BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Please see preceding page for earlier posts today, 9/8/10.



GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY
Catechesis on
Hildegarde von Bingen - Part 2







The Holy Father today flew from Castel Gandolfo to the Vatican for the General Audience at Aula Paolo VI. He concluded his catechesis on the medieval German mystic Hildegarde von Bingen and delivered a message for the people of the United Kingdom in anticipation of his coming visit.

Here is his synthesis in English of the catechesis:

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In our catechesis on medieval Christian culture, we turn again to Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the great nun and mystic of the twelfth century.

Hildegard’s celebrated visions vividly interpreted the word of God for her contemporaries, calling them to a committed Christian life.

She brought a woman’s insight to the mysteries of the faith. In her many works she contemplated the mystic marriage between God and humanity accomplished in the Incarnation, as well as the spousal union of Christ and the Church.

She also explored the vital relationship between God and creation, and our human calling to give glory to God by a life of holiness and virtue.

Hildegard’s musical compositions reflect her conviction that all creation is a symphony of the Holy Spirit, who is himself joy and jubilation. Her vast learning and spiritual authority also led her to work for the renewal of the Church in her day.

Through Saint Hildegard’s intercession, let us ask the Spirit to raise up wise, holy and courageous women whose God-given gifts will enrich the life of the Church in our own time!

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After his English-language greeting, the Holy Father read a pre-visit message to the people of the United Kingdom, which has also been released as a video shown in the host country:

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I am very much looking forward to my visit to the United Kingdom in a week’s time and I send heartfelt greetings to all the people of Great Britain.

I am aware that a vast amount of work has gone into the preparations for the visit, not only by the Catholic community but by the Government, the local authorities in Scotland, London and Birmingham, the communications media and the security services, and I want to say how much I appreciate the efforts that have been made to ensure that the various events planned will be truly joyful celebrations.

Above all I thank the countless people who have been praying for the success of the visit and for a great outpouring of God’s grace upon the Church and the people of your nation.

It will be a particular joy for me to beatify the Venerable John Henry Newman in Birmingham on Sunday 19 September. This truly great Englishman lived an exemplary priestly life and through his extensive writings made a lasting contribution to Church and society both in his native land and in many other parts of the world.

It is my hope and prayer that more and more people will benefit from his gentle wisdom and be inspired by his example of integrity and holiness of life.

I look forward to meeting representatives of the many different religious and cultural traditions that make up the British population, as well as civil and political leaders.

I am most grateful to Her Majesty the Queen and to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for receiving me, and I look forward to meeting them.

While I regret that there are many places and people I shall not have the opportunity to visit, I want you to know that you are all remembered in my prayers.

God bless the people of the United Kingdom!

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Here is a full translation of the catechesis today:

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Dear brothers and sisters:

Today I wish to continue reflecting on St. Hildegarde von Bingen, an important female figure of the Middle Ages, who was distinguished for her spiritual wisdom and the holiness of her life.

The mystical visions of Hildegarde resemble those of the Old Testament prophets: Expressing herself in the cultural and religious terms of her time, she interpreted Sacred SCriptures in the light of God, applying them to the various circumstances of life.

Thus, all those who listened to her felt called on to practise a style of Christian life that was consistent and committed. In a letter to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the mystic from the Rhineland confessed: "The vision conquers my whole being: I do not see with the eyes of the world, rather, it comes to me in the spirit of mysteries... I know the deep significance of what is expressed in the Psaltery, in the Gospels and in other books which are shown to me in vision. It burns like a flame in my breast and in my soul, and teaches me to profoundly understand the texts" (Epistolarium pars prima i-xc: cccm 91).

The mystical visions of Hildegarde are rich with theological content. They refer to the principal events in the history of salvation, told in a language that was mainly poetic and symbolic.

For example, in her most famous work, entitled Scivias (meaning 'I know the ways'), she summarizes in 35 visions the events of the story of salvation, from the creation of the world to the end of times.

With characteristic female sensibility, Hildegarde, in the central part of this work, develops the theme of the mystical marriage between God and mankind realized in the Incarnation.

Similarly, on the wood of the Cross, the marriage is consummated between the Son of God and the Church, his spouse, filled with grace and made capable of giving God new children in the love of the Holy Spirit (cfr. Visio tertia: PL 197, 453c).

In these brief indications we can see how even theology can receive a special contribution from wome, because they are able to speak about God and the mysteries of the faith with a special intelligence and sensibility.

Thus I encourage all those who carry out this service (theology) to fulfill it with a profound ecclesial spirit, nourishing reflection with prayer ,and looking at the great wealth, still unexplored in part, of traditional medieval mysticism, especially that represented by luminous models like Hildegarde von Bingen.

The Rhenanian mystic was the author of other writings, two of which are particularly important because they record, like Scivias, her mystical visions: the Liber vitae meritorum (Book of the merits of life) and the Liber divinorum operum (Book of divine works), which is also called De operatione Dei (Of God's work).

In the first, she describes a unique and powerful vision of God who vivifies the cosmos with his power and his light. Hildegarde underscores the profound relationship between man and God, and reminds us that all creation, of which man is the peak, receives life from the Trinity.

The writing is focused on the relation between virtue and vice, and that man must daily face the challenge of vices, which take him away from the path towards God and the virtues that advance progress in this path. She asks us to distance ourselves from evil in order to glorify God so that we may enter, after a virtuous existence, into a life that is 'all joy'.

The second title, considered by many to be her masterwork, describes creation in relation to God and the centrality of man, manifesting a strong Christocentrism, with Biblical and patristic flavor. The saint, who presents five visions inspired by the Prolog of the Gospel of St. John, recalls words that the Son addresses to his Father: "I have brought to completion all the work that you wanted done and that you entrusted to me, and here I am in you, and you in me, and we are one" (Pars iii, Visio x: PL 197, 1025a).

Finally, in other works, Hildegarde manifests the versatile interests and cultural liveliness of the female monasteries of the Middle Ages, contrary to the prejudices that still weigh against that epoch.

Hildegarde occupied herself with medicine and the natural sciences, as well as music, for she was endowed with artistic talent. She composed hymns, antiphons and songs, which have been collected under the title Symphonia Harmoniae Caelestium Revelationum (Symphony of the harmony of celestial revelations), which were joyously performed in her convents, creating an atmosphere of serenity, in works that have come down to our time. For her, all of creation was a symphony of the Holy Spirit, who is himself joy and jubliation.

The popularity that surrounded Hildegarde impelled many persons to seek here attention. Because of this, many of her letters are available to us. male and female monasteries, bishops and abbots, wrote to her. Many of her responses continue to be valid even for us,

For example, to a female religious community she wrote: "Spiritual life must be tended with great dedication. At the start, the work is harsh. Because it requires renouncing caprice, the pleasures of the flesh and similar things. But if you allow yourself to be fascinated by holiness, a holy soul will find even the contempt of the world kind and loving. You only need to pay intelligent attention that your soul does not wither" (E. Gronau, Hildegard. Vita di una donna profetica alle origini dell'età moderna [Life of a prophetic woman at the origins of the modern era], Milano 1996, p. 402).

And when the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa caused an ecclesial schism by opposing as many as three anti-Popes to the legitimate Pope Alexander III, Hildegarde, inspired by her visions, did not hesitate to remind him, that even he, the emperor, was subject to the judgment of God.

With the daring that characterizes every prophet, she wrote the Emperor these words that God might have said to him: "Woe to the evil conduct of the godless persons who spurn me! Listen, o King, if you wish to live! Otherwise, my sword will run you through!"
(Ibid., p. 412).

With the spiritual authority she had, in the last years of her life, Hildegarde took to travelling, despite her advanced age and the discomfort of travel, in order to speak of God to other people.

Everyone listened to her gladly even when she spoke to them severely. They considered her a messenger sent by God. Above all, she called on monastic ommunities and the clergy to lead a life that conformed to their vocation.

In particular, Hildegarde opposed the movement of the German Cathari. They - 'cathari' literally means 'pure' - proposed a radical reform of the Church, particularly to combat abuses by the clergy. She reproached them harshly for wanting to subvert the nature of the Church herself, reminding them that a true renewal of the ecclesial community is not obtained so much by structural changes as by a sincere spirit of repentance and the diligent work of conversion.

This is a mesasge that we must never forget. Let us always invoke the Holy Spirit, so that he may inspire holy and courageous women in the Church like St. Hildegarde von Bingen, who, in making full use of the gifts received from God, may give their valuable and special contribution to the spiritual growth of our communities and of the Church in our time.

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AFP has picked up statements made by the Pope in today's catechesis to imply that he has a fundamental opposition to reforms in the Church! Here is the story, with the headline given to it by the dependably liberal Sydney Morning Herald, [which, by the way, since WYD 2008, appears to have total amnesia about all the positive things it reported about Benedict XVI at the time]:

Pope urges repentance
for abuse over [=rather than] changes


VATICAN CITY, Sept. 8 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI says repentance is more effective than structural change within the Church to counter sexual abuse by priests.

[Since the Pope did not directly cite sexual abuses in his catechesis, what AFP infers and the way it presents it insinuates that the Pope is not all that interested in 'structural changes' to deal with the problem of priests who commit sexual offenses.]

Using an indirect historical analogy, the Pope on Wednesday recalled the words of XII century Saint Hildegard, according to whom "a true renewal of the ecclesiastic community is the result less of structural changes than of a sincere spirit of repentance and an active path towards conversion."

Saint Hildergard at the time was fighting the criticism by German sects "proposing a radical reform of the Church in order to fight abuses by clergy," Benedict told 7,000 pilgrims at his weekly general audience. The Pontiff said Hildergard's was "a message that we should never forget." [And this segues right to the connection the AFP wished to make!]

The Catholic Church has been rocked by a string of recent abuse scandals involving priests, with revelations of the sexual abuse of minors and cover-ups throughout Europe and North America.

In mid-July, the Vatican put in place tougher rules on the handling of sex abuse cases, saying it would accelerate internal investigations and extend by a decade the statute of limitations in such cases.

It is not the first time that Benedict XVI makes the point that true reform within the Church must start with self-purification, and that 'structural changes' are useless without such purification and renewal...

Many of the figures he cited in his catecheses on the great Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages were also the great Church reformers of their time, starting with St. Benedict, through Francis, Dominic and Ignatius, and their successors like Bonaventure and Bernard of Clairvaux.

All were characterized by personal holiness first, above administrative competence, which they also had, and in the same way, their reforms called for individual holiness among the clergy first, which also meant strict adherence to the principles and rules of the Church, rather than changing its structures.

Obviously, no amount of structural change can eliminate sin or perverse tendencies that are inherent in some priests, but greater vigilance in their formation and their daily lives as priests will certainly help. That has always been the duty of the local bishop - it does not involve any structural change, Just attitude change.

Pope meets European parliamentarians
to mark the 60th anniversary of
Europe's Human Rights convention




After today's General Audience, the Holy Father met with a delegation of European parliamentarians in the Auletta salon of the Aula Paolo VI. Here is the Pope's address to the group, delivered in English:

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Mr President,

Dear members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,

I am very grateful to the Honourable Mr Çavuşoğlu for the kind words he addressed to me on behalf of the Bureau and I extend to all of you a cordial welcome.

I am happy to receive you on the sixtieth anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights which, as is well known, commits Member States of the Council of Europe to promote and defend the inviolable dignity of the human person.

I know that the Parliamentary Assembly has on its agenda important topics that deal above all with persons who live in particularly difficult situations or are subjected to grave violations of their dignity.

I have in mind people afflicted with handicaps, children who suffer violence, immigrants, refugees, those who pay the most for the present economic and financial crisis, those who are victims of extremism or of new forms of slavery such as human trafficking, the illegal drug trade and prostitution.

Your work also is concerned with victims of warfare and with people who live in fragile democracies. I have also been informed of your efforts to defend religious freedom and to oppose violence and intolerance against believers in Europe and worldwide.

Keeping in mind the context of today’s society in which different peoples and cultures come together, it is imperative to develop the universal validity of these rights as well as their inviolability, inalienability and indivisibility.

On different occasions I have pointed out the risks associated with relativism in the area of values, rights and duties. If these were to lack an objective rational foundation, common to all peoples, and were based exclusively on particular cultures, legislative decisions or court judgements, how could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe, and for your own task within that prestigious institution?

How could a fruitful dialogue among cultures take place without common values, rights and stable, universal principles understood in the same way by all Members States of the Council of Europe?

These values, rights and duties are rooted in the natural dignity of each person, something which is accessible to human reasoning. The Christian faith does not impede, but favours this search, and is an invitation to seek a supernatural basis for this dignity.

I am convinced that these principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage – rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman – and freedom of religion and education, are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents to each one of you.

Dear friends, I know that you also wish to reach out to those who suffer. This gives me joy and I encourage you to fulfil your sensitive and important mission with moderation, wisdom and courage at the service of the common good of Europe.

I thank you for coming and I assure you of my prayers. May God bless you!

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MEETING WITH CAPE VERDE LEADER



The Holy Father also met briefly yesterday with Prime Minister José Maria Pereira Neves of Cape Verde. [Republic of ten islands, population 500,000, in the Atlantic Ocean 570 kms off Senegal and the western coast of Africa; colonized by Portugal in the 15h century, it became independent in 1975.] Earlier, Pereira met with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and his deputy for foreign relations, Mons. Mamberti.

The Benedict-bashers of Britain so hyped up their intention to 'arrest' the Pope - they meant a citizen's arrest for alleged 'crimes against humanity', assuming anyone of them could get close enough to do that! - with the willing and almost gleeful collusion of the UK media who have played up every two-bit denunciation of the Pope like pronouncements from Mt. Sinai.

So now, the ring leaders of the so-called Protest the Pope movement finally concede they won't even try - because, quite apart from the idiocy of their grandstanding, they can't. physically or legally! The true crime against humanity - not against mankind which is the sense of the original term, but against man's primal humanity, what God endowed him with, to begin with - is their blind and hate-filled prejudice!


'Pope won't be arrested',
protesters admit
By Martin Beckford and Nick Squires

Sept. 8, 2010


The Pope will not be arrested for alleged “crimes against humanity” during his visit to Britain next week, protestors have conceded.

Campaigners supported by Prof Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist, had hoped to have Benedict XVI held over his supposed cover-up of child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

But leaders of the Protest the Pope coalition now admit that the Pontiff cannot be arrested as Britain acknowledges him as a head of state, granting him sovereign immunity from criminal prosecution.

It came as the Pope himself announced that he “can’t wait” to arrive in the country next Thursday for the first-ever state papal visit to Britain.

The opponents of the historic event, who represent human rights, equality and secular groups, still plan to hold a march and rally in central London in protest the estimated £12million cost to taxpayers of the state visit and Benedict XVI’s stance on sexuality, contraception and clerical abuse.

But at an unusual meeting at the “neutral ground” of New Scotland Yard, they assured the Most Rev Peter Smith, the Archbishop of Southwark, that their events would be peaceful and lawful.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said afterwards: “We have now discovered that there is no real prospect of a prosecution being made against the Pope. Until the status of the Vatican is really sorted out, whether it’s a state or not, the Pope is safe from any kind of legal challenge.” [Other than Sanderson's addled brain, there's nothing to sort out that hasn't already been sorted out and universally accepted since 1929.... When you consider the array of pathological haters out in the world today - not counting the Islamic radicals who are sui generis - between the Bush haters and Blair haters and Pius XII haters and Benedict XVI haters, the latter group are the most afflicted and also have the broadest-based constituency, from atheists to shyster lawyers, in which what was called a 'derangement syndrome' when referred to Bush has openly morphed into dementia and inhabiting a delusion of reality.]

However the protesters did secure a promise from the Archbishop that he would pass on a request to hand over to police secret files on sex abuse by priests that are held in the Vatican archives, having been investigated under Canon Law.

Peter Tatchell, the veteran homosexual equality campaigner who was also at the meeting, said: “The Pope's condemnation of sex abuse by clergy will never be taken seriously until he agrees to pass to the police in countries around world the evidence the Vatican has compiled on child molesting priests, bishops and cardinals. Keeping these files secret is wrong and collusion with criminal acts.

"It is no use Benedict meeting victims of sex abuse if he is not willing to hand over his own bulging Vatican files on clerical abusers.”

Now they have thought up yet another idiocy - but a guaranteed 'demand in perpetuity' that they can always use as a club in the media! Go find any court in the world that will order confidential files surrendered to any Peter, Dick and Terry who have no direct involvement in the cases or have any status at all to make such a demand!

They're borrowing a ploy from the anti-Pius XII brigades - except that there is no basis to even consider their request. Because even assuming that it could be done, without prejudice to the complainants, and especially the priests against whom complaints have been unsubstantiated, they will always say, "You're not showing everything!" while ignoring any positive facts that emerge in the Vatican's favor. Just as the anti-Pius XII Jews have completely ignored all the positive evidence for Pius XII in the Holocaust issue, and just keep demanding, 'Show us the documents you are hiding!"

He added: “We reiterated to Archbishop Smith that we have always been committed to peaceful, lawful protests. He accepted our assurances.”

Archbishop Smith said in a statement: “We had an open and frank discussion on the issues of child abuse, homosexuality and the status of Pope Benedict’s visit as a state visit. I undertook to report back to my fellow bishops the particular concerns raised.”

Meanwhile, Benedict XVI declared during his weekly general audience at the Vatican: “I can't wait to undertake my trip to the United Kingdom in a week's time and I send heartfelt wishes to the people of Britain.”

He said he was aware that preparation for the controversial visit had required “a vast amount of work” by Catholics, the British Government and local authorities in Scotland, Birmingham and London.

"Above all I thank the countless people who have been praying for the success of the visit and for a great outpouring of God's grace upon the Church and the people of your nation."

He said he was sorry he could not "go everywhere and meet everyone" but that he looked forward to “meeting representatives of the many different religious and cultural traditions that make up the British population”.

The Pope said it would be "a particular joy" to beatify the Anglican convert Cardinal John Henry Newman.

"This truly great Englishman lived an exemplary clerical life and through his many writings made a fundamental contribution to the Church and society, both in his native country and in many other parts of the world," Benedict said.

The Pope begins his visit next Thursday in Edinburgh where he will be received by the Queen and senior politicians at Holyroodhouse Palace before celebrating Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

He will visit London for two days where his schedule includes a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, an address to MPs and religious leaders at Westminster Hall and a prayer vigil in Hyde Park.

The Pope will beatify Cardinal Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on Sunday September 19, bringing the 19th century clergyman a step closer to sainthood.


Anna Arco at Catholic Herald had a much more rounded report, but I like her last paragraph best:

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The chief constable in charge of security for the visit has said that anyone attempting to arrest the Pope will be arrested themselves and that police officers are being given instructions on how to deal with protesters attempting a citizen’s arrest.

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Since it turns out that the meeting with Mons. Smith was held at Scotland Yard, and arranged by the police, the police probably made that intention clear to the protesters earlier, which would best account for their about-face!

Protesters tell archbishop
'we will not disrupt papal events'
By Anna Arco

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark has said he has been assured that protesters will not disrupt papal events next week.

Speaking after meeting leaders of the Protest the Pope coalition earlier today, Archbishop Smith said the Church had been given a “very clear assurance that those seeking to ‘protest the Pope’ have no intention of disrupting any of the events during the papal visit”.

He said: “We had an open and frank discussion on the issues of child abuse, homosexuality and the status of Pope Benedict’s visit as a state visit. I undertook to report back to my fellow bishops the particular concerns raised. I am extremely grateful to DCI Chris Lundrigan and his staff for hosting and facilitating a candid meeting.”

He denied reports that the Church had called the meeting, saying it had been arranged by police.

The organisers of the Protest the Pope movement are planning a rally at Hyde Park Corner, central London. Reports have said that similar attempts at organising a rally in Scotland have failed.

Archbishop Peter Smith told the BBC Radio 4 programme World at One: “I listened to what they said but I said to them that they didn’t quite understand the Church or what sort of files the Vatican might have. And I made the point quite properly that child abuse is dealt with by the local bishop.”

The meeting was held at New Scotland Yard and included Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association, Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society and Peter Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner and leader of OutRage!

Mr Tatchell said protesters had never planned to disturb papal events. [Yeah, right! Didn't they have that much-publicized Richmond meeting where they said they planned to blckade the papal route to Twickenham for the Pope's events with schoolchildren and various religious leaders??? And how did they expect to 'arrest' the Pope without 'disturbing the papal events?]

He said: “We have always said that our protests will be peaceful and lawful. There has never been any question of disrupting events.” [Very simply: YOU LIE!, asa\ a congressman shouted out to Obamawhen he 'mis-stated fact' in a speech to the joint Houses of Congress!]

According to reporters who waited outside New Scotland Yard, Mr Tatchell said he had promised not to arrest the Pope during the visit.

Mr Tatchell and others, including Geoffrey Robinson QC, have threatened to arrest the Pope for alleged crimes against humanity. Mr Robinson has drawn up what he describes as a legal case for Pope Benedict’s arrest. [Some hotshot barrister Robinson is! Another case of ego and arrogance nullifying common sense. Even a non-lawyer would know he doesn't have a case if his main argument is that the Vatican is not a state, so the Pope does not enjoy the immunity of a head of state!]

The chief constable in charge of security for the visit has said that anyone attempting to arrest the Pope will be arrested themselves and that police officers are being given instructions on how to deal with protesters attempting a citizen’s arrest.


And there's this timely reminder from William Oddie, a former editor of te Catholic Herald, on his blog today.

Distressed by the atheist onslaught?
Get a grip of yourself
This is how things are meant to be
by WILLIAM ODDIE

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

...The present wave of hostility directed towards the Pope and the Church may be utterly unreasonable; but its basis is a rejection of everything we stand for: and it is a rejection from which our culture had never really withdrawn.

It may all be unpleasant, even distressing; but difficult though it may be to realise it now, this present hostility is to be welcomed: it means that we are beginning once more to count for something.

The atheists’ utter loathing, all the same, is at times a little frightening in its sheer vicious irrationality. These people are in the grip of a barely restrained hysteria.

[You're too kind, Mr. Oddie, I call it full-blown dementia - the spectacle of supposedly civilized people literally driven out of their minds and common sense by a Pope who is more erudite and accomplished than any of them, leads 1.2 billion people, and professes a faith that has stood rock-solid and consistent for over 2000 years, despite the worst that the world has tried against it. Who in the world, literally, can match Benedict XVI? And we're not even talking of his personal holiness.]

Take the current issue of the New Humanist, subtitle: “Ideas for godless people”; this issue gives a good idea of what it must be like being godless, and at least it makes you grateful not to be godless yourself. “If you were invited to address Benedict XVI during his UK visit,” the New Humanist introduces its special issue, “what would you say to him? Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner, Ben Goldacre and many more take part in our Pope quiz.”

Claire Rayner’s offering gives a good idea of the tone and the rational level at which these contributions are conducted: “I have no language with which to adequately describe Joseph Alois Ratzinger, AKA the Pope. In all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature. 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 that means is not explained).

[Brendan O'Neill, of course, commented brilliantly yesterday on Rayner's rant, which almost makes me ashamed I am female (but the Joan Chittisters of America have not been any less unhinged when talking about Benedict XVI)! Sometimes, I think all the Benedict-bashing is, on a certain level, sheer Pope envy! Even in the improbable event that Richard Dawkins wins a Nobel Prize or becomes Prime Minister, say, no one will ever show him anything approaching the preparations and attention that a papal visit anywhere is given! No one will follow his website with 3 million hits a day as the Vatican has.]

This is all horrible for anyone who regards Pope Benedict with the admiration and love most Catholics feel for him; and I find myself almost wishing that the decision had been taken to beatify Cardinal Newman in St Peter’s Square and not a muddy field, and for the Pope to be spared this dreadful business of a state visit.

But things are as they should be. [Yes, Benedict XVI wanted this trip, and he would have made it even without the official invitation from the Government. He wishes it above all to personally beatify John Newman and thereby confirm the faithful of England, Wales and Scotland in their faith by reminding them of the faith manifested by the kind and gentle parish priest of Birmingham who became a cardinal after three decades of humble parish work - for all his great reputation as a scholar and writer - and will most likely end up a Doctor of the Church.]

As I remarked in my last post, nobody said that being a Catholic was easy. And when the Church is being faithful to her mission, this is how the world will regard her. Oh, and this has nothing whatever to do with child abuse; our enemies know that the evidence is that we are no worse than representative of society as a whole (shameful enough though that is).

When things get rough, as they will, first say a quick prayer for the Holy Father, then say to yourself the magic words “Luke 6: 22”; or, if you have time, the whole verse: “Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.” You might add (verse 26): “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

That’s the deal. Get used to it.

The BBC has posted quite a number of stories on the papal visit in the past two days but has not seen fit to create a special section for it, so I've cobbled together a sort of banner for the Beeb's features between now and Sept. 19 from some of the elements in the stories they have posted.



First, a good overview of the visit:

The Pope's visit
at a glance
Sept. 8, 2010

Pope Benedict will arrive in the UK on 16 September for a four-day visit - the first official trip by a serving pontiff since 1982.

There will be three main events - in Glasgow, London and Birmingham - but these will only be open to people who are part of a group from a Catholic parish and have already obtained tickets.

Anyone else hoping to see the Pope in the flesh will have to join the crowds on the streets of Edinburgh and Westminster when he travels through in the Popemobile.

Several events will be televised and will also be streamed live on the official Papal visit website.

THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
SCOTLAND

1030 BST: Pope's Benedict's flight from Rome's Ciampino airport due to land in Edinburgh.

1100 BST: The Pope will be welcomed by the Queen and other members of the Royal Family at Holyrood House. The city council says the public will not be able to view him on his journey from the airport to the palace.



1230 BST: He will take part in the St Ninian's Day Parade through Edinburgh in the Popemobile, travelling from Regent Road and along Princes Street.

Tens of thousands of people, including invited school and community groups, are expected to line the route. Road closures will be in place in the area and some bus services will be suspended during the parade.

Events in Edinburgh will be televised live on the BBC.

1730 BST: Open-air mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow - the largest organised event of the trip. An invited audience of up to 100,000 people is expected to attend the event, which organisers say will cost up to £1.5m to put on. Each pilgrim has been encouraged to give a contribution of £20.

The Mass will take place in the southern section of the park, in the area facing Mosspark Boulevard. Entry for those attending begins at 1000 BST.

Before the service begins, Britain's Got Talent star Susan Boyle will sing the hymn How Great Thou Art, as well as her signature song, I Dreamed A Dream. She will sing again as Pope Benedict leaves the park after the Mass. Michelle McManus, winner of Pop Idol 2003, will also sing during the pre-Mass programme, and an 800-strong choir will sing during the service.

2000 BST: The Pope leaves Glasgow airport bound for Heathrow, due to arrive at 2115 BST.


FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
LONDON

Morning: The Pope will visit St Mary's University College, Twickenham, which was founded in 1850 by the Catholic Poor Schools Committee.

As well as several private meetings, he will be greeted by some 3,000 school children and students to celebrate Catholic education - an event which will be broadcast live on the internet - and will inaugurate the John Paul II Institute for Sport at the college.

1600 BST: The Pope will meet the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace in central London.

1710 BST: Later, he will address an invited audience at Westminster Hall.

En route to that address, the pontiff will travel from Lambeth Bridge to Millbank in the Popemobile, but the Metropolitan Police say there will be "limited space and vantage points available" to view this procession. Instead, they are advising those who wish to see the Pope to do so the following day as he travels to Hyde Park.

1815 BST: The Pope will join the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Christian leaders at Westminster Abbey for Evening Prayer. An invited congregation of 2,000 will hear the service. Pope Benedict will also pray at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior and at the Shrine of St Edward the Confessor.


SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
LONDON

1000 BST: The Pope will celebrate Mass in Westminster Cathedral, and will also, from there, greet the people of Wales. According to a Church spokesman: "Sadly, the Pope can't go to Wales because of the pressures of time."

Afterwards he will greet and bless an invited crowd of 2,500 young people in the Cathedral Piazza outside. They will include a representative from every parish in England and Wales, a contingent from Scotland, and a number of volunteers from Catholic youth organisations.

1700 BST: The Pope will visit St Peter's residential home for elderly people in Vauxhall. The Metropolitan Police say this and other pastoral visits are private and by invitation only through the Church.

"The public should not head for these events as there will be no opportunity for them to see the Pope," it said in a statement. "Some of these venues are in built-up residential areas which are not suitable for large numbers of people to descend on at any one time."

1815: About 80,000 people are expected to attend an open-air vigil in Hyde Park. The vigil itself will be for those with pre-arranged tickets only, but before it begins there will be a Popemobile procession along Horse Guards Road, The Mall and Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Corner and then Hyde Park itself.




The Met is advising people wishing to view the motorcade to plan their journeys well in advance to avoid disappointment. Extra trains are being put on to and from the capital, but are expected to be very busy.


SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
BIRMINGHAM

0845 BST: The Pope will leave his accommodation in Wimbledon and fly by helicopter to Birmingham.

1000 BST: An invited audience of 65,000 will watch as the Pope's beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman takes place in Cofton Park. Extra trains will be put on, although most pilgrims are expected to arrive in coaches from their parishes.

The venue will open at 0200 BST with morning worship at 0810 BST. The beatification mass itself will continue until approximately 1200 BST.

Birmingham Council says those without a ticket are "advised to avoid the area around the park on Sunday 19 September" and watch the event on television instead. It is expected to be broadcast on BBC2 and BBC Radio 4.

The council says there are no plans to screen the Mass in any public spaces in or around the city [WHY NOT????], although parishes are being encouraged to organise their own screenings in community halls.

Afternoon: Following a lunch, the Papal visit will conclude with a private meeting between the Pope and the bishops of England, Scotland and Wales in Oscott College.

1815 BST: Following a short ceremony at Birmingham airport, the Pope will depart for Rome.

Apropos, the official papal visit site gives a bit more detail about the Popemobile routes:

---

Popemobile guide

Thursday 16 September, Edinburgh
At around 12.30 pm the Pope will travel in the popemobile from Holyrood Palace along Abbeyhill, Regent Road, Princes Street, Lothian Road, Tollcross and Morningside to Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s official residence.

Friday 17 September, London
At around 17:00 the Pope will travel in the popemobile from Lambeth Palace across Lambeth Bridge and along Millbank, the Pope arrives at the Palace of Westminster at around 17:15. There will be limited space along this route and limited vantage points from which to see the Pope.

Saturday 18 September, London
At 18:00 the Pope will travel in the popemobile along Horse Guards Road, The Mall, Constitution Hill and Hyde Park Corner before arriving at Hyde Park for the Prayer Vigil at around 18:30.

The Metropolitan Police said:
“While security issues will be paramount, the Met Police is working with HM Government, event organisers and other partners to ensure routes for the popemobile are designed with the aim of affording the public the best possible opportunity of seeing Pope Benedict. Those wishing to see the Pope are advised to plan their trips well in advance and head for the central London Popemobile routes to avoid disappointment.”

---

An acknowledgment of the Pope's pre-visit message at the GA today:

Pope Benedict XVI blesses
UK population ahead of visit
Sept. 8, 2010


Pope Benedict XVI has blessed the people of the UK ahead of his visit to Scotland and England next week.

The Pope gave thanks for the work that has been carried out to make his visit a success and said he was "very much looking forward" to his four-day trip.

Speaking from Rome, he sent his "heartfelt greetings" to Britain.

Secular groups have been angered by the visit. Earlier, the Protest the Pope campaign promised not to disrupt the visit with their demonstrations.

The Pope is to arrive on 16 September, the first papal visit since 1982.

The Pope said: "I am aware that a vast amount of work has gone into the preparations for the visit... and I want to say how much I appreciate the efforts that have been made to ensure that the various events planned will be truly joyful celebrations."

The Pope acknowledged that the preparations were not just the work of the Church and also thanked "the government, the local authorities in Scotland, London and Birmingham, the communications media and the security services".

"Above all I thank the countless people who have been praying for the success of the visit and for a great outpouring of God's grace upon the Church and the people of your nation."

The Pope is due to begin his visit in Edinburgh where he will be received by the Queen before celebrating Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

He will spend two days in London, where he is due to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, give an address at Westminster Hall and hold a prayer vigil in Hyde Park.

On Sunday 19 September, the Pope will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham.

The blessing will bring the revered 19th Century clergyman one step closer to sainthood.

But the visit has also triggered controversy.

Earlier, leaders of the Protest the Pope campaign spoke to the Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Rev Peter Smith, at Scotland Yard amid concerns the pontiff's visit could be disrupted.

In a statement after the meeting, the Most Rev Smith said he had been given a "very clear assurance" the campaigners have "no intention" of disrupting any of the events.

"We had an open and frank discussion on the issues of child abuse, homosexuality and the status of Pope Benedict's visit as a state visit," he said.

Many people are also criticising the fact that the visit will be substantially funded by the taxpayer.

Some 77% of Britons think taxpayers should not help pay for the visit, a survey has suggested.

The online poll of 2,005 adults issued by think tank Theos also found 79% had "no personal interest" in his visit.

The cost to UK taxpayers, previously estimated at £8m, could rise to between £10m and £12m.

The Catholic Church is also expected to make a contribution of between £9m and £10m towards the costs, which does not include an expected multi-million pound bill for policing the visit.

It will be the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II's 1982 trip.





And the inevitable comparison game, with an obvious 'erroneous' headline because one visit has yet to take place!


The UK visits of Benedict XVI
and John Paul II compared
By Michael Hirst
Sept. 8, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI will next week become the first head of the Catholic Church to pay a state visit to the UK.

Much has changed since Pope John Paul II toured the UK - on a pastoral visit - in 1982, and the forthcoming trip has not been short of controversy. How do the two compare?

The men
During his four-day visit, Pope Benedict will meet the Queen, politicians and religious leaders, deliver a dozen speeches or homilies, preside at public Masses in Glasgow, Birmingham and London, and a prayer service in Hyde Park.

But this visit is expected to be a lower-key affair than that of his predecessor. Dubbed "the rock star Pope", John Paul II was handsome and charismatic, known for theatrical flourishes such as kissing the ground when he got off his plane.


Left, John Paul II's itinerary on his 1982 visit (May 28-June 2). Photos at right, from top to bottom: Arriving in Gatwick airport; Mass at Wembley Stadium, London; Mass at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.

Some said the Polish Pope's UK visit - the first by the head of the Catholic Church - was the biggest event for British Catholics since emancipation in the 1820s.

He was hailed as a hero in the battle against communism, and during his six-day tour of England, Scotland and Wales, nearly 2m people flocked to see him at venues including London's Wembley Stadium, Glasgow's Bellahouston Park and Cardiff's Ninian Park.

Benedict XVI - who is two decades older than his predecessor when he visited - is quieter and more scholarly by comparison.

He gained a reputation as an enforcer in his previous role as John Paul II's doctrinal chief, and is as unbending as his predecessor on issues such as condoms, women priests, and priestly celibacy.


The Church
At the time of John Paul II's visit, Catholicism was still enjoying a resurgence following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. [A liberal myth. The church was never more in doctrinal, liturgical and disciplinary chaos. These were also the years when the pedophilia affliction was peaking, which all the retrospective articles today about the 1982 papal visit completely ignore. But then even at the floodtide of their obsessive reporting on 'pedophile priests', they preferred to blur the timelines and leave the impression that all the cases emerging were fairly recent instead of going back decades to the 1970s-1980s (even the 1960s), the better to associate them with Cardinal Ratzinger whose CDF was not given authority to investigate sex abuse cases until 2001.]

More recently, though, the Church in the UK, as elsewhere, has been mired in scandals over its handling of clerical sex abuse ['More recently though' - there you go! implying outright that the 'scandals' are of recent origin instead of dating back to those years that the MSM now see through falsely-tinted lenses],and its positions on such issues as contraception, abortion, IVF treatment and stem cell research.

Although there were protests against the 1982 visit, this year the umbrella group Protest The Pope has united secular, gay, feminist and other activist groups in a co-ordinated campaign.


The visit
Weeks before John Paul II arrived in Britain, strongly Catholic Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, and Britain dispatched a military task force to the South Atlantic.

The Pope's trip was nearly cancelled as a result, but went ahead on the basis that he would not meet Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

As Pope Benedict's is a state visit, he will meet Prime Minister David Cameron, who is expected to host a state banquet in his honour - though the Pope himself may not attend [Surely, the reporter could have researched that Popes never attend any public dinners, and that even the luncheons they attend, usually with bishops of the host area, are private affairs!], to allow himself time to rest. The trip has been organised by UK bishops in conjunction with government departments.

John Paul II's trip cost around £7m (the equivalent of about £20m today). It was organised - and largely funded - by the Church, which offered free access to papal events.

Benedict XVI's trip is more governed by diplomatic protocol. The government will foot the £10m bill for non-religious elements, which has irked secularist groups.

In a nation still reeling from the global financial crisis, there has been criticism of the high cost of providing security.

Meanwhile, some Catholics have been put off by ticket prices of up to £25 for papal events. Last month, it was reported thousands of tickets were being returned.

There have also been concerns over payment of the Church's share. It is thought to have raised about £5m of an estimated £9m required so far.

Catholic figures have complained about "draconian" security measures being imposed by government officials, while questions have been asked about the Church's organising skills.

Birmingham's Cofton Park was only recently confirmed as the venue for the trip's centre-piece - the beatification of Cardinal Newman - which many, including Church officials, had assumed would happen at the much larger Coventry Airport.


The message
John Paul II's speeches during his visit were written after consultation with British clerics - including the current Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols. They were easily accessible and largely well-received.

Pope Benedict drew huge crowds during a 2008 visit to New York His visit resulted in a rise in UK church attendance, which organisers put down to well-attended, high-profile events which had high-quality liturgies and a positive message that promoted Christian unity.

Vatican watchers suggest the Pope will be less concerned about crowd-pleasing on this trip than on emphasising Catholic values. [When was he ever more concerned about crowd-pleasing' any way????]

"The current Pope wants a leaner Church of true believers," said Robert Mickens, Vatican correspondent for The Tablet, a Catholic newspaper. "He doesn't feel obliged to explain anything he does." [Shows you how the Tablet writers live in liberal la-la land where they are free to make up 'facts' as they please! Imagine saying about Benedict XVI, Of all people, that he does not feel obliged to explain anything he does! Besides, the Church ideally should be made up of true believers, which, in the context of what Christ's one Church is, does not at all imply the blind fanaticism the term generally does.]

But his 16 foreign trips as Pope have been largely successful, drawing huge crowds in New York and even Australia. [How condescending! but at least, the writer assigns a degree of 'success' to Benedict's trips.]


The public
When John Paul II visited, there were around 4.2m UK Catholics (almost 9% of the population) and traditional strongholds were white, Irish, working class, urban areas.

Nearly 2m people flocked to see John Paul II during his 1982 visit to the UK. [Which, it must be mentioned, lasted eight days and took him to 6 cities.]

A 2009 Ipsos Mori poll suggested there were 5.2m Catholics in England and Wales; there are thought to be around 800,000 in Scotland.

This increase has been put down to an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, with urban churches in particular benefiting.

But polls suggest only a quarter of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass. Some churches have closed owing to spending cuts.


The media
Pope John Paul II visited the UK before the days of the internet, 24-hour rolling news, and budget travel. As such, he had a mystique that helped pull in the crowds.

This time wall-to-wall coverage is available of the tour, which will be live-streamed from the visit's official website.

Many may be tempted to follow the Pope's progress from the comfort of their homes, rather than braving the UK's elements for a glimpse of the Catholic leader.

[What Hirst leaves out in this part of the article is the kind of coverage provided John Paul before, during and after the visit. I don't have the time to do the research myself, even if articles from 1982 are online.]

Thursday, Sept. 9, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. PEDRO CLAVER (b Spain 1581, d Colombia 1654), Jesuit, Missionary, 'Apostle to the Slaves'
Born to prosperous and pious parents in a village near Barcelona, Pedro studied at the University of Barcelona and at the Jesuit College in Palma de Mallorca, where he volunteered after 2 years to be a missionary in South America. He was 19 when he left for the New World in 1610, landing in Cartagena, Colombia, a rich port city that was a center of the slave trade that had been flourishing between the Americas and Africa for nearly 100 years. Claver, who was ordained a Jesuit in 1615, took on the mission of his predecessor, Fr. Alfonso de Sandoval, who had devoted himself to serving the sales for 40 years. Pedro assumed care for the slaves as soon as a new slave ship came in, ministering to the sick and exhausted passengers with basic necessities as well as their first instructions in the faith, During the 40 years of his ministry, it is estimated that he instructed and baptized at least 300,000 slaves. At the same time, he became a moral force in the city, preaching in the city square and spreading the Word in the countryside, where he stayed in slave quarters rather than take the hospitality of their masters. Illness kept him inactive in the last four years of his life, but when he died, the city officials ordered a big funeral for him at public expense. He was canonized in 1888, and Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among slaves.
Readings for today's Mass;
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/090910.shtml



OR today.

The OR provides no information on the horse picture!
At the General Audience dedicated to Hildegarde of Bingen,
a message to the people the Pope will be visiting next week:
In the United Kingdom to trace the footsteps of Cardinal Newman

Besides the Pope's message to the UK and his concluding catechesis on Hildegarde von Bingen, other papal stories in this issue are his address to officials of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; his meeting with the Prime Minister of Cape Verde; and his remarks after the performance of the Mozart Requiem in his honor Tuesday evening in Castel Gandolfo. Other page 1 stories: The statement of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog on the Koran-burning proposed by a tiny fringe Christian group in Florida; a look at the current summit of European finance ministers who are deciding the economic future of Europe; and UN concerns over new instability in global food and agricultural prices.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

-Bishops of Brazil (Northeast Sector III, Group 3) on ad-limina visit.


PERSONAL GREETING FROM THE POPE
FOR THE JEWISH HIGH HOLIDAYS
Translated from

Sept. 9, 2010

The Vatican today released the text of Benedict XVI's telegram to the Chief Rabbi of Rome, expressing his best wishes for the Jewish high holidays which began at sundown yesterday with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

---

MOST DISTINGUISHED DOTT. RICCARDO DI SEGNI
CHIEF RABBI OF ROME
JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ROME
GREAT TEMPLE
LUNGOTEVERE CENCI, 00186 ROME


ON THE OCCASION OF ROSH HA-SHANAH 5771, YOM KIPPUR AND SUKKOT, I EXTEND MY MOST HEARTFELT AND SINCERE WISHES TO YOU AND THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ROME, ALONG WITH THE HOPE THAT THESE HOLIDAYS MAY BRING ABUNDANT BLESSINGS FROM THE ETERNAL AND BE A SOURCE OF INTIMATE JOY.

MAY THE WILL TO PROMOTE JUSTICE AND PEACE, SO NEEDED IN TODAY'S WORLD, CONTINUE TO GROW IN ALL OF US.

WITH GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION, I REMEMBER MY VISIT TO THE GREAT TEMPLE [last January]. MAY GOD IN HIS GOODNESS PROTECT THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY AND GRANT THAT TOGETHER, IN ROME AND IN THE WORLD, WE MAY GROW IN RECIPROCAL FRIENDSHIP.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

---

Rosh Hashanah is the first of ten days of atonement culminating with the most important Jwish holiday, Yom Kippur, the feast of Atonement, starting sundown of Sept. 17. A third great feast, Sukkot, or the feast of tabernacles, which commemorates the dwellings used by the Israelites in the desert during the Exodus, begins on sundown of Sept. 22.


Sorry for another very late start today.

Another voice of reason in the British media that is most welcome...

I disagree with many of his teachings.
But those who oppose Pope Benedict's
visit are the real bigots
By Stephen Glover

Sept. 9, 2010


When Pope Benedict XVI touches down in Edinburgh next Thursday at the start of a four-day state visit to Britain, he may be forgiven for thinking he is not particularly welcome. The Devil himself could hardly have got a worse press.

For the first time in my memory, there has been constant coverage in parts of the media, especially the BBC, about the costs to the taxpayer of such a visit, put at some £10 million. At a time of belt-tightening this expenditure is considered by some to be scandalous.

Yet I can’t recall many people querying the costs of previous state visits to Britain. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is a misogynist polygamist, whose corrupt government is now bearing down on a free Press. Very few complained that the red carpet was being rolled out for him, and the fine wines uncorked, when he came here in March.

Worse still, Pope Benedict is being treated in some quarters as though he were a war criminal.

In a newspaper article yesterday, the well-known Leftist barrister Geoffrey Robertson suggested that instead of offering him a state visit we should be preparing a legal case against him because he has not dealt with sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church as robustly as he should have.

In an even more extreme — if not lunatic — vein, the militant atheist and Christian-hater Richard Dawkins suggested a few months ago that he might orchestrate a ‘citizen’s arrest’ of Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain for ‘crimes against humanity’.

Mr Dawkins was only 37, and perhaps too young to contemplate a citizen’s arrest, when the blood-soaked tyrant President Nicolae Ceausescu made a state visit to Britain in 1978, staying at Buckingham Palace with the Queen. But I can’t remember anyone advocating locking up Mr Ceausescu.

Many of the things being said and written about Pope Benedict XVI are not merely discourteous to an 83-year-old man [Thank God for someone who brings this up! I've always found it one of the most deplorable things that hardly no one in MSM seem to have any respect for age, an unthinkable state of affairs in all traditional societies!] who is leader of more than a billion Catholics in the world, not to mention six million in this country. They are also nasty, and reveal disturbing traits of intolerance among this country’s supposedly liberal intelligentsia. [I wouldn't use the verb 'reveal', but 'confirm' - because the liberal intelligentsia in our time have always been characterized by 'free speech for me but not for thee' who are completely oblivious that their intolerance is a fundamental contradiction of everything they profess!]

Let me declare that I am not a Roman Catholic. If I am wholly honest, I suppose that, like many Englishmen brought up on tales of the Spanish Armada and the Roman Catholic Queen ‘Bloody Mary’, I retain a few traces of anti-Catholicism that are largely irrational.
More rationally, as an Anglican whose father was a clergyman in the Church of England, I resent the Roman Catholic view, promulgated as recently as 1896, that Anglican orders are invalid. [They are invalid for the Catholic Church, that's all the Church is saying - not invalid for Anglicans! It is nothing personal, but a historical necessity. Catholic priests and bishops must be ordained by bishops in the apostolic succession - which does not exist in the Church of England, but does in the Orthodox Churches.]

The Archbishop of Canterbury is by this definition little better than a witch doctor. As for the doctrine of ‘Papal Infallibility’, first proclaimed in 1870, that seems barmy. [With all due respect to Glover, he should read up what 'papal infallibility' really means before he pronounces on it so cavalierly!]

Nor do I agree with some of the moral teachings of this Pope, or his charismatic predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on matters such as birth control or women priests or homosexuality, which Pope Benedict once described as a tendency towards an ‘intrinsic moral evil’, though he has on other occasions demonstrated some understanding for gays.

Despite these reservations, which will be shared in varying degrees by lots of people, including many Roman Catholics, I nonetheless acknowledge that Pope Benedict expounds what he believes is Christian doctrine in a courageous way.

Unlike many bishops in the Anglican Church, he does not bend to fashionable secular trends, and holds fast to beliefs which are those of the traditional Church. Isn’t that admirable?

And before he is dismissed as a fuddy-duddy ultra conservative, we should remember that he criticised the Anglo-American imbroglio in Iraq, and recently spoke out against the sudden forced expulsion of Roma gipsies by the French Government. [The point is not the positions he may have taken that are similar to what liberals espouse - but that these positions are always consistent with what the Church teaches, and has absolutely nothing to do with being conservative or liberal!]

Whatever else, Pope Benedict is a humane man.

As for the countless heinous cases of child abuse involving Catholic priests, it can certainly be argued that, like his predecessor, Pope Benedict was slow to grasp the severity and extent of the problem. But despite ingenious attempts to implicate him in some way, there is no evidence at all that he condoned what took place. I believe in the sincerity of his expressions of regret.

Here, surely, is a good, clever and holy man with whom we can disagree on some, or even many, issues.

But he is not a monster and child abuser to be vilified as though he has deliberately committed acts of evil.

In his newspaper article Geoffrey Robertson imagined the Pope ‘engaging in hate-preaching against homosexuals or allowing the Catholic Church to operate a worldwide sanctuary for child abusers’. Who is the extremist here?

I have been trying to puzzle out the sheer bloody-mindedness and unreasonableness of some of the Pope’s critics.

In part it must arise from ancient feelings of fear and hatred about the Vatican and the Papacy which run very deep in this country for well-known historical reasons, and which I have owned up to sharing, albeit in a tiny degree.

But there is something else at work, even more intolerant. It is the voice of secular humanism.

I accept, of course, that lots of secular humanists are tolerant and reasonable people. But there is a hard-core which embraces and promotes atheism with the blind fervour of religious zealots.

Richard Dawkins is my prime exhibit, but there are many others. Such people can just about put up with wishy-washy Anglican clerics who substitute fashionable secular platitudes for traditional beliefs, and often display a very faint faith in God.

What these zealots find detestable in Pope Benedict is not only his utter refusal to buy into their secular liberal beliefs, but also his power and effectiveness in sustaining an alternative, God-based moral system.

Parts of the BBC — the Today Programme on Radio 4, for example — offer the secularist zealots an ever-increasing platform from which to undermine Christian belief. Mr Dawkins is a great favourite.

So is a philosopher called Anthony Grayling, who campaigns against Christianity. He was at it again on the Today Programme yesterday morning.

It is difficult to disagree with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, who recently accused the BBC of ‘a consistent anti-Christian bias’.

The Cardinal noted that the BBC — whose director-general Mark Thompson is, strangely, a Catholic — is broadcasting a programme on the eve of the Pope’s arrival called Trials Of A Pope. He suggested, rightly I am sure, that this will be a ‘hatchet job’.

Notwithstanding all the hatchet jobs that have been executed and others that are planned, Pope Benedict’s visit will probably make a deep impression on many people, including non-Christians.

We may not agree with everything he says, or even with his most fundamental beliefs. But his visit should be welcome because he is something rare in the modern world. A decent man of principle.

Thank you, Mr Glover, for being objective and honest! God bless...


Now some Protestants are joining
the anti-Benedict protesters

Sep., 9, 2010


A new group has announced that it is going to protest against the Holy Father’s visit, the Protestant Truth Society, in co-operation with other Protestant organisations. They plan to protest during Pope Benedict’s attendance at Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Christian leaders. on the 17th September.

According to their publicity "appropriate scriptural placards will be provided. Please don’t come with any third party placards. Specially produced tracts will also be supplied".

Sky News also reports that the Rev Ian Paisley has called on the British Government to cancel the Holy Father’s state visit at this late date.Dr Paisley said of the Pope’s visit: “They are receiving him as a king. He’s not a king.”

Protest the Pope comment: Another fringe group gets in on the act of stepping into the media spotlight around the Pope’s visit. All have one thing in common, they are all militant and they are all marginal to mainstream life in the UK. The only reason why they are getting any attention is due to the media puffing up the controversy and some of the outrageous lies and claims being spread by Protest the Pope. They’re all starting to appear to be members of a grotesque, absurd circus


And here's a necessary context for all these malicious huffing and puffing - the kind of scale, in hard figures, that MSM hardly ever reports in order to make the anti-Pope agitation sound so much more widespread and mainstream than it really is - fringe elements whom the MSM are using as a vehicle to disseminate extreme views they probably share but cannot possibly express on their own lest they be classed with the lunatics...

Police say 'Protest the Pope' estimate
that their demonstration will attract 2,000

Sep., 9, 2010

The Metropolitan Police report that Protest the Pope organizers estimate that 2,000 protesters will march through London on 18th September.

Meredydd Hughes, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, also pointed out that the speed of the Popemobile – described as “fast walking pace” – makes it vulnerable to egg-throwing and other protests.

"We will have a proportional response to any protest. But once you start throwing eggs you are committing a criminal offence,” he said.

Protect the Pope comment: So, after months of being the favourites of the media at most 2,000 people will turn up to make their anti-Catholic demonstration. [Remember all those condom fanatics who had such a great run in the media before the Pope's visit to Sydney in 2008? A few dozen of them actually showed up but who would have noticed them with hundreds of thousands of youth walking from Sydney center to the site of the papal vigil and Mass on the day of their 'big demonstration'?]

On Saturday 18th September the Holy Father will attend the following events in London at which the following numbers of people are expected:
- 3,000 school children at Big Assembly at St Mary’s, Twickenham
- Unknown number at Westminster Hall
- 2,000 people at Westminster Abbey
- 2,500 young people at Westminster Cathedral Plaza
- 80,000 people at Hyde Park Prayer vigil

So here are the figures again just to put the Protest the Pope demo into perspective:
- Protest the Pope: 2,000 people, possibly.
- Pope Benedict: 87,500, approximately.
[Not counting those who will be welcoming him along the known routes to and from these events.]

Also, Protest the Pope earlier abandoned plans for a demonstration in Scotland due to lack of interest.

Now, that's scale and context! But you won't see it in the MSM!.... BTW, I doubt if Dawkins himself will show up at any protest gathering, now that he knows for sure he can't 'arrest the Pope' because the police won't let him! Perhaps 'human rights lawyer' Geoffrey Robinson will show up, though, to sell some copies of his book to the most diehard members of his 'choir'. And get to do it all in front of a readymade worldwide TV audience tuning in for the Pope..



On a happier note, Cardinal O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has come up with a second innovation for this papal visit. After having thought up the St. Ninian's Day parade and historical reenactments on the day the Pope arrives in Edinburgh, he also commissioned a tartan for the Pope. (Though I can think of only two ways the Pope himself could make use of the tartan - as a lap blanket or Snuggies when he is relaxing on cold nights, I am sure many religious schools could use it for a uniform. The tartan has always been a favorite reliable for the skirts of girls' uniforms and for caps, vests and shorts for schoolboys...)


Custom Scottish plaid created
to celebrate papal visit



GLASGOW, United Kingdom, Sept 9, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- A traditional plaid Scottish design, or tartan, has been created to commemorate the Pope's visit to Great Britain this month. The North Carolina creator of the design said the interlocking pattern of stripes tells the story of the Catholic Church in Scotland while interweaving elements of next week's trip.

With just a week remaining before the Holy Father's arrival to the nation's two major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Scottish Church announced the novelty of the first ever papal visit tartan on Thursday. Matthew Newsome, director of the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin, North Carolina, drew it up especially for the Sept. 16 occasion.

"Thrilled" that his design was chosen to be woven by a pair of Scottish companies for the trip, Newsome said that every element of the multi-color traditional pattern has a meaning behind it.


Cardinal O'Brien shows off the Benedict tartan, with a bagpipe player clad in full tartan!

The tartan's "white line on blue field draws upon Scotland's national colors while the green reflects the lichens growing on the stones of Whithorn in Galloway," he said, explaining that it was there that the missionary St. Ninian arrived 1,600 years ago.

St. Ninian's feast day will be observed in a very special way this year as it coincides with the arrival of the Pope in Scotland.

Red lines also accompany the white lines, said Newsome, which is in remembrance of the colors of Cardinal John Henry Newman's crest, and thin yellow lines were also put alongside the white to reflect the colors of the Holy See.

He added, "(i)n terms of the weaving, each white line on the green contains exactly eight threads, one for each Catholic diocese in Scotland. There are 452 threads in the design from pivot to pivot, representing the number of Catholic parishes."

The design was presented by Cardinal Keith O'Brien and Newsome to members of Scottish parliament on Thursday afternoon. Every one of the 129 members received a tie or scarf with the design.

Cardinal O'Brien noted, “It’s a great honor to be able to hand over the first ever tartan created for a Papal Visit as a thank you to all the Holyrood parliamentarians who have been so overwhelmingly supportive of this visit, knowing it means so much to the Catholic community and many others in this country.

"I also intend to gift the tartan to the Holy Father only a week from today," he said, adding, "What could give him a greater Scottish welcome than a new tartan created in honor of this historic visit?”

The second book by a Vaticanista this summer to tackle the 'assault on Benedict' in the mass media is scheduled to come out around now in Italy, though I still do not see a blurb on it online. But EUROPA, to which the book author, Aldo Maria Valli (Vatican correspondent for RAI's premier channel) is a contributor, published this excerpt today.

Valli's book title LA VERITA DEL PAPA (The Pope's truth), and this excerpt, indicate that his approach may be more philosophical than investigative and documentary like the Rodari-Tornielli ATTACCO A RATZINGER...


Benedict in the bullseye:
He is the main target in
the attacks against the Church
by ALDO MARIA VALLI
Translated from

September 9, 2010


...Behind the attacks against the Church, there is a precise target: Benedict XVI.

He has been proposing to the contemporary world and its culture a concept as simple as it is revolutionary, which can be summarized as follows: to enlarge the space of reason.

It is not true, he says, that only whatever is experimentable in a scientific way can be rational. Rational is everything that has to do with human nature, even those aspects that we cannot demontrate with mathematical formulas or with laboratory experiments.

And rational is also to believe in a God who created man in his image and likeness out of pure love.

The Pope's other proposal arises from this, and it is addressed to those who do not believe in God: to live as if God exists.

In the Age of Enlightenment, man sought to codify some fundamental moral norms etsi Deus non daretur - as if God did not exist. Done with religious wars and the political use of religion, mankind [in reality, only the 'enlightenened' Westerners!] sought to discard the God hypothesis in the name of intellectual freedom.

But today, in an age when the decline of Christian vlaues exposes man to the risk of self-destruction, the perspective must be turned upside down: because even non-believers, if they think the search for God is a rational undertaking, live as though a supreme regulatory entity exists. An idea that could be pursued in a contemporary 'courtyard of the Gentiles'.

The monks who in the Middle Ages brought about the construction of Europe during a time of chaos (as Benedict recalled in his address at the College des Bernardins in Paris in September 2008) succeeded in elaborating a new culture because they had a thirst for the absolute and because they were seeking God.

It is a valid lesson even today, because in every epoch, cultures have been built on the search for God and the willingness to listen to him.

To bring back order into the Church and clean it up is the other great task that Benedict XVI has set for himself - beginning with his denunciation of the 'filth in the Church' on Good Friday of 2005 - and which led him to send out clear signals - as his unequivocal condemnation of sexual abuses committed by priests and religious; his repeated injunction against internal enmities and careerism; and the apostolic investigation of the Legionaries of Christ which brought to clear light "the extremely serious and objectively immoral behavior of their founder", Fr. Marcial Maciel.

With his modest ways and reserved nature, the humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord has not spared himself. And he has done all he can in the name of truth.

This, of course, has put him on a collision course with those who do not wish to unite but to divide and do not wish to bring light but shadows....






Last August 25, one of the persons who had a brief audience with the Holy Father after the General Audience in Castel Gandolfo was Adriano Stefanelli, the custom cobbler from the northern Italian city of Novara who has been making shoes for Benedict XVI, as he did for John Paul II.



But it was his first meeting with Benedict XVI, to whom he presented two new pairs of red shoes. Bruno Mastroianni, who has resumed his Thursday blogs, uses a statement made by Stefanelli after that audience as a metaphor for this commentary:


The Pope's well-worn shoes
a symbol of Benedict's style
Translated from

Sept. 9, 2010


Without knowing it, Adriano Stafanelli, the Novara shoemaker who has made the red shoes for Benedict XVI since he became Pope, provided one of the best descriptions of Benedict XVI's 'style'.

Emerging from his private audience with the Pope last August 25, he said: "I noticed that the shoes the Pope was wearing were well-worn - it's a sign that he is comfortable in them, that they are good for him".

Obviously, many of those who are swirling up the media dust storms in preparation for the Pope's visit to the UK hoping to ruin it have not read Stefanelli.

The man with the red shoes, who walks calmly but decisively, certainly will have no hesitation in setting foot on the secularized soil of the British Isles. Just as he never hesitated at the prospect of even more daunting scenarios in the past - perhaps the UK media have forgotten his visits to the Holy Land, to Turkey and even to ultra-secular France.

Of course, every effort has been taken in the past few months to make sure the world knows how hostile and refractory England is to the Church - controversy and bitter squawking have dictated the headlines of the newspapers along very predictable lines.

But all that - the Novarese artisan would agree - must be considered as nothing but the creases and folds that shoes acquire as they are worn. Let us heed Stefanelli because he knows about shoes and walking in them.

The signs that have so far seemed to be nothing more than scratches and scuffs on the Pope's red shoes as he moves forward attest to the goodness of the product. Because it is precisely on terrain that is most unforgiving and corrosive that the Pope walks most surely bearing his message of faith.

I am wary of every article that comes out now in the UK media about Benedict XVI - and I had a sinking feeling when I saw the title for this one. After five years, I still find it remarkable how the same stereotypes keep cropping up again and again. As though the media simply prefer to cut and paste same-old-same-old over and over, instead of actually thinking things through - and afresh - so they can say something original, honest and truthful. It beats me why 'man of the sacristy' should be used in this article as though it were pejorative...


Benedict XVI, 'a man of the sacristy',
walks in the shadow of John Paul II
by EAMON DUFFY

Sept. 8, 2010


The state visit this month of a reigning Pope to Britain is a historically charged event, for Britain is officially, even constitutionally, anti-Catholic.

The Church of England was called into being by Henry VIII to embody the claim that “the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm”.

The Act of Settlement of 1701, still in force, excludes “for ever” from the succession to the throne not merely any Roman Catholic, but anyone married to a Roman Catholic.

Till relatively recently, Guy Fawkes Day celebrations of the nation’s deliverance from “Gunpowder Treason” might include the burning of the Pope in effigy, a practice that continues every November 5th in the south coast town of Lewes.

Catholics were for centuries the hated other, against whom a single national identity might be forged for the disparate Protestant peoples of the archipelago: 'Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks', as the British national anthem has it (in a verse usually tactfully omitted nowadays).

That demonisation was assisted in Victorian England by the flooding of the English, Scottish and Welsh Catholic communities by hordes of Irish immigrants. Catholicism now looked literally as well as notionally “foreign” – dirty, disease-ridden and disloyal, as well as religiously benighted.

Time, social mobility and, not least, the atrophying of the Protestant convictions that once fuelled anti-Catholicism, have changed all that. Catholics have colonised the establishment.

The English Catholic community has always encompassed a core of ancient families – the “Brideshead” phenomenon. It now includes a newer kind of elite, represented by a millionaire ex-prime minister, and the current director general of the BBC.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, the cardinal archbishop of Westminster was an aristocratic ex-public school housemaster, whose brother-in-law was secretary to the cabinet, and whom the Queen liked to call “my cardinal”.

The papal state visit is remarkable nonetheless, not least because the invitation to make it was issued by a Prime Minister who is also the son of a minister of the Kirk of Scotland.

Mr Brown’s motives are not altogether clear. He may in part have been seeking to mend political fences. English, Welsh and Scottish working-class Catholics have traditionally voted Labour, an allegiance weakened in the long term by the rise of the Catholic middle classes, but more ominously by recent frictions between the Catholic hierarchy and New Labour over “life” issues, education policy, and the impact on Catholic social and adoption agencies of what the church sees as doctrinaire equal rights legislation.

The invitation to the Pope may therefore have been intended as an olive branch. But Brown’s invitation is more likely to have sprung from a recognition of the Pope’s standing as leader of the world’s largest religious collective, encompassing more than a billion people, most of them in the developing world.

He is aware, too, of the Church’s unique role as a powerful international pressure group for human rights and development issues, and the world’s largest and most diversified humanitarian agency.

If so, not everyone in Britain shares that perception. The English, Scottish and Welsh Catholic bishops have so far weathered the storm over clerical abuse better than their beleaguered Irish counterparts, but in Britain as elsewhere, the Church’s moral credibility has nonetheless taken a battering.

An often rancorous hostility to Catholicism is becoming fashionable again among the British intelligentsia, and is an increasingly noticeable feature of opinion-forming journalism.

Irresponsibly casual condemnations of priests en bloc as a danger to children, or claims that the Pope’s opposition to condoms as a preventative against Aids makes him a mass murderer, surface routinely, and have replaced evocations of the Armada or Gunpowder Treason as the ritual constituents of a resurgent no-popery.

At the sillier end of the spectrum, there have been calls for the arrest of the Pope as soon as he sets foot on British soil, and there have been rumblings in the Letters pages that taxpayers must foot the security bill for protecting a religious leader whose teachings are so much at odds with the dominant mores of modern Britain.

British Catholics are keen to make the Pope welcome, but they are perhaps apprehensive about just how successfully Benedict will address this delicate situation, not least in his speech to representatives of “civic society” in Westminster Hall.

Even among the faithful, Benedict’s coming has elicited neither the widespread enthusiasm nor (on present indications) the vast and admiring crowds that marked the visit of his charismatic Polish predecessor in 1982. [First of all, the tickets given out for Benedict XVI's three public events are a fraction of those that were issued for John Paul's events. Example: 100,000 for Bellahouston Park against 300,000 in 1982. And how can Duffy judge the crowds before the Pope has even arrived?]

John Paul II was manifestly a giant on the world stage, his life story one of titanic struggle against 20th century Europe’s two great tyrannies, he himself a key player in the collapse of the Soviet empire.

His social and moral views elicited no more enthusiasm from the secular world than those of Joseph Ratzinger, but his craggy integrity, mesmeric personal presence and mastery of crowds made him formidable even to those who rejected his religion.

By contrast, Pope Benedict is an altogether smaller figure, a man of the sacristy and the lecture room.

[Has Duffy just dropped in from Mars? Where was he in the past five years, when Benedict XVI quickly eclipsed John Paul II's audience figures at the Vatican, scored a number of impressive foreign trips, wrote 3 landmark encyclicals and an even more landmark book on Jesus, to mention just a few concrete facts? And where was he in the 25 years before that, when Joseph Ratzinger was arguably the most prolific and best-selling Catholic theologian of the second half of the 20th century? Everyone seems to forget that he came to the Papacy better known internationally before he became Pope than any new Pope in the entire 20th century (Pius XII maybe, but he was Secretary of State in the 1930s long before communications technology made the world a global village)! And that Joseph Ratzinger had solid theological achievements independent of his function in the Roman Curia. I really do not understand why so many Catholic prelates and academics like Duffy appear to forget - conveniently and unpardonably - the extraordinary biography of Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope, and continue treating him as almost 'unworthy' to be wearing the Shoes of the Fisherman after someone like John Paul II. Especially since from all accounts, he was elected Pope precisely because there was no one else who could conceivably step into the shoes of the late Pope with the same authoritativeness and personal holiness!

Kindlier, probably more intelligent and certainly a better theologian than his predecessor, he is also shyer, more anxious, less willing to engage with a culture which he perceives as in denial of its Christian roots, and on a disastrous slide into corrosive moral relativism. ['Less willing'? How can Duffy say that when no one else on the world stage today other than Benedict XVI is engaging that culture?]

Much in Benedict’s analysis of the malaise of western society will trike a chord with thoughtful Christians. But the Pope has repeatedly shown himself maladroit and badly advised in his attempts to promote his views. An academic to the toes of his red papal slippers, he has poor antennae for the likely public perception of his actions and utterances. That was made clear by the hostile reaction to his Regensburg remarks on Islam, and, more recently, by his disastrous though doubtless well-intentioned conciliatory gestures to the holocaust-denying Lefebvrist rebel Bishop Richard Williamson.

[Is Duffy a genuine academic, or is he merely parroting what he reads and hears in the MSM? Does he have no independent judgment? What do the deliberately distorted hijacking of the Regensburg lecture and the irrelevancy of Bishop Williamson's historical ignorance have to do with Benedict XVI's message on the ills of modern society???? And is it the Pope's fault that the media chose to latch on to one sentence instead of reading the rest of what is probably the most seminal intellectual engagement of the decline of Western reason since the Enlightenment, and whose intrinsic worth not even that misleading contrived contretemps over Islam can dim, diminish nor dislodge?]

The reign of Papa Ratzinger has not ushered in the era of ferocious reaction many feared when he was elected, but his own deep reservations about many aspects not only of the modern world but of the modern Church have become increasingly plain.

An ongoing Vatican campaign to downplay the novel and reformist dimensions of the second Vatican Council, and to emphasise continuities with the attitudes and ideas of the age of Pius XII, appears to have his support. [That Duffy chooses as he does to misread the hermeneutic of continuity (also called hermeneutic of reform, by the way), is sheer ideological doggedness. Typically, like most critics of Benedict XVI, who underscore their bias by comparing him unfavorably with John Paul II, Duffy conveniently ignores that John Paul II had the same interpretation of Vatican II, and that in fact, as Cardinal Wojtyla, he had written a book to guide the bishops and clergy of Poland in the right 'reception' of Vatican II.]

His decision in 2007, in the teeth of opposition from most of the world’s bishops, to permit the free use of the old unreformed Latin Mass, seems another straw in the same wind. [Opponents of Summorum Pontificum often toss that line cavalierly, but what evidence do they have that 'most of the world's bishops' opposed the Pope's decision, rather than 'most of the bishops we know"?

Not one opponent has ever answered the obvious question why they should demonize a rite that was in use since 1570 until 1970 when the Novus Ordo came into being, and how a rite that was used until the liturgical reform (ill-advised and even more ill-executed), suddenly became, for them, an object of contempt and derision overnight! They can't even stand it even when no one is forcing them to use or attend it, no one is taking away the Novus Ordo, and all they have to do is let the tradtional rite co-exist with it, as the other lesser-known rites of the Catholic church have co-existed together for centuries and still do!]

It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that the religious high point of the Pope’s visit is to be the beatification in Birmingham of the Victorian intellectual, writer and theologian, Cardinal John Henry Newman.

[That is both a non-sequitur and another instance of insolent ignorance (willful or feigned)] of fact by Duffy, who surely cannot be unaware of Benedict XVI's personal interest in beatifying a man who became one of his intellectual guides since he discovered him at age 19! But as we shall see, Duffy cherry-picks some of Newman's liberal ideas to make it appear that he was the ideological opposite of someone like Benedict XVI!]

Newman, who, among other distinctions, served in the 1850s as first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, in fact had two careers, both of them momentous.

Till 1845, he was the leader of the Oxford Movement, which transformed the Church of England by re-establishing a profoundly sacramental understanding of Christianity within it. And after 1845, when he became a Catholic, Newman went on to formulate a series of brilliantly original theological insights which over the next century would help transform Catholic theology, anticipating some of the key themes of Vatican II.

Though he changed churches halfway through his life, Newman was a profoundly consistent thinker. Most of the key ideas he developed as a Catholic had their roots in his Anglican preaching and writing. He retained deep and enduring friendships with Anglicans.

His most widely read book, the Apologia pro Vita Sua, one of the greatest of all religious autobiographies, was written 20 years after his conversion, but focused almost exclusively on his Anglican years.

His beatification is therefore the ratification of a deeply and distinctively English sensibility and theological method. It is an ecumenical gesture in itself, at a time when relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church are sorely in need of such gestures. [Surely Duffy knows that the timing for the beatification was completely independent of Anglicanorum coetibus - unless beyond the grave, Newman had decided to intercede for Jack Sullivan and knew God would grant the favor of healing him just in time for Benedict XVI to decide on accommodating disaffected Anglicans! Do these ideologues ever read back what they write before submitting it for publication?]

Pope Paul VI declined to advance Newman’s beatification, because he thought him a depressive who “had no joy”. By contrast, the present Pope is a professed admirer who has taken a personal interest in Newman’s cause. At one level, it is not hard to see why.

Like Pope Benedict, Newman devoted much intellectual energy to a sustained critique of the drift towards moral and religious relativism which he saw as the main intellectual danger of his day. An ardent believer in the objective reality of revelation and the claims of an informed conscience, he was by his own account a dedicated enemy of “liberalism”.

Yet labels can be deceptive. In terms of the inner politics of contemporary Catholicism, Newman himself was a liberal, and his vision of a healthy church was in many respects the antithesis of Pope Benedict’s. Though punctiliously loyal to the papacy, Newman was a vocal opponent of the definition of papal infallibility in 1870, which he thought unnecessary and a burden to consciences. He denounced the “aggressive and insolent faction” of Ultramontanes who centralised Catholicism too much on Rome.

He deplored clericalism, worked to create an educated and active laity, and argued for greater freedom for theology within the Church.

“Truth,” he wrote, “is wrought out by many minds, working together freely.” He detested, and himself suffered from, trigger-happy dogmatists who tried to pre-empt intellectual exploration by invoking pat formulae and ecclesiastical denunciations.

Structures of authority gave the Church strength, he conceded, but did not give it life: “We are not born of bones and muscle.” [And yet, just the other day, Duffy's colleagues at Commonweal were chastising Benedict XVI for agreeing with Hildegarde von Bingen that true reform does not come from structural changes but from renewal through self-purification.] Truth was objective, but had to be sought out by the heart and conscience as well as by the head, and he took as his motto as a cardinal the phrase of St Francis de Sales, “Heart speaks to heart.”

Like Pope Benedict, Newman believed that British society was in danger of cutting itself adrift from the Christian values that had given Europe and the West their distinctive religious, moral and aesthetic character.

But he also believed the slide into relativism would not be halted by mere denunciation. [The use of the word "But' following the previous statement would seem to indicate that Duffy is drawing a comparison between Benedict and Newman in this respect - as though Benedict were simply making his point by 'mere denunciation'!]

If Christian values were to survive and prevail, they must commend themselves by their intrinsic power and attractiveness. [And how does that differ from Benedict XVI's repeated exhortation that Christians, especially priests, must teach and attract by example??In this respect, h? He has often quoted Paul VI who said, in effect, that the world will learn from witnesses to Christ whose life examples teach, and not from teachers who are merely teachers.]

Modern materialism, he wrote, must be met “not by refutation so much as by a powerful counter-argument . . . overcoming error not by refutation so much as by an antagonist truth”.

When Pope Benedict addresses British “civil society” in Westminster Hall on September 17th, he will stand on or near the spot on which Thomas More was tried and condemned.

More’s defiant declaration to his judges that, “I am not bound, my lords, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm, against the general council of Christendom . . . these thousand years” is an appropriate text for a Pope intensely conscious of the potential for offence in his deeply counter-cultural message.

But many who wish both him and his message well will also want him to take his lead from the man whom he is to declare blessed two days later, and concentrate not on denunciation but on commending the Christian “antagonist truth” by its inherent hopefulness and humanity. [Duffy repeats the implied accusation that Benedict XVI has only been bent on denunciation rather than example, and as though Benedict XVI had ever been less than 'cooperatores veritatis'! As for hopefulness and humanity, Duffy obviously never read Spe salvi nor the two other Benedictine encyclicals!]

Eamon Duffy is professor of the history of Christianity in the University of Cambridge, and a fellow and former president of Magdalene College. His Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes is published by Yale University Press.

I am truly heartsick that so many prominent Catholics, with credentials like Duffy has, persist in tossing off their unadulterated opinions without first testing them for logic and honesty!


Now, contrast Duffy's article and its prefabricated, stereotype-based and ideologically driven pronouncements about Benedict XVI, with this surprising article from today's Catholic Herald, by the man the BBC commissioned to make a documentary about the Pope that we have all presumed will be a hatchet job. It may yet still be one - despite the 'conversion' of the documentary-maker while doing it. PROTECT THE POPE says Mark Dowd is an ex-Dominican and homosexual who, "commissioned by the BBC to make a documentary about the Holy Father for the week of his visit, found it a journey of personal discovery about Pope Benedict and came away with a much more positive vision of the man". Let us pray that the documentary will also reflect this positive vision!


How I changed my mind
about Pope Benedict
By Mark Dowd

Friday, 10 September 2010

June 1945. An exhausted 17-year-old boy has been released from a prisoner of war camp and completes an 80-mile journey back home, eager to see his family and friends. As he descends at sunset from the hills into his home town of Traunstein close to the Austrian border on the feast of the Sacred Heart, he hears music coming from the church of St Oswald. It is almost something from a Hollywood screenplay.

“The heavenly Jerusalem itself could not have appeared more beautiful to me at that moment,” he writes. The teenage Joseph Ratzinger knew that his mother and sister Maria were in the church. You or I might have hastily pulled open the church door and blundered in, scouring the pews in search of eager family reunion.

But what does the present Pope tell us in, Milestones, his short collection of memoirs published in 1997? “I did not want to create disturbance so I did not go in.”

Why not? This was one of a huge list of questions I wanted answers to and one which forms part of a BBC Two film, Benedict: Trials of a Pope, to be shown next week before the arrival of His Holiness on the first ever state visit by a Pope to Britain.

The most fitting person on hand to answer that question was his 86-year-old brother, Georg, now a retired choirmaster and canon at Regensburg Cathedral. Our production team had found a willing intermediary in family friend, Margarete Ricardi, who I met outside his home in the centre of Regensburg.

“How do I address him?” I asked nervously. “Is it OK to call him Herr Ratzinger?”

Margarete’s face betrayed a faint sense of revulsion. “No, no,” she said. “You must call him Herr Domkapellmeister [cathedral choirmaster]. Titles are very important in Germany.”

Clearly. Ninety per cent of my O-level German has all but disappeared, but this word was inserted firmly into my cerebral cortex and duly reappeared five minutes later as we made our introductions.

So what about that reluctance to enter the church?

“My brother has spent his whole life in devotion to the liturgy and knows that it is the central pillar of the Church’s life,” Georg told me. “He knows that if he had gone in, it would have created a disturbance. No, he said a prayer and that was it.”

The young Joseph went home. Father was waiting, and later, that long-awaited reunion with his mother and sister. But if ever a story were to touch on so many important themes in the Ratzinger worldview, it is this one: the respect for the aesthetics of liturgical life, the centrality of order and a strongly held sense of boundaries: and not making yourself “the story”, realising that self-assertion is not a central component of personal freedom.

The making of this film has been something of a voyage of discovery for me. I can’t be the only Catholic in the world who had major apprehensions on April 19, 2005 as the conclave made its decisive choice to elect the first German pope since the 11th century (I don’t count Adrian VI, born in Utrecht in 1459, part of the Holy Roman Empire).

I was worried about whether the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith might be just a little too polarising. I am no expert of conclave arithmetic, but my hunch was that he simply had too many doubters inside the College of Cardinals to get the required votes. Wrong.

And I have been wrong about him, too. It is not that he has changed radically since taking up the papacy; it is simply that when you have to make a one-hour programme on one of the most clever [Inappropriate adjective for Benedict XVI!] and gifted people on the planet you have to look behind the headlines and the angry rants on the blogosphere. In short, you have to do justice to the man as best as you can.

Something similar is going on with Pope Benedict at the moment, as has been occurring with John Henry Newman in recent months. Recognising the brilliant intellectual acumen of an individual often leads to wings, sections of the Church, staking their claim. They want to possess them as “their own”. I can understand why.

But there are occasionally rare moments when these drives towards colonising the output of a gifted mind simply fail on account of the sheer dynamism and multi-facetedness of the individual concerned. So Pope Benedict’s uncompromising language on homosexuality, his disciplining of liberation theologians, and 2007 Motu Proprio on the Old Rite of the Roman liturgy all have conservatives ticking their boxes and approving.

But how then to deal with some rather contradictory evidence ['contradictory' only if one insists that a principled man's choices can always be pigeonholed into pre-conceived categories, and they can't be! Joseph Ratzinger's views cannot be labelled 'conservative' or 'liberal' according to prevailing thought, but simply Christian and rational] - not least of all his championing of workers’ rights in Caritas in Veritate and his uncompromising critique of neo-liberal economics?:

“I would like to remind everyone, especially everyone engaged in boosting the world’s economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity” (italics from the text).

Similarly, those who complain of the betrayal of Vatican II and have this pontificate down as unreservedly restorationist and insular have some explaining to do.

How is it that such a man commands the respect of a towering figure and atheist intellectual such as Jürgen Habermas, so much so that they are prepared to engage in a dialogue in public?

How is it that such a man devotes his first encyclical to a profound discussion of human love and ponders on the potential for Eros and Agape to be a bridge between the human and the divine?

Furthermore, how is it that this Pope has taken every opportunity to emphasise that care for the environment is not some woolly-minded aspect of New Ageism, but an integral part of his theological outlook?

So much so that in January His Holiness called in many of the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See and berated them for the “economic and political resistance” that resulted in the failure of last December’s climate summit in Copenhagen. [Now, that's unwarranted politicization of the Pope's words at the time!]

When I ascended the roof of the Aula Nervi [Aula Paolo VI] just a three-minute walk from St Peters, the charming Vatican architect, Guido Rainaldi, unveiled an amazing sight to me: more than 2,500 solar panels. Low carbon heaven.

Green energy companies have been beating a path to the site and sounding out the idea of using Vatican employees as guinea pigs with their emerging fleet of electric cars and scooters.

“Who knows,” said Signore Rainaldi, “perhaps when we get the first consignment of vehicles, the Holy Father will bless them. Maybe he can take one for a spin?” (The Pontiff does not possess a driving licence, but in theory that is no bar on him hopping on to a scooter.)

That Joseph Ratzinger has not quite lived up to his predictable billing is a point well understood by the Italian senator Marcello Pera, with whom Pope Benedict wrote a book on Europe and culture called Without Roots. When I met Pera in the heart of Rome earlier in the year he told me of the reaction of his fellow legislators.

“There was a huge prejudice,” Pera said. “Everyone was expecting the Rottweiler. I had invited him to address the Senate: this was the first time a cardinal had ever set foot inside the building and they were amazed. He really charmed them.” What exactly was Pera doing, as a godless man, engaging with the Vicar of Rome?

“I wanted these secularists to reflect. They talk about the absolutist nature of human rights, but they have no idea of the basis of where such an idea comes from – namely, that everyone is made in the image of God and deserves respect and has an integrity based on that.”

Pera makes a further point: “Let’s look at this question from a historical point of view. What happened to Europe, when it denied Christianity? We had Nazism, Fascism, Communism, anti-Semitism. That means that when Europe tried to avoid its own roots and so the culture of rights, specially the respect of the human person, Europe finds itself in dictatorship.”

Good for Pera. Can you imagine this from the archpriest of atheism, Richard Dawkins?

But the real delight for me has been in engaging with the writings of this 83-year-old man. The encyclicals have been given deserved space and attention. Yet you have to go back to 1968 for his classic, Introduction to Christianity, a work in which it becomes abundantly clear that, for this gentle and determined Bavarian, that man does not create his own truth through effort and endeavour, but, as he writes:

“To believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world, taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly… to believe as a Christian means understanding our existence as a response to the word, the logos, that upholds and maintains all things.”

There are some wonderful reflections on Moses, the encounter with the burning bush, the voice of God, and the seeds of the understanding of true monotheism – the God who replies, “I am what I am” being a transcendent presence “who cannot give his name in the same way as the gods round about, who are individual gods alongside similar gods and therefore need a name”.

Jump forward almost 40 years and we have volume one of Jesus of Nazareth. I must confess to being daunted by this work as many had started and failed, warning me that it was “hard going”.

Be that as it may, what is genuinely moving about the encounter one undergoes in reading this book is the sheer power and depth of faith in the 335 pages. Forty of those are a flowing meditation on the Lord’s Prayer and the Pope writes with such a direct voice, occasionally moving away from a more formal and academic tone – you almost feel he is in the room, singling you out, speaking to you directly. [Bless you, Mark Dowd! You have read the book in the spirit of faith, as it was meant to be! And yes, no Christian can be unmoved by the reflection on the Lord's Prayer that, also for myself, I found the 'best' part of the book.]

“We must also keep in mind that the Our Father originates from [Jesus’s] own praying,” he writes, “from the Son’s dialogue with the Father. This means that it reaches down into depths far beyond the words… each one of us with his own mens, his own spirit, must go out to meet, to open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox, the word that comes to us from the Son.” And to think that volume two on the Passion, death and Resurrection has already gone off to the publishers…

These books are not exercises of the Magisterium, as Pope Benedict reminds us in the preface to his first volume: “Everyone is free to contradict me. I would only ask for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding.”

That this goodwill has been at times conspicuous in its absence in the run-up to next week’s visit has been obvious for some time. I put that down to a trinity of factors which, when mixed in a heady brew, account for a lot of the reservations: an ever-present strain of anti-Catholicism here in Britain, a small but potent anti-German sentiment and, of course, the understandable raw nerve touched by the seemingly endless crisis of clerical sex abuse.

It is this last factor which deserves some detailed attention and in our BBC film we do our best to take account of how fair it really is to single our Pope Benedict for special criticism.

The man I approached to help me evaluate all this was John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and a man described as having a “maddening objectivity” by the online Catholic magazine Godspy. In a Catholic world of tribal rivalries, Allen is trusted by most to get it right and to be fair. That is why his Vatican contacts are the envy of most members of the fourth estate.

Allen’s take is principally that the bottle is overwhelmingly more full than empty. The Pope has met the victims of abuse on several occasions, made numerous apologies and embraced a zero-tolerance policy for clergy found guilty of abuse. The statute of limitations has recently been extended to 20 years to allow abuse cases to be pursued with greater ease, placing the Catholic Church ahead of many civil authorities in this respect.

Moreover, it was the Pope, shortly after his accession, who moved to isolate Fr Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ, after years of mounting evidence of abuse and corruption, evidence which culminated in a Vatican investigation into his movement.

None of this happened under Pope John Paul II and many have suggested that the then Cardinal Ratzinger would have taken action earlier, but supporters of Maciel acted to block any initiatives. But it is clear this is not a man in denial.

When I spoke to Allen in Rome about the effect all this was having on the Holy Father, he said: “I have spoken to people who work in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who were there in the rooms when case files were being read out loud and they saw the kind of reaction of disgust and horror and shock that washed across the visage of Joseph Ratzinger.

“I don’t think that was for show. This was away from TV cameras in a private room. I think that genuinely does speak to his experience.”

As my quest to understand Joseph Ratzinger gathered momentum a clearer picture was emerging. Far from questions of massive personal culpability, it seemed to me that the implosion of recent cases presents the leader of the Catholic Church with a very heavy personal burden.

This man’s talents are not best served by details of management and structures: he is a first-rate theologian and thinker. As John Allen put it, “There is a root kind of frustration that he must feel. This a mind that is so given to the quest for order, to creating logical links from A to B to C leading to the glories of Christian orthodoxy. Now to be put in a position of governing not only a Church that seems in meltdown in many ways, but a world which changes every 15 minutes as blog sites are refreshed and where the situation to which he is trying to respond is constantly in flux, I think has to be a source of angst.”

But also remember that this is a man whose instincts are also geared to searching for truth. On the recent flight to Fatima in May a posse of journalists on the papal plane took their seats and when one of them asked about any possible links between the predicted sufferings of the Church in the Fatima visions and its present difficulties, Pope Benedict replied with candour: “The greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside, but is born in sin within the Church. The Church thus has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice.”

It was a decisive riposte to those in the Vatican who had sought to blame everything on the media and “idle gossip”. [That, however, is one of those cavalier and unfounded generalizations that MSM has made without ever citing one name at the Vatican who has ever 'blamed everything on the media'. And the reference to 'idle gossip' aimed at Sodano is simply wrong. because Sodano was clearly referring to attacks against the Pope himself, not to the sex abuses committed by priests, when he was adressing his very brief message of support for the Pope in behalf of the College of Cardinals last Easter Sunday.]

As my former prior in the Dominicans, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, told me: “The Pope is just too honest a man to accept the idea that all this is simply somebody else’s fault. He knows it comes from us and that we have to face it. And I find this all very promising and I hope it leads to a more honest church, a more transparent Church and a humbler Church.”

The predictions of an inflexible Vicar of Rome, “God’s Rottweiler”, in 2005 have been misplaced. Many of us got it wrong and I am happy to say so unambiguously.

But I end on this thought. My old novice master, Herbert McCabe OP, was always reminding us of the massive dilemma at the heart of all theology: that as humans we are drawn to God and made to share union with the Creator, but our ability to use words to reference all this is always doomed to failure, given the gap between our finite status and the transcendent force that lies beyond our grasp. T S Eliot puts it best in “Burnt Norton”:

words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

Pope Benedict, shy and retiring man that he is said to be, might be horrified at this suggestion. [No, he will not! He has always made it clear that words that are not backed up by actions are useless, that the Church must not only preach but teach by example!]

But might it be that one of the reasons is he is so hard to categorise, to put into that simple neat box, is that his writings, teachings and insights are an albeit imperfect reflection of that infinity and immutability that is the “peace that surpasseth all understanding”? [And they are necessarily imperfect - but not any less true and sincere - precisely because they are human!]

Mark Dowd’s film, Benedict: Trials of a Pope, will be broadcast on BBC Two on Wednesday September 15 at 7pm.

Friday, Sept. 10, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. TOMAS DE VILLANUEVA (Spain, 1486-1555), Augustinian, Bishop and Confessor
We know him better by the Italian form of his surname since the parish church in Castel Gandolfo is named for him. He was an Augustinian who was a brilliant professor (though he was known to be absent-minded at times) and was considered the greatest preacher of his day, by his example as well as by his words. Elected head of the Augustinian order in Spain, he sent the first Augustinian missionaries to the New World. He was the confessor to Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, who said upon hearing him preach the first time, "This man can move even the stones!" He refused his nomination as Archbishop of Granada but eventually agreed to be Archbishop of Valencia. Known since his university days for his personal austerity, he was devoted to charity all his life. As bishop, hundreds of poor people came to his door every day for food and alms. Sometimes called the Spanish St. Bernard [of Clairvaux] because of his profound theology on Mary, he was also devoted to the welfare of children, defended his diocese from Muslim threats, and brought about public conversions. He died of a heart attack at age 67, and was canonized in 1618, 63 years after his death. His biography was written by his townmate Francisco Quevedo, who was born 15 years after Tomas died, and became one of Spain's greatest literary writers during her Golden Age of Literature. Tomas's complete writings were published in 1881 in six volumes.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/091010.shtml


OR today.

Papal stories on Page 1 are the Holy Father's message to the Chief Rabbi of Rome and the Jewish community for the high holidays, and an essay on the insight into Benedict XVI's personality provided by Michael Mandlik's film celebrating five years of his Pontificate. In the inside pages, an essay by the emeritus Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, on the significance of the Pope's visit to the UK; an article on Cardinal Newman; and the ecumenical aspects of the journey. Page 1 international 'news': a puff piece on Obama's anti-rich class legislation; a UN report on violence in the Congo in the decade 1993-2003; another UN report that says 34 tribes in Brazil's Amazonia are in danger of extinction because of civilization's incursions.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met with

- H.E. Pál Schmitt, President of Hungary, and his delegation.

- Mons. Ottorino Assolari, C.S.F., Bishop of Serrinha, Brazil (Last of the Northeast sector bishops on ad-limina visit
whom the Pope has been meeting individually over the past several days).

- Bishops of Brazil (Northeast sector III) as a group. Address in Portuguese.

The new CATHOLIC VOICES blog site today contains a lengthy rebuttal of something I have not read but which apparently came out in the Independent yesterday
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-catholics-its-you-this-pope-has-abused-2074...
It's a necessary rebuttal, of course, but I wish the writer had provided his/her name, especially since he/she uses the pronoun 'I' and not the editorial 'we'. An anonymous rebuttal does not exactly inspire reader confidence!


An appeal to UK journalists
to show some decency to the Pope
Unsigned

Sept. 10, 2010


I want to appeal to Johann Hari and other columnists in our national press, in the final days before Pope Benedict XVI's visit. I know you are inherently decent people. You are journalists, who value truth, and the search for it, and both the freedom that this requires, and the solemn responsibility that goes with it. You are opposed to reproducing myths without subjecting them to verification; you deplore stories which are baseless, or so distorted that they serve only to obfuscate.

You disapprove, surely, of exploiting the trust that readers put in our press to mislead them, or of fobbing them off with ill-informed, superficial, one-sided arguments. Yet over the next week you will continue to deplore this papal visit, cheering on the protesters.

It is my conviction that if you impartially review the evidence that articles such as Johann's today have tried to claim as justifying that hostility, you will stand in solidarity with Catholics, and open your eyes and ears to what Pope Benedict has to say.

You begin: "For over 25 years, Ratzinger was personally in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the part of the Vatican responsible for enforcing Catholic canonical law across the world, including on sexual abuse. He is a notorious micro-manager who, it is said, insisted every salient document cross his desk. Hans Küng, a former friend of Ratzinger's, says: "No one in the whole of the Catholic Church knew as much about abuse cases as this Pope."

Yet it was not until 2001 that the CDF was put in charge of dealing with the mounting cases of abuse, especially in the English-speaking world. Until then, "policies" on clerical sex abuse, to the extent the Vatican had any, were the responsibility of the Congregation of Bishops.

But the big point you ignore is that it was the bishops in their dioceses across the world who were and are responsible for the actions of their priests, and it was the bishops who acted or failed to act against them.

After 2001, following Pope John Paul II's motu proprio of that year, it is true, Cardinal Ratzinger came to know more about abuse cases than anyone else in the Vatican, but it was his task, each Friday, to review the files on abusive priests which, as result of that motu proprio, had to be forwarded to him from the local dioceses -- to ensure that action would be taken.

He used to call it his Friday penance, and later referred to the "filth" in the Church. He became very aware of the issue, and put in place a series of reforms, which he has continued as Pope, to ensure that abuse cases could no longer be ignored or shelved by bishops.

You go on: "We know what the methods of the church were during this period. When it was discovered that a child had been raped by a priest, the church swore everybody involved to secrecy, and moved the priest on to another parish. When he raped more children, they too were sworn to secrecy, and he was moved on to another parish ... The church insisted all cases be kept from the police and dealt with by their own "canon" law – which can only "punish" child rapists to prayer or penitence or, on rare occasions, defrocking."

The cardinal error you make is to conflate the Vatican with the Church present across the world. Do you think the Vatican "micro-manages" 219,655 parishes in hundreds of countries, and decides where its 400,000 priests are sent? Do you imagine that such a management would be possible, even if it were desirable?

What you describe -- abusive priests sometimes being sent to other parishes (usually after therapy, which the "experts" of the time recommended) -- was, so often, sadly true; but it was the bishops who made those decisions.

When you say that "the Church insisted all cases be kept from the police and dealt with by their own canon law", are you referring, then, to some instruction from Rome? There is none. Canon law itself directs obedience to civil law.

And of one thing I can assure you, because it is spelled out in detail in all the independent reports into clerical abuse -- notably two most important ones: the US John Jay Criminal Study of 2004, and the recent Murphy Report into Dublin diocese -- it is that the action and penalties clearly spelled out in canon law were almost never implemented. Indeed, the way that canon law went into abeyance in the 1970s-80s (for various reasons which we shall not dwell on here) is one of the most shocking aspects of the crisis, for it was the Church's own law which demanded that abusive priests face justice; but the path of therapy was time and again preferred.

"Ratzinger was at the heart of this", you say. "He refuses to let any police officer see the Vatican's documentation, even now, but honourable Catholics have leaked some of them anyway."

I'm sorry? At the heart of what? And when has he refused police access to Vatican documentation? Why would the police want that access when these are diocesan files, forwarded to the CDF after 2001? Surely the police can just ask the dioceses for them? And of course they have. Time and again.

Nobody except lawyers attempting to bring a class action against the Vatican has ever claimed that Rome is "concealing" abuse cases; these are all cases which fall under local civil jurisdictions.

You then go on to give three "examples" to try to demonstrate that Cardinal Ratzinger personally obstructed abuse cases.

The first dates back to when he was briefly an archbishop in Germany in the 1980s. The Hullerman case does indeed suggest that -- typical of the time -- a priest was moved to another parish. But nobody has demonstrated that Archbishop Ratzinger was responsible for that decision. And even if he had been, he was still, then, a diocesan bishop, and your attempt to demonstrate a Rome-directed cover-up is not assisted by mentioning this case.

The two other cases you mention, Kiesle and Murphy, are both from the United States and both do involve Cardinal Ratzinger, then CDF prefect, because they concern laicisation, which was and remains the responsibility of the CDF.

In both cases there was a failure speedily to laicise priests who had been guilty of or convicted of abuse (as it happened, in one case, the police prosecuted; in the other, they dropped the case). You draw the quite bizarre conclusion from this that the delay in laicisation enabled these priests to continue abusing. But it is not laicisation which prevents a priest from abusing; it is removal from active ministry.

Removal from active ministry is when a bishop stops a priest from functioning as a priest -- he cannot say Mass, hear Confessions, be a pastor, or administrator of a school, or indeed anything else. Crucially, that act -- removal from act of ministry -- prevents a priest from abusing.

Laicisation is a canonical procedure -- and before you object, let me point out that a state such as the UK has no power to laicise, and that this is purely a canonical process -- which takes from the priest the sacramental power he was given at ordination. The difference between the two should be obvious.

The first, which is the task of the bishop, is the crucial act which prevents further abuse. The second, which is the task of Rome, is entirely irrelevant to whether a priest can abuse or not. I hope that's clear. It is rather important.

Now, as it happens, laicisation is an important action for the Church to take against an abusive priest, because it is very painful for a victim to see that his abuser remains a priest, even if he is not acting as one.

But back in the 1980s-90s, it was impossible swiftly to laicise a priest, because it involved a lengthy legal process. What is more, at the time there were many priests applying to be laicised because they wished to marry, and there was a major backlog.

All the evidence suggests that the letter signed by Cardinal Ratzinger "for the good of the Church" was a form letter which was sent to all priests who had applied for laicisation, for whatever reason, effectively saying: go away and think about it.

Cardinal Ratzinger himself can't have been comfortable about this, because in 2001 -- as result of the reforms introduced by John Paul II -- the CDF made use of new guidelines to introduce a fast-track laicisation for priests guilty of abuse.

The problem, therefore, of a priest being acted against in every other sphere (ie removed from ministry, prosecuted by police) but remaining a priest, was resolved, and nowadays a speedy defrocking is standard practice.

But I repeat, the length of time it used to take to laicise had no bearing on whether a priest was able to abuse. The crucial action was removal from ministry -- a bishop's task.

You say: "In 2001, Ratzinger wrote to every bishop in the world, telling them allegations of abuse must be dealt with 'in absolute secrecy... completely suppressed by perpetual silence'. That year, the Vatican actually lauded Bishop Pierre Pican for refusing to inform the local French police about a paedophile priest, telling him: 'I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration.' The commendation was copied to all bishops."

Let's take this one by one. In 2001 Cardinal Ratzinger updated a document relating to the abuse of sacraments, and especially a particular canonical crime which is entirely unknown in any civil law of any land, namely exploiting the secrecy of the confessional to solicit sexual favours.

The document did indeed demand confidentiality, because investigating such an abuse, as you can imagine, is not easy; the confidentiality was imposed not to cover up this abuse, but to act on it -- to enable action, by imposing strict rules of confidentiality to allow allegations to be made and acted on without (until they were proved true) ruining the good names of either the priest or the alleged victim. [SOP, moreover, in the civilian justice system, to protect the integrity of a case while it is under investigation or sub judice.]

But this was an internal procedure relating to an internal crime, one that does not exist in civil law. The document did not say that a victim could or couldn't also go the police with an allegation -- that is a matter for the civil law of that country (and by the way, in some countries paedophilia is a crime, in others not).

If you look at the rules governing, say, the disbarring of a dodgy barrister from the Bar Council, you will not find any reference there to going to the police either; these procedures concern a separate jurisdiction.

I imagine in the Independent you have guidelines on how to handle staff misdemeanours; some of them may involve crimes, some not; no one claims that your guidelines subvert British law, surely? And if your staff review procedures demand confidentiality, is this a reason to suppose that the Independent is "covering up" crimes which should be put in the hands of the police? I don't think so.

As to the letter to Bishop Pican, this was not a letter written by "the Vatican" to the world's bishops; it was a letter to the bishop from the prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, whose attitude, I agree, was shocking.

When that letter came to light earlier this year, the Vatican's spokesman said, in effect, "you see what we were up against?" More specifically, you see what Cardinal Ratzinger was up against. That letter directly went against the guidelines which the CDF was putting into place that year -- guidelines which, by the way, made it clear that a case of abuse should "normally" (they can't say always: in some countries child abuse is not a crime, in others it is a crime but not acted on) be reported to the civil authorities.

Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos was retired [from being Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy; he continued to serve as head of Ecclesia Dei] in 2004, leaving the way clearer for Cardinal Ratzinger's necessary reforms. [Cardinal Castrillon's letter to the French bishop continues to be widely misrepresented, even as it is by this Catholic Voices writer, who also ignores that Castrillon has said he asked and got John Paul II's permission to send the letter. The full story about the letter has yet to be told - from what has been revealed, Castrillon apparently upholds the duty of a bishop to treat his priests like spiritual children and to protect the sanctity of the confessional, since the priest apparently disclosed his crimes to the bishop in the confessional, although there is evidence that the bishop subsequently got independent information about it.]

"Once the evidence of an international conspiracy to cover up abuse became incontrovertible to any reasonable observer", you go on, but there's the rub: there was no international conspiracy, there is none, and any "reasonable observer" that has looked at the facts has reached that easy conclusion, inconvenient as it is for Dan Brown's many fans.

And so you go on -- Belgium was a shocking example of the police overreaching themselves, but let's not dwell there -- to say: "When Ratzinger issued supposedly ground-breaking new rules against paedophilia earlier this year, he put it on a par with... ordaining women as priests."

A mere flick of Google would have told you that's nonsense. The only new reason that modifications to the canon law on laicising abusive priests and attempting to ordain a woman were issued in this same category -- a category, by the way, which included much else besides -- was that they both related to the same area of canon law, to do with abuse of the sacraments.

But the Vatican's spokesman made absolutely clear at the time that there was no suggestion whatever that the two were on the same moral level, and he said so, precisely because he knew that people like you would wilfully misinterpret it.

Yes, wilfully. Because you must have known, surely, that that's what Fr Lombardi said, and yet you chose to ignore it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps you didn't know, and were in a rush.

But you're onto condoms now, because the rest of the article is mere padding. "When he visited Africa in March 2009, he said that condoms 'increase the problem' of HIV/Aids." You leave this statement alone, because it must be 'so obviously untrue'.

Yet international AIDS experts such as Harvard's Edward Green rushed to agree with him. And here are some more reasons why the Pope is right -- indeed speaks from the knowledge of the Church in Africa, deeply embedded with, and caring for, those afflicted with AIDS.

"His defenders say he is simply preaching abstinence outside marriage and monogamy within it, so if people are following his advice they can't contract HIV – but in order to reinforce the first part of his message, he spreads overt lies claiming condoms don't work."

Except he doesn't. He says condoms-based programmes are ineffective and can make the problem worse. You go on to suggest -- although you don't actually state it -- that Pope Benedict has suggested that condoms are porous. He has never said this, although a discredited paper by a long-dead Vatican cardinal did try to suggest as much -- and was shot down. [Condoms are, however, far from 100% efficient - they are not failsafe at all - and to uphold them as the 'best' preventive measure against AIDS is not just willfully naive but ignorant!]

I know that for many liberal, enlightened, rational columnists the kind of crude hatchet-swinging anti-papal polemic you have written makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It makes you feel better about yourselves to be on a moral crusade against the "immorality" of a Church.

But ask yourself this: would the "Nazarene carpenter" -- and thank you, by the way, for introducing Jesus -- be on the side of such visceral, irrational, unfounded loathing? Would he approve the setting aside of truth, reason, evidence, balance? Or would he urge a little research? [Not to mention honesty and an open mind!]

I expect he would want you to welcome his vicar on earth, and to dare to listen -- respectfully, openly, fearlessly -- for when the Truth might dare to find you.




Here's something positive from the London section of BBC News - I must check out whether they have done this for the other cities that the Pope is visiting. A very good initiative, and I hope there will be more of it, as newspaper and online readers don't always have the time - I certainly don't even if I would like to, and as I would do if being a one-man media monitor on papal news and commentary were my fulltime job - to go into the comment boxes and take a sampling of opinion pro and con.


London Catholics welcome
the Pope to their city

Sept. 8, 2010


For many Catholics it will be their one and only chance to see the Pope when he comes to London.

Here, we find out just what the visit means to this group of Catholics planning to make their own special pilgrimage.

---

Gloria Ezeonyeasi, 45:
I was born a Catholic; it is a way of life and I love it. I was born into a Catholic community where everyone took part in bringing up a child - all my spiritual and social needs as a child growing up were met in my church family.

I am delighted I can go. Being a Christian, a Catholic, has never been so beautiful. Going to see the Pope is a liturgical celebration and my attendance is my service.

The Pope is a unifying symbol for Catholics and we are going to gather at table with Papa. This will make history as we hope this visit will foster unity amongst Christians.


The Green family
(John, 38, Lisa, 37, Jerome, 11, Aaron, 9, Adam, 6 and Naomi, 4.)

Jerome: I was baptised, then we went to the community we heard the gospels and when we were older we went to confession and communion. In the community you can meet with others and discuss bible passages, but it can't just stop there.

John: My parents were both Catholics and brought me up by taking me to church on Sunday, praying at home and sending me to Catholic primary and secondary schools.

Lisa: I was also brought up Catholic but I was very lukewarm especially in my teens when I wanted to be like my peers. I attended the World Youth Days every other year since I was 16; each one was a major turning point in my faith for a different reason each time.

I hope it will bring about a new togetherness in our family as we will all be going. I will also look at the theme of the visit 'heart speaks to the heart' and see what God has to tell me.

I hope to get healing for my family as we had bereavement earlier this year when our nine month old baby died of kidney complications.


James Blythe:
My local church is St Simon's, in Putney, a thriving congregation of about 800 with many families and a lovely primary school. I was born a Catholic and grew up in that parish.

My faith is a relationship with God that guides and helps me in everything I do. Most of all it is an experience of how much God loves me, and it's fantastic! I want to see the Pope since he is the Head of the Church on earth: whoever the Pope was, I would want to see him.

However, Pope Benedict is also an inspiring intellectual and theologian with a profound understanding of the needs of the Church, so I'm really keen to hear his advice for Catholics in Britain.

I'm looking forward to experiencing a happy and festive atmosphere, where Catholics can be unafraid to show their faith and their love for Pope Benedict.


Robert Colquhoun, 28:
My local church is in Banbury, Oxfordshire, St John the Evangelist, and I'm hugely excited about going to the Beatification event in Coventry with a coach load of the congregation.

I used to be an Anglican, and was really interested in the Church and the writings of John Paul II. At the last year of university, I felt the overwhelming desire to become a Catholic, so I converted. After that I travelled within the Church as a missionary and even trained to be a priest for a while, which made me realise how important Christianity is.

Faith gives my life meaning and purpose and a stable root to ground myself on. But the most important thing is about my personal relationship with God. I'm really looking forward to spending a joyful and celebratory experience with other Catholics proud of their faith.


Neil D'Aguiar, 31:
I belong to St Aidan's Parish in Coulsdon. I have been in the parish for three years and really love it here, it is one of the most welcoming parishes that I have been to, and I love the way the whole community seems to be involved in parish life in so many ways. I am a member of the choir and a sacristan in the parish.

I was born and raised in a Catholic family and I was an altar server, however, my faith really began to develop after my A-levels and through university. I was privileged to experience a number of spiritual experiences and healings and have had God active in my life ever since.

There are two reasons why I am going to see the Pope. Firstly, to show him, my family, my pupils, and anyone watching, that I am proud of my faith and religion and want that to be known.

Secondly, to share the pilgrim experience of being with likeminded people sharing the spiritual communion of prayer and worship whilst also receiving guidance from the Holy Father.

---

This is the kind of testimonial from the 'regular folk' that shows the real strength of the faith that Benedict XVI upholds, defends and wishes to share with all men. It is such regular folk that I had hoped Rodari and Tornielli might have included in their book ATTACCO A RATZINGER, because what really matters is the impact on them of the media reporting on sex abuses (and negative reporting about the Church, in general), not the media's circular sounding board in which they simply bounce off their ideas, pro and con, on each other! People like those quoted by the BBC represent the authentic 'faithful' who, I like to believe, constitute the broad majority of Catholics worldwide.


Carl Olson in Ignatius Insight Scoop calls attention to this recent entry in a British blog, which I suppose was meant to be witty, humorous and clever, but despite making surprisingly honest acknowledgments about some of Benedict XVI's qualities, it does not hide the writer's biases and is definitely unwitty, unfunny and crude whenever he betrays them. However, he is just as derisive about the Pope's other detractors in the UK media. BTW, he gives no clue as to who he is, simply calling himself the Heresiarch.


Ten reasons to love the Pope

8 September 2010

The Pope is said to be looking forward to a "joyful" visit to Britain next week. It's not clear who else is. The organisers seem to be terrified it will be a flop, even while doing their best to discourage the crowds.

Even Damian Thompson is filled with foreboding, perhaps because his liberal enemies are responsible for the arrangements, while surveys suggest that grassroots Catholics are oddly indifferent to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a close-up look at their boss. ['Suggest' is the operative word.]

Only the Protest the Pope crowd would seem to be truly looking forward to the occasion. And the Guardian and BBC, of course, who will relish the opportunity to big up the protestors.

Well the Heresiarch will not be joining in the frenzy of Pope-baiting. [Though much of what passes for irony in this piece is Pope-baiting!]

As Brendan O'Neill astutely points out, "the great irony of this allegedly rationalist protest against the Pope is that it is indulging in precisely the kind of demonology that the Catholic Church once excelled at."

So what if millions of pounds of our tax-money are being spent entertaining and protecting him? He's only the spiritual figurehead of a billion people, after all. So what if he has old-fashioned views on sex and the role of women in his church? He's in his eighties and by most accounts doesn't have that much experience of the opposite sex.

So what if he has been slow to appreciate the seriousness of the child abuse scandals? As Ann Widdecombe notes, in the 1970s practically everyone was touching up children. And as she also says, the only reason the Catholic Church gets a bad press is that it is too filled with Christian humility to resort to the kind of PR tactics that would get any other organisation the great headlines it deserves.(But then, if the Catholic Church was PR-savvy they wouldn't have elected Ratzinger in the first place, so it's not quite clear what she's trying to say.)

So welcome the Pope, say I. Lay out the bunting. Cheer for the man in white. Stop being such party-poopers. Let's hear it for Joseph Alois Ratzinger, Pontifex Maximus and Vicar of Christ. I mean, he's got to be more fun than Peter Tatchell. To get you started, here are ten reasons to love the Pope. But I'm sure you can think of many more.

1. Julie Burchill hates him. So does Claire Rayner, who recently commented that "in all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature." Silly woman. That pompous ass Geoffrey Robertson QC has written an entire book about how much he wants to arrest him. And did I mention Peter Tatchell? Anyone who manages to collect such an impressive roll-call of humourless, self-important and tedious enemies must be doing something right. [The first bit of irony I can appreciate in this piece!]

2. His shoes. Got to love those ruby slippers. They even have their own Facebook page. None of your Prada rubbish, either, as was once inaccurately reported: these are unique, handmade pumps created by a leading traditional craftsman, for His feet only. [And that is meant to be brilliant sarcasm?]

3. His intellectual brilliance. John Paul II was a crowd-pleasing figurehead who spoke (and indeed wrote) in platitudinous soundbites, which may explain why he was so popular. I once picked up a copy of his bestseller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. It might as well have been written by Paulo Coelho, frankly. [Cheap, unbecoming and uncalled for. The secular world considers any reiteration of Catholic doctrine as 'platitudinous soundbites'.]

Benedict XVI writes proper books. There's no doubt he's the brains of the organisation. His refusal to dumb down, to compromise his message to make it more palatable to the shallow and fashion-obsessed mass media, has been his undoing on more than one occasion, but it gets my respect. [Now, that's straight talk, as are the next three 'reasons'.]

4. His clarity. You know where you are with the Pope. You can disagree with him if you like, condemn him as an obscurantist reactionary, but at least you know what he thinks. What a contrast with our own Rowan Williams, who may well be very clever but whose thoughtscape is so profoundly complex that it can often seem that even he doesn't quite understand what he's saying.

5. His age. Well into his eighties now, he continues to travel the world, make speeches, write learned commentaries and encyclicals and otherwise keep up a hectic schedule.

It's typical of the youth-obsessed culture of today's world that his venerable years are held against him. Surely we should be celebrating the fact that someone well past the usual age of retirement can still make such a huge contribution. In an era of demographic stretch and shrinking pensions, he is an example to us all.

6. The antiquity of his office. Is there not something heart-stoppingly romantic in the very name of Pope, and all its immemorial glories? Macaulay caught it well in 1840:

---

No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs.

That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eigth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains...

---

[Thanks, indeed, for bringing up Macaulay's words in this piece. Never was his observation on the enduring longevity of the papacy more apropos!]

7. His name. Ratzinger, that is. One cannot get two excited by the ponderous appellation Benedict XVI, but Ratzinger is a name worthy of Ian Fleming at his most baroque, a name that fits perfectly his sallow complexion and slightly sinister lisp. I can almost hear Shirley Bassey. "Ratfinger, he's the man, the man with the cross of gold... and he's so old!" [A low blow to make fun of someone's surname (BTW, 'Rat' in German means 'counsel' or 'advice', not a rodent!). This riff is not even clever or funny! Benedict XVI 'sallow'? He's so rosy it contributes to his occasional 'schoolboy' look!. And with a 'sinister lisp'? Is that the p.c. term now for 'German accent'? This false atmospherics are in pure Dan Brown territory!]]

8. His preference for traditional forms of worship. I even learn that he is to insist on saying Mass in Latin during his visit to Britain, despite trendy attempts to strong-arm him into using the vernacular. [Crassly uninformed statements! It belies one of the blurbs for the blog which calls it 'well-researched'. And BTW, his 'preferences' never got in the way of his obedient and daily celebration of the Novus Ordo since it was legislated, but he does it in the true spirit of liturgy and sets the best example of what it should be.]

9. His moral courage. Not for Ratzinger the easy way out, telling people what they want to hear so as to gain cheap popularity. Instead he witnesses to the tradition that has been entrusted to him.

If it offends members of other religions or other churches, feminists, the gay rights lobby or the Guardian that is no reason to tone down his message. He would be betraying not just his faith but his integrity if he trimmed to the times as some other religious leaders have done. Instead he stands firm. Unless there's a really big row, of course, as there was when he was rude about Islam. [Then what? Did he retreat from his position or stand any less firm? On the contrary, he practically 'shamed' moderate Islamic leaders to get on his 'faith and reason' bandwagon!]

That same fearlessness now carries him to the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death. Tony Blair, by contrast, won't even turn up to his own book launch, so scared is he by the prospect of a few unfriendly placards. [I hold no brief for Blair, but he was right not to impose unnecessary time, effort and expense on the London police to secure his booksigning.]

10. His linguistic flexibility. Even if you don't like what he's saying, you've got to admire his ability to say it fluently in half-a-dozen different languages. "That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them," quipped Dorothy Parker once. Well, Joseph Ratzinger speaks eighteen languages, and can't say Sorry in any of them. [Cheap cheap shot, and totally wrong!]

An unexpected, out-of-season - and most welcome - 'valentine' for Benedict XVI, from Page 1 of L'Osservatore Romano today:


Michael Mandlik's film:
To understand Benedict XVI better
by Lucetta Scaraffia
Translated from the 9/10/10 issue of





Benedict XVI at the July 30 screening of the Mandlik film in Castel Gandolfo.

Initially it might seem like just a well-made documentary on the Pontificate of Benedict XVI so far, affectionate and brotherly, and enhanced by an excellent musical score. [Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with its Ode to Joy]

And even, perhaps, nothing new, because we have seen the Pope so much on TV, and surely, we must have seen practically all the images used at the moment they were taking place, namely, the post-Conclave, his trips, his liturgies, the concerts he attended, etc.

But then, we realize that the documentary is not just that: Indeed, the images used in Michael Mandlik's film Fünf Jahre Papst Benedikt XVI: Impressionen in Rom und auf Reisen (Five Years of Benedict XVI: Impressions in Rome and on his trips), produced by Bavarian state TV for the fifth anniversary of Benedict XVI's election, were chosen with great care.

What it highlights above all is the Pope's face, and the words he says - relatively few but chosen for their particular significances. It is not just a collage of video documents, but the story of the first five years of a very important Pontificate, a film that allows us to understand something more about our Pope, of the intense way in which he lives his role as the visible leader of the Church.

It is an absolutely unique and personal way: In the gestures and in the face of Benedict XVI, we see, from the start, his shyness and the effort it costs him to be in the spotlight - the profound reserve of a man of thought suddenly forced by history to be a public icon.

His reserve is never concealed, but visible, which makes him very likable indeed, as do all acknowledged human weaknesses. But he also shows how he overcomes it, out of his great love for the Church, and not just the Church of Rome, with the Vatican and the Curia, but most of all, the faithful who welcome him with great affection around the world.

His smiles, his wide-open arms, with his characteristic 'finger-waving', are truly full of joy and affection, and convey enthusiasm - while offering a sense of protection.

The shy German professor able to show himself full of love before the crowds, as well as in the intimate moments when he prays - always a fundamental and touching occasion - in the most important sacred places around the world, from the Holy Sepulchre to the Grotto of Lourdes, is surely a man who knows how to lead his flock.

And if his apostolic visits are occasions on which this self-giving is most evident, it shows even in the sequences filmed in his private chapel at the Vatican. When he says Mass - really for just a handful of persons, his household - from the intensity of his face, we know it is for everyone.

The images show clearly the dedication and love without reservation that guide his actions, his capacity to overcome his own shyness when he gives himself totally to Christ.

This self-giving manifests in the love that illuminates his face with joy - the word that he so often uses - when he is surrounded by the faithful, when he notes how alive and vibrant the Church is - in which announcing the message of Christ has not slowed down, much less died out.

And we understand that it is not enough to listen attentively to his words - always well-reflected and important, never simply circumstantial - but we should also watch his face and his hands. And above all, accept the love and Christian joy offered to us by this shy professor who learned so quickly and well how to be Pope.

Pope meets Hungarian President
Translated from

Sept. 10, 2010

---

This morning, the Holy Father received in audience H.E. Pál Schmitt, President of the Republic of Hungary, who later met with Cardinal Tarcision= Bertone, Secretary of State, and Mons. Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Foreign Relations.

Their talks dwelt on the situation in Hungary with particular reference to the contribution of the Catholic Church to the common good, especially in family and social life. They also discussed Hungary's semester at the presidency of the European Union and some current problems in international affairs.

---

Pope calls Brazilian bishops
to the work of new evangelisation





10 Sept 2010 (RV) - Pope Benedict today addressed collectively the Bishops of Brazil from the Northeast 3 region who are in Rome on their Ad Limina visits, after having met with them individually in the past several days.

At the heart of his address to them was the need to engage in a new evangelisation, saying that it is crucial to the Catholic Church.

The Pope also pointed out that while the values of the Catholic faith have shaped the hearts and minds of Brazilians, today there is a growing influence of 'new elements in society' resulting in the abandonment of Christian life and the Church itself by many Catholics.
He said the religious landscape of Brazil has seen the rapid expansion of evangelical communities and neo-Pentecostals.

While the upsurge in these groups, the Pope said, showed a real thirst for God, it was important for the Church in Brazil to engage in a new evangelization that should spare no effort in leading Catholics to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

The Pope urged the Bishops to promote a healthy ecumenical dialogue in the church based on “good historical and doctrinal formation”.

Vatican reveals features
of papal trip to UK


Vatican City, Sep 10, 2010 (Adapted from CNA/EWTN News)- At a press briefing today on the Pope's upcoming U.K. visit, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi aaid there is much more to the Holy Father's schedule than what appears on the official itinerary.

Additional features include a welcome by bagpipers in Scotland, a gathering with young people and a possible meeting with sex abuse victims.

Fr. Lombardi highlighted the major events on the program, as well as and lesser known elements to be included in the Pope's Sept. 16-19 journey.

On the first day, next Thursday, the Holy Father will meet Queen Elizabeth II at her summer residence near Edinburgh. Fr. Lombardi confirmed that to mark his arrival and the coinciding celebration of St. Ninian's Day, hundreds of bagpipers will parade and play their instruments in the streets.

Mass will be held in Glasgow that evening, after which the Pope will head to the Apostolic Nunciature in London, where he will stay for the next three nights.

The following day, Benedict XVI's "very intense and very rich" schedule will include ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of London by Nazi Germany and a meeting with four former prime ministers — Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This will take place after a meeting with civil society in Westminster Hall.

Later, although the Pope will not take part, Fr. Lombardi said a state dinner will be held so religious, civil and political leaders can meet to speak of matters of "common interest." The conversations will include the themes of climate change, education, disarmament/non-proliferation, health and the future of Europe.

On Saturday, after Mass at Westminster Cathedral in the morning, the Holy Father will meet with young people and Catholic pilgrims from Wales. The prayer vigil later in Hyde Park is being held by special decree from the local government - normally the city does not allow religious celebrations there. These Vespers, Lombardi said, will usher in "the Newman event."

Commenting on the final day of the visit, Fr. Lombardi highlighted that organizers were fortunate to have use of Cofton Park for Cardinal Newman's beatification. It was an "optimal solution" for the question of where to hold the Mass because it's located near Cardinal Newman's grave at Rednal and is also much more aesthetically agreeable for a religious celebration than the Coventry Airport.

Fr. Lombardi said that there will be other encounters, which are not traditionally announced on the schedule. Among possible audiences, he said, could be a meeting with victims of sexual abuse by clergy.



Pope will travel
with team of top aides
By John Thavis


VATICAN CITY, Sept. 10 (CNS) -- When he visits Great Britain in mid-September, Pope Benedict XVI will be shadowed by a roster of aides who ensure smooth sailing for the 83-year-old Pontiff whenever he travels abroad.

This "mini-Vatican" is small enough to fit on his chartered jet, but diverse enough to respond to challenges in strategic areas -- including diplomatic crises, security breaches, liturgical snafus, reporters' questions and even medical emergencies.

Many of the key players on the Vatican's traveling team are veterans with on-the-road experience going back decades. But the plane to Britain will also carry at least one "rookie" making his first papal trip.

Probably the most visible figure on the papal plane is the one standing next to him when the Pope answers reporters' questions: Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. Father Lombardi, a 68-year-old Jesuit, has had his share of public relations ordeals during papal trips, beginning with the Pope's speech on Islam in Regensburg, Germany, in 2006.

The pope's off-the-cuff comments on his plane have also ignited public debate, on topics ranging from Marian apparitions to condoms. Although the questions on these flying news conferences are now pre-selected from reporters' submissions, Father Lombardi apparently tries not to over-vet.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, is never far from the Pope's side throughout foreign trips, and takes part in many of the private meetings with political and state leaders. Cardinal Bertone doesn't speak much English, and assisting him on this visit will be 49-year-old Msgr. Leo Cushley, a Scot who heads the secretariat's English-language desk.

In addition, because this is a state visit, the Pope is bringing along Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, who routinely deals with the details of foreign relations.

Msgr. Georg Ganswein, Pope Benedict's personal secretary, is well-known to TV viewers around the world as the sandy-haired prelate who ushers the Pope to his seat, hands him his texts and generally keeps an eagle eye out for the Pontiff when he's on the public stage.

On papal altars, it's Msgr. Guido Marini, the master of liturgical ceremonies, who seems ubiquitous. Msgr. Marini, a tall, slender figure with a pious demeanor, has spent months preparing the U.K. liturgies, personally visiting Scotland and England for on-site inspections of the Mass venues.

Another familiar figure on the papal-trip landscape is Alberto Gasbarri, the Vatican Radio official who organizes the Pope's foreign visits. Gasbarri, who has been doing this since the early days of Pope John Paul II, is the elegantly dressed layman who typically precedes the Pope by about 10 steps -- all the better to make sure there are no logistical surprises around the corner.

Domenico Giani, the head of Vatican security, has got to be the most pressured man on papal trips. Security is provided by the host country, but Giani's role is to coordinate the interface between the British team and the handful of Vatican agents who travel with the pope. Wearing suits and ties, Giani and his men flank Pope Benedict whenever he moves, then fade into the background.

One member of the papal entourage who is rarely seen is Dr. Patrizio Polisca, the Pope's personal physician. He's essentially on call 24/7 for the duration of the trip. Polisca, however, has another particular interest in this visit: as president of the group of physicians who advise the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes, he had a role in approving the miracle needed for the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman -- the key event of the trip.

Archbishop Kurt Koch, the new president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, will be traveling for the first time on a papal trip. Although there are obvious ecumenical aspects to the visit, don't look for Archbishop Koch to take center stage: Vatican sources view the trip as a chance to spotlight the need for common Christian witness, not as a working session on ecumenical problems.

An assortment of about 20 other officials completes the Vatican roster on the papal plane. The papal aides sit in front, and the 70 or so reporters accredited for the flight sit in coach class -- a hierarchy that hasn't changed in more than 40 years of papal travel.


Here's how OR reports Fr. Lombardi's briefing in its 9/11/10 issue. In this, as in their usual reports about the Pope's activities, the reporting is rather unsatisfactory and erratic, and probably wold not past muster in a freshman journalism class...

Fr. Lombardi says anti-Pope demos
are expected but not 'a great concern'
Translated from the 9/11/10 issue of



"Excessive amplification which has made much greater noise than the true sensibility of the people" is how Fr. Federico Lombardi describes the heated polemics mounted in the UK media ahead of the Pope's visit, when he briefed the Vatican press corps on Friday.

However, he said, "We are not particularly concerned. Hostility to the Pope is entirely from a minority . There have always been demonstrations, even in previous trips. This time, the pre-visit hype is more intense because the UK has more atheist groups, or perhaps anti-Pope, but this is part of a pluralist society like the UK has."

The occasion for the Pope's visit is the beatification of John Henry Newman, whose liturgical feast will be celebrated on October 9, the day he converted to Catholicism.

In addition to the pastoral aspect of the visit, it will also be a state visit - the first by a Pope - because the invitation came from the Queen of England and her Government. It also has a significant ecumenical aspect because of the involvement of the Church of England, of whom the Queen is Supreme Governor.

The Pope will have a private meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and join him in a celebration of Vespers in Westminster Abbey, where they will pay tribute together at the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor.

In discussing the major events of the Pope's program in the UK, Fr. Lombardi said that the Holy Father's address is particularly awaited to representatives of Britain's civilian society in Westminster Hall, where he will speak about the role of the Church and of Christians in today's society.

Fr. Lombardi said that the Pope will present the Church as "a friend, one that is not hostile, but willing to make its contribution to the common good, above all through its educational and charitable institutions.

He also underscored the special welcome planned in Edinburgh on the day the Pope arrrives in the UK, which happens to be the feast day of St. Ninian, who brought Christianity to Scotland; and the Pope's address from Westnister Cathedral to the Catholics of Wales, whose region he is unable to visit during the four-day trip.

Fr. Lombardi also spoke about a dinner to be given by the British Government for the papal delegation on Friday evening, Sept. 17, at Lancaster House, The Prime Minister and members of his cabinet will meet with the Vatican prelates, Catholic and Anglican bishops to discuss common efforts towards world disarmament, promotion of human rights and development, and wider education in relating reason and faith.

Finally, asked about a possible meeting between the Pope and some victims of sex abuse by priests, Fr. Lombardi said, "It is a possiblity. I cannot rule it out, but neither can I announce anything".

Saturday, Sept. 11, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE (d Carthage [modern-day Tunis] 258), Bishop, Writer, Martyr, Father of the Church
Born to wealthy pagan parents, he was highly educated and a famous orator and teacher. He became a Christian as an adult, receiving his catechesis
from the future St. Caecelius; distributed his wealth to the poor, and vowed himself to chastity before being baptized. He was ordained a priest in 247,
and two years later, he was chosen Bishop of Carthage against his will. Almost immediately, he had to conduct his ministry in hiding after the Decian
persecution began in 250. Many Christians abandoned the Church easily during the persecutions, and their subsequent reinstatement after persecutions
eased, caused great controversies in the third century. Cyprian opposed a rival bishop who simply accepted everyone back without any canonical penance.
He led the opposition, supported by all North African bishops, to Pope Stephen I's decree that on the validity of baptism by heretics if the ritual was
done properly; Cyprian insisted baptism was not valid outside the Church. During a plague in Carthage, he urged Christians to help everyone, including
their enemies and persecutors. He supported Pope St. Cornelius against the anti-Pope Novatian. As a Christian writer (mostly in the form of pastoral
letters) in North Africa, he was considered second only to Tertullian, until Augustine eclipsed them both. During Valerian's persecutions, he was exiled
in 257, then brought back to Carthage where he was sentenced to beheading by sword. He died a martyr as had Pope Stephen I and his successor
Sixtus II in Rome.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/091110.shtml


OR today.

Papal stories on Page 1: The Holy Father calls on visiting Brazilian bishops to show 'a healthy ecumenism to oppose ecclesial relativism' [Certainly a strange choice of emphasis and a stranger way to express it, compared to Vatican Radio's emphasis on the Pope's call that a new evangelization is needed to oppose the attractions of the new evangelical sects in South America]; and his audience with the President of Hungary. In the inside pages, Fr. Lombardi's briefing on the coming UK visit (translated and posted above on this page), and a survey of the great English Catholic writers of the late 19th and early 20th century, starting with Cardinal Newman through G.K.Chesterton, Ronald Knox and JRR Tolkien. Page 1 international news: A denunciation of the Florida pastor who threatened to burn the Koran today (he has since backed off); drought in Brazil's Amazonia as the Amazon River falls 10 meters below its normal level (in 2005, it dropped to 18 meters below normal); in Pakistan, the total number of flood-stricken victims now almost 21 million, of whom half are below age 5, and international aid continues to be slow in coming.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Mons. Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising

- Recently-appointed bishops who took part in a continuing education seminar under the auspices of
the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Address in Italian.


The Holy Father today named Mons. Fausto Gabriel Trávez Trávez, O.F.M., till now Bishop of Babahoyo,
to be the new Metropolitan Archbishop of Quito (Ecuador) following the canonical retirement of Mons.
Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga.

IN MEMORIAM, 9/11/2001

As I did last year, I think it is appropriate to note this tragic anniversary with the poignant visit that Benedict XVI made to Ground Zero on April 20, 2008, as reported in the New York Times.

---

Benedict XVI Prays at Ground Zero
By Sewell Chan

April 20, 2008



The Pope and Cardinal Egan, the archbishop of New York, at Ground Zero.


Pope Benedict XVI knelt and prayed at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan this morning, blessing the site where more than 2,600 people were killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center more than six years ago.

The Pontiff offered a prayer to God for peace, mentioning the attacks on 9/11 on the Pentagon in Washington and on a jetliner that crashed near Shanksville, Pa.

He made only one, indirect, reference to terror: “Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.”

The Pope made no other public remarks during his half-hour visit to the site, but offered private words of comfort to survivors who were injured and relatives of victims who were killed in the attacks.

Gov. David A. Paterson and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York were already at Ground Zero when the pope arrived at 9:31 a.m. as was Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey.

The visit has particular significance for many survivors of 9/11, and relatives of victims who died in the World Trade Center, because a large proportion of those who died were Catholic.

The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, a beloved Catholic chaplain for the Fire Department who died from falling debris on 9/11 and was listed as victim No. 1 by the city chief medical examiner’s office, has become a larger-than-life figure for some.

Pope John Paul II, Benedict’s predecessor, condemned the 9/11 attacks as an “unspeakable horror” on the day they occurred. Pope Benedict, who was the church’s top theologian before he was elected in 2005, has suggested that in an age of terrorism inspired by extremism, his church is a middle ground between godless rationalism and religious fundamentalism.

The service was held at the bottom of the giant construction ramp that goes into the construction site for the new towers rising at ground zero. (Construction has been suspended for the papal visit.)

The papal motorcade, which had left the residence of the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations moments earlier, traveled about halfway down the ramp.

The Pope and Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York, exited the Popemobile at 9:42 a.m. and walked the rest of the way down the ramp alone. The Pope wore a white overcoat — today’s temperature in New York is somewhat colder than that of the past two days.

At 9:43 a.m., the Pope knelt before a pool of water and a candle, offering a silent prayer for about two minutes. Then, with assistance from two clerical aides, he lighted a candle — apparently with a little bit of difficulty at first, perhaps because of technical problems.

The Pope offered this prayer:

O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.
We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here—
the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.
We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives
with courage and hope.
We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon
and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.
God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.

Following the prayer, the Pope used as aspergillum to sprinkle holy water in four directions, blessing the site.

Then guests approached the Pope individually for brief private exchanges; many of them knelt briefly before the Pontiff and kissed his ring. One representative each from the families of 16 people who died in the World Trade Center attack were selected [drawn by lot] — from among more than 1,100 applicants — for a chance to be present and meet with the Pontiff.

As each person approached the Pontiff, Cardinal Egan read the person’s name. Carter Brey, the principal cellist for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, played an elegiac musical selection to accompany the prayer service and meetings.

The Pope also spoke briefly to Mayor Bloomberg and Governors Corzine and Paterson.

At 10:02 a.m., after making the sign of the Cross, the Pope walked back to the Popemobile and boarded the vehicle.

There is little doubt that 9/11 also had an impact on the thinking of Benedict, who at the time was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the church’s top theologian.

Russell Shorto tried to describe the Pope’s thinking in a cover article for The New York Times Magazine in April 2007:

---

The mistaken conviction that reason and faith are two distinct realms has weakened Europe and has brought it to the verge of catastrophic collapse.

As he said in a speech in 2004: “There exist pathologies in religion that are extremely dangerous and that make it necessary to see the divine light of reason as a ‘controlling organ.’ . . . However . . . there are also pathologies of reason . . . there is a hubris of reason that is no less dangerous.”

If you seek a way out of the vast post-9/11 quagmire (Baghdad bomb blasts, Iranian nukes, Danish cartoons, ever-more-bizarre airport security measures and the looming mayhem they are meant to stop), and for that matter if you believe in Europe and “the West” (the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, the whole heritage of 2,500 years of history), then now, Benedict in effect argues, the Catholic Church must be heeded. Because its tradition was filtered through the Enlightenment, the thinking goes, the church can provide a bridge between godless rationality and religious fundamentalism.

---

One of the World Trade Center survivors who had a chance to meet the Pope was George Bachmann, a retired firefighter. On 9/11, he was rescued from West Street, between Vesey and Liberty Streets, and taken in New Jersey with a broken back and burns. He received a citation from the Fire Department and eventually received money from the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which he used to buy a house in Brooklyn with his wife.

“Being in front of the Holy Father hits me deep down inside,” Mr. Bachmann, who was raised Catholic, told NY1 News in a televised interview. “I didn’t really have anything to say to him. Being in his presence was enough for me.”

He described the papal visit as an important step in the “healing process for both myself and the families.”

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the site where more than 2,600 people were killed in the terrorist attack
on the World Trade Center more than six years ago.

---

Alone among the major UK newspapers, only the Daily Telegraph so far has dared to buck the herd mentality by occasionally publishing favorable - or at least reasonable - commentary about the Pope's visit, starting with an editorial in all its publications two weeks ago. (Even if its religious correspondents continue to run with the herd!] Here is another one, not without its caveats, but rational and fair.


Can't we set aside old hatreds
and simply welcome the Pope?
Benedict XVI is a man of ideals and conscience –
and he should be given a fair hearing
By Charles Moore

10 Sep 2010

Last year, Baroness Thatcher went to see Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. I accompanied her. "Isn't it excellent that we're going to meet him?" I said. "Yes," she replied, "but what does one say to a Pope?"

As Benedict prepares for the first state visit by a Pope to this country, hers is a question that continues to trouble the British people.

For hundreds of years, the most common collective answer was, "Go to Hell". Most of the English and, in different ways, the Scots and Welsh, came to define themselves by Protestantism. The state they formed was Protestant. Our present Queen, when she was crowned, swore to uphold the Protestant religion. She is absolutely free of religious bitterness, but she also keeps her promises.

Even today, you still have to go carefully. While Tony Blair was prime minister, he started to receive instruction to become a Roman Catholic. His wife, Cherie, was keen that he convert in office, which would have made him our first Catholic prime minister.

Wiser counsels, including those of the Catholic Church itself, prevailed. It might have been a little more than the Protestant body politic could stand: Mr Blair converted after his resignation.

As its name states, Protestantism was a protest. It was, at its best, an appeal for the direct human relationship with God, governed by the Bible. Popes and priestcraft had got in the way.[Bad Popes and 'priestcraft' that betrayed Christian ideals!] But, as so often in religious disputes [and any dispute over power, for that matter], the abuse of power by the protesters themselves quickly became noxious.

Next Friday, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury will walk down the aisle of Westminster Hall, pause and pray together by the plaque in memory of Thomas More. In that place, in 1535, More, the former Lord Chancellor of England, was condemned to death for treason.

More's crime was to maintain his Catholic faith against Henry VIII's claim to headship of the Church. From then until the 19th century, Catholics were denied their full rights as citizens. Our national liberation was real in some ways, but it had many victims.

Nowadays, Protestantism as a clear set of religious ideas is sadly weakened, but its spirit remains strong. Much of this is good – a questioning disposition, an emphasis on the unvarnished truth, a belief in political liberty. [Not that those do not exist in the Catholic faith as well! Except that the questioning disposition is balanced by obedience to the faith, because if you do not obey your own faith, then it is not faith at all!]

But there is also, in some, a sourness. There are quite large numbers of people in this country who still want to say "Go to Hell" to the Pope, even though Hell is something they no longer believe in.

Without quite realising it, secular anti-Papists such as the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell are using much the same "No Pope here" slogans as have adorned bigoted bonfires for centuries.

Atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins reject the idea that religion should have any rights beyond the private sphere: if he had his way, a Christian education would become a crime.

The human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, says he wants Pope Benedict tried for failing to do enough to root out child abuse in the Church.

Such people do not speak the language of rational criticism – a pity, because there is much to criticise – but of anger, rejection, intolerance.

These non-believing Protestants think that they are expressing modern liberal sentiments, but they remind me of the small crowd of Irish Republicans who demonstrated this week against the suggestion that the Queen should visit Dublin next year after a royal absence of a century.

Yes, the history matters. Yes, the differences are real. But one should be suspicious of those who try to repel all gestures of reconciliation and keep themselves warm by stoking the fires of old hatreds.

The media have tended to reflect these preoccupations. Next week, both the BBC and Channel 4 will run indictments of the present Pope. A huge to‑do has been got up against the cost of the visit to the taxpayer by people who never normally object to high public spending.

Might there not be some more interesting things to consider? How about informing television viewers about the life of John Henry Newman (to be fair, Radio 3 managed a decent programme on the subject), whom the Pope will beatify?

How about telling the story of British Catholicism?

How about examining what this Pope teaches, and why the official reconciliation between the Papacy and the British state can at last be consummated?

I do not know exactly why first Tony Blair, and then Gordon Brown, encouraged the Pope to come here, or why David Cameron, sorting out the ragged fin de regime handling of the visit by the last government, is supporting it so whole-heartedly.

I do not know the precise motivations of the Queen in being so warm about this visit and in breaking convention so that, for the first time in her reign, the Duke of Edinburgh himself, rather than a lower representative, will greet the state visitor at the airport.

But it might have something to do with a sane recognition that this country should be able to welcome the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world. We are a proud island, but we are also part of a wider European civilisation. It is worth having a public conversation about the state of that civilisation with someone who has devoted his life to advancing it.

In short, before answering the Thatcher question, "What does one say to a Pope?", how about waiting to hear what the Pope will say to us?

Although I am a Catholic by conversion, it was never the papal aspect of things that attracted me. I feel quite Protestant about Pope-mania.

But, even before he became Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger struck me as a man who was thinking deeply about the cultural problem of modern times. He welcomed the growth of freedom, but he noticed a danger that tended to go with it – a rejection of the very idea of truth. He counselled against the "deadly boredom" of relativism and egotism.

His ideal was a man – and he noted such men particularly in England, singling out both More and Newman – "who listens to his conscience and for whom the truth that he has recognised… is above approval and acceptance."

Benedict thinks constantly about what we now call "the big society" and how it can achieve the common good.

"Without truth," he says in one of his encyclicals, "charity degenerates into sentimentality." His idea of truth is not hidden: he wants to reason with modern society about it.

It was Newman who famously encapsulated his loyalty both to his faith and to conscience: "If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I shall drink – to the Pope, if you please – still, to Conscience first and the Pope afterwards."

Next week, the Pope, as is the custom, will not be attending the state banquet given in his honour. But if he did, he would happily drink that toast. So should this nation.


Here is a most counter-intuitive commentary, especially from an Irish newspaper... But is it valid? Is the writer's one-swallow-makes-a-summer opening hypothesis more real than the UK media's scenario that most 'thinking' Brits are contemptuous of the Pope?

Cool to be Catholic
On the eve of the Pope's visit
Britain's ambivalent relationship with Rome
by John Cooney

Saturday. September 11 2010

Roman Catholicism has become fashionably chic in England. The roll-call of Romeward subscribers could amply fill a glossy bumper edition of Hello! magazine. Princess Di flirted with it.

Tony Blair has embraced it. Tory stalwarts such as Ann Widdecombe and John Gummer have become zealous Catholic crusaders. Even the rakish Tory toff Alan Clarke is reputed by his biographer to have turned to Catholicism on his death-bed.

Their dalliances with Rome have titillated both tabloid and broadsheet readers through the indiscreet revelations of Franciscan friar Fr Michael Sheed, the celebrity chaplain to the hobnobs of English politics and high society.

In his 'pray-and-tell' autobiography, Sinners and Saints, Sheed bragged of his intimate friendship with Tony and Cherie Blair, and revealed how he had a back-door entrance into 10 Downing Street to become their domestic padre by celebrating Mass away from the preying denizens of the Fourth Estate. [If Fr. Sheed has been taken in by the world of celebrity as these statements indicate, St. Francis must be turning in his grave!]

This current fascination with Catholic ritual and dogmatic moralistic certitude [????] is no sudden novelty. It was similar in the 1960s when the most brilliant broadcaster of 20th-century England, the formerly hedonistic Malcolm Muggeridge, cast himself as 'St Mug' in his unapologetic mission to confer iconic saintly status on Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

On his own road to Damascus, Muggeridge lamented the futility of sex flings in the permissive society before finding sanctuary in the bosom of Rome which he had so ridiculed in his younger, libertine days.

Indeed, the list of eminent Englishmen who have succumbed to the spell of Rome stretches back further to when Hilaire Belloc extolled The Path to Rome and the convert GK Chesterton transcended his Fr Browne detective stories into the realm of spiritual mystery about human impulse for evil.

The introvert convert Graham Greene portrayed the sins of a whiskey priest as stoically heroic, and in The End of the Affair he captured the adulterous torment of the unfaithful wife as a subliminal part of the human condition.

The snobbish Evelyn Waugh romanticised the Catholic gentry in their country mansions, rapturously extolling the Catholic imagination in Brideshead Revisited, while exploring promiscuous flesh in all its nakedness. In the tradition of 'Greeneland', too, is the traditionalist Catholic Piers Paul Read, whose novels cocktail sex and sanctity in equal explicit measures of pleasure and guilt.

Yet, this infatuation with Rome conceals a deeper English ambivalence amounting to suspicion and even hatred of 'the ancient Faith' since the Tudor King Henry XVIII broke with Rome five centuries ago over his divorce of Catherine of Aragon.

Henry, previously acclaimed as 'Defender of the Faith', repudiated "Merrie England's" allegiance to "the Faith of Our Fathers" and made himself head of the Church of England.

It was Henry's daughter, the unmarried Elizabeth I, who consolidated the Protestant, or more precisely Anglican, supremacy -- in the process banishing priests or forcing them underground.

Many, such as Thomas More, in Henry's reign, and the Jesuit Edmund Campion, in Elizabeth's, became Catholic martyrs for their professed adherence to the alien Roman authority.

Remarkably, it was the influx of Irish immigrants in the post-Famine days of the mid-19th century that enabled Catholicism to rise from being an almost extinct sect into a distinctive branch of the Roman communion that increasingly challenged the claims of a schismatic Ecclesia Anglicana.

As Anglicanism withered under the spirit of rationalism, it was its great Victorian scholar, John Henry Newman, who pioneered the Blairite trend for 'a second spring' for Roman Catholicism, culminating in today's reality of England as a secular, or pagan, country in which Roman Catholics outnumber the established Anglicans in church attendance.

This is the backdrop for the arrival next week on the first official visit to England of a 'Supreme Pontiff' on the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, whose predecessor, Elizabeth I, would have beheaded an incursive Pope.

Paradoxically, too, an office in Downing Street has been given by Prime Minister David Cameron to Lord Chris Patten, a Catholic, to direct this first state visit to Britain of a Pope since the 16th-century Reformation. [Not that a Pope ever visited before the Reformation either!]

The triumphant visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982 was a pastoral visit to his Catholic flock. [So is this one, primarily. It is only a state visit by protocol.]

Twenty-eight years on, Pope Benedict XVI, a German, will enter English history through a four-day tour, half of the expected £10m-plus (€12m) cost of which will be paid for by godless Little Englander taxpayers. The highlight of this visit will be the beatification of Cardinal Newman. London's Hyde Park, celebrated for its freethinking corner orators, will witness a Pope presiding at a prayer vigil cheer-led by TV star Carol Vorderman. [Since Hyde Park Corner is a soapbox for anyone who wishes to express himself, then it elevates its standing when for one night, it becomes the pulpit for the Vicar of Christ.]

In Westminster Hall, where More and Campion were sentenced to death, former premiers Blair, Gordon Brown, John Major and Margaret Thatcher will hobnob with His Holiness.

Most remarkably of all, in Scotland, which opted for a more extreme Presbyterian strand of Protestantism than Anglicanism's moderate 'Via Media', Queen Elizabeth will entertain Benedict at Edinburgh's Holyrood Palace.

Later, in the Glasgow heartland of Catholicism, the Scottish descendants of Irish immigrants will welcome their Holy Father at Mass in Ballahouston Park, to the lusty singing of the devout Susan Boyle.

However, although welcomed as the invited guest of the British establishment, Benedict's visit will raise opposition from many quarters, especially victims of paedophile clerics, gays, militant atheists, aggrieved women and Muslims who view him as the uncompromising embodiment of Roman medievalism and the personification of Rome's unyielding advocacy of Catholic identity against secularism. [But 'unyielding advocacy of Catholic identity against secularism' is the Pope's duty, and it embodies, not medievalism, but the timelessness that has kept the Church what it is for more than 200 years!]

It was perhaps a Freudian omen that a leaked memo from the Foreign Office proposed that Benedict should open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a brand of Benedict condoms. [Nothing Freudian about symbols that were deliberately, not subconsciously, chosen for their provocative potential. What is very Freudian is contemporary society's obsession with sex, providing validation of some Freudian hypotheses.]

Liberal Catholics will hope Benedict confines himself to the preaching of Catholic social teaching, but fear he will again dwell on his anti-secularist mission, causing alienation rather than conversion in England and rekindling sectarian aversion in Scotland. [When has the fear of 'alienation' and 'aversion' stopped the modern Popes from preaching against the sick secularism that would obliterate God and religion from public discourse?]



Today, Sept 11, the anti-Pope narrative being pushed in the MSM to set their scenario for the Pope's visit is a revival of that hoary and tiresome chestnut "Victims demand action not words from the Pope" - reported as is, without any attempt to mention all the positive things that the Church - both Rome and many local churches - have done and continue to do to correct the circumstances and consequences of the sex abuse crisis.

How sad that advocacy groups are exploiting victims to push their own malicious anti-Church agenda! And that many victims buy into them, accepting the condition of perpetual victimhood, which is a form of hell on earth - nothing will ever assuage them, because that is the nature of victimhood.

And it robs them of their personal dignity because they allow themselves to be defined first and foremost by their victimhood. But transcending human evil and human limitations is also a human gift and grace from God that they could avail of, if only they stopped being nothing but victims.


And how's this for perspective on the 'costs' of the Pope's visit?

London police say papal visit operation
'a lot smaller than Notting Hill Carnival'

Sept. 10, 2010

Speaking at a briefing by the Association of Chief Police Officers (APCO) in London, Meredydd Hughes said that while officers would look after the "safety and dignity" of the Pope, they would also protect those wishing to see him and any protesters against his visit too.

"There is no intelligence to suggest any specific group will attack the Pope," he said, adding that the last few (physical) attacks on the Pontiff were by Catholics. [Unfortunately! There are unhinged types in any group, including one that counts 1.2 billion members.]

The Met's "public order supremo", Commander Bob Broadhurst, added that he expected "no more than 2,000 protesters to join the demonstration", and guesses between 10 and 20 protesters would turn up at the Pope's pastoral events elsewhere.

While the police were not anticipating any disorderly protests, "we may at times be protecting the protesters from the faithful if one or two people get hot under the collar".

He pointed out that other events — including a full football programme — were continuing during the visit and the police operation would be "nowhere near the scale of the Notting Hill carnival".

CVMM's comment:

Let's look at that again. The police operation for the four-day papal visit is nowhere near the scale of the Notting Hill Carnival.

Nor is the cost:
- The total cost of the policing for the papal visit is somewhere between £1m and 1.5m.
- The cost of policing the Notting Hill Carnival is £6.6m.
- The G20? £7.5m.
- Tamil ceasefire protests? £12.8m.
(You get the idea.)

'Going to Canossa' has become a metaphor for civilian leaders seeking out the Pope for some political accommodation (It is also wrongly seen as a symbol for civilian humiliation by the Church): In 1077, the German King Henry IV thought it expedient to cross the Alps in wintertime and knock at the door of Pope Gregory VII, who was visiting a noble estate in Canossa, near Bologna. Henry IV came to beg forgiveness so Gregory could lift his excommunication, imposed because he insisted on naming local bishops, a practice that Gregory VIII had ended. But Henry's 'penitence' was false, and soon insisted on his way again, while seeking to depose Gregory who was forced to flee Rome in 1084 to save his life. He died one year later while Henry reigned for another 20 years....SECOLO is the newspaper of Silvio Berlusconi's political party, Popolo della Liberta (Pdl).

Sarkozy goes to Canossa?
Visit with Benedict XVI in October may seek
to mend fences over expulsion of gypsies
by Paolo D'Andrea
Translated from

Sept. 11, 2010



Sarkozy has met Benedict XVI twice: in December 2007 at the Vatican, and in September 2008 in Paris.

While Benedict XVI is preparing to meet Queen Elizabeth of England, David Cameron and the new political leadership of the United Kingdom, the French are hoping to obtain an audience with the Pope, by mid-October, for President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Earlier this week, the secretary-general at the Elysee presidential palace, confirmed to the French newspaper La Croix that diplomats are working on this.

If they succeed to arrange such a visit so speedily - by Vatican standards - it will be far more than a courtesy call and photo opportunity.

The background for this is the severe damage to Sarkozism that followed the expulsion of Romanian gypsies from France, which has been universally condemned, as the European Parliament did on Thursday.

The French government sees a visit to the Vatican as a leading initiative in a diplomatic counter-offensive aimed to get it out of a corner.

But the Elysee's moves also betray a nervous need which tends to cloud its view and further entangle unresolved kinks.

This is seen in the unceremonious way in which they leaked the indiscretion about a Vatican visit by Sarkozy. On Tuesday, Elysee sources made it appear that the request for the meeting came from the Vatican, and that Benedict XVI above all 'wished' to meet with Sarkozy.

They claimed further that the Pope wished urgently to personally reassure the French President regarding the false interpretation of his words to French-speaking pilgrims at the August 22 Angelus.

The Pope had called on all nations "to welcome legitimate human differences", which was interpreted by dominant international opinion as a criticism of the French government's expulsion of gypsies.

In fact, the fanciful account from Paris of papal intentions drew disapproval from the Vatican. In modern times, Popes have never called heads of state or government to the Vatican. Requests to see the Pope generally come from the diplomatic service of the requesting nation, and the process generally requires 3-6 months lead time before it can be accommodated on the Pope's calendar.

At the Vatican Secretariat of State, the French moves are seen as a crude attempt to force the hand of the Vatican, by attributing the 'impatience' for a meeting to the Pope rather than to Sarkozy who wants the audience.

At home, Sarkozy's policy about the gypsies notably soured relations between Sarkozy and the Church in France, with numerous prelates expressing disapproval of the government's policies towards immigrants in general.

But the greatest outrage was sparked by the unfortunate remarks of economist Alain Minc, a close adviser of Sarkozy, who, in commenting on the Pope's brief and general statement on August 22, said that "a German Pope who has reinstalled a negationist bishop cannot give any lessons on how to treat gypsies and immigrants", implying that as a German, Benedict XVI shares the extreme racism of the Nazis.

[A most outrageous statement and misrepresentation that above all, violates elementary decency and the truth, and about which I have seen no reports, much less the commentary it deserves, in the Anglophone press, not even in the Catholic media. Worse, Sarkozy himself has not condemned the unregenerate racism and bigotry in his adviser's words!]

On Tuesday, Sarkozy himself was reported to have told some French parliamentarians that he wished to talk to the Pope about the reactions of some French bishops who have criticized his hard line against gypsies.

He is quoted to have said, "Purple robes do not entitle anyone to taking shots" [against the government]. [So much for Sarkozy's 'healthy secularism', shown to be nothing but empty talk at the first test! And in a sense, this statement, if he really said it, is just as terrible as his economic adviser's, because it smacks of sheer anti-clericalism and the purest and most unhealthy brand of secularism.]

He was referring particularly to Mons. Robert Le Gall, Archbishop of Toulouse, who called on Catholics last week to show their fraternal solidarity with gypsies.

And yet, Sarkozy obviously needs a photo-op with the Pope. He needs to send a signal to Catholic voters, among whom he has been losing ground since 2007. A recent survey cited by La Croix shows his approval rating among Catholic voters fell from 61 percent on August 2009 to 47 percent in August 2010.

Sarkozy, it is said, also hopes to discuss with the Pope the diminished French presence in the Roman Curia. [But why should Sarkozy make that any business of his - other than concern as a French citizen who has an interest in the Church?]

Age considerations led to the retirement of Cardinals Roger Etchegaray and Paul Poupard from Curial leadership, leaving only Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog.

The other prominent Frenchman in the Curia, Mons. Dominique Mamberti, who is Corsican, is the Vatican 'foreign minister', but has not managed to emerge from the corner into which he has been boxed in by the penchant for 'take-all protagonism' of his boss, Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone.


Other Curial stories today:

New Curial heads
to be named soon
by Ignazio Ingrao



On the chessboard of Curial nominations, the Pope is about to make major moves.

The prefect of the Congregation for the Religious, Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rode, is due to retire soon for reaching 75. Top candidate now mentioned to replace him is the Italian-born Archbishop of Chile,
Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, who is a Salesian Cardinal Bertone. He will be leading the dicastery that oversees the activities of congregations 190,000 priests and brothers and 740,000 sisters.

Also due to retire is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, whose dicastery oversees the world's 270,000 diocesan priests. Favored to take over form him is his present #2 man, Mons. Mauro Piacenza, who was a protege of the late Cardinal Giuseppe Siri (who was the leading conservative candidate in the conclaves that elected John Paul I and John Paul II).

The third Curial chief retiring soon after he turns 75 is the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum which administers Vatican aid to poor dioceses and for populations hit by great emergencies. The Bishop of Albano, Marcello Semeraro, has been mentioned as his replacement.

Meanwhile, it is thought that a new consistory, at which Benedict XVI will name at least 15 new cardinals, is now more likely to be held in February rather than this November as earlier speculated.

However, a story in ITALIA OGGI today reiterates the previous speculation about a November consistory, with at least 19 new cardinals to be named.

On the Pope's UK visit
Translated from

Sept. 11, 2010

Great anticipation is building for the visit of Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom on Sept. 16-19 as it approaches. It is an event with multiple significances, as Fr. Lombardi underscores in his editorial for Octava Dies, the weekly TV magazine of the Centro Televisivo Vaticano.

---

On Thursday, Sept. 16, the Pope will fly to Edinburgh to begin from there, with an official welcome by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, one of the most awaited visits in his Pontificate, to the United Kingdom.

Last Wednesday, the Pope expressed his gratitude for the official invitation from the Ween, because he knows very well the commitment and attention which not only Her Majesty and her Government have put into his visit, but also that of the Anglican Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of course, the entire Church in England, Wales and Scotland.

Even the interest and attention in British society is growing, well beyond the noisy but nonetheless marginal expressions of protest against the visit.

In fact, such opposition confirms the perception that the great religious and moral authority of the Pope could offer a specific contribution that is important, positive and constructive to orient society in how to face the great challenges of the world today.

Certainly, the Pope's meeting with the most important representatives of British institutions and civilian society in historic Westminster Hall will be one of the high points of the visit.

But the Pope's message will reach its full significance in the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman on Sept. 19 in Birmingham. This Englishman, whom the Pope has called 'truly great', rich with 'gentle wisdom' and an example of 'integrity and personal holiness'.

With his writings, Newman has been a source of inspiration for the Church and for society around the world, embodying in the most persuasive manner the fascinating fruit of the profound synthesis of reason and faith, and of the British spirit and its continuing fecundity for the world today and tomorrow.

---

And here's a belated post of Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's essay for the OR yesterday, Friday.

Benedict XVI in the UK:
Where faith confronts secularization
by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster
Translated from the 9/10/10 issue of



I remember well the first visit of a Pope to the United Kingdom. John Paul II arrived on May 28, 1982. I had the privilege to welcome him at Gatwick airport, which is in the territory of Arundel and Brighton, of which I was the bishop then.

It was a tragic period for Great Britain because of the conflict with Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands. That is why the Pope's visit could not be a state visit. But it was an extraordinary and happy week of celebration in England, Wales and Scotland.

Every event was focused on one of the seven Sacraments, and it was a wonderful way of showing to Britons, through television, something of the traditions and liturgy of the Catholic Church. [Which however, high Anglicans often find much better represented in their own traditional liturgies!]

It was also a discovery for many persons to see how Catholics from every social class were well integrated into British life and society.

One of the most significant events was the Pope's visit to the Cathedral of Canterbury where he met with all the Anglican bishops and the officials of other Christian churches in England and Wales. It was a very moving moment which offered great encouragement and hope to the ecumenical movement, particularly to the growing friendship with the Anglicans.

[Murphy-O'Connor, of course, has a personal history verging on ultra-liberalism, and apparently is among the professional 'ecumenists' who are obsessed with ecumenism for ecumenism's sake - the kumbaya brigade. Yet, even liberal Cardinal Walter Kasper acknowledged when he was president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity that the greatest obstacle to any further rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations including the Anglicans, is the latter's fairly recent adoption and espousal of practices like women priests and bishops, actively homosexual priests and bishops, and same-sex marriage.

Even assuming that the present Archbishop of Canterbury might have held out against these liberal practices if he had the votes among Anglican bishops, the hard reality is that - forgive me for restating the figures - 670 million Protestants have broken with Christian tradition on these practices, against 1.5 billion Catholics and Orthodox who have remained firm on it (Except, of course, for dissidents and liberals like Murphy-O'Connor who are too ready to give in to worldly exigencies)... And surely, Murphy-O'Connor cannot possibly say that if the Anglican Church had adopted all these 'non-Christian' practices in 1982, John Paul II would not have had something to say about it - and it would not have been approving!]

Nonetheless, the search for Christian unity and the journey towards it, which Christ wanted, continue and will never cease to be the desire and constant wish of the Catholic Church. [But not at the expense of its commitment to original Christian principles! Obviously for now, ecumenism with the Protestant churches must remain limited to working together on concrete social initiatives for the common good in the name of Christian charity, and perhaps, an occasional agreement on a topic of dogma, such as the joint declaration about Mary a few years ago. Even taking Communion together has become an impossible goal, under the circumstances.]

That which Benedict XVI will be undertaking on Sept, 16-19 is a state visit, because the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown officially invited him to visit our country, and these invitation was taken up by many of us, including the bishops of England, Wales and Scotland.

Great Britain has greatly changed today compared to 28 years ago. Our society has become very secular, and for Christians of various denominations, it has become increasingly difficult to have a central commanding position in the culture of our country.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has a very influential voice in bearing witness to Christian teachings and values in England and Wales. [How influential can it be if it is divided? Or if it does have some influence, then is it the dissident liberal wing that predominates since, going by what Damian Thompson says, they appear to be in the majority?]

It is definitely a Christian voice that is battling to guarantee the freedom to express Catholic teaching and discipline [What discipline, if the bishops openly defy the Pope?] in the culture of our nation. This does not mean imposing our views but to offer them as an authentic contribution to the life and common good of England and Wales. The same holds for the Church in Scotland.

Benedict XVI will receive a warm reception in our country. Catholics are eager to see him, some through TV, and many participating in the various encounters and celebrations that he will preside over during his four days in the UK. I wish to comment on some aspects of the visit that I consider particularly important.

The first is the meeting on Thursday, Sept. 16, with Queen Elizabeth at Holyrood Castle in Edinburgh. It is interesting that the Queen and the Pope are contemporaries - she being just one year older than he.

Both have had a wealth of experience, and I know that the Queen herself is looking forward to meeting the Pope upon his arrival in Scotland.

The warmth of the welcome from the Queen, who is so beloved and esteemed by her people, is very significant, especially in the light of the history of the English monarchy over the last few centuries. It will set the seal on the four days that the Pope will spend in the country.

The second aspect I wish to underscore is the importance of the Pope's address on Friday, Sept. 17, in Westminster Hall. It is the Great Hall of Parliament where John Fisher and Thomas More were tried and sentenced under Henry VIII.

Here, Benedict XVI will address parliamentarians, diplomats and other ranking representatives of British society. In many ways, this will also be his address to the British population in which, I am sure, he will express the Catholic idea of a fecund dialog with society in a country that is widely secularized.

On the same day, the Pope will visit Westminster Abbey, where he will recite Vespers with bishops of the Anglican Communion and other Anglican officials. The Abbey is over 1,000 years old. Benedictine monks settled on that site for the first time in mid-9th century. It was the site of the royal coronation in 1066 (year of the Norman Conquest] and it is the resting place of 17 sovereigns .

It is very appropriate that the joint prayer service with the Anglicans is offered in a place that embodies the ancient history of Christianity in this land and its subsequent history through the centuries.

On Saturday morning, the Pope will celebrate Mass with the bishops of England and Wales in Westminster Cathedral, in the presence of the priests, religious and lay faithful of England and Wales.

The communion between our bishops and the Successor of Peter has always been a distinctive trait of the Catholic bishops of our land. [Really! When was the last time they showed that trait? Apparently not with regard to Summorum Pontificum - again going by Damian Thompson (who may be hyperbolic sometimes, but would not falsify facts). Since dissidents and liberals have always used the liturgy as the emblem of their ideological battles in the name of Vatican-II as a rupture with Tradition, their defiance re SP is more than just misplaced loyalty to the Novus Ordo (which the Pope obediently observes and does better than any of them) with a corollary contempt for the traditional Mass. No, it is a declaration of war against the Pope, who respects both Tradition and Vatican II - and I cannot imagine what effort they must need to mask their hostility when in the presence of the Pope.]

The Mass at Westminster Cathedral will reflect the infinite loyalty and fidelity of bishops, priests and the people of this land towards the Holy See. [Brrrr... I shiver at the sheer hypocrisy of the statement!]

On that occasion, Benedict XVI will be able to confirm the faith of Catholics, recalling the great gift that they have received from the Holy Spirit and encouraging them to continue witnessing to the faith in their cities, towns and villages.

Finally, the Pope will go to Birmingham, where, in the presence of almost 100,000 pilgrims, he will celebrate the Mass during which he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Newman's life was one of pilgrimage and faith. Even today we still sing his hymn. "Lead kindly light amidst the encircling gloom', which continues to be a kind of touchstone for many pilgrims as it was for Newman himself.

His life was a sorrowful pilgrimage. {Would Newman have characterized his life as 'sorrowful'????]. He started as an evangelical, then he became Anglican, and finally converted to the Catholic Church. As a Catholic, his pilgrimage continued [in rather humble manner, as a parish priest for 30 years] until, marvelously, Leo XIII made him a cardinal.

There is so much to say about this extraordinary and holy man. I know that the Pope admires Newman and I am sure that he will speak about the reasons why he must be considered a very significant figure, not just for Catholics and for Anglicans, but for so many others who seek the truth.

He died on August 1, 1890, and on his coffin was inscribed his motto, Cor ad cor loquitur - heart speaks to heart. On his gravestone were inscribed words that he had chosen: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem - From shadows and symbols into the truth.

No one but than this Pope can speak better of this extraordinary Christian who so nourished Christian life in this country even after his death.

Cardinal Newman was very interested in the heart and the mind, and the link between them. He was an erudite man who never avoided intellectual rigor. But at the same time, he was fascinated by the way in which the human being is able to love and to understand, and particularly, to love God.

The prayers of all Catholics and other persons of good will will be with Benedict XVI when he comes to visit us.





I have just read a sickening article coming out in the Sunday Independent (Sept. 12)
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/peter-popham/peter-popham-benedict-is-not-to-blame-for-every-failing-2077...
by the hateful Peter Popham, a man who has never before written anything positive about Benedict XVI. Now, suddenly, he writes what purports to be an objective commentary - consider the title, 'Benedict is not to blame for every failing' - but don't be taken in, because he expresses his contempt in other ways, as in this paragraph:

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Pope Benedict XVI has the opposite effect [from the 'charismatic John Paul II and the Dalai Lama', he means]: even those who share his faith find him hard to love. He comes across as a small person both literally and metaphorically, with neither the physical presence nor the passion to move and impress us. He looks like the sort of person who would have been the target of bullies in the school playground, and he brings out the bully in us, too.

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[Speak for yourself, Popham, if your bigotry is that pathological! You are a contemptible creature to use this occasion to make such an ad-hominem attack on someone whose very physical appearance you cannot stand. You have taken journalistic bias - and UNTRUTH - to a new low. I wonder what you look like yourself... And I pass on fisking this one. It threatens my health and deprives me of all charity.]

Pope to recently-appointed bishops:
'Take enough time to be with Christ and
imitate him in rendering a service of love'




11 Sept. 11 (RV) - Pope Benedict today received recently appointed bishops who are participating in a course sponsored by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

Speaking to the newly appointed bishops, the Holy Father said their course of study in Rome offered them a real opportunity to focus on the duties of their ministry and to renew the profession of their faith.

The Pope expressed his spiritual closeness to these men recently called to the Episcopal ministry and acknowledged the challenges they face especially in Christian communities where living the faith is at times not easy and where in addition to various forms of poverty, sometimes forms of persecution can occur because of ones Christian faith.

The Holy Father said it was the bishops' task to give these people hope, to share their difficulties, drawing on the charity of Christ.

But the Pope also underlined that in order to imitate Christ they must themselves devote adequate time to be with him "and contemplate the intimacy of a prayerful heart to heart conversation.

The bishop, Pope Benedict added, “is called to serve the Church in the style of God made man. He is above all a servant and minister of the Word of God, which is his real strength”.

The Pope went on to say that he knew that communities entrusted to Bishops, were in many cases in the minority, but the Holy Father encouraged them to continue to preach the Gospel.

He also urged the Bishops not to give in to pessimism and despair, because, he said, the Holy Spirit guides the Church and gives it the courage to persevere and also to seek new methods of evangelization, reaching areas hitherto unexplored.

Finally, Pope Benedict stressed that Christian truth is attractive and persuasive precisely because it responds to the deep need of human existence, announcing convincingly that Christ is the Saviour of all mankind.



Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's address to the bishops, delivered in Italian:

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Dear brothers in the Episcopate,

I am happy to welcome you today and I greet you with great affection, on the occasion of the continuing education seminar that the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples has organized for you, bishops who have recently been appointed.

These days of reflection in Rome - to deepen your understanding of the tasks of your ministry and to renew the profession of your faith at the tomb of St. Peter - are also a singular experience of collegiality, based on episcopal ordination and hierarchical communion.

May this experience of fraternity, of prayer, and of study in the Apostolic See, be for each of you, a communion with the Successor of Peter and your brother bishops, together in concern for the entire Church.

I thank Cardinal Ivan Dias for his kind words, as well as the secretary and adjunct secretary of the dicastery, who together with their collaborators, organized this seminar.

On you, dear brothers, who were recently called to the episocopal ministry, the Church places not a few hopes and accompanies you with prayers and affection. I, too, wish to assure you of my spiritual closeness in your daily service to the Gospel.

I know the challenges you must face, especially in the Christian communities who live their faith in circumtances that are not easy - where, other than various forms of poverty, there are also forms of persecution because of their Christian faith.

The task falls on you to nourish their hope, to share their difficulties, inspiring them to the charity of Christ that consists in attention, tenderness, compassion, acceptance, availability and interest in the problems of the people, for whom one must be ready to devote one's life (cfr Benedict XVI, Message for World Missionary Day 2008, No.2).

In every task you do, you are sustained by the Holy Spirit, who, at your Ordination, configured you to Christ, the supreme and eternal priest. Indeed, the episcopal ministry can be understood only starting with Christ, source of the one supreme Priesthood, to which the bishop has been made to take part.

Thus, he should "commit himself to assume a lifestyle that imitates the kenosis of Christ, the poor and humble servant, so that the exercise of his pastoral ministry may be a consistent reflection of Jesus, Servant of God, and make him, like Jesus, close to everyone, from the greatest to the least" (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Pastores gregis, 11).

But to imitate Christ, one must dedicate sufficient time to 'be with him' and to contemplate him in the prayerful intimacy of a heart-to-heart conversation.

To be frequently in the presence of God, to be a man of prayer and adoration: the pastor is called to do this before everything else. Through prayer, he becomes, as the Letter to the Hebrews says (cfr 9,11-14), victim and altar for the salvation of the world.

The life of a bishop should be a continuous offering to God for the salvation of his Church, and especially, for the salvation of the souls who are entrusted to him.

This pastoral condition of self-offering also constitutes the true dignity of the bishop - which he derives from being a servant of everyone, to the point of giving his life.

Indeed, the episcopate, like the priesthood, must never be interpreted according to worldly criteria. It is a service of love. The Bishop is called to serve the Church in the style of God who became man, becoming ever more fully the servant of the Lord and servant of mankind.

He is, above all, a servant and minister of the Word of God, which is also the bishop's true strength. The primary duty of announcing the Gospel, accompanied by the celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, as the Apostolic Exhortation Pastores gregis underscores:

"If the duty of proclaiming the Gospel is incumbent upon the whole Church and each of her children, it is particularly so upon Bishops, who on the day of their sacred ordination, which places them in apostolic succession, assume as one of their principal responsibilities the proclamation of the Gospel; 'with the courage imparted by the Spirit, they are to call people to faith and strengthen them in living faith'." (No. 26).

The Bishop must nourish himself abundantly from the Word of salvation, placing himself in continuous listening to it, as St. Augustine says: "Even if we are pastors, the pastor must listen not only to what the Gospel says to pastors, but also what it says to the flock" (Doscourse 47,2).

At the same time, acceptance of the Word and the fruit of proclaiming the Good News are clsely linked to the quality of one's faith adn prayer. Those who are called to the ministry of preaching must believe in the power of God that comes from the Sacraments and which accompanies them in their task to sanctify, govern and announce. They must believe and live what they announce and celebrate.

In this respect, the words of the Servant of God Paul VI are very relevant: "The testimony of faith has become more than ever an essential condition for profound efficacy in preaching" (Ap. Exh. Evangelii nuntiandi, 76).

I know that the communities entrusted to you find themselves, so to speak, at a religious, anthropological and social 'frontier', and in many cases, are a minority presence. In this context, the mission of a Bishop is particularly demanding.

But it is precisely in such circumstances that, through your ministry, the Gospel can show all of its salvific potential. You must not yield to pessimism and to discouragement, because it is the Holy Spirit that guides the Church and gives her, with his powerful breath, the courage to persevere and even to find new methods of evangelization in order to reach areas that have heretofore been unexplored.

Christian truth is attractive and persuasive precisely because it responds to the profound need of human existence, announcing in a convincing way that Christ is the only Savior of the whole man and of all men. This annnouncement remains valid today as it was at the start of Christianity, when the first great missionary dissemination of the Gospel took place.

Dear brothers in the episcopate, it is in the power of the Holy spirit that you can have the wisdom and the strength to make your Churches witnesses to salvation and to peace. He will guide you along the paths of your episcopal ministry, which I entrust to the materinal itnercession of teh Most Blessed Mary, Queen of the Apostles.

On my part, I am with you in my prayers and and an affectionate Apostolic Blessing which I impart to each of you and to all the faithful of your communities.

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