BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries today.






Pope and Cyprus Orthodox Primate
meet for the third time

March 28, 2011



The head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, Chrysostomos II, met with Pope Benedict in the Vatican on Monday to discuss relations between the two Churches and the difficulties facing Christians across the Middle East.

A brief statement from the Vatican press office after the private meeting said the two leaders also discussed the question of religious freedom on the Mediterranean island, which has been divided since Turkish troops invaded the north following a coup by the Greek Cypriot national guard in 1974.

Pope Benedict was welcomed by the Orthodox Archbishop during his pastoral visit to the island last June and the archbishop also came to the Vatican for the signing of a joint declaration in 2007, less than a year after his enthronement in November 2006.

During this three-day trip to Rome, the Archbishop is also holding talks with top Vatican officials and visiting a number of projects run by the Sant'Egidio lay community.

The Pope at Fosse Ardeatine:
'A reminder of the abyss of evil'
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the 3/28-3/29/11 issue of


Benedict XVI's pilgrimage to the Fosse Ardeatine - as the Pope himself defined it - to pay homage to the vitims of the horrible massacre which remains among the most indelibe of the numerous horros during World War II, did not find much coverage in the media. Perhaps this was also due to the urgent succession of tragic news on the international scene.

And yet Benedict XVI's visit to this shrine 'dear to all Italians' - in continuity with those by Paul VI and John Paul II, for the purpose of prayer and a 'renewal of memory' - has a special significance that is enduring.

Their successor has, in fact, taken yet another step in recomposing the memory of that conflict which contributed to plunge the 20th century into the abyss of evil. Just as Benedict XVI himself had said ne year after his election as Pope, when reflecting on recent Popes.

One must consider, he said, that "on Peter's Chair, after a Polish Pope, the succesion passed on to a citizen of that land, Germany, whose Nazi regime asserted itself with great virulence, attacking its neighboring nations, including Poland in particular." He continued:

"Both these Popes, in their youth - a;though on opposite sides and in different situations - knew firsthand the barbarisms of the Second World War and the senseless violence of men against men, of peoples against other peoples".

In the presence of the Chief Rabbi of the oldest community in teh Western Diaspora, which was ferociously struck by racial persecution even at the Fosse Ardeatine, the Bishop of Rome - 'city consecrated by the blood of martyrs' - wished to meet and spend some time with the families of the victims, Catholics and Jews together, at this modern shrine not far from the catacombs of ancient Rome.

Once more, Psalms were heard, words that Jews and Christians have raised through the centuries to the one God. The God to whom, at the moment of death, two of the victims, like so many others in those days, called on, one to affirm his faith "in God and in Italy', the other, to ask the Father to protect the Jews 'from barbaric persecutions'.

Benedict XVI cited their words, recalling the 150th anniversary pf Italian unity this year, and repeating that in the Father of all, a different future is possible, in which no offense will be done to the holy name of God and to the human being he created in his image.

Since St. Thomas Aquinas enunciated his reasoning for when and why 'just war' can be waged - and what a 'just war' is - volumes have been written about how to interpret the phrase. More reams have come out recently in view of the UN resolution authorizing a group of Western nations to enforce a 'no- fly zone' over Libya with the primary purpose of keeping Libyan leader Qaddafi from using his armed forces against the civilian population.

Qaddafi's armed might has been significantly reduced, but he is still in power, the 'no-fly' coalition is divided over their actual goals and who gets to command what, and even whether their military action can be considered war.


Nuncio in London to represent
Holy See at Libya conference



Mons. Mennini presented his credentials to Queen Elizabeth on March 2, and was honored at a welcome Mass in Westminster Cathedral.

LONDON, March 28 (SIR) - “It will be very important if the parties concerned will listen to or at least will act with the same spirit as that with which the Pontiff spoke yesterday, to ‘support even the weakest sign of openness and reconciliation between all Parties concerned in the search for peaceful, lasting and fair solutions”.

Thus spoke the apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, mgr. Antonio Mennini to SIR today, after the Vatican spokesman, father Federico Lombardi, announced that the Holy See, through Mons. Mennini, will take part in the World Conference on Libya tomorrow as an observer.

“It will be important," the Nuncio said, "for the suffering population of Libya to have security and wellbeing again and for the parties concerned to take up even the ‘weakest sign of openness and intention of reconciliation' as wished for by the Pope”.

About the option of a political solution in Libya, the Nuncio hopes that “even the so-called Italo-German project that is being rumoured about and that I have learnt about from radio and TV will be supported by the others for a shared quest, for getting out of this conflict, not just because of unpredictable consequences if it should last too long, but above all to restore security and peace to that long-suffering region”.

Commenting on Benedict XVI's words at the Angelus yesterday. Mons, Mennini said they "properly show concern for the civilian population and confirm the specific call of the Holy See, and first and foremost of the Pope, giving voice to the deepest aspirations of the human family, to find unity based on peace, justice and friendly, brotherly relations”.


In announcing the conference, the British Foreign Minister said this:

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At the conference we will discuss the situation in Libya with our allies and partners and take stock of the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 (2011).

We will consider the humanitarian needs of the Libyan people and identify ways to support the people of Libya in their aspirations for a better future. A wide and inclusive range of countries will be invited, particularly from the region.

It is critical that the international community continues to take united and coordinated action in response to the unfolding crisis. The meeting will form a contact group of nations to take forward this work.

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More than 40 Foreign Ministers and representatives from key regional organisations are expected to attend.

These include the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the Chairman of the African Union Dr Jean Ping, OIC Secretary General Dr Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Foreign Ministers from key regional countries including Iraq, Jordan, UAE, and Morocco, Secretary Clinton, and Foreign Ministers from across Europe and NATO members, along with Secretary General Rasmussen. The Arab League, Lebanon and Tunisia will also be represented.

In the run-up to the Conference, the UK and others are co-ordinating closely with the key Libyan opposition figures including the Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) which the British Foreign Office described as "a legitimate political partner and who alongside civil society leaders could help to begin a national political dialogue, leading to a representative process of transition, constitutional reform and preparation for free and fair elections".

Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicholas Sarkozy issued a joint statement today explaining the aims of the conference.




Meanwhile, here are two views on whether the current situation in Libya is a 'just war':

What does Catholic teaching
on just war say about Libya?
By Fr. Robert Barron

March 28, 2011

Why, in God’s name, are we entering a third war in the Middle East? America finds itself embroiled already in armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now we have rained missiles down on Libya.

When President Obama was asked about the Libyan incursion during a press conference in El Salvador, his answers were distressingly vague.

As to the direction of the endeavor, the President said, “NATO is meeting today…to work out the mechanisms for command and control. I expect that over the next several days you will have clarity and a meeting of the minds of all those who are participating in the process.”

One might be forgiven for wondering why greater clarity hadn’t been achieved prior to the dropping of bombs. And after assuring the gathered reporters that the mission in Libya was clearly defined as humanitarian assistance to the Libyan people and that our involvement would be a “matter of days and not weeks,” Obama admitted that as long as Gaddafi remains in power he will always pose a threat to his own people.

In other words, the mission isn’t that clearly defined and the time of our involvement is more or less open-ended.

Are we there to help the rebels? To protect innocent lives? To get rid of Gaddafi? To establish political stability in Libya? To assure that a democratic polity is established there? I’m not the least bit convinced that the administration knows, and if they don’t know, they won’t know when to declare victory and go home.

Lest this discussion move exclusively in a “political” ambit, I would like to analyze the incursion into Libya in light of the Catholic just war theory.

According to the Catholic social teaching tradition, going to war can be undertaken morally only when definite criteria are met. These are 1) declaration by a competent authority, 2) the presence of a just cause, 3) some proportion between the good to be achieved and the negativity of the war, 4) right intention on the part of those engaged in the conflict, and 5) a reasonable hope of success.

One might argue that the first criterion has been met, since the President sanctioned our involvement upon the resolution of the United Nations to offer humanitarian aid to Libya.

In regard to the second standard, things get a good deal murkier. Traditionally, legitimating causes included the repulsing of an unjust aggression against one’s nation as well as the righting of wrongs in other nations or cities.

Thus, in accord with that second specification, Thomas Aquinas said that a nation could go to war to punish a wicked king. Here we might see a ground for our pre-emptive moves against both Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadaffi. Also, it would seem to provide a justification for sending troops into, say, Rwanda while the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents was proceeding there without any interference.

On the other hand, the Popes of the twentieth century, taking into account the terribly destructive nature of modern warfare, have ruled out the righting of wrongs criterion and have accepted only the repulsing of unjust aggression as a legitimating cause.

In applying the third criterion to the Libya situation, a good deal of ambiguity remains. No one doubts that Gaddafi, like Saddam Hussein, is a wicked man who has done terrible things to his own people, but one might well wonder whether the employment of the blunt instrument of the American military is in proportion to the achievement of the end of removing Gaddafi?

The issue becomes even more complicated when we think of the long-term effects of invading a third Muslim country at a time when relations between our country and the Islamic world are already so strained.

This was a major concern of Pope John Paul II at the time of our invasion of Iraq in 2003: How would the American attack on Iraq affect, not only the Iraqis, but the nearly one billion Muslims around the world? [In hindsight, it seems the Iraq experience has emboldened and 'inspired' the wave of anti-dictatorship that has now swept the Arab world in a way no one had expected or predicted!]

In regard to the fourth criterion — the right intention of the belligerents — I think that we can assume the American soldiers, for the most part, are going about their work responsibly and with a sense of moral purpose and proportion.

When we apply the fifth and final criterion, we come perhaps to greatest clarity. The Catholic just war tradition teaches that a war can be legitimately waged if and only if there is a reasonable hope of success on the part of the government that authorizes the fighting.

For example, a war fought against an overwhelmingly more powerful opponent might be noble and brave, but it wouldn’t be just. But another reason for questioning the reasonable hope of success is the absence of a clearly defined mission and purpose.

As I stated above, if we don’t know precisely what it is that we’re fighting for, we cannot, even in principle, determine when and whether we’ve won.

A poorly-defined war is one that enjoys no reasonable hope of success. I believe that the strict application of this final criterion would render our action in Libya unjust.

I have found that a principle formulated by Gen. Colin Powell is both wise and congruent with the intentions of the Catholic just war tradition. Gen. Powell said that the American military should be unleashed only when three criteria are met: there is a defined objective, massive force can be brought to bear, and a clear exit strategy is in place.

If any one of these factors is missing, the blunt instrument of the military should not be used. As far as I am concerned, none of Gen. Powell’s criteria are met in the current Libyan situation.

I am not a pacifist. I do think that sometimes, in our finite and conflictual world, violence has to be used in defense of certain basic goods.

However, I believe that the criteria provided by the just war theory should be strictly rather than loosely applied. And I believe that such a strict application would rule out what our government is currently sanctioning in Libya.


The air strikes over Libya undoubtedly
meet St Thomas’s conditions for a just war
This is a risky venture: but the risk
of doing nothing was much greater
By William Oddie

Monday, 28 March 2011

Mary Kenny asks in this week’s Catholic Herald whether St Thomas Aquinas would have backed the NATO operation to install a no-fly zone over Libya and to take “all necessary measures” to defend civilians from their own government’s bloodthirsty behaviour.

It is true that we don’t actually know what the final outcome of all this will be. But that can’t surely affect the question of the morality of this military operation, even if, as some claim, it actually, in effect, tacitly includes the ambition of “regime change” – the ousting of the Gaddafi family from power – since it is difficult to imagine how else the Libyan population is ultimately to be defended.

As for unpredictable outcomes – the question “what happens then”, which Mary says makes the NATO operation, from the point of view of “the Aquinas conditions”, borderline – they surely can’t come under the just war criteria.

There were originally only three conditions laid down by St Thomas himself:

1) The war must be started and controlled by the due authority of state or ruler – in other words, it can’t be a civil war or a rebellion. This rules out the war being waged by the Libyan rebels, but not the military intervention of the NATO forces, since that was indeed started by the due authority, not of one nation, but of the United Nations itself.

2) There must be a just cause. This wouldn’t include, say, a war for territory, but it would include the protection of a civil population, self-defence and the prevention of a worse evil. The UN resolution emphatically fulfils that condition.

3) The war must be for good, or against evil. Think what Gaddafi said when he thought his tanks were about to roll virtually unopposed into Benghazi: that he would go “from alley to alley, from house to house, from room to room” and that he would show “no mercy”. Thousands would have died. Without any doubt, the airstrikes have been against a very great evil indeed.

The Church later added two more rules, though St Thomas usually gets the credit for them (and why not?).

The first is that the conflict must be a last resort. In other words, every other option must be tried first. In this case they had been. Sanctions, diplomacy, phone calls from Tony Blair to his pal Muammar, freezing of assets, the lot. None of it had any effect. The UN military measures were not only a last resort, they were employed only at the last possible moment, just in the nick of time.

Lastly, the war must be fought proportionally. This means that more force than necessary must not be used, nor must the action kill more civilians than necessary. Enormous pains are being taken to fulfil this condition, too.

The supposed “smart bombs” they talked about in the first Gulf war (which constantly missed their targets and killed large numbers of civilians) appear to have been in the last 20 years perfected in the most remarkable way, so that tanks can be taken out surgically even inside urban areas without damage to their surroundings (special missiles are used, with a considerably reduced explosive charge).

I know that some Catholics with whom I am usually prone to agree are strongly against the whole thing. “Bang, crash, wallop,” writes Stuart Reid this week in his Charterhouse column,

“Here we go again. Which of the western allies will be the first to bomb an aspirin factory or an orphanage?… We have been in Afghanistan for almost 10 years and in Iraq for eight and all we have to show for all that innocent blood and treasure – and for all those innocent victims – is two failed states and a world that is more dangerous than ever.”

But the whole point is that we are extremely unlikely this time to bomb any orphanages. (My readers will undoubtedly hold that against me if I’m proved wrong). And this is emphatically not Afghanistan, and it is not Iraq.

Here we do not go again. There will be “no boots on the ground”, this time. That’s the most unshakeable condition of all. And as for innocent victims: this action will save them – has already saved them – in their thousands from a merciless tyrant bent on a bloody revenge.

So, here we all are, whether we like it or not. Maybe I will come to regret sticking my neck out so publicly: but I think that Parliament was right, this time, to give such overwhelming support to a military venture.

Of course, we cannot watch what is going on without great anxiety. It was risky: but there was an even greater risk in doing nothing. There is much more to be said, of course. But for the moment, perhaps, it would be better leave it at that: this is not a subject, I fear, that is going to go away soon.


While I love Pope Benedict dearly, it is difficult to see how dialog can work in the Libyan situation. Who is there to talk to? If the other side of the dialog is Qaddafi and his sons, they have already made it clear they will fight to the last Libyan, even if that means themselves!...

On the other hand, if the transitional Libyan Council in London represents the rebels who are now fighting to get to Tripoli again, then that is where dialog can begin, while everyone prays that Qaddafi somehow some time in the few days or weeks will leave the scene, and the transitional Council has a country to go home to and lead... That's a lot of if's. Let us all pray.

Cardinal Bagnasco gets a chance to comment on national and international issues, other than the state of the Church in Italy, at least three times during the year - at the yearly general assembly of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI) which he leads, and during the twice-yearly meetings of the CEI Permanent Council, whose spring meeting opened Monday evening in Rome... Tomorrow's issue of OR carries generous excerpts from his address, but meanwhile, here is a summary report from the English service fo SIR, teh news agency of the CEI.

Praise for the Japanese and
their 'discipline of suffering'


ROME, March 28 (SIR) - “In their darkest hour, the people of Japan have given the world a supreme lesson of composure, determination and strength. This is what has been effectively called ‘the discipline of suffering’”.

With these words, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), began his opening speech to the spring meeting of the CEI's Permanent Episcopal Council this evening in Rome, pointing to the powerful witness shown by the Japanese people to the world these days.

In the face of an enormous natural catastrophe and an exceptional and possibly worsening radioactive threat, he said “we should all rediscover the sense of our innate limitedness, of the intrinsic fragility of things, and thus, feel more humble, closer and more generous”.

The cardinal discussed various subjects in his speech: Lent and the need for personal conversion; the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification; events in North Africa and the military intervention by Western nations in Libya; the “European emergency” in which Italy has seen boatloads of North African refugees and fugitives arriving on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa; terrorist attacks and persecutions against Christians in several countries; poverty in Italy; the north-south gap in the country; and pending laws governing 'end of life' issues and the family.

On the African crisis, the Cardinal expressed the hope that “this bloody phase may end immediately” and that Libyans may have “access to the necessary humanitarian aid, in a framework of justice”.

He went on to say that the North AFrican emergency is ‘European’, due to the thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe by boat. He called for “the generous help of each Region” as well as “for a concerted response by the European Union”.

With thousands arriving in Lampedusa, he said “the working activities of the small community run the risk of being seriously jeopardized, to the growing concern of the residents”.

He described serious threats to, and attacks on, religious freedom, especially towards Christians in several countries, recalling in particular the sassassinated Pakistani minister Bhatti, whom he called 'a martyr'.

Finally, commenting on the final judgement of the European Court of Human Rights that displaying the crucifix in Italian schools was not a violation of human rights, he said it was a religious symbol that
is “an integral part of Italian culture, and now, at this point, even European”.

Tuesday, March 29, Third Week in Lent

BLESSED LODOVICO DA CASORIA (Italy, 1814-1885)
Franciscan, Founder of Gray Brothers and Gray Sisters
Born Arcangelo Palmentieri near Naples, he was a cabinet-maker before
he joined the Franciscan Friars Minor in 1832. His first assignment was
to teach chemistry, physics and math in Franciscan schools. In 1847,
he underwent a mystical experience which he called 'a cleansing', after
which he dedicated himself to charitable work with such energy that one
biography calls him 'a cyclone of charity'. Specifically he set up schools
and institutions to serve the poor, children and the elderly. In 1859, he
set up the Gray Brothers (Frati Bigi) from members of the Franciscan Third
Order to carry out this work, and a few years later, the Gray Sisters (Suore
Bigie). He was beatified in 1993.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/032911.shtml


OR for 3/28-3/29/11:

This double issue reports on the Holy Father's visit to the Fosse Ardeatine on Sunday, with an editorial (translated and posted earlier on this page); his Angelus appeal for an end to the use of arms in Libya; and the audience yesterday morning for Chrysostomos II, Orthodox Primate of Cyprus. Page 1 international news: Radioactivity from Fukushima continues to increase; the Syrian government promises to end 50-year 'state of emergency' but street protests continue; Turkey proposes to mediate in Libya. In the inside pages, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union has its third regional electoral defeat this year in Baden-Wuerttemberg where the anti-nuclear energy Green Party for the first time gains 25% of teh vote, topping the socialists; and major excerpts from Cardinal Bagnasco's opening address to the spring meeting of the Italian bishops' Permanent Council in Rome.


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

- No events announced for the Holy Father.

- The Vatican released the text of the Pope's letter to Latin American and Caribbean bishops meeting in Bogota
this week to discuss pastoral ministry in defense of life and the family.

- The Press Office announced a news conference on April 5 led by the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, Agostino Vallini,
to discuss the preparations and program for the beatification of John Paul II.




Oregon Jesuit province to pay
$166 million to abuse victims

PORTLAND, Ore., March 28 (CNS) -- The Oregon province of the Society of Jesus has agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 people abused by Jesuit priests at schools in the Pacific Northwest in past decades. Most of the abuse took place from the 1950s to the 1980s, but some of the cases date back to the late 1940s.

The claims were primarily from Alaska natives and Native Americans who said they were abused as children by priests at the order's schools in remote Alaskan villages and U.S. Indian reservations. The Portland-based province serves Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

The settlement, which is part of the Oregon province's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, was announced March 25 in Portland. The province also agreed to publicize the names of the abusers, issue a written apology to victims, and provide personal and medical records of about 140 priests and brothers accused.

Under the terms of the settlement, the province will pay $48.1 million. The order's insurer will pay $118 million and about $6 million will be reserved for any future claims.

Jesuit Father Patrick Lee, provincial superior, said in a March 25 statement that because of the province's current bankruptcy status and "out of respect for the judicial process and all involved," he would not comment on the settlement announcement. "The province continues to work with the creditors committee to conclude the bankruptcy process as promptly as possible," he said.


Oh how the hoity-toity have fallen! Although I had personal experience of many excellent Jesuits in my hometown where they ran the school my brother attended, as well as at university where my Student Catholic Action chaplains were Jesuits, I have always resented the holier-even-than-the-Pope attitude that many Jesuits worldwide have arrogantly propagated in the years since Vatican-II, exemplified by the Jesuits who run Georgetown University and America and Commonweal magazines, and many more questionable 'Catholic' institutions of learning in the US. Thank God for the 'good Jesuits' like Fathers Schall, Fessio and Oakes!...

When the current Jesuit superior-general was installed 2-3 years ago, the burden of his inaugural addrtess was that his long experience in Japan, in effect, equipped him better to deal with the problems of teh Church than the Vatican... In short, I resent and regret all the indications of how prominent contemporary Jesuits have been betraying the ideals of their founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, oarticularly the fourth vow he added of 'obedience to the Supreme Pontiff. - even if it specifies "in all matters regarding missions" - and more so, the saint's 18 rules for 'thinking with the Church' (sentire cum ecclesia) in his Spiritual Exercises, which were intended for all Christians, not just the Jesuits.

Particularly apropos with respect to Jesuit progresive dissent is Rule #13:

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That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtedly believe, that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same...
-Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises

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Missionary Pope launches 'Court of the Gentiles'
for dialogue with non-believers:
Another Benedict is here
to lead a new missionary age.
By Deacon Keith Fournier

3/29/2011

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The God Whom believers learn to know invites you to discover Him and to live in Him. Do not be afraid! On your journey together towards a new world, seek the Absolute, seek God, even those of you for whom He is an unknown God.

May He Who loves each and every one of you bless and protect you. He relies on you to show concern for others and for the future, and you can always rely on Him!
- Benedict XVI
Videomessage to Paris, March 25, 2011

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CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - This past February Pope Benedict XVI ordained five priests to the office of Bishop. He called them to an "ecclesial existence" proclaiming "The harvest is great but the laborers are few! Pray then to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers for his harvest!" (Luke 10:2).

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The Lord sends you, Dear Friends, to his harvest. Precisely in this hour working in God's fields is especially urgent and precisely in this hour the truth of Jesus's words -- "The laborers are few" -- weighs painfully upon us.

Set out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. You are called to cast the net into the troubled sea of our time to bring men to follow Christ; to draw them out, so to speak, of the salty waters of death and darkness into which the light of heaven does not penetrate. You must bring them to the shore of life, into communion with Jesus Christ."

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Missionary zeal has characterized this Pontificate. When Benedict XVI succeeded John Paul II few expected it. I was numbered among those who did.

But his choice of the name Benedict, the Monk whose movement reclaimed Europe for the Church in the last millennium, signaled a prophetic papacy. I recalled a passage from Alasdair MacIntyre's (British philosopher, born 1929) After Virtue (written in 1981) wherein he opined on the decline of the West.

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It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the Epoch in which the Roman Empire declined into the Dark Ages.

Nonetheless, certain parallels there are. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another-- doubtless very different-- St. Benedict.

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[NB: Shortly after the April 2005 Conclave, a couple of other Catholic writers immediately recalled MacIntyre's oddly prophetic words, written in the third year of John Paul II's Pontificate. With his systematic and tireless ways of calling attention to the Christian message in all his actions and words, Benedict XVI more than makes up in missionary ardor for the physical impossibility of emulating his predecessor's prodigious missionary travels.]

What I suggested was that another Benedict was here to lead the recovery and reform of the Church and summon her into this new missionary age. I reaffirm that assertion today.

The Church is Christ's plan for the entire world. The early Fathers called her the "world reconciled", a term embraced by the Catechism of the Catholic Church which, citing St Augustine, declares "To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church.

The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood." (CCC #845)

The contemporary culture has thrown off almost every remnant of Christian influence and embraced a new paganism. What Pope Benedict calls the "dictatorship of relativism" is the bad fruit of a rejection of the very existence of truth. Given the current state of moral decline we need to see the West as ripe for the New Evangelization.

We are all called to be "fishers of men in the ocean of our time." We are living in "the time of mission." Another Benedict is here, leading us into a new missionary age of the Church.

In his very first homily he referred to Christian unity as his impelling duty and he has acted upon it with extraordinary conviction and bold initiatives.

His are the modern missionary journeys of the Vicar of Christ. They are chosen strategically, led by the Holy Spirit and have a prophetic purpose as part of a missionary plan. His "Encyclical" (circulating) letters contain wisdom from heaven which can help to heal and rebuild the Church - and through her the world.

His work to restore the Catholic unity of the Church - including the bold overture toward Anglican Christians which birthed the Anglican Ordinariate, his pastoral efforts with the SSPX, and his humble rapprochement with our Orthodox brethren shows his dedication to healing the divisions within the Church.

His continual encouragement to the ecclesial movements are part of a blueprint to resuscitate the Church as one New Man, breathing with both lungs, East and West, in a new Christian missionary age.

His erection of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization charged with evangelizing countries where the Gospel was announced centuries ago but where its presence in peoples' daily life seems to be all but lost shows his missionary intention to re-evangelize Europe and the West.

His continual exhortations to the faithful to live at the heart of the Church for the sake of the world reveal a missionary plan and methodology.

Playing off of the title of Dr. Thomas Woods's book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, I believe the Catholic Church will rebuild Western Civilization as she comes back together again in the fullness of Christian communion under the leadership of this Pope.

This missionary Pope now continues this momentum, by reaching out now to non-believers. He has instituted a "Court of the Gentiles" through the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Two days of meetings occurred in Paris, France, on March 24th and 25th as the beginning of this initiative. The Vatican released the complete text of the Holy Father's video message to participants in the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" which closed in Paris at the courtyard in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame where the Pope's message was broadcast on giant screens [after which participants could take part in a Vesper service inside the Cathedral prepared by the Taize community].

[Fournier then reprints the Pope's videmessage.]


Sandro Magister today also has an article about the Paris events
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1347285?eng=y
which adds little to the sparse facts we have but does include two interviews conducted by Avvenire with Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and with Bulgarian-born French philosopher-sociologist Julia Kristeva, who took part in one of the dialogues in Paris. I will post after I have compared the available English translations with the originals.



Atheists and Catholics in Paris
examine the question of God
By Alan Holdren


Paris, France, Mar 28, 2011 (CNA) - Pope Benedict XVI called for a greater sense of brotherhood in the world as the first official modern forum for dialogue between believers and non-believers was inaugurated last week in Paris.

“Religions cannot be afraid of a just secularism, a secularism that is open and allows individuals to live according to what they believe in their own consciences,” he said.

“If we are to build a world of freedom, equality and fraternity, believers and non-believers should feel themselves to be free, with equal rights to live their individual and community lives in accordance with their own convictions; and they must be brothers to one another.”

The Vatican's first-ever “Courtyard of the Gentiles” event was held in Paris, France from March 24-25. [Actually it was not. The Paris events marked the international launch, but a significant pre-launch was held - fittingly at the world's oldest university 0 in Bologna last March 12, as posted in a few reports on this Forum.]

The Pontifical Council for Culture, led by president Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, organized the two-day discussion between believers and non-believers in historically important cultural sites in the French capital.

The Courtyard was formed by the Vatican's culture department after the Pope hoped for such a forum to foster dialogue on religion in a Dec. 2009 speech.

Catholics and atheists examined themes of enlightenment, religion and shared reason during gatherings at the offices of the UNESCO, the Sorbonne University and the French Academy during the inaugural event.

The evening of the second day was capped off with a large gathering at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Taize community held a prayer service inside the Church as people gathered for music and mixed in the square outside. A light show beamed onto the cathedral facade was part of the festivities.

In a pre-recorded message addressed to youth in the square, Pope Benedict XVI said that the “question of God” must not be absent from contemporary discussion. He called all young people - believers and non-believers - to “rediscover the path of dialogue” in Europe.

Dialogue, he said, will help both to overcome fears of the unknown.

The Courtyard project, he said, “is to foster such feelings of fraternity, over and above individual beliefs but without denying differences and, even more profoundly, recognizing that only God, in Christ, gives us inner freedom and the possibility of truly coming together as brothers.”

He told the youth not to be afraid. “On your journey together towards a new world, seek the absolute, seek God, even those of you for whom he is an unknown God.”

For his part, Cardinal Ravasi was pleased with the product of months of preparation. He went through highlights of the inaugural event with Vatican Radio.

The cardinal found “a particular attention and sensitivity” in the city of Paris, historically "the city of secularism, ... liberty, independence between Church and State."

The subjects of discussion, he said, were chosen "with much passion" and he came away with the sensation that the Parisian encounter could be a model for others.

For the future, he said, Courtyard activities may aim not only to engage atheism and non-believers, but "superficiality and the absence of questions towards faith that are often noted at the lowest levels."

He noted that there was an unexpected result to the encounter. Non-believing philosopher Luc Ferry asked him to collaborate in writing a book on the Gospel of St. John.

Tirana, the capital of Albania, is slated to host a similar Vatican-sponsored event for dialogue in October. [The venue is significant. Albania was the last holdout of Stalinist Communism/atheism in Europe, but it has since become a parliamentary democracy. with a population that the CIA Factbook estimates is roughly 70% Muslim, 20% Orthodox and 10% Catholic. However, freethinkers abound from the decades under Communism, and CIA also notes that actual religious observance comes to only about 35-40%.]

Stockholm, Prague and Florence will also see individualized events in coming years, each tailored to the city and culture that surrounds them. Interest has also been expressed for hosting Courtyard events in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C, but also Moscow, Russia and Geneva, Switzerland.

Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, commented during his weekly television editorial on Vatican Television that the Pope has emphasized since the first day of his pontificate that the "question of God" is the most important one for all for all people.

The Courtyard, he said, is "an optimal point of departure" for deepening the study of such questions together.


I think it is a shame that the Anglophone Catholic media failed to provide the coverage that the two-day launch in Paris demanded. The Vatican newspaper itself, apart from reprinting the text of the Pope's message, had no news summary about it.

Emblematic of this neglect is that I have not yet seen a single picture taken at Notre-Dame showing the Pope addressing the youth assembly from a jumbo screen, though it was the first thing I looked for after it took place last Saturday. Shouldn't OR have assigned at least a photographer to document the events in Paris which were, after all, historic and not just for this Ponitifcate?

Avvenire ran a special, I now see, so I have to look through their material to see what must be translated.

I understand now why AFP, the premier French inernational news agency, said not a word about it, because apparently, even the French secular media did not condescend to acknowledge the event.

When leading French intellectuals - almost the prototype for 'non-believers' - take part in discussions at the UNESCO, the Sorbonne, the Institut Francais and the College des Bernardins about the question of God, in general, it is almost criminal for the Catholic media, at least, not to pay attention. Surely, they have journalists who speak French...

Pope to Latin American bishops on pastoral
ministry to defend life and the family

March 29, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI sent a message today to the participants in a meeting of the heads of the Bishops’ Commissions for the Family and Life in Latin America and the Caribbean, underway in Bogotá, Colombia.

In his message, the Holy Father says family ministry has a prominent place in the evangelizing action of every local Church.He also discusses the need for social engagement in order to promote the culture of life and defend the rights of families.

He said that the Church cannot be indifferent to the adversity facing many households as a result of rapid cultural changes, social instability, immigration, poverty, and especially so-called “education” programs that trivialize sexuality and advance false ideologies.

“We can not remain indifferent to these challenges,” writes Pope Benedict, adding that Christ's grace encourages us to work diligently and enthusiastically in favour of the plan of love that God has for human beings.

The Pope’s Message goes on to say that every effort is praiseworthy, which promotes the family based on the indissoluble union between a man and a woman, and "helps each such family to carry out its mission of being a living cell of society, the seedbed of virtue, a school of peaceful and constructive coexistence, and a privileged environment in which human life is welcomed joyously and responsibly, and protected from its beginning until its natural end".


Here is a translation of the message from the Holy Father, written in Spanish, to the Latin American bishops meeting in Bogota, Colombia this week, through Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family:

---

To my venerated brother
Cardinal Ennio Antonelli
President of the Pontifical Council for the Family

I am pleased to greet Your Eminence and the other cardinals, bishops and priests participating in the meeting of bishops responsible for the Episcopal Commissions for the Family and Life in Latin America and the Caribbean, now taking place in Bogotá.

As the Fifth General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops reiterated, the family is the most cherished value for the peoples of those noble lands. For this reason, pastoral ministry for families has an outstanding place in the evangelizing activities of each of the local Churches in the area, promoting the culture of life and working so that the rights of families my be recognized and respected.

Nonetheless, it must be noted sadly how homes increasingly suffer adverse situations, provoked by rapid cultural changes, social instability, migratory currents, poverty, educational programs that banalize sexuality, and false ideologies. We cannot be indifferent in the face of these challenges.

In the Gospel, we find the light to respond to them without being discouraged. Christ with his grace urges us to work with diligence and enthusiasm so as to lead each family member to discover the project of love that God has for the human being.

No effort will be useless to promote whatever contributes so that each family, founded on the indissoluble union between a man and a woman, can carry out its mission to be a living cell of society, sower of virtues, school of constructive and peaceful coexistence, instrument of concord, and the privileged environment in which, joyfully and responsibly, human life is welcomed and protected, from its beginning to its natural end.

It is likewise worthwhile to continue motivating parents in their fundamental right and obligation to educate the new generations in the faith and in the values that dignify human existence.

I have no doubt that the continental mission promoted in Aparecida, and which is raising so many hopes everywhere, will serve to give new life to the pastoral ministry for marriage and the family in the beloved nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Church counts on Christian homes, calling on them to be the true subject of evangelization and apostolate, and inviting them to be conscious of their valiant mission in the world.

I therefore encourage all the participants in this significant meeting to develop the major pastoral lines drawn by the bishops assembled in Aparecida, with which families may experience a profound encounter with Christ through listening to his Word, prayer, the sacramental life, and the exercise of charity.

In this way, they will help put into practice a solid spirituality that inspires in all family members a decided aspiration for holiness, without fear of demonstrating the beauty of high ideals and the moral and ethical demands of a life in Christ.

In order to promote this, it is necessary to improve the formation of all those who, in some way, are dedicated to the evangelization of families.

Likewise, it is important to find ways of collaboration with all men and women of good will in order to be able to continue intensely protecting human life, marriage and the family in the entire region.

I conclude by expressing my affection and solidarity with all the families of Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly those who are in difficult situations.

As I commend to the powerful protection of the Most Holy Virgin Mary the fruits of your praiseworthy initiative, I impart to you from the heart the Apostolic Blessing you wished, which I gladly extend to all who are committed to the evangelization of families and promoting their wellbeing.

From the Vatican
March 28, 2011[/DIM}

---

A timely new look at the 'Holy Face of Manoppello'. which has figured in Benedict XVI's 'personal search for the face of God', by the German journalist who first called his attention to it... In this interview, Badde links the tesimony of the Veil of Manoppello to the Pope's account of the Resurreciton in JON-2.


'Manoppello veil illustrates
the Resurrection of Christ'
Interview with Paul Badde
By Genevieve Pollock


MANOPPELLO, Italy, MARCH 28, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A veil in Manoppello, kept in secret for centuries and only recently reemerging, illustrates Christ's resurrection in a way that will change the world, says Paul Badde.

Badde, author of The Face of God: The Rediscovery of the True Face of Jesus (Ignatius Press), explained to ZENIT how this veil features "uncountable" images of the Risen Christ.



The journalist and historian, an editor for the German newspaper Die Welt [and its longtime Vatican correspondent], noted that the veil also illustrates much of what Benedict XVI wrote about in his newest book, Jesus of Nazareth Part II: Holy Week -- From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection .

In fact, the Pope visited the shrine at Manoppello as one of the first trips of his pontificate, reflecting his decades-long interest in the meditation on the face of God, the author noted.

In this interview with ZENIT, Badde explained some of the conclusions of his research on this veil, and why he thinks it is bound to change the world.

Some have referred to the Veil of Manoppello as belonging to Veronica, and having the image of Jesus' face from before the Crucifixion. Your investigation, however, led you to a different conclusion. Could you clarify what this veil is?
This veil has had many names in the last 2000 years -- maintaining only its unique character in the same time.

It is, in fact, "the napkin" or "handkerchief" (in Greek: soudarion), to which St. John the Evangelist is referring in his report of the discovery of the empty tomb by St. Peter and himself, that they saw "apart" from the cloths (including the burial shroud of Joseph from Arimathea) in which Jesus had been buried.

This napkin, St. John says, had been laid upon the Face of Jesus [in accordance with Jewish burial tradition].

This veil had to be kept completely secret right away -- together with (what is now called) the Shroud of Turin -- in the first community of the Apostles in Jerusalem due to the ritual impurity in Judaism of everything stemming from a grave. And it remained secret for many centuries.

This explains why it has borne many different names in the course of history after it firt appeared in public some hundred years later in the Anatolian town of Edessa for the first time.

Among all these different names are for instance: The Edessa Veil, The Image or Letter of King Abgar, The Camuliana Veil, The Mandylion, The Image Not Made by Man's Hand (in Greek: acheiropoieton), The Fourfolded Veil (in Greek: tetradiplon) or -- today -- The Holy Face (Il Volto Santo). The "Veil of Veronica" is just another name for what has gone by many names but is most likely this very veil in Manoppello.

The famous Veronica herself, though, who allegedly had wiped Jesus' Face on his way to Calvary, does not appear in the Gospels. It is not until the Middle Ages, around the 12th century, that she was mentioned for the first time in pious tales and traditions. The name Veronica, however, is an angram for one of the real and true names of this veil, in a Latin and Greek mixture: Vera Ikon, or True Icon.

Why do you think Benedict XVI chose to visit the shrine at Manoppello as one of the first trips of his pontificate?
He chose to travel there immediately after he had read my book, of which I had sent my very first copy to him on October 1, 2005.

This book triggered his decision to go there as soon as it became possible when he was Pope - added to the fact, of course, that he had been meditating on the face of God for decades already.

A complete book could and should be published of all the occasions and sentences in which he reflected and meditated on Jesus's Face as the true face of God that he sees -- together with Dante -- in the center of paradise and the universe.

Everything I wrote in my book fit perfectly into this conviction -- after learning the exciting news of the survival and rediscovery of the True Image in a remote little town in the Abruzzi Mountains.



When Benedict XVI visited Manoppello he encouraged the contemplation of the Holy Face of Jesus as a way of meditating on the mystery of divine love. Could you describe some of the characteristics of the face on the veil that contribute to this meditation?
Everything of the Holy Face is most precious and as inexplicable as any good and true miracle.

The fabric (byssos -- fabric made from mussel silk), for instance, is the most precious fabric you can imagine -- and it is absolutely a fabric that cannot be painted on. [Byssos is woven from fibers of the 'muscle' that opens and closes the vales of the mussel shell.]

It shows a beautiful portrait of Jesus -- but with no traces of colors or blood.

It seems to be painted with light somehow and is therefore changing from every angle, in every different light, in different seasons, daytimes, etc.

It is in fact not one image of Jesus therefore -- it is an uncountable number of images of the Risen Christ.

When laid upon the face of the Shroud of Turin they both form a perfect match -- of one living face upon a dead face of the very same person: Jesus Christ.

All these qualifications seem to be only technical details, however, compared to the deep impression one has when standing in front of this image for the first time - one feels an ocean of mercy and compassion from the image in Manoppello.

How can the contemplation of the face on this veil help people to deepen in the meditation of the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord, especially during Lent and Easter?
The veil shows, in one single look, not everything, but a great deal of what Pope Benedict XVI says in Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, his recent, beautiful and wise book in which he writes about the resurrection of Christ.

It adds something else though, which is yet to dawn fully upon Christianity in our days for the first time in history. And this couldn't be better expressed, I think, than by a letter I received the other day by a certain Mother Columba from a French monastery, who is an Orthodox nun and an icon-painter. She wrote:

---

Each one of us who read 'The Face of God' was profoundly affected, Through this lively, simple and unaffected account, something gripped us that was far beyond and above the book itself, I would say, infinitely beyond. And I am convinced it is because the face of him who is both natural and above-nature is hiding behind the lines, shining through.

This undeniable effect on each one of us who read the book is enough in itself to convince me of the authenticity of the image of Manoppello. God has left an image of his Face on earth!

As Orthodox we are very much centered on Christian personalism: The mystery of the person, of which the face is the manifestation 'par excellence.' He who is at the center of all, the Alpha and the Omega, and in whose Face, as Dante said, our own faces are painted (or written) -- it is only when we shall fully behold the Face of him whose name is I Am that we, too, shall be able to say,"Nnow, in him, I am".

---

What is the significance of the rediscovery of this veil with its image at this moment in history?
This answer is one that only God fully knows.

What I know, however, is this: It is going to change the face of the world as soon as Christianity realizes fully that God has indeed left not only the testimony of a good number of reliable witnesses (in the Gospels for instance) but also a material image of himself on earth.

It will change the world sooner rather than later -- at least in a way that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has changed the map and history in Mexico after she had appeared and left her image there on December 12, 1531.

This image of her Son, however, has reappeared at the brink of the digital revolution -- and at the brink of the "Iconic turn."

I believe we are going to see a dramatic shift in the way we communicate -- a world where communication will be more visual rather than intellectual.

It is in these very days that we come to realize for the first time what Mother Columba said in her letter from France: "God has left an image of his Face on earth!"


Since I first read Badde's account in DIE WELT of the Veil of Manopello back in 2005 - an item I translated for the RFC Forum at the time - I have followed every report about Manoppello closely. I put together the major articles when the Holy Father visited Manopello in 2006, and they may be found on the following page of the PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY thread at the PRF.
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=6675691
The account of the Pope's visit itself in that section includes more articles about the Veil and the current scientific efforts to show its uniqueness and to prove a definitive correlation to the Face depicted in the Shroud of Turn.

I posted Ignatius Pres's promotional announcement for the book THE FACE OF GOD in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread last October.
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8593...

JON-2 moves up to #5
on NYT bestseller list




The NYT best-seller list comes with its Sunday issue, so this list will come out this weekend... What does it say of US society when
the #1 non-fiction bestseller on the book's first week out is the autobiography of a member of a rock group?????


SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2011 – After debuting as an instant bestseller, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week has moved to No. 5 on the April 3 New York Times bestseller list for hardcover non-fiction. The book also made the Top 10 in the bestseller lists published by The Wall Street Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.

Pope Benedict XVI’s second volume on Christ’s life was released worldwide March 10 and covers the last week of Jesus’s earthly life – from his entrance into Jerusalem to his resurrection and appearances to his apostles and other followers.

“It’s great to see Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week move toward No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list,” said Ignatius Press President Mark Brumley. “This book presents Jesus in a powerful way, so we’re excited that so many people are getting the book and getting to know Jesus Christ better through it. During Lent, this is especially important for believers. But it’s also important for nonbelievers and seekers to encounter the real Jesus.”

I must confess that in 2007, I did not bother to check on JON-1's placement in the NYT lists after it came in below #10 (I think around #18) the week it was released. It's not that easy to check back now how it did.

What surfaced first in Goigling it was its third week on the NYT list on June 17, 2007, where it was #8, having been #7 the previous week, and, I now see, it had debuted at #6 on June 3 (what I dimly remember as below #10 would have been after it came down from the top 10. I haven't been able to find out yet how long it stayed on the list and whether that first week's #6 was the highest ranking it received.

The interesting thing about its Week 3 was that Christopher Hitchens's atheist rant God is not great, which came out two weeks before JON-1, was #3 on the list, up one notch from the previous week, and on its 5th week. It was made #1 on the list the week JON-1 came out, and obbviously slipped after that, but it was quite a long-seller. Again, what do best-sellers say about a society that more people seemed to be interested in an atheist anthem than in reading about Christ?

Sidelight: John Paul II's interview-book with Vittorio Messori, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, debuted at #2 on the NYT list in November 1994 and climbed to #1 on its second week. I do not yet know how long it stayed on the Top 10....

While doing random searches on the above, I came across the blurb quoting Cardinal Ratxinger and used for Jacob Neusner's A Rabbi Talks to Jesus in 1993:

---

By far, the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade. The absolute honesty, the precision of analysis, the union of respect for the other party with carefully grounded loyalty to one’s own position characterize the book and make it a challenge especially to Christians, who will have to ponder the analysis of the contrast between Moses and Jesus.

---

In other words, the cardinal saw in Neusner's book the very essence of inter-religious dialog that he has always promoted, especially now that he is Pope, and that is found in his own writings.

A report from a newspaper in Cyprus...

Chrysostomos seeks Pope's help
about fee charged by Turkish Cypriots
to visit a Greek Orthodox monastery
in Turkish-occupied north Cyprus

Mar 29, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI has assured the primate of the Church of Cyprus Archbishop Chrysostomos II that he will help in any way possible to reverse a Turkish Cypriot demand for an admission fee to enter a Greek Orthodox monastery, in Turkish-occupied north Cyprus.

The illegal Turkish Cypriot regime, which no country except Turkey recognises, imposes an admission fee on pilgrims who visit the Apostle Andrew's Monastery in the Karpass peninsula.

Archbishop Chrysostomos met the Pope on Monday in the Vatican and they also discussed the restoration of religious monuments and sites in the occupied areas of Cyprus.

“I have asked the Pope to work along with the powerful nations of Europe - Germany, Italy, France and Poland - who are also Catholic, in order to exert pressure on Turkey to terminate the pillage of our religious monuments in the occupied areas”, the Archbishop noted, adding that “I was very impressed because the Pope was aware of the situation in occupied Cyprus and knew all the details about the monastery".


Paolo Rodari has a story in today's Il Foglio, of what Chrysostomos II told Italian reporters after meeting the Pope. The Archbishop has always been known as very militant in defense of the rights of Greek Christians and Greek Cypriots in general, and he never misses an occasion to speak his mind.]


Cyprus Patriarch cites Regensburg lecture:
'If he could, Benedict XVI would
speak out against the tragedy in Cyprus'
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from

March 29, 2011

His Beatitude Chrysostomos II, Primate of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus (which was founded by the apostle Barnabas and is considered the second most ancient Christian community after Jerusalem)[????]* spoke to newsmen shortly after visiting Benedict XVI at the Vatican yesterday and said:

"The reason for my visit was one thing alone: to ask for help from the Pope - and through him, from the European community - so that something may be done for Christians like us and elsewhere in the Middle East, who are forced to live under military regimes which, under the cloak of apparent democracy, merely intend to Islamize everything".

In 1974, Cyprus was invaded by Turkey, which subsequently occupied northern Cyprus and proclaimed it a sovereign country. Since then, the Greek Cypriots claim, the Turkish government has populated northern Cyprus with 'illegal' colonists on lands and property formerly belonging to Greek Cypriots who had to flee to the Greek part of the island in 1974.

Chrysostomos said: "In Europe there are those who think Turkey is a democratic country, which has been seeking to enter the European Union. I tell them: open your eyes. Come to Cyprus and see our churches destroyed [in north Cyprus] and reduced to pig sties, where no one can say Mass. No one among the Greek Cypriots is free to return to their own homes in north Cyprus. Is this democracy?"

The Primate said that Benedict XVI is very much abreast of the situation in Cyprus and the plight of Christian Cypriots. "If he could, he would raise his voice... (but) he realizes that fiery declarations will not serve anything. He knows that he cannot always publicly say what he wants to say [without fear of worse consequences for the very people concerned] [I would call this the Pius XII dilemma!]... So he will help us in ways that he can."

He continued: "In 2006, in Regensburg, he was very clear: Islam should renounce violence, it must renounce using the name of God to justify religious hatred. I have met all the leaders of the Islamic Middle Eastern countries, and most of them have common sense. But are they capable of marginalizing extremist violence? Are they capable of holding down the preachers of hate who do form part of their communities?"

Commenting on the military action in Libya, he said:
"Often, the Western nations launch military actions in the name of defending human rights, as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet, without having to resort to arms, why don't these countries - who say they want to spread democracy - try to get Turkey to change? Why can they not make Turkey adopt a lifestyle that is truly modern and European?" [Because, for strategic interests, NATO finds Turkey useful as a member and ally, and the Western world considers Turkey's government sufficiently democratic. However, Turkey's failure to guarantee religious freedom in Turkey itself has been one of the obstacles to its admission to the EU. If it cannot even give a juridical status to bartholomew I's Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate in Turkey, what will make it relent on its anti-Christian policy in Cyprus?]

Going on about the Cyprus situation, he observed: "In Italy, right now, you are rightly concerned about the arrival of thousands of refugees from Libya. But you can decide which strategy to take - to welcome them all or to send them back if the situation becomes unsustainable.

"But we have no choice. We cannot do anything. The Turks have occupied our houses and violated the places where our forefathers lived. The colonists from Turkey have occupied everything, including the houses of those Turkish Cypriots who were allowed to remain in their homes after the 1974 occupation.

"This is a grave injustice about which Islam should undertake an examination of conscience. As Islam advances, it takes more territory. In Cyprus, we are more directly exposed to this problem than the rest of Europe, but this is a problem that concerns all of Europe".

Sandro Magister has posted a lengthy article today about what he calls 'the April revolution' in Vatican finance - well backgrounded as he usually does - but I have no time just now to check out the English translation, which may be read here:http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1347168?eng=y

[Sorry I am not comfortable about the work of Magister's English translator. It's so much easier for me to translate Magister directly from the Italian, instead of trying to tweak a translation I find painful at times.]

How did the estimates change from 2 million a few weeks ago to 300,000 today????

Rome expecting at least 300,000
pilgrims for John Paul's beatification
by Cindy Wooden


ROME, March 29 (CNS) -- Church and local government organizers are planning to accommodate at least 300,000 people in St. Peter's Square and the surrounding area for Pope John Paul II's beatification Mass May 1.

Msgr. Liberio Andreatta, head of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican-related pilgrimage agency, told reporters March 29, "Rome is ready to welcome every pilgrim who wants to come. Earlier, newspapers published megalithic numbers and said every hotel is booked. That's not true."

Father Cesare Atuire of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi said as soon as Pope Benedict XVI announced the beatification date, travel agents and others booked large blocks of hotel rooms.

Now that the beatification is just a month away, they have a more precise idea of how many rooms they will need and so they are freeing up the extras.

In addition, he said, two campgrounds outside of Rome will be reserved for pilgrims who want to keep their costs to a minimum. The commuter trains, which usually do not run on weekends, will be on a special schedule to get them to the prayer vigil April 30 in Rome's Circus Maximus and to the Mass the next morning.

Because the Pope is the bishop of Rome and the pilgrims will spend most of their time in Rome, not at the Vatican, the Diocese of Rome is responsible for much of the cost of the event, Msgr. Andreatta said. [The more important reason is that the Diocese of Rome is the official presentor of the late Pope's entire cause for canonization rather than his home dicoese of Cracow, precisely because as Pope, he was Bishop of Rome. For this reason, too, the Diocese has long has its website for the cause of canonization.]

The diocese is passing the collection basket to large Italian companies to come up with at least $1.7 million to cover the costs of handling 300,000 pilgrims for the beatification, Msgr. Andreatta said.

Although the city of Rome and its hotels, restaurants and shops will benefit financially from the pilgrims, Msgr. Andreatta said the financial crisis still weighing on Italy made the diocese look to donors instead of the local government for funding.

The money will cover building a stage and installing a sound system and lighting at the Circus Maximus, running extra buses, covering the cost of the bus and subway tickets included in the pilgrim's package, renting and erecting crowd-control barriers and renting dozens of large video screens.

The screens will be placed in the squares around the Vatican and in most of the churches in the historic center of Rome so that people who cannot get close to St. Peter's Square or would prefer to stay away from the crowds can still follow the Mass, he said.

An Italian beverage company has donated 1 million bottles of mineral water, he said, and a restaurant chain has donated the ingredients for thousands of box lunches.

Father Atuire said that as of March 29, the largest numbers of pilgrims were coming from Italy, then Pope John Paul's native Poland, followed by Spain and the United States.

Opera Romano Pellegrinaggi has launched a special website -- www.jpiibeatus.org -- to assist pilgrims with reservations and information. The information is available in five languages, including English.

On Page 194 of this thread, I posted my translation of the editorial from a recent issue of the French Catholic magazine LA VIE, which dedicated the cover and a number of articles to the subject of Benedict XVI as the writer-Pope. But except for the editorial - and the excerpts from the new book MON CONCILE VATICAN, which I also translated - the other articles were not posted online. As I thought she would, Beatrice on her admirable site

posted three articles she scanned from the paper issue, by three prominent French writers/journalists writing about Benedict XVI as a writer in general but particularly, in the context of JON-2.


THE WRITER-POPE:
'I enjoy his conceptual dexterity
and his discreet poetics'
by Denis Tillinac

Tillinac (born 1947) is a prize-winning author of at least 19 books (novels, essays, biography), including one entitled Le Dieu de nos pères, défense du catholicisme (God of our fathers: A defense of Catholicism)(Bayard, 2004), as well as long experience as magazine editor, columnist and journalist.

A writer assembles the dispersed fragments of his subjectivity to make into a shield, a battle standard, or some sort of fortress. In any case, as an outlet for misfortune. Whereas the faith of Benedict XVI, illuminating his reason, dictates his approach to reality and assigns a finality to the act of writing.

In itself, literature does not aim for any end, though it fills a lack for the blind. Our Pope is a theologian, a dialectician, an incomparable philologue - perhaps not a ‘writer’ as we have understood the word commonly since the Romantic era.

But in reading the second part of the Pope's JESUS OF NAZARETH, I felt as i did in reading his other books, his great lectures (Bernardins, Regensburg, etc), and his Wednesday catecheses on the great figures of the Church, a tone that distinguishes him from any other author.

More than a tone, a music even, - that of his spirit, of his very soul - which reminds me that he loves Mozart and plays the piano.

His way of wandering between the Gospels and the Old Testament - especially the Psalms and the Prophets - to return to Christ via St. Paul, and set down, in a single pen stroke, the destiny of the Church, bears witness at once to his near-scientific concern to explore the profound sense of Scriptures and to a very personal sensibility.

If the art of choosing the right word to portray a historical setting and to draw the reader into the intimacy of a spiritual quest describes what a writer is, then Benedict XVI is one, and a very fine one.

Like everyone else, I had read the Gospels, and I believed I had more or less understood its message. Yet, his approach to the last days of Jesus on earth - his trial, his crucifixion and entombment, his Resurrection - has upturned all my views (summary and confused) on the Passion and eternal life.

Because with simple words, he has been able to transmit to me his spiritual intelligence - indeed, I have profited from this good deed from each of his writings. His prose - tight, precise, at times emotional - has nothing to do with clerical discourse. And he knows how atheists, agnostics, and the undecided think.

His prodigious erudition is not mobilized to obscure a discussion but to explore all its hypotheses. Certainly, deep down, faith and reason are complicit, which one expects from a theologian marked by Thomas Aquinas.

In his criticisms of the novels of Mauriac, Sartre opposed the artist to the believer in the name of a 'freedom' which according to him was incompatible with submission to the Creator. He was wrong, as usual.

Benedict XVI is an artist of theology, and in reading him, beyond what I learn from him, I enjoy his conceptual dexterity and his discreet poetics.

It doesn't matter if one calls him a writer or not: his books - including the last one just published - are by far the most enriching that I have read in ages.

I believe that their time has come - to defeat this nauseating disarray in which we are floundering, and which explain his analysis of contemporary 'relativism'.

Decidedly, the last Conclave was well-inspired by the Holy Spirit: He is the Pope we need, hic et nunc, here and now.


THE WRITER-POPE:
'He brings us an interior
experience of faith'
by Philippe Sollers

Sollers (born 1936) is a novelist and critic who was at the heart of the 1960s-1970s Paris intellectual scene, among with his friends Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes (who wrote a book about him). Since 1958, he has written 24 novels and 21 books of essays. Jesuit-educated, his Catholicism has been likened to that of James Joyce, whose innovative use of language he also shares. Since 1967 he has been married to the Bulgarian-born philosopher Julia Kristeva, a non-believer.

The second part of JESUS OF NAZARETH is an exciting lesson in reading. An invitation to the essentials through the details of the Scriptures.

Why did the Pope decide to describe the progress of Jesus Christ towards his death and resurrection? Doubtless it is because ignorance on this subject is considerable, even among Catholics.

The resurrection has become a shameful subject, one that is suppressed, and yet without this event, the faith is nothing.

Do you know Jesus? Do you know what he did? Was it all nonsense, an invention of truth itself?

Benedict XVI has done enormous work. He is a great reader who has cited Dante’s Paradiso many times, a reference that is hardly usual for a Pope.

Formally, his writings are very correct and always very well-informed. He himself is at the level of the texts he comments upon.

Here, he goes back to the Gospels with great rigor, taking care to refer back its episodes to Jewish history as recorded in the Old Testament. He follows the thread of this chilling history [of Jesus’s Passion], almost a police novel that is among the most extraordinary ever written.

We are immersed in its political context, we follow the Lord’s traitor, his trial, the Cross, the resurrection, the women at the tomb, the apparitions of the Risen Christ, who is not immediately recognized by the disciples at Emmaus nor by the apostles at sea.

A Pope is not meant to be a writer but to occupy Peter’s Chair. Yet this Pope had to deal with actual testimony to see if the accounts hold up in the historic-salvific scheme. And he gives us a living lesson in how to read – by giving us an interior experience which comes from his faith.

With him, we enter into the heart of this affair. It’s the opposite of cinema, of any spectacle. The Pope draws us into grasping the events in their invisibility – but as though we are witnessing them and are co-actors in them.

This is not past history that he is commemorating. It is happening now, at every moment.


THE WRITER-POPE:
'I am struck by the clarity of style
and the vigor and rigor of his reasoning'
by Patrick Kéchichian

The writer (born 1951) was literary critic of Le Monde from 1985 till recently, now writing for La Croix. He has not written as many books as Tillinac or Sollers, but the few he has written are religious in nature - including a book on spiritual exercises (2001) on the conversion of St. Paul in (also in 2001), and Petit eloge de catholicisme (2009). [It makes me wonder that a Catholic like him could have been literary critic at Le Monde for more than two decades!]

I had read several works by Joseph Ratzinger before he became Benedict XVI, then his three encyclicals, various addresses, and finally, the first volume of his JESUS OF NAZARETH.

And I have just started to read Part 2 with the same interest, the same admiration. I have drawn great profit from these readings. I have been struck, each time, by the intelligence of his propositions, the clarity of style, the vigor and rigor of his reasoning.

But at no time did I think I was reading ‘literature’. The call on the Pope’s books and addresses is to teach, or that which one no longer dares to call ‘edification’. In reading him, I progress in my faith. Thanks to his words, I feel that can better comprehend and better understand the original words, those of Sacred Scripture.

The role of the Church, and therefore, of its leader, is to bring to all Christians equally this spiritual nourishment which allows them to grow, to develop.

What about literature, you may ask. It is probably not, per se, the Holy Father’s concern. Literature consists – to put it briefly – in giving voice to one’s subjectivity. It is attending to the beauty of form and content, to their maximal harmony, as in all arts. It is to speak and write in one’s own name. Finally, it means searching for an audience, soliciting readers.

To illustrate: It is impossible to place on the same plane the epistles of St. Paul, admirable for their powerful breath placed at the service of a nascent Church, and a great Christian work like that of Paul Claudel, for instance. In the latter case, you have the literary genius of a remarkable writer illumined by his faith; on the other, the founding universal words of an Apostle whose ambition was to efface himself in the face of an Object that far surpasses him.

The words and writings of the Pope, like those of all great theologians, with all the necessary humility, evidently fall into this second category, which is therefore not that of literature. And so, Benedict XVI has not made of Jesus’s life a novel, which would have been grotesque, and most especially, out of place.

One other point. If the Pope says “I”, it is never to display his own person or his state of mind. And this point radically and definitively distinguishes him from writers who are narcissistic and full of themselves, who dream they are prophets – even of misfortune, like Celine! – in their country, the Republic of Letters, a principality right out of an operetta.


Apropos Kechichian's definition of literature, I prefer a broader definition that includes anything well-written, with harmonious beauty of content and form, as, for instance, Winston Churchill's massive History of the Second World War, which deservedly won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And as I once commented on this Forum at the time Caritas in veritate came out and a British economist suggested that the Pope deserved a Nobel Prize in Economics for it, he should seriously be considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work. (In the same way, IMHO, I think Sigmund Freud should have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his remarkable writings, regardless of what you think about his science.)

Literature does not have to be fiction, drama or formal poetry, works of the imagination. As we well know from the entire range of the history of ideas - from the ancient philosophers, to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and many of the great readable figures of the Enlightenment and someone like John Henry Newman! Not forgetting the Bible itself.

Wednesday, March 30, Third Week in Lent

ST. PEDRO REGALADO (Spain, 1390-1456), Franciscan, Reformer, Mystic
He lived at a time of great historical transitions: In 1418, the Council of Constance settled the Great Western
Schism and ended the Avignon papacy; France and England were fighting the Hundred Years' War; the Muslim
Turks finally ended the Byzantine Empire in 1453, Gutenberg had just invented the printing press, and
the century would end with Columbus reaching America. In Villadolid, Spain, young Pedro entered the Order
of the Franciscans, went on to became superior of a convent, actively engaged in reform of the Franciscan
order, and by 1442, was head of the Reformed Franciscans in Spain. His charism was in service to the poor,
and tradition says that when he fed them, he never ran out of food to share. He was immediately the object
of a cult after his death, and 36 years later, when Spain's 'Catholic Queen' Isabella ordered his body
exhumed to be transferred to a better tomb, the body was found to be incorrupt. He was canonized in 1746.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/033010.shtml


OR today.
Two papal stories in this issue: the Holy Father's message to the Latin American and Caribbean bishops meeting in Bogota to discuss pastoral ministry for the defense of life and the family; and a new Vatican law intended to protect against unauthorized commercial use of papal photos and texts. Page 1 international news: London conference aims to define Libya's future without Qaddafi, as his forces manage to stop the rebel advance towards Tripoli in Qaddafi's hometown of Sirte; in Fukushima, levels of plutonium (a degradation product of uranium) indicate that nuclear fission had taken place in one of the damaged reactors, as the government considers nationalizing the entire energy industry; and the story, 'Flower in the midst of desolation', about a Japanese doctor, convert to Catholicism who had known Maximilian Kolbe in Japan, and his life of dedication to caring for survivors of the Nagasaki atomic bomb that took the life of his own wife.


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

General Audience - The Holy Father's catechesis was dedicated to St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696-1787), bishop, spiritual writer, philosopher and theologian, who founded the Redemptorist order and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pius IX in 1871. With St. Alphonsus, the Pope has only one more Doctor of the Church to present in his catecheses - St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), the most recently proclaimed, by John Paul II in 1997, a century after her death.

This is potentially great news of far-reaching significance. Coming shortly after the release of JON-2, it seems providential... BBC does a great job with this first report...

They could well be
the earliest-known Christian writings
By Robert Pigott

March 29, 2011

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

The books, or "codices", were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.

Their leaves - which are mostly about the size of a credit card - contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin.

The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.

Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.

The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls," says Mr Saad.

"Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology."

The texts might have been written in the decades following the crucifixion They seem almost incredible claims - so what is the evidence?

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be "the major discovery of Christian history", adding: "It's a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."

He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God.

"It's talking about the coming of the messiah," he says.

"In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah, which Jews were utterly forbidden to represent because it resided in the holiest place in the Temple in the presence of God.

"So we have the coming of the messiah to approach the holy of holies, in other words to get legitimacy from God."

Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

"As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image," he says.

"There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem."

The books were bound by lead rings It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were.

"It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls," says Mr Davies.

Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin.

"We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found," she says.

"[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity."

The Book of Revelation refers to such sealed texts.

Another potential link with the Bible is contained in one of the few fragments of text from the collection to have been translated.

It appears with the image of the menorah and reads "I shall walk uprightly", a sentence that also appears in the Book of Revelation.

While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism, it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection.

It is by no means certain that all of the artefacts in the collection are from the same period.

But tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus's crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

Ratzinger’s gift:
Faith-filled exegesis
by Dr. Jeff Mirus

March 29, 2011

Perhaps the most important thing about Pope Benedict XVI’s second volume, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, is that it raises the bar for Biblical exegesis. Scholars may be shocked by this statement, but I’ll say it again. Benedict XVI is giving us a remarkable example of how reading, reflecting and commenting on Sacred Scripture should be done.

Before explaining exactly what I mean, it may be helpful to review the Magisterial status of the book. Simply stated, this is not an act of the Magisterium. It possesses no ecclesiastical authority.

As Benedict himself said in the foreword to the first volume: “It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Ps 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me” (pp. xxiii-xxiv).

Whatever impact the grace of office has on Benedict the writer, it is not the impact of Authority. That is why I have entitled this essay “Ratzinger’s Gift”.

But it is precisely this raising of the bar in Scriptural exegesis that constitutes Ratzinger’s great gift. Some have suggested that the Pope has revived “lectio divina”, the traditional habit of reading Scripture prayerfully to seek the joy and nourishment of God’s presence in His word.

But when you or I engage in lectio divina, it does not generally involve attention to the original languages, a study of what other great commentators have written, and the deliberate unraveling of obscure and possibly even disputed themes. These things are the work of exegesis (the critical explanation or interpretation of a text).

However, one of the problems that has afflicted Scripture studies during the intense and progressive secularization of academia over the past two hundred years is that exegesis has been so frequently set against lectio divina.

Whereas the Fathers of the Church seemed to be able to combine the two, modern figures have found this exceedingly difficult. The difference, in most cases, has been a matter of both faith and professionalism.

Many commentators have not approached the Bible with any significant faith in its Divine inspiration; and even believers have been constrained by their professional “duties” to ignore the enormous benefits of faith in their studies.

The result has been the dissociation of scholarship from lectio divina, as if the two are incompatible or even opposed. One of Joseph Ratzinger’s greatest gifts to the Church is his demonstration that this is not the case, to show that a genuine scholarly inquiry under the light of Faith yields abundant fruit in an understanding of the text that is at once more thorough and more profound.

Benedict’s new volume demonstrates this achievement repeatedly. In Chapter 1, he explores textual and historical data to penetrate the episode of the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11), and to demonstrate how Jesus has become the new Temple.

In Chapter 2, he carries this theme forward, incorporating the work of historians and exegetes to show that the Christian community was so reoriented to Christ as the foundation of its relationship with God that it was unfazed by the destruction of the Temple in AD 70—a destruction which fundamentally altered Judaism. Also in this chapter is a deep examination of the so-called eschatological discourse, the meaning of the end times and the intervening “time of the Gentiles.”

In Chapter 3, the Pope explores the washing of the feet. In the context of ancient philosophy, he explains how Christ’s self-giving marks a new kind of descent from the Divine to the human. Unlike the Divine emanations of the philosophers, which return to God by shedding the material, Christ both embraces and purifies human nature. Thus the way of self-emptying and martyrdom is a way not of escaping creation but of restoring all of creation to the Father.

And in Chapter 4, Benedict examines the specific wording of the high-priestly prayer of Christ, explicating through its long exegetical history key themes of eternal life, sanctification in truth, and making God’s name known, so that all may be one. His exploration of this oneness as rooted in truth and mission leads inevitably to apostolic succession, Scripture, and the Creed — that is, to the constitutive elements of the visible Church.

Throughout these rich treatments we find that Benedict must unlock a layered text in which Our Lord frequently expresses Himself in Old Testament figures, images and even quotations. This fact alone gives new relevance to the history of the Jewish people, to an analysis of the OT texts, and to the trajectory of the Divine Plan over time.

My point is that at every turn Benedict pulls in whatever is relevant. It might be linguistic analysis or the redaction of the early texts; it might be ancient history or the teaching of various philosophical schools; it might be seminal insights from past commentators, both Catholic and Protestant.

Always there will be a close reading of the text itself in light of its antecedents in the Old Testament, and of its thematic resonance in other portions of the New.

And in the background, we see Benedict’s judgments silently illuminated by the analogy of Faith — the fact that Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church are all informed by the same Holy Spirit, and so must point together to the same Truth.

Many of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have addressed Scripture in this way as well, not because they were professional exegetes, but because they were learned persons, often even scholars, who brought whatever they knew to bear on improving our understanding of Christ and of the Scriptures which speak of Him.

Benedict not only recognizes this great tradition but alludes to its necessity in the foreword to the second volume when he explains that God works through an entire community, looking backward and forward, in inspiring the full meaning of the Biblical text (see my earlier comments, Benedict’s Second Volume and the Historical Critical Method).

Ratzinger’s gift is to show how even modern scholars (of which Pope Benedict XVI is obviously one) can fruitfully explore everything that relates to the text in a way that is not only compatible with but actually inspired by their Faith.

In the Pope's own words, he has attempted “to develop a way of observing and listening to the Jesus of the Gospels that can indeed lead to a personal encounter and that, through a collective listening with Jesus’ disciples across the ages, can indeed attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure of Jesus” (vol II, Foreword, p. xvii).

I missed Dr. Mirus's first essay on JON-2 when it came out last week, so here it is:

Benedict’s second volume on Jesus
and the historical-critical method
by Dr. Jeff Mirus

March 24, 2011

Jesus of Nazareth Part II is out, and I’m working my way through it, not only to pass along the highlights but for spiritual reading. The Pope’s first volume (see Benedict’s New Book, The “Our Father” according to Benedict, and A Final Note on Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth) was a luminous and spiritually rich commentary on the person of Christ. This second volume focuses on Our Lord’s salvific mission from His entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection: in other words, Holy Week.

But the very first nugget which caught my attention in a book sure to be characterized by a rich vein of gold is the Pope’s comments on historical criticism in his Foreword.

After all, the Pope’s project in this two-volume work is to recover a full awareness of the person of Jesus, a project necessitated in part by the mangled and fragmented portrait left over after the historical-critical method of Scriptural exegesis that has dominated the past two hundred years. Indeed, in the Foreword to the first volume, Benedict had written:

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Historical-critical interpretation of a text seeks to discover the precise sense the words intended to convey at their time and place of origin…. [But] it is important to keep in mind that any human utterance of a certain weight contains more than the author may have been immediately aware of at the time….

At this point we get a glimmer, even on the historical level, of what inspiration means: The author does not speak as a private, self-contained subject. He speaks in a living community…. which is led forward by a greater power that is at work….

Neither the individual books of Holy Scripture nor the Scripture as a whole are simply a piece of literature. The Scripture emerged from within the heart of a living subject — the pilgrim People of God — and lives within this same subject…. [And] likewise, this people does not exist alone; rather, it knows that it is led, and spoken to, by God himself, who—through men and their humanity — is at the deepest level the one speaking.

---

I’ve risked a long quotation here — though vastly condensed from the original, as suggested by the ellipses — because it sets the stage so beautifully for what the Pope says in the Foreword of his second volume.

I’ll get to that in just a moment, but first let’s take a brief look at what the reign of historical criticism has meant. We’ll do this by taking just one example.

Recently most right-thinking Catholics (by which of course I mean Catholics whose conclusions mirror my own!) were annoyed to learn that the latest translation of the New American Bible has replaced the word “virgin” with “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14: “The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” The passage is cited in St. Matthew in reference to the virgin birth of Our Lord (Mt 1:23).

Now there is some grounds for this change. The word “almah” in Hebrew can mean a young, unmarried woman in a rather generic sense, or it can mean more specifically a virgin. But generally in the Old Testament, when “virgin” is unambiguously intended, a different and more precise word is used, such as “betulah”.

The exegete who approaches this text exclusively from the historical-critical point of view argues that Isaiah, in his own time and place, could not have had the birth of Christ in mind. Rather, the problem with which he was directly concerned was the siege of Jerusalem by the combined armies of Syria and the Northern Kingdom around 735 BC. The conception of a child by a young woman was to be a sign that the siege would be lifted and Jerusalem would continue to flourish.

And that’s as far as the historical-critical method can take us, working alone and in isolation from other interpretive insights. So those who rely exclusively on this method assert that this text of Isaiah was fulfilled over seven hundred years before the birth of Christ and has nothing to do with Our Lord at all. Moreover, St. Matthew was clearly wrong, on the basis of the historical-critical method, to appropriate the text as he did.

You can see, therefore, why in his first volume, in discussing his own exegetical methods, Pope Benedict stresses that each portion of Scripture must be read in the context of the whole, and that each Scriptural passage is pregnant with meaning because its authorship is rooted in a community actively inspired and led by God according to His own Providential plan.

Thus an early prophecy by Isaiah can operate at multiple levels, with one clear application in Isaiah’s own time, and another that becomes clear only later. And St. Matthew is perfectly justified in appropriating this more distant and deeper meaning to Christ, in whom all of Scripture finds its goal and unity.

What, then, does historical criticism do for us? Does it have any value at all? Actually, yes, because the more we know about the circumstances in which a particular passage was written, and about the immediate application of that passage, the richer is our understanding of the many ways in which that particular set of circumstances suggests a moral or a spiritual lesson, or foreshadows later developments, or otherwise illuminates God’s saving action at multiple levels throughout history.

To understand the historical context of Isaiah’s utterance is to understand more thoroughly God’s salvific power — His ability to prefigure the work of His Son not only in words but in historical events — just as the historical details of the Exodus foreshadow and enrich our understanding of what it means for Christ to save us from sin.

But to lock ourselves within the historical-critical method, as if each passage must be limited to what was naturally evident at the time it was recorded, is to deny not only the implications of the Sacred text in the communitarian tradition but also the revelatory presence of God in the life of the community, as well as the supernatural agency at work in Biblical inspiration.

To put this in a single word, an excessive reliance on historical criticism denies not only the importance but the very existence of theology.

Benedict himself explores a variety of exegetical insights starting in the very first chapter of his new volume, when he unpacks the meaning of the cleansing of the Temple.

In so doing, he begins immediately to reveal the great depth of his appreciation of the person of Christ as Savior. He explores the historical situation, and finds that it resonates with other elements in the history of the Jewish people, elements which already invest the text with a power beyond its literal meaning.

But the Pope is always open as well to the presence of God in this history, and of course to God fulfilling this history in the work of His only begotten Son.

All of this provides the context for the very first gold nugget Benedict offers in the Foreword to the second volume, where he continues the comments on the historical-critical method quoted above:

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One thing is clear to me: in two hundred years of exegetical work, historical-critical exegesis has already yielded its essential fruit. If scholarly exegesis is not to exhaust itself in constantly new hypotheses, becoming theologically irrelevant, it must take a methodological step forward and see itself once again as a theological discipline, without abandoning its historical character.

It must learn that the positivistic hermeneutic on which it has been based does not constitute the only valid and definitively evolved rational approach; rather, it constitutes a specific and historically conditioned form of rationality that is both open to correction and completion and in need of it.

---

Following this comment, Benedict mentions that a particular Catholic theologian (whose unfortunate name the Pope kindly omits) labeled his book a Christology from above, “not without issuing a warning about the dangers inherent in such an approach.”

But it is precisely Benedict’s point that God works in and through a community, so that His presence and His action is not only above, but below and even within, a presence which cannot be ignored without reducing the Biblical text to something less than it really is.

What the Pope calls for is “a properly developed faith-hermeneutic” as “appropriate to the text”, which “can be combined with a historical hermeneutic, aware of its limits, so as to form a methodological whole.”

He states that this is “an art that needs to be constantly remastered”, and he does not “presume to claim that this combination of the two hermeneutics is already fully accomplished in my book.” Rather, he hopes his book is a significant step in the right direction. He concludes on this important point:

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Fundamentally this is a matter of finally putting into practice the methodological principles formulated for exegesis by the Second Vatican Council (in Dei Verbum 12), a task that unfortunately has scarcely been attempted thus far.

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Those who follow Pope Benedict’s lead in this — and there is growing evidence of such a movement already in progress —will effect a true renaissance in the study of the Word of God. In this way, Scripture will live once again as the living text of the people of God — that is, it will become once again what it was always intended by God to be, the Book of the Church.


One must appreciate Dr. Mirus's focus on the methodology of the Holy Father's work in the JESUS OF NAZARETH books, who makes them read so 'easily' - provided one does so undistracted and focused - that one might tend to forget the enormous work it took to distill all of his research and study into the final, literally- delightful product of a mind that harmonizes faith, science and reason so naturally. Reading and re-reading the JESUS books, I find myself mentally intoning all the time, "Thanks and praise be to God" for giving us Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a mantra that only heightens the incomparable euphoria of the experience.

Pope sends Cardinal Turkson as
papal envoy to strife-torn Ivory Coast

March 30, 2011

At his General Audience today,, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he has sent Cardinal Peter Turkson as his envoy to the Ivory Coast, the crisis-gripped former French colony in West Africa,


Former President Laurent Ngagbo, who was first elected in 2000, has refused to concede his electoral loss to Alessane Ouattara last December, and his forces have kept the latter - recognized as victor by the UN and independent international organizations - from assumming the Presidency.

Speaking in French to the thousands gathered beneath a warm Spring sun in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father launched the following appeal:

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For some time now, my thoughts have often turned to the people of Ivory Coast, traumatized by painful internal strife and serious social and political tensions. While I express my closeness to all those who have lost a loved one and suffer from violence, I urgently appeal a process of constructive dialogue be undertaken as soon as possible for the common good".

The tragic conflict makes the restoration of respect and peaceful coexistence more urgent. No effort should be spared in this regard. With these sentiments, I have decided to send Cardinal Peter Turkson Kodwo, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to this noble country, to express my solidarity and that of the universal Church to victims of conflict and to promote reconciliation and peace.

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The violent dispute over last November's presidential election in the West African nation, that U.N.-certified results showed Alasanne Ouattara won, but which incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refuses to concede, has reignited the civil war the ballot was meant to end.

[Cote d'Ivoire, the French name by which it is officially known, became independent of France in 1960. Its present population is about 21.5 million. It is the world's leading producer of cocoa (from the cacao plant).]

GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY
Catechesis on St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
Doctor of the Church

At the General Audience today, The Holy Father devoted his catechesis to St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, now the 32nd of the 33 Doctors of the Church that he has spoken about in his Wednesday audiences - most of them in his earlier catechetical cycles about the great Christian figures from early Christianity to the Middle Ages.

He went on to complete the presentation with the Doctors of the Counter-Reformation - Terssa of Avila, Peter Canisius, John of the Cross, Ronert Bellarmine, Francis de Sales and Lawrence of Brindisi. St. Alphonsus Liguori in the 18th century and St. Therese of Lisieux in the 19th century complete the roster of the Doctors of the Church so far.






Pope calls for
caring, faithful confessors

March 30, 2011

Continuing his cycle of lessons on the Doctors of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI told believers Wednesday that prayer and confession are the best antidotes to our era marked by “signs of loss of conscience and morality”.



Outlining the legacy of an 18th century Neapolitan Saint, Alphonsus Liguori, during his Wednesday catechesis, the Holy Father spoke of the obvious “lack of esteem” for the sacrament of confession among Catholics today and urged priests to adopt a more “charitable, understanding and gentle attitude” towards penitents while always remaining faithful to Catholic moral teaching.

Here is how he synthesized the catechesis in English:

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Our catechesis today deals with Saint Alphonsus Liguori, an outstanding eighteenth-century preacher, scholar and Doctor of the Church. Alphonsus left a brilliant career as a lawyer to become a priest, and greatly contributed to the renewal of the Church in his native Naples.

He began as a missionary among the urban poor, gathering small groups for prayer and instruction in the faith. Broadening his pastoral outreach, he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer – the Redemptorists – as a group of itinerant missionaries.

Alphonsus’s pastoral zeal also found expression in his moral teaching, which emphasized divine mercy and the relationship between God’s law and our deepest human needs and aspirations. His many spiritual writings, marked by a deep Christological and Marian piety, stressed the practice of prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament.

May this great Doctor of the Church, venerated also as the patron of moral theologians, help us to respond ever more fully to God’s call to grow in holiness, and inspire in priests, religious and laity a firm commitment to the new evangelization.

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Here is a full translation of today's catechesis:

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Third from left; The saint's founder statue in St. Peter's Basilica.

Today, I wish to present to you the figure of a Saint and Doctor of the Church to whom we are much indebted because he was a distinguished moral theologian and a teacher of spiritual life for all, especially for the simple folk. He is also the author of the lyrics and music for one of the most popular Christmas carols in Italy: 'Tu scendi dalle stelle' {You have descended from the stars).

Born to a noble and rich Neapolitan family, Alfonso Maria de' Liguori was born in 1696. Endowed with outstanding intellectual qualities, he obtained a degree in civil and canon law at age 16. He became the most brilliant attorney in the courts of Naples: for eight years, he won all the cases he defended.

However, in a soul thirsting for God and desirous of perfection, the Lord led him to understand that he was called to another vocation. And indeed, in 1723, indignant at the corruption and injustice which polluted the courts, he abandoned his profession - and with it, wealth and success - deciding to become a priest, despite his father's opposition.

He had the best teachers, who introduced him to the study of Sacred Scripture, the history of the Church, and mysticism. He acquired vast theological culture, which he put to fruitful results years later when he would begin to write.

He was ordained a priest in 1726, and for the exercise of his ministry, he joined the diocesan Congregation for Apostolic Missions. Alfonso began evangelizing and catechetical activity among the most humble strata of Neapolitan society, to whom he loved to preach, and whom he instructed in the essential truths of the faith.

Not a few of these persons, poor or of modest means, to whom he addressed himself, had been dedicated to vice or had been involved in criminal activity. Patiently, he taught them to pray, encouraging them to change their way of life for the better.

Alfonso obtained excellent results: in the poorest neighborhoods of the city, many groups of persons gathered every evening in private homes or shops to pray and to meditate on the Word of God, under the guidance of catechists who had been trained by Alfonso and other priests, who also regularly visited these prayer groups.

When, at the request of the Archbishop of Naples, these prayer meetings started to be held in the chapels of the city, they came to be known as 'cappelle serotine' (evening chapels). These were a true and proper source of moral education, social healing, and reciprocal aid among the poor. Robberies, duels and prostitution almost disappeared.

Even if the social and religious context of St. Alfonso's time was very different from ours, the evening chapels seem to be a model of missionary activity which can inspire us even now for a 'new evangelization', particularly among the poorest, and to build human coexistence that is more just and more fraternally supportive.

Priests are entrusted with the task of spiritual ministry, while well-trained laymen can be effective Christian animators, authentic evangelical yeast in the bosom of society.

After having considered leaving to evangelize pagan peoples, Alfonso, at age 35, made contact with the peasants and shepherds in the inner regions of the Kingdom of Naples. Struck by their religious ignorance and the state of abandonment towards which they were headed, he decided to leave the capital and dedicate himself to these persons who were spiritually and materially poor.

In 1732, he founded the religious Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which he placed under the protection of Bishop Tomaso Falcoia, and of which he subsequently became Superior-General.

These religious, led by Alfonso, were authentic itinerant missionaries, who reached the remotest villages to exhort the faithful to conversion and to perseverance in Christian life, especially through prayer.

Even today, the Redemptorists, who are found all over the world, continue this mission of evangelization. I think of them with gratitude, exhorting them to always remain faithful to the example of their sainted founder.

Esteemed for his goodness and pastoral zeal, in 1762, Alfonso was named bishop of Sant'Agat dei Goti, a ministry which, with the concession of Pope Pius VI, he left in 1787, because of the many illnesses that afflicted him.

The same Pope, upon learning of Alfonso's death following many sufferings, exclaimed, "He was a saint!" He was not wrong. Alfonso was canonized in 1839, and in 1871, he was declared a Doctor of the Church, a title given to him for many reasons.

First of all, because he had offered a wealth of teaching in moral theology, which adequately expresses the Catholic faith, to the point that he was later proclaimed by Pope Pius XII as the 'Patron of all confessors and moralists'.

In his time, a very rigorist interpretation of moral life was widespread, because of the influence of Jansenist mentality which, instead of nourishing trust and hope in God's mercy, fomented fear and presented a God who was harsh and severe, far from the face that Jesus had revealed to us.

St. Alfonso, especially in his major work entitled Teologia Morale, proposed a balanced and convincing synthesis between the demands of the law of God, which are carved into our hearts, fully revealed by Christ, and authoritatively interpreted by the Church, and the dynamism of man's conscience and freedom, which in adhering to truth and goodness, allows personal maturation and realization.

To the pastors of souls and confessors, Alfonso urged faithfulness to Catholic moral doctrine, while assuming a charitable, understanding and tender attitude, so that penitents can feel themselves accompanied, sustained, and encouraged in their path of faith and Christian living.

St. Alfonso never tired of repeating that priests are a visible sign of the infinite mercy of God, who forgives and enlightens the mind and the heart of the sinner so that he repents and changes his life.

In our time, when there are clear signs of loss of moral conscience - we must acknowledge this - and of a certain lack of esteem for the Sacrament of Confession, St. Alfonso's teaching continues to be greatly relevant.

Along with his works of theology, St. Alfonso composed many other writings, intended for the religious formation of the people. His style is simple ans pleasant. Read and translated into many languages, the works of St. Alfonso have contributed to shape popular spirituality in the last two centuries.

Some of them are texts that should be read today with great profit, such as Eternal maxims, The glory of Mary, The practice of loving Jesus Christ, this last representing the synthesis of his thought, and his masterwork.

He insisted very much on the need for prayer which allows us to be open to divine grace so we may comply daily with the will of God and achieve our own sanctification.

About prayer, he wrote: "God does not deny anyone the grace of prayer, with which one obtains the help to conquer every concupiscence and temptation. I say, I reply and will always reply as long as I have life, that all our salvation lies in prayer".

From this, his famous axiom: "He who prays will be saved" (Del gran mezzo della preghiera e opuscoli affini. Opere ascetiche II, Roma 1962, p. 171).

In this regard, I am reminded of an exhortation by my predecessor, the Venerable Servant of God John Paul II: "Our Christian communities should become schools of prayer... Therefore, education in prayer must become a required activity in every pastoral program" (Apost. Letter Novo Millennio ineunte, 33,34).

Among the forms of prayer fervently urged by St. Alfonso, he highlighted visits to the Blessed Sacrament, or Adoration, as we call it today - brief or prolonged, personal or communitarian - before the Eucharist.

"Certainly", Alfonso wrote, "among all the devotions, the act of adoring Jesus in the Sacrament is the first after the Sacraments which is dearest to God, and the most useful for us... Oh, what a beautiful delight it is to be in front of an altar with faith...and to present our own needs, as a friend does to another in whom he has full trust!" C](Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Most Blessed Mary for every day of the month - Introduction).

Alfonsian spirituality is, in fact, eminently Christological, centered on Christ and his Gospel. Meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation and the Passion of Christ was a frequent subject of his preaching - the events in which Redemption is offered 'copiously' to all men.

And precisely because it was Christologic, Alfonso's piety was also exquisitely Marian. Most devoted to Mary, he illustrates her role in the story of salvation: partner in the Redemption and Mediatrix of grace, Mother, Advocate and Queen.

Moreover, St. Alfonso affirmed that devotion to Mary would be of great help to us at the moment of death. He was convinced that meditation on our own eternal destiny, on our calling to participate for always in the beatitude of God, as also in the tragic possibility of damnation, contributes so that we may live with serenity and commitment, and face the reality of death while always keeping our full confidence on the goodness of God.

St. Alfonso Maria de' Liguori is an example of the zealous pastor, who won over souls by preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments, combined with a way of action marked by gentle goodness, born out of his intense relationship with God, who is Infinite Goodness.

He had a realistically optimistic view of the resources for good that the Lord gives every man, and he gave importance to the affections and sentiments of the heart, besides the mind, in order to love God and one's neighbor.

In conclusion, I wish to recall that our saint, like St. Francis de Sales, of whom I spoke a few weeks ago, insisted on saying that holiness is accessible to every Christian - to "...the religious as religious, the layman as layman, the priest as priest, the spouse spouse, the merchant as merchant, the soldier as soldier, and so on, with every other state" (Pratica di amare Gesù Cristo. Opere ascetiche I, Roma 1933, p. 79).

Let us thank the Lord who, in his Providence, raises saints and doctors of the Church, in different times and places, who speak the same language to invite us to grow in faith and to live with love and joy our being Christians in the simple actions of everyday, in order to walk along the road of holiness, on the road towards God and towards true joy. Thank you.

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/03/2011 20:48]

[Sorry for the delay in posting this, as the material is from yesterday. I have adapted the text for reading without the video, since the TV agency's online report transcribes the audio that accompanies the video clips.]


Arturo Mari's favorite photo
from 26 years of covering John Paul II
Adapted from

March 29, 2011



One of the men who spent some of the most time with John Paul II was Arturo Mari, the veteran Vatican photographer who was, in effect, the Pope's personal photographer, as he had been for Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and now Benedict XVI. He has no doubt about which of his photographs is his favorite.

Mari recalls of John Paul II: "He would arrive every morning at 6.20 am at his apartment and would work all day, until 8, 9, 10 or 11 at night." Such, he says, was the energy of the Pope and his closest associates. They had an enthusiasm that was maintained until the last minute.

Arturo Mari could see first hand how John Paul II changed the world, as he accompanied him on all the meetings, hearings and trips he made in his 26 year pontificate.

"We will remember John Paul II as the man who changed the world. It's something you can see from the first trip to the last. Everyone who heard him witnessed his teaching and his message being carried to all to the countries of the world, from North to South, East and West."

Arturo Mari has worked more than 53 years as a papal photographer. But the photographer of the Popes has no doubt about which of his photographs is his favorite.

It was taken at the time of the last Holy Week of John Paul II's reign, during the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. The Pope, because of his illness, could no longer be present at the Colosseum, but followed the ceremony on TV from his private chapel.

Mari was able to photograph a historic moment during the fourteenth station, the burial of Jesus.

"The Holy Father asked Father Stanislao Dziwisz to give him the cross. For a split second, the Pope took the crucifix, gave it a kiss, and embraced it. He put it close to his heart. Nobody else saw this, because it was for just a second," Mari says.

It is a photo that has been seen around the world and that shows graphically the affliction of John Paul II's final years - an image that captures his holiness, through the lens of one of those who knew him best.

Update on pastoral visit
to Lamezia Terma-San Bruno

The Diocese of Lamezia has opened the official site for the Holy Father's autumn visit to that diocese in southwestern Italy.


www.ilpapaalamezia.it

The logo for the visit:


The image is of the paralytic whom Peter cured outside the temple of Jerusalem with the words, "In the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, arise and walk", whence the slogan for the visit.

The nun who designed the logo explains the major image thus: "The paralytic, crippled from birth, had always been near the Temple - represented here by the dome of the Cathedral of Lamezia - where he heard the Word of God announced by Peter, who said to him: 'I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have, I will give you: in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, arise and walk'. And so he is healed. But more than healing, it is a resurrection.

This man, because he was crippled, lived under the malediction of David (2Sam 5,8) which prohibited him from entering the temple to take part in liturgical celebrations. And so he could only get as far as the Beautiful Gate, between the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of Women. In healing the cripple, Peter, like Christ before him, took away the barriers to a universal assembly that is open to all. He acts in the name of Christ and knows that what he gives does not come from him, that the gift of physical health is the sign and earnest of complete health, that which is eschatological".

In other news from the diocese:

New school for sacred music
to be named after Benedict XVI

Under an agreement between the Diocese and the Tschaikovsky Institute for Higher Musical Studies of Nocera Terinese, also in Calabria, a Schola Cantorum will be established in Lamezia Terme to be named after Benedict XVI.

The music school will offer two curricula: one for a Level I Academic Diploma in Music, and another, a course for singers of sacred and liturgical music as a basis for further professional studies in music or liturgy.

The Italian bishops' conference (CEI) has approved this initiative and has granted its patronage.

On Benedict XVI's one-day pastoral visit to Lamezia, he will say Mass and Angelus in Lamezia in the morning, and in the afternoon visit the nearby 11th century convent of San Bruno (established by the German-born saint who founded the Carthusian order and where he spent his final years}. The Pope will celebrate Vespers with the Carthusian community.

Lamezia Terme is a city in the region of Calabria on the southwestern side of the Italian peninsula.