NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH & THE VATICAN

Pope to Confront Growing Secularism on Spain Trip

By Stacy Meichtry
Religion News Service


VATICAN CITY -- Barely a year has passed since Pope Benedict XVI, in a famous speech prior to his election, issued a call to arms that decried moral indifference in Western culture as a "dictatorship of relativism."

Next week (July 8-9), Benedict will travel to the front lines of that battle when he visits Valencia, Spain, to celebrate the fifth annual World Meeting of Families.

Spain, once a European stronghold of Roman Catholic teaching, has seen the church's influence dramatically wane in recent years.

Since the election of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in 2004, the Spanish government has overhauled laws affecting nearly every hot-button issue in the country. Gay marriage and adoption have been legalized. Laws on divorce, in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia have been loosened. State subsidies to the church have been questioned, as has the place of religious instruction in public schools.

The changes have left local church leaders staggering and caused alarm among officials at the Vatican, including the pope himself.

Upon presenting Spain's new ambassador with his diplomatic credentials to the Holy See in late May, Benedict invoked the Vatican's special treaty with Spain, known as a "concordat," to reaffirm the church's right to "free and public exercise of its activities," adding that "none of those rights must be violated or denied to either individuals or institutions."

Benedict's participation at Valencia, he told the ambassador, would be an occasion for the church to exercise its "human rights" and re-energize the Spanish faithful's support for "the beauty and fertility of the family, founded on marriage."

The meeting will no doubt be a politically charged event. The diocese of Valencia is organizing the conference with the Pontifical Council for the Family, headed by Vatican hard-liner Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo. In early June, his office released a document equating gay marriage, abortion and contraception to an "eclipse of God."

Although the Vatican appears to favor a more confrontational approach to Zapatero's government, the response among Spain's Catholic leadership has varied.

Last June, an umbrella organization of grass-roots Catholic groups mounted a public demonstration in Madrid against the reforms that drew hundreds of thousands, including some of the country's most prominent bishops and cardinals. Many bishops, however, stayed away.

Josep Miro i Ardevol, director of E-Cristians, a grass-roots organization that helped organize the demonstration, said many of Spain's bishops are reluctant to engage in open political debate because church-state disputes during the Spanish Civil War often led to widespread bloodshed.

But Miro i Ardevol said the "anthropological rupture" caused by Zapatero's reforms has spurred many bishops to rethink their approach and has prompted some to mobilize their flocks.

"The mobilization and raised awareness among wide swaths of Spanish Catholics must evolve into better political organization and practice," Miro i Ardevol said in an interview.

Church organizations, however, are not the only groups gearing up for the pope's visit. Last week, Spain's Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals (FELGT) and the National Union of Family Associations (UNAF) hosted a conference in Valencia that promoted its own vision of family life -- one that is based on gay marriage and adoption.

In a statement, FELGT director Ruben Sanchez said the conference, which received funding from the government, demonstrated that "the church has to accept that it doesn't have a monopoly on family."

[The headline on this article refers to the church in the US but the story is really about the church worldwide.]


Catholicism is a faith in flux across U.S.

By David O'Reilly
Philadelphia Inquirer

Jack Gannone was about to have a defining moment, one that would unite him with more than a billion people of 200 nations and 600 languages.

Like most of them, he never saw it coming.

The day was April 23, a Sunday, and inside the sparely modern sanctuary of St. Eleanor Roman Catholic Church in Collegeville, Pa., 6-month-old Jack squirmed on his mother's lap.

"Parents, do you understand what you are about to do?" the Rev. Andrew Brownholtz asked. John Gannone and Sara Benton nodded.

Suddenly Jack found himself tilted head-back over a marble font. He did not howl, but gave a what-in-the-world roll of his eyes toward the vaulted ceiling as holy water streamed onto his downy brown hair.

"I baptize you," the priest intoned, "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

In that instant, Jack Gannone became a Roman Catholic, a member of the largest Christian church on Earth, one of an estimated 67 million adherents in the United States and nearly 1.5 million in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Statistically, he probably will remain in the fold for life. Although American Catholics have a higher dropout rate than Protestants of any major denomination, 80 percent stay at least nominally in the church from cradle to grave.

But what kind of Catholic might Jack - and indeed, any of his 21st-century soul mates - grow up to be?

If today's strong trends are an accurate compass, they point to someone whom the hierarchy has never gladly embraced: a Catholic who lives the faith on his or her own terms.

From baby boomers through Gen Xers and Millennials, a streak of spiritual autonomy is growing more pronounced among those who count themselves as practicing Catholics. Religious scholars scan the horizon and see little that might reverse the slow drift away from not only the dictates of Rome but also some core teachings of the faith.

"My sense is that this is an enduring condition, not just an anomaly," said Chester Gillis, chairman of the theology department at Georgetown University in Washington and author of "Roman Catholicism in America," a 1999 portrait of the U.S. church.

"There's a tension between Catholicism and American culture," he said. "American culture is winning out."

With that comes a deepening dilemma that the church has long faced in Europe, where institutional Catholicism is in near-collapse and Pope Benedict XVI has decried a "dictatorship of secularism."

"What can the church do? If she stands by her moral teaching, then she will be seen as standing in judgment" of a sizable portion of the membership, said the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, former master general of the religious order of Dominicans. "If she does not, then she will be seen as surrendering to modernity."

Some of that "modernity" is evident in a Zogby International telephone poll of 1,901 Catholics nationwide, conducted in March for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. Of young adults ages 18 to 35, fewer than half said they:

_Attend Mass weekly (46 percent)

_Go to confession at all (31 percent)

_Consider it important that priests be unmarried (48 percent)

_Think that the church alone has the final say on sex outside marriage (25 percent)

_Believe that same-sex physical relations are always wrong (47 percent)

_Support the prohibition against artificial birth control (26 percent)

On some issues, opinions varied little from the youngest to the oldest respondents. They found common ground in a question about abortion: About half of all age groups thought both the church and the individual should have a say. Across generations, two-thirds of respondents said the church should be more democratic in its decision-making.

But increasingly, it is the young who stretch the fabric of one-size-fits-all Catholicism, according to an author of the poll, and who do not want the church standing in judgment.

"They want an institution that understands how they live, that is responsive to their attitudes and opinions," said Matthew T. Loveland, an assistant professor of sociology at Le Moyne, which was founded by Jesuits.

He recalled asking his students earlier this spring to define a "good" Catholic. "Did it mean going to Mass, or confession, or doing this and not that?" he said. "And their answer wasn't 'yes' or 'no.' It was more like, 'What a stupid question!'"

Yet even among those who eschewed some of the rules, the poll found a durable bond with Catholicism. The majority of 18- to 35-year-olds said:

_There is "something special about being Catholic" (81 percent).

_Their Catholic identity "connects" them with their families (86 percent).

_It's important for younger generations of their families to "grow up to be Catholic" (91 percent).

_They like the rituals, art, music (91 percent).

"They think of themselves as Catholic, regardless of whether they agree with church teachings," Loveland said. Still, their accelerating autonomy should concern church leaders, he added, for it "opens up the possibility of their breaking away."

In recent years, discontented voices of all ages have been heard over the media microphone, calling for changes ranging from women's ordination to the opening of the church's ledgers. But the angriest have been in response to the pedophilia scandals in the clergy. A survey for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that nearly 4,500 priests had been involved in more than 11,000 alleged cases of child sexual abuse since 1950.

Beneath the public outrage, though, is something bigger, more profound, and unconnected to the scandals, said David Gibson, a former Vatican Radio reporter who is now an author of books on Catholicism and a TV commentator.

"Americans felt the hierarchy had been reprimanding and remonstrating about their faithlessness and their dissenting and perceived shortcoming for decades," Gibson said. "There was this sense that they couldn't do anything right, that they weren't being listened to.

"The sex-abuse crisis became the way to give voice to all that frustration."

The dissatisfaction has been evolving since the 1960s out of a "minimalist" understanding of the faith, said Bishop Joseph Galante of the 488,000-member Camden (N.J.) Diocese.

Rooted in an 18th-century Protestant nation, the American Catholic Church spent its formative decades in an atmosphere of intense anti-"papist" bigotry. From hostile soil sprang an ironweed of an institution, one whose prelates kept the faithful just that - faithful - by maintaining what author Charles Morris termed a "prickly apartness" from mainstream culture well into the 20th century.

In 1934 in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which had gained a reputation for straight-and-narrow Catholicism, the famously severe Cardinal Dennis Dougherty banned members from movie theaters "under pain of mortal sin." (The ban has never been formally lifted.)

Everywhere, though, Catholic identity was reinforced with obligatory Sunday Mass, confession, and meatless Fridays.

"I don't know if (members) internalized why we did those things," Galante said.

That would prove a problem when, in 1966, Pope Paul VI relaxed the ban on eating meat on Fridays. Millions who believed such abstinence had been prescribed by God felt "hoodwinked," Galante said.

Unaware of the difference between church discipline - which is changeable - and doctrine, many Catholics began to suspect that other practices, such as Mass and confession, were "made up," he said, and "the whole pyramid fell down."

Like many in the clergy and the laity, Galante has ideas on how that pyramid might be rebuilt. They include better education of young Catholics on the "whys" of the faith, and a closing of the power gap between clergy and laity. They do not include a return to lock-step obedience.

"People aren't afraid of anything anymore. They're not afraid of hell. ... Fear does not regulate behavior as it used to," Galante said.

"Until we get serious about ... bringing people to a much better understanding of what it means to be Catholic, we're going to be spinning our wheels."

Other recent surveys have painted an even more dramatically changed group portrait of young American Catholics than that in the Inquirer/Le Moyne/Zogby poll.

In a national study of Catholic attitudes commissioned by the independent weekly National Catholic Reporter and published last fall, researchers Dean Hoge, James Davidson and Mary Gautier found that among the 18- to 25-year-olds, only one in three planned to never leave the church. Just 15 percent said they attend Mass weekly.

Few priests are emerging from the younger generations. Many dioceses predict that their ranks of active priests could shrink by as much as three-quarters by 2025. Last month at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., Cardinal Justin Rigali ordained this year's Philadelphia graduates - a total of three new priests.

Rigali is not despairing of the future, however.

"Young people respond remarkably when introduced to traditional practices such as devotions to the Holy Eucharist and to Mary," he said on a CD that he recorded in response to The Philadelphia Inquirer's written questions.

He noted that the Philadelphia Archdiocese had received nearly 1,000 converts in the last year. "There are so many positive signs that the Catholic Church is vibrant and strong in the United States," he said. "So many people are living their faith with conviction and generosity."

Such optimism for American Catholicism is more likely to be heard outside the United States than within. Because, even for an institution built on absolutes, some things are relative.

The U.S. church looks robust to Catholic leaders in most other parts of world, and even to some critical eyes in the Vatican.

In Europe and South America, the church is struggling for relevance in nations it once defined. In parts of Africa and Asia, it is seeking to plant the cross on frontiers made inhospitable by governments and entrenched religions.

Archbishop John Foley, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, ran down a list of American Catholicism's strengths in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer: "The percentage of Mass attendance is much higher than in Europe; parish life is relatively vital; your fraternal organizations, like the Knights of Columbus, are flourishing."

He added, "You're building parish schools, which is remarkable."

Some sea-change trends that are worrisome to many Americans look like blessings when viewed through that international lens.

One is the towering immigrant wave. Nationwide, Latinos make up 42 percent of the Catholic population, with the highest concentrations in the South and Southwest. Were immigration to stay at its current pace, the number of Hispanic Catholics would go from 30 million to 70 million by midcentury, making them the majority in the U.S. church.

For an Anglo-centric institution with a priesthood that is just 4 percent Hispanic, the challenges are immense. Yet so is the payoff, said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, president of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., and a publisher of Benedict's books.

"We have immigration coming from South America - people who share our Western traditions," he said. Whatever happens in the faith's traditional base, they virtually guarantee church growth.

The Latino infusion, Fessio said, separates the fate of Catholicism in America from that of its ancestor across the Atlantic.

Immigration into Europe has been markedly Muslim - hardly a source of new Catholic life on a continent where the birthrates of its traditional ethnic stock are some of the world's lowest.

More so than anywhere else, the church there is in grave decline. Mass attendance, baptisms, confirmations and church marriages are dramatically down among Europe's 280 million Catholics, particularly the young "postmoderns" skeptical of institutions of nearly any kind. In polls, most describe themselves as "spiritual," but not religious.

In South America, home to 450 million Catholics, prelates such as Brazil's Cardinal Claudio Hummes look enviously at the United States. After 500 years of dominion, the Latin Catholic Church now finds itself struggling to hold the lead in a crowded field of faiths.

From a mountaintop in Rio de Janeiro, the statue of "Cristo Redentor," Christ the Redeemer, still stretches giant concrete arms over the land. But Protestantism, chiefly Pentecostalism, has developed quite a reach of its own, drawing in millions of converts seeking a new religious fervor.

"In the United States, the church is a minority," Hummes said, predicting that Brazilian Catholicism will shrink to that state. Though it claims only about one-quarter of the U.S. population, "It is an important presence. Its voice is heard."

There are two prizes that not only Catholicism but also all of Christianity has longed to claim: Africa and Asia.

For 400 years, missionaries measured conversions "like the body count in war," wrote the Rev. Peter Phan, a Georgetown University theologian who grew up Catholic in French-colonized Vietnam.

In Africa, priests baptized whole villages at once and then imposed Western dress, manners and religious architecture. Such efforts to graft Catholicism onto the native rootstock of ancient animist faiths often withered.

But with the collapse of colonialism and the new worldview of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, Catholic mission theology underwent a "Copernican revolution," Phan said. Instead of "church planting," the clergy came lightly, "bearing witness."

Such was Mother Teresa's savvy approach in India, said George Weigel, an American Catholic author and Pope John Paul II's biographer: "Embody the Gospel in service to the wretched. After a few hundred years, people will start asking questions."

The model of "servant church," bringing education and medicine, appears to be working in Africa. Its 140 million Catholics make up 12 percent of the church's global roll, up from 4 percent in 1950. Nigeria, for instance, has one of the fastest Catholic growth rates in the world.

Adding to the Vatican's delight, said Weigel, is that "they don't have a problem with obedience."

Yet Africa is no easy hunting ground for converts. Like much of the world today, it is a competitive marketplace of religions - but also a notoriously bloody one as Christianity and Islam, rooted there 1,000 years ago, vie for souls.

In Asia, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are so entrenched that Christianity is predicted to make only modest gains in the next half-century.

If there is any tantalizing opportunity for the church in Asia, however, it is China.

After nearly five decades of atheistic communism, most of China's 1.3 billion people profess no religious identity. The government allows five faiths to be publicly practiced, and Catholicism is one, claiming 4.5 million followers. But this church is not "Roman."

It is the "Patriotic" Catholic Church, controlled by Beijing. Its priests say Mass in Latin and are forbidden to condemn birth control or abortion. Some bishops have reportedly been forced to marry to prove loyalty to the state.

The arrangement has incensed the Vatican, which has supported an "underground" church thought to have about 8 million members. Anyone caught worshipping at the secret in-home services risks a lengthy prison sentence.

Although it refuses to recognize the state church, "Rome has tried to accommodate the political realities," said Sister Janet Carroll, a former director of the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

The Vatican has validated about 70 percent of the government bishops, who in turn have been allowed to acknowledge deference to the pope.

"We're very suspicious of one another just now," said a Vatican liaison to China who asked not to be identified because of the difficulty of diplomacy. "We've got no timetable. We're just waiting for them to say, 'Come, let's talk.'"

But should that happen, he added, the Roman Catholic Church will have to make serious adjustments to Asian culture, consisting of "more than replacing a bell with a gong."

Thomas C. Fox, author of the 2002 book "Pentecost in Asia: A New Way of Being Church," described "the Western mind (as seeking) to separate, analyze, clarify," while the Asian mind "seeks wholeness" and prizes "silence and meditation."

"Catholicism in Asia," he wrote, "will become authentic only when it ceases to be Western."

The hands that held Jack Gannone over the baptismal font at St. Eleanor's wore a gold wedding band and a silver Buddhist "Om" ring, symbolizing the unity of being.

His mother, Sara Benton, is an Episcopalian who has been practicing yoga meditation since graduate school. At first, "it was purely a physical exercise," said the 38-year-old social worker. "But when I practiced it very regularly, I found myself feeling more empathic and grounded."

Benton already has started Jack on "baby yoga," stretching his arms and legs into the positions she will teach him as he grows older.

"Some people say it can detract from religion," she said. "I'd say it can enhance it. Yoga in its purest form is a way to connect to the world around you."

Although she stays Episcopalian "because that's how I was raised," Benton said she is not a regular churchgoer. So baptizing Jack a Catholic, like his father, was "the easy choice."

John Gannone, 37, a mailing-equipment salesman, admits to being casual about Sunday Mass attendance. But "I do believe Jesus died for our sins," he explained as his little boy napped in their Skippack, Pa., home. "I want that to be a part of Jack's life."

Gannone's own commitment to Catholicism has faced some challenges. His mother was devout, he said, but his father had a "pretty negative attitude toward organized religion."

He also saw his history teacher at Bishop McDevitt High School, the Rev. Edward DePaoli, "taken out in handcuffs, with his coat over his head" in 1985. The priest was later convicted of receiving child pornography by mail.

"I was able to look past it," Gannone said. "In church, you're with the man upstairs. The priest just delivers the message."

Jack is due to start kindergarten at St. Eleanor's parish school in 2010, and his father hopes he will go on to Catholic high school and college.

"It would be nice if he stayed Catholic," Gannone said, but added, "I'm not going to disown him if he doesn't."

Author and commentator David Gibson, who converted to Catholicism as an adult, said he understands why those born into the faith - so-called cultural Catholics - might rebel.

"Discovering you've been baptized Catholic is like discovering you don't get to choose your parents," he said. "So we end up struggling with them forever." Remaining Catholic "means living with the imperfections of the church; it means living with the tension."

Benedict "wants people to be Catholic because they believe in Christ, not because it's the national religion or something your parents decided," Gibson said. "I think cultural Catholicism will continue to hold people, but it's funny: If you've got the church asking them to make a personal choice for the faith, will more fall away?"

Dean Hoge, a leading scholar of American Catholicism, has no answer for that. However, he is reasonably sure of one thing.

"We're going to have a different laity 10, 20, 40 years out," said Hoge, a sociology professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington. "They'll be thinking for themselves, deciding if they believe what the church believes.

"It won't be all good," he said, "or all bad."

[Modificato da benefan 28/06/2006 17.44]

[Found through Gerald Augustinus blog]

From the LifeSiteNews.com
By John-Henry Westen

VATICAN CITY, June 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview published in the June 27 issue of Famiglia Christiana magazine, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that those involved in embryonic stem cell research which kills human embryos are excommunicated.

In a wide-ranging interview about the Fifth World Meeting of Families, due to be held in Valencia, Spain from July 1 to 9, the Cardinal was asked about excommunication, first in the case of abortion. He responded that the doctors, the nurses and the mother involved all incur excommunication. He added that the father is also excommunicated if he agrees with the procedure.

Asked if that excommunication also applied to those who do embryonic stem cell research, the Cardinal responded, "Sure. It is the same thing. To destroy the embryo is equivalent to abortion." He added that the excommunication applies to parents, doctors and investigators "who eliminate the embryo."

Speaking about politicians who support abortion, Cardinal Trujillo said that they should "not approach the Eucharist."

He noted that he was expressly asked by the Pope to explain such things to politicians; adding that "sometimes they change their minds."

Ominously the Cardinal warned during the interview that the Vatican fears that the Church will one day be brought "in front of some international Court" if more radical demands are listened to. He explained that "speaking in defense of the life and for the rights of the family is becoming in some societies a type of crime against the State, a form of disobedience to the Government, a discrimination against women."

See the full interview in Famiglia Cristiana (in Italian)

[Here is a bit more about the potential for court action against the church that Sue's article above mentioned.]


Vatican worried about positions on family


By MARIA SANMINIATELLI, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 28, 8:04 PM ET

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican is worried its opposition to abortion, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage could one day land it before an international court of justice, a senior Vatican official said in an interview published Wednesday.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who heads the Pontifical Council for the Family, reiterated traditional Roman Catholic Church positions and criticized some European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and France, for giving legal recognition to civil unions.

"We worry especially that, with current laws, speaking in defense of life and the rights of families is becoming in some societies sort of a crime against the state," Lopez Trujillo told the Catholic news magazine Famiglia Cristiana for its issue scheduled to hit the stands Thursday. The remarks were posted online on Wednesday.

"The church is at risk of being brought before some international court if the debate becomes any tenser, if the more radical requests get heard," the cardinal said, speaking ahead of the Roman Catholic Church's World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Spain from July 1-9.

Lopez Trujillo did not comment further about any legal problems the Vatican could face, but his words touched upon a concern among religious organizations everywhere: the right of religious freedom versus countries' anti-discrimination laws.

Chai Feldblum of Georgetown University's Law Center said the chances of the church being punished for stating its beliefs were slim to none, at least in the United States, though its stances could lead to Catholic organizations losing state funding.

"I cannot fathom a religious organization being punished for speaking its belief against abortion or gay marriage," said Feldblum, a veteran gay rights advocate.

"What is illuminating is not the reality of the legal penalties they face, but an acknowledgment that public morality is shifting under their feet," Feldblum said.

In recent years, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada legalized same-sex marriage, while Britain and several other European nations now give such couples the right to form partnerships that entitle them to most of the same tax and pension rights as married couples — laws the church is firmly against.

In the interview, Lopez Trujillo reiterated that according to church rules, women who have abortions, the doctors and nurses who help them and the father, if he is going along with it, are excommunicated. The same goes for embryonic stem cell research.

"It's the same thing. Destroying the embryo is equivalent to abortion," Lopez Trujillo said.

He also criticized what he described as a movement to impose new human rights.

"It's happening for abortion, which is a crime, and instead it's becoming a right," the cardinal said.

He also compared gay marriage to "absolute emptiness," saying the only possible couple is made up of a man and a woman.

Earlier this month, the Pontifical Council for the Family issued a 57-page document in which it said that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world. It also lashed out against contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage.

The Vatican's document did not break any new ground, but marked the first sweeping comment on the issues during Pope Benedict XVI's papacy.

Here's the report from ANSA, the Italian news agency, on the item first reported by Sue. It puts teh issue in the context of recent European and Italian political moves regarding stem cell research .
--------------------------------------------------------------

Cardinal says
researchers using human embryos
face excommunication

Vatican City, June 28 (ANSA)- The Vatican stepped up its fight against embryonic stem cell research on Wednesday, saying that scientists involved in such work would be excommunicated .

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Vatican department dealing with family affairs, said in a magazine interview that "destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion... it's the same thing" .

"Excommunication applies to all women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos," the cardinal told Catholic publication Famiglia Cristiana .

Trujillo said that "certain crimes" were being treated as if they had "become rights" .

He added that the Catholic Church was worried because "even talking about the defence of life and family rights is being treated as a sort of crime against the state in some countries - a form of social disobedience or discrimination against women" .

Embryonic stem-cell research techniques involve destroying human embryos to extract their stem cells. Stem cells are 'blank' cells which have the ability to grow into any tissue of the body. Scientists think they could eventually be used to treat a host of ailments including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and diabetes .

The stem cells of very early embryos are preferred because they can become any kind of cell whereas adult stem cells are less flexible. Despite popular support, embryonic stem cell research is opposed by pro-life groups and many conservative lawmakers because the human embryo must be destroyed before its stem cells can be removed .

The Vatican considers all embryonic research morally unacceptable even if the embryos involved are ones left over from fertility treatments or abortions.

Such research is forbidden in Italy under a 2004 law regulating assisted fertility practices and passed by a cross-party alliance of Catholic lawmakers .

The new centre-left government led by Premier Romano Prodi says it has no immediate plans to ease the controversial legislation, which bans the use of donor sperm or eggs, surrogate mothers and embryo freezing or experimentation .

However, Education Minister Fabio Mussi triggered a storm earlier this month by withdrawing Italy's signature from a document with which four EU countries and the Vatican objected to the use of EU funds for embryonic stem cell research .

By withdrawing the backing given by his centre-right predecessor, Mussi ended the minority group's power to block the release of funding .

Mussi's move was condemned by the Vatican and Catholic politicians on both sides of the political divide and resulted in the creation of a bioethics committee headed by Interior Minister Giuliano Amato to establish the government's line on such controversial questions .

The committee subsequently adopted a stance that appeared to evade the question of whether stem cell research was acceptable or not.

It said the withdrawal of Italy's signature from the 'ethics declaration' also signed by Germany, Poland and Slovakia, had a technical motivation .

Italian support had been removed because ministers felt the country should not be part of a blocking minority in the EU on such sensitive questions, the bioethics committee said .

"It does not express any intention by this government to modify our national legislation in the area," it stressed .

---------------------------------------------------------------
I have just now read the Philadelphia Inquirer item posted above by Benefan, which provides much food for thought.

It seems to be taken for granted that the new generation of Catholics will simply insist on being cafeteria Catholics. Does this not underscore even more the importance of proper instruction in the faith from the cradle if need be?

The whole cultural fixation of being able to do as you please (or as those concerned might put it, "as I think best") would not even occur to anyone who has learned that the faith, the Catholic faith in this case, is something you must accept completely - and joyously. That is why it is called a "faith". It is not a convenience or a profession (in the sense of affirming the faith) devoid of responsibility.

One only has to look at what is happening with the Anglicans and Episcopals now - and to the whole splintered range of "Protestant" Christian confessions - to see what happens when members of a religion think they can pick and choose what they want to believe and to practice.

CATECHESIS, CATECHESIS, CATECHESIS, in addition to SETTING THE CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE IN DEEDS - Pope Benedict has not been remiss in calling the attention of the episcopate and the priesthood, laymen and families, to the nature of their task in the formation of Catholic youth. If everyone heeded this, then the future may not be so bleak after all for 'proper' Catholicism.

Best of all, the example for this ideal of Catholic formation is set by the Pope himself in his every word and deed!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/06/2006 15.01]

Je suis trés étonnée de me trouver ainsi mise en cause dans ces pages, et je réponds en français, puisque vous semblez si bien le comprendre.

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one member posted an item in the English section with the comment that she did not want to post it in the French section because "contrary views are not welcome there." Which, of course, was not fair to the girls in the French section, who do publish contrary views most of the time - by necessity, inasmuch as much of the French MSM is anti-clerical or anti-Papist!

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Les pages françaises (dont je me sens, peut-être de manière présomptueuse, un peu responsable) , dans mon esprit, ne sont pas un espace de débat, je croyais m'être assez bien expliquée là-dessus, ce sont simplement des témoignages d'affection envers l'unique objet de ce forum. Cette affection se manifeste aussi en prenant sa défense contre toutes les attaques dont il peut être l'objet.
Je ne force personne à lire mes "articles"...

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a: First, I posted a French AFP article about the reactions of the Legionnaire de Christ victims immediately after the article about the founder being sanctioned by the Pope. This article was translated even by you in the English section.
b. Well, the article drew a negative reaction from the regular poster of the French section, which really surprised me because the poster herself has been posting much more negative articles in the section, and I would have thought the one I posted was much more legitimate and less reactive.

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Les réactions négatives que je cite ne laissent place à aucune ambiguïté de ma part, en ce qui concerne mon sentiment personnel, alors que ce n'était pas le cas ici. Je tâche en général de les placer dans une rubrique intitulée "Humeurs". Et lorsque ce n'est pas le cas, je les encadre d'un commentaire... que je ne force personne à lire, je m'excuse de me répéter, mais qui indique clairement ma position. Je recopie ici le texte que j'avais écrit, je persiste et signe.

Je ne cherche nullement à engager ici une polémique, mais... est-ce vraiment notre rôle, dans ces pages, de nous faire l'écho de ce navrant fait divers? Les ennemis de l'Eglise sont bien assez nombreux, et surtout suffisamment implantés dans les media, pour s'en charger... Nous ne sommes pas une agence de presse, et, ici, je revendique le droit à la partialité, voire à la mauvaise foi, s'il le faut, comme eux les pratiquent sans vergogne. Nous ne nions pas les faits, en nous abstenant de les colporter. Comment ne pas remarquer que la première allusion à Benoît XVI dans les media grand public depuis plusieurs semaines... est constituée par la soi-disant révélation de ce "scandale", alors qu'IL s'exprime presque chaque jour avec force sur les graves dérives morales de nos sociétés... dans la plus parfaite indifférence de leur part.

---

d.You have said that it is not healthy that we should question each other's motives, but unfortunately, this was the case for me in the French section. Whilst I don't mind being questioned, I was really surprised by her reaction because of her own plentiful negative postings.

d. As I found the french section becoming more like the poster's personal blog with plenty of criticisms rather than a forum of good balanced discussions, I've decided not to participate any longer.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(ceci est mon commentaire)
...je m'efforce d'apporter au forum des contributions dont beaucoup ne se retrouvent pas forcément sur internet, et qui pourraient peut-être intéresser des lecteurs étrangers...

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e. As I've been living in Paris for many years now, I can assure you all that not all French articles are that anti-pope or anti-clerical. It is unfortunate that based on the postings in the french section, you all get that impression.

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Moi, je suis née à Paris, je vis depuis toujours en France, j'observe et m'intéresse à la presse française depuis très longtemps aussi, je la trouve un sujet d'études très intéressant pour la désinformation qu'elle pratique, je ne crois pas développer une paranoïa excessive à ce sujet, il suffit de lire par exemple le blog de Patrice de Plunkett (par ailleurs très modéré) pour s'en convaincre. Voyez plutôt.

http://plunkett.hautetfort.com/archive/2005/12/31/vœux-catholiques-2006-aux-medias-francais.html

http://plunkett.hautetfort.com/archive/2005/12/18/vatican-ii-un-immense-anniversaire-snobe-par-les-medias.html

Ceux qui trouvent que la presse française n'est ni anti-pape ni anti-cléricale ( I can assure you all that not all French articles are that anti-pope or anti-clerical) ont probablement décidé de chausser des lunettes roses. Il suffit de relire ce qui avait été écrit au moment de l'agonie de Jean-Paul II, puis de l'élection de Benoît XVI pour s'en convaincre, et je tiens ces documents à disposition de qui serait intéressé. D'ailleurs la partialité militante de la presse française n'est plus un sujet de débat, même à gauche!!!!
Je n'aime pas le principe du "pour/contre". Comme mes opinions (et celles que je croyais être défendues sur ce forum) sont malheureusement très marginalisées, je suis sûre que le débat est un piège infernal, dans lequel je refuse de tomber. Dès que l'on commence à penser "mon adversaire a peut-être raison", on fait un pas vers cette dictature du relativisme dont notre Saint-Père a tant parlé.

Je n'en dirais pas davantage, car j'ai honte de mêler même de loin, la personne du Saint-Père, que j'aime profondément, à cette médiocre querelle!

[Modificato da beatrice.France 30/06/2006 21.54]

Vatican analyst says Pope Benedict on verge of implementing real liturgical reform

Vatican City, Jun. 30, 2006 (CNA) - Vatican analyst, Sandro Magister, of the online magazine “L’Espresso” says in an article to be published soon that Pope Benedict XVI will implement real liturgical reform in his upcoming Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist.

Magister bases his analysis on an interview with Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, published in the French Catholic daily, “La Croix.”

He says that while the 15 cardinals and archbishops that make up the Synod council have already presented their recommendations, “It’s the Pope who will have the last word.” Magister predicts there will be surprises “from Benedict XVI himself, who has very clear ideas on topics such as the Eucharist and liturgy. And he is very critical of some aspects of the post-conciliar liturgical reform.”

Now I feel doubly guilty. Beatrice posted the La Croix article on Mons. Ranjith yesterday or two days ago, and I haven't gotten round to translating it yet. Will do ASAP.

P.S. on July 1 - I feel even worse now, because when I went through this section yesterday, I obviously missed Beatrice's post reacting to comments I had made earlier directed to SIMPLYME. For the benefit of the Anglophones, I will post the translation and any subsequent comments and discussions that may arise from it, in CHATTER - not to imply by any means that this subject is something for idle chatter, but only because that is the only thread we have at the moment for comments and discussions on general matters.

However, I have translated the Ranjith interview and related articles, and they are posted in NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT, inasmuch as the liturgical 'reform of the reform' about which Mons. Ranjith speaks, will ultimately be decided - and probably soon - by the Pope himself.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/07/2006 1.37]

In his blog today, Sandro Magister points out that Cardinal Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, spoke out of bounds once again in his recent interview with Famiglia Cristiana, reported a few posts above .

Lopez Trujillo fulminates about excommunication
for "whoever takes part in embryonic stem cell research"
but the Code of Canon Laws does not support him

The interview given by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo to the magazine Famiglia Cristiana with the title “They are crimes, not rights” (Sono delitti, non diritti) referring to abortion and destruction of human embryos, has stirred up a wasp’s nest.

It happens almost always when this cardinal speaks out his personal opinions. A bit like another Curial cardinal ‘out of control,' Renato Martino.

The difference between these two outspoken cardinals is that Lopez Trujillo speaks about a more explosive subject – issues concerning life and the family.

In the interview, Lopez Trujillo claims that in an abortion, “the mother, the doctor, the nurses, and the father if he agrees to it” all run the risk of excommunication.

So far, so good. Canon 1398 of the Code of Canon Law says clearly: “Whoever is responsible for achieving an abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,” whose absolution depends on the local bishop or whoever he delegates. Last Easter, the Bishop of Cremona, Dante Lafranconi, made news when he announced that he was extending the power to absolve abortion to all of his priests.

However, pressed by the interviewer, Lopez Trujillo added that excommunication would also penalize “whoever takes part in research on embryonic stem cells”. Which would mean “the mother, her doctors and the researchers who would destroy these embryos” (an act he referred to elsewhere in the interview as ‘killing’).

That is something the Cardinal is saying on his own. The Code of Canon Law does not say so. In the chapter on penalties for “crimes against life and human liberty,” the only acts which merit excommunication are abortion and “physical violence against the Roman pontiff”. No excommunication, for instance, for all other homicidal acts.

And any canonist and jurist knows that ppenalties cannot be extended by analogy. They can only be applied to specifically defined cases.

Vatican firm on gay marriage


From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Rome
News.com.au

July 03, 2006

A VATICAN authority on family values spelled out the Roman Catholic Church's uncompromising opposition to same-sex marriages in a newspaper interview published today as a Catholic meeting on the family began in Spain, where such unions are legal.

"There are not several models (for marriage), there is only one, which comes from God and is irreplaceable," the Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, organiser of the fifth Catholic World Meeting of Families, said.
"Marriage is not a project of parliament or institutions, which are here today and gone tomorrow," said Mr Trujillo, who is also president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family.

Spain's Socialist government legalised same-sex marriages and adoptions by gays and lesbians legal last year.

Pope Benedict XVI is due to make an appearance on July 8 and 9 at the ongoing meeting in the north-eastern Spanish city of Valencia.

"The decision of the Pope to go to Valencia does not take into account one government or another," Mr Trujillo said.

The meeting was launched yesterday, coinciding with a major gay pride march in which participants expressed support for same-sex marriages and criticised the planned visit by the pope, a vocal critic of such unions.
Mr Trujillo reiterated the Vatican's stance, however.

"We should respect homosexuals and help them," he said, but added that gay marriage was a "false alternative" which caused "great confusion" among young people.

Some 4500 same-sex couples - 80 per cent of them men - have married in Spain since it legalised same-sex marriage in July 2005, according to Spanish justice ministry figures.

Organisers expect 1.5 million faithful at the meeting of Catholic families as well as 29 cardinals from 25 countries and representatives of Greek, Russian and Romanian Orthodox Churches.

Benedict XVI on Friday said families are "the key structure of society" and are based on the "marital union between a man and a woman according to the plans of the Creator".

Interesting that AFP did not give a number for the participants in the "major gay pride march" they report! The news agencies are usually generous with figures, particularly for the liberal causes they support...Maybe the actual attendance was 'minor' at this 'major' march????

Meanwhile, on to another topic related to the World Encounter of Families. This time, it's John Allen in his 6/30/06 Word from Rome who questions Cardinal Lopez Trujillo's extrapolation of the penalty of excommunication to those who participate in embryonic stem-cell research. A few posts above, Sandro Magister was even more decisively dismissive of the cardinal's apparently rash (mis)statement .
---------------------------------------------------------------

In an interview this week with the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez-Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that those who take part in embryonic stem cell research are subject to excommunication.

"Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion... it's the same thing," Lopez Trujillo said.

Lopez Trujillo was likely referring to canons 1364-1399 of the Code of Canon Law, where a few particularly serious offenses are listed as grounds for automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication, including:

Apostasy, heresy or schism
Sacrilege with the Eucharistic species
Use of physical force against the pope
Absolution of an accomplice in a sexual sin
Consecration of a bishop without mandate from the pope
Direct violation of the seal of the confessional
Procuring an abortion

While the church's condemnation of embryonic stem cell research is clear, there will be canonical debate about whether it is "the same thing" as abortion in the sense that it too constitutes grounds for latae sententiae excommunication. In canonical tradition, penalties are to be construed narrowly, so that expanding the range of a latae sententiae penalty is deliberately difficult to do.

In the Famiglia Cristiana interview, Lopez Trujillo also said that excommunication "applies to all women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos."

The question of whether women who have abortions are automatically excommunicated has also been the subject of debate. Canon 1324 states that punishment due to a grave offense can be tempered if the person acted without "full imputability." For a crime to be "imputed" to someone means they knew that what they did was wrong, and acted with "deliberation of mind and consent of will." Some canonists argue that given the emotional duress women face in contemplating an abortion, it's not always clear their choices satisfy that condition.

In any event, the Lopez Trujillo interview marks another escalation in the Catholic church's struggle against what John Paul II termed the "culture of death." That struggle will be in the forefront of Benedict XVI's upcoming July 8-9 trip to Spain, where the Socialist government under Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has moved to streamline the process for divorce, and to legalize both abortion and gay marriage.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/07/2006 1.00]

[Not good news, especially with the pope's visit to Turkey getting closer.]


Stabbed priest had been threatened, intimidated

by Mavi Zambak
3 July, 2006
TURKEY

Even his church had been vandalised. Within a few weeks, he was to complete his mission and return to France. Christians are worried about the escalation of violence.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – The French priest who was knifed yesterday evening in Samsun had already suffered threats, insults and vandalism. He was due to return to France within a few weeks as he was about to complete his service. Fr Pierre Brunissen, 76 years, was injured yesterday in the street at 6.30pm by a man who appears to be mentally unbalanced, and who was already known to the police for other acts of violence. The priest is still in hospital but he will be released shortly: although he lost a lot of blood, he is now out of danger.

Fr Pierre has spent 15 years as a Fidei Donum priest in Turkey. People from Samsun told AsiaNews: “It is not the first time Fr Pierre was attacked, insulted by false accusations, and his church targeted by vandals.”

Before the murder of Fr Andrea Santoro – the Italian priest killed on 5 February in Trabzon – he was threatened several times. After the Roman priest’s death, he was targeted by intimidation and vandalism, but the priest insisted on staying put in the city of Samsun on the Black Sea, because he was the only priest for the small local community.

The Christian community of Samsun is microscopic and composed mostly of foreigners in the city for work, people from former Soviet republics and a few Japanese.

Soon after the death of Fr Andrea, Fr Pierre sought to keep the church of Trabzon open too, covering the distance of hundreds of kilometres between the two cities to assure that at least Sunday Mass was held. He did this until Easter Sunday, when a new parish priest – a Polish priest – officially took over the parish of Trabzon.

In mid-September, Fr Pierre was meant to return to France as he had completed his service. His bishop had already recalled him to the diocese before, but the decision to return was postponed to mid-September, as he had expressed the desire to celebrate the feast of the parish – dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows – once more. The feast falls on 15 September.

Although the attacker is already in prison, this assault worries Christians who see it as a part of an escalation of violence and threats against church figures.

Moscow summit shows the need for cooperation despite differences

03 July 2006, 13:46
Interfax News

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and head of the Catholic delegation to the Moscow World Religious Summit talked about the importance of cooperation between the Orthodox and Catholic churches to face the challenges before the contemporary world on the eve of the World Religious Summit in an interview with Interfax-Religion.


- The Holy See sent a rather representative delegation to the summit. Does this mean a thaw in Orthodox-Catholic relations?

- Of course, I would agree with you that this is a positive sign, which highlights the improvement of relations. But the main thing I would like to draw attention to is that there are many things that make our churches close to each other. The two churches share and recognize each other's sacraments, they share the Holy Tradition and have many common saints. Apparently, there are historical aspects that divide the two religions; however, efforts have been made to overcome these problems.

- Recently, a break in the stalemate in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue was rumored. As far as you are concerned, what are the most apparent changes?

- Firstly, both churches understand that we live in a secular society, and new challenges face us. This means that the reaction to these challenges should be a joint one. On the other hand, the two Churches feel that other religions are challenging them in the interreligious dialogue. Other religions are not something distant, their advocates live among us, in our society. That is why it is very important to highlight that the Orthodox and Catholic churches, which have much in common, should get together to offer a joint reaction to these challenges.

Today, especially in Europe, we witness the process of secularization that deprives society of its roots and values. We should unite our efforts to protect our roots, and not only to protect, but also develop them in order to have an opportunity to build our society on a stable foundation in the future.

- One of the main topics for discussion at the summit is the participation of world religions in overcoming terrorism and extremism, which often use religious slogans as smear. How do you think, could religious leaders offer ways resist the challenge?

- I think that spiritual leaders should clearly state today that the murders of innocent people in the name of the Lord are unacceptable. This is a false appeal to religion, rather than religion itself. Religions, primarily, respect humans and human lives. One needs to clearly state that God is the Name of life, the Name of the world, and it is impossible to justify violent actions against innocent people by religious slogans. All great religious traditions have a so-called 'golden rule': do not do things to others that you would like to avoid yourself. The rule is the cornerstone of all religions, and, according to it, such things as terrorism should be prevented.

- It is understood that representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet with their Hole See colleagues, if this is true, what issues will be discussed?

- Now, I do not know the schedule. Of course, we are hearted to profit from the possibility to meet with [head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations] Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad and to discuss the existing problems in out relations. Such an opportunity for exchanging information is always important. However, I would like to stress the essence of the Moscow meeting once again. Such a meeting is a kind of sign, which shows that we should cooperate despite the differences between our traditions and even the larger number of differences between our churches and other religions. This is an important sign for the world, because these differences, and their existence cannot be questioned, do not hinder cooperation and interaction.

[The interview with Ranjith referred to in this article was posted by Teresa on the News about Benedict thread. The pope's comments to the council of 15 working on the outline of the synod's recommendations are pretty direct. If he said something like that to me, I would start working night and day to finish up the project immediately.]


Synod on the Eucharist: The Pope Has the Last Word

Benedict XVI is writing the concluding document, which will be published this summer. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith gives this preview: “A correction is necessary. The liturgy must be won back, in the spirit of the Council”

by Sandro Magister
www.chiesa

ROMA, July 3, 2006 – More than eight months after its conclusion, the synod of bishops held in the Vatican last October on “the Eucharist, source and summit of the Church’s life and mission” is still awaiting the document that will finalize its results.

The concluding document for a synod usually takes the form of an apostolic exhortation, and is written by the pope. But it is the synod itself – through the elaborative work of a council of 15 bishops and cardinals – that writes the outline and presents this to the supreme pontiff.

The council of 15 met in Rome for the last time at the beginning of June. And Benedict XVI, in greeting its members, urged them to move the work along more quickly.

This is what he said:

“I must say that during the ‘ad limina’ visits, a number of bishops ask me: ‘But when will the post-synodal document finally arrive?'. And I reply: ‘They’re working on it. And it certainly can’t take them much longer’. I see gathered here so many competent men that I cannot help but hope to see this document soon, and learn from it myself, so that it can be published for the benefit of the whole Church, which truly is waiting for it.”

Spurred on thus by the pope, the 15 accelerated the work, and in their final communiqué, released on June 10, they guaranteed that the text was almost ready, and “it can soon be delivered to the Holy Father.”

Of the 15 members of the council, 12 were elected by the synod fathers, and 3 designated by the pope. Their secretary general is Archbishop Nikola Eterovic. The members are:

the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cardinal Francis Arinze;
the archbishop of Lima, cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne;
the archbishop of Buenos Aires, cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio;
the archbishop of Westminster, cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor;
the patriarch of Venice, cardinal Angelo Scola;
the archbishop of Ranchi, India, cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo;
the archbishop of Sydney, cardinal George Pell;
the archbishop of Québec, cardinal Marc Ouellet;
the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, cardinal Walter Kasper;
the bishop of Hong Kong, cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun;
the archbishop of Kisangani, Congo, Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya;
the archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan;
the archbishop of Washington, Donald William Wuerl;
the exarch of the Byzantine-rite Catholics in Serbia and Montenegro, Djura DÏudÏar;
the bishop of Imus, Philippines, Luis Antonio G. Tagle.

The 15 therefore represent the élite of the Catholic hierarchy on the various continents. Some of them – Kasper, Scola, Ouellet – are also very adept in theology.

But the outline they are about to deliver to the pope won’t contain any surprises. It is linked to the proposals advanced during the synod, which were relatively modest in scope.

The surprises will come, instead, from Benedict XVI himself, who has ideas about the Eucharist and the liturgy that are very pronounced – and very critical of some aspects of postconciliar liturgical reform.

Some indications of the direction of the pope’s thought can found in the interview that the secretary for the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, gave on June 25 to the French Catholic newspaper “La Croix.”

Malcolm Ranjith was called to this key role by Benedict XVI, to whom he has been close for years.

In the interview – which is his second public statement after an earlier one dedicated to the direction for liturgical prayer – he criticizes the “many tendencies that have banished from view the authentic meaning of the liturgy.”

And to these tendencies he contrasts “a necessary correction, a reform of the reform. We must return to the liturgy in the spirit of the Council.”

[Modificato da benefan 03/07/2006 19.38]

Here is a translation of the report filed from Moscow by the special correspondent of Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, on the ongoing religious summit in the Russian capital.---------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMIT IN MOSCOW:
A religious G8 for peace in the world
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus
from all over the world meet to take
a common stand on ethical challenges
By Luigi Geninazzi


For the first time in its history, Russia is hosting an international religious summit. More than 200 delegates from 40 nations are meeting in the ex-capital of atheism at the initiative of the Patriarchate of Moscow under the aegis of the Inter-Religious Council.

It is an exceptional event which, according to its organizers, is linked to Russia’s current turn at the presidency of the G8, the club of the eight most industrialized nations, which is holding its annual summit in St. Petersburg in mid-July.

Russian President Valdimir Putin addressed the opening of the religious summit last night with a strong appeal “to combat extremism and fundamentalism in order to bring closer together the vision of believers from different faiths.”

To the religious leaders gathered at the President Hotel, the residence placed by the State at the disposal of eminent guests – and which appeared more than ever in a state of armored security – Putin said “there are attempts to divide the world for ethnic or religious reasons, sowing discord first of all between the Christian and Muslim worlds.”

In fact, he added, “it is sought to impose a conflict of civilizations on us, but we should keep in mind the catastrophic consequences that can arise.”

The Russian President said he was convinced of “the decisive role of the clergy” in combatting this campaign and praised the Orthodox Church.

For his part, Alexis II, Patriarch of all the Russias, and host of the summit, said: “The different religions should find a common outlook not only on doctrinal questions but on the grave ethical problems of our time,” thus illustrating the basic objective of this meeting.

For three days, the summit will consider crucial issues like the fight against terrorism, the defense of the family and of human life, respect for human rights, and religious tolerance.

They are expected to issue a commmunique addressed to the leaders of the G8, to world public opinion and to the members of their religious communities. It is a message that is expected to be authoritative by virtue of the “very high level of representation – much superior to any such gathering in the past,” acording to Metropolitan Kiril, head of the foreign relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Beginning with the Catholic delegation. It is headed by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Chiristian Unity, with the participation of four other cardinals - Paul Poupard, president of the combined Pontifical Councils for Culture and Inter-Religious Dialog; Roger Etchegaray, ex-president of the Council for Justice and Peace; Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Brussels; and Theodore McCarrick, recently retired Archbishop of Washington,DC. The bishops in the delegation include Joseph Werth of Novosibirsk, president of the Russian episcopal conference; and Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the ecumenical commission of the Italian bishops conference.

This summit constitutes “a very important occasion to pursue our dialog with the Orthodox church,” according to Cardinal Kasper, who said the presence and composition of the Vatican delegation was “an ulterior sign of the positive changes in the relationship between our Churches.”

Kiril confirms it: “The climate has decisively improved. We have entered a new chapter in our relations.”

Thus, a new impulse for ecumenism, and for an inter-religious and inter-cultural dialog “in the service of an integral solidly-forged humanism,” capable of facing up to the challenges brought about by “the growing phenomenon ogf globalization,” says Cardinal Poupard.

Taking part from other faiths are the heads of many Orthodox Churches and the supreme authorities from the most ancient Christian churches, like Patriarch Karekin II of Armenia and Patriarch Abuna Paul of Ethiopia; the secretary of the World Council of Churches; and the president of the evangelical churches ofr Germany. There are numereous authorites representing Islam, Buddhism and Judaism – the other religions officially recognized by Russia along with Christianity.

Not included however are representatives of so-called ‘new religions’. (“We do not want people like Jehovah’s Witnesses who disgtort the Christian message,” Father Chaplin, spokesman of the Moscow Patriarchate, says bluntly.)

But some absences are glaring: No leader from Iraq, Shia or Sunni, was invited, in response to the barbarous killing of four Russian diplomats who were kidnapped in Baghdad, and in keeping with the official outrage from the Kremlin which has set a price of millions of dollars on the heads of the assassins.

And despite the wish to give this summit the most ecumenical character possible, Patriarch Alexis II has shown himself most sensitive to the Russian govenrment’s political considerations by not inviting the Dalai Lama, whose presence in Moscow would have provoked a forceful reaction from the authorities in Beijing, who are new allies of Russia’s Putin.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/07/2006 18.22]

Vatican files to cast new light on Pius XII, Jews


By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Mon Jul 3, 2006 8:03 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - Wartime Pope Pius XII's views on the Jews, one of the sorest points in Catholic-Jewish relations, could be in for an important reappraisal when archives from his years as Vatican prime minister are opened in Rome in September.

The Vatican said on Friday it would open all files from the Pius XI papacy which ran from 1922 until just before the 1939 outbreak of World War Two. Critics say successor Pius XII, whose views as a Vatican official would be reflected in the files, did too little in the war to save European Jews from the Holocaust.

Supporters and critics of Pius XII are miles apart. The late Pope John Paul wanted to make him a saint but many critics, including Jewish groups, call him "Hitler's Pope".

The archives contain internal documents showing how Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pius XII, worked as Secretary of State from 1930 to 1939 dealing with major political issues.

"That will put research into Pacelli into a new league," said Professor Hubert Wolf, an historian at Muenster University in Germany and a leading expert on the Vatican Secret Archives.

"We will have nine years of him dealing with church affairs around the world," Wolf told Reuters. The files will show his discussions inside the Vatican bureaucracy and policy instructions to papal nuncios (ambassadors).

"We'll see his comments in the margins of a report. We'll have his tiny, shaky handwriting as he passes judgment on issues. You cannot get any closer to Pacelli," he said.

Wolf, a Catholic priest, could not say how the late pope would seen after the files are opened: "I'm an historian, not a prophet. The documents have to answer that question."

CHANGING VIEWS

Pius XII toed a cautious line during the war to avoid reprisals against Catholics in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries. He was initially praised for speaking out as openly as he could and helping to save Jews in secret.

This view changed radically in 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth depicted him in "The Deputy" as a cynic who kept silent despite knowing about the Holocaust.

The two sides have feuded ever since, with defenders -- including some Jewish historians -- citing private anti-Hitler comments and critics presenting him as an anti-Semite.

The 1922-1939 archives will include hitherto secret notes for internal policy sessions of the Secretariat of State, including what Pacelli -- the Vatican's "political brain," in Wolf's words -- said in strategy sessions about Jewish issues.

For example, Edith Stein, a German convert from Judaism who was killed in Auschwitz, wrote to Pacelli in April 1933 about anti-Jewish repression in the early days of Nazi Germany. He responded a week later saying he had passed it on to Pius XI.

"Something happened in Rome between those two letters," Wolf said. "Now we can ask what effect Stein's letter had in the Curia. Who dealt with it? Did Pacelli ask anyone for advice?"

SPECULATION

The new documents should also show Pacelli's private views on the 1933 Concordat with Nazi Germany, relations with Fascist Italy, the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War and the Nazi annexation of Austria and the Munich Agreement in 1938.

Wolf said he was sure the Vatican would not hold back embarrassing documents and would apologize if grave errors came to light

"Pope Benedict...says it makes no sense to continue to fuel speculation by being secretive," said Wolf, who discussed the archives with the German-born pontiff in March.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, welcomed the news of the opening of the Pius XI files but urged the Vatican to hurry up with the really crucial ones -- those from the 1939-1958 Pius XII papacy itself.

Cardinal says Turkey not ready for Europe

Tue Jul 4, 2006 4:47am ET

ROME (Reuters) - A Vatican cardinal said a knife attack on a Roman Catholic priest in Turkey showed that the EU candidate country was not yet ready for integration with Europe.

Turkey was not truly a secular state that guaranteed full religious freedom, Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican's department for Christian Unity, was also quoted as saying by Milan's Corriere della Sera newspaper on Tuesday.

"There is a certain tolerance but not authentic freedom ... Turkey must change many things and it is not just a question of laws but of mentality, and you can't change mentality in one day," Kasper was quoted as saying.

Kasper was responding to a question about the stabbing on Sunday of a French priest - an incident that recalled the fatal shooting of another Catholic priest five months ago.

Pierre Brunissen was stabbed by a 47-year-old man in the Black Sea port of Samsun. His attacker, suspected of being mentally unbalanced, had recently accused Brunissen of spreading "Christian propaganda". The attacker was arrested.

Speaking by telephone from Moscow, Kasper said Turkey was "still lacking is a true lay state that guarantees religious freedom" and added he doubted "the integration of Turkey in Europe is possible at this moment".

Turkey, which Pope Benedict will visit in November, has a secular political system but is overwhelmingly Muslim.

In February, a teenage boy shot dead an Italian priest in his church in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, drawing condemnation from the prime minister and other officials.

Before he was elected Pope last year, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave an interview arguing that Europe's roots are Christian and that a Muslim country would not fit in.

Earlier today, in REFLECTIONS ABOUT OUR FAITH AND ITS PRACTICES, I posted the rather-lengthy portion of a June 15 homily by the Bishop whose diocese includes Medjugorje in former Yugoslavia, pertaining to the Marian apparitions that have been reported there - even daily, according to some of the 'seers' - since 25 years ago. The bishop was very blunt about the Church's non-recognition of the reported apparitions. CWNews has this story based on that homily, which was obtained by an American blogger from the the Bishop's diocesan website.
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Medjugorje apparition claims
are divisive, bishop warns

July 4, 2006 (CWNews.com) - The Catholic bishop whose diocese includes the town of Medjugorje has warned that "something similar to a schism" has arisen at the parish church where apparitions of the Virgin Mary are alleged to take place.

In a homily delivered in Medjugorje on the feast of Corpus Christi, Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said that both he and his predecessor have expressed severe misgivings about the reported apparitions. He added that both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI backed the judgments of the local bishops.

In his homily Bishop Peric explained that "while recognizing the Holy Father's right to give a final decision" on the validity of the reported apparitions, he doubted their validity.

He recalled that when he discussed the reports from Medjugorje with Vatican officials, including then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, they shared his incredulity.

"They particularly do not seem to be authentic," the bishop observed, "when it is known before that these so-called 'apparitions' will occur."

Bishop Peric cited the schedule that the Medjugorje seers have provided, listing the times and places at which they claim the next visits by the Mother of God will occur.

Thousands of messages from Mary are now claimed, and the bishop observed that "the flood of so-called apparitions, messages, secrets, and signs do not strengthen the faith, but rather further convince us that in all of this there is nothing neither authentic nor established as truthful."

The first reported appearances of the Virgin at Medjugorje occurred just over 25 years ago. During the 1980s, thousands of Catholics flocked to the little town, with many reporting profound spiritual experiences. These pilgrimages were eventually slowed by the violent bloodshed that tore through the region in the 1990s and by the increasingly public skepticism of the hierarchy.

Bishop Peric reminded his people of the restrictions that he has imposed on activities in Medjugorje. The parish church is not formally a "shrine," he said, and should not be characterized as such. Pilgrimages to the church are discouraged.

Priests there are "not authorized to express their private views contrary to the official position of the Church on the so-called 'apparitions' and 'messages,' during celebrations of the sacraments, nor during other common acts of piety, nor in the Catholic media."

The bishops urged the "seers" of Medjugorje to "demonstrate ecclesiastical obedience and to cease with these public manifestations and messages in this parish."

Some of the Franciscan priests assigned to the Medjugorje parish, he said, have been expelled from their order because of their refusal to accept Church authority.

"They have not only been illegally active in these parishes, but they have also administered the sacraments profanely, while others invalidly," he said.

As Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, he said, he felt obliged to warn the faithful "who invalidly confess their sins to these priests and participate in sacrilegious liturgies."

Independent Catholic News
ISTANBUL - 4 July 2006 - 284 words

Istanbul: Muslims offer to give blood to save life of priest

After a Catholic priest was stabbed by a mentally-ill man in Samsun, Turkey, on Sunday, many local Muslims went to the hospital where he was being treated to offer their blood.

Fr George Marovitch, spokesman of the Turkish Bishops' Conference, told Fides that the attack on French missionary priest Fr Pierre Brunissen was an isolated incident. He said: " This was the act of a mad man which does no good to the image of Turkey. It was an isolated episode: there is no tension or violence and Christian/Muslim relations are good as usual."

Fr Pierre is now out of danger, the hospital said. The priest been sent to Saint Mary's Catholic church at Trabzon to replace temporarily the Italian missionary Fr Andrea Santoro shot dead on 5 February this year.

Fr George said that as soon as the news broke, local Muslims expressed solidarity with the church. He said: "Fr Pierre is loved and appreciated by all. Numerous Muslims have offered to donate their blood should it be necessary to help Fr Pierre. The episode was amplified by the media but it remains an isolated attitude not shared by the majority of the Turkish people."

Fr. George recalled that Pope Benedict XVI is expected to travel to Turkey in the autumn: "There is great excitement among Christians and Muslims. Since it will be a state visit we are not sure whether it will include a meeting with Muslim religious leaders. However it is certain that the Holy Father Benedict XVI will meet the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. We hope and pray his visit may improve ecumenical and inter-religious relations in Turkey and in Europe."