BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

USCCB under Cardinal Dolan
issues new statement against
HHS threat to religious freedom


His Eminence Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, President, and His Excellency Most Reverend William E. Lori, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, have released a very strong statement regarding the current status of the HHS mandate, dated February 21, 2012, to the bishops of the United States.

The statement warns of the severe danger posed to religious liberty by "an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism" and notes that the narrow "exemption" in the mandate was "instituted only by executive whim" and so "can be taken away easily."

Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Lori present the mandate as an assault on foundational principles and ask, "If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end?"

Here is the full text of the statement:

---

Dear Brother Bishops,

Since we last wrote to you concerning the critical efforts we are undertaking together to protect religious freedom in our beloved country, many of you have requested that we write once more to update you on the situation and to again request the assistance of all the faithful in this important work. We are happy to do so now.

First, we wish to express our heartfelt appreciation to you, and to all our sisters and brothers in Christ, for the remarkable witness of our unity in faith and strength of conviction during this past month. We have made our voices heard, and we will not cease from doing so until religious freedom is restored.

As we know, on January 20, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a decision to issue final regulations that would force practically all employers, including many religious institutions, to pay for abortion inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraception.

The regulations would provide no protections for our great institutions — such as Catholic charities, hospitals, and universities — or for the individual faithful in the marketplace. The regulations struck at the heart of our fundamental right to religious liberty, which affects our ability to serve those outside our faith community.

Since January 20, the reaction was immediate and sustained. We came together, joined by people of every creed and political persuasion, to make one thing resoundingly clear: we stand united against any attempt to deny or weaken the right to religious liberty upon which our country was founded.

On Friday, February 10, the Administration issued the final rules. By their very terms, the rules were reaffirmed “without change.” The mandate to provide the illicit services remains. The exceedingly narrow exemption for churches remains. Despite the outcry, all the threats to religious liberty posed by the initial rules remain.

Religious freedom is a fundamental right of all. This right does not depend on any government’s decision to grant it: it is God-given, and just societies recognize and respect its free exercise.

The free exercise of religion extends well beyond the freedom of worship. It also forbids government from forcing people or groups to violate their most deeply held religious convictions, and from interfering in the internal affairs of religious organizations.

Recent actions by the Administration have attempted to reduce this free exercise to a “privilege” arbitrarily granted by the government as a mere exemption from an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism.

The exemption is too narrowly defined, because it does not exempt most non-profit religious employers, the religiously affiliated insurer, the self-insured employer, the for-profit religious employer, or other private businesses owned and operated by people who rightly object to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception.

And because it is instituted only by executive whim, even this unduly narrow exemption can be taken away easily.

In the United States, religious liberty does not depend on the benevolence of who is regulating us. It is our “first freedom” and respect for it must be broad and inclusive — not narrow and exclusive.

Catholics and other people of faith and good will are not second class citizens. And it is not for the government to decide which of our ministries is “religious enough” to warrant religious freedom protection.

This is not just about contraception, abortion-causing drugs, and sterilization—although all should recognize the injustices involved in making them part of a universal mandated health care program. It is not about Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. It is about people of faith.

This is first and foremost a matter of religious liberty for all. If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end? This violates the constitutional limits on our government, and the basic rights upon which our country was founded.

Much remains to be done. We cannot rest when faced with so grave a threat to the religious liberty for which our parents and grandparents fought. In this moment in history we must work diligently to preserve religious liberty and to remove all threats to the practice of our faith in the public square. This is our heritage as Americans.

President Obama should rescind the mandate, or at the very least, provide full and effective measures to protect religious liberty and conscience.

Above all, dear brothers, we rely on the help of the Lord in this important struggle. We all need to act now by contacting our legislators in support of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which can be done through our action alert on www.usccb.org/conscience.

We invite you to share the contents of this letter with the faithful of your diocese in whatever form, or by whatever means, you consider most suitable. Let us continue to pray for a quick and complete resolution to this and all threats to religious liberty and the exercise of our faith in our great country.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Archbishop of New York
president, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Most Reverend William E. Lori
Bishop of Bridgeport
Chairman, Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

---

Thursday, February 23, Thursday after Ash Wednesday

ST. POLYCARPUS (Smyrna, ca 69-156), BISHOP AND MARTYR
He was a disciple of St. John, who consecrated him Bishop of Smyrna (now Izmir, present Turkey), and a friend of St. Ignatius
of Antioch. With St. Pope Clement of Rome and Ignatius, he is considered one of the three Apostolic Fathers of the Church.
As s 'second-generation' Christian, his testimony was critical for affirming orthodox teaching in the face of many conflicting
interpretations of what Jesus said. At age 86, after he refused to burn incense to the Roman emperor (Marcus Aurelius),
a bloodthirsty crowd tried to burn him at the stake without success - they finally killed him with a dagger. After St. Stephen's,
the report of his martyrdom was the earliest reliable about the death of an early Christian martyr. A letter he wrote to the
Christians of Philippi survives.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022312.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father had his annual meeting today with the priests of Rome, his Diocese, and addressed them
in a lectio divina on Ephesians 4,1-14, during which he warned the clergy once more against vainglory.

A back item from earlier this week...

Benedict XVI to decide
on FSSPX before the summer?
by Antoine Marie Izoard


Rome, February 20 - The matter of a return to full communion with the Catholic Church of the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX [SSPX]) is "in the Pope's hands", sources close to the dossier have revealed to I.Media.

Now that the phase of discussions with the Lefebvrists is over, Benedict XVI should shortly pronounce a final judgment to put an end, "before summer", to the discussions held since 2009 with the Society separated from Rome.

After having studied the response of the Society of Saint Pius X to the "doctrinal preamble", that had been handed to them at mid-September 2011, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith now awaits the decision of Benedict XVI.

"The stage of study and discussion is over, and we have reached the moment for decisions," Vatican sources indicated, underlining that, "all is currently in the hands of the Pope, who should deliver a final opinion."

The following was big news in the Italian media yesterday but since it was Ash Wednesday (and I was gone most of the day, as well), I did not give it any priority. Now, however, it has been reported in the UK Daily Telegraph - which spares me some translating and summarizing of material that is really peripheral but is presented by the MSM - especially in Italy - as though it had the news significance and the moral equivalence of a major statement by the Pope.

The fact that the TV program even considered the cloak-and-dagger stratagem of having someone completely disguised and anonymous as the protagonist of this latest attempt to throw mud at the Vatican is, in itself, most reprehensible. But for the MSM to pay attention to it at all is even worse. The fact that the person brings up past scandals that took place in the previous Pontificate makes it all the more dubious, because as in the pedophile 'scandals', they have nothing to do with Benedict XVI's Pontificate, which is the target of all this recent disgustingly sanctimonious muck-raking...

Disguised 'leaker' gets
primetime treatment
By Nick Squires

February 23, 2012

The Vatican is ruled by a climate of fear and an 'omerta' code of silence, a whistle-blower has claimed.

The mole claims to be one of more than 20 people within the Holy See who have leaked sensitive documents to the Italian media in the last few weeks, in an affair that has been compared to the WikiLeaks scandal and dubbed "Vati-leaks". [There certainly have not been 20 separate documents disclosed by the media in recent weeks - so either the self-proclaimed mole is exaggerating, or the moles have not been coordinating with each other and have all been leaking the same documents! Anyway, those are 20 too many weasels. Paging Cardinal Bertone and Inspector Giani: Any luck so far in ferreting out the ferrets??? Isn't there a a real-life Father Brown in the Vatican who could put his common sense and intuitive reason to what appears to be a problem that could be approached immediately by a a process of elimination (reducing the possible suspects to the known universe of those who have means and opportunity to access such documents)?]

The unidentified man, who said he had worked in the Vatican for more than 20 years, made the claims in an interview aired on Italian television on Wednesday night.

His face was hidden and his voice digitally distorted when he appeared on the TV channel, La7 [the same channel that first leaked the Vigano letters]. [In other words, the man could have been anyone picked off the street and he could have claimed anything the producers wanted him to say. No way to establish his bona fides at all, is there? If this were someone with the courage of his convictions, he ahould have appeared openly and declared his wllingness to resign instead of continuing to work for such a den of such a criminal organization! Why should anyone in his right mind treat his 'testimony' seriously at all?]

According to extracts of the interview, the whistle-blower said the Vatican was engulfed in intrigue, secrecy and a climate of intimidation.

"Maybe there is a kind of omerta to prevent the truth from surfacing. Not because of a power struggle but maybe because of fear," he added.

He claimed to have worked in the State Secretariat, which is led by the powerful but unpopular Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, who is reported to have fallen out of favour with the Pope and his supporters. [Rumors of Bertone's disfavor with the Pope appear to be completely speculative.]

The whistle-blower said the Vatican is a place where "you can commit a murder and then disappear into the void" – a reference to a murky scandal in the Swiss Guard in 1998, when a young soldier shot dead the corps' commander and wife before apparently committing suicide.

The mother of Cedric Tornay, 23, the alleged assassin, has never accepted that her son would have committed suicide and has called on Pope Benedict XVI, 84, to reopen the case, amid speculation that the real killer of the three may never have been caught. [The official verdict was that the young man killed the couple and then killed himself. What business does Benedict XVI have to order a re-investigation of a 1998 criminal case which took place and was officially 'resolved' under his predecessor, who presided at the funeral Mass for the Swiss Guard commander? See the New York Times report about the crime when it happened:[/DIM} http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/05/world/chief-guard-is-killed-in-vatican-along-with-wife-and-a-2d-man.html?ref=aloisestermann
and look up Alois Estermann in Wikipedia for the various theories on the case as advanced in several books.

There have been long-standing accusations of an official cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, with numerous conspiracy theories put forward for a possible motive. {DUH! As if it's the first time that the 'Roman Catholic Church' has been accused of a grievous crime and an official cover-up! As if that has not been the SOP in the media. As if that has not been the entire anti-Church media strategy in the child abuse cases! Anytime anything bad happens that involves anyone in the Vatican, the immediate assumption is that it must be a crime that the Church has to cover up at all costs. In the decades since it established its monopolistic grip on public opinion, MSM has never once concded good faith to the Church on anything! Everybody else is right, never the Church.]

The leaks have embarrassed the Vatican in recent weeks, with claims of corruption and nepotism, questions over the transparency of the Vatican bank and unconfirmed reports of an assassination plot against the Pope within the next 12 months. [Why does MSM assume that the leaks have necessarily 'embarrassed' the Vatican? That's projecting secular behavior on the Church. The leaks have definitely been unpleasant, but the Vatican can be 'embarrassed' only if it accepts the truth of everything that the leaks attribute to it! On the contrary, it has replied point by point to factual errors and misrepresentations made in these leaked documents. The fact is MSM constantly do want to embarrass the Vatican and the Church, and if they have to say it themselves to underscore the point, then they do, as often as they can as in this par-for-the-course mindless article.]

The whistle-blower dismissed suggestions that documents were being leaked in exchange for money. [As if that had ever been made a major consideration in all this. Bad people do not always have to be paid to advance their evil designs!]

"Something like that is inconceivable for me. That would mean betraying what we believe in," he said.

[Now here comes another non-sequitur that has nothing to do with the recent leaks at all, but is simply literal muckraking from the 1980s to suggest an even more criminal, lurid and sinister picture of the Vatican:]

He urged the Vatican to re-investigate "with zeal" one of its most enduring mysteries – the kidnap of teenager Emanuela Orlandi nearly 30 years ago.

Over the years it has been claimed that Miss Orlandi was kidnapped so that she could be used as a bargaining chip for the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill John Paul II in St Peter's Square in 1981.

Another theory is that the girl's father, a Vatican employee, had stumbled on documents that connected the Vatican bank with a criminal gang in Rome and that she was kidnapped in a bid to silence him.

It has even been suggested that the kidnapping was carried out on the orders of a Catholic archbishop, Paul Marcinkus, the disgraced head of the Vatican bank, known as the 'Istituto per le Opere di Religione'. Marcinkus, an American, died six years ago.

[Hey, anyone is free to construct conspiracy theories, no matter how loony, and peddle them, but they should not be peddled by supposedly respectable publciations.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/02/2012 21:14]

Here's another oblique and far-fetched attempt to discredit Benedict XVI, imputing hypocrisy to the Holy Father by linking his words to the cause for beatification of C&L founder Don Luigi Giussani, whose funeral homily he preached memorably in the Cathedral of Milan in February 2005. As if Don Giussani's life and work were a contradiction in any way to the Pope's admonitions against careerism and the search for power and glory that animates many in the clergy.

Without even the slightest reference to Don Giussani's personal virtues or C&L's spiritual raison d'etre, this writer presents C&L in the worst possible light simply because it has championed conservative values, and therefore sees it only as a political movement intent on seeking and wielding political power - i.e., the Church is therefore seeking to beatify someone who was driven by the quest for earthly power and influence!...

The reporter writes from Milan, which has always been the center of radical leftist opposition to C&L which managed to flourish there despite the overtly liberal agenda of the Archdiocesan Curia in the past three decades or more under Archbishops Carlo Maria Martini and Dionigi Tettamanzi. .

Pope warns Church to resist
temptations of power after
C&L presents cause to beatify
founder Don Luigi Giussani
by Michael Day

24 February 2012
(Written for tomorrow's paper edition)

MILAN - Pope Benedict XVI has warned the Catholic Church to resist temptations of power, even as it emerged that ecclesiastical figures in Milan had moved to canonise Don Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Vatican’s controversial political campaigning wing. [That outrageously false statement, which no serious religion reporter in Italy would ever make, sets the agenda and tone for this whole article.]

The Pontiff told his weekly audience on Ash Wednesday this week that the Church was faced with temptations of power just as Jesus was in the desert.

“Jesus found himself exposed to danger and faced with the temptation of the evil one who offered him a Messianism far afield from God’s plan, through success and power and dominion,” he said, adding that the same was faced "by the Church and us believers”.

But critics swiftly contrasted Pope Benedict’s warning with news that moves were now underway in Milan to make a saint of Don Giussani, whose teachings gave rise to Communion and Liberation, the Catholic, anti-Marxist political group, which consistently supported former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. {False allegation and implying guilt by association with a man whose reputation has been universally blackened.]

The ultra-conservative, lay organisation has other important supporters in Italy’s richest area, Milan/Lombardy, including the regional president Roberto Formigoni. Its political influence allows the pursuit of a right-wing social agenda on topics including stem cell research and assisted dying. {C&L would pursue its orthodox Catholic values whether it had any political influence or not. The fact that some important political leaders support it or even happen to belong to it does not mean the movement is consciously seeking political power.]

Moderate Catholic groups have opposed its aims and methods. But Pope John Paul II backed the organisation’s political campaigning. And its current, central position in Italian society was underlined last year when a key Communion and Liberation figure, Cardinal Angelo Scola, became the Archbishop of Milan. [In what way did John Paul II 'back its political campaigning - not that C&L undertook any political campaigning at all???? And Cardinal Scola has repeatedly said - as recent as w few weeks ago, once again - that although he belonged to C&L, it has been decades since he took part in any C&L activities nor has he been linked to any such activities. He did not become Patriarch of Venice and now, Archbishop of Milan, because he was a member of C&L, but because he has great personal merits that qualify him to be a Prince of the Church and worthy of his prestigious appointments.]

As archbishop, Cardinal Scola, who had been a close friend of Don Giussani until his death in 2005 aged 82, received the official Communion and Liberation request to begin the beatification and canonisation processes. [What's so sinister about that? Even if he had not known Don Giussani at all, or had no previous link to C&L, he would still have had the duty to receive the petition because he is the Archbishop of the diocese where Don Giussani lived and worked, and where any initial investigations into his cause for sainthood would have to be done.]

“It shouldn’t be a surprise: the Vatican has always been about power,” said James Walston, a politics professor at the American University in Rome. “But if Don Giussani’s the sort of person they’re going to be canonising, then Heaven help us.” [And heaven help you, Mr. Walton, for being so dismissive of a man whose garment you are not worthy to lift. You would think Don Giussani had been a charlatan instead of a man who inspired a very vital worldwide ecclesial movement, whose annual 'Meetings' in Rimini for dialog among peoples have been attended in the past three decades by almost every political leader of consequence - and of diverse ideologies.

The following is an obvious attempt to further conjure guilt by association, without mentioning that this Fr. Verze was always a most oustpoken critic of the Church Magisterium and detractor of Beneidct XVI, in general. That he had a dubious reputation, being an assiduous self-promoter, does not make him representative of the Church any more than do the pedophile priests.

Another prominent Church figure - the Milan priest, tycoon and hospital director Don Luigi Verzè, who died last year - was accused of being too close to the rich and powerful as result of close friendships with Silvio Berlusconi and disgraced former Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi.

He left a €1.5 billion black hole in the accounts of Milan’s San Raffaele teaching hospital and faced allegations of fraud.


The writer of the article did not even attempt to show the appearance of balance by interviewing at least one person who had something good to say about C&L and Don Giussani. He could have taken the easy way out simply by quoting from Cardinal Ratzinger's February 2005 eulogy, which will surely be one of the centerpiece testimonials in the cause for Don Giussani's beatification. But he can't do that because it was all spiritual and would not fit Day's crassly and purely political narrative.

C&L appears to be the New Opus Dei - or at least, joins it - as the Catholic bete noire of the liberal media, which means they have now incurred the same fear of their perceived clout as the Opus Dei kindled to white heat decades ago. You don't hear the same disparagement for, say, the always politically correct Sant'Egidio Community (which even prides itself on being called the analog of the 'United Nations' in the religious sector!) or other socially active ecclesial movements. Look for Dan Brown's next arch-villain to be a C&L type.

Have you checked the Pope's Twitter account?
It's in the name of Benedict XIV!

Everyone and his grandmother knows by now that the "the Pope will be tweeting" daily during the 40 days of Lent, a piece of news that I chose to kick down the road from yesterday (but cannot completely ignore, obviously) - first, because I am probably the only benighted person in the world who cannot appreciate the value of social networking, and second, because the organizers of WYD-Sydney in 2008 and before them, the bishops of Austria, had used e-mail and texting to feed daily messages 'from the Pope' to interested parties. But since it's obviously a pandemic that even the Vatican has decided to avail of intensively - and the Pope himself comments about their uses - then by all means...

Now, the third and most important reason I am not raising any paeans yet to this venture. Because I generally like to make a basic fact check before commenting on anything, let me tell you what a shock it is to find out that whoever is handling the Pope's Twitter account can't even get his Pope right!:



Which leads me to the obvious questions: Who chooses the messages, do they clear them with the Pope, and who frames them to see that they fit into 140 characters? How can we be sure that whoever it is is not misrepresenting the Pope? If you can make a mistake such as not getting the Twitter account name right at all, how are we to trust anything else you send in the Pope's name? Just imagine all the possible disasters if a questionable or even outright blasphemous statement somehow got tweeted in the Pope's name!

Will post the actual news item announcing the Lenten tweets later, for the record. For Now, I just hope that in the time since I checked on the papal Twitter page a few minutes ago, the Vatican Webmaster will have noticed and corrected the error! (BTW, I acessed the account by searching "pope benedict's twitter account'. I'd never have found it if I had used the conventional twitter address form, @PopeBenedictXVI!)

P.S. It gets worse... Apparently this account has been active since June 28, at least, going by the bottom entry - and all this time, even after their big announcement yesterday, no one has bothered to correct the account name. Unless the Vatican web-whizkids really meant all this in behalf of the Pope who lived in 1675-1758, who must be getting a kick from where he is up there, at getting all this strange transmissions from cyperspace....



And oh yes, it's the second day of Lent. Do we see any Lenten tweet yet???? Or is there a second Twitter account just for Lent that I have not yet been able to unearth, socialnetwork-klutz that I am!


Here's how Vatican Radio touted the Twitter feed as it trotted out the announcement yesterday:

Follow the Pope
on Twitter for Lent

February 22, 2012



Some like to give up a favourite food for Lent. Others choose to follow a bible study course. Or commit to helping those less fortunate than themselves. But in our increasingly secular societies, many young people no longer keep the Lenten season in any special way – that’s why the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has come up with a new idea to focus hearts and minds on the challenges contained in Pope Benedict’s Lenten message for 2012.

Starting on Ash Wednesday, themes from that papal message will be posted on Twitter each day during Lent and over the coming months other papal speeches and documents are likely to be tweeted in a similar way, hoping to attract the media-savvy generation and entice them to find out more...

But is it all just another technological gimmick that ‘dumbs down’ the message of the Church? Not at all, says Msgr Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, “many of the key Gospel ideas are readily rendered in just 140 characters…..” in an interview with Philippa Hitchens:

MONS. TIGHE: “The idea was very simply to try and use Twitter to share with people the essence of the Pope’s message for Lent, so over the 40 days of Lent to tweet every day one of the ideas of this message…. doing it in a way so that people can re-tweet and already people we know from our meeting with bloggers last year are already re-tweeting…

The pope2you site had phenomenal success at the time of its launch… over 5 million hits in the first week or two of its operation….The level of interest was such that we’ve kept it going by focusing on the big themes in the life of the church – Christmas, Easter, World Youth Day….”

Fairly soon we’ll also be able to get the Pope’s Angelus and other speeches on Twitter?
Yes, I think a lot of attention is being given to the idea of seeing
Twitter as a channel that could allow for a more direct and immediate way of sharing the nucleus of the Pope’s thoughts on various occasions, so I don’t think it’ll be confined to Lent…

To those who say it’s dumbing down –no, this is entry level…to provoke people’s interest and to invite them then to follow the message and read the text…many of the key Gospel ideas are readily rendered in 140 characters – this is not the only way the Church speaks but it’s an avenue that is open to us and it’s pithy, succinct and it’s one I think that we’re quite good at…

Note that nowhere in the entire item is the Twitter address provided!

PPS: A worse thought just occurred to me. If, since June 28, 2011, no one has called the attention of the Vatican web-wizards to their egregious mistake, does that mean no one has been following the account at all? And where were the whizkids themselves when they were setting up the subsequent Twit-feeds? No one bothered to look at the actual posts????

PPS#2: Serves me right for relying too much on Vatican Radio's English service as a primary source! The Twitter account in use for the Lenten messages is twitter.com/#!/Pope2YouVatican:

YOUCAT is best-selling
Catholic book worldwide
By David Kerr


Rome, Italy, Feb 23, 2012 (CNA) - The co-creator of the Church’s catechism for young people has revealed that it's now the top selling Catholic book in the world.

“The latest figures show that Youcat has sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. It’s been a great success in nearly every country where it has been published,” said German publisher Bernard Meuser in a Feb. 23 interview with CNA.

“For example, it is number one in Spain, number one in America, and number one in Germany along with the Pope’s latest book.”

In 2006, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna and Meuser decided to work on catechism that transmitted the Church’s teachings “in a way that younger people can understand.” He said Cardinal Schönborn’s key advice was that “if you do something for young people, you should do it with young people.”

Over the next five years the two men worked with theologians, educators, priests, and over 60 young people to create “Youcat.” The name is an abbreviation of “Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

The distinctive, slim, yellow volume was published ahead of the 2011 World Youth Day in Madrid, and contains 527 questions and answers. They are accompanied by numerous quotations, images and illustrations including their trademark “stick man” who becomes animated by the rapid flicking of each page.

“I was astonished that the young people liked the book so much,” Meuser said. “We’ve had so much praise from young people and, yes, they really like the stick man.” The Youcat Facebook page has also garnered over 21,000 followers to date.

The book is currently published in 20 languages, but Meuser said that by next year that total will rise to 30, including Chinese and Arabic.

One of Pope Benedict’s hopes for the book has also come to fruition. The catechism has generated many study groups, including one in the Philippines that has over 12,000 participants.

Meuser praised God, “who helped us from the beginning,” for the project’s success. “I really think it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.”

Chapter and verse:
Pope uses Bible reflection
to address 'his' priests
By Cindy Wooden




VATICAN CITY, February 23 (CNS) -- Speaking 38 minutes without a prepared text, Pope Benedict XVI gave priests of the Diocese of Rome a look not only at how he approaches Scripture, but also at his priorities and personality.

Addressing the Rome priests as "my clergy," the Pope led them Feb. 23 in a reflection on faith, truth, hope and humility.

Sitting behind a table and talking without a text -- throwing in explanations of Greek words, Scriptural references and trends in modern theology -- the Pope used Ephesians 4:1-16 as a framework for reflecting on the problems facing the Church and on the way priests should respond to them.

Until last year, the Pope's annual Lenten meeting with the priests of Rome was an opportunity for them to ask him questions. But in 2011, he chose to move to the format of "lectio divina" -- reading a Scripture passage together and then going through it almost line by line to draw lessons and inspiration.

The question-and-answer format was used frequently by Blessed John Paul II in meetings with priests and seminarians, giving him a chance to hear their problems and concerns. [I have not had a chance to look through the 26 years of John Paul II's Pontificate but this assertion by Wooden surprised me. I was under the impression that Benedict XVI pioneered this encounter form when he met the priests of Val D'Aosta during his first summer vacation as Pope in July 2005. Failing to find any results by searching 'john paul II encounters with priests and seminarians' in English and in Italian, I checked out a few years at random on the Vatican webpages about John Paul II's annual meetings with Roman priests (2008, 1998, 1987 and 1980) and I only found standard addresses, not Q&A; so I do not know where Wooden's information came from. I will be most happy to be proven wrong.]

At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict kept up the tradition; but especially after the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Bible, the Pope began using the "lectio divina" format more often to let the Bible guide discussions with clerical groups.

The Pope's talk to Rome priests and his off-the-cuff "lectio divina" sessions Feb. 15 with Rome seminarians and in September with seminarians in Germany included references to the Hebrew, Greek or Latin versions of the biblical passage, as well as the commentaries of ancient church fathers, especially St. Augustine.

Usually, aides prepare at least the initial draft of papal speeches and homilies, so the fact that the Pope addressed the priests and seminarians without reading from a text gave them a greater sense of the way he thinks and approaches Scripture and the challenges facing the Church.

The Pope did not ignore the difficulties of being a priest today, but said he and his fellow priests must strive to live as St. Paul admonished the Ephesians, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love."

The Pope used the pronoun "we" throughout his speech, saying the way he and the priests live their lives will determine their ability to help others believe in Jesus and follow God's will.

"The great suffering of the Church today in Europe and the West is the lack of priestly vocations. But the Lord is always Calling - what is lacking is listeners," the Pope said. "We have listened to his voice," he told the priests, "and we must always be attentive to the Lord calling others, helping them listen and accept the call."

The Church's pastors must imitate St. Paul's style in teaching and encouraging people, using "the loving invitation of a father or mother," and not "a moralistic admonition," Pope Benedict said.

Priests, bishops and even the Pope also must be humble, which does not mean being a doormat, but accepting the fact that while "we are small" in the grand scheme of things -- "I am just one thought of God," - God entrusts each person with a special gift for the good of the entire community.

"The little humiliations we endure day by day are salubrious," he said, because they help one maintain a balance between knowing he us unique and knowing he is just one of the billions of unique creatures God formed and called.

"To accept this, to learn this and accept my position in the Church" means to recognize "my little service as something great in the eyes of God," he said.

"The absence of humility destroys unity," the Pope said, because it feeds pride, competition, a search for power and the denial of the gifts of others.

Another major problem in the Church today highlighted by the Pope was "religious illiteracy," a lack of knowledge about what the Church teaches and why.

"With this illiteracy we cannot grow, unity cannot increase. So we ourselves must recover this content as a richness for unity -- not as a package of dogmas and commandments, but as a unique reality that reveals itself through its depth and beauty," he said.

"We will renew the Church only if we renew people's knowledge of the faith," he said, which is the chief reason why he said he proclaimed the Year of Faith and why it is important for Catholics to know the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Letter to the Ephesians calls Christians to a mature faith, which many people today believe means being "emancipated" from the church and its teachings, the Pope said. But without a firm anchor to the faith and knowledge of what it teaches, they are tossed by "the waves of the world, by the opinions of the world (and) by the dictatorship of the media."

In the absence so far of a transcript to work with, here in the meantime is another account...

The Pope to Roman priests:
'Lack of humility destroys
unity within the Church"
by Alessandro Speciale
Translated from

23/02/2012

For the second time in two days, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of evil in the Church, directly admonishing the clergy.

He did this yesterday morning during the General Audience, during which he reflected on the significance of Lent; and today, in his annual Lenten meeting with the priests of Rome.



An encounter which, this year as last year, took the form of a lectio divina on a passage in the Bible, instead of the Q&A that had characterized the meeting for years. The Pope spoke for 40 minutes without notes on a passage from Ephesians 4 (1-12).

His point of departure was "the great suffering of the Church in Europe and the West today because of the lack of vocations". it is a decline not because God has stopped calling for vocations, the Pope underscored, but because few are responding.

Therefore, he said, Catholics must be more attentive to the voice of the Lord and cultivate the virtues necessary to accept the call: humility, gentleness and magnanimity.

And it was while reflecting on the concept of humility that the Pope spoke in the first person to launch his exhortation to the men of the Church: To be humble, resisting the temptation of pride, also means "to accept my place in the Church, my small service as great in the eyes of God - the kind of humility and of realism that makes us free". [But this is a rhetorical practice he often uses - to shift to the first person when speaking about things that come directly from his experience as a priest! it seems so obvious from everything he says that he feels his profound and fundamental identity to be a priest.]

"The absence of humility destroys unity", he went on. "Humility is a fundamental virtue for unity.; only in humility can the Church as the Body of Christ grow".

The Pope also referred to what he considers another key problem in the Church today, what he calls 'religious illiteracy', against which the Pope has announced a Year of Faith.

The contents of the faith, he told the priests, should be better known, "not as a package of dogmas and commandments, but as a unique reality which must be disclosed in its profundity and beauty".

Nut he also warned against those who claim to have an 'adult faith' because 'emancipated' from the teachings of the Church and having little to do with the doctrine of the Church.

In fact, he said, the result is not an adult faith but "a dependence on what's in vogue in the world, on the opinions of the world, on the dictatorship of the mass media and their insistence on opinions that most people think and want".

"True emancipation", he said, is the consequence of liberation from this dictatorship of opinion, "in the freedom of the children of God who believe together" in the Body of Christ, which is the Church.

The Pope also admonished those theologians who, while noting the presence and the power of evil in the world, also doubt the omnipotence of God. But in the end, he said, "it is not the power of evil that remains. Only God".



During the meeting, the Pope gave each priest a copy of the book entitled Scelto da Dio per gli uomini (Chosen by God for men), with an introduction by the Cardinal-Vicar of Rome, Agostino Vallini.

The Pope called it 'a rule of life', one of the results of the Year for Priests, to serve as " an ideal guide for priests so they may grow in the joy of their vocation and the unity of the priesthood".

The unmistakable flavor of the Gospel
in the bracing words of Benedict XVI
Translated from

23/02/2012

It has been a whole concert presented with his unique elegance, but above all with that disarming humility which exudes the Gospel from all sides.

And so it is that even as the deep-throats and the deep-cover moles broadcast their cacophony, amplified by mean-spirited interests in the media, Peter continued to follow his Teacher imperturbably, as many of his predecessors had done through the ages.

We had looked forward to Benedict's interventions during the Consistory, and with reason. In these almost seven years of his Pontificate, he has shown us increasingly that he can convert every crisis, every apparent situation of imminent disaster, into an occasion for carrying out his mission more effectively, in the Church and with the outside world.

He started the day before his cardinals arrived in Rome for the consistory, at his annual meeting with the seminarians of Rome, 'his seminarians', as Bishop of Rome.

And in that 'familial' atmosphere, almost a confidential one, he launched the first thrust in commenting on the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, in which he had praised the 'faith of Rome, heralded throughout the world'.

"Today, too," Benedict XVI noted, "much is being said about the Church of Rome, many things, but we hope that they will also talk about her faith, of the exemplary faith of the Church. Let us ask God that we may act in such a way that people will not talk about other things but the faith of the Church of Rome". Touche!

Afterwards, speaking extemporaneously all the time, he spoke to the future priests about the non-conformism which should characterize Christians, which allows them to love and truly serve in the world. Non-conformism, for instance, in the face of the power of dominant opinion and its inexhaustible charlatanry.

But the piece de resistance was to come at the allocution he made during the consistory to create the new cardinals. He spoke of the logic of power and the selfishness that can infiltrate even men of the Church.

The logic that made the mother of the sons of Zebedee ask that her sons sit directly to the right and left of Jesus, the same logic that angered the other Apostles over the possibility that they would be ranked less.

How little things have changed! But Benedict XVI converted what could have been a bitter reproach to a paternal attitude that is caring and constructive: "Dominion and power, selfishness and altruism, possession and gift, interest and free giving - these profoundly contrary logics confront each other in every time and place. But there is no doubt about the way chosen by Jesus. And he did not limit himself to indicate it only by words to his disciples then and now - he lived them in his own flesh.

The men in red ought to have felt these words like a major goad, although, in fact, they are addressed to all of us. "Your mission in the Church in the world is always and only 'in Christ', that you respond to his logic not to that of the world, that you may be enlightened by faith and inspired by the love that comes to us through the glorious Cross of the Lord".

Therefore there is no other strategy, other means of governance, other wisdom, than the chalice of the Lord, even if, as Cardinal Dolan jested, once in a while we wish we could do without it.

It is impressive how Benedict XVI teaches, how he corrects, how he governs - this man that some in the media have described these days as tired and isolated, maybe even at the limit of his powers, flirting with the idea of a phantasmagorical resignation.

Some disoriented correspondent entitled his report saying that 'Vatileaks' have weakened the Pope and unleashed a movement for the papal succession. He would have a better career writing pamphlets a la Dan Brown.

One thing is certain: The figure of Peter the fisherman has always emerged from pain and difficulty, the man who thrice professed his love for Jesus as he had once thrice denied him, at the helm of the Barque of the Church.

As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, the has much to "topple, build or restore"...

Looking back at WYD 2011:
'A green dog' among
Pope Benedict's young people
by MANUEL MILIÁN MESTRE
Translated from the 2/22/12 issue of




It's not an easy task for me to review a book - Un perro verde entre los jóvenes del Papa (A green dog among the Pope's young people)(Madrid, Khaf, 2011, pagine 177) — which intends to be only an 'account'. "A chronicle is just a chronicle", of course, but there are many ways of reporting a mass event with a million and a half of the universe that crowded the squares and streets of Madrid and who filled up every open space at Cuatro Vientos airport.

And it could not have been described much better, as in: "Cuatro Vientos (four winds) which the night of the prayer vigil became furibond hurricane winds, as if Evil wished to destroy that testimonial of hope and of happy youth", which the philosopher Antonio Marino wrote in El Mundo the day after. "God is not the explanation of evil, but rebellion against evil".

The almost Biblical multitude under the torrid sun of that summer Sunday at CuatroVientos proclaimed the philosopher's point: "God is more powerful than evil",

And I am obviously referring to the August of that boiling summer of 2011 in Madrid. To the enormous joy of that World Youth Day, which had unleashed so much stupid polemic earlier from a litigious faction of Spanish society that has not yet overcome its complexes nor exorcised its demons from a past marked by an absurd - and anti-democratic - anti-clericalism.

We who have the blood of martyrs and so many others who were killed in 1936, or the day after 1939, cannot understand such rancor, such implacable bitterness.

But Catalan writer Arturo San Agustin has written an account that is personal and splendidly subjective about those days of August which painted joy on the streets of Spain in the form of young pilgrims rallying to a symbol that continues to be much challenged in our day - the Cross of sacrifice.

It is the evident antithesis to hedonism, to consumerism, the stupid emptiness of men who have become very distant from God, and who are truly immersed in the chaos of that emptiness.

That is why San Agustin entitled his account 'A green dog among the Pope's young people" - that is to say, that 'strange thing' present among the multitudes who proclaimed their faith in God during those parched days of a summer that was almost cruelly hot, with their caps and backpacks and walking shoes, irrigating with their sweat the sultry heat that became light for those young spirits. {The more direct meaning of San Agustin's title - a green dog is a Hispanic metaphor for any rare figure or object, particularly one that is usually kept away - is that San Agustin considered himself 'a green dog' who had come to cover WYD, and came away instead cherishing 'the green dog' of faith in a secular world that those young pilgrims embodied in joyful piety.]

There is no more beautiful hope than that which smiles from the eyes of a young girl and on the lips of all the races on earth united in one voice in prayer and song.

The Catalan journalist has written not just a chronicle but produced a painting, with light and shadow, with diverse colors, with mystic elements surfcing from the multitudes as if in search of a monastic retreat during that silence which was "the environmental condition which favors internal recollection best, to listen to God and to meditate" (p. 21). And this was the paradox: "coming up against each other's solitude in that immense ocean of screaming youth".

Moreover, his tried and tested reporter's sensibility unmasks the detractors of WYD, such as "Spanish atheists are like the snail, which go out when the rain stops, but do so backwards", p 31) or " No one enjoys being ridiculed - and that is why Benedict XVI's visit made the 'indignados' indignant" (p. 48)

And what of these indignados? Who give voice to a message that is hypercritical but witbhout an alternative to offer. They felt challenged by a whole multitude of persons happy to have found the way to full realization in Jesus Christ.

For them, it was almost an offense, since they are incapable of understanding that Christian hope is the joy of those who, like the stoics, find happiness in virtue.

But do these indignados, who are ideological night-wanderers, even understand what happiness is? With his lucid independence, the narrator of this living portrait does not fear to say 'what he thinks', as he harangues, for instance, against whatever seems easy for the protestors ("Shooting at Benedict XVI or a cardinal would be much easier than other things"). Or contradicting those who claimed that "the (Pope's) trip was organized around the idea of religion as spectacle".

It is clear that Madrid was the crucible in which were fused all the sensibilities (often quite paradoxical) of Christianity today which no longer knows geographical racial or cultural bounds. The simple faith of our ancestors has been replaced by the internal need to find authentic responses to the anguishing problems of our society which has become skeptical to the point of paroxysm.

It has been said that there is no place for faith in the light of scientific knowledge, a staple of Masonic thought, and yet, in fact, many of the young people at WYD were university students ("More than half of the pilgrims had university education" and "The median age was 22").

This was the key point of WYD: that more than a million and a half young people - enthusiastic, joyous and conscious of their seeking Christ - placed their own faith on the line to reinforce its reason and consistency.

And the Pope grasped all of that - from Cuatro Vientos, as from the multitudes in prayer during the evening Via Crucis, when the aesthetic traditions of Andalusia and Castile offered their baroque images in a most unusual context, in which the lament of the various saetas (flamenco singers) lacerated the meditative silence in an expression of popular sorrow that obviously moved young people from Asia, Africa and Oceania who had never experienced this type of religious drama before.

Some of the neo-Cathecnuemals have said: "We should build audacious and courageous churches" - But what greater church than that river of joyful smiling faces that inundated the streets of Madrid to announce a new religiosity which energetically repelled old disbeliefs, or old academic disaffections, with their songs, their orderly conduct even amid joyful vigils held in colleges, schools, churches and stadiums, with their guitars and testimonials, and with silence when necessary as at the aerodrome of Cuatro Vientos!

San Agustin tells of a visibly wonder-filled Benedict XVI looking at the human sea before him, "with the same eyes of the child he was whom I continue to associate with his knapsack and leather shorts, the green valleys and golden mountains of his native Bavaria" where the faith is flourishing and boisterous, festive as the blond beer invented by her monks.

The beauty of the kind and tender face of the aged pontiff all aglow from the splendor of so many young people who still respect the elderly, and who admire a Pope who is courageous, direct and fearless in acknowledging the faults of the Church, while being able to lift their spirits to the point of letting them recover the full breadth of Christian hope.

Whether you like it or not, this culture of the peoples of Europe, chiselled by the Christianity that educated the centuries of the Middle Ages, and all those that followed, up to our present post-modernity, is that in which we live.

The warmth of Christianity comes from the enthusiasm which dwells in the spirit of the believer and which was shared by those multitudes in Madrid anxious to hear the Word of Jesus of Nazareth - he whose hand never wavered in chasing out the merchant blasphemers of the Temple and whose voice resounded in the Sermon on the Mount, a moral code of human conduct that has not been overturned, not even by those like Nietszche, who claimed to have ruptured the unity of ethics and morality, afflicting the 20th century and not a few European intellectuals.

Once more in Madrid, Benedict XVI enchanted young people with the depth and beauty of his ideas and his thought.

A young Jesuit confided to the chronicler of this tableau vivant: "This Pope is better read than heard, because his characteristic ideas are those that must be thought about at length, meditated, reflected upon. He is about the profound and transcendent, nothing theatrical, nor even that necessary and inevitable peddling of ideas to the masses that all political leaders undergo to lend themselves authoritativeness".

After translating this, I decided to look up the book itself online - it came out in October 2011, barely two months after the event, so I don't know why it took all this time for the OR to get to it - and has been very well reviewed. I hope to translate some of the reviews but for now, let me just quote at random from one of them:

---

"(San Agustin) makes us feel, as in the Gospel, as blind as we were, that WYD Madrid was mystery and miracle - with Christ, and with that Pope who is all refinement and style of purest white who is Benedicto, blessed. It was conversion, metanoia."

---

The last line echoes what the Holy Father said about Lent at the GA last Wednesday. I keep being amazed at the unabashed fervor and wonder of Spanish Catholic writers and commentators today. I should find a more regular way of keeping track of them.

This related article was on the same page of the 2/22/12/OR:

WYD: When the Church makes
MSM news in a positive way
by Gianluca Biccini
Translated from the 2/22/12 issue of


"We can all declare ourselves satisfied at the success of World Youth Day in Madrid, because it contributed to make our country and her ecclesial comm8unity better known."

So said the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, María Jesús Figa López-Palop, who has no doubt that the Church makes news and that WYD held in the Spanish capital last August confirmed this, even in numbers.

This was the topic at a round table discussion held Tuesday night at the Spanish embassy in Piazza di Spagna. All the speakers agreed that the gathering of youth from all five continents with Benedict XVI was a media success.

Those who spoke were the man who was in charge of WYD-madrid's social networking, Antonio Gallo; the vice-director of the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, Enric Juliana; the editor of the Spanish magazine Vida Nueva, Juan Rubio;. and Vatincaistas Marco Ansaldo of La Repubblica and Gian Guido Vecchi of Corriere della Sera.

Moderator was Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who also answered questions towards the end of the evening.

With priests and religious serving in Rome, among them the secretary of the Holy See's Prefecture of Economic Affairs, Mons. Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, also present were members of the diplomatic corps to the Holy See, with its dean, Alejandro Emilio Valladares Lanza, and media professionals including the editor of this newspaper.

Opening the discussion, the Spanish ambassador made clear that when she first organized the event to evaluate its media impact six months later, she did not imagine it would take place at a time of great media agitation in reporting news about the Church.

Mons. Celli said that the 'reality' is so complex and the news cycle has become so tight that communications has become even more of a difficult challenge in itself. Especially where it concerns the Pope and the Church.

Thus, the question is relevant what makes news about the Church, and even before that, what constitutes news. He cited the editor of Le Figaro, Hippolyte de Villemessasnt, who said that for Parisian readers, an attic fire in the Latin Quarter was more important than a revolution in Medrid.

"Looking at newspaper articles and headlines and following some radio-TV services," Mons. Celli said, "one could ask, 'But where is the news?'"

Celli said information reporting today had three great problems: when the insignificant becomes an 'event'; mutilated representations of fact, in which the presentation is from a very narrow viewpoint as to deform reality, if not to directly disinform; and instrumentalization.

"The Church is subject to all three risks," he said, "which is the challenge we face daily".

He pointed out that the disappearance of great reporting and ideas about religion have favored the proliferation of minimal reporting, or parochial and often distorted representations of reality.

Also contributing to this is the virtual world, where there is little source verification, and which therefore helps amplify reporting of 'facts' that never even happened.

However, all such challenges were successfully overcome in Madrid, and the three participants representing Spanish media agreed that the 'media balance' of WYD reporting was 'more than positive'.

Indeed, it was an unprecedented success, they said, not just for the traditional communications media, but also in the social networks online, in which the participants, besides merely being online users, were also providers of information in real time.

And each one of them - Gallo, Juliano and Rubio - from their respective positions, agreed that "the Church makes news" with events like WYD which brought together such a huge gathering of young people from all over the world despite the economic crisis and the punishing heat of August in Madrid.

Italian newsmen Ansaldo and Vecchi concurred, saying that WYD was a well-followed event and one in which even those who were reporting on it were 'infected' with the joy of the event.

A flashback to WYD ten years ago:



WYD-Toronto
10 years later

Feb. 24, 2012

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the last World Youth Day attended by Pope John Paul II, which happened in Toronto, Canada.

The theme of the 2002 event was "You are the salt of the earth ... you are the light of the world", and it brought nearly half a million people to the city.

After a decade, the priest most involved with bringing WYD to Canada reflected on its significance.

“I’ve always said that World Youth Day is a timed-released capsule,” said Father Thomas Rosica, C.S.B., the National Director of the Toronto World Youth Day. “Anybody who waits for immediate results from a World Youth Day in the six-months afterwards, or are expecting the churches are going to be populated immediately will be terribly let down.”

Father Rosica said WYD reinvigorates the Church in ways that become apparent over time.

“We look for the deeper signs of the effect of World Youth Day,” he told Vatican Radio. “That is a reinvigorated young adult ministry, pastoral ministry for young people, university chaplaincies, renewed vocations: An awareness that the Church is alive and the Church is young, as Pope Benedict said so beautifully in his inauguration.”

One other concrete result was the establishment of Salt + Light Television, Canada’s first national Catholic television network. After the success of World Youth Day, Father Rosica was also asked to take charge of this new enterprise.

“I thought my work was done after World Youth Day. I wanted to go away, hibernate, and take a long sabbatical,” he said.

“The more I look at it now in hindsight and also with the eyes of faith, retrospection, and providence, it was God’s way of saying the Church is alive and the Church is young, because the spirit of World Youth Day has continued in Salt + Light,” he told Vatican Radio.

The next World Youth Day will be in 2013 in Rio de Janeiro.

February 24, Friday after Ash Wednesday

Illustrations include the Belludi chapel in Padua; Luca invoking St. Anthony's intercession; and the saint and his disciple.
BLESSED LUCA BELLUDI (Italy, 1200-1285)
Franciscan priest, Disciple and Companion of St. Anthony of Padua
Tradition says that Luca, a young noble student at the University of Padua, walked up to Anthony after
hearing him preach and asked to join the Franciscans, and that Anthony was so impressed by him that
he eventually had him ordained by St. Francis himself. In any case, he became Anthony's devoted
companion in his travels and preaching for the rest of his life. After Anthony died, Luca was named
to succeed him as head of the Franciscans in Padua and he started to build the basilica in his honor. But
a local tyrant took over Padua and Luca was exiled. He is said to have asked for Anthony's intercession
to liberate the city. He came back to continue building the basilica, founded other monasteries and carried
on St. Anthony's work for another 30 years. He was credited with working miracles like Anthony did, and
when he died, he was buried in the same tomb as Anthony. His remains were separated only in 1971, and
are now kept in the Belludi chapel of the Basilica in Padua. An inscription said of him: “Disciple and
companion of St. Anthony, he was a truly learned man, most excellent of preachers, and in his teaching
and life little different from his master". Always called 'Beato Luca' since his death, he was not formally
beatified until 1927.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022412.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- His Majesty Siaosi (George) Tupou V, King of Tonga, and his entourage.

- Cardinal Camillo Ruini, emeritus Vicar-General for Rome of His Holiness

- Mons. Adriano Bernardini, the new Apostolic Nuncio to Italy and teh REpublic of San Marino

- Delegation from Circolo San Pietro charitable association. Address in Italian.

In the afternoon, with

- Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (weekly meeting)

The supposed 'mole' on TV:
The stories do not add up
Translated from

February 24, 2012

On Wednesday, the La7 TV program 'The Untouchables' featured an interview with one of the supposed Vatican employes responsible for Vatileaks.

The person, very well camouflaged to avoid any identification point, claimed there are about 20 persons like him engaged in disclosing confidential files from the Vatican.

He did not appear to be a priest, and one must ask which documents he has access to as a lay employee.

But what struck me most was that he spoke very little about the episodes referred to in the letters and notes that have been made public so far but concentrated on two 'dramatic' crimes that took place during the previous Pontificate.

The first case, which has remained unresolved, is the abduction of Emmanuela Orlandi, age 15, and the daughter of an assistant in the papal antechambers (he died a few years ago), who was abducted from a street in central Rome 29 years ago.

The second was the May 1998 killings of Swiss Guard commandant Alois Estermann and his wife, apparently at the hands of a young Guard, Cedric Tornay, who then was thought to have killed himself.

The Orlandi case remains a black hole in the recent history of the Vatican, as expressed in a private note written by Fr. Federico Lomardi, presumably to Benedict XVI, which was made public recently on another TV program, Chi l'ha visto? (Who has seen him/her?) about missing persons. In the note, Lombardi refers to the unresolved aspects of the case and the unanswered questions. [Presumably, Lombardi wrote it after Orlandi's brother sent a petition to Benedict XVI asking him to re-open the investigation of the case. However, unlike the Estermann case, the Orlandi case took place in Rome, not at the Vatican, so the investigation was handled by the Rome police. Has anyone checked whether the Orlandi family has asked the Rome police to reopen the case?]

The presumed mole cites the two episodes to justify his anger and toexplain why he decided to leak confidential files. But he adds not an iota of new information about these cases - he appears to know absolutely nothing new about them. As little, in fact, as he has to say about the more recent episodes cited in the leaked documents.

Watching the video, I wondered why ever would such a 'mole' risk leaking those documents and then expose himself in this way, at a time when the Vatican's internal security apparatus is actively investigating how the leaks could have occurred and who was/were responsible in order to catch the culprits. [[If he isn't really a mole, but only someone the TV producers groomed to claim to be one - which is not an unlikely scenario - then he wasn't really risking anything! It sounds more and more like a dishonest gimmick used by the producers to keep up interest in their program. - since, after the Vigano letters, the disclosures they have made so far really amount to a pile of crap.]]

Another question which lingers after watching the program is who could possibly be 'directing' this behind the scenes. If this is a genuine power struggle in the Vatican - the assumption is, between the Old Guard loyal to Cardinal Sodano and the men answerable to Cardinal Bertone - it would seem strange that the supposed 'mole' should be pushing the Orlandi and Estermann cases which both took place and were handled by the previous administration in John Paul II's Pontificate - and in which Bertone and his people were certainly not involved.

So why did the disguised mole bring up these cases? Was he sending some signal, was he intentionally throwing out red herrings, what is his game?

Another new element in this matter is a 50-line anonymous note published today in La Repubblica, said to be circulating in the Vatican about the existence of a P4 in the Vatican. [P4 would be a Masonic lodge, like the infamous P2 - for Prooaganda Due - a secret Masonic lodge exposed in 1981 when its Grand Master Licio Gelli was found to be responsible for about $1.4 billion unaccounted funds in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, as well as the 1980 bomb killing of 85 persons in the the Bologna train station. A list of 962 prominent P2 members in the Italian civil and military service was found. Like everywhere else, the Masons have managed to keep their affairs very secret, and although many speculative stories circulate about them and the great secret influence they have on every major government in the Western world, they remain mostly 'mysterious'.]

This P$ is supposed to be *the lay support structure of the Vatican Prime Minister" (i.e., Cardinal Bertone), discussed in a January 28 unsigned article in Il Giornale.

The point about this latest note (which has a value close to zero, since it is anonymous, and does not contain anything new) is that it continues the intention of the Vigano letters to imply outside interests and machinations involving that 'lay structure' attributed to Bertone.

But one gets the impression, after watching the camouflaged presumed mole, is that the architects of this intrigue are truly scraping the barrel. [See, "there really is no there there".]

If there is anything that emerges from all this that could help in any way to clear up the fate of a girl who disappeared 29 years ago, or if it could reduce the influence of any member of the business underbrush angling for Vatican contracts and claiming to be acting for some high-ranking Vatican officials, then perhaps all these tales
will amount to something more than just scorched earth.

King of Tonga
visits the Pope

February 24, 2012



Pope Benedict XVI today received the King of Tonga, His Majesty Siaosi Tupou V, who later met with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Secretary for Relations with States.

The talks focused on the social and economic life of the country, and the positive contribution of the Catholic Church in different sectors of society. This was followed by an exchange of views on the current international situation, with particular reference to the Pacific island states.


Right photo: Tonga university students costumed for a traditional dance.

The Kingdom of Tonga is a sovereign state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometers of ocean in the South Pacific. Fifty-two of the islands are inhabited. Out of its population of 101,000 people, 16,000 are Catholic, with the rest belonging to various Christian denominations.

To Circolo San Pietro:
Charity is also a means
of new evagnelization



In his annual meeting today with a delegation from the Rome-based Circolo San Pietro, Pope Benedict XVI thanked them for their service and traditional support of the Pope’s own charitable initiatives.

“Dear friends,” said Pope Benedict, “today as yesterday, gospel witness through acts of charity touches the hearts of men in a particular way: the New Evangelization, especially in a cosmopolitan city like Rome, requires great openness of spirit and wise willingness to help all those in need.”

The Circolo San Pietro was founded in Rome in 1869 by young men from the families of Roman nobility as a sign of fidelity to the Pope, pledged to defend him against anti-clerical attacks during a difficult moment in the history of the papacy.

Over the years, they have become a charitable organization serving Romans in need through soup kitchens, clothing aid, housing for indigent female university students and for parents whose children are under longterm care at the Bambino Gesu hospital, and a hospice for the terminally ill. They also provide international aid for the care of abandoned children and for seminarians who require financial support.

One of its most important missions continues to be that of feeding the hungry: today the Circle serves 50,000 meals every year in three kitchens located in different areas of the city.

They provide an Honor Guard that takes part in the Pope's liturgical ceremonies, and last year, they gifted Benedict XVI with his own personal staff with a distinctive design. Before that, the Holy Father used the contemporary Crucifix-topped staff used by Paul VI and John Paul II, then shifted to the lighter Cross-topped staff of Pius IX, before he got the new staff.

The Circolo was assigned its own Church, Santa Maria della Pieta near the Colosseum. The members are also active in promoting correct liturgical worship.

Gotti Tedeschi says again
'BXVI deserves Nobel Prize'
Translated from the French service of


ROME, February 23 (ZENIT.org) – Theologian Joseph Ratzinger deserves the Nobel Prize for Economics, said Italian economist-banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, editorial writer and commentator for L'Osservatore Romano on fiscal and economic affairs and president of the Vatican's IOR.

[He first made this sugegstion the day after the publication of Caritas in veritate. See below.]

He spoke to present his new book Le Ragioni dell'Economia, at the LEV bookstore named after Paul VI located in the Propaganda Fide headquarters in Piazza di Spagna. The book is a collection of articles he has written for the Vatican newspaper since the autumn of 2007.

He calls the articles "technical editorials, conceived and written from the Catholic viewpoint, with the conviction that natural law is the essential premise for economic laws, and that the latter will not function unless natural law is taken into account".

He says he will allow the reader, freely and realistically, to draw any moral lessons from his analysis of facts.

But why should the Pope get the Nobel for economics? "Because he is the greatest economist - for knowing what man needs. And being the one who knows man best, he knows what the economy means".

Gotti Tedeschi stressed anew one of the major premises of Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in veritate, and one which Gotti Tedeschi himself reiterates on every occasion - the link between the economic crisis and the demographic winter in the West.

"Lack of children leads to a lack of growth," he says. "How is it possible for the gross national product of any country to increase if, say, the population remained stable over 30 years [a generation]?"

Further about his idea of a Nobel Prize for the Pope: "Benedict XVI's third encyclical , dated June 29, 2009 - and which took into account the banking and financial crisis that began in the autumn of 2008 - approaches the questions of the economy and development from the view point that its subtitle indicates, "On integral human development in charity and in truth".

The Pope has not ceased to recall the principles that should be followed to emerge from the crisis, sending messages to the leaders of the world's richest nations who meet each year in the G20 summits.

Gotti Tedesci first made the suggestion about the Nobel Prize for Economics on July 7, 2009, in an interview that appeared in Corriere della Sera the day after CIV was released on July 7, 2009. At the time, he said:

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I welcomed the encyclical as a professional economist, not just as a Catholic who fol.lows the Church's moral teaching/ I believe this is an opportunity not just to take another look at the rules and problems of governance, but the capacity of economic instruments themselves to realize their own major purposes, namely: to use available natural resources with the maximum care and efficiency; to assure the most timely and balanced economic growth that allows true global wellbeing for mankind; and to assure the distribution of this wellbeing to all men.

Have these objective been realized ? Not at all. Many resources have been wasted. Economic growth has proven to be largely fictitious and illusory. Wellbeing has not been extended to all even where it has been possible to do so.

So I think this is the right time to ask ourselves whether, instead of imagining new expedients or studying new decrees, it would not be more worthwhile to reflect on the crisis as the Pope invites us to do.

No one has clarified as he does what homo economicus ought to do about the crisis: apply the rules of economics instead of going around them. And if you will allow me to say it, they should give him the Nobel Prize for economics.

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Gotti Tedeschi was echoed by Riccardo Cascioli, president of the European Center for Studies on Population, the Environment and Development, and an editorial writer of La Bussola Quotidiana.
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...
And a few days after that, there was this article in the Times of London that I found so good I introduced it this way - and will re-post now - as we sometimes tend to forget how momumental an undertaking CIV was:



If the Nobel Prize juries weren't so ideologically driven, I would send this article as a nominating letter for Benedict XVI to be considered for the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics...

Pope Benedict is
the man on the money
The best analysis yet of the global economic crisis,
tells how people, not just rules, must change

by Brian Griffiths

July 13, 2009

Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach is a trustee of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Trust and Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He was an economic adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A devout evangelical Christian, he is, by virtue of his title, a member of the House of Lords.


When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope, his strengths and weaknesses seemed clear. Here was an eminent theologian, philosopher and guardian of Christian truth, but a man unlikely to make the Church’s message relevant to the world today.

How simplistic this now looks in the light of his third encyclical, in which Pope Benedict XVI confronts head-on the financial crisis that has rocked the world.

The language may be dense, but the message is sufficiently rewarding. The encyclical analyses modern capitalism from an ethical and spiritual perspective as well as a technical one.

As a result it makes the (UK) Government’s White Paper on financial reforms published two days later look embarrassingly one-dimensional and colourless.

It is highly critical of today’s global economy but always positive. Its major concern is how to promote human development in the context of justice and the common good.

Despite heavy competition from some of the world’s finest minds, it is without doubt the most articulate, comprehensive and thoughtful response to the financial crisis that has yet appeared. It should strike a chord with all who wish to see modern capitalism serving broader human ends.

The Pope makes it clear that the encyclical takes its inspiration from Populorum Progressio, the encyclical published by Paul VI in 1967, at the height of anti-capitalism in Europe. It attacked liberal capitalism, was ambivalent about economic growth, recommended expropriation of landed estates if poorly used and enthused about economic planning.

It was in stark contrast to Centesimus Annus (1991), the most recent encyclical dealing with economic matters, published after the fall of communism by a Polish Pope.

John Paul II affirmed the market economy as a way of producing wealth by allowing human creativity and enterprise to flourish.

Pope Benedict is highly critical of modern capitalism.
- He believes that the international economy is marked by “grave deviations and failures”.
- Economic growth is weighed down by “malfunctions and dramatic problems”.
- Businesses that are answerable almost exclusively to their investors have limited social value.
- The financial system has been abused by speculative financial dealing and has wreaked havoc on the real economy.
- Globalisation has undermined the rights of workers, downsized social security systems and exploited the environment.
- As global prosperity has grown, so has “the scandal of glaring inequalities”.

Despite these criticisms, the encyclical has a positive view of profit, providing it is not an exclusive goal.
- It recognises that more labour mobility resulting from deregulation can increase wealth.
- It accepts that economic growth has lifted billions out of poverty and enabled some developing countries to become effective players in international politics.
- Globalisation offers an unprecedented chance of large-scale redistribution of wealth worldwide.

The kind of market economy Pope Benedict defends is much closer to the European social model than the “spontaneous order” of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.

For him, market capitalism can never be conceived of in purely technical terms. Development is not just about freeing up markets, removing tariffs, increasing investment and reforming institutions. It is not even about social policies to accompany economic reforms.

At the heart of the market is the human person, possessing dignity, deserving of justice and bearing the divine image. The market needs to be infused with a morality emanating from Christian humanism, which respects truth and encourages charity.

The encyclical suggests six major ways to make global capitalism more human.

First, it calls for “the management of globalisation” and a reform of international economic institutions. They are needed “to manage the global economy, to revive economies hit by the crisis, to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis . . . to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration”.

Not surprisingly, for this huge task we need “a true world political authority” through reform of the United Nations.

Next, there needs to be greater diversity among the enterprises that create wealth: mutual societies, credit unions and hybrid forms of commercial organisation.

Third, globalisation has weakened the ability of trade unions to represent the interests of workers, something that needs to be reversed.

Fourth, the scandal of inequality requires countries to increase the proportion of GDP given as foreign aid.

Fifth, because the environment is the gift of the Creator we have an intergenerational responsibility to tackle climate change.

Finally, everyone involved in the market, traders, producers, bankers — even consumers — must be alert to the moral consequences of their actions.

“Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the common good.”

Pope Benedict’s words are not just platitudes. They affect every person at work every day. In the City [London's financial center], they are a challenge to management to create a culture of prudence, responsibility and integrity.

There has to be zero tolerance for misleading clients, fudging conflicts of interest and inflating valuations. However great the revenue they produce, those who deviate must be disciplined. This kind of ethos cannot be imposed by regulation alone.



Elsewhere, I had mused about the fact that Benedict XVI is actually someone who could be nominated for three categories of the Nobel - Peace, Literature and Economics. But for now, he has no particular claim on any single area of peace promotion, and the secular panjandrums in Stockholm and Oslo would never consider the universal fight for religious freedom, freedom aqainst persecution, and freedom of conscience as 'legitimate' a cause to grant the Peace Prize as, say, fighting for women's rights in Liberia or Iran...Besides, think how the Nobel lefties completely ignored John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for their collective strategy and resolve to bring down the Communist empire! - and yet, they gave Arafat half a Peace Prize just because he signed some pact he never intended to honor! Not to mention the Peace Prize to Obama for what the jurors expect him to do - and whatever it is they expected, he hasn't accomplished]... As for the Literature Prize, he would deserve it richly for his entire theological oeuvre - or even just for the unique literary genre he devised for the JESUS OF NAZARETH books. I am thinking of the precedent set by Winston Churchill who was given the Nobel in Literature for his 6-volume History of the Second World War...

LECTIO DIVINA TO
THE PRIESTS OF ROME

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's lectio divina to the clergy of Rome last Wednesday. It was delivered extemporaneously.

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The text for meditation:

Ephesians, Chapter 4

1 I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love,
3 striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:c
4 one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;e 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
8 Therefore, it says: “He ascended on high and took prisoners captive;
he gave gifts to men.”
9 What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended into the lower [regions] of the earth?
10 The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
11 And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers,
12 to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming.
15 Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love.

The lectio divina

Dear brothers,

It is a great joy for me to see every year , at the start of Lent, my clergy, the clergy of Rome, and I find it beautiful to see that were are so many of us.

I thought that in this large audience hall, we would seem insignificant as a group, but I see that we are a strong army for God, and we can therefore enter into the battles that are necessary in order to promote the Kingdom of God and move it forward in our time.

Yesterday, we entered the doorway to Lent, the annual renewal of our Baptism. It is almost like repeating our catechumenate, going once again into the depth of our being as baptized persons, returning to our baptized being and therefore incorporated in Christ.

This way, we are also able to guide our communities in this intimate communion with the death and resurrection of Christ, to become ever more conformed to Christ, become ever more really Christians.

The excerpt from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians that we just heard (4,1-16) is one of the great ecclesial texts of the New Testament. It starts with the self-presentation of the author: "I, Paul, a prisoner for the Lord..." (v 1).

The Greek word desmios means 'in chains': Paul, like a criminal, is in chains, enchained for Christ, and thus, he starts his communion with the passion of Christ. This is the first element of his self-presentation: he speaks in chains. He speaks in communion with the passion of Christ, and therefore, he is also in communion with the resurrection of Christ, with his new life.

We too, when we speak, should always speak in communion with his passion while also accepting our own passion. our sufferings and trials, in this sense: that they are proofs themselves of the presence of Christ, that he is with us, and that in communion with his passion, we are going towards the newness of life, towards the resurrection.

"In chains' therefore is first a word that pertains to the theology of the Cross, of the communion necessary to every evangelizer, to every pastor, with the Supreme Pastor who redeemed us 'giving himself', suffering for us.

Love is suffering, it is giving oneself, losing oneself, and because of this, it is fruitful. But in the exterior element of the chains, of freedom that is no longer present, another aspect also appears and shines through: the true chain that binds Paul to Christ is the chain of love.

'Enchained by love": a love which gives freedom, a love which makes one capable of rendering the message of Christ present, and therefore Christ himself. This should be, for all of us, the last bond that liberates, linked as we are with the chain of Christ's love. This way, we find freedom and the true way of life, and we can, with the love of Christ, also guide the men entrusted to us towards joy and freedom.

Then he says "I urge (exhort)..." (Eph 4,1). It is his task to exhort, but it is not a moralistic admonition. He exhorts from his communion with Christ, so it is Christ himself, ultimately, who exhorts, who invites us with the love of a father or a mother.

"Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received" (v 1). So, the first element: We have received his call. I am not anonymous or without meaning in the world. There is a call, there is a voice that has called me, a voice that I follow. My life should be entering ever more profoundly into this call, to follow the voice and find the true way, and guide others along this way.

I "am called with a call' - I would say that we had the first great call to be with Christ, at Baptism. The second great call - to be Pastors in his service. We should always be listening for this call, so that we can call others, or better, help others so that they can hear the voice of the Lord when he calls.

The great suffering of the Church today in Europe and the West is the lack of priestly vocations, but the Lord is always calling - he lacks listeners. We heard his voice. But we must also be attentive to the voice of the Lord even for others, we must help so that he may be heard, that the call is accepted, and the way is open for the vocation to be Pastors with Christ.

St. Paul returns to this word 'calling' at the end of this first verse, when he speaks of a vocation, of a call to hope. The call itself is a hope, and thus, he demonstrates the dimensions of vocation: It is not just individual, the call is already a dialogal phenomenon, a phenomenon of 'we', of the "you and I" and of "we".

'A call to hope'. Thus we see the dimensions of vocation - which are three. A calling that is ultimately, according to this text, towards God. God is the end. At the end, we will simply arrive at God. All our journey is a journey toward God.

But this journey toward God is never isolated, never a way only of the "I'. It is a journey toward the future, toward a renewal of the world. It is a journey of us who are called who also call to others, and make others hear this call.

And that is why a calling is always an ecclesial vocation. To be faithful to the call of the Lord implies discovering this 'we', in which and for which we are called to walk together in order to realize the necessary virtues.

The calling implies ecclesiality, and therefore implies a vertical and horizontal dimension which go together inseparably. It implies ecclesiality in the sense of allowing ourselves to be helped by the 'we' and to construct thereby the 'we' of the Church.

In this sense, St. Paul illustrates the call with this end: the one God, only him, toward the future. Hope is the hope of 'we', of all those who have hope, who love in hope, and with the virtues that constitute the elements of walking together.

The first is "with all humility" (Eph 4,2). I wish to dwell a bit on this because it does not appear in the catalog of pre-Christian virtues. It is a new virtue that comes from following Christ.

Let us think of the Letter to the Philippians, Chapter 2: Christ, being equal to God, humbled himself, accepting the form of a servant and obeying all the way to the Cross (cfr Phil 2,6-8). This is the way of humility of the Son that we must imitate.

To follow Christ means to enter into this way of humility. The Greek text says tapeinophrosyne (cfr Ef 4,2): - not to think big of oneself, to keep the right measure.

The opposite of humility is pride, which is the root of all sins. Pride which is arrogance, which wants power above all, appearance - to be someone in the eyes of others, to be someone and something, without thought of pleasing God, but only to please oneself, to be accepted - nay, venerated - by others.

Pride is "I" at the center of the world - the proud "I" who knows everything. To be Christian means to overcome this original temptation, which is also the nucleus of original sin: to be like God but without God.

To be Christian means to be true, sincere, realistic. Humility is, above all, truth - to live in truth, to learn truth, to learn that my smallness is really a greatness, because I am important in the great fabric of God's history with man.

Recognizing that I am a thought of God, of the construction of his world, and I am irreplaceable - just so, in my smallness, and only in this way am I great. This is the start of being Christian - to live the truth. Only by living the truth, the realism of my vocation for others, with others, in the Body of Christ - only then do I live well.

To live against the truth is always to live badly. Let us live the truth. Let us learn this realism: not to wish to appear good, but to want to please God, to do what God thinks to do with me and for me, and in this way, to accept others.

To accept the other who is perhaps greater than me presumes this realism and love of truth. It presumes accepting myself as 'a thought of God', as I am, with my limitations, and therefore, in my greatness. To accept myself and to accept others go together. Only by accepting myself being part of the great divine fabric do I also accept others who constitute with me the great symphony of the Church and of creation.

I think that the small humiliations that we must live through, day by day, are healthy because they help each of us to recognize our own truth and thus be free of this vainglory which is against the truth and cannot make us happy and good.

To accept and to learn this, to learn to accept my place in the Church, my small service as a great one in the eyes of God: This humility, this realism, makes us free.

If I am arrogant, if I am proud, then I would always want my pleasure, and if I don't get it, I would be miserable, I would be unhappy, and would be driven to keep seeking pleasure. But if instead, I am humble, I am also free to to go against dominant opinion, against the thinking of others, because humility gives me the capacity, the freedom of truth.

So I would say, let us pray to the Lord that he help us to be truly constructors of the community of the Church, that she may grow, that we ourselves may grow in the great vision of God, of the 'we', members of the Body of Christ, belonging in unity to the Son of God.

The second virtue - and we shall be more brief - is gentleness (Eph 4,2) - in Greek, praus, which means gentle, to be docile. This, too, is a Christological virtue like humility, following Christ in his way of humility. Similarly, praus - being gentle and docile - is to follow Christ who says, Come to me for 'I am meek and humble of heart' (cfr Mt 11,29).

This does not mean weakness. Christ could also be hard. when necessary, but always with a good heart. His goodness, his docility, always remain visible. In Sacred Scripture, at times, 'the docile' is simply the name given to believers, the small flock of poor people who, through all trials, remain humble and firm in their communion with the Lord. So, this gentleness, which is the opposite of violence.

The third beatitude. The Gospel of St. Matthew says: "Blessed are the meek because they will possess the earth" (cfr Mt 5,5). It is not the violent who possess the earth - in the end, it is the meek who will remain. It has been promised to them, and we can be sure about the promise of God, that meekness is stronger than violence. The Scriptural words of obedience contain within them the opposite of violence. Christians are not violent, they are the opponents of violence.

St. Paul proceeds: "with magnanimity (goodness)" (Eph 4,2). God is magnanimous. Notwithstanding our weaknesses and our sins, he always begins anew with us. He forgives me - even if he knows that tomorrow, I shall fall into sin again. He distributes his gifts, even if he knows that we are often inadequate administrators. This magnanimity, this generosity, is also part of following Christ.

Finally, "bearing one another with love" (Eph 4,2). This capacity of accepting others follows from being humble. The otherness of the other is always a burden. Why? Because the other is different. But this diversity, this otherness, they are necessary for the beauty of God's symphony. And we must, precisely with the humility that I know my own limitations, my otherness compared to others, the weight that I can be for others, then I become able not just to bear with the other, but to do so with love, to find in the other the richness of his being and of God's imagination.

All this therefore serve as an ecclesial virtue towards building the Body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ, so the Church becomes always a new exemplar, a new body, which grows.

Paul says it in concrete form, affirming that the variety of gifts, of temperaments, among human beings, serve unity (cfr Ef 4,11-13). All these virtues are also virtues of unity. For example, I find it very significant that the first Letter after the New Testament, the First Letter of Clement, was addressed to the Corinthians, who were divided - and suffering because of their divisions (cfr PG 1, 201-328).

In this letter, the word 'humility' is a key word. The Corinthians are divided because they lack humility. The absence of humility destroys unity. Humility is a fundamental virtue of unity, and only in humility can the Church grow as the Body of Christ - when we become truly united and we receive the richness and beauty of unity.

That is why it is logical that the list of these virtues, which are ecclesial virtues, Christological, virtues of unity, leads towards the explicit unity: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4,5) as the concrete reality of the Church under the one Lord.

Baptism and faith are inseparable. Baptism is the sacrament of faith, and faith has a double aspect. It is a profoundly personal act: I recognize Christ, I meet Christ, and I put my trust in him.

Let us think of the woman who touched his garment in the hope of being saved (cfr Mt 9, 20-21); she trusted him completely, and the Lord says, "You are saved because you believe" (cfr Mt 9,22). Even with the lepers, to the only one who came back, he said: Your faith has saved you (cfr Lk 17,19).

Therefore initially, faith is above all a personal encounter, touching the garment of Christ, being touched by Christ, to be in contact with Christ, entrusting oneself to the Lord, to have and to find the love of Christ, and in that love, the key to truth itself, to universality.

But because it is a key to the universality of the one Lord, this faith is not just a personal act of trust, but an act that has a content. Fides qua (faith as faith) demands fides quae (faith in what), the content of the faith.

Baptism expresses this content. The Trinitarian formula is the substantial element of the Christian creed. In itself, it is a Yes to Christ, and therefore, to the Trinitarian God. With this reality, with this content that unites me to this Lord, to this God, who has this Face - I live as a son of the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit and in communion with the Body of Christ.

Thus, this is very important: Faith has a content - it is not sufficient, it is not an element of unification, unless the content of this one faith is lived and confessed.

Therefore, Year of Faith, Year of Catechism, to be more practical - they are linked inseparably. We shall renew the Council, by renewing the content of our faith, that has also been condensed, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

A great problem of the Church today is the lack of knowledge of the faith - religious illiteracy, as the cardinals called it lest Friday in speaking about this question.

With religious illiteracy, the Church cannot grow, unity cannot grow. So we ourselves must take possession once more of this content of the faith as a treasure of unity - not as a package of dogmas and commandments, but as a unique reality that reveals itself in all its depth and beauty.

We must do what we can for a catechetical renewal, so that the faith may be known well, and God himself is known, Christ himself is known, the truth is known - and unity will grow in truth.

All these unities lead to the "one God and Father of all". Everything that is not humble, that is not our common faith, destroys unity, destroys hope, and makes the Face of God invisible.

God is the One and Only. Monotheism was the great privilege of Israel, which knew the one God. It remains a constitutive element of the Christian faith. The Trinitarian God, we know, is not three divinities but one God, in which we see better what unity means. It is the unity of love. And because he is the circle of love, God is the One and Only.

For Paul, as we saw, the unity of God is identical to our hope. Why and how? The unity of God is hope, because it guarantees that in the end, there are not different powers; in the end, there is no dualism between different and opposing powers.

There does not remain the head of the dragon that can rise up against God, nor the filth of evil and sin. In the end, there is only light. God is one, and he is the only God. There is no other power but him.

We know that, today, with ever-growing evil in the world, many doubt the omnipotence of the Lord. Some theologians - including good ones - say that God could not be omnipotent because what we see in the world is not compatible with omnipotence. And so, they wish to create a new apologetics, excusing God and exculpating him of these evils.

But this is not the right way, because if God is not omnipotent, if there are other powers, then he is not truly God, and there is no hope, because in the end, we would be left with polytheism; in the end, there would be struggle, the power of evil.

God is omnipotent, the only God. Of course, in history, he set a limit to his omnipotence, recognizing our freedom. But in the end, there will not be the power of evil. Only God will remain. That is why we are on a journey of hope, towards the one God, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in the one Lord, Christ.

From this grand vision, St. Paul comes down to details and says of Christ: “He ascended on high and took prisoners captive; he gave gifts to men" (Eph 4,8). The Apostle cites Psalm 68 which describes in a poetic way the ascent of God with the Ark of the Covenant towards the heights, towards the summit of Mt. Sion, towards the temple - God as the victor who has overcome the others, who are now prisoners; and as a true winner, he distributes gifts.

Judaism has preferred to seen in this psalm the image of Moses who goes up Mt. Sinai to receive the will of God - the commandments - not considered as a burden, but as the gift of knowing the Face of God, the will of God.

Paul sees this as an image of Christ ascending to heaven after having descended to us. He rises, and draws mankind towards God, he makes a place for flesh and blood in God himself. He draws us towards his elevation of being Son of God, and liberates us from the prison of sin. He makes us free because he is the victor. Being victor, he distributes gifts.

Thus we come to Christ's ascent in the Church. His gifts are charis, as such - grace itself: to be in grace is to be in God's love. Then there are the charisms that concretize charis in specific functions and missions: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to edify the Body of Christ (cfr Ef 4,11).

I shall not enter now into a detailed exegesis. What is meant by apostles, prophets, etc. has been well discussed. In any case, we can say that the Church is built on the foundation of apostolic faith, which is always present. The Apostles, in the apostolic succession, are present in the Pastors - that's us - through the grace of God and despite our poverty.

And we are grateful to God who has called us to be in the apostolic succession and to continue to edify the Body of Christ. There is an element here that is important: ministers have been called 'gifts of Christ', they are charisms. There is no opposition between, on the one hand, the ministry as a juridical reality, and on the other, the charism of priesthood, as a prophetic gift that is lively and spiritual, the presence of the Spirit, in fact.

No, ministers are a gift of the Risen One and are charisms, articulations of God's grace. One cannot be a priest without being a 'charismatic'. It is a charism to be a priest. We should always keep this in mind, that we were called to the priesthood, called to receive a gift from the Lord, a charism from the Lord.

Thus, inspired by his Spirit, we must seek to live our charism. It is only in this way that one can understand why the Church in the West has inseparably linked priesthood and celibacy - in order to be in an eschatological existence as we advance towards the final destination of our hope, towards God.

Because priesthood is a charism, it should also be linked to another charism: If priesthood were only a juridical status, it would be absurd to impose a charism, a true charism. But if priesthood is a charism itself, it is normal that it coexists with another charism, the charismatic status of the eschatological life.

Let us pray to the Lord so he can help us to understand that we must live more and more in the charism of the Holy Spirit. and thus live as well this eschatological sign of fidelity to our Lord, which is particularly necessary in our time, with the deconstruction of marriage and the family, which can be restored only in the light of our fidelity to the Lord's call.

One last point. St. Paul speaks of the growth of the perfect man who reaches the measure of fullness in Christ - "so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching" (cfr Eph 4,13-14).

"Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ" (Eph 4,15). We cannot live in spiritual childishness, in a childishness of faith: Unfortunately, in this world, we see this childishness.

Many have not gone beyond their first catecheses. Perhaps a nucleus remains, or perhaps it has been destroyed. Moreover, they are riding on the waves of the world. But they cannot, as adults, with competence and with profound conviction, expose and present the philosophy of the faith, its great wisdom, the rationality of the faith which can open the eyes of others, which opens their eyes to what is good and true in the world. What's missing is being adult in the faith, what remains is childishness in the faith.

Of course, in recent decades, we have also experienced a different use of the term 'adult faith', by which they mean being emancipated from the Magisterium of the Church - "From my mother's rule, as a child, I had to emancipate myself; and when I am emancipated from the Magisterium, then I am finally adult".

But the result is not an adult faith. The result is to be dependent upon the waves of the world, the opinions of the world, on the dictatorship of the communications media, on the opinions that everyone thinks and wishes.

It is not emancipation to be emancipated from the Body of Christ! On the contrary, it is to be under the dictatorship of vogues, of the winds of the world. True emancipation is to liberate oneself from that dictatorship, in the freedom of children of God who believe together, in the Body of Christ, with the Risen Christ, who therefore see reality and are capable of responding to the challenges of our time.

We must pray a lot to the Lord, so he may help us be emancipated in this sense, free in this sense, with a faith that is really adult, which sees, which allows others to see, and which can help them to reach for true perfection, to the true adulthood, in communion with Christ.

In this context, there is the beautiful expression 'aletheuein en te agape', to be true in love, to live in truth, to be truth in charity. The two concepts go together.

Today, the concept of truth is somewhat suspect because, unfortunately, in history, there have been episodes in which it was sought to spread the truth through violence. But the two concepts are opposed.

Truth is not imposed by means other than itself. Truth can arrive only through itself, it is its own light. But we need truth; without truth, we cannot recognize values, and how we can put order into the universe of values.

Without truth, we are blind in the world, we do not have a way. The great gift of Christ is precisely that we can see the Face of God, and even if it is in an enigmatic way, a very insufficient one, we know the foundation, the essence of the truth in Christ, in his Body.

Knowing this truth, we also grow in charity which is the legitimization of truth and which shows us what truth is.

I would even say that charity is the fruit of truth - the tree is known by its fruits - and if there is no charity, then even the truth is not properly grasped and lived. Where truth is, charity is born.

Thank God we have seen it through the centuries: Despite negative facts, the fruit of charity has always been present in Christianity,and it is today. We see it in the martyrs, in so many sisters, brothers and priests who humbly serve the poor and the sick, who are the presence of Christ's charity. And thus they are a great sign that here, there is truth.

Let us pray to the Lord so he may help us bear the fruit of charity and thus be witnesses to his truth. Thank you.

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/02/2012 17:41]

'Of course, he was etill
the same old Joseph,
and he still is today'
by MONS. GEORG RATZINGER
Excerpt from the book


SAN FRANCISCO, FEB. 24, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a ZENIT-exclusive excerpt from "My Brother the Pope," by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger as told to Michael Hesemann. Ignatius Press will release the English translation of the book March 1.

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From Chapter IX: Pope

[Like probably most Catholics, I, too, attentively followed the last days of John Paul II. I was aware that a great life was coming to an end in a completely organic way.

Everyone sensed that he would not recover again from this final illness, yet it was all the more admirable how patiently and calmly he endured it. He even cheered up the people who had come to Rome, and somehow, for all his despondency about his own helplessness, he also radiated joy and confidence that he would soon be with his Heavenly Father. So it was a worthy end of a great personage, whose work was to continue from now on “over there”.

What I admired very much were the many young people who spontaneously set out for Rome so as to manifest once more their solidarity with this great Pope. It is always said that the youth want nothing to do with the Church, but this was strikingly disproved at that time. On the contrary, there are many young people, too, who are spontaneously attracted by the Church, once they have experienced that the everyday routine cannot answer their questions and cannot give any meaning to their lives, that this other thing, faith, is needed for that.

During the next two weeks, I was repeatedly asked by people, and by journalists too, whether my brother would become Pope. My answer was always the same: “No, he certainly will not!” The conclave would never elect a man at his age – he was just turning seventy-eight.

It was different in the case of John XXIII, because his predecessor, Pius XII, had not held a consistory during his last five years in office and had not appointed any new cardinals. The College of Cardinals was therefore more or less aging then, so that they were forced to elect an older candidate, who at the age of seventy-six, almost seventy-seven, was nevertheless a good year younger than my brother at the time of the 2005 conclave.

Now, though, the College of Cardinals was as strong as it had ever been at a conclave; there had never been so many cardinals. There were many great and talented men of all ages among them, so there was really no need to elect one of the oldest. Therefore, it was quite clear to me that a younger man would be the next Pope.

I even experienced the “Habemus Papam” live. At the time I was called by a journalist who said she had just heard that white smoke had gone up in Rome and wanted to hear from me whether I knew anything more specific. “No,” I answered truthfully, “I know nothing.” Then I turned on the television and heard it there, like everybody else.

Then in fact the name Ratzinger was mentioned! I must quite honestly say that at that moment I was rather disheartened. It was a great challenge, an enormous task for him, I thought, and I was seriously worried.

I saw neither the pomp nor the beauty of it, but only the challenge of this office, which now demanded everything of him, and the burden it meant for him. And I was sad that now he would probably have no more time for me. So that evening I went to bed rather depressed.

Throughout that evening and then again well into the following afternoon the telephone rang nonstop, yet now it did not matter to me at all. I simply did not answer. “Nuts to you”, I thought to myself!

I did not call him, either. I told myself I would not reach him now anyway, so many people were around him at the moment who all wanted something from him. He called then the next morning, or rather: he tried to call me, but because the telephone in my house was ringing constantly and getting on my nerves, I did not answer it.

“Keep on ringing, you can ring without me, too”, I thought, while it may have been my brother calling! At some point, Frau Heindl, my housekeeper, answered the telephone, and so he had her on the line first and not me.

She was naturally somewhat shocked that this stubborn caller was none other than the Pope. If I remember correctly, she was not even able to connect me with him, for some reason. At any rate, it was some time before we were finally able to speak with each other.

Now, thank God, I have a second telephone upstairs in the living room. An acquaintance arranged this for me when he learned that I got calls from so many people that I sometimes did not answer when it was my brother on the line. He alone knows the number for this second line. When this telephone rings, then I know that my brother, the Pope, is calling me. But at that time, of course, I did not yet have it.

On the telephone, he already seemed quite calm again. At the moment of his election, however, he told me, it had struck him like a bolt of lightning. It was so unforeseeable, it came so suddenly in the voting, that the working of the Holy Spirit was obvious. He then surrendered quickly to him, because he, too, recognized God’s will in it.

Shortly afterward, Bishop Müller (Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of the Regensburg Diocese) called and invited me to travel with him to my brother’s installation, and of course I gladly accepted. So I had the privilege of driving with His Excellency to the airport and flew with him to Rome as part of the delegation from Regensburg.

In Rome, then, I lived first in the cardinal’s apartment belonging to my brother, since he was still staying together with the other cardinals in the Vatican guest house, the “Domus Sanctae Marthae” (Saint Martha’s House) – for security reasons; he had to be guarded, after all.

The apartment was directly opposite the Apostolic Palace, but outside the Vatican City State, on the Piazza Città Leonina. The next morning I picked him up, and then we drove together to his apartment. A gigantic crowd of people had gathered in front of it, and they applauded immediately; he greeted them briefly, and then we went in.

Of course, he was still the same old Joseph, and he still is today. The working of the Holy Spirit is limited to his official activity, but as a human being he has not changed. He does not stand on ceremony, does not try to be pretentious. He presents himself as who he is and does not want to slip into a role or wear a mask, as others may do.

When Peter Seewald, for instance, describes him as a “charismatic pope” with a great influence on the world, then I must say he quite certainly does not exercise that influence consciously. Perhaps it is, after all, the influence of the Holy Spirit that lends him a certain charisma at his public appearances. Otherwise, he is now as before the kindly, friendly, and modest man he always was, quite unaffected and cordial.

© 2012 Ignatius Press – published with permission

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With all due respect to Mons. Georg, I prefer to think 'the working of the Holy Spirit' is on the whole person Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and not just when he is acting as Pope.

February 25, Saturday after Ash Wednesday

BLESSED SEBASTIAN DE APARICIO (b Spain 1502 - d Mexico 1600)
Roadbuilder, Franciscan brother
Beato Sebastian has one of the most unusual biographies. Born in Spain to a poor family, who brought him up in the faith, he fell ill with bubonic plague as a a boy, from which he was miraculously cured after having been isolated to avoid infecting his family. After various migrant jobs all over Spain, he emigrated at age 31 to Mexico where he started as a farm hand and jack of all trades, then decided to build roads that would facilitate commerce in the region. He is considered the father of Mexican highways, as well as Mexico's first 'cowboy' who domesticated wild horses and cattle to be used in farm work. He introduced ox-driven carts to replace the labor carried out by humans before then. By age 50, he was a wealthy man, who had a reputation for unfailing generosity and service to the natives. He then gave up the transport business to devote himself to agriculture and ranching. Part of his personal faith was his early vow to live a chaste life. In his 60s, he married twice - both times to provide his wife's family with a dowry, and with the understanding that it would be a chaste marriage. Both wives died within a year of marriage - the first of an illness, the second because she fell from a tree while picking fruit. He said of them, "God gave me two little doves to care for and send back to him". After this, he decided to become a Franciscan friar, giving away all his goods to the convent and to the poor. He spent his novitiate as cook, porter and gardener in a Poor Clares convent, and finally became a professed friar in 1575. He spent the next 23 years as alms-collector for his community, once again taken to the roads in his horse-drawn carts for a new purpose, and came to be known as the 'fraile de las carretas'. He never learned to read and write, and all his life, his prayers were limited to the Our Father and the Rosary. Many miracles started being attributed to him in the last 10 years of his life, and he died in the odor of sanctity at age 98. His incorrupt body is venerated in the Church of St. Francis in Puebla, Mexico. When he was beatified in 1789, 968 documented miracles were presented in his cause, of which more than 500 beneficiaries testified personally.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022512.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)

- Mons. Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops

- Partisipants in the General Assembly of teh Pomntifical Academy for Life. Address in Italian.

Papal commission to wind up
Medjugorje inquiry this year
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of

February 25, 2012

VATICAN CITY - The international commission of inquiry appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to investigate the alleged Marian apparitions in Medjugorje has about six to seven months more of work to do before it can issue a report, it was learned after commission president Cardinal Camillo Ruini met with Pope Benedict XVI earlier this week, presumably to discuss the progress of the investigation.

The report would be reviewed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before being given to the Pope.

The Holy Father established the inquiry commission in early 2010. At the time, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said that the commission would decide whether the reported apparitions could be considered authentic,with its findings to be be ratified by the CDF.

When the apparitions were first reported in the 1980s, a diocesan commission investigated it and handed on its findings to the episcopal conference of what was then Yugoslavia, which concluded in 1991. after ten years of investigation, that it could not establish that the reported events in Medjugorje were supernatural ('non constat de supernaturalitate' = supernaturality is not proven] [The official English translation of the conclusive statement in the 1991 Zadar Declaration is: "On the basis of the investigations conducted to this point, it is not possible to affirm that it is a case of apparitions or supernatural revelations"]

The expression is a Church statement indicating that the bishops were unable to prove or disprove the allegations - meaning there were not enough elements to prove authenticity, nor enough proof that the events were a hoax, as the local bishops (Dicoese of Mostar) have concluded. [[The formula 'non constat de supernaturalitate' (supernaturality is not provem) seems clear enough and unequivocal! Mons. peric has said that he believes the inverse formula was equally applicable: 'constat de non-supernaturalitate' = non-supernaturality is proven.]

The bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina eventually requested the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to take a hand in resolving the matter.

Besides Cardinal Ruini, five other cardinals are on the commission: Angelo Amato, of the Congregation for the Cuases of Saitnhood; Josef Tomko, emeritus Prefect of the Cognregation for the Laity; Vinko Pulic, Archbishop of Sarajevo; Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb; and Julian Herranz, emeritus president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

Both the previous and the present bishops of Mostar - Pavao Zanic, who was bishop when the apparitions were first reported in 1981. and his successor, Ratko Peric.- the diocese that has jurisdiction over Medjugorje, have said they do not believe the apparitions are authentic.

Recent documents from Yugoslavian archives indicated that the Yugoslav secret service during the Communist era sought to influence local Church authorities against the apparitions.

It was learned that the Ruini commission has secretly interviewed all the presumed 'seers' at CDF headquarters, where the commission meets and keeps its archives. Commission members were given enough time to clear their schedules so they could be in Rome for the meetings.

Starting last June, they interviewed first Ivanka, then Vicka, and towards the end of the year, Mirjana and Marja (on the same day but separately). Recently, they listened to Ivan and then Jakov.

Cardinal Vinko Pulijc, in a recent public statement, said the commission would finish its work this year. At the moment, there is no telling what the commission's verdict will be.

But the most probable outcome foreseen at the moment by informed observers is that it will be similar to the 1991 declaration that 'supernaturality cannot be established', without taking a position for or against.

The supposed apparitions first reported on June 24, 1981, are claimed to be ongoing, although limited, for some of the 'seers', who claim that they meet 'the Madonna' - who they say calls herself 'Queen of Peace' [Forgive my skepticism, but Has Mary ever called herself Queen of anything in any of her authenticated apparitions???] at a predetermined time of day wherever they are. The alleged apparitions have mostly taken place in the parish run by Franciscans [dozens of whom have been deprived of canonical faculties or never given permission to practise their ministry in Medjugorje, but who have continued to defy these prohibitions. At least two have been expelled from the Franciscan order, including the first 'spiritual director' of the seers, who eventually married a nun he impregnated before he was subjected to disciplinary action.]

Medjugorje has attracted millions of pilgrims although it is still not an easy place to reach. [In 1096, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then secretary of the CDF, made clear that pilgrimages are permissible "on the condition that they are not to be considered an authentication of the reported events", citing the 1991 Zadar Declaration saying that the supernaturality of the events has not been proven. Bishops and priests are also expressly forbidden to make offocial pilgrimages, although they can lead groups going to Medjugorje.]