NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

FIRST PASTORAL VISIT
OF 2008 TOMORROW

Translated from the
Italian service of

1/3/08

At 11 a.m. tomorrow, Pope Benedict XVI will visit the 'Gift of Mary' House run by the Missionaries of Charity sisters in the Vatican to start a year dedicated to the neediest and those who help them with love and generosity.

The House, a project strongly advocated by Mother Teresa and John Paul II, marks its 20th anniversary this year.

Alessandro Gisotti spoke to Sister Mark Poustani, superior of the nuns' community in charge of the House, who said they feel "joy and gratitude to have the Holy Father here in our house".


What are the activities that you do here, and how does a typical day go?
We are a community of sisters and our primary activity is prayer. There are eight of us now. After prayers, we are ready to negin work at 8 a.m. We have a welcome center for women without fixed homes. We can accommodate 74 women, and right now, we have 50. We also run a soup kitchen for men who can come in to have a hot dinner. Evenings are the heavy work hours in the kitchen because all the women also have their meals.

We don't limit ourselves to those who come here. We go out to the streets and hospitals to find persons in need who are alone. Of course, in doing all this, we also try to spread the Word of God to our guests.


The 'Gift of Mary' House was born thanks to Mother Teresa and John Paul II, and now it is marking 20 years...
Already in 1970, our Mother wanted to have such a house in the heart of the Church itself. It was her great desire. And the Holy Father, when he visited us in Calcutta in 1986, welcomed that wish. And the following year, we had the House!


The Missionaries of Charity sisters have the assistance of a group of volunteers. One of them, Angelo Vignola, of the Saints Peter and Paul Association, has been helping out for 10 years now.

Vignola: Mainly, I stay at the door to welcome all newcomers, but of course, I help with other tasks, such as distributing clothes and food, sandwiches...

Who are all these people who come for help?
Those who seek shelter here are mostly women from Romania and Albania who are recent immigrants here and are looking for jobs in Rome. Generally, they stay for 15, 20 days, and when they find a job, then they leave.


Tell us about the prayer activities.
Every evening, before the meal, we read the Gospel of the day, followed by a little explanation. The reading is done by a volunteer or by a priest if there happens to be one around at the center.

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And typical belated reports in the Anglophone press - the first based on the Bertone interview that has been reported and re-reported int he Italian media (and this Forum) for at least a week, and the second is based on the 12/30/07 interview given by Cardinal Tauran to Osservatore Romano (full translation posted 12/31 on this thread in the preceding page).



Vatican clarifying Latin Mass rules
By NICOLE WINFIELD


VATICAN CITY, Jan. 3 (AP) - The Vatican has begun drafting a document to elaborate on Pope Benedict's recent liberalization of the old Latin Mass because some bishops are either ignoring his move or misinterpreting it, Vatican officials said.

The Vatican's No. 2, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, said in comments published Thursday that the Vatican would be issuing an "instruction" on how to put the Pope's document into practice, since there had been what he called some "uneven" reactions to it since it went into effect last year.

The document the Roman Catholic pontiff issued in July removed restrictions on celebrating the so-called Tridentine Mass, the rite celebrated in Latin before the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s paved the way for the new mass used widely today in local languages.

Following the 1960s reform, the Tridentine rite could only be celebrated with permission from local bishops - an obstacle that supporters of the old rite said had greatly reduced its availability.

In a gesture to such traditional Catholics, Benedict removed that requirement in his document, saying parish priests could celebrate the Tridentine Mass if a "stable group of faithful" requested it.

Implementation, however, has been uneven, with some bishops issuing rules that "practically annul or twist the intention of the Pope," Msgr. Albert Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Divine Cult and Discipline of Sacraments, said recently, according to the Vatican's missionary news agency FIDES.

Such reactions amounted to a "crisis of obedience" toward the pontiff, he was quoted as saying, although he stressed that most bishops and other prelates had accepted the Pope's will "with the required sense of reverence and obedience."

Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said the forthcoming instruction would lay out criteria for the Pope's document to be correctly applied, according to an interview published Thursday in the Italian religious affairs weekly Famiglia Cristiana. He gave no date for its publication.

He complained that reactions to the pontiff's document had been uneven.

"Some have even gone so far as to accuse the Pope of having reneged on Council teaching," Bertone was quoted as saying. "On the other hand, there are those who have interpreted the (document) as authorization to return exclusively to the pre-Council rite. Both positions are wrong, and are exaggerated episodes that don't correspond to the pope's intention."

Despite such incidents, Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, who runs a blog that has charted implementation of the Pope's document, said he had seen growth in both interest in and celebrations of the older form of the mass.

"In some dioceses in the United States, bishops have been stepping up to the plate and not only learning the older form, but celebrating it themselves," he said in an e-mail. "Younger priests are attending workshops. Several seminaries are offering training for their priesthood candidates."

Even before the Pope's document was released, liberal-minded Catholics had complained that Benedict's move amounted to a negation of Vatican II, and some bishops and cardinals publicly warned that its implementation would create a rupture in the church.

Jewish groups also complained because the old rite contains a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews. Bertone has said the issue could be resolved and that the church in no way intended to go against its spirit of reconciling with Jews.

Benedict's document was also a bid to reach out to the followers of an excommunicated traditionalist, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who split with the Vatican over Council reforms, notably the introduction of the new mass.
time.




In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


Catholic officials, Muslim scholars
to meet in Rome


VATICAN CITY, Jan. 3 (Reuters) - A landmark meeting between Catholic officials and Muslim scholars that aims to spur dialogue between Christianity and Islam is planned to take place in Rome this spring, a senior Vatican official said.

The top Vatican official in charge of relations with Islam, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, said he expected an advanced group of three Muslim representatives in February or March to lay the groundwork for the meeting.

"In a certain sense, (the meeting) can be defined as historic," Tauran told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, in an edition published earlier this week.

Some 138 Muslim scholars wrote to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders in October, saying "the very survival of the world itself" might depend on dialogue.

The Pope, who as head of the Catholic Church represents more than half the world's two billion Christians, responded in November by welcoming their call and inviting them to Rome.

The German-born Pontiff sparked Muslim protests in 2006 by making a speech hinting that Islam was violent and irrational.

He repeatedly expressed regret for the reaction to the speech but stopped short of the clear apology sought by Muslims.

Tauran raised eyebrows last year by expressing doubt over whether the two faiths could agree on issues such as God, love and how to read sacred scripture.

But he told L'Osservatore Romano that the Muslim scholars' call for dialogue in their October open letter may have marked a turning point.

"It's still true that, for some Muslims, inter-religious dialogue is neither a reality nor a priority. But it's also true that we're perhaps seeing an interesting development in the open letter," Tauran said. "The 138 signatories effectively represent 43 countries."

Among the items on the agenda were respect for an individual's dignity and teaching tolerance to new generations, Tauran said.


Here's a commentary from a South African newspaper about the developing dialog:


Free love, not war
By Riazat Butt
Mail & Guardian (South Africa)
03 January 2008

In a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders 138 prominent Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam urged them “to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions”, spelling out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Qur’an.

“If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world, with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world’s inhabitants. Our common future is at stake,” the letter said. “The very survival of the world is perhaps at stake.”

Scholars used quotations from the Bible and the Qur’an to illus-trate similarities between the two faiths, such as the requirement to worship one God and to love one’s neighbour.

The letter, A Common Word Between Us and You, also referred to wars in Muslim-majority countries by urging Western governments not to persecute Muslims.

“As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.”

The letter was issued by Jordan’s Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, following its annual convention last month in Amman. Many signatories are grand muftis who each has tens of millions of followers.

At the United Kingdom launch, Aref Ali Nayed, one of the British signatories, warned people not to get “too hung up” on expecting an answer from the pope.

Nayed, a senior adviser to the interfaith programme at Cambridge University, said: “Every person who extends his hand ... would like something in return, but we’re offering this as free love. It’s not a competition. It’s not about reciprocity.”

It is the second open letter from the institute to the Vatican. The first was sent after the pope’s Regensburg address last year, which angered Muslims by quoting a Byzantine emperor who spoke of the Prophet Muhammad’s “command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.

The authors’ approach can be expected to appeal to Pope Benedict, whose papacy has seen a shift in the Vatican’s attitude to dialogue with the Islamic world. The pPope views contact with Muslims as urgent and essential.

But he also signalled his impatience with the polite exchanges between theologians that have characterised the dialogue. Instead, what he privately suggested is an “ethical dialogue”, the aim of which would be to single out principles both sides share and to try to build on those. [Now, this journalist is one of the few who have really picked up the sense of the Pope's call for inte-religious dialog, i.e., not theological but ethical!]
There are two main items on the pope’s agenda: the use of religion in the Muslim world to justify violence and “reciprocity”, a codeword for granting Christians in Muslim countries the freedoms Muslims enjoy in the West.

The situation in this respect has been getting more critical. Christian Arabs are leaving Palestine, Iraq and other Muslim countries in growing numbers. At the same time, anti-conversion laws are being enforced from Egypt to Pakistan.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has welcomed the commitment to further dialogue between the faiths.

“The theological basis of the letter and its call to respect one another, be fair, just and kind to one another are indicative of the kind of relationship for which we yearn in all parts of the world, especially where Christians and Muslims live together,” Williams said.

“It is particularly important in underlining the need for respect towards minorities in contexts where either Islam or Christianity is the majority presence.”

The common scriptural foundations for Jews, Christians and Muslims would be the basis for justice and peace in the world, he said.

“The call should now be taken up by Christians and Muslims at all levels and in all countries and I shall endeavour ... to do my part in working for the righteousness which this letter proclaims as our common goal.”