to be definitive, Joseph Ratzinger's proverbial discretion assures us that he will not interfere at all in the government if his successor.

We can be certain he will refuse to be an 'adviser', given with the weight not just of his years but of his experience and wisdom, even if he should be asked by the next pope.

In his view of the faith, the only 'adviser' to the Pope is the Holy Spirit who may have pointed his finger at him in the Sistine Chapel.

And it is precisely in this religious perspective that we find perhaps an answer to another question: Would it not have been more 'Christian' to follow the example of John Paul II in his heroic resistance to the very end, rather than that of Celestine V?

Thank God that there are as many personal histories, temperaments, destinies, charisms and ways of interpreting and living the Gospel. Despite what those who do not know the Church from within think, Catholic freedom is great, very great.

Many times, Cardinal Ratzinger had told me, in the conversations we have had over the course of the years that those who profess themselves most troubled about the difficult state of the Church (and when, after all, was she ever not troubled?) have not understood that the Church belongs to Christ, it is Christ's own Body. And so, it is He who will guide it, and if necessary, save it, he says.

"We are nothing but servants of the Church, the gospel tells us, sometimes useless servants. We should not take ourselves too seriously, we are just instruments who are, moreover, often ineffective. So let us not torment ourselves about the future of the Church - let us do our duties as best we can, and He will take care of the rest". [This is a constant thought that, as Pope, he always sought to convey to priests. "Do the best that you can, but do not expect to be able to achieve everything. If you keep close to God in daily prayer and do the best that you can with what you have to do, he will do the rest".]

There is also - and perhaps this is more important - his humility in passing over the reins: The instrument is worn down, the Lord of the harvest (as he loves to call him, according to the Gospel term), needs new workers who are there among the subordinates.

As for the old workers, once they are exhausted, they can yet do more precious work: offering their suffering and the most effective commitment they can make - that of inexhaustible prayer while they are waiting for the final call to our definitive home.


Also, courtesy of Beatrice, I have now seen the original CNA-Deutschland report on a new interview with GG with longtime German Vaticanista Paul Badde, who apparently is also now CNA/EWTN's correspondent in Germany. It is not the interview itself, which was apparently set to air today on German EWTN as part of special programming from June 27 to July 2 to mark the 65th anniversary of Benedict XVI's priestly ordination. Perhaps we will get the full interview transcript afterwards.

Also, the English translation of the report that was posted this weekend on CNA's English edition was substantially right. He does say that certain things were attributed to him that he did not say about the 'two popes' idea, which was rather disingenuous, I thought, and perhaps Badde should have challenged him that he did speak about an 'expanded Petrine ministry' that would be 'collegial'. Anyway, I will translate the article for the record, even if he really didn't say anything new. Perhaps the full interview will have something new.
.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 28 giugno 2016 03:26


39 years ago today
Joseph Ratzinger was made cardinal


It was to be Paul VI's last consistory, at which he named only five new cardinals, including the new Archbishop of Munich-Freising who had been consecrated bishop barely a month earlier.


Thanks to the Fondazione Vaticana for the Facebook reminder!


Meanwhile, there's this story:

'Ratzinger Foundation is at the service
of the Church and the Holy See'

by Francesco Peloso
From the English service of

June 27, 2016

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican-based Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation places all its scientific and charity activities at the service of the Church and the Pope, whoever he is. At the moment that would be Francis.

The institution said this in a statement published today, which reads: “Ever since its establishment in March 2010, the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI and all of its activities has had the one and only aim of serving the Supreme Pontiff and his magisterium, in the ways that characterise this Foundation, dedicated since the very start by Benedict XVI to the Holy See and the Pontiffs who succeed him”.

Each year, the Foundation has been awarding ten scholarships to theology students in Italy and abroad. Then there are all the formation activities, conferences, seminars and Theology training courses which are offered throughout the world and funded by the Foundation’s proceeds.

These partly come from the royalties that derive from the sale of almost 100 volumes written by Joseph Ratzinger. Sales peaked when the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith was elected Pope; this success continued throughout his pontificate and was fuelled also by the celebrated trilogy on Jesus, authored by Benedict XVI.

The Foundation’s statement was issued following the publication of an article which appeared on Italian website Tiscali.it. The article contains a statement from the body’s president, Mgr. Giuseppe Scotti, who said: “Now we work for Francis, even though the Foundation was created with Benedict XVI’s money”.

Benedict XVI’s royalties from his books written as Joseph Ratzinger now bring in around 300,000 euros per year. When he became pope, he signed an agreement ceding all the royalties from his writings as Joseph Ratzinger and then as Benedict XVI to the Vatican Publishing House. At some point, it was decided to separate the royalties from his Ratzinger books to fund the Foundation which was established on 2010. The Foundation’s statute was definitively approved by Pope Francis in 2014.

Now, the Foundation manages the proceeds from the Ratzinger royalties. It is estimated that the institution initially had several million euros’ worth of endowments.

The Foundation’s website explains: “The assets of the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI include: the initial endowment from royalties deriving from the texts authored by Professor Joseph Ratzinger; all movable and real estate property as well as sums and other transferable securities which should result from the acquisition of inheritance, legacies and bequests from all sources, in favour of the Foundation; any assets which the administrative council decides, upon consultation with the college of auditors, to earmark for the enhancement of the Foundation’s holdings.”

Every year the Foundation sets aside 120,000 euros for scholarships, as well as a sum for the Ratzinger Prize (the winner is announced by Pope Francis), while another chunk is allocated to high-level scientific conferences involving Catholic universities and their collaboration over important and current theological issues.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, a solemn ceremony for the celebration of the 65th anniversary of Ratzinger’s ordination to the priesthood is to be held in the Clementine Hall in the Apostolic Palace.

This is a rare papal record, since Leo XIII, who lived to be 93, was the last Pope to achieve a similar milestone at the beginning of the last century.

Perhaps the timing of the statement from the Foundation is just coincidental, but might it not be an effort somehow to mitigate the infelicitous effect of Mons. Gaenswein's statements on an 'expanded Petrine ministry'?

It turns out the Vatican Press Office today released this story to clarify a misleading story about the Foundation that appeared on an Italian website. The INSIDER story did not use the wrong information.

Ratzinger Foundation corrects
misleading article



Vatican City, 27 June 2016 – This morning Tiscali News published an article containing an interview with the president of the Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, Msgr. Giuseppe Scotti, entitled “To Pope Francis, Ratzinger’s money: a donation of four million euros. Tiscali.it exclusive: Benedict XVI hands over to Bergoglio his foundation, with its huge capital. An act that demonstrates the unity between the current Pope and his predecessor”.

As both title and subtitle may be misleading, the Foundation has issued a communiqué to provide the correct information, reproduced below.


Communiqué of the
Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation

27 June 2016

Since its creation in March 2010, the Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation through all the activities it promotes has as its sole scope that of placing itself at the service of the Supreme Pontiff and his Magisterium, with the characteristics specific to the Foundation, donated by Benedict XVI from the beginning to the Holy See and to his successors in the papacy.

In particular, with regard to the charitable work of the Foundation, this is exercised through the annual assignment of ten scholarships to students in Italy and abroad. In 2015 scholarships were awarded for a value of 120,000 euros. The ways of obtaining study grants and the students who have benefited from them may be consulted on the Foundation’s website.

Secondly, the organisation of conferences at high cultural and scientific level, as set out in the Foundation’s statute, is guided by what Pope Francis recalls in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “Universities are outstanding environments for articulating and developing this evangelising commitment in an interdisciplinary and integrated way”.

Finally, with the assignment of the Ratzinger Prize to scholars whose names are submitted by the Foundation’s scientific committee to the Pontiff, the Holy Father wishes to highlight the work of these men and women – Catholic and non-Catholic – who with their life of study have placed themselves fully at the service of the Gospel, making it comprehensible to their contemporaries.

This is because, as we read again in Evangelii Gaudium, “proclaiming the Gospel message to different cultures also involves proclaiming it to professional, scientific and academic circles”.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 28 giugno 2016 05:06


The Vatican did put out a story today about JMB's latest gabfest at 30,000 feet - not a transcript, but almost the full answers to the main questions asked. After 'Who am I to judge?-2' (in its variant 'Who are we to judge?) about gays, perhaps the more attention-getting answer was about Martin Luther and the Reformation.


A German radio reporter asked the Pope about the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and whether the moment had arrived to recognise not only its errors but also its gifts.

“I believe that Martin Luther’s intentions were not mistaken”, Francis replied. [Of course, he had good intentions - so does everyone who wants 'reforms'. But obviously he decided he could only do that by breaking away from the Church. Does JMB not even fault him for the schism he created - the second Great Schism in the Church after the Orthodox Churches broke off in 1045?]

“He was a reformer. Perhaps some methods were not correct, but at that time … the Church was not exactly a model to imitate. There was corruption in the Church, worldliness, attachment to money, to power, and for this reason he protested. He was intelligent and took a step forward, justifying what he did. [He really thinks the Reformation was 'a step forward'? By whom and for whom? Not for the Church, certainly! And that Luther 'justified' what he did?]

"And today Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants, we all agree on the doctrine of justification. On this very important point he was not mistaken. He made a medicine for the Church, [What medicine?!?! He caused a major amputation in the Church, that led others over the next several decades to chop off a bit more each time from the Church!]

"But then this medicine consolidated into a state of things, into a state of a discipline, into a way of believing, into a way of doing, a form of liturgy. He was not alone: there was Zwingli, there was Calvin, each one of them different, and who was behind each one? The princes, ‘cuius region eius religio’ [a saying that means every region adopted the religion of its leader] [But the princes - he means the German princes of the time - did not start their own religions (although Henry VIII did in England) - they did pick and choose among the new protestant 'faiths' over the Roman Catholic Church.]

"We must place ourselves in the history of that time. It is a history that is not easy to understand. [So he has a historical as well as a theological justification for Luther's schism. Are we hearing in preview what he is going to say in Lund, Sweden, when he helps open the fifth centenary year of Luther's Schism? The Church was bad, Luther was right, Protestantism 'prospered' (forget that too many of them thought they could each set up their own sect), and here they are today, 900 million strong or thereabouts, and projected to outnumber Catholics by 2050.]

"Then things moved forward, [What moved forward? That since 1517, the Protestant world has given rise to some 30,000 denominations (there are said to be 9,000 Protestant denominations but another 21,000 'independent' Christian non-Catholic denominations)? To all of which he says, "Stay as you are, where you are. We all have different ways of reaching Jesus, that's all". By everything he says and does, JMB has been spitting at DOMINUS IESUS!]] and today the dialogue is very good. [Ah yes, DIALOG! To which ecumenism has been reduced! Does JMB think he can dialog away the fact that Protestants do not believe in Trans-substantiation, to name just the most outstanding difference in their beliefs and ours? But, as we know, he would have no qualms about letting a Lutheran receive Catholic communion! So who cares about Trans-substantiation? No big deal! Right?]

"The document on justification is, I think, one of the richest and most profound ecumenical documents in the world. There are divisions, but these also depend on the Churches. … Diversity is perhaps what hurt all of us so badly [DUH!] and today we seek to take up the path of encountering each other after 500 years.

"I think that we have to pray together. Prayer is important for this. Second, we must work together for the poor, for the persecuted, for many people, for refugees, for the many who suffer; to work together and pray together and the theologians who study together. But this is a long road, very long.

[And does he think that concelebrating the fifth centenary of the Protestant Schism will be a shortcut in any way? I don't think even the most 'open' minds at Vatican II ever thought a pope would have such a distorted idea of ecumenism! "Hey, thanks for splintering Christianity into so many shards!" What, aside from gaining some transient headlines and fleeting praise does he think will come out of his self-indulgent exercise in brown-nosing the Protestants?]

"One time jokingly I said: ‘I know when the day of full unity will come’ – ‘when?’ – ‘the day after the Son of Man comes’, because we do not know...

"The Holy Spirit will give us this grace, but in the meantime, praying, loving each other and working together, especially for the poor, for people who suffer and for peace, and many other things, against the exploitation of people, and many things for which we can be working together”.


[And I wish he would name just one concrete major worldwide initiative undertaken or that could be undertaken by Catholics and Protestants together 'for world peace and to end world hunger'. BTW, we can't get worse than having a pope whose goals sound as meaningless and even silly, as when the same words are said by a beauty contestant! Utopia is not a goal, it's pigs-will-fly never-going-to-happen madness.]

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 01:02
Sorry to have had such a late start on this day of all days!



OH BLESSED DAY!
To hear Benedict XVI speak in public
for the first time since February 28, 2013




And how typically Benedict XVI were his extemporaneous words! 'Print-ready' as his words have always been...

The Vatican has provided the texts of the addresses delivered today at the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace for a ceremony to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger's priestly ordination tomorrow, Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.

Pope Francis spoke, as well as Cardinal Angelo Sodano, in behalf of the College of Cardinals, and Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who presented the emeritus Pope with the book especially published simultaneously in 5 languages to commemorate this extraordinary anniversary.




Here first is Benedict XVI, even if he spoke last:


Holy Father, dear brothers,

Sixty-five years ago, a brother priest who was ordained with men decided to write on the commemorative card of his first Mass - apart from his name and the date - only one word, in Greek: Eucharistomen*, convinces that this word, in its many dimensions, says all that could be said on that occasion.

[*Eucharistomen means "Let us give thanks", thus, Eucharistia, Eucharist=Thanksgiving.]

'Eucharistomen' expresses human gratitude - thanks to everyone.

Thanks above all to you, Holy Father! Your goodness, from the first moment of your election, and in every moment of my life here, has struck me, has truly reached deep within me. More than the Vatican Gardens with their beauty, your goodness is the place I inhabit - I feel protected.

Thank you also for your words of thanks, for everything. We hope that you may go forward with all of us on the way of Divine Mercy, showing the way of Jesus, towards Jesus, towards God.

Thank you also, Your Eminence (Cardinal Sodano), for your words which have truly touched my heart: Cor ad cor loquitur [Heart speaking to heart], you made present both the day of my priestly ordination, as well as my visit to Freising in 2006, when I relived it. I can only say that with these words you interpreted the essence of my view of the priesthood, of how I function.

I am grateful for the bond of friendship between us that has continued for some time, from roof to roof, as it were - almost palpably present and tangible. [The reference is to the fact that their retirement homes are 'rooftops apart' within the Vatican Gardens.]

Thank you, Cardinal Müller, for the work you have done in presenting my texts on the priesthood, texts in which I sought to help my brother priests enter always anew into the mystery that the Lord has given to our hands.

“Eucharistomen”! On that occasion, my friend [Rupert] Berger wished to evoke not just the dimension of human gratitude, but of course, to the more profound word it hides which appears in liturgy, in Scripture, in the words "Gratias agens benedixit fregit deditque" ["giving thanks to thee, blessed it, broke it and gave it (to his disciples"].

“Eucharistomen” brings us back to the reality of that thanks giving, the new dimension that Christ gave it. He had transformed the cross, suffering, all the evils of the world, into a thanksgiving and therefore a blessing.

Thus, fundamentally, he trans-substantiated life and the world, and he gave us - and gives us every day - the Bread of true life which triumphs over the world, thanks to the power of his love.

In the end, we wish to be included in the Lord's 'thanksgiving, so that we may truly receive a new life and help in the trans-substantiation of the world - that it may be a world not of death but of life, a world in which love has triumphed over death.

My thanks to all of you. May the Lord bless us all.
Thank you, Holy Father.


Unfortunately, Mons. Georg Ratzinger did not come to Rome for this anniversary. But Fr. Berger, the third man in the well-known photograph taken outside the Cathedral of Freising after the ordination, must surely be very touched to have been remembered by his friend the way he was today!



Before proceeding to the other translations, here is the AP report - which is what most of the world will learn about the event. Unfortunately, its title and the conclusion it draws in the lead paragraph are misleading, reading into Benedict XVI's words an 'endorsement' where, IMHO, none was intended, as any objective reading of his words will bear out. But since the AP account does not contain the full text of what Benedict said, readers will never know otherwise.

Indeed, what struck me was that the words he addressed to the Pope were a very personal, extraordinary and most beautifully expressed appreciation of Francis's goodness towards him, not about the Pontificate at all
.


Retired pope endorses
successor's ministry

By NICOLE WINFIELD


VATICAN CITY, June 28, 2016 (AP) — Retired Pope Benedict XVI endorsed Pope Francis’s mercy-filled ministry Tuesday during an unprecedented Vatican ceremony featuring a reigning pope honoring a retired one on the 65th anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

The ceremony in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace served in part to show continuity from Benedict to Francis amid continued nostalgia from some conservatives for Benedict’s tradition-minded papacy.

Francis had invited the entire Vatican Curia, or bureaucracy, to celebrate Benedict’s anniversary, and prelates turned out in force for the rare occasion of being able to greet each man in white.

While Francis presided, it was Benedict who stole the show with an off-the-cuff, mini-theology lesson sprinkled with Greek and Latin that showed that the mind of the German theologian is still going strong at 89.

In it, Benedict thanked Francis for letting him live out his final years in the beauty of the Vatican gardens, where he said he felt “protected.”

“Thank you, Holy Father, for your goodness, which from the first moment of your election has struck every day of my life,” Benedict said, speaking without notes. “We hope that you can go forward with all of us on this path of divine mercy, showing us the path of Jesus toward God.”

Benedict’s vote of confidence may help quell conservative criticism of the current pope’s loose theology, lack of attention to liturgy and emphasis on mercy over morals.

Francis has recently dismissed new questions about the implications of Benedict’s resignation by insisting that there is only one pope — himself — and that Benedict had pledged his obedience to him on the day he resigned.

He told reporters this weekend he felt that Benedict “had my back” ['watching over my shoulder' was the Italian idiom he used] and was continuing to help the church through his prayers. He added he had heard that Benedict had even chastised some nostalgic faithful who were complaining about the “new pope.”

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Francis entered the Clementine Hall to applause from the gathered cardinals and went straight to embrace Benedict, who stood up and removed his white skullcap in a sign of deference. They embraced several more times during the ceremony.

Benedict listened intently as Francis addressed him — as “Your Holiness” — lauding his 65 years of service to the church and saying his decision to retire to a life of quiet prayer to a small monastery in the Vatican gardens was a very “Franciscan” thing to do.

The monastery “is nothing like those forgotten corners where today’s ‘throwaway culture’ tends to put those who lose their strength with age,” Francis said. “Quite the contrary!”

The monastery, the pope said, is similar to the Porziuncola, the small chapel in Assisi where his namesake St. Francis founded his order and then spent his dying days.

The Fondazione Vaticana JR/B16 has a full account of the ceremony, which I will translate along with the three other addresses.

From the Fondazione's Facebook page, other videoclips of the event:

Benedict arrives at Sala Clementina
www.facebook.com/566735950151496/videos/635172829974474/

Pope Francis arrives
www.facebook.com/566735950151496/videos/635172829974474/

I have to find a link to the full video of the event.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 01:44


What I most regret - and detest - about the misleading headlines is that anti-Benedict 'traditionalists' (and there are quite a few of them, including those who have a following) will use them to claim that Benedict is thereby endorsing all the errors and heterodoxies that have marked his successor's pontificate so far. This will only reinforce the wrong impression already given by the headlines.

Textually, this is all he said:

We hope that you may go forward with all of us on the way of Divine Mercy, showing the way of Jesus, towards Jesus, towards God.


While he was almost profuse in his words of appreciation for Francis's personal treatment of him, I think he was very careful in his choice of words to avoid giving the impression of an endorsement of his Pontificate in any way.

He expresses a hope that it may continue along 'the path of 'Divine Mercy' where Francis almost always only says 'mercy' (even the Holy Year we are observing is not called 'Year of Divine Mercy' but 'Year of Mercy'), often meaning Francis's personal mercy and 'pastoral mercy' in general, as well as human mercy for one another - rather than Divine Mercy.

Indeed, in what is a most subtle but nonetheless emphatic way, Benedict XVI gave a subliminal message that could not be missed by any who has been following what Pope Francis has been saying recently about Martin Luther.

Benedict XVI's repeated use of the word trans-substantiation - applied not just to what happens in every Mass but also to its eventual implications in the world - appears a reminder (if not a rebuke) to his successor that the greatest distinction between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches Luther spawned is that the latter do not believe in the Trans-substantiation that takes place at the Consecration. (In fact, except for the Anglicans, I don't think any Protestant service recreates that moment at all!).

As if he was saying, "So enough already about this Luther revisionism!" (and the attendant 'concelebration' of the Schism by the church of Bergoglio).


Fisking JMB's remarks on the flight from Armenia the other day, one of my remarks had been this:

Ah yes, DIALOG! To which ecumenism has been reduced! Does JMB think he can dialog away the fact that Protestants do not believe in Trans-substantiation, to name just the most outstanding difference in their beliefs and ours? But, as we know, he would have no qualms about letting a Lutheran receive Catholic communion! So who cares about Trans-substantiation? No big deal! Right?]


P.S. Serendipitously - or maybe, by design - Cardinal Mueller's introduction to the book of homilies by Joseph Ratzingfer/Benedict XVI on the priesthood that has been published for the occasion touches on yet another fundamental divergence of Protestantism from the Church - its dismissal of the sacramental priesthood.

If only for that, JMB has been very wrong in addressing any and all Protestant bishops as 'Brother Bishop' - Protestant bishops are not just not sacramental priests, they also do not have any apostolic succession...


Joseph Ratzinger 65 years later
'And so on the Catholic priesthood fell the fury of Protestant criticism.'
For the anniversary of the priestly ordination of the future Benedict XVI, Cardinal Müller
recounts his unyielding resistance to the Protestant assault on the sacramental priesthood

by Sandro Magister


ROME, June 28, 2016 – “At the moment in which the elderly archbishop imposed his hands on me, a little bird - perhaps it was a skylark - raised itself up from the main altar of the cathedral and intoned a joyous little song. For me it was as if a voice were saying to me from on high: this is well, you are on the right path.”

This comes from the autobiography of Joseph Ratzinger (MILESTONES, 1977, published on the occasion of his 50th birthday), recalling his ordination to the priesthood, which took place 65 years ago, on June 29, 1951, feast of Saints Peter and Paul, in the cathedral of Freising and at the hand of Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber.

Celebrating the commemoration with the pope emeritus today, in the Sala Clementina, is also Pope Francis.

For the occasion, the friends of Joseph Ratzinger put together a book that collects 43 of his homilies on the priesthood, with a preface by Francis himself, previewed a few days ago by “la Repubblica” and by “L'Osservatore Romano":

The book is being published contemporaneously in six languages: in Italy by Cantagalli, in the United States by Ignatius Press, in Germany by Herder, in France by Parole et Silence, in Spain by Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, in Poland by the Catholic University of Lublin.

The following passage is taken from the introduction written by Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith and curator of Ratzinger’s opera omnia.

At the anniversary of the priestly ordination of the future Benedict XVI, the Cardinal recounts his unyielding resistance to Luther’s followers.


Catholic priesthood and Protestant temptation
by Gerhard L. Müller
Excerpt from his Introduction to
'DIE LIEBE GOTTES LEHREN UND LERNEN'

...Vatican Council II sought to reopen a new path to the authentic understanding of the identity of the priesthood. So why in the world did there come, just after the Council, a crisis in its identity comparable historically only to the consequences of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century?

I am thinking of the crisis in the teaching of the priesthood that took place during the Protestant Reformation, a crisis on the dogmatic level, by which the priest was reduced to a mere representative of the community, through an elimination of the essential difference between the ordained priesthood and the common one of all the faithful.

And then of the existential and spiritual crisis that took place in the second half of the 20th century, which in chronological terms exploded after Vatican Council II - but certainly not because of the Council - the consequences of which we are still suffering from today.

Joseph Ratzinger highlights with great acumen that, wherever the dogmatic foundation of the Catholic priesthood declines, not only does there dry up that spring from which one can in fact drink of a life of following after Christ, but there also disappears the motivation that introduces both a reasonable comprehension of renouncing marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12), and of celibacy as an eschatological sign of the world of God that is to come, a sign to be lived with the power of the Holy Spirit, in gladness and certainty.

If the symbolic relationship that belongs to the nature of the priesthood is obscured, priestly celibacy becomes the wreckage of a past hostile to corporeality and is singled out and fought as the only cause of the shortage of priests.

Not least, there also disappears the obviousness of the fact that, for the magisterium and the practice of the Church, the sacrament of Orders must be administered only to men. An office conceived of in functional terms, in the Church, is exposed to the suspicion of legitimizing a dominion when instead it should be founded and limited in a democratic sense.

The crisis of the priesthood in the Western world, in recent decades, is also the result of a radical disorientation of Christian identity in the face of a philosophy that transfers to the world itself the deepest meaning and ultimate end of history and of every human existence, thus depriving it of the transcendent horizon and of the eschatological perspective.

Waiting for everything to come from God and founding all of one’s life on God, who has given us all in Christ: this and only this can be the logic of a choice of life that, in the complete donation of self, sets out on the path of following after Jesus, participating in his mission as Savior of the world, a mission that he carries out in suffering and in the cross, and that He unavoidably revealed through his Resurrection from the dead.

But at the root of this crisis in the priesthood there are also intra-ecclesial factors that must be emphasized. As he shows in his first statements, Joseph Ratzinger possessed right from the beginning a lively sensitivity in perceiving immediately those tremors with which the earthquake was announced: and this above all in the openness, on the part of many Catholic circles, to the Protestant exegesis in vogue during the 1950s and 1960s.

Often, on the Catholic side, there was no realization of the biased views underlying the exegesis unleashed by the Reformation. And so on the Catholic (and Orthodox) Church there fell the fury of criticism of the ministerial priesthood, on the presumption that this does not have a biblical foundation.

The sacramental priesthood, entirely centered on the Eucharistic sacrifice - as had been affirmed at the Council of Trent - at first glance did not seem to be biblically based, either from the terminological point of view or from that which concerns the particular prerogatives of the priest with respect to the laity, especially when it comes to the power to consecrate.

The radical critique of worship - and with it the overcoming, which was the aim, of a priesthood limited to the claimed function of mediation - seemed to reduce the scope of priestly mediation in the Church.

The Reformation attacked the sacramental priesthood because, it was maintained, this would bring into question the unicity of the high priesthood of Christ (on the basis of the Letter to the Hebrews) and would marginalize the universal priesthood of all the faithful (according to 1 Pt 2:5).

To this critique was added, finally, the modern idea of the autonomy of the subject, with the individualistic practice that results from it, which looks with suspicion upon any exercise of authority.

What theological vision did this unleash?

On the one hand it can be observed that Jesus, from a sociological-religious point of view, was not a priest with ceremonial functions and therefore - to use an anachronistic formulation - he was a layman.

On the other hand, on the basis of the fact that in the New Testament, for the services and ministers, no sacred terminology is adopted but rather designations that are maintained to be profane, it seemed that one could consider demonstrated as inadequate the transformation - in the early Church, starting in the 3rd century - of those who carried out mere “functions” within the community into the improper holders of a new ceremonial priesthood.

Joseph Ratzinger subjects to detailed critical examination, in its turn, the historical criticism imprinted on Protestant theology and does so by distinguishing philosophical and theological prejudices from the use of the historical method.

In this way, he succeeds in demonstrating that with the accomplishments of modern biblical exegesis and a precise analysis of historical-dogmatic development one can arrive in a very well-founded way at the dogmatic statements produced above all at the Councils of Florence, Trent, and Vatican II.

That which Jesus means for the relationship of all men and of the whole of creation with God - therefore the recognition of Christ as Redeemer and universal Mediator of salvation, developed in the Letter to the Hebrews by means of the category of “High Priest” (Archiereus) - is never made to depend, as a condition, on his belonging to the Levitical priesthood.

The foundation of the being and mission of Jesus resides instead in his coming from the Father, from that house and that temple in which he dwells and must be (cf. Lk 2:49). It is the divinity of the Word that makes Jesus, in the human nature that he assumed, the one true Teacher, Shepherd, Priest, Mediator, and Redeemer.

He makes participants in this consecration and mission of his through the call of the Twelve. From them arises the circle of the apostles who found the mission of the Church in history as a dimension essential to the ecclesial nature. They transmit their power to the heads and pastors of the universal and particular Church, who operate on the local and supra-local level...
TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 04:06


Pope Francis's greeting
to Benedict XVI

June 28, 2016



Holiness,
Today we celebrate the story of a call initiated 65 years ago with your priestly ordination in the Cathedral of Freising on June 29, 1951.

But what is the fundamental note that runs through this long story and which has increasingly beee dominant from that beginning up to our day?

In one of the so many beautiful pages that you have dedicated to the priesthood, you underscore how, at the moment of the definitive call to Simon, Jesus, looking at him, asked him just one thing: "Do you love me?"

How beautiful and true this is! You tell us, the Lord based our pastoring on that "Do you love me?", because he can pasture his sheep through us only if we love the Lord. [And Peter answers:] "Lord, you know everything. You know I love you" (cfr Jn 21,15-19).

This is the note that dominates a whole life spent in priestly service and in theology, which you have defined, not by chance, as 'the search for the beloved'.

This is what you have always borne witness to and continue to do so today: that the decisive thing in our days, rain or shine, the only thing after which everything else will follow, is that the Lord be truly present, that we desire him, that interiorly we are close to him, that we love him, that we truly believe profoundly in him, and that believing, we truly love him.

It is this love for him that fills our hearts. It is this belief that makes us walk securely and serenely over water, even in the midst of a storm, exactly as it was with Peter.

This love and this belief allow us to look at the future not with fear or nostalgia, but with joy, even in the advanced years of our life.

Thus, living and bearing witness this unique and truly decisive thing today in such an intense and luminous way - with your regard and your heart turned to God - you, Holiness, continue to serve the Church; you have not stopped contributing with vigor and wisdom to her growth.

And you do so from that little monastery Mater Ecclesiae in the Vatican which is anything but one of those forgotten corners in which a throwaway culture tends to relegate persons when their strength diminishes with age. It is the complete opposite.

And allow your successor, who has chosen to call himself Francis, to say so. St. Francis's spiritual journey began in San Damiano, but the place he truly loved, the pulsing heart of the Franciscan order, the place where he had founded it and where in the end he gave up his life to God, was the Porziuncola, the 'little portion', a nook beside the Mother of the Church [it is located in the Basilica of Santa Maria degl'Angeli]. Beside Mary who, for her faith which was so firm and for a life entirely for the love and in the love of the Lord, all generations call Blessed.

Thus, Providence has willed that you, dear Brother, now live in a place that one might call 'Franciscan', from which emanates a tranquillity, a peace, a force, a confidence, a maturity, a faith, a dedication and a fidelity that do me so much good, and which give so much strength to me and to the whole Church.

Allow me also to say that you yourself bring us a healthy and joyous sense of humor.

The wish with which I wish to conclude is therefore a wish I address to you, as well as to all of us and the entire Church: that you, Holiness, may continue to feel the hand of the merciful God who supports you; that you may continue to experience and bear witness to the love of God; and that with Peter and Paul, you may continue to exult with great joy as you journey on towards the goal of faith! (cfr 1 Pt 1,8-9; 2 Tm 4,6-8)



Cardinal Mueller's tribute

Holy Father,
It is a great honor to be able to participate at this festive occasion which you wished to mark the joyful 65th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

A few weeks ago, for the Holy Year participation of priests and seminarians, you yourself recalled to the center of our reflections the essence of the priest's mission: to allow ourselves to recreate in us the heart of God's mercy so that we ourselves would be able to help men allow him to form their hearts.

You cited the great French writer Georges Bernanos, who, in his novel The Diary of a Country Priest, said joy is the immense gift that the Church is called on to offer the world: above all the joy of the announcement that God's forgiveness already awaits our sins.

'Announcement; and 'joy' are words that are at the heart of the Gospel. They are also dominant notes that belong to your Magisterium as they do that of your predecessor.

Dear Emeritus Pope, for many years you kept reminding us - with words as well as with your life - that this joy comes first of all from trustfully abandoning ourselves to that mysterious and good plan that the Risen Christ wishes to fulfill in each of us.

The joy of the Gospel is, above all, his. It is a gift of the Lord, it comes from his heart, he who has compassion for our nothingness and loves us, indeed re-creates us with his eternal love.

It is this love that is referred to in the title of the book published today in five languages which we have the honor to offer you on this joyful occasion: Die Liebe Gottes Lehren und Lernen - to teach and to learn the love of God.



Basically, it says it all: that we are called to teach that which we, in turn, have learned from the love of God. Sixty five years ago, you were consecrated to this love by the seal of priesthood, along with your brother Georg, on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.

In the words of Saint Irenaeus, whom we commemorate today, the two princes of the Apostles are the apostolic foundation of the Roman Church. And that feast prefigured, so to speak, the essential features of your mission: to announce the Word of God, as Paul did, and to confirm your brothers in the faith, as Peter did.

Time subsequently revealed in wondrous ways what had been mysteriously pre-contained in that beginning.

Dear Emeritus Pope, we are grateful to have been able to follow for many years, together with you, what the Lord has been making real through your priestly action. Now we ask with all our heart that you may bring to fulfillment what he has worked in you which has already borne abundant fruit among us.

Thanks once again, Holiness, for everything. Thank you from the heart.



Cardinal Sodano's tribute:
A time for gratitude


Venerated and dear Pope Francis,
today on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the priesthood of yopur beloved predecessor, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, you wished to render him a dutiful tribute in the name of the whole Holy Church, which has benefited for 65 years from his pastoral ministry, first as a priest, then successively as Archbishop of Munich-Freising and then Bishop of Rome, “mater et caput omnium ecclesiarum” (mother and head of all churches).

Holy Father, allow me also to present our dear celebrant with the tribute of his brother cardinals, as the words of Psalm 133 pour out from my heart, “Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum” (Behold how good and pleasant it is to live as brothers ion unity).

Yes, at this moment, we are living an atmosphere of great spiritual joy and intense fraternity in the common bond of service to the Holy Church of Christ.

Dear and venerated emeritus Pope, on that far-off June 29 of 1951, on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, you received priestly ordination from the hands of the late Cardinal Faulhaber, along with your brother Georg and 38 others. It was a great feast for your beloved Bavarian Archdiocese.

You wished to recount to us the sentiments you felt on that day when you returned as Successor of Peter to your dear Archdiocese in September 2006. Celebrating Holy Mass in the Cathedral of Freising, where your ordination had taken place, you re-evoked for the many priests who were present the feeling that had pervaded your heart then.

I too was present under the vaults of that stupendous Cathedral and I recall very well the emotion with which you spoke to the priests who were there. These days, I have re-read your homily and I seemed to hear again the words that came from your heart then. In the Italian translation, you said:

When I was prostrate on the ground as though wrapped in the Litany of all the Saints, I became aware that on this road we are not alone - that the great assembly of the saints are walking with us and that the saints who still live, the faithful of today and tomorrow, support and accompany us.

Then came the imposition of hands, and when Cardinal Faulhaber said to us, «Jam non dico vos servos, sed amicos» (I don't call you servants any more but friends), then I experienced priestly ordination as an initiation into the community of the friends of Jesus, who have been called to be with him and to announce his message (cfr. L’Osservatore Romano, Sept. 16, 2006)


Then you described the nature of this message that priests are called on to spread in the world, synthesizing it in two phrases: the priest should bring to men of today "the Light of God and the Love of God", or to use your words in German, the priest should bring men Gottes Licht und Gottes Liebe”.

Moreover, in your homily, you added an urgent invitation to all the priests present, namely to bring to the world the Light and Love of Christ with the same disposition Christ had, or to use your words, with the same Gesinnung Jesu Christi.

It was the concept expressed by the Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Philippians (2,5-8). This 'attitude' of Christ therefore should include a great love for those who are distant, for the poor, the sick, the old and the young.

Reading your words today, they seem to anticipate the Magisterium of Pope Francis who always asks us to go out towards those who suffer most, bringing them our brotherly love. This is, moreover, the message of the Holy Year of Mercy that we are celebrating.

Venerated and dear Pope emeritus, on the happy anniversary of that far-off day 65 years ago, the College of Cardinals, together with Pope Francis, are around you to thank you for your long and generous service to the Church.

At the same time, we ask you to continue in another form your long ministry as you promised us on February 24, 2013, after having announced your decision to leave the Barque of Peter for new hands to steer. At that time you told us:

The Lord calls me to climb the mountain, to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church. On the contrary, if God asks this of me, it is so that I may continue to serve him with the same dedication and the same love as I have sought to do till now, but in a way more suited to my age and to my capabilities (cfr. Insegnamenti di Benedetto XVI, vol. IX, pag. 263).

We are happy for that promise, certain that you will always be near us with your prayer and with your affection.

Finally, we say with a typical wish from your Bavarian homeland: “Behüt’s Sie Gott”! May God watch over you!

Meanwhile, the Church of Rome, under the leadership of Pope Francis, the venerated Successor that Providence has given us, will continue with renewed vigor her journey in history, in the service of the Christian community and of all mankind.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 14:28



First, the full video - about one hour, 5 minutes - of the event at Sala Clementina yesterday.


Father De Souza has given us an unusual tribute piece...


An anniversary for Joseph Ratzinger -
and reflections of an unexpected
encounter with the Pope Emeritus

BY FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA, S.J.

June 29, 2016

On June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI celebrates the 65th anniversary of his priestly ordination.

It will be a day of pairs: the twin princes of the apostles — Peter and Paul; the two priests marking 65 years, as Benedict XVI will be joined by his older brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, also ordained on the same day; and the celebration in the Vatican on the vigil of the feast, June 28, included two “popes,” as it were, the Pope and the pope emeritus, as Pope Francis paid tribute to his predecessor.

What is there to say on such an occasion? Too much, really, for a short reflection, as Joseph Ratzinger is the greatest Catholic theologian of his generation and perhaps the only man who could have immediately succeeded the great John Paul II.

Perhaps, then, I might share a memory instead, one that involves another pair — the protagonists of that extraordinary 35-year pontificate in two acts, John Paul and Benedict.

In 2015, for our annual St. John Fisher Dinner in Kingston, Canada, I wanted to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of John Paul and the election of Benedict. I commissioned an original portrait by Canada’s leading portrait artist, Cyril Leeper, who often paints cardinals and bishops, as well as university chancellors and, recently, the chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court.

I asked him to portray the moment during John Paul’s inaugural Mass on Oct. 22, 1978, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger offered his homage to the new Pope. For our portrait, Leeper used the conté style of drawing, rather than an oil painting.



The scene that Leeper depicted marked a historic moment in the life of the Church — the date that would become St. John Paul’s feast day and upon which he exhorted us to “Be not afraid!” In turn, Benedict XVI interpreted those words in his own inaugural homily of April 24, 2005, addressing them to young people.

In our mission on campus, we never cease quoting Benedict’s assurance that “nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing” is lost when we allow Christ into our lives.

I had been invited to address a clergy conference in Rome in January 2015 and had the idea of showing the portrait to the pope emeritus, asking him to bless it. I wrote in advance, but was informed that it would not be possible to meet Benedict XVI. So who would bless it?

Cardinal Raymond Burke attended the talk I gave during the conference, and so I asked if he might be willing to do so, which he kindly agreed to do after the closing Mass of the conference in St. Peter’s Basilica. He did so with great graciousness, in a lovely little “chapel of the canons” just off the main sacristy of St. Peter’s.

Neither Cardinal Burke nor I had seen it before, so that added a special grace to the portrait blessing. The Canadian ambassador to the Holy See, Dennis Savoie, former deputy supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, and his wife came for the Mass, so they were able to join us for the blessing, which was suitable, as he was given a copy of the portrait, which now hangs in his residence. I was most pleased at how everything had turned out.

Then — the extraordinary: A last-minute call came from the papal household, inviting me to meet Pope Emeritus Benedict that afternoon.

I invited Father Anthony Denton, my Australian friend from our days together as seminarians in Rome, to join me, as his Italian is better than mine, and he was also present at the clergy conference.

We were taken up to the Lourdes Grotto in the Vatican Gardens at 4pm, and after a short wait, Benedict came to the end of his daily afternoon walk. He was quite frail, was using a walker and was wrapped up in a warm white jacket, white scarf around his neck and an
insulated white cap with a long brim and flaps down over the ears.

We spoke in Italian, and he spoke very quietly. I was rather nervous, you can imagine, about my Italian in such a setting, but I was able to express myself adequately, if not well! Anthony’s Italian is much better than mine, so once or twice he was able to clarify a question that I did not understand properly. [Dear Fr. De Souza, you could have spoken to him in English! Or, in your excitement, did you forget he speaks English quite well? His extemporaneous words in St. Patrick's Cathedral in April 2008 to thank the gathering for their good wishes on the third anniversary of his election as Pope are among the most beautiful and touching words he has said about his Petrine ministry! And as cardinal, he had that famous hour-long interview with Raymond Arroyo for EWTN.]

Benedict was accompanied by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his secretary, and his older brother, Msgr. Georg, who was in a motorized wheelchair. We greeted the pope emeritus and introduced ourselves, and the Holy Father asked Father Denton about his graduate studies.

In due course, I told him that I was a university chaplain in Canada and showed him the portrait of St. John Paul II and him. He immediately recognized it as their embrace from the Oct. 22, 1978, Mass at which the saintly Pope began his pontificate with the famous “Be Not Afraid — Open Wide the Doors to Christ” homily.

He pronounced it “molto bello,” and then I explained the various symbols. When I told him that the window of the apostolic palace was a reference to the “window of the Father’s house” from his funeral homily for St. John Paul II, he looked at me with a small smile, recalling what must have been one of the more profound moments of his own life. He asked about the artist.

I told him that the image would hang in our chapel, and he blessed the image with a discreet Sign of the Cross, typical of the reserved gestures that marked his liturgical style.

I then thanked him for all his service to the Church and promised our prayers for his continued service, to which he rather firmly responded “Si, in un’altra forma” (“Yes, in another form”), lest there be any confusion about how he would serve the Church.

“Thank you for all you have given us — in your teachings, in the liturgy …” Father Denton said. Benedict interrupted him and responded immediately, “Il Signore ha dato; il Signore ha dato. … Tutti ha dato” (“The Lord has given; the Lord has given. … He has given everything”).

It was a very beautiful and moving meeting for both Father Anthony and me. We spent about 10 minutes with Benedict. We then both greeted Msgr. Georg, but he did not respond — perhaps he could not hear us, as he was quite well-wrapped up, too. The Ratzinger brothers were feeling the January chill.

After Benedict left — in a very elegant white golf cart, with tan leather seats and covered with a glass top like a miniature popemobile — the guard told us we could stay, so we prayed the Rosary at the grotto together for Pope Benedict and for Pope Francis, commending them both to the intercession of the Blessed Mother and St. John Paul.

It was a beautiful encounter with a beautiful and great soul — a priestly soul living out the evening of a life in which great things were accomplished for God and his Church.

Of course, I had to google to find the Cyril Leeper portrait online (reproduced above) - where it turned up in a post by Fr. De Souza in April 2015 - one I had completely missed (it came out in a Canadian Catholic newspaper), but have now felicitously recovered for this occasion:

The great collaboration
BY FR. RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA
THE CATHOLIC REGISTER
April 16, 2015

This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the election of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, a treasure for the Church in his long theological service as a scholar, his more than 20 years at the side of St. John Paul II as the chief lieutenant of the signal pontificate of our era, his eight years as perhaps the clearest and most profound papal preacher and writer of our time, and finally for the courage and humility of his abdication.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the death of John Paul and the election of Benedict, I commissioned a portrait to be done by Cyril Leeper, one of Canada’s leading portrait artists and a Catholic of deep faith and love for the Church.

I asked Mr. Leeper to depict the famous scene on Oct. 22, 1978, when then-Cardinal Ratzinger embraced Pope John Paul II at the latter’s inaugural Mass, during which John Paul preached his famous “Be Not Afraid” homily.

Ten years ago, Benedict’s inaugural homily returned to that “Be Not Afraid,” urging all of us not to be afraid to put Christ at the centre of our lives. That encounter between the Polish pope and the German cardinal would determine in many ways the life of the universal Church for the next 35 years.

The portrait was unveiled last month in Kingston, and now hangs in our chaplaincy chapel.

In January this year, I took Mr. Leeper’s image to Rome, a copy of which was given to the Canadian ambassador to the Holy See. I had written to the papal household telling them of the project and asking to show the image to Pope Emeritus Benedict. It was a great blessing to be granted an audience with Benedict, who of course immediately recognized the image, pronounced it “molto bello” and blessed it for our use.

I asked Mr. Leeper to include four special symbols in the portrait. The first is at the bottom, a book representing the documents of Vatican II, at which both John Paul and Benedict were present, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which remains their greatest collaboration.

Second is the window of the papal study in the Apostolic Palace, where John Paul blessed the Church on his last Easter Sunday, unable to speak. During his funeral homily, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke with great emotion of “our beloved Holy Father at the window of the Father’s house.”

Third, from the window are the red and white rays of Divine Mercy, which Cardinal Ratzinger preached was the heart of John Paul’s pontificate.

Fourth, the rays stretch out from the window down toward barbed wire wrapped around the papal cathedra, a symbol of Auschwitz. In the age of the wickedness of Auschwitz, God sent the Church first a Polish pope and then a German pope. The answer to the wickedness in the world, St. John Paul taught, was divine mercy.

[Unfortunately, the illustration for this article - the portrait reproduced above - appears to have been cropped because we do not see the books and the Auschwitz imagery described by Fr De Souza painted at the bottom of the portrait... May be I will find an uncropped image...]

The great collaboration of John Paul and Ratzinger, perhaps unprecedented in the history of the papacy, is the enduring gift of Providence to the Church in our time, the fruit of which needs to be harvested for generations to come.

In his inaugural homily on April 24, 2005, Benedict concluded by returning to the inaugural Mass of his saintly predecessor. I never tire of quoting those beautiful words, Benedict interpreting with beauty and depth the words of the one he called “the great Pope John Paul”:

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in St. Peter’s Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: ‘Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!’ …

Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?

Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful?

Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?

And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No!

Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.

And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and He gives you everything.

When we give ourselves to Him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ — and you will find true life. Amen.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 19:41




ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI








Notice there are at least 4 empty seats for the cardinals. I wonder who chose not to come. There are place cards, so they must have RSVP'd but stayed away.



It is not surprising that Antonio Socci immediately grasped the significance of Benedict XVI's focus on 'trans-substantiation' yesterday in his first public remarks since he stepped down as pope... Samizdat was the Soviet term for underground propaganda against the regime, and Socci uses it to describe what he promises to post in installments:

The behind-the-scenes events and the significance of what has been happening since May 22 (when Mons. Gaenswein gave his now much-criticized address on an 'enlarged Petrine ministry'). And of what happened June 28 [in Sala Clementina]. In this way, I hope to demonstrate all the greatness of Pope Benedict XVI, the marvelous evangelical message of his gesture today, and the disarming and indestructible power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Who will triumph, who will certainly triumph.


Samizdat, Part 1:
On the duty to correct the pope publicly as Paul corrected Peter
who, unlike his successors, was directly chosen by Christ.
And on the public correction made by Benedict XVI yesterday.

Translated from

June 29, 2016

The great Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas taught in different works that, in some extraordinary cases, it is an outright duty to oppose the pope publicly as St. Paul contradicted St. Peter once. [The citations of Aquinas are taken from Roberto Di Mattei's book Vicario di Cristo].

When they represent an imminent danger for the faith, prelates must be reprimanded, even publicly, by those who are their subjects. Thus St. Paul, who was subordinate to Peter, reprimanded him publicly because of an imminent danger of scandal in a matter of faith. As St. Augustine says in his commentary, "St. Peter himself gave an example to those who govern so that they, when straying occasionally from the right way, may not reject as unmerited a correction that comes from their subjects (Ad Gal, 2,14).”

In another work, Aquinas wrote regarding St. Paul's public criticism of St. Peter:

The reprimand was correct and useful, and the reason for it was not of little import: there was a danger to the preservation of evangelical truth... The manner of reprimand was convenient, because it was public and manifest. Therefore St. Paul wrote, "I spoke to Cephas [Peter] in front of everyone" because the simulation he carried out carried a danger for all.

In 1 Tim 20, we read: "Reprimand publicly those who do sin, so that the rest also will be afraid." This must be understood to refer to manifest sinners, not the occult ones, because with the latter, one must proceed according to the proper procedure for fraternal correction". [Talk privately to the erring brother at least three times, and if he does not correct himself, only then go public.]

It must be underscored that the episode is exemplary. And that with it, St. Thomas says, Scripture provides the paradigm of behavior for pastors as well as for the simple faithful:

Prelates were given the example of humility, so that they may not refuse to accept criticism from their inferiors and subjects. And those who are subject to authority were given the example of zealousness and freedom so that they may not be afraid to correct their prelates, especially when the fault was public and implied danger for [the faith of] many.


[The paragraphs above come from Socci's book NON E FRANCESCO.]

Let us pray that Papa Bergoglio follows St. Peter's lesson in humility and professes the correct Catholic doctrine, learning both humility and doctrine from Benedict XVI.

Let us pray that Bergoglio does not harden in his error(s), dragging the Church herself into error and therefore, toward ruin.



We especially hope that he reflects on how Benedict XVI, yesterday at the Sala Clementina, focused his remarks on 'trans-substantiation', reiterating the centrality of the Catholic faith in the Eucharist, a teaching that Luther and the Protestants have sought to demolish.

This is what Benedict XVI said:

“Eucharistomen”! On that occasion, my friend [Rupert] Berger wished to evoke not just the dimension of human gratitude, but of course, the more profound word it hides which appears in liturgy, in Scripture, in the words "Gratias agens benedixit fregit deditque" ["giving thanks to thee, blessed it, broke it and gave it (to his disciples"].

“Eucharistomen” brings us back to the reality of that thanks giving, the new dimension that Christ gave it. He had transformed the cross, suffering, all the evils of the world, into a thanksgiving and therefore a blessing.

Thus, fundamentally, he trans-substantiated life and the world, and he gave us - and gives us every day - the Bread of true life which triumphs over the world, thanks to the power of his love.

In the end, we wish to be included in the Lord's 'thanksgiving, so that we may truly receive a new life and help in the trans-substantiation of the world - that it may be a world not of death but of life, a world in which love has triumphed over death.


As one can see, it is an invitation to return to true Catholic doctrine, proclaimed with gentleness and love, before a pope who has made an attack on the Eucharist the center of his work as Bishop of Rome. [That's putting it extremely, but one could add up some circumstances that would imply a less than total 'Eucharistic consciousness', to say the least, in the current Successor of St. Peter.]

Beyond certain questionable gestures [or lack thereof] (such as kneeling before the Eucharist), there is the serious problem in Amoris laetitia which would allow sacrilegious access to the Body and Blood of Christ (already anticipated, however, in Evangelii gaudium and in the conduct of the two 'family synods' that started of with the Kasper proposal in the February 2014 secret consistory).

But above all, Benedict XVI's discourse on Trans-substantiation is a reprimand to that Papa Bergoglio who, visiting the Lutheran Church in Rome, relativized the historical and immanent gulf between Catholics and Protestants on the Eucharist. [He left it open for a Lutheran to decide whether to receive communion in a Catholic Mass.]

The same Papa Bergoglio who said in his Sunday inflight news conference - after he had 'criminalized' the Catholic Church [for her supposed ill treatment of sexual deviants] - had substantially rehabilitated Luther, calling him 'medicine' for the Church.

The same Papa Bergoglio who is preparing to go to Sweden on October 30 to celebrate the heretic and schismatic Martin Luther. That Luther who had devastated the Church and Christianity, who said this about the Holy Mass:

When the Mass is destroyed, I think we will have ruined all of papism with it. Papism, in fact, leans on the Mass as on a rock, all of it with its monasteries, episcopates, colleges, altars, ministries and doctrines - in one word, with its (papism's) entire belly. All of this will collapse necessarily when their sacrilegious and abominable Mass collapses.

[BTW, since I was never interested in reading about Luther, biographically or theologically, I never realized till lately how truly toxic and hair-raising many of his statements were against the Church! Perhaps someone should give JMB a Luther concordance that he could use as the ultimate model for his Casa Santa Marta anti-Catholic tirades.]

We must remember, as I wrote recently, that Benedict XVI opposed and said NO to very strong international geopolitical pressures which want to have the Catholic Church dissolve into Protestantism.

[Yes, but the problem, Mr. Socci, is that the phrase 'very strong international geopolitical pressures' is so generic as to be meaningless. It is the language of conspiracy theorists. Who would be likely to exert such pressures? Why can you not name at least one?
- The most obvious suspect would be the United Nations, but since when did Benedict XVI ever kowtow to the UN? And what coercive power does the UN have on the Church other than steadily undermining it by 'legislating' anti-Catholic policies supranationally where it can?
- Same arguments about the European Union, of which he was always more openly critical.
- The USA under Obama was always more concerned with coddling Muslims than with the internal disunity of Christians, for whom, in the bulk, Obama has a visceral contempt.
- Russia under Putin has become a bulwark of neo-Orthodox Christianity.
- China - which feels threatened by the rise of homegrown Christianity in the past two decades - certainly has no interest in Catholics and Protestants consolidating as a power bloc.
So who do we have left?
- International Freemasonry - which never operates directly but through a variety of agents who are already in positions of power? But what could they do to undermine the Church that they have not already been doing for decades, if not centuries?
- Some secret self-appointed council of powerful men around the globe who are able to move pawns on the geopolitical chessboard as in a Robert Ludlum plot?
Socci undermines his credibility by failing to cite anything plausible for his 'Benedict was pushed to resign' hypothesis.]


It is in this context that one must consider Benedict's mysterious and troublesome departure from the 'active exercise' of the Petrine ministry - a ministry which, however, has not been revoked (as Benedict XVI explained on February 27, 2013, and as Mons. Gaenswein reiterated recently)[????]

While Bergoglio is seeking to bring the Church to that suicidal embrace of Protestantism that the international world powers have commanded. And that is why he is so exalted by anti-Catholic media around the world.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 22:46


Thanks to La Vigna del Signore on Facebook for these pictures of a visit today by a Bavarian delegation complete with Alpine Guardsmen and folk dancers to greet the Emeritus Pope on this special anniversary day.

Papa Ratzi's Bavarians -
always there for him







Brief video clips of the event here from the Twitter feeds of J.C. Kitzler, Rome correspondent for ARD, a German TV network.
t.co/a80QcfFYlV
twitter.com/JCKitzler/status/748212651688329216
t.co/BqoIm9uTVf

Also, check this out - apparently a mini-special by RAI (Italian state TV) for the B16 anniversary:
www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-d97f3872-880b-429f-bea0-237643ad9...
[It requires Microsoft Silverlight to run and I am unable to install the program, so I do not know what's in it.]
TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 29 giugno 2016 23:00



The profound meaning of a priest
being 'in persona Christi'

Excerpt from a 1979 homily
by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Archbishop of Munich-Freising

Translated from

June 29, 2016

Editor's Note: With the kind permission of Cantagalli publishing house, we present an excerpt from one of 43 homilies on the priesthood contained in the book INSEGNARE E IMPARARE L'AMORE DI DIO, published to mark the 65th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger's ordination to the priesthood. This comes from a 1979 homily delivered in Munich...

...In the Letter he wrote to all the priests of the world on Maundy Thursday, the Holy Father [John Paul II] spoke about a widespread custom in many places inside the Iron Curtain, where persecution has virtually eliminated the presence of priests.

Through friends, I have come to know of similar facts for some time. Sometimes it happens that Catholics gather together in an abandoned church, or if none remain, then in a cemetery, in a place where a priest is buried.

They place a stole on the altar or on a raised tomb and together they recite the prayers of the Eucharistic liturgy. At the moments that correspond to the Trans-substantiation, a profound silence descends, though sometimes broken by weeping.

The Pope, addressing us priests, adds:

Dear brothers, if at times any of you may have doubts about your own ministry, if you have any uncertainties about the meaning of it, if you think that it is socially fruitless or downright useless, reflect on this.

Reflect on how ardently those men desire to hear words that only the lips of a priest can say effectively. On how sincerely they want to receive the Body of our Lord, On how they anxiously await someone who can say to them, "I absolve you of your sins.


In this Eucharist of desire, in which men, in their loneliness, turn in prayer toward the Lord who comes to them in their desire, and are therefore in communion with the Holy Church and with the Lord himself - in this Eucharist of desire is the witness of the living Church, the witness of the hidden nearness of the Lord, and the witness of what the priesthood means.

In the face of such humble faith, how narrow seems to be the solution of some theologians according to whom, in case of necessity, anyone can pronounce the words of the Consecration.

In a Eucharist of desire, the Lord is certainly much more present than in an arbitrariness that would make even Christ and the Church 'our product'. No man can have the audacity to use the 'I' of Christ as he pleases as if it were his own 'I' without blaspheming.
No one, on his own, can say, "This is My Body", "This is My Blood", "I absolve you of your sins".

And yet we need these words like we need our daily bread. And wherever they cease to be said, then daily bread becomes insipid and all social conquests are empty.

This is the most profound and likewise most thrilling aspect of the priestly ministry, something that only the Lord can give: the gift of using his word not as words from the past, but to speak with his "I" here and now, of acting in persona Christi, to represent the person of Christ, as we say in the liturgy.

Ultimately, we can deduce from this all the essence of priestly action and the task of priestly life.

And there is no doubt that these words remain effective even when the priest who says them contradicts Christ with his own way of life - because the action depends on the 'I' of Jesus Christ and not on man at all.

It is not man who forgives sins, but He. The Body and Blood made present in the Eucharist is not that of anyone but him. But at the same time, it must be clear that we cannot proffer the words of Christ unless they lay claim to our own life, unless they elicit our profound correspondence to the words we say.

Because if we live interiorly in a way opposed to what we represent, we should be condemned. So whoever must say with his own mouth the 'I' of Jesus Christ, must first of all, believe in him.

A priest must first be a believer. This is the heart of all his actions, and if he lacks this, then nothing about him is true. Of course, he can continue a certain routine, but he would lack the essential, and the Church becomes for him nothing but a club in which he spends his free time, and becomes superfluous...


TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 30 giugno 2016 07:13
PewSitter headlines, 6/29/16



The FSSPX has released a brief statement that packs more wallop than the lengthiest 'diatribe' yet written against JMB - it is devastating in its simple statement of facts. It is directe principally against the pope but contains not a single hyperbolic claim nor hostile word - that is how devastating the plain and simple truth is about 'the Church today' under JMB if one assumes that it is still 'the Church'.

I thought the formal statement against Amoris laetitia last May 6 was a masterpiece of concision but this one is even better. Hats off to the communicators of DICI, the society's communications arm! (Even more remarkable because Mons. Fellay, when given a chance to speak off the cuff, can go on even longer than JMB!)

It is a disservice to reduce this communique to a news report as the news agencies necessarily had to do, thus ruining the impact of its linear directness.

For some reason, DICI has only posted the text in German and Spanish. I translated this from the Spanish test.


FSSPX denounces errors in the bosom of the Church,
prays that the pope may proclaim faith and morals integrally

June 29, 2016

At the end of the meeting of the superiors of the FSSPX in Switzerland from June 25-28, 2016, the Superior-General issued the following communique:



The ultimate purpose of the FSSPX is principally the formation of priests - essential condition for the renewal of the Church and for the restoration of society.

1. In the great and sorrowful confusion that now reigns in the Church, the proclamation of Catholic doctrine requires denouncing the errors that have penetrated into its very bosom, promoted lamentably by a great number of pastors including the pope himself.

2. The FSSPX, in the actual state of grave necessity which gives it the right and the duty to provide spiritual assistance to the souls which turn to her, is not seeking canonical recognition above all, to which it has a right because it is a Catholic operation.

The only thing it desires is to faithfully carry the light of bimillenary Tradition which marks the only way that must be followed in this age of darkness, in which the cult of man has replaced the cult of God, in society as in the Church.

3. "The restoration of all things in Christ", which St. Pius X wanted, following St. Paul (Eph 1,10), cannot be achieved without the support of a pope who concretely favors a return to Sacred Tradition. While awaiting that day of grace, the FSSPX wishes to redouble its efforts to re-establish and disseminate, with the means given to her by Divine Providence, the social Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

4. The FSSPX prays and does penitence so that the pope may have the strength to proclaim faith and morals integrally, because in that way, he will accelerate the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary which we desire, as we approach the centenary of the apparitions in Fatima.

+Mons. Bernard Fellay
Superior-General
Econe, June 29, 2016
On the Feast of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul


It is remarkable, to begin with, that the FSSPX should come out with a statement like this. I doubt they ever issued a similarly reproving statement about John Paul II even after he excommunicated them. The timing on the Feast of Peter and Paul is providential but coincidental - the FSSPX superiors meet at the time of year annually.

JMB's best response might be to suddenly give them canonical recognition - without, of course, retracting any of his errors - as if to dare them, "Now let's see - do you still find fault with me?"

But of course, the statement pre-empts that by saying that it is not the society's primary goal at all. It seems they're willing to wait for that 'day of grace' - when they can freely and fully support the pope who heads the Church of Rome with which they wish to re-establish full communion.

Imagine if we had a few bishops voicing their own protests against the Bergoglian errors in this way! Or seeking to point out his most egregious errors in the subtle way - and yet, literally, in the pope's face - Benedict XVI did Tuesday noon when he spoke of Trans-substantiation... One can dream, yes?



TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 30 giugno 2016 16:07




I suppose one might call it lese-papaute to be irreverent about a pope though it ought not to be a crime of treason as lese majeste is [an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign], technically.

Humor, sarcastic or otherwise, is one way to shrug off something that happens too often to keep track of like... why the hell do I bother to react at all? Obviously because JMB's 'mile-high' verbal calisthenics bother the hell out of me literally, and those who do react with an appropriate 'cartoon'....

Anyway, now even Fr. Schall takes the time to annotate a Bergoglian 'stream of consciousness' transcript, as if to say that as absurd and as lamentable (no Catholic wants his pope to look or sound 'criticable' in any way) as these Bergoglionades are, we have to take notice and react. Not to sound flippant, they won't go away - they will linger forever in cyperspace and cybermemory - and he's not going away, so we are bound to get more of it.

But it also could be that a Bergoglian strategy, deliberate or not, is to just keep saying things that upset his critics often enough, and about different things, so observers will lose track and some of them can pass unnoticed...Meanwhile, here's Fr. Schall who would not bother to write about it at all if he thought it wasn't worth writing about...


On the Pope's remarks
while returning from Armenia

by James V. Schall, S.J.

June 29, 2016

"I don’t accuse. I ask questions. It’s curious. They looked at the war, at so any things…but not the people…and I don’t know if it’s true, but I would like to know if it’s true that when Hitler persecuted the Jews, one of the words, of what he may have said was, ‘Well, who remembers today the Armenians (Armenian killings by Turks, 1917-1919), let’s do the same with the Jews.’ I don’t know if it’s true, maybe it’s hearsay, but I’ve heard this said. Historians, search and see if it’s true, I think I answered. But I never said this word (genocide) with an offensive intent, if not objectively."
— Pope Francis, Comment
Return Flight from Armenia, June 26, 2016.



I.
By now we are used to interviews on papal return flights yielding many things of interest. Most people are not quite sure where Armenia is, but I suppose most Armenians would not know where El Paso or Mineola is either.

The first questions from Armenian reporters had to do with the relation of the Armenian Church to the Catholic Church. Armenia is said to be the first nation that was "officially" Christian. Those were the days when it was all right for nations to be Christian —none of this separation of Church and State business. "It was the first Christian nation," Francis said, "because the Lord blessed it, because it had saints, it had bishop saints, martyrs…."

Some time was devoted to a question of a French journalist about the Pope using and not using the word "genocide" of the slaughter of more than a million Armenians during World War I by the Turks. It is actually against the Turkish constitution to say that this genocide happened. So if someone such as a pope uses it, it might cause international incidents. In fact, Pope Francis had used the term earlier, but he evidently dropped it from his prepared speeches. Yet, once in Armenia he did use it again.

When asked about it, he simply said that this is the word he knew to describe it. He had talked to a lawyer who told him that the word "extermination" did not have the legal consequences of "genocide", which implied the right of reparations. Francis said that he just wanted to use the objective word.

Referring to his experience with Armenians in Argentina, the Pope said that he was used to saying that there were three major genocides—in Armenia, in Germany, and in Russia. There were smaller genocides also. Francis mentions one going on in Africa, though whether he meant Sudan or Nigeria is not clear. In any case, he evidently does not consider what is happening to Christians in the Middle East to merit that title of genocide; at least he does not specifically mention it here. [He already said in a recent Q&A that he doesn't want to use the term 'genocide' in the latter case, but rather 'martyrdom', as if the terms were synonymous or even mutually exclusive.]

A French lady asked the Pope about the hassle that Monsignor Georg Gaenswein brought up with his theory that the papacy was divided with two popes. Francis laughed and recalled that there were once three popes (1378-1417). Basically, Francis said that he followed Benedict on this who said that he was not Pope but Pope Emeritus. Case closed.

Whether it was a good idea for Benedict to have resigned rather than to die in office can still be debated. If Francis were to step down tomorrow, we would have two popes emeriti and one in the See of Peter. Francis points out that many bishops resign to live out their years out of office, so why not the pope? Health issues can make this a continuing issue.

Edward Pentin from the National Catholic Register asked what the Pope thought of the British exit from the European Union. The Pope’s answer was a masterpiece of agreeing with all sides and criticizing no one. He said frankly that he does not know what to make of it all. He has not studied the issue. Francis was recently given the Charlemagne Prize by the European Union as a symbol of his support.

The Pope said nothing of the anti-Christian, anti-life ethos of much of the bureaucracy of the European Union. Brussels is not really a nation but a bureaucracy effectively obliged to no electorate on the continent. As Pierre Manent often says, Europe is a continent of nations, not one nation. To make it one nation is to destroy what it is in its heritage and culture.

To give some flavor of Pope Francis’s way of dealing with the question of European unity after Brexit, let me cite the following lines:

For me, unity is always better than conflict, but there are different ways of unity…and even fraternity, and here comes the European Union; fraternity is better than animosity and distance. Fraternity is better and bridges are better than walls. One must reflect on all this. It is true: a country…I am in Europe, but…I want to have certain things that are mine from my culture and the step that…and here I come to the Charlemagne Prize, which is given by the European Union to discover the strength that it had from its roots. It is a step of creativity, and also of "healthy disunity", to give more independence, more liberty to countries of the Union, to think of another form of Union, to be creative. (Emphasis added; see my essay "On Doors, Windows, Bridges, Fences, and Walls")

In these remarks, one notes that there is no mention of any need of defense, potential enemies, or present invasion, and the need to prepare for them. Also, the phrase that "fraternity is better than animosity" is mindful of the principles the Pope seems to have derived from the Argentine bishop, Victor Manuel Fernandez.

II.
A German reporter asked of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Lund and the five hundredth anniversary of Luther’s reformation. The Pope is very pleased with the previously agreed on agreement on justification, one of the principal issues of the Reformation, now apparently agreed on by all. Several basic issues remain, but the Pope thinks working on commonly agreed projects of charity and poverty will help. When asked about when Christian unity will happen, the Pope humorously responded probably after the Lord comes. [Here, I am truly surprised Fr. Schall appears to have missed the whole discourse about Martin Luther being right, etc.]

A lady from Le Monde in Paris wanted to know about the deaconesses. The Pope’s answer was that we will study the matter. When asked what this means, he responded that the Argentin -s say that when you do not want to get something done, appoint a committee, which is what he is doing. He cautioned about thinking that his recommendation for study meant anything more than that, as there was a previous study under John Paul II.

Francis continued: "They said: ‘The Church has opened the door to deaconesses.’ Really? I am a bit angry because this is not telling the truth of things… I spoke with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, and he told me, ‘Look, there is a study which the International Theological Commission had made in 1980.’ And I asked the president to please make me a list." That is, a list of names for another commission. The Pope sounded like he wanted to side-track the deaconess issue for now.

Finally there is the much publicized response to a CNS correspondent that the Church, following a speech of Reinhold Cardinal Marx in Dublin that the Church ought to apologize to the gays for all the hurt religion has caused them. The Pope’s basic line is that homosexuals should be treated kindly and accompanied in their spiritual journey. It’s in the Catechism. He admits that "certain (gay) manifestations are a bit too offensive for others."

The "problem", as the Pope sees it, is "that a person has a condition, that has good will and who seeks God, who are we to judge?" It is not clear just how many, if any, in the vast homosexual community have these conditions. Nor is there any indication of whether there is a way out, whether this is a natural condition or a chosen habit.

The Pope added: "There are traditions in some countries in some cultures that have a different mentality on the problem." This observation sounds like historicism, that morality is not and cannot be universal but relative to the place or time. Aristotle in a famous passage remarked that the German tribes had a habit of stealing and did not think it was wrong. The question was whether we should leave them in their ignorance or teach them the truth about stealing or, in this case, the difficulties, personal and social, connected with a homosexual life.

On the question of whether the Church should ask forgiveness for its past treatment, it is not entirely clear what was the fault. From St. Paul himself, this sort of life has been seen as a problem, not just another way to live. Surely the fault for which we must apologize is not what Scripture and reason teach?

Today homosexual life is considered a "right". Everyone else must legally admit that nothing is wrong with it. But if there is something objectively wrong with it, it is not a help to those with the problem to be told that nothing is wrong with them. If everyone apologizes for thinking that there might be something not in their own temporal or ultimate interest, no one will have cause to reexamine his life.

The Pope’s pleas for understanding of such a way of life are but normal pastoral practice. The more basic question is not about those trying their best not to live a disordered life (the ones the Pope designated), but those, no doubt in practice the great majority, who want actively to live in this culture as if nothing is wrong. It is the old question of what we should tell a sick man. Do we tell him the truth or do we lie to him? Both can be done delicately.

The Pope then goes on to give an astonishing list of past ills that we must forgive. It was John Paul II who began this notion of forgiving in the present something in the past that was not the deed of those asking for forgiveness. This is not a totally flawed idea, I suppose. But it risks confusing the very nature of forgiveness of actual sins of one’s own and not those of someone else, over which we really have no control.

Here are the things for which we should forgivness, besides offenses to the gays: 1) "the poor", 2) "women", 3) "children who ae exploited for labor", 4) blessed military weapons, 5) "for not behaving many times". This is quite a list. Though related, none of the Ten Commandments make this list. One also might wonder if weapons used in defending, say, Europe from the Muslims at Tours, Christians in Sudan, or those used during World War II needed apologies or blessings.

The Pope’s view of the three genocides would seem to indicate that he realized that the Turks, Germans, and Soviets needed to be stopped. He has said the same of the need to defend Christians in the Near East. I presume we need not yet forgive the active abortionist and his industry for the rather unpleasant things we have said about them. But, as I say, abstract forgivieness of the many sins of others in the past or present is tricky business.

At the end of the press conference, Father Lombardi, the Papal Press Secretary, said to the Pope: "I’m allowing myself to pose your Holiness a final question and then we’ll leave you in peace." To this, an attentive Pope Francis replied: "Don’t put me in difficulty."

And that seems a pretty good way to end a conference, with a sentiment we can hope is also the result of our reading the various remarks, that they not put any of us — Pope, correspondents, or readers — in difficulty.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 1 luglio 2016 02:46


Magister's blogpost today was actually about Benedict XVI's words at the Vatican ceremony on Tuesday to commemorate the 65th anniversary
of his priestly ordination - words which Magister apparently and remarkably found unremarkable in themselves, except that they were even said
at all - and then he added this as a post-script.


B16's new interview book
with Peter Seewald will be
'an annotated autobiography'

Translated from

June 30, 2016

It has not been completely silent - the course of the emeritus pope 'invented' by Joseph Ratzinger, which is an unicum in history.

Corriere della Sera announced today that on September 9, an interview book of 240 pages will be published in Italy by Corriere and Garzanti entitled Ultime conversazioni between Benedict XVI and journalist Peter Seewald.

The book is announced as 'an annotated autobiography' which will cover the emeritus Pope's life from his childhood to his renunciation of the papacy, which will "dispel the doubts on presumed shakedowns that forced him to leave office".

It will also touch on the post-renunciation period, including "the peculiarities and differences' between him and his successor, "a name not expected by Ratzinger on the eve of the Conclave".



After February 11, 2013, Seewald had said that he would be working on a new biography of Benedict XVI, towards which he had been having conversations with him in the Vatican before then. The last such conversation before February 11 supposedly took place about 10 weeks earlier (early December 2015?). Obviously, the renunciation shook up those plans a bit, and one presumes more conversations followed.

It is very welcome, of course, that B16 has a chance to define his version of events, but one can be sure the book - a fairly short one - will not put to rest all the conspiracy theories and conjectures, and in fact, may even raise new questions. But at least, he will have his say if only against the most outrageous hypotheses.

Obviously, it will not be a comprehensive retelling of his life story. The description of it as 'annotated' seems to indicate that it will touch on certain aspects of his biography which he feels require more clarity and/or more detail.

In any case, September is two months away, but we will probably have a preview of its actual contents earlier because one assumes the original German edition will be published earlier.

At this point, I'd like to comment a bit on Sandro Magister's negatively critical view of Benedict XVI's actions and decisions after he stepped down as pope. This view is very obvious in the article he wrote to comment on Mons. Gaenswein's rather intemperate articulation of an 'expanded Petrine ministry'-
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351317?eng=y
which Magister deduces had to have been fully authorized by Benedict XVI himself.

But he descends to the trivial when he enumerates that Benedict still wears white cassocks, still lives in the Vatican, still signs himself Benedict XVI (though without the PP.) and is still called Your Holiness or Holy Father. In this, he takes the side of the theologians and canonists he cites who believe that the emeritus pope should be nothing more than what any other retired bishop is.

Magister then proceeds to cite 12 instances in which Benedict XVI has expressed himself in letters or messages which Magister thinks have violated Benedict's words that he would retire hidden and in silence. The 13th instance he cites are the remarks he gave at the Vatican on Tuesday.

Perhaps Benedict XVI should never have said he would henceforth be hidden from the world in those words. He did say he would not be going out in public or traveling or attending meetings or giving lectures, but I don't think he ruled out sending messages now and then, and certainly nothing that could be considered proposing a rival Magisterium to that of the reigning pope. Unless it be, as it has turned out, to underscore when he can in non-confrontational ways, what the traditional Magisterium is - as he has done about communion for RCDs or evangelization as mission or the Catholic belief in trans-substantiation.

The point, as Magister himself acknowledges, is that Benedict's post-papacy is completely unprecedented, and he has been writing its rules as he goes along. Why not? As long as he is not stepping on anyone's toes or interfering in Church affairs or arrogating prerogatives he has no right to. If there should be future emeritus popes, they too can write their own rules under those same conditions.

To even suggest that Benedict XVI has been behaving selfishly in what he has decided to do as an ex-pope is to say that the lifelong humility and modesty that have characterized him was all sham. In that way, I think that the open criticism of his post-papal course of action by people like Magister and George Weigel, whose criticism is particularly acrimonious, is equivalent to belying everything good they have ever said and written about him. Is that really what they want to accomplish now?



July 1, 2016
P.S. CNA did a story based on the original Corriere della Sera item about the book - which I did not have the common sense to go check out after citing Magister's citation of it!... What is remarkable about the story is that, in order to flesh out the necessarily sketchy Corsera report (a teaser, really, more than the 'preview' that it labelled itself to be),it adds quite a bit of Peter Seewald's personal assessment - of course, very positive - of Benedict XVI. That is a small but significant initiative few mainstream journalists would take.


On Benedict XVI's
new booklength interview



Vatican City, Jul 1, 2016 — Though he has rarely spoken since resigning from the papacy, Benedict XVI granted several lengthy interviews to German journalist Peter Seewald shortly after stepping down - conversations that touched on themes such as the reform of the Curia, his resignation and his thoughts on Pope Francis.

The interviews, conducted a few months after Benedict’s Feb. 28, 2013, resignation, are set to be released in one book simultaneously worldwide Sept. 9, according to Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

About 240 pages i length, the book in the original German is titled Letzte Gespräche (Last Conversations) and “touches upon all the most important stages of life of Joseph Ratzinger.”

These stages include Benedict’s childhood under the Nazi regime, the discovery of his vocation to the priesthood, the hardships of the war and his time in the Vatican until his election to the papacy. It also covers “the anxiety” of his first few days as successor of St. Peter, as well as his “painful” decision to resign and his thoughts on Pope Francis.

In his responses to Seewald, Benedict speaks about himself, his faith, his weaknesses, his private life, the scandals and controversial issues of his reign, and his papacy in general, explaining the reason for his choice to resign – "initially only communicated to a few trusted people to avoid leaks."

The retired Pope also speaks about the reform of the Roman Curia and the Vatileaks, and outlines the differences between him and Francis in light of “his own peculiarities” and those of his Argentine successor.

He also mentions the “gay lobby” at the Vatican – a group of four to five persons, which he says he was able to break up.

Seewald had also interviewed Benedict XVI at length for the 2010 book “Light of the Word: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.” With then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he had two interview books, published in English as Salt of the Earth, and God and the World.

CNA contacted Seewald for comment on the book, but he said that for the moment, he prefers not to speak.

In an interview with CNA when Light of the World came out in 2010, Seewald said Benedict “is one of the greatest minds of the Catholic Church; someone with a great heart and…a fighter by nature, someone who remains standing amidst the storms, someone who is not afraid.”

“He is someone who does not get stuck in the past or in the present. He is someone who is very much a part of our times,” Seewald said, adding that he has always considered Benedict “a very modern man, someone who is always accessible, who promotes and seeks dialogue.”

“I would say he is an upright man and by far one of the greatest figures of our time…he is man who is always willing to listen, because he is not only a great thinker, he is also a great spiritual teacher.”

In a world that is “often blind,” it’s important to have someone “with this unbreakable attitude of openness,” he said, voicing his belief that Benedict “will be much better appreciated in the future” than he was at that time.



Last June 28, Pope Francis received a copy of the book of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's homilies on the priesthood that had been published to mark the 65th anniversary
of Benedict's priestly ordination.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 2 luglio 2016 15:45


JMB/PF's problem with words, to put it charitably, has become so chronic that an editorial by one of the leading Catholic online journals in English must now address it, and in surprisingly blunt terms, too, especially in comparison with his two predecessors...

10 things Michael Cook gets wrong
in his criticism of papal critics

Yes, Francis is often misquoted.
[That may be so, but the most serious criticisms of what he says
arise from his formal documents and are exact quotations!]

Yes, Francis sometimes trips over his own rhetorical toes.
But there are deeper problems. And saying so isn't a sin.

Editorial
by Carl Olson

June 30, 2016

I've read Mercatornet.com for many years and read it every week to great benefit. The folks over there do wonderful work. But Michael Cook, editor of Mercatornet.com, has done himself and readers no favors with his recently posted piece "7 reasons why the Pope’s gaffes are OK" [The title itself is already all wrong. In English, a gaffe (the French word for 'blunder') is, by dictionary definition "1. a clumsy social blunder or faux pas; 2. a blatant mistake or misjudgement. Journalists seem to use it only in the primary sense, as if to make light of a perceived error (as Cook apparently does with JMB), or to underscore a perceived clumsiness or tactlessness in someone (as the media used it to describe the Regensburg lecture, and a few other statements or actions they considered 'mis-steps' - literal meaning of faux pas - by Benedict XVI.]

While I'm surely not going to defend all criticisms of Pope Francis—quite the contrary!—I think there are some serious problems with Cook's approach and his 7 points.

Here are ten points in response:

1. Cook, like many of those taking umbrage with criticisms of Pope Francis, does not offer distinctions about the various forms of criticism out there.

He mentions "malcontents" who are, in some cases, calling for the Holy Father's resignation. As far as I know, critics such as myself, Edward Peters, Phil Lawler, Jeff Mirus, Monsignor Charles Pope, Amy Welborn, Janet Smith, and Rachel Lu — just to mention some American writers who have criticized certain statements or actions of Francis have never called for his resignation.

It's easy to highlight the most extreme or even outrageous criticisms made of Francis. Unfortunately, the conversation (if it is such a thing) over Francis within Catholic circles seems to often consist of little more than a shouting match between those who think He's the Greatest Pope Ever (and I'm not exaggerating) and those who think He's the Antichrist and a Communist Antichrist at That (again, not exaggerating).

But there has been a steady, if not always recognized, flow of measured, thoughtful, and insightful criticism, some of it going back to the latter part of 2013, as when one perplexed pundit wrote: "To state what should be obvious, a pope in 2013 simply needs to be as precise and clear as possible. Fuzzy language, half-formed concepts, and failure to make important distinctions will eventually result in confusion and frustration."

Yes, I am that pundit, and I do think my concerns, alas, have been borne out. The fact is, critics such as myself and those mentioned above have been focused on three main things:
- the scolding and abrasive tone sometimes used by Francis, oftentimes in reference to Christians;
- the ambiguity and imprecision which often appears in not only the now legendary off-the-cuff utterances, but also in homilies and even more formal papal documents such as Amoris Laetitia; and
- statements about various matters — especially relating to marriage and family life — that are either bewildering or, arguably, simply wrong. Cook never addresses or acknowledges those criticisms, which seriously undermines his arguments.

2. Cook states: "Well, I’m a fan of Pope Francis and I don’t think that there is anything to worry about. Perhaps he should get a new press secretary, but his Catholic critics shouldn’t get their knickers in a knot." If there is nothing to worry about, why get a new press secretary? And, again, why tell Catholic critics to unknot their knickers when you won't present some of the many (and there are many) legitimate, sober concerns raised by serious, thoughtful Catholics?

3. Cook's first point is Francis "is often badly misreported." That is true. Does Cook not think that, say, someone like Phil Lawler, who is a veteran Catholic journalist and editor (he edited CWR for many years) who wrote a most serious book about the sex abuse scandals in Boston, is not able to recognize misreporting?

For my part, I always seek out the official translation/transcription of papal interviews, and I always give the Holy Father the benefit of the doubt, as is both fair and fitting. So, for example, this past February I defended some of Francis's remarks about conscience and "same-sex unions", even though it would have relatively easy to spin them in a negative direction, or to let the secular media push my buttons.

4. "Cut him some slack, people!", says Cook, "Scrutinise his written documents, not off-the-cuff comments."

To which I say, see CWR's symposium on Amoris Laetitia, which includes some sixteen essays by theologians and scholars including Dr. Leroy Huizenga, Dr. Stephan Kampowski, Fr. James Schall, SJ, Dr. Adam G. Cooper, Dr. David Deavel, and Edward Peters, among others. I praised the document's opening chapters, saying they "provide a Scriptural and theological reflection on the nature of marriage and family, is often powerful and poetic in equal measure", but then note serious problems in the now rather famous chapter 8, stating:

For whatever reason, Francis seems to think that the past few decades have been marked by a dogmatic rigidity that is as merciless as it is obsessed with the fine details of law, causing countless innocent or near innocent Catholics to flee a Church that they perceive to be cold and heartless.

That perspective is, to put it nicely, dubious and problematic. The impression often given, unfortunately, is that any emphasis on objective moral standards regarding actions and relationships is bound to quickly degenerate into a harsh and uncharitable condemnation.


Homilies are also an issue. In June, I offered some thoughts on a homily that was, at best, a mess; just a few days ago, Monsignor Charles Pope wrote a very measured but strong piece for National Catholic Register about Francis' description of some priests being "animals".

But there is also this simple fact: the Pope's "off-the-cuff" remarks are not throwaway campaign fodder, but
1) provide insight into Francis'S thinking,
2) have influence among both media and readers (perhaps too much influence, but that's another matter), and
3) are part of the rhetorical and intellectual framework of this pontificate.

If they mean so little, why does the Holy Father bother? I say that if Francis thinks they are worth saying in public and for the record, they should be taken seriously, even though they are not magisterial in nature. [He means them seriously enough to have said that, to paraphrase, "everything I say is magisterium. Read what I say, not what others say I said".

And there's the problem: what he actually says is often - too often - questionable, to say the least. And BTW, 'what others say I said' can refer just as well to those who are his professional propagandists and apologists, not just to his critics. So ignore those accolades and apologia, too, just as you should ignore the criticisms, when reading what he says - it's not going to change what he did say, one way or the other.]


5. Cook states: "Benedict XVI was ill at ease with the media but pushed himself to engage in open forums. He made gaffes as well. The increasingly open and engaged style of the modern Papacy has evolved still further with Pope Francis. He clearly wants to be both a pastor and a theology professor. But he’s just a Pope not Superman; he can’t do both equally well."

Whew. Where to start? First, the comment about Benedict XVI is simply incorrect. Wildly incorrect. Joseph Ratzinger was a professor in 1959 [during which time, from the start, they called him 'Goldmund', German for 'Chrysostomos', or 'golden mouth', not just for the brilliance of what he said, but because, as many have commented, whatever he says is almost always 'print-ready'! And that his university lectures were so highly reputed that they were attended regularly even by ordinary folk, not just his students] and was a peritus, or theological consultant, at Vatican II while just in his thirties. He was head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for nearly a quarter century (1981-2005), and in that capacity interacted often with the media.

[I would add that more important than his interaction with the media was his interaction with the faithful. As Archbishop of Munich, it was reported the cathedral was always filled and people stood out in the open to listen to his Sunday homilies, and that the archdiocese had to print the homilies for distribution afterwards. Of which other cardinal or archbishop today has that been reported? And so, it should not have been surprising that his audiences and Angelus appearances as Pope attracted more people than even John Paul II.]

Cook has succumbed here to the silly "Ratzinger is shy and reticent" mythology employed by those who either know little about the man or wish to misrepresent him (I'm thinking here of Fr. Thomas Reese's stupid comment ten years ago that Benedict lacked "street smarts"). [By all accounts, Joseph Ratzinger was never shy and reticent about his faith and proclaiming Christ, nor about expressing himself on everything else if he has something significant to say. And while he may have started off being shy by nature, his vocation necessarily divested him of shyness, and when journalists continued to call him 'shy' even when he was already pope, they really meant 'modest' and 'retiring' (as in not wishing to call attention to himself).

Secondly, I can think of just a couple of gaffes that might be rightly applied to Benedict during his eight years as pope, such as his comments about contraceptives in Africa — and that comment was itself taken out of context by many.

Quite a few folks like to point to the Regensburg Lecture as somehow a "gaffe", but I think it is actually one of many highlights of a papacy that was willing to speak honestly and seriously about the essential role that bad ideas have in the real world (for more on that see Dr. Samuel Gregg's recent and excellent CWR essay "Regensburg Revisited: Ten Years Later, A West Still in Denial"). ['One of many highlights' is an understatement for what was arguably the most significant secular address ever given by a pope since popes started addressing secular audiences in the media age, and more importantly, the first seminal discourse by anyone for the third millennium. It has surely earned its well-merited niche in the history of ideas. I cannot think offhand of any politicial leader or intellectual today who is capable of giving a seminal discourse on anything!]

Thirdly, I would argue that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI were both exceptional pastors and theologians; both roles can be done equally well by many priests.

One problem, it appears, is that Francis has little patience for doctrine, which is an impediment, of course, for anyone who wishes to be a theologian. And then there is the little noticed fact that Francis apparently has no experience as a pastor at a parish level — which is not remarkable, except that he is considered to be exceedingly "pastoral". [Based entirely, it seems, upon the fact that he frequented the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, which is admirable, bringing the sacraments to them. But what exactly did he teach them about the faith? That it's all right that most of them are unmarried co-habitating couples, and it's all right for them to receive communion? No, increasingly it appears that what his biographers and propagandists mean by 'pastoral' is what JMB himself means by it - accommodating the doctrine and discipline of the faith to the convenient level that is acceptable to his flock. Not at all what Jesus meant when he said "Feed my flock".]

6. "A real father is not supposed to be a buttoned-up, dogma-spouting robot," says Cook, "Let him speak his mind, even if he has to backtrack occasionally to clarify some of his words."

Does Cook, or any other serious Catholic, think that John Paul II or Benedict XVI were "buttoned-up, dogma-spouting robots"? I doubt it; I hope not!

But here's the rub: Lack of clarity and cohesion in language indicates a lack of clarity and cohesion in thought. Lack of clarity and cohesion on a nearly weekly basis is, frankly, troublesome. Hiring a new press secretary will only go so far. [There! Olson has articulated what I have been saying all the time, but which even the more outspoken Bergoglio critics (who are not of the extremist Verrechio-Mundabor school) have not been able to say though it is a most obvious conclusion.]

7. Cook insists: "If you want to know what Pope Francis thinks, read documents which he has signed and sealed, not CNN reports." See #1 and #4.

Then ponder this question: What reveals more clearly the mind and heart of a man: his impromptu and on-the-spot comments or his carefully scripted written statements?

8. "The Pope is not the only public figure to make gaffes." But that's really not the problem, is it? Sure, gaffes are highlighted and emphasized to a ridiculous degree in this day and age, what with the internet and social media and such, but most sane folks can understand and handle an occasional "gaffe". Yet when "gaffes" become a pattern, and the pattern becomes the norm, we are no longer talking about gaffes, are we? [Not in the limited sense that journalists use the word, certainly, but about outright conceptual blunders.]

9. "Catholics learn more about what the Pope says from CNN and social media," says Cook, "than they do from Sunday homilies in their local church or even the Vatican's website."

But he was talking about certain critics of Francis — and the critics I have in mind do not (emphatically do not) listen to CNN and social media over what the Pope really says. The last time I actually turned to CNN on purpose and stayed there for more than 10 seconds was during the 2013 papal conclave, when I watched Anderson Cooper ask some silly questions of some silly women standing in St. Peter's Square about women's ordination. This point is simply a straw man.

10. Finally, Cook says:

There are public men who have a gift for precision, for le mot juste, for pleasing with polished phrases, for sound bites which win votes without making waves, for promises so vague they need never be kept, for words so vacuous they can never be criticised. Spineless creatures like this are called politicians. Do Catholics really want a politician for a Pope?


Goodness! Is Cook suggesting that Catholics don't want a Pope who insists that global warming is a proven fact, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, who further suggests that unemployment is a major cause for terrorism, who rails against shadowy global entities that control the economy, who condemns those who make ammunition and those who don't use ammunition in certain situations, who indicates that government regulations are the answer to economic woes, who often denounces and so forth?

It's revealing, even though entirely anecdotal, that when I asked (completely out of the blue) a longtime Evangelical friend who has been a pastor of some 30 years what he thought of Francis, he simply stated, "He comes across as a politician."

More to the point, Cook's notion that politicians are noted for their precision is specious, at best, since the real issue isn't precision but truth.

Many politicians are ambiguous and confusing, or say one thing to one group and another thing to another group. Then again, Donald Trump is very specific and blunt — does Cook think he might be a good choice for President of the United States?

Pope Francis talks constantly of mercy but quite often without any call for conversion or exhortation to avoid specific sins: is that a sound bite or a polished phrase? You be the judge.

I'll finish with some remarks that I made a few days ago in a Facebook discussion (something I generally avoid) about criticism of Francis. I stated, in explaining why I thought some criticisms were warranted, as follows:

We live in a unique time, when the words of the Holy Father are available within minutes or hours of being uttered.

The amount of words being uttered is quite large; the amount of confusion within various interviews and "off-the-cuff" remarks is significant. The usual suspects use said confusion, ambiguities, and questionable statements for their own ends.

In order to defend and clarify Church teaching, one sometimes has to point out that Francis is either ambiguous or unclear about this or that. And, occasionally, he appears to be completely wrong. So, what to do?

The pope's main work is to defend and define when necessarily, while upholding the teachings of the Church.

My job, as a lay Catholic, is to be true to the teachings of Christ and of his Church, and if a pope isn't clear about, say, the nature of marriage, or certain moral teachings, I have a right and responsibility to respectfully point it out. I refuse to be an ultramontanist.

The other problem, compounding matters further, is that John Paul II and Benedict XVI were not only quite brilliant, they were remarkably clear and consistent. Francis is often neither. Fine — but we're used to some clarity and consistently. And, at some level, we should be getting it.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 2 luglio 2016 16:27
PewSitter headlines, July 2, 2016
Mostly, it seems, over what a Scalia-less SCOTUS
(Supreme Court of the United States) has wrought...




As for that headline about B16, as usual, media picked out the 'sexiest' (i.e., most 'sensational') item they could pick out of the necessarily limited information given in Corriere's preview article, implying that the 'gay lobby' could have had something to do at all with his resignation, even if the preview also says Benedict claims "he managed to break it up"...



Pope Benedict reveals he was put under pressure
by Vatican 'gay lobby' trying to wield power

o Pope Benedict, 89, cited health reasons when he stepped down in 2013
o Former pope insists he was not pressured in to resigning from the role
o But he reveals there was a 'gay lobby' in the Vatican who were seeking to influence decisions


July 1, 2016

Pope Benedict has revealed a 'gay lobby' in the Vatican tried to influence decisions during his papacy - but that no-one pressured him to resign.

He promised to remain 'hidden to the world' and has been living in a former convent in the Vatican gardens.

Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, which has acquired the Italian newspaper rights for excerpts and has access to the book, ran a long article today summarising its key points.

In the book, Benedict says that he came to know of the presence of a 'gay lobby' made up of four or five people who were seeking to influence Vatican decisions. The article says Benedict says he managed to 'break up this power group'.

His memoirs, called 'The Last Conversations', are due out in September and are the first time in history that a former pope judges his own pontificate after it is over.

Citing health reasons, the 89-year-old became the first pope in six centuries to resign when he stepped down in 2013.

Benedict resigned following a turbulent papacy ['Turbulent'? There has been more turbulence every week in the current Pontificate than there was in all eight years of Benedict XVI, in which the 'turbulence' was primarily media-generated, not pope-generated as it is now.] that included the so-called 'Vatileaks' case, in which his butler leaked some of his personal letters and other documents that alleged corruption [without any actual cases cited, or at least none that any journalist bothered to look into, which they would have if they thought there was anything worth looking into], and a power struggle in the Vatican [there always is a power struggle in the Vatican under any pope].

Italian media at the time reported that a faction of prelates who wanted to discredit Benedict and pressure him to resign was behind the leaks.

The Church has maintained its centuries-long opposition to homosexual acts.

But rights campaigners have long said many gay people work for the Vatican, and Church sources have said they suspect that some had banded together to support each other's careers and influence decisions in the bureaucracy.

Benedict, who now has the title 'emeritus pope,' has always maintained that he made his choice to leave freely and Corriere says that in the book Benedict 'again denies blackmail or pressure'.

He says he told only a few people close to him of his intention to resign, fearing it would be leaked before he made the surprise announcement on Feb. 11, 2013.

The former pope, in the book-long interview with German writer Peter Seewald, says he had to overcome his own doubts on the effect his choice could have on the future of the papacy.

He says that he was 'incredulous' when cardinals meeting in a secret conclave chose him to succeed the late Pope John Paul II in 2005 and that he was 'surprised' when the cardinals chose Francis as his successor in 2013.

Anger over the dysfunctional state of the Vatican bureaucracy in 2013 was one factor in the cardinal electors' decision to choose a non-European pope for the first time in nearly 1,300 years. [As if the Vatican bureaucracy has not always been 'dysfunctional'! As if under every pope in modern times, complaints about the Vatican Curia have not always been SOP! And worse, as if a dysfunctional Curia were the most urgent problem the Church has or had! And yet, if a dysfunctional Curia was the worst that they could say about Benedict XVI's Pontificate, then that says a lot, does it not, even if in the heat of those pre-Conclave days, and even now, they, like all of media, were and are all too short-sighted to realize that it is actually a compliment to Benedict XVI.]

Benedict 'admits his lack of resoluteness in governing,' Corriere says. [I would really like to see what he actually said about that, not Corriere's read on what it was.]

In the book, whose lead publisher is Germany's Droemer Knaur, Benedict says he kept a diary throughout his papacy but will destroy it, even though he realizes that for historians it would be a 'golden opportunity'. [If he has not destroyed it yet, I hope he changes his mind and leaves it intact to his principal repository of documents, the Regensburg-based Institut Papst Benedikt XVI, with the appropriate conditions to limit accessibility... If I remember right, John Paul II also left a diary which he specifically instructed his then secretary, now Cardinal Dsiwisz, to destroy, but the cardinal decided not to follow that instruction. One presumes he still has custody of it, but what does he intend to do with it? He is morally bound not to publish it or to cause any part of it to be published.]

I've really presented this story erratically. I ought to have gone straight to the Corriere story on which Magister based his blogpost two days ago. Let me do that now, and then add a more interesting PS to it, also from Corriere...

Joseph Ratzinger tells us
'And thus I decided to leave the Papacy'

On Sept. 9, the worldwide publication of a book by the emeritus Pope.
An autobiography in the form of an interview.
To be published in Italy by Garzanti and Corriere

by the Staff

June 30, 2016

A Pope who evaluates his own Pontificate. After his renunciation in 2013, Benedict XVI breaks his silence and talks about himself and his pontificate in a book.

It is the first time this happens in the history of the Church. [Inevitably, because it is the first time a former Pope is alive but not disgraced to be able to tell his own story. In Benedict XVI's case, a welcome and salutary initiative because there has been too much loose and irresponsible talk about his renunciation to be allowed to stand unchallenged.]

Simultaneous publication worldwide in several language editions is planned for Sept. 9. The Italian edition of the book, entitled Ultime Conversazioni (Last conversations) (240pp, euro 12.90) will be published by Garzanti for bookstore sales and by Corriere della Sera for newsstand sales.

The book based on interviews with German journalist Peter Seewald - who, in the past, did three other book-length interviews with then Cardinal Ratzinger and then with Pope Benedict - is a kind of 'annotated autobiography' which touches on all the most important stages of Joseph Ratzinger's life: his childhood in a Nazi regime, the discovery of his vocation, the difficult war years, and then, his career in the Vatican, up to his election as Pope, with all the anxieties of its initial days and finally, the difficult decision to give up the papacy. [Perhaps inadvertently, the preceding sentence omits his preparation for the priesthood, his subsequent quarter-century as a university professor and theologian, and his appointment as Archbishop of Munich-Freising.]

Joseph Ratzinger speaks about himself, his faith, his weaknesses, his private life, the 'scandals' and highlights of his papacy, and explains his decision to leave office. A decision he shared with only a few confidants in order not to have it leaked before he made his dramatic announcement on February 11, 2013.

In the process, he denies that any blackmail or external pressures pushed him to his decision.

In the book, Benedict XVI also looks at his successor, whose election, he claims, he had not expected. Two different personalities, two ways of understanding what the papacy is. The emeritus Pope talks about the differences between him and Francis, and their individual peculiarities.

So, nothing in that 'preview' about the 'gay lobby'... The following day, however, Corriere ran this story by the man who was the newspaper's chief Vaticanista during the John Paul II years and the initial years of Benedict XVI. It is he who provides some of the advance information on which the media have focused so far...

Benedict XVI:
'My years as Pope'

The sleepless nights after the Conclave, Vatican infighting, his resignation.
Joseph Ratzinger tells his story in a book coming out in September.

by Luigi Accatoli
Translated from

July 1, 2016

A book of memoirs from Pope Benedict: It will be on sale throughout most of the world in mid-September. The title: Benedetto XVI. Ultime conversazioni, a book-length interview with German author Peter Seewald who was already published three books of dialog with Joseph Ratzinger, two while he was cardinal (1996 and 2000), and one when he was Pope (2010).

The new book promises to be the most interesting, even more than the interview when he was pope, because a pope is a pope, but an emeritus Pope is an absolute novelty.

Announcing the publication yesterday, the German publishing house Droehmer, which is coordinating publication of editions in other languages, said rightly that for the first time, we have "a Pope who makes an assessment of his own Pontificate". [Probably not an assessment as such, rating himself A, B, C or D, but how he saw things from his perspective with all the facts known only to himself, and not from the perspective of outside observers.]

The title of the book also indicates that it constitutes Benedict XVI's testament. In the three-plus years since he stepped down as pope, he has spoken little, and never openly as he says he does in this book. In which he responds to far from reticent questions about his renunciation, his successor, his own human story from his childhood to his eight years as Pope.

From his preparations to announce his renunciation, to the investigation into the 'gay lobby' at the Vatican, to the 'surprise' for him of the cardinals' choice to succeed him, the theologian Pope who turns 90 next year, has emotional recollections of behind-the-scenes events during his Pontificate.

He recalls preparing to announce his renunciation, taking into confidence only a few persons, since he wanted to avoid any leak before he could make the announcement himself.

He had reason to fear a leak, because there had never been so much news and documents leaked from the Vatican in the past century. [That is an unqualifiedly hyperbolic statement. There was only one leak - the 200 or so documents that Paolo Gabriele pilfered from the papal secretary's desk, none of which could be considered of major significance because
1) much of it had already been reported as news at the time the specific episodes happened;
2) what had not been reported was mostly gossip and reciprocal allegations involving persons wishing to assert or grab power at their respective levels in the Vatican, and
3) most importantly, none of the pilfered documents reflected negatively on Benedict XVI at all, as even Nuzzi, who published the pilfered documents, was careful to point out in his book.


He says that he chose to communicate such a weighty decision in Latin, wishing to avoid any 'linguistic error' if he had used any other language like, say, Italian.

He confesses the doubts that he had to overcome in himself regarding the impact of his decision on the future of the papacy.

And once again, he denies any blackmail or external pressures behind his decision.

He recalls that he had been following the TV coverage of the 2013 Conclave and speaks of his 'surprise' on hearing the name of his successor - that he had thought of other names "but not him". Well, so did all of us journalists!

But after the surprise came the 'joy' of seeing how the new pope prayed and spoke with the crowd.

In response to a question, Benedict speaks of the human and papal figures of Francis, and freely refers to what they have in common as much as to their differences.

He recounts his childhood and adolescence in Nazi Germany. How he discovered his vocation. His prison experience in an American camp near Ulm after World War II. The successes and disappointments of his academic career. The publications that led to him taking part in Vatican II as a peritus [expert consultant]. He had narrated some of this previously in his first memoir, La mia vita (published in English as Milestones) in 1997, about the first 50 years of his life.

About the years that followed, the new book describes his strong bond with John Paul II, whom he had requested many times to accept his resignation from the CDF, and the Polish Pope's refusal, obviously wishing him to be by his side to the very end.

And even his thoughts about death, how he feels 'weak' in the face of it, and how he is preparing for it.

He speaks about the sense of 'incredulity' he experienced a the 2005 Conclave when he realized that the choice was going to fall on him. Why he did not choose to call himself John Paul III, but instead to link his Pontificate to St. Benedict and to Benedict XV, who had called the First World War 'a useless massacre'.

He talks about sleepless nights in the first several days after his election because of the anxiety over the great responsibility that was now his.

He rejects the criticism that as a Pope, he was 'too academic, concentrating on study and writing' [An absurd criticism, of cours,e but one that was often made by those who claimed he was an 'isolated' pope who talked to no one. Ignoring the testimony of world leaders, politicians, ordinary laymen, and the bishops of the world who reported to him, about what an excellent listener he was, and how well prepared he was for each of these meetings. Which is what everyone else who had dealt with him before he became pope had always said about him - and that he could summarize better than they could what they had told him.]

He rejects being considered a 'restorer' in terms of liturgy. [He restored the full legitimacy of the traditional Mass but did not change the Novus Ordo at all.]

He recalls his initiatives to reform IOR and the laws he promulgated against money laundering.

He speaks about the scourge of sexually-abusive priests and underscores the difficulties that even a Pope faces when trying to intervene to clean up the 'filth' in the Church.

He admits he knew of the presence of a 'gay lobby' in the Vatican composed of four or five persons and says he was able to dissolve that power bloc - information which we have not had before.
[About which JMB has been less than candid, because surely Benedict XVI had told him about this, and it must have been part of the documentation contained in the boxes he turned over to him when they first met in Castel Gandolfo in March 2013. Speaking to media at that now infamous first inflight news conference almost 3 years ago, coming back from Rio, JMB simply said "Yes, there is a gay lobby in the Vatican", but did not say that Benedict thought he had broken it up, nor, if it still existed, what he, JMB, was doing about it. Nor, more remarkably, did any of the captive newsmen ask what he was doing about it. Nor did anyone ask afterwards, because everyone got distracted immediately by his next remark "Who am I to judge?' And no one has returned to speak of the 'gay lobby' again.]

He admits his lack of resoluteness in governing. [I really would like an exact quotation about this. If he lacked 'resoluteness', he would never have carried out the major decisive actions of his Pontificate!]

He says he made notes about many things that happened during his Pontificate but he says he will destroy these notes even if he knows it would provide a gold mine for historians. [So it was not a diary, after all!]


TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 2 luglio 2016 23:14


It still puzzles me that the whole world, including those that one must consider the best people writing at present in the Catholic media, continue to profess being surprised by the Bergoglian accommodations to whoever wants to receive communion.

Right after the 2013 Conclave, how many times were we told by journalists who had been reporting on him 'forever' in Buenos Aires - instant Bergoglidolators, as well as those opposed to his anti-Catholic actions - that his policy in Buenos Aires was 'communion for everyone'? I took them at their word, and JMB's words and actions since then bears them out completely.

It's just that as pope, even he does not dare administer to the universal Church that death-blow in toto to the sanctity of the Eucharist, and has been trying to do it piecemeal - death by a thousand cuts, but death nonetheless - starting with remarried divorcees, practising homosexuals and unmarried co-habitators. If that is not one of the most shameless acts of hypocrisy there ever was.

When you start making exceptions to the rule that in order to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, one must be in the proper state of grace, then you really invalidate the entire 'rule'.

When the pope says, as he does in AL, that 'some' people living in a chronic state of sin may actually be in a state of grace, then the average Catholic may well ask - why should one continue to take 'sin' seriously, as the offense to God that it is, and even bother to go to confession at all?


He can do as the Catholics of Buenos Aires did and just go to communion anytime and everytime he wants to do so, because 'the Eucharist is medicine for the weak'. (It may be, dear Padre Jorge/pioneering Eucharistic theologian, but that does not mean anyone and everyone can just receive the Eucharist without the requisites the Church has always required).


So now, we come to the next logical extension of the Bergoglian 'communion for everyone' which he also anticipated a few months back...Next thing we know, he will also authorize communion even for non-Christians - an absurd contradiction, obviously - but Bergoglian logic is sui generis and apparently has nothing to do with reason and common sense, so why not?


Communion for everyone,
even for Protestants

The pope's closest associates prepare the ground.
'Civilta cattolica' says JMB's "Yes, maybe, I don't know, you decide'
words on inter-Communion is really a go-ahead signal

by Sandro Magister


ROME, July 1, 2016 – In his way, after encouraging communion for the divorced and remarried, in that it “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” Pope Francis is now also encouraging Protestants and Catholics to receive communion together at their respective Masses.

He is doing so, as always, in a discursive, allusive way, not definitively, leaving the ultimate decision to the individual conscience. [Ah yes, the unshakeable Bergoglian faith in the completely subjective - i.e., unformed - individual conscience as the ultimate arbiter of human action. Did I say anti-Catholic???]

Still emblematic is the answer he gave on November 15, 2015, on a visit to the Christuskirche, the main Lutheran church in Rome, to a Protestant who asked him if she could receive communion together with her Catholic husband.

The answer from Francis was a stupefying pinwheel of yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out. Which it is indispensable to reread in its entirety, in the official transcription [Oh yes, as outrageous as the words and the manner of expression may be, JMB is right - don't trust what others say he said, read him directly - it is he thinking aloud!]:

“Thank you, Ma’am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid!

I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: 'Do this in memory of me'. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord’s Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last.

Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: “Is sharing the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together?" I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand.

It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: Don’t we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. [Not that Luther and all the Protestants that came after him thought or think that at all! If they did, they would never have left the Church. No, Luther et al believed in 'to each his own'!]

You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism.

When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive.

When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same.

The question: What about the Last Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond in the same way, you see. 'This is my Body, this is my Blood', said the Lord, 'do this in memory of me' - this is a viaticum which helps us to journey.

I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord’s Supper. [But he did not actually take part in the Catholic communion, did he? At least, he respected the Catholic theology of the Eucharist that much.] Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man.

I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond.

A pastor friend of mine said to me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference?' [The difference is 'TRANS-SUBSTANTIATION', and if that is not a significant difference, what is?] – 'Well, there are explanations, interpretations…'.

Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: “One faith, one baptism, one Lord”, as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more. ["Yes...No...Yes...I don't know...You decide." When did a pope ever answer any one or any question in this way?]


It is impossible to gather a clear indication from these words. Of course, however, by speaking in such a “liquid” form Pope Francis has brought everything into question again, concerning intercommunion between Catholics and Protestants. He has made any position thinkable, and therefore practicable.

In fact, in the Lutheran camp the pope’s words were immediately taken as a go-ahead for intercommunion.

But now in the Catholic camp as well. an analogous position statement has come, which presents itself above all as the authentic interpretation of the words Francis said at the Lutheran church of Rome.

Acting as the pope’s authorized interpreter is the Jesuit Giancarlo Pani, in the latest issue of La Civiltà Cattolica, the magazine edited by Fr. Antonio Spadaro that has now become the official voice of Casa Santa Marta, meaning of Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself, who reviews and adjusts the articles that most interest him before their publication.

Taking his cue from a recent joint declaration of the Catholic episcopal conference of the United States and of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Fr. Pani dedicates the entire second part of his article to the exegesis of the words of Francis at the Christuskirche in Rome, carefully selected from among those most useful for the purpose.

And he draws the conclusion from them that they marked “a change” and “a progress in pastoral practice,” analogous to the one produced by Amoris Laetitia for the divorced and remarried.

They are only “small steps forward,” Pani writes in the final paragraph. But the direction is set.
[And the monumental farce continues of 'authorizing' piecemeal a practice - habitual sacrilege of the Eucharist - that he encouraged across the board in Buenos Aires.]

During the return flight from Armenia, Francis declared that Luther “was a reformer” with good intentions, and his reform was “medicine for the Church,” [Yeah, right! You 'cure' the Church of everything that's wrong with her simply by leaving and setting up your own shop. Which JMB has been doing, except he's not 'leaving' as Luther did, but staying on to use the Church to build and promote his own church in the guise of being Pope!] But skipping over the essential dogmatic divergences between Protestants and Catholics concerning the sacrament of the Eucharist, because - in the words of Francis at the Christuskirche in Rome - “life is greater than explanations and interpretations.” [Another one of those senseless Bergoglian postulates!]

Magister continues with a translation of the 'main passages of the article by Fr. Pani in La Civiltà Cattolica... which you may read on
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351332?eng=y

TERESA BENEDETTA
00domenica 3 luglio 2016 01:57
Here's Part 2 of Antonio Socci's new 'opposition paper', one might say, on JMB...

Samizdat-2:
The great confrontation is
about Jesus in the Eucharist

Translated from

July 1, 2016

Andrea Riccardi, founder and leader of the Sant'Egidio Community, said in a recent lecture that in the Conclave of 2005, Cardinal Martini, contrary to reports had not voted for Cardinal Bergoglio [whom Martini's supporters chose as his surrogate because Martini's advanced stage of Parkinson's disease did not make him a viable candidate any more]

"It was said that Martini, who is a Jesuit like Bergoglio, did not consider Bergoglio to be up to the task of being Pope", Riccardi said.

I believe Martini did vote for Bergoglio, but Martini was right to think the Argentine was not up to the task. And he is not, in so many aspects (as shown by the abyss towards which he is leading the Church). But even from the human aspect, Bergoglio is entirely 'unfit' [Socci uses the English word] - ill-suited to the very sensitive and serious task of being pope.

It is difficult to find in him any trace of prudence. But above all, it is almost impossible to perceive any sign of special assistance from the Holy Spirit. In fact, everytime he speaks off the cuff (that is, without reading a text prepared for him), he says enormous whoppers that make orthodox Catholics shiver and are really hatchet jobs on the Catholic Church [that he is supposed to lead].

Just listen to his daily homilettes at Casa Santa Marta. But that's relatively small potatoes. On Thursday, June 16, in the Lateran Basilica, he bordered on blasphemy and substantially demolished the idea of Catholic matrimony.

On Sunday, June 26, on the flight returning from Armenia, after having criminalized the Church saying it should apologize to everyone (Should we apologize for even existing?), he practically rehabilitated (and beatified) Martin Luther, to the point of saying: "Today Lutherans and Catholics, with all the Protestants, we are all in agreement over the doctrine of justification: On this very important point, he (Luther) was not mistaken".

Apart from the fact that the Common Declaration of 1998 - as Cardinal Ratzinger had clarified - does not, in fact, imply that "we are in agreement on the doctrine of justification", the Church never said that "Luther was not mistaken' about it!

On the contrary. After that document was signed, Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, said about the excommunication of Protestants: "The veritable truth of the excommunications nonetheless remains what it is. Whoever opposes the doctrine declared by the Council of Trent opposes the doctrine and faith of the Church".

All of this is fundamental because the rehabilitation of Luther is the symbolic banner that for 70 years, the modernists have been seeking to implant in the Church as a a sign of her collapse. Especially by the progressivist Catholics in Northern Europe.

There were hints of this already in Vatican II, as Cardinal Siri wrote: "That some have come to the Council with the intention of leading it to Luther - namely, down with divine Tradition, down with the primacy of Peter - this is very true. Such that at a certain point, there was the danger (but how much I do not know) that someone might propose the canonization of Luther. And they said Paul VI was fearful of this." [Testimony of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, in the book Il Papa non eletto (The unelected Pope) by Benny Lai].

It was soon realized that - as the modernist Erneso Bonaiuti intuited - such a victory would never be achieved 'against' a pope, but only with a complacent pope who would impose from above a protestantization of the Catholic Church ("through a gradual protestantism").

They sought to impose such a surrender of the Church on Benedict XVI in the guise of 'an ecumenical embrace' among all the Christians of Europe, which would substantially be a negation of the Catholic faith. Pope Benedict's response: "As long as I am here, never!" [I wish Socci had furnished a link to the primary source of this report, as he did with the other episodes he cited earlier. Especially since it is the first time I have read about this.]

It is in this context of very strong pressures and isolation [in which Socci inexplicably joins Politi et al in claiming that Benedict XVI was 'isolated'], that one must see his 'stepping aside' [He stepped down as Pope and is now an ex-Pope - that is not stepping aside!], without however abandoning his ministry (as he underscored in his last discourse as Pope). [I suppose we shall get a clearer picture about this now thoroughly murked-up question in the new book coming out in September. Socci continues to propose that Benedict XVI's resignation was not valid because it was the result of outside pressures and not a free action his part. If you admire Benedict XVI, as Socci does, how could you insult him by thinking that?]

It is also the context in which we must consider his brief but very dense remarks at the Sala Clementina on June 28. He focused on 'trans-substantiation (referring to the fact that at Consecration, the bread and wine offered by the priest become the Body and Blood of Christ, and not just symbolically). What shone forth here was Benedict's intimate adoration of Christ in the Eucharist, a spiritual state well expressed in this beautiful poem by Karol Wojtyla:

I beg you, keep me hidden
in some place inaccessible,
in a current of silent wonder,
or in the dark night.
I beg you, protect me
from the abyss of darkness on one side -
And I beg you to tear off the veils
from the side that nails our sight,
that I may I know the secret place
where I shall disperse nothing
of the suns that burn below the horizon.
And then the miracle will happen
of the transformation -
"Behold, you will become me.
I - eucharistic."

[I am not familiar with the poem, and I tried to google it under 'poem by John Paul II on the Eucharist, or on Eucharistic Adoration' but have not found it. My translation is very approximate and very prosaic, and I fear I have not properly translated the line I have rendered as 'from the side that nails our sight', and the shift in subject in the last two lines from the person praying to Jesus himself.]

One must underscore the eschatological perspective that Benedict indicates in a few words:

“Eucharistomen”! On that occasion, my friend [Rupert] Berger wished to evoke not just the dimension of human gratitude, but of course, the more profound word it hides which appears in liturgy, in Scripture, in the words "Gratias agens benedixit fregit deditque" ["giving thanks to thee, blessed it, broke it and gave it (to his disciples"].

“Eucharistomen” brings us back to the reality of that thanksgiving, the new dimension that Christ gave it. He had transformed the cross, suffering, all the evils of the world, into a thanksgiving and therefore a blessing.

Thus, fundamentally, he trans-substantiated life and the world, and he gave us - and gives us every day - the Bread of true life which triumphs over the world, thanks to the power of his love.

In the end, we wish to be included in the Lord's 'thanksgiving, so that we may truly receive a new life and help in the trans-substantiation of the world - that it may be a world not of death but of life, a world in which love has triumphed over death.

To those who have not understood, I advise a re-reading of these passages:

Now, look to the east, to the rising sun. It is not about sun worship - it is the cosmos that speaks of Christ. It is in reference to him that we must interpret the hymn to the sun in Psalm 19, that says, "He (the sun) is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.."

This must now be understood to be Christ, who is the true word, the eternal Logos, and therefore, the true light of history... But the fact that Christ is seen to be symbolized by the rising sun also points to an eschatologically determined Christology. The sun symbolizes the Lord who will return, in the last dawn of history.

To pray facing the East means turning towards Christ who will come back.

...Finally, this turning towards the East also means that the cosmos and the story of salvation are linked. The cosmos enters into our prayer; it, too, awaits liberation. And it is precisely this cosmic dimension that is an essential element of Christian liturgy. It is never achieved in a world in which man believes he is self-made. It is always a cosmic liturgy. The theme of creation is an integral part of Christian prayer, which loses its grandeur if we forget this close connection.
- Joseph Ratzinger
Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy)



In the relation between the Eucharist and the cosmos... we discover the unity of God's design and we are made to grasp the profound relationship between Creation and the 'new Creation' that began with the resurrection of Christ, the new Adam.
-Benedict XVI
Sacramentum caritatis, No. 92


As one can easily infer, it was not at all casual that Benedict XVI, last Tuesday, dedicated much of his brief remarks to that difficult theological expression, trans-substantiation, which was central to the doctrines reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, and which was most attacked by Luther.

Benedict's words were addressed to Papa Bergoglio who is attacking the sacraments (especially the Eucharist) and is rehabilitating Luther.

In fact the Argentine pope is daring something that was unimaginable: rehabilitating Luther by finding him right historically and therefore, the Church wrong. [Socci is not stretching here. If you think Luther did what he did for the right reasons, as JMB says he did, then you have to agree with him that the Church was wrong for all the things he found wrong in her, of which 'Holy Mass' - which is the Eucharistic sacrifice - was something he called abominable.]

Everything is pointing in the direction of ecclesial collapse, and if, as it appears, Bergoglio "is now encouraging Protestants and Catholics to take Communion together in their respective services" - perhaps, he will explain it all on October 31 when he concelebrates the schism of the heretic Luther in Sweden - then it means we are in the final act.

It is with this awareness that one must read what Benedict XVI said about trans-substantiation in his 'little discourse' on June 28, which was really the first time he spoke in public since February 28, 2013.

Moreover that whole event on June 28 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger's ordination to the priesthood, had been planned by Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, with Benedict XVI's agreement, to celebrate Catholic priesthood, which is centered on the Eucharist, in the face of the Protestant demolition of consecrated priesthood and the Eucharist.

Indeed, to mark the occasion, a book of Ratzinger/Benedict homilies on the priesthood was published in six languages and offered to him by Cardinal Mueller at the Sala Clementina ceremony.

Mueller's introduction to that book, as Sandro Magister underscored, was dedicated to "his (Ratzinger's) indomitable resistance to the anti-priesthood offensive of Luther's followers". [In Lutheranism and in Protestantism in general, everyone is considered a priest - of course, without the 'in persona Christi' responsibilities of a priest to absolve sins and to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice, because Protestants do not believe in confession nor in trans-substantiation which is the central event of the Mass.]

Even Ratzinger's election as Pope was motivated by the grandeur of his defense of the Church from protestantization, and more generally, his resistance to the assault of worldly ideologies and forces, as his secretary, Mons. Gaenswein, indicated in his now much-debated May 21 address: [Socci quotes what GG said about the conflict that separated the pro-Ratzinger and anti-Ratzinger electors in the 2005 Conclavewith this conclusion:

The election was certainly the outcome of a confrontation, whose key Cardinal Ratzinger himself provided in his historic homily of April 18, 2005, in St. Peter's Basilica - to "a dictatorship of relativism that recognizes nothing as definitive and whose only measure is one's 'I' and its wishes", he proposed another measure: 'the Son of God, true man" as "the measure of true humanism".


It is in this framework that one must see the angry response Bergoglio gave in that inflight news conference on June 26, when he was asked about Mons. Gaenswein's address [which he claimed he had not read], a response that was all directed at Benedict XVI to remind him [and the media, and the world] that he had promised obedience to his successor when he addressed the College of Cardinals on his last day as Pope. It was a response that sent a clear message to Benedict XVI: I am the pope. I am in command. Everyone is subject to me. [I did not listen to the audio of the news conference, but JMB's answer did not sound 'angry' to me - and I doubt he would have wanted to sound angry - but yes, determined to assert he is the only pope, and deliberately directed to Benedict XVI and persons like Mons Gaenswein and Prog. Rigoli (author of the book that was presented that day) who could possibly think that any iota of the Petrine ministry remains at all in Benedict XVI, ex-pope, i.e., 'not pope'.]
TERESA BENEDETTA
00domenica 3 luglio 2016 15:16
I had been on the lookout for an account of the full interview given by GG and then missed it when the diligent Ms. Hickson posted her translation of the transcript she made from the actual broadcast... Better late than never, here it is. I took the liberty of adapting the literal translation to make it more idiomatic, and also left out some redundancies... And I did leave out an initial comment by Ms Hickson questioning how GG could say B16 continues to be 'at peace' with his decision to step down as pope, considering the situation in the Church today. Here is the link to Ms. Hickson's full article:
http://www.onepeterfive.com/interview-archbishop-ganswein-on-benedict-the-two-popes-and-prophecy/

Notes on the full Gaenswein interview
with Paul Badde on German EWTN

Adapted from
MAIKE HICKSON

JUNE 28, 2016

On June 25, Catholic News Agency published an article about an interview with Archbishop Georg Gänswein, which was originally conducted on 27 May 2016 by the German veteran journalist and now EWTN Rome correspondent, Paul Badde. The German archbishop currently serves Pope Francis as Prefect of the Papal Household, but he has also maintained his duties as the secretary for the retired Pope Benedict XVI.

The full interview was first aired yesterday, 27 June, on EWTN, in German.

The significance of this interview lies in two areas.

First, Gänswein corrects the somewhat confusing comments he had recently made at the Gregorian University in Rome, pertaining to what he had described as an “enlarged Petrine ministry,” with Pope Francis serving as the “active” and Pope Benedict serving as the “contemplative” member.

Secondly, Gänswein makes some striking comments about certain prophetic understandings of the Church. He shows that he believes in some prophecies (such as the one by St. Malachy concerning the last pope) as well as certain seemingly supernatural phenomena — such as the significant lightning that struck St. Peter’s Dome on the very day of Pope Benedicts’s abdication.

In the following account, therefore, I shall present and translate parts of this German EWTN interview from my own transcript of it:

First, Badde asks Archbishop Gänswein what he thought about the lightning that struck St. Peter’s Dome on the day of Benedict’s abdication. Gänswein answers that he, at the time, only heard the noise but did not see the lightning itself. He adds:

I only saw it then later on in some photos... My impression was that it was a sign one could connect with what took place that [Benedict’s announcement of his renunciation]... some sort of a reaction. I did not know exactly whether in the sense of a good reaction – or a 'watch-out' reaction.”

He said that when he showed the pictures to Pope Benedict, he asked whether it was a photo-montage... Gänswein concludes: “No, truly, here nature has spoken, and prettly clearly so.” Badde comments that it was 'a thunder of the underworld.'

Both Badde and Gänswein then proceed to reflect together on the fact that during Pope Benedict's visit to Auschwitz in 2006, there was a a horrendous rain, but as he started to give his speech, the rain stopped and a most beautiful rainbow appeared. Gänswein saw this phenomenon as a sign from heaven.

When asked about his own feelings at the moment of leaving the Papal Palace for Castel Gandolfo on February 28, 2013, with Pope Benedict, Gänswein admitted that he was in tears.

In the meantime, three years have passed, and in these three years, many things have happened, much reflection has taken place... Since I see that Pope Benedict... is fully at peace with his decision and that, perhaps even more so than ever before, he is convinced that this was the right step. This has helped me, too, to let go inwardly of my initial resistance to simply accept what Pope Benedict – after much struggle, after much wrestling, and after really intense prayers – has recognized, realized and then decided as being the right thing.

He admits that he knew of the decision months before the public announcement, but he had to keep silent about this confidential matter.

Gänswein tells Badde that Pope Benedict's election in 2005 was the happiest moment in his life with Pope Benedict. As for the saddest moment of his time with Pope Benedict, Gänswein responds:

Regret? It was a day when I myself was sick and in bed and when I saw the whole difficulty having to do with [Bishop] Williamson, coming down like an avalanche, so to speak, upon the pope... There was no escape. Because there was no exit. This episode was one of the hardest, also the saddest and the most painful days of my life as the secretary of Pope Benedict.
Gänswein agreed with Badde’s comment that he, Gänswein, was paralyzed because he could not intervene.
I could not, no, because it was just too late... Pope Benedict has said much about this whole event... but he also wrote his famous letter to the bishops [of the world] which is unique. I will not forget it. It was on March 10, 2010, this famous letter, and there he said what needed to be said, and I absolutely agree with it.

[Personally, I consider that extraordinary and truly Pauline epistle one of the highlights of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, an unicum that is not likely to be repeated. One only regrets that in the way of the world, even among bishops (or perhaps especially among bishops), what he had to say there appears to have been quickly forgotten. But the letter remains as historical fact, a letter that had to be written, though perhaps, only someone like Benedict XVI would have seen that it was imperative to do so.]
Badde proceeds to ask Gänswein about the power of prayer, and whether it was 'palpable' that, after February 28, 2013, Pope Benedict was no longer the beneficiary of the prayer for the Pope said at every Mass offered by any priest anywhere. Gaenswein said:

Of course, with the election of Pope Francis, this prayer is now offered for him, and rightly so... I can only can say, from the number of letters we get, that the number of prayers offered for Benedict XVI by individuals is enormous, and that it is increasing...


Badde notes that he knows of cardinals in the Vatican “who are still shocked that the Catholic Church has right now two living Successors of Peter.” He continues: “You yourself have recently spoken about an enlargement of the Petrine ministry... Could you explain this a little more?” Gänswein answers:

You refer here to the book presentation of an Italian professor, Roberto Regoli, who has written a book that is the first evaluation of Benedict XVI's pontificate. He is a professor at the Gregorian University and that is where the book was presented, as well. I was one of the two persons who presented it, and indeed, I spoke about an enlarged let pontificate. It is clear – let me say it clearly, because I have seen in some of the reactions how people insinuated things that I never said - that of course, Pope Francis is the lawfully elected and lawful pope. That is to say, there are not two popes – one lawful, the other unlawful - that is simply not correct.

I simply said – that is also what Pope Benedict has said – that he, is still present with his prayers, with his personal offerings, in the “Recinto” of Saint Peter [within the walls and precincts of the Vatican], and [he hopes] that these prayers and offerings will bear spiritual fruit for his successor and for the Church. That is what I meant to say...

Badde: "If I understand you right, he [Benedict] has remained in the office, but only in the contemplative part, without having any authority to decide. Thus we have – as you said – an active and a contemplative part which form together an enlargement of the munus Petrinum?"
Gänswein responds:

That is what I said. Specifically, it is very clear that the plena potestas, the plenitudo potestatis [full power, the fullness of power] is in the hands of Pope Francis. He is the man who is right now the Successor of Peter. [Saying that], there is nothing more to understand. Nor are these two in a competitive relationship... One has to make use of common sense, as well as faith and a little bit of theology, then it should not be difficult to understand properly what I said.

Textually, he did say in his May 20 address:

Since the election of his successor Francis, on March 13, 2013, there are not therefore two popes, but de facto an expanded ministry — with an active member and a contemplative member.
But in the preceding paragraph, he said this, which has contributed to the uproar and confusion about his remarks:
Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a Petrine ministry. He has left the papal throne and yet, with the step made on February 11, 2013, he has not at all abandoned this ministry. Instead, he has complemented the personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, as a quasi shared service (als einen quasi gemeinsamen Dienst)...

At the time I first read this, my immediate reaction was that he had somehow 'over-reached', and that in the statement about the active member and the contemplative member, it would have been preferable and clearer if he had said, 'the active pope and the contemplative ex-pope'.

When Badde asks Gänswein whether he could imagine that “there would be two papa emeriti, two retired popes in the gardens, or three, or even four, Gänswein answered:

Indeed, because Pope Benedict has taken this step, a door has been opened. Whether other popes will go through this open door – I am not a prophet. But, I personally have no difficulties to consider this realistic.

Badde then humorously adds that one might thus have to make room for Pope Francis, to which Gänswein says in a serious tone: “Whether this is localiter in the same place, or somewhere else, that is secondary..."

Badde informs the audience that Archbishop Gänswein’s father had been a blacksmith whom the monsignor had described as “a tree of a man”. Badde asks the archbishop how he would describe Pope Benedict, who physically is not “a tree of a man.”

Gänswein proceeds to praise Pope Benedict for his “unbelievable intellectual presence, combined with a disarming mildness” for which he has become Gänswein’s enduring model and great person of reference. (I know from someone who was at a private audience at the time with Pope Benedict how caring and attentive Archbishop Gänswein acted toward his superior, Pope Benedict. – MH) [That is also most evident in all the photos and videos we have seen of the two together.]

Later on, he also says he would sum up Benedict’s papacy with the word Veritas.

It is about the fact that truth is incarnated in Christ - that is for him [Benedict] the great theme of his life which has reappeared again and again in different variations and in different forms.

Gänswein adds that Benedict’s pontificate had “strengthened the Church in her foundations...and that will remain.”

With regard to the famous “secret dossier” which Pope Benedict had handed over to Pope Francis when they first met at Castel Gandolfo at the beginning of Francis’s pontificate, Gänswein indicates that it did not mainly deal with the topic of the reform of the Curia. He says, rather, that it dealt with the Vatileaks and its manifold causes. Three cardinals had worked on it and then presented a dossier to Pope Benedict, “with all the documents included” which then was passed on by Benedict to Francis, on March 23, 2013.

As to the proposed curial reforms, Gänswein seems doubtful that the depiction of the Curia as a “disastrous situation” is at all realistic. He thinks that critics who say so do not themselves know the Curia well, much less from the inside. Gänswein thus plays down its problems and indicates that Pope Francis has not changed very much at all so far.

To sum up the last three topics of the interview:
- Gänswein agrees with Paul Badde that the prophecy of St. Malachy, according to which Pope Francis is apparently to be the last pope, is quite probable, and that by considering this question in relation to historical facts, “I get a little bit afraid.” Gänswein even describes this prophecy as a “wake-up call.”
- He also admits that he still misses seeing the lights in the papal apartment at night when he walks by on St. Peter’s square. When he sees the darkness in the upper floors, “I have a heavy heart,” Gänswein admits. “I have to get used to it, but do not know whether I ever will get used to it."
- When speaking about his possible dreams for his own life now – he once thought of becoming a Carthusian monk – Gänswein admits that there are few dreams left. However, he says, he would like to get more of the “smell of the sheep” by doing more pastoral work, which is, right now, not possible.

Somewhat surprisingly, Pope Francis himself – during his own very recent papal trip to Armenia – made his own corrective comments concerning the debate of the “two popes.” His words, as reported by the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net (and now also available in the English transcript from CNA) seem to be in complete accordance with Archbishop Gänswein’s own words to Paul Badde in his recent interview.

On his flight back to Rome on 26 June, Pope Francis said: “He [Pope Benedict] is the retired pope. I have thanked Pope Benedict publicly for that, inasmuch as he has opened the door for retired popes. […] In the future, there can be perhaps two or three, but they are retired.”

Pope Francis said these words with direct reference to a question put to him by a journalist who referred to Archbishop Gänswein’s own words about the two popes and the allegedly “enlarged” Petrine Office. Francis said: “I have not read these statements. Benedict XVI is the retired pope. He said it on that 11 February [2013] that he will retire from his office on the following 28 February. […] Benedict is in the monastery and prays.”

Later on, Francis reiterated: “He is for me the retired pope, a wise grandfather. He is the man who covers my shoulders and my back with his prayers.” Francis then reminded the journalists of the fact that Benedict had promised “unconditional obedience to his successor.”

Francis went on:

Then, I heard – I do not know whether it is true – rumors that some [prelates] supposedly went to him [Benedict] in order to complain about the new pope, and he sen t them packing... If this is not true, then it is well said, because he is a man who is loyal to his word, an upright man. […] I will say [at the upcoming 65th anniversary of his priesthood] something about this great man of prayers and of courage, who is the retired pope and not the ‘second pope’... There is only one pope, and the other… maybe they will be like the bishops emeriti, I’m not saying many but possibly there could be two or three. They will be emeriti… They are emeriti.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00domenica 3 luglio 2016 20:27
Brexit and the decline of the West
by Roberto de Mattei
Translated for Rorate caeli
by Francesca Romana from


June 29, 1016

The British referendum of June 23rd (Brexit) has sanctioned the definitive collapse of a myth: the dream of “a “Europe without frontiers”, built on the ruins of its national States.

The Europist project, launched by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, had in itself the seeds of its own self-destruction. It was completely illusory to expect the implementation of an economic monetary union before a political union; or, even worse, to envisage using monetary integration in order to establish political unification.

The plan, though, to reach political unity by extirpating those spiritual roots that bind men together was even more illusory. The Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of the European Union approved by the European Council in Nice in December 2000, not only expunges any reference to Europe’s religious roots, but has in itself a visceral negation of the natural and Christian order.

Article 21, by introducing the prohibition of any discrimination related to “sexual tendencies”, contains, in nuce, the legalization of the crime of homophobia and pseudo-homosexual marriage.

The “Constitution” project worked on by the Convention on the Future of Europe between 2002 and 2005, was rejected by two popular referendums, in France on May 29th 2005 and in Holland on June 1st of the same year. Nevertheless,

the Eurocrats never gave up. After two years of “reflection”, the Lisbon Treaty, which should have been ratified exclusively through the member states' respective Parliaments, was approved by the EU Heads of State and Government on December 13th 2007.

The only country called upon to voice their opinion on the referendum, Ireland, rejected the Treaty on June 13th 2008, but unanimity being necessary from the signatory States, a new referendum was imposed on the Irish, which thanks to very strong economic and media pressure, finally gave the positive result.

During its short life [so far], the European Union, incapable of defining foreign policies and ordinary security measures, has turned itself into an ideological tribune, which churns out resolutions and directives, pushing national Governments to free themselves of traditional family values.

Inside the EU, Great Britain, tried to slow down the Franco-German plan for a European “Super-State”, but instead of stepping on the brake, stepped instead on the accelerator by diffusing, on a European scale, it own “civic conquests” from abortion to euthanasia, from adoptions by homosexuals to genetic engineering. This moral deviation was accompanied in England by [a sort of] multicultural drunkenness, culminating in the election of the first Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, in May 2016.

However, even in 2009, then Mayor Boris Johnson, a Conservative, invited all Londoners to participate, at least for a day, in the Ramadan fast and then attend the Mosque at sunset.

More recently, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, speaking against American presidential candidate, Donald Trump, said he was «proud of representing a country which is one of the most successful multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-ethnic countries in the world» (Huffpost Politics, 15th May 2016).

Brexit certainly signifies a surge of pride for a nation that has a long history of antique tradition. Nevertheless, the identity and freedom of a nation are founded on respect for the Divine and natural Law, and no political action can restore the freedom a country has lost on account of its own moral decadence.

The ‘no’ to the European Union was a protest against the arrogance of an oligarchy which claims to decide - without the people and against the people - the interests of the people.

Even so, the strong powers which impose Brussels’ bureaucratic rules are the same ones that are undoing the West’s moral rules. Those who accept the LGTB dictatorship lose the right to claim their own Independence Day, as they have already renounced their own identity.

Those who renounce defending the moral boundaries of a nation, lose the right to defend its borders, as they have already accepted the “fluid” conception of a global society.

Under this aspect, Great Britain’s’ self-dissolution itinerary follows a dynamic that Brexit cannot arrest and which, rather, may be part of another stage.

Scotland is already threatening a new referendum to leave the United Kingdom, followed by Northern Ireland. Further, when the Queen, who is 90 years old, leaves the throne, it is not excluded that some countries of the Commonwealth will declare their independence.

Someone said that Queen Elizabeth had been crowned the Empress of the British Empire and will die as the head of ‘a Little England’. This itinerary of political disunion though, has as its final outcome the republicanising of England.

In 2017 the three hundredth centenary of the founding of London’s Great Lodge, the mother of modern Freemasonry, will be commemorated. Yet, Freemasonry, which in the XVIII and XIX centuries used Protestant and Deist England to diffuse its revolutionary programme throughout the world, today seems determined to ditch the English Monarchy, in which it sees one of the last symbols still surviving from the Medieval order.

After Brexit, scenarios of disintegration may open up in Greece as a result of the explosion of the economic and social crisis; in France, where the urban peripheries are menaced by a Jihadist civil war; in Italy as a result of the unstoppable migratory invasion; in Eastern Europe, where Putin is ready to profit from the weakness of European institutions to take control of eastern Ukraine and exercise military pressure on the Baltic States.

The British General, Alexander Richard Shirreff, former Vice-Commander of NATO from 2011 to 2014, foresaw in the form of a novel, (2017 War with Russia. An Urgent Warning From Senior Military Command, Coronet, London 2016), the break-out of a nuclear war between Russia and the West in May 2017, a date which reminds Catholics of something.

How to forget, on this first centenary of Fatima, Our Lady’s words, that many nations will be annihilated and Russia will be the instrument God will use to punish impenitent mankind?

Faced with these prospects, the conservative parties themselves are split. If Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in Holland and Matteo Salvini in Italy are asking for their countries’ exit from the European Union and are placing their hopes in Putin, the positions of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban and the Polish leader Jaroslaw are very different - they see in the European Union and NATO a barrier to Russian expansion.

The Decline of the West [Der Untergang des Abendlandes] by Oswald Spengler appeared in 1917. One hundred years later, the German writer’s prophecy seems about to be fulfilled.

'The West” , before being a geographic space, is the name of a civilization. This civilization is Christian Civilization, heir to the classical Greco-Roman culture which from Europe spread to the Americas and its faraway offshoots in Asia and Africa.

It had its baptism the night of St. Paul’s dream, when God gave the Apostle the order to turn his back on Asia and “go through Macedonia” to proclaim the good news (Acts, XVI, 6-18).

Rome was the place of martyrdom for both Saints Peter and Paul and the centre of the civilization that was emerging. Spengler, convinced of the inexorable decline of the West, recalls a sentence from Seneca: Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt (Destiny guides those who want to be guided and drags those who don’t want to be [guided]”.

We,however, counter Spengler’s relativist and determinist vision with that of St. Augustine, who, while the barbarians were attacking Hippo, announced the victory in history of the City of God, continuously guided by Divine Providence.

Man is the artifice of his own destiny and with the help of God, the twilight of civilization can be transformed into the dawn of a resurrection. Nations are mortal, but God never dies and the Church never wanes.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 4 luglio 2016 08:19


As of July 1, Fr. Leonard Villa, who was our pastor for just under a year, and apostolic administrator of the parish six months before that, was reassigned to be pastor of St. Paul the Apostle parish in Yonkers (just north of the Bronx, it is the city where the archdiocesan seminary of New York is located, St. Joseph's in Dunwoodie, which Benedict XVI visited in 2009).

I had written up a brief bio of Fr. Villa from what I could gather online last Sunday, along with the last homily he gave at Holy Innocents,
but I lost the post in one of those maddening mishaps that is happening to me more often (my PC freezes up in the middle of constructing a post before I have time to save, CTRL-ALT-DEl does not unfreeze it, I am forced to reboot). Anyway, I thought Fr. Villa's bio interesting enough to share.

A lawyer, he was a Judge Advocate General in the US Navy before entering St. Joseph's to study for the priesthood, was ordained in 1986, and served initially as parish vicar in two Bronx dioceses. In 1991-1992, he attended the Biblicum in Rome for Scriptural studies before being assigned as pastor of St.Eugene's parish in Yonkers in 1998. In 2001, he was also named regional vicar for Yonkers. He served at St. Eugene's until June 2014 when he was named apostolic administrator of St. John the Evangelist in Goshen, upstate New York. Six months later, he was named apostolic administrator of Holy Innocents, shortly after the Archdiocese of New York decided that the church would neither be closed nor merged with another parish as announced in early 2014. In July 2015, he was named pastor.

In an interview given to La Paix Liturgique last November, he says that he had always loved the traditional Mass, having grown up in a New York parish under German Redemptorist fathers. After Summorum Pontificum went into force in September 2007, he offered the EF Mass that very Sunday in St. Eugene's Yonkers.

May God continue to bless Fr. Villa, and thank you, Father, for having helped to make my Sunday Masses at Holy Innocents truly special occasions.

I find it remarkable and most gratifying that priests like him and Fr. James Miara, the new pastor who will begin at Holy Innocents tomorrow after returning from a visit to Canadian shrines, are champions of the traditional Mass, though both of them were ordained decades after Vatican II (Fr. Miara, ordained in 2001, is a generation younger than Fr. Villa).

Today, I walked into Holy Innocents wondering who would celebrate the 10:30 Mass, and quickly learned from the Mass Propers handout it would be Fr. Peter Stravinskas, about whom no other information was given. When he walked up the central aisle during the Processional, he struck me as older than Fr. Villa, bur when he intoned the Asperges, his voice was very youthful and musical.

It still did not prepare me for the homily he delivered. After the usual parish announcements, he started reading the following homily - which made me and everyone in church sit up - and it was all I could do to try and keep up jotting what I could of his words.

After Mass, I knocked on the rectory door but got no reply, so I went down to the church's social hall, hoping to find someone who could help me get in touch with Fr. Stravinskas. But after a few minutes, he himself walked in, and I walked up to thank him for a truly extraordinary homily, and could I please have a copy of it? He said if I had e-mail, he would send it. And sure enough I got it this evening. It needs to be shared. I gave it the title, picking up from phrases in the text.


How to fit Pope Francis
in the life of the Church today

Homily
by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D.
External Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (Extraordinary Form)
Church of the Holy Innocents New York City
July 3, 2016

On this past Wednesday, the Church Universal (all 23 of her rites) and the Orthodox Churches as well celebrated the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul. This morning, we are observing its so-called “external” solemnity for the benefit of those who were not able to participate in the Sacred Liturgy on the feast proper.

Naturally, our thoughts turn to Rome, referred to in the ancient hymn for Vespers as “O Felix Roma” (O Happy Rome) because her origins were consecrated by the blood of the martyrs Peter and Paul.

Furthermore, Rome is the “apostolic see,” par excellence, what St. Ignatius of Antioch, the second-century Father of the Church, would call “the church that presides over all the churches in charity.” That notion then turns our attention to the occupant of that seat or chair, the Bishop of Rome.

We Catholics believe that the Bishop of Rome has unique authority and unique responsibilities conferred on Peter and passed on to all his successors down the centuries.

We know the scriptural basis of these claims very well. In Matthew 16, Jesus accepts with gladness Simon’s acknowledgment of Him as Messiah and Son of God and declares that this understanding of Simon’s is not of human origin but from divine revelation, with the result that Jesus renames Simon, making him the Kepha/Petra/Rock on which He would build His Church.

Luke 22 records Christ’s directive that Peter “strengthen” his brethren in the faith – once he recuperates from his own failure in courage and fidelity. John 21 likewise contains a painful reminder to Peter of his triple denial of his Lord, undone by his threefold affirmation of love, thus causing the Risen Christ to commission Simon Peter as the “substitute shepherd” of His flock.

Confirmation of the Church in faith and promoting ecclesial unity are the primary tasks of the Bishop of Rome. No pope in history has ever fulfilled these tasks perfectly – for no human being is perfect. Some came very close to doing so, while others fell considerably short of the mark.

As I speak, I cannot help but notice the nervousness of not a few of you, so let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room by asking where Pope Francis fits into the scheme of things.

Unlike many of his modern predecessors – and especially his two immediate predecessors, who were truly extraordinary – he is not particularly endowed with gifts of culture, languages and broad horizons; nor was his philosophical and theological training very profound. And as the humble man he wishes to be, he has said all this on many occasions.

It would be dishonest not to admit that the clarity of the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI has yielded to some very unfortunate confusion. I suspect that some of you are most uncomfortable in voicing such an observation; yet others may be very vocal in criticism.

Permit me to try to offer a path through the Scylla and Charybdis of denial on the one hand and vitriol on the other – a dozen thoughts for life in the Church of today.

First of all, the via negativa: Pope Francis has not spoken heresy. The Code of Canon Law defines heresy as “the obstinate denial” of one or more truths of the Catholic Faith (canon 751). That has not happened. Lack of precision is regrettable, but it is not heretical.

Second, it is not disloyal, let alone sinful, to question c\Church authorities (including the Pope) on the performance of their solemn duties. Indeed, the Code of Canon Law is quite clear in asserting that the faithful may actually have an obligation to do so, that is, if they have both the necessary knowledge and good will (cf. canon 212.3).

One need only think of someone like St. Paul who brags about confronting St. Peter (cf. Gal 2:11). Or, St. Catherine of Siena, who harassed the Pope of her day into compliance, yet never failed to address him as “my dear sweet Christ on earth.”

Catharine’s Dominican brother, St. Thomas Aquinas, is quite pointed in this regard. Thus we find this line in his Summa Theologica: “There being an imminent danger for the faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects.” [1]

Third, Vatican I’s declaration of Petrine primacy and infallibility (and its reassertion in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium) was a necessary doctrinal development in light of the intellectual and political climate of the day, saving the Church from both faithless academics and meddling civil authorities and, equally, from a thousand bishops functioning as mini-popes.

We have only to look at the dismal situation of the Orthodox Churches and their flailing council, held hostage to extreme nationalism and petty power plays.

That said, an unintended but real consequence of papal primacy has been a kind of deification of the person of the Pope, exemplified by William George Ward (the nineteenth-century English convert and writer), who declared that he wished to be able to read a new papal bull every day with his Times at breakfast!

That mentality eventually caused Cardinal Newman to remind all of the primacy of conscience with his would-be dinner retort: “If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink – to the Pope, if you please, – still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”

Fourth, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 85), citing Dei Verbum 10 makes clear that the Magisterium is not above the Word of God but its servant. That includes the Pope and, actually, in a preeminent way precisely as the servus servorum Dei.

As William F. Buckley reminded his audience on “Firing Line” after Pope John Paul’s first pastoral visit to the States in 1979, the Pope is the most constricted man on the planet – all he can do is repeat what has been taught from time immemorial.

Fifth, a corollary of our previous point follows: The Pope is a member of the Church before anything else, and he won’t be a Pope in eternity. As such, he lives under the same Gospel imperative as all of us. Hence, Pope Francis constantly reminds us: “I am a loyal son of the Church!”

St. Augustine put it well when he asserted: “For you I am a bishop, with you, after all, I am a Christian. The first is the name of an office undertaken, the second a name of grace; that one means danger, this one salvation.”

Sixth, we must disabuse ourselves of the idea that the election of every Pope is the work of the Holy Spirit and the direct will of God. If that were the case, we would be hard-pressed to explain the Borgias. No, the whole Church prays that the Holy Spirit guide the College of Cardinals in their choice, but there is no guarantee that the cardinals will respond appropriately.

In this regard, I would venture to say that the present pontificate might be a gift of the Holy Spirit to cause a correction to an unhealthy and unbridled ultramontanism that prevailed in many quarters as the “papolatry” I mentioned earlier.

Psalm 146 cautions us: “Put not your trust in princes”; our ultimate trust is in Christ, not in his at-times very human vicars.

Seventh, not a few serious Catholics over the past three decades, when quizzed as to why they did or did not do something, had fallen into the trap of “sealing the deal” by saying that they did so “because the Holy Father does it” (or doesn’t).

That is a very weak rationale. I don’t engage in a particular practice because the Pope does it; I do it because it is the right thing to do. It is wonderful if the Pope also does it, but it is not essential. In fact, Our Lord gave some very salient counsel on this score in regard to the religious leaders of His day (Mt 23:3): “Do whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example!”

Eighth, Catholics don’t have to like every Pope, but the lack of fondness ought never descend into carping or, worse, hatred. However, we must love him, above all, willing his eternal salvation.

One’s love for one’s natural father does not blind one to his inadequacies or failures, nor does it demand silence in the face of problems. That said, never allow disappointment to diminish your own faith, hope and charity.

At all costs, avoid extremism and progressive polemic. Remember: Luther started out condemning genuine abuses in the Church but ended up denying doctrines of faith. In our own day, we have seen how the Society of St. Pius X had its spin-off into that of Pius V. What’s next, Pius the Two and a Half?

Cardinal Newman came to a position of intense dislike of Pius IX, even referring to the pontificate at its end as “the climax of tyranny,” encouraging his closest friends to pray for an end of the reign; however, he never doubted the divine institution of the papacy.

And a caveat from St. Francis de Sales: “While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal – who allow scandals to destroy faith – are guilty of spiritual suicide.”

Ninth, don’t look for trouble. Some “uber” Catholics have made a cottage industry of trying to find missteps of Francis and even succumbing to acceptance of made-up ones. St. Ignatius Loyola teaches us always to seek to place the most benign interpretation possible on a superior’s teaching or directive. That helps ensure honesty and good will on our part; it also makes any legitimate criticism we make all the more credible.

Tenth, any displeasure or discomfort experienced with the present Pope might be an opportune occasion to repent of the ingratitude or grousing directed at his predecessors.

I myself not infrequently bemoaned the weak governance styles of John Paul and Benedict – all the while admiring their razor-sharp intellects and direct, effective modes of communicating the truth. Every leader has assets and liabilities. God can punish us for highlighting the negative to the exclusion of the positive.

Eleventh, we have the duty to pray for the Pope’s growth in wisdom and holiness. Popes change. Pius IX morphed from being an open-minded individual to being quite reactionary, while Paul VI started out as rather given to change and ended up a stalwart proponent of Catholic doctrine, at great personal expense.

Twelfth, never forget the Church is always in need of reform – Ecclesia semper reformanda. The Council of Trent boldly demanded the reform of the Church in her head and members. Many of us want a hierarchical Church of perfection, but fail to realize that the members of the hierarchy come from the ranks of the lay faithful.

If you want a reformed and holier Church, you must commit to becoming a reformed and holier member yourself. As a matter of fact, there has never been an effective reform of the Church which was a top-down movement; it has always been from the bottom up.

Today, then, commit yourselves to a renewed faith in Christ, proclaimed by Peter as the Son of the Living God. Pray for Peter’s successor. And pray for your own spiritual peace. And keep emblazoned in your mind and heart: Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat. !



Fr. Stravinskas gave his address as Newman House in Pine Beach, New Jersey, and from sketchy details I can google, he is the founder of the Priestly Society of Cardinal John Newman and editor-publisher of a magazine called CATHOLIC RESPONSE, an apologetics magazine published six times a year by Newman House Press which has published, among other things, a 2007 book on LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS by Fr. Guido Marini - his initial writings after Benedict XVI named him Master of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies.


July 4, 2016
P.S. Catholic World Report has posted Fr. Stranviskas's homily under the title "12 thoughts on the Papacy and life in the Church today"!
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/4895/12_thoughts_on_the_papacy_and_life_in_the_church_today.aspx
It also gives the ff additional information about him: "He is the author of over 500 articles for numerous Catholic publications, as well as several books, including The Catholic Church and the Bible and Understanding the Sacraments."
TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 4 luglio 2016 19:38


The recent virtual silence even in the 'conservative' blogosphere which generally tends to admire Benedict XVI, in failing to remember him on the 65th anniversary of his priestly ordination underscores the chasm there is between being pope and being ex-pope. If there had been no Vatican ceremony to mark it, the media would probably not have bothered to mention it at all.

Yet how could the 65th anniversary of an ex-pope not be considered extraordinary and special, even by Catholic blogs and websites who surely know the significance of the occasion, since Benedict XVI is the only pope, now ex-pope but still alive, to mark such an anniversary other than Leo XIII more than 100 years ago? [I have tried to google if any other pope lived to mark the anniversary, but have come up with nothing.] I truly do not recall any greetings from these sites, not even if they did refer to the Vatican ceremony and Benedict XVI's first publicly spoken words since he stepped down as pope.

{Which strangely, even someone like Sandro Magister did not seem to find remarkable at all, other than to observe that it was but the 13th time that B16 had failed to live up to his promise to stay 'silent and hidden' in his retirement. For some reason, Magister failed to pick up B16's little theological discourse on trans-substantiation even if, at the same time, Magister had a full-length article in www.chiesa about JMB/PF's open signals in favor of inter-faith communion.)


Happily, Fr. De Souza in Canada did write an anniversary tribute to B16, in his blogpost for the Canadian Catholic magazine which carries his blog...


Benedict XVI offers
much encouragement to priests

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, SJ

June 30, 2016

It’s become something of a routine now. Pope Francis delivers a spontaneous lambasting of priests who do this or that which he disapproves of, and priests get in touch to ask what we should make of it all.

As it happens often enough, I have a three-part response, which I most recently had to employ after the latest rhetorical assault in which the Holy Father spoke of some priests as “animals” who practice “pastoral cruelty.”

The Holy See Press Office, always at the ready to explain what it is that Pope Francis intended to say, helpfully explained that it was not that the Pope thought some priests were “animals” but rather treated their people “like animals.” Which perhaps is a bit better.

At any rate, the three-step process works just as well whether examining the original remarks of the Holy Father, or the amended ones issued afterwards.

Step 1: Lay aside the language, and consider the behaviour the Holy Father is criticizing. Examine our conscience on the matter. Much of what the Holy Father criticizes in priests deserves to be criticized — distance from our people, the seeking of comfort, a hardened heart.

If he takes delight in pointing out our failings, well, three years should have taught us to tolerate that. Every priest has to develop something of a thick skin when it comes to criticism, including criticism from the Pope.

Step 2: Read the Gospel passages where Jesus speaks like, well, Pope Francis does. “Brood of vipers,” “hypocrites” and “whited sepulchres” were all addressed to the clergy of the day.
- Pope Francis of course does not have the balance in his preaching and commentary that Jesus did, but that applies to every one of us.
- Jesus spoke harshly on occasion. Pope Francis speaks harshly almost daily, usually beginning his daily homily with a survey of those who fail to live up to the Gospel.

It’s unusual for us, as we have long been inclined to avoid anything that might come off as a harsh judgment. We don’t have to be as judgmental or harsh as Pope Francis usually is, but we have something to learn from him about correcting the faults of people in our care.

Step 3: If you need encouragement — and all of us priests do! — go back and read Benedict XVI, a gentle soul who wrote beautifully on the priesthood.

In honour then of the 65th anniversary of ordination of the pope emeritus, permit me then to provide that service — an encouraging passage from Benedict XVI, taken from his homily on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in 2011, the 60th anniversary of his ordination:

“Non iam dicam servos, sed amicos” — “I no longer call you servants, but friends” (cf. Jn 15:15).

Sixty years on from the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again deep within me these words of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony by the archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice.

According to the liturgical practice of that time, these words conferred on the newly ordained priests the authority to forgive sins. ‘No longer servants, but friends’.

at that moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply a quotation from Scripture. I knew that, at that moment, the Lord Himself was speaking to me in a very personal way.

In baptism and confirmation he had already drawn us close to Him, He had already received us into God’s family. But what was taking place now was something greater still. He calls me His friend. He welcomes me into the circle of those He had spoken to in the Upper Room, into the circle of those whom He knows in a very special way, and who thereby come to know Him in a very special way.

He grants me the almost frightening faculty to do what only He, the Son of God, can legitimately say and do: I forgive you your sins. He wants me — with His authority — to be able to speak, in His name (‘I’ forgive), words that are not merely words, but an action, changing something at the deepest level of being...

I know that behind these words lies His suffering for us and on account of uS. I know that forgiveness comes at a price: in His Passion He went deep down into the sordid darkness of our sins. He went down into the night of our guilt, for only thus can it be transformed.

And by giving me authority to forgive sins, He lets me look down into the abyss of man, into the immensity of His suffering for us men, and this enables me to sense the immensity of His love.

He confides in me: ‘No longer servants, but friends’. He entrusts to me the words of consecration in the Eucharist. He trusts me to proclaim His word, to explain it aright and to bring it to the people of today. He entrusts Himself to me.

‘You are no longer servants, but friends’: these words bring great inner joy, but at the same time, they are so awe-inspiring that one can feel daunted as the decades go by amid so many experiences of one’s own frailty and his inexhaustible goodness...

“No longer servants, but friends": this saying contains within itself the entire program of a priestly life.

“What is friendship? Idem velle, idem nolle — wanting the same things, rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship is a communion of thinking and willing. The Lord says the same thing to us most insistently: ‘I know my own and my own know me’ (Jn 10:14).


Thank you Father Benedict! Ad multos annos!

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 04:25
Sandro Magister cites another instance when JMB/PF has openly and clearly contradicted himself - this time on inter-faith communion... Or perhaps, he just changed his mind.

Francis vs. Francis - 3
The pope once said No to inter-communion
among Catholics and Lutherans, but
has apparently changed his mind since then

Translated from

July 1, 2016

From the Swiss canton of St. Gallen [yup, the very same locale that hosted the meetings of the anti-Ratzinger cardinalatial mafia], a reader notes that a couple of years ago, Pope Francis did not indicate at all that he would approve of inter-communion among Catholics and Protestants which today he seems to do without further brakes.
> Comunione per tutti, anche per i protestanti

On December 1, 2014, when he received the bishops of Switzerland making their ad limina visit, he admonished them with regard to ecumenical relations, and in particular, on interfaith communion, as follows:

We must allow the faithful of all the Christian confessions to live their faith in an unequivocal manner that is free from confusion, and without adjustments that would cancel the differences among them to the detriment of truth.

If, for example, in the guise of an encounter [with other faiths], we have to hide our eucharistic faith, then we do not sufficiently take our patrimony seriously, nor that of our interlocutors.


"Quantum mutatus ab illo!" (How he has changed!), one might exclaim, upon seeing the enormous distance between the intransigent Bergoglio on that occasion and the yielding one these days. Provided one does not ignore what has become obvious to any attentive observer: that this pontificate has made a cardinal virtue of mimesis.
[Whether mimesis here means simple self-imitation, or a more profound 'representation of self', JMB's media handlers should at least make sure JMB himself keeps track of what he says in the texts written for him so that they do not contradict what he really thinks! Though I can see how it would be difficult to do that with someone who is convinced he is omniscient since he attributes to the Holy Spirit everything he says and does from the time he became pope.]

As with communion for remarried divorcees, Pope Francis has had a continual 'stop and go' policy on ecumenical inter-communion. He says, he unsays, he contradicts, and then he says again. But precisely thanks to this dialectical play, he is bringing the Church in the direction he wishes it to go.

Reading the entire text, it seems evident that the address to the Swiss bishops in December 2014 was not his text but an 'official' product [from the Vatican speechwriters], with minimal personal retouches from him, as when he exhorts the pastors "to pasture their flock walking ahead of them, in their midst or behind them, depending on the circumstances" [this has been a favorite JMB formulation that he has used since he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires], or when he says that the Church should not reduce itself to 'just another beautiful organization, another NGO".

But the authentic Bergoglio is not the man who listlessly reads these routine addresses, of which today he prefers more and more to simply hand out the written text to his audience instead of reading them.

The authentic Bergoglio the man who speaks off the cuff, in apparent verbal disarray, but actually displaying a very sophisticated rhetoric like a perfect Jesuit from the time of Pascal. [In 1656-1657, the French philosopher wrote 18 letters denouncing casuistry - the Jesuit method of argument - as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity and all sorts of sins. A definition that anticipates by three-and-a-half centuries the mental/moral contortions of AL Chapter 8!]

Such as the no-famous answer he gave - with a perhaps unparallelled sophistication - on November 15, 2015, in a visit to the Lutheran Christuskirche in Rome, to give the green light to Protestants receiving communion in a Catholic Mass, apparently heedless of the profound gulf that separates the Catholic concept of the Eucharist and that of Luther's followers, because, in his words, "life is greater than explanations and interpretation".
[Considering that JMB's answer was habitually rambling and seeking mightily to be noncommittal (Magister reproduces it in his www.chiesa article a few days back on this same subject), I do not see how Magister can say it is of 'unparalleled sophistication'! Casuistry, yes, but casuistry is not necessarily sophistication. On the contrary, it can be embarassingly sophomoric rather than sophisticated, as in this case.]

It's worth re-reading:

“Thank you, Ma’am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid!

I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: 'Do this in memory of me'. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord’s Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last.

Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: “Is sharing the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together?" I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand.

It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: Don’t we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. [Not that Luther and all the Protestants that came after him thought or think that at all! If they did, they would never have left the Church. No, Luther et al believed in 'to each his own'!]
You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism.

When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive.

When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same.

The question: What about the Last Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond in the same way, you see. 'This is my Body, this is my Blood', said the Lord, 'do this in memory of me' - this is a viaticum which helps us to journey.

I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord’s Supper. [But he did not actually take part in the Catholic communion, did he? At least, he respected the Catholic theology of the Eucharist that much.] Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man.

I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond.

A pastor friend of mine said to me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference?' [The difference is 'TRANS-SUBSTANTIATION', and if that is not a significant difference, what is?] – 'Well, there are explanations, interpretations…'.

Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: “One faith, one baptism, one Lord”, as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more. ["Yes...No...Yes...I don't know...You decide." When did a pope ever answer any one or any question in this way?]


TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 20:30


Beatrice on her site calls attention to a long interview with Aldo Maria Valli, a Vaticanista who stands up for his right and duty to criticize the pope's opinable teachings, but because the interview itself is long, an excellent preview is provided in La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, which I have translated first.

One must note that besides a definitive biography of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, among the many books Valli has written, there is Il mio Karol. Così ho raccontato Giovanni Paolo II, così lui ha parlato a me (My Karol: How I reported on John Paul II, and how he spoke to me)(2008); La verità del Papa. Perché lo attaccano, perché va ascoltato (The Pope's truth: Why they attack him, why he must be heeded)(2010) - a book in defense of Papa Ratzinger; Le sorprese di Dio: I giorni della rivoluzione di Francesco (God's surprises: The days of Francis's revolution)(2013); and L’alfabeto di papa Francesco. Parole e gesti di un pontificato (The alphabet of Pope Francis: Words and gestures of a Pontificate)(2015).

In other words, Valli thought so highly of JMB that he wrote two laudatory books about him in the space of three years. Which makes his criticism of him even more remarkable.


Veteran Vaticanista warns
against papolatry

Aldo Maria Valli is accused by 'friends' of betrayal
because he has openly criticized the relativism of AL

by Lorenzo Bertocchi
Translated from

July 5, 2016

Longtime Vaticanista Giuseppe Rusconi sought out another veteran Vaticanista, Aldo Maria Valli, who has been Italian state TV's (RAI) reporter on Church affairs first for TG3 and now for TG1, RAI's premier new telecast for a long substantial interview posted on Rusconi's site bwww.rossoporpora.org.

We have gleaned the highlights which touch on a subject that has yet to be publicly considered adequately.

Valli, contrary to expectations, had recently expressed himself with great parrhesia, so to speak, about the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. On his personal blog, Valli said that the logic of "yes, but also" is found almost everywhere in AL. [I posted a translation of this on Page 534 of this thread on 6/16/16.]

He explains that AL presents a situational ethics which is very dangerous because it feeds into the dominant subjectivism and results in pure cultural liquidity [lack of form and firmness].

Therefore Valli, who is the author of a definitive biography on Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, has been accused by some of his 'friends' of getting into the 'enemy camp', namely those who are 'against the pope', and even of 'betrayal'.

"I expected that [reaction]", Valli tells Rusconi. "But I am stunned that so many persons think that it is prohibited to make critical observations about the pope on opinable, not dogmatic, questions."

The media playbook [in the era of Bergoglio] is wellknown: If one does not applaud loudly for any gesture or word of the Pope, if one dares to say respectfully that he can sometimes be difficult to understand, that he advocates 'pastoral' measures that seem to raise more questions than solutions, then a journalist ends up being condemned by his peers in the Catholic media to be incapable of any 'pastoral conversion' at all.

Valli responds to this gambits saying,

Quite clearly, a believer, acting with great respect, not only has the right but also the duty to question everything [about his faith] that is not dogmatic if he thinks it is necessary. It is often forgotten that freedom to criticize is part of the freedoms available to the lay faithful. One cannot be Christian if not in freedom, and Catholics must guard against papolatry.


The criticisms Valli has received from 'friends' or from his followers have given him "the impression that, within the Catholic world, there are wide areas in which the capacity for debate is rather limited".

It is interesting that Valli tells Rusconi that as a Vaticanista, he had differences of opinion with John Paul II ("a pope who profoundly marked important decisions in my life") and criticized 'in some cases' even Benedict XVI ("whom I appreciated for hys crystalline clarity and his ability to get to the bottom of every question"). Proof that Valli follows Cardinal Martini's advice to him that he must always "choose to be among those who think".

As Rusconi notes during the interview, it is true that we have been witnessing an instrumentalization by much of mass media of this pope's words and actions, but it also true that the pope himself lends himself to such an operation.

Just consider his inflight news conferences at the end of each of his apostolic trips, or many of his off-the-cuff remarks or responses on other occasions. What about these? Valli answers:

You're putting me into a fix here. Paraphrasing the pope, I could ask, 'Who am I to advise the pope?'. But it cannot be denied that some of his statements do sow disconcertment.

For example, his answer to the Lutheran woman who asked if she could share Catholic communion with her Catholic husband. That elicited a papal response that was extremely confused and contradictory, perhaps also because Francis does not have mastery of the Italian language. But it must never be forgotten that off-the-cuff remarks can be very insidious [which is why popes before JMB rarely indulged in them, and only, as with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, if they knew they did not run the risk of making any statement that could later be shown to be wrong or imprudent, whereas with JMB, one gets the impression he is always rushing in where even angels fear to tread].

On the spot, he is asked - by whoever happens to be the journalist in queue, and usually, they are not merciful at all - to give his opinion on profound and wide-ranging questions, often with complex theological, moral, political and historical implications. [And he answers them promptly and willingly, which is how he gets into all his semantic problems!] One must note that Pope Francis's over-exposure in the media is unprecedented for a pope and brings consequences that must be questioned and reflected on...

It's not a question about love for the pope. Precisely because I take the pope very seriously, I must ask myself what he is teaching in matters that are opinable - and de facto, that is almost everything he says these days.

It therefore seems that the question we should reflect upon is what idea the faithful should have about the papacy and on this pope's mediatic over-exposure.


One theologian called Valli "a 19th-century fossil... who does not understand the new way proposed by the church of Francis".

Valli responds, "The use of the expression 'the church of Francis' is very odd, because the Church does not belong to Francis nor to any pope, but to Christ". [Obviously, the Bergoglidolators automatically think in terms of what to them is de facto reality - the church JMB is leading is, in fact, 'the church of Bergoglio', not the Church instituted by Christ, as I have been arguing obstinately for the better part of the past three years and four months.]

On the other hand, Papa Bergoglio himself, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, had warned against a certain papolatry, saying, "To portray the pope as some sort of superman, some star, seems offensive to me". [And yet, and yet - he appears to revel in his mega-popularity fueled precisely by the open papolatry of the mass media.]
TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 21:38
JMB does disservice to Benedict
by presuming to say his renunciation
'had nothing to do with personal reasons'


For some reason - and I think it has to do with counteracting Mons. Gaenswein's unfortunate remarks about 'an expanded Petrine ministry' - JMB has lately been talking a lot, relatively speaking, about Benedict XVI.

I do take great umbrage at his declaration to an Argentine newspaper that B16's renunciation had 'nothing to do with personal reasons' - when the latter's Declaratio on February 11, 2013, made it clear that personal reasons of age and growing infirmity had made him decide to give up the Papacy.

How dare he speak for Benedict, as it were, and in the process, contradict what Benedict himself had stated clearly in his Declaratio? And since this is one of his off-the-cuff remarks, it must reflect what he really thinks. Moreover, in making this presumptuous statement, he also feeds the frenzy of those who claim that Benedict was really forced to resign by unnamed elements!

Of course, Benedict's renunciation, whatever the reason, was also an act of governance because it was a decision that affected the entire Church - it means he was opening the way for a change in Church governance even while he is still alive.

One cannot blame JMB for stressing this every chance he gets - because he would not be pope now if Benedict XVI had not renounced his office. In a way, he is expressing his gratitude for that. Because unlike Benedict XVI, he did not experience his election as something like a guillotine blade coming down on him - but claims he was always at peace throughout the Conclave and with its outcome (probably because he came into the Conclave already knowing what the outcome would be). He obviously welcomed his election unconditionally.



The pope tells Argentine newspaper that
Benedict XVI's resignation had
'nothing to do with personal reasons',

that it was' his last act of governance'

by Andrea Tornielli
From the English service of

July 4, 2016


His resignation had nothing to do with personal issues. It was an act of government. His last act of government.” Pope Francis said this in an interview with Argentinian newspaper La Nación on 28 June this year, which was published in the Sunday issue of July 3, 2016.

In the interview, which was conducted by Joaquín Morales Solá, there is a strong focus on Argentinian affairs: the Pope’s alleged clashes with President Macri, the question of the rejected funds which the government had intended for the Scholas Ocurrentes foundation, and the presence in Argentina of people who are considered to be the Pope’s “spokesmen”, when they are actually not.

The interview also contains some references to Benedict XVI. [It actually starts off with two questions about Benedict XVI.]

“He has trouble getting around but his brain and memory are functioning perfectly,” Francis said on the very day he celebrated his predecessor’s 65th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood.

“He was a revolutionary,” Francis continued, referring to Ratzinger. “In the meeting with cardinals, shortly before the 2013 Conclave, he told us that one of us was going to be Pope and that he did not know who. His generosity was unique. His resignation brought to light all of the Church’s problems. His resignation had nothing to do with personal issues. It was an act of government. His last act of government.” [The statement about 'bringing to light all the Church's problems' is just as questionable. It is not as if these problems were not always known - it is just that the media and the cardinal electors skewed the picture to make it appear that reform of the Curia was the most urgent problem the Church had!]

The Pope also answered a question about his relations with the Church’s “ultraconservatives”.

They get on with their work, I get on with mine. I want a Church that is open and understanding and accompanies wounded families. They say no to everything. [Who are 'they' exactly, and what are they saying No to? Orthodox Catholics - prelates and laymen alike - say No to anything that violates the established doctrine and right practices of the Church, No to being 'open and understanding' when to do so is to compromise the truths of the faith!]

I continue my path without being sidetracked. I do not like getting rid of people. I never have. Let me reiterate: I reject conflict... He concluded with a big smile:
You remove nails by pulling them out. Or you leave them to the side and put them to rest when they reach retirement age. [Oh so, he considers prelates opposed to his questionable 'pastoral of mercy' as nails to be pulled out or to be ignored until they retire or die!]



Actually, the headline and lead paragraphs of the La Nacion interview report had to do with Benedict XVI, as follows:

Remarkable affection and respect for Benedict
LA NACION
Sunday, July 3, 2016

VATICAN CITY - On the day of his interview with LA NACION, Pope Francis presided at a meeting of the Roman Curia to honor the 65 years of priesthood of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI who now lives in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican.

Francis had just said that "there is only one pope" in reference to a confused statement that had been made by the emeritus pope's private secretary. [Who is also the Prefect of Francis's Pontifical Household!]

Nevertheless, the affection and respect that Francis feels for his predecessor is remarkable.

[There follows the text of the interview, of which the first question is: How is Benedict XVI's state of health? and the second is: What is your opinion of him? - with the answers as quoted by Tornielli in his account.]...


Regarding his relations with Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, Francis said: “People have no reason to think that there is a dispute between me and Macri” who “seems to me to be a noble person”.

The Pope denied allegations that Gustavo Vera, a professor, politician and social activist and Franciss’ longtime friend and collaborator, acts as his spokesperson.

“There is a great deal of confusion about my spokesmen in Argentina. Two months ago, the Vatican newsroom issued an official statement saying that it is the Pope’s only spokesman. There are no other spokesmen in Argentina or any other country. Do I need to make myself even more clear? Then I will: The Vatican newsroom is the Pope’s only spokesman.”

These words should be seen within the Argentinian context, where Bergoglio is often used as a pawn in the political debate.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 22:44
So now we have the spectacle of a Vatican prosecutor recommending jail time for two of Pope Francis's most high-profile appointments to his many study commissions....

Vatileaks-2 prosecutor recommends
3 years and 9 months jail time for PR consultant
and 3 years and 1 month for monsignor-accomplice


July 4, 2016

The prosecutor of the "Vatileaks II” trial has recommended sentencing for four of the five defendants and acquittal for the fifth one for lack of evidence.

He considers Francesca Chaouqui responsible as a conspirator for the plot and has recommended that she serve 3 years and 9 months in prison.

For Mons. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, 3 years and 1 month of imprisonment, as 'the engine of the conspiracy'. [So why does he get less jailtime than Chaoqui?]

For Fr. Nicola Maio, assistant to Mons. Vallejo Balda, 1 year and 9 months in prison for his limited responsibility and involvement in the events.

And for journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, a one-year jail term.

The prosecutor asked for the acquittal of the other journalist involved, Emiliano Fittipaldi, for lack of evidence.

The prosecution accuses Chaouqui, Vallejo and Maio of forming a criminal association since June 2013 to unlawfully disseminate information about the finances and fiscal condition of the Holy See and the Vatican state that resulted in "a danger to public order and security for the Vatican.”

The prosecution considers Nuzzi is a moral accomplice to the crime - by publicly disclosing the information he was provided by the other defendants.

Ah, but you know, it's the Holy Year of Mercy, so even if they are sentenced as recommended, JMB will most likely commute their convictions and/or give them outright pardon so they don't have to serve any time at all.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 23:09


I wonder if we will get a full picture from Pope Francis of divine mercy for mankind by the time his Holy Year of Mercy ends. It seems so perverse to mark a Holy Year under false pretenses, as it were. Mons. Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, has the right picture of divine mercy...

Beware of fake mercy:
Behold true mercy in
Jesus's call to St. Matthew

by Mons. Charles Pope

July 3, 2016

This year in particular, we are summoned to reflect on the concept of mercy. Many think of mercy as an overlooking of sin rather than as a remedy for it. To some, the fact of God’s mercy is a sign that He doesn’t care about sin and is content to leave us in it. Those who speak to the reality of mercy are often called harsh, mean-spirited, etc. Many set mercy and sin in opposition to one another.

The Lord Jesus unites these realities together. For the Lord, mercy is necessary because there is sin, not because sin is “no big deal.” It is because sin is a big deal that mercy is needed and is glorious.

Bishop Robert Barron rightly wrote:

Many receive the message of divine mercy as tantamount to a denial of the reality of sin, as though sin no longer matters. But just the contrary is the case. To speak of mercy is to be intensely aware of sin and its peculiar form of destructiveness (Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism, p. 1).


So mercy does not deny sin; it acknowledges it and supplies an often-challenging remedy. Jesus shows mercy by calling us from our sin and healing us from its effects.

This understanding is evident in the Gospel from Friday (Mt 9:9-13 – Friday of the 13th week of the year).

As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him.

While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.

The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

He heard this and said,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”


Notice three things from this Gospel about the relationship of mercy to sin.

I. In His mercy, Jesus reckons us as sinners and regards us as sick. Jesus states plainly, “I have come to call sinners” (this means us). He also says that those who are well do not need a doctor, but the sick do (this means us).

We live in times when many are deceived; they call their sin good and something to be proud of. They say, “God made me this way,” or “God likes me just the way I am.”

No, to those such as these the Lord Jesus says, “You are sick. You are a sinner.” An antiphon in the Breviary says, God sees all men as sinners, that he might show them his mercy.

So in His mercy Jesus does not overlook sin or call it something good; he calls it what it is: sin and sickness.


II. In His mercy, Jesus summons us to change. In this Gospel, Jesus calls Matthew away from His tax post. He says, “Follow me.” The translation is “Stop what you are doing, come away from it, and follow me out of here.” To the woman caught in adultery He says, “Do not sin again.”

Jesus began His ministry by saying, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” To repent (metanoiete) means to change, to come to a new and different mind.

The changes Jesus insists upon are too numerous to list in their entirety, but among them are that we become free of vengeful anger, lust, greed, retaliation, and unforgiveness, and that we become more generous, loving, serene, faithful, and trusting.

Thus in His mercy Jesus does not confirm us in our sin; He summons us away from it. He summons us to change and equips us to do so. His merciful call is, “Come away from here. Enough of this; follow me.”

III. In His mercy, Jesus heals sinners of sin – Jesus uses the image of a doctor and states plainly that sick people (sinners) need a doctor. Jesus is that doctor.

A doctor does not look at a sick patient and say, “You’re just fine the way you are” or “I affirm you.” That would be malpractice.

Jesus sees sin for what it is. He calls it such and prescribes the necessary medicines. He will also likely speak to a person’s lifestyle and recommend needed changes. This is how a doctor heals.

Jesus invokes the image of a doctor for what he does. He diagnoses and says, “This is bad. This is sickness. This is sin.”

He then applies healing remedies such as the Sacraments, the Holy Liturgy, His Word, the carrying of the cross, active and passive purifications, punishments due to sin, solid moral teaching, and holy fellowship. Like a doctor, Jesus summons us from a bad and unhealthy life to a good and healthy one.

Thus, in his mercy Jesus heals our sins. He does not ignore them or approve them and certainly does not call them good or something to celebrate. In his mercy he heals them, he ends them.

So mercy is not a bland kindness. It is not mere flattery that pretends sin does not exist or matter. Beware of fake, flattering mercy. True mercy says, “Sin is awful. Let’s get out of here and go to a far better place.”

Matthew got up and followed Jesus. How about us?
TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 5 luglio 2016 23:37

Now there are 2 'Catholic news'
aggregators in English



We still have PewSitter, but it appears its former editor, Frank Walker, has set up his own shop, called Canon 212.com, which it appears, will not occupy itself with US and European political developments as PewSitter does.

Canon 212 of the Code of Canon Law, of course, contains the Section 3 provision that

[the Catholic faithful] have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church. They have the right also to make their views known to others of Christ's faithful, but in doing so they must always respect the integrity of faith and morals, show due reverence to the Pastors and take into account both the common good and the dignity of individuals.



The aggregators are very useful to track down the most newsworthy and interesting items of interest to Catholics, but I do harbor strong resentment that PewSitter and Frank Walker when he was with them have often been slighting to Benedict XVI - their insistent use of the word 'abdication' and its verb forms to refer to B16's renunciation being the most obvious. Abdication connotes abandonment of duty, usually under external constraint, which was not the case with Benedict's rinuncia.

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