BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries today, 8/18/10, including the post on the GA, with the full translation of today's catechesis.





Le Figaro's religion editor, who is an orthodox Catholic, offers a fresh perspective on the Church in France, following half a year of 'scandal' flogged to excess by the media, in these two recent articles.


Interview with a Jewish convert:
'The Church is attacked so hard
when her priests offend, because
her mission requires purity'
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

13/08/2010


Born in 1971, Fabrice Hadjadj, a young Jewish-born French intellectual, converted to Catholicism 12 years ago. Philosoper and writer, his last book, La Foi des démons(The faith of demons) (Salvator, 2009), a brilliant essay on atheism, won the 2010 prize for religious literature in France.

The Catholic Church has just gone through what some call an unprecedented crisis. How would you describe the 'morale' of the Church as we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption?
First of all, this crisis nis not unprecedented. There have been others, probably worse - the Arian crisis of the fourth century, the Great Schism of 1054, the scandalous morals of Popes like Alexander VI Borgia, who committed murders, concubinage and simony, to take just a few obvious examples.

It is well tfor us to remember that the Church has always had to go through crises - in some way, it is inherent in her nature, If one looks at this without prejudice, then the phenomenon of the Church appears truly incredible: While all institutions are subject to the storms of history, here, after 2,000 years, 'Peter's boat' is still following its course, with an uniterrrupted apostolic succession and with a teaching that has been carried on without self-contradiction in its essentials. This exceptional longevity necessarily means the Church has an exceptional capacity to take the blows.

The image of the Church has been strongly affected - how seriously, do you think?
The Church is not a cover girl - her life does not depend on her image in the media. If that was the case, she would no longer seek to speak to the heart, but simply to be superficially pleasing to the public.

Nonetheless, the fact is that crimes committed by a priest are far worse than if they were committed bby a layman. This is what could 'legitimize' the mediatic entanglement we now find ourselves in.

The paradox is this: if men of the Church are particularly attacked for their perversions, it is because of the instinctive sense that there is a special purity in their mission.

From this perspective, the image of the Church is more affacted the more one believes in her holiness, because then, offenses ebcome a scandal with unparalelled gravity.

And so Benedict XVI, who knows the mystery of priesthood, finds these crimes far more terrible than the non-Christian and secular media could ever imagine. And that is why he wants to shed light on the whole issue.

As an intellectual, what assessment would you have after these six turbulent months?
The same as one would draw after 20 centuries of turbulence, the more so if one believes that the beautiful harmony of the world was broken from the start [from the Fall], and that therefore, there will never be an end to crises.

You know that the word crisis comes from the Greek krinein, which means to pass through a crucible or to discern. Crisis keeps us from resting on our laurels. It urges us to ask ourselves the question of meaning, to dig within ourselves to uncover a vaster and more profound good.


For a companion story to the above, Guenois visited an annual retreat that takes place in one of France's most popular shrines, Paray le Monial, commemorating devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, popularized by the 17th century Visitandine nun, St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque, after she had visions of Jesus who instructed her about how the devotion should be done.



Has the year of 'scandal'
really demoralized Catholics?
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

13/08/2010


On Sunday, they will celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The attacks brought on by the scandal of pedophilia anong priests has only served to reinforce the determination of the faithful, at least here.



France's largest cathedral this summer is an immense tent set on the lawns of Paray-le-Monial. The sculptured naves of the splendid Romanesque churches in this region of Saône-et-Loire can well pale with jealousy, but it is hard to dispute these thousands of families and young people who are gathered for a spiritual retreat marked by a rare intensity.

Since 1975, an average of 30,000 Catholics have come here every year to live a week with the charismatic community of Emmanuel. The numbers confirm the success of the 'formula' for these retreats.

The attendance has been growing by 10% every year, and this alone has turned this place into an incontrovertible melting-pot of French Catholicism. It is a climate that is significant for what it says about the morale of Catholic 'troops', expecially after a winter so terribly marked by the media-fed scandal over pedohpile priests.

Of course, they are a committed and motivated lot, who are here out of a personal search (only 10% of them belong to Emmanuel) or by their convictions, but they represent all ages and social origins, and they come from all over France.

So what is the state of mind of French Catholics in this mid-August of 2010? Is their morale at half mast?

"I'd say going ahead with full sails", says Benjamin, a recent graduate in his early 20s who is about to leave for Haiti where he will spend two years with Fidesco, a humanitarian organization of the Emmanuel community which sends some 200 volunteers every year to about 30 countries.

"This crisis provoked by pedophile priests was for me one crisis too much. Until now, I had not felt very much affected by this type of controversy, but this time, I felt that one must react, one must not 'let it be', one must defend Christianity through one's concrete witness."

Anne is a mother of four, enrolled with her husband Xavier in the Rock, another work of the Emmanuel community, in which volunteers go to live among the 'cities of the poor' within the large cities of France, in this case, Bondy.

She says that she feels more motivated than ever. "These stories upset me," she said. "I cried for the victims but also for the priests, even though I do not understand how they could have come to commit such offenses. But God can bring out something positive from everything, and I see the Church as more united from here on. Crises have always been a source of great renewals."

Hugues, a publisher in his 40s from Brive-le-Gaillarde, adds: "In a way, I was happy that the scandals have been brought to light, even if it was all thrown in the face of the Pope, but it is through how she carries the Cross that the truth and beauty of the Church is best shown".

Nor is he concerned about the Church's 'soiled' reputation: "I couldn't care less about this so-called 'image' - faith and hope are intimate, personal experiences. Image does not show the heart".

Ever on the alert, with his cellphone in hand, and overseeing what seems to be a relaxed campus of faith and not a rigorous club, married layman aged 37, Eric de Courrville, was elected to head the Emmanuel community in France.

He assures us that the program for this summer (seven days of lectures, discussions, prayer and liturgies) was not influenced at all by what has happened in the Church since the winter.

"The best answer we can contribute," he said, "is to bring out what is best in the Church. For every priest who is troubled and sinful, there are hundreds who are happy and true to their calling. It is for us laymen not to abandon them, to be there for them".

He explains thatm in fact, the charism of the Emmanuel commmunity is mainly to pursue close brotherhood between laymen and priests.

Gaëlle Couetoux, 20, who is preparing to be a social worker, says, "My faith does not depend on the crises that the Church goes through".

The rector of the Shrines at Paray-le-Monial, Fr. Bernard Peyrous, who daily witnesses the pilgrims who flock here, says "those who come here come in hope".

A historian who chose to become a priest, Peyroux thinks that the scandals have not much affected the faithful, or 'only marginally. He does not know if it will have a long-term effect on priestly vocations.

In this respect, Paray-le-Monial is not an exception to the rule. Fr. Bernard Binon, its parish priest, does not rule out that priests of the diocese may well be affliced with 'exhaustion' and its reuslting 'loss of perspective'.

But he also points out that the faithful are more concerned about concrete solutions for the future of their local Christian communities, rather than the latest scandal.


Left, the Chapel of the Visitation, where St. Marguerite Marie had the visions; center, a depiction of one of her visions; right, the Romanesque apse of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

It turns out L'Osservatore Romano did not come out with an 8/18 issue at all but is coming out Thursday with an 8/18-8/19 issue, from which this editorial is taken.

Benedict XVI pays tribute
to the wisdom and holiness
of a reforming Pope
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the 8/17-8/19 issue of


At the General Audience on Wednesday, Benedict XVI recalled the person and work of Pius X, the last predecessor of his who has been proclaimed a saint.



Papa Sarto was in fact beatified and canonized by Pope Pius XII around the halfway mark of the last century, with an evident new emphasis in contemporary history on the dimension of papal holiness, which has normally not been underscored in the Church of Rome.

But after the loss of temporal power by the Popes, Pius IX and Leo XIII gave the first impulses through a series of decrees confirming veneration of some medieval Popes.

The reading of St. Pius X given by his current successor is laden with meaning, in presenting the profile - historically founded and authentic - of a reforming Pope.

Thanks first of all to the pastoral distinction of his character, strong and gentle at the same time. Born unlike his immediate predecessors outside the limits of the Papal States which were already in decline, Giuseppe Sarto went through all the stages of a pastor of souls, and he was radically a pastor all his life, remote by upbringing and temperament from any temporalist nostalgia.

The reform of the Roman Curia and the initiation of canon law codification, the farsighted attention to the formation of priests and of the faithful, his wise custody of the liturgy, his concern for the doctrinal deposit of the faith and scientific examaination of it, were recalled by Benedict XVIu as the salient features of Papa Sarto's Pontificate - whose common trait, he underscored was the formative dimension.

His successor's reading of the reformatory and pastoral governance of Pius X finds great relevance in the future Pope's work as a parish priest and bishop for the renewal of catechetical instruction and his concern for the Christian education of children.

This emerged above all by the Pope's lowering the age for First Communion, bringing it down to age seven, "when the child starts to reason" as stated in the decree Quam singolari, whose 100th anniversary was recalled in this newspaper recently, through a reflection by Cardinal Canizares.

Also pastoral was Benedict XVI's reading of the most controversial aspect of Pius X's Pontificate, namely, his decisive condemnation of modernism - with emphasis on the defense of the faith in behalf of the simple folk, while advocating "a scientific examination of Revelation".

And all this while explaining that the holiness of Papa Sarto lay in his union with Christ.


I always think what a major exercise in humility and balance - guarding against false modesdty, on the one hand, and deserving pride, on the other - it must be for Benedict XVI to prepare his catecheses on the great and holy lives in the Church! Especially when the lives so closely resemble his own, not in the specifics, but in the major traits that distinguished the lives of saints like Augustine of Hippo and Benedict of Norcia, Bernard of Ciarvaux, Albertus Magnus, Anselm of Canterbury, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and after yesterday's catechesis, Pius X in his holiness and reform zeal.

BTW, I feel rather bad for Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XI, who apparently never had any cause for their sainthood initiated, though I hope I am wrong about this. Meanwhile, Pius IX and John XXIII have been beatified, Pius X was canonized, John Paul I and John Paul II are both one step away from beatification, Pius XII is one step behind them, and Paul VI is in the first stage of the process.

Some have questioned the 'rightness' of proposing dead Popes for sainthood, but why should they be discriminated against? By the very nature of who they are, they should possess holiness to a degree greater than ordinary Catholics. And since Popes lost their temporal power in the mid-19th century, the exercise of such power has been eliminated as a confounding factor to judge their personal holiness, which has not been questioned of any of the Popes starting with Pius IX...

Much about Benedict XVI and his Pontificate is unprecedented. Still, it appears a minor phenomenon that books are being written now about the media storm that descended against the Church and particularly, Benedict XVI, since January 2010 (when news of decades-old sex abuses of children by priests in a German boarding-school unleashed a flood of similar disclosures in a few other countries).

Tied in with the 2009 Irish government reports on similar abuses in Ireland, it led to ingenious and destructive 'enterprise reporting' by agencies like Germany's Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and AP and the New York Times, seeking to find any sex-abuse-related cases they could directly link to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

We are all too familiar with what has happened since - not the least the Pope's shining example of how to deal with body blows to him and the 360-degree assault on the Church he leads, by simply saying and doing what is right and what is true.

In the United States, Gregory Erlandson and Matthew Bunson of Our Sunday Visitor were first off the starting block with their Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis last May. Now, three books on the same subject are coming out in Italy.



Three new Italian books
look into the roots of
attacks against Benedict XVI
Translated from

August 18, 2010

ROME - Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that in the next few days, three books are coming out that deal with the same subject: Benedict XVI under siege.

The formidable election of Prof. Ratzinger to Peter's Chair five years ago was not really a surprise (he had been Papa Wojtyla's right hand man for more than two decades), but certainly surprising are the first five years of his Pontificate which have been full of unexpected events and initiatives. Not to mention increasing - and increasingly poisoned - controversies, as if this gentle but firm man provokes the killer instinct in the media sharks who, from the day he became Pope, have homed in on what they consider his 'strangeness'. [i.e., he is not John Paul II!]

The Regensburg lecture and the lecture he ended up not giving at Rome's La Sapienza University, some episcopal nominations, the Motu Proprio formally restoring full rights to the traditional Mass, his initiatives towards Lefebvrians and Anglicans, his statement about condoms and AIDS, and finally, the perfect storm: pedophile priests. It is the chronicle of a siege that promises to continue. The sharks have been trying to tear him to pieces.

Attacco a Ratzinger (published by Piemme), written by Vatican correspondents Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale, and our own Paolo Rodari, reviews the accusations and the scandals, the prophesies and plots that have been unleashed in the past five years against Benedict XVI.

Every imputation made is weighed with scrupulous rigor and accuracy, using first-hand testimonies and documents. In the end, the authors ask: Is there a precise 'rule' behind these attacks, or does it have more to do with the lack of a communications strategy on the part of the Vatican? [But the two are not mutually exclusive!] Do these attacks only originate from outside the Church, or to they also originate from some church circles? [Again, both apply!]

Aldo Valli [currently Vatican correspondent for Italian state TV RAI's premier TV newscast TG-1, and former flak for Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini when he was Archbishop of Milan] has written Attacco alla Chiesa: Perche colpiscono il Papa [Attack on the Church: Why they are striking at the Pope)(published by Lindau).

He seeks to explain why Papa Ratzinger is so 'indigestible' to public opinion [I beg to disagree: not to public opinion per se, but to the MSM who shape that public opinion].

Perhaps, he writes, because he insists on speaking the truth in a world that is skeptical and resigned to skepticism; or perhaps because he is fighting for justice [to be rendered to both victims and offenders in the sex abuse cases] but also to eliminate the 'filth' in the Church.

Valli adds that certainly, Benedict XVI's encyclicals are not a quick read and require patient reflection. Nor can one say that their author is telegenic. [What do this have to do really with why he is being attacked? Except, of course, as a commentary on the character of MSM journalists who 1) have no patience to read anything substantial that requires reflection and 2) who are so superficial as to use the quality of being 'telegenic' as a criterion for substance! But then one must be skeptical of Valli who has never gotten over his fixation on John Paul II and has always been ready to throw Benedict XVI under the bus! So I am happily surprised if he argues what the Foglio reporter says he does in the preceding paragraph.]

Alessandro Gnocchi and Mario Palmaro have written the pamphlet Viva il Papa! Perche lo attaccano, perche difenderlo (Long live the Pope! Why they attack him and why me must defend him) (published by Valecchi) in which they explain that the bitter reactions to Benedict XVI by his detractors also have to do with what he has done to strengthen the institution of the papacy itself.

These and similar publications by Catholic writers of varying sensibilities all reflect the rediscovery of a noble literary genre, apologetics, applied to the Pope. With the common thought that "to defend Peter is to defend Catholicism itself".


P.S. Interestingly, Aldo Maria Valli has reacted to the 'summary' given by the Il Foglio article above of what he says in his book, and to some unfavorable comments by Lella's followers, in a letter to Lella that she has published on her blog. I have translated the relevant part below:

Aldo Valli replies
Translated from

August 19, 2010

---

...The preview by Il Foglio was somewhat misleading. In the book, I do not say that Benedict XVI is indigestible to public opinion. What I wrote is that he irritates a lot of people because he speaks about justice, and because, by his actions, he gives credibility to the Church - that Church which many would love to see reduced to, at best, a charitable social agency, without a right to participate in the public discourse.

Moreover, in the book, I do not concern myself at all with the question (to me irrelevant) of whether Benedict XVI is telegenic or not. I sought instead to show the richness of his teaching and to clear up existing prejudices against him.

About John Paul II, it is true that I feel great affection for him, but I like the present Pope just as much, and I follow his Magisterium with great intellectual passion.

I will be happy if you will read the book (which will be out in a month) and then start a discussion about it. Thank you for your attention.

---

It was very welcome, wise and professional of Valli to clear up the points he did, and I stand corrected for my own reactions to how the Foglio article presented some of his statements.

Thursday, August 19, 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Third from left, the saint's founder statue in st. Peter's Basilica; and next to it, a painting of the saint consecrating his communities to the Lord.
ST. JEAN (JOHN) EUDES (France, 1601-1680)
Priest, Apostle of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Founder of the Eudist congregations for men and women and a lay order for women
A farmer's son, he was educated by the Jesuits, but joined the Oratorians of St. Philip Neri and was ordained at 24. He cared for plague victims of his diocese in 1627 and 1631. Then he became a parish missionary whose gifts for preaching and confession made him very popular. He preached over 100 parish missions lasting weeks to months in different parts of France. Parish experience made him aware of the plight of prostitutes, which led him to found the Sisters of Charity of the Refuge in 1641. Realizing that the Church needed more spiritual priests and the right seminaries to train them, he got the approval of Cardinal Richelieu to found the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (now known as the Eudists) devoted to the formation of the clergy in diocesan seminaries. He also established the Society of the Heart of the Mother Most Admirable - similar to the Franciscan and Dominican lay orders. Meanwhile, he wrote a number of books noteworthy for their doctrinal elevation and simple style, among them the first book ever written on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He dedicated his seminaries to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, established confraternities to spread the devotion, and wrote the Propers for Mass and Divine Office for their celebratory liturgies. The Marian feast was first celebrated in 1648, and that for Jesus in 1672. In Paray-le-Monial, Sr. Marguerite Marie Alacoque would have her first vision of Jesus and his Sacred heart in 1973. Jean Eudes was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1925, at which time Pius XI called him the father of the liturgical devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Readings from today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/081910.shtml


OR for 8/18-8/19:

At the General Audience, Benedict XVI recalls the work of St. Pope Pius X:
'A pastoral commitment to renew everything in Christ'
The Pope also appeals for international aid to the flood victims of Pakistan
Other Page 1 stories: The Pope's sorrow at the death of former Italian president Francesco Cossiga (and inside, the funeral of nuclear physicist Nicola Cabibbo, who had been president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 1993); international aid slow to mobilize for Pakistan's flood emergency; and a story on America's continuing industrial problems.


No bulletins from the Vatican today.

FIVE YEARS & FOUR MONTHS TODAY, AND COUNTING....

AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER!

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU ARE

TO THE CHURCH, TO THE WORLD, TO ALL OF US.

We can never love you enough.

The Telegraph parses some of the items in the Pope's published itinerary...

Pope will meet Labour leader
who authored the Equality Laws
he criticized last year
By Martin Beckford
Religious Affairs Correspondent

19 Aug 2010


The Pope will meet Harriet Harman during his historic visit to Britain next month, having strongly criticised the equality laws passed by Labour earlier this year.

[Harman, a member of Parliament, is representing the opposition Labour party among the 3 leading British politicians who will be making individual courtesy calls on the Pope in London.]

Benedict XVI will also have a short meeting with Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister who is an avowed atheist.

It has also emerged that Tony and Cherie Blair will be in the audience when the pontiff addresses the great and the good at Westminster Hall, although they will not meet him privately.

The full itinerary of the first ever state papal visit to Britain was published on Wednesday, with less than a month to go before the Pope’s arrival at Edinburgh Airport on September 16th.

Potentially the most tense encounter of the four-day visit will be the short meeting between the Holy Father, known for his traditional Roman Catholic views on sexuality and the family, and Miss Harman, the acting Labour leader who was a fierce defender of the rights of minority groups while Equality Minister.

The itinerary states that at 9.30am on Saturday 18th, there will be a “Courtesy Call from the Acting Leader of HM Opposition, the Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP, Archbishop's House, Westminster”.

Although Miss Harman’s husband, the Labour MP Jack Dromey, is a Catholic, her flagship Equality Act was opposed by religious leaders who feared they would face prosecution unless they went against their beliefs by employing homosexuals and admitting women to the priesthood. Labour had earlier angered Catholic adoption agencies by requiring that they consider same-sex couples as potential parents.

In an address to 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales in February this year, the Pope alluded to Labour’s record on religious tolerance when he said: “Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.”

Benedict XVI will also meet Mr Clegg, who again is married to a Catholic but who has admitted he is “not an active believer”, and David Cameron, who has described his faith as “fairly classic Church of England”.

The printed itinerary made it appear that the Pope would spend half an hour with Miss Harman and far less time with the Prime Minister and his Deputy, but church sources said he would in fact meet her for just five minutes, compared with 15 and 10 minutes respectively with the heads of the Coalition.

Meanwhile Mr Blair, who converted to Rome after leaving Downing Street, and his wife, a “cradle Catholic”, have confirmed that they will be present when the Pope gives his “address to civil society” on the Friday afternoon of his visit.

Baroness Thatcher, John Major and Gordon Brown, the other living former prime ministers, will also attend along with peers, MPs, councillors and religious leaders.

The setting, Westminster Hall, is poignant as it was the place where the Catholic martyr St Thomas More was sentenced to death.

The Church has also disclosed that members of the public not attending the three main open-air events on the Pope’s tour will be able to see him travelling through London and Edinburgh in the Popemobile.

Mgr Andrew Summersgill, the Papal Visit Co-ordinator, said: “With the publication of the itinerary we are now able gladly to confirm that there will be times, during the four days that the Holy Father is here, when he will be travelling in the Popemobile.

“This means that he will be much more visible and will be moving more slowly. This will present a real chance for people to gather and to greet and welcome the Pope.”

Although the itinerary of the visit is now fixed, there are still concerns in the Church that not all of the tickets for the pastoral events will be allocated [Does anyone really think that there will not be enough takers for 100,000 Mass tickets in Glasgow, 50,000 for the prayer vigil in Hyde Park, and 70,000 for the beatification Mass in Birmingham? That there are not 220,000 out of the UK's 6 million Catholics who will pay anywhere from 5 to 25 pounds to be present at these events?], nor all of its £7million costs raised, while secular groups are objecting to taxpayers being landed with a bill in excess of £12million for the visit.


Damian Thompson on his blog predictably waxed sarcastic about the itinerary and the music that has been lined up for the Pope's liturgies...
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/damianthompson/
Of course, one must feel strongly for the Pope who will have to put up with pedestrian Christian pop during this visit, and apparently, very litte of traditional 'musica sacra'. One can't expect to change the aesthetic tastes of the troglodytes who made these poor choices, but should they not have shown some consideration for the musical sensibility of their honored guest by including more of the sacred music that is appropriate for his liturgies? The paradox will be that very likely, the Pope will get to hear 'appropriate' music only at the Anglican events he will attend!

As for the Pope's guest list, he has to meet the leaders of Britain's major political parties, and Harman happens to the acting Labour leader now. But rest assured the Pope will convey the message he needs to convey, as he did to Nancy Pelosi and to Barack Obama!


And don't you just love the exquisite timing of the following 'news' about alleged abuses committed decades ago at a Benedictine school called 'St. Benedict's', naturally - which was attended by no less than the UK government's coordinator for the papal visit? A sad reminder that British seculars are waging real war against the Pope and will stop at nothing to spoil his visit and discredit the Catholic Church. The police, according to the story, first received the complaints in June, but it was not 'newsworthy' until just now when the Pope is coming to town!


Child abuse claims at top
UK school St Benedict's

LONDON, Aug. 18 (AFP) - Police are investigating allegations of child abuse made by two former pupils at one of Britain's most prestigious Roman Catholic schools.

London's Metropolitan Police said two men in their forties had made allegations against teachers and staff at St Benedict's School in Ealing, west London, which is attached to a Benedictine monastery.

Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong who is the government's co-ordinator for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain next month, is a former pupil of the school.

One of the men made allegations against an 80-year-old man, who is being investigated but has not been arrested.

Police said two men, aged 68 and 71, had been arrested in connection with allegations made by the second former pupil. They have been released on police bail while the investigation continues.

The two former pupils contacted police in June 2010 following articles in The Times newspaper relating to other abuse cases.

One of the men named in the new allegations is Father David Pearce, a 68-year-old monk and former teacher, who is serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to abusing eight pupils between 1972 and 2008, according to The Times. [Good, so one of the offenders is in jail!]

The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by allegations of child abuse by priests which have spread across Europe from Ireland to the United States and South America.

Pope Benedict will visit Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham in central England on September 16-19 in the first papal visit to Britain since 1982.


Meanwhile, malice-mongerers in the British media are having a field day purveying and elaborating on chief American malice-mongerer Andrew Sullivan's insinuations about the Pope's sexuality - HE IS ASEXUAL, GET IT?, AS ALL GOOD PRIESTS ARE ASEXUAL, HAVING TRANSCENDED AND SUBLIMATED THE APPETITES OF THE FLESH, and as all Catholic homosexuals should strive to be (OK, so I'm a hidebound traditionalist, and what of it?]. For most of the world, sexuality is hardly the ruling obsession and primary criterion for individual validation that it seems to be for many liberals!

What they're all doing is projecting themselves onto the Pope's person: "He must be homosexual because I say so, and I ought to know, and as a homosexual, this is how he would behave and what he would do!" But isn't their intended denigration of the Pope a tacit acknowledgment of their self-loathing? If homosexuality were all that they tout it to be for themselves, why are they so derogatory about someone who they 'think is one of them'?


Here's a novel reaction to the Pope's itinerary! How about quibbling over the Pope's siesta, as the Independent does?

Spreading the good snooze:
The Pope demands a nap
By Jerome Taylor

Thursday Aug 19, 2010


Pope Benedict XVI has three to four hours each afternoon during his upcoming trip to Britain where nothing is officially scheduled in case he wants to take a nap.

Thomas Edison said a short sleep during the day gave him the energy he needed to invent the electric light bulb, Eleanor Roosevelt wouldn't give a speech without taking one and scientists say a quick snooze in the afternoon can even stave off heart disease.

All of which might explain why the organisers of Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Britain have been kind enough to earmark time in the Pope's itinerary to allow him to take a nap.

The full details of the 83-year-old's three-day visit in September were published online yesterday for the first time, showing that his trip will be crammed full of official meetings, speeches and helicopter rides to ferry him to the three large outdoor masses that he is due to preside over in Glasgow, Birmingham and London.

But despite the hectic timetable, there is a noticeable gap of three to four hours each afternoon where nothing is officially scheduled. A source with knowledge of the plans told The Independent that organisers were keen to give the Pontiff time to take a rest should he wish to.

"He's getting on a bit and may need to take a break," the source said, pointing out that Benedict is 20 years older than John Paul II was when he visited Britain in 1982.

Organisers may have been influenced by the Pope's trip to Malta this year, when he was rather embarrassingly caught napping through a Mass attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims. Video footage of the incident, showing the Pontiff nodding off before being gently nudged awake by a colleague, became an instant YouTube hit.

[If the reporter had done his homework, he would have known that even when he was a cardinal, Benedict XVI's daily habits include a short walk after the midday meal and a nap afterwards. This 'free time' in the Pope's daily schedule wherever he is was an established part of his routine long before Malta. And by the way, no one was embarassed by that brief' nodding off' - there is no one who has not nodded off occasionally.]

Humiliating [Get off it, already! You choose to find it humiliating!] though that incident might have been for the Pontiff, there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that his napping habit is good for his health.

In 2007, a six-year study in Greece showed that a short sleep in the middle of the day was likely to reduce a person's risk of death from heart disease - particularly if they were young and healthy men.

The researchers, who looked at 23,681 men and women aged between 20 and 86, found that those who took a 30-minute siesta at least three times a week had a 37 per cent lower risk of heart-related death.

It is known that countries where siestas are common tend to have lower levels of heart disease, and it is also believed that napping helps people to relax, reducing their stress levels.

Studies by Nasa, the US space agency, have also shown that alertness can double after a brief nap, even for well-rested people. It found that average work productivity increases by 13 per cent among nappers.

For the past year the Vatican has tried to play down fears over the Pope's health. Last summer he slipped and fell in his bedroom, and midnight Mass at Christmas was celebrated two hours earlier than usual because he was tired [No, dummy! So he could rest earlier before commencing a long day that would begin early the next day.] Officially the Vatican says that the Pope's health is generally good and that he takes medication for a cardiovascular condition. [And is there supposed to be an unofficial condition that is being withheld from public knowledge???]

It was also announced yesterday that the leader of the world's one billion Catholics would be holding private meetings with individual political leaders. David Cameron has been given a 20-minute slot to greet Benedict, whereas Nick Clegg has just 10 minutes.

The Pope will also meet former equalities minister Harriet Harman, currently acting Leader of the Opposition. It could be an uncomfortable meeting, as when Ms Harman was in government she publicly clashed with the Vatican after Benedict urged his bishops to fight Britain's equality legislation with "missionary zeal".

Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism after stepping down as Prime Minister and was a key instigator in offering the Pope a state visit, confirmed yesterday that he would be attending Benedict's speech to civil leaders in Westminster Hall on 16 September.

But a source quoted by the Press Association said there would be "no specific Tony Blair moment" in the Pope's itinerary to allow a one-to-one meeting. [It really is unnecessary! Unless the Blairs would like to tell the Pope personally that they no longer support abortion and homosexual 'marriages'! Don't hold your breath.]


P.S. That very dubious wannabe papal biographer David Gibson has written another slimy backstabbing piece for the AOL blogsheet Poltiics Daily, in which he seems to promote the equally dubious and harebrained proposals of a woman judge who wants Benedict XVI to wear a 'penitential wardrobe' and throw out anything that smacks of tradition or 'frivolity'. In the process, Gibson makes outrageous lies, such as claiming that the Pope ordered '30 vestments' patterned after those of the last Medici Pope - in which the 30 vestments he refers to must include the Pope's chasuble and dalmatic and similar sets for those who attended and assisted him at a Mass in 2008, including his two cardinal deacons. Lord spare us from 'Catholic' writers like Gibson, whose personal agenda seems to be to find something outrageously negative to say about Benedict XVI in order to be noticed at all! Live with the unflattering truth, Gibson - MSM turn to you only when they can't get John Allen or Thomas Reese to execute the Pope-bashing for them!

Papal Masses in the UK
will use some new English texts
By Cindy Wooden



VATICAN CITY, August 19 (CNS) -- People attending Pope Benedict XVI's Masses in Scotland and England in September will get a chance to hear and sing a few of the newly translated Mass texts, according to the pope's chief liturgist.


Center photo: Mons. Marini on his site visit to the UK in June to check out arrangements for the Pope's liturgies during the state visit. He is holding a copy of Peter Jennings's book, Benedict XVI and Cardinal Newman.

Msgr. Guido Marini, papal master of liturgical ceremonies, told Catholic News Service Aug. 19 that the prayers sung in English at the papal Masses in Great Britain will use the translations from the new Order of the Mass approved by the Vatican in 2008.

"The songs from the Order of the Mass -- for example the Gloria -- will be from the new translation, which was approved a while ago," he said.

The words for the rest of the Mass prayers "will be from the text currently in use," he said, because when the papal Masses were being planned, the Vatican had not yet granted final approval to the bishops of Scotland, England and Wales for the complete English translation of the Roman Missal.

Although the new translation of the Order of the Mass, which contains the main prayers used at Mass, was approved by the Vatican two years ago, bishops' conferences in English-speaking countries decided to wait to introduce the prayers until the entire Roman Missal was translated and approved.

The new translation of the Mass was designed to follow more closely the text in the original Latin.

In the Gloria, which Msgr. Marini said would be sung during the papal trip, the new English text begins: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father."

The text currently in use begins: "Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory."






Pope to say private prayers
at Newman shrine in Birmingham
by Andy Richards

August 19, 2010


THE Pope will say private prayers at a shrine for Cardinal Newman in Edgbaston, when he makes an historic visit to Birmingham.

Leaders of the Catholic Church from across Britain will also gather in Sutton Coldfield alongside the Pope, as part of a packed itinerary.

The Vatican has published full details of Pope Benedict XVI’s timetable when he comes to the city on Sunday, September 19.

Around 70,000 people are expected to join him in celebrating Mass with the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman in Cofton Park, near the old MG Rover car plant in Birmingham.

The Pope is set to arrive in Birmingham at 9.30am, after travelling by helicopter from Wimbledon Park in London.

The Mass will take place in Cofton Park, close to the cemetery at Rednal where Cardinal Newman was buried, starting at 10am.

The Pope will then make a private visit to Oratory House in Edgbaston, where Cardinal Newman lived from 1852 until his death in 1890.



Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, the Vatican’s Papal Visit Co-ordinator, said: “Having celebrated the Mass of Beatification in Cofton Park, Pope Benedict will travel to the Birmingham Oratory in order to be the first person to pray at the new shrine for, as he will be then, ‘Blessed’ John Henry Newman.

“The shrine is adjacent to the Oratory church. He will then go into the Oratory residence to the rooms of Cardinal Newman, and he will be able to spend some personal time in a place resonant with the history of the Cardinal.

“His books are there, his desk is there, his personal chapel is there, and it will be a really special moment for the Holy Father to be there having literally just celebrated the beatification of Cardinal Newman.”

At 1.45pm the Pope will have lunch with the Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales and the Papal Entourage at St. Mary’s College, Oscott, in Sutton Coldfield.

The college is the seminary, where priests are trained, of the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, which covers the West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire.



Looking at the published program for teh Pope's visit, The Guardian presents a plausible scenario the other newspapers failed to consider.


Pope Benedict 'likely'
to meet abuse victims
by Tom Kington in Rome

Thursday 19 August 2010


Pope Benedict is likely to meet some of the people abused by priests when he visits Britain in September, according to a Catholic church source.

Involved in drawing up the itinerary for the 16-19 September visit, the source said he would be "surprised if it didn't happen" given the gaps left in Benedict's schedule, announced on Wednesday.

At 5pm on 18 September the Pope will visit the St Peter's Residence retirement home in Lambeth, south London, to give a speech that the source said "will focus on end-of-life issues" – suggesting he will stress his opposition to euthanasia.

His previous commitment before visiting the home is Mass at Westminster Cathedral at 10am – leaving him time that day for a possible meeting with victims of abuse by priests.

The Pope met eight abuse victims during a visit to Malta in April, and he was reportedly reduced to tears. The meeting was part of the Vatican's response to the wave of abuse scandals that have damaged the Church.

The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has previously said "careful consideration" was being given to organising meetings with victims during the Pope's visit to Britain.

A British government source involved in the trip denied that the gaps in the Pope's schedule were put there to give him plenty of resting time between appearances because of his age. "The Pope may be 83, but this is a gruelling schedule by any standards," he said.

The 83-year-old Pontiff is due to deliver 10 speeches and hold four Masses during his visits to Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham, as well as meeting the Queen, David Cameron (for 20 minutes), and Nick Clegg (who will get 10).


Leo XIII’s long version of the prayer
to St Michael the Archangel speaks to our time
By Rev. Nick Donnelly, Deacon

August 19th, 2010

I’ve been reading the long version of Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to St Michael the Archangel and have been struck by how relevant it is to this time leading up to the Holy Father’s visit. I find these excerpts in particular very descriptive of the time we are living through:

---

Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.’

That wicked dragon pours out as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions.

In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.

Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. Amen.

Illustrations above of the Archangel Michael: Left, by Guido Reni, 1636, Chiesa della Concezione, Rome; right, by Iosif Churikov, 1898, Moscow State Restoration Society.

---

I find this video of St Michael’s Prayer on Youtube very uplifting and encouraging after spending a month dealing with all the vileness.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLg2YauMuiY&feature=related

NB: Before he became Pope, when he was Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium in the 1850s, Leo XIII visited England for several weeks with Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman to study the situation of the Catholic Church in mid-19th century England. And it was, of course, Leo XIII who made John Henry Newman a cardinal. And Benedict XVI will be making a pastoral visit to Leo XIII's birthplace of Carpineto Romano not far from Rome on Sunday, Sept. 5, as a highlight of the bicentennial observance of his birth.



Weekly audio update
on the Papal Visit
by Mons. Andrew Summersgill
Coordinator of the papal visit for
the Catholic Bishops of England Wales
Transcript from

August 18, 2010

Why have we waited until just a month before the Visit to get this full line by line breakdown?
Normally the Holy See would produce a line by line itinerary for a Papal Visit before this - usually two months beforehand. However with the summer break and also following discussions between the Government here, the security services, the Holy See and ourselves, it was decided that it would be more appropriate to wait until about a month before the Visit. So this morning the itinerary is being published in this country and in the Vatican.

We’ve had outline versions of the itinerary online for many months now, but there are a few additions - I'm thinking of St Peter’s in Vauxhall. Tell us a little bit about that.
St Peter’s home for the elderly is in Vauxhall, it's run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, and on the Saturday afternoon of Pope Benedict's visit he will go to St Peter’s to visit the community there and to visit the elderly residents and their families.

The importance of the this visit is that within all the great gatherings and events of the Papal Visit there's a real opportunity for the Holy Father to go as a pastor to those who cannot go to him - to those who are housebound, to those who are elderly. And it's a great opportunity to celebrate the pastoral care that is given, day in day out, by so many people in the Church.

I also think it's a chance to underline the importance the Church places, and particularly Pope Benedict places, in his own teaching and ministry, in the value of life - the value of life from its beginning to its natural end.

To visit a home where those who are coming towards the end of their life are cared for both spiritually and physically, is a real value and sign to our community and our society. It's a great thing for the Holy Father to do while he's here.

You hinted at it there, but would you class this as an affirmation of other religious orders and other charisms and vocations?
Absolutely, and it's not just for religious orders either. It’s the great deal of work that is done and the care that is given by people across the Church, if you just think for example of the number of ministers of the Eucharist who every week take Holy Communion to people who are sick, housebound or elderly. There’s a great mission there and this is one way of celebrating that.

Pope Benedict will also do this whilst people are gathering in Hyde Park to celebrate the different parts of the life of the Church in this country. And that Vigil, of course, reaches its climax with his presence, his words, and the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. So the two do run together quite deliberately and offer a real sign of the life of the Church.

And a group that don't always get a shout, but deserve one - the deacons. They have an important part to play throughout the Papal Visit don't they?
They do, yes. Deacons will be present at all the celebrations. There will be deacons present at Hyde Park, and of course at the Mass of beatification in Cofton Park. Deacon Jack Sullivan, who was cured through the intercession of Cardinal Newman - he will be present as a deacon at that celebration.

The other line item that’s raised its head now is the Holy Father's visit to a key venue when we’re talking about the beatification - the Birmingham Oratory...
Yes, that's right. Having celebrated the Mass of Beatification in Cofton Park, Pope Benedict will travel to the Birmingham Oratory in order to be the first person to pray at the new shrine for, as he will be then, "Blessed" John Henry Newman. The shrine is adjacent to the Oratory church.

He will then go into the Oratory residence to the rooms of Cardinal Newman, and he will be able to spend some personal time in a place resonant with the history of the Cardinal. His books are there, his desk is there, his personal chapel is there, and it will be a really special moment for the Holy Father to be there, having literally just celebrated the beatification of Cardinal Newman.

Finally, Father Andrew, a quick word on Popemobile routes...
With the publication of the itinerary we are now able gladly to confirm that there will be times, during the four days that the Holy Father is here, when he will be travelling in the Popemobile. This means that he will be much more visible and will be moving more slowly. This will present a real chance for people to gather and to greet and welcome the Pope. This is planned to happen in Edinburgh on the day that Pope Benedict arrives, in London on the second day, the Friday, and in London again on Saturday.

Busy months ahead for Benedict XVI:
More trips plus the Synod for the MidEast
By Edward Pentin



ROME, AUG. 19, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Some historic and noteworthy events await the Holy Father and Vatican officials after the summer break, when the Eternal City springs back to life.

Benedict XVI will be staying at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo at least until the end of next month, but before he returns to Rome he has three important engagements to fulfill.

The most significant will be his much-anticipated visit to Great Britain on Sept. 16-19, during which he will travel to Scotland and England and beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Although a state visit, the apostolic voyage will also be of a pastoral nature that will aim to encourage the local Church and reach out to a once Christian, but now increasingly secularist, society. ['Also of a pastoral nature'? Of course, it is an apostolic trip first and foremost! The 'state visit' qualification is merely a protocol incidental to the Pope's primary mission 'to confirm his brothers in the faith'.]

But before then, on Sept. 5, Benedict XVI will spend a morning in Carpineto Romano, the birthplace of Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, who became Pope Leo XIII. The Pope will fly by helicopter to the town 30 miles from Rome, to mark the bicentenary of Pope Leo's birth and celebrate Mass in the town square.

Leo XIII, who died on July 20, 1903, at the age of 93, was the oldest ever Pope and is perhaps best known for writing the Church's first great social encyclical, Rerum Novarum.

He also tried to reach out to the scientific world, founded centers of theological and Scriptural study, and opened the Vatican Archives to Catholic and non-Catholic researchers. He was also the first Pontiff to promote ecumenical dialogue.

A week before visiting Carpineto Romano, Benedict XVI will continue his tradition of holding his annual "Schülerkreis" seminar at Castel Gandolfo. The meeting with the Pope's former students, which dates back to when he was a theology professor in Regensburg, Germany, will be held Aug. 27-29, and this year will focus on the hermeneutic of the Second Vatican Council.

A key element in the discussions will be Benedict XVI's address to the Roman Curia in December 2005 in which he stressed that the Council texts did not point to a "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" but rather a "hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in continuity." The former interpretation, he said, "caused confusion" while the latter "silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit."

An all-day theological discussion on the topic is to be held Aug. 28, and this year Bishop Kurt Koch, the newly-appointed president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, will be taking part, although he is not a former Regensburg student. [No, but he is the principal 'lecturer' fot this seminar - and Schuelerkreis resource persons are generally drawn from outside their circle!]

Among the former students attending are Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, and Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke, the auxiliary bishop of Hamburg, Germany.

One group particularly interested in the discussions will be the Society of St. Pius X, which broke away from the Church after the Second Vatican Council and is currently in talks with the Vatican about possible reconciliation with Rome (the Society is disappointed that no one involved in those negotiations will be taking part in this year's "Schülerkreis"). [Because very likely the discussions will involve the Vatican position under Benedict XVI on the controversial points of Vatican II that the FSSPX dispute. But the Schuelerkreis is not playing favorites since they have not invited anyone either from the CDF theological panel involved in the dialog with the FSSPX.]

Bishop Koch takes up the reins as president of the Pontifical Council in September, joining other newcomers to the Roman Curia including Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the new prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the former rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, will also begin work on the new Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, instituted by Benedict XVI. [First, the formal document creating it and defining its structure has to be released!]

The Holy Father's first major engagement after returning to Rome will be Oct. 3, when he visits the Sicilian capital Palermo. He will celebrate an outdoor Mass there and address families and youth -- two areas of major concern to the Sicilian bishops' conference.

At a recent press conference, Archbishop Paolo Romeo of Palermo said: "We want to present to the Holy Father and to the whole world the true face of Sicily, which is not at all just about the garbage emergency, Mafia and social problems, but about a history that our saints have marked." John Paul II visited the Italian island in 1982 and 1995.

A week later, Benedict XVI will open the special Synod of Bishops on the Middle East, which will run Oct. 10-24. The meeting will focus on "communion and witness" in the conflict-ridden region where Christians are becoming ever smaller in number.

While in Cyprus in June to present the working document on the three-week meeting, Benedict XVI told participants it would be an occasion "to highlight the important value of the Christian presence and witness in the biblical lands, not just for the Christian community around the world, but also for your neighbors and fellow citizens."

The synod will bring together Middle East experts from around the world including Cardinals Nasrallah Sfeir, the Maronite patriarch of Lebanon; Emmanuel Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, and Leonardo Sandri, the prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. Although John Paul II held a synod on Lebanon in 1995, this will be the first time the Church has dedicated such a meeting to the whole region.

Then the following month, the Holy Father will embark on his fifth visit outside Italy this year: a two-day trip to Spain. On Nov. 6 he will fly to Santiago de Compostela, an important pilgrim destination since the Middle Ages, which is increasingly popular againtoday among both believers and nonbelievers.

Tradition holds that the remains of the Apostle James the Greater are buried there, and the Pope's trip coincides with the Jacobean Holy Year, which occurs every time St James's feast day, July 25, falls on a Sunday.

The following day, the Pope will visit Barcelona where he will consecrate and proclaim as a basilica the city's famous church, La Sagrada Familia, the unfinished masterpiece by the devout Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.

The Holy Father will also dine with bishops and visit a foundation for people with disabilities before returning to Rome in the evening.

Spain's government is one of the most secular in Europe, and since coming to power in 2004 has passed a raft of legislation directly opposed to Catholic teaching.

As if to show his concern, this will be Benedict XVI's second visit to Spain: He first visited the country in 2006 for the World Meeting of Families in Valencia, and will be returning to Spain again next August to attend World Youth Day in Madrid.

These are just the most significant papal and Vatican events scheduled to take place this fall, but no doubt others will also find their way onto the papal and Vatican calendar.

One such event could be Benedict XVI's third consistory, although most Vatican-watchers predict that it's more likely to take place next year.

Currently 107 cardinals are under 80 and so eligible to vote in the next conclave, 13 short of the 120 limit set by Paul VI. But by the beginning of 2011, at least 19 cardinal elector vacancies will have become available. Although it's coming up to three years since the last consistory, the gap is well within the norms (John Paul II called a consistory on average every three years).

Those in line for a red hat include Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich, Germany.

Whether or not the consistory takes place, the Holy Father and the Vatican already have a busy but interesting few months ahead.

Friday, August 20, 20th Week in Ordinary Time

Center illustrations show one of the numerous paintings inspired by Bernard's visions of Mary; and an icon of St. Benedict and St. Bernard.
ST. BERNARD DE CLAIRVAUX (France, 1091-1153), Cistercian Monk, Abbot and Reformer, Theologian, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on Oct. 21, 2009, to St. Bernard
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20091021...
[Will post the bio later]
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082010.shtml


No papal stories on Page 1 of today's OR. Inside, there is a story on the final program for the Holy Father's visit to the United Kingdom and an essay by Mons. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, about the visit. Page 1 stories: At least 8 million homeless due to Pakistan's worst floods in recent memory; the last US combat troops leave Iraq - 50,000 remain as trainers and advisers to the Iraqi military; a tribute to the late ex-President Francesco Cossiga as a man with 'granitic and open faith' by Cardinal Bertone; and editor Vian's history of the ecumenical community of Taize (the experience of which has marked his personal life deeply).

'Heart speaks to heart':
The UK prepares for the Pope
by Mons. Vincent Gerard Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster and
President, Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
Translated from the 8/20/10 issue of




Right: Feature on the Westminster Archdiocese site to which thousands of UK Catholics have contributed.

Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom is, without a doubt, a historic event. The invitation was extended to him by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. And it will be she herself who will officially welcome the Pope when he arrives on September 16 in Edinburgh.

This visit thus marks a new phase in the long and complex history of relations between the monarchs of this land and the papacy.

The Pope and the Queen share some profound concerns: for the wellbeing of the peoples of the world, for the role of Christian values and teaching, for the importance of having stable institutions to benefit society. I am sure that they will have much to reflect upon during the time they will spend together.

The first Mass that the Pope will celebrate on British soil will take place on the day of his arrival, in Glasgow.

The second day of his visit, in London, will be dedicated to meetings with various sectors of society. It will start with an event that celebrates Catholic education and the role that it plays in the educational system of this nation.

Benedict XVI will be addressing every school in the territory, thanks to an Internet link, and will invite all children, wherever they are, to follow the events of his visit and to support him with their prayers.

Saint Mary's University College in Twickenham, where this will take place, is also one of the training venues for the coming Olympic Games in London in 2012. This adds another dimension to the event because of the interest in sports that is common to most people.

Benedict XVI will then meet with various personages - men and women who head various sectors and enterprises and who belong to the various religious confessions in the land. He will speak to them of the importance of God as a formative and inspirational guide for service in the common good.

In the afternoon, the Pope will go to Lambeth Palace, residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury (primate of the Church of England), and later to Westminster Hall, a historic edifice in the center of London, where he will address political, civic, diplomatic and business leaders of the United Kingdom.

Westminster Hall was the place where St. Thomas More was condemned to death in 1535 for adhering to the Catholic faith. The meeting here will have great resonance not only for its historical significance but for its relevance.

The second day of the visit will end in Westminster Abbey, with a celebration of Vespers along with the various Christian communities in the United Kingdom.

The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury will pray together at the tomb of St Edward the Confessor, King of England who died in 1066, and who had re-founded the historic abbey. He represents the profound Christian roots of this land shared in common by all its Christians.

The following day, Sept. 18, the Pope will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of Westminster; he will visit a home for the aged and terminally ill; and he and will lead a prayer vigil in Hyde Park, a vast open space in the heart of London.

On Sunday, Sept. 19, Benedict XVI will leave London for Birmingham where he will preside at Mass and the beatification of Venerable John Henry Newman. This is a most significant point of the visit.

Cardinal Newman's beatification will highlight to the Church a scholar of great importance, a writer and poet of considerable merit, a parish priest who was profoundly loved by all those who met and knew him.

He was a man who understood how mind and heart should go hand in hand in the great undertakings of life, the greatest of which is the search for God and of our salvific relationship with him.

He expressed the emptiness of life without God in these words: "Should I look at a mirror and not see my face, I would feel the same sentiment that overwhelms me whenever I look at this frenetic world and fail to see the reflection of its Creator".

The general hope we have for this visit can be expressed very simply. We hope that the illuminating presence and the words of Benedict XVI will help many in our land to understand that faith in God is not a problem to be resolved, but a gift to be rediscovered.

For many in our society, faith has become a problem - something to keep hidden or to be moved out of public life. But truth is something very different: faith in God brings great richness and joy to men. He is the freedom and the guidance that we seek, reason for inspiration and perseverance, source of forgiveness and compassion.

But an invitation to faith is profoundly personal. For this reason, the motto chosen for this visit is the same one that John Henry Newman chose for his cardinal's coat of arms: "Heart speaks to heart".


Damian Thompson has fired off another blistering broadside against the organizers of the papal visit from the Church side
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/the-pope/7956602/Comic-carry-on-of-the-papal-visit-is-no-j...
in which he claims they think they will only get 35,000 people to show up for the beatification Mass in Cofton Park - or half the field's capacity. (This, even as a report from Glasgow claims there are still 25,000 tickets available for the Mass in Bellahouston Park (out of a total 100,000).

Aain, I must ask, is it really possible that there are not 220,000 British Catholics who are willing to contribute 5 to 25 pounds to attend the big papal events and help the Church defray its expenses for the trip? If you think of 25 pounds as allocating roughly 2 pounds a month for one year for this purpose, it's not unreasonable at all, especially if it also covers the cost of transportation to and from the site.

I do not recall reading such dire outlooks for any trip of Benedict XVI before this (outside of Turkey, in which however, attendance was never an issue since there are so few Catholics there). Thompson himself has been consistently down and dismal about the preparations, and he justifies it by saying that embarrassing the organizers in public is the only way to get them to do something positive for a change. I don't know, but I find the 'us against them' divide counter-productive at this point. With less than a month to go to the event, surely even Thompson should manage to be charitable and positive.

He does acknowledge that Mons. Guido Marini put his foot down on what kind of music was to be used at the Pope's liturgies, so Thompson's earlier worries about the 'poor Pope' having to listen to bad Christian pop would seem to have been over the top.


The following story appears to confirm that the Pope will not have to endure out-of-place Christian pop at the UK Masses:

Choirs prepare for papal Masses
By Mark Greaves

Friday, 20 August 2010


Choirs across England, Wales and Scotland are rehearsing the new setting of the Mass composed for the papal visit by James MacMillan.

[MacMillan, born in 1959, is an internationally acclaimed Scottish classical composer and conductor, who was commissioned to write A Mass to be performed during the Pope's visit. He and his wife are lay Dominicans. He has written many outstanding works of sacred music, including a very well-reviewed Mass for Westminster Cathedral in 2000 and the St. John Passion oratorio in 2008. His music is said to be distinguished by the use in overt and subliminal ways of familiar themes, especially Socttish traditional music, to make it more accessible.]



MacMillan's new Mass setting will be performed at the two big papal events at Cofton Park, Birmingham, and Bellahouston Park in Glasgow and will follow the new English translation of the Mass.

Sections of the setting are already available online so that papal pilgrims can practise singing it in the run-up to the Pope’s visit.

Crowds will be aided by a choir of 2,000 at Cofton Park and 800 at Bellahouston and there will be “detailed and focused” rehearsal before the Masses start.

The choirs will be accompanied by brass and timpani on the day but, according to Mr MacMillan, any parish can perform the setting as long as it has an organ.

Mr MacMillan said he tried to make the basic melody simple so that congregations would pick it up easily. “It’s not a lot of time to bed the music down in dioceses and parishes,” he said.

He also said he hoped it would be “appropriate to the text and the way the drama of the Mass unfolds”.

Mr MacMillan said: “There has to be a sense of awe at the words of ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’, just before the consecration. And the Gloria is a huge raising of hearts to heaven, a great joyous outburst from the very early days of the Church, that again has to have a very different flavour.”

Mr MacMillan admitted he was apprehensive about the setting being sung “in the middle of a field”.

“Singing out of a field is tricky – it’s just a very strange experience standing in the middle of the field and being expected to sing. And Catholics are reluctant singers at the best of times.

“I just hope that people rise to the challenge. At first encounter it might feel strange, but if they have the text and music with them I hope they will really join in on the day,” Mr MacMillan said.

Sample reviews of MacMillan's Westminster Mass:

---

It is hard to think of any recent music that conveys religious ecstasy as intensely as James MacMillan’s Mass... Closer in style to Britten than to Tavener, MacMillan is distinctive in his brilliant use of choral effects, with surging crescendos to stir the blood: it is music of high voltage from first to last. Equally the shorter choral works on the disc, all written in the 1990s, have a rare concentration, often involving powerful slabs of sound. The singing of the Westminster Cathedral Choir is electrifying.
- The Guardian

A strongly sung reminder of MacMillan’s far-reaching abilities as a vocal composer... The Gloria of the Mass contains some particularly effective and memorable music, not least some marvellously atmospheric and haunting organ writing, and the crepuscular Agnus Dei lingers in the mind long after the final notes die away.
- Gramophone

---

The following article which the Tablet has made accessible to non-subscribers is labelled 'Understanding Benedict -7', and I would dearly love to know what were contaiend in the first six articles of what is presumably a series preparatory to the Holy Father's visit. It is not entirely without bias, but we could not perhaps ask for more, considering the Tablet's almost contemptuous attitude for Summorum Pontificum and what it considers to be Benedict XVI's 'conservatism'.


Understanding Benedict XVI:
Liturgy - where truth and beauty meet
by Eamon Duffy

August 14, 2010

Eamon Duffy is Professor of the History of Christianity, and Fellow and Director of Studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Joseph Ratzinger believes the changes to the Mass that followed the Second Vatican Council signalled a rupture from what had gone before. As Pope, he has taken active steps to bring back elements that were lost and to restore a sense of continuity

In July 2007, Pope Benedict issued the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, authorising the free celebration of Mass using the unreformed pre-conciliar missal, without need for the permission of local bishops.

This controversial measure delighted “traditionalists”, but seemed to many other Catholics to call into question the Second Vatican Council’s decision that the pre-conciliar liturgy needed urgent and extensive reform. It seemed also to undermine the authority of bishops over the celebration of the liturgy in their dioceses. Accordingly, the motu proprio was accompanied by an open letter to the bishops seeking to reassure them on both scores.

But a perception remains that the Pope has somehow weakened the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, and that he has perhaps more sympathy for the “Tridentinist” lobby than for the views of the majority of Catholics, and their bishops.

To understand Pope Benedict’s views on the liturgy we need to remember, first, that he is a man profoundly influenced by his upbringing in small-town Bavaria, and, second, that his theology is deeply shaped by the interwar German Liturgical Movement. The pious son of a pious family, he has left a vivid account of his own awakening to the beauty and immemorial antiquity of the Mass in the churches of his childhood.

“A reality that no one had simply thought up … no official authority or great individual had created,” Pope Benedict has written. “This mysterious fabric of texts and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history.”

Very much at ease with the religion that formed him, whether the musical glory of a Haydn Mass in the gold-and-white splendour of a Baroque church, or the folk customs of the Bavarian countryside, he is suspicious of academic critique of such inherited religious forms. If the ancient ways of doing things don’t quite square with what the theologians think correct, so much the worse for theology.

“When we walk our streets with the Lord on Corpus Christi, we do not need to look anxiously over our shoulders at out theological theories to see if everything is in order and can be accounted for, but we can open ourselves wide to the joy of the redeemed,” Pope Benedict has written.

But theology as well as nostalgia shapes the Pope’s convictions. The young Ratzinger was profoundly influenced by the Liturgical Movement, and especially by the writings of the Munich-based theologian Romano Guardini, whose influential classic, The Spirit of the Liturgy, argued that the liturgy was the heart of what it meant to be a Catholic.

It was a school of wisdom and understanding, in which all the resources of human culture were deployed into “the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life”.

Guardini stressed the communal aspects of the liturgy – “the liturgy does not say ‘I’, but ‘we’ – and its transcendence of the merely local. In the liturgy, the Christian “sees himself face to face with God not as an entity, but as a member of the unity” of the Church.

The liturgy was never frigid – “emotion flows in its depths … like the fiery heart of the volcano”, but it is “emotion under the strictest control”.

This universalising restraint, the “style of the liturgy”, trained and liberated Christians into wider and deeper feelings than their own limited experience, and drew them into the universal aspirations of the whole of redeemed humanity, identifying them with the Christ whose prayer the liturgy is.

Guardini’s Spirit of the Liturgy was a milestone in Joseph Ratzinger’s intellectual and religious development. To begin with, it made him a reformer. Guardini believed that the glory of the liturgy had become cluttered by the accumulated rubbish of centuries, and needed far-reaching reform. So as a student chaplain he pioneered avant-garde “dialogue masses” at an altar facing the people, using vernacular hymns.

The young Ratzinger shared this desire for change, stressed the problems of a Latin liturgy, and deplored the communal dynamic of the old Mass as that of “a lonely hierarchy facing a group of laymen, each one of whom is shut off in his own missal or devotional book”.

During the Second Vatican Council he would describe the Latin Mass of his youth as “archaeological”, and “a closed book to the faithful”. In the years after the council, however, Ratzinger became disillusioned with the actual outcome of liturgical reform.

He had hoped for a reform that would reveal the beauty of the ancient liturgy through careful conservation and restoration, not fundamental change. What he thought Vatican II unleashed was a crass and faddish liturgical revolution, which did violence both to the Mass and the Divine Office, not least by jettisoning Latin, and with it 1,000 years of liturgical music.

For Ratzinger, this represented a disastrous break in the Church’s tradition, the “magnificent work” of Guardini and others “thrown into the wastepaper basket”.

In place of the ancient “given-ness” of the liturgy, he detected a restless modern obsession with change and innovation, and a preoccupation with human community that excluded or hindered true openness to God.

All this came to a head for him in the imposition of the Missal of Paul VI as the sole legitimate form of the Eucharist. This he saw as the substitution of the concoction of liturgical experts in place of an organically evolved liturgy.

As Ratzinger wrote in his memoir, Milestones: “ … I was dismayed by the prohibition of the old Missal, since nothing of the sort had ever happened in the entire history of the liturgy. … [this] introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic … [and] thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer a living development, but the product of erudite work and juridical authority…”

For Ratzinger the theologian, the liturgy is of its nature an inheritance, a space we inhabit as others have inhabited it before us. It is never an instrument we design or manipulate. Self-made liturgy is for him a contradiction in terms, and he distrusts liturgies that emphasise spontaneity, self-expression and extreme forms of local inculturation.

In his own 2000 book, Introduction to The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger scathingly compared such liturgies to the worship of the Golden Calf, “a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation. Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking and making merry. It is a kind of banal self-gratification … no longer concerned with God but with giving oneself a nice little alternative world, manufactured from one’s own resources.”

Benedict therefore believes that behind many celebrations of the new liturgy lie a raft of disastrous theological, cultural, sociological and aesthetic assumptions, linked to the unsettled time in which the liturgical reforms were carried out.

In particular, he believes that twentieth-century theologies of the Eucharist place far too much emphasis on the notion that the fundamental form of the Eucharist is that of a meal, at the cost of underplaying the cosmic, redemptive, and sacrificial character of the Mass.

The Pope, of course, himself calls the Mass the “Feast of Faith”, “the Banquet of the reconciled”. Nevertheless Calvary and the empty tomb, rather than the Upper Room, are for him the proper symbolic locations of Christian liturgy.

The sacrificial character of the Eucharist has to be evident in the manner of its celebration, and the failure to embody this adequately in the actual performance of the new liturgy seems to him one of the central problems of the post-conciliar reforms.

Clearly, these opinions place the Pope as a theologian at right angles to a good deal that is most characteristic of the post-conciliar liturgy. We now have a Pope profoundly unhappy about much of what goes on in our parish churches Sunday by Sunday.

In his view, the liturgy is meant to still and calm human activity, to allow God to be God, to quiet our chatter in favour of attention to the Word of God and in adoration and communion with the self-gift of the Word incarnate.

The call for active participation and instant accessibility seem to him to have dumbed down the mystery we celebrate, and left us with a banal inadequate language (and music) of prayer.

The “active participation” in the liturgy for which Vatican II called, he argues, emphatically does not mean participation in many acts. Rather, it means a deeper entry by everyone present into the one great action of the liturgy, its only real action, which is Christ’s self-giving on the Cross.

For Ratzinger we can best enter into the action of the Mass by a recollected silence, and by traditional gestures of self-offering and adoration – the Sign of the Cross, folded hands, reverent kneeling.

Pope Benedict’s views on the position of the priest at the altar are in line with all this. He believes that the spread of the celebration of Mass versus populum, facing the people, is a calamitous error.

Based on the meal paradigm, in which the altar is the family table, it was not in fact ordered by the Council, and rests, he thinks, on bad historical scholarship, bad theology, and bad social anthropology.

“The turning of the priest to the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form it no longer opens out towards what is ahead and above, but is closed in on itself… [Whereas in the past, by facing East at Mass, Catholics] “did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as the pilgrim people of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us,” Pope Benedict has written.

For the Pope, therefore, liturgical practice since the Council has taken a wrong turn, aesthetically impoverished, creating a rupture in the continuity of Catholic worship, and reflecting and even fostering a defective understanding of the Divine and our relationship to it.

His decision to permit the free celebration of the Tridentine liturgy was intended both to repair that rupture and to issue a call to the recovery of the theological, spiritual and cultural values that he sees as underlying the old Mass.

In his letter to the bishops of July 2007, he expressed the hope that the two forms of the one Roman liturgy might cross-fertilise each other, the old Missal being enriched by the use of the many beautiful collects and prefaces of Paul VI’s reformed Missal, and the celebration of the Novus Ordo recovering by example some of the “sacrality” that characterised the older form.

Given the depth of Joseph Ratzinger’s aversion to what he sees as the theological and cultural poverty of much post-conciliar liturgy, it is no surprise that as Pope he should act to “correct” this situation, though he knew well that the motu proprio would be viewed with dismay by many episcopal conferences.

The Pope knows, too, that support for the old liturgy is often part of a package of social, political and ecclesial attitudes not easily reconciled with either the spirit or the express teaching of Vatican II.

In the July 2007 episcopal letter, Pope Benedict stressed the need for charity and pastoral prudence in handling what he called the “exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition”.

The public-relations fiasco over the lifting of the excommunication of the holocaust-denying Lefebvrist Bishop Richard Williamson, however, suggests that the Vatican’s antennae for the wider implications of these liturgical issues are not as good as they ought to be.

It is Pope Benedict’s hope that the free celebration of the old Mass will help reconcile to the wider Church many of those who view Vatican II with deep suspicion.

It is possible, however, to sympathise with many of the Pope’s liturgical instincts and preferences, while fearing that his gesture, and the manner of its making, will be read by many as a sign of his own reservations about the work of the Council, and thereby help entrench such reservations at the heart of the Church’s worship.


A Catholic writer comments on the Duffy article:

Liturgical reform and Pope Benedict
From the blog of
Michael Sean Winters

August 20, 2010

...Duffy illustrates one of the difficulties faced by Pope Benedict. He considered the post-conciliar reforms, especially the ban on the Tridentine Mass, a mistake in part, because they were ordered from above and the liturgy by its very nature must emerge organically from the life and prayer of the Church.

As a peritus at the Council, Ratzinger was aware of, and vocal about, some of the problems with the old Mass, and he supported the need for reform, even though he came to entertain objections about how those reforms were carried out.

The difficult is this: If your problem is that changes in the liturgy must develop organically, then even when you are Pope, you cannot simply make new and different commands effective.*

Liturgy is so important. It is not just something we do. As Christians, it defines who we are. In this hustle-bustle world where we are constantly being invited to reduce ourselves to the status of homo economicus, Catholics must regain the sense of wonder, and the orientation towards Christ, that will come from seeing ourselves as homo liturgicus.

Whatever you think of Benedict’s decisions or attitudes about the liturgy, he is absolutely right to put the liturgy at the center of Catholic concern.


*[This statement fails to see that Summorum Pontificum was, in fact, the simple but brilliant tool for Benedict XVI's most important 'reform of the reform' so far: By simply 'legitimizing' the traditional Mass again, he has allowed an ongoing gold standard for liturgy against which the 'reformed liturgy' must measure itself in terms of being an authentic expression of the faith.

Precisely because Benedict XVI is aware that liturgy cannot simply be imposed (or 'un-imposed') overnight, he wants the priests and the faithful to realize that execution of the new liturgy in accordance with what Vatican II decreed in Sacrosanctum concilium, which has been virtually ignored by the 'new liturgists', will express the faith as fully and as authentically as the traditional Mass, and the new Mass can threby start acquiring its own organic development.]


Here's a somewhat equivocal essay by a diligent commentator on Church matters who writes a weekly column for L'Unita, the official organ of the left-of-center Partita Democrata (though it was founded in the 1920s by Antonio Gramsci as the official organ of the Italian Communist party). I first took note of Di Giacomo when he wrote a highly-biased and in many ways erroneous account of Benedict XVi's apostolic trip to Brazil in May 2007
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=355107&p=9
calling it a 'flop' in terms of numbers and message, and marshalling dubious numbers to show that Benedict XVI was no match for John Paul II in his capacity to attract crowds demonstrated during three trips to Brazil. It was a very offensive and gratuitous attack, so I was shocked to discover upon googling the autthor's name afterwards that he is a Carmelite priest, trained in canon law and theology, who, in 2007, sat on the Church tribunal for the Lazio region.

In the following article, Di Giacomo is clearly on the Novus Ordo side, and displays yet again a tendency to mobilize elements which are not exactly correct but which he deliberately frames to support the argument he is making. He does end on a positive note.

Three years since 'Summorum Pontificum':
A different Mass is possible
by Filippo di Giacomo
Translated from

August 19, 2010


On June 16, 1007, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, publicly anticipated the imminent publication of Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum - the papal decree through which the Pope liberalized the celebration of the traditional Mass according to its latest revision under John XXIII in 1962.

He said, "The pre-Conciliar form of the liturgy is a great treasure for the whole Church" - a sentiment that has not found much heed among many bishops and priests.

In fact, as we approach the third anniversary of the decree's formally taking effect (September 14, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross], one gathers from much of the discussion about SP is the widespread impression that Joseph Ratzinger's decision had taken shape completely within an 'aristocratic' theology nurtured in a particular aesthetic-cultural context. [Clearly, Di Giacomo has only frequented people hostile to the traditional Mass, for no other reason than that it 'offends' their liberal secularist ideology!]

Moreover, on April 15, 1997, during a presentation of two of his books, the then Prefect of the Congrgation for the Doctrine of the Faith appeared have assumed the lead in such a theological tendency by saying that the liturgy that was introduced after the Second Vatican Council "constituted a rupture in the history of liturgy, whose consequences can only be tragic. They have dismantled the old edifice and erected a new one".

That was enough for the entire media world to conclude when he became Pope that Benedict XVI (who had been made a cardinal by the Pope who imposed the new Mass) intended to drastically re-examine the liturgical reform as it was executed after Vatican II, which, in the words of Paul VI, was carried out in order to connect the entire People of God "to a most fecund spring of civilization and above all, of beauty". [In hindsight, the Novus Ordo as it became 'vulgarized' in the literal sense, i.e., brought down to the level of the people, became a parody of Paul VI's intention, and a continuing defiance of Sacrosanctum concilium!]

The future decisions in following the traditional norms now protected by Summorum Pontificum risk showing the Pope once again as 'the great misunderstood (one)' among his fellow bishops. Even if, paradoxically, it should not be strange at all.

Most bishops, like the rest of the world, started to know Joseph Ratzinger only a few days before he ws elected to Pope. [But this statement contradicts the record of 23 years during which, as CDF Prefect, he met each and every bishop who came to Rome for their ad-limina visits, and learned about their respective dioceses, even as they came to have a measure of him!]

When he finally emerged from the shadow of John Paul II, he was seen as a kind pastor capable of giving sense to the immense self-convocation of Catholics who had come to pay their final respects to John Paul II.

Speaking for everyone, Cardinal Ratzinger, raising his eyes to indicate his predecessor 'looking down from the Father's house', was a much-appreciated image then, but, as the controversy over Regensburg and other perceived 'blunders' of his Pontificate would show, the approval was superficial.

Perhaps because as soon as he became Benedict XVI, all his books and articles on theology - which were often misread and worse interpreted - sort of weighed down on him.

The post-Conciliar liturgy had allowed us to see, on John Paul II's papal altars, the whole kaleidoscope of languages and cultures in the Catholic world. [One can see that kaliedoscope just as well without incorporating syncretic elements into the liturgy!]

About Benedict XVI's liturgical celebrations, we are told that they contain something more profound even than the unrepeatable gestures of the Polish Pope. [But who has said this? Certainly not the Pope nor any of those around him in the Vatican. Di Giacomo's statement implies that somehow Benedict XVI considers himself in a 'competition' with his predecessor!]

That 'something' to which Karol Wojtyla generously bore witness (for the less attentive, that 'something' is Jesus Christ) must be experienced, acknowledged and witnessed.

To learn how to use the Missal and the liturgy as Vatican II handed them to the Church is a serious matter - and if successful, even more serious - for contemporary Catholicism because it will have an evident fallout in her way of being present in the world. [Is Di Giacomo thereby acknowledging the lack of success in this respect of the Novus Ordo? Its apparent fallout so far has been laxity - a lack, precisely, of enough seriousness - about the liturgy which has become a social event rather than a celebration of Christ's redemptive sacrifice in the spirit of lex orandi, lex credendi(we pray as we believe). Creating the mpression among the Orthodox, for instance, and even among so-called 'high Anglicans', that the Catholic liturgy has been bastardized and 'protestantized' to the point of losing its sense of the sacred.]

However, after three years, one may acknowledge two benefits that Summorum Pontificum has brought about. The first is that it has allowed many Catholics to understand that the true Ratzinger is that 'image' of the serene pastor during the interregnum between the death of John Paul II and his election as Pope. [May it be so!]

And after the first five years [the Italian term for 'five years' - lustro - is very appropriate here], the conviction has grown, among those who have followed all of his public events, that the Ratzingerian reform is already at work in the Church, if only because of his ars celebrandi, the songs and music he is reintroducing into the liturgy, the homilies through which he seeks to reclaim for the Catholic faith its inherent character as the 'counterculture'.

And this is expressed through his liturgy which is rich with antitheses and juxtapositions that speak of life and death, of water in the desert, of identity and alienation, of a future prey to the paroxystic appetites of the modern world.

The second consideration has to do with the 'People of God', a reality that Benedict XVI does not consider a done thing, but something that must always be 'a work in progress' built by the pastoral activity of persons and structures that share a clear and common religious perspective.

Today, perhaps, this may seem like an ingenuous idea. In the future, it will likely be called prophecy.


The following article is not about liturgy but I'm posting it here anyway...

Liturgical aide explains papal wear
for non-liturgical events
By Carol Glatz



VATICAN CITY, August 20 (CNS) -- When a Pope attends a public event like a general audience in St. Peter's Square or meets a head of state in the papal apartment, he's not exactly free to "wing it" with his wardrobe. His choice of outfit is dictated by a precise protocol.

Recently a Vatican official published two extensive articles in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, in an effort to help observers decipher the papal dress code. [Unfortunately, the Vatican did not post these articles online, so I was not even aware they had been published! If they had been posted online, I would obviously have translated.]]

In what can seem like a page of dos and don'ts from Emily Post, Msgr. Stefano Sanchirico, an assistant for papal ceremonies, spelled out current norms on how Popes should dress for a nonliturgical event.

First, a peek at what's in the papal closet: a white cassock; a white zucchetto or skullcap; a white sash; a short white surplice-like garment called a rochet that is worn over the cassock; an elbow-length red cape called a mozzetta; a red velvet mozzetta trimmed with ermine fur; a white damask mozzetta with or without the white fur trim; a selection of red stoles with gold embroidery; white stoles with gold embroidery; red shoes; and a pair of white loafers.

Even though the items are few, they are worn in particular combinations for specific occasions.

The basic outfit is the white cassock, white sash with gold fringe and the white zucchetto. This is what the Pope wears for almost all public events: the weekly general audience, the Sunday Angelus, an audience with a government official and during most meetings on papal trips abroad.

When the Pope holds an official audience with a head of state or ambassador at the Vatican, the rochet and mozzetta are added on top of the basic papal attire. If the visiting head of state is Catholic, then a stole is added to the mix.

According to Msgr. Sanchirico, the stole and the shoes should always match the color of the mozzetta. However, papal tastes trump sartorial standards in the shoe department: Pope Benedict XVI always wears red shoes in public, even when protocol dictates otherwise. [But does anyone recall seeing any photographs of the Popes of the 20th century wearing white shoes at all! Benedict XVI is such a stickler for papal protocol I do not think he would violate it out of personal preference - it's more likely that matching shoe color with that of the mozzetta has become optional. After all, it used to be that the shoes had to match the color of the chasuble whenever the Pope was celebrating a liturgy.]

Whether red or white accessories are worn depends on the time of year.
Msgr. Sanchirico wrote that the white mozzetta -- with or without the ermine trim -- is worn after the Easter Vigil until the second Sunday of Easter. However, Pope Benedict prefers to wear the white mozzetta until Pentecost.

The red mozzetta is worn the rest of the year. Whether it is trimmed with ermine fur or not depends on the season. A red mozzetta with trim is worn from the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria on Nov. 25 through to the Ascension in the spring; the red mozzetta without trim is worn from the Ascension to Nov. 25, wrote Msgr. Sanchirico.

Pope Benedict has reintroduced to the papal wardrobe a wide-brimmed red straw hat that Pope John XXIII often wore and a red velvet cap trimmed with ermine called a "camauro," which Pope John was the last to wear.

The one thing all the Pope's nonliturgical garments and accessories have in common is that they are either red or white. The colors, the Italian monsignor wrote, "are distinctive of papal dignity" with white symbolizing "innocence and charity" and the red symbolizing the blood and sacrifice of Christ.

But the colors are also rooted in the historical process of the early Roman pontiffs taking on the customs and clothing of the Roman emperor, as outlined in the so-called Donation of Constantine, he wrote.

He said the document, which was probably written around the eighth or ninth century, claims that Emperor Constantine handed sovereign authority over to Rome and the western part of the empire to Pope Sylvester I.

To reinforce the legitimacy of the Pope's role as a sovereign ruler, the document established that the Pope could wear imperial garments and use the scepter, "which already from the ninth century began to play a role in the rite of installation of the new Pontiff," wrote Msgr. Sanchirico.

The first systematic description of what the Pope was to wear upon his election was written out for Pope Gregory X sometime between 1272 and 1273 by the papal master of ceremonies. Earlier norms specified only the importance of the red cloak, wrote the monsignor.

From the time of Pope Gregory, both white and red were to be visible to show that the Pope represented "the person of Christ and his mystical body, the Church," Msgr. Sanchirico wrote.

Further codifications of papal dress stipulated that, upon his election, the Pope was to put on a white cassock made of linen or other material appropriate for the weather and that a high-ranking cardinal would then place the red papal capelet over his shoulders.

Msgr. Sanchirico said that the installation outfits eventually became the Pope's everyday attire for public events and formal meetings.

Even with a few modern modifications, the traditional papal outfit has never gone out of style. Sticking with the same look for centuries offers continuity and "makes visible the uniqueness and singularity of the ministry of the successor of Peter," Msgr. Sanchirico said.

When former President Francesco Cossiga died earlier this week, almost all the Italian media headlines read, "The 'picconatore' is dead". 'Picconatore' (literally 'axe wielder') means, in the Italian political world, someone who can be counted on for harsh criticism of persons or things he does not approve of.

In the following account by the editor of Petrus, the online news site dedicated to Benedict XVI's activities, the late President wields his axe on everyone but Benedict XVI whom he admired in no uncertain terms....



The measure of the esteem that the Vatican had for Cossiga can be seen from the fact that L'Osservatore Romano has dedicated one or two articles everyday to him since he died on Monday, the last one a tribute from Cardinal Bertone.


Tribute to an 'axe-wielder' friend
by Gianluca Barile
Translated from


VATICAN CITY - “Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini? He's disobedient to the Pope, a snob and a progressivist. Just like his successor in Milan".

You mean Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi? "Exactly. One might even say that the pupil is outdoing his master. If he could, I would think he would convert the Chair of St. Ambrose into a mosque. I have nothing personal against Muslims, but Tettamanzi strikes me as more of an imam than a Catholic bishop. And when he is not acting like an imam, he acts like a Protestant. it still horrifies me to recall that a couple of years ago, he agreed to tribal dances executed by half-naked women inside the Cathedral of Milan".

Typical criticisms by the late President Francesco Cossiga, made in exclusive interviews with Petrus in the past few years. He never refused us an interview, and always treated us with friendship. In those interviews, he always showed great attention to events in the Church and an infinite admiration for Benedict XVI.

But he also never missed an opportunity to indulge himself in the pleasure of polemics in his inimitable style, particularly against those who, in his opinion, were not always faithful to nor consistent with the Magisterium, as Cardinals Martini and Tettamanzi.

"I made a great error", he confided once, "in putting my signature as Head of State - under the terms of the Lateran Concordat before it was revised - to the nomination of Cardinal Martini as Archbishop of Milan. If I had only imagined minimally how much he would damage the Church, I would have counterposed my refusal, if only for the record".

'Il picconatore' called himself an 'infant Catholic' [as opposed to the 'adult Catholic' that former Premier Romano Prodi and the other Catholic liberals in his government called themselves], but he could recite both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law from memory.

Above all, he closely followed with great clarity of vision everything that took place in the Vatican.

"The progressivist wing has not resigned itself to the election of Benedict XVI and will do everything to continue placing obstacles in his way," he wrote once for Petrus.

"Just think of Martini and Tettamanzi. Or those who openly rebel at Summorum Pontificum. So many of the present ills of the Church come from the past, since the Council, to be precise. I am not at all anti-Vatican II, but I do censure the 'revolutionary' and progressivist interpretation that followed it, WHICH continues to be militant today under the banner of so-called 'cattobuonismo' (Catho-goodism), as professed by Martini and Tettamanzi and their like."

At one point, I asked him whether he had any personal accounts to settle with the two Milanese bishops. He said, "No, but I am faithful both to the theologian Joseph Ratzinger as well as to Benedict XVI, and I am obviously bothered by all those who are working against him, as they do".

During Prodi's government, we asked him to comment on proposals at the time to review the exemptions granted to the Church as a religious institution (particularly a business tax on its non-profit organizations). "Do you agree with the Prime Minister?"

He retorted: "Why not? Better yet, I do advise adult Catholic Prodi and all his faithful followers to send Marines across the Tiber, occupy the Vatican, take the Pope prisoner, abolish the Lateran pacts and revive the laws that kept the Popes in quarantine..."

When Benedict XVI's encyclical Spe Salvi was published, Cossiga himself called us to say: "Please write that I like it even better than the first one. If anyone ever had any doubts earlier, they should now have none: Benedict XVI is already a Doctor of the Church and one of the greatest Popes in the history of the Church. I would call him 'the brain of God'".

In the last of the many conversations we had with the former President, a few weeks ago, he said, "The time has come, and my bags are packed. I am turning 82 and I have nothing to regret. As John XXIII liked to say, we were made in heaven, so we should be happy to be going back".

We tried to de-dramatize the remark, "Mr. President, you are still young and strong!"

He replied ironically: "No, the only one among us who is still going young and strong is Andreotti [former Prime Minister and President himself, and therefore senator for life, currently the publisher of 30 Giorni]. We shall know who has made a pact with the devil..."

"Mr. President, whom would you like to meet first in Paradise?" He answered promptly: "My family members who went before me. And a friend who died innocently..."

"Who?"

"Aldo Moro..." His voice broke with emotion and we decided to take our leave. The axe-wielder had given way to the man.

[Cossiga was President when Moro, then Prime Minister of Italy, was kidnapped and eventually killed by the terrorist Red Brigade. The other prominent personality deeply aggrieved by Moro's death was Paul VI, who was a friend.

How many Presidents, even of Italy, would be capable of writing an article for a theological journal? And yet, Cossiga did, last year for the magazine Vita e Pensiero (Life and Thought), monthly magazine of the Catholic University of Milan - a lengthy essay on Cardinal John Henry Newman, entitled 'Newman, my teacher'.

For now, let me just translate his concluding paragraphs:

---

John Henry Newman is certainly in Paradise enjoying the imperturbability of those who live in eternity. But if he could still have the passions of a mortal, today he would be very pained at the evolution - not just liberal but libertinizing - of the Church of England which he loved so much.

I have always maintained that ecumenism and the ecumenical dialog should consist of more than the search for theological and juridico-canonical agreements - but much more in a common commitment to serve our neighbor, most of all the poor and the hungry, with works of spiritual and material charity; and that Christian unity will be the fruit of prayer, of charity and of holiness.

For this, much more then theologians, those who have contributed most and can continue giving the most precious contribution are the martyrs and the testimonies of all the Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, and Protestants who suffered in the Nazi camps, the Soviet gulags and places like Uganda.

If only for this, my hope is that through his beatification, the public witness of John Henry Newman's charity and sanctity will inspire all Christians to bear witness to Christ, to work and pray so that in time, our Lord may give to all Christians the unity of his one, holy and apostolic Church.

---

Another fascinating facet of the late President is revealed in the following story by a friend and contemporary of Cossiga, the president of ADN-Kronos news agency, Pippo Marra.


Cardinal Ratzinger said to him:
'You are a great theologian!'
Translated from

August 18, 2010


ROME - "One day, I accompanied him to the Vatican when he visited Cardinal Ratzinger before he was Pope", says Pippo Marra, president of the news agency ADN-Kronos, who was a great friend of the late President Francesco Cossiga.

How did the meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger go?
They chatted in German. Cossiga spoke to him with extraordinary ease. And showed a profound knowledge of St. Augustine and the Fathers of the Church. To a point that the future Pope said to him admiringly," You are a great theologian!"

How did you get to know Cossiga?
In 1963, when Antonio Segni was elected President of the Republic - Cossiga was one of his followers. Since then, we started seeing each other often. I can say that we were like brothers. And yet there was one thing I never succeeded to do.... I never was able to address him familiarly (i.e., with the second person familiar, rather than the formal). And he would always say, 'Pippo, can you stop with this 'Lei' [the formal 'you']?' And I would say, "No, Mr. president, you are my mentor, and one never uses teh familiar with one's mentor".

Did you visit him at the hospital this last time?
I did not have the heart. But we spoke on the telephone. And he said to me, "Goodbye, Pippo, my great friend"... and I started to cry. Last month, when Mons. Vincenzo Paglia went to visit him, he told him, "Pippo sends his best wishes". Do you know what the President did? He took Don Vincenzo by the arm and pressed it without saying a word. I cried when the monsignor told me about this. In that gesture was the man I knew.

In what way?
Because that is the way I saw him behave during many crucial moments in the life of our nation. Whenever something serious happened. For instance, every time he thought about the Moro tragedy, he was unable to speak. He who was otherwise so unstoppable, this man who had to have his say about everything - that subject always reduced him to silence. He would later say, "Dear Pippo, all we have to do is look each other in the eye to understand what is in our heart. We do not need words".

You were a witness at his wedding...
Yes. And he was a godfather to my son Giuseppe when he was baptized by Cardinal Bertone.

Which moments do you remember best with him?
New Year's Day! He would come with us to Calabria. Once we spent it in Sorrento.

Did he ever have any important meetings in your house?
Sometimes yes. One day, at my house near Lake Bracciano, he met with Berlusconi. He had a great regard for the Cavaliere.

Saturday, August 21, 20th Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF ST. PIUS X

Fifth photo from left, top panel: In 1907, Pius X consecrates as bishop the man who would succeed him 7 years later as Benedict XV; and extreme right, Pius X on his deathbed.
ST. PIUS X (Italy, 1835-1914), 257th Pope (1903-1914)
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis last Wednesday to his predecessor
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100818...
Giuseppe Melchior Sarto was the first Pope to be canonized since Pius V (1566-1672). Born to a peasant family in northern Italy, he had extensive pastoral experience as a parish priest, then Bishop of Mantua and Patriarch of Venice. His election as Pope despite the opposition of the Austrian emperor marked the last time that a Catholic monarch ever had any influence on a papal conclave. As Pope, he rejected modernist tendencies in the Church and promoted orthodox theology and traditional Catholic practices, especially daily Mass and Communion, Marian devotion and Gregorian chant. He encouraged personal piety and a lifestyle reflecting Christian values. Two lasting legacies of his Papacy were lowering the age of First Communion to 7, codifying canon law for the first time, and the Catechism of Pius X. He was a smoker and eventually suffered poor health because of it and died of a heart attack. Although he was Pope for only 11 years, his personal holiness was such that post-mortem veneration of him was unprecedented in modern history to that time. Two miracles instead of the usual one each were certified leading to his beatification in 1944 and his canonization in 1954.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082110.shtml


No papal stories in today's OR. Page 1 items: An Opus Dei prelate writes that every Catholic priest must carry on the lessons of the year for Priests; economic damage from Pakistan's floods now estimated at 43 billion dollars; Iran activates its first nuclear plant; the US brokers resumption of direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, with the support of Egypt and Jordan; and US economic recovery falters with half a million jobs lost last week alone and a steadily growing deficit. In the inside pages, an interview with the Pope's personal physician, Dr. Patrizio Polisca.




The Holy Father has named Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, former Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops,
to represent him at the 1500th anniversary celebration of the shrine of Santa Maria delle Grazie. popularly
known as the Madonna of Mentorella, on August 29. Mentorella is located outside Rome and was visited
by Benedict XVI privately in the first year of his Pontificate. It was a shrine dear to John Paul II, who was
visiting Mentorella when he was called back to the Vatican for the start of the Conclave that would elect
him Pope.

Anticipating the next Consistory
Translated from

August 20, 2010


The weekend of November 20-21 will most likely see the third consistory to create new cardinals in Benedict XVI's Pontificate.

Like the preceding one in 2007, the event would take place in conjunction with the Feast of Christ the King which is observed on the third Sunday of November. In 2007, the names of the new cardinals-elect were announced by the Holy Father at the end of his General Audience on October 17.

So, if the same pattern were to be repeated this year, the new list will likely be made known on October 13. Which means that the list is being finalized while the Pope is in summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, amid all the other preparations that Benedict XVI has been working on.

As we know, on the basis of norms set by Paul VI in 1973 and confirmed by John Paul II, the maximum number of cardinal electors is set at 120. According to Paul VI's 1970 Motu Proprio Ingravescentem aetatem, these are the cardinals eligible to participate in a papal Conclave if they are less than 80 years old at the time of such Conclave.

Currently, there are 13 'free' posts among the electors, which will increase to at least 19 by mid-November, as another six cardinals turn 80 (or more than 19, if one of the present cardinal electors meets an untimely death by then).

This prompts the speculation that a new consistory will elevate at least 20 bishops to cardinal. However, John Paul II during his Pontificate several times raised the number of cardinal electors to more than 120, and even Benedict XVI did so by 1 with his second consistory.

Benedict XVI has created 30 new cardinal electors, one third of whom are prelates heading dicasteries of the Roman Curia. This time, it is likely more such Curial nominations will be made.

Six bishops now hold curial positions that have traditionally been held by cardinals - and five of them are Italian (Angelo Amato at the Congregation for Saints; Fortunato Baldelli, Major Penitentiary; Velasio De Paolis, for Economic Affairs; Francesco Monterisi, Arch-Priest of San Paolo fuori le Mure; and Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Segnatura).

In addition to them, the new prefects for Clergy and for the Religious, if the Pope should name non-cardinals to succeed the current holders, Claudio Hummes and Franc Rode, when they turn 75 soon.

Then there are three Curial prelates who need not be cardinals to head their fairly new Curial offices - Kurt Koch at Christian Unity; Francesco Coccopalmiero, for Legislative Texts; and Gianfranco Ravasi, at Culture.

Next, the Italian bishops Paolo Romeo (Palermo) and Giuseppe Betori (Florence) whose dioceses are traditionally headed by cardinals. An exception may be made for Turin, which awaits a new archbishop to succeed Severo Poletto, who is retiring at age 75 and has five years left as cardinal elector.

There is an unwritten rule that a diocese may not have more than two cardinal electors, but if this were followed strictly, then several potential cardinals would be left off the list, including such important names as Timothy Dolan of New York (Cardinal Egan has not turned 80), Andre Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels (Cardinal Danneels is still an elector), and Vincent Nichols of Westminster (Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor still an elector).

No such 'impediment' exists for some metropolitans considered to be very likely to be named cardinals in the next consistory - Marx of Munich-Freising, Collins of Toronto, Nycz of Warsaw, Kondrusiewicz of Minsk, Pasinya of Kinshasa, Wuerl of Washington, DC, and Braz de Avis of Brasilia.

Traditionalists also look forward to the elevation of Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo (Sri Lanka), one of the most ardent advocates of Summorum Pontificum. If he is named a cardinal, Vatican observers think it would mean that his appoointment to Colombo after being secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship was indeed a promotion, and not that he was being sidelined.

Other dioceses traditionally associated with cardinal bishops, to whom non-cardinals were recently named, include Sevilla, Valencia, Baltimore, Marseilles, Bogota, Rio di Janeiro, Utrecht and Prague.

As usual, there are many more potential candidates than there are posts to be filled. But Vatican observers also point out that in 2011, nine new vacancies among cardinal electors will result from cardinals turning 80, which leaves open the possibility of another consistory next year, God willing.

For a change of focus, the ecumenical side of the papal visit, particularly the events involving the Church of England.


Pope Benedict XVI to attend
Abbey service of evening Prayer
From the official site of




From left, the Abbey's main facade; tomb of St. Edward within; 13th-cent. depiction of St. Edward; and the Abbey's nave. Photogrpahy within the Abbey is strictly forbidden, so available photos are limited to the few official photogrpahs available online.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will attend a Service of Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey during his visit to England and Scotland in September 2010.

The Abbey service at 6.15pm on Friday 17 September will be the only ecumenical service of the Papal Visit.

The Pope will attend the Abbey service after a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Rowan Williams, at Lambeth Palace and an address to a gathering of political and civil society at Westminster Hall.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr John Sentamu and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, together with church leaders from many denominations, will join His Holiness at the Abbey service.

The Pope will be greeted at the Abbey’s west gate by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, who will escort him to the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in the Nave, where His Holiness will pray for peace.

During the Service of Evening Prayer the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury will each give an Address from the Sacrarium. They will both pray at the Shrine of St Edward the Confessor, His Grace for Church and State and His Holiness for Christian unity. They will give a joint Blessing from the High Altar.

The Abbey will be full, with a congregation of more than 2000. Attendance is by invitation. The Abbey will ensure that the congregation is as inclusive as possible, by extending invitations via ecumenical groups and Christian denominations across the United Kingdom.

Those individuals identified by their church or organisation will be given the details of how to apply online. There will be strict security surrounding the visit with screening of applicants.

The service will be televised live by the BBC and the Order of Service will be posted in advance on the Abbey website to enable television viewers to follow the proceedings.

What is little known and noted is that the formal name of Westminster Abbey is the Collegiate Church of St. Peter's at Westminster, which makes it significant also for the Successor of Peter. The Abbey complex is a UNESCO World heritage site.



‘It is good that the Pope is coming’,
says the Anglican dean of Westminster Abbey
By Huw Twiston Davies

12 August 2010


View of the Abbey from the London Eye (giant ferris wheel built to mark the year 2000). Big Ben on the Towers of the Houses of Parliament is in left foreground.


The Very Rev Dr John Hall hopes that Pope Benedict will have an ‘opportunity to talk about the centrality of Christianity within our understanding of the nation’.

What do you feel is the significance of the Pope visiting Westminster Abbey in particular, rather than another prominent Anglican place of worship such as St Paul’s?
In 1982, Pope John Paul II of course came to Canterbury and so he met the Archbishop of Canterbury there. That was a very significant and important occasion.

That was a pastoral visit. This is a state visit, so he’s coming partly as head of state, as well as head of the Roman Catholic Church, and every head of state is invited to come and lay a wreath at the grave of the unknown warrior.

So actually both heads of state on state visits and heads of government on government visits generally come here – they don’t absolutely all come but generally they come.

There’s a ceremony which lasts maybe 20 minutes to half an hour at which we stand at the grave of the unknown warrior and they lay a wreath, before a brief tour of the Abbey.

Quite often their state television and media cover it. It’s very rarely covered here, but it always happens. On the first day of the state visit, that’s the general pattern: after lunch they come here and so that’s the first thing they do after they’ve met the Queen, and it’s significant because of course the grave of the unknown warrior, that’s the original unknown warrior and it’s therefore important that the Pope should come and pay his respects there. So he won’t be laying a wreath, but he will be saying a prayer, a prayer for peace, and I shall welcome him to the Abbey and we shall stand there and pray for peace.

Now, this is of course also the shrine of St Edward the Confessor, king of England from 1042 to 1066, and so he will also pray at the shrine. He’ll pray with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the shrine, and I’ll be there supporting them, as it were.

But it’s also the great ecumenical event of the visit, and there’ll be representatives of all the churches across the United Kingdom, and I hope the congregation of 2,200 people will represent very effectively the diversity of the Christian community, and so there’ll be church leaders being presented to him from all sorts of different backgrounds. So it’s going to be a great occasion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope will both speak and will have evening prayer with a version of choral evensong. So it’ll be a great occasion.

What are your feelings about the Pope visiting Britain more generally, and the Abbey in particular?
Well, I think the Pope is very welcome, and I’m very pleased he’s coming. It seems to me it’s a good thing that the Pope is coming. I know that the papal visit in 1982, before it happened, was marred by a certain amount of uncertainty because of the Falklands War.

But when the time came it was tremendously important and successful, and I think it led to a new stage in the relations between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.

But those relations have been difficult, and continue to be difficult: despite the growing friendship. There are still obstacles to our working together and I hope that this will simply remind us of what we have in common, remind us of our common mission to the people of these shores, and of the ways in which we can collaborate effectively in the work of God’s mission, despite the various things that unhappily divide us.

Almost half a day in this four-day visit is given over to ecumenical events with the Church of England. What do you feel is the significance of this focus on relations between Rome and Canterbury?
I’m very glad that the Pope will be going to Lambeth Palace. Obviously Pope John Paul II met Robert Runcie in the old palace in Canterbury, but Lambeth Palace is in a sense the heart of the thing as far as the Archbishop of Canterbury is concerned.

And I understand he’s giving a talk.
They [Benedict XVI and Dr Rowan Williams] will have a private conversation together and there will also be a gathering of all the bishops of the Church of England and indeed of Anglicanism in these islands, with the Roman Catholic bishops as well. And I think that will be a very important and potentially significant.

Then, in a way more interesting for the wider interests of civil society, he’s going to give an address in Westminster Hall, and the Speaker and the Lord Speaker will welcome him, so this is very formal, very important occasion. No doubt Westminster Hall will be full. He’ll be speaking to civil society – not just members of Parliament but to representatives of civil society in the broadest sense.

And I hope that he’s got an opportunity there to talk about the centrality of Christianity within our understanding of the nation, and the deep embeddedness of the Church in our society, and I hope that he’s able to advance the mission of the Church in the broadest sense through his engagement in Westminster Hall.

When he comes here to Westminster Abbey and visits the shrine of St Edward the Confessor he is going to pray in the presence of the saint, canonised in 1161. St Edward, as I’m sure you know, was King of England and established his palace here in Westminster and rebuilt the abbey. Now, we know that there was an abbey here before. There was a monastery certainly from 960, when St Dunstan was bishop of London, just before he became Archbishop of Canterbury.

He certainly brought monks here from Glastonbury where he’d been abbot, so he either re-founded or founded the monastery here. But the great thing was that between 1042 and 1065 Edward the Confessor built his palace here and re-built the Abbey, and we’ve got some remains of Edward the Confessor’s Abbey. Some of the outbuildings remain here.

The great Romanesque church, which he built before the Norman conquest (because his mother, you remember, was a Norman), was almost on the same scale as the current church. The current church was built, of course, from the 13th century onwards.

But nevertheless it enshrines St Edward, who wanted his state, his palace, here to be bolstered, buttressed, supported and underpinned by the Church. And that’s the nature of the state that we continue to be, where the state is in relation to the Church, the Church in relation to the state. And that’s not in a way that makes either in Babylonian captivity to the other, but it’s a genuine engagement – and that’s what we represent here at Westminster Abbey.

That’s what the shrine of St Edward the Confessor represents to us as a nation. That’s the message that people get almost without having it articulated: it’s in the very stones of Westminster Abbey itself.

Anyone coming here can’t fail to perceive that, because of the nature of the memorials and shrines, and the people who are here, as it were. This is our national shrine and here is our national saint. I don’t contest St George being our patron saint but St Edward was before and he is a person of great significance.

So all of that is encapsulated on that very significant afternoon. It’s a chance for the Pope to address issues, which I know matter to him, about the embeddedness of Christianity within our culture. They matter to us, too.

What do you feel is the significance of John Henry Newman’s legacy to Anglicans?
Well, I don’t believe it’s possible for someone who’s lived a long time as an Anglican utterly to evade his Anglican heritage. And there is absolutely no doubt in the case of John Henry Newman that he means a great deal to Anglicans as well as to others – not just Anglicans in the tradition of the Oxford Movement. Keble stayed, Pusey stayed, Newman went.

That was a painful time for people in 1845: the parting of friends, and we can’t imagine what the parting of friends would have felt like in those days. They would have lived quite separate lives and didn’t see each other again, many of them, ever. Some of them, of course, they saw many years later when Cardinal Newman was welcomed back into Oxford as (I think) an honorary Fellow of Trinity. But nevertheless, that was a moment of enormous significance for him, I think, and indeed for the wider understanding.

So he continues to mean a lot for Anglicans. He certainly means a lot personally to me and I’m very happy he’s on his road to canonisation, because I think he’s also important for the Roman Catholic Church. I think the position he took in 1870 around Vatican I was very significant. Clearly he was also a great inspiration to Vatican II, a great inspiration to the Pope.

It’s extraordinary that the Pope is coming here to beatify Cardinal Newman. As I understand it he doesn’t normally beatify anyone now. They’re beatified by local prelates. So this is a most significant thing. He sees it as such. We see it as such. And I believe that Cardinal Newman can be a sign of our common heritage and our common labour in God’s mission.

So it’s really Newman’s ability to remind us of our shared heritage?
Well, it’s not just reminding us of our shared heritage. That’s all true, but he also, I think, points us forward.

So you think he shows a path to unity.
Well, we all have the goal of unity. The Pope is clear about the goal ultimately being one of unity. How could anyone who reads John 17, who hears the words of our Lord, not have a clear goal for unity, a passion for unity?

What I alluded to earlier was the way in which friendships have grown, whilst obstacles remain between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church and they sometimes appear to be increased by the decisions that are being taken here and there.

Nevertheless, subtly, quietly, gently, what I think is sometimes called “the dialogue of life” has developed, and friendships are very strong. I was myself immensely privileged to attend the inauguration of Archbishop Nichols’s ministry as Archbishop of Westminster, and I was there with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London and then again at the centenary of the consecration of Westminster Cathedral, and again, I sat just behind the Cardinal, very near the high altar, and felt tremendously humbled and honoured but also tremendous thankfulness for the friendship that’s grown up between us. Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are friends.

Will Newman’s beatification affect this at all?
There’s no doubt in my mind that we have different processes for recognising the holiness, the sanctity of individuals. There’s an Anglican route, which is quite different, and we raise people to the altar by a different process, but the process which the Roman Catholic Church uses is well known and well understood. It’s not universally accepted, or understood completely, but nevertheless it is inevitably influential.

We’ve raised Newman to the altar simply by his inclusion in the calendar. Certainly we’ve raised other Oxford Movement people to the altar. We commemorate him on August 11. So he is in the Anglican calendar as a pious, holy person who is commended to our edification. We have him in our calendar as “John Henry Newman, priest, tractarian, 1890”. That’s the year of his death.

The promulgation by the Pope of Anglicanorum coetibus, allowing for the potential large-scale conversion of some Anglo-Catholics, seemed to cause some annoyance in the Church of England. How has this step affected Anglican-Catholic dialogue?
I don’t think fundamentally it has affected Anglican-Catholic dialogue. I remember that it was very clearly said that this was a pastoral response to an approach made by a group of Anglicans. Whether and in what way an Anglican Ordinariate, or a group of Anglican Ordinariates around the world, will be established is a matter for speculation at the moment.

I don’t see myself a great sign of a rush towards such a thing from my friends in the Anglican-Catholic tradition who are not willing to accept the ordination of women bishops. But that legislation process is still going through and no one knows what the outcome will yet be.

There are, as we all know, quite a large number of Anglicans who’ve become Roman Catholics over the years, and quite a large number of Roman Catholics who’ve become Anglicans over the years. So there is a two-way traffic.

Some very dear friends of mine have become Roman Catholics in the past – some parishioners of mine. And some parishioners of mine were Roman Catholics who’ve become Anglicans. And it’s not a difficult process, really. I think it adds to our mutual understanding.

There was a lot of talk in the press about “poaching”, and you don’t feel that’s justified?
I didn’t see the word “poaching” myself. If anything, I think there was a certain feeling that the way had not been sufficiently prepared for the announcement and it came as something of a surprise to people in this country.

From my point of view, we shouldn’t see it as a sort of fundamental assault on Anglicanism, because it was backed by very clear statements here and elsewhere about the importance of the continuing dialogue and relationship between our two churches.

What do you think Anglicans stand to gain from the papal visit?
If the papal visit manages to raise, in the right sort of way, for debate the questions which I’ve referred to earlier about the fundamental relation between Christianity and our nation, then I believe we shall all have gained from it.

We should all see our country as being founded on Christian principles, and the life of the Church is deeply embedded in our country. That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t welcome those of other faiths. Of course we do.

And we want a good respect and proper dialogue between people of all faiths, and indeed of none.

That’s important, but nevertheless, we can’t simply slough off our history, and regard ourselves as a secular state. That is not what we are. We are a state that’s founded on religion. And the papacy was a very strong supporter of that for many centuries.

Since the 16th century things have gone slightly differently, but we’re all talking about the same things. And very often the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England in this country speak with the same voice on issues – not absolutely universally, but very often. And it’s much stronger when it is with the same voice.

So you feel there is a strong possibility of cooperation on moral issues on which both communions agree?
I’ve always believed that. When I was the Church of England’s chief education officer, one of my best colleagues was the director of the Catholic Education Service, and the strongest relationship of my bishop chairman was with Vincent Nichols when he was chairman of the Catholic Education Service. We would all go together to meet Secretaries of State for Education to discuss education matters, and we were stronger together.

Have you read any of the Pope’s books? What is your impression of his theology?
Well, I thought his first encyclical was profoundly moving, and very impressive, and the way he focused on the primary issues. I’ve also read the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, which I found very moving and powerful. Clearly there are issues on which we would diverge, but I think his is a powerful voice.

And do you feel he has much to say to Anglicans as a theologian?
I think the dialogue between Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians is extremely important. Because Rowan Williams and the Pope are both devotees of St Augustine, I like to think of them sitting down in a quiet moment having a purely theological conversation around some of the ideas of St Augustine. And I believe that when we get back to fundamentals then we are very close indeed.

And do you feel that you have gained much from reading the Pope’s books as an Anglican?
I think we all gain as Anglicans or Roman Catholics by reading books from slightly different traditions. I think that the Pope has his place within that sort of hierarchy of people it’s interesting to read.

How would you say his theological outlook compares with that of Dr Williams?
I wouldn’t seek to contrast them. I think they both have important things to say.



Meanwhile, another potential problem that could be an unnecessary but inevitable distraction during the papal visit. It is doubly a media magnet because it appears the three priests involved are being disciplined for committing sexual offenses.



Pope's visit could be overshadowed
by exile of Birmingham priests
By Martin Beckford

21 Aug 2010

Benedict XVI will beatify the famous Victorian convert to Rome, Cardinal Newman, as the highlight of next month’s trip and will also go to the Birmingham Oratory which he founded.

But the small Roman Catholic community in the Edgbaston area, where the Oratory is located, is in turmoil over three priests who were forced out to separate monasteries across the world.

Father Philip Cleevely, Father Dermot Fenlon and Brother Lewis Berry – known as the “Birmingham Three” by supporters – have been told “to spend time in prayer for an indefinite period”.

It comes less than a year after Father Paul Chavasse, the Oratory’s Provost who had been in charge of the Cause to canonise Cardinal Newman, was sent to America by the Vatican representative who is investigating the Oratory following a “chaste but intense” relationship with a young man.

The Oratory has refused to explain why the three other priests have been sent away – one is now in America, another in Canada and the third is going to South Africa – prompting worshippers to write an open letter to the church authorities.

It states: “We have seen the inexplicable removal of two priests and a brother who have exerted themselves heroically in the defence of our Catholic families.

“We have every right to a coherent explanation of what is going on, and an assurance that these priests and brother will be returned to their ministry with us forthwith.”

Another letter from parishioners urges the return of the three in time to witness the Pontiff’s private visit to the Oratory or the open-air beatification Mass in Cofton Park, south of Birmingham, on September 19th.

“Their absence during the beatification of their founder would represent not only a grave matter of personal injustice to them, but an insult to His Holiness.”

Their cause has also been taken up by Ruth Dudley Edwards, a crime writer, who has described them as victims of a church faction “which favours the old weapons of authoritarianism and concealment”.

Father Felix Selden, the Apostolic Visitor of the Holy See who is investigating the Oratory, said in a statement published this week: “I now again request that the Oratorian Community in Birmingham be allowed to continue its work without hindrance. The Apostolic Visitation that has been taking place at the Birmingham Oratory has been chiefly concerned with the Community’s own internal life and discipline.”

Oratory sources insist the three have not been found guilty of any sexual wrongdoing, but say the community was "disintegrating" through internal arguments and that the priests and brother had to be sent away to help repair the damage.

Benedict XVI to the 31st edition
of C&L's annual 'Rimini Meeting':
'Bear witness in our time that
the great things the human heart desires
are to be found in God'
Translated from the official site

August 21, 2010




What is man and what is it that makes him irreducible to any power, ideology or circumstance? This is the theme of the 33rd annual Rimini Meeting for Friendship among Peoples that opens tomorrow and will last till Saturday, August 26, in the eastern Italian resort town of Rimini.

The theme this year: "That nature which pushes us to desire great things is the heart", during which men and women of faith from around the world will be sharing testimonials and experiences to document what is the true nature of man.

The meeting will open with a Mass during which the message of Benedict XVI to participants will be read, in which he urges Christians to 'bear witness in our time that the great things desired by the human heart are to be be found in God".

The message, conveyed to C&L by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, along with the Holy Father's apostolic blessing, says: "Every man has the intuition that it is the realization of the most profound desires of his heart carries the possibility of self-realization, of self-fulfillment, of becoming truly who he is".

The Holy Father also recalls the fifth anniversary of the death of Don Luigi Giussani, founder of Comunione e Liberazione, at whose funeral Mass in Milan he delivered a memorable homily in February 2005.

A homage to Don Giussani using his words and images from his life testify to his obsession, expressed by him as ""I do not wish to live uselessly".

In a culture which tends to nullify 'man's humanity itself'. the 'absence and void' that Giacomo Leopardi [great Italian poet-philosopher, 1798-1837] described in Zibaldone, the great risk is that life is reduced to nothing more than a purely materialistic concept.

Rather, the nature of man is above all his heart which expresses itself as the desire for great things. It is this aspiration that is man's inconfundible trait - the spark of every human action, from work to family, from scientific research to politics, from art to dealing with daily needs.

The Rimini meeting will be opened this year by the President of Ireland, Mary MacAleese. Other prominent participants are the Primate of Hungary, Cardinal Peter Erdo; the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola; the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Diarmuid Martin; Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog; Bishop Gerhard Mueller of Regensburg; Italian Foreign Minister Frattini and Economic Minister Giulio Tremonti; the president of the European Commission, Jose Barroso; the French philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj, a Catholic convert from Judaism; the US ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel Diaz; the imam of the Mosque of Bordeaux; and actor Giancarlo Giannini (who will be reciting Leopardi's poems).

A total of 346 personalities were invited to be speakers and resource persons at 135 meetings, eight exhibits, 19 theatrical presentations, covering the entire spectrum of topics from religion, philosophy and economics to science and the arts.

The challenge for all - participants, visitors, and volunteers from 30 nations of the world - is to defend the human being and affirm his most profound aspirations. The inaugural theatrical presentation this year, Albert Camus's play Caligula depicts a man whose desires remained always unsatisfied to the point of driving him mad, whereas man can avail instead of the possibilities of life in his family, his work, and the transcendent ideals that respond to these desires.

One of the workshops on Day 1 of the meeting tomorrow is entitled "Theology of Liturgy' and is described as "a preview for Italy of the first volume of Joseph Ratzinger's Collected Works", published in Italian by the Vatican publishing house, and entitled 'The Theology of Liturgy'.

Participants are Mons. Müller, Bishop of Regensburg, who represents the Pope Benedict XVI Institute that is publishing the 16-volume Collected Works; Roberto Fontolan, director of C&L's International Center; with a greeting from Fr. Giuseppe Costa, Director of the Vatican publishing House,

A workshop entitled "Defending Reason: John Henry Newman" will be led by Cardinal Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin.

I have not had time to translate the lengthy interview with the Pope's personal physician, Dr. Patrizio Polisca, from the 8/21/10 issue of the OR, but I have translated the part of it where he talks about Benedict XVI, because it was largely ignored in the CNA account of the interview, which I am posting after the interview excerpt.

When Benedict XVI first left
his doctor speechless with surprise
Excerpt from an interview
by MARIO PONZI
Translated from the 8/21/10 issue of





What was it like when Benedict XVI was elected Pope?
I had known the Cardinal Dean for some time, and Dr. (Renato) Buzzonetti and I happened to be the first lay persons to be greeted by the new Pope [upon leaving the Sistine Chapel after the election]. And here came my first great surprise - because he recalled our first meeting which had taken place about 15 years earlier. He recalled that we had spoken then about St. Bonaventure! I was so stupefied I became incapable of a response. I did not know what to say - perhaps I answered with one of those silly grins when one does not know what to say!

When he named Dr. Buzzetti Emeritus Archiater [old-fashioned term meaning chief physician to a monarch or other important personage], Benedict XVI chose you to be his personal physician, did you think of the Spanish nun who had told you years before that you would be the Pope's physician?
After the initial emotions, I must admit I did. Mother Caridad is quite old now and lives in a convent in Barcelona. I would like to visit her, but my life has changed and I use the little free time left to me to dedicate to my family. [Maybe Dr. Polisca can visit her when he goes to Barcelona with the Pope in November.]

As the Pope's personal physician, what is your day like?
Because of the great responsibility entrusted to him, the personal physician to the Pope has the duty to keep constantly up to date in medicine and maintain his professional competence. That is why I have not given up my position at the University Hospital of Tor Vergata, where I am with the department of cardiac surgery, and therefore, I get involved in clinical cases that can be very complex. But every doctor requires continuing medical education, so I spend my weekends reading up.

What is the relationship between the Pope and his physician?
Let me recount an episode. One day, I met a colleague who is a university professor, and he asked me most solemnly: "So do you have to make house calls on the Pope?" Suddenly, I felt a shiver down my spine. I was caught unaware, and even my colleague must have noted it because he went on to talk about other matters.

But now, I can say that I cannot imagine my life without my responsibility to the Pope and to the Church, but I take this on with joy which my family shares. Because it is like a dream come true: to exercise my profession and to do it within the context that I have always thought about: as a Christian. And doing so with its most important representative on earth.

You also preside over the medical commission that passes professional judgment on miraculous healings presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood... [NB: There are no permanent members other than the chairman because each commission is composed of specialists in the area of medicine associated with a specific miracle.]
That is another marvelous experience. It enables me to work with outstanding colleagues, and to be able to be part of such a team is a great honor. We are asked to verify that a miraculous healing is indeed not explainable by science and known facts, and can only be attributed to the miraculous intercession of the candidate saint.

Any case that stands out so far?
I was personally very struck by the instantaneous, simultaneous and lasting cure of two children in the Peruvian Andes, whose parents prayed to Bishop Giuseppe Marello, who was beatified in 1993 and canonized in 2001. The children both had a most serious lung disease which would have been terminal, but both were healed instantly, at the same time, and without any treatment at all.



A Spanish nun predicted to Dr. Polisca
he would become physician to a Pope



Vatican City, Aug 21, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- In an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI's doctor reflected on his more than 30 years as a doctor to the Popes. In various capacities, he served John Paul II and continues to serve Benedict XVI, a responsibility which at least one person foresaw he would hold.

Mario Ponzi of L'Osservatore Romano (LOR) interviewed Dr. Patrizio Polisca, director of the Vatican's health services department and the Pope's personal physician, for an article to be released on Saturday. Dr. Polisca has been the head papal physician since June 2009 and was just named the director of the Vatican's internal health department last month.

The Italian from modest beginnings recalled when he began working as a doctor in Rome in the 1970s, particularly his time with a community of Spanish religious sisters. The mother superior of the order, Mother Caridad, told him repeatedly at the time that he would one day become the Pope's personal doctor.

In 1987, that is exactly what happened as he was chosen by the papal physician at the time, Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, to work in the summer rotation at Castel Gandolfo. Before long, he found himself introduced to John Paul II, an encounter which gave him goosebumps as he recalled Mother Caridad's words.

Then, in 1994, Dr. Polisca was invited to become a health officer in the Vatican's medical corps, a placement that made him "very happy," considering he never thought that he would be in that position. "I never had specific career goals," he observed, "and all that happened to me appeared to follow a precise design. Certainly not mine, although it was beautiful and it filled me with joy and new enthusiasm."

He started joining in on the longer papal trips at the invitation of Dr. Buzzonetti. He said that he still remembers every moment of the first trip he took with Pope John Paul II, the 1997 trip to Cuba. The most impressive aspect of the experience, he told LOR, was "the magnetism (the Pope) exercised over the crowds."

Of all the memories from trips, though, he said that Mass at the Cenacle during the papal visit to the Holy Land in 2000 was "unforgettable."

He went on to recount other important moments to LOR, particularly how he cared for Pope John Paul II in his final days and was on guard during the conclave that would elect Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope.

When he was named the Pope's physician in 2009, he once again was reminded of Mother Caridad's words.

These days, the physician explained that he keeps up-to-date with his profession practicing as a heart surgeon at the University Hospital of Tor Vergata in Rome and by studying when he can, especially on weekends.

Reflecting on the weight of his position, he said that he couldn't imagine his life "without the responsibility to the Pope and the Church. But, I live it as a joy..."

I'm not sure that an article like this is even necessary because there can be no question what the 'mind of the Church' is about the Novus Ordo. For all its defects (not the least being that it was summarily imposed on the Church overnight), it was promulgated by a Pope interpreting instructions from Vatican II, in some major ways wrongly perhaps, but nonetheless, it has been instituted into the Church.

And that is why even someone like Cardinal Ratzinger, who was acutely aware of its defects, has dutifully and scrupulously celebrated it all these years, giving it all the significance and sacredness that liturgy deserves but does not always get.


The 'mind of the Church'
on the Novus Ordo
By Jeff Mirus

August 13, 2010 2:00 PM


In recent weeks, several severe critics, opponents and denigrators of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite have claimed that they are simply following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI when he was a cardinal, and they have cited one or more writings of Joseph Ratzinger in which he expressed criticisms of certain aspects of the implementation of the new rite.

I want to emphasize that he expressed these concerns in scholarly work, and that, taken in context, it is always clear that Ratzinger as a cardinal was not ill-disposed toward the Novus Ordo. [Because he could not possibly be ill-disposed to anything that the Church had instituted! And he did what every obedient and sensible priest would do - celebrate the Novus Ordo with the same sense of liturgy as he celebrated the traditional Mass.]

Rather, he was interested in improvements which might be made (no liturgy is perfect) and, in particular, he was opposed to the free-wheeling manner in which some ignored the rubrics when saying Mass, as we shall see.

In any case, it has been necessary to answer these critics on two counts, and it occurred to me that, in view of the apparently unending controversies over the liturgy, our users at large would be interested in what we may legitimately call 'the mind of the Church' on the Novus Ordo. So I’ll provide my answers publicly in this space.

First, it is absolutely critical to note that the mind of the Church or even of the Pope himself cannot be determined by looking at the writings of a future Pope before he became Pope. [Obviously not! Only naive and unthinking people could even think so!] A cardinal’s election as Pope does not in any way validate his earlier remarks, none of which were protected in the least by the grace of his later office. [Ditto!]

To assert that the mind of the Church can be known from the work of Joseph Ratzinger in, say, 1990, is no wiser than saying it can be known by his common theological opponent, Walter Kasper.

So even if some of Cardinal Ratzinger's remarks seem very negative in isolation from his entire body of work — or indeed even if it were possible to argue that his whole outlook on the Novus Ordo was negative (which was not the case) — this would tell us nothing about the mind of the Church.

No, to learn the mind of the Pope (and therefore something of the mind of the Church) on such matters as the liturgy, we need to look to what the Pope has said while in office.

Second, while in office, Pope Benedict XVI has made his approval of the Novus Ordo clear. He has also made clear that his serious criticisms do not apply to the rite itself but to the false interpretation of the Missal of Paul VI as something that requires constant experimentation and innovation, as if priests are to superimpose their own improvisations on the official liturgy and, in so doing, frequently substitute the banal for the sublime.

Benedict made these points in explaining his decision to widen the use of the Tridentine Mass (the Missal of Pope John XXIII) in his 2007 Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum.

Readers will recall that the Pope issued an accompanying Letter to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of Summorum Pontificum to explain his decision. In that letter he recounted why he wanted to expand the use of what he now called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and, in so doing, he deliberately responded to the fear that this expansion was somehow intended to demote the Novus Ordo or undermine the Second Vatican Council’s call for liturgical reform.

Let us listen to Joseph Ratzinger as Pope:

---

This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy.

---

Benedict went on to explain that many have continued to long for the older liturgy (which is one reason for making it more widely available, the other being to try to reconcile those who have fallen out of full communion with the Church over it), but he also explained what the real problem was:

---

Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them.

This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear.

---

Finally, the Pope ended his discussion of the Novus Ordo by stating that the key to its use in unifying the Church is reverent fidelity to the actual rubrics of the missal itself, and he closed by expressing his fundamental judgment of the value of this normal form of the rite:

---

The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.

---

My advice to those who seriously dislike the Novus Ordo is this: Admit your personal preference for the Extraordinary Form if you like; true Catholics should not criticize you for it, even if they prefer the Ordinary Form.

Combat abuses of the Novus Ordo where you can; the Church will thank you for that. But do not denigrate the rite itself, as if it is something unworthy or profane, and never imply that the billion Catholics who use and have come to love it are somehow inferior in their Faith.

It is possible to debate the merits and demerits of any liturgy, but it is not possible to cite either Pope Benedict XVI or the mind of the Church as being anything less than in favor of the prescribed use of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite.

Finally, no approved liturgy of the Church should ever be treated with disrespect, nor its adherents stigmatized if they are not disobedient, for it is a sacred thing.


Again, I'm not sure an article like this was needed at all, as I have not come across unregenerate Novus Ordo 'haters' nor writings by them [not counting the fringe traditionalists and sedevacantists]. Even the Lefebvrians have pretty much ignored the subject at this point in time and have not engaged in any recent or current polemics over it. I personally still am no fan of the Novus Ordo, but when it was all there was available (and after I had outgrown my keeping away from Sunday Mass phase), I did not question its legitimacy at all. It was something we all had to live with and do the best we could, according to our spiritual temperament and tendencies.

That is why Benedict XVI's formula of an 'ordinary form' and an 'extraordinary form' as co-existing and equally legitimate was the best, if not the only possible just solution to the liturgical injustice that came with the Novus Ordo. But it would be just as wrong to delegitimize the Novus Ordo now as it had been wrong to effectively delegitimize the traditional Mass back in 1970.

August 22, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
FEAST OF THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY

Pius XII established this feast in 1954 as a logical follow-up to the Assumption - thus it is celebrated in the octave of the Assumption. Mary's queenship has roots in Scripture where the Archangel Gabriel announces that her Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. Her queenship is a share in Jesus's kingship. The Fathers of the Church, starting with St. Ephrem in the 4th century, called Mary 'Lady' and Queen'. In the Middle Ages, hymns and devotional prayers (particularly by the Dominicans and Franciscans) address her invariably as Queen.


No papal items in today's OR except the text of the Holy Father's letter to Cardinal Re naming him to represent him at the 1500th anniversary celebration of the Shrine to Santa Maria delle Grazie in Mentorella outside Rome on Aug. 29. Page 1 items: An essay on the collaboration between men and women in the New Testament; a feature on Marc Chagall's stained-glass windows in Hadassah University in Jerusalem; updates on the consequences of Pakistan's devastating floods; civilian victims of continuing civil conflict in the Somalian capital; and the latest US attempt to broker direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.


THE POPE'S DAY

Sunday Angelus - The Holy Father spoke about the Queenship of Mary that we celebrate today, and underscored
the lesson of God in the simple girl of Nazareth whom he made Queen of heaven and earth - how he exalts the
humble and brings down the arrogant.


The Vatican also released the full text of the Holy Father's message to the 31st annual Meeting for Friendship
among Peoples, sponsored by the Comunione e Liberazione movement, which opened today in Rimini.

ANGELUS TODAY







Pope calls for
'a civilization of love'



22 Aug 10 (RV) - Pope Benedict, at Angelus in Castel Gandolfo today, Pope Benedict urged people to build a civilisation of love, where there is the absurd logic of violence.

“Mary Queen of Peace, pray for us so that all people will be persuaded that in this world we must help each other as brothers to build the civilization of love", he invoked before leading the Angelus prayers in the courtyard of the papal summer residence on the day celebrating the queenship of Mary.

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

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

Eight days after the Solemnity of her Assumption into heaven, the liturgy invites as to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary with the title of 'Queen'.

We contemplate the Mother of God crowned by her Son, that is, associated to his universal kingship, as she is depicted in numerous mosaics and paintings - the same image that recurs on this Sunday, and which acquires greater light from the Word of God and by the celebration of our weekly Easter.

Specifically, the icon of the Virgin Mary as Queen finds a significant reference in today's Gospel, in which Jesus says: "For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last" (Lk 13.30).

This is a typical statement of Jesus that is repeated many times by the Evangelists - even using similar formulas - because it evidently reflects a theme that he favored in his prophetic preaching.

Our Lady is the perfect example of that evangelical truth - that God brings down the proud and the powerful of the world and exalts the humble (cfr Lk 1,52).

The simple girl from Nazareth has become the Queen of the world! This is one of the wonders that the heart of God reveals. Of course, Mary's queenship is completely related to the kingship of Christ: He is the Lord, who after the humiliation of his death on the Cross, the Father exalted over every other creature in the heavens, on earth and below earth (cfr Phil 2,9-11).

By a design of grace, the Immaculate Mother is fully associated in the mystery of her Son: at his Incarnation; in his earthly life, first hidden in Nazareth and then manifested in his messianic ministry; in his Passion and death; and finally in the glory of the Resurrection and Ascension to heaven.

The Mother shared with her Son not just the human aspects of this mystery, but, through the Holy Spirit working in her, also his profound intention, the divine will, such that all her existence, poor and humble, was exalted, transformed and glorified through that 'narrow gate' which is Jesus himself (cfr Lk 13,34).

Yes, Mary was the first to pass through the way opened by Christ to enter into the Kingdom of God, a way that is accessible to the humble, to those who trust in the Word of God and commit themselves to put it into practice.

In the history of the cities and peoples evangelized by the Christian message, the testimonials of public veneration - in some cases, institutional - of the Virgin Mary's queenship are numberless.

Today, as children of the Church, let us renew our devotion to her whom Jesus gave us to be our Mother and Queen. Let us entrust to her intercession our daily prayer for peace, especially where the absurd logic of violence is most furious - that all men may become convinced that in the world we must help each other as brothers in order to build the civilization of love.

Maria, Regina pacis, ora pro nobis!

After the prayers, he said this in French:

The liturgical texts today remind us once more that all men are called to salvation. It is also an invitation to learn how to accept legitimate human differences, following the example of Jesus who came to gather together men of all nations and of all languages.

Dear parents, may you educate your children in universal brotherhood! And may the Virgin Mary be with you as you prepare for the coming schoolyear. A good Sunday to all!

In English, he said:

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at this Angelus prayer. In a particular way I welcome a group of young Orthodox Christians from Galilee.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that the way to heaven is through the narrow door. May we enter through this narrow door by means of prayer, humility and service of our neighbours, and thus live the joy of the Kingdom even now. Upon you and your loved ones, I invoke the blessings of Almighty God.

---

Pope joins debate on
gypsy expulsions from France


Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug. 22 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI appeared to add his voice Sunday to the ongoing controversy over the expulsion of Roma (gypsy) migrants in France by reminding Catholics that they have a duty to welcome people of all origins.

Addressing a group of French pilgrims in French, the Pope said the scriptures were "an invitation to know how to accept legitimate differences among humans, just like Jesus came to pull together men from every nation and speaking every language."

Speaking from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, Benedict also told parents to "educate your children to universal fraternity."

Such comments were widely seen as addressing a decision by the French government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to expel scores of Roma migrants.

Sarkozy's decision to dismantle illegal Gypsy camps and send Romas back to Romania has been widely criticized by human rights associations, trade unions and opposition politicians in France.

The Vatican has also criticized what is says is a racist practice by France.

Earlier this week, Monsignor Giancarlo Perego of the Italian Episcopal Conference warned Italy against carrying out the "indiscriminate expulsions of Romas" or other European Union citizens.

His comments followed remarks made by Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, who had lauded Sarkozy and announced plans to introduce even tougher measures in Italy.

I am definitely dreading what horrendous tortures the UK media and supercilious sanctimonious secularists - blindly driven by irrational hostility - are preparing to unload as the Holy Father's visit to the UK approaches... One of them seems to have an attack of conscience here, but in the end, his prejudices win out...


I'm an atheist but this anti-Catholic
rhetoric is making me nervous
BY Padraig Reidy

Sunday, 22 August 2010


The Church's critics have been mobilised by the Pope's visit but the rhetoric is tipping over into the extreme.

The messages keep coming: "We Protest the Pope: Want to join us?"
asked the first, a few weeks ago. More recently, an invitation came to a Protest the Pope meeting in Richmond, south London, where ideas such as blocking the route of the Pope's cavalcade during his visit to Britain next month were discussed.

I should not be surprised to receive these invitations. I'm one of the few people in the world who could truthfully put the phrase "professional atheist" on their CV. For three years, I was deputy editor of New Humanist magazine, the publication of choice for UK humanists.

So why do I feel uneasy?

My first encounter with the British establishment happened on my first day of university. A Hapsburg-lipped, Holland Park resident, a fellow student on the journalism degree I was about to embark upon, heard my Irish name, and my Irish accent, and commented, clearly rather pleased with himself: "So who do you write for, the Catholic Herald?"

Here I was, clearly identified as kicking with the other foot. As time went on, even an atheist Catholic like me could not help but note this ingrained prejudice, either blatantly expressed or just as often on the edge of a remark. Smells and bells and superstition.

My journey to atheism was not the crisis some imagine of "lapsed" Catholics. An eminent sociologist once told me that the difference between Catholic atheists and Protestant atheists was that the Protestant variety gradually moved towards godlessness through questioning and reason, whereas the Catholic ones have one dark night of the soul when the entire edifice came crumbling down, leaving them resentful of the world's kicking away of their crutch.

That never happened to me. I mostly just lost interest in the church, in spite of being educated by the Presentation Brothers, a monastic offshoot of the more notorious Christian Brothers. The argument for God just doesn't make sense to me.

Arriving in England, I went from a country where religion was everywhere, but of little interest to me, to a country that had little interest in religion, but still defined me by my purported beliefs.

Modern Britain is a country founded in large part on anti-Catholicism. This is obvious in establishment bedrocks such as the succession, which bars Roman Catholics from becoming head of state or even being married to the head of state. But it is not just the establishment that distrusts Roman Catholics.

Catholicism is viewed with suspicion by significant sections of the British left. While some of this stems from European anti-clericalism, there is a deeper motif, a part of the patriotic left espoused at various points by Tom Paine and George Orwell that draws on notions of the "free-born Englishman".

The Catholic, owing his allegiance to Rome, rather than this green and pleasant land, does not fit this narrative. [What allegiance are we talking of here? It must be defined and not left equivocal. The sensible Catholic knows the difference between his civic duty and therefore civic allegiance to his government, and the allegiance of his faith - his spiritual allegiance, which is not 'to Rome' or 'to the Vatican' but to Christ who happenss to be represented on earth by his Vicar the Pope.]

With Benedict on his way, the chorus rises. A Facebook invitation asks me to "Give Pope Benedict a lesson in British Values of Equality". On leading left blog Liberal Conspiracy, one writer, discussing the Vatican's stance on euthanasia, tells us: "This is, after all, a Vhurch that expects its followers to mumble incantations in front of a large statue of a mostly naked European bloke nailed to a Roman torture implement and includes an act of ritual cannibalism in its rites… so who's really obsessed with death here."

Examine the language here. "Incantations", "cannibalism". This is the tone of Ian Paisley's rabidly anti-papist Free Presbyterian church, not of rational secular debate.

The faux-sympathy over child sexual abuse feels similarly galling, used as an opportunity to attack the church rather than express genuine concern for victims. Almost the entire focus on clerical abuse scandals is on sexual attacks on young boys by old priests, despite the fact that most of the abuse detailed in the various inquiries' reports consists of beating and physical and mental torture. [That is quite misleading, except in the case of the Ryan Report that looked into systematic abuses - including sexual abuse, psychological abuse and corporal punishment - that went on in many Irish institutions run by religious orders since the 1930s.]

Compare the taunts over buggery and the sneering at transubstantiation with the dignity of the people who actually know Catholicism. [Since the writer proceeds to name people who have been quite bitterly critical of the Church, he uses the pat and patently wrongful generalization that "people who actuually know Catholcism" all have a terrible tale to say about it, even if they say it 'with dignity"!]

Ireland was rocked last year when Michael O'Brien, a former politician and victim of childhood abuse at the hands of the Rosiminian order, confronted a government minister on live television over state complicity in the Church's cover-up.

In the past few weeks, a call by 80-year-old Jennifer Sleeman for a boycott of the churches on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in protest at the Vatican's treatment of women, has clearly rattled the hierarchy. Sleeman's son, who is a Benedictine monk, is said to have described her initiative as "brilliant".

In the September issue of New Humanist magazine, noted secularists and Catholics such as Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner, Richard Dawkins and Conor Gearty are asked what they would say to the Pope if they met him on his trip.

Rayner says his views are "so disgusting, so repellent, and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him". [What a typical statement of take-no-prisoners bigotry professed by someone who, I suppose, considers himself an 'intellectual' but speaks out of ideological hatred rather than any common sense or logic!].]

Some of these views, such as opposition to abortion and opposition to the death sentence, are shared by many Catholics and many more non-Catholics. Professor Dawkins remarks that Benedict is head of the world's "second most evil religion" (one can only assume the professor would put Islam at the top of that league table).

It is Catholics such as Gearty and abuse victim Graham Wilmer who express a real wish for change and justice from the Church, rather than hector. [Hey, who has been doing all the hectoring????? The Church has taken all the hectoring here, while her detractors simply ignore the Holy Father's messaage, language and tone. In fact, the detractors refuse to see what is Christian - humility, love and forgiveness - in the actions of the Church, and simply see the sins of the few which they project onto every Catholic without exception.]

In Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, Richard Smythe of the South London Rationalist Society explains love to Sarah, the book's heroine, who struggles toward Catholicism bearing her human load of angst, guilt, fear and longing:

"The desire to possess in some, like avarice: in others the desire to surrender, to lose the sense of responsibility, the wish to be admired. Sometimes just the wish to be able to talk, to unburden yourself to someone who won't be bored. The desire to find again a mother and a father. And of course under it all a biological motive."

"And the love of God?" Sarah asks.

"It's all the same."

To Sarah's ears, he is describing Catholic religious belief. Smythe's successors in south London and beyond should remember the impulse that drives believers; they must aim to bring comfort to the afflicted above afflicting the comfortable.

Otherwise, many Catholics – the people most likely to suffer from the Vatican's prejudices and cover-ups, and the only people with any potential to bring change in the Church, not noted for its responsiveness to outside pressures – will draw ranks and understandably so. It is the structure of the Church that should be challenged, not the beliefs of Catholics. [Naturally, the writer falls back into his own comfortable and natural posture of prejudice and condescension toward the Church that almost nullify anything positive he wrote earlier in the essay. As if expressing his uneasiness over the extreme rhetoric used against the Pope somehow makes him better than the other detractors! Well, marginally so, perhaps, though there is not one element in his last paragraph that does not echo the bedrock convictions of the most belligerent anti-Papist... But I am grateful he has expressed the sensible sentiments that he did earlier.]

Comment from


Even Padraig Reidy’s credentials as an ex-Catholic, atheist deputy editor of the New Humanist magazine are not enough to protect him from the rage of the anti-Catholic bigots on The Guardian comments page. In their hate-filled world anyone expressing the slightest criticism of their anti-Catholic campaign or sympathy for ordinary Catholics becomes the object of their sneering contempt.