BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Details of Pope's program
at WYD Madrid
From the official site


Madrid, February 9, 2011 - Benedict XVI will meet with young college professors, the disabled, seminarians, religious sisters, and volunteers during World Youth Day (WYD), which will be held in Madrid this August 16-21.

These meetings will take place in addition to the main events of World Youth Day in Madrid, which will be held in the vicinity of the iconic Plaza de Cibeles located in the city’s downtown area, and at the Cuatro Vientos Air Base located in southeastern Madrid.

Cuatro Vientos will be hosting the Prayer Vigil and the Closing Mass of WYD, the two events that expect to see the highest attendance.

The Pope will meet with young univeristy professors at the Monastery of El Escorial, the famous sixteenth-century Augustinian monastery located 45 kilometers (27 miles) north of Madrid.

Benedict XVI normally meets with representatives from the academic world on his pastoral visits, however this is the first time he will do so in the context of a World Youth Day.

Carla Díez de Rivera, Director of the WYD Cultural Department, emphasized the fact that “this encounter shows the Pope’s special esteem for the world of higher learning and culture, as in similar encounters held in Germany, France, and England.”

At this same location, the Holy Father will meet beforehand with a religious group of young religious sisters in the El Escorial's Patio de los Reyes. [Not just a monastery, El Escorial was the palace-monastery complex built by Charles V and his son Phillip II at the height of Spain's imperial power.]

In addition, the Holy Father will visit the Fundación Instituto San José, a center run by the Brothers of San Juan de Dios (St. John of God), founded in 1899, that treats people with mental and physical disabilities.

During this visit, which will take place just prior to the celebration of the Vigil at Cuatro Vientos, the Pope will meet with a delegation of disabled persons participating in World Youth Day in addition to the residents of the center.

The Hospitaller Order of St. John of God is present on every continent, with about 320 centers, covering a wide range of charitable services.

María José González-Iglesias, Coordinator of the Section for Disabled, has shown her appreciation for the fact that the Pope will meet with youth with various disabilities, emphasizing that “this is a beautiful gesture on the part of the Holy Father towards those with disabilities.”

Benedict will also meet with the seminarians who will participate in World Youth Day and will celebrate a Mass for them in Madrid's Cathedral known as La Almudena.

Rounding off his trip to Spain, Benedict XVI will meet with World Youth Day volunteers at the IFEMA Fairgrounds, in gratitude for all those who during WYD have offered their tireless and selfless support in the organization of World Youth Day

The additional events announced today are integrated with the main events of World Youth Day which will be presided by the Pope during his stay in Madrid.

On the afternoon of Thursday, August 18th, the day of his arrival into the city, a Welcoming Ceremony will be held with young people from around the world, in Plaza de Cibeles, one of the most emblematic locations in the city.

On Friday night, WYD Stations of the Cross will be held using 14 statues of great artistic and devotional value that have been contributed from different parts of Spain. This event will be held on the Paseo de Recoletos, between Plaza de Cibeles and Plaza de Colón.

The events that expect to see the most participants will take place on Saturday (Youth Prayer Vigil) and Sunday (Mass) at the Cuatro Vientos Air Base, located in the southwest corner of the city, 8 km from downtown Madrid.

The facilities of the historic airfield also hosted the 2003 encounter of John Paul II with Spanish youth on his last visit to Spain.

The on-line schedule of World Youth Day may be seen at www.madrid11.com/en/schedule

This had to come... How anyone could possibly thnik a confession guide could take the place of an actual confession is beyond me...

Straightening out
those misleading reports
about the 'Confession App'


Vatican City, Feb 9, 2011 (CNA/EWTN News).- The sacrament of Confession "cannot be replaced by any computer application," the Vatican said Feb. 9.

The remarks by papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, came amid a flurry of misleading international media reports on a new application developed for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod.

"Confession: A Roman Catholic App" helps Catholics prepare for confession by offering a “step-by-step” guide to the sacrament and a “personalized examination of conscience.”

Many media outlets wrongly reported that the application allowed Catholics to go to Confession on the phone or online.

Fr. Lombardi said the essence of the sacrament involves the intimate conversation of the believer and the priest and the presence of Jesus Christ.

"It is essential to understand well that the Sacrament of Penance requires necessarily the rapport of personal dialogue between penitent and confessor and absolution by the present confessor," he said.

"This cannot be substituted by any computer application. There needs to be emphasis put on this to avoid misunderstandings. One cannot speak in any way of 'confession by iPhone'.”

He said that the new application might have “true pastoral” uses as a “digital pastoral aid.” But, those who use it, must be aware that it is “not at all a substitute for the sacrament.”

The application was developed by Patrick Leinen, developer and co-founder of Little iApps and has been approved by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend and by the U.S. bishops’ top doctrine official, Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM. Cap.

Thursday, February 10, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Second from right: Austrian commemorative coin showing the twin saints; center, cartoon of the twins at their last meeting;
and extreme right, statue of St. Scholastica in Monte Cassino.
ST. SCHOLASTICA (480-542), VIRGIN
The twin sister of St. Benedict, the only information about her comes from Gregory the Great's account of Benedict's life. They were born to
wealthy parents, and Scholastica is thought to have been attracted to the consecrated life earlier than her brother. Gregory says that when
Benedict was established in Monte Cassino, Scholastica lived at a woman's monastery five miles away; that they made it a point to meet once
a year in order to discuss their spiritual life; and that one of these visits came the day before she died, when she begged him to stay longer.
He refused because it was against his rule to stay away from his monastery overnight. A storm came down which prevented Benedict and
his companions from leaving, and Scholastica told her brother, "You refused, and I prayed to God". Three days later, while at prayer, Benedict
saw a dove flying upwards and concluded it was the soul of his sister. He announced her death to his monks and then buried her in the tomb
he had prepared for himself.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021011.shtml



OR today.

Illustration: Pilgrim's painting of St. Canisius saved from drowning on one of his missionary travels. From the Church of St. Peter Canisius in Munich.
At the General Audience, the Pope says St. Peter Canisius's teaching shaped generations of German-speaking Catholics:
'My father used his Catechism'
Other Page 1 items: The FAO warns that the current drought in China, world's largest grain producer, and other natural disasters in leading grain producing countries like Russia and Australia, will further increase worldwide grain prices; anti-Mubarak protesters continue to camp out in Cairo's central square; Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard tears up as she reports to the first session of the Australian Parliament for 2011 about the unprecedented human and material toll by recent floodings and a cyclone. In this inside pages, the Diocese of Rome will hold a prayer vigil led by Cardinal Vicar Agostino Valli in the Church of Santa Maria Trastevere tonight for the four gypsy children killed in a fire that engulfed a gypsy camp outside Rome . The city of Rome observed a day of mourning for the children yesterday. Fifty-four gypsy children have died in similar fires in the past 20 years.



PAPAL EVENTS TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Four more Filipino bishops (central region) on ad limina visit. Individual meetings.

- Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., Archbishop of Buneos Aires and president of the Argentine bishops' conference,
with his two vice-presidents and secretary-general.

- Cardinal John Patrick Foley, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.


The Vatican released the text of the Holy Father's message for the 2011 World Day of Prayer for Vocations
to be observed by the Church on May 15.




The Holy Father has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar as Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Diocese of Kiev-Halyc in the Ukraine, for health reasons. Named as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese is Mons. Ihor Vozniak, C.SS.R., Archbishop pf Lviv of the Ukrainians, who must call a Holy Synod of Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops to elect a new Major Archbishop.




I actually prepared for this news when this item came out yesterday in the Kyiv Post yesterday because Cardinal Husar was the only Eastern Church papabile in the Conclave of 2005:

Cardinal Husar resigns



KIEV, Feb. 9 - Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has resigned.

“The Pope accepted the resignation which His Beatitude has requested for a long time because of his health,” a source within the Ukrainian Catholic Church told the Kyiv Post.

The source requested anonymity since an official announcement about the resignation is expected on Feb.10.

The 77-year-old cardinal has headed Ukrainian Catholics since 2001. Even though his title as primate (Major Archbishop) is for life, Husar asked the Pope to accept his resignation for several years because of his failing health.

After his resignation, a temporary administrator will be appointed until a new head is picked within two months.

The election will take place during a Holy Synod of bishops from around the world

The situation of Catholicism in the Ukraine is rather complicated. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church counts with the most adherents, but there is also the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Latin rite, represented by the Archdiocese of Lviv of the Latins headed by Archbishop Mietek Mocryzski, with jurisdiction over all the roman Catholic dioceses of the Ukraine. Georg Weigel wrote a most informative piece about this last year, when the Ukrainian church announced that the Holy Father accepted an invitation to visit the Ukraine in 2012:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=85272...




NB: I finally finished translating Peter Seewald's full interview with KATHNET and have posted it with the first part in the original post near the top of this page...

Iraqi ministry claims Pope Benedict
would like to visit Abraham's birthplace
Adapted from*

February 9, 2011
*The posted English translation is in Babelspeak.




BAGHDAD - Iraq’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Brigade Sumaisem has indicated that Pope Benedict would like to visit the ancient city of Ur, biblical birthplace of Abraham, near present-day Nasiriyah, in Iraq. (It is about 365 miles south of Baghdad.)

Sumaisem told the Iraqi news agency ABNA that Iraq’s Ambassador to the Holy See, There Habib Sadr, had transmitted this information to the Ministry of Tourism, which has approached the prime minister to secure the requirements for a papal visit, which they hope to take place in early 2012.

[Ur was the capital of the Sumerian empire, and ruins of it have been unearthed showing one of the most monumental of step pyramids from antiquity.

If Pope Benedict visits Ur, he would be the first ever to do so among the leaders of the world's three monoteistic religions which trace their spiritual ancestry to Abraham.

However, realistically, it is hard to imagine how this could be pulled off, given the security concerns in postwar Iraq, where visiting officlas, including the President of the United States, have nevermade anythign other than unannounced visits.

Also, a papal visit to Iraq would primarily be to visit the persecuted Christian minorities living mostly in Baghdad and Mosul in the north.

The Holy Father's message for the next World Day for Vocations, released today, comes on the heels of his homily last week when he ordained five new archbishops recently named to curial positions and the Vatican diplomatic service.

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, to be celebrated on 15 May 2011, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, invites us to reflect on the theme: "Proposing Vocations in the Local Church".

Seventy years ago, Venerable Pius XII established the Pontifical Work of Priestly Vocations. Similar bodies, led by priests and members of the lay faithful, were subsequently established by Bishops in many dioceses as a response to the call of the Good Shepherd who, "when he saw the crowds, had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd", and went on to say: "The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest!" (Mt 9:36-38).

The work of carefully encouraging and supporting vocations finds a radiant source of inspiration in those places in the Gospel where Jesus calls his disciples to follow him and trains them with love and care. We should pay close attention to the way that Jesus called his closest associates to proclaim the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk 10:9).

In the first place, it is clear that the first thing he did was to pray for them: before calling them, Jesus spent the night alone in prayer, listening to the will of the Father (cf. Lk 6:12) in a spirit of interior detachment from mundane concerns. It is Jesus’s intimate conversation with the Father which results in the calling of his disciples.

Vocations to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life are first and foremost the fruit of constant contact with the living God and insistent prayer lifted up to the "Lord of the harvest", whether in parish communities, in Christian families or in groups specifically devoted to prayer for vocations.

At the beginning of his public life, the Lord called some fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee: "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (Mt 4:19).

He revealed his messianic mission to them by the many "signs" which showed his love for humanity and the gift of the Father’s mercy. Through his words and his way of life he prepared them to carry on his saving work. Finally, knowing "that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father" (Jn 13:1), he entrusted to them the memorial of his death and resurrection, and before ascending into heaven he sent them out to the whole world with the command: "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:19).

It is a challenging and uplifting invitation that Jesus addresses to those to whom he says: "Follow me!". He invites them to become his friends, to listen attentively to his word and to live with him. He teaches them complete commitment to God and to the extension of his kingdom in accordance with the law of the Gospel: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24).

He invites them to leave behind their own narrow agenda and their notions of self-fulfilment in order to immerse themselves in another will, the will of God, and to be guided by it. He gives them an experience of fraternity, one born of that total openness to God (cf. Mt 12:49-50) which becomes the hallmark of the community of Jesus: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35).

It is no less challenging to follow Christ today. It means learning to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus, growing close to him, listening to his word and encountering him in the sacraments; it means learning to conform our will to his.

This requires a genuine school of formation for all those who would prepare themselves for the ministerial priesthood or the consecrated life under the guidance of the competent ecclesial authorities.

The Lord does not fail to call people at every stage of life to share in his mission and to serve the Church in the ordained ministry and in the consecrated life.

The Church is "called to safeguard this gift, to esteem it and love it. She is responsible for the birth and development of priestly vocations" (John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, 41).

Particularly in these times, when the voice of the Lord seems to be drowned out by "other voices" and his invitation to follow him by the gift of one’s own life may seem too difficult, every Christian community, every member of the Church, needs consciously to feel responsibility for promoting vocations.

It is important to encourage and support those who show clear signs of a call to priestly life and religious consecration, and to enable hem to feel the warmth of the whole community as they respond "yes" to God and the Church.

I encourage them, in the same words which I addressed to those who have already chosen to enter the seminary: "You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity" (Letter to Seminarians, 18 October 2010).

It is essential that every local Church become more sensitive and attentive to the pastoral care of vocations, helping children and young people in particular at every level of family, parish and associations – as Jesus did with his disciples
- to grow into a genuine and affectionate friendship with the Lord, cultivated through personal and liturgical prayer;
- to grow in familiarity with the sacred Scriptures and thus to listen attentively and fruitfully to the word of God;
- to understand that entering into God’s will does not crush or destroy a person, but instead leads to the discovery of the deepest truth about ourselves; and
- finally to be generous and fraternal in relationships with others, since it is only in being open to the love of God that we discover true joy and the fulfilment of our aspirations.

"Proposing Vocations in the Local Church" means having the courage, through an attentive and suitable concern for vocations, to point out this challenging way of following Christ which, because it is so rich in meaning, is capable of engaging the whole of one’s life.

I address a particular word to you, my dear brother Bishops. To ensure the continuity and growth of your saving mission in Christ, you should "foster priestly and religious vocations as much as possible, and should take a special interest in missionary vocations" (Christus Dominus, 15).

The Lord needs you to cooperate with him in ensuring that his call reaches the hearts of those whom he has chosen. Choose carefully those who work in the Diocesan Vocations Office, that valuable means for the promotion and organization of the pastoral care of vocations and the prayer which sustains it and guarantees its effectiveness.

I would also remind you, dear brother Bishops, of the concern of the universal Church for an equitable distribution of priests in the world. Your openness to the needs of dioceses experiencing a dearth of vocations will become a blessing from God for your communities and a sign to the faithful of a priestly service that generously considers the needs of the entire Church.

The Second Vatican Council explicitly reminded us that "the duty of fostering vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it above all by a fully Christian life" (Optatam Totius, 2).

I wish, then, to say a special word of acknowledgment and encouragement to those who work closely in various ways with the priests in their parishes.

In particular, I turn to those who can offer a specific contribution to the pastoral care of vocations: to priests, families, catechists and leaders of parish groups.

I ask priests to testify to their communion with their bishop and their fellow priests, and thus to provide a rich soil for the seeds of a priestly vocation.

May families be "animated by the spirit of faith and love and by the sense of duty" (Optatam Totius, 2) which is capable of helping children to welcome generously the call to priesthood and to religious life.

May catechists and leaders of Catholic groups and ecclesial movements, convinced of their educational mission, seek to "guide the young people entrusted to them so that these will recognize and freely accept a divine vocation" (ibid.).

Dear brothers and sisters, your commitment to the promotion and care of vocations becomes most significant and pastorally effective when carried out in the unity of the Church and in the service of communion.

For this reason, every moment in the life of the Church community – catechesis, formation meetings, liturgical prayer, pilgrimages – can be a precious opportunity for awakening in the People of God, and in particular in children and young people, a sense of belonging to the Church and of responsibility for answering the call to priesthood and to religious life by a free and informed decision.

The ability to foster vocations is a hallmark of the vitality of a local Church. With trust and perseverance let us invoke the aid of the Virgin Mary, that by the example of her own acceptance of God’s saving plan and her powerful intercession, every community will be more and more open to saying "yes" to the Lord who is constantly calling new labourers to his harvest. With this hope, I cordially impart to all my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
15 November 2010

---

After his recent awful piece for the Wall Street Journal {in which he uses the news of John Paul II's beatification to strike out at Benedict XVI), I am wary of this reporter, but at least, this item is informative and does not make any outrageous statements....


Why Popes can't be organ donors
By Francis X. Rocca



VATICAN CITY, Feb. 9 (RNS) - When Vatican officials announced last week that Pope Benedict XVI's 2005 election rendered his organ donor card null and void, they offered no specific reason for the change. [First of all, it was not an announcement. A letter written by the Pope's secretary to make a German doctor stop using the Pope's organ donor card from years ago as a tool to promote organ donation, since the as soonas he was elected Pope, that registration was no longer valid ipso facto - by the fact that he was now Pope - was made public by the German service of Vatican Radio. And if you are someone who reports on the Vatican for a living, as NMr. Rocca does, you would know why and would report so, as he now does eight days after the news broke.]

The curious history of papal body parts, however, offers some clues.

"A decision of a personal character made when (Benedict) was a private citizen is no longer operative now that he is the head of the Catholic Church," said the Vatican's top spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Lombardi also called the idea of transplanting the organs of a man who is already almost 84 "a little surreal."

Lombardi dismissed reports that the Church preserves a dead Pope's body in order to supply holy relics in case he's declared a saint. But Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, head of the Vatican's health care office, told an Italian newspaper that one reason to keep papal remains intact would be for "possible future veneration."

Since Benedict's five predecessors are now under formal consideration for sainthood, it's not a huge stretch to see Benedict -- still alive and kicking ['Kicking'? Metaphors should be appropriate - this one isn't!] -- as a possible saint-in-waiting.

And where there's a saint, there are often bodily relics to be venerated by the faithful. Generally speaking -- at least in modern times -- the Church prefers the relics all be in one place.

Pope John Paul II, who will be beatified on May 1, is drawing as much attention in death as he did in life. A vial of his blood, taken during a medical examination during his last days, will be placed in the altar of a church near Krakow, Poland, later this year.

John Paul's tomb in the grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica boosted pilgrim traffic from just a few hundred to as many as 18,000 per day. To accommodate the even bigger crowds anticipated once John Paul is beatified, the Vatican is moving his body to a more accessible chapel upstairs in the Basilica itself.

The body of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963 and like John Paul is also one step away from sainthood, was placed in a glass coffin and moved upstairs in 2001; his (intact) embalmed body was found to be "incorrupt," or free from decay. [Was it? I think the statement was that the embalming process had kept it intact... I must check it out.]

The burial place of the martyred St. Peter, traditionally considered the first pope, determined the site of the basilica that bears his name. In 1968, Pope Paul VI announced that the bones of a man found buried under the basilica were in fact Peter's.

The most perverse tribute to the importance of papal remains came in the ninth century, when a successor of Pope Formosus (891-896) exhumed his nine-months-dead body and put it on trial for perjury and other crimes.

As Notre Dame scholar Richard P. McBrien recounts in Lives of the Popes, Formosus' cadaver was "propped up on a throne in full pontifical vestments" for the trial, and after his conviction, "three fingers of his right hand (by which he swore oaths and gave blessings) were cut off."

His body was thrown into the Tiber River, but recovered by a hermit and eventually reburied with honors by a later Pope.

Most Pontiffs, of course, have been allowed to rest in peace, under more or less grand monuments to their honor. The most famous artistic byproduct of this custom was Michelangelo's great statue of Moses, which he sculpted for the tomb of his patron Pope Julius II (1503-1513). The tomb was never finished, but the statue sits today in Rome's Church of St. Peter in Chains.

Papal funeral traditions have required special arrangements for the disposition of their bodies. Because of a customary nine-day mourning period before burial, the hearts and other fast-decaying internal organs of almost all the Oopes from Sixtus V (1585-1590) to Leo XIII (1878-1903) were removed before embalming.

The hearts were placed in Rome's Church of Ss. Vincent and Anastasius, where they remain today. The rest of those Popes -- their bodies, that is -- are scattered across various churches in Rome. [But mostly, in St. Peter's.]

The organizers of the Holy Father's trip to northeast Italy in May, his first pastoral visit outside Rome this year, have released the tentative program for the visit on the site for the visit:
www.ilpapaanordest.it/ing/pagina.asp?id=119

---

PASTORAL VISIT OF THE HOLY FATHER

TO AQUILEIA AND VENICE

May 7-8, 2011

Provisional Program

Saturday, May 7

16.00 Arrival at Ronchi dei Legionari airport
Car transfer to Aquileia (Udine)

17.00 Arrival at Piazza Capitolo, in front of the Basilica
After a brief greeting, the Holy Father goes into the Basilica to address
the Assembly preparing for the Second Ecclesial Meeting of Aquileia.

18.00 The Holy Father leaves the Basilica to go to Venice by helicopter.

19.00 The Holy Father arrives in St. Mark’s Square and goes into the Basilica.
He will spend the night in the Patriarch's Palace.


Sunday, 8 May 2011

10.00 In Mestre (suburb of Venice), at the Park of San Giuliano, the Holy Father presides at the concelebration
of the Holy Eucharist with the bishops and clergy of all the Churches in the Italian Northeast

12.00 The Holy Father leads the Regina Coeli prayers.
After the celebration, the Holy Father returns to the Patriarch's Palace in Venice.

16.45 In the Basilica of St. Mark, the Pope will preside at the Ecclesial Assembly concluding the Pastoral Visit.

17.45 The Holy Father crosses the Grand Canal to the Basilica of the Salute
for a meeting with the world of culture, art and finance.

18.30 The Holy Father goes to the Chapel of the Holy Trinity to bless the premises after restoration work and
to inaugurate the renovated library of the Studium Generale Marcianum.

19.00 The Holy Father leaves the Salute to go to the Marco Polo airport in Tessera and the flight back to Rome.

---

Vatican Radio reports on the news conference at which the program was presented:

Cardinal Scola:
'A visit to all men of good will'
Translated from the Italian service of


10 FEB 2011 (RV) - The tentative program for the Pope's visit to two dioceses of northeast Italy - Aquileia and Venice - was presented at a news conference in Venice today.

Present were Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice and president of the Triveneto bishops' conference (CET); Mons. Dino De Antoni, archbishop of Gorizia and CET vice president; Nons. Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, bishop of Adria-Rovigo and vice president of the CET committee for Aquileia-2; Mons. Beniamino Pizziol, auxiliary bishop of Venice and CET chairman for organizing the papal visit.

[The report then summarizes the program presented above.]

In preparation for this visit, the bishops of the Triveneto area had issued a pastoral letter earlier this month asking all the faithful to contribute towards the Pope's visit.

"The reception for the Pope," they wrote, "will be moderate and essential. We will honor with great simplicity and great care he who is not only a most welcome guest, but as the Christian faith teaches us, is a constitutive part of every local Church".

The bishops also launched today the site for the visit, www.ilpapaanordest.it, with news, logistical information and spiritual readings related to the papal visit.

Sergio Centofanti spoke to Cardinal Scola about the visit.

CARDINAL SCOLA: We have synthesized the sense of the visit in the slogan, 'Confirm our faith". We ask the Holy Father, through his ministry as the Successor of Peter, and through the power of his own personal witness, to sustain our faith in a time of major change, and therefore the Christian vision of life, that will allow the men and women of the Northeast to face their daily tasks with the intensity of following the example of Jesus.

We will welcome him and listen to his words, certain in our hearts that the Successor of Peter has come to do this. As Jesus said to Peter, "Confirm your brothers in the faith".

We have the faith in our lands, but we are like the disciples who said to Jesus: "Lord, we believe, but make our faith grow".

Faith means a life style, a way of living, a way of daily confronting our emotions, our work, our leisure and rest, a way to show others by our own changed lives how convenient it is for contemporary man to follow Jesus simply from the heart, in order to be free and dignified.

What is the reality that the Pope will see?
The Italian Northeast with its great historical roots. From Aquileia, where the Pope will begin his visit, which has given rise to 57 local churches, of which 36 are still active, having absorbed the 21 other dioceses. Throughout history, the Church of Aquileia gave rise to dioceses in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Bavaria, to Lombardy (such as Mantua and Como), in addition to all the churches of northeast Italy.

This is the complex reality that the Pope will visit, a region which is looking to the future in the second conference of all the churches of the northeast which will take place in Aquileia on Pentecost Day in 2012.

In Venice, the Pope will celebrate Mass for all the parishes of the Northeast in San Giuliano Park - Europe's largest - to bring us all the beauty of the faith: faith in the incarnate God which plays its role in history for the good of all.

The Pope comes for all the faithful, all the baptized, but also for all men and women of good will, because our faith, which builds up the whole man, speaks to everyone.

The other two major events which are very uniquely Venetian are, first, an assembly at St. Mark's Basilica to conclude the pastoral visits which we began in 2004 and which Benedict XVI will conclude in the presence of representatives from all the parishes and all the various local associations of the Diocese of Venice.

The Pope will then move across the Grand Canal to the Basilica of the Salute which serves as the Aula Magna (Great Hall) of the Studium Generale Marcianum, and address the civilian world of Venice, which John Paul II called "a city of all mankind, because it speaks to all mankind, and all men come to visit it". Indeed, ee get more than 23 million visitors annually.

At the Salute, the Pope will speak to the world of art, culture, science, economy and labor, and tell us how best we should live and experience Venice with its great and unique history.

These will be occasions of great intensity for a visit that all the residents of a broad northeast Italy are awaiting with great anticipation. looking to the future with the perspective of their long history.

How are the preparations going?
Very well. the CET has created an organizational committee with representatives from each diocese and operating on various levels. We have been holding parochial and zonal meetings with all the priests and lay representatives to explain how this visit is a great opportunity for education and evangelization, and to emphasize the meaning and value of the spiritual leadership of the Pope, who is so often misunderstood these days as if he were some type of civilian leader.

So it is a time for catechesis and re-evangelization of our own people, which will also mobilize them, starting with the collection that we have started in all 3,500 parishes of the northeast. In this way, the Pope's visit will be supported, even financially, by the people, since Peter is immanent in every local Church. All the collections in February in the churches of the northeast will be for this purpose.

UK bishop says the Church
gained strength with Pope's visit
By Genevieve Pollock


LONDON, FEB. 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The impact of Benedict XVI's U.K. visit is only beginning to show as Catholics express renewed confidence in their mission of evangelization and launch outreach programs to celebrate this legacy.

Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, chair of the Department for Evangelisation and Catechesis for the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, told ZENIT that nearly six months after the Pope's visit, "people within our parishes are still talking about it and the outpouring of grace that was witnessed."

"We have been renewed in our joy and confidence as Catholics," he said. "Looking beyond the confines of our parishes, there is evidence of new conversation with many different groups and agencies working in service of the poor in our local communities."

The prelate reported that "recently, several hundred people met at Liverpool Hope University to reflect on the importance of Catholic Social Teaching and to explore how we can deepen our social engagement, especially with those most in need on our doorsteps."

"The Papal visit provided us with an unprecedented opportunity to present to everyone the face of contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales, and it was in the main very positively received," the bishop affirmed.

He added, "It had the effect of reawakening spirituality in many people's lives whatever their creed or background."

For example, Bishop Conry reported, the research shows that after the visit nearly 60% of people expressed the belief that "there is a place for God, religion and virtue in public life."

As well, he stated, "there was a 50% increase in favorability toward the Pope," and more than one in three people expressed the belief that the Pontiff's visit was "good for Britain."

"In this way His Holiness's visit has opened up new opportunities for sharing and dialogue," the prelate observed. "We have seen a renewal of confidence in other Christian Churches and a refreshing of dialogue between the Churches."

He added, "The Holy Father's visit was the first ever state visit of a Pope to the United Kingdom and as such he was given a platform to speak to every member of our society as a messenger of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

The bishop recalled: "Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to the general audience on Sept. 22 described the United Kingdom as a 'crossroads of culture and of the world economy.' As such it represents the entire West, he said."

"The importance of communicating with the culture represented by the United Kingdom has been underlined by the setting up of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization," Bishop Conry noted. "This is the principal challenge for the evangelization ministry in England and Wales."

He continued: "It involves engaging with new media and emerging ideas based on the country's position as a crossroads of culture.

"In his address, Pope Benedict XVI posed the challenge for evangelization in this country: How do we converse with the intellect of this civilization and communicate the unfading newness of the Gospel in which it is steeped?"

"We are challenged to engage afresh with a country which has an ancient Christian culture," the prelate affirmed.

"In recent years this culture has faded significantly," he stated. "Cardinal Godfried Danneels expressed it, in relation to Europe as a whole, as 'a deforestation of the Christian memory.'"

The bishop concluded, "It's our task to re-seed this fertile soil."

To promote long-term, practical results of Benedict XVI's visit in the Church and society, the Home Mission Desk, which forms part of the bishops' conference evangelization department, launched a Papal visit legacy program called "Some Definite Purpose."

Drawing from the homilies and addresses of the Pope during his days in the United Kingdom, the program encompasses numerous events and projects such as a day of outreach to Catholics who do not attend Mass, which will take place March 26.

As well, it offers resources to promote processions in honor of the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in June and pilgrimages to Marian shrines in July and August. In October, the faithful are invited to participate in the Little Way Week, seven days of service in the footsteps of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

The program follows six objectives: to know our purpose, to grow in confidence, to witness to our faith, to serve others, to seek and engage in dialogue, and to point to the transcendent.

Parish resources have been developed for this program and publications will be offered throughout the year to support this initiative.

Bishop Conry affirmed: "It's so important that we all consider ways of continuing the journey of 'heart speaks unto heart,' of witnessing to the joy of our faith in everyday life.

"I invite and encourage everyone to get involved and give generously of their time and talents."

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the bishops' conference, noted that "the visit of the Holy Father was a grace-filled occasion and a source of great joy for many."

He expressed the hope "that the new initiative, 'Some Definite Purpose' will support every member of the Catholic community, and those who are not Catholic, to make a positive and faith-filled contribution to life in the United Kingdom."

[This story was picked up and rewritten in abridged form for the Catholic Herald, 210/11.]

Friday, February 11, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes
World Day for the Sick

Except for the prayer card (second from right), all illustrations are from the shrines in Lourdes.
On February 11, 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, an unschooled 14-year-old peasant girl in Lourdes, southern France, experienced the first of 18 apparitions during the next year of a lady who identified herself in Bernadette's dialect as the 'Immaculate Conception'. It had only been three years earlier that Pius IX had declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Against initial skepticism and mockery, Bernadette stuck to her story, and only four years later, the Church recognized the authenticity of the visions. People began to flock to Lourdes from other parts of France and from all over the world, and numerous miracles have been attributed to Our Lady's intercession. Lourdes today is the most visited religious shrine in the world. The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes became a worldwide observance in 1907, and the Church now observes the World Day for the Sick on this anniversary.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021111.shtml


OR today.
The main story is the Holy Father's message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations next May. There is a Page 1 editorial commentary on the significance of February 11 as the anniversary of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 which established the Vatican as a sovereign state and defined the terms of its relations with Italy, on the 150th anniversary year of the unification of Italy which had resulted in the abolition of the Papal states and of the temporal power of the Popes. International news: Continuing coverage of the unresolved government crisis in Egypt; famine threatens the nations of southern Africa; and the consolidation of the stock exchanges of Toronto and London presages an era of mega-stock exchanges, in which New York, Paris and Frankfurt may be the next merger. There are also two stories on the 80th anniversary on Saturday of Vatican Radio, which was effectively the world's first global broadcast network; and two atories about the continuing controversy over the identity of Leonardo da Vinci's model for the Mona Lisa, in connection with a major exhibit in Brindisi on the significance of the masterpiece in the context of world art.


No events announced for the Holy Father today.



Last year, on this day, the Holy Father celebrated Mass and presided at the conclusion of a procession for the sick, when World Day for the Sick coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Ministry to Healthcare Workers.






- I was wondering why the Italian media yesterday ran stories headlined "No tickets needed to attend the beatification rite for John Paul II" since tickets have never been required for these open-air events in St. Peter's Square, even for so-called ticketed events like the General Audiences. It turns out it's because the usual opportunists have been advertising 'tickets' to the rites as part of their promotional advertising for whatever tour packages they are offering to customers.

Why the Pope is called
the 'Holy' Father
by Stephen Ray

Feb. 1, 2010

...A young man stood up at one of my conferences a while ago and parroted (yelled out) the Fundamentalist mantra: “The Pope is a sinner like everyone else; why do you call him ‘HOLY Father’?”

I leaned into the microphone and said to the young man in front of 2,000 people, “You should really read your Bible more carefully and do your homework before you stand up and embarrass yourself in front of 2,000 people.” I then explained why we call the Pope our Holy Father.

There are several meanings for the word “holy” and that is what the young man did not understand. If holy simply means without sin, it is hard to see why “things” are called holy. For example, the HOLY OF HOLIES is a place. Is it called holy because it has not sinned?

And what about HOLY GROUND? God told Moses to remove his sandals — he was standing on HOLY GROUND. I guess that means that this dirt had not sinned but the dirt in the next gully had sinnned. HUH?

The word HOLY in Hebrew is kodesh and means apartness, holiness, sacredness, consecration, separateness. Holiness can mean without sin. It can also means dedicated or set apart for God.

So, is the Pope holy in the sense of being completely sinless? Of course not. But the Pope is set apart for God in a special way as the HOLY Father, the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter.

Bottom line, he is the HOLY FATHER and this fits perfectly with the Bible. So much for a dumb challenge at a conference.

PS Remember that even WE are called holy. Paul considered all of us saints (literally “holy ones”) with a small “s”, as in:

---

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:1-2).

---

[Following Ray's explanation, though, the sense of 'saints' in Paul's ketter was probably more the sense of 'set apart' - being Christians and therefore privileged by faith in Christ - rather than 'holy ones'.]


Very apropos is the new papal book released by Ignatius Press on Benedict XVI's continuing call for holiness in every Christian... Here is their blurb for it:

Benedict XVI:
'Holiness is always in season'


Holiness is Always in Season
by Pope Benedict XVI
300 pp, Ignatius Press, 2011

---

This inspiring volume presents the Pope's numerous reflections on many saints arranged according to the calendar year. He shows how the life of each saint has something unique to teach us about virtue, faith, courage and love of Christ.

Dozens of saints are covered in this wonderful spiritual book. The Pope exhorts us through their lives, "Be holy! Be saints!"

For a Christian, the way to reach perfection is to strive for holiness. What is true perfection? Christ's words are clear, sublime and disconcerting: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."

To have God as our model is a dizzying thought! Yet the Church reminds us that, "All the faithful, whatever their condition or state in life, are called by the Lord to that perfect holiness."

The Church teaches us that holiness is not the concern of a privileged few, nor does it only pertain to Christians of the past.

Holiness is always a call to every Christian of every age, a challenge for anyone who wants to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI says: "Holiness never goes out of fashion; on the contrary, with the passage of time it shines out ever more brightly, expressing man's perennial effort to reach God."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote: "Holiness is not something for the extraordinary; it is not a luxury of the few. Holiness is the simple duty for each one of us."

The saints are our models and teachers in the ways of holiness. They show us that holiness is possible for us, since they experienced the same difficulties and weaknesses we do, yet persevered in achieving sanctity. The world of saints is a world of wonders, and in this book Pope Benedict XVI helps us to enter into that world.

---

See preceding page for earlier entries today, 2/11/11.





The organizers of World Youth Day in Madrid have released the program of activities for the Holy Father directly related to WYD in August. It does not yet include any meetings with the King and Qiueen of Spain, and officials of the Spanish government.

---

PROGRAM OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

WORLD YOUTH DAY

Madrid, August 18-21, 2011

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18

12:00 Arrival at Barajas Airport.
Welcome Ceremony at the State Hall.

12:40 Entrance into Madrid by Popemobile
and arrival at the Apostolic Nunciature.

19:00 Welcome Ceremony with youth at Cibeles.

In Plaza de la Independencia (near Cibeles), he will walk through the Puerta de Alcalá with youth representatives from all the continents. After this event, he will travel in Popemobile to Plaza de Cibeles.


FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

11:30 Meeting with young nuns at the Patio de los Reyes at the Monastery of El Escorial.

Meeting with 2,000 young college teachers in the Basilica.

19:30 Stations of the Cross in Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid.


SATURDAY, AUGUST 20

10:00 Mass for seminarians in the Cathedral of La Almudena, Madrid.

19:40 Visit to the Fundación Instituto San José, a center for people with disabilities run by the Hospitaller Order of St John of God.

20:30 Prayer Vigil with youth at Cuatro Vientos Air Base.


SUNDAY, AUGUST 21

09:00 Arrival at Cuatro Vientos and Popemobile tour among the crowd.

09:30 Closing Mass of WYD begins.

17:30 Meeting with World Youth Day volunteers at the IFEMA Fairgrounds.

18:30 Official Farewell Ceremony at Barajas Airport.

---

I'm so crushed!! I'll be stuck on Cape Cod for the entire month of August!!!
I hope and pray I'll have access to EWTN!!!!







Not to worry, Heike. Any TV in the US that gets cable service will have EWTN. It's Channel 146... Hopefully, you won't miss any event at WYD.... Enjoy Cape Cod! Maybe we'll be able to arrange so we can meet up.... I generally go to Maine, but I also like Rockport, Mass.

TERESA

Pope's envoy to Vietnam looks forward
to improved relations with government



Above, extreme right: Image of Our Lady of LaVang, Vietnam's patroness, whose shrine is located near the old imperial capital of Hue in central Vietnam.

Rome, Italy, Feb 10, 2011 (CNA) - Pope Benedict XVI's new representative to Vietnam is looking forward to strengthening ties between the Vatican and the local Catholic Church.

A Vatican official said that his appointment “bodes well” for the future of the Church's sometimes difficult relationship with the Vietnamese government.

On Jan. 13, Pope Benedict appointed Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli as his non-resident representative to Vietnam.

On the same day, Archbishop Girelli established contact with the Vietnamese Church and pledged his “availability both in service and collaboration for the well-being of the Church.”

“I ardently hope to strengthen the bonds of fraternal understanding and mutual assistance between this Pontifical Representation and your archdiocese,” Archbishop Girelli said in his letter to Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man of Ho Chi Minh City.

The archbishop said he hopes to be “an instrument of fellowship between local priests, Religious and lay people and among the people in Vietnam.”

The Vatican hopes that his presence will improve the Church's status in Vietnam, where the Church faces strict government limits on its participation in public life.

The communist government’s restrictions on the Church earned Vietnam a special mention in a Jan. 25 Human Rights Watch report for its “intensifying repression” of religious minorities.

“Vietnam's crackdown on religion is systematic, severe, and getting worse by the day,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Catholics, Protestants, Mennonites and Buddhists were all listed as targets of the communist regime.

The Pope announced the creation of the non-resident representative position to Vietnam during his Jan. 10 “state of the world” address to Vatican diplomats. He said his new envoy would specifically be “at the service of religious freedom.”

In the Vatican, the archbishop's nomination is seen as a further step towards establishing diplomatic relations with the Vietnamese government.

Vietnam is one of the few nations in the world with a large Catholic population where the Vatican does not enjoy a concrete working relationship.

A Vatican official who works closely with the Vietnamese Church and requested anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the situation told CNA that in recent years relations with the government have “changed quite a bit for the better.”

Archbishop Girelli's appointment “will definitely help the Church in Vietnam,” he said. The presence of the new envoy, he added, “should go a long way in further improving the situation.”

The official concluded that Archbishop Girelli's intermediary function between the Holy See and the Vietnamese government “can only bode well for the future and definitely is good for the Catholics of Vietnam.”

In the last month, Archbishop Girelli has transitioned into his position as the Pope’s top diplomat in Singapore and the apostolic delegate in Malaysia and Brunei. He had been the lead diplomatic representative to Indonesia since 2006.

A good brief backgrounder on the history and status of Catholicism in Vietnam may be found in this thread on page 13:
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/lofi/BENEDICT-XVI-NEWS-AND-COMMENTARY/D8527207...

At the Vatican, February 11 is not just a religious feast day. For the state of Vatican City, it is also its birthday as a sovereign state 82 years ago....


The Lateran Pacts:
a bird's eye view





11 FEB 2011 (RV) - On February 11th 1929, the Lateran pacts were signed by Cardinal Gasparri for the Holy See and by Benito Mussolini for the Italian State (at the time, the Kingdom of Italy). It was a major milestone in the Papacy of Pope Pius XI.

The Pacts take their name from the Lateran Apostolic Palace attached to to the Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the venue for negotiation and final signing of the pacts .

In an interview with Veronica Scarisbrick , Professor of History at the University of Virginia in the United States, Jesuit Father Gerald Fogarty focuses on these pacts and specifies the difference between the Treaty and the Concordat signed eighty two years ago:

"...The Lateran Treaty guaranteed the creation of Vatican City State, the spiritual sovereignty of the Holy See therefore. The Concordat regulated relationships between the Church and the Italian government within Italy...and then finally there was an agreement, a third pact that was signed in regard to financial remuneration and so forth ... so this definitively ended the Roman Question."

[The Roman question refers to the dispute between the Papacy and the new unified Italy, a dispute that lasted from 1861 to 1929. Italian reunification had abolished the papal states found all over Italy, but Pius IX had opposed the establishment of the Italian monarchy. For almost 10 years, the Pope 'held' Rome, protected by the troops of Napoleoo III, In 1870, the very year of the First Vatican Council, Napoleon was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. Without his protection, Italian troops took Rome and made it the capital of Italy. Pius IX never recognized the legitimacy of the Italian government. With the Lateran pacts, the Vatican also formally recognized the sovereignty of Italy over the formere papal states.]

Father Fogarty also highlights the importance of these pacts for the Universal Church : "...the little plot of land was to guard the spiritual sovereignty of the Pope and his communication with the Church throughout the world..in order to guarantee the spiritual autonomy, authority , freedom of communication of the pope there had to be some type of Catholic State guarding that , so therefore they created Vatican City State .."

Finally our historian explains how by becoming an independent state , Vatican City acquired the right to communicate with other states. That's why the day after the signing of the pacts Pius XI entrusted Guglielmo Marconi - the Italian physicist who won the 1909 Nobel Prize in physics for developing radio communications and wireless telegraphy - with the task of setting up the Vatican's radio station, one inaugurated two years later.

And so we come to the Vatican's second historic anniversary these days:

The voice of the Popes:
Around the world in 80 years




11 FEB 2011 (RV) - Vatican Radio was officially inaugurated by Pope Pius XI 80 years ago with a radio message spoken in Latin.

That momentous day on February 12th, 1931, marked the first time in the long history of the Church that Pope had sent his voice throughout the world.

Susy Hodges revisited that historic day with the original recordings of Pope Pius XI's inaugural speech and then sat down with the head of Vatican Radio's English Programme, Sean Patrick Lovett, to look back at some of the highlights of its history and learn more about its future direction.

Lovett says Pope Pius XI was very much the mover and shaker behind the radio's birth: "Pius was fascinated by this idea that you could speak into a piece of metal on this side of the world and be heard right across on the other side."

80 years later, Vatican Radio has remained in the forefront of the latest technology as Lovett goes on to say: "We were among the very first radio stations to use podcasts which we dubbed Godcasting ... but we've always been in the vanguard of looking at how technology can help us get that message across.."

Lovett says Vatican Radio played a very important role during and immediately after the Second World War by broadcasting over a million and a half messages to help reunite prisoners of war and refugees with their families.

Vatican Radio, he continued, also "was outrightly denouncing the existence of the concentration camps." During the Cold War era, Lovett spoke of how a student he knew from Latvia "told the story of how her father risked punishment from the nation's communist regime by listening to Vatican Radio ... and how "her mother would run to the front door to check if the spy was listening outside."

Lovet stresses that Vatican Radio "has always broadcast the major events in the life of the Church including the Second Vatican Council, the elections of the popes, the funerals of the popes....." and says that with the exception of Pope John Paul I all the popes have visited the radio, with Pope Paul the 6th "visiting it the day after his election."




'The voice of the Pope' at 80
carries it very well in 45 languages
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translsted from the 2/12/11 issue of


Rome in the winter of 1931. It was February 12, and two years gad gone by since the Conciliation effcted by the aLateran pacts.

As early as 1825, before the constitution of Vatican state, had statred to think of a radio station to transmit the message of the Pope and the Church. Four days after the Lateran pacts went into effect in June 1929, he gave the green light for the radio project.


At left is Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII.

Finally on Feburary 12, 80 years ago, in the station built in the hear of the Vatican Gardens, Pius IX, itnroduced by Guglielmo Marconi himself, who had led the construction project, inaugurated 'his' radio station.

Marconi said in his isntroduction: "For almost 20 centuries, the Roman Pontiff has made the word of his divine Magisterium heard in the world. But this is the first time that his voice can now be heard simultaneously in every place on the sirface of this planet".

Papa Ratti began to speak - it was 16:49 in Rome - a discourse in Latin that he had written in his own hand.

Thus began an undertaking that has brought the voice of the Popes to every corner of the world. During the years of the Second World War, during teh decades of persecution of the 'silent Church' in Easteern Europe, during Vatican II, during the deaths and elections of Popes.

Today, the radio continues its mssion, along with other communications media of the Holy See, to sustain, above all, teh flame of faith wherever it needs to be mourished.With friendship in the service of every human being.

NB: Vatican Radio broadcasts in more languages than any other radio network in the world.

And, just as Vatican Radio ends every transmission, we say, Laudetur Jesus Christus!

[More about Vatican Radio's anniversaey in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread.]

Pope Benedict's 'Court of the Gentiles'
opens today at world's oldest university
Translated from the Italian service of




Program for today's event.

12 FEB 2011 (RV) - The world's oldest university (established 1088) will fittingly host the inaugural event of Benedict XVI's contemporary Court of the Gentiles, a new Vatican foundation under the Pontifical Council for Culture to promote dialog between believers and non-believers.

It is considered the Italian launch since the international launch will take place in Paris with multiple events on March 24-25.

Fabio Colagrande interviewed Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and asked him what he thought were the possible unknowns in this initiative.

CARDINAL RAVASI: The eventual risk is that it remains an academic dialog that will simply end up looking for the least common denominator. I would expect radical questions to be confronted - on anthropology (the human condition), good and evil, life and the afterlife, love, suffering, the sense of evil - all these issues that are substantially the basis of human experience.

But I would also like some interrogation into the quality of theology, if only to make it clear that theology is not a Stone Age relic but is a discipline that has its own rules, its methodology, and a unique look at reality.

And of interest to atheists would certainly be the spirituality of the atheist, because transcendence is not simply what theology teaches, which is based on a concept of God. Transcendence is also inherent in reason itself which, by its nature, a;ways wants to reach farther beyond, and would therefore end up asking about the beyond and absolute Otherness.

There are, of course, many pathways that we could propose. but the aim is not a sort of UN of humanistic thinking which would inevitably be reduced only to a least common denominator.

Some atheists have looked at this initiative as a way of proselytizing by the Church...
The events are designed precisely to be immune to such a risk, since we know that religions by nature are not simply informative but performative - they aim to shape consciousness, they aim to project the best appeal that each faith bears.

But expecting proselytism is inherent to serious atheism. When atheism presents itself as a system of thought - think of Marx or Nietzsche - it does intend to impact on society, as Marxism and nihilism have. So this problem will always exist.

But eventually these events will not be organized by institutions, not always by the Pontifical Council for Culture, for instance. They will arise in response to various concrete situations, in which case anyone can organize such events under their own identity and setting their own perimeters and spaces.

Last year, the Pope also launched the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. How do you reconcile this dialog with non-believers, with the need to re-evangelize a de-christianized West?
The Church must also interest itself, in our day, in a sector which is fundamentally important both culturally and socially, namely the phenomenon of indifference, which must be examined both from the cultural aspect as well as from the pastoral aspect. This would be one of the concerns of the new dicastery.

The Court of the Gentiles has a different perspective. Non-believers are a cultural type with profound boundaries and we need to give them our attention. [Intellectual attention, yes, but not pastoral.]

The other consideration has to do with the difference between 'culture' and 'evangelization'. Of course, evangelization also includes culture, and must involve the culture within which it is carried out, and in that sense, the new Council would have to work with us. I have spoken with Mons. Fisichella (president of the new dicastery) and we agree on this.

But evangelization then needs to go further: starting with the kerygma, the announcement of primary values, the great Christian values in this case, it must go on to catechesis, or instruction.

Saturday, February 12, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

ST. APOLLONIA (Egypt, d Alexandria 249), MARTYR
One of the early martyrs of the Church, she is thought to have been a deaconess quite advanced
in age at the time of her death. In the first wave of persecutions against Christians under
Emperor Philip, Christians fled Alexandria after some of them were stoned to death. Apollonia
was captured by a mob who beat her and knocked out all her teeth. They then built a fire and
threatened to burn her unless she denounced her God. Legend has it she asked them to give her
a minute to think about it, then jumped into the fire herself. She is considered the patron of
dentists, and her images generally show her with pincers holding teeth. In the Middle Ages, she
was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers who were saints invoked for help in specific diseases.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021211.shtml


OR today.
Its main story about the Egyptian crisis looks absurd because the issue went to press before the announcement by the Egyptian Army's supreme council that President Mubarak had resigned. But the headline used - 'The army takes control' - was right, even if it was referring to the warning given to the protesters on the 18th day of protests to go home while the army would work on the reforms they demanded. And they did come through on the #1 demand: The day after Mubarak addressed the nation to say he would not step down but would give broader powers to his vice president, the army apparently persuaded him to go, touching off wild jubilation in Cairo.... Meanwhile, Tunisia which expelled its president, continues to be plagued by protests; and anti-government protests which had started in Algeria before the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings seem to be stepping up now. A Page 1 essay recalls Franz Werfel's 1941 book Song of Bernadette and its effect in propagating the story of Lourdes and faith in the miracles resulting from the Virgin Mary's intercession. In the inside pages, an article by Cardinal Ravasi on the Italian launching today of the Court of the Gentiles.



PAPAL EVENTS TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)

- Cardinal Ricardo J. Vidal, emeritus Archbishop of Cebu (Philippines) and his successor,
Mons. Antonio R. Rañola, formerly auxiliary bishop.

- Mons. Antonio Mennini, newly-named Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain.

- Participants in the General Assembly of the Fraternità Sacerdotale dei Missionari di San Carlo Borromeo
(priestly order of the Comunione e Liberazione movement), celebrating its 25th anniversary. Address in Italian.

I'm posting this here because few of this kind of story ever get reported, by deliberate omission, I think, of any story that is not negative for the Church - and I may perhaps open a thread just to archive the more significant reports about actions taken on known charges of sexual abuse...


Vatican has defrocked
three Boston-based priests for abuse
By Conor Lodge and Carla Gualdron

Saturday, February 12, 2011


The Vatican has ousted three men from the priesthood at their request years after they were accused of sex offenses, the Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.

“These men are no longer to function, or present themselves as priests, with the exception of offering absolution to the dying,” said archdiocese spokeswoman Kelly Lynch.

In 2002, Frederick J. Cartier was accused of sexually abusing a minor in the early 1970s. By the time the allegation was received, Cartier had been out of ministry for more than 20 years, the archdiocese said.

Louis J. Govoni was accused in 2002 of sexually abusing a minor in the mid-1970s. He has been absent without permission from the archdiocese since 1978.

Frederick Guthrie took a leave from the archdiocese in July 2001 and later that same year was charged in New Hampshire with using a computer to solicit a minor. He pleaded guilty.

All three men sought through a voluntary process to be removed from the clerical state, the archdiocese said.

“Although it will not help the victims regain what has been stolen from them in the past, it will help prevent it from happening again in the future,” said lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who a decade ago represented a client who alleged he had been abused by Govoni at the age of 15.


My problem with this story is that, despite the fact that two journalists share the byline, they give us ver little information. None at all about how these cases were handled exactly. It appears one of the priests was criminally charged, but what about the one who simply went AWOL, and the one who had been out od the diocese for 20 years before charges were presented? In each of the three cases, what was the diocese's action according to canon law once it learned of the accusations, what did it do to inform the police, did a trial ensue, and what was the verdict? These facts are all essential to the story. The defrocking is a formality that follows after due diligence has been done in both canon and criminal law....

If the story were otherwise - i.e., the priests continue to be priests despite their offenses - you can be sure we would have been provided by the reporters with a lengthy and detailed account of their misdeeds and the corresponding misdeeds of the diocese and the Vatican!

Compare the sketchy story with the details spelled out in this editorial about a more notorious case in the Boston area to see the disparity. not to mention the seemingly ingrained negative prejudice of the writer against the Church...


A verdict reached,
but will change come?
Editorial

Friday February 11, 2011

The combination of horrified victims and stonewalling dioceses have for decades created a cone of silence around pedophile priests, enabling them to act with impunity and escape punishment for their acts.

The courageous testimony of the victims of Gary Mercure shattered that silence this past week in Berkshire Superior Court but full resolution will not come, and future incidents will not be prevented, unless Church officials from the diocese level to the Vatican fully confront the problem of pedophile priests.

A jury needed less than two hours to convict the 62-year-old Mr. Mercure on three counts of forcible rape and one count of indecent assault and battery Thursday.

Although the crimes dated back to 1986 and 1989, the specificity of the former altar boys in describing the assaults they experienced during day trips to the Berkshires from Mr. Mercure's former church in Queensbury, New York was striking.

Assertions by the defense that the victims' testimony was somehow and for some reason fabricated with the assistance of a support group for victims of clergy abuse crumbled under the sheer weight of detail brought forth from the victims by the prosecutors, First Assistant District Attorney Paul J. Caccaviello and Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey.

While the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany issued a statement decrying the crimes of Mr. Mercure as "sinful, criminal and reprehensible" and praising the victims for their courage, no one will likely ever know how much enabling Mr. Mercure received from his superiors there.

The pattern established at dioceses in Boston, most notoriously, but throughout the state, nation and as was learned in January, in Ireland, has been to shuffle pedophile priests around, covering for them while discrediting victims and blaming the media for pursuing the truth. There's no reason to believe that Albany was any different in the 1980s.

Pope Benedict XVI has appeared recently to be trying to come to grips with the problem of pedophile priests but for a Church whose insularity is deep-rooted, as are its homophobia and resistance to change, progress is likely to be incremental.

Justice triumphed in Berkshire County, but the victims will never be the same. Only the Catholic Church, by overcoming deep-rooted institutional resistance and arrogance, can assure that there will be no more victims to come.

Countdown to JON-2:
Coming out on March 11
by Andrea Tornielli
Adapted and translated from

Feb. 12, 2011

The second volume of Benedict XVI's JESUS OF NAZARETH, focusing on the Lord's passion, death and resurrection, will be published simultaneously on March 11 in its German, Italian and English editions.

It is known that the Pope is already working on a third volume dedicated to the infancy and childhood of Jesus.

The Vatican publishing house, in charge of the Italian edition, has ordered an initial 300,000 copies. Herder is publishing the original German manuscript, and Ignatius Press is printing the US edition.

Published under his baptismal name of Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope has said that the undertaking is the record of his own 'personal search for the face of Jesus' and is not part of his Magisterium, saying in the Foreword to Volume I that 'everyone is free to contradict me'.

His objective is to show that the Jesus of the Gospel is historical Jesus, Son of God, who was incarnated and spent 33 years on earth, in the land of Galilee and Judea, then died and resurrected for the salvation of mankind.

Volume II will be officially presented at the Vatican Press Office on March 10 by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. There will be a lay presentor, possibly Claudio Magris (Italian scholar, author, literary critic, professor of German literature, and journalist, born 1939).

Presenting Volume I in 2007 were Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Valdesian Protestant Minister Daniel Garrone, and philosopher Massimo Cacciari.

With this book, Benedict XVI will have published three non-Magisterial books in the first five years of his Pontificate. [He finished Vol. 2 in January last year, but the publication was delayed in favor of his book-length interview with Peter Seewald published last November.}

Light of the world was an instant bestseller, much appreciated for the simplicity with which Papa Ratzinger, without shirking any questions, spoke of the thorniest issues including his controversial Regensburg lecture and the pedophile scandal exploited by the media against the Church.

Last summer, the Pope indicated he had started work on the third volume of the Jesus book which will be primarily based on Matthew and Luke's accounts of the Annunciation and the birth, infancy and childhood of Jesus.

On her blog today, Angela Ambrogetti has a story about Mons. Georg Ratzinger which contains some material I have not seen before. Some of it was published when the Pope's brother received a Musica Sacra award last October in Rome, but there is a lengthy interview from INSIDE THE VATICAN magazine, whose original I cannot find online. (Unfortunately, for some time now, ITV has stopped publishing its monthly news flashes and even its publisher-editor's blog 'The Moynihan Report', cannot now be found online - I think he has completely converted it to a newsletter feed - and he has also not filed anything for ZENIT in several months)... Anyway, problematic sources notwithstanding, the GR interview from Ambrogetti deserves translating back to English....


Georg Ratzinger:
'Home is where my brother is'
Translated from

February 12, 2011


Even today, Musica Sacra is a way to approach music in general, according to Mons. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother, who was Domkapellmeister of Regensburg Cathedral and music director of the Regensburg Boys Choir for three decades.



Last October 25, he was given an award by the Rome-based Fondazione pro musica ed arte sacra, which sponsors the annual International Festival of Sacred Art and Music, dedicated in 2010 to Benedict XVI to mark the fifth year of his Pontificate.

Since his brother became Pope, Mons. Georg has visited Rome regularly, and describes his arrivals in Rome: "It is always a moment that is both festive and solemn when I get off the airplane...Then, at the Vatican, there is always this joyful welcome from the Memores, the secretaries, Suor Christine [the nun who acts as his nurse companion whenever he is in Italy] ... Then I go to visit my brother in his rooms. It is our first meeting for the occasion, and for me it is like coming home....Home is wherever I meet my brother, no matter where. And I also feel that his pontifical family has also become my family... Every morning, my first thought is for him, that he may have the health and the strength that he needs to carry out his mission".

Last week, Mons Georg [he turned 87 last January 15 - he usually arrives in Rome a few days before the New Year and stays to spend his birthday with the Pope before returning to Regensburg] had knee surgery in a Regensburg hospital and is now carrying out rehabilitation therapy, hoping to be able to visit his brother as soon as possible.

The bond between the brothers is deep and strong, as the older brother recounts to Inside the Vatican magazine in a face-to-face interview:

What is your first memory of your brother?
That's difficult to answer. I remember very little of his birth because I was very young [he would have been 3!][, nor was I present for his baptism because he was baptized right away, and we older siblings did not go because it was such a cold day.

Then suddenly there was this little baby in our daily life, and I really did not know what to do with such a small baby. Later, when we were a little older, we two brothers played a lot together and did so many things together. Initially, I was more with my sister because we were older, but in time, this intense relation with my younger brother developed. we would build the Christmas creche together, and we frequently had these spiritual games, which we called 'playing at being parish priest'. Our sister did not take part. We would play at saying Mass, and we wore chasubles which our mother had the dressmaker make for us. We took turns being celebrant and acolyte.

Above, panel in the room devoted to Joseph's early years in the Marktl birth-house museum; right, set of cruets that the brothers used when they played Mass.


Then the seminary, our passion for liturgy and music and study... It was a continuous development. Even as children, we lived with this love of liturgy, which developed in the seminary, along with sacred music. Everything came together...

In those early years, were you concerned or did you hope that your younger brother would follow your example?
There was no reason for concern. I was always interested in whatever he did, but calmly.

What happened after you were both ordained and said your first Mass?
We were separated for three years before that, because in 1947, Joseph went to Munich for his studies, and we came back together in Freising in 1950 (one year before their ordination).

Following our ordination, we were assigned to neighboring parishes in Munich from November 1951 to October 1952. Our parishes were separated only by a park - I was at the church of St. Ludwig, and Joseph at the Church of the Most Precious Blood.

Then, he accepted to become a professor, partly because this was helpful to the family. In 1955, our parents went to live with him in Freising, and in 1956, our sister, too, so whenever I had free time, I visited the family in Freising. He became the reference point for the family, and that was convenient for all of us.

And when he became a bishop and cardinal?
Before that, we were all separated when Joseph went to Bonn, then Munster and Tuebingen. Eventually, we all ended up together again in Regensburg, with me at the Cathedral, and Joseph at the University. [By this time, both parents had died - in the early 60s, when Joseph was teaching in Bonn].

It was a very beautiful time, when all three of us were together. Then, he was named archbishop and he transferred to Munich, but the distance was not so far. However, it was lack of time that kept us apart because of his duties.

And his transfer to Rome?
In effect, I felt it as quite a loss when he moved to Rome [with their sister] because I knew that his responsibilities would mean we would have less contact. So three times a year I went to Rome. And then in the summer and at Christmastime, they would come to Regensburg. It meant a lot to him to be able to come home to his own house in Pentling. We made it a point to see each other at other times, like at Ascension (after Pentecost), when he came home for a spiritual retreat in some convent, and in the summer, when we would take vacations together - in Bad Hofgastein (Austria), in Bressanone, in Linz.

What do you remember best about those times when you were mostly apart?
The most beautiful moment was always when he arrived from Rome. Mr Kuehnel would pick him up from the airport in Munich [and dricve him to Regensburg], and when I was still choirmaster, he would arrive to a festive dinner. This marked the start of 'vacation' and it was wonderful. Later, after I retired, we would have this dinner in my home in Lutzgasse. It was a real rite of homecoming, even if this time, there was no performing choir. It was always a dinner with all the things he likes best to eat.

And now, how does the Pope welcome you to Rome? is there a similar 'rite'?
It is always a moment that is both festive and solemn from the time I get off the plane. They come to fetch me with a car that drives up to the airplane ramp, with a police escort. Everyone is very kind, and I can proceed directly to the Vatican. I think of all the trouble for those who have to leave the airport by public transport, and here I am, being received almost ceremonially.

Then there is always this joyous welcome from the Memores, the secretaries, Suor Christine, who make my arrival at the Vatican a beautiful experience. I proceed to visit my brother in his rooms. That is our first encounter for the occasion, and for me, it is like coming home. It is a familial situation with the Memores and the others, when we sit down to exchange news and chat.

For me, home is where my brother is, wherever that may be. And I feel that the pontifical family has also become my family.

Do you talk about the past?
With Maria, we were always a trio. Now we are incomplete. When she was with us, her presence itself was a reminder of our parents. Now that she is no longer with us, remembering her, we remember our parents.

Tell us how you learned your brother had been elected Pope...
During the Conclave, I never once thought that he could become Pope! I was convinced it was not even possible because he was already too old. I was thinking of Pope John XXIII who was one year younger when he was elected, at a time when the college of cardinals was not so large because Pius XII had not created many cardinals, so there was a limited choice. But 2005 was completely different, so I never expected anything of the sort!

And when the announcement came, my first reaction was sadness, because I realized that as Pope, his personal and private life would be taken away.

What I did not realize was that I could maintain a very personal relationship with my brother even if he was Pope, and that I could meet him as often as I do now, with all the privileges that I am given coming and going. Everything has been made convenient for me to meet my brother whenever.

When you speak of Bavaria, is there a nostalgia for his homeland?
It's not really nostalgia. One grows, and one matures. Of course, he is interested about Regensburg, our neighbors, all his friends and acquaintances from earlier days, etc. He is always interested about them.

Many of us are curious: Does the Pope still have cats?
Yes. We both love cats. When we lived in Hufschlag (outside Traunstein), we each had our own cats, as well as those who came to the garden. We love cats, but now, the only cats are in Pentling. [So there are Ratzinger cats other than Chico who belongs to the neighbors?]

What do you think about most often for your brother?
Every day I pray that he may have the health and the strength that he needs in order to carry out his mission.

About music, do you still play music together?
Not together, because I can no longer read sheet music and can only play music that I know by memory....We played four hands when we were younger but not very much.

How is the Pope as a pianist?
He certainly had much talent but he did not develop it because he dedicated more time to his books. Also whenever I played, it inhibited him from playing.


Ultimately, one always ends up talking music with Mons. Ratzinger, and of music education - he believes that today, sacred music has not just artistic value but also didactic value, for music appreciation.

"Certainly it is still important to speak about sacred music today," he said last October. "For those who live in the countryside, it is often their first contact with music other than pop or folk. For many, their musical knowledge begins with sacred music".

He believes that those who perform and promote sacred music have a duty to make others discover the very sense of music itself. In addition, he says, "sacred music makes liturgy more communicative, more beautiful, more joyous, and is thus very important in the liturgy".

He loves to bring up the example of the Viennese bass Walter Berry, one of the great basses of the 20th century, "whose wonderful voice was discovered when he was singing for his parish choir".

Despite his 87 years and near-blindness, Georg Ratzinger preserves the fresh enthusiasm of youth when he speaks of music.

Benedict XVI to San Carlo missionaries:
'Priesthood is a service'




12 FEB 2011 (RV) - The presence of priestly vocations is a sign of the vitality of Christian life, and community living is a way to immerse oneself in the reality of the communion indicated by Christ.

These were some of the themes which Pope Benedict XVI reflected on this morning at an audience for the Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo on the 25th anniversary of its establishment.

The Fraternity was founded in 1985 by Monsignor Massimo Camisasca under the charism of the founder of the Comunione e Liberazione movement, the late Msgr. Luigi Giussani, and was recognized as a Society of Apostolic Life by Pope John Paul II in 1999.

In his remarks to the Fraternity, the Holy Father noted the ecclesial purpose of the priesthood. “The priesthood is not an end unto itself,” he said, “it was desired by God in function of the birth and life of the Church.”

“The glory and the joy of the priesthood,” said Pope Benedict, “is to serve Christ and His mystical Body.”

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

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

It is with great joy that I experience this encounter with you, priests and seminarians of the Fraternita San Carlo, who are gathered for the 25th anniversary of its birth.

I greet and thank your founder and superior-general, Mons. Massimo Camisasca, his council, and all of you, their parents and friends, who form a crown for the community.

In particular, I wish to greet the Archbishop of the Church of the Mother of God in Moscow, Mons. Paolo Pezzi; and Don Julian Carron, president of the Communione e Liberazione brotherhood, who are symbols of the fruits and the root of the work of the Fraternita San Carlo.

This occasion brings to mind my long friendship with Mons. Luigi Gussani, and testifies to the fruitfulness of his charism.

At this time, i wish to respond to two questions which our encounter suggests: What is the place of the ordained priesthood in the life of the Church? What is the place of community living in the priestly experience?

Your birth from the Comunione and Liberazione movement and your vital link to the ecclesial experience that it represents presents us with a truth that has been reaffirming itself with special clarity since the 1980s and which has found a significant expression in the theology of the Second Vatican Council.

I refer to the fact that Christian priesthood is not an end in itself. It was intended by Jesus as a function of the birth and life of the Church.

Every priest, therefore, can say to the faithful, paraphrasing St. Augustine: Vobiscum christianus, pro vobis sacerdos - Christian with you, a priest for you.

The glory and the joy of priesthood is to serve Christ and his mystical Body. It represents a very beautiful and singular vocation within the Church - a vocation that renders Christ present, because priests participate in the one and eternal priesthood of Christ.

The presence of priestly vocations is a sure sign of the truth and vitality of a Christian community. In fact, God is always calling on us, even to the priesthood. There is no true and fruitful growth in the Church without an authentic priestly presence which sustains and nourishes her.

Therefore I am grateful to all those who dedicate their energies to the formation of priests and the reform of priestly life. Like all the Church, indeed, the priest needs to renew himself continually, finding in the life of Jesus the most essential forms of his own being.

The various possible ways for this renewal cannot overlook some irrenunciable elements. First of all, a profound education in meditation and prayer, lived as a dialog with the resurrected Lord present in his Church.

In the second place, a study of theology which allows an encounter with Christian truth as a synthesis linked to the life of the individual and the community. Only a sapiential attitude can value the power that the faith has to illuminate life and the world. ;leading continually to Christ, Creator and Savior.

The Fraternise San Carlo has underscored, during the brief but intense course of its history, the value of community living. I have often spoken of this before and after having been called to Peter's Chair.

"It is important that priests do not live isolated somewhere, but should always stay together in small communities, sustaining each other and thus experiencing being together in their service to Christ and in renunciation. for the kingdom of heaven, and that they should always be aware of this" (Light of the World).

The urgencies of today are plain before our eyes. I think, for instance, of the lack of priests. Living in community is no a strategy to respond to this need, Nor is it, in itself, just a form of aid for solitude and human weakness.

It can be all this, certainly, but only if fraternal living is conceived and lived as a way to be immersed in the reality of communion. Life in common is, in fact, an expression of the gift of Christ which is the Church, and it was prefigured in the apostolic community which gave rise to priests.

Indeed, no priest administers anything which his his alone, but participates with his brothers in a sacramental gift that comes directly from Jesus.

Thus community living expresses an aid that Christ himself gives to our existence, calling us, through the presence of our brothers, to a configuration to his person that is ever more profound. Living with others means accepting the need for one's continuing conversion, and above all, to discover the beauty of such a way, the joy of humility, of penitence, but also of conversation, of reciprocal forgiveness, of mutual support. Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum - 'How good it is, how pleasant, where the people dwell as one!' (Sal 133,1).

No one can take on the regenerating power of community living without prater, without looking at the experience and teaching of the saints, particularly the Fathers of the Church, without a sacramental life that is lived with fidelity.

If one does not enter into the eternal dialog that the Son has with the Father in the Holy Spirit, no authentic life in common is possible. One must be with Jesus in order to be with others. This is the heart of mission.

In the company of Christ and one's brothers, every priest can find the energies he needs to take care of his flock, to be responsible for the spiritual and material needs that he encounters, to teach using words that are always new, dictated by love, the eternal truths of the faith for which even our contemporaries thirst.

Dear brothers and sisters, continue to go forth in the world to bring to all the communion that is born in the heart of Christ! May the experience of the Apostles with Jesus always serve as a beacon to illuminate your priestly life.

While encouraging you to continue the path that you have set in the past years, I gladly impart my blessing to all the priests and seminarians of the Fraternita San Carlo, to the missionaries of San Carlo, and to your families and friends.

---

Against the 'know-all' theologians:
Cardinal Kasper echoes the Pope
that the crisis of the Church
is a crisis of faith, not structures
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from

February 12, 2011

The manifesto Kirche 2001 signed by some 200 German, Austrian and Swiss theologians (up from the original 143 signatories), which asks the Catholic Church to undertake ‘an indispensable renewal’ - by which they mean a new way of exercising the Petrine ministry, ordination of women priests and the abolition of priestly celibacy, among other proposals - isshaking the Catholic Church.
[What is Rodari saying? Sometimes, he is just as bad as John Allen, in their penchant for using words loosely, or exaggerating! As if the opinions of 200 out of 1.2 billion Catholics could ‘shake’ the Church! For instance, few in the Anglophone media and blogosphere have picked it up so far, not even Allen who is usually quite gung-ho about extra-Anglophone Church affairs. This memorandum will be a seven-day mini-wonder - and that's about up by now - and then it will go into the dustbin of history like the Cologne Declaration against John Paul II by another 200 German-speaking theologians in 1989.]

After the invective by the German journalist Peter Seewald, for whom the signatories are nothing more than a ‘know-it-all minority’, it is the turn of an icon from 1990s Germany, Cardinal Walter Kasper, who expressed himself to the Frankfuerter Allgemeine Zeitung about the Memorandum.

Minister for ecumenism from John Paul II’s time and until recently for Benedict XVI, Kasper has usually been averse to expressing himself about the subject of Church reforms, especially if in a way that is different from the insitutional position of the Roman Curia,. But Kasper now attacks the ‘innovative’ theologians.

He asks: “How is it posssible to speak of a crisis in the Church without citing what Johann Baptist Metz described decades ago as ‘the crisis of God’? [Metz was a progressive theologian, and ‘the crisis of God’ has always been at the center of Joseph Ratzinger’s concerns as well.]

Kasper asks specifically: “Are these theologians really convinced that the structure of the Church is the main problem for Catholics today? Is the contrary not true instead? Namely, that the crisis of the Church is a crisis in man’s faith in God?" [But that has always been the problem with so-called ‘progressive’ Christians. They worry about secondary concerns without ever thinking of the main thing – God!]

Kasper’s line is, in fact, Joseph Ratzinger’s – who, in the face of the Church’s difficulties, has never responded by saying her structures must be changed, but by seeking to illuminate the faithful with words and example.

Kasper was recently cited by the German papers for having signed, in 1970, along with Ratzinger, Karl Rahner, Otto Semmeroth and Karl Lehmann, a private recommendation to the German bishops’ conference. The newspapers claimed that the theologians (nine of them) had recommended the abolition of the requirement for priestly celibacy.

Not so, says Kasper. “All we asked was that discussion be opened on this issue,” he said two days ago. And to FAZ, he said, “This is a battle that has been long overcome. These claims have been presented and reaffirmed many times, and the discussion having been opened, the arguments have been repeated ad nauseam”.

He continued: “There are churches, for instance (i.e., Protestant churches) who have for some time adopted the measures that these theologians are demanding of the Catholic church. I have been saying all along that the experience of these churches should be looked at and examined. I ask myself how can these theologians miss the fact that the churches which have decided to ordain women and to recognize homosexual unions now find themselves, precisely because of such liberalization, in a greater crisis than the Catholic church itself?”

[Again, it's the familiar affliction of progressivist theologians, bishops and priests since Vatican-II: They interpret the idea of a Church 'open to the world' to mean that she should 'protestantize' herself, as indeed the progressivists tried to do with their idea of liturgical reform in the Novus Ordo - even if, fortunately, it is possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo by minimizing its protestantizing aspects, particularly, the mistaken idea that the Mass is a social occasion for kumbaya fellowship rather than a reverent ritual re-creation of Christ's sacrifice for mankind.]

He says Catholics should look ‘higher’, or at least look at the local Catholic churches that are not having a crisis like that of the Church in Germany - for example, he says, the churches in the United States and in Italy. “Is it not a fact that the German churches can learn from them?”

“If the churchgoers in Germany have declined by two-thirds since the 1950s, it means that the Church needs a more vigorous faith, not a weaker one. It is to such an effort that one would ask our protesting theologian colleagues to contribute with all their energies”.


Here is a commentary from one of the bloggers at Religion en Libertad, the Spanish Catholic site:

The Pope, the theologians
and priestly celibacy
Translated from


February 9, 2011

One has to go back to 1989 for a manifesto so 'mediatically' important for its invectives questioning the discipline and the faith of the Catholic Church by some who claim to be part of the Church. That 1989 manifesto signed by more than 200 theologians was called the 'Cologne Declaration'.

In the same direction, the document Kirche 2011: Ein notwendige Aufbruch has found wide echo in the media that generally serves as loudspeakers for all kinds of diatribes against the Church.

Originally published February 4 in Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the memorandum was quickly presented by the secular media as the majority sentiment not just of all theologians but also of the Catholic faithful.

No one bothered to point out that the signatories were less in number than in 1989 - 143. (And it is emblematic that not even the major media-loudspeakers could get the number right: Konradsblatt said 150, La Stampa said 160, Temoignage chretien, 150; El Pais, 'about 144'.) [NB: Recent news reports claim the number of signatories to the Memorandum has now passed 200.]

Why all the fluster? Two reasons: because of who the signatories are, i.e., 'Catholic' theologians; and what they demand.

And what are these demands? Substantially six points:
1. Participation of the faithful in the choice of parish priests and bishops, i.e., 'democratization' of the Church
2. Married priests and women priests
3. New ecclesial administrative jurisdictions
4. Acceptance of divorce and same-sex unions
5. Rejection of moral strictness, i.e., a more lenient morality
6. Less traditionalist liturgical celebrations [Funny these dissidents should consider the Bugnini Mass 'traditionalist' in any way!]

In the face of the media hue and cry, the German bishops' conference issued a clarification on the same day, saying that the memorandum referred to "ideas that have been debated with frequency".

Indeed, the points about the Memorandum most exploited by the media are the very same that have come to form part and parcel of the dominant prejudices cultivated against the Church. These cliches have obviously migrated as well to those who pass for professors of Catholic theology. Perhaps this is the most significant aspect here. [I wouldn't say the ideas have exactly 'migrated' to the theology faculties. Since Vatican II, one has the impression that many theology faculties and seminaries, in Europe especially, became breeding grounds for this kind of dissent against the bimilennial doctrine and practices of the Church.]

It also bears noting that it is precisely German, Austrian and Swiss theologians - who are mostly liberal or progressivist - who seem to have forgotten the Cologne Declaration. Which has passed into history more as an anecdotal memory which was over-exploited by the media rather than a sincere effort for dialog based on Biblical truth as the basis of theology.

These dissenting theologians have to decide whether they really want what is good for the Church or simply to make headlines for a few days.

And they must not forget that the Church is a gift from God, and not a human construction that one shapes as he pleases.

In the recent interview-book Light of the World, Benedict XVI had this to say:

---

Celibacy is always, shall we say, an affront to what man normally thinks. It is something that can only be done, and is only credible, if there is a God and if celibacy is my doorway into the Kingdom of God.

In this sense, celibacy is a special kind of sign. The scandal that it provokes consists precisely in the fact that there are people who believe these things. By this token, the scandal has a positive side.

---

About women's ordination, his interviewer provides this background on the recent Magisterium in this manner [Mujica mistakenly attributes this part to the Pope]:

---

SEEWALD: The impossibility of women's ordination in the Catholic Church has been clearly decided by a 'non possumus' of the supreme Magisterium, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith laid this down under Paul VI in the 1976 document [CG]Inter insigniores, and John Paul II reinforced it in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis.

In this document, speaking in virtue of his office about the 'divine Constitution of the Church', he writes "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church faithful".

---

The Pope replies:

---

John Paul II's formulation is very important. The Church has 'no authority' to ordain women. The point is not that we are saying we don't want to, but that we can't.

The Lord gave the Church a form with the Twelve, and, as their successors, with the bishops and the priests. This form of the Church is not something we ourselves have produced. It is how he constituted the Church.

Following this is an act of obedience. This obedience may be arduous in today's situation. But it is important precisely for the Church to show that we are not a regime based on arbitrary rule.

We cannot do what we want. Rather, the Lord has a will for us, a will to which we adhere, even though doing so is arduous and difficult in this culture and Civilization.

---

Seen in this way [from the Pope's point of view, i.e., the sensum ecclesiae], the memorandum appears to be no more than a chance to seize the headlines and a manifestation of theologians who do not accept the Magisterium.

Fortunately, most theologians not only accept the MagiSterium but live it. [Is it accurate to say 'most theologians'? Perhaps, it may be more accurate to say 'most priests' - and I hope it is not just wishful thinking on my part... Someone recently referred to these dissenting theologians as 'autistic'. Very appropriate, I believe. They live in their own utterly insulated, self-enclosed world with other self-absorbed navel-contemplating selfish types who are out of touch with reality because they believe their world is the only reality possible. ]

February 13, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

ST. EGIDIO MARIA-DI-SAN-GIUSEPPE (Giles Mary-of-St. Joseph) (Italy, 1729-1812)
Franciscan brother
Born Francesco Antonio Pontillo to a poor family in Taranto, southern Italy, the future
saint was orphaned early but worked to provide for his family before joining the Franciscans.
For lack of education, he remained a brother and was assigned to a hospice in Naples
where he served for 53 years as cook, porter and official beggar for the hospice. While
gathering food for his community, he shared his bounty with the poor. In the streets of
Naples, he became known for comforting those who were troubled and preaching repentance.
In time, he was called 'consoler of Naples' and even nobles sought him out for counsel.
He died at prayer when he was 83, and huge crowds came to his funeral. Though he was
beatified in 1888, he was not canonized until 1996, when a 1937 remission of uterine
cancer in a woman, who was still alive, was recognized as a miracle for his canonization.
The only photo of him online is the image used by the Vatican at his canonization. Many
lists of Franciscan saints online still do not carry his name.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021311.shtml


OR today.

'Egypt without Mubarak' is the main story on Page 1. The papal story is the Holy Father's address to the priests and seminarians of the Missionaries of San Carlo Borromeo. There is an essay on the mystery of the Incarnation as part of a series of reflections on the Pope's Apostoic Letter Ubicumque et semper creating the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. Ohte Page 1 items: Algerians defy government ban on demonstrations and government security measures to demand the resignation of longtime President Bouteflika - Algiers is in security lockdown; and dozens are killed in new clashes between Sudanese government forces and the rebel forces in now independent South Sudan. In the inside pages, another excerpt from Cardinal Mauro Piacenza's discourse on the Magisterium of the modern Popes regarding priestly celibacy, this time from John Paul II.


PAPAL EVENTS TODAY

Sunday Angelus - Further reflections by the Holy Father on the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus proclaims the supreme commandment of love superseding all previous laws of the faith. The Pope said charity was most wanting -a lack of fraternal solidarity - in the case of the four gypsy children burned to death when a gypsy camp outside Rome was set to fire recently.

ANGELUS TODAY



Pope laments death by fire
of children in gypsy camp



Top left: The Mircea family, who lost four children in the fire.

Pope Benedict during his Sunday Angelus spoke of four Roma, or gypsy, children who died in a fire last week in Rome. The three boys and one girl ranging in age between 4 and 11 died when their tiny shack was consumed in flames in an unauthorized encampment on the outskirts of the city.

The Holy Father said the incident forces us to ask ourselves whether a society more united and fraternal, more consistent in love - that is, more Christian – could not have avoided such a tragic event.

He said this question applies to many other painful situations, less or more well-known, that occur every day in our cities and our countries.

The Holy Father’s remarks came during his discourse on the Gospel of the day, which was the Sermon on the Mount.

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

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

In the liturgy this Sunday. the reading of the so-called Sermon on the Mount by Jesus, which occupies Chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew's Gospel.

After the Beatitudes, which institute his program for living, Jesus proclaims the new Law, his Torah, as our brother Jews call it.

In effect, the Messiah, upon his coming, would also have brought the definitive revelation of the Law, and it is precisely this that Jesus declares: "“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill".

Turning to his disciples, he adds: "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5, 17,20).

But what does this 'fullness' of the law of Christ consist of, and what is this 'superior' justice that he demands?

Jesus explains it through a series of antitheses between the old commandments and the way he re-proposes them. he begins each time by saying, "You have heard that it was said..." and then affirms, "But I say to you..."

For example: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you,whoever is angry with brother will be liable to judgment" (Mt 5, 21-22).

And so on, six times. This way of speaking made a great impression on the people, who were frightened, because that 'I say to you' was equivalent to claiming for himself the authority of God himself, the source of the Law.

Jesus's novelty essentially consisted in the fact that he himself 'filled' the commandments with the love of God, with the power of the Holy spirit who dwells in him.

And we, through our faith in Christ, can open up to the action of the Holy Spirit which makes us capable of living God's love. That is why every precept becomes true as a demand of love, and all the commandments come together in one commandment: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

"Love is the fulfillment of the law," wrote St, Paul (Rm 13,10). In the face of this demand, for example, the pitiful case of the four gypsy children who died last week in a suburb of this city, when their shack burned up, makes us ask ourselves whether a society that is more fraternally supportive, more consistent in its love, therefore, more Christian, could have avoided such a tragic event.

This question is valid for so many other sorrowful events, that are more or less known to all, which take place daily in our cities and towns.

Dear friends, perhaps it was not by chance that the first great preaching of Jesus is called the Sermon on the Mount. Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Law of God and bring it to the chosen people.

Jesus is the Son of God who came down from heaven to bring us to heaven, to God's level, along the way of love. Indeed, he himself is the way. We only have to follow him in order to put God's will into practice and enter his kingdom, into eternal life.

Only one creature arrived at the peak of that mountain - the Virgin Mary. Thanks to her union with Jesus, her righteousness was perfect, and that is why we invoke her as Speculum justitiae - Mirror of Justice.

Let us entrust ourselves to her, so she may guide our steps in fidelity to the law of Christ.

After the prayers, this is what he said in English:

I extend warm greetings to the English-speaking pilgrims present at this Angelus prayer.

"Immense is the wisdom of the Lord", we hear proclaimed in our liturgy today. As the Blessed Virgin Mary entrusted her entire life to that wisdom, may we too place our lives completely under the guidance of God’s law of love.

Entrusting you to Mary’s motherly care, I invoke upon you and your families God’s blessings of peace and joy.

---

Missionline is the digital news journal of the Pontificio Istituto Missioni Esteri (PIME) - the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions - which is also the mother organization of AisaNews.

Of course, the Pope was right!
New Harvard study on Zimbabwe proves
sexual fidelity brought down
HIV infection rate by 13%
Translated from

February 12, 2011

Critics who attacked the Pope because of statements he made in March 2009 about the most effective AIDS prevention strategies should radically review the facts shown in a recently published study by Harvard public health scholar and professor Daniel Halperin.

His research once again shows that Benedict XVI was right in underscoring the importance of better education first - rather than the use of 'technical' means of prevention like condoms - in order to make any headway in the fight against the spread of AIDS.

Perhaps equally important is that the new research results are being distributed by IRIN, an agency of the United Nations, whose health and development organizations - WHO, UNFPA, etc - habitually support primary dependence on condoms as a containment strategy rather than education and consciousness-raising, which is the chosen tool by missionaries and Christian organizations.

Halperin studied the AIDS problem in Zimbabwe to better understand what is effective in minimizing the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

One of the main outcomes encountered by the Harvard team of researchers was a significant reduction in AIDS infection among persons who stay with one sexual partner.

In Zimbabwe, the infection rate decreased by 13% between 1997 and 2007, a decrease that could not be attributed to chance alone, according to the study.

"The model examined showed that the decrease did not follow the normal statistical curve," Halperin said, "It was too significant, suggesting that it was due to behavioral changes. In fact, even empirical data about the result of such behavioral changes - fidelity to a sexual partner, lack of promiscuity - support the conclusion."

Halperin finds Zimbabwe's example similar to the success story in Uganda, the first African nation to promote the ABC approach to AIDS prevention - abstinence, be faithful, and condoms only as an accessory tool. The ABC strategy has proved successful in Uganda since the 1990s.

In the province of Manicaland, one of the areas targeted by the study in Zimbabwe, the number of men who admitted to having more than one sexual partner fell by 40% between 1998-2003, during which the HIV infection rate fell correspondingly.

The Halperin study entitled "A surprising success: "Why did the HIV epidemic decline in Zimbabwe?" may be read here: www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed...

The following is the abstract of the study's findings:

---

There is growing recognition that primary prevention, including behavior change, must be central in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The earlier successes in Thailand and Uganda may not be fully relevant to the severely affected countries of southern Africa.

We conducted an extensive multi-disciplinary synthesis of the available data on the causes of the remarkable HIV decline that has occurred in Zimbabwe (29% estimated adult prevalence in 1997 to 16% in 2007), in the context of severe social, political, and economic disruption.

The behavioral changes associated with HIV reduction — mainly reductions in extramarital, commercial, and casual sexual relations, and associated reductions in partner concurrency — appear to have been stimulated primarily by increased awareness of AIDS deaths and secondarily by the country's economic deterioration.

These changes were probably aided by prevention programs utilizing both mass media and church-based, workplace-based, and other inter-personal communication activities.

Focusing on partner reduction, in addition to promoting condom use for casual sex and other evidence-based approaches, is crucial for developing more effective prevention programs, especially in regions with generalized HIV epidemics.

---

I will continue to post significant reports about the May 1 event on this thread, since after all, it is a Pontifical event. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI will have the distinction of presiding at the two Masses in Rome with the greatest attendance in the history of the Church so far. {The only larger Mass would be the WYD Mass celebrated by John Paul II in Manila in 1989, with an estimated attendance of four million, fully one-third the population of Greater Manila!]

Rome booked out for
May 1 beatification rite
by Catherine Jouault


ROME, Feb. 12 (AFP) - More than two million pilgrims are expected to throng the streets of Rome for the beatification ceremony of John Paul II on May 1, leaving travel agencies desperate for accommodation and hotel prices soaring.

The Vatican expects as many as two and a half million people to flock to the ceremony, according to Cardinal José Saraiva Martins of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The ceremony will be led by Pope Benedict XVI in St Peter’s Square, where John Paul II’s funeral took place only six years ago.

“Since the beatification announcement, bookings have exploded,” said Giuseppe Roscioli, head of Federalberghi Roma, which represents around 500 hotels and offers around 90,000 of the capital’s 150,000 beds.

Hotels and city authorities are bracing themselves for crowds as big as the ones that descended on the Vatican when John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, after a pontificate that spanned a quarter century.

Mr Roscioli said the Vatican’s decision to hold the celebration on May 1 complicated matters, because it coincides with a public holiday in much of Europe and is a peak period of tourism in Italy.

“It’s like wanting to organise an event in Monaco during the Formula One Grand Prix. It’s absurd. It’s obvious that the Vatican’s calendar has nothing to do with day-to-day life,” he said. [More absurd and so ungracious is Roscioli's reaction! The city would have to cope with the same number of pilgrims at whatever time of year the beatification rite is held. The week of John Paul's death was also spring holiday time in Europe, and there was much less time for anyone - visitors or hosts - to prepare for the crowd onslaught. Somehow, everyone managed in April 2005. They will manage again.]

“Our hotels published this year’s prices last year, when we had no idea what date the beatification would be. If a hotel wants to raise its prices it risks being punished by the law,” remarked Mr Roscioli.

However, since the date was announced, prices have sky-rocketed. Some two-star hotels are hoping for €330 a night and some four-stars are asking €1,760 for a suite.

Specialist religious tourism agency Raptim said it has been swamped by requests from Africa, Brazil and John Paul II’s homeland of Poland, in particular.

“We have 500 people on the waiting list and we’re still getting requests!” said group leader Gabriella Pandolfini.

Despite logistical problems plaguing some pilgrims planning their trip to Rome, excitement reigns in one of the city’s most unusual watering holes, Pub John Paul II, which opened last year in the city centre.

“John Paul II is the saint for youth and we want this place to be a place to remember him,” said Massimo Camussi, who is organising musical evenings and film showings at the pub in the run-up to the beatification.

The pub first opened as a kind of permanent reminder of World Youth Day, which was celebrated in Rome to mark the Catholic Church’s Jubilee in 2000.

The Vatican has yet to publish the details for the big day, but sources suggest a vigil may be held in Rome’s Circus Maximus arena on the eve the beatification, with a Mass in St Peter’s Square on the day. The square will be open from midnight the night before.

The celebrations may turn out to cost Rome’s city hall dearly though. When mourners flocked for John Paul II’s funeral, the city’s cleaning bill came to €8 million. [But what about the revenues brought in by the visitors???? It's so tacky to reduce everything to a question of money!]

Monday, February 14, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

SAINTS CYRIL AND METODIUS (9th century), Apostles to the Slavs, Co-Patrons of Europe
The two brothers were born (Cyril in 826, Methodius in 815) to an influential Greek family in Thessaloniki but soon moved to Constantinople. Methodius became a monk, eventually becoming abbot of a monastery while carrying out important administrative functions for the Byzantine Empire. His younger brother concentrated on his studies, even learning Aramaic, Jewish and Arabic, later becoming a university professor. Because of his language skills, the emperor sent him on a peace mission to the reigning Caliph, and later to a Byzantine dependency to prevent the spread of Judaism. The brothers first worked together when they were sent to evangelize at the request of the Prince of Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). For this purpose, they decided to translate the Bible to Slavonic; they they devised an alphabet that would best represent Slavonic sounds - this eventually developed into the Cyrillic used by Russia and other Eastern European Slavic languages. In 867, the brothers were invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas III, at which time they brought with them the relics of Pope St. Clement, that Cyril had recovered in the Crimea on one of his expeditions. (Clement was persecuted under Trajan, exiled to a quarry and then thrown into the Black Sea weighed down with an anchor. Cyril apparently found bones that had been buried with an anchor.) On this visit, Cyril was ailing, and sensing his end was near, he decided to become a monk. He died 50 days later. At his funeral procession in Rome in 869, the people are said to have expressed their own version of 'Santo subito'. Methodius returned to Moravia to carry on their work for another 16 years, most of which he spent fighting off challenges from the German bishops of Salzburg and Regensburg who resented that part of their jurisdictions were assigned to his new archdiocese. Pope Adrian II Rome supported him in these disputes and also approved the Slavic liturgy. Three years after he died (884), widespread political changes resulted in the exile of all his missionaries from Moravia - it is thought that their dispersal throughout the rest of Eastern Europe was responsible for spreading Christianity throughout the Slavic world. The two brothers were immediately venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church as 'Equal to the Apostles', but they were not introduced into the Roman Catholic liturgy until 1880. One hundred years later, John Paul II would declare them Co-Patrons of Europe together with St. Benedict of Norcia. The feast of the two brothers is observed by the Catholic Church on Feb. 14, the day of Cyril's death. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis to them on June 17, 2009.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021411.shtml


No OR today.


PAPAL EVENTS TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Four bishops from the Philippines (central region, Group 4) on ad limina visit. Individual meetings.

- Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid.


Feb. 21 consistory to vote
on three canonizations


14 FEB 2011 (RV) - The Holy See announced today an Ordinary Public Consistory on Monday, February 21, to vote on the canonization of three Blesseds, each of them the founder of a religious order:

- Blessed Guido Maria Conforti was Archbishop-bishop of Parma, Italy, and the founder of the Xavierian Missionaries, which he established on December 3rd, 1895, out of his zeal for the conversion of non-Christian peoples. Pope John Paul II declared Guido Maria Conforti Blessed on March 17, 1996.

- Blessed Luigi Guanella was a priest and the founder of the Servants of Charity & the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence. The ninth of thirteen children, he entered the seminary when he was 12 years old and was ordained in 1866, and for many years assisted St. Don Bosco. He was also a friend and a contemporary of Pope St. Pius X. Both of the societies he founded are still at work in Italy, the United States and other countries.

- Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Saint Joseph, Blessed Bonifacia Rodriguez de Castro was born in Spain in 1837. She had a profound concern for the spiritual and material well-being of manual labourers – especially unemployed women – which characterized the charism of the religious company she founded.



I've been meaning to append this little appendix every February 14, so finally, here's a little summary of information gleaned from Wikipedia:

About St. Valentine's Day

Valentinus is the name of 14 martyred saints of Roman antiquity. But the Valentines remembered on February 14 have been traditionally two 3rd century martyrs - Valentine, Bishop of Terni, who was martyred in the early 3rd century during the Aurelian persecutions, and Valentine the priest, of Rome, who was martyred in 269, on February 14. Both happened to be buried on different sites in Rome's Via Flaminia. A third St. Valentine was martyred in Africa with other companions.

Because of these uncertainties and scant information, the liturgical celebration of St. Valentine on February 14 was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969. But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome", who was definitely known to be buried on Feb. 14, remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics.

A verse from Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fools' (1347) is cited as the first association of St. Valentine to romantic love - "For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh to choose his mate" - in observance of a royal engagement. The 19th-century Butler's Lives of Saints enshrined Chaucer's poetic fancy as having been based on tradition, though it was not. Meanwhile Victorian England and mid-18th-century USA began the business of heart-shaped cards on February 14, since when 'Valentine's Day' spread worldwide as a day for lovers.

I think we should all remember and pray to the 14 Saints Valentine on February 14....
and give thanks for the uncommon blessed valentine we all have in common...

There being nothing 'new' so far about the Holy Father in today's news and/or commentary, I will post a translation I did this weekend of Luigi Accattoli's most recent commentary on the Memorandum from German-speaking theologians demanding reforms in the Church. It dates from last week, but I did not feel a rush to translate it because I find it questionable on many points, and more fundamentally, because I feel Accattoli is giving the dissenters both more importance than they deserve, and worse, more credit than warranted. In fact, he expresses himself on their side on some of the points I question, and somehow projects his personal point of view on to the Pope.

While I am aware of Mr. Accattoli's liberal preferences - it is emblematic that he is no fan of the traditional Mass, even if he was adult by the time the New Mass came into effect - he has always been supportive of Benedict XVI, and I cannot recall a prior article by him that has made me recoil at all, as this one does. Still, he is the first Vaticanista I have read who has seriously considered the points raised by the dissenters. And of course, his point of view deserves to be heard, even if I am averse to it.

(I just wish I didn't have to translate articles that I find disagreeable - I am intolerant of other viewpoints insofar as I do not willingly expose myself to them. For instance, I have not bothered to translate the Memorandum itself, even if I still do not see any English translation online, though there is an Italian one. The links are:
www.memorandum-freiheit.de/ for the original German, and
www.finesettimana.org/pmwiki/uploads/Stampa201102/110206teologitede... for the Italian translation.


A German 'test' for Benedict XVI
by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from

February 9, 2011

So, a new challenge to Benedict XVI, this time from 143 German, Austrian and Swiss theologians demanding 'radical reforms' so that the Church can emerge from 'an unprecedented crisis' which has struck her with the pedophile scandal but which had been fermenting for so long, thereby provoking a gradual erosion of Church membership. [I must say that summarized in that sardonic way, the Memorandum is seen for the absurd document that it is...BTW the Memorandum site says that the number of signatories is now 247]

Not much attention has been given by the Italian media to the text [and rightly so!], published February 4 in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, but it can perhaps be useful in order to understand the words and actions of Benedict XVI in the next few months. [[He makes it sound as though the Memorandum will shape what the Pope says and does in the months before his third visit to Germany!]

The reforms demanded by the petitioners include more democracy and collegiality, married priests and an increased role for women in the 'ecclesial ministries', not to mention full communion for same-sex couples and remarried divorcees.

Obviously, Benedict XVI will not execute any of these, but he could do something in each of the six areas of demand, and most especially, he can involve himself personally - by a gesture, in which he excels - and by messages and 'discussions' preceding his visit to Germany on Sept. 22-25.

'Kirche 2011: A necessary new beginning' is the title of the document, and one must look at it to ask what it could possibly accomplish. It appeals specifically to "an open dialog on the structures of power and communications, on the form of the ecclesial ministry and the responsible participation therein of the lay faithful, on morality and sexuality".

Among its premises, the appeal claims that there cannot be a renewal of ecclesial structures in isolation from society, but only with the courage of self-criticism and acceptance of criticism "including external ones".

Benedict XVI has shown his ability to respond - as we saw in the case of the pedophile scandal - to these 'pressures' coming from outside the Church. But this time, the challenge is from within, and so, a positive reaction is both easier and more difficult. ['This time' only? That's a strange statement to make, considering that much of what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has fought against all this time are the nefarious secularizing elements and tendencies within the Church. That's the reason The Ratzinger Report hit such a raw nerve in 1984 with many in the Church - it was the first time a ranking Church figure had ever articulated objections to the secularizing, Protestantizing interpretation that progressivists gave to Vatican II.]

The first of the six areas in which the petitioners demand an open dialog is entitled 'Participatory structures', followed by paragraphs entitled 'Community', 'A culture of law', 'Freedom of conscience', 'Reconciliation', and 'Worship'.

What the document says about participation appears reasonable: "Believers should be able to participate in the selection of important official representatives [of the Church, e.g., bishops and parish priests]. Appointments which can be decided locally should be decided locally"

There is, of course, the harsher demand: "The Church equally needs married priests as well as females in the ecclesial ministries".

Most media headlines have focused on these two demands, and have seen the reference to 'females in the ecclesial ministries' as a demand for female ordination.

The third item says: "Canon law does not merit its name unless the believers can effectively assert their rights", and the document suggests a 'first phase' towards this by the "creation of an administrative jurisdiction in the Church".

What this means is unclear - we will perhaps see in any coming discussions - but perhaps it refers to lay juries to resolve local problems which are now left to the discretion of the parish priest or the bishop.

The fourth point is among the most demanding, as it has to do with 'respect' for 'personal decisions on questions of life', in which, the theologians claim that while the 'high esteem' of the Church for marriage and for priestly celibacy is not in question, the Church should not "exclude persons who responsibly exercise love, fidelity and mutual attention in homosexual union, nor divorced persons and remarried divorcees".

"A pretentious moral rigidity is not appropriate for the Church", the fifth paragraph says, a point which I think we can appreciate. [Really? First of all, Catholic morality is not 'pretentious' - it is well-reasoned and solidly based on Catholic doctrine, and therefore, most appropriate for the Church!]

The sixth point is simple: "Liturgy lives through the active participation of believers, Its celebration should not be set in traditionalism".

We know that Benedict XVI is not a reformer. [Is he not? He has defined true reform in the Church as 'renewal in continuity'. Everything he has done so far as Pope is consistent with that concept of reform.]

"Too much may have been made of the structures and programs of the Church, on the distribution of powers and functions, but what would it be if the salt loses its flavor?", he asked in Lisbon last May.

So I don't expect a reforming response. He has authorized the Ordinariates for Anglicans converting en masse to the Catholic Church to demand on a case by case basis to request the ordination of married men. [Has he? I didn't think the Church has gotten that far in the rules for the Ordinariates - I must review Anglicanorum coetibus. I had the impression that married Anglican priests and bishops converting under AC will be allowed to continue being priests if they so wish, though married bishops cannot be Catholic bishops, only priests, as in the Eastern Oriental Churches. Will not new seminarians under the Ordinariate be required to abide by the Roman Catholic vow of priestly celibacy after they are ordained?]

One can imagine the extension of this possibility to the entire Church, but no more. [Actually, it sounds like a variation of the viri probati - reliably 'tested' married men - idea which has been examined and left unresolved, at best, in recent Synods.]

Meanwhile, it is possible that Benedict XVI will not reject the 'open' dialog demands. But in terms of reforms that have become 'ripe' - i.e., that he considers 'ripe - I don't see any, beyond that of married priests as indicated above.

But he could do something right away on each of the six demands: space for female ministry [I suppose Accattoli means female deacons, not priests]; taking away from bishops the sole discretion to adjudicate local church disputes; wider consultations on episcopal nominations; a less critical attitude towards same-sex couples and remarried divorcees, and welcoming them visibly and effectively into the Church. [The Church's 'critical attitude' in these cases is not personal, or lack of charity, because it considers the practice of homosexuality sinful, not the fact of being homosexual. It is also more than just a 'critical attitude': Both practices - homosexual activity and divorce - are in open violation of Church teaching against the practice of homosexuality, and the sanctity of marriage, in the case of Catholic divorcees who contract a second marriage without rightful annulment of their original Catholic matrimony. Any relaxation in this regard would be the start of a slippery slope - at least on the part of the liberalizers - to demand exceptions of convenience or liberalizations of other social practices in ways that do not conform to Church teaching!]

All of this, and more, could be the subject of the 'discussion' the theologians demand. It is a provocation that the post- Vatican II Popes have endured. Paul VI and John Paul II had analogous demands made on them. [Not that they gave in at all- except that Paul VI, early 0n (1969-70), opted for the Bugnini concept of liturgical reform, and from all accounts, lived to regret it soon afterwards, e.g., "The smoke of Satan has seeped into the Church..." (1972). And how ironic that no one ever refers to the Novus Ordo as the Vatican-II Mass, in the way that the traditional Mass 'codified' by the Council of Trent - which decreed a universal convention for the rite most widely used at the time, without re-inventing it radically as the Novus Ordo did - has been called the Tridentine Mass. Even the champions of the Novus Ordo never call it the Vatican-II Mass, but the Paul VI Mass. Somehow, I don't think that's how Paul VI would have wanted to be memorialized!]

For Benedict XVI, however, it is twice the provocation since the demands come from German-speaking theologians, and he is both a German and a theologian.

I imagine he can make a personal response to this challenge, as he did in the Williamson case with his letter to the bishops of the world, in the Irish abuses with his letter to the Irish Catholics, and in the interview-book Light of the World..

He is not unprepared for such a challenge. He comes from the world of these theologians. Since his days as a young professor, he has lived through episodes of dissent, even sharing some of them, at least in spirit.

In part to help Rome deal with German dissent - and hopefully, to moderate them - Paul Vi made him Archbishop of Munich and cardinal, and John Paul II called him to Rome.

In order to face their challenge to him, all he has to do is continue doing the task he has been doing as best as he can.

Accattoli's conclusion does not seem to be consistent with all the 'accommodations' he proposes earlier in his article!]

The final part of the OR series - taken from a lecture given by Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, at Ars, on the subject of priestly celibacy in the Magisterium of the modern Popes - is on Benedict XVI.

Benedict XVI and
'Sacramentum caritatis'
by Cardinal Mauro Piacenza
Translated from the 2/14-2/15 issue of


The last Pope whose Magisterium we shall examine is Benedict XVI, happily reigning, whose initial Magisterium on priestly celibacy does not leave any doubt on either the perennial validity of this disciplinary norm, nor, above all and before that, on its theological and particularly Christologic-Eucharistic basis.

In particular, the Pope dedicated to this subject an entire sub-section of his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis on February 22, 2007:

---

The Synod Fathers wished to emphasize that the ministerial priesthood, through ordination, calls for complete configuration to Christ.

While respecting the different practice and tradition of the Eastern Churches, there is a need to reaffirm the profound meaning of priestly celibacy, which is rightly considered a priceless treasure, and is also confirmed by the Eastern practice of choosing Bishops only from the ranks of the celibate. These Churches also greatly esteem the decision of many priests to embrace celibacy.

This choice on the part of the priest expresses in a special way the dedication which conforms him to Christ and his exclusive offering of himself for the Kingdom of God.

The fact that Christ himself, the eternal priest, lived his mission even to the sacrifice of the Cross in the state of virginity constitutes the sure point of reference for understanding the meaning of the tradition of the Latin Church.

It is not sufficient to understand priestly celibacy in purely functional terms. Celibacy is really a special way of conforming oneself to Christ's own way of life.

This choice has first and foremost a nuptial meaning; it is a profound identification with the heart of Christ the Bridegroom who gives his life for his Bride.

In continuity with the great ecclesial tradition, with the Second Vatican Council, and with my predecessors in the papacy, I reaffirm the beauty and the importance of a priestly life lived in celibacy as a sign expressing total and exclusive devotion to Christ, to the Church and to the Kingdom of God, and I therefore confirm that it remains obligatory in the Latin tradition.

Priestly celibacy lived with maturity, joy and dedication is an immense blessing for the Church and for society itself.

---

As one can easily note, the Exhortation in multiple ways invites the priest to live by offering himself in a total and exclusive dedication to Christ.

Particularly relevant is the link that the Exhortation reiterates between celibacy and the Eucharist. If this theology by the Magisterium is received in an authentic way and really applied in the Church, the future for priestly celibacy is luminous and fruitful, because it will be a future of freedom and priestly sanctity.

So we must speak not only of the 'spousal nature' of priestly celibacy, but also of its 'eucharistic nature', deriving from the offering that Christ makes of himself perennially to the Church, and which must be reflected in evident ways in the life of priests.

They are called upon to reproduce, in their very existence, the sacrifice of Christ to whom they have been assimilated by virtue of their priestly ordination.

The Eucharistic nature of celibacy gives rise to all the possible theological implications that the priest confronts in his own fundamental function: the celebration of Holy Mass, in which the words "This is my Body" and "This is my Blood" do not only determine the sacramental function of the priest - they should also shape the offering he makes with his own priestly life.

The celibate priest is thus associated personally and publicly with Jesus Christ. He makes Christ present in reality, ever the sacrificial victim, in what Benedict XVI calls 'the eucharistic ;logic of Christian existence'.

The more the centrality of the Eucharist is upheld in the life of the Church, of the Eucharist worthily celebrated and constantly adored, the greater will be the fidelity to priestly celibacy, the understanding of its inestimable value, and if I may be allowed, the flowering of vocations to the ordained ministry.

In his address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2006, Benedict XVI said: "The true foundation of priestly celibacy can be found in the expression, "Dominus, pars mea" - You, Lord, are my portion [of land]. [NB: The holy Father had a beautiful discourse about this Old Testament reference to the priestly tribe of the Levites when he addressed the clergy in Freising on his visit to Bavaria in September 2006.]

The priest can only be theocentric. This does not mean that he remains deprived of human love - but that he allows himself to be gripped by his passion for God and learn thereby, thanks to intimacy with him, to serve men.

Celibacy should be a testimony of one's faith: faith in God made concrete in this form of life which only makes sense in relation to God. To devote my life to him, to renounce marriage and family, means that I accept and experience God as a reality, and therefore I can 'bring him' to others.

Only the experience of 'inheritance' from the Lord himself to every priest, makes effective the testimony of faith that celibacy is. To the participants of the plenary session of the Congregation for the Clergy on March 16, 2009, Benedict XVI said that celibacy is "Apostolica vivendi forma - the form of apostolic living - which is participation in a 'new life' understood spiritually, that 'new lifestyle' inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which the Apostles made their own".

During the recently concluded Year for Priests, the Holy Father had a number of interventions on the subject of the priesthood, particularly in his special Wednesday catecheses dedicated to the tria munera - the priestly offices of teaching, sanctifying and governing - and in both his inaugural and closing speeches of that special year and the related celebrations honoring St. Jean Marie Vianney.

Especially relevant was the Pope's dialog with some priests at the massive prayer vigil before the concluding Mass. He was asked about the significance of priestly celibacy and on the difficulties encountered today in trying to live it. He replied by taking off from the centrality of the daily Mass in the life of the priest, who, acting 'in persona Christi', speaks with Christ's 'I', being the realization of the permanence in time of Christ's unique priesthood:

"This unification of his 'I' with our own 'I' implies that we are drawn even into the reality of the Risen One, and that together we walk towards the full life after resurrection... In this sense, celibacy is a foretaste. We transcend our time and we go forward, drawing both ourselves and our time into the world of the Resurrection, towards the novelty of Christ, towards a new life, the true life".

Thus, the Magisterium pf Benedict XVI affirms the intimate relation between the eucharistic-source dimension of priesthood and its eschatological dimension anticipated and realized by priestly celibacy.

Overcoming in one sweep every functionalistic reduction of the priestly ministry, the Pope resets it into its elevated theological niche, illuminates it by demonstrating its constitutive relationship with the Church and the missionary power that derives from that 'something nearer' to the Kingdom that celibacy represents.

On that occasion, with prophetic daring, Benedict XVI said: "For the agnostic world, for the world which considers that God has nothing to do with it, celibacy is a great scandal, because it shows precisely that God is considered and lived as a reality by some. With the eschatological dimension of priestly life, the future world of God enters the reality of our time".

How indeed can the Church live without the 'scandal' of priestly celibacy? Without men who are willing to affirm the reality of God in the present, even and above all through their own flesh?

That affirmation had its fulfillment, and in a certain way, its coronation in the extraordinary homily the Pope pronounced in the closing Mass of the Year for Priests, during which the Pope prayed so that, as a Church, we may be liberated from minor scandals so that the true scandal of history may emerge, Christ our Lord.

This ties in well with the previous discussion: One can only conclude that the dissenting German theologians have never bothered to read up on the modern Magisterium providing the obvious theological rationale for priestly celibacy, because they keep arguing fallaciously 1) from the utilitarian point of view - i.e., allowing priests to marry will solve the priest shortage; and 2) from what I can only call the flat-out 'cop-out' - "Priests are human and deserve marital love, family, the full human experience" - in which the opponents of priestly celibacy completely reject the very concept of sacrifice, as though humans are not only incapable of selfless sacrifice but should not even be asked to make any sacrifice at all!

Two prominent British Catholic bloggers yesterday commented on the so-called 'spirit of Vatican II' - one of them says it is waning, the other asks 'is it waning'. Both have good arguments. But no one should write off the 'spiritists' just yet - many bishops and priests of their ilk are still in place, though aging; and for as long as there are progressivist publications around, like the UK's Tablet and America, Commmonweal and National Catholic Reporter in the US, not to mention all the outspoken and media-favored European Catho-libs, that false and contrived 'spirit' will continue to haunt the Church in dmaaging ways. Thank God for Benedict XVI who has almost singlehandedly done more than anyone in the past several years to seek to exorcise it away once and for all!

Is the so-called 'SOV-II' finally waning?
If so, it may be thanks to B16
who was there, after all!

February 14, 2011


“The Spirit of Vatican II” isn’t so much a concept as a slogan.

For over 40 years it’s been used to justify innovations ranging from Mass in the vernacular (like it or not, an overwhelmingly popular change) to co-consecration by “eucharistic ministers” (a heretical fantasy once widely indulged in “progressive” parishes).

Above all, the Spirit of Vatican II – a post-conciliar phenomenon rather than something that emerged during the Council– has branded itself as the empowerment of lay people.

The truth is more complicated. Power has been redistributed to some lay people, but we’re not talking about the Legion of Mary. Far be it for me to trade in stereotypes, but if you meet a school head in her 60s with spiky grey hair, Mary Jane shoes and a rotating theological vocabulary of seven words of New Testament Greek, the chances are that she’s been empowered. (She may also be very nice, it’s only fair to say.)

As for clergy, embracing the Spirit of Vatican II has been a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting on. Most of today’s bishops were steeped in “collaborative ministry” long before they received their mitres.

Traditionally, a liberal English bishop could hold his own in a room full of Tabletistas, rolling his eyes at the mention of the Vatican to show that he was On Their Side but also moderating their more querulous demands. In the past he may have interfered on their behalf in parishes, too, if he caught a conservative priest trying to Turn Back the Clock.

At meetings of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales, meanwhile, there has been an unspoken assumption that curial instructions judged to be in the Spirit of Vatican II would be followed more scrupulously than those that failed the test.

And now? I wonder. The bishops did very little to implement Summorum Pontificum., but then (a) it’s largely self-implementing and (b) no one in Rome was twisting their arms.

Compare this to the new English translation of the Missal, which the Tabletistas would like the bishops to drag their feet over, but which it looks as if they’ll introduce fairly meekly.

Is this because Rome made sure they signed up to it in advance, or because the increasingly tired and fractious campaign against it represents “the last expiring gasp” of the Spirit of Vatican II? That is William Oddie’s suggestion on his Catholic Herald blog.

In another post, William notes with surprise that Bishops Kieran Conry and Crispian Hollis, of all people, actually seem to be welcoming the Ordinariate. Again, it makes you wonder what happened to the Spirit of Vatican II, whose elderly lay guardians view with horror the prospect of special arrangements for Anglicans opposed to women priests.

I can think of several explanations, but the one I prefer involves an episcopal change of heart – or at least of mind – brought about by Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain. The message of the papal services was that freewheeling liturgical experiments can no longer be justified with reference to the Council.

Also, that none of the developments of the 1960s invalidated traditional pious observances such as Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. And the Ordinariate? As they say in the Vatican, Roma locuta est - Rome has spoken. {Not that it made any difference to them in the past 40 years, but perhaps Roma - i.e., the Pope - never did 'locuta' enough as it does now!]

It’s a pleasing thought, anyway: the essentially bogus, self-congratulatory “Spirit of Vatican II” evaporating as a result of the witness of one of the last people alive who actually attended the Council. [A THOUSAND AMENS TO THAT!]


Attacks on the new English Missal
are the last expiring gasp
of the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’
The battle is virtually over – and the good guys won
By William Oddie

14 February 2011

I didn’t intend, until I saw this week’s print edition of the paper, to say any more for a week or two about the new translation of the Mass, which we will all be using in church from September. I have made my views clear enough.

I think that the new translation is wholly successful, and that if we had been using it from day one, thousands of people repelled by the banality of the ICEL translation now being superseded would still be regular worshippers rather than lapsed Catholics. I really believe it’s as important as that.

I return to the subject, however, inspired by this week’s splash headline: “Battle begins over new Roman Missal.” Now, I have written enough splash headlines myself to know that their purpose is not (mainly, at least) to convey accurate information, but to capture the attention of potential readers. This one certainly attracted mine: but of course, what one has then to do is to read the story to find out what’s actually going on.

The point is that there has already been a huge battle over this (which the good guys won), a battle which began when Pope John Paul published Liturgiam Authenticam, a document which made it clear that Mass translations in future should be faithful to the Latin text (not theologically and devotionally emasculated like the English translation currently in use) and then appointed a commission called Vox Clara, under the chairmanship of Cardinal the great and good George Pell, to make sure that this happened. A new chairman and secretary of ICEL (the International Committee on English in the Liturgy) were also appointed, and all seemed set fair.

But there had been an almighty struggle, the extent of which became clear when the retiring chairman of ICEL, Bishop Maurice Taylor of Galloway, made an astonishing attack on the new dispensation, in which he complained bitterly that “the members of ICEL’s episcopal board have, in effect, been judged to be irresponsible in the liturgical texts that they have approved over the years".

"The bishops of the English-speaking conferences," he said, "voting by large majorities to approve the vernacular liturgical texts prepared by ICEL, have been similarly judged. And the labours of all those faithful and dedicated priests, religious, and lay people who over the years devoted many hours of their lives to the work of ICEL have been called into question.”

Well, of course, he was dead right. The bishops who approved these awful texts had indeed, thank God, at long last been judged and found wanting. And so had the labours of all those “faithful” (but not to the texts they were translating) priests, religious and lay people who over the years had indeed (sniff, sniff) devoted many hours of their lives to undermining the real meaning of the Novus Ordo, leading many to suppose wrongly that the Church had now as good as protestantised the Mass. (Whatever else you say, the English Mass we have is by the skin of its teeth a valid Catholic rite: it just doesn’t, sometimes, seem much like it.)

The fact is that the “battle” now beginning over the introduction of the new translation is little more, by comparison with the warfare of the past few years, than a final skirmish, virtually over before it has started.

It is, quite openly, the last gasp of those whose watchword has been “The Spirit of Vatican II” (“Spirit”, in quotes, rather than reality), the final faltering assault of the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture. But these people have already lost.

If you doubt that, have a look at the comments below last week’s online story headlined: “Irish priests claim new Mass translation is ‘elitist and sexist’.”

In the end there were 124 comments on this story, all except a handful from outraged lay people hotly rejecting the complaints of these Leftist and anti-Roman priests.

One of them was from me. My comment simply was: “The instant, massive and almost unanimous hostility these elitist dissidents – who ludicrously complain about the elitism of the new translation – have aroused (see below), from the people in the pews who have suffered at their hands for 30 years, says it all. What a massive own goal their ‘urgent plea’ has turned out to be.”

Another of those who responded simply but eloquently asked: “Why can’t these priests do what Rome wants, we did not have these problems in the past… it’s getting like they used to say about the Anglicans and probably still do, a Pope in every pulpit.”

Well, indeed; but the good news is that the tide has now turned: these dissident priests are ageing and on the way out. If we keep our nerve, we are virtually there: we shall overcome.


The column drew voluminous comments - check them out on
www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/02/14/the-attacks-on-the-new-english-missal-are-the-last-expiring-gasp-of-the-spirit-of-vati...

J have not posted any of the stories lately about the nitpicking over the new English translation of the Roman Missal because 1) it has been approved across the board by all those who should approve it, and it is due to be in full use by the autumn, and 2) because, once I realized decades ago that the 'vernacular' translation of the Mass was truly pedestrian and far from the English of the King James version and its Catholic equivalent, I have simply ignored the language quality - or lack thereof - and read the texts as I find them (as bad as the language may be, they are still prayers).

One wonders, however, if the Philistines who were responsible for the translation atrocities ever considered that the King James Bible had served writers and common folk who cited and quoted from it for centuries in ways familiar to anyone who could read in the English-speaking world. Or that they were being inconsistent in their zeal to protestantize the Mass by forgetting that most Anglophone Protestant churches continue to use the language of the King James Bible.

Before the 1969-70 liturgical reform, did any literate Anglophone ever complain about the Bible and Mass prayers that they were archaic and used words he could not understand? Biblical language and liturgical prayer is not supposed to be the jargon you use with your next-door neighbor, and a literate person can always use the dictionary and enrich his word power! Yet the original translators - in work that was always meant to be provisional because it had to be 'rushed' so it could be used as soon as the Novus Ordo went into effect - appeared to believe that 'vernacular' language meant dumbing down the Word of God. Which is dumber than dumb because it not only fails to render due honor and reverence to the Lord but also insults the average Massgoer by assuming he would not be able to deal with a more faithful - and more elegant - translation of liturgical prayer!