NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH & THE VATICAN

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TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 5 ottobre 2007 00:24
Cardinal George's thoughts
on the American church

All Things Catholic
By John L Allen Jr
Friday, Oct. 5, 2007



I was in Chicago this week, speaking on Thursday to the Illinois Catholic Health Association on "Trends in Ministry." While in town I arranged an interview with Cardinal Francis George, who marks his 10th anniversary this year at the helm of the one of the largest and wealthiest dioceses in the world.

If things hold to form, George will also take over as the new president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at their fall meeting in Baltimore Nov. 12-15, becoming, in effect, the public face of the church just as America plunges into an election cycle.

That combination makes George an important figure indeed in the Catholic firmament.

Widely regarded as the deepest thinker among the American cardinals, George has had his ups and downs in Chicago over the last decade. He acquired an early reputation as "Francis the Corrector," overly given to issuing directives even on minor matters, and has faced more recent accusations of failure to act against a Chicago priest, Daniel McCormack, despite credible reports of sexual abuse.

That episode was a special blow, given that George had played a leadership role in the American bishops' response to the sexual abuse crisis. Nonetheless, George has also won considerable admiration for his intellect and personal graciousness, and his battle to recover from cancer in 2006 generated wide sympathy.

Today, Fr. Andrew Greeley, a noted Chicago priest, sociologist and novelist, says his impression is that George is "enormously popular" in the city. Some of that, Greeley concedes, has to do with the simple fact of being a cardinal.

Some of it, however, Greeley believes, is also attributable to George's personality - witty, comfortable with the press and the public, and just unpredictable enough to keep people on their toes. (To be fair, Greeley is not exactly an impartial observer when it comes to George; the two men are friends, and the day I had breakfast with Greeley he was taking the cardinal to the opera that afternoon.)

Highlights from my interview with George, which took place in his downtown office on Oct. 2, include:

- George called some moves by the church following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), such as downplaying fasting and holy days, "sociologically naïve," in the sense that the loss of those practices has eroded Catholic identity;

- He argued that problems of Catholic identity plague both the Catholic right and left, with the right often accepting the faith but not the bishops, and the left sometimes willing to cut the bishops a break but in doubt about the faith;

- George said he does not foresee widespread use of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, despite Pope Benedict XVI's recent decision to permit the old Mass without authorization from local bishops. Most Catholics, he said, instinctively feel, "That's not where we are";

- George said the American bishops have asked for clarification from the Vatican as to whether the pre-Vatican II rite can be used during Holy Week, a question made acute by a controversial Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews;

- If the old rite can be used in Holy Week, George said, a more positive prayer for the Jews from the new liturgy will "probably" be substituted for the old one - though at the same time, George said, this discussion could also be an occasion to ask Jews to renounce unflattering depictions of Jesus in the Talmud;

- George frankly admitted that the bishops are "not of one mind" on the question of refusing communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, and he doesn't expect a uniform national policy in the 2008 elections;

- For himself, George expressed great reluctance to "manipulate" worship by publicly denying communion in order to make a political point, even in the service of a good cause;

In general, George defended recent critical notices about theologians put out by the Vatican, such as the 2004 critique of American Jesuit Fr. Roger Haight - though he candidly said that a 2001 notification on Belgian Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis, who wrote on Christianity and other religions, was "not well thought out";

- George confirmed that if elected, he plans to serve as president of the American bishops, a role in which he said he will have the opportunity to "shape conversations" on the national stage.
Excerpts from our interview follow.

The full text can be found in the Special Documents section of NCRonline.org: Cardinal George Interview [1].

* * *

NCR: In March, Cardinal Bertone gave an address to the Ethics and Finance Association in the city of Milan. Asked to express the "main objective" of Benedict's pontificate, he offered this formula: "To recover authentic Christian identity and to explain and confirm the intelligibility of the faith in the context of widespread secularism." Why the concern with identity?

Cardinal George: I think there are two sides to that. One is what John Paul II often said, that there are whole cultures that used to be shaped by the faith but that aren't shaped by the faith any longer.

The culture the present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, is most concerned about is that of Western Europe and its cultural colonies, like our own country. In that particular culture, individualism is so embedded that the loss of a collective identity is rampant. Each one feels not only free but obliged to determine his or her own religious identity, so we have a plethora of understandings of what it means to be Catholic as well as what it means to be human and what it means to be anything else.

It's hard to bring that all together, because the culture doesn't foster any kind of collective identity … Depending upon whether you're left or right, as we define those terms in the culture today, you have trouble with one [element of Catholic identity] or the other. The right would say, 'I accept all the faith, but I can't stand the bishop,' while on the other hand the left says, 'The faith is goofy, but my bishop's not a bad guy.'

On the subject of religious identity, sociologists Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge talk about the distinction between "high tension" and "low tension" religion, arguing that over time low tension groups tend to dissolve into secularism.

That's right. In the '60s, it was very important to show you could be American and Catholic. Whole magazines were devoted to that. There was a collective sigh of relief at the Second Vatican Council, with human freedom being so much in the forefront of the conciliar concerns, that the tension wasn't there anymore. I think some of the moves of the church in that period now seem sociologically naïve, in their long-term consequences.

What do you have in mind?

Catholicism as a distinctive way of life was defined by eating habits and fasting, and by days especially set aside that weren't part of the general secular calendar. They were reminders that the church is our mediator in our relationship to God, and can enter into the horarium [calendar] that we keep, into the foods that we eat, into all the aspects of daily life, into sexual life.

Once you say that all those things can be done individually, as you choose to do penance, for example, you reduce the collective presence of the church in somebody's consciousness.

At that point, the church as mediator becomes more an idea for many people. Even if they accept it, it's not a practice. So then when the church turns around and says 'You have to do this,' then resistance is there to say, 'How can you tell me that? I'm deciding on my life for myself, and you even told me I could!'

So what's the answer? Is it rebuilding a subculture?

I suppose it is, though not in a way that's divorced from the culture that we have now, which is ours - what else are we? … Ordinary lay people are to consecrate the world from within the world, as their world, not to be separate from it.

If there is a subculture, it would have to be developed naturally in relationship to today's crisis, as earlier institutions were at one point. You can't go back, I think, and imagine that we're in the 19th century, just taking those solutions, good though they were then, to be ours now.

* * *

The Holy Father's recent motu proprio broadening permission for celebration of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass is one focus of identity concerns. Do you anticipate widespread use of the old Mass?

Since you have over half the presbyterate who really can't handle Latin, I don't see huge numbers. Among the others who could handle it, they made a decision after the council that they're not going to use Latin again. For them, it's a matter of principle. Therefore, 'widespread' isn't going to happen, I don't think, at least for the next several years … I haven't seen wide demand for it. Nobody's written me letters saying, 'Ah, now at last we can do this.'

Prior to the release of the motu proprio, I wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times in which I argued that this would be one of those classic Vatican documents which, because of its symbolic importance, generates a lot of debate, but practically changes little on the ground. Does that seem right to you?

We'll see, but it made sense to me when I read it, and it still makes sense to me now. Symbolically, it is important, mostly because the pope wants to insist that there was no rupture [between the pre- and post-Vatican II periods], and it shouldn't have been treated as a rupture.

The old Mass is there now, extraordinary but nonetheless present, as a kind of template to draw people into perhaps a more reverential celebration of the Eucharist. It's there, and that's helpful.

On the other hand, most of the practicing Catholics I know, including those in my own family, who have always been good Mass-goers and who have nothing against the Tridentine rite, remember it and appreciate it, but they say, 'We're somewhere else now.'

A related issue with the old Missal is the Good Friday liturgy, and specifically the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Where do you think we are with that?

First of all, we have to clarify something, because there are two opinions and we've asked the Holy See to clear this up. During the Triduum [the end of Holy Week] you may not have a private Mass. So the first reaction is, well, that means you can't use the old Missal for the Triduum, so that's the end of that.

Others come back and say no, that if you have a parish that is only Tridentine, then they would also have the Holy Week ceremonies from that Missal. I'm not sure that's permitted, and that's what we're asking.

If it is, would your preference be to use the language of new Missal for this prayer on Good Friday, even when people are celebrating the Tridentine rite?

If you're celebrating the 1962 Missal, that would involve changing the text of the prayer.

That can be done, yes?

Of course it can be done, and I suspect it probably will be, because the intention is to be sure that our prayers are not offensive to the Jewish people who are our ancestors in the faith. We can't possibly insult them in our liturgy …

Not that any group has a veto on anybody's prayers, because you can go through Jewish texts and find material that is offensive to us. But if we're interested in keeping the dialogue strong, and we have to be, we should be very cautious about any prayer that they find insulting.

'They,' however, is a big tent. What my Jewish rabbi friend down the block finds insulting is different from what Abraham Foxman [national director of the Anti-Defamation League] finds insulting.

Also, it does work both ways. Maybe this is an opening to say, 'Would you care to look at some of the Talmudic literature's description of Jesus as a bastard, and so on, and maybe make a few changes in some of that?'

* * *

Another arena in which these identity tensions play themselves out is the question of Catholics in public life. Are we going to see a replay in 2008 of the tensions that surrounded the issue of communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians in 2004?

It depends what the media wants to play up. The bishops are not of one mind in approaching this question, and so that division can be played upon, in which case it will be with us. There are some who would say it's a moral theology question about the conscience of the individual.

Meaning that it's their business to make the proper decision?

Yes, [this view holds] that it's our business to instruct them, it's their business to make the decision. Others would say that it's not entirely that, because there's also public scandal, and therefore the public law of the church comes in.

You have a canon that says the minister of communion, not the bishop, is to determine if it's a case of public scandal, then someone is to be refused communion. But that's the minister giving communion on the spot.

The bishop can either encourage that or discourage that, but in the canon itself it is first of all the minister giving communion at the time who makes that decision … the celebrant, or the extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, or the deacon, or whoever's giving communion.

To take the case of the Catholic seemingly most likely to become a major party nominee, if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican candidate and he shows up for Mass in the Archdiocese of Chicago, would you give him communion?

I don't think he's married in the church, so that's an easy one. We wouldn't even get to the question of his position on abortion.

Would you agree that both the debates over liturgy and over Catholics in public life are rooted in a push for greater clarity about what makes Catholicism distinct - in other words, Catholic identity?

Yes. It is scandalous that after so many years of the church's constant teaching that you have so many Catholic politicians for whom this is a non-issue …

The question is, do you use a sacramental moment to address that, and risk politicizing the sacrament? That's my biggest concern. The very sacrament that speaks about our unity becomes the occasion for this kind of fracas and disunity. I think we should think long and hard before we allow the Eucharist to become that …

The problem is instrumentalizing the Eucharist and the church, even for a good cause. Worship should never be manipulated by anybody. Worship is worship, even for a good cause. I feel strongly about that.

* * *

One more focus for identity questions is the extent to which traditional Christological doctrines can be pushed to provide space for a positive theological reading of other religions. News that the Vatican is investigating Fr. Peter Phan is the latest case in point. Many critics say that when the Vatican goes after someone like that, it freezes normal academic give-and-take. Do you think there's merit to that criticism?

It would be more credible if, before the Holy See said anything, the academic community did react with anything other than kudos to the most aberrant kind of Christologies that are presented.

To take a concrete case, the notification on [Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis] came out in January 2001. Looking back, would you say it's had a positive effect on theological discussion?

I think that's an intervention that wasn't thought out well enough before it was made. I think the discussion that followed after the intervention should have taken place before the intervention was made … I think that was an unfortunate example, but I don't think it's typical. By the time the process is over, usually there is a careful reading [of the theologian's work]. The initial reaction might be too broad, but that's the purpose of bringing the author, the theologian, into the discussion, to make sure that you're not misrepresenting them.

Is there a move these days to try to handle more of these cases at the local level rather than dealing with them from Rome?

I think that's clear. Cardinal Ratzinger, when he was head of the congregation, asked that the doctrinal committees of the various bishops' conferences do their own work for cases of problematic theological works in their own countries. The present prefect is certainly following that advice, and is going to be asking more and more, 'Would you please attend to this yourself? Why should every case like this become a case for the Holy See?'

* * *

Assuming that your brother bishops elect you as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is it your intention to accept?

I think that if you put your name forward, obviously you have to accept if you're elected. The time to make that decision is when they ask if you'll be put on the list.

So if elected, you'll serve?

I put my name forward, so of course.

From a PR point of view, you become the face of the church in the United States.

Yes, and that's scary in a way, because symbol becomes more important than function very often. It is a symbolic post. It's a tremendous responsibility, and you can make mistakes, and that's something to be considered. But you can also shape a conversation sometimes, and say something that would be helpful.

Any particular conversation you're looking forward to shaping?

Catholic identity is a good place to start.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 5 ottobre 2007 13:20
New cardinals for Poland?

Warsaw, Oct. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A Polish newspaper is reporting speculation that two Polish archbishops will be raised to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Dziennik newspaper says that Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw and Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, will both be named as future cardinals. The newspaper's report follows up on heavy speculation in Rome that the Holy Father will soon call a consistory for the naming of new cardinals, to be held late in November 2007.

The Vatican has not confirmed plans for the consistory.

Archbishop Nycz has frequently been named as a likely candidate to receive a red hat. Archbishop Rylko's name has not been heard as frequently in the speculation around Rome.

There are now only 3 Polish cardinals who are under the age of 80, and thus eligible to vote in a papal election: Cardinals Jozef Glemp, the primate of Poland and former Archbishop of Warsaw; Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, the longtime personal secretary to Pope John Paul II; and Zenon Grocholewski, the prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

There are three other Polish cardinals who are beyond the age of 80: Cardinals Henryk Gulbinowicz, the retired Archbishop of Breslau; Franciszek Marcharski, the retired Archbishop of Krakow; and Stanislaw Nagy, the noted theologian.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 5 ottobre 2007 13:33
Christianity 'banished'
from Canadian public life,
says influential U.S. priest

By Charles Lewis
National Post (Canada)
September 29, 2007


Father Richard Neuhaus, the Catholic priest who edits the highly influential New York-based magazine First Things, which covers religion, culture and public life, recently returned from his annual summer vacation in the Ottawa Valley.

After five decades in the United States he has become thoroughly American, but still feels enough of an attachment to his native land to take his rest here and worry about the state of our soul. "It is true to say that, in most aspects of public life [in Canada], Christianity has been not only disestablished but also banished," he wrote in the "The Public Square," the popular column he pens for the magazine.

In a recent phone interview, he linked that state of affairs to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [promulgated by the government of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau]. He calls it paradoxical that there are so many anti-Americans here, yet the Charter "is a thoroughly American document" - and he does not mean it as a compliment.

"It is riddled through and through with the radically individual notion of the unencumbered self and equality enforced by state power. It is a very American document and I think Canada has suffered from it grievously. All of Canada is a fascinating case study in terms of the meaning of modernity relative to religion generally and Christianity in particular. When I'm up there and I speak with clergy they ? seem very much in a state of defensiveness and a deep sense of malaise."

First Things has no charts and photos, just words. Recent articles include "The Sacred Heart of Victor Hugo" and "Faith and Quantum Theory." It is not uncommon to see full-page ads for the recruitment of monks or books on the Eucharist.

And then there is his column, which is usually the length of a short novella. It can run up to 16 pages and cover nearly a dozen topics, but it is easily the most accessible part of the magazine.

He calls First Things "emphatically ecumenical with a particular focus on Christian-Jewish relations."

Two years ago, Time magazine called him one of the tops 25 Evangelicals in the United States. It said the religious authority that President George W. Bush cites most often is "Father Richard."

The story also quoted a Bush administration official who said Fr. Neuhaus "does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defence-of-marriage amendment."

The fact that he takes no issue with the Vatican keeping its theologians in line would not be a surprise to anyone who has followed his public life, which has soared through the spectrum of U.S. politics and has crossed religious boundaries, too.

Born in Pembroke, Ont., the son of a Lutheran pastor, he himself trained in the United States for the ministry. In the 1960s, working from a poor parish in Brooklyn, he became active in the civil rights movement, in which he worked with Martin Luther King, and was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.

Over time, he shifted political allegiances from the left to the right and in 1990 converted to Catholicism and became a priest after 30 years as a Protestant pastor.

He has known Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, for more than 20 years and thinks he has the key to understand what motivates this Pope.

"[Pope Benedict] is not a political man. He's not nearly as interested in questions of political philosophy and practice as John Paul II was. He is passionately for the integrity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the continuing criticism of liberation theology because it compromises the lordship of Christ - because it sets into competition a hope of salvation through human political effort that detracts from the radicality of the role of Christ as the one mediator between man and God. This is the one driving passion of Pope Benedict. If you understand that, then everything else falls into place."



Christianity "Disestablished" in Canada,
Fr. Neuhaus says

By Hilary White


TORONTO, October 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the highly influential editor of First Things magazine, has written that the Christian faith in Canada has become completely "disestablished".

After returning from his annual summer vacation in his native Ottawa Valley, Neuhaus wrote in First Things, "It is true to say that, in most aspects of public life [in Canada], Christianity has been not only disestablished but also banished."

In an interview with the National Post, Neuhaus linked the erosion of the Christian foundation of Canadian society with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms imposed by the late Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Referring to the Charter as a "thoroughly American" document, Neuhaus told the Post's Charles Lewis, that it "is riddled through and through with the radically individual notion of the unencumbered self and equality enforced by state power."

"I think Canada has suffered from it grievously. All of Canada is a fascinating case study in terms of the meaning of modernity relative to religion generally and Christianity in particular."

Fr. Neuhaus is a staunch pro-life supporter and has been a leader in forming a deep intellectual and cultural foundation for the pro-life philosophy.

At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC earlier this year, he called the "contest between the culture of Life and the culture of Death" the "greatest, moral, political, cultural contest of our time."

Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor born in Pembroke, Ontario, is a leading mind of the so-called "neo-conservative" intellectual movement in the US and is the author of several books, including The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America, The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World, and Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth.

He told the Post, "When I'm up there and I speak with clergy they seem very much in a state of defensiveness and a deep sense of malaise."


TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 5 ottobre 2007 17:01
NEWS FROM SPAIN

'Indiscrezioni', for acts of indiscretion, is the Italian term for news leaks, and here are a couple of items from Spain labelled as such in Il Foglio today, translated here.


Anti-Zapatero man to the Vatican?

The new secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education will be a Jesuit Spaniard who is very well-known in his country.

He is Fr. Antonio Martinez Camino, secretary of teh Spanish bishops conference and trusted aide to the Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, who would have wanted him to be his Auxiliary Bishop.

Martinez Camino and Rouco Varela, along with a third prelate also named Antonio, Cardinal Canizares Llovera, Archbishop of Toledo, have been the Spanish prelates most critical of the ultraliberal and secularist government of Prime Minister Jose Zapatero.


Spanish opposition
to the Mass MP


The Bishop Of Leon, Julian Lopez Martin, the prelate in charge of l;iturgical matters in the Spanish bishops conference, has expressed himself against the liberalization of the traditional Mass.

In past years, Lopez Martin had been mentioned as a probable nominee to be Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship after the canonical retirement of Cardinal Francis Arinze. He was reportedly being sponsored by outgoing papal liturgy MC, Archbishop Piero Marini [who openly opposed any liberalization of the traditional Mass in interviews given before the Pope issued Summorum Pontificum].


Spanish martyrs will be beatified
at St. Peter's Square


Originally scheduled to take place at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls, the beatification rites on October 28 for the latest batch of Spanish martyrs killed during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s will now take place in St. Peter's Square instead, because of the great number of Spanish pilgrims expected to attend.

Cardinale Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints, will preside at the rites.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 5 ottobre 2007 21:07
Archbishop Burke would deny Communion to Giuliani

Compare this with the stand expressed by Cardinal George in the article by John Allen at the top of this page.


St. Louis, Oct. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, the key figure in a heated debate during the US presidential campaign in 2004, has revived the same debate by saying that he would refuse to give Communion to a Catholic politician who supports legal abortion.

Questioned by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on whether he would refuse Communion to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the archbishop replied: "If the question is about a Catholic who is publicly espousing positions contrary to the moral law, and I know that person knows it, Yes I would."

Although he avoided referring to Giuliani by name, Archbishop Burke reaffirmed the stand that he has adopted consistently: that priests have a moral obligation to withhold the Eucharist from anyone guilty of "manifest grave sin."

(Giuliani's public support for legal abortion is only one of several reason to question the Republican candidate's eligibility to receive Communion. Giuliani also favors embryonic stem-cell research and government recognition for same-sex unions, and his marital status is irregular.)

Contacted for a response to the archbishop's statement, Giuliani said that "archbishops have a right to their opinion. Everybody has a right to their opinion."

In an article published in September by the Periodica de Re Canonica, a canon-law journal, Archbishop Burke took issue with the statement adopted in 2004 by the US bishops' conference, which had concluded that individual bishops should set the policy for their own dioceses on the question of administering Communion to pro-abortion politicians.

The archbishop argued in his essay that the Code of Canon Law does not allow for variations in diocesan policy, but "obliges the minister of Holy Communion to refuse the Sacrament in the cases indicated."

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

I think the question may be academic where Giuliani is concerned. Does anyone know if he has even tried going to Communion at all? I don't recall any occasion reported or photographed, and I've lived in New York since 1989.

In any case, Catholic politicians who have not faithfully followed Catholic teaching in matters such as divorce and abortion are better off at least avoiding any occasion for embarassment by not presenting themselves for communion in public - if they cannot altogether keep away because they believe in they are not in sin. The resulting apparent hypocrisy cannot be worse than the original offenses anyway - at least, token respect for the Sacrament would be shown.






TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 6 ottobre 2007 00:04
REQUIEM FOR ARCHBISHOP DANZI -
THE HOST OF THE 2007 YOUTH AGORA IN LORETO


Mons. Danzi (left) was so discreet during the Agora that this is one of only two photos I could find of him in that
entire coverage! In front of the Basilica at the Pope's last event in Loreto on Sept. 2
.





Funeral rites at the Basilica
of the Holy House yesterday



Thanks to PETRUS for carrying this item, translated here:


"He was a man inspired by hardworking faith and rock-solid love for the Holy See and the Pope. For him, everything else came second." This was the tribute by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, for his friend, the late Archbishop of Loreto, Mons. Gianni Danzi, at the funeral Mass held in the Basilica of the Holy House in Loreto.

Scola celebrated the Mass together with Cardinals Sergio Sebastiani and Edmund Szoka - Pope Benedict XVI's personal representative to the funeral - and the bishops of the Marche region.

Following his wishes, the late bishop had a plain wooden coffin, Franciscan-style, with the Gospel and his pastoral staff and miter laid on top.

"He was a courageous man, often blunt, but authentic, who dared to take risks, and always knew which side he was on," Cardinal Scola further described his friend.

Danzi attended seminary with Scola, and was ordained a priest in 1966. He went on to further studies in Switzerland, where he was secretary to the Bishop of Lugano, and then became a parish priest in 1982.

Both he and Scola ended up joining Comunione e Liberazione, where he rose to take charge of the Secretariat.

Loreto was in mourning for its late bishop. Businesses closed for the day, and a huge crowd of friends and faithful joined religious, civilian and military authorities of the Marche region for the funeral rites. Prominent among the mourners were young people who had taken part in the Agora of Italian youth last September 1-2, along with members of C&L.

Cardinal Sebastiani, in his homily, looked back at the stages of Mons. Danzi's pastoral career up to 1984, when he was called to help organize the first youth encounter with the Pope on the occasion of the first International Year of the Youth declared by the United Nations in 1985.

"That encounter," Sebastiani said, "opened the way for the World Youth Days, a happy idea of John Paul II, with Danzi practically a pioneer in effecting a true collaboration among so many entities in the world of youth associations."

At the age of 67 and after having led the church in Loreto for almost two and a half years, Sebastiani concluded, "We can well say that Gianni has gone to the house of the Father after having concluded in the best way possible his work at the house of the Mother of God."

A telegram sent in the name of Pope Benedict by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was read, recalling that Archbishop Danzi, although already ailing at the time, did not spare himself in preparing the Prelature of Loreto for the Agora and for the Pope's visit.

After the rites, the brothers and nephews of Archbishop Danzi took back his remains with them to their hometown of Viaggiu, in the province of Varese, northern Italy, where he died earlier this week.

Mons. Danzi left Loreto last week 'for treatment and rest at my family home' as he said in a letter he left for his parishioners to be read at Sunday Mass. In the letter, he said he felt that his time was 'running short' and that his encounter with Christ was imminent. He died the next day, Monday.

10/6/07

Avvenire has a more extensive story in today's issue.


loriRMFC
00sabato 6 ottobre 2007 00:11
Catholic Church is pro-life, life ethic not optional belief, Irish bishops say in pastoral letter

October 5, 2007
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

MAYNOOTH, Ireland (Catholic Online) – The Catholic Church is a pro-life church and that understanding is not optional but "at the heart of what we believe," said the Irish bishops.

In a pastoral letter released for the Oct. 7 Day for Life observance in all Irish parishes, the Irish Bishops' Conference stressed that the church has a "consistent and clear message" on the sacredness of human life and must continue to foster a consistent life ethic in individual consciences, families and society.

"The church has a great deal of experience in all areas of promoting and defending human life and has given the world a lead in the intellectual, political and social battle to save and protect life from conception to natural death," the bishops said in the pastoral written in a question-and-answer format.

The Day for Life exists as a response to the call by Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical letter, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), that "a day for life be celebrated each year in every country."

The Irish bishops have issued an annual pastoral letter for the day since 2001. This year marks the third in succession that the Irish bishops have jointly published the Day for Life pastoral letter with the episcopal conferences of Scotland and England and Wales. The Day for Life was celebrated in Scotland on May 31 and in England and Wales on July 1.

The theme for the day this year is "Blessed is the fruit of your womb." Last year, the bishops of the three episcopal conferences chose "Celebrating the life and presence of people with disabilities in the church and in society" as the day's theme.

The bishops said that the church teaches that "every life has been created by God in his own image and likeness and that all life is sacred from the moment of conception to the point of natural death."

The Catholic Church opposition to abortion is based on the act being the "taking of an innocent human life."

Yet beyond abortion, the church also opposing other "direct attacks against innocent human life," including embryonic stem-cell research, genetic engineering and euthanasia because "every life has purpose, meaning and inherent value."

"To be pro-life means to promote human dignity and development in every sphere of life; to say 'yes' to life," the bishops said.

"The Catholic Church is a pro-life church," the bishops said. "This is not an optional extra. It is at the heart of what we believe."

The pastoral noted that the Catholic Church "has for many years been at the forefront of offering practical, emotional and spiritual care to women and babies in need" and to women and men suffering through "grief, pain and loss following an abortion experience" through CURA in Ireland, The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative in Scotland and the Life Care and Housing Trust in England and Wales.

"The church, local and universal, has been at the forefront of challenging people to think more deeply about life issues. There is a consistent vision at the heart of her life issue," the bishops stressed.

"The church has answers worth hearing and questions and challenges to share aimed at helping people to come to that deeper understanding demanded by the seriousness of the current situation," they added. The bishops urged prayers of the faithful for "all those affected by abortion," those experiencing crisis pregnancies and those babies at risk, for politicians "that they will always keep in mind the sacredness of life in every decision that they take."

"We are all victims," the bishops said, "when we live in a society which allows abortion."


SOURCE: www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?...
benefan
00sabato 6 ottobre 2007 03:58

Cardinal Consistory

This is going to be pretty embarrassing if these folks are wrong!


Off to Rome with high hopes

Friends of Delco's Archbishop John Foley sense he will become a cardinal.


By David O'Reilly
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Oct. 3, 2007

Dozens of friends and family of Archbishop John Foley are signing up for a late-November "pilgrimage" to Rome.

Officially, it is so they can watch the popular Delaware County native say Mass on Nov. 26 at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore - among the oldest and most-revered churches in Roman Catholicism. But the real reason, they say, is that they believe the archbishop will be made a cardinal around that day.

Foley "hasn't told me directly" that he's being made a cardinal next month, his longtime friend Robert Sims of Wayne said yesterday.

"But is he getting winks and nods? Yes. Are other cardinals inviting him to dinner? Yes."

Yesterday afternoon, Sims said, Foley told him in a phone call from Rome that he would say 5 p.m. Mass at Santa Maggiore on the last Monday of November.

"I've already made my reservations, and my children are going," said Sims, president of Sims Financial Services in Wayne. He said members of Foley's family were going, as well.

"We already have about 100 people, including about 40 priests of the archdiocese, going from the 23d to the 28th" of November, Joe Affatato, manager of the Atkinson, Mullen & Rosso travel agency in Newtown Square, said yesterday.

Affatato said the archdiocese had coordinated the trip with his agency but had asked that it not officially link it to a consistory - a Vatican ceremony in which a pope formally creates cardinals.

"We think the hat ceremony will take place on the 25th and the ring ceremony on the 26th," Affatato said. "But we won't know until around Oct. 15," when Pope Benedict XVI is expected to announce a list of new cardinals.

Affatato said Cardinal Justin Rigali, archbishop of Philadelphia, was among those headed to Rome after Thanksgiving for the pilgrimage. But Donna Farrell, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said she could not confirm that because Rigali's November schedule had not been posted.

"Nothing has been confirmed by the Vatican," Farrell said, adding that it "certainly would be very joyful for the church of Philadelphia, especially during its bicentennial year."

Foley, who turns 72 on Nov. 11, was born in Darby and was ordained a priest of the Philadelphia archdiocese in 1962. In 1984, Pope John Paul II named him president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication.

He served as the council's president until June, when Benedict named him pro-grand master of the international Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a papal knighthood that originated in the crusades of the 12th century.

Since the order was revived in the early 19th century, its prefects have all been popes or cardinals, which has led to broad speculation in Rome and at home that Foley will soon get the red hat of a cardinal.

Foley could not be reached yesterday in Rome.

Since his election as pope in April 2005, Benedict has not called for a consistory of the College of Cardinals, nor has he announced that he intends to name Foley a cardinal.

But with the College of Cardinals now 17 shy of the 120 members considered standard for electing a pope, Vatican observers say Benedict is about due to fill vacancies. Cardinals serve as papal electors until they turn 80.

Other American clergy also mentioned as possible new cardinals are Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore.

With 11 American cardinals already serving as papal electors, however, some observers speculate Benedict might wait a few more years before naming more.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 6 ottobre 2007 16:14
iNTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOG FROM THE GRASSROOTS UP

Boca educator to join Vatican talks
on Jewish-Christian relations

By Chrystian Tejedor
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 6, 2007


A former Palm Beach County interim school superintendent is one of 72 Americans who will discuss Jewish-Catholic relations with Pope Benedict XVI and top cardinals in Vatican City later in the month.

"It seems like an exciting challenge," said 82-year-old Bernard Shulman, of Boca Raton, who will meet with the group from Oct. 21 to Oct. 25.

One of the goals is to come up with programs or ideas that churches and synagogues can develop locally to help their communities, said Gunther Lawrence, executive director of the Interreligious Information Center, which is organizing the conference.

But the central point is developing an understanding of issues surrounding the relationship between Catholics and Jews, both Shulman and Lawrence said.

"We want to create a climate of if there are issues, you don't shoot from the hip. You sit down as friends and discuss them," Lawrence said.

To that end, lay Jews and Catholics will meet at the Pontifical North American College with high-ranking cardinals for five days. They will have an audience with the pope on Oct. 24.

As pope, Benedict, often described as an ultra-conservative while a cardinal and chief of theology, has shown a willingness to reach out to the Jewish faith. The German-born pontiff has visited a synagogue in Cologne and has hosted several meetings with Jewish groups at the Vatican.

A grass-roots effort to improve relations between the two faiths started in Miami in 2006 when church officials handed out fliers to Catholics to encourage them to get along with Jews. But Lawrence and Shulman said this was the first time members of the lay community were invited to take their message directly to the Vatican.

Shulman, a member of Temple Beth-El in Boca Raton, said his synagogue always has enjoyed warm relations with neighboring St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church.

A long-running partnership between the two evolved into an Interfaith Weekend with a workshop for teachers from both congregations, a Shabbat service and Torah study. It includes an ongoing discussion between Jewish and Catholic adults.

"We always had an outstanding relationship with our neighbor church," Shulman said.

He understands the importance of fostering a strong relationship between both groups, having grown up in a Jewish household in predominantly Catholic Boston. Because children threw rocks at him, he worked hard to promote understanding between both faiths while he was superintendent of schools there.

"I would do what I could to make sure no kid felt the way I did," Shulman said.

Organizers said they hope to include members of the Muslim faith during an expanded conference in the United States in 2008.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 6 ottobre 2007 17:59
WHAT'S WITH THE LEFEBVRIANS THESE DAYS

Rorate caeli tells us with this contribution by New Catholic:


Secret theological discussions with the SSPX in Rome?

The Superior-General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX/SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay, granted today an interview to registered readers of the French website Donec Ponam.

When asked about the possible removal of the excommunications of the four bishops of the FSSPX by the Holy See, Fellay answered:

In my opinion, the Roman authorities have no grave reason to keep the excommunications. It is therefore a matter of political balance between the FSSPX, on one side, and, on the other, the Progressives with whom these authorities believe they must deal.

Meanwhile, a source at Le Forum Catholique brings the following report (startling, if confirmed):

Bishop Bernard Fellay has officially announced to the members of the FSSPX the establishment of a Theological Committee specialized in the study of Vatican II, which includes Fathers Patrick de La Rocque, Grégoire Célier, Thierry Gaudray, Alvaro Calderón, and Jean-Michel Gleize.

This confirms the information coming from sources close to the FSSPX in Toulouse and to the Studium [the Dominican House of Studies in Toulouse] of the Dominican Fathers in that same city regarding long hours of doctrinal discussions which have taken place at a Roman University, in various occasions, between FSSPX theologians and Roman theologians, such as Cardinal Cottier - discussions which have covered the new Mass, ecumenism, and [episcopal] collegiality.


benefan
00domenica 7 ottobre 2007 01:54

Sentence Upheld for Priest's Killer in Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey, OCT. 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the sentence for the teenage murderer of Italian Father Andrea Santoro.

The decision to uphold the 18-year, 10-month sentence of imprisonment was made Thursday.

Father Santoro was killed in February 2006 as he was praying in his church in Trabzon.

Last year, a Trabzon court found Oguzhan Akdin guilty of premeditated murder, illegal possession of a firearm and endangering public security.

Akdin, who was 16 at the time, was arrested shortly after the murder, still in possession of the weapon used in the crime, authorities said.

Akdin claimed his action was in response to the publication of cartoons about Mohammed by the Danish newspaper Yyllands-Posten, which were reprinted by other European publications.
TERESA BENEDETTA
00lunedì 8 ottobre 2007 21:11
RAVENNA: DIALOGUE BETWEEN
CATHOLICS AND ORTHODOX


VATICAN CITY, OCT 8, 2007 (VIS) - From October 8 to 15, the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox is holding its 10th plenary assembly in Ravenna, Italy, according to a communique issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

This session is the second to be held since the reactivation of dialogue during the 2006 plenary in Belgrade. The commission was established in 1979 by Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I, and held its first assembly in Patmos-Rhodes in 1980.

The document to be analyzed by the commission at its current gathering is entitled "the ecclesiological and canonical consequences of the sacramental nature of the Church - conciliarity and sinodality in the Church."

The study of this document, the communique reads, "was part of the program agreed at Patmos-Rhodes in 1980" but was "suspended to make way for questions concerning the relationship of Orthodoxy with the Oriental Catholic Churches following the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. With the plenary of Belgrade, the commission reactivated its normal theological agenda."

The commission is made up of 60 members, 30 Catholics and 30 Orthodox, and is jointly presided by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and His Excellency Ioannis (Zizioulas), metropolitan of Pergamo.

The Catholic members are cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and lay experts in various fields.

The orthodox members represent - in the order indicated by Fanar - the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Patriarchate of Moscow, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Serbia, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Romania, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Bulgaria, the Orthodox Church of Georgia, the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, the Orthodox Church of Greece, the Orthodox Church of Poland, the Orthodox Church of Albania, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and of Slovakia, the Orthodox Church of Finland, and the Orthodox Church of Estonia.


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

Incidental note: Shortly after their meeting in Turkey, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I revealed that he was suggesting to Pope Benedict XVI that it might be useful if both of them could attend the Ravenna meeting. The Vatican never commented openly on this, but in hindsight, one might deduce that it probably saw the initiative as 'politically unwise', in that it would imply an assertion of ecumenical leadership by the Pope and the Patriarch together, when the Mixed Commission includes all the other Orthodox Churches as well, including the Church of Russia. Can you imagine how Alexei-II would have reacted? He does not even recognize the Ecumenical Patriarch as 'primus inter pares' in the Ortodox world.

In any case, the Pope and Bartholomew I will be meeting each other in Naples on Oct. 21.




TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 01:25
SUBTLE SABOTAGE
Father Z has previously pointed out the problem of how easily underlings who are in charge of translating or publishing/posting Church documents can easily undermine or even directly sabotage the Church by making apparently 'slight' changes that can literally spin the message in another direction. This was evident in the English translations of the passages in Sacramentum caritatis that had to do with the use of Latin in liturgy [before Summorum Pontificum came out].

Now, Fr. Z has discovered a deliberate misrepresentation of the Holy Father's intention in the Latin text of the MP published by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops by changing a key word in the original text.

Here is Fr. Z's blog on the subject today:


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

There is a huge problem in the online versions of Summorum Pontificum provided by the Holy See and the PDF document provided online by the USCCB.

If you have been reading this blog you know that there is a problem with the way many authorities have been translating the all important Art. 5, § 1.

In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium continenter exsistit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat. ...

My translation:
In parishes, where there is continuously present a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition, let the pastor willingly receive their petitions that Mass be celebrated according to the Rite of the Missale Romanum issued in 1962.

There are several terms in the Latin that are a little tricky. We don’t know how big a coetus is. We are not sure what exsistit means, for it can be both "emerge" and "exist".

And then there is the adverb continenter.

Again and again some tendentious translations of Art. 5, § 1 are offered so as to narrowly define what sort of group may make a petition.

For example, many will say "stable group", for coetus continenter exsistit , which implies either that the group doesn’t change or that it has been around previously or even that it is comprised only of people who belong to the parish. They morph that concept of continenter into an adjective and change it to something more like the term used in Canon Law, stabiliter.

However, continenter is not an adjective and it is not, obviously, stabiliter.

Now look at the text the USCCB is providing and start asking yourselves some questions:

Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium stabiliter existit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat.

Notice anything?
The USCCB has a different text. On what authority?

Holy See – online
Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium continenter exsistit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat.
USCCB – pdf online
Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium stabiliter existit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat.


I would very much like to know what is going on with this.

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

It is rather breathtakingly appalling how unscrupulous the opponents of the Pope can be that they would dare change a word in the Motu Proprio to accommodate their own preferred interpretation of this particular provision. And they are all supposed to be men of God. I wonder what explanation the USCCB will give for this shameless act.

Then again, the bureaucrats at the Vatican are letting down the Pope's side by failing after all these months to provide the Vatican's official translations of the Latin text! What excuse do they have?

It is not possible that they prefer to leave it that way so that everyone can just flail about in confusion! The definition of who exactly can request the regular celebration of the traditional Mass from their parish priest is crucial, since right now, anti-MP priests and bishops are using their personal translation/interpretation of the provision to justify withholding permission.

Perhaps a reference to the original German text in which the Pope supposedly wrote the text - on which the Latin text was presumably based - will help clear up the questions about the actual intent of the MP in this respect.

Has anyone thought to ask Ecclesia Dei to shed light on this question? This is the age of instant communications, after all.



P.S. One reader of Father Z has offered a probable explanation for the USCCB version: The USCCB site may have posted a pre-publication copy of the MP (remember it was issued to the bishops before it came out in public) which used the word continenter, but in the final version of the text (the one released online by the Vatican), continenter had been changed to stabiliter.

OK...benefit of the doubt.

But one reader pointed out that the Latin text posted by the bishops of the UK was`the 'stabiliter' version, and they too got a pre-publication copy of the text... So, either the webmasters of the UK bishops were more on the ball than their US counterparts in checking the published texts word for word, or the pre-publication copy they got used 'stabiliter' all along.

And if 'continenter' was in the pre-publication text, why did the USCCB site not make a correction all these months? With all the dispute over whether the statement referred to a 'stable group' which is the preferred translation of the 'continenter' advocates, you would think some intelligent person hwould have checked out the terminology for this particular word on the Vatican text somehow?
TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 13:56
MIXED SIGNALS FROM CHINA

Chinese Christians celebrate
first church permission in 70 years

by Daniel Blake
Christian Today
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2007




The Chinese Catholic community in Yan’an, a city in the Shaanxi province in China, is celebrating a landmark decision that has allowed it to build its first church in more than 70 years.

The move is being touted by religious freedom experts as another sign of religious revival taking over the country.

Yan'an is recognised as the centre of the Chinese communist revolution from 1935 to 1948, and Chinese communists celebrate Yan'an as the birthplace of the revolution.

Now after years of negotiations between the city’s small but growing community of Christians, and the Communist Party leaders, an agreement has been reached that will allow a church to be built in the suburbs of the city.

The development is in stark contrast to seven decades ago, when Christians fled the city’s cathedral as Chairman Mao arrived at the end of the Long March, a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Armies of the Communist Party of China in the mid-1930’s.

The old cathedral in the southern part of Yan’an was completed in 1934 but was abandoned the following year. It was then used as a meeting hall by Mao.

The Church has repeatedly asked for it back but authorities have refused. However, they have now eventually agreed to compensate the Catholics and are allowing them land in a less prominent location outside the city centre.

Fr Peter Zhang, a priest who ministers to approximately 600 Catholics in the town, said, “This is a sacred place to the Communist Party.”

He also said he believed there were more secret believers in the city who were too scared to come out before, but who he now hoped would have the confidence to reveal themselves and join the new church.

Zhang said, “People who lived through the Cultural Revolution still worry that they might face another disaster like that. But I don't think that will happen. Before, the party opposed landlords too, and opposed scholars, and now they want everyone to own property and get educated.”

China is a country experiencing huge growth in Christianity. Chinese Government figures say that 16 million Protestants and six million Catholics are registered with the two state-approved churches. However, it is believed that up tens of millions more worship in unregistered ‘underground’ churches.

Christianity is also growing in Yan'an, with commentators saying the influence has spread from neighbouring provinces, which inherited Christianity from European missionaries more than a century ago.



CHINA - VATICAN
Guangxi: Stopping the Pope’s Letter,
even by brain washing


Rome, Oct. 9 (AsiaNews) – Brain washing Catholic priests to convince them of the “error of their ways” -for having published and distributed the Pope’s Letter to China’s Catholics - is taking place in Nanning, a major city of the autonomous Guangxi region, (south west China), where the government has launched a campaign to counter the Vatican “penetration” in the life of the Church.

Meantime in Qingxiu district, close to Nanning, police sequestered and destroyed copies of a parish letter which carried parts of the papal document.

On June 30, Benedict XVI published a Letter to the Catholics of China with which he exhorted them to live the Christian mission and witness for the good of their country and to draw closet the underground and official Church, asking all of those involved to witness with greater courage their unity with the Holy See.

In cordial and respectful terms, the Pontiff requested that Chinese authorities respect the religious freedom of the faithful and the appointment of bishops.

Beijing’s reaction to the Letter at the time of its publishing was noncommittal. But according to AsiaNews sources, distribution of the document has been gravely impeded in a variety of ways.

What is happening in Qingxiu district is emblematic. There the provincial Office for religious affairs (ORA) has set up an emergency group comprising more than 12 public entities (from the United Front to the district commissions to the police) whose job it is to “draw up a plan to stop the pastoral letter”.

An official document from the ORA is a perfect example of what happened in Kanglelu parish: with the permission of its bishop the parish published its newsletter (“Compass”) with extracts taken from the Pope’s Letter.

The secretary of the communist party and the local government gave “maximum attention to the case” - gathered together the priests forcing then to a “work of political thought” (brainwashing) so that “by learning from their mistake, they may continue to raise the standard of love for the motherland and the Church, and strongly oppose the words and activities of the Vatican”.

The publication of extracts from the papal Letter is judged to be “an activity which damages the Nation and its people”. This explains why copies were sequestered and the publishing house that printed the newsletter closed down.

Since the Letter’s publication the United Front, the ORA and the Patriotic Association (PA) have organised conventions and seminars the length and breadth of the country, gathering priests, nuns and bishops. The theme under discussion is the modernisation of the Church (finances, restoration, seminars,…) but also the pope’s Letter.

According to AsiaNews sources in China, in some of these seminars the PA vice-president, Antonio Liu Bainian, violently attacked the papal document judging it a new attempt at “imperialism” and to “colonise” the Chinese Church, along the lines of what happened to the country in the past under Colonial powers.

In Liu Bainian’s mind, the need for religious freedom and independence in the appointment of bishops is the equivalent to making foreign “concessions”, such as the territorial areas subtracted from the control of the central government by western powers during the 19th century.

According to western diplomats, Liu Bainian judges the document as an “evil document”, “badly translated into Chinese”, “dangerous from a political point of view” and for this reason he has blocked its distribution, cancelling the text on Chinese Catholic websites, blocking Vatican sites, that of AsiaNews and others that carried it.

Liu Bainian’s position, fully shared by the ORA, is not that of the entire Beijing government. AsiaNews sourcesclaim that within the Ministry for foreign affairs, some well known figures instead judge the Letter “a good document, well translated, the work of experts capable of opening a new road to dialogue”.

As has been made known also by the Vatican figures, there are some signs of an initial warming between the Holy See and the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a view to future diplomatic relations.

But the various ecclesial figures both within China and elsewhere doubt the sincerity of these small steps. They remember that in 1999, when there was still talk of possible relations, a Communist Party 'secret' document, dated August 17th, reportedly said that “whatever the future of Sino-Vatican relations”, there was an urgent need to reduce obedience to the underground Church and increase the PA’s control on the Official Church.

The ORA document from Nanning is along the same lines. It calls for the Official Churches “network” of contacts and “control system” to be strengthened as well as more powerful “studies and formation of religious leaders” (political brain washing sessions); and to step up vigilance against the Pope and the Vatican’s “penetration” of China.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 14:14
THIS IS DISGRACEFUL!

Religious repression in China, as anywhere else, is reprehensible, but China is not a democracy, and it is an officially atheistic state that does not in theory tolerate any religious activity. So Christian difficulties there are to be expected.

But Israel prides itself in being the only genuine democracy in the Middle East - and look what they are doing to Catholic priests and religious! But why?



ISRAEL
Being a priest in Israel remains difficult
From AsiaNews
Oct. 9, 2007


Despite the commitments made in the Fundamental Accord with the Holy See, the Israeli government continues to put in place bureaucratic obstacles for priests, religious and sisters called to carry out there mission in the Holy Land.

Years have passed, yet despite the Israeli government's promises, priests and nuns who leave Israel with the intention of returning still need a new re-entry visa from Israeli consulates, which they do not always obtain and often take months of exasperating paperwork.

Up until now, religious authorities have avoided public protest, with the hope of encouraging change through discreet negotiations with competent civil authorities.

Terrasanta.net has published an article on the issue with a comment by Father David M. Jaeger, a Franciscan jurist who is part of the Custody for the Holy Land, which we republish below.


by Fr. David M. Jaeger


ROME – Once again and in the latest episode, reports emerge from the Holy Land of yet another “wave” of refused visas and entry permits for ecclesiastical and religious personnel – priests, brothers and religious sisters – vital for the life of the Church, its parishes, schools and other religious and social work.

As before, the situation worsens by the day. For example, while I write this article, the entire Syro-Catholic faithful of Jerusalem is being deprived of their only priest, appointed to celebrate Mass and all of their other sacred rites. The priest exists. He is my guest here in Rome, but has been waiting, so far in vain, for the visa which will allow him to make the journey to take up his post.

They are veritable “tidal waves”, recurring “tsunamis”, which are crashing around us with increasing frequency, and in certain ways with greater severity.

It is possible (anything is possible) that by the time you read this article the current crises will have passed - or worsened. At least until the next occasion – and as recent history has taught us there will be a next time – even though we know neither the day nor the hour. Perhaps with the next Minister or government, or even more simply, according to the mood of some plenipotentiary who directs these matters behind the curtains….

And yet….and yet in its Fundamental Accord, signed on December 30th 1993, in vigour as of March 10th 1994, the State of Israel explicitly recognised, in article 3 paragraph 2, the «right of the Catholic Church to form, appoint, and deploy its own personnel» in its own institutions in order to carry out its functions.

The sense of this «deploy» was crystal clear to the representatives of the State who accepted this precise formula. I am a witness to this myself as I was present at all of the sessions in which it was discussed.

The point was this: the right of the Church to obtain the necessary authorisation from the State for the entry and permanence of its personnel posted by the ecclesial Authorities to carry out their office in the Holy Land, Israel and Palestinian territories controlled by them.

Now this is also true: the Accord also intended to recognise at the same time – how could it refuse? – The right and duty of the sovereign State to regulate entry onto its territories of individuals who have no individual right or title to do so, that is foreigners, above all for security reasons.

And it is also true that many of the priests and religious who the Church needs to «deploy» in the Holy Land (where the most part of the faithful are Arab speakers) are citizens of Arab nations not exactly on friendly terms or even openly hostile with Jewish State, which would certainly justify the state’s special attention to visa requests pertaining to them.

And so? And so here we find the need for a norm, a transparent norm, which sets down the legitimate needs of the state and establishes an iter, procedures for the certification of the «non-dangerous nature» of individual priest’s religious men and women at the service of their faithful.

A fundamental dimension to these repeated crises is in fact this: such a norm does not exist, no norms exist, no single or stable procedure, except those that may exist in the locked cabinets or impenetrable minds of certain officials, who have shown themselves to be highly changeable [capricious?].

But the Fundamental Accord itself - if we look at the previously cited article 3 paragraph 2 and article 12 - already sets out an agreed norm, a pact, that entirely respects the rights of the Church with the legitimate needs of the State. As news agencies have repeatedly revealed, already in 1994 the Parties agreed to negotiate on this issue. The time has come to do so.

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

What Fr. Jaeger does not say is whether this issue has been discusssed at all in the much-publicized 'regular' sessions of the bilateral working committee to thresh out sioute that have kept the Fundamental Accord from being fully enforced by the Israeli government, even now, 13 years after the 'agreement'.

The anti-Catholic animus is shockingly discordant in a democracy - genuine in most respects - where Judaism is the official religion.


TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 16:01
LEFEBVRIANS NOT IN DOCTRINAL DIALOG WITH VATICAN

Rorate caeli posts a correction to last week's item about the Lefebvrians carrying out 'secret' theological discussions with the Vatican. It comes from The Remnant,
www.remnantnewspaper.com/
a Catholic newspaper published out of Minnesota, which describes itself as "the leading journal of the counterrevolution, which seeks to restore the traditions of the Church to their rightful place and honor in the Church - especially the Latin Tridentine Mass." It was established in 1967 by Walter Matt, a longtime editor of The Wanderer, 'oldest Catholic newspaper in the USA', who feared that 'the spirit of Vatican II' would "wreak havoc on the Mass, the Sacraments, and the traditions of the Catholic Faith."



SSPX denies doctrinal dialog
By Brian Mershon
Posted Oct. 8, 2007


News reports disseminated primarily on French language websites and blogs last week asserting that the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has been in secret doctrinal discussions with theologians of the Holy See are incorrect, according to the Society’s official news service.

“The SSPX denies having any doctrinal discussions at present either with officials or theologians of the Vatican,” said Fr. Arnaud Sélégny, Secretary General of the SSPX, from the SSPX’s official Dici news service (www.dici.org).

“Bishop Fellay has not, and did not, appoint any theologian priests of the SSPX mentioned in the [errant online] ‘news’ forums to carry on such doctrinal discussions,” he said.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the SSPX, has repeatedly outlined that prior to doctrinal discussion with the Holy See, he hopes for the lifting of the decrees of excommunication against the SSPX’s four bishops.

Late last week, an official-sounding story was carried on at least two French language websites and forums well-known among some French traditionalist Catholic readers.

The story alleged that Bishop Fellay’s appointment of SSPX theologians, “confirms information coming from sources close to the SSPX in Toulouse and the Studium of the Rev. Dominican Fathers of the same city regarding long hours of doctrinal discussions which took place in a University of Rome, on several occasions, between theologians of the SSPX and Roman theologians such as Cardinal Cottier—discussions related to the new Mass, ecumenism and collegiality.”

“Such a statement is a fruit of the imagination of its author,” Fr. Sélégny said. He also cautioned, “All the excitement on the internet is a good example of the false rumors spread abroad by anonymous persons on forums.”

In related news, the SSPX has announced that its priests will begin a celebration of 1,000 Masses in thanksgiving for Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum to keep a promise the SSPX bishops and priests made to the Blessed Mother.

These 1,000 Masses of thanksgiving follow on the heels of the spiritual bouquet of 2.5 million rosaries the SSPX sent to the Holy Father approximately 1 year ago after the month of the Holy Rosary.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 16:40
National clergy group supports
Archbishop Burke’s Communion stand



Washington DC, Oct 8, 2007 (CNA).- The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, a national association of 600 priests and deacons, has issued a statement endorsing Archbishop Raymond Burke's position that clergy must deny Holy Communion to public figures who openly support abortion or euthanasia.

Part of the statement reads: "Archbishop Burke equally addresses politicians on both sides of the aisle. Whether Democrat, Republican or independent; executive, legislative or judicial branches; all public officials who publicly support, promote or give assistance to others to commit evil are cooperators in that evil."

Archbishop Burke, head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, recently published an essay in a prominent canon law journal reiterating the duties of Catholics in public office to receive Holy Communion worthily. His essay further emphasized the duties of ministers of Holy Communion to ensure the Sacrament's worthy reception. He advised that clergy privately warn those potential communicants who are in manifest grave sin not to receive the Eucharist.

The confraternity's statement quoted a 2004 letter to American bishops from Pope Benedict XVI(then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger): "not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia."

Therefore ""there may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about war and the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

His letter insisted that the minister of Holy Communion "must refuse to distribute it to a Catholic politician [who] consistently campaigns and votes for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws."

The statement alluded to the parable in Matthew 22 where a man is physically removed from a wedding banquet for not wearing a wedding garment.

It continued: "the man was 'speechless' and Catholic politicians have no excuse, either. If they openly support abortion and/or euthanasia, even if 'personally opposed', they are in fact publicly unworthy to receive Holy Communion due to their cooperation in evil. Greater scandal is given when bishops, priests, and deacons do not protect the sanctity and dignity of the Most Blessed Sacrament by allowing public persons notoriously known for their positions which directly violate the Divine and Moral Laws."

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy appealed to all bishops to support Archbishop Burke at the General Assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in November.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 16:58
Catholic population growing
in Africa, Asia



But the statistics on priests and seminaries are depressing! No wonder the Pope does not miss an occasion to call for more vocations.


Rome, Oct. 8, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The world's Catholic population is growing fastest in Africa and Asia, according to an annual compilation of statistics provided by the Fides news agency.

The world's Catholic population grew 16.6 million in the most recent year, Fides reports. The figures show a rise of 4.65 million in the number of Catholics in Africa, 3.08 million in Asia, and 6.83 million in the Americas - which are treated as a single continent by Vatican statisticians.

Fides, an arm of the Congregation for Evangelization, offers a summary of figures each year, providing a picture of Church activity particularly in mission fields, for World Mission Sunday. The latest report reflects statistics compiled at the end of the 2005 calendar year: the most recent statistics available on a worldwide basis.


Net gain in priests: Only 520 in 2005-
2,338 priests left vs 2858 new priests

The number of priests worldwide increased only slightly: by 520, to reach a total of 406,411. But that growth was uneven; Africa and Asia saw a substantial increase in the number of priests (nearly 3,000 combined), while Europe lost 1,699 priests and the Americas lost 639. As a result, the number of Catholics per priest rose substantially in Europe, Oceania, and the Americas, while dropping in Africa and Asia.


443 seminaries closed down in Europe in 2005!
Similarly, the number of seminarians preparing for the priesthood rose in Africa and Asia, by a combined total of over 1,500, but dropped significantly in Europe (443) and slightly (7) in Oceania. In the Americas the seminary population rose by 210, mostly in Latin American countries.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00martedì 9 ottobre 2007 20:17
CARDINAL KASPER ON THE STATE OF ECUMENISM TODAY
From PETRUS today, translated here:

'A thread runs through
inter-Christian dialog'




VATICAN CITY - There's a common thread that runs through the many ecumenical reunions this year - from Stockholm to Sibiu to Ravenna -
says Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.

"It's the search for unity to which the whole Church is committed, from its ministers to the simple faithful, according to each one's function and ability," alter said in an interview with the newspaper Il Velino.

"The ecumenical movement is very complex," he stressed. 'It involves theological research, fraternal conversion, practical cooperation, what is taught in theological schools, catechetical preparation, praying for unity. One way or another, all of ecclesial life should aim for the reunification of the Church for which Christ prayed when he asked the Father 'that they may all be one so that the world will believe.'"

The 10th session of the Mixed International Commission for theological dialog between the Catholic and Orthodox churches opens in Ravenna today.

This commission begun under John Paul II in 1979, and is currently presided by Cardinal Kasper for the Catholics and Metropolitan Joannis Zizioulas of Pergamum, for the Orthodox.

For one week, the commission - with 60 participants from both sides - will center their discussions on the Petrine primacy and uniatism.

After the closed-door sessions and theological discussions, all the delegates will join Cardinal Kasper in a concelebrated Mass on Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Cathedral of Ravenna, and at a Divine Liturgy (the Greek Orthodox term for their Eucharistic service) on Sunday at the Basilica of San Vitale [presumably with Metropolitan Zizioulis as principal celebrant].

Cardinal Kasper also points out what distinguishes the Ravenna sessions from the usual ecumenical encounters: "It has a different character and takes place on a different level. It is not limited to brotherhood, celebration and prayer, but to a confrontation of what we have in common, as well as the obstacles to full communion that still need to be worked out."

Kasper looked forward to the Naples meeting on October 21 between Pope Benedict XVI and delegation leaders to the 21st inter-religious prayer encounter for peace. Among them will be Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and Chrysostomos II, Archbishop of Cyprus, two leading players in the Orthodox galaxy.

"They won't be in Ravenna, but their representatives are, and of course, they will receive all the papers about the commission's work," Kasper said.

He himself will be in the 3-day Naples inter-religious event to take part in a roundtable discussion on "Men and religions"

Kasper commented on the dispute with some Protestant leaders who succeeded in the removal of the phrase 'at every stage' in reference to the defense of life, contained in the final communique issued in Sibiu, Romania, last month.

"Differences do exist among the Protestant churches (in that respect) and crop up every time Christians meet. It is among the issues taken up in the theological discussions."

But Kasper felt that the third European ecumenical reunion in Sibiu was positive on balance, especially since it took place in a largely orthodox country, "where, however, communities of Roman Catholics, Greek-rite Catholics as well as Protestants have continuously resided."

Commenting on relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, Kasper said that Patriarch Alexei's recent remarks about the possibility of
a meeting with the Pope was "simply a public confirmation of what we already know. We need to work to overcome the obstacles in the way, and this will not be done through press interviews, which are useful only to impart information to the general public."

On the appointment of the Italian Mons. Paolo Pezzi to be the new Archbishop of Moscow, Kasper said, "It's about placing a new person who knows the situation well but without any baggage from the past. This should help him in his pastoral and ecumenical mission. I am convinced Mons. Pezzi has the best intentions of cooperating with the Patriarchate of Moscow."

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

10/10 P.S. This full-page ad for the city of Ravenna appears in Avvenire today:



I had been thinking of putting together a brief 'introduction to Ravenna' in connection with the ongoing ecumenical dialog there. Ravenna is of my favorite Italian cities - not just because Dante is buried there - but for the churches of Ravenna which contain such beautiful representative displays of Byzantine mosaic art at its best. I hope I have time to do it in time for the end of the sessions this weekend.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00mercoledì 10 ottobre 2007 15:46
ARCHBISHOP CORDES TO MEET
PATRIARCH ALEXIS II IN MOSCOW



VATICAN CITY, OCT 10, 2007 (VIS) - According to a communique made public at midday today, Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," is due to meet with Patriarch Alexis II in Moscow.

"The visit comes in the context of a series of meetings that the president of 'Cor Unum' will make in the Russian Federation between October 15 and 21," reads the communique.

"From October 15 to 17 he will be at Novosibirsk, the capital of the region of Siberia where, accompanied by Bishop Joseph Werth, he will visit Caritas, the Franciscan school and the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In this area the Catholic Church has distinguished itself in recent years for the increase of charitable initiatives throughout the territory.

"From October 18 to 21, Archbishop Cordes - as a guest of Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz - will participate in the work of Caritas groups throughout the Russian Federation. In Russia, this sector is at the basis of much fruitful collaboration with the Orthodox Church.

The meeting is particularly significant because it is taking place a year and a half after the publication of Pope Benedict XVI's first Encyclical, which was dedicated to charity. It will, then, be an opportunity to verify how 'Deus caritas est' has inspired charitable commitment in this vast country.

"The talks with bishops and volunteers of Russian Caritas on the influence of 'Deus caritas est,' the visit to Siberia and the meeting with Alexis III, make this trip an important stage of the mission of the Pontifical Council 'Cor Unum'."

loriRMFC
00mercoledì 10 ottobre 2007 18:49
Priest starts homes for unwed mothers as the pro-life 'next step'

By Henrietta Gomes
October 10, 2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)

ARLINGTON, Va. (CNS) – Providing homes for unwed mothers is a necessary outreach for the pro-life movement, said Father Stefan Starzynski, a priest of the Arlington Diocese who has started two homes for unwed mothers.



WOMAN HOLDS CHILD AT HOME FOR UNWED MOTHERS – Evelyn James holds 10-month-old Andrew as her daughter, Rebekah, 4, looks on at the Paul Stefan Home for Unwed Mothers in Orange County, Va., Oct. 2. Andrew is the son of Erin Urbain, who stayed at the home during her pregnancy. James and her husband, Randy, rejected the advice of doctors to abort their son when they learned his lungs would not develop. He lived for an hour after birth, and the couple decided to plunge themselves into the pro-life movement, including the founding of the home for unwed mothers. (CNS)

He feels it is only a matter of time before Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, will be overturned and the pro-life movement needs to be ready to respond to pregnant women who need a safe haven.

"We have done the marches, we have held the banners, this is absolutely the next step," added the priest, who is parochial vicar at St. Mary of Sorrows Parish in Fairfax.

Last year Father Starzynski opened the Paul Stefan Home for Unwed Mothers, which is named for a baby born without lungs who survived for one hour. So far, nine women have stayed in the home and six babies have been born. Currently, the home has three residents. By the end of this year, another house will open on the same 50-acre property in Orange County.

The priest is confident Roe will be overturned, an event he predicts will be like the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989.

"It's not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when," he said about the law being overturned. "We're moving in that direction. It's only a matter of time. No evil can stand on its own."

"We are going to have millions of unwed mothers" when that happens, he said. Currently, about 37 percent of all babies born in the U.S. are born to unwed mothers, he noted.

In an interview with the Arlington Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Arlington Diocese, he said that he has relied on God's help in his efforts to help unwed mothers. The initial idea to open a home for them started with what he described as a deep stirring in his soul.

Two years ago he was praying for a Catholic couple, Randy and Evelyn James, who were expecting their sixth child, but there were complications during the pregnancy. His prayers for the family were intertwined with prayers for a home for unwed mothers.

When doctors learned that the couple's baby would not develop lungs, doctors advised the Jameses to have a late-term abortion, something they refused to consider. It was during that time when the couple knew in their hearts that, "whether or not he survives, we have to plunge ourselves in the pro-life movement," said Evelyn James.

When their son, Paul Stefan, was born, his middle name was chosen in honor of the priest who prayed for him unceasingly. The baby was baptized and lived for about one hour.

Although it was a time of deep anguish for them, it also was a time of peace for the couple who said they knew God had a distinct plan. After Paul Stefan's funeral, the couple began to hear more about the home for unwed mothers and felt called to be a part of it.

The next year, as Father Starzynski continued to pray about the possibility of opening a home for unwed mothers, he told his parishioners that he was convinced five of them would donate $1,000 to the project, and five did. At the time he was parochial vicar at St. Patrick Church in Fredericksburg.

Another parishioner told the priest that she and her husband would lease him two homes and 50 acres of land for $1 a year.

"So many extraordinary things have happened ... that I almost expect the extraordinary ... and lots of miracles," said the priest, who believes the Holy Spirit is guiding the project.

After renovation work was completed on the two houses, the first home opened last September. Various people and organizations donated furniture and their services to the project.

Women can stay for up to two years, which helps them get back on their feet. After an appearance on the Eternal Word Television Network, Father Starzynski began receiving hundreds of e-mails from people all over the world interested in starting homes for unwed mothers.

"God had to pick the simple people" to carry out this work, the priest said, because simple people will "do whatever God wants them to do."

God does not pick "the people who know exactly what they're doing," the priest added, because they will see the logistics of carrying out such a project as too overwhelming and won't move forward with it.

Father Starzynski said he often thinks of the apostle Peter getting out of the boat and walking toward Jesus. The faithful must emulate that act of faith, he said.

"We have to have the courage to get out of the boat," he said. "If we step out of the boat and take the next step, God will make it all happen."


SOURCE: www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25623/


loriRMFC
00giovedì 11 ottobre 2007 05:36
French Catholic bishops denounce proposed immigration reforms

October 10, 2007
Catholic News Service (www.catholicnews.com)

PARIS (CNS) -- France's Catholic bishops have denounced proposed immigration amendments that would allow the collection of ethnic data and introduce DNA testing for migrants seeking to join family members in the country.

"Christians should refuse in principle to choose" between those migrants living illegally, or in secret, and those in the open, "or between citizens who carry papers and those without," the bishops said in a statement. "Whoever they are, they are our brothers and sisters in humanity."

The Oct. 1 statement was published as lawmakers debated controversial amendments to France's 2006 immigration law.

The bishops welcomed parliamentary opposition to the proposed use of genetic tests, saying they risked "a grave disregard for the sense of the person and the dignity of the family."

During April 2006 talks with church leaders, now-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who campaigned for tighter curbs before his May election, promised to listen to the church's viewpoint, the bishops added.

"We appreciate being received and heard by the authorities, along with others, in a democratic dialogue," they said. "Until a vision of solidarity is clearly enunciated and implemented, the increasingly restrictive measures taken to deal with migrants will look like concessions to an opinion dominated by fear rather than by opportunities of globalization."

The bishops said Pope Benedict XVI had urged greater legal protection for migrants and their families, adding that the Catholic Church in France was now "urgently trying to make its voice heard."

"We are disturbed at the ever more restrictive conditions placed on the reunion of families, which is a right always to be respected," the bishops said. "The church feels a duty to be close, like the good Samaritan, to the clandestine and the refugee, the contemporary icon of the traveler, robbed, beaten and abandoned by the roadside."

The center-right lawmaker who drafted the amendments, Thierry Mariani, said DNA testing was already used in 11 other European Union countries and would allow visa procedures to be speeded up while eliminating bogus applicants.

The Catholic Church repeatedly has urged fairer treatment for France's 4.3 million immigrants, who make up 7.4 percent of its population and often suffer high unemployment.

France's June 2006 law, passed after inner-city riots in 2005, required migrants from outside the European Union to learn French and made it harder for the unskilled to settle in the country.


SOURCE: www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?...
TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 11 ottobre 2007 13:17
San Francisco Archbishop in video
giving Communion to gay men dressed as nuns
butt denies seeing 'anyone in mock garb'

By John-Henry Westen

SAN FRANCISCO, October 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last Sunday, October 7, San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer said Mass at a Catholic church in the heart of the 'gay district' of Castro. Most Holy Redeemer parish has a lamentable reputation of having caved in to demands of homosexual activists. One group of homosexual activists which until recently operated regularly out of the parish was called "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence", men who wear makeup and dress as Catholic nuns. Archbishop Niederauer was filmed giving two members of this group Holy Communion Sunday.

The "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence", whose motto is "go and sin some more" and describes itself as a "leading-edge order of queer nuns," planned to hold regular bingo games at Most Holy Redeemer parish until Catholic activists reported the plans to the press. A local homosexual newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Times, reported that the events at the parish included sexually explicit activities. Prizes included porn DVDs and "sex toys" the paper said.

Since then the parish has refused the "Sisters" use of its facilities. However, according to local Catholic activists some of the "Sisters" continue to attend services at the church.

Anthony Gonzales, president of St. Joseph's Men Society, a group which has taken action to curb outrageous anti-Catholic activities within local Catholic churches, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the incident Sunday. Gonzales said that his group decided to film the event and "let the evidence speak for itself."




"This was such a blasphemous action within a Catholic Church by an Archbishop representing Roman Catholicism it would make Judas blush," Gonzales told LifeSiteNews.com. "To hand over our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to known practicing and promoting sodomites, in the middle of a 'gay-friendly Mass' is beyond the pale.

Gonzales said his group is calling on the Vatican to take action. "The Vatican has to react to this and has to remove him from office," he said.

Gonzales' group has not yet been able to post their video online. However, a separate video of the event has been placed online by the Catholic blogsite Quamdiu Domine and is available here: www.qdomine.com/Morality_pages/MHR.htm

LifeSiteNews.com contacted the office of Archbishop Niederauer for a response to the accusations. A statement by Archbishop Niederauer sent to LifeSiteNews.com by Archdiocesan communications director Maurice Healy says that the Archbishop did not notice any "mock religious garb."


The Archbishop is either blind or lying flat out!

"At Most Holy Redeemer Church Oct. 7, I noticed no protest, no demonstration, no disruption of the Sunday Eucharist," said Archbishop Nierderauer. "The congregation was devout and the liturgy was celebrated with reverence. Toward the end of the Communion line two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. I did not see any mock religious garb. As I recall, one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland."

The "Sisters" were heavily involved in the recent Folsom Street Fair which in addition to full nudity and public sex acts by homosexuals involved included a mockery of the Last Supper with Christ and his apostles represented by leather-clad homosexuals. Bishop Niederauer stressed that he had denounced the poster. "In the past when the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence or other groups have ridiculed the Church I have denounced their actions," said the Archbishop. "Only a week ago, Catholic San Francisco carried my remarks condemning the derisive use of the Last Supper on a poster printed by some other local group."

Americans for Truth, an Illinois based national pro-family group has joined in the call to have Vatican authorities made aware of the scandal. Peter LeBarbara founder of the group encouraged "Catholics and other concerned pro-family Americans" to voice their concerns and provided the following contact information for Vatican authorities:

His Excellency The Most Reverend Pietro Sambi
The Apostolic Nuncio to the United States
The Apostolic Nunciature
3339 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008-3687
phone: 202-333-7121
fax: 202-337-4036

Cardinal William J. Levada
Prefect
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
[Secretary: Most Rev. Archbishop Angelo Amato, S.D.B.]
Piazza del S. Uffizio 11
00l93 Rome, Italy
Europe
phone: 011.39.06.69.88.33.57
phone: 011.39.06.69.88.34.13
fax: 011.39.06.69.88.34.09
email: cdf@cfaith.va

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

Archbishop Niederauer, who was named to succeed Cardinal Levada as Archbishop of San Francisco, was the first US bishop ever named by
Pope Benedict XVI, and, given Niederauer's previous known liberal tendencies, conservative circles have long wondered why Cardinal Levada endorsed his friend for the position - for San Francisco, of all places.

America's ultra-liberal Sodom-by-the-sea has kept itself in the news lately - along with the Folsom Street farces - because 1) it refused to allow the US Marines to film a recruiting commercial in the city; 2) at nearby Oakland International Airport (SF-Oakland are a megalopolis), GIs returning from Iraq were not allowed to use a regular passenger terminal; 3) just yesterday, SF's congresswoman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended an atheist Congressional officer's arbitrary action not to include the word 'God' in a certificate accompanying a flag flown in Congress at half-mast in honor of a veteran, whose grandson had wanted the certificate to say that his grandfather had died for 'God and country.'


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

About San Francisco's long-running Gay Follies, Gerald Augustinus today posted a timeline compiled by another blogger on recent Catholic-related 'developments'. Most of these activities have to do with the Most Holy Redeemer Church.


September 30, 2007: Fr. Donal Godfrey SJ has a signing at MHR of his book Gays and Grays: The Story of the Inclusion of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish.

Quote: "The Catholic Church is not a credible moral voice within the gay community." p153.


September 29, 2007: Most Holy Redeemer parish hosts "SF Desperate Divas 2008 Drag Grand Calendar Pageant" in Ellard Hall. "Twelve of the Bay Area's Most Delicious Drag Divas will compete for the Crown and Title of Miss Desperate Dive 2008." Event is published in the "Gay Event Listing" section of "SF Station" webpage, and other "alternative" media:

Bay Area Reporter - 'Desperate Divas' pageant Sat. - Sept. 27, 2007
SFBG Arts & Culture blog - Divas get desperate ... for love
SF Station - SF Desperate Divas 2008 Drag Calendar Grand Pageant - Sept. 29, 2007



August 28, 2007: Lexington Books publishes Gays and Grays: The Story of the Inclusion of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish by Fr. Donal Godfrey, SJ.

Quote: "The Gay and Lesbian outreach Committee-so unique, so bracing, so critically what the parish needed when it needed it-eventually withered away, a victim of its own success, when the entire parish had taken on the work it was formed to begin." Page 34 (emphasis added).


June 24, 2007: Most Holy Redeemer makes its annual appearance as a parish at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. Go here for video.
www.qdomine.com/Morality_pages/GayPride2007.htm


April 29, 2007: Most Holy Redeemer celebrates "Gay Service" broadcast worldwide on "BBC Radio4." The celebrant is Fr. Donal Godfrey, SJ. (Now the Executive Direcor of Campus Ministry at the University of San Francisco.) For an audio or transcript of the event, go here.
www.mhr.org/gallery5-audio.htm


February 17, 2007: The "Inter-Club Fund's "31st Annual Motorcycle Awards are held in Ellard Hall of Most Holy Redeemer Parish. Event is listed in the "Adventures in Leather" section of the Bay Area Reporter newspaper



January 27, 2007: Most Holy Redeemer Young Adult Group attends the "TGSF" (Transgender San Francisco) "2007 Cotillion" at the Regency Center Grand Ballroom in San Francisco. The Cotillion Producer is "Lisa Rae Dummer", who serves as a Eucharistic Minister at Most Holy Redeemer Parish. MHR's Young Adult Group are presented as "debutantes."


TERESA BENEDETTA
00giovedì 11 ottobre 2007 13:28
LOOK WHAT THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX JUST DID!

Can anyone have any illusions left about the bona fides of the Russian Orthodox Church in the efforts for Christian unity after this latest show of pique?


Russians leave ecumenical talks
in rift with Constantinople


Ravenna, Oct. 10, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Russian Orthodox delegates have walked out of a joint session of Catholic and Orthodox theologians, highlighting the sharp disagreements among the world's Orthodox leaders.

A delegation from Moscow left the meeting, being held in Ravenna, Italy, after learning that a delegate from the Estonian Apostolic Church would be included in the ecumenical talks. The Estonian Apostolic Church has gained canonical recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, but the Russian Orthodox Church, which still claims authority over the Orthodox community in Estonia, disputes that status.

The dispute calls attention to enduring conflicts over authority in the Orthodox world, with the Moscow patriarchate resisting the power of Constantinople. Although the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of the Orthodox churches, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has traditionally been recognized as the "first among equals" of the world's Orthodox leaders.

This week's meeting of Catholic and Orthodox theologians, being held in Ravenna, is the second such meeting after a 6-year breakdown in the ecumenical talks. Since the talks have resumed, the main source of tension has been not between Catholic and Orthodox representatives, but between Moscow and Constantinople.

At the most recent meeting of the joint Catholic-Orthodox commission, held in Serbia in 2006, representatives from the Moscow patriarchate strongly criticized a statement which, they argued, implied that the Ecumenical Patriarch held a position analogous to that of the Roman Pontiff, as the acknowledged leader of the Orthodox world. The Patriarch of Constantinople, they said, has primacy of honor and some coordinating functions within the Orthodox world, but no authority over other patriarchs.

At those 2006 talks the delegates from Moscow insisted that they could continue the talks only if "an ecclesiological model in which the Patriarch of Constantinople occupies the place of an ‘Eastern Pope’ is not imposed on the Orthodox Church." This year's walkout similarly involves the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch: in this case, to grant canonical recognition to an Orthodox hierarchy.




benefan
00venerdì 12 ottobre 2007 04:20

I'm glad to see one or two bishops lately speaking up publicly in opposition to blatantly anti-Catholic forums and activities being held at "Catholic" universities. It's nice to know some of our bishops really do have the courage to defend the faith. God bless them.


Massachusetts bishop issues warning to Jesuit college


Worcester, Oct. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A Massachusetts bishop has strongly criticized a Jesuit-run college in his diocese, hinting that he could withdraw the school's recognition as a Catholic institution.

Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester issued a statement on October 10, responding to protests from lay Catholics about plans for a conference at the College of the Holy Cross in which Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts will make presentations. Siding with the pro-life protestors, Bishop McManus disclosed that he had urged Holy Cross to cancel the conference plans.

The organizations participating in the scheduled event, the bishop said, "promote positions on artificial contraception and abortion that are contrary to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church." Saying that the Church's position on key issues involving respect for life is "manifestly clear," he questioned why a Catholic school would offer these groups a forum. The bishop warned that the conference could create a "situation of offering scandal understood in its proper theological sense, i.e. an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil." By canceling the conference, he said, Holy Cross would not infringe upon academic freedom, but would "make unambiguously clear the Catholic identity and mission of the College of the Holy Cross."

Bishop McManus noted that as the head of the Worcester diocese in which Holy Cross is located he has the "pastoral and canonical responsibility to determine what institutions can properly call themselves Catholic.” He added: "This is a duty that I do not take lightly…"

The bishop concluded his public statement by expressing his "fervent wish" that Holy Cross would cancel plans for the conference, "so that the college can continue to be recognized as a Catholic institution committed to promoting the moral teaching of the Roman Catholic Church."

TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 12 ottobre 2007 16:40
Catholic church must speak louder against abortion,
says Cardinal McCarrick



MIAMI GARDENS, Florida, Oct. 11 (AP) - The retired archbishop of Washington said Thursday that the prospect of both major party presidential candidates favoring abortion rights is evidence the Catholic Church must more forcefully preach on the issue.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick called for persuading pro-choice Catholic politicians rather than refusing them communion, as another high-profile prelate, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, has advocated.

"I very much respect his position," McCarrick said in an interview with The Associated Press at St. Thomas University here. "It's not mine."

The communion issue gained attention during the 2004 presidential campaign, when Democratic Sen. John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, sought the White House. Burke said he would deny the Eucharist to the Massachusetts senator.

The issue came up again last week as the 2008 campaign heated up. Burke did not name names, but it appeared he was focusing on Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice and Catholic.

Regardless, McCarrick said no candidate would fall fully in line with church teaching, leaving Catholics to examine their consciences to make their choice. He said abortion and other right-to-life issues such as euthanasia and the death penalty were bedrock teachings, but do not fully encompass Catholic beliefs.

"You cannot be authentically Catholic if you do not support life, yet it is not enough just to support life, you have to go beyond that," the cardinal said. "To really be authentically Catholic, you need it and the family rights, the right to education, the right to take care of the poor, the right of migrants."

Jon O'Brien, the president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which supports abortion rights and contraception, rejected the cardinal's comments on abortion.

"McCarrick got it wrong," O'Brien said. "In Catholicism, once you are baptized, you are authentically Catholic. We don't have a litmus test that people take."

Catholics make up one-quarter of the electorate in the United States, but surveys indicate that most do not choose candidates based on their position on abortion.

McCarrick, 77, stepped down from the Archdiocese of Washington last year, but he is still active in varied church issues and a member of the College of Cardinals.

In the interview, he also said the U.S. must do more to accommodate Iraqi refugees, who have left that country by the millions, and expressed support for the politicians who invoke God on the campaign trail.

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

I still say Rudy Giuliani, to his credit, has not sought to receive Communion at any public event I am aware of - at least not since his last divorce and remarriage. And I think that should be the proper behavior for Catholic politicians who disagree with some aspects of Church teaching - in order to avoid 'giving public scandal' as the USCCB guidelines for receiving Communion states it. The rest is for their conscience to square.




TERESA BENEDETTA
00venerdì 12 ottobre 2007 16:53
...AND ARCHBISHOP NIEDERAUER APOLOGIZES (Re Post 9649 above)
Thanks to Gerald Augustinus who posted this on
closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/



Thanks to a friend in SF who emailed me this. I've also been told that Michael Savage mentioned the incident and that Bill O'Reilly might do something today (Friday).

Below is Archbishop George H. Niederauer's column for the Oct. 19 issue of Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper that is mailed to 85,000 households.


A recent event that greatly concerns me needs some additional explanation - and with it an apology.

On Sunday, October 7, 2007, I celebrated Mass at Most Holy Redeemer Parish here in San Francisco, during my first visit there. The congregation was devout and the liturgy was celebrated with reverence.

I noticed no demonstration, no protest, no disruption of the Eucharist.

At Communion time, toward the end of the line, two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. As I recall one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland. I did not recognize either of them as wearing mock religious garb.

Afterward it was made clear to me that these two people were members of the organization "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," who have long made a practice of mocking the Catholic Church in general and
religious women in particular.

My predecessors, Cardinal William Levada and Archbishop John Quinn, have both denounced this group's abuse of sacred things many times in the past. Only last year, I instructed the Administrator of Most Holy Redeemer mParish to cancel the group's use of the hall on the
parish grounds, once I became aware of it.

In the year and a half since I arrived in San Francisco, there have been several instances of offensive attacks on Catholic faith and devotional life.

Only two weeks ago Catholic San Francisco carried my remarks condemning the derisive use of the image of the Last Supper on a poster printed by another local group. [But, Your Ecellency, the offensive 'Sisters...' have been a regular feature of the Folsom Street Fair, too!]

Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they
approached me.

After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake.

I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so.

The manner of dress and public comportment of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is deeply offensive to women religious and to the witness of holiness and Christian service that women religious have offered to the Church and to the world for centuries.

The citizens of San Francisco have ample reason to be grateful to women religious for their unfailing support of those most in need, and to be deeply offended when that service is belittled so
outrageously and offensively.

Someone who dresses in a mock religious habit to attend Mass does so to make a point. If people dress in a manner clearly intended to mock what we hold sacred, they place themselves in an objective
situation in which it is not appropriate for them to receive Holy Communion, much less for a minister of the Church to give the Sacrament to them.

Therefore I conclude that the presence of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the Mass on October 7th was intended as a provocative gesture. In that moment I failed to recognize it as such, and for that, as I have said, I must apologize.



TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 13 ottobre 2007 15:56
Torture in his history taints
Spanish martyr's beatification

All Things Catholic
by John L. Allen, Jr.
Friday, Oct. 12, 2007



Declaring someone a saint, in Catholic theology, has never meant that he or she lived a perfect life, a point that applies with special force to martyrs. Even great sinners, the church believes, are redeemed by shedding their blood for the faith.

In principle, therefore, the discovery that a martyr has skeletons in the closet does nothing to weaken the value of his or her sacrifice. Yet in practice it can raise hard questions -- if not about the sanctity of their death, then the wisdom of publicly applauding their lives.

Such may be the case with one of the 498 martyrs of the Spanish Civil War set for beatification in Rome on Oct. 28: Augustinian Fr. Gabino Olaso Zabala, who was among 98 Augustinian priests and seminarians executed by Republican forces from 1936 to 1939.

In a nutshell, the charge is that during a much earlier period in his life, when he was a young missionary in the Philippines, Olaso was guilty of torture.

According to written testimony from the victim, Olaso participated in the 1896 torture of a Filipino priest named Fr. Mariano Dacanay, who was suspected of sympathy for anti-Spanish revolutionaries. Dacanay's own account asserts that Olaso and a handful of other Augustinians encouraged guards who were administering the torture, and that at one point Olaso himself kicked Dacanay in the head, hard enough to leave the suffering priest semi-conscious.

Historians generally regard Dacanay's testimony as credible. Augustinian Fr. Fernando Rojo, the Rome-based postulator for the cause of Olaso and the other Augustinian martyrs, told NCR Oct. 10 that he does not see "any reason to doubt the basic historical accuracy of the facts" contained in Dacanay's account.

To be sure, Olaso's conduct must be understood in the context of his times, since the late 1890s were a violent era in the Philippines. Two years later, Olaso and other missionaries were themselves imprisoned by nationalist rebels and severely beaten, not in retribution for the torture of Dacanay, but simply because that's what the revolutionaries often did with Spanish priests. Rojo says the Filipinos evidently did not consider Olaso a prime villain, since they freed him after 18 months.

Moreover, whatever conclusion one reaches about Olaso, it has no bearing on the witness of the other 497 Spanish martyrs who will be beatified later this month, killed for refusing to renounce the faith four decades later and half a world away.

Nonetheless, the revelation that someone set for beatification by Pope Benedict XVI was a willing participant in torture may be disconcerting - in the first place for Filipinos, who see the 1896 rebellion as a key moment in the birth of their nation; and more broadly for those concerned with contemporary moral and legal debates over torture, especially in the context of the "war on terrorism." Despite clear official Catholic teaching against torture, some may wonder if the church is sending a mixed message by beatifying someone who apparently administered torture himself.

If nothing else, Olaso's story may serve as a sobering reminder that, under the right circumstances, even people of deep faith and personal courage are nevertheless capable of almost anything.

* * *

In the 19th century Philippines, protest against Spanish rule often had an anti-clerical edge, since many missionaries worked hand-in-glove with the colonial forces. Contemporary critics coined the term "friarocracy" to describe a system in which Augustinian, Franciscan and Dominican missionaries were responsible for education and health measures, keeping census and tax records, supervising the selection of local police and town officers, maintaining public morals, and reporting alleged acts of sedition to the regional authorities.

When revolutionary energies began to stir, according to Jesuit historian Fr. John Schumacher in his 1981 book Revolutionary Clergy, the reaction among the Spanish, including the missionaries, was one "of fury and hysteria, venting its rage on any prominent Filipino elements considered less than friendly, and ready to believe the most extravagant charges."

In this context, a number of Filipino priests regarded as potentially disloyal were arrested in late August 1896 and accused of being Masons, as well as being part of a conspiracy to massacre Spaniards. Nine of these priests, including Dacanay, were incarcerated at a seminary in Vigan, one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the Philippines. At the time, the seminary was run by the Augustinians.

Dacanay, who was released a year later, wrote a first-hand account of what happened to him while under arrest. Portions of it were published in the 1982 book Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, by an Episcopal missionary in the Philippines named William Henry Scott.

Dacanay wrote that on Oct. 29, 1896, he was visited by the Augustinian superior of the seminary, who urged him to confess his crimes. When he protested his innocence, civil guards were summoned who placed him into a posture called the "bamboo foot," which Dacanay described as "a barbarous punishment, not fit even for animals":

The victim is made to squat down on his haunches. A thick bamboo is passed beneath both knees, and then his two wrists are tied together in front with a rope, with his arms under the bamboo on each side. In this position, the victim is nothing but a ball, for if he attempts to move, he is sure to roll over on the ground. … In this contorted and painful position, [the guards] struck me many blows on the shoulders with a thick bamboo they call 'brute' every time I answered in the negative, leaving me horribly swollen and bruised.



Dacanay then described the role of the Augustinians during this torture, including Olaso.

Present during this heartrending and horrendous spectacle were the Provisor and seven superiors of the seminary, who, instead of sympathizing with my sufferings and cruel torture, much to the contrary watched my martyrdom with visible signs of pleasure. They even went to the extent of encouraging the guards to treat me more cruelly - Father Gabino Olaso, for one. … And when I fell over due to the blows and the fatigue, rolling over on the floor, they added to my sufferings by kicking me roughly as if I were a football. When I fell, I struck my head against a post, causing a wound. Another time I rolled over near Father Gabino, who was pacing quietly around the room, and he gave me another tremendous kick in the head which completely stunned me."


Dacanay said that the torture was repeated on Nov. 2 and 4, again in the presence of the Augustinians, and that all told he received some 300 blows while in the "bamboo" posture. He also reported that the Augustinians, including Olaso, repeatedly entered the cells of detained priests to demand that they confess to various crimes, even inspecting their bodies for scars from "blood oaths" administered in secret rituals by Filipino rebels.

Following his release, Dacanay's account was reported in the Filipino press. Shortly afterwards he was returned to priestly ministry by Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda y Villa of Manila, a Spanish Dominican and later the archbishop of Valencia - an improbable step, according to Schumacher, had there been any doubt about the truth of Dacanay's report, or any credible evidence that he was actually a Mason or a member of any armed group.

* * *

Two years later, as the Filipinos were sweeping to victory, most of the remaining Spaniards in the country, including many missionaries, were arrested. In 1898, Olaso and a number of other Augustinians were taken prisoner by a rebel commander named Simeon Villa.

Olaso and the other missionaries were placed in the basement of a convent, where they were told that they would be killed if they did not give Villa money. When the priests said they had already turned over whatever they had, their arms were tied behind their backs. The rebels then kicked the priests and whipped them with rattan rods, according to an account later compiled by Spanish Dominican Fr. Julian Malumbres.

Olaso spent the next year and a half imprisoned by the rebels, subject to various forms of mistreatment, until he was eventually released and allowed to return to Manila. By that stage, the United States had defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War and, as part of the peace settlement, now regarded the Philippines as part of its own territory, initiating another round of revolutionary violence. The country would not achieve full independence until 1946.

From Manila, Olaso found his way back to Spain, where he continued teaching and held various leadership positions within the Augustinians until his martyrdom in 1936.

* * *

Olaso, to be sure, is hardly the first martyr with a checkered past. To take one recent case, St. Mark Ji Tianxiang of China, killed during the Boxer Rebellion, was canonized in 2000 despite the fact that he was an opium addict barred by his parish priest from the sacraments for almost 30 years.

Likewise, Fr. Jean-Marie Gallot was executed during the French Revolution and beatified in 1955 by Pope Pius XII. In the early 1980s, the French press unearthed documents apparently showing that Gallot had belonged to a Masonic lodge in Laval, France, in defiance of church discipline forbidding Catholics from being Masons.

At the time, the Vatican issued a statement asserting that whatever Gallot may have done during his life, his death as a martyr rendered it moot.

"Even if the Laval lodge had been Masonic in the sense condemned by the church," the statement read, "and even if Gallot had given his allegiance to it (in any case, a thing that remains to be proven), with his martyrdom, he would have washed this away, as with other possible faults - even, hypothetically, serious ones of his past - by becoming a hero of the faith, professed even to the shedding of his blood."

Given this theology, Olaso's halo is not in doubt. Whatever his sins, they would have been wiped out on the basis of his martyr's death. That principle, however, doesn't resolve prudential doubts about the wisdom of singling him out for formal beatification.

Rojo, the postulator for the cause, said that the events of 1896 were not considered as part of the canonical investigation of Olaso's case, which was closed at the diocesan level in 1963 (well ahead of the 1982 publication of Scott's book), and which concerned only the final 35 years of his life. Officially, therefore, church authorities reached no judgment about Olaso's role in the Philippines.

Nonetheless, Rojo insisted upon two bits of context for evaluating what happened in 1896: first, that of "an authentic civil war," in which missionaries such as Olaso genuinely feared for their lives; and second, that of a young 26-year-old Basque priest "who had just arrived in the islands, and who could have understood the situation only from the point of view of his fellow foreigners."

Rojo concedes that none of that can justify "acts of abuse and violence, in this case inside a seminary," and he told NCR that what Olaso apparently did to Dacanay is clearly "to his discredit." Rojo said that Olaso's time in the Philippines represents "the darkest period of his life."

Yet, Rojo argued, whatever "debt of human justice" Olaso owed was paid in full, first of all by his grueling 18 months in prison, and then by the "holocaust of his life" in Spain four decades later.

Xaverian Bro. Reginald Cruz, a church historian and lecturer at the Maryhill School of Theology in the Philippines, said he has "no doubt" that Olaso is a legitimate martyr. Nonetheless, Cruz said, the Oct. 28 beatification may generate controversy.

"The 1896 revolution is generally viewed as the pivotal moment in Philippine nation-building," Cruz said. "From a symbolic point of view, Filipinos emotionally relate to the event as Italians and Mexicans do to the Risorgimento and Cinco de Mayo."

In that context, Cruz said, even though the nine priests imprisoned in the Vigan seminary are not well known, the beatification "has the potential of becoming a cause célèbre, especially since Olaso would be awarded a halo by the church in spite of what he did to the Filipino clerics."

More generally, Cruz argued, "it's hard to reconcile" the church's teaching against torture "with the act of beatifying someone who committed the very act the church condemns."

"The Church needs to be very careful about the models of faith it is proposing for the faithful," Cruz said. "We need to tell the whole story of our martyrs and not make it look like we're glossing over the extremely embarrassing parts. Otherwise, we lose our credibility."

* * *

Whatever one makes of Olaso, his story inevitably invites reflection on contemporary controversies over torture, especially with regard to the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

The official Catholic judgment is clearly negative. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that "torture, which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred, is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity."

In his 2006 message for the World Day of Peace, Benedict XVI appeared to indirectly apply this teaching to the war on terror when he wrote, "Not everything automatically becomes permissible between hostile parties once war has regrettably commenced."

Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, was asked by reporters at the time if the pope was referring to accusations that the United States tortures terror suspects, or hands them over to other nations for torture.

While stressing that Benedict "was not condemning anyone," Martino said the pope was "inviting" all countries that have signed the Geneva Conventions governing the conduct of war to respect them. He also said the Vatican abhorred torture for whatever reason.

"Torture is a humiliation of the human person, whoever it is," Martino said. "The church does not allow these means to extract the truth."

In light of the apparent tension between Olaso's Oct. 28 beatification and this teaching, it's possible that church officials will face pressure to clarify that the beatification should not be read as an endorsement of Olaso's earlier conduct.

* * *

A final note about the church and torture.

Realists sometimes argue that in dire circumstances, especially when "the clock is ticking" on an alleged plot, torture may be the only way to compel terrorists to reveal their plans. Critics usually retort that torture doesn't work, since subjects will often confess to anything to make it stop. While it's a poor means of getting at the truth, these critics say, it is an excellent way of turning borderline radicals into convinced militants, burning with the desire for revenge.

Ironically, one of the most-discussed case studies regarding the use of torture involves the late Pope John Paul II, and once again the setting is the Philippines.

In January 1995, firefighters in Manila arrived at a downtown apartment where a chemical fire was burning. Police were called to the scene when sulfuric and nitric acids were discovered, along with beakers, funnels, and most ominously, fuses. Though the apartment was deserted when they arrived, police later arrested a Pakistani militant named Abdul Hakum Murad when he came back attempting to retrieve a laptop computer.

This was five days before John Paul II was due to arrive in the Philippines for World Youth Day, so the police suspected a plot against the pope. Murad refused to cooperate, and, according to news reports, was subjected to various forms of torture: most of his ribs were broken, cigarettes were extinguished on his genitals, he was forced to sit naked on ice cubes, and water was forced down his throat to simulate drowning.

Eventually, Murad revealed details of plans to kill John Paul drawn up by Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti terrorist linked to Al-Qaeda who was among the architects of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Murad also provided information about a scheme to blow up 11 commercial airliners, and to fly another plane into the headquarters of the CIA.

Murad is currently serving a life sentence at a federal "supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado.

Some experts say the case illustrates that torture is occasionally necessary; others argue that virtually all of the useful information surrendered by Murad was on his laptop, or strewn among other evidence collected from the scene. Without such corroboration, they argue, it would have been difficult to know whether to take his confession seriously.

Further, they note, Murad broke down only after interrogators posing as Mossad agents threatened to take him to Israel, suggesting it was psychological trickery rather than brute force that made the difference.

In any event, the story raises harrowing questions that can seem like something ripped from a spy novel, but which could realistically face future popes: If authorities think they're on to another plot to kill the pope somewhere down the line, would the pope want them to use torture to try to get the truth?

To put that question differently, would a pope feel obliged to try to persuade them not to use torture, given Catholic teaching on the subject? Would the pope even have the right to express such a position - especially if, as in the Murad case, he was not the only intended victim?

These are hardly questions any pope would be eager to ponder, but they do unfortunately reflect the temper of the times.

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

Kudos to John Allen for another outstanding enterprise report!

Fr. Olaso's story is completely new to me although, as a Filipina, I am aware of Fr. Dacanay's story because of the role that Filipino diocesan priests had in the ferment and events leading to the Philippine Revolution against Spain.

While one recoils at the thought of priests - and a specific identified priest in this case, with specific acts of cruelty - Olaso's eventual martyrdom is what counts in the end - to God, as well as to the Church.

And I personally do not believe in a blanket condemnation of torture in this age of terrorism. The situation calls for exercising reason on a case by case basis. I do not envy any Catholic, for instance a military interrogator at Guantanamo, in a position to decide whether 'torture' - what kind and to what degree - is warranted in a specific case or not.

But if I were in his/her place, I would not hesitate to do what needs to be reasonably done to achieve a greater end - saving untold numbers of potential terror victims vs. sparing one man of torture - and then square my conscience with my confessor and with God.

TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 13 ottobre 2007 16:08
McCarrick stand on communion
for pro-abortion Catholics
questioned


(See Post 9683 above)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - "Retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's taking issue with an article written by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke is but another example of the cardinal's unwillingness to consider the far-reaching ramifications of permitting sacrilege," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League.

In a recent news article, Cardinal McCarrick was quoted as reiterating his unwillingness to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians.

"Cardinal McCarrick is not simply having a disagreement on this matter, but rather is raising the level of dissent from Church teaching and Canon Law to a new level," she said.

The specific Catholic Church law at issue is Canon 915, which states: "Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."

"It is the second part of this Canon Law that is creating discomfort
for Cardinal McCarrick," said Mrs. Brown. "But that does not change the facts."

In his September article "The Discipline Regarding the Denial of Holy
Communion to Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin," Archbishop Burke made the case clear when he wrote, "the burden is on the minister of Holy Communion who by the nature of his responsibility, must prevent anything which profanes the Blessed Sacrament and endangers the salvation of the soul of the recipient and of those scandalized by his unworthy reception of Holy Communion."

"Archbishop Burke was not giving a personal opinion," said Mrs. Brown.

When asked about the disparity between Cardinal McCarrick's statement and Archbishop Burke's treatise, Mrs. Brown said, "It is distressing to realize that there are prelates within the Church who will not adhere to the basic principle, which is to protect Christ from sacrilege while also helping the errant soul see the error of his ways before it is too late."

TERESA BENEDETTA
00sabato 13 ottobre 2007 16:13
ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW CHURCH AT FATIMA?
New church opens
at Fatima shrine






LISBON, Portugal, Oct. 12 (AP) - The Holy See's second-highest official on Friday dedicated a huge new church Friday at the Catholic shrine of Fatima in Portugal.



Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, and about 40 other cardinals and bishops from around the world attended the ceremony to mark the opening of the Santissima Trindade church.

[An earlier story said a video message from Pope Benedict XVI was supposed to be telecast during the ceremony. But this story makes no mention of it.]

The church can hold more than 8,600 people. Shrine authorities say it is the fourth-largest Catholic church in the world.

The shrine, located close to the place where three shepherd children claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to them 90 years ago, draws large numbers of visitors each year. Local officials estimate six million.

Like the shrine at Lourdes, France, Fatima attracts many foreign pilgrims.

The low, circular church, made of white concrete and steel, was designed by Greek architect Alexandros Tombazis. It took three years to build and cost more than €60 million (US$85 million).

The previous church held just 800 people.

The stories do not make clear if the new church is now the main church at the shrine, or if it will take over the Basilica designation for the earlier Church (begun in 1928 and consecrated in 1953).


The Basilica.


I went to the site of the Santuario de Fatima, where there was no written description but this picture, which shows the new circular building at the far end. And it looks like it's built opposite the Basilica, whose semicircular colonnade is seen in the foreground.




The image of Our Lady of Fatima is brought to its new altar.


[DIM]pt[=DIM]Pictures of the image, from the Santuario site.



Here was the preliminary story from the Daily Telegraph of the UK:

Catholic pilgrims flock
to holy shrine Fatima

By Fiona Govan in Madrid


Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims are to gather this weekend at the holy shrine of Fatima to witness the inauguration of one of the world's largest churches.

The new Church of the Holy Trinity can seat 9,000 worshippers.

Authorities expect at least 250,000 pilgrims to visit the shrine in northern Portugal to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the last of a series of reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three local children.

The occasion will see the opening of the new Church of the Holy Trinity, which cost an estimated £50 million and has the capacity to seat 9,000 worshippers.

The church contains five chapels, 16 confessionals and a café where the faithful can "rest and reflect".

The low-slung oval building, which has taken three and half years to construct, has been created with no internal columns to allow television to sweep unobstructed over the congregation during the live broadcast of services.

A 500 sq metre gilded tiled mural of New Jerusalem, created by Portugal’s best-known architect, Siza Vieira, adorns an atrium and the walls bear passages from the Bible in 23 languages.

The project is part of a face-lift for Portugal’s most popular pilgrimage site, which attracts up to five million visitors a year, the most devoted among them making the final approach crawling on their hands and knees.

The cult of Fatima began after three children claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared before them on May 13, 1917.

In a series of visions over the following six months, the Virgin of Fatima allegedly revealed to them the "Three Secrets of Fatima". The first two "secrets", which were disclosed by the Vatican, referred to the start of the Second World War and the reconversion of communist Russia to Christianity.

The third remained a closely guarded secret until May 2000 when the late Pope John Paul II revealed that it had prophesised the 1981 assassination attempt against him.

He attributed his narrow escape from death to the intervention of the Virgin Mary, and donated the bullet extracted from his abdomen to the Fatima shrine.

In 2000 he beatified two of the young shepherds, Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta, who died in childhood. Their cousin Lucia, who became a nun at Coimbra, died two years ago at the age of 97.

The service will be presided over by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and will include a live televised message from Pope Benedict.



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