BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 21 dicembre 2009 03:42






The Copenhagen summitteers
should study the Pope's message
as a key to action

by Franco Prodi
Translated from
the 12/20/09 issue of




Pope Benedict XVI's Message for the 2010 World Day of Peace came out this year in singular coincidence with the United Nations conference on climate change that ends today in Copenhagen.

It is a text that is distinctive for its immediate communicativeness, for its fusion of ethics and economic concreteness, for the detachment with which it arrives at practical economic suggestions, but above all, for its insistence on the centrality of man in Creation, of which he is the protagonist.

Authoritative commentators analyzed it contextually upon its release. But it is useful to read it again in the light of the final outcome from Copenhagen.

What is perceptible first of all is the strong contrast between the calm deployment of the papal text and images of all the agitation in that immense meeting hall in Copenhagen, where the powerful of the earth sought frantically to produce a document they could all agree on.

An effort that was apparent in the draft of the final text, in the embarrassment of having to resort to the nth review of commitments for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, with an attempt by the rich nations to compensate with financial transfers the poorer nations for their excessive use of energy resources.

There followed an almost absurdly ambitious commitment to "keep global warming under two degrees', as though it was an objective achievable simply through a deterministic cause-and-effect relation between efforts towards that end and the expected results.

No one ever entertained the thought that the objective was achievable without effort though the natural course of a system so complex and far from being completely understood.

Fortunately, the Pope's message came, to point out that "the ecological crisis cannot be evaluated separately from questions linked to it because they are strongly linked to the concept itself of development and the vision of man and his relationship with his peers and with creation".

Benedict asks for nothing less than "a profound and farsighted review of the development model". He also speaks of distortions in the economy and its ends, of dysfunctions that must be corrected.

But the original vision of the message is that man's unconcern for the environment, his pillage of natural resources, ultimately turn back on man himself. There is a causal nexus between the self-destructive tendency of modern man and his cultural and moral crisis, which is expressed in his unconcern for the environment.

The Pontiff places the responsibility for this spreading crisis on governments because they don't furnish 'long-range policies'. Any illusions of utopia are dispelled when the message points to the enormous responsibility in economic decisions and their moral consequences.

Economic activity should respect the environment and must take into account the costs for doing so. Thus, the call to fight environmental degradation and promote integral development corollary to a more ample breadth of international solidarity, which is seen as a cultural condition, rather than as a unilateral relation in philanthropic terms.

Those who work in environmental research and innovation should also learn to see scientific opportunities in the battle against environmental degradation and for integral human development. The Pope endorses development of solar energy, management of water and forest resources, use of agricultural techniques that respect the environment, and waste management.

In such a vision, even the very prospect of poverty would seem to collapse and be replaced by one of solidarity on a global level.

The imperative of caring for Creation also improves man interiorly and is cause for happiness. It leads naturally to peace because it helps to resolve the underlying crises manifested in the ecological supercrisis.

The method of 'moderation and responsibility' triumphs over indiscriminate exploitation which limits the future availability of resources.

The link between morality and economy prompts the Pope to recommend juridical norms defined by compatibility between private property and the universal destination of natural resources.

From the recommendation of lifestyles that favor non-material goods (the true, the good, the beautiful) follows the promise of reciprocity: "In taking care of creation," says the Pope, "we realize that God, through Creation, takes care of us".

This, then, is the way that the Pope's message indicates to the participants of the Copenhagen summit: the need to stop environmental degradation should be based on the convergence of intentions rather than on controversial accountability for emissions. It is a road that is long, but which can count on guidance from the Christian message and its humanism.

In Italy, meanwhile, an expert shows on TV what was found in the stomach of a beached whale found in Gargano recently - plastic bags, fishnets, the most disparate objects. The great animal had lost its orientation and suffocated because of ingesting manmade products..

It is a jolting image emblematic of man's indifference to his environment and calls for different, more responsible lifestyles and a new concept of development.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 21 dicembre 2009 14:17



Monday, December 21

ST. PETER CANISIUS (Netherlands, 1521-1597)
Jesuit, Theologian, Writer, Preacher, Doctor of the Church
One of the great figures of the Counter-Reformation and the first Dutch Jesuit, Peter was educated in Cologne and is called the Second Apostle of Germany after St. Boniface, for having restored Catholicism to Germany after the Reformation. Besides Germany, he also re-evangelized Austria, Bohemia and Switzerland. A great teacher and charismatic preacher, he founded many schools and seminaries for the Jesuits. He addressed the Council of Trent on the importance of the Eucharist and is credited with adding the final lines of the Hail Mary prayer (Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...]. In 1555, he published a Catechism that directly countered Luther's Catechism and had gone into 400 editions by the end of the 17th century, for which his special designation as a Doctor of the Church is 'Doctor of Catechetical Studies'. His writings include studies of St. Cyril of Alexandria and Leo the Great, and a voluminous epistolary reminiscent of St. Bernard of Clairvaux comprising 8,000 pages. Although his tomb was immediately renowned for miracles, he was not beatified until 1864, In 1925, he became the first saint to be canonized and declared Doctor of the Church at the same time.




No OR today.



THE POPE'S DAY

Annual address to the Roman Curia - This pre-Christmas appointment has become an annual highlight
of Benedict XVI's Pontificate. In the context of reviewing the year just past in the Church and the Papacy,
he has been able to underscore the themes of his Pontificate. Today, the context was the end of the Pauline
Year and the start of the Year for Priests; the Church's special attention to Africa; with his trips to Cameroon
and Angola and the Special Assembly of the Bishops' Synod; reconciliation as a pre-political move in any
context, especially in Africa and the Middle East; the Holy Land trip for its multiple religious and political
significances, not the least that the Christian faith is not a myth; the trip to the Czech Republic as an
opportunity for re-evangelization; what the Church and Christians must do to insure a place for God in today's
world; and the special role of priests in this. [Notably, he did not say anything about the openings to the
Lefebvrians and the Anglicans initiated this year.]

TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 21 dicembre 2009 17:58



BENEDICT XVI'S CHRISTMAS ADDRESS
TO THE ROMAN CURIA

Translated from

Dec. 21, 2009




At 11 a.m. today, the Holy Father Benedict XVI received cardinals present in Rome and the members of the Roman Curia and the Governatorate of Vatican city state for their annual Christmas exchange of greetings at the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace.

The Pope's address was preceded by a greeting from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, in behalf of everyone present as well as the Apostolic Nuncios serving the Vatican around the world and the emeritus Nuncios.




Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address:




Eminent Cardinals,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear brothers and sisters:

The Solemnity of the Holy Nativity, as Cardinal Sodano has just underscored, is for Christians a most special occasion for encounter and communion.

The Baby of Bethlehem whom we adore invites us to feel God's immense love, the God who came down from heaven to be close to each of us and make us his children, part of his own Family.

Even this traditional Christmas appointment of the Successor of Peter with his closest co-workers is a family encounter, which reaffirms our links of affection and communion, in order to be ever more that 'permanent Cenacle' consecrated to spreading the Kingdom of God.

I thank the Cardinal Dean for the kind wishes that he expressed in behalf of the College of Cardinals, the members of the Roman Curia and the Governatorate, as well as the Pontifical Representatives who are profoundly united with us in bringing to the men of our time that Light that was born in the manger at Bethlehem.

In welcoming you all with great joy, I also wish to express my gratitude to everyone for the generous and competent service that you render to the Vicar of Christ and to the Church.

Another year rich with important events for the Church and for the world is coming to an end. With a retrospective look that is full of gratitude, I wish at this time to call attention to some of its key points for the life of the Church.

From the year of St. Paul to the Year for Priests. From the imposing figure of the Apostle of the Gentiles who, having been struck by the light of the Risen Christ and his call, brought the Gospel to the peoples of the world, we have passed to the humble figure of the Curate of Ars, who remained all his life in the small village that was entrusted to him, and who, nonetheless, precisely in the humility of his service, made the reconciliatory goodness of God widely visible to the world.

Both figures manifest the breadth of the priestly ministry, and it also makes evident how great it can be to be humble, and how, through the apparently small service of one man, God can work great things, and can purify and renew the world from within.

For the Church and for me, personally, the year which is ending can largely be seen in the context of Africa. First of all, there was the apostolic trip to Cameroon and Angola.

It was moving for me to experience the great warmth with which the Successor of Peter, Vicarius Christi, was received. The festive joy and cordial affection came to me from the streets and were not simply those for any casual visitor. To encounter the Pope is to experience the universal Church, a community that embraces the world and is assembled by God through Christ - a community not founded on human interests, but which is offered to us from God's loving attention.

Together, we are all the family of God, brothers and sisters by virtue of the one Father - this is the experience we live. We experience the loving attention of God in Christ for us, not as a thing of the past nor of erudite theories, but as a reality that is most concrete here and now.

He himself is in our midst - and one way we can perceive this is through the ministry of the Successor of Peter. Thus we are elevated above routine quotidianity. The heavens open, and this makes every day a feast.

But it is at the same time something lasting. It continues to be true, even in our daily life, that heaven is no longer closed, that God is near, that in Christ, we all belong to each other.

Particularly impressed deeply in my memory were the liturgical celebrations [in Africa]. The celebrations of the Holy Eucharist were truly feasts of faith.

I wish to mention two particularly important elements. First of all, there was the great joy that was shared, which was experienced even through the body, but in a disciplined way that was oriented towards the presence of the living God.

And that in itself already indicated the second element: the sense of sacredness - the mystery of the living God that was present shaped, so to speak, each single gesture. The Lord is present -the Creator, he to whom we all belong, from which we all came, and towards whom are all journeying.

The words of St. Cyprian came spontaneously to my mind, in which he wrote, commenting on the 'Our Father': "Let us remember that we are under the eyes of God who is looking at us. We must be pleasing to the eyes of God, both with the attitude of our body and with the use of our voice" (De dom. or. 4 CSEL III 1 p 269).

And there was that awareness in Africa - that we were under God's regard. This does not bring fear or inhibition, nor external obedience to the rubrics, and much less does it result in showing ourselves off to each other and raising our voices in an undisciplined way.

There was what the Fathers called sobria ebrietas- sober inebriation: to be full of joy that remains moderate and orderly, which unites persons in their interior being, leading them to communitarian praise of God, a praise which at the same time inspires love for our neighbor and reciprocal responsibility for each other.

Of course, part of the trip to Africa was my meeting with our Brothers in the episcopal ministry and the inauguration of the Synod for Africa through the presentation of its Instrumentum laboris [working agenda].

This took place during an evening colloquium on the Feast of St. Joseph, a conversation in which members of the individual national episcopates expressed their hopes and concerns in a very touching way.

I think that the good patron of the home, St. Joseph, who knew personally what it means to ponder, in solitude and hope, the future of his family, heard us lovingly and was with us even during the Synodal assembly itself.

Let us cast a brief look at the Synod. My visit to Africa made evident the theological and pastoral force of the Pontifical Primacy as a point of convergence for the unity of the family of God. And at the Synod, what also emerged strongly was the importance of collegiality - the unity of the bishops, who receive their ministry precisely by entering the community of the Successors of Apostles.

Each one is a Bishop, a successor to the apostles, only insofar as he participates in the community of those who carry on the Collegium Apostolorum in unity with Peter and his Successor.

Just as in the liturgies in Africa, and subsequently, at St. Peter's in Rome, the liturgical renewal by Vatican-II took form in exemplary manner, so also in the communion of the Synod, we experienced the ecclesiology of Vatican-II in a very practical way.

Equally touching were the testimonials that we heard from the faithful of Africa - stories of suffering as well as of concrete reconciliations in the tragedies that have marked the continent's recent history.

The Synodal assembly's theme was "The Church in Africa at the service of reconciliation, justice and peace". This is a theological and especially pastoral issue of great actuality, but it could also be misunderstood as a political subject.

The task of the bishops was to transform theology into pastoral activity - into a very concrete pastoral mission, in which the great visions of Sacred Scripture and of Tradition are applied to the work of bishops and priests in a specific time and place.

In this, however, we must not fall into the temptation of taking politics in hand, and turn ourselves from pastors into political leaders.

Indeed, the most concrete question before which pastors find themselves continually is this: How can we be realistic and practical without arrogating to ourselves a political competence which is not ours?

We could say that this is a problem of positive secularity, practiced and interpreted correctly. This is also a fundamental topic in the encyclical published on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Caritas in veritate, which takes up and ultimately develops the question about the theological and concrete implications of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

Did the Synodal Fathers succeed in finding the rather narrow road between simple theological theory and immediate political action, the Pastor's way? In my brief remarks at the end of the Synodal assembly, I answered this question affirmatively, explicitly and consciously.

Naturally, in the elaboration of the post-Synodal document, we must be careful to maintain this balance and to offer to the Church and society of Africa the contribution expected of the Church by virtue of her mission. I would like to explain this briefly with regard to one point.

As previously mentioned, the theme of the Synod used three big words that are fundamental for theological and social responsibility: reconciliation, justice, peace.

One can say that reconciliation and justice are the two essential prerequisites for peace, and therefore, they define its nature to a certain degree.

Let us limit ourselves to the word 'reconciliation'. A look at the sufferings and pains in recent African history, but also in other parts of the world, shows that unresolved differences that are profoundly rooted can lead, in some situations, to explosions of violence in which all sense of humanity appears to be lost.

Peace can only be realized if one arrives at an interior reconciliation. We can take a positive example from the process of reconciliation that has taken place in Europe after the Second World War.

The fact that since 1945, there have been no new wars in western and central Europe is based firmly and decisively on political and economic structures that are intelligently and ethically oriented, but this could develop only because there were interior processes of reconciliation which made a new coexistence possible.

Every society needs reconciliations in order that there may be peace. Reconciliations are necessary even for good politics, but they cannot be realized only for that reason. They are pre-political processes and must draw from other sources.

The Synod sought to examine deeply the concept of reconciliation as a task for the Church today, calling attention to its various dimensions. The appeal made by St. Paul to the Corinthians possesses a new relevance today: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5,20).

If man is not reconciled with God, he is also in discord with Creation. And if he is not reconciled with himself - he wants to be something other than he is - and therefore, neither is he reconciled with his neighbor.

Part of reconciliation is the capacity to recognize one's fault and to ask forgiveness - from God, and from one's neighbor. Likewise, part of reconciliation is the readiness to do penitence, the readiness to suffer to the utmost for one's fault and to allow oneself to be transformed.

Reconciliation also consists of gratuitousness, giving freely, of which the encyclical Caritas in veritate speaks repeatedly - it is the willingness to go beyond what is necessary, without counting the costs, going beyond what simple juridical conditions may require.

And that is the generosity of which God himself gave us the example. Let us think of Jesus's words: "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5,23f).

God, who knew that we were not reconciled, who saw that man had something against him, acted and came to meet us, even if only He was on the side of right. He came to meet us all the way to the Cross in order to reconcile us. That is gratuitousness - the readiness to take the first step.

And so, to begin with, go to the other side, offer reconciliation, take on the suffering of admitting that one was not right.

Never give up this will to reconcile: God has given us the example, and this is one way to become like him, an attitude that we will always need in this world.

We should relearn today the capacity to acknowledge fault, we should shake off the illusion that we are innocent. We should learn the capacity to do penance, to allow ourselves to be transformed - to take a step towards the other and to have God give us the courage and the strength for such a renewal.

In our world today, we should rediscover the Sacrament of penance and reconciliation. The fact that it has disappeared in large measure from the existential habit of Christians is a symptom of loss of truth in confronting ourselves and God - a loss which places our humanity at risk and diminishes our capacity for peace.

St. Bonaventure was of the opinion that the Sacrament of penance was perhaps a sacrament of humanity in itself, a Sacrament that God had instituted in its essence immediately after the Original Sin, with the penance he imposed on Adam - though if it would only attain its complete form in Christ, who is, in person, the reconciliatory power of God, and who had taken our penance upon himself.

In effect, the unity of sin, penitence and forgiveness is one of the fundamental conditions of true humanity, conditions which obtain their complete form in the Sacrament, but which, considering their roots, are part of the essential human being himself.

The Bishops Synod for African therefore was right to include in their reflections the rituals of reconciliation in the African tradition as places of learning and preparation for the great reconciliation that God gives in the Sacrament of penance.

This reconciliation, however, requires the ample 'atrium' (antechamber) of acknowledging sin, and the humility of penitence. Reconciliation is a pre-political concept and a pre-political reality, and precisely because of this, it is of of maximum importance in the political task itself.

If reconciliation is not in the heart, then the political commitment to peace lacks its interior prerequisite. In the Synod, the pastors of the Church committed themselves to that interior purification of man that constitutes the essential preliminary condition to build justice and peace.

But such a purification and interior maturation towards true humanity cannot take place without God.



Reconciliation. Again, with this key word I recall the second major trip I made in the year that is ending: the pilgrimage to Jordan and the Holy Land.

In this respect, I wish first of all to thank once again the King of Jordan for the great hospitality with which he received me and accompanied me during my pilgrimage. I am particularly grateful for the exemplary way in which he has committed himself to peaceful coexistence among Muslims and Christians, for his respect for other religions, and for his collaboration in the common responsibility towards God.

Likewise I thank the government of Israel for all that it did so that my visit could take place peacefully and safely. I am particularly grateful for the opportunities granted to me to celebrate two great public liturgies in Jerusalem and Nazareth, at which Christians could openly present themselves as a community of faith in the Holy Land.

Finally, my thanks to the Palestinian authorities who welcomed me with great cordiality, who made it possible for me to offer a public liturgical celebration in Bethlehem, and who also shared with me the sufferings and hopes of their territory.

Everything that one can see in those countries calls for reconciliation, justice and peace.

The visit to Yad Vashem meant an overwhelming encounter with the cruelty of human sin and the hatred of a blind ideology that, without any justification, sent millions of human beings to their death, and with this, ultimately wished to chase God himself from the world, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the God of Jesus Christ.

Thus, Yad Vashem is first of all a commemorative monument against hatred, a heartfelt plea for purification and forgiveness, a plea for love.

This very monument against human sin lent greater significance to my visits to the places of the faith and made their unaltered relevance today even more perceptible.

In Jordan, we saw the lowest point of the earth near the river Jordan. How could we not recall the words in the Letter to the Ephesians, according to which Christ "had descended to the lowest regions of the earth" (Eph 4,9).

With Christ, God descended to the ultimate depths of the human being, down to the night of hatred and blindness, to the darkness of man's remoteness from God, in order to kindle the light of his love. He is present in the darkest of nights, and even in hell - as the words of Psalm 139[138] became reality in Jesus's descent.

Thus being in the places of salvation - the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the cave of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the place of Crucifixion on Calvary, the empty tomb that was the testimony of the Resurrection - was like touching God's history with man.

Faith is not a myth. It is real history, whose traces we can touch with our hand. This realism of the faith should serve us particularly well in the travails of the present.

God truly showed himself. In Jesus Christ, he truly became flesh. As the Risen One, he remains a true man, who continually opens humanity to God and is always the guarantee that God is a God at hand. Yes, God lives and relates to us. In all his grandeur, he is nonetheless the God who is near, God-with-us, who continually calls on us: Let yourselves be reconciled with me and among yourselves! - who always imposes the task of reconciliation in our personal and communitarian life.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude and joy for my visit to the Czech Republic. Before the trip, I was continuously warned that it was the European nation with a majority of agnostics and atheists, in which Christians are only a minority now.

Thus, so much more joyful was the surprise of finding myself surrounded everywhere by such warmth and friendship; that the major liturgies were celebrated in a joyous atmosphere of faith; that my words found sincere attention in the academic and cultural world; that the state authorities gave me great courtesy and and did everything possible to contribute to the success of the visit.

I would be tempted to say more about the beauty of the country and its magnificent proofs of Christian culture, which only help perfect its natural beauty. But more important is the fact that even those persons who consider themselves agnostic or atheist must be believers at heart, like us.

When we speak of a new evangelization, these persons may be horrified. They do not want to be seen as objects of any mission, nor to renounce their freedom of thought and of will.

But the question of God is nonetheless present in them, even if they cannot believe in the concrete nature of his attention to us. In Paris, I had spoken of the quest for God as the fundamental motive that gave birth to Western monasticism, and with it, Western culture.

As a first step in evangelization, we should keep this quest alive. We should see to it that man does not shelve the question of God as an essential question of his existence. Let us work so that man accepts this question and the nostalgia hidden in it.

Here, I am reminded of the words that Jesus cites from the prophet Isaiah, that the temple should be a house of prayer for all peoples (cfr Is 56,7; Mk 11,17). He was thinking of the so-called Court of the Gentiles, that he would clear of all external business so that it could be a free space for Gentiles who wished to pray to the one God, even if they could not take part in the mystery, in whose service the interior of the Temple was reserved.

A space of prayer for all peoples - this meant persons who recognized God from afar, so to speak; those who were discontented with their pagan gods, rite and myths; those who desired what is Pure and what is Great, even if God would remain for them the 'unknown God' (cfr Acts 17,23).

They should nonetheless be able to pray to the unknown God and thus be in relation with the true God, even in the midst of many obscurities.

I think that even today the Church should open a kind of 'Court of the Gentiles' where man can in some way connect themselves to God, even without knowing him, and before they can find access to his mystery, which is served by the internal life of the Church.

To the inter-religious dialog, we must now add a dialog with those for whom religion is an extraneous matter, to whom God is unknown, but who neverhteless do nto wish to remain simply without God, but to approach him even as an unknown God.

And finally, once more, a word about the year for Priests. As priests, we are available to everyone: to those who know God closely and those for whom he is the Unknown. All of us should alwys seek to know him anew and we must continually seek to become true friends of God.

And how can otehrs get to know God if not through men who are friends of God? The deepest nucleus of our priestly ministry is that of being friends of Christ (cfr Jn 15,18), friends of God, through whom even other persons can find closeness to God.

Thus, along with my profound graittude for all the help you have given me throughout the year, this is my Christmas wish: that we may all become increasingly friends of Christ and therefore friends of God, so that in this way we cna be salt of the earth and light in the world.

A blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year!




As usual, Benedict XVI has packed his Christmas message to the Curia with numerous key ideas for the life of the Church. More than just an annual review of the year or a State-of-the-Church address, it also lays down his priorities for the pastoral agenda in the coming year, even as he shares his personal reflections in his habitually intimate and direct manner. It is another great papal text that can be mined infinitely for its riches.

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI1










TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 21 dicembre 2009 20:35





Good news to and from
'men of good will'

Translated from
online


ROME, Dec. 21 - Pope Benedict XVI is expected for his visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome on January 17, as scheduled, the Jewish community in Rome confirmed today.

Notwithstanding the Pope's promulgation Friday of the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII, a move that many Jewish quarters have opposed bitterly.

"Of course he will come. We expect him," the sources said.

January 17 has been observed in the past twenty years by the Catholic Church In Italy [and some other countries in Western Europe] and the Jewish community as a day of dialog.

This year, it coincides with the Roman Jewish feast of Mo'ed di Piombo commemorating a miraculous rainfall that prevented the Jewish ghetto in Rome from burning up when an anti-Jewish mob set fire to its gates.

It will be Benedict XVI's first visit to the Rome synagogue, and his third to a synagogue, after Cologne in 2005 and New York City in 2008.


I've decided to post here the AP report on the Pop'e address today to the Roman Curia - typical of the other Anglophone reports in singling out from that entire dense speech only the reference to the Holocaust memorial - which was to be expected of them, in the light of the Pope's decision to proclaim thr heoric virtues of Pius XII.

But I'd like to note that the apparently general translation used in the reports of the adjective 'sconvolgente' - with which the Pope describes his visit to Yad Vashem - is 'upsetting' or 'disturbing', which are both translations of the word, yes, but the translation most appropriate among those available for the word 'sconvolgente' is 'overwhelming', which I believe is the sense of what the Pope meant. 'Upsetting' or 'disturbing' are rather limited, and even misleading, in this respect. (Just look at its effect as AP uses it in its headline below.) See my full translation of the Pope's address in the preceding post.



Pope says visit to
Holocaust memorial 'upsetting'

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO



VATICAN CITY, Dec. 21 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday described a visit to Israel's Holocaust memorial as a disturbing encounter with hatred, days after his decision to move the controversial World War II-era pope closer to sainthood angered Jewish groups.

The German-born Benedict signed a decree Saturday on the virtues of Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized for not doing enough to stop the Holocaust. The decree means that Pius can be beatified - the first major step toward possible sainthood - once a miracle attributed to his intercession has been recognized.

The decision sparked further outrage among Jewish groups still incensed over his rehabilitation earlier this year of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson.

Nevertheless, a planned visit by Benedict to Rome's main synagogue, scheduled for Jan. 17, is still on, said Ester Mieli, spokeswoman for Rome chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni. She dismissed a report in a Rome newspaper that the visit was in doubt following the Pius decision.

Benedict, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth and deserted from the Nazi Army, has repeatedly spoken out against the horrors of Nazism and anti-Semitism, but his efforts to improve relations with Jews have not always been smooth.

On Monday, he recounted his May trip to the Holy Land in a speech at the Vatican.

"The visit to the Yad Vashem has meant an upsetting encounter with the cruelty of human fault, with the hatred of a blind ideology that, with no justification, sent millions of people to their deaths," he said.

Yad Vashem is "first of all a commemorative monument against hatred, a heartfelt call to purification and forgiveness, to love," he said.

Benedict's speech during his Yad Vashem visit drew criticism in Israel, with some faulting the Pope for failing to apologize for what they see as Catholic indifference during the Nazi genocide. Others noted that he failed to specifically mention the words "murder" or "Nazis."

Some Jews and historians have argued that Pius, who served as Pontiff from 1939-1958, should have done more to prevent the deaths of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. [

[But this argument is clearly fallacious in its entire premise! Can anyone cite any plausible reason to believe that if Pius XII had openly condemned the Nazis for what they were doing, not just to Jews but to Catholics and other persons they found 'useless' of 'harmful' to society - that it would have prevetned Hitler in any way from carrying out his programmed extermination of everyone the Nazis considered 'undesirable'?

On the contrary, it is documented fact that after he praised Dutch bishops for speaking out in behalf of persecuted citizens, the Nazis responded by ordering the deportation of both Jews and Catholics (among them, Edith Stein) to the Nazi camps!

None of those good non-Jewish people whom Yad Vashem and the Jews honor as 'righteous among the people' for having helped the Jews during the war, shouted their good deeds to the rooftops at the time. No, tney did everything to be prudent in order that they could go on saving more people.

Pius XII as the Pope had a duty to Catholics as well as to Jews and any other persecuted people at the time to avoid making things worse for them by any public imprudence. That surely deserves more than just the proverbial benefit of the doubt.

It is the only reason he kept a public silence. And the reason prominent Jews including Albert Einstein and Golda Meir volunteered their praise for his good deeds soon after the war.

It is obviously wrong and immoral that Jews who have an obsessive hostility against Pius II should make it appear as if he, not Hitler or the Nazis, were largely to blame for the Holocaust, because that is what their senseless rhetoric amounts to.]


A caption of a photo of Pius at Yad Vashem's museum says he did not protest the Nazi genocide of Jews and maintained a largely "neutral position."

The Vatican insists Pius used quiet diplomacy to try to save Jews and didn't lash out at the Nazis for fear that such a public denunciation would only result in more deaths.

Jewish groups have argued that Benedict shouldn't have made any moves on Pius's beatification process until the now-closed Vatican archives of his pontificate are opened to outside researchers.

A Yad Vashem spokeswoman, Iris Rosenberg, said it was "regrettable" that the Vatican had acted before documents are made available.

The World Jewish Congress called any beatification of Pius "inopportune and premature" until consensus on his legacy is established, the World Jewish Congress said in a statement.

[And I doubt that there will ever be a positive consesnsus because they don't want to give it. Even if Jewish researchers find no smoking gun in the Vatican archives five years from now, the detractors will always find a new excuse for condemning Pius XII - if only because humans, especially sanctimonious ones, detest to be proven wrong!

All that said, I will not comment further on the preposterous statements attributed to Jewish representatives in this or any other report.]


"There are strong concerns about Pope Pius XII's political role during World War II which should not be ignored," said Ronald Lauder, the president of the group. He called on the Vatican to immediately open all archives on Pius era and show "more sensitivity on this matter."

The European Jewish Congress argued that some Catholics are also opposed to beatification and urged thePpontiff's advisers to persuade him to suspend the process.

"This is not just about Catholic-Jewish relations, but about the abuse of Holocaust memory and history," the group's president, Moseh Kantor, said in a statement.

The Vatican says its archives on the Pius era - about 16 million files - won't be opened to outside historians until 2014 at the earliest.

"It's not a matter of secrecy," Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera. "Everything there is to know is already known*."




Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale (Acts and Documents of the Holy See relating to the Second World War) (Città del Vaticano, 1965-1981).

*[Four Catholic historian priests, led by the recently deceased Fr. Pierre Blet, compiled the 12 volumes summarizing what they felt were the Archival documents relevant to Pius XII's wartime activities (with respect to the Jews and other persecuted persons), as ordered by Paul VI in the 1960s.
See post in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread on 12/1/09
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8593...
They would not have perjured their immortal souls to 'cover up' for anyone in any way, not even for a Pope.

Why don't any Jewish objectors ever refer to that 12-volume work and choose to speak as though it does not exist? Because it disproves their biased hypothesis, that's why!

And why were these detractors so ready to buy into the Soviet-Hochhuth propaganda launched by The Deputy that started all this nonsense? (Andrea Tornielli says that before that, French intellectuals like Albert Camus and Francois Mauriac ahd started the blame-the-Pope campaign against Pius XII, but oddly, [D]their accusations did not gain the traction - either with teh Jews or the general public - that The Deputy immediately did, and were promptly subsumed in it[/D].]

Psychologists may have a lot to say about this desperate need to displace the responsibility for the Holocaust and for their emotional devastation by it, onto a living institution - the Church - and the man who represented it at the time, because Hitler and the Nazis are no longer around to be dumped on!

They don't dare dump it on present-day Germans [except on one German, the present Pope] nor on the British and the Americans (for the much more relevant silence of Churchill and Roosevelt about the Jews) because there is no political or practical gain in doing that.

But blaming Pius XII - and excoriating his Church for venerating him - is a very convenient way of expressing the lingering anti-Christian bias among many Jews, that is just as bad as Christian anti-Semitism was in the past. Only the Jews can freely indulge in it today in the sanctimonious guise of denouncing 'offenses agianst the Holocaust'!]

Hannah Arendt, writing about the Eichmannn trial and the entire Nazi 'Final Solution' directed against the Jews, used the phrase 'the banality of evil' to say that evil can be and is perpetrated by ordinary persons claiming simply to the following orders.

Pius XII's detractors are not evil, but malicious and malevolent, for their own reasons, and one should perhaps speak, in their case, of the dreadful and insupportable sanctimony of malice, or the malice of sanctimony - it works both ways.



Before the announcement from the Rome synagogueee, some major Italian newspapers had articles warning the Pope's visit to the synagogue was at risk. The 12/21/09 paper edition of Corriere della Sera also had this brief interview with Cardinal Kasper.

'Emotional polemics now but
good sense will prevail'

by GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Translated from

Dec. 21, 2009


VATICAN CITY - "It would be an absurdity if Benedict XVI's visit to the Synagogue of Rome were to be cancelled. Negative reactions [to the decree on Pius XII's heroic virtues] were to be expected, but good sense will previal," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of teh Pontifical Commission for relations with Judaism, defending the Pope's decision.


Would it not have been better to wait until the archives are opened?
Beatification is a process distinct from historical research, and only the Pope can decide on it. He can allow a process to go forward, he can slow it down, he can postpone it.

But Benedict XVI chose to give the go-ahead because all the elements are in favor of Pius XII's cause, who, on the disputed issue, did everything possible to save Italian Jews during World War II.

During the Nazi persecution, the condemnation in L'Osservatore Romano was a daily matter. But a public attack by Pius XII himself on the Third Reich would have brought more harm to the Jews, as demonstrated by the appeal of the Dutch bishops [which led to a mass deportation to the Nazi camps of Dutch Jews as well as Catholics, including Edith Stein].

Serious historical studies continue to contradict those who want to feed the negative view about Pius XII. Papa Pacelli opened the doors of convents and parish houses to persecuted Italians.


Why are the Jews protesting?
These are emotional outbursts, but for some time now, I have found less opposition to a Blessed Pacelli. In a Europe that was subjugated by totalitarianism, he led the Church with prudence and an equilibrium acknowledged by everyone [except his detractors!].

Golda Meir praised Pius XII, whom the New York Times had called during the war 'the only voice in favor of the Jews".

Benedict XVI has weighed every aspect of this controversy, and in the end, he made a good decision with the courage to restore the truth in this debate and to rid it of half a century of falsehoods.


Do you think that the Jews will close their doors to him?
No. Honesty, scrupulousness and clarity will be appreciated. The visit to the Synagogue will take place and it will produce results in terms of mutual familiarity as did the visit of papa Wojtyla in 1986. Meeting each other face to face will help dispel incomprehension.

Pius XII's beatification process has followed all the prescribed rules and it is an internal matter for the Church.

Before Benedict XVI's trip to the Holy Land, there were fears of attacks against him over this issue. There were none. So, even this visit to the Synagogue will be a success. Dialog is not an option - it is an inner obligation.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 22 dicembre 2009 11:29




Under God's eye
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from
the 12/21-12/22/09 issue of




The end of the secular year - and for Christians the celebration of the Nativity of Christ - is an occasion for reflection and balance.



For Benedict XVI, too, who by tradition addressed his closest co-workers (cardinals, members of the Roman Curia, pontifical representatives), reading the year in a light that may be surprising but which is the only true one, that is, 'under God's eye', offering his view of these past 12 months to those who wish to listen.

The Pope chose his three foreign trips of the year - to Africa, the Holy Land, and the heart of Europe - to develop a reflection on the human being who, whether he is aware of it or not, is constantly under God's eye.

Benedict XVI's concern is to bear witness to that fact - in a year that he described as largely focused on Africa, but also included a pilgrimage to the land promised to Moses and where Jesus walked the earth to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. And a visit to the Czech Republic at the heart of an eastern Europe that has been liberated and at peace for 20 years though it bears a new weight of divisions, injustices and intolerance.

As always, Benedict XVI grasps the essential without attenuating his attentive realism which is all too often lacking among politicians and those who govern.

This realism is the principal characteristic of the encyclical Caritas in veritate, as it was of the Synodal assembly on Africa, without in any way arrogating inappropriate political competencies for the Church.

The essential for Christians is that heaven is no longer closed and that God is at hand. That is why African Catholics live the sense of sacredness daily, why they accept the primacy of the Pope as "a point of convergence for the unity of the Family of God", and why they celebrate joyous but orderly liturgies in what Benedict XVI calls the sobria ebrietas - sober inebriation - dear to ancient mysticism, both Jewish and Christian.

Reconciliation, the Pope says, is urgent in Africa as in any other society, in the manner of what took place in Europe after the tragedy of the Second World War. And reconciliation is realized, first of all, in the Sacrament of penance, which has largely disappeared from the habits of Christians, because we have lost "the truth of confronting ourselves and God", thus placing our own humanity and capacity for peace at risk.

But one must be vigilant against evil. And that is why Benedict XVI recalled the 'overwhelming' visit he made to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, which commemorates the extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis and their ultimate intention to chase away from the world the God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ.

But the image that is most striking and which will linger about this great papal discourse is that of the 'Court of the Gentiles', as there was in the Temple of Jerusalem for pagans who wished to pray to the one God, and from which Jesus drove out the merchants who had transformed it into a 'den of thieves'.

Imitating Christ today, Benedict XVI proposed, the Church should open up a space for all peoples and individuals who only know God from afar or to whom God is unknown or extraneous - in order to help them 'make a connection to God' who keeps his eye on every human being.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 22 dicembre 2009 13:08





Tuesday, December 22

BLESSED JACOPONE DA TODI (Italy, ca. 1236-1306)
Widower, Franciscan, Reformer, Poet
Born to wealth in the Umbrian city of Todi, Giacomo (James) became a successful lawyer
whose wife did penance for his worldly excesses. After losing her in an accident, he had
a change of heart, gave away his wealth, joined the lay Franciscans, and preached penance
to everyone. People took to call him Jacopone ('Crazy Jim') because he dressed in rags,
but he kept the name. After 10 years, he decided to join the Franciscan friar order
itself, being accepted in 1578 after initial rejection, although he declined to be ordained
as a priest. Besides preaching penitence and fighting corruption by both Church and State
leaders, he also wrote many poems as well as hymns in the vernacular. The Stabat Mater
has been attributed to him. As the 14th century came along, Jacopone found himself a leader
of the so-called Spiritualist movement within the Franciscan order, which advocated a return
to St. Francis's strict lifestyle. In 1298, he was excommunicated, exiled and imprisoned
when a new Pope, Boniface VIII, opposed their cause. He was freed in 1303 after Boniface
died. He lived three more years, and was venerated as a saint from the day he died. Dante
mentions him in The Divine Comedy.




OR for 12/21-12/22/09:

In his annual address to the Roman Curia, Benedict XVI reiterates that
every commitment to peace must start with reconciliation and advocates
'The Church as a space for dialog and prayer for everyone'

The double issue also carries the Pope's Angelus messages last Sunday. Other Page 1 news: Lebanese President visits Syria
for historic start of dialog between the two countries; a UN-Arab League report says 40 percent (140 million) of people
in the Arab countries live under the poverty level.



No events scheduled for the Pope today.


The Vatican announced that the Holy Father has named two new members of the Congregation
for the Causes of Saints:
- Mons. Edmond Farhat, Titular Archbishop of Byblos and Apostolic Nuncio, and
- Mons. Raffaello Martinelli, Bishop of Frascati.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 22 dicembre 2009 14:22



Media have a problem dealing with any discourse that has multiple points of significance, as do most of Benedict XVI's texts, including his annual address to the Roman Curia. The Italian news agencies deal with it by writing a separate news item about each of the points made, but it is difficult to imagine any newspaper using these items. They would much rather use a single 'wrap-up' account.

The problem is there hardly ever is a satisfactory wrap-up account - and anyone interested in what the Pope says would do much better to read him dreictly, anyway.

All other news outlets, including the international news agencies, choose a single focus, and if there is space, they will also mention the other points in passing.

So it is with the Italian media today - the Anglophone media, outside of the Holocaust angle, have yet to seee a full translation, it seems.
I chose to translate this because it was written by a priest, even if it focuses on just one of the points dealt with by Pope Benedict yesterday.



Benedict XVI reminds bishops again
that they are not politicians

by Fr. Massimo Camisasca
Superior-General, Missionaries of San Carlo Borromeo
Translated from

December 22, 2009

The San Carlo missionaries are the priestly fraternity of the Comunione e Liberazione movement.




In certain ways, the Pontificate of Benedict XVI more and more resembles that of some Popes in the late Roman era like Leo the Great and Gregory the Great.

Papa Ratzinger is among other things a great liturgist. Liturgy has been a special interst of his as a theologian. It has also become a field of action for his Petrine ministry.

He wishes to rescue the celebration of the Sacraments, and the priesthood who administer them, from any reductionism - either from those who would make the liturgy a 'magical', a-historical rite, detached from its concrete Judaeo-Christian context, or those who have flattened the rite to its political dimension, in a partisan and ideological way.

A priest cannot be partisan because he represents God's universal plan for human salvation.

This issue is always relevant. Recently, a bishop asked the Holy See for permission to join the House of Lords of the British Parliament. The Pope declined.

In recent decades, we have seen priests involved at the summit of government in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and most serious of all, the bishop who was elected President of Paraguay [whose requrest to be reduced to lay state was granted by the Pope after his election].

In the 1960s and 1970s, Italy had its share of dissenting priests who were openly militant on the extreme left. [There still are quite a few at present, who get great play in the media, especially on TV.]

An exception was the late Don Gianni Baget Bozzo, who never left the Church [even if he was suspended from executing his priestly ministry by John Paul II while he was a member of the Ruopean Parliament, and who was moreover a traditionalist who espoused orthodox Catholic teachings.]

How do priests balance it so that they do not become totally uninterested in the social issues of the polis, nor fall into non-Christian spiritualism, nor become ideological partisans who have no room for the opinion of others and are caught in a closed historicism?

Benedict XVI has sought to give an answer to this, especially in his encyclical Caritas in veritate, which he cited in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia yesterday.

He made this in refernce to his trip to Africa in early 2009 and the subsequent Special Synodal Assembly for Africa.

"How can we be realistic and practical, without arrogating to ourselves a political competence which is not ours?". the Pope asked. "How do we find the rather narrow path between simple theological theory and immediate political action?"

Caritas in veritate sought to show the way through the social capabilities of the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. These virtues are not only for a privileged group of men who can be disinterested in history, but on the contrary, they express a universal and very human dynamism of confidence, creativity, collaboration and solidarity, that can create a new social fabric.

The Pope cited an example to the Curia, in the reconciliation that is necesssary in African and other parts of the world where there are serious conflicts: If we want political and economic structures that favor reconciliation [such as those that developed in western Europe after World War II], we need "interior processes of reconciliation' that make a new coexistence possible.

"Every society needs reconciliations in order that there may be peace. Reconciliations are necessary even for good politics, but they cannot be realized only for that reason".

Indeed, the political but non-partisan aspect of Christianity is becoming more evident in the teaching of Pope Benedict.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 22 dicembre 2009 18:35





A talk with the Dominican scholar whom
Benedict XVI asked to do further research on Pius XII

by Filippo Rizzi
Translated from

Dec. 22, 2009


Ten months of research in the first section of the archives of the Secretariat of State to look through 27 master files that show how Pius XII, through his diplomatic network and his providential silence, worked to help Jews during the Nazi war years.

This was the supplementary research carried out at the request of Pope Benedict XVI by Fr. Ambrosius Eszer, O.P., a German and Dominican historian, before the Pope promulgated last Friday the decree on Pius XII's heroic virtues.

Fr. Eszer studied all the letters and messages sent or received by the Vatican between 1939 and 1945 in order to dispel any doubts on the late Pope's record. [In 2008, Benedict XVI said that he was postponing the promulgation to allow time for 'further study and reflection'.]

From the Convent of St. Paul in Berlin, Fr. Eszer, 77, expressed his great satisfaction that Pius XII has now been declared 'Venerable' along with John Paul II. Eszer is a distinguished scholar who had served as a historical consultant to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

"I am very happy", he said, "because my recent investigation allowed me to see how much the Holy See and Pius XII did in behalf of the Jews in World War II".

He adds: "I believe that when the full archives on his Pontificate are open to the public, we will discover more how much the light of the 'Pastor angelicus' deserves to shine forth in the world, if only because he did all he could - silently and behind the scenes - to stem the tide of Nazi persecution".

He says he was chosen for the task "because I am German, and almost all the documents reviewed were in German, including news clippings and letters".

Much of the correspondence came from the episcopates in Germany and the German-occupied countries of Europe.

"I was surprised," he said, "at the silent 'parallel' diplomacy which was carried out by the Holy See to help save so many lives in countries like Czechoslovakia and Hungary".

For instance, he says, "There is a letter of protest to Hitler by the Archbishop of Bratislava Adolf Bertram, in which the cardinal opposed separating spouses in mixed Catholic-Jewish marriages to prevent the deportation of the Jewish spouses".

But he also noted a paradox about Italy's membership in Hitler's Axis: "Strangely, the presence of Italy in the Axis helped mitigate the Nazi ferocity against Italian Jews".

"I was also struck by a letter of Mussolini to a Fascist leader, Cesare de Vecchi, expressing concern that Hitler was giving little weight to the risk of protests from German Catholics, who at that time, numbered about a third of the population".

"In general", Eszer concludes, "my research confirms the conclusions drawn from the documents published in the 12 volumes of the Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale, edited by the Jesuit historians Pierre Blet, Robert Graham, Angelo Martini and Burkhart Schneider".

Namely, that the 'silence' of Pius XII was obligatory in order not to place Jews and Catholics at even greater risk.


I'm posting the following item because it is the companion piece to the first item.


Pius XII's postulator speaks:
'An important step towards
establishing historical truth'

by Filippo Rizzi
Translated from

Dec. 22, 2009

From his Rome office, at Jesuit headquarters in Rome, Fr. Peter Gumpel - poatulator of Pius XII's cause for beatification and canonization - happily welcomed the news that 'his' Pope was mow a 'Venerable' of the Church.

Fr. Gumpel says it is not just out of satisfaction that his work is proceeding to the next stage, but he sees Benedict XVI's decision as "an important step towards establishing the historical truth' beyond doubt about Pius XII

"I have always been convinced of this great Pope's sanctity," he said, "but if there had been any document in the Vatican Archives that could possibly undermine his cause, I would have been the first to disclose it."

Fr. Gumpel says he has suffered the objections from Jewish circles who insist that the Church should do nothing about the process for Pius XII until after the Vatican archives on his Pontificate are opened for research in 5 years.

"First, I must say that not all the Jewish world is against the beatification. For instance, a majority of American Jews acknowledge with grattitude what Pius XII did to save as many Jewish lives as he could.

"But I also wonder why the objectors have not bothered to look into the Archives that are assessible up to 1939. Because then they would get to know the Eugenio Pacelli who was the Apostolic Nuncio in Munich and then the Cardinal Secretary of State - very different from the man portrayed by Rolf Hochhuth in his play The Deputy".

Moreover, he points out, "There are so many unpublished documents favorable to Pius XII in the chancelleries of many nations from World War II. Why are the objectors not looking at these?"

He also recalls that Papa Pacelli did make several statements against Nazism and racism - even if not explicitly against the persecution of Jews, in particular - and cites the Christmas radio message of 1942 [that Benedict XVI recalled in his homily for the Mass marking the 50th anniversary of Pius XII's death].

He cites Martin Gilbert, the English World War II historian of Jewish ancestry and a biographer of Winston Churchill, who said that Pius XII's 'silence' had allowed more Jewish lives to be saved than any explicit condemnation of Nazi persecution could have done. [I must check that out, because I think Gilbert also made a less unequivocal statement during a visit to Yad Vashem.]

The Jesuit says he received a letter last July from Fr. Ambrozius Eszer, the Domonican scholar tasked by Benedict XVI to carry out supplemental research on Pius XII's wartime role, who wrote: "I have finished my research at the archives of the Secretariat of State, and every investigation confirms the present position of the Holy See on Pius XII".

Gumpel says: "Pacelli was a rich Roman patrician, but he died poor, because he spent a great part of his personal fortune in the task of helping the persecuted Jews who were given refuge in Catholic churches and convents. I can cite all those 'unofficial missions' carried out for him throughout Rome by his faithful aide, Sister Pascalina Lehnert".

He adds, for instance, that Pius XII's detractors do not acknowledge what the Pope did before the October 16,1943, mass deportation of some Jews from Rome.

"He made it clear to the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Eugenio Zolli [who converted after the war and took Pacelli's name for his own - which fact alone should make the Pope's Jewish detractors think twice, but then, militant Jews look down on Jews who convert, even if this one was Chief Rabbi of Rome, and would hardly credit what he has to say] that he was ready to give gold if that was needed to get the deportation order lifted. At the same time, he protested formally to the German ambassador to Rome, Ernst von Weizsaecker. This was personally related to me by Princess Pignatelli Aragona".

Fr. Gumpel's final wish is that "sooner or later, Papa Pacelli is rightly elevated to the honor of the altar. I don't know when, but it will come".




Prof. Giorgio Israele gives his usual calm and reasoned approach to Jewish differences with Christians:


How Pius XII is being used
to alienate Benedict XVI from the Jews

by Giorgio Israel
Translated from

Dec. 22, 2009


I have maintained all along that the question of Pius XII's actions with regard to the Shoah does not lend itself to cutting judgments along the style introduced by rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy.

On the contrary, historiographic acquisitions in recent years have simply made incredible the radical hypothesis of a Pope who was almost an accomplice in the extermination of Jews, or, at the very least, indifferent to the catastrophe.

Prudence would counsel to leave this question completely to rigorous historical research on available documents and any that may be found in archives that will be opened eventually - not to opportunistic polemics that are frenetic and too emotion-laden.

Besides, the beatification of Pius XII, as of any other Pope or Christian personality, only concerns the Catholic Church, something over which no one outside the Church can interfere, much less dictate how the Church should proceed.

From this perspective, the joint statement today of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, and the president of the Roman Jewish community, appears balanced.

They declare that they "cannot interfere in decisions internal to the Catholic Church that have to do with its freedom of religious expression", and they express their acknowledgment of "individuals and institutions of the Church who did all they could to save persecuted Jews" in World War II.

Of course, such acknowledgment should extend to Pius XII because it is not believable that, for instance, so many hundreds of Jews could be granted refuge at the Lateran Cathedral - the Pope's own cathedral - without his express permission.

However, it is also understandable that after many decades during which the figure of Pius XII has been portrayed as either an outright accomplice in the Jewish genocide or someone who was, at the very least, indifferent to it [the most usual accusation is that he chose to keep silent about it], a part of the Jewish world, and even many Christians - cannot accept a different image without recourse to historiographic research t5hat will help them overcome their emotional approach.

It must be said that the whole case takes on the aspect of what has been called 'opportunistic judgment". In other words, in all the stages crucial for Jewish-Catholic relations, something happens to provoke emotions, disconcertation, and perplexity that serve to reopen old wounds that had been difficult to close, to begin with.

And so, the question over Pius XII was been revived at a time when important events were on the agenda. The Williamson case came up while the Pope was preparing to go to Israel. This time, the Pope is scheduled to visit the Rome Synagogue next month.

If one adds to these coincidences the fact that there is a part of the media that is always quick to provoke and exploit whoever happen(s) to be the firebrand du jour, then the opportunistic picture is complete.

It is not my intention to speak with hindsight. Let us stick to the facts.

Some may disagree with the evidence, but the fact is that Joseph Ratzinger, as cardinal and 'theoretician' of John Paul II's Pnotificate, and then as Pope himself, has been a leading actor in the progress of Jewish-Catholic relations - and I underscore the word 'relations' instead of 'dialog'.

Whoever wants to develop those relations further should not indulge those who are working for a dramatic regression.

The latter are putting to work all the useful measures they can find to create a context in which the Pius XX question becomes the overriding concern when the Pope visits the Rome synagogue.

But everything should be done in order to make this visit happen. It would be the best gift even for those who prefer to sow the seeds if discord.

Jews and Christians have too much in common and work to do together: starting with getting religious freedom for everyone around the world.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 05:18



'Formal' changes to rites and symbols
in Benedict XVI's Pontificate

by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from




The Pope at Vespers with Rome university students on Dec. 19.


Since the start of the new liturgical year, Pope Benedict XVI has used a new pastoral staff, shorter than that he used earlier which had belonged to Pius IX.

And shortly, it will be a year since the long pauses for reflection were introduced to papal liturgies, particularly after the homuly and after Communion.

These are just two among the many small modifications to papal rites and symbols made so far by Benedict XVI - a wise mix of new and traditional elements as a way of showing the continuity of the Papacy beyond the watershed represented by the Second Vatican Council.

Papal vestments, liturgical accessories, secondary aspects of the rites - these are the areas where the theologian Pope has been discreetly introducing, without stirring controversy, what seems to be one novelty after another.

In December 2005, towards the close of his first calendar year as Pope, he appeared in St. Peter's Square wearing the camauro - the red winter cap last used by John XXIII.

In the summer of 2006, he wore the red wide-brimmed straw hat called the saturno, which John Paul II had used a few times when he travelled to tropical countries.

That same year, he unearthed the winter mozzetta, the ermine-lined velvet capelet last used by Paul VI. [And the following EAster, the white Easter mozzetta.]

But more significant were the changes to the accessories, vestments and ritual rubrics in the liturgy, for which the key year was 2008.

On Palm Sunday, he blessed the palms and celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Square, carrying the Cross-shaped staff of Pius IX, instead of the modern Crucifix-topped staff first used by Paul VI, then the two John Pauls, and himself until then.

On Corpus Domini of that year, he began to give Communion exclusively on the tongue to kneeling faithful.

In November of that year [with a new master of pontifical liturgical ceremonies], the Crucifix and candleholders returned to the papal altar, from which the post-Conciliar liturgical reform had taken them away (putting the Cross to the side, and replacing the candelabra, if at all, by little temple lights).

Starting with the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in 2008, he also replaced the pallium that had been 'imposed' on him at this inaugural Mass - one that had been fashioned to resemble what it was in the early centuries of Christianity - with the stylized adaptation that had been worn by all other Popes in modern times.

And at Benedict XVI's request, his new master of ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini, also resurrected vestments and furniture used by earlier Popes - papal chairs belonging to Leo XIII and Pius IX, chasubles and copes that had been worn by John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II.

All these 'novelties' and restorations without changing any of the central aspects of Paul VI's Novus Ordo. Despite Summorum Pontificum, Benedict himself has only celebrated the ordinary form of the Mass in public, 'facing the people' in the manner of the Novus Ordo, using modern languages.

[Accattoli fails to note the obvious fact that the Pope's Masses, whether in St. Peter's, outside Rome, or in foreign countries, now employ Latin in most of the fixed prayers. This is evident if one reads through the libretti that the Vatican now posts online.]

Only twice, at the Sistine Chapel, has he celebrated Mass facing the altar [using the built-in altar of the Sistine, and doing away with the mobile 'ad-populum' altar that used to be wheeled in for Sistine chapel Masses. Shortly after Accattoli wrote this article, the Pope celebrated 'ad orientem' once more at the newly renovated Pauline Chapel, whose altar was repositioned so that it could be used to celebrate both ways - but the Pope chose the traditional direction in the Mass he celebrated with the members of the Itnernational Theological Commission].]

To my mind, the most significant of the Benedictine changes was that with the Pope's pastoral staff. In place of the traditional Cross-topped staff, Paul VI had introduced a Crucifix sculpted for him by Lello Scorzelli, which his successors up to Benedict XVI himself used.

But Papa Ratzinger went from Papa Montini's Crucifix-staff to Papa Mastai-Ferretti (Pius XI)'s Cross-staff [and now his own symbol-laden staff]. Some have called it a transition from the 'Crucifix of kerygma' [the evangelical announcement) to the 'Cross of dogma'. Which is over-reaching.

The Pope's intention was obviously to provide a wide view of the papacy and its continuity, to which he had first called our attention by his choice of the name Benedict, which went beyond the Conciliar series of Johns and Pauls.

Just as by his choice of name, he showed his attachment to the entire 'apostolic succession' of the Popes, without linking himself in a special way to the more resent Popes, his choice of papal wear, liturgical vestments and accessories is also intended to highlight a wider panorama of historical continuity.

Finally, the ritual silences during the liturgies. The practice was introduced at Christmas Eve Mass last year. The silences are observed after readings, after pslams, after the homily, and most especially, after Communion.

Benedict XVI's attachment to such silences - which characterizes the traditional liturgy and has practically disappeared in the Novus Ordo - was already pre-announced by his advocacy of practising Eucharistic Adoration more widely and frequently.

With these silences, he is starting to educate the faithful who follow papal liturgies to a better, more appropiate attitude of concentration and meditation.



Liturgical changes introduced
by Benedict XVI: Interview
with a liturgy consultant

Trnslated from
the Italian service of




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 21 (ZENIT.org) - The faithful around the world have been able to note through satellite TV the changes that have been introduced to pontifical liturgical celebrations under Benedct XVI.

We spoke about this to Don Mauro Gagliardi, professor of theology at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome and a consultant to the Office of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations. Fr. Gagliardi also edits the biweekly feature 'Spirito della Liturgia' in Zenit's Italian service.

Reading Luigi Accattoli's article in Liberal, one gets the impression of a directed effort, at the request of the Holy Father, to bring papal liturgy more in line with tradition.

Since we are approaching the solemn celebrations of the Christmas season, which the Holy Father will preside over at St. Peter's Basilica, we took the opportunity to speak to him about the changes.


Mons Gagliardi: Accattoli's article presents an effective overview of the more visible among the recent changes in pontifical liturgy, although there are others, probably omitted for brevity or because they are more difficultly understood by the public.

The esteemed and qualified Vatican observer that Accattoli is underscores many times that these changes were probably all initiated by the Holy Father himself, who, as everyone knows, is an expert on liturgy.


Accattoli starts his account by mentioning the papal vestments which had been largely discarded in recent decades: the camauro, the red saturno, the winter mozzetta - as well as the changes to the papal pallium.
These are vestments that are distinctively and exclusively papal, like the red choes, which is not mentioned in the article.

Although it is true that Popes in recent decades have chosen not to use all these vestments, or have made modifications, the vestments have never been 'abolished', and so every Pope is free to use them.

It must not be forgotten that just like most of the visible elements of liturgy, even vestments used outside liturgy have symbolic as well as practical function.

I remember that when Pope Benedict first used the camauro - an outdoor winter cap that protects effectively from the cold - one of the leading Italian magazines featured a picture of the smiling Pope wearing the camauro, with the caption "He did the right thing!', meaning that even a Pope has the right to wear suitable winter protection!

But it is more than just practical wear. It is also associated with who is wearing it and the role he represents - in this case, the camauro represents the Pope [who is the person for whom it was designed, and the only one who has the traditional right to wear it], and this is underscored by the beauty of the garment or accessory, how it is adorned, and the materials used.

The pallium is a different story, because it is a liturgical accessory. John Paul II used one which was similar to that used by metropolitan bishops [heads of active dioceses].

When Benedict XVI's Pontificate began, a different style was prepared for him [former papal master of cermeonies Archbishop Piereo Marini took credit for this], which revived an old usage, and the Holy Father used it for some time.

After careful study, it was decided that it was preferable to return to the style used by John Paul II, but with changes to make it different from the bishops' pallium, which the Pope imposes on them. [The crosses on the Pope's pallium are red instead of black, and he uses pins on three of the crosses to signify the nails on Christ's Cross.]

More information about these changes can be found in Mons. Guido Marini's interview published in L'Osservatore Romano on June 26, 2008.


What can you say about the pastoral staff (ferula) chosen by Benedict XVI to replace the Crucifix-topped staff sculpted by Lello Scorzelli and used by Pope Paul VI, the two John Pauls, and Benedict himself in his first two and a half years as Pope?
One might say that the same principle applies here. But one must point out the practical reason: the new staff that Benedict XVI has used since the start of the liturgical year is 590 grams lighter than the Scorzelli staff, that's half a kilogram which is not insignificant.

Historically, the Cross-shaped pastoral staff is faithful to the Roman tradition for Popes - a Cross without the Crucified Christ. To this, one can add symbolic and esthetic considerations.


Accattoli also cites other changes which we can call more substantial: the attention to having moments of silence, celebratinfg the Mass facing a Crucifix or an altar with Tabernacle, and communion given on the tongue to kneeling faithful.
These are all elements of great significance that obviously, I cannot analyze now in a detailed manner. The Instituto Generalis of the Roman Missal, published by Paul VI, prescribes the observance of sacred silence at various points. So the observance of these silences in the papal liturgies is simply carrying out those norms[which obviously no one ever followed!]

AS for the position taken when celebrating Mass, we can see that the Holy Father has gone on doing it 'versus populum' in St. Peter's and elsewhere. The only exceptions so far have been at the Sistine Chapel and the newly renovated Pauline Chapel.

Since every celebration of Mass, regardless of the position taken by the celebrant, is a celebration of the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit - never a celebration for 'the people' or the congregation - then it should not be considered 'strange' that the celebrant should celebrate 'towards the Lord' [which was also the traditional way]. Especially in places like the Sistine Chapel when there is a fixed altar against the wall, it is both more natural and faithful to tradition to celebrate 'towards the Lord', rather than bring in a mobile altar in order to be able to celebrate Mass 'towards the people' .

As for the manner of giving Holy Communion, one must distinguish between the act of receiving the Host on the tongue and the act of kneeling.

In the current form of Paul VI's Missal, the faithful have the right to choose whether to receive Communion standing or kneeling. If the Holy Father has decided that he prefers to give it to kneeling persons, then one must deduce - this is my personal opinion - that he believes it is more appropriate to express the sense of adoration that we should always feel towards the Eucharist.

It's an aid that the Pope gives to those who receive Communion from him, to remind them to pay the right worshipful attention to Him whom they are receiving in the Most Holy Eucharist.

In Sacramentum caritatis, the Pope, recalling St. Augustine, said that we should always receive the Eucharistic Bread with adoration, because it would be asin to receive it otherwise. Before receiving the Host himself, the celebrant genuflects before the Host. Why then should he not help the faithful to cultivate the sense of adoration with a similar gesture?

About receiving the Host in one's hand, it must be remembered that this is now possible in many places - possible but not obligatory - but as a concession, an exemption to the ordinary norm which is that the Host should be received on the tongue.

This concession was originally given to some bishops' conferences who requested it - the Vatican never suggested or promoted it. However, no bishop in an episcopal conference that requested and obtained the indult is obliged to apply it exclusively in his diocese. Every bishop can always decide that in his diocese, the universal norm applies, which is valid regardless of any concessions granted - and the norm is that Communion should be received on the tongue.

So if no bishop in the world is obliged to abide by the indult, instead of the norm, neither is the Bishop of Rome. On the contrary, it is important that the Holy Father keeps to the norm, as Paul VI himself confirmed. [For more details, see M. Gagliardi, La liturgia fonte di vita, Vereona 2009, pp 170-181.]


In conclusion, as you are on the staff of consultants to Mons. Guido Marini, what do you think in general of all the liturgical modifications introduced by Benedict XVI?
Of course, I can only speak for myself, and my opinions do not reflect anything official. I think what the Holy Father is trying to is to wisely bring together traditional things with the new, in order to carry out, in letter and spirit, what Vatican II intended, and to do it in such a way that papal liturgies can be exemplary in all aspects.

Whoever takes part in a papal liturgy should be able to say, "Yes, this is the way it should be done. Even in my diocese, in my parish!"


But I wish to say that these 'novelties', as you call them, have not been introduced in an authoritarian way at all. For the most past, they have been preceded by an interview given by Mons. Marini to L'Osservatore Romano or another newspaper.

We consultants from time to time publish articles in tne Vatican newspaper to explain the historical and theological sense of liturgical elements and the decisions that are taken in this regard.

To use current language, I would say it has been a 'democratic' way - not in the sense that the decisions come from a majority consensus, but that the Vatican seeks to make the reasons for the changes understood - that there is always a historical, theological and liturgical reason for decisions taken, which are never purely esthetic, much less ideological.

We might say that the effort is to make known the ratio legis - the reason for the 'law' or norm - and I think that this in itself is a 'novelty' of some significance!


TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 13:48





Wednesday, December 23

ST. JAN KANTY [JOHN CANTIUS)(Poland, 1390-1473
Priest and Professor
Born near present-day Auschwitz, Jan went on to brilliant studies in Krakow
where he was to be a professor Sacred Scriptures until his death, except for
a brief early stint as a parish priest. He lived only on what was absolutely
necessary and gave away all his earnings to the poor. He made four pilgrimages
to Rome on foot and travelled once to Jerusalem hoping to be martyred by the
Turks. Even in life, many miracles were attributed to him, and his tomb in
Krakow quickly became a pilgrimage site. Canonized in 1767, he is one of the
patron saints of Krakow. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who was himself a professor
priest for some time, called Jan Kanty the patron saint of academic priests.
The present-day Canons Regular of St. John Cantius are dedicated to the
celebration of liturgy.




OR today.

No papal stories in this issue. Even Page 1 stories are not strictly news:
A post-mortem on the failed Copenhagen climate summit; a US academic
report claiming Wall Street had its worst decade in history; continuing
civil war in East Congo; China claims it expects an 8% increase in GDP
in 2010; and an interview with Cardinal Roberto Tucci, 88, an Anglican
who became Catholic as an adult, joined the Jesuits, went on to found
and become editor of La Civilta Cattolica in 1959, then director of
Vatican Radio from 1969-1985, when John Paul II named him coordinator
of his papal trips. He worked closely with John XXIII, Paul VI and John
Paul II, who named him cardinal at age 80, exempting him from the
requirement of becoming a bishop.





THE POPE'S DAY

General Audence - The Pope spoke on the significance of Christmas, starting from how St. Francis
originated the tradition of re-creating the Nativity scene at Christmas.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 13:54










VATICAN STATEMENT ON
POPE PIUS XII

Translated from
the Italian service of


December 23, 2009


Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director, released this statement today in response to hostile reactions from Jewish circles to Benedict XVI's decision to promulgate the heroic virtues of Pius XII:


The signing by Pope Benedict XVI of the decree on the heroic virtues of Pius XII has drawn a number of reactions in the Jewish world, probably because it has to do with an act whose significance is clear to the Catholic world and those who are familiar with it, but requires some explanatios for the greater public, particularly those Jews who are understandably very sensitive to everything that has to do with the historical period of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

When the Pope signs a decree on the heroic virtues of a Servant of God - namely, a person for whom a cause for beatification has been introduced - he confirms the positive valuation that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has voted, after careful examination of all the person's writings and testimonies about him, to approve the fact that the candidate has lived the Christian virtues eminently and has shown his faith, his hope and his charity in a manner superior to what is normally expected of the faithful.

Therefore, he may be proposed as a model of Christian life to the People of God.

Naturally the evaluation takes into account the circumstances in which the person lived, and therefore this also requires a historical examination. But the overall evaluation is concerned essentially with the testimony of Christian life that the candidate showed - his intense relationship with God and the continuous quest for evangelical perfection,- as Pope Benedict XVI said last Saturday in his address to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints - not the evaluation of the historical weight of all his operative choices.

Even an eventual beatification is framed in the same context, namely to propose to the People of God - with the further comfort of a sign of extraordinary grace given by God through the intercession of the Servant of God - a model of eminent Christian life.

On the occasion of the beatification rites for John XXIII and Pius IX, John Paul II stated: "Sainthood is lived within history, and no saint is exempt from the limitationss and conditioning inherent to our humanity. In beatifying one of her children, the Church does not celebrate the specific historical choices he has carried out, but rather proposes him to be imitated and venerated for his virtues in praise of the divine grace that shines in him" (March 9, 200).

Therefore, this (decree) is not intended to limit the discussion on concrete choices made by Pius XII in the (historical) situation that he was.

For her part, the Church affirms that such choices were made with the pure intention of carrying out as best as possible the Pontiff's service of supremely dramatic responsibility.

In every way, the attention and concern of Pius XII for the fate of the Jews - something that was certainly relevant in evaluating his virtues - have been largely testified to, and acknowledged event by many Jews.

Therefore, the research and evaluation of historians in their own field remains open. In this case, the request to open up all the possibilities for research on [Vatican] documents is understandable.

Previously, Paul VI wished to facilitate such a research with the publication of the (twelve) volumes of Acts and Documents. The complete opening of the Archives - it has been said several times - requires the ordering and cataloguing of an enormous mass of documents, a technical task that still requires a few years. [Five more years, Lombardi said last Saturday.]

As for the fact that the decrees on the heroic virtues of Pope John Paul II and Pius XII were promulgated on the same day, it does not mean that the two causes are 'coupled' from hereon. The two causes are completely independent, and each will follow its own course. There is no reason, therefore, to hypothesize an eventual contemporaneous beatification.

Finally, Pope Benedict XVI's great friendship and respect for the Jewish people have been manifested many times and find irrefutable testimony even in his theological work.

It is therefore clear that his recent signing of the Decree on Pius XII must not be read in any way as a hostile act against the Jewish people, and it is hoped that it will not be considered an obstacle to the dialog between Judaism and the Catholic Church.

Rather, it is hoped that the Pope's coming visit to the Synagogue of Rome may be an occasion to reaffirm and reinforce, with great cordiality, these bonds of friendship and esteem.




Vatican defends move
on Pope Pius XII




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 23 (AP) – The Vatican said Tuesday that moving Pope Pius XII closer to sainthood is not a hostile act against Jews, even though the wartime Pontiff has been criticized for not speaking out enough against the Holocaust.

A Vatican statement said Tuesday that the move should not be an obstacle to dialogue between Jews and the Catholic Church, and insisted Pope Benedict XVI has sentiments of "great friendship and respect" for the Jews.

The statement sought to quell the outrage sparked among many Jewish groups after Benedict signed a decree on Pius's virtues. The decree means that Pius can be beatified — the first major step toward sainthood — once a miracle attributed to his intercession has been recognized.

The Vatican reaffirmed what it said was Pius' "attention and preoccupation" with the fate of Jews, saying that this is well established and recognized even by many Jews.

But it said the process toward beatification was not intended to limit historical discussion on the pontiff, as the decree concerns Pius's faith and Christian virtues.

The Pope signed the decree Saturday along with a similar decree recognizing the virtues of his immediate predecessor, John Paul II. This led many to believe the two causes would proceed together — and caused further outcry since John Paul was admired by many Jews.

The statement said there was no reason to believe that any possible beatification would take place at the same time.

Some Jews and historians have argued Pius should have done more to prevent the deaths of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

The Vatican insists Pius used quiet diplomacy to try to save Jews and that speaking out more forcefully would have resulted in more deaths.

Pius, a Vatican diplomat in Germany and the Vatican's secretary of state before being elected Pope, did denounce in general terms the extermination of people based on race and opened Vatican City to refugees, including Jews, after Hitler occupied Rome in 1943.

But he didn't issue public indictments of Jewish deportations, and some historians say he cared more about bilateral relations with Nazi Germany, and the rights of the Catholic church there, than saving Jewish lives.



Today, Tempi published this as an Opinion article, not under Mastroianni's personal rubric. It confirms my admiration for him as a master of brevity and a congenial mind.


The heroism of Pius XII and
Benedict XVI's friendship for the Jews

by Bruno Mastroianni

Dec. 23, 2009


The recognition of Pius XII's heroic virtues cannot be reduced to a move that is tinged in any way with anti-Jewish sentiment.

The entire career of Joseph Ratzinger should immediately sweep away any such suggestions, especially in the media, as he was always in the forefront of dialog with the Jews.

Think alone of the support that he provided for the gestures of John Paul II in elaborating a veritable doctrine of Christian reconciliation with the People of Israel.

His theological awareness has made him say countless times, "The faith testified to in the Bible of the Jews is not another religion, but the foundation of our faith".

And think of all his efforts as Pope in the journey to reciprocal comprehension.



In fact, his decision in behalf of Pius XII reflects that preoccupation with the truth that has guided Joseph Ratzinger's actions.

His very attention to this case shows it: The decree on the late Pope's heroic virtues was approved some time ago (May 2007), but this Pope orderd a supplementary investigation to exclude any doubts [about Pius's wartime record].

His promulgation of the decree on Saturday was unpleasant only to those puffballs of political expediency predictably blown up by the media.

But there is nothing to fear: Pius XII's heroic virtues - ascertained by all the required investigations with full respect for the truth - should not compromise the Jewish-Catholic dialog nor should it influence the historical debate.

If anything, they should help to cast out a false bugbear of the 20th century that has created division for too long. And every effort to research and investigate the true Eugenio Pacelli can only contribute to this.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 15:25





GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY

The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis today to the significance of Christmas, taking off from St. Francis's re-creation of the Nativity Scene in Greccio which started the tradition of the Christmas creche.





Here is what he said to English-speaking pilgrims:

In these last days before Christmas, the Church invites us to contemplate the mystery of Christ’s Birth and to experience the joy and hope which the newborn Saviour brings into our world. Gazing on the Christ Child lying in the manger, we contemplate the love of a God who humbly asks us to welcome him into our hearts and into our world.

By coming among us as a helpless Child, God conquers our hearts not by force, but by love, and thus teaches us the way to authentic freedom, peace and fulfilment.

This Christmas, may the Lord grant us simplicity of heart, so that we may recognize his presence and love in the lowly Babe of Bethlehem, and, like the shepherds, return to our homes filled with ineffable joy and gladness.

I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, especially the groups from the Philippines and the United States. In these holy days, may you and your families draw ever closer to the Lord and experience his heavenly gifts of love, joy and peace. Merry Christmas!









Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's catechesis today:

Dear brothers and sisters,

With the Novena of Christmas which we have been celebrating these days, the Church invites us to live intensely and profoundly the preparation for the Birth of the Savior, which is now imminent.

The wish that we all have at heart is that the coming Christmas may give us, in the midst of the frenetic activity of our days, a serene and profound joy for being able to touch with our hand the goodness of our God and thereby draw new courage.

To better understand the significance of the Nativity of the Lord, I wish to make a brief reference to the historical origin of this solemnity. Indeed, the liturgical year of the Church as it developed does not start with the birth of Christ, but from faith in his resurrection.

That is why the oldest feast of Christianity is not Christmas but Easter. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of Christian faith, it is the basis for the announcement of the Gospel, and it gave birth to the Church.

Therefore, to be a Christian means to live in the Paschal way, becoming involved in the dynamism that begins with Baptism and leads to our dying to sin in order to live with God (cfr Rm 6,4).

The first to state firmly that Jesus was born on December 25 was Hippolytus of Rome, in his commentary to the Book of the prophet Daniel, written around 204.

Some exegete later noted that that day was also the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 164 B.C. The coincidence would be taken to signify that with Jesus, who appeared in the night as the light of God, the consecration of the temple was truly realized in God's Advent on earth.

In Christianity, the feast of Christmas took a definite form in the fourth century when it took the place of the Roman feast of Sol invictus - the invincible sun. This highlighted the fact that the birth of Christ is the victory of true light over the shadows of evil and sin.

Nonetheless, the particularly intense spiritual atmosphere surrounding Christmas developed during the Middle Ages, thanks to St. Francis of Assisi, who was profoundly enamored of the man Jesus, the God-with-us.

His first biographer, Tommaso da Celano, recounts that St. Francis, "above every other solemnity, celebrated with ineffable attentiveness the Birth of the Baby Jesus, calling the day on which God, as a little baby, first suckled on a human breast, the feast of feasts" (Fonti Francescane, n. 199, p. 492).


Giotto, Francis Insituting the Crib in Greccio, 1297. Fresco.

The famous Christmas celebration in Greccio (1223) arose from this special devotion to the mystery of the Incarnation. It was probably inspired by Francis's pilgrimage to the Holy Land and by the manger in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

What animated the Poverello of Assisi was the desire to experience in a concrete, living and actual manner the humble grandeur of the event of Christ's birth and to communicate its joy to everyone.

In his first biography of Francis, Tommaso da Celano describes the night of the creche in Greccio in a vivid and touching manner, making a decisive contribution to the dissemination of the most beautiful of Christmas traditions, the Christmas Nativity Scene.

The night in Greccio, in fact, gave back to Christianity the intensity and beauty of Christmas, and educated the People of God to grasp its most authentic message, its special warmth, to love and adore the humanity of Christ.

Such an approach to Christmas gave the Christian faith a new dimension. Easter had focused attention on the power of God who conquers death, inaugurates new life, and teaches hope for the world to come.

With St. Francis and his Christmas manger, what comes forth is the helpless love of the infant God, his humility and his goodness, who, in the Incarnation of the Word, shows himself to men to teach them a new way to live and to love.

Celano recounts that on that Christmas night in Greccio, a miraculous vision was granted to Francis. He saw a small baby lying in the manger who awoke from sleep when Francis came near.

Celano adds: "Nor was this vision in discord with the facts because, through the divine grace that acted through his holy servant Francis, the Baby Jesus re-awakened, in the hearts of many who had forgotten him and was profoundly impressed in their loving memory" (Vita prima, op. cit., n. 86, p. 307).

This picture describes precisely how much Francis's living faith and love for the humanity of Christ contributed to the Christian feast of the Lord's Nativity - the discovery that God revealed himself in the tender body of the Baby Jesus.

Thanks to St.Francis, Christians have been able to perceive at Christmas that God truly became 'Emmanuel', God-with-us, from whom no barrier and no distance separates us.

In that Baby, God has become so near to each of us, so close, that we can talk to him familiarly and undertake with him a confidential relationship of profound affection such as we have for a newborn baby.

Indeed, God-Love manifests himself in that Baby. God comes without weapons, without force, because he does not intend to conquer externally, so to speak, but wishes to be accepted freely by man.

God became a helpless baby to conquer pride, violence, and man's desire for possession. In Jesus, God took on this poor and disarming condition to win us over with love and lead us to our true identity.

We must not forget that the greatest title of Jesus Christ is precisely that of 'Son', Son of God. Divine dignity is described with a word that extends the memory of the humble condition of the manger in Bethlehem, even as it corresponds in a unique way to his divinity, which is the divinity of the Son.

His condition as a baby also shows us how we can encounter God and enjoy his presence. It is in the light of Christmas that we can understand the words of Jesus: "Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18,3).

He who has not understood the mystery of Christmas has not understood the decisive element of Christian existence. He who who does not receive Jesus with the heart of a child cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. This is what Francis wanted to remind the Christians in his time and of all times, up to the present.

Let us pray to the Father so that he may grant to our hearts that simplicity which recognizes the Lord in the Baby, just as Francis did in Greccio. Then we too may experience what Tommaso da Celano - recallingthe experience of the shepherds on that Holy Night (cfr Lk 2,20) - tells us about those who were present in Greccio: "Everyone went home filled with ineffable joy" (Vita prima, op. cit., n. 86, p. 479).

This is the wish that I express with affection to all of you, your families and others dear to you. A merry Christmas to all!


What a singularly beautiful catechesis! Very much like the Holy Father's best homilies. It should serve priests around the world as the very model of a Christmas homily in its sinple but literally wonder-full beauty! And look how he himself embodies the ineffable joy he speaks of.







TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 18:21





Well, God be thanked! It seems the fairly moderate initial reactions from the Italian Jews to the advent of Venerable Pius XII were probably ritual noises of protest more than anything. They will go on making these noises from time to time, but they know in their hearts Eugenio Pacelli was a good man, a holy man, and one they should not hesitate to call 'righteous among men' - and that Benedict XVI has a pure heart incapable of anything but honesty... Anyway, Shalom, Rabbi di Segni!


Rome's chief rabbi satisfied
after Vatican note

Translated from
online
Dec. 23, 2009


The Vatican's note on Benedict XVI's promulgation of Venerable Pius XII's heroic virtues was "a timely and conciliatory signal", the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni said today.

"I appreciate the prompt attention of the Vatican, which, through its press director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, responded today with a note to some essential questions on the part of the Jews regarding the decree on the heroic virtues of Pius XII," Di Segni said.

"Equally important in the statement was distinguishing the religious aspect from the historical, as well as the assurance that (Pius XII's) cause for beatification will have an independent course [from that of John Paul II].

"Of course, the historical verdict [on Pius XII] will remain open and controversial, but it is important that the Vatican expressed understanding of 'the request to keep open all the possibilities for research'."


As Bruno Mastroianni said, the more new information about Pius XII comes to light, the better the world will learn about a holy man who has been relentlessly calumniated for more than half a century.

I have purposely refrained from posting the hateful and hate-filled Pavlov-dog reactions from various Jewish representatives such as some American Jews and the leader of the German Jews because they are rabid ideologues of the Shoah, which is a human tragedy but not a cult, and are incapable of seeing reason, much less of being fair, with respect to both Pius XII and Benedict XVI.

They do not see that in their malicious sanctimony, they are harboring a hatred akin to that which caused the Nazi contempt for the Jews and people who believe in God.




Thanks to Beatrice, on her site
benoit-et-moi.fr

for finding this blog entry from a Rome correspondent of

for a refreshingly congenial and unexpected opinion...


ECCE HOMO!
Translated from

by Frederic Mounier
Dec. 23, 2009


The reaction to the news that the way is open for the beatification process of Pius XII to proceed perplexes and afflicts me.

This Pope, whose death had inspired mourning comparable to that of John Paul II, and who until the 1960s was considreed by everyone as a remarkable figure, whom the Israelis had thought at one time worthy to be a hero to be honored by them, whose beatification was envisioned by both John XXIII then Paul VI, had suddenly become, because of a hateful and ahistorical book (The Deputy) and film (Amen), veritable dung, a figure of derision ['Papon'].

[On a personal note, since Pius XII was the Pope of my early childhood, the veneration with which he was held in the Catholic world at the time is very vivid to me, especially for someone who grew up in a Catholic school run by very orthodox Sisters of St. Paul and under the close tutelage of the college's spiritual director, a Belgian missionary.

It was shocking for me that at the time the Black Legend was taking hold, many Catholics either had forgotten or never knew the extraordinary stature Pius XII had in the world pre-Deputy - and I thank Mounier for re-creating it so well in just a few lines.]


I am flabbergasted, old professor that I am, by the peremptory statements, completely lacking critical discrimination, by people whose knowledge of history is most tenuous but who think they possess 'the truth' - without bothering to verify all the muck dragged up by the media.

And I am most flabbergasted by the 'trial' to which Benedict XVI is subjected without ever hearing any arguments 'for' him alongside the 'against' - this Pope whom his detractors seem to think acts only out of masochism (he delights in criticism?}, stupidity [he never checks out things!), and hastiness.

In short, they see him as the perfect whipping boy for media manipulation - someone who has somehow reawakened an anti-German sentiment one had thought defunct - all in the name of the sensational, and even of religious hatred that is so characteristic of our dear France.

I am no less saddened by hearing an important rabbi saying to a Pope to open his archives 'and justify himself' [on Pius XII] or risk the blackmail, "If you don't, we have nothing more to say to each other!"

But what is most painful in hearing this particular knell which is unique for being suspect, is the hue and cry from 'Catholics' (if there are still any left) who were never 'papists', and certainly not for this 'non-performing Pope' [the Vatican seen from a stadium seat!].

They 'know', from reading La Croix, that Benedict XVI is not 'charismatic' (meaning, not 'mediatic'), that he is afflicted by 'timidity', and above all, the unforgivable sin, that he is 'an intellectual'.

So there you have an intellectual [arguably the leading intellect in the world today, pilloried by those who love cockiness and glitter - as bumbling, limited, unable to 'understand' the modern world, well-deserving of anathema, curses and contemptuous spit.

One can only expect from his critics more variations on his 'autism', as though he were an imbecile gardener who would do better to just gaze at his flowerbeds.

And what if the Pope was really an honest man? That he acts as the Holy Spirit moves him? That he wishes, despite probable opprobrium, to follow his conscience and stand up for another scapegoat?

As for me, I swear - by all my Jewish ancestors, once and not long ago thrown to the dogs of unanimous hatred - that I feel compassion for this aged man, vilified so happily by his own.

ECCE HOMO!


Beatrice comments that she objects to the last sentence: in the first place because she - nor any Benaddict, one might add - would never think of the Holy Father as 'aged'; and because 'solidarity' rather than 'compassion' is the more appropriate word.

Of course, the most appropriate word of all, for us Benaddicts, is 'love' - a great and overwhelming and tender love for this holy man in whom we cannot find fault.



P.S. Mounier had an earlier blog entry dated Dec. 21 entitled 'Pius XII - the Incomprehension', which deserves translation as well.

Ironically, Mounier has the same last name as the French intellectual who first accused Pius XII of 'keeping silent against aggression' as early as 1939, in connection with the Italian attack on Albania. (See Sandro Magister's flashback to this, posted in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread two days ago.)

The brief biodata on Mounier's blog says he was Religion editor for La Croix before he was assigned to Rome to cover the Vatican and the Church from that vantage .



TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 22:42






What a pleasant Christmas surprise to find Amy Welborn writing for the Christmas issue of
the Catholic Herald! She has not completely given up blogging and you may follow her at

amywelborn.com.


Among the things that have kept her busy is a new book coming out in January. Her article
for the Herald ties in directly to the Holy Father's catechesis today...



Benedict XVI and the Christ Child
by AMY WELBORN

From the issue for
Dec. 25, 2009




The sentiment of the secular Christmas season might provoke a few mixed feelings. Although it seems ungrateful not to be, well... grateful that despite the unrelenting merchandising and secularisation, the basic points of love and giving seem to hold.

On the other hand, Love who? Why? How? We know how even words about the highest truths can be drained of meaning and manipulated for base or even evil ends.

So we do sense the truth and promise of Christmas. But mired in postmodern vacuity and scepticism, we wonder, indeed, what we really could possibly mean as we sing: "Holy Infant, so tender and mild..."

And what does that long-ago event it have to do with my life, right now?

Enter Pope Benedict and the Child.

The Holy Father, we all know very well, is a brilliant theologian, but that is not as intimidating as it sounds. For with theologian Joseph Ratzinger, whose writing is consistently lucid, humble and even charming, the line between "theology" and "spiritual writing" frequently slips and even disappears.

So in a meditation composed during his time as Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger, beginning as he often does from something quite concrete, reflected on the devotion to an image of the Christ Child still preserved in a tree in Christkindl, placed there in the 17th century by a man suffering from epilepsy or, as the chronicler terms it, "the sickness where one falls down".

A church was eventually built around the tree, and devotion grew. Sweet, but is there anything more than sentimental piety here?

Well, yes. Ratzinger, in just a few words, links this tree with the tree of paradise, with Mary, the life-giving tree who gives us the fruit, Jesus, with the circular shape of the church, recalling the womb and baptism, our call to be born again as children, which is possible because God became a child.

For, as he writes, in a passage that never ceases to prompt me to pause in recognition, "we are all suffering from 'the sickness where one falls down'".

How true. How very true.

"Again and again, we find ourselves unable interiorly to walk upright and to stand. Again and again, we fall down; we are not masters of our own lives; we are alienated; we are not free."

What is the answer? God's love - and there is nothing vague about this. God's love so very real and concrete that it is enfleshed and God himself comes to earth in the most startling of ways - as a baby.

We need not look far for the "tree" holding the baby, Ratzinger says, the One who heals us from the sickness where we fall down: "Jesus, who is himself the fruit of the tree of life, and life itself, has becomes so small that our hands can enclose him", we can know him - and be redeemed.

In another meditation, then-Archbishop Ratzinger highlights St Francis of Assisi's role in shaping Christmas devotion in his creation of the original crèche at Greccio.



He points to the radical implications of the Word-Made-Flesh as a Child, that this is not about mere sentiment, but about how we must be: "his existence as a child shows us how we come to God and to deification ... One who has not grasped the mystery of Christmas has failed to grasp the decisive element in Christianity" - that to enter the Kingdom we must become like Him. Like a child.

As we continue to read what the Holy Father writes about the Christ Child in his homilies as Pope, the same idea emerges again and again: if we want to know who God is, look at the Child.

If we, in our emptiness, sin and hopelessness, want to know if our lives have meaning and if we are loved, look to the Child.

If we want to know how to love, look to the Child.

Most important of all, if we want to not just have the right ideas, but to actually live in love now and forever, know and love the Child. At Midnight Mass in 2006, the Holy Father's words bring the Good News about God, us and this broken world:

"God's sign is simplicity. God's sign is the baby. God's sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby - defenceless and in need of our help.

He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will - we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him."

My own favourite object of Christmas meditation is a real, actual baby. Now that I have none of my own, I must seek one out - at a Catholic Mass that is not too hard - and consider the tiny thing, eyes wide open staring at me and the rest of the world, or closed in blissful sleep, nestled against its mother's neck.

"God is so great that he can become small," Pope Benedict said at Midnight Mass in 2005. "God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenceless child, so that we can love him. God is so good that he can give up his divine splendour and come down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might touch us, give itself to us and continue to work through us. This is Christmas: 'You are my son, this day I have begotten you'. God has become one of us, so that we can be with him and become like him. As a sign, he chose the Child lying in the manger: this is how God is. This is how we come to know him."

Real. Concrete. Flesh and blood. In such loving helplessness, helping us walk, because we have, indeed, all fallen down.



The photos I used to illustrate this article are from the Holy Father's visit to the Nativity scene at the Piazza on 12/23/08.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 23 dicembre 2009 23:21





Second Irish bishops submits
resignation to Pope Benedict

By PATRICK ROBERTS

Dec. 23, 2009




Irish Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Jim Moriarty resigned to Pope Benedict XVI today following revelations in the Murphy Report into child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese published last month.

Moriarty was an auxiliary bishop in Dublin between 1991 and 1993. The report said that in that role, he had received a complaint about a priest known by the pseudonym Father Edmondus, regarding the priest’s contact with young children.

According to the report, youth workers were concerned that young girls, and especially very poor children, seemed to spend time at Edmondus’ house.

Moriarty discussed the matter with local priests and with Archbishop Desmond Connell, and warned "Edmondus" about his behavior, but he did not consult others for more information about Edmondus.

“No attempt was made by the archdiocesan authorities to check the archives or other files relating to 'Edmondus' when these complaints were received,” the Murphy Report says.

In a radio interview last week, Moriarty said he should not have to resign.

“I stand by my statement that I should not resign for my partial involvement in the Edmondus case, but I want to add that no bishop can put his own position before the good of the Church.”

Moriarty was due to retire in two years’ time. But following a meeting between Moriarty and diocesan priests and staff in County Laois, Moriarty has said he is willing to leave his post early, according to Irish TV broadcaster RTE.



maryjos
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 00:55
Pope's Christmas Card
Teresa: Where did you find the Pope's Christmas card? I notice you have incorporated it into your banner, but that is too small for me to see it properly. I can't find it on the Holy See website.

Thanks as always for all the news and photos! Mary xxxx


Mary, I found it in BILD - and I posted it first as large as it could be done with good resolution on page 52 of this thread:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&...

TERESA
TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 04:28






Notes on the papal liturgies
of the Christmas season
December 24 - January 12

by Mons. Guido Marini
Translated from
the 12/24/09 issue of





The liturgical celebrations in the Christmas season, starting from the Christmas Eve Mass, lead the faithful to contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation, which manifests the beauty of the Lord and his Love that is rich with infinite mercy.

Mons. Guido Marini, master of pontifical liturgical ceremonies, explains this in a note on the Christmas celebrations to be presided over by Benedict XVI at St. Peter's basilica.




The Holy Father at Christmas Eve Mass, 2008.

Liturgical celebrations are able to transmit the joyful news of the faith through words, gestures, silences, symbols, music, singing, the rite as a whole.

What is important is that the rite shines forth luminously and is capable of expressing what it contains.

It is not about making new things, but about making new what the Church asks to fulfilled in the rite.

In the Vatican Basilica this year, the wooden polychrome statue showing the Virgin on a throne with the Infant Jesus giving a blessing, has been installed next to the Altar of the Confession starting with the first Vespers of Advent, and will stay there until Epiphany, to underscore that even Advent and the Christmas season are also Marian seasons.



The image belongs to the Umbro-Lazial school of the first half of tHE 14th century. It has been in the Vatican since 1967, and under the responsibility of the Vatican Museums since 1978. It is missing the crown on the Virgin's head. The statue is hollow, so it is presumed it used to be carried in procession.

As has now become usual in papal liturgies, every celebration is preceded by a time of preparation. About 15-20 minutes before the start of the actual rite, readings from various texts and musical passages help prepare the spirit of those present for prayer and meditation. The texts are largely taken from Benedict XVI's homilies in the past year. Then there is a prayer of preparation which is taken from prayers that are part of Church tradition.

The librettos also provide, among the rubrics for the rite, indications for the brief silences after the Pope's homily and after Communion. These are pauses that help the Massgoer to pray and meditate - above all, to assimilate the gift of the Word of God that has been heard, or the Eucharist that one has just received.

The languages chosen for the readings and for the intentions expressed in the prayer of the faithful underscore the participation in the papal liturgy of people coming from different parts of the world. Everyone can listen and pray in their own language, just as in the other parts of the Mass, everyone listens and prays in Latin, the language of the Church, which expresses its unity and catholicity, despite diversity of origins.

In some circumstances, when concelebration is not intended, then there will be two cardinal deacons assisting the Pope. Historically, papal deacons guaranteed administration of the city of Rome and liturgical service to the Pope.

Therefore, this is a historical and liturgical tradition that is proper to the Pope and papal liturgy. In terms of vestments, the cardinal deacons use the dalmatic when they serve the Pontiff. Moreover, they do not concelebrate the Mass, which is an exterior manifestation of their function as servants and collaborators.



On Christmas Eve, as in previous years, there will be a brief vigil in preparation for the Mass. Last year, for the first time, the Vigil was enhanced with the chanting of the Kalenda, which is no longer sung within the Christmas Eve Mass as before.

The Roman Martyrology provides for it to be sung in the daytime on Christmas Eve, after Lauds or during a minor hour of the Liturgy of the Hours. In this sense, placing the Kalenda at the end of the prayer vigil seems to be more appropriate to its nature.

For the same reason, when the Gloria is sung, right after the Pope intones it, the bells will ring, accompanied by organ music.

Also since last year, the floral tribute by the children to the Infant Jesus now comes at the end of the Eucharistic celebration, when the Holy Father brings the Baby Jesus to lay it down on the manger.

The liturgical attendants for the Christmas Eve Mass will be seminarians of the Legion of Christ.

On Christmas Day, just like last year, the Pope will not wear a cope when he delivers the Urbi et Orbi message. He will be in choir dress, with mozzetta and stole, since this involves a solemn benediction that is not part of a liturgical rite. Serving him will be two students from the Collegio Mater Ecclesiae.



On Dec. 31, eve of the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, the Pope will preside at Vespers, followed by the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a Te Deum of thanksgiving, and a Eucharistic Benediction, to signify the centrality of adoration in the life of the Church and the disciples of the Lord, and to accompany the start of the New Year with the blessing of the Lord. Assisting in this service will be students of the Congregazione San Michele Arcangelo.



In the Mass of the Solemnity itself on New Year's Day, the prayers of the faithful will be inspired by the Pope's message for the World Day of Peace, celebrated on that day. Passages from the message are printed at the start of the libretto and will be read during the preparation before the Mass, along with St. Bernard's famous prayer to the Virgin, the Memorare.

Some children and adults from Lebanon will take part in the offering of gifts and in the reading of intentions in the prayers for the faithful.

At the end of the Mass, Benedict XVI will venerate the image of the Madonna. Assisting in these services will be students of St. Mark's Seminary in Erie, New York.



On the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), the Pope will wear a Roman chasuble instead of the post-Conciliar flowing chasuble, to underscore once more the continuity between past and present, manifested through liturgical vestments.

After the proclamation of the Gospel, the deacon will chant the 'Announcement of Easter'. The Epiphany is a feast of redemption, pointing forward to the fullness of God's manifestation which will take place in the events of Easter.

In this sense, the Epiphany of the Magi is seen as the first act of epiphany-manifestations that form the fabric of Christ's entire terrestrial life. He, the light of the world, is the final goal of history, the point of arrival for an exodus in a providential journey of redemption, culminating in his death and resurrection,

That is why the liturgy of the Epiphany includes an announcement of Easter. The liturgical year summarizes the entire trajectory of the history of salvation, in the center of which is the triduum of the Lord who is crucified, buried and resurrected.

The Epiphany service will be assisted by the students of the Propaganda Fide College.



Finally, for the Feast of the Lord's Baptism, on Sunday, January 10, 14 babies will receive the sacrament from the Pope. For the fourth time in his Pontificate, Benedict XVI will administer the first sacrament of Christian life in the stupendous setting of the Sistine Chapel.

The babies are children of Vatican employees and will be accompanied by their parents, godfathers and godmothers, and their families. The older siblings of the babies to be baptized will bring the gifts at teh Offertory. Thus, it will be a feast of life and of the family.

The Baptism rite will take place within the Mass that the Pope will celebrate at the built-in altar of the Sistine Chapel, and therefore ad orientem. This decision was taken two years ago in order to preserve the architectonic harmony of the Sistine Chapel. In the decades after Vatican II, a mobile altar was wheeled into the chapel so that the Mass could be celebrated 'ad populum'.

The babies will be baptized at a metal font sculptured in the time of John Paul II by the Italian Toffetti. The Pope will be using a golden shell to pour the water. The scalloped shell is a symbol of pilgrimage, and therefore, of the journey that the newly baptized will begin as soon as they become part of the Christian community.

Assisting at the service will be students from the Vatican's St. Pius X pre-seminary.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 14:51





Thursday, December 24
A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

CHRISTMAS IN GRECCIO
The Holy Father anticipated today's observance in his catechesis yesterday. The two paintings are from Giotto's frescoes in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi: second from left, the Institution of the Crib in Greccio, and second from right, the Nativity scene.



OR today.

At the General Audience, the Pope recalls that Christmas
is the triumph of love over pride and violence:
'God comes without weapons nor force to be welcomed by man in freedom'

At the GA yesterday, the Pope met the editors of the Spanish newspaper La Razon which will carry the Spanish weekly
edition of OR as a Sunday supplement (photo, bottom left). Other Page 1 stories: Moscow reports progress in talks for
a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with the USA; two are killed and three wounded in a new terrorist attack against
a church in Mosul, Iraq.




THE POPE'S DAY
10 P.M. Christmas Eve Mass
St. Peter's Basilica
TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 17:24





Thanks to Lella's blog, which she has re-baptised to

for pointing me to this excellent article.


Analysis:
Where is Benedict XVI's
Pontificated headed?


The chief religion editor of Le Figaro says the Pope opens
a true space for debate in meeting sensitive issues head-on.


by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

December 22, 2009



This a-mediatic Pope knows exactly where he wants to go.


Is 2009 the worst year so far of Benedict XVI's Pontificate? Not according to the Pope, who on Monday morning, calmly reported to the Roman Curia on a year that was loaded with controversy.

Around Christmas time every year, the Pope and his closest co-workers meet to exchange Christmas greetings. It has become an occasion for him to speak about Church policy in general, a report he prepares himself, writing it out by hand.

And the meeting is never anodyne! It was the setting he chose to announce in December 2005 his interpretation of the Second Vatican Council - not one of 'rupture' but reconciled with the Tradition of the Church.

He made no reference Monday to the successive media storms that marked this year for the Pope: the Williamson case in January; the AIDS controversy as he began his first trip to Africa in March; and this weekend, his go-ahead for the beatification process of Pius XII. Without forgetting the excommunication of persons connected to an abortion performed on a 9-year-old rape victim in Brazil [strangely, this made media 'waves' only in Brazil and France - although the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith eventually had to step in to straighten out the controversy generated in the Vatican newspaper itself, due to the hasty condemnation of the local Brazilian bishops by the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the OR's refusal to give equal space to the bishops to respond.]

Without dealing with these matters, Benedict XVI chose to look at the pastoral implications of his three trips abroad in 2009 - to Africa, the Holy Land and the Czech Republic.

Far from stirring up confrontation, he dwelt on the spirit of 'reconciliation' that should animate the Church and every Christian. A spirit of reconciliation which, he says, can bring peace [because it is a pre-condition for true peace]. And it can change the world because it has 'political' consequences.

The problem is that many, both within and outside the Catholic Church, do not share this peaceable state of mind.

During the past twelve months that have darkened [I am not sure the term is objective or appropriate!] the image of the Church, Catholics continue to be troubled. Some are angry or disappointed. Some are uneasy even if there are many who faithfully support the Pope.

[How can any individual make such judgments using the terms 'some' and 'many' to refer to a Church with 1.2 billion members? No one is in a position to quantify who among those 1.2 billion are angry, disappointed, and uneasy - or how many faithfully 'support the Pope'. And any such judgments only reflect the journalist's subjective extrapolation of his own state of mind and that of the circles he moves in. Just as I choose to believe there are hundreds of millions of 'simple faithful' like me who believe and follow the Church, however imperfectly with our human limitations, but nonetheless with true faith']

In any case, it must be noted, once and for all, that this Pope charts his own course. [which, as he said in his Inaugural Mass homily, is to do as God wills.]. He will never allow himself to be influenced by media pressure. [Nor by other pressures, such as the militant Jews, from the outside, and dissident prelates and Catholic lobbies on the inside.]

Proof was his surprise decision on Saturday, to open the way for Pius XII's beatification along with that of John Paul II.

The historical debate over Pius's Pontificate has been head-on, and ultra-sensitive, in the context of Catholic relations with the Jews. But Benedict XVI knows what he needs to do.

After sufficient reflection [and an internal supplementary investigation into the historical record available at the Vatican], the German Pope decided to go ahead in the matter of Pius XII - when everyone had thought he would simply leave it to his eventual successor to deal with the problem!

Rome has a colorful expression to describe this kind of a problem: 'patata bollente', which is weakly translated in French [and in English as well] as 'hot potato', since it is in fact, a boiling issue.

But this decision to place Pius XII"s cause back on track shows above all that this a-mediatic Pope knows very well where he wants to go.

The Pius XII 'case'. like the other 'cases' or 'affairs' (Regensburg, the opening to the Lefebvrians, the approach to AIDS) - is not just the stuff of sporadic headlines. They stir up real social debates which are fundamental, serious and even violent.

In this sense, Benedict XVI obliges his interlocutors to intellectual honesty. And that is, without a doubt, his best asset.

Of course, everyone has the right to disagree with him, but his position is always clear. And he presents these positions himself before the tribunal of the public - without demagogery, without ambiguity, and without any false diplomacy.


Three years since the crisis that followed the Regensburg lecture, the perception is that relations between the Church and Islam have never been so good - because the controversy had led to a dialog of truth.

Might it be that the virtue of this demanding and disquieting Pontificate is to provoke a clear and well-reasoned debate which obliges a review of a priori positions that are often too simplistic?



Guenois has captured the gist of Benedict's singular leadership, and has spelled it out with what I find to be surprising intellectual honesty on his part, something I have stopped trying to expect from the media in general. May there be more like him!

TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 19:52






In Christmas letter, Berlusconi
thanks Pope for support over attack




Rome, 24 Dec. (AKI) - Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI thanking him for his support after the bloody attack against him by a mentally unstable man in the northern city of Milan this month.

In the letter, Berlusconi said Christian principles guided his government and that it would work for "social cohesion" in the country.

"I can confirm that the Christian values exemplified by Your Holinesss always guide my government's actions. It will take all the necessary action to ensure calm and social cohesion," wrote Berlusconi.

The letter thanked Benedict for the "closeness" the pontiff had shown him in a telegram he sent to Berlusconi in hospital while the premier was recovering from a fractured nose, two broken teeth, blood loss and other facial injuries sustained during the attack against him on 13 December.

A 42-year-old man, Massimo Tartaglia, was arrested after the attack during which he allegedly hurled an alabaster replica of the city's Gothic cathedral into Berlusconi's face.

Tartaglia, who has a history of mental illness, is being held in preventive custody in a Milan jail. He told police he carried out the attack alone out of hatred for Berlusconi.

"Christmas is an important time for reflection for all men of good will. Christ's message of peace and brotherhood is often forgotten when the strength of ideas are met with verbal or physical violence," said Berlusconi's letter, delivered to Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Berlusconi said earlier this week he forgave Tartaglia but wants him to serve time in detention and said such attacks against high-ranking Italian officials must be prevented in future.

His letter to the Pope is another apparent sign that Berlusconi is taking an increasingly pious tone as he eyes Catholic voters in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country.

The premier has been hit by sex scandals this year including alleged dalliances with a prostitute which have strained his relations with the Catholic Church.

His letter to the Pontiff also comes amid talk of a new centrist party to challenge Berlusconi made up of pro-Vatican politicians.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 23:04





Pope inaugurates
Christmas creche at St. Peter's







VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday appeared at a window of his Vatican apartment to mark the unveiling of the traditional Christmas creche in St Peter's Square below.

About 1,000 people gathered in the famous piazza applauded as the pope lit a candle, symbol of peace.

Benedict's predecessor John Paul II began the tradition of setting up the creche in St Peter's Square in 1982 in a tribute to the rich Italian tradition of creche-building and the zeal and artistry involved.



Flanked by a giant Christmas tree, the illuminated structure 25 metres (yards) wide depicts the nativity of Jesus Christ, believed by Christians to be the son of God, whose birth is commemorated on Christmas Day.

Some of the figurines in this year's creche date from the mid-19th century.

The sundown event came a few hours before the Pontiff was to celebrate Christmas Eve mass in the basilica.

As children put on a pageant and the Vatican orchestra performed, a long line of pilgrims waited to enter the basilica for the mass.

In a Vatican first, the traditional "midnight mass" was to begin two hours early this year in view of Pope Benedict's advanced age of 82.




The Pope's own creche



The Nativity scene in the Pope's apartment this year is set in the market area of a 15th-century Roman neighborhood, and was the work of the Vatican florist service as usual. The statuettes are in plaster and terracotta.


Vatican newspaper to debut
as Sunday supplement to
Spanish paper La Razon



After the General Audience yesterday, executives of the Madrid-based Spanish newspaper La Razon, were thanked by the Holy Father for being the first newspaper in Spain to carry the Spanish weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano as a free supplement to their Sunday issue, which has a present circulation of 200,000.

OR editor Giovanni Maria Vian (in photo, center) says this triples the OR's circulation overnight. At present, its daily edition and its weekly editions in seven languages have a total print order of 100,000.

The La Razon project was suggested by the Spanish bishops' conference and favorably welcomed by the newspaper which is also undertaking the cost of printing the supplement.

The Spanish weekly OR was already the widest circulated of its foreign editions, since it has been carried in Peru since 1997, in Mexico since 1998, and in Argentina since 2005, but none with a major newspaper like La Razon.


Pope is presented formally
with the 'Alma Mater' CD


Other than a brief mention in the 12/24/09 OR that this took place, I have not seen any story with it. But the first three photographs from the OR catalog are rather unusual - they seem to show the Pope covering his face as if in mock dismay over something, as the persons around him enjoy a laugh.






TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 24 dicembre 2009 23:27



The Mass is still going on at St. Peter's but I have to post this 'bulletin' quickly. If you were watching the telecast, you would have noted that shortly after the entrance procession started, the lead acolytes suddenly stopped midway, and plainclothes security started running from the front part of the Basilica towards the back.

The TV commentator had no idea why - and I had an anxious several seconds wondering "Oh please, dear God, don't let it be anything awful!"....Happily, the procession re-started (probably only a minute or so was lost), and soon there was our beloved Pope walking down the aisle appearing well and unruffled.....It turns out it could have been bad, as this AP bulletin makes clear....




Pope knocked down by
woman before Christmas Mass




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 (AP) – A Vatican spokesman says a woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass.

The Rev. Ciro Benedettini said the Pope quickly got up and was unhurt. Benedict, 82, calmly resumed his walk to the basilica's main altar and began the Mass late Thursday.

Benedettini said the woman who pushed the Pope appeared to be mentally unstable and had been arrested by Vatican police.

He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, who was taken to the hospital for a check up.


I certainly hope Dr. Polisca puts the Pope through appropriate tests to make sure he did not hit his head nor suffer any bone damage of the kind that does not immediately make itself felt... even if he seemed perfectly OK during the Mass. !

One of the first photos taken after the Holy Father resumed the entry procession - nothing to indicate he had just been knocked down. And it couldn't have been pleasant at all for anyone, even for someone half his age, to be knocked down by a madwoman.


However, the newsphoto agemcies went out of their way to take as many snaps as they could of the Pope being assisted or anything that would seem to suggest weakness or injury, as below:





The Pope was in fine form throughout - and I will post the rest of the'regular' pictures in the Mass coverage.



P.S. AP has filed two frames taken from an amateur video - the first two as the person was rushing towards the Pope, the other no longer showing their figures nor those of the security men around the Pope.




An AP videoclip carries the amateur footage shot above, and it clearly shows someone in a red shirt leaping over the barrier to the right of th Pope, and he does disappear from view... Sorry it comes with a movie commercial at the start.
link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42806360001?bctid=590...
An isolated report later said he was not knocked down, but the video appears to show he was, and the Vatican's own spokesman said so.


AFP has more details now:

Woman rushes at Pope, pulls him down
just before the Christmas Mass

By Gina Doggett



VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 (AFPO) — Papal bodyguards overpowered a woman who rushed at Pope Benedict XVI, yanking him to the ground Thursday as he entered St Peter's Basilica to celebrate Christmas Eve mass.

Video footage showed the woman, dressed in a red sweatshirt, jumping over a security barricade and rushing at the 82-year-old Pope as he began leading the traditional procession of about 30 cardinals to the vast basilica's altar.

She was immediately tackled by a security guard, but succeeded in grabbing Benedict's vestments near the neck and yanking him to the ground, according to video footage taken by a pilgrim broadcast on Sky News.

Several others fell over in the melee.

Prominent French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, broke a leg in the incident though he was "several metres (yards)" from the pope, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP, adding that the prelate was rushed to hospital.

The woman is in the custody of the Vatican police, the ANSA news agency reported, adding that she said she wanted to hug the Pontiff.

Lombardi said she may have been the same woman who tried to approach Benedict on the same occasion a year ago without getting past the security barrier.

After the incident, Benedict quickly recovered, and bore a gold cross in a solemn procession to the altar as the mass began at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT).

Dressed in gold and white vestments and mitre, the Pope showed no discomfort as he read out his Christmas Eve homily, decrying selfishness, which he said "makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.

"Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world," the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics said in Italian.

Thursday's incident occurred amid concern over the Pope's health prompted by a Vatican decision to schedule the Mass two hours early this year instead of the traditional midnight hour due to the Pontiff's advanced age.

Lombardi insisted earlier that the change, a Vatican first, was only a "sensible precaution" for the octogenarian Pontiff.

The decision was taken several weeks ago. Lombardi said the change was "no cause for alarm," adding that the German Pontiff's condition was "absolutely normal" for a man of his age.

Lombardi said the move was aimed at making Christmas "a little less tiring for the Pope, who has many engagements during this time".

On Friday, Pope Benedict is to deliver his traditional "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) message broadcast to dozens of countries at noon on Friday.

Benedict has had no notable health problems since his 2005 election apart from a fractured wrist from a fall in July while holidaying in northern Italy.

Four years before he became Pope however, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spent nearly a month [???I always had the impression it was just a few days!] in hospital following a brain haemorrhage, according to the German daily Bild. It said he has suffered from fainting spells. [Where does that come from???? BILD is a tabloid that always tends to sensationalize bad news!]

Pope Benedict's long-serving predecessor John Paul II insisted on observing the tradition of beginning the Mass at midnight despite years of ill health, notably the ravages of Parkinson's disease, at the end of his life. He died in April 2005 aged 84.

{What is that meant to imply? That Benedict XVI is somehow to be reproached because he chooses to start Mass two hours earlier even if he is stil two years younger than his predecessor was and does not suffer from a degenerative disease? That's petty and mean faultfinding.]

P.S. I hope it is not true Cardinal Etchegaray broke his leg - a major fracture can really be bad at his age.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 11:27



Libretto illustrations from the GRANDES HEURES for Anne of Brittany, Tours 1503-1508. Bibliotheque Nationale de France.




MASS OF CHRISTMAS EVE














'ET INCARNATUS EST'




Here is the English translation of the Pope's homily, from the English service of



Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“A child is born for us, a son is given to us” (Is 9:5).

What Isaiah prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light streams forth: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11).

The Lord is here. From this moment, God is truly “God with us”. No longer is he the distant God who can in some way be perceived from afar, in creation and in our own consciousness. He has entered the world. He is close to us.

The words of the risen Christ to his followers are addressed also to us: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel announced to the shepherds.

It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there.

The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God’s incarnation have to tell us?

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch – they could hear the message precisely because they were awake.

We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His “self” is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others.

To wake up means to leave that private world of one’s own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people. Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world.

Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.

Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence.

There are people who describe themselves as “religiously tone deaf”. The gift of a capacity to perceive God seems as if it is withheld from some. And indeed – our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of today’s world, the whole range of our experience is inclined to deaden our receptivity for God, to make us “tone deaf” towards him.

And yet in every soul, the desire for God, the capacity to encounter him, is present, whether in a hidden way or overtly. In order to arrive at this vigilance, this awakening to what is essential, we should pray for ourselves and for others, for those who appear “tone deaf” and yet in whom there is a keen desire for God to manifest himself.

The great theologian Origen said this: if I had the grace to see as Paul saw, I could even now (during the Liturgy) contemplate a great host of angels (cf. in Lk 23:9).

And indeed, in the sacred liturgy, we are surrounded by the angels of God and the saints. The Lord himself is present in our midst. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts, so that we may become vigilant and clear-sighted, in this way bringing you close to others as well!

Let us return to the Christmas Gospel. It tells us that after listening to the Angel’s message, the shepherds said one to another: “‘Let us go over to Bethlehem’ … they went at once” (Lk 2:15f.).

“They made haste” is literally what the Greek text says. What had been announced to them was so important that they had to go immediately.

In fact, what had been said to them was utterly out of the ordinary. It changed the world. The Saviour is born. The long-awaited Son of David has come into the world in his own city. What could be more important?

No doubt they were partly driven by curiosity, but first and foremost it was their excitement at the wonderful news that had been conveyed to them, of all people, to the little ones, to the seemingly unimportant.

They made haste – they went at once. In our daily life, it is not like that. For most people, the things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves on us directly. And so the great majority of us tend to postpone them.

First we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal with that later, we tend to think. The Gospel tells us: God is the highest priority.

If anything in our life deserves haste without delay, then, it is God’s work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict contains this teaching: “Place nothing at all before the work of God (i.e. the divine office)”.

For monks, the Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most important thing in our lives.

The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place – however important they may be – so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time.

Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly alive, when we live our humanity to the full.

Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls, were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing those with social standing and fame, arrived much later.

The commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds lived nearby. They only needed to “come over” (cf. Lk 2:15), as we do when we go to visit our neighbours. The wise men, however, lived far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction.

Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily go to see him. But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us.

We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him.

But a path exists for all of us. The Lord provides everyone with tailor-made signals. He calls each one of us, so that we too can say: “Come on, ‘let us go over’ to Bethlehem – to the God who has come to meet us.

Yes indeed, God has set out towards us. Left to ourselves we could not reach him. The path is too much for our strength. But God has come down. He comes towards us. He has travelled the longer part of the journey.

Now he invites us: come and see how much I love you. Come and see that I am here. Transeamus usque Bethlehem, the Latin Bible says. Let us go there! Let us surpass ourselves!

Let us journey towards God in all sorts of ways: along our interior path towards him, but also along very concrete paths – the Liturgy of the Church, the service of our neighbour, in whom Christ awaits us.

Let us once again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell one another the reason why they are setting off: “Let us see this thing that has happened.” Literally the Greek text says: “Let us see this Word that has occurred there.”

Yes indeed, such is the radical newness of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become flesh. The God of whom no image may be made – because any image would only diminish, or rather distort him – this God has himself become visible in the One who is his true image, as Saint Paul puts it (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15).

In the figure of Jesus Christ, in the whole of his life and ministry, in his dying and rising, we can see the Word of God and hence the mystery of the living God himself. This is what God is like.

The Angel had said to the shepherds: “This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12; cf. 2:16).

God’s sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not an astonishing miracle. God’s sign is his humility. God’s sign is that he makes himself small; he becomes a child; he lets us touch him and he asks for our love.

How we would prefer a different sign, an imposing, irresistible sign of God’s power and greatness! But his sign summons us to faith and love, and thus it gives us hope: this is what God is like. He has power, he is Goodness itself. He invites us to become like him.

Yes indeed, we become like God if we allow ourselves to be shaped by this sign; if we ourselves learn humility and hence true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love.

Origen, taking up one of John the Baptist’s sayings, saw the essence of paganism expressed in the symbol of stones: paganism is a lack of feeling, it means a heart of stone that is incapable of loving and perceiving God’s love. Origen says of the pagans: “Lacking feeling and reason, they are transformed into stones and wood” (in Lk 22:9).

Christ, though, wishes to give us a heart of flesh. When we see him, the God who became a child, our hearts are opened. In the Liturgy of the holy night, God comes to us as man, so that we might become truly human.

Let us listen once again to Origen: “Indeed, what use would it be to you that Christ once came in the flesh if he did not enter your soul? Let us pray that he may come to us each day, that we may be able to say: I live, yet it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)” (in Lk 22:3).

Yes indeed, that is what we should pray for on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is transformed. Amen.













TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 11:47







Friday, December 25
THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD





OR today.


The Nativity scene - in the Pope's apartment, in a 13th-century icon from a Syrian evangelarium, and in two Rome neigborhoods.
Page 1 stories today: An essay on the Nativity in the Syriac Occidental tradition, "He who rides the heavens now crawls as a child'; and L'Osservatore Romano becomes a Sunday supplement to the Spanish newspaper La Razon. International news is on the increasing refugee problem in the Great lakes region of the Congo; India becomes the second country after China to announce it expects an 8% growth in GDP next year; and teh US Senate approves its version of a health care bill.


THE POPE'S DAY
The Christmas blessing Urbi et Orbi




TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 12:27





Pope fine for Christmas blessing
after Chritmas Eve incident

by NICOLE WINFIELD






VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI is fine and will appear as planned for his traditional Christmas Day blessing hours after being knocked down by a woman who jumped the barrier at the start of Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican said Friday.

French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, an 87-year-old Vatican diplomat, fractured his hip in the fall and will be operated on at Rome's Gemelli hospital, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Lombardi identified the woman as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems. He said Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment.


Videocaps from amateur film.

The woman jumped the barricade and lunged for the Pope as he processed down the aisle toward the altar. As security guards brought her down, she grabbed Benedict's vestments and pulled him down with her, according to witness video obtained by The Associated Press.

With the help of attendants, Benedict stood up and continued to process down the aisle, to the cheers of "Viva il Papa!" ("Long live the Pope"). He continued to celebrate the Mass without incident. Lombardi said Benedict's busy Christmas schedule would proceed without change.

Etchegaray's condition was good, he added.

It was the second year in a row that there had been a security breach at the Christmas Eve service and was the first time a potential attacker came into direct contact with Benedict during his five-year papacy. Security analysts have frequently warned the Pope is too exposed in his public appearances.

At the end of last year's Mass, a woman who had jumped the barriers got close to the Pope but was quickly blocked on the ground by security.

That woman too wore a red hooded sweat shirt, but Benedettini said it was not immediately known if the same person was behind Thursday's incident.

Benedict lost his miter and his staff in the fall. He remained on the ground for a few seconds before being helped back up by attendants.

After getting up, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, resumed his walk to the basilica's main altar to start the Mass. The Pope, who broke his right wrist in a fall this summer, appeared unharmed but somewhat shaken and leaned heavily on aides and an armrest as he sat down in his chair. [The woman is imagining things!]

Benedict made no reference to the disturbance after the service started. As a choir sang, he sprinkled incense on the altar before opening the Mass with the traditional wish for peace in Latin.

There have been other security breaches at the Vatican.

In 2007, during an open-air audience in St. Peter's Square, a mentally unstable German man jumped a security barrier and grabbed the back of the pope's open car before being swarmed by security guards.

Then there was the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981. John Paul suffered a severe abdominal wound as he rode in an open jeep at the start of his weekly audience in the Vatican piazza.

The Pope is protected by a combination of Swiss Guards, Vatican police and Italian police.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., the Vatican has tightened security at events where the Pope is present. All visitors must pass by police to get into the square, with those entering the basilica going through metal detectors or being scanned by metal-detecting wands.

However, Sister Samira, an Indian aide to Vatican officials who attended the service and saw the incident, said she is never searched by security when she attends papal Masses, and said the same holds true for other people in religious garb.

In a similar incident, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was attacked as he was greeting the crowd at a political rally earlier this month. A man with a history of psychological problems hurled a souvenir statuette at the politician, fracturing his nose and breaking two of his teeth.

Benedict celebrated this year's Christmas Eve Mass two hours earlier than the usual midnight starting time in a move by the Vatican to ease the pontiff's busy holiday schedule.

Benedict has been remarkably healthy during his pontificate, keeping to a busy schedule and traveling around the world.

But in July, he broke his wrist during a late-night fall while vacationing in an Alpine chalet and had to have minor surgery and wear a cast for a month — an episode that highlights the risk he ran in Thursday's tumble.

In his homily, delivered unflappably after the incident, the Pope urged the world to "wake up" from selfishness and petty affairs, and find time for God and spiritual matters.

In Bethlehem, thousands of pilgrims from around the world descended on the traditional birthplace of Jesus, for the most upbeat Christmas celebrations the Palestinian town has seen in years.

Hundreds of worshippers packed St. Catherine's Church on Manger Square for morning mass. Most were local Palestinian Christians, and the mass was celebrated in Arabic.



P.S. The latest amateur video I just saw on Fox News shows very clearly that the Pope was not knocked down but actually pulled down to the floor by the woman, who grabbed his garments around the neck and pulled backwards - he appeared to simply fall forward instantly - so her body may have cushioned his fall.

The video is on YouTube now - the'attack' comes at around 0:50 seconds into the clip.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcP_00cPnZc&feature=player_embedded


TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 13:41








THE POPE'S CHRISTMAS DAY
MESSAGE AND BLESSING
'URBI ET ORBI'

English translation from





NB: The epigram at the start of the Holy Father's message is the citation that appears on his 2009 Christmas card.

Dear Brothers and Sisters
in Rome and throughout the world,
and all men and women, whom the Lord loves!

"Lux fulgebit hodie super nos,
quia natus est nobis Dominus.

A light will shine on us this day,
the Lord is born for us"

(Roman Missal, Christmas,
Entrance Antiphon for the Mass at Dawn)


The liturgy of the Mass at Dawn reminded us that the night is now past, the day has begun; the light radiating from the cave of Bethlehem shines upon us.

The Bible and the Liturgy do not, however, speak to us about a natural light, but a different, special light, which is somehow directed to and focused upon “us”, the same “us” for whom the Child of Bethlehem “is born”.

This “us” is the Church, the great universal family of those who believe in Christ, who have awaited in hope the new birth of the Saviour, and who today celebrate in mystery the perennial significance of this event.

At first, beside the manger in Bethlehem, that “us” was almost imperceptible to human eyes. As the Gospel of Saint Luke recounts, it included, in addition to Mary and Joseph, a few lowly shepherds who came to the cave after hearing the message of the Angels.

The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night. All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light “that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). And yet all this took place in simplicity and hiddenness, in the way that God works in all of salvation history.

God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces. Truth, and Love, which are its content, are kindled wherever the light is welcomed; they then radiate in concentric circles, as if by contact, in the hearts and minds of all those who, by opening themselves freely to its splendour, themselves become sources of light.

Such is the history of the Church: she began her journey in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries she has become a People and a source of light for humanity.

Today too, in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the “sign” of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the “us” of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind.

Wherever there is an “us” which welcomes God’s love, there the light of Christ shines forth, even in the most difficult situations. The Church, like the Virgin Mary, offers the world Jesus, the Son, whom she herself has received as a gift, the One who came to set mankind free from the slavery of sin.

Like Mary, the Church does not fear, for that Child is her strength. But she does not keep him for herself: she offers him to all those who seek him with a sincere heart, to the earth’s lowly and afflicted, to the victims of violence, and to all who yearn for peace.

Today too, on behalf of a human family profoundly affected by a grave financial crisis, yet even more by a moral crisis, and by the painful wounds of wars and conflicts, the Church, in faithful solidarity with mankind, repeats with the shepherds: “Let us go to Bethlehem” (Lk 2:15), for there we shall find our hope.

The “us” of the Church is alive in the place where Jesus was born, in the Holy Land, inviting its people to abandon every logic of violence and vengeance, and to engage with renewed vigour and generosity in the process which leads to peaceful coexistence.

The “us” of the Church is present in the other countries of the Middle East. How can we forget the troubled situation in Iraq and the “little flock” of Christians which lives in the region? At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one’s neighbour.

The “us” of the Church is active in Sri Lanka, in the Korean peninsula and in the Philippines, as well as in the other countries of Asia, as a leaven of reconciliation and peace.

On the continent of Africa she does not cease to lift her voice to God, imploring an end to every injustice in the Democratic Republic of Congo; she invites the citizens of Guinea and Niger to respect for the rights of every person and to dialogue; she begs those of Madagascar to overcome their internal divisions and to be mutually accepting; and she reminds all men and women that they are called to hope, despite the tragedies, trials and difficulties which still afflict them.

In Europe and North America, the “us” of the Church urges people to leave behind the selfish and technicist mentality, to advance the common good and to show respect for the persons who are most defenceless, starting with the unborn.

In Honduras she is assisting in process of rebuilding institutions; throughout Latin America, the “us” of the Church is a source of identity, a fullness of truth and of charity which no ideology can replace, a summons to respect for the inalienable rights of each person and his or her integral development, a proclamation of justice and fraternity, a source of unity.

In fidelity to the mandate of her Founder, the Church shows solidarity with the victims of natural disasters and poverty, even within opulent societies. In the face of the exodus of all those who migrate from their homelands and are driven away by hunger, intolerance or environmental degradation, the Church is a presence calling others to an attitude of acceptance and welcome.

In a word, the Church everywhere proclaims the Gospel of Christ, despite persecutions, discriminations, attacks and at times hostile indifference. These, in fact, enable her to share the lot of her Master and Lord.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, how great a gift it is to be part of a communion which is open to everyone! It is the communion of the Most Holy Trinity, from whose heart Emmanuel, Jesus, “God with us”, came into the world. Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, let us contemplate, filled with wonder and gratitude, this mystery of love and light! Happy Christmas to all!


[This was followed by his Christmas greeting in 65 languages, and then finally with the Apostolic Blessing to the City and to teh World.]









And just as they did last night, the news agencies made much of the standard assists that the Pope gets, with snaps like these:




Consider, for instance, how the AP led its second story on the Urbi et Orbi event - with a headline carried by most of those who used the story, if one goes by the Yahoo catalog...


Pope delivers Christmas blessing
'looking tired and unsteady' after his fall




VATICAN CITY, Dec. 25 )AP) - Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas Day blessing Friday, looking tired and unsteady but otherwise fine hours after being knocked down by a woman who jumped the barrier at the start of Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Vatican said the 82-year-old Benedict was unhurt in the fall and that his busy Christmas schedule would remain unchanged.

French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, an 87-year-old Vatican diplomat, fractured his hip in the commotion and will be operated on at Rome's Gemelli hospital, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Benedict appeared a bit unsteady as he approached his chair on the loggia overlooking St. Peter's Square to deliver his traditional Christmas blessing and was steadied by an attendant.

[That chair is elevated on a platform whose steps the Pope has to mount from the side at a sharp angle, because there is no space in front of it. Last year - I think it was at the New Year Urbi et Orbi - I remember distinctly that he actually stumbled when getting up that step. If that stumble had happened today instead of the slight trip today, God knows what the morbid, ambulance-chasing Cassandras of the media would have said it was!]

But he then spread open his arms, blessed the crowd and delivered his "Urbi et Orbi" speech, Latin for "To the city and the world," without any problem. He followed with Christmas greetings in 65 different languages that drew sustained cheers and chants from the crowd.

In the speech, the Pope decried the effects of the world financial crisis, conflicts in the Holy Land and Africa, and the plight of the "tiny flock" of Christians in Iraq.

"At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one's neighbor," he said.

Lombardi identified the woman who toppled Benedict as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems. He said Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment.

She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year's Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said. In that case, Maiolo jumped the barricade but never managed to reach the pope and was quietly tackled by security.

In both cases she wore a red sweat shirt.

During Thursday night's service, Maiolo jumped the barricade and lunged for the Pope as he processed down the aisle toward the altar. As security guards brought her down, she grabbed Benedict's vestments and pulled him down with her, according to witness video obtained by The Associated Press.

After a few seconds on the floor, Benedict stood up with the help of attendants, put his miter back on and took hold of his staff, and continued to process down the aisle to the cheers of "Viva il Papa!" ("Long live the pope"). He continued to celebrate the Mass without incident.

It was the first time a potential attacker came into direct contact with Benedict during his nearly five-year papacy. Security analysts have frequently warned the Pope is too exposed in his public appearances.

After getting up, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, reached the basilica's main altar to start the Mass. The Pope, who broke his right wrist in a fall this summer, appeared unharmed but somewhat shaken and leaned heavily on aides and an armrest as he sat down in his chair. [It didn't seem to be anything other than him allowing them to assist him as he usually does! Thank God we have been able to watch all these ourselves - if we had to rely on these reports, we'd be half off our minds with worry!]

Benedict made no reference to the disturbance after the service started or on Friday.

His next major appearance is scheduled for Sunday, when he joins homeless people at a Rome soup kitchen for lunch. In addition, he is due to preside over a vespers service on Dec. 31, celebrate Mass on New Year's Day and another one to mark Epiphany on Jan. 6, and then baptize babies in the Sistine Chapel on Jan. 10.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 15:48
THE CHRISTMAS EVE VATICAN INCIDENT:
The Pope was not knocked down -
he was yanked forward and down!


The initial reports that made all the newspapers of the world on Christmas Day were unanimous in saying the Pope was 'knocked down', when he was really pulled forward before falling. It all happens in just a few seconds. I believe only AFP's Gina Doggett reported it correctly - as she based her account on a video that showed the incident.

From the clearest amateur video I've seen so far - the 'attack' starts at 0:48 seconds into the clip.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcP_00cPnZc&feature=player_embedded



I got this sequence of stills from the few seconds of the video that shows the Pope's attacker grab his pallium and pull him forward - the Holy Father actually takes a couple of steps (or is dragged) before he falls forward. Mons. Marini is unable to get close fast enough to keep him up.

God be thanked nothing worse happened to the Holy Father, but let us say a prayer for Cardinal Etchegaray, 87, who fractured his hip in the melee and will have to undergo surgery.

As the most senior cardinal present, he must have been processing just a few steps in front of the Holy Father with the most senior cardinals, then took a tumble from the domino effect of the Pope's fall, or in the rush of the security people to get to the attacker and to the Pope. A hip or spine fracture is one of the most serious accidents that can happen to any person over 60.


BENEDICT THE UNFLAPPABLE - The following picture was taken barely a minute after the Holy Father got back to his feet.

Watching the Mass live on TV - and not learning exactly what had caused the momentary delay in the procession and the security men rushing happened until well into the Mass - no one would have thought the Holy Father had just been through such a scare. One imagines the Vicar of Christ is never really unprotected... God be with him always! And AD MULTOS ANNOS!

DOLCE CRISTO IN TERRA
After giving the Urbi et Orbi blessing today.




Damian Thompson's is the only Anglophone reaction I have seen so far - an a most congenial one to which we can all say AMEN! Most commentators are on Christmas Day leave, it seems.


The assault on Pope Benedict reminds us
how much we need this brave man


Dec. 25, 2009


The assault on Pope Benedict XVI is very disturbing to watch on video. It makes the stomach lurch. For an 82-year-old man to have to preside over a service watched by millions is daunting enough – and, remember, Joseph Ratzinger is not a natural showman, unlike his predecessor. He does not find these things easy.

Imagine the horror of being suddenly knocked to the ground at such a nerve-wracking moment. That he was unharmed is a small miracle. If the Pope had broken his hip, which could so easily have happened, then his health might have been seriously damaged: Many old people are never quite the same again after a fall. As it was, he carried on bravely, as if nothing had happened.

The Catholic Church really needs Benedict XVI: his health (which seems fine, thank God) is a matter of concern, and not just because his visit to Britain depends on it.

This Holy Father is an adventurous and radical leader. In 2007, he issued a historic apostolic letter, Summorum Pontificum, that brought closer together the older and newer forms of the Roman Rite; it will take years for it to “bed in” properly, though the transformation has begun.

Who now regards the celebration of the Tridentine Rite as something dangerously exotic, as was the case a few years ago? Yes, certain bishops continue to disregard the Pope’s wishes, but the Vatican knows who they are, thanks in part to the internet.

Then there is the Apostolic Constitution for ex-Anglicans. This is a personal initiative of Pope Benedict; the Ordinariates will take shape next year, but because the Pope has brushed aside the Church’s lazy liberal consensus – as he did with Summorum Pontificum – the scheme requires constant pressure from the Holy See to make sure it is implemented properly. Get it right, and there will be a mighty crossing of the Tiber. (I think we can trust Archbishop Vincent Nichols on this one; his colleagues, not so much.)

Most of all, Pope Benedict XVI needs time to ensure that all his initiatives are incorporated into the fundamental renewal of worship that he has dreamed of for decades, one which properly fulfils the vision of Vatican II, outlaws the abuses permitted by Archbishop Bugnini, and restores the unbroken tradition of the Church. Ad multos annos!

TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 25 dicembre 2009 19:15







ignatiusinsight.com/features2009/schall_christmas09_dec09.asp
December 24, 2009



Christmas is, as I have said, one of numberless old European feasts of which the essence is the combination of religion with merry-making... For the character of Christmas (as distinct, for instance, from the continental Easter) lies chiefly in two things: first on the terrestrial side of the note of comfort rather than the note of brightness; and on the spiritual side, Christian charity rather than Christian ecstasy."
- G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, 1908. [1]

There is in every person the desire to be accepted as a person and considered as a sacred reality, for every human history is a sacred history and demands the utmost respect.
- Benedict XVI, Rome, Spanish Steps, December 8, 2009




I.

The second chapter of the Gospel of Luke begins: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was Governor of Syria...."

I find surprisingly few students in class have ever heard of this incident, or even the names or the occasion. Why bring it up? Why would Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, or Syria be of interest? Why are they mentioned together? Was the name of everyone in the world written down someplace?

Caught up in the mechanics of this Roman political enrollment or census, however, was a man by the name of Joseph. To comply with this registration, he had to take his wife, Mary, who was with child, from his own town of Nazareth, where he seems to have been a carpenter, to Bethlehem. He was, we are told in explanation, of the "house and lineage of David."

You need to know something of Jewish history to see why that heritage is important and why it is mentioned. Apparently, the Romans allowed no absentee registrations. One had to enroll where he was born. That's how they kept track.

These short passages, nonetheless, tell us much. We know of Caesar Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. We know of his famous relative, Julius Caesar, who had been murdered in the Senate in 44 B.C. Indeed, only because of this murder, said to be committed in the name of the Republic by Brutus and Cassius, did young Octavian become the Augustus. Quirinius is known. There must have been a second census.

We know what Syria meant in those days of Roman domination. Roman rule was relatively well-organized. As rulers go, the Romans were among the best. They promulgated laws, kept records, and made particular decrees. They had troops about, just in case; I believe it was the Tenth Legion that was stationed in Palestine.

This Joseph was a Jew, from the City of David. This origin, in Jewish terms, was of considerable significance. It was rumored someone called the "Messiah" might come from there. It was thus pretty high level stuff.

Political decrees make people do things they would otherwise not do. This Joseph certainly would not have taken his pregnant wife on the road that time of year unless he had to. He seems to have been led to where he "ought" to have been by this very decree with which he had nothing to do but obey it.

Was there something going on here, something more than meets the eye? Speaking of Luke's later reference to Augustus' successor, Tiberius Caesar, who was in command at the time when one Pontius Pilate was Governor in Jerusalem, Benedict said:

"The Evangelist (Luke) evidently wanted to warn those who read or heard about it that the Gospel is not a legend but the account of a true story, that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure who fits into that precise context." [2]

It is this same Jesus who is evidently being carried in the womb of Joseph's wife as the couple travels to Bethlehem, the City of David. The point seems to be that this Child is connected with King David, and through him with David's own heritage. The two genealogies recorded in the Gospels themselves also indicate this concrete background of Jesus.

Jesus was not a legend or a myth. He did dwell amongst us, as Luke is at pains to tell us. He was seen and heard by witnesses who recorded what they saw and heard and, as John even says, touched. No phantom here, no figment of some scholarly imagination.

We are told here that this Child of Mary is connected with everything else in our world. When the Emperor Augustus decided to take a census, he had no idea that, in a far off corner of his Empire, it would facilitate some event that had been being prepared from the foundations of the world.

Human acts are not outside of divine providence, even if we do not know how they fit in at the time they are put into effect. They also remain at the same time the human acts that they are.


II.

What was going on here? The Vatican II constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) states, "God, who through the Word creates all things and keeps them in being, provides men with unfailing testimony to himself in creation."

The world was "created." It did not just "happen" to burst forth from its own nothingness, though indeed, it was created "from nothing." Unfailing, testimony is provided.

Moreover, the world was created "through the Word." The Word was God. Nothing that is created causes itself in being.

We are also told that, over the ages, God actually provides us with witnesses to Himself; they are about if we look. We read books in the Old Testament in which these claims are recorded. There were also first parents.

Human beings "began," but they "fell." Yet, they were given a "hope" both of salvation and redemption from the consequences of this Fall. The "hope," Eve was told, would have something to do with another woman. This other woman seems to come up in this census account. Things, however, were going to get worse before they got better.

God still intended to give "eternal life" to men, just as He planned to do from the beginning. This "eternal life" is the reason of their creation. It was a life that, while keeping them human, gave them the inner life of the Godhead.

Of course, men needed to do "good works." They needed to "seek" salvation. They were not to be slothful, uninterested in who they are, what they could know. God gave them brains to use.

He was not particularly interested in inert beings unless they were rocks or stars, and then only for the sake of the being who was free and finite.

Things happen according to chance and according to choice, sometimes according to both. God seems to have had a plan. We catch glimpses of it, if we look.

We begin to hear of Abraham, a Chaldean. He was told he was going to be the father of many, yet he was to sacrifice his son. But God, we learn, "provided." The "sacrificial Lamb" came to be associated with the Word made flesh.

In a line of people, we find prophets, then Moses. God was insistent that He alone was Holy. A Savior was to be sent. He evidently came into the world when Caesar Augustus was Emperor.

So something was going on. "Through the ages, He (God) prepared a way for the Gospel. Finally, God appears. He speaks through His Son. This Son turns out to be "the eternal Word."

God from God, Light from Light. He will enlighten men, make known "the innermost things of God." This Word is "Jesus Christ, the word made flesh." He did what the "Father gave him to do." The Evangelist Luke recounts these things. They actually happened.

This Christ completed God's intended revelation. He did this making known what He wanted to make known in all his words and deeds, in the principal events of His life.

The dramatic event of His Crucifixion was carried out under the authority of Tiberius Caesar by a Roman Governor by the name Pontius Pilate. But the event seemed to concern the Jews more than the Romans, at least initially.

Pilate wanted to "wash his hands" of the whole mess. Many leading Jews just wanted this troublemaker out of the way. Pilate asked the crowd what to do with Him. They shouted "Crucify him."

But no one can crucify a man who does not exist. The message of all these events was "that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life."


III.

Chesterton tells us that this event of Christ's birth is one of comfort and really of making merry, of rejoicing. The two go together. The metaphysics and the brightness are there.

But the birth of Christ into this world is a comfort, something ordinary folks can understand. Such ordinary folk have always suspected their lives mean something. No one has told them why.

If Christ is born as a Child and if He is the Son of God, does this not tell us something about ourselves, about each son of man and woman (there are, as Chesterton said, no sons of man and man, though there is a Son of Man, born of woman)?

Revelation tells us first that we are not God. We are men, finite beings. Yet, we are not to have strange gods before us. The only God we want before us is the one who is testified to here, the one born of Mary in Bethlehem. She is evidently there because of a decree of Caesar Augustus. Her husband, Joseph, was of the house of David.

The angel has said to her, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord be with you." She said, "Be it done unto me." She said this after she inquired "how."

Is there really any other way? Maybe God will figure out that the way He chose from the beginning was not "working." Maybe He will send a Mohammed or a Nietzsche, or a Grand Inquisitor, to explain things differently? No, it did not and will not happen.

Robert Hugh Benson spoke of The Lord of the World. This Lord was present at the Fall.

Dei Verbum says: "The Christian dispensation, because it is the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and no new public revelation is any longer to be looked for before the manifestation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I find this rather comforting. It is a reason for making merry. We have already been given all we need to know. The light has shone in the darkness, even if the darkness did not comprehend it.

But I am intrigued by Benedict's phrase "every human being is a salvation history." The Pope says "is" a salvation history, not "has" one.

That phrase "salvation history" is usually used of the way that God reveals Himself and His purposes in history, the history of the world from Creation to final Judgment. It includes the rise and fall of nations.

Yet it is here singular, as if the rise and fall of nations passes through our own souls. Well, of course it does. Plato said this. Solzhenitsyn said this. It is obvious. There is no collective salvation that bypasses what each of us is, destined to eternal life.

Chesterton tells of comfort rather than brightness, of charity rather than ecstasy. There is nothing wrong with brightness. Our problem with God's revelation is not that it is obscure, but that it is too bright for our finite intellects to grasp. We are men, not gods. We are thankful that we are, for what we are.

There are those who seek God in mysticism, and those who find Him in their neighbor. Both know, both find. This is Christmas. Joseph and Mary made it to Bethlehem, to the inn where there was no room. The Child was born who is "Christ the Lord."

The angels on high rejoiced. The shepherds heard. Away in a manger, there is the little Lord Jesus. This is our comfort. Our feast is not that we have first loved God, but that He has first loved us.

We are each of us a salvation history, because of what happened when the decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world be enrolled, and Quirinius was Governor of Syria.

ENDNOTES:

[1] G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men (New York: Press of the Readers Club, [1908] 1942), 117-18.
[2] Benedict XVI, Angelus, December 6, 2009. L'Osservatore Romano, English, December 9, 2009. The introductory citation is in the same edition.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 26 dicembre 2009 14:56





Saturday, December 26

ST. STEPHEN (d. 36 AD), Archdeacon and First Christian Martyr (Proto-Martyr)
The Acts of the Apostles tell us all that is known of this young Hellenized Jew who was chosen by the Twelve as someone 'filled with grace and the Holy Spirit' to administer charity to widows and the needy. He was also a powerful preacher for early Christianity, and ended up being condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrin for blasphemy against Moses and God, and speaking against the Temple and the Law. He was stoned to death by a mob as the future St. Paul looked 0n ('Saul entirely approved of putting him to death'). Before he died, Stephen spoke out to accuse the Jews of persecuting those who spoke out against their sins, further angering the crowd. He experienced a theophany, saying ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God....’. His dying words were: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit....Lord, do not hold this sin against them”. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis to him on January 10, 2007.



No OR today.


THE POPE'S DAY
Noontime Angelus - The Holy Father spoke on St. Stephen as a model of faith and charity for all Christians.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 26 dicembre 2009 15:32





ANGELUS TODAY



The Holy Father led the noontime Angelus at St. Peter's Square today looking well after the Christmas Eve assault in St. Peter's Basilica by a 25-year-old Swiss-Italian woman with psychiatric problems.

He spoke about St. Stephen whose feast is celebrated today. Here is what he said in English:

As we continue our celebration of this joyful Christmas season, I warmly greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims gathered here in Saint Peter’s Square.

Together with Christians across the globe, we rejoice at the birth of our Saviour, Prince of Peace and light of the world.

Today we honour the Church’s first martyr, Saint Stephen, who was fearless in bearing witness to Christ and who shed his blood for love of him.

We pray for those Christians who suffer persecution today. And we commend to the intercession of their heavenly patron, Saint Stephen, all deacons and altar servers. May God bless all of you!





Here is a full translation of the Pope's words today:


Dear brothers and sisters,

With ort spirits still full of wonder and inundated by the light that shone forth from the cave in Bethlehem, where with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, we adored our Savior, today we remember the deacon St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

His example helps us to better penetrate the mystery of the Nativity and testifies to the wonderful grandeur of the birth of the Baby in whom the grace of God is manifest, bearing salvation for all men (cfr Tt 2,11).

The baby wailing in the manger is indeed the Son of God made man, who asks us to bear witness to his Gospel with courage, as St. Stephen did, who, filled with the Holy Spirit, did not hesitate to give his life for love of his Lord.

Like his Master, he died forgiving his persecutors, and makes us understand that the entry of the Son of God into the world gave birth to a new civilization, the civilization of love, which does not yield in the face of evil and violence, and brings down the barrers between men, making them brothers in the great family of the children of God.

Stephen was also the first deacon of the Church, who, by making himself the servant of the poor for love of Christ, entered progressively into full harmony with him and followed him up to the final gift of himself.

Stephen's testimony, like that of all the Christian martyrs, shows contemporary men, often distracted and disoriented, in whom to place our trust in order to give sense to life.

The martyr is, in fact, one who dies in the certainty that he is loved by God, and without placing anything ahead of Christ's love, knows he has made the better choice.

By configuring himself fully to the death of Christ, he is aware that he is a fertile seed of life who opens paths of peace and hope for the world.

Today, by presenting the deacon St. Stephen as a model for us, the Church also shows us, among other things, that caring and love for the poor is one of the privileged ways to live the Gospel and bear witness credibly to men of the coming Kingdom of God.

The feast of St. Stephen also reminds us of so many believers in many parts of the world who are undergoing trials and suffering because of their faith.

Entrusting them to his celestial protection, let us also commit ourselves to sustaining them with prayers, and never to fall short of our Christian calling, always placing Jesus Christ in the center of our life, whom we contemplate these days in the simplicity and humility of the manger.

For this, let us ask the intercession of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer and Queen of Martyrs, as we pray the Angelus.





I went back to bring up the photos of Benedict XVI leading his first Angelus on May 1, 2005 -

and enlarged as best as I could two of the frames

and they might as well have been taken today!




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