NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

The Feb. 27 issue of L'Osservatore Romano carries three articles taken from the lectures given Tuesday afternoon in an academic proceeding at the Antonianum Pontifical University, for the presentation of Joseph Ratzinger's book St. Bonaventure: The theology of history, published in a new edition by Edizioni Porziuncola in cooperation with the university's Superior School for Medieval Studies. It marks the Golden Jubilee of its first publication in Germany.




The Page 1 teaser to the articles printed in the inside pages reads:

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It is a text - that was part of a much larger work - presented by the author as his post-doctoral thesis at the University of Munich in 1957 to obtain 'Habilitation' (formal qualification) as a university lecturer.

We publish parts of the interventions which serve to reconstruct the origins of Ratzinger's work on Bonaventure and to show the role that this work had on the cultural itinerary of the future Pope.

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Two of the three articles are posted in the OR's online 'edition'. This is the first of them.



Towards Vatican II,
thinking of Bonaventure
By Mons. Angelo Amato
Secretary, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Translated from the
the 2/27/08 issue of



Benedict XVI's cultural is wide and multiple. His bibliography proves it. His theological interests cover the entire area of Christian doctrine (cfr Introduction to Christianity and The Ratzinger Report).

From his younger days, in addition to his own scholarly research, he has been called on to answer questions from the church community itself and from his ministry.

The Ariadne's thread for a first review of the rich Ratzingerian bibliography could be chronological. Going through time, we find it divided into four great periods: his theological preparation, his participation in Vatican-II, his activities as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and his Magisterium as the Supreme Pontiff of the Church of Christ.

But the fundamental concern of this great theological production has been unique: to remind those who are inclined to think only of the present and the future of that indispensable link to tradition and the living center of history, which is Christ and his church.

His research on St. Bonaventure takes place almost at the very beginning of his theological career, and it is well described in his autobiography (Milestones).



In it, he informs us, for instance, that in the summer of 1950, he was given the opportunity to participate in a contest for a research on St. Augustine. The topic chosen by Prof. Gottlieb Soehngen, who had great respect for his student Ratzinger, was "The People and House of God in the doctrine of St. Augustine on the Church".

To prepare it, he was greatly helped by his readings of the Fathers of the Church and by Henri de Lubac's book, Catholicism, which dealt with the faith as an experience that is thought and lived in community.

For De Lubac, moreover, since faith, by its very nature, is also hope, it should invest the whole of history and cannot be limited to the individual promise of private beatitude.

Another reading which was significant in that period was Corpus Mysticum, also by De Lubac, who disclosed to the young scholar a new way of understanding the unity between the Church and the Eucharist.

After passing his doctorate exams brilliantly in July 1953, the young Ratzinger prepared next to write a post-doctoral dissertation for his 'Habilitation' that would allow him to be a university lecturer.

Since his previous research had been Patristic in nature, Gottlieb Soehngen decided that the dissertation for Habilitation should turn to the Middle Ages. After St. Augustine, it seemed natural to him that the young scholar should devote his attention to St. Bonaventure, passing from an ecclesiological concern to one of fundamental theology, that of revelation, to be exact.

At that time, there was a great debate about the idea of the history of salvation which involved a new perspective on the idea of revelation - to be understood no longer as the communication of some truths to reason, but as the historical action of God in which the truth is revealed freely.

There was no lack of difficulties to bring this work to a happy end. While his adviser, Prof. Soehngen, was immediately enthusiastic over the finished thesis, the other adviser, Prof. Michael Schmaus, considered it unsatisfactory.

In recounting this episode, Ratzinger notes that there were at least three factors in play. First of all, he had not entrusted himself to the guidance of Schmaus who considered himself a specialist in the Middle Ages. Next, in Munich, the investigation into this question had remained frozen for some time, and had not received any of the new perspectives that had developed elsewhere in the meantime, especially in Franciscan circles (Bonaventure was a Franciscan). So Ratzinger's direct criticism provoked Schmaus's forceful rejection.

But the opposition was more substantial, because the young scholar had found out that in Bonaventure, and in general, with the theologians of the 13th century, the concept of revelation as simply the ensemble of revealed contents was unthinkable. In medieval language, revelation indicated action, and more precisely, it defined the act by which God manifests himself to man, not the objectified result of that act.

Moreover, the concept of revelation always implied that there was someone receiving the revelation.

"These insights, gained through my reading of Bonaventure, were later on very important for me at the time of the Conciliar discussion on revelation, Scripture and trad. Because, if Bonaventure is right, then revelation precedes Scripture and becomes deposited in Scripture but is not simply identical with it. This in turn means that revelation is always greater than something that is merely written down. And this again means that there can be no such thing as pure sole Scriptura, because an essential element of Scripture is the Church as understanding subject, and with this the fundamental sense of tradition is already given" (p.109, Milestones).

In any case, the obstacle was overcome when Ratzinger realized that the last part of his rejected dissertation, dedicated to Bonaventure's theology of history, had passed Schmaus without objections and was autonomous in itself. Therefore, he restructured the dissertation to limit himself to this and presented it again.

The public session for the Habilitation (at which the candidate would defend his dissertation) took place - not without passionate discussion between Soehngen and Schmaus - on Feb. 21, 1957, at which the candidate successfully earned his Habilitation.

Commenting years later in his autobiography on this rather difficult episode, Cardinal Ratzinger said it made him "resolve not to agree easily to the rejection of dissertations or Habilitation theses but whenever possible, to take the part of the weaker party."

What was the innovative contribution that Ratzinger recognized after some time in his work on Bonaventure's Collationes in Exaemeron? Up till then, it had been maintained that Bonaventure had no interests in the ideas of Joachim of Fiore. Ratzinger's work showed for the first time that Bonaventure, in his work on the six days of creation (Exaemeron), had minutely confronted Joachim's ideas and sought to assimilate whatever was useful of it to integrate it into Church canon.

Beyond the dynamic concept of revelation, the study on Bonaventure's theology of history also showed Ratzinger an original way to reach an understanding of Christian eschatology.

But there was a lasting consequence that Bonaventure left in the mentality of Ratzinger, who would never have accepted - since it is contrary to the eschatological thinking of the New Testament - the Franciscan assumption that there would be the advent of a final era of the poor on earth, just immediately preceding history's entry into God's eternity.

Long before liberation theology, Ratzinger already rejected that medieval anticipation of a liberationist eschatology.

In conclusion, his knowledge of the Fathers of the Church and of the great medieval theological tradition, and dialog with contemporary culture, have been the ever present coordinates in the mens of the theologian Ratzinger - during his participation in the second Vatican Council as well as in the preparation of the numerous documents at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he led as Prefect from 1982 to 2005.

In that service, he had to face, on the one hand, numerous challenges coming from mistaken ideologies, insufficient methodological procedures, and ambiguous doctrinal interpretations, while on the other hand, he promoted clarificatory orientations and guidelines of great relevance in Christology (Dominus Iesus), ecclesiology (Communioni notio), and anthropology (Donum vitae).

As Supreme Pontiff, he continues his theological magisterium not only through his encyclicals on the theological virtues - Deus caritas est and Spe Salvi - but above all through the work JESUS OF NAZARETH, in which his story of Christ is an innovative and essential contribution to Biblical and ecclesial Christology.

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The second article available for translation is by Paolo Vian, who situates Ratzinger's work in the context of understanding medieval theology and how its useful elements are carried over into our time. It is entitled "Without tradition, theology is a tree that is uprooted from its bedrock". The translation is in the next post


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ST. BONAVENTURE:

ST. BONAVENTURE, OFM, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Born in Bagnorea near Viterbo, Italy, in 1221
Died at Lyons, France, in 1274
Canonized in 1482
Declared a Doctor of the Church in 1587 by Sixtus V
Known as 'the Seraphic Doctor'
Feast day July 14.

Born Giovanni (John) di Fidanza, an untrustworthy legend says that his name was changed to Bonaventure ("good fortune") by Saint Francis of Assisi, who miraculously cured him of a dangerous illness during his childhood and exclaimed: O buona ventura!

A contemporary of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Albert the Great, he went to the University of Paris when he was 14. There he studied theology under the English Franciscan, Alexander of Hales (the "Unanswerable Doctor"); and it was perhaps the influence of this teacher that induced him to enter the order when he was 20.

By 1248, he was a bachelor of Scripture; two years later he became a bachelor of theology; and three years after that he became a master of theology and was appointed to the professorial chair of the Friars Minor. He taught theology and Scripture, and preached in Paris for many years (1248-1255), concentrating on the elucidation of some of the problems that especially exercised men's minds in his day.

His teaching was curtailed by the opposition of secular professors, who were jealous of the new mendicants' success and were perhaps made uncomfortable by their austere lives when compared unfavorably with their own. Apparently, their disdain for the Franciscans, led the university to delay granting him a doctorate in theology, yet this did not embitter Bonaventure. With Aquinas he defended the mendicant friars against their opponents.

When the secular leader William of Saint-Armour wrote The perils of the last times, Bonaventure responded by publishing Concerning the poverty of Christ, a treatise on holy poverty. Pope Alexander IV denounced Saint-Armour, had his book burned, and ordered a halt to the attack on the mendicants. Thus, vindicated, the mendicant orders were re-established at Paris, and Bonaventure and Aquinas received their doctorates in theology in 1257.

That same year, when he was only 36, Bonaventure was elected minister general of the Franciscans. In this position he was faced with a difficult task, for though Saint Francis had established an incomparable spiritual ideal for his order, his organization was weak and since his death a number of different groups had arisen.

At the general chapter of Narbonne in 1260, Bonaventure designed a set of constitutions as a rule, which had a lasting effect on the order, and for which he is called the second founder of the Franciscans. It has, however, been claimed that he also weakened the spirit of Saint Francis; the Life that he wrote of him, in order to promote unity among the brothers, was accurate but incomplete, and he modified the rule that forbade the brothers to accept money or own property.

The strict-interpretation Spirituals among the Franciscans valued poverty above all else, including learning. Bonaventure strongly supported the importance of study to the order, and the need for the order to provide books and buildings. He confirmed the practice of monks teaching and studying at universities, believing that the Franciscans could better fulfill the need for preaching and spiritual guidance to compensate for other poorly educated clergy.

In addition to theological and philosophical works, Saint Bonaventure has left us sundry ascetical treatises, some of which have been translated into English including the Journey of the soul to God. The hymn In the Lord's atoning grief is a translation from Bonaventure.

Among his works are Commentary on the sentences of Peter Lombard (which covers the whole field of scholastic theology), the mystical works Breviloquium, Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, De reductione artium ad theologium, Perfection of life (written for Blessed Isabella, sister of Saint Louis IX, and her convent of Poor Clares), Soliloquy, The three-fold way, biblical commentaries, and sermons.

Bonaventure was nominated as archbishop of York in 1265, but refused the honor. In 1273, much against his will, Bonaventure was made cardinal and bishop of Albano by Pope Gregory X. His personal simplicity is illustrated by the story that when his cardinal's hat was brought to him at the friary in Mugello (near Florence), he told the legates to hang it on a nearby tree, as he was washing the dishes and his hands were wet and greasy.


At right is a photo of Zurbaran's 1629 painting of Aquinas and Bonaventure in Paris.

The following year, Pope Gregory called him to draw up the agenda for the 14th general council at Lyons to discuss the reunion of Rome with the churches of the East. Saint Thomas Aquinas died en route to the council. Bonaventure was the leading figure in the success of the council that effected the brief reunion, and led his last general chapter of the order between the third and fourth sessions. Bonaventure died while the Council of Lyons was still in session and was buried in Lyons.

Saint Bonaventure's reputation is based on his personal goodness and his skill as a theologian. "In him it seemed as though Adam had not sinned," wrote Alexander of Hales, and when he died the official record of the Council of Lyons stated: "In the morning died Brother Bonaventure of famous memory, a man outstanding in sanctity, kind, affable, pious and merciful, full of virtues, beloved of God and man. . . . God gave him the grace that whoever saw him conceived a great and heartfelt love for him."

The saint was known for his accessibility to any and all who wished to consult him, and once explained his urgency in making himself available to a simple lay brother by saying, "I am at the same time both prelate and master, and that poor brother is both my brother and my master."

Though Bonaventure and Aquinas were friends in their lifetime, the two men had strongly opposed each other on the question of the neo- Aristotelianism that was being introduced into theology, for Saint Bonaventure feared that as a result philosophy would be elevated above theology and that reason would be made more important than revelation.

Saint Bonaventure was a man of the highest intellectual attainments, but he would emphasize that a fool's love and knowledge of God may be greater than that of a humanly wise man. To reach God, he said, "little attention must be given to reason and great attention to grace, little to books and everything to the gift of God, which is the Holy Spirit."

Above all he emphasized charity: "For in truth, a poor and unlearned old woman can love God better than a Doctor of Theology."

Bonaventure believed that the created world gave us a sign of God. But faith was needed, honed by reason, to lead to contemplation of the divine. When his friend Aquinas asked where Bonaventure gained his own great knowledge, Bonaventure pointed to a crucifix. "I study only the crucified one, Jesus Christ," he replied.

Philosophy in itself was only an instrument, and unless it was modified in the light of revelation would lead into error, or into an arid preoccupation with intellectual arguments for their own sake.

In his opposition to Aristotelian philosophy, Saint Bonaventure no doubt went too far, and the synthesis achieved by Saint Thomas has had none of the disastrous effects that he feared.

Yet in taking his stand on the primacy of theology, he was aligning himself with the greatest of all Christian thinkers, Saint Augustine, and in stressing the supremacy of grace, he was following in the footsteps of the founder of his order, Saint Francis.

Without tradition, theology is
a tree uprooted from its bedrock
By Paolo Vian
Translated from
the 2/27/08 issue of



"For the full and objective understanding of the spiritual history of Italy in the 13th century, we cannot, ever!, dissociate the two great figures which Dante - and with him, the best religious tradition of his time -- so indissolubly linked to each other: Joachim of Fiore and Francis of Assisi. The Appenine mountain chain is not only the physical dorsal spine of the peninsula: there was a stupendous spiritual continuity from Sila to Subasio, in the mature years of the Italian Middle Ages. To have introduced a fracture into that spine was a gesture of improvident iconoclasm."

Joseph Ratzinger would probably not have had any difficulty subscribing to that statement made in 1931 by Ernesto Buonaiuti at the start of his reconstruction of the life and thought of Joachim of Fiore.

In his own introduction to the book whose new Italian edition we are presenting tonight, the then young Bavarian theologian recalled how a theology and a philosophy of history are born above all during crisis periods in human history, starting with Augustine's De civitate Dei, which was a response to the collapse of the Roman Empire and the world of antiquity.


Augustine, Joachim, Bonaventure, Francis of Assisi.

"From then on, the attempt to dominate history in a theological sense was never again alien to Western theology..."(p. 15). At the start of the 13th century, this recurrent attempt to dominate history in terms of theology reached a new culminating point in Joachim of Fiore's prophecy of history" - and here is where the vision of the Italian 'modernist' and the German theologian coincide - "it reached...its maximum force only with the splendid confirmation given to it by the person and work of Francis of Assisi" (p. 16).

The two factors together - Joachim's call and the response of Franciscanism - placed into question the medieval image of history, generating a new, second culminating moment in the Christian way of thinking about history...represented by St. Bonaventure's Hexaemeron" (p.16)...

The intention of the Collationes was to 'counterpoint the spiritual disorientation of the time with the image of authentic Christian wisdom" (p.27), seriously settling accounts with the historical moment.

But - as Ratzinger is quick to take note - the six levels of knowledge, allegorically represented by the six days of creation and symbolized in the six eras of salvation, are further articulated into different levels which indisputably presented the growth in time of the levels of knowledge. Recognizing the historical character of Scriptural statements, Bonaventure differed from the interpretation of the Fathers and of scholastics who were guided by the idea of immutability. With the idea of theoriae arising from rationes seminales in a temporal perspective - 'a mirroring of future times in Scriptures" (P. 29) - Bonaventure adapted the interpretation of Scripture that Joachim had presented in his Concordia.

Bonaventure "thus affirmed that fundamental historic conception which was the decisive novelty brought by the Calabrian abbot (Joachim) to the thinking of the Fathers" (p. 29).

Scripture has certainly been fulfilled and Revelation is concluded, but its significance must continue to be searched continuously throughout history, and that search is not at an end" (cfr p. 29).

By our position in time, we see and understand more in some respects than the Fathers did. "In this way, the interpretation of Scriptures becomes a theology of history, an illumination of the past as prophecy for the future" (p. 30).

These were the premises that led Bonaventure to exclude Augustine from the theology of history, since he oriented everything to a correspondence between the story of the Old Testament and that of the New - an orientation which Augustine had resolutely rejected" (cfr p. 32).

In Bonaventure's theology, Christ is not the end of times - as in the Augustinian scheme - but the center of times, and it is this option that impels Bonaventure to believe in 'a new salvation that is realized 'in history', within the confines of earthly time" (p. 34). Then, even the Church in its realized form as "contemplative Church" is yet to come and we must still await its transformation in history (cfr p. 35).

Surprisingly, then, Ratzinger presents us with a Bonaventure who, in the summer of 1273, openly and consciously showed the influence of Joachim. But which Joachim?

Ratzinger quickly makes that clear: Bonaventure 'detaches himself clearly and resolutely' from the coarse manipulations that Gerardo di Borgo San Donnino had performed on Joachim, presenting the writings of the Calabrian abbot as an eternal Gospel designed to replace the transitory and perishable New Testament (cfr p. 45). But the rejection of Gerardo by Bonaventure cannot in any way be seen as a 'rejection of the original Joachim" (p. 46).

Thus, Ratzinger's reading fulfills two things at the same time: while he brings Bonaventure close to Joachim on the one hand, he separates Joachim clearly from the Joachimites, on the other hand.

I have said that Ratzinger's interpretation - which is in full and total rupture with preceding analyses by Martin Grabmann and Etienne Gilson, but along the lines of Alois Dempf and Leone Tondelli who paved the way for him, - brings Bonaventure close to Joachim.

But the young German theologian was also fully aware of the many differences between the Franciscan and the monk from Fiore.

The primary difference is in their evaluation of the times they lived in. Precisely because time and its passing are decisive in the visions of both Joachim and Bonaventure, the Franciscan could go beyond Joachim in reasoning, if only because 60 years separate the death of Joachim in 1202 from Bonaventure's Collationes in 1273.

The novelty introduced into medieval religion by Francis of Assisi
represents the great difference between the two. For Bonaventure - Francis's disciple, successor, and biographer - Francis was not a saint like others, but occupied an absolutely singular and preeminent place in the history of salvation, one who, in his conception, came to introduce the last phase of this history.

Francis, he wrote, was the new Elijah, the new John the Baptist, and, in Collationes, 'the angel who rises from the East' referred to in the Apocalypse (7,2), with the seal of the living God, namely the stigmata Francis received at Verna.

This image would run throughout the 13th century which Francis marked so much, and Bonaventure saw in Francis the figure announced by Joachim in the fourth book of Concordia who would be conferred 'the full liberty to renew the Christian religion".

To the Abbot of Fiore's prophecy, Francis's advent appeared like a prompt response, and it was Francis who would have the task of choosing the 144,000 elect who would found the chosen community at the end of times.

But in what measure does this novus ordo - mystic expression of the 'contemplative church' with which the sixth day of creation is transformed into the quiet Sabbath of the seventh day - correspond in empirical fact to the Franciscan order of which Bonaventure was the minister-general in that summer of 1273?

The question is fundamental, even for the consequences that it brings; and the analysis of texts conducted by Ratzinger is attentive to the nuances: It starts from Joachim, goes through the pseudo-Joachimite commentaries, to Jeremiah, and then dwells on the fundamental passages in Collatio XXI; before coming to the conclusion that Bonaventure, ignoring the pseudo-Joachims, takes off directly from Joachim, but actualizes him in the light of Francis and his movement.

If the fundamental thesis of the Spirituals was identification with the Franciscan order, or rather its spiritual branch as the order of the 'final times', Bonaventure rejects that equation and takes a different position: Francis had certainly inaugurated a new community of contemplative men but although it is intrinsically Franciscan, it could not be identified automatically with the actual Franciscan order. The order was perhaps originally destined to play such a role, but the the deviations of its members had brought the Franciscans, like the Dominicans, to the threshold of the 'new time' that they could prepare for, but without being able themselves to incarnate it personally.

And only when this new time arrived, only then would come the moment of full contemplatio and a renewed understanding of Scripture, the time of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, of introduction to the full truth of Jesus Christ.

In the eyes of Bonaventure, as analyzed by Ratzinger, Francis anticipated in his person the form of eschatological existence which, as a form of universal life, belongs to the future. One must conclude surprisingly that this realistic distinction between Francis and Franciscanism was "not only the discovery of liberal research on Francis" which had its most significant peak in the famous 1893 biography by Ernst Renan's pupil, Paul Sabatier, but had already been formulated by 'the great Franciscan superior-general of the 13th century" (p. 81).

This 'realistic distinction' is the key to understanding Bonaventure's behavior as minister-general and his attitude to life as a Franciscan: He could reject the sine glossa, the utter lack of compromise - that he recognized as Francis's desire - in both the exercise of his office, as well as his personal form of life, knowing that the hour had not yet struck. As long as the sixth day lasts, times would not be ripe for that radical Christian existence that Francis, by divine mission, could realize ahead of time in his own person.

Without any sense of unfaithfulness to the blessed founder of his order, Bonaventure could and had to, as a consequence, create for his order those institutional limits which he knew were never intended by Francis. [Bonaventure relaxed Francis's rules for the order.] It is too facile, and definitively wrong, to see this as a falsification of true Franciscanism....

Let us then return, in conclusion, to a passage in the preface of the American edition of this book, dated August 1969. In it, Ratzinger underscores how Collationes was the response to the profound crisis triggered in the Order and in the Church by the encounter between the Joachimite expectation and the Franciscan movement.

Bonaventure could have totally rejected Joachim, as Thomas Aquinas would later do, opting for a history that was all Augustinian and high Middle Ages, for the parable of a mundus senescens, an aging world, which is precipitating ineluctably towards a final crisis.

But doing so, he would have theologically rejected that novelty that Francis had brought, simply through his life, into the world: Bonaventure opts for a different path, which was risky but potentially very fecund: he interprets Joachim "within tradition, while the Joachimites interpreted him against tradition" (p. 12)

Doing so, the minister-general offered an ecclesial reading, which created an alternative to the radical Joachimites and at the same time sought to preserve the unity of the Order (cfr p.12).

Let us now take a step forward and remember that the author of the book we are presenting tonight became Pope on April 19, 2005, 46 years after his book came out, 36 years after he formulated the Preface for the American edition.

How can we not think, then, that the Pope, who addressed the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005, with his celebrated address on the legacy of the Second Vatican Council and on the need to read it as continuity in tradition and not as rupture, is not fulfilling - through that much disputed and discussed legacy of the Council - precisely the very operation that he identified in Bonaventure with respect to Joachim?

When Benedict XVI speaks of the 'right interpretation of the Council', its 'correct hermeneutic', the 'right key for its reading and application', is he not perhaps wishing for Vatican II the same reading that he was able to intuit in Bonaventure with respect to Joachim?

To interpret Vatican II 'within tradition', avoiding escapes and senseless defensiveness, is perhaps the profound key to this Pontificate. And it is quite fitting to think that a possible model for Benedict XVI could be seen in some way in the Bonaventurian theology of history as he portrayed it in his 1959 book and its reading of Joachim.

In this way, Prof. Ratzinger and Pope Benedict XVI reaffirm that theology, like Christian life, should remain in contact with its own history, without which it would be "a tree cut off from its own roots' (p. 12), condemned to dry up and wither.

We all know that the image of the tree was dear to Joachim, as it was to another 13th century interpreter, a faithful and original disciple of Bonaventure, Pietro di Giovanni Olivi - cited in a footnote of the 1959 book - who, in his comment on the Apocalypse, would present the history of the Church as a succession of statuses linked to each other by a concurrentia which unites them without a break, in such a way indeed that one generates the next.

It was Olivi, with the extraordinary parable of the man before the triple peak of a mountain, who expressed in the most effective way the new Joachimite-Bonaventurian conception of history.

We might add that it certainly does not seem by chance that the Prof. Ratzinger who dedicates the entire second chapter to the content of worldly hope in the new Joachimite-Bonaventurian sense would be the same person who in the 1980s and 1990s would face, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the premises and consequences of liberation theology, and who as Pope, would dedicate his second encyclical to the subject of hope.

But we can well see that it is not only the content of the Bonaventurian operation that inspires Benedict XVI - that even its form does. In the final analysis, it is the model of a theologian called on to assume responsibility within the Church - the profile of the theologian Augustine who became Bishop of Hippo, in the 5th century; and in the 13th, that of the master teacher Bonaventure who became minister-general of the Franciscan order and cardinal - which perhaps lives again in the first Bishop of Rome in the 21st century, who was a theologian and remains one, drawing from his theological reflections the nourishment for his preaching and magisterium.

In this sense, reading this book from 1959 is not only illuminating for understanding Bonaventure and Franciscanism. It becomes invaluable for understanding the spirit of its author and perhaps, the profound spirit of his Pontificate.


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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON JOACHIM OF FIORE:

Blessed Joachim of Fiore, OSB Cist. Abbot
(also known as Joachim de Floris)
Born at Celico, Calabria, Italy, c. 1130; died 1202.

Joachim was a visionary and prophet who, early in life, adopted an ascetic life. After a pilgrimage to Palestine, he entered the Cistercian abbey at Sambucina. In 1176, he became abbot of Corazzo, and about 1190, founded his own monastery at Fiore - a new Cistercian Congregation. His life was marked with great piety and simplicity.

He looked for a new age of the Spirit, when the papal Church would be superseded by a spiritual Church in which popes, priests, and ceremonies would disappear, and the Holy Spirit would fill the hearts of all Christ's followers.

Thus, his heart was Franciscan and, in a way, he anticipated the reforming zeal and simple faith of the Quakers. It is not surprising that doubts were sometimes thrown upon his orthodoxy and that many were disturbed by his original and even startling views.

Nevertheless, he opened the way for others to follow, and kindled a hope that ran through the medieval world and stirred the intellect of the Church. Reformation was in the air, and many things which he foresaw or foretold came to birth in the century that followed, in the great days of Dominic, Francis of Assisi, and Ignatius Loyola.

A new emphasis was placed on the work of the Holy Spirit, and after the gloom which preceded, there burst upon the world fresh and radiant visions of saintliness and virtue, and with them a new warmth and glow of religious life. A wave of exhilaration swept across Europe, and in that golden age of art and genius men looked beyond the outward forms and found in their own hearts a living and personal experience of God.

Joachim helped to give birth to this new mood of feeling and spontaneity, which later found song in such words as "O Jesus, King Most Wonderful" and "Jesu, the very thought of Thee." It was Pentecost set to music:

When once Thou visitest the heart,
Then truth begins to shine,
Then earthly vanities depart,
Then kindles love divine.
O Jesus, Light of all below!
Thou Fount of living fire,
Surpassing all the joys we know,
And all we can desire.

With this inner fire went a consuming love that burned in the heart of Saint Francis and his friars, that sent Dominic and his preachers out of their churches into the hills and highways, and that in a thousand monasteries set up Christian communities to care for the welfare of the people.

He was a prolific ascetical writer. His commentary on the Book of Revelation gave his the title "the Prophet" by which he was described by Dante: "the Calabrian abbot Joachim, endowed with prophetic spirit" (Paradiso, XII).

Thus Joachim was among the enthusiasts, who turned for inspiration to the Bible. Unfortunately, after his death the Franciscan Spirituals used his books to uphold their heretical tendencies. Nevertheless, Joachim has always been given the title of beatus, because, as a mystic and a prophet, he refreshed the life of the Church.

Not all Jews share adverse reactions
to the new Good Friday prayer
By Jesús Colina



ROME, FEB. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Jewish representatives have shown their willingness to continue dialogue with the Catholic Church, going beyond interpretations sparked by the new Good Friday prayer to be used by those communities that celebrate the liturgy according to the 1962 missal.

The messages, some of them addressed directly to the Holy See, have arisen after strong criticism of the text of this prayer, which asks that the children of the Chosen People, as well as the rest of humanity, can all come to recognize Jesus Christ and his Church.

The text replaces another prayer for the Jews, offered before the Second Vatican Council, which was perceived as offensive in some of its terms, in part due to the difficult history of relations between Christians and Jews.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews, speaking on Vatican Radio on Feb. 7, clarified that this prayer -- prayed only by very small groups of Catholics, since the rest of the Church will continue with the prayer introduced by Pope Paul VI -- only professes the Christian faith, and does not seek proselytism of conversion.

"In the past, frequently this language was one of scorn, as Jules Isaac, a famous Jew, has said. Now there occurs a respect in diversity," the cardinal said.

Expressing identity

Among the reactions, an article published Feb. 23 in the German newspaper Die Tagespost is noteworthy. The article, written by Jacob Neusner, professor of History and Theology of Judaism in Bard College, supports the explanation given by the cardinal, explaining that the prayer does nothing more than express Christian identity.
[A full translation of Rabbi Neusner's article was posted earlier farther above on this page]

"Israel prays for the gentiles, so the other monotheists -- the Catholic church included -- have the right to do the same, and no one should feel offended. Any other policy toward the gentiles would deny gentiles access to the one God whom Israel knows in the Torah," wrote the professor, who has taught at institutions including Columbia University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Brandeis University, Dartmouth College, Brown University and the University of South Florida.

"And the Catholic prayer expresses the same generous spirit that characterizes Judaism at worship. God’s kingdom opens its gates to all humanity and when at worship the Israelites ask for the speedy advent of God’s kingdom, they express the same liberality of spirit that characterizes the Pope’s text for the prayer for the Jews -- better ‘holy Israel’ -- on Good Friday," the Jewish professor explained.

"Both ‘It is our duty’ and ‘Let us also pray for the Jews’ realize the logic of monotheism and its eschatological hope," Neusner concluded.

Other representatives of important Jewish organizations have sent messages to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which oversees the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews. The messages seek to advance in the dialogue that began with the Second Vatican Council.

A letter from the World Jewish Congress, for example, proposes to advance in the difficult path of dialogue to go deeper precisely in those aspects that mutually wound the believers of both religious, with frankness, respect and the necessary openness of spirit.

Cardinal Kasper has explained in responses to consultations from Jewish organizations that the text of the prayer is inspired in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, Chapter 11, in which it speaks also of God's unbroken covenant with the Jews.

The prayer, he affirmed, leaves everything in the hands of God, not in ours. It does not speak of missionary activity.

Beyond the debate sparked by the prayer, the vast majority of Catholic faithful in the world will continue praying the great intercessions of the Good Friday liturgy, according to the missal adopted in 1969, which came into effect in 1970 during the pontificate of Paul VI.

That prayer says: "Let us pray for God's ancient people, the Jews, the first to hear his word […] that God will grant us grace to be faithful to his covenant to grow in the love of his name."

The Pope champions Europe:
Interview with Massimo Introvigne
by Miriam Díez i Bosch
Translated from
the Italian service of



ROME, Feb. 25 (ZENIT.org) - Europe is undergoing a phase of 'aggressive relativism', says Prof. Massimo Introvigne, author of the book Il segreto dell’Europa. Guida alla riscoperta delle radici cristiane(The secret of Europe: Guide to the rediscovery of its Christian roots, Sugarco Edizioni, 2008).

"The new aggressive relativists would want relativism to become the law of the State," he told ZENIT in an interview. Introvigne is the director of Alleanza Cattolica, and founder and director of CESNUR, Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religioni [Center of Studies for New Religions].


Is Europe in an identity crisis?
The Holy Father on two occasions - in his address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 206, and on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome on March 24, 2007 - used a very strong expression, saying that Europe "seems to want to bow out of history".

'To bow out of history' means to bring down the curtains, greet the audience and say the performance is over. It was good while it lasted, but now it's over. Is it possible? Sure! Unlike human beings, civilizations do not have an immortal soul. The begin and end in history, and European civilization will not be an exception. Is it happening? Many politicians would deny it.

Nevertheless, Benedict XVI has brought to light three aspects - which he enumerated as such in the two speeches I cited - which correspond to given data that are very difficult to deny.

The first is Europe's 'apostasy of itself', the refusal to recognize its own roots - which are so obviously Christian as to render any discussion on the matter specious - and its own history, which has led to a weakness and a lack of identity in the face of any attack or external event. That Europe cannot speak with one voice we see these days on the question of Kosovo.

The second aspect is the separation of laws from morals. Not just the simple distancing from politics or any political figure of private and public morality - which is a problem that is neither recent nor solely European but that runs throughout human history.

No, this time, it has to do with an autonomy that was previously just theorized but has since been fatally put into practice and legislated. We are talking of the autonomy of law from ethics, not from religion, and so the accusations of 'interference' by the Church in public affairs makes no sense, because here, we are dealing with natural moral law and the rules of the game called society - the Pope has spoken of 'the grammar of social life' - which are, as such, neither Christian nor atheist nor Buddhist, but are principles everyone can and should share.


And this grammar of social life is not observed?
Because in Europe today, it is said that there are no 'rules of the game', that the legislator should limit himself to being a notary public, merely formalizing that which is already happening in society (or what the media make them believe is happening).

Are there homosexual couples? Then Parliament should take note and grant them parity to traditional families. Are there Muslims who live in polygamy? Let the law regularize them, or maybe adapt sharia law as some authoritative European figures have suggested. Is euthanasia being practised in hospitals? Let the State regulate it by law, as Luxembourg has just done.

The third aspect is the demographic crisis. The tragic fact is that increasingly fewer babies are being born in Europe. On this point, the facts obstinately refuse to fit the theories of those who insist that Europe is not in crisis, and even the questionable tendency in some nations where new norms of citizenship now include even children of immigrants in the national birth rate.


Aggressive secularism, anti-Christianity, relativism - are we in a new Dark Age?
A non-Catholic intellectual, who was Communist, Antonio Gramsci [Italy's leading political theoretician in the 20th century] used to say that when the weather was bad, one would blame the barometer, but 'abolishing the barometer won't abolish the bad weather".

Today in Europe, we are witnessing this phenomenon: For as long as Benedict XVI is the only one - almost, anyway - who denounces Europe's tragic crisis on the three aspects I have cited (and these are issues that politicians will not want to use in a campaign because usually the bearers of bad news are not rewarded at the polls) - then European secularists will continue to have the mentality implied in Gramsci's barometer.

And so, preventing the Pope from speaking, as they did at La Sapienza, is not going to make the problems go away!

There are those who say that what the Pope denounces as problems are really resources: that the crisis of the traditional family, abortion, euthanasia, denying the existence of natural law, multi-culturalism without reins - in which refusal to sanction polygamy in a European society where many Muslims live is seen as a form of racism - these, they say, are all positive phenomena which must be promoted because they will bring us a society with less conflicts.

For these people, the conflict lies in those who believe that truth exists, whereas when all can agree that there is no truth, then conflict disappears because everyone is right.

But his fantasy has been so frequently belied by history that it should be embarrassing even to consider it. But that's not the way it is.

Where societies are complex - and Europe today is very complex - there is no easy way out. Either persons with diverse cultures and religions find a common grammar of living together - common rules that will allow coexistence - which can only come from reason and natural law that reason can recognize, or we will be reduced to conflicts pitting everyone against everything.

That means, conflicts can be resolved peacefully by resorting to natural law which is valid for everyone, or they will be resolved by violence and bombs.


You have spoken of various phases of relativism. Where are we today?
We are now in the phase of aggressive relativism. The relativist used to theorize even if he did not always practise it, Voltaire's maxim according to which "I do not agree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it". As we know, Voltaire was the first to violate his own maxim when it came to dealing with the Catholic Church!

Still, there were, and there are still, old Voltaireans who truly believe what they say and, although they are relativists personally, they do not call on the State to punish those who are not relativist.

But the new aggressive relativists would like relativism to become the official law of the State, with a consequent penal repression of non-relativists.

A simple example: The old relativists said that "A homosexual's bedroom is his castle" (adapting an English adage in which the castle is a place where not even the king can enter freely), and that the State should have nothing to do with it, where homosexuals as much as heterosexuals should be left free to do as they please.

But the new relativist would have the State put up the castle walls for homosexuals and arrest those who dare to come near or even simply express critical opinions. And that's the sense of the new laws on homophobia, which do not punish those who insult or abuse homosexuals (because ordinary laws can do that) - but according to the formulation of the Italian government that was just forced to resign, they would reprimand those who express 'ideas of superiority', by which they mean, considering heterosexual marriages as intrinsically superior to homosexual unions, or those who think - as the Church does - that homosexual unions are intrinsically out of order.


What then is the secret that can sustain Europe?
Europe's secret strength is its millenary culture, in which other elements besides Christian are certainly included - for instance, you cannot eliminate the contributions made by the European Jews - but whose fundamental course is Christian. As much as they have been covered over by the detritus of the enormous landslide provoked by secularism and relativism, the values of this history are still alive and present.

Of course, the situation is better in some countries. For instance, with regard to Italy, Benedict XVI said at the Verona convention on October 19, 2006, that "the Church in Italy is a reality that is very much alive" - and we see that! - which keeps a permeative presence in the life of persons of every age and condition, and that "Christian traditions are still firmly rooted and continue to bear fruit."

So, we can see that the same Benedict can speak of a Europe that 'seems ready to bow out of history', on the one hand, as well as "Christian traditions that are still firmly rooted" (at least in Italy, but it it certainly not the only country for which analogous considerations may be valid. Is there a contradiction? Not at all.

The Pope, when he speaks of the European crisis, is not presiding at a funeral - he is sitting at the bedside of a sick man. someone seriously ill, from whom it would be futile to hide the gravity of the situation. But a sick person who still has - even if hidden somewhere deep - the potential to heal himself.

Like a good doctor, Benedict XVI does not hesitate to speak of the risks that the sickness may turn fatal, but he also scrutinizes attentively and systematically and values every slight improvement, any sign of healing.

If in the desert, a plant emerges and survives, then it should not be uprooted but cultivated so it can become a tree and who knows, some day, a woodland. But to cultivate such a plant, it must be irrigated. Enthusiasm alone won't do it. But when it is directed towards the Pope, to his words and to his apostolic travels, then it is always a good starting point. To nourish the plant, one needs the waters of doctrine and the magisterium.

The book Il segreto dell’Europa comes out of 35 years of my activities at Alleanza Cattolica, an agency of lay Catholics whose principal objective is the study, dissemination and application of the teaching of the Pontifical Magisterium.

It has never seemed more indispensable and urgent as in these years to propagate the teachings of the Pope - I am thinking for instance of the magnificent fresco of secular history and the story of salvation in Spe salvi, which like everything else, has disappeared from the radar of the mass media when it is no longer 'new'!

A full translation of the Holy Father's catechesis has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.


At the General Audience today, the Holy Father today concluded his catecheses on St. Augustine with his fifth lecture on the saint who has been one of his spiritual and intellectual masters.

Once again, the Pope met the faithful at St. Peter's Basilica for initial greetings to the spillover crowd, and then at Aula Paolo VI for the regular catechesis.

Here is how he synthesized today's catechesis in English:

---

Today we conclude our presentation of Saint Augustine with a discussion of the process of his interior conversion.

In reading his Confessions, we see that his conversion was a life-long journey marked by a passionate search for truth. Despite living an errant life as a young man, Augustine had learned from his mother a love for the name of Christ. Platonic philosophy led him to recognise the existence of Logos, or creative reason in the Universe, which he later came to understand more fully by reading Saint Paul and finding faith in Christ. He completed this fundamental phase in his search for truth when he was baptized in Milan by Saint Ambrose.

The second stage of his conversion saw Augustine return to Africa and found a small monastery with a group of friends dedicated to contemplation and study. Three years later, he was ordained a priest and turned to the life of active ministry, placing the fruits of his study at the service of others through preaching and dialogue.

The last stage was a conversion of such profound humility that he would daily ask God for pardon. He also demonstrated this humility in his intellectual endeavours, submitting all his works to a thorough critique.

Augustine has had a profound effect on my own life and ministry. My hope is that we can all learn from this great and humble convert who saw with such clarity that Christ is truth and love!

---

GOD IS THE ANSWER
TO THE DISQUIET OF OUR HEARTS

VATICAN CITY, 27 FEB 2008 (VIS) - In his general audience, held this morning in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope concluded his series of catecheses on the figure of St. Augustine. Before the audience, the Holy Father went to the Vatican Basilica to greet pilgrims who had been unable to find a place in the hall.

St. Augustine "is one of the great converts of Christian history" said Benedict XVI. Reading the Confessions, he went on, "it is easy to see that Augustine's conversion was neither sudden nor fully achieved right from the start. Rather it may be defined as a ... journey, and remains as a model for each one of us".

"St. Augustine was, ever since the beginning, an impassioned searcher after the truth. ... and the first stage of his journey of conversion ... consisted precisely in his gradual approach to Christianity". He received a Christian education from his mother Monica and, despite having lived a wild youth, "always felt a profound attraction to Christ".

The saint's "passion for mankind and for truth ... made him seek God, great and inaccessible". But "Faith in Christ, led him to understand that the apparently distant God is not in fact distant. He has come close to us, making Himself one of us. In this context, faith in Christ was the culmination of Augustine's long search along the path of truth. ... This path must be followed with courage and, at the same time, with humility, while remaining open to the permanent purification of which each one of us has need".

St. Augustine, the Pope recalled, "was reluctantly ordained a priest in Hippo and assigned to the service of the faithful", in which role "he continued to live with Christ, but while serving everyone. He found this very difficult at the start, but he understood that only by living for others, and not just for his own private contemplation, could he truly live with Christ and for Christ.

Renouncing a life of pure meditation he learned, often with difficulty, to place the fruits of his intellect at the service of others, to communicate his faith to the common people, ... and thus to live for them in that city which he had made his own. ... This was his second conversion".

The Pope then went on to identify another stage in Augustine's journey "which we could call his third conversion and which brought him daily to ask forgiveness of God. ... We have a perennial need to be washed by Christ, ... to be renewed by Him". We need "the humility to recognise that we are all sinners, constantly journeying until God definitively gives us His hand and introduces us to eternal life". With such humility Augustine lived and died.

"Having converted to Christ Who is truth and love", the Pope continued, "Augustine followed Him throughout his life and stands as a model for all human beings who seek after God. ... Today too, as in his time, humankind needs to know this fundamental reality and, above all, to put it into practice: God is love and meeting Him is the only answer to the disquiet of our hearts".

Benedict XVI concluded his catechesis with a prayer that "every day we may be able to follow the example of this great convert, meeting in every moment of our lives, as he did, the Lord Jesus, the One Who saves us, purifies us and gives us true joy, true life".









A variation today on the usual GA pictures, but why don't the newsphoto services cover the audience inside the Basilica?

Pope to stay in Archbishop Pell's home
during Sydney visit in July
The West Australian
27th February 2008



Pope Benedict XVI will stay with an archbishop in a church residence during his four-day visit to Sydney in July.

The Pope's visit to Sydney for World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations are expected to involve a massive security and logistical exercise.

Releasing some details of the visit on Wednesday, NSW Deputy Premier John Watkins said the Pope would stay with the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, at the Catholic Church's residence next to Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral.

"When he's in Sydney he will be staying at St Mary's, at the house," Mr Watkins said.

Along with other visiting WYD dignitaries, the Pope will travel by boat to some Sydney locations and WYD events.

Apart from Randwick Racecourse, where he will conduct a mass, the Pope is likely to visit sites including the newly-named Barangaroo site in East Darling Harbour, the Domain, the Opera House and Centennial Park.

A spokesman for WYD said the Pope was expected to arrive at Barangaroo by boat for his official welcome.

But he said the program and arrangements for the visit would not be finalised and confirmed by the Holy See until shortly before WYD.

World Youth Day organisers have only 10 weeks exclusive access to Royal Randwick in which to transform the racecourse for the July 20 papal mass.

A stage to hold the Pope and 1,000 senior clergy as well facilities for the more than 300,000 people inside the racecourse must be built in that time.

Mr Watkins said the Randwick turf will be protected from pilgrims but replacement grass is being grown as a contingency.

He said the racetrack will be ready for racing again in time for the spring carnival.

More than one million pilgrims attended Longchamp racecourse in Paris for its World Youth Day, he said.

"They had racing up and running again three weeks later," Mr Watkins said.

"Now it's a different challenge here in Sydney, but we believe with the grass growing that's being done, and with the protection for the track that we are investing in, that we will also have racing up in time for the spring carnival."

In today's issue, L'Osservatore Romano formally announces that starting Sunday, March 2, it will be distributed in Italy as a Sunday supplement, free of charge, to L'Eco di Bergamo, a regional newspaper based in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, hometown of Blessed John XXIII.

To spread the Pope's word
Translated from the 2/27 issue of




What has always been a sore point for L'Osservatore Romano - and one of its problems - is the 'restricted range of its radius of circulation', in the words used in 1961 by then Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, writing on the centenary of the Vatican newspaper.

These circulation and distribution problems have only increased in the past few years, in the context of a communications panorama that is increasingly richer and also more confusing.

But obviously, the Pope's newspaper deserves to become more known and more widely circulated.

First of all in Italy, because of the natural relation of the Vatican newspaper with the great nation in which the Pope is also Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy.

Osservatore deserves to be more widely read, especially since it has been reforming in order to better serve the needs of the Pope and the Holy See, which has raised new interest.

Two small examples. One of our habitual readers was pleasantly surprised to find it available among the newspapers placed at the disposal of patrons in a small but very popular trattoria in Verona. Equally glad was a young employee of the newspaper to see it available for customers of a bar in the center of Rome.

Small signs, surely, but there are others like subscriptions from new readers, as well as requests from newspaper kiosks in Rome that previously did not carry it.

Therefore, on March 2, the newspaper will take a very important new step in its history: At least for 2008 initially, our newspaper will be distributed every Sunday with another important Catholic newspaper, L'Eco di Bergamo, which was edited for decades by Don Andrea Spada, also known by the pseudonym Gladius, and edited today, with great professionalism and continuing success, by Ettore Ongis.

The Sunday edition of the Pope's newspaper will be transmitted electronically from the Vatican so it can be printed and distributed by the Bergamo paper, to go with its own Sunday edition without added cost to the buyer. [DIM]pt[=DIM][Sandro Magister says the Sunday circulation of Eco is 70,000.]

This unprecedented initiative - it is also the first time since 1929 that the newspaper will be printed outside the Vatican - is made possible by the generous offer to Benedict XVI from the Diocese of Bergamo and its bishop, Mons. Roberto Amadei, to mark the 50th anniversary of the election of Cardinal Angelo Roncalli who become Pope John XXIII.

We are humbly confident that, under the aegis of Benedict and Blessed John XXIII, L'Osservatore Romano will continue to build up its circulation.

[The item is signed with the initials GMV at the end, for editor Giovanni Maria Vian.]


=====================================================================


Coincidentally, Powerblog at the Acton Institute site had this commentary today on one of the evident changes at the OR under Vian:


Solid Economics at L'Osservatore Romano
www.acton.org/
Wednesday, February 27, 2008


Good news is not always so hard to find. Case in point: Free-market economics is making a comeback at the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Previously known as a dry read, L’Osservatore Romano (which means The Roman Observer in English) now contains provocative interviews and real news stories from around the world.

This is attributable to the paper’s new editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, who was appointed to the post by Pope Benedict last October.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a well-known Italian economist and banker, has been given prominent space to comment on current economic developments. He is a strong defender of the link between Christian principles and free markets, having authored a 2004 book titled, Money and Paradise: The Global Economy and The Catholic World.

In a February 13 article titled “The capital we should value most is human,” he warns against the temptation to resolve economic problems by merely increasing public spending. As Italians know only too well, high public spending will at some point translate into higher taxes. He stresses that these, in turn, diminish human liberty and dignity.

He is also critical of the Italian welfare state which only distributes resources without enhancing individual responsibility and future opportunities. His solution to the current economic difficulties is to leave more space for the market to push Italian businesses to a higher level of competitiveness, which then helps to increase investments and create jobs.

Gotti Tedeschi’s latest front-page article deals with an equally important subject -- the high price of oil and economic development. He directly confronts those who argue that we need to reduce economic growth in order to adapt to falling energy supplies.

In his view, this would signal an unwarranted pessimism and distrust in human creativity. Instead, future energy problems should be combated with more research in new technologies and through using existing technologies more efficiently. Getting human anthropology right and showing confidence in human inventiveness are crucial.

Gotti Tedeschi’s ability to combine economic issues with Christian thought greatly enriches L’Osservatore Romano and all supporters of the free market should be thankful for this turn to sanity. Three cheers for the Pope’s newspaper!

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


Muslim delegation
coming to the Vatican
for March 4-5 talks
Translated from
the 2/27 issue of


The first bilateral meetings between Vatican representatives and Muslim leaders pursuing dialog will take place in Rome on March 4-5.

The purpose is to set up a meeting, probably to be held in the spring, between the Pope and representatives of the 138 religious leaders who sent him an open letter entitled 'A Common Word between Us and You' last October.

Paving the way for this first encounter - called 'historic' by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog (CIRD) - was the exchange of letters in November and December between Cardinal Tarciso Bertone and Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, whose Amman-based foundation is sponsoring and hosting the "Common Word' initiative.

The Oct. 13 open letter addressed to the leaders of all Christian churches and confessions proposed to begin a dialog based on common adherence to the principles of 'love of God' and 'love of fellowmen.'

On Nov. 19, Cardinal Bertone wrote Prince Ghazi in the name of the Pope welcoming the initiative and proposing in turn that priority be given to practical common concerns, namely, respect for the dignity of every human being, reciprocal knowledge of each other's religion, sharing the religious experience, and promoting respect and reciprocal acceptance among people of different faiths. It ended with an invitation for the Muslim leaders to send a delegation to the Vatican in order to set up a formal basis for such dialog.

Prince Ghazi replied on December 12 accepting the invitation and said the group would send three representatives for the first meeting.


Cardinal Tauran in Cairo

Additional info from PETRUS:

The bilateral talks next week were also announced in Cairo by Cardinal Tauran, who is ending a two-day visit at Al-Azhar University for the tenth annual bilateral meeting between the CIRD with Muslim leaders.

Al-Azhar is the acknowledged doctrinal center of Sunni Islam, the majority Muslim sect.

The Egyptian state news agency Mena reported that at the meeting, Cardinal Tauran expressed the Vatican's condemnation of the recent re-publication in Danish newspapers of the Mohammed cartoons, which had sparked worldwide riots by Muslim protesters in 2006.

The agency also said that at the bilateral talks, the Al-Azhar panel was headed by its vice president, Sheikh Abel-Fateh Allam, and that the two sides examined ways to clarify wrong conceptions about religion and to demonstrate the social value of religion.

In a second dispatch posted by Petrus:

Cardinal Tauran is quoted as saying at the Cairo talks that "Our young people today are being formed by a global culture which is the antithesis of our beliefs in God. In this context, faith is the foundation on which we can get close to each other."

Referring to the theme of this year's meeting, Tauran said: "Without love for our neighbor, we are reduced to reciprocal threats among peoples and cultures. We aer here to face the challenges to religion, justice and peace, to human dignity and to human rights."

He recalled Pope Benedict's words to the Muslim community in Cologne in August 2005: "We wish to seek the ways of reconciliation and learn to live together respecting each other's identity."

Tauran said "the joint agreement between Al-Azhar and the CIRD is aimed at increasing such opportunities, because this will promote reciprocal respect and understanding among Catholics and Muslims through an exchange of information."

"Muslims and Christians," he said, "share a belief in the same God who asks us to consider mankind as one big family in which the strong must help the weaker members.... Religions contribute to the moral development of the human being, giving each one the possibility adn the tools to become better persons and to do good works according to God's plan."

Referring to the 'letter of the 138', the cardinal said he initiative 'was progressing' and that the Cairo discussions on the theme 'love of neighbor' can only contribute to it.

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful



138 reasons to speak clearly:
Fr. Samir comments on
the dialog with 'the 138'
By GIORGIO PAOLUCCI
Translated from the
2/27/08 issue of






He knows Islam well. He has studied it for 50 years and he has lived with it for as long. Born 1938 in Egypt, he has been a resident of Beirut for 22 years, where he teaches Islamic studies at St. Joseph University.

In 2006, Benedict XVI invited him to Castel Gandolfo to give a lecture at the annual seminar-reunion of the Ratzinger Schuelerkreise, the Pope's former doctoral students. The seminar theme in 2006 was Islam.

We spoke to Fr. Samir, a Jesuit priest who is a theologian as well as an Islamologist, on the prospects opened by the 'letter of the 138' and the preparatory talks next week that could lead to a formal dialog between Pope Benedict XVI and representatives of the 138.


The meetings at the Vatican on March 4-5 will be a historic 'first'. What may we legitimately expect and what illusions should we guard against?
First of all, it must be made clear that the imminent bilateral talks are meant to define some procedural aspects. It will not get into the merits of any discussion points but will try to draw up an agenda to be faced.

This being the first time, one cannot really go too far because both sides will be calibrating their respective positions. And I wish to point out that there are not only two positions - because within both delegations, one will find differing attitudes and sensibilities.


A concept of dialog tends to set aside matters of difference, at least temporarily, and concentrate on the matters that are common and unifying. Is this the sense of the Holy See's position as expressed in the letter of Cardinal Bertone?
The Holy See [position is very clear in that letter: "Without ignoring or under-estimating our differences as Muslims and Christians, we can and should look at what unites us."

It shows realism and reasonableness: in dialog, one must look at the other in his entirety, not imagine him the way we want to. Let me make an example. If I say that Islam has great respect for Jesus, considers him a great prophet and the Koran tells about his miracles, I am saying something true but only partially so. I should also add that the Koran accuses Christians of having elevated Jesus to being God, of having invented the Trinity, of having falsified the Gospel.

Benedict XVI invites us to be thorough, not to stop at what is positive and not to be reined in by the negative. And that is what true dialog means.


Among the elements the two religions have in common, where do you think the most progress can be made?
Respect for the dignity of every human being is certainly the most important because it lays the basis for living together and for ethics.

The recent openness indicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the introduction of elements of sharia (Muslim religious law) in British society comes from the idea that everyone can be judged depending on his religious faith. Whereas what should be affirmed is that we are all held to respect inalienable human principles that are universally accepted, as is, precisely, the dignity of every human being.

That principle implies religious freedom, which in turn, includes the possibility of belonging to a faith other than the prevailing or dominant faith, or the faith in which one has been educated.

This is an open nerve in Muslim society, where anyone who leaves Islam is accused of apostasy and risks discrimination, persecution and even death.


So it is not enough to say that we all believe in one God and love for our neighbor, as the 'letter of the 138' says?
It's an important statement but it must be defined in concrete terms, otherwise it is only a vague wish. What does it concretely mean to love my neighbor? Can I love my enemy? Can I love the sinner who has betrayed divine law? And can I love someone who has changed his religion, the apostate? These questions are not secondary and define a measure for what is being affirmed.


One other important point in the letter from Cardinal Bertone was the need for objective reciprocal knowledge of each other's religion. What would make this possible?
Today, what prevails is knowledge based on stereotypes and on expectations one harbors about the other side. But one should also know what the other side says about itself. In this sense, it is therefore essential, for instance, to look at the approximations and the outright lies that are contained in scholastic texts, whether Christian or Muslim, which feed preconceived hostilities and sow poison along the road of a possible encounter.


Some have defined the 'letter of the 138' as deceptive because it does not face a central issue for contemporary Islam: the super-imposition of politics and religion. What do you think?
An objection one must share. The problem is not, as I said, theorizing on love of God and love of neighbor, but to understand how to live together while remaining different - how to accept the difference without demonizing each other (perhaps even in the name of God). How to love someone whose position is opposite mine.

This is definitely the open nerve in the contemporary Muslim world, about which many religious authorities make religious statements that serve as political instruments. They have used verses of the Koran to give a theological basis for political positions, to the extent of justifying suicide bombing attacks. Likewise, others will use verses of the Bible in the same way, this time to justify taking territorial possession or the need to make war against a people.


Does the wide spectrum of the signatories to the letter (Sunnis, Shiites, Ismailites, Sufi, belonging to 43 nations) indicate that the document has a consensus in the Muslim world, and what does it mean for the problem that Islam does not have a universally recognized hierarchy?
The signatories belong to 43 nations but they don't represent them. Many are authoritative and prestigious personalities, but, as is usual in the Muslim world, they cannot speak in the name of everyone. Anyone, in the name of Islam, can always object to anything they say.

To this we must add the fact that, as some of the signatories have told me, many signed the document without even reading it, merely relying on the authoritativeness of its proponents, which as we know, includes the royal house of Jordan.


In short, there are many reasons to be skeptical...
We must be realistic, as the Holy Father asks us to be. Realistic ,but also trustful in the good will of men and in the work of teh Holy Spirit who will not fail to enlighten us.

Even without hiding the difficulties irenically, the novelty of the event is indisputable and cannot be under-estimated. It is the first time that a group of Muslim wise men manifest that there is more than one reason for agreeing with Christianity.

And the response from the Holy See was not a simple acknowledgement that the letter was received. We must hope and pray that we can take a few steps forward together along a common path.

The important thing is not to discuss a document nor to draw up another, but to decide to meet regularly (at least once a year) to discuss issues prepared in advance with seriousness and responsibility. It should lead to a lasting relationship, not an occasional one.

Avvenire, 27 febbraio 2008


=====================================================================


More blunt and far more skeptical than Fr. Samir is this conservative columnist for Pajamas Media, a conservative LA-based site whose tagline is '...sending MS down the river'. What started as a loose affiliation of some 100 like-minded bloggers has developed into a daily journal of politics adn culture. This piece makes some pretty serious claims!


WHAT THE ISLAMIC SCHOLARS
FORGOT TO TELL THE POPE
by Patrick Poole
pajamasmedia.com/
Feb. 26, 2008


Last October, the international media establishment was abuzz over a letter sent by 138 Islamic scholars representing the elite of the worldwide ulema to Pope Benedict, entitled “A Common Word between Us and You”, in response to his papal address at Regensburg in September 2006.

The letter extols the common bonds between Muslims and Christians, and their common belief in the love towards neighbors. It further declares that “justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part of love of the neighbor.” Many Christian leaders have responded by welcoming this effort and affirming the Islamic scholars’ letter.

The letter was the product of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman, Jordan, and its chief scholar, Sheikh Said Hijjawi, was one of the 138 signatories (#49). In fact, according to the introduction, the letter was presented by the Institute to the Islamic scholars gathered at a conference held at their facilities in September 2007.

There is one thing, however, amidst all the flowery overtures, theological discussion, and representations of religious pluralism that the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute and the 138 Islamic scholars forgot to mention:

The Institute, which operates a website, AlTafsir.com, which it calls “the largest and greatest online collection of Qur’anic commentary, translation, recitation, and essential resources in the world,” includes in an “Ask the Mufti” section a number of fatwas on apostasy issued by the Institute’s chief scholar, Sheikh Hijjawi, that call for the death of Christian reverts (Christians converting to Islam and then returning to the Christian faith) and Muslim apostates. Further they state that if the Christian reverts and Muslim apostates are not killed, they should be deprived of all rights and accorded the status of non-persons.

This glaring contradiction between the proffer of dialogue with Christians on the basis of allegedly shared common beliefs in freedom of religion and human rights, while simultaneously denying those very fundamental freedoms and recognition of rights to those Christians and Muslims who choose to exercise their freedoms, was first noted by an Australian Anglican cleric, Dr. Mark Durie, in a blog post.

Rev. Durie, a noted scholar on comparative theology who spent years studying the culture of the Acehnese in Indonesia and is fluent in Arabic, also is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and senior associate of the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. He previously served as the head of the Department of Linguistics and Language Studies there.

His analysis of the 16 apostasy fatwas that were posted on AlTafsir.com by Sheikh Hijjawi, who previously served as the Grand Mufti of Jordan and mufti in Oman, finds that they consistently rule that “there is no freedom of Muslims to choose whether to believe in Islam, and no human rights for Christians who have left Islam.” Durie notes that Sheikh Hijjawi’s apostasy fatwas cite a number of verses from the Koran and hadiths of Mohammed in support of his rulings.

And for those Christians and Muslims who are not killed, the fatwas condemn such to a living death as a non-person. Rev. Durie translates some of the punishments to be imposed according to Sheikh Hijjawi’s fatwas:

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- His marriage is annulled by virtue of his apostasy.
- He cannot inherit the wealth of any of his relatives — whether they are Muslims or not — because the apostate is legally regarded as dead.
- None of his actions after apostasy has any legal validity (as the apostate is a legal non-person).
- An apostate cannot be remarried, whether to a Muslim or a non-Muslim.
- He cannot be a guardian for anyone else, so he loses custody of his children, and an apostate father has no say over his daughters’ marriages.
- An apostate must not be prayed for by Muslims after his death and must not be buried in a Muslim cemetery.
- If a male apostate comes back to Islam and wishes to resume his marriage, he must remarry his wife with a new ceremony and provide a new dowry for her.
- The apostate’s wealth and possessions are to be entailed upon an heir. If the apostate repents and returns to Islam, he receives his wealth back. If he dies while still an apostate, his wealth is inherited by his Muslim heir, but only the amount which he had at the time of his apostasy. Any wealth which accrued after he had left Islam is considered fay (and thus the collective property of the Muslim community).

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Needless to say, the implications of this finding in light of the singular leading role played by Sheikh Hijjawi and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute in drafting and promoting “A Common Word” could very well be catastrophic for the attempted efforts to convince the international Christian community of their sincerity and amity.

Rev. Durie arrives at this very conclusion:

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It does not seem to be the case that the signatories of “A Common Word” understand concepts such as justice, loving one’s neighbor, and “freedom of religion” in the same way that most Christians would. The Chief Scholar of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, who was a highly prominent signatory of the Common Word letter, is calling for Christians who have converted to Islam to be killed, or else they should be deprived of their rights and treated legally as “dead men walking.”

Indeed, because these fatwas are available over the internet, the former Grand Mufti and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute are effectively calling for the death of Christians day after day, and will do so until this material is taken down from the site.

---

The implications were apparently not lost on Sheikh Hijjawi or the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute either. Just hours after Rev. Durie’s blog post had appeared, the apostasy fatwas were promptly removed (the fatwas had appeared here).

In fact, the entire AlTafsir.com website was down for most of the following day, perhaps in an effort to scrub the site of this damaging information.

That the Institute has removed these fatwas without any acknowledgment of the previous presence is yet another incident in a seemingly endless procession of evasions, duplicity, and outright hypocrisy by the so-called religious leaders in the Islamic world.

It should be observed that the Institute’s list of 99 senior fellows, many of them signatories to “A Common Word,” reads like a “Who’s Who” of the international Islamic religious establishment.

And yet these Islamic leaders hail from countries that as a rule are among the worst offenders of religious liberties and human rights in the entire world (one only need to consult the annual reports issued by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for abundant proof).

The fact remains that under the very noses of these Islamic leaders, Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities (not to mention many Muslims themselves) are officially harassed, brutalized, and murdered in numbers so vast that the collective misery would stagger the imagination.

Meanwhile, Christians, Jews, and Muslims continue to flee the Islamic world for the West in one of the greatest human migrations recorded in human history — all in an effort to find refuge in the freedoms and liberties they have never been able to find at home. These clerics have thus far been unable or unwilling to address the virtual absence of religious liberty in the Islamic world from Nigeria to the Philippines (saving, of course, the freedoms enjoyed alike by Jew, Christian, and Muslim in Israel).

With this in mind, Christian leaders should be wary of sheikhs and muftis bearing “interfaith” letters proclaiming “common words.” If these Islamic scholars are serious about establishing a dialogue with the global Christian community they could demonstrate their sincerity, not by offering meaningless letters and hypocritical statements on religious freedom and human rights, but instead approaching Christians on their knees in repentance, contrition, and shame.

=====================================================================

Well, no, offending Muslims do not need to show such abjection. They only have to show good faith. But that's a tall order, because in the case of all the obvious offenses against human dignity, individual freedoms and religious freedom that Islam decrees to be right, the whole structure of Muslim law is so severe and uncompromising that one cannot expect even a prince of the royal house of Jordan to be able to temper it. Who knows what act of God it will take to alter rules and laws that have been codified and petrified since the 7th century?

But what about simpler things that an individual Muslim with common sense can and should do - unclouded by blind 'interpretation' of the Koran and the whole set of binding provisions that regulate every act in Muslim life?

To me, the most obvious earnest of good faith they could show was always for them to make public statements to condemn the killings everytime a suicide bomber takes lives in Iraq and elsewhere - most of them Muslim lives - or Palestinians target Israelis and vice-versa. The Pope and secular Western leaders do not hesitate to denounce such acts whenever they happen, on whichever side (rocket attacks and bombings in the case of non-Muslim offenders)! Which Muslim holy man does, other than the Shiite Ayatollah al-Sistani in Iraq?

Yet even at the time these Muslim wise men sent 'A COMMON WORD', did any single one of the signatoreis raise a voice to protest what is happening on a daily basis in Iraq and Palestine? No. Nor did they in Naples, at the much ballyhooed inter-religious encounter.

Where is 'love of God' and 'love of one's neighbor' in all this?

=====================================================================

In another apropos, here is An AsiaNews report from Amman last week:

Christian group expelled from Amman,
accused of proselytising among the Muslims


Amman, Feb. 21 (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Jordan has expelled a group of Christians accused of carrying out proselytising activities under the cover of humanitarian aid operations.

The foreign minister explained yesterday that "some foreigners arrive in the kingdom under the pretext of charitable activities, but break the law and carry out missionary activities".

According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, the group of eight missionaries was distributing Christian material among the Bedouins to the north and east of the capital Amman. Their presence was identified by some inhabitants of the place where the group offered humanitarian aid to families and distributed fliers that "promoted Christianity".

Islam is the state religion in Jordan. The government outlaws conversion from Islam, as well as proselytism among Muslims.

Last week, the Council of Churches in Jordan, which represents the Christian community in the country, warned of the presence of about "40 sects". It also condemned the actions of these movements, from which it distanced itself, saying that they "create discord within Christianity itself and with the Muslims".

Of a population of 6 million inhabitants, 92% are Muslim, while the Christians represent about 6%.

The Pope and the Jesuits:
Explaining the Problem
By Jeff Mirus
www.catholicculture.org/
Posted Feb. 26, 2008


In my last Insights message I linked to an excellent Catholic World News story on Pope Benedict’s final words to the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in Rome on February 21st.

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Remember 4th vow, Pope urges Jesuits

Vatican, Feb. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) gave the world's Jesuits a pointed reminder of their oath of fidelity, during a February 21 audience with participants in the 35th general congregation of the Society of Jesus.

Meeting with the Jesuit leaders as they concluded their general congregation-- at which they had elected a new superior general, Father Adolfo Nicolas-- the Holy Father stressed that the Jesuit order today should act "in full fidelity to the original charism."

That original charism, the Pope continued, is marked by devotion and obedience to the Church and the Roman Pontiff; he reminded the Jesuit leaders of St. Ignatius' demand that his followers should always work "with the Church and in the Church."

---

The Pope’s message is even more striking when you consider what preceded it.

Before the Pope’s final address, the new Superior General, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, greeted the Pope and attempted to anticipate his concerns.

He stressed the Order’s “commitment to the service of the Church and of humanity” inspired and impelled by “the Gospel and the Spirit of Christ.” He assured the Holy Father that “in communion with the Church and guided by the magisterium, we seek to dedicate ourselves to profound service, to discernment, to research.”

For these reasons, Fr. Nicolás lamented, “it saddens us, Holy Father, when the inevitable deficiencies and superficialities of some among us are at times used to dramatize and represent as conflicts and clashes what are only manifestations of limits and human imperfections, or inevitable tensions of everyday life.”

It is not the first time the new Superior has sounded this note. Apparently that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. But is the massive failure of the contemporary Jesuit Order to defend and explain the teachings of the Church nothing more than a human imperfection?

Is the widespread Jesuit refusal to weed out candidates with homosexual tendencies only a tension of everyday life?

Is the near total failure of Jesuit educational institutions to maintain a Catholic identity nothing more than an inevitable “limit” on the performance of deeply committed Catholics guided by the Magisterium?

Benedict does not appear to think so. In his response, he said in effect: “Don’t try to play this game with me.” Let’s list a few of the points he made:

- The Jesuits must seek “that harmony with the magisterium that avoids causing confusion and uncertainty among the People of God.”
- They must “adhere completely to the Word of God as well as to the magisterium’s charge of conserving the truth and unity of Catholic doctrine in its entirety.”
- The Order must realize that “the option for the poor is not ideological but rather is born of the Gospel” and so the Jesuits must “fight the deep roots of evil in the very heart of the human being, the sin that separates us from God.”
- The Order must again become “capable of challenging cultural historical adversities to bring the Gospel to all corners of the world.”
- Its members must defend Catholic teaching on precisely the points that are “increasingly under attack from secular culture.”
- The Order must “regain a fuller understanding of [its] distinctive ‘fourth vow’ of obedience to the Successor of Peter.”
- And the pièce de résistance: “I well understand that this is a particularly delicate and troublesome issue for you and for many of your colleagues.”

Inevitable tensions of everyday life be damned. Granted, it is as yet unclear whether Benedict will (or can) actually enforce a reform, but he is under no illusions as to the need.


It is well worth reading the Pope's full address to the Jesuits on Feb. 21. The translation has been posted on
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/newpost.aspx?a=edit&c=65482&f=65482&idc=12058&idd=354537&idm=78829...

Posted today in the preceding page:

---

The Pope and the Jesuits: Explaining the problem - A Catholic Insight commentary says the Pope's
last meeting with the Jesuits shows he is well aware of continuing 'loyalty' problems.

It is well worth reading the Pope's full address to the Jesuits on Feb. 21. The translation has been posted on
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/newpost.aspx?a=edit&c=65482&f=65482&idc=12058&idd=354537&idm=78829...

---

Cardinal Bertone confirms
social encyclical


For now, a news brief translated from PETRUS. I will post a translation of the Repubblica article later:


VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state,
has confirmed that the Pope is preparing a social encyclical .

"I think it will have a significant impact on the big socio-economic issues of the contemporary world," the cardinal says in an interview for La Repubblica, whose Vatican correspondent, Marco Politi, covered his trip to Cuba.

"The encyclical will particularly refer to problems of the Third and Fourth Worlds," he said.

About the Cuba trip, Bertone commented: " With maximum respect for teh sovereignty of the nation and its citizens, I expressed to President Raul Castro the concerns of the Church for political prisoners and their families."

On relations with Islam and China , he said: "I would say they are proceeding positively. With steps toward rapprochement, as well as with realism. I think a true dialog is in the process of taking place.
In the case of Islam, one only has to look at what has happened since the letter from the 138 Muslim religious leaders. With China, we are proceeding on a path of concrete actions. Contacts and reciprocal reflections are taking place."


Lella has now posted this brief Panorama item, translated here, which gives a date for the encyclical. Originally, the speculation was that it would be released on March 17, St. Joseph's primary feast day. But if earlier reports are to be believed - which claimed the encyclical is already in translation - it might make more sense, and more impact, for it to be released before the Pope's visit to the USA and the UN rather than after.


THE POPE'S NEW ENCYCLICAL
By Ignazio Ingrao



Six months after Spe salvi, Pope Benedict will issue his third encyclical. The document will be dated May 1, feast of St. Joseph as patron of laborers.

It will be an encyclical on social issues. The central theme of the document is: "Let it not be said that globalization is synonymous to the world older. On the contrary. The conflicts over economic supremacy and the monopoly of energy and water resources as well as raw materials, make it difficult for those, at every level, who are attempting to build a just and fraternal world." [Ingrao lifted this from a recent address or message by the Pope.]

Taking off from that reflection, the encyclical confronts the principal emergencies today: poverty, social inequalities, peace, respect for creation.

The document is divided into two. In the first, the Pope refers back to the encyclicals Populorum progressio of Paul VI and Centesimus annus of John Paul II.

The second part will be his review and analysis of the great challenges in t contemporary world. The first draft was as drawn up by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace one and a half years on the 40th anniversary of Populorum Progressio.

But the Pope reportedly preferred to come out first with the encyclical on hope. Other dicasteries of the Roman Curia also contributed to the draft.

Panorama n. 9/2008


Picked up from PETRUS today:

Muslim representatives
to preliminary talks
next week

[The PETRUS item begins by quoting some statements made by Fr. Samir in the interview published by Avvenire yesterday (trasnslation posted in the preceding page of this thread.]

The Muslim representatives who will take part in bilateral talks at the Vatican on March 4-5 are:
- Abdel Hakim Murad Winter, of the University of the Muslim Academic Trust (UK)
- Aref Ali Nayed, Cambrdieg University professor, who was once a lecturer at the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies (PISAI)
- Sergio Yahya Pallavicini, head of the Islamic commuity organization COREIS in Italy
- Ibrahim Kalin, of the Seta Foundation, Ankara, Turkey
- Sohail Nakhood, editor of the Jordan-based Islamica Magazine.

The Vatican panel will be led by Cardial Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog (CIRD, and will include Council secretary Mons. Pierluigi Celata, and the president of PISAI, Miguel Ayuso.

This will be a procedural meeting to determine a muutually acceptable date for a formal meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and the names of those who will be meeting with the Pope, from among the 138 original signatories of the Oct. 17 open letter to Christian leaders by Muslim religious leaders and scholars.



Alitalia president named to be
Vatican's international financial controller


ROME, Feb. 27 (Thomson Financial) - Alitalia president Maurizio Prato has been named as the Vatican's international financial controller by Pope Benedict XVI, according to a statement from the Holy See.

The council of international financial controllers is attached to the Vatican's prefecture of economic affairs, which controls the administration of Vatican City and drafts the Holy See's financial accounts.

The council has to comprise five professionals particularly competent in examining accounts and balance sheets, and who are prepared to give their services free of charge. The council members meet at least once a year.

Prato was already a councillor with the Vatican's prefecture of economic affairs.

Prato will take on this new role "in addition to his functions at the head of Alitalia", a spokesperson for Alitalia told Agence France-Presse.



I am putting this next story here even if it is not NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT because he personally committed to what is apparently an excellent initiative to raise funds for an urgent and ongoing international problem:

'Vaccine bond' scheme turns to Japan
for next offer



TOKYO, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - A pioneering scheme to tap capital markets for funds for life-saving vaccines has picked Japan for its next offer of bonds that have already been bought by rock stars and even Pope Benedict XVI [who bought the first one ever issued, in his personal capacity, to set an example. See photo].

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) will offer its "vaccine bonds" to Japanese investors next month as part of efforts to unlock long-term donor pledges of four billion dollars, officials said Wednesday.

The offer follows a first foray into the capital markets in London in November 2006 that raised one billion dollars from investors including religious leaders and rockers-turned-activists Bono and Bob Geldof.

The initiative, launched in September 2005 by Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, aims to immunise 500 million additional people against preventable diseases in 70 of the world's poorest countries by 2015.

"There is no value immunising a child in 2015 -- when funds might become available -- if that child is going to die of disease this year," said IFFIm chairman Alan Gillespie.

"We estimate that this intervention will save five million child deaths and more than five million future adult deaths," he told potential investors at a packed seminar in Tokyo.

The funds will be used to support the work of the GAVI Alliance, which is backed by UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, governments, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and vaccine manufacturers.

Japanese people have long prided themselves as being among the world's most avid savers, and foreign currency denominated bonds are becoming increasingly popular amid rock-bottom domestic interest rates.

The AAA-rated IFFIm bonds, which will be denominated in South African rand, are being offered by Daiwa Securities Group.

The size of the bond issue and the coupon have not yet been announced. The money will be repaid using future government aid payments.

Since its launch, Norway and South Africa have also joined the IFFIm donor list and Brazil has announced plans to sign up.

Vatican envoy to the USA
prepares way for the pope
By Cathy Lynn Grossman
USA TODAY, 2/28/08



WASHINGTON — Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the veteran Vatican diplomat who serves as the Holy See's U.S. ambassador, knows exactly why the world will see — but not hear — Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the bedrock at Ground Zero during the pope's first visit to the USA.
The silence is Sambi's idea.

"This will be a moment of solidarity with those who died and their families. He will walk alone to indicate the loneliness of those who went to their deaths and the loneliness of the survivors. He will light a lamp. He will pray silently and make a public prayer (the only portion to be broadcast) for the remembrance of those who died, and for peace.

"There must be only silence and prayer here because not a single word will be enough to be convincing. Nothing will be adequate to touch the loneliness of those who died there and those who lost someone. Silence and prayer are what is required."

It is Sambi's job to know what is required, spiritual or political or trivial, to make a success of the shy, scholarly pope's visit. When Benedict comes to Washington and New York April 15-20, he will be reaching out to all Americans, not only Catholics.


Archbishop Sambi at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, where the Pope will stay.

Sambi, 69, is a model of Italian charm who engages visitors with warm hazel eyes and expressive hands emphasizing his conversation. He has a 40-year résumé of serving in world hot spots: Jerusalem, Cuba, Indonesia and more.

He follows the late Colombian Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo in the post, which is officially known as the Papal Nuncio. But while Montalvo was "old school" in the job of communicating behind closed doors between the Vatican and U.S bishops, Sambi engages in "a public and pastoral way," says church historian Matthew Bunson, editor of The Catholic Almanac.

One of Sambi's first actions was to visit with New Orleans relief workers, for example.

Now, the nuncio wants to correct many people's image of Benedict, drawn from when the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, enforcing John Paul II's strict vision of Catholic teachings.

"Anyone who lives by first impressions will simply see very quickly they were wrong about this Pope Benedict," Sambi says.

"The great surprise for people will be that the professor is a very simple man, human and warm in the ways in which he expresses himself. He came down from the chair of the teacher and accepted the role of preacher."

Indeed, Vatican watchers calculate that Benedict is outdrawing the immensely popular John Paul II when he speaks to the faithful in St. Peter's Square during Wednesday general audiences and his noon prayer and reflections on Sundays.

Benedict's U.S. visit is built around his address to the United Nations April 18, where he will likely speak out for "peace and human dignity," including care for the poor, for refugees and for the environment, "God's creation," Sambi says.

The pope also will meet with President Bush, U.S. bishops, leaders of other religions and other Christian churches, Catholic educators, and young people. He will celebrate Mass at Washington's new Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium.

"Hope is the transcendent theme. A person or a people without hope is already dead," Sambi says. "In his humble, simple, kind way, this pope is bringing us this clear message: that the way to happiness is to know that God loves you, and because God loves you, you love your neighbor."

The Pope also will confront the ugly wounds of clergy sexual abuse. The scandal, which involved nearly 5,000 priests and more than 12,000 victims, rocked the nation in 2002. Settlements and legal bills have surpassed $1.5 billion.

The Pope "will address this — and more than once," Sambi says.

But he does not elaborate on when or where, or whether the pope will meet with abuse victims. On that, the voluble Sambi falls diplomatically silent.

Neither will the Pope say anything about the contentious U.S. presidential elections, Sambi adds.

Sambi also is engaged in the fine points of making Benedict, who will turn 81 while in Washington, welcome and comfortable.

The shining black Yamaha baby grand piano is tuned in case the pianist pope wants to relax playing Mozart. It stands in one of the upstairs reception rooms at the nunciature, the Vatican Embassy's home and offices, across busy Massachusetts Avenue from the vice president's residence.

If Benedict wants to take one of his twice-daily walks, Sambi has mapped out a sylvan route where birds will drown out urban clamor.

But there are no plans for the German-born pope to have Bavarian pastries for his birthday luncheon. This will be an Italian meal, Sambi says, catered by Cafe Milano, a trendy Georgetown restaurant.

It's one more taste of American life for Benedict, who keeps an astute eye on popular culture.

Young people are drawn to the Pope's message of "obedience to God as the way to happiness" and away from the self-centeredness of modern life, Sambi says.

"If you stop believing that you are God, it will be easy to believe in Him."

Catholics believe the Pope is infallible in questions of faith and morals, but "he very rarely makes infallibility an issue. There is so much absolutism, so much infallibility in each of us, the Pope uses it very little by comparison."

Sambi, eyes twinkling, repeats, "People will be surprised."


And this cute sidebar to the story:

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POPE GETS A 'BENNY BEAR'

The first officially announced souvenir for Pope Benedict XVI's visit is the "Benny Bear."




That's the nickname Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman Susan Gibbs gave the bear, which will be sold only at six Washington, D.C.-area Build-A-Bear Workshop stores.

"It's cute. It's fun. It brings the Holy Father into secular culture and lets parents go into a family-friendly store and do something related to their faith," Gibbs says.

The bears costs $10 to $20. The Christ Our Hope logo T-shirt costs $6, and a portion of the shirt sales will help pay for the pope's trip.

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P.S. The Gannett newspaper chain, which publishes USA TODAY and at least one major regional New York state paper, has come up with a nifty logo for their coverageof the Pope's visit to the USA:

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The Holy Father met today with
- Mons. Giuseppe Lazzarotto, Apostolic Nuncio in Australia
- El Salvador bishops, Group 2, on ad-limina visit. Acdress in Spanish.

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Pope and El Salvador bishops
discuss emigration, violence, poverty
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service



VATICAN CITY, Feb. 28 (CNS) -- Preaching the Gospel in El Salvador requires concrete efforts to strengthen family life and to fight poverty and injustice, Pope Benedict XVI told the country's bishops.

"Increasing violence is the immediate consequence of other, deeper social wounds, such as poverty, the lack of education, the progressive loss of those values that always forged the Salvadoran soul and the breakup of families," the Pope said.

Pope Benedict met the bishops of El Salvador Feb. 28 at the end of their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses.

Praising the deep faith of the Salvadoran people, the pope said the Gospel had been preached with fervor "by pastors filled with love of God like Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero," who was murdered in 1980 as he celebrated Mass.

Pope Benedict did not mention the status of the late archbishop's sainthood cause, which has been the object of debate. While many believe he was a martyr, others say he was killed for political motives and not for his faith.

Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle of San Salvador, speaking on behalf of the country's bishops, told the pope that the number of Catholics in the country continues to increase as does the number of vocations to the priesthood.

"The phenomenon of the massive emigration of Salvadorans to the United States is a serious worry," he told the pope. Although there is good cooperation with U.S. bishops in providing pastoral care for Salvadorans, the negative impact on young people, on family life and on traditional values is obvious, he said.

Archbishop Saenz said the young members of Salvadoran gangs in Los Angeles are a special concern, not only because they commit so many acts of violence, but also because U.S. authorities regularly deport gang members after they have served prison sentences in the United States.

Pope Benedict told the bishops he understood that poverty forces many Salvadorans to emigrate, seriously threatening the stability of marriages and of family life in general.

The Pope asked the bishops to strengthen their pastoral outreach to families and to focus on "offering young people a solid spiritual and affective formation, which will help them discover the beauty of God's plan for human love and will enable them to live coherently the authentic values of marriage and family life, such as tenderness and mutual respect, self-control, total self-giving and constant fidelity."

The Church must also educate Catholics in the faith and in the social teaching of the Church, which will give them clear principles for working for justice and the common good in society, the Pope said.

"The challenges that you face are enormous and appear greater than your efforts and abilities," the Pope told the bishops, adding that they must continue to place their trust in God, "for whom nothing is impossible."


Elsewhere at the Vatican:

Cor Unum assembly asks:
Has 'Deus caritas est' changed
hearts among charity workers

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's encyclical is not just something to read; it should change the attitudes and habits of those who work in Catholic charitable groups, believes the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

The Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which coordinates and promotes the world's Catholic institutions of assistance and volunteering, began today its 28th plenary assembly.

The meeting, under way through Saturday, will consider the "human and spiritual qualities of people who work in Catholic charity institutions," the Vatican reported.

One of the aims of the assembly is to re-examine Benedict XVI's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, and to verify if and how it has changed the attitudes of those who work in the charitable organizations of the Church. Attention will also be given to the question of the integral and continuous formation of managers and workers in the various Catholic charity organizations.

Cardinal Paul Cordes, president of the dicastery, opened the assembly. His address was followed by a report from the council's secretary, Monsignor Karel Kasteel. Following this, representatives of the various charitable bodies will discuss their work experiences.

Friday will be dedicated to examining the principal theme of the meeting, the main contribution coming from Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities based in Alexandria, Virginia.

Subsequently, Professor Paul Schallenberg of the University of Fulda, Germany, will address the gathering on "the place of mercy in the welfare state: theological-ethical observations." At the end of the second day, participants will visit the "Comunita dell'Agnello," a group of women religious who announce the Gospel and work with the poor on the streets and in homes.

On Saturday, working groups will meet to discuss ideas and proposals for formation.

Catholics Have a Right To Pray for Us
By Jacob Neusner
The Jewish Daily Forward
Thu. Feb 28, 2008

Rabbi Neusner has now published the article that appeared in the German Cathoklic newspaper Die Tagespost on Feb. 23 (translated from the German in this Forum) in the Jewish Daily Forward, the largest Jewish daily newspaper inthe United States.


Israel prays for gentiles, so the other monotheists, the Catholic Church included, have the right to do the same — and no one should feel offended, as many have by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent revision of the Tridentine Mass.

Any other policy toward gentiles would deny their access to the one God whom Israel knows in the Torah. And the Catholic prayer expresses the same generous spirit that characterizes Judaism at worship.

God’s kingdom opens its gates to all humanity and when at worship, the Israelites ask for the speedy advent of God’s kingdom. They express the same liberality of spirit that characterizes the Pope’s text for the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday.

Let me explain. I derive evidence of the theology of Judaism toward gentiles from the standard liturgy of the synagogue. I draw the text from “The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire,” published in London in 1953, which sets forth an English translation of a prayer for the conversion of gentiles that concludes public worship three times a day every day through the year.

The text is uniform in the worship of Judaism. In it Israel — the holy people, not to be confused with the State of Israel — thanks God for not making the holy people like the other nations. In worship, holy Israel asks that the world be perfected when all mankind calls upon God’s name and knows that to God, every knee must bow.

The text of the prayer reads, “It is our duty to praise the Lord of all things.” It offers thanks to God for giving Israel its own “portion,” its own destiny and lot in life, and making it different from the other nations of the world. God is asked to remove “the abominations from the earth” when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty.

This prayer for the conversion of “all the wicked of the earth,” who are “all the inhabitants of the world,” is recited in normative Judaism not once a year, but every day.

Normative Judaism, it can reasonably be argued, asks God to enlighten the nations and bring them into his kingdom. As if to underscore this aspiration, the prayer “It is our duty” is followed by the Kaddish: “May he establish his kingdom during your life and during your days and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time.” I do not see how in spirit or in intent these prayers differ from the Tridentine Mass.

These passages from the standard, daily liturgy of normative Judaism leave no doubt that when holy Israel assembles for worship, it asks God to illuminate gentiles’ hearts. The eschatological vision finds nourishment in the prophets and their vision of a single, united humanity, and in a liberal spirit encompassing all humanity.

The condemnation of idolatry does not afford much comfort to Christianity or Islam, which are passed by in silence. The prayers beseech God to hasten the coming of his kingdom.

These normative Jewish prayers form the counterpart to the Catholic one that asks for the salvation of all Israel “in the fullness of time, when all mankind enters the Church.”

The proselytizing prayers of Judaism and Christianity share an eschatological focus and mean to keep the door to salvation open for all peoples.

Holy Israel should object to the Catholic prayer no more than Christianity and Islam should take umbrage at the Israelite one. Both “It is our duty” and “Let us also pray for the Jews” realize the logic of monotheism and its eschatological hope.

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The Holy Father's day:
- He attended the second Lenten sermon of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of
the Pontifical Household, at the Redemptoris Mater Chapel.
- He was presented with the 2008 Annuario Pontificio, which reports the latest
worldwide data on the Catholic Church based on statistics compiled in 2006.
He met with
- H.E. Mary Ann Glendon, who presented her credentials as the new US ambassador
to the Holy See. Address in English.
- H.E. Juan Gavarrete Soberón, Ambassador from Guatemala, on a farewell visit
- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
- H.E. Mons. Felix Anthony Machado, Archbishop-elect of Nashik (India).
- Participants at the plenary assembly of Cor Unum. Address in Italian.

The Vatican also released the text of the Final Declaration from the annual meeting of the Joint Committee
for Dialog between the Permanent Committee of Al-Azhar for dialog among monotheistic relgiions and
the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog, held in Cairo on Feb. 25-26. Text in English.

---

Pope welcomes new US ambassador,
urges Americans to let values guide choices
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service




VATICAN CITY, Feb. 29 (CNS) -- Welcoming Mary Ann Glendon as the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI praised those working to defend human life and urged Americans to let moral values influence their political choices.

"The American people's historic appreciation of the role of religion" in making policy decisions that take ethical and moral values into account, the pope said, "is reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life, from conception to natural death."

The pope said the same commitment to moral values is seen in efforts to safeguard "the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman, and that of the family."

With members of her family looking on Feb. 29, Glendon and the pope exchanged speeches focused on protecting human dignity, eliminating poverty and promoting peace.

And both of them mentioned Pope Benedict's planned April 15-20 trip to Washington and New York.

"I look forward to my pastoral visit to the United States in April," the Pope told Glendon.

"On your first visit to the U.S. as Pontiff, you will find a warm welcome from a nation that understands the important contribution offered by people of faith in our society," the ambassador assured him.

"You will be among friends," she said.

Glendon, 69, is no stranger to the Vatican. The Harvard law professor has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences since 1994 and served as president of the body for almost four years before being sworn in as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Welcoming Glendon in her new role, Pope Benedict said, "I am confident that the knowledge and experience born of your distinguished association with the work of the Holy See will prove beneficial in the fulfillment of your duties."

Pope Benedict's concerns about certain trends in U.S. society and certain policies of the U.S. government were framed as expressions of praise for those working to protect human life and the traditional family and statements of hope for peace.

Looking at global issues, the Pope said, "the plague of international terrorism" is not the only threat facing the human family.

"The quickening pace of the arms race and the continuance of tensions in the Middle East" also threaten the future, he said.

The Pope repeated his call for "patient and transparent negotiations" to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons, and he expressed his hope that the November Middle East peace conference hosted by the United States in Annapolis, Md., was "the first of a series of steps toward lasting peace in the region."

Pope Benedict also repeated his conviction that nations, including the United States, must not act unilaterally in the face of problems that threaten peace and stability around the world.

Peace in the Middle East, concern over new nations developing nuclear weapons and other problems, he said, call for "trust in, and commitment to, the work of international bodies such as the United Nations."

The international organizations "by their nature are capable of fostering genuine dialogue and understanding, reconciling divergent views, and developing multilateral policies and strategies capable of meeting the manifold challenges of our complex and rapidly changing world."

Glendon and the Pope also noted that 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an anniversary Glendon said she hoped the United States and Vatican could celebrate with a joint commemoration.

Pope Benedict said the declaration "was the product of a worldwide recognition that a just global order can only be based on the acknowledgment and defense of the inviolable dignity and rights of every man and woman."

The massacres and wars of the 20th century, "culminating in the planned extermination of whole peoples," particularly the Jews during World War II, demonstrate that political bargaining alone cannot ensure the future of humanity and the protection of individuals, the Pope said.

"It must be the fruit of a deeper consensus based on the acknowledgment of universal truths," he said.

Pope Benedict praised the people of the United States for the way they have worked together to unite "people of good will, regardless of race, nationality or creed."

"Today this task of reconciling unity and diversity, of forging a common vision and summoning the moral energy to accomplish it, has become an urgent priority for the whole human family," he said.

The Pope also praised the United States for its generosity in foreign aid.

"The building of a more secure future for the human family means first and foremost working for the integral development of peoples, especially through the provision of adequate health care, the elimination of pandemics like AIDS, broader educational opportunities to young people, the promotion of women and the curbing of the corruption and militarization which divert precious resources from many of our brothers and sisters in the poorer countries," he said.

Glendon told the Pope, "Your Holiness, the United States is an instrument of hope in the world because its people are compassionate and generous."



Here's how Reuters spun the Pope's speech to their purposes:

Pope, ahead of U.S. trip,
speaks of abortion, gays
By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY, Feb. 29 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, ahead of his first trip to the United States, praised Americans on Friday who oppose gay marriage and abortion and called for global nuclear disarmament.

In an address to new U.S. ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict touched on issues he will likely raise on his April 15-20 visit, during which he will meet President George W. Bush in Washington and address the United Nations.

The Vatican timed the April 10-15 visit to take place before the final phase of the U.S. presidential campaign in order to avoid anything that could be seen as trying to influence the vote.

But in his address to Glendon, 69, a Harvard law professor who has been a consultant to various Vatican departments, Benedict touched on sensitive political issues.

He said Americans' appreciation of religion's role in public life is "reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death."

Benedict also spoke of safeguarding the family and "the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman."

Gay marriage is a hot political issue in the United States.

Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that allows same-sex marriage while several states allow civil unions for gay couples. More than 25 states have constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage.

The pontiff also told Glendon, a close friend of Bush, that the world's problems extended well beyond terrorism.

"The progress of the human family is threatened not only by the plague of international terrorism, but also by such threats to peace as the quickening pace of the arms race and the continuance of tensions in the Middle East," the pope said.

He called for "trust in, and commitment to" international organizations like the United Nations to foster dialogue to diffuse global tensions.

His call for "patient and transparent" nuclear disarmament negotiations came as the United States pushes ahead with plans to build a global missile defense shield, opposed by Russia.

Washington says the shield is meant to protect it and allies from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

Glendon, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts native who in 1994 became the first woman to lead a Vatican delegation to a U.N. conference, said the German-born Pontiff would receive a warm welcome in Washington and New York.

"You will be among friends," she said, noting that Benedict's predecessor John Paul II made seven U.S. visits that were "opportunities for a conversation on the important issues of the day."

Glendon is the second woman U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.


CHARITY WORK AS AN EXPRESSION
OF EVANGELICAL LOVE

VATICAN CITY, 29 FEB 2008 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, who are meeting to reflect on the theme: "Human and spiritual qualities of people who work in Catholic charity institutions".

"Charitable activity occupies a central position in the Church's evangelising mission", said the Pope. We must not forget that works of charity are an important area in which to meet people who do not yet know Christ, or who know Him only partially. It is right, then, that pastors and those responsible for pastoral charity work ... should concern themselves with the human, professional and theological-spiritual formation" of people who operate in this field.

"Those who work in the many forms of charitable activity of the Church cannot, then, content themselves just with offering technical services or resolving practical problems and difficulties. The assistance they provide must never be reduced to mere philanthropy but must be a tangible expression of evangelical love".

Charity workers, the Pope explained, must be, "above all, witnesses of evangelical love". They achieve this "if the ultimate aim of their mission is not that of being social service operatives, but of announcing the Gospel of charity. Following Christ's footsteps, they are called to be witnesses of the value of life in all its expressions, especiallY defending the life of the weak and the sick, following the example of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta who loved and looked after the dying, because life is not measured in terms of efficiency, but has value always and for everyone".

Ecclesial charity workers, Benedict XVI continued, are also "called to be witnesses of love, of the fact that we fully become men and women when we live for others, that no-one must die and live for themselves alone". And, he concluded, charity workers "must be witnesses of God, Who is fullness of love and invites us to love".


PRESENTATION OF PONTIFICAL YEARBOOK 2008

VATICAN CITY, 29 FEB 2008 (VIS) - This morning, Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B. presented the Holy Father with the 2008 edition of the "Annuario Pontificio," or pontifical yearbook. Also present were Archbishop Fernando Filoni, substitute for General Affairs, and the officials responsible for compiling and printing the volume.

A communique regarding the presentation highlights some of the salient facts contained in the new yearbook. In 2007, eight new episcopal sees were created, as well as one apostolic prefecture, two metropolitan sees and one apostolic vicariate; 169 new bishops were also appointed.

Between 2005 and 2006, the number of Catholics in the world increased from 1,115 million to 1,131 million, a growth of 1.4 percent. Over the same period, the number of bishops grew from 4,841 to 4,898, an increase of 1,2 percent.

The number of religious and diocesan priests passed from 406,411 in 2005 to 407,262 in 2006 (a growth of 0.21 percent). The number of priests has grown steadily from 2000 to 2006.

However, the distribution of priests differs from continent to continent. Their numbers have fallen in Europe and America, and increased in Africa and Asia.

Students of philosophy and theology in diocesan and religious seminaries number 115,480, an increase of 0.9 percent over last year. Of these 24,034 are in Africa, 37,150 in America, 30,702 in Asia, 22,618 in Europe, and 976 in Oceania.


BENEDICT XVI'S PRAYER
INTENTIONS FOR MARCH

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The general prayer intention:

"That the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation between persons and people may be understood and that the Church, through her testimony, may spread Christ's love, the source of new humanity".

The mission intention:

"That Christians, who are persecuted in many parts of the world and in various manners because of the Gospel, may continue, sustained by the strength of the Holy Spirit, to bear witness courageously and openly to the Word of God".

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can I buy that bear? !!!!!!!

I've always felt that we are missing a lot by not having any idea of what is said to the Holy Father by those who deliver formal remarks to him before he addresses them at an audience, because there will always be a specificity about it depending on the group represented and the occasion. Here are the words delviered by Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon today as she presented her credentials, courtesy of ZENIT.

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Your Holiness,

It is a distinct honor and pleasure to present to you my credentials as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Holy See.
I extend warm greetings from President George W. Bush and the American people. I am grateful to President Bush for the opportunity to represent him and my country to the Holy See.

Your Holiness, in your message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace this year, you wrote “We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters.”

The United States of America believes that strong alliances, friendships and international institutions enable us to advance along that path through shared efforts to promote freedom, prosperity, and peace. We recognize a privileged place in such a partnership for the Holy See whose strong moral voice resonates in the hearts of men and women throughout the world.

An essential element of strong friendship is ongoing conversation -- a dialogue -- based on mutual respect, understanding and trust. This is particularly true for people of faith.

The United States, in its desire to be a partner in interfaith dialogue, is working to amplify the many voices speaking out against the misuse of religion to promote terrorist violence and to support the efforts of those who are striving for greater interfaith understanding.

We are encouraging conversations among cultures. In a new program called “Citizen Dialogue,” we have sent Muslim American citizens across the world to engage with citizens in Muslim communities.

We have sponsored summer programs for young people, teaching respect for diversity. The U.S. understands that we are part of an increasingly interconnected world that calls on each of us -- no matter what our culture or faith -- to work for peace, life, and hope.

Your Holiness, this year marks the sixtieth anniversary of two important international documents that were the fruits of collaboration among persons of many different faiths and cultures -- the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

These documents emerged from the darkness and horror of the Second World War. They stand today as beacons for the inalienable dignity and rights of the human person. They also stand as testimony to the progress that can be made through reason and good will even in troubled times.

Today, both the United States and the Holy See actively promote the principles contained in those documents. It is my heartfelt desire that we will work together to commemorate the anniversary of both the Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention in a fitting manner.

The United States and the Holy See have collaborated in recent years on many projects to protect and enhance the dignity of the person. The United States is particularly proud of its initiatives to tackle trafficking in human beings.

U.S. funded programs have provided anti-trafficking training and support to hundreds of women religious in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Similar programs for the clergy and male religious will be offered this year. We are confident that these combined efforts will eventually result in the elimination of trafficking in men, women and children.

Your Holiness, poverty, hunger and disease continue to plague too many regions of our world. For the United States, these are not only humanitarian issues but concerns that affect regional stability and security. We are striving, therefore, to provide impoverished nations with the economic and social tools that will empower them to seize hold of their own destiny.

The United States is leading the struggle against global poverty with strong education initiatives and with humanitarian assistance programs like our new Millennium Challenge Account which are geared toward strengthening democracy, transparency, and the rule of law in developing nations.

The United States is also in the forefront of efforts to combat global hunger. Today, more than half the world's food aid comes from the United States. In his State of the Union address, President Bush referred to an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, in order to build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine.

The United States is also confronting the infectious diseases that are taking such a toll in developing nations. We are working to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in 15 African nations. Through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the United States is treating 1.4 million people. We can and will bring healing and hope to many more.

Your Holiness, the United States is an instrument of hope in the world because its people are compassionate and generous. That is why we are eager to work in partnership with the Holy See to enhance the lives of all the world’s people, but in particular, those who are caught up in the despair that comes from poverty, hunger and disease.

Your Holiness, in your encyclical Spe Salvi, you reminded us that “our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone.” It is our commitment to this essential human solidarity that inspires the compassionate actions of the United States in and for the human family.

We are particularly pleased that Your Holiness will visit the United States this coming spring. On your first visit to the U.S. as pontiff, you will find a warm welcome from a nation that understands the important contribution offered by people of faith in our society. You will be among friends.

The seven pastoral visits made by your predecessor, Pope John Paul II, were opportunities for a conversation on the important issues of the day. We look forward to a similar dialogue during your own visit as you offer your message of hope and peace.

Your Holiness, in the 24 years of the formal diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Holy See, we have recognized in each other a solid and valuable partner dedicated to making the people of our world safer and more hopeful.

As I take up my position as the eighth U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, I want to reaffirm the invaluable nature of that relationship in the quest for freedom, justice, peace and human dignity throughout the world.

Thank you, Your Holiness.

---

POPE ASKS CHURCH
TO PRAY FOR ABDUCTED
ARCHBISHOP OF MOSUL
Translated from
the Italian service of


The Holy Father was immediately informed of the abduction today of Mons. Paulos Faraj Rahho, Archbishop of Mosul of the Chaldeans in Iraq, during which two of the prelate's security men and his driver were killed.

Mons. Rahho had just left the church after leading the Stations of the Cross, a religious rite which the faithful in Iraq practice a lot. The circumstances seem to show the abduction was premeditated.

The Pope expressed his sorrow for the 'execrable act' and sent a message of comfort to Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of the Chaldean Church, to the entire Christian community and the families of the victims.

The Pope also called on the universal Church to join his fervent prayers that reason and humanity may prevail with the abductors so that Mons. Rahho may be returned quickly to caring for his flock.

He also renewed his hope that the Iraqi people may find the way to reconciliation and peace soon.


Pope asks for release
of kidnapped Iraqi archbishop

VATICAN CITY, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict deplored on Friday the kidnapping of the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul in Iraq as a "despicable" crime and urged the gunmen to free the prelate.

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped in the northern Iraqi city and his driver and two guards were killed when gunmen opened fire on his car.

A Vatican statement said the pope was saddened by "this new despicable act" which it called a premeditated criminal act.

"The Holy Father asks the universal Church to join in his fervent prayer so that reason and humanity prevails in the kidnappers and Monsignor Rahho is returned to his flock soon," the statement said.

It said the pope felt close to the Iraqi people, particularly the minority Christians, and was praying that the whole country could find the path to reconciliation and peace.

Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that practises an ancient Eastern rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community in Iraq. (Editing by Sami Aboudi)


Chaldean bishop of Mosul abducted



MOSUL, Iraq, Feb. 29 (AsiaNews) – Mgr Faraj Rahho, Chaldean bishop of Mosul, was abducted today after he celebrated the Via Crucis. Three people who were with him were killed. Mgr Rabban al-Qas, bishop of Arbil, told AsiaNews about the event after getting the news directly from Mosul.

The kidnappers are said to have already made a request. The abduction took place at 5.30 pm local time, Ishtar TV reported. Bishop Rahho had just left Mosul’s Holy Spirit Cathedral.

“The bishop is in terrorist hands,” Mgr al-Qas said, “but we don’t know in what physical state. The three men who were with him, including his driver, were killed.”

“It is a terrible moment for our Church. Please, pray for us,” the Arbil bishop said in an appeal to the world.


IN CARACAS, REVOLUTIONARIES
TAKE OVER CARDINA'S OFFICE

CARACAS, Venezuela, FEB. 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Caracas is again appealing for peace in the wake of escalating political violence, this time after supporters of President Hugo Chávez took temporary possession of the archiepiscopal palace.

On Wednesday, the group of "students and other revolutionaries" as the archdiocese's Web site referred to them, took possession of the archbishop's offices, forcing those working in the building to leave.

According to El Universal, a Caracas newspaper, the group read a declaration ratifying "that our fight is for the power of the sovereign people and for socialism as the only possible alternative for the development of the country."

Cardinal Jorge Urosa, archbishop of Caracas, affirmed, "This escalation of violence should cease, and that is the work of the government."

"All sectors should contribute so that there is harmonious peace and concord. Differences are cleared up with dialogue and in democracy," he told the private channel Globovision.

The cardinal lamented that authorities did not respond to his calls to report the invasion of the offices, and he demanded "respect for the Church, for those who work with me, for myself and for the priests."

The cardinal linked the incident to attacks from certain government officials against positions taken by the Church hierarchy in regard to matters of national interest.

"It seems," the archdiocesan Web site reported the cardinal saying, "that the authorities must avoid an escalation of violence. It's important that they inject a big dose of serenity and calm. In this sense, it is very important as well that these attacks from well-known persons, high government functionaries, against institutions or persons be stopped, because attacking someone is not a light matter. Recently a high official made remarks against the apostolic nuncio and against me; today then, this happens."

Together in building
'the civilization of love'
By Giulia Rocchi
Translated from



Like a bridge across the Atlantic, the Pope's rosary with university students tomorrow afternoon (March 1) will bridge the old and the new continents.

More than 20,000 will gather at St. Peter's tomorrow, although Aula Paolo VI can only hold about 8,000, and thousands of others will be linked by satellite TV in ten cities of Europe, the Untied States and Latin America.

The annual Marian vigil is held in connection with the European Day for University Students, marking six years in 2008, promoted by the
Conference of European Bishops and organized by the Vicariate of Rome's Office for university pastoral ministry.

The theme this year, "Europe and the Americas together to construct the civilization of love", ties in with the conference on "Europe and the Americas together towards integral and fraternal development" at the Pontifical Gregorian University which began Feb. 28 and ends with the Marian vigil.

The Pope will symbolically offer his second encyclical Spe salvi to the students as an aid to 'building the civilization of love.' The encyclical will be distributed as a CD-ROM.

The encyclical serves as compass for young people to orient themselves in the contemporary world, said Mons. Lorenzo Leuzzi, director of Rome's pastoral ministry for universities.

The event paves the way, he said, to World Youth Day in Sydney, which is oriented towards rediscovering the Sarcrament of Confirmation and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians.

"The encyclical," he said, "calls on Christians to rethink our responsibility to give Christian hope to the contemporary world, and this can happen only if Christians, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, are able to give concrete form to a civilization of love."

The opening ceremony for tomorrow's Marian vigil will be presided by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State.

Participating this year besides the university students of Rome are students from Bucharest (Romania), Toledo (Spain), Avignon (France), Edinburgh (Scotland), Minsk (Belarus), New York City, Havana, Aparecida, Mexico City, and Loja (Ecuador), who will be linked by satellite TV to the Aula Paolo VI.

Last year, the non-European participants were from Asia and Africa.

As in the past two years, the students will present their own programs of musical numbers, testimonials and prayers, and then Pope Benedict will lead them in praying the Rosary.

Center of the Marian vigil is the icon of Mary Sedes Sapientiae (Seat of Wisdom), which was consigned last December after a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, by Albanian university students to a Romanian delegation.

The congress at the Gregorian university began with opening addresses on the theme of "The shared roots and historical ties of the relationship between Europe and the Americas" by Florencio Hubenak of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina named in honor of Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires, and by Bianca Maria Tedeschini Lalli of the Roma Tre University.

The meeting continued with three main sessions, the first on: "Europe and the Americas in the global society", the second on: "The role of university formation in facing development challenges", and the third on: "University cultures and models in globalisation".

The meeting will come to an end in the morning of March 1 with two round-table discussions on "The brain drain problem: U.S.A. - Latin America - Europe" and "Experiences of and prospects for university co-operation for integral and fraternal development".

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The Holy Father this morning presided at
- An ordinary public consistory to set canonization rites on Oct. 12 for four new saints
and the elevation of a few cardinal-deacons to the rank of cardinal-priests.
In the late afternoon, he will preside at
- The annual Marian vigil and rosary with university students of Rome, in satellite link
with students from 10 cities in Europe and the Americas.

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Consistory sets canonization
of four new saints for Oct. 12



Pope Benedict leads the cardinals into the Sala Clementina for this morning's consistory.


VATICAN CITY, Mar. 1 (dpa)- Pope Benedict XVI approved Saturday the elevation to sainthood of four candidates including women from India, Ecuador and Switzerland and an Italian priest who founded a missionary order.

The four will be formally listed as Roman Catholic saints on 12 October, the Vatican said announcing the decision made by Benedict in a morning meeting with a group of cardinals.

Indian nun Anna Muttathupandathu - known as Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception - who belonged to the Congregation of Poor Clares of the Third Order of St Francis and who died in 1946, is set to become India's first female Roman Catholic saint.

Another "blessed" destined for sainthood is Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, an Ecuadorean-born laywoman who died in Peru in 1869.

She will be joined by Swiss nun Maria Bernarda Buetler who founded the Congregation of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of Mary Help of Christians and who died in Colombia in 1924.

Completing the list of new saints was Naples-born priest Gaetano Errico, the founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who died in 1860.

Last week the Vatican issued a document tightening procedures for creating saints, including instructing bishops to carefully scrutinise the "holiness" or "martyrdom" of candidates.

It also specified how alleged miracles performed by candidates must be examined and reiterated that a cause for sainthood cannot be presented sooner than five years after the death of a candidate.

During the pontificate of the late John Paul II, some 1,340 people were beatified - the first step towards sainthood - while nearly 500 were canonized. This tally is greater than all previous popes combined since the current procedures on sainthood were introduced in 1588.


4 CARDINAL DEACONS ELEVATED
TO CARDINAL PRIESTS



The meeting today among the Pope and the cardinals is called an ordinary public consistory. According to the Vatican bulletin about the consistory:

The Pope's decree on the canonization rites, was followed by the assignment of some cardinals in the Order of Cardinal Deacons to the Order of Cardinal Priests.

The process is called 'optazione' in which tehnically, the cardinal-deacon 'opts' or requests to be made a cardinal priest.

With the change in degree, their current diaconates attain the status of titular churches 'pro hac vice' (for the occasion), and will be the new cardinal-priests' respective titular churches in Rome.

TRhe new cardinal-priests are:
- Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medína Estevez, of the Diaconate of San Saba.
- Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, of the Diaconate of Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traino.
- Cardinal Lorenzo Antonetti, of the Diaconate of S. Agnese in Agone.
- Cardinal James Francis Stafford, of the Diaconate of Gesù Buon Pastore in Montagnola, who has been assigned the titular church of San Pietro in Montorio.

With the accession to Cardinal-Priest of Cardinal Castrillon, the Holy Father confirmed Cardinal Agostino Cacciavillan, Deacon of Santi Angeli Custodi at Città Giardino, as the Proto-Deacon of the College of Cardinals.

The Cardinal Protodeacon is the senior Cardinal Deacon in order of appointment to the College of Cardinals. He has the privilege of announcing a new Pope's election in the famous "Habemus Papam" announcement given from the central loggia at the Basilica of Saint Peter.

Cardinal Castrillón had been Protodeacon since February 2007, after the previous protodeacon, Cardinal Estevez, turned 80 and decided to return to his native Chile to serve as a simple parish priest.

Cardinal Estevez delivered the 'Habemus papam' announcement of Pope Benedict XVI's election.




ABOUT THE CARDINAL ORDERS

There are three degrees within the College of Cardinals:

Cardinal Bishops;
Cardinal Priests; and
Cardinal Deacons.

This does not correspond to their actual degree of orders (ie, whether they are a bishop, priest or deacon) but to their position within the College of Cardinals.

Those who are named Cardinal Priests today are generally archbishops of important dioceses throughout the world, though some hold Curial positions. Cardinals appointed from within the Roman Curia, or appointed after age 80, are made Cardinal Deacons.

Cardinal-Bishops are the highest-ranking among the prelates and are so-named because they become titular bishops of the six suburbicarian dioceses of Rome. Aomong them, they elect the Dean of the College of Cardinals.

Patriarchs of the Eastern Church also automatically become cardinal-bishops of their respective dioceses but they do not participate ion electing the Dean.

After having been a Cardinal Deacon for 10 years, the Cardinal can petition the Pope to be promoted to Cardinal Priest.

With the exception of Cardinal Delly of iraq, all the cardinals named so far by Benedict XVI are in the order of cardinal deacons.

The distinction between the three degrees of Cardinals has little practical significance except in determining the order and rank for ceremonial processions.

Also, during the period after a Pope dies and before a new one is elected, it is one's position within the College of Cardinals that determines one's power to exercise certain powers if the Dean of the College of Cardinals or Papal chamberlain are unable to do so.

Cardinal Deacons have long enjoyed the right to "opt for the order of Cardinal Priests" (optazione) after they have been Cardinal Deacons for ten years, and after this they rank in precedence as if they had been Cardinal Priests from when they first became Cardinals. (The strict order of precedence among the cardinals is determined by their seniority, the date when they became cardinals.)

They may on such elevation take a vacant title (church allotted as the titular dignity of a Cardinal Priest) or their existing diaconate may be elevated to title for that occasion.

Currently the Cardinal-Bishops of the suburbicarian dioceses of Rome are:

- Angelo Sodano, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Albano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, former Cardinal Secretary of State
- Bernardin Gantin, Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina, Dean emeritus, the senior prelate from Africa, who long headed the Congregation for Bishops;
- Roger Etchegaray, Cardinal Bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina, Vice-Dean, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace;
- Alfonso López Trujillo, Cardinal Bishop of Frascati, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, a leading figure in the Latin American Church;
- Giovanni Battista Re, Cardinal Bishop of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops;
- Francis Arinze, Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

The four Eastern patriarchs who are now Cardinal Bishops are:
- Ignace Daoud, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Patriarch Emeritus of Antioch of the Syrians;
- Stéphanos II Ghattas, C.M., Coptic Catholic Patriarch Emeritus of Alexandria;
- Nasrallah Sfeir, MaronTie Patriarch of Antioch;
- Emmanuel III Delly, Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans.


THE POPE AT THE ROSARY VIGIL
WITH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

A full translation of the Holy Father's address today has been posted in HOMILIES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES.

At 5 p.m. today, March 1, the annual Marian vigil was held in connection with the European Day for University Students, marking six years in 2008, promoted by the Conference of European Bishops and organized by the Vicariate of Rome's Office for university pastoral ministry. The theme this year is "Europe and the Americas together to construct the civilization of love".

Participating this year besides the university students of Rome were students from Bucharest (Romania), Toledo (Spain), Avignon (France), Edinburgh (Scotland), Minsk (Belarus), New York City, Havana, Aparecida, Mexico City, and Loja (Ecuador), who were linked by satellite TV to the Aula Paolo VI.

At 6 p.m., the Holy Father joined the assembly to lead them in praying the Rosary. At the end of the prayer, he addressed the students, during which he symbolically offered them his second encyclical Spe salvi. The encyclical was also distributed to the participants as a CD-ROM.










Pope gives message of love
to students in Europe, Americas


VATICAN CITY, Mar. 1 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday reached out to university students in 10 cities in Europe and the Americas, calling on them in a simultaneous broadcast to help build a "civilisation of love."

"Honest and sincere thought is needed, an examination of conscience ... to distinguish between that which builds the 'civilisation of love,' according to the design revealed by Jesus Christ, and that which opposes it," he said.

"Christianity is a strong and deep bond between the so-called Old Continent and what has been called the 'New World'," the 80-year-old pontiff said in the broadcast on the theme of "Europe and the Americas Together to Build a Civilisation of Love."

"Unfortunately, ... 'Western civilisation' has to some degree betrayed its evangelical inspiration," he said in the message beamed to thousands of students in Toledo, Spain; Aparecida, Brazil; Loja, Ecuador; Naples, Italy; Havana; Mexico City; Avignon, France; Washington; Bucharest and Minsk.

The pope made the remarks after leading the praying of the Rosary at a Marian prayer vigil to mark the sixth annual European Day for Universities.

"Today God is calling on you European and American young people to cooperate with your contemporaries throughout the world so that the lifeblood of the Gospels can renew the civilisation of these two continents and all of humanity," he said.

"Be builders of peace and unity," the pope urged in Italian before addressing brief remarks to the students in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Belarussian and Romanian, prompting cheers and applause from each audience in turn.

To students in Washington, where the pope plans a visit in April, he said: "With your assistance, may America remain faithful to its Christian roots and to its high ideals of freedom in truth and justice!"



Students carry their national flags and lamps for peace,
and a Cross into Aula Paolo VI.




People watch the prayer vigil on a giant screen outside
the largest cathedral in Minsk, Belarus.


The only US participating city was Washington, DC,
where students of the Catholic University
of America
held up a sign that said '49 DAYS AND COUNTING - SEE YOU SOON!

P.S. Benevolens identified in a later post the stole
worn by the Holy Father at the prayer vigil as having belonged to Pope Pius IX.

CHURCH GAINS REGISTERED
UNDER BENEDICT XVI


VATICAN CITY, Feb. 29 (AsiaNews) - The number of Catholics worldwide has increased 1.31 billion in 2006. The Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook) for 2008, presented today by Benedict XVI, also highlights the increase in the number of priests and seminarians. And it confirms the trend toward a greater presence in Asia and Africa, compared with Europe and America.

The number of Catholics in the world is increasing - 1.31 billion in 2006, an increase of 1.4% compared to the 1.15 billion in 2005. And there is a continuation of the trend that since 2000 has seen an increase in the number of priests, both diocesan and religious, who went from 406,411 in 2005 to 407,262 in 2006, an overall change of 0.21%.

Observing the presence of Catholics in relation to the number of the inhabitants of the various continents, it can be noted that Catholics make up 14% of the population of the population of the Americas, while the Americas have 49.8% of Catholics in the world.

Catholics make up just a slightly smaller percentage of Europe's population, but its importance in the Catholic world is clearly lower than that of the American countries (25%). The proportion of Catholics in Asia is at 10.5%, lower than the continent's percentage of the world population, which is at around 61%.

But the trend of the number of priests present in Asia is on the rise. Observing the distribution of priests by region, in fact, one can observe a decline in the presence of priests in Europe and America compared to Africa and Asia.

In terms of percentage, in fact, while in 2000 the overall number of priests working in Europe and the Americas represented 81% of the total, in 2006 they dropped to 78%.

The most striking positive variation is seen in Africa, where the proportion of priests in 2006 stood at around 8% of the worldwide total. In Asia, too, the number of priests moved higher, passing from 43,566 in 2000 to 51,281 in 2006.

There has also been growth in the number of those preparing for the priesthood. There are 115,480 students of philosophy and theology in the diocesan or religious seminaries, an increase of 0.9% compared to the previous year; 24,034 are in Africa, 37,150 in the Americas, 30,702 in Asia, 22,618 in Europe, and 976 in Oceania.

The coat of arms on Papa's stole today was - if I looked it up correctly - that of Pope Pius IX.

Good detective work, benevolens! Pius IX is the one with the special cologne that can be bought online!!!!

I did watch the Rosary with university students and taped it - it will be so lovely to be able to meditate on the Glorious Mysteries while watching it again. What a beautiful rose-coloured stole that is! I don't think we have seen it before, but correct me, anyone, if I am wrong.

Altogether, it was a beautiful evening's viewing on EWTN!

The Pope's newspaper
is secular and open
Translated from
the 3/1 issue of
L'Eco di Bergamo



OR's March 2 issue, the first to come out
as a supplement to a regular newspaper.




Starting Sunday, March 2, L'Osservatore Romano will be in the newsstands with L'Eco.

'We address ourselves in friendship event to non-believers'
'Little politics: We report on the world and culture'
'Among our authoritative writers are Jews and Orthodox'

A Page 3 heading says: 'A bit more respect for the Capitoline Jove' [Statue of Jupiter in Rome's Capitoline Museums]. I
t's true that it's an item about cultural treasures, but it still is about a pagan god.

One day the main story on Page 1 is on the Kosovo crisis, or it announces Ahmadinejad's visit to Baghdad; another day, it's about the Christian presence in Japan. And next to the main story, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi analyzes the dramatic rise in the price of oil, Gianfranco Ravasi discusses the relationship between Catholics and Jews starting with a line from Kafka, but the usual crime news you will not find.

The Pope's discourses are highlighted, but 'the studies of Joseph Ratzinger on St. Bonaventure' are announced in a small one-column at the bottom of the page. Veltroni and Berlusconi, Bindi and Binetti, Mastella and Follini, Formigoni and Casini [leading Italian politicians all] - of which our newspapers cannot say enough about - don't figure at all.

Something has happened at L'Osservatore Romano: after 23 years, it has had a new editor for the past four months now. And it shows.

Gianmaria Vian, 56, a Roman of Venetian ancestry, Church historian and philologist, is not an intellectual who lives in the past. When he decides, he acts. He has named his people to key positions, and since October 27, 2007, the newspaper 'has changed overnight', as noted in L'Espresso by Sandro Magister, one of the most attentive observers of what happens 'across the Tiber'.

Vian has not followed the style of his colleagues at Repubblica or Corriere della Sera or La Stampa. At a time when newspapers are becoming mini-books reaching almost a hundred pages, he has reduced his paper to 8. He has reduced picture sizes to give more space to text of high quality. He has re-sized the headlines, which do not have to 'scream', but definitely the paper looks more inviting. The graphic look is much better - still serious but more elegant and more spacious.

When the Pope had to cancel his appearance at La Sapienza, L'Osservatore did not limit itself to the official announcement, though accompanied by universal regret. It called on Giorgio Israel, a Jewish mathematician, to explain why such things happen in Italy. He did so impeccably.


Professor Vian, you now edit the newspaper of the Holy See.
Remember it is an unofficial newspaper, not official. We are much more free, in the responsible sense of the term, than people think. In the past, some likened the newspaper to Pravda the Communist Party newspaper of the USSR, now of Russia. Nothing could be farther from true.


When your newspaper was founded, one of the proposed names was L'amico della verita'(The friend of truth) - and in fact 'Pravda' means truth. So L'Osservatore Romano is quite a secular name, isn't it?
Quite! It's more prudent, we think. Certainly, it proposes to be a journal of ideas. Cardinal Montini (future Paul VI), recalling our first 100 years in 1961, wrote that in order to be the great newspaper that is inscribed in its genes, it should not only inform but form.

To report facts is not enough. In this, I note a specific affinity between Paul VI and Benedict XVI, who in Spe salvi writes about the need for 'performative information'.

In a world where there is an excess of news, we certainly cannot compete with television, but we can play a role in the presentation adn discussion of ideas, in the formation of critical consciousness. In this sense, we have a great secular vocation.


On the day you took over, Benedict XVI - with 'great esteem and affection' - practically wrote the editorial program in 10 lines.
Which was particularly demanding. 'Searching out and creating occasions for a confrontation (of ideas', as the Pope says, our mission is 'to better serve the Holy See, by showing the fecundity of the encounter between faith and reason'.

He also asked us to reflect in the newspaper that "trustful but at the same time profoundly reasonable openness to the Transcendent upon which ultimately rest the dignity and authentic freedom of every human being".

And in my first editorial, I wrote that "the newspaper wishes to address everyone in friendship, believers and non-believers alike".


It cannot be easy to edit such a newspaper.
It is an enormous responsibility. But it is also a great privilege and honor. It is very demanding. It has changed the way I live in these past few months. I have written for newspapers since 1973 but my primary profession is being a student of philology. Now I spend 12 hours a day in the editorial room. But I do this work with great passion. And I am glad I have found a team that is of great help.

I told my predecessor, now our emeritus editor, Mario Agnes: "You left me an editorial staff much better than what you found when you first took the job in 1984." It's a great atmosphere.


You have made people contribute like the theologian Inos Biffi and the bioethics expert Adriano Pessina. The constitutionalist Francesco Paolo Casavola and the archaeologist Michele Piccirillo. The economist Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has already caused quite a stir with his pieces against public spending considered as an 'independent variable' and in defense of saving families. You have even started to carry foreign writers.
Let's say non-Italian, because for the Church of Rome and its Bishop, no one is a foreigner.


Sorry.... Lately, I have seen the bylines of the Prior of Taize, Frere Alois, of the Russian historian Alexej Judin, of the American art historian Timothy Verdon.
I would like to open the newspaper as much as possible to international collaborators. Not always necessarily Catholic. We've already had contributions from Orthodox and Protestants. We interviewed the Chief Rabbi of Rome. Anna Foa, who is a fellow professor at La Sapienza, and Jewish, now writes for us.


You have the international news on pages 2 and 3 - Israel, Chad, the Ukraine, Algeria, Iraq...At the bottom, there's something about the US presidential campaign. And Italian news appears in these 'international' pages.

We have doubled our international coverage, which is usually 'penalized' in Italian newspapers. Were it not for Avvenire and so-called 'second-tier' dailies like Il Foglio and Il Riformista, or the missionary journals, which are invaluable in this respect, international news would be greatly ignored.


You are going against the current, with respect to today's journalism.
I can afford to. We have the great advantage of working for a very authoritative newspaper. Which is important not so much because of our professional quality but because it is 'the Pope's newspaper'. We enjoy a very special association, indeed a unique one.

With the authority of almost a century and a half of history behind us, it is easier to take more risks. But I have done so, inspired by the newspaper's own tradition: an international breadth was always one of the hallmarks of L'Osservatore Romano from the very start.


You also have editions in various languages.
Besides the daily and the weekly newspaper in Italian - what we call 'the parish edition' - yes, we prepare six other editions, in French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German and Polish.


The space dedicated to culture has doubled, where the big Italian newspapers usually bury such items around page 67, and one cannot always say much for the quality of reporting.
In fact, I think that culture has been suffering somewhat these days. There's the Sunday issue of Il Sole 24 Ore, and above all, the exception is Avvenire which, thanks to its editor Dino Boffo and to its cultural editor Roberto Righetto, two very dear friends - have a presence in this sector today that has few rivals in Italy. So we are trying to devote enough space daily to cultural information, and even in this case, to achieve international breadth.


And then, on pages 6,7 and 8, you have all the news on religion.
In effect, we have a second 'Page 1' on the back page, which is usually reserved to the activities of the Pope and the Holy See. But we also want to go beyond just the Catholic world. We want to provide information about other Christian churches also and on other religions.


Have you had any precise instructions from Cardinal Bertone?
Yes. He recommended having a greater feminine presence in the newspaper. I think this reflects Benedict XVI's own personal wishes.


Yes, one notices, in fact, the presence of women contributors.
I have also named the first female editor of one of our editions: Astrid, Haas, an Austrian, is now editor of the German edition.


Does the Secretary of State watch you closely?
He asked us to make 'a great newspaper'. And he is counting on us. I would say he is our first and best testimonial. Less than a month after I took over, he spoke at the Consistory and presented the new Osservatore to all the cardinals. He really advertised us, and even announced that we would eventually have an online edition.


With regard to information technology, I read a headline that a bit odd, which read 'Using the mouse to look into the secrets of the Inquisition'. Are you trying to sound more 'with it'?
Well, it's especially the culture editors who sometimes want headlines that are even more free-wheeling, and they've taken to it happily, so it's up to me to watch it.


You are 'the Pope's newspaper'.
We document as well as report on the activities of the Holy See. We must be the first to publish the discourses of the Pope and to report on his activities completely.

But we also want to be a journalistic model. That is why I have tried to encourage more interviews. I see that they are well-liked and they tend to be picked up by other newspapers. These interviews - generally with Church authorities - show the internal workings of the Church, which is much more dynamic than people normally think about it.


When you say that 'we are the Pope's newspaper', it seems to me that you mean something that goes beyond the fact that you work for the Vatican.
Of course. At noon, in the editorial offices, we pray the Angelus together, and we end the day with the traditional 'Oremus pro Pontefice nostro'. I informed the Holy Father about this when he invited myself and my deputy editor Carlo Di Cicco shortly after he named us. For a Catholic, there is always the 'affective' dimension of this job - a faithfulness from the heart. At the same time, Benedict XVI himself is very interested problems that have to do with information and communications.


You promptly identified the weak point of your product quite clearly - its low circulation. Does this collaboration with L'Eco address this point?
Exactly. We are looking for new channels because the present circulation is costing us, it penalizes us even. Historically, this has always been the Osservatore's sore point. And Vatican resources, despite what people may think, are quite modest.


You wrote openly that right now, the newspaper is losing about 4 and a half million euros a year.
I am trying to contain costs - that too is important. To increase our visibility, we have two ways: going online and being able to print the newspaper elsewhere besides the Vatican. So this collaboration with L'Eco is a historic novelty for us.

We will always have our presses within the Vatican for reasons that are not just symbolic - for instance, that is what assured that the newspaper remained independent during the Fascist regime.

But today, the situation is very different. For this great opportunity that your bishop and your newspaper have offered us to have it printed in northern Italy, not only myself but also the entire staff are very grateful to you. And of course, the Holy See itself.


Which edition is it that we will be carrying starting tomorrow (March 2, Sunday)?
We will be transmitting to Bergamo the edition which comes out in Rome on Saturday evenings - dated Sunday - in just a few newsstands near the Vatican. Everywhere else in Italy, the newspaper comes out the morning after.

There are hardly any afternoon papers anymore, except us and Le Monde [French]. And L'Osservatore comes out in the afternoon in order to immediately report the activities, the speeches and the nominations (for episcopal and curial positions) made by the Pope on the same day. The latter is contained in the only official part of the newspaper is the well-known front-page feature called 'Nostre Informazioni' prepared by the Secretariat of State.

We find the Sunday issue particularly important. The Pope does not have a short week, as you know, and Saturday is often a day for important events.


Under your banner there's the Latin motto, 'Non praevalebunt'.
'They will not prevail', yes. It's a Biblical phrase.


Eschatological in fact.
It looks to the future, to hope: that notwithstanding everything that can happen in history, notwithstanding the pain that man suffers, Evil will not have the last word, its forces 'will not prevail'. It is a promise made by Christ himself. It is even part of the Pope's last encyclical.

The sense is undoubtedly metaphysical. But the Church also its hands and feet in history. So that's also a warning even for Mieli, Mauro, Anselmi, Feltri, Giordano & Company! [the editors of Italy's leading newspapers]

L'Eco di Bergamo, 1° marzo 2008

NB: The other motto under OR's banner 'Unicuique suum' means 'To each his own'.

A full translation of the Holy Father's words at the Angelus today has been posted in AUDIENCE ADN ANGELUS TEXTS.


What the Holy Father said in English:

---

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus.

In today’s Gospel, we encounter Jesus, the light of the world, who cures the man born blind. By opening our eyes to faith, to the light that comes from God, Jesus continues to cure us from the darkness of confusion and sin present in this world.

May his light always purify our hearts and renew our Christian love as we journey with him to Eternal Life.

I wish you all a pleasant stay in Rome, and a blessed Sunday!

---

THE POPE APPEALS
FOR KIDNAPPED ARCHBISHOP
AND PEACE IN THE HOLY LAND

The following report is adapted from AsiaNews:

Vatican City, Mar. 2 - The Holy Father today expressed sadness over tragic events in the Middle East, with worsening clashes in the Gaza Strip and the kidnapping of the bishop of Mosul, addressing some 40,000 people present in Saint Peter's Square today for the noonday Angelus.

After the Angelus, he said: "With profound sadness, I follow the dramatic affair of the kidnapping of Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul in Iraq. I join the appeal of the Patriarch, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, and of his collaborators, that the beloved archbishop, who is in precarious health, may be freed quickly".

"At the same time, I offer prayers for the three young men who were with him at the moment of his abduction and were killed. I also express my closeness to the entire Church in Iraq, and in particular to the Chaldean Church, which has once again been struck with a harsh blow, while encouraging the pastors and all the faithful to be strong and firm in hope.

"May those who control the fate of the dear Iraqi people multiply their efforts so that through the efforts and wisdom of all they may recover peace and security, and may not be denied the future that is rightfully theirs".

Then, the Pope spoke about the situation in the Holy Land.

"Unfortunately, inn recent days, the tension between Israel and the Gaza Strip has reached rather serious levels. I renew my urgent appeal to the authorities, both Israeli and Palestinian, that this spiral of violence be stopped, by each side unilaterally, without conditions: only by demonstrating an absolute respect for human life, even that of the enemy, can there be hope of giving a future of peace and coexistence to the younger generations of those peoples that both have their roots in the Holy Land".

"I invite the whole Church to offer prayers to the Almighty for peace in the land of Jesus, and to show attentive and active solidarity toward both populations, Israeli and Palestinian".

Before the Angelus, the Pope delivered a mini-homily on today's Gospel about a blind man healed by Jesus on the Sabbath.

www.ignatiusinsight.com/
March 1, 2008

---

"May each one ... always feel impelled to love and serve life from its beginning to its natural end. In fact, welcoming human life as a gift to be respected, protected and promoted is a commitment of everyone, all the more so when it is weak and needs care and attention, both before birth and in its terminal phase."
— Benedict XVI, Angelus, February 3, 2008.

"Failing to ask questions about man's being would lead inevitably to refusing to seek the objective truth about being as a whole, and hence, to no longer be able to recognize the basis on which human dignity, the dignity of every person, rests from the embryonic stage to natural death."
— Benedict XVI, "The Changing Identity of the Individual", To Members of the Inter-academic Conference (Institut de France), January 29, 2008.

---

I.

Clear minds can state briefly and accurately the essence of an issue. Aquinas, of course, is a model here, as was Aristotle. Chesterton could always do it even with humor.

A faithful reader of L'Osservatore Romano never knows just where, in the weekly selection of papal remarks and documents, he will be most struck by something Benedict says or writes. But it is almost always the case that he will unexpectedly find something quite profound in some unlikely sounding audience or talk.

In the beginning, I cited two remarks of the pope. They were given within a couple of days of each other, one at a regular Sunday Angelus, the second a short talk in the Hall of Popes to an academic group that has something to do with the Institut de France, just what it does not say.

[Teresa's Note: The occasion was a colloquium held in Rome, organized by the Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Academy of Political and Moral Sciences and the Academy of Sciences [both of the Institut de France] and the Institut Catholique of Paris. The full translation is posted on
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354537&p=20
At the start of his speech, The Pope said that "for the first time, an inter-academy collaboration of this nature has been established, opening the way to vast pluri-disciplinary studies that will be ever more fecund".]

The total length of the latter talk, about which I want to speak here, is probably about a half page of the papal newspaper. (My present essay on this talk is longer!)

Its title, "The Changing Identity of the Individual," at first sight, strikes us as improbable. No individual changes into some other individual, though he may, hopefully, change into more of himself, more what he ought to be. So we are curious about just what Benedict had in mind here.

In content, both citations are quite familiar to us, which is why I cited them together. They infuriate the pro-abortion advocates but reconfirm those who understand the sanctity of human life in all its stages.

The constant teaching of the papacy in modern times, something based also on standard biological evidence, is simply that human life is unique and sacred from its conception until its natural death. Human life is not at the service of something else, particularly science; it is itself the "something else" that needs first to be served both by science and ordinary human living. This service constitutes the dignity of both science and our daily lives.

The first citation is more in the form of a plea or even a prayer, "may we recognize...." The second citation is more philosophical.

When we know what the human being is, we still must put our actions toward its protection into effect. This is not always easy. Not everyone does it. But the principle is clear. Human life in all its forms is sacred, even when it is not so considered by law or by theories that seek to deny this basic truth about what is human.

This colloquium to which this latter talk was given was under the patronage of Prince Gabriel de Broglie. De Broglie is a famous French family, known in many philosophical and scientific circles in the last centuries. The conference was under the auspices of several pontifical organizations. This conference was evidently a first effort at such "inter-academic" discussions.

Benedict begins his talk by noting that the exact sciences "have progressed prodigiously in the knowledge of man and the universe." The danger is that the scientific method used in these sciences will be the only method used to understand man. Man's "wholeness" will be "isolated" by a method that by definition can only study a part of him, that part subject to matter. This part is the least important part of him. Scientific method cannot examine things that do not fall under its presuppositions, as the whole of man does not, particularly his freedom and intelligence.

Man has his own "mystery." "No science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going." Of course, scientists do propose every day "answers" to these very questions, answers that themselves can be philosophically examined for their plausibility. But because "science" cannot speak to such basic questions by its methods, it does not follow that no way exists whereby we might address them. Other ways, equally "scientific," exist but they are not based on the same premises.

Philosophical and theological methods also address the fullness of what man is. Benedict cites John Paul II in Fides et Ratio in this regard. What is the basis of the phenomenon which we observe? If a thing acts in a certain way, it can only be because it has the capacity so to act.

"The spiritual core and the ground from which it comes" are themselves issues that arise from our knowing human things. We are reflectively aware that our knowledge is not simply material.

The title of this present essay ("Always More Than Is Seen") comes from the following remark of Benedict: "Man is always more than what is seen or perceived of him through experience."

We do perceive something of him through experience, of course. We really exist in a real world in which matter as such is good. Without this grounding in an objective reality, we could not begin at all. Still, "man is always more than what is seen or perceived of him through experience."

The very structure of man is that he cannot be fully known to others unless he allows himself so to be known. This is what love and friendship are about. Yet, what is seen and perceived also comes from this "more" that the individual man is.

II.

Is it a human perfection not to know ourselves? The very Socratic principle that founds our civilization is simply that we are to "know ourselves." If we do everything else but strive also to know ourselves, we will never even know adequately what is not ourselves.

We will never know what we are. We are not simply the products of our experiences. As Socrates said, we are to examine our lives daily, not as a chore, but as a task of our very being. We not only are, but want to know both that we are and how we are in a world that includes what is not ourselves.

In this sense, the knowledge of who we are and that we are, as such, is intended to be a delight. Our existence is not designed ultimately to be a burden, unless we make it so, which we are free to do.

"Failing to ask questions about man's being would lead inevitably to refusing to seek the objective truth about being as a whole, and hence, to no longer be able to recognize the basis on which human dignity, the dignity of every person, rests from the embryonic state to natural death."

Not seeking actively to know what we are is itself an intellectual fault of the first order. The failure daily to examine ourselves, as Socrates said, constitutes a failure to accept our own being. In this passage, the Pope identifies himself with this classic tradition. The first sign of not knowing what we are is our "failure to ask questions about our being."

I often think that people "fail" to ask such questions primarily because they are suspicious of the answers, afraid that the truth about them both exists and makes demands on them. Thus, not wanting to know about ourselves leads us to theories that do not really explain reality but justify us in doing what we want to do.

No one is completely devoid of theory about himself. Everyone "explains" his actions, his life. He either has a correct or incorrect theory. What is suggested here is that the incorrect theory is usually a direct result of a suspicion that the truth is the truth but that to live the truth requires changing one's beliefs and life. If we refuse to do this, we must develop a theory — a rationale contrary to the truth — to justify how we live.

The Pope proceeds to refer to what theology and philosophy can contribute to understanding "human identity," our understanding of which is "constantly developing." Human identity does not change, but we gain more and more understanding of what we are.

Directly referring to the discussions of this inter-academic group, the pope adds: "Starting with questions on the new being derived from cellular fusion and who bears a new and specific genetic patrimony, you have brought to the fore some essential elements of the mystery of man, marked by otherness: a being created by God, a being in the image of God, a being who is loved and is made to love."

The specific "otherness" of each person, what it means to understand his wholeness, includes understanding his creation by God. He is a being who is both loved and made in love. These realities constitute our understanding of what we deal with when we deal with each person who is what he is from his conception to his natural death.

Benedict continues by reflecting on the significance of our specific otherness. "As a human person, man is never closed in on himself; he is always a bearer of otherness and from the very first moment of his existence interacts with other human beings, as the human sciences increasingly bring to light."

The very meaning of the word person is related to the notion of Trinity, wherein each Person is, as such, related in His very being to the others. We are created in the image of the Trinity, in our case after the Person of the Word.

The "otherness" that is within each person refers not only to his actual genetic heritage, that is, to the relation he has to his parents and family, but to his very origin in God. The human soul is not "evolved" out of some non-soul, but is directly created from within the inner possibilities of the Godhead. This is why, when we know someone else, we eventually discover that the existence of someone else, particularly of those we love, leads to a source beyond ourselves. The other leads to the Other.

"Man is neither the result of chance nor of a bundle of convergences nor of forms of determinism nor physico-chemical interactions; he is a being who enjoys freedom, which, while taking his nature into account, transcends it and symbolizes this mystery of otherness that dwells within him."

We notice that this sentence, implicitly, contains all the proposals for human origins that seek to explain man by some purely scientific hypothesis. The very fact that man can "enjoy freedom" indicates that he is not simply a product of deterministic or chance sources. It implies a kind of being who is created as an independent whole.

III.

Benedict next takes up this freedom that lies at the core of our being. He cites the great Pascal: "Man is infinitely more than man."

Man was elevated to an end higher than his nature would command. This freedom that is unique to man "enables him to orient his life towards an end which he can direct with his actions toward the happiness to which he is called for eternity."

This sentence is mindful of Aristotle's discussion of man's end as well as the Christian identification of happiness with the presence in the eternity of God as the purpose of our being called to happiness. Aquinas talks of this in the first questions of the Prima Secundae of the Summa. Indeed, this seeing God is what happiness finally means, for in seeing Him we see all things.

The meaning of human life follows from this freedom that flows from the human being's free will. This freedom is the foundation of human responsibility for itself and for others.

"The special dignity of the human being is both a gift of God and the promise of a future." The gift includes a project to be achieved through human actions in response to divine and human actions. The world is really a place where things, ultimate things, happen.

"Man bears within himself a special capacity for discerning what is good and right." Here Benedict refers to what Aquinas called "synderesis" (I, 79, 12). Synderesis is man's innate habit. It is available from the first use of the practical principle to "do good and avoid evil." Here, each act is judged in terms of right and wrong.

As the Pope wrote in his two essays on conscience (On Conscience, Ignatius Press, 2007), we must "develop" our conscience, take steps to allow it to function properly.

"The human being is required to develop his conscience by forming and using it in order to direct his life freely based on the essential laws which are natural law and moral law."

Man is what he is not of his own essential making, but of his receiving what he is. His "natural law" is a reflection of the eternal law, of God's purpose in creation, which is to associate other free beings within His inner life, but only if they choose so to associate themselves. God cannot make a free being not to be free. Otherwise there would be no sense in creating him in the first place.

Benedict next uses a curious phrase. The development of science, he remarks, "attracts and seduces us with the possibilities they offer." We can be "attracted" or "seduced" because we must choose to accept even the truth about ourselves.

Our intellectual education thus should be aimed at "the center of creation and not made the object of ideological manipulation, arbitrary decisions or the abuse of the weaker by the stronger." We have "experienced" these dangers, Benedict reminds us, in the 20th century. And they are still dangers in the first decades of the 21st century.

Referring to his first encyclical, the Pope points out that "Every scientific approach must also be a loving approach." Science is not simply knowledge, but knowledge with a relation to the object it deals with. If that "object" is a human person, even the aim of science is or should be the good, the love of the person who is dealt with. Science is to make a contribution to forming "the identity of the individuals." The concern of the whole lecture is precisely this: to understand more fully and identify in being what a human individual person actually is.

"Love brings one out of oneself in order to discover and recognize the other; in opening himself to otherness, it also affirms the identity of the subject, for the other reveals me to myself."

Benedict remarks that this revealing of ourselves to ourselves through our relation to others is likewise the iblical experience beginning with Abraham. But the immediate model is Christ. Christ's identity is found in His giving Himself to others, to all of us. This is the key to the mystery of His being and mission.

To conclude, this lecture was delivered on the Feast of Thomas Aquinas (28 January). Benedict thus closes with a reference to Aquinas. He is the model of "all those who seek the truth," as it says of him in Fides et Ratio.

The constant theme of this Pope is summed up in this incisive and brief lecture. We are beings who seek the truth. There is truth. We are free to understand it or reject it.

But if we want to be what we are, we will find that our happiness, our destiny is given to us as something higher than anything we could conceive by ourselves. This is our glory and the danger of our being.

We can reject what we are in the name of our own freedom and ideology. We can give glittering reasons why we need not be what we are created to be. If we could not do this self-justification of our choice to create our own world, however, we could not freely respond to the gift of what we are. The drama of the world revolves about this understanding of "the identity of the individual."

"Man is always more than what is seen or perceived of him by experience."

We always discover this "more" when we seek to "know ourselves" or to know others. The knowing of others, of what is not ourselves, is really our path to know ourselves. The "otherness" that is not ourselves leads us finally to that "Otherness" that simply is. We do have an end and a destiny.

The more we know of ourselves, the more we can identify what we ultimately are. This is why to fail to "ask questions about ourselves" prevents us from "knowing ourselves," the very project that founded our civilization.

This project was carried through to its fuller understanding by the revelation of the God who is best defined simply as caritas. That is finally the definition of the Trinity, that there is otherness within the Godhead, that God, in Himself, is not alone, but full life and being.

Vatican summit on China strategy
By AMBROSE LEUNG
South China Morning Post
March 2, 2008


Top Vatican officials will review the Holy See's China strategy when they gather next week in Rome with speculation growing that Beijing is willing to advance negotiations on diplomatic ties ahead of the Olympics.

While Catholic Church insiders said a breakthrough on re-establishing diplomatic relations with the mainland and ditching those with Taiwan, or on a papal visit to China, was still far away, it would be the first formal opportunity for officials to plot the future after reviewing key developments since Pope Benedict's letter to Chinese Catholics last June.

At the first summit of the Vatican China affairs commission - formed in January last year - the Pope decided to write the letter. In it, he laid out the principles for reconciliation between the state-backed and "underground" churches on the mainland and for dialogue with Beijing about a mechanism to appoint mainland bishops acceptable to both sides.

However, one source close to next week's proceedings said: "The Holy See and China are still very far away from any agreement."

The three-day plenary session of the Vatican China affairs commission will begin on March 10. Its chairman will be Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and in attendance will be top officials of the Holy See, experts on China affairs and prelates from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun will leave for Rome tonight to take part in several events in Italy before attending the meeting. The city's newly appointed coadjutor bishop, John Tong Hon, will also attend.

The Pope will not attend this year's meeting of the commission. Nor will two top Vatican officials who oversee church doctrine and law, since the meeting will focus on strategies rather than core principles.

After the Pope's letter, bishops in Beijing and Guangzhou were ordained by the official Chinese Catholic church with Vatican consent.

Beijing sent other positive signals. President Hu Jintao convened a Communist Party study session on religions in December. Ye Xiaowen , director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, said publicly in Washington last month that "China and the Vatican are walking towards each other", while adding that "a river" still divided them.

Religious scholar Edmond Tang, of Britain's University of Birmingham, said the Holy See needed to assess the signals coming from Beijing.

"The significance of the meeting will lie in working out detailed strategies ... and options for how to respond to any offers Beijing might make before the Olympics," he said.


=====================================================================

The above replaces a much-abridged account of the above item as reported by PETRUS that I posted earlier, but I finally managed to access the original article above.

LUTHER AND PROTESTANTISM
Topic for Ratzinger Schuelerkreis
September seminar in Castel Gandolfo





VATICAN CITY, Mar. 3 (Apcom) - Pope Benedict XVI and his onetime doctoral students will discuss Martin Luther (1483-1546) at the annual reunion and seminar of the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis to be held in Castel Gandolfo in September.

Specifically, the seminar will look at whether Luther intended the schism that his Reformation produced - as historiography has unanimously concluded - or whether he had merely intended to reform the millenary Church but without trauma.

The Schuelerkreis comprises about 40 theologians from around the world who pursued their doctoral studies under Prof. Joseph Ratzinger when he taught at German universities. One of them is Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna.

Although the topic may be academic, it was learned that the discussions would particularly analyze what it means for the question of apostolic succession, through which the apostles passed on the authority they received directly from jesus to their successors, the bishops.

Catholics and Orthodox consider this succession a guarantee that Tradition will not be lost. But most Protestant sects that arose from the Reformation understand the apostolic succession only to refer to God's Word, not to church structure.

Recent studies in Germany and northern Europe have reportedly started to cast some doubts whether Luther himself meant that distinction, as it has evolved through the centuries. In Sweden, the Protestant Church recognizes the apostolic succession in a manner close to the Catholic interpretation.

POPE BENEDICT MAY VISIT
PADRE PIO'S REMAINS


FOGGIA, Italy, Mar 3 (AGI) - During his brief meeting with the faithful last night in San Giovanni Rotondo, site of the national shrine to St. Padre Pio, Mons, Domenico D'Ambrosio hinted that Pope Benedict XVI might come to visit the mortal remains of the saint.
St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.

"Padre Pio loves us all," the bishop said. "You perhaps already know who has brought us back Padre Pio," referring to the canonical exhumation of the body earlier today which was authorized by the Vatican.

The saint's remains will be placed for public veneration starting April.

The faithful gathered in front of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where the saint was buried, broke into applause, as they iterpreted it as an informal announcement of a visit by the Pope.

[As Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope paid a private visit to Pietrelcina in June 2002, an account of which was posted in June 2006 in ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FUTURE POPE
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354530&p=3]



Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, 1887-1968, canonized in 2002.

In order not to break up continuity, I am posting the main story of the exhumation and background here. Both Luigi Accattoli in Corriere della Sera and Andrea Tornielli in Il Giornale have stories on the exhumation, but until I can translate them, here is how two British newspapers reported it.




Body of controversial saint Padre Pio
exhumed for public display
40 years after his death
By NICK PISA
Daily Mail, 3/3/08



Mons. Ambrosio presides at the exhumation.

The body of a controversial mystical monk who became a saint was today exhumed from his grave 40 years after his death and his corpse was said to be "intact".

Padre Pio claimed to suffer from stigmata or the wounds of Christ - holes in his hands and feet where the nails were used at the Crucifixion - and was made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

He enjoyed a massive following with thousands visiting him and even today, years after his death he has millions of devotees around the world and he is especially popular with Italian celebrities such as Sophia Loren and Andrea Bocelli.

Early this morning his grave at the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo near Foggia in southern Italy where he was buried was entered and his coffin lifted from the ground and opened.

The exhumation was authorised by the Vatican in January and was granted so that Padre Pio's body could be "prepared" when it is put on public display next month to commemorate the anniversary of his death 40 years ago.

Local Archbishop monsignor Domenico D'Ambrosio, who was present at the exhumation, said: "The upper part of the skull was skeletal while the forehead was in perfect condition.

"The rest of the body is also well preserved. You can clearly see the beard, knees, hands, the nails - if Padre Pio will forgive me it's as if he has just had a manicure.

"The signs of the stigmata are not visible. The robes are also still intact and his feet are visible because as is customary capuchin monks are buried shoeless."

Despite the early hour and the biting cold a small crowd who had gathered outside the church cheered and clapped when news that the coffin had been exhumed filtered through.

Besides local church dignitaries medical experts from the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints were also present to verify the state of the corpse.

The saint's body is planned to be displayed for several months, after which it will be returned to the tomb in Santa Maria delle Grazie church in San Giovanni Rotondo, which neighbours the friary where Saint Pio lived.

When news of the exhumation was announced in January monsignor D'Ambrosio had said:"I am convinced that we all have the duty to allow future generations the chance to venerate the mortal remains of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina and to conserve them as well as possible."

Initially there was opposition from Padre Pio's family but they later gave the go ahead although there was a last minute appeal from the Padre Pio association to block the exhumation.

The saint was shunned by church authorities and recognised only after massive popular devotion to him.

He is especially popular in Australia and Ireland.

Padre Pio's shrine draws close to one million pilgrims each year, and the hospital he founded in San Giovanni Rotondo is one of the biggest in southern Italy.

In October last year an Italian author published a book claiming that the stigmata were faked and there was evidence in the Vatican archives to prove this.

However officials in Rome dismissed the suggestion and insisted their own investigations had ruled that the wounds were not caused by "external forces."




Padre Pio's body exhumed
by Richard Owen in Rome
The Times of London, 3/3/08




The body of St Padre Pio, one of Italy's most popular saints, was exhumed last night to be prepared for public veneration next month marking the 40th anniversary of his death and the 90th anniversary of the first appearance of stigmata on his hands and feet.

Capuchin friars at the sanctuary at San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy, where Padre Pio's tomb is visited by seven million pilgrims annually, said that "parts of the body" had been found to be "intact".

Archbishop D'Ambrosio said the body was in "surprisingly good condition. As soon as we got inside the tomb we could clearly make out the beard. The top part of the skull is partly skeletal but the chin is perfect and the rest of the body is well preserved. The knees, hands, mittens and nails are clearly visible.........If Padre Pio allows me, I might say he looks as though he just had a manicure''.

The body would be placed in a glass covered coffin for veneration on 24 April for a period of "several months".

The friars denied that the remains would be transferred from the sanctuary crypt to a new spacious and ultra modern church nearby at San Giovanni Rotondo designed by the world renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano.

The exhumation - the first time the tomb had been opened since Padre Pio's death in 1968 - was approved by the Vatican despite opposition from some of the saint's most ardent followers. Padre Pio's relatives had threatened to take the local archbishop to court if the corpse was exhumed, and a group of devotees had also threatened legal action.

Padre Pio was canonised by the late Pope John Paul II in 2002. His image is displayed in piazzas, homes, shops, garages and vehicles throughout Italy. Monsignor Domenico D'Ambrosio, Archbishop of Manfredonia, said the Capuchin friar's body had been exhumed "to check on its state and to carry out all the necessary work to guarantee the best conditions for its conservation."

The exhumation of the saint, who was credited with over a thousand miraculous cures, had been approved by the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The Congregation's Prefect, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, noted that the body of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963, had also been exhumed when he was beatified, the step before sainthood. The body was found to be unusually well preserved.

Vatican officials said Padre Pio's body had been injected with formalin for burial but "no special measures" were otherwise taken to preserve his body.

An Italian historian, Sergio Luzzatto, recently caused controversy with a book on Padre Pio in which he claimed to have found documents in the Vatican archives suggesting that Padre Pio may have faked his stigmata, the marks of the wounds of Christ, with acid, and also had "intimate and incorrect relations with women".

Vatican officials say both allegations were fully taken into account in the beatification and canonisation process. Followers of Padre Pio believe he exuded "the odour of sanctity", had the gift of bilocation (being in two places at once), healed the sick and could prophesy the future.

Italian reports said the exhumation had been carried out in the middle of the night to avoid possible protests and disruptions. The saint's body had then been taken to a "secret location" to protect it both from protesters trying to retrieve it, and from "unscrupulous relic hunters".


The official site for San Padre Pio
has an English version -
www.conventopadrepio.com/

---

The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa and President of the Italian bishops conference.
- Bishops of Guatemala on ad-limina visit
- Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

---

SALESIAN GENERAL CHAPTER:
UNITY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE




VATICAN CITY, 3 MAR 2008 (VIS) - The Vatican Press Office today released the text of Pope Benedict XVI's message Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanueva, rector major of the Salesians, and to participants in the 26th general chapter of the congregation which begins today in Rome.

In his Message, dated 1 March, the Holy Father writes that the theme chosen for this general chapter - "Da mihi animas, cetera tolle" (Give me souls, take away all else) - expresses "that same programme of spiritual and apostolic life which Don Bosco made his own".

"It is vitally important for the Salesians to draw continual inspiration from Don Bosco, to know him, study him, love him, imitate him, invoke him and make their own that apostolic passion which flows from the heart of Christ".

The theme to be studied over coming days "expresses in synthesis the mysticism and asceticism of Salesians" writes the Pope, indicating that "it is necessary to overcome the dispersive effects of activism and to cultivate the unity of spiritual life by acquiring a profound mysticism and a solid asceticism. This nourishes apostolic commitment and is a guarantee of effectiveness in pastoral activity. It is in this that each Salesian's path to sanctity must consist, and on this that the formation of new vocations to Salesian consecrated life must concentrate".

The Holy Father expresses the view that "evangelisation must be the principal and priority frontier" in the Salesian mission. "In pluri-religious settings and in secularised ones, it is necessary to find new ways to make the figure of Jesus known, especially to the young, so they may become aware of His perennial attraction".

"It is important to help young people to turn their interior resources to account as dynamism and positive desire; to bring them into contact with ideas rich in humanity and evangelical values; to encourage them to become active members of society through work and participation in the common good".

Benedict XVI thanks the congregation "for the research and educational activities of the Pontifical Salesian University".

Going on to refer to the "educational emergency" that exists in many parts of the world, he writes: "The Church needs the contribution of scholars to study the methodology of educational and formative processes, the evangelisation of the young and their moral education, together finding answers to the challenges of post-modernity and inter-culturality, and of social communications, while at the same time seeking to come to the help of families".

In this context, the Pope affirms that "education is one of the key points of the modern anthropological problem, to the solution of which I am sure that the Pontifical Salesian University will not fail to make a precious contribution".

At the end of the Message, Benedict XVI recalls that 2015 will mark the bicentenary of the birth of Don Bosco, and expresses the hope that the anniversary may stimulate Salesians "to be ever more 'credible signs of God's love for the young', and to ensure that the young truly do become the hope of the Church and society".