BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier posts on 2/25/12, including the translation of the Holy Father's lectio divina to the Roman clergy on Feb. 23. Another teaching tour de force by B16.






Pope encourages medical solutions
for infertility, not artificial techniques

February 25, 2012



“The Church pays great attention to the suffering of couples with infertility, she cares for them and, precisely because of this, encourages medical research.”, said Pope Benedict XVI, in his address Saturday to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life.



Over the past week the Academy has gathered together experts from the world of medicine, scientific research, theology and philosophy to the Vatican to discuss infertility, how it is diagnosed, how it can be treated and how it impacts couples.

Pope Benedict said : “The human and Christian dignity of procreation, consists not in a "product", but in its connection with the conjugal act, an expression of love of the spouses, their union which is not only biological but also spiritual”.

He said: “This approach is moved not only from the desire to gift the couple a child, but to restore fertility to couple and with it all the dignity of being responsible for their own reproductive choices, to be God's collaborators in the generation of a new human being. The search for a diagnosis and therapy is scientifically the correct approach to the issue of infertility, but it must also be respectful of the integral humanity of those involved. In fact, the union of man and woman in that community of love and life that is marriage, is the only "place" worthy for the call into existence of a new human being, which is always a gift”.

But what happens when even science cannot provide the answer to a couples desire for parenthood? Here the Pope warned against what he described as “the lure of the technology of artificial insemination” where “scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation, to the point of limiting many other areas of research”.

The Holy Father noted that “So I would like to remind the couples who are experiencing the condition of infertility, that their vocation to marriage is no less because of this. Spouses, for their own baptismal and marriage vocation, are called to cooperate with God in the creation of a new humanity. The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to the gift of self and this is a possibility that no organic condition can prevent. There, where science has not yet found an answer, the answer that gives light comes from Christ”.

Pope Benedict concluded: “I encourage all of you gathered here for these study days, and who sometimes work in a medical-scientific dimension where the truth is blurred: to continue on their journey of a science that is intellectually honest and fascinated by the constant research for the good of man", not forgetting in this intellectual journey, the dialogue with faith.

Citing his appeal expressed in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope said that Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. "(n. 28). On the other hand, precisely the cultural matrix created by Christianity - rooted in the affirmation of the existence of truth and intelligibility of reality in the light of Supreme Truth - has made the development of in modern scientific knowledge possible in medieval Europe, a knowledge that in earlier cultures had remained but a seed".

“Distinguished scientists and all of you members of the Academy who undertake to promote the life and dignity of the human person, also keep in mind your important cultural role in society and carry out the influence you have in shaping public opinion…people trust in you, who serve life, they trust in your commitment to support those who need comfort and hope. Never succumb to the temptation to treat what’s best for people by reducing it to a mere technical problem! The indifference of conscience to what is true and good, represents a dangerous threat to genuine scientific progress”.






Here is a translation of the Pope's address:

---

Dear Cardinals,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear brothers and sisters:

I am happy to meet you on the occasion of your work in the XVIII General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

I greet and thank you all for your generous service in defense and in favor of life, especially your president, Mons. Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, for the words which he addressed to me in your name.

The way you framed your work manifests the confidence that the Church has always shown in the possibilities of human reason and rigorously conducted scientific work which always considers the moral aspect.

The theme that you chose for this year's discussions - "Diagnosis and therapy of infertility" - besides having human and social relevance, possesses scientific value and expresses the concrete possibility of a fruitful dialog between the ethical dimension and biomedical research.

Facing the problem of infertility in couples, you have chosen to underscore and attentively consider the moral dimension, researching the ways towards a correct diagnostic evaluation and a therapy that corrects the causes of infertility.

This approach comes from the desire not just to give the couple a child but to restore fertility to the spouses and all the dignity of being responsible for their own procreative choices, to be collaborators with God in the generation of a new human being.

The research for a diagnosis and its corresponding therapy represents the most scientifically correct approach to the question of infertility, but it is also that which is most respectful of the integral humanity of the persons involved.

Indeed, the union of a man and a woman,in that community of love and life which matrimony is, constitutes the only 'place' worthy for calling to life a new human being who is always a gift.

My wish therefore is to encourage the intellectual honesty of your work, the expression of science that maintains its spirit of searching for truth, in the service of man's authentic good, avoiding the risk of being merely functional practice.

The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, does not consist in having a 'product', but in its link with the conjugal act, expression of the spouses' love for each other, of their intimate union which is not just biological but also spiritual.

The Instruction Donum vitae (Gift of life) reminds us, in this respect, that "by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, even as it unites the spouses in the deepest way, makes then aware of the generation of new life, according to laws inscribed in the very being itself of man and woman". (No. 126).

[The legitimate parenthood aspirations of a couple who find they are infertile must therefore find, with the help of science, an answer which fully respects their dignity as persons and spouses. .

The humility and the precision with which you have examined these problem - considered by some of your colleagues obsolete in view of the fascinating new technologies of artificial procreation - deserve encouragement and support.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the encyclical Fides et ratio, I recalled how "easy profit, or even worse, the arrogance of supplanting the Creator, carry out, at times, a determinative role. It is a form of hubris of reason which can assume characteristics that are dangerous for mankind itself" (Address to the participants of the International Congress sponosred by the Pontifical Lateran: University, 18 October 2008: AAS 100 [2008], 788-789).

In effect, scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation today, to the point of limiting many other areas of research.

The Church pays much attention to the suffering of infertile couples, seeks to relieve them, and precisely because of this, it encourages medical research. But science is not always able to respond to the desires of so many couples.

Therefore I wish to remind spouses who are suffering from infertility, that this ought not to frustrate their vocation for matrimony. Spouses, by their very baptismal and matrimonial calling, are always called to collaborate with God in the creation of a new humanity.

The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to give oneself, and this is a possibility that no organic human condition can impede. Therefore, where science has not found an answer, the answer that gives light comes from Christ.

I wish to encourage all of you who have carried out these days of study in a medico-scientific context where the dimension of truth can be obfuscated: Continue along the path of science that is intellectually honest and passionate in the continual search for man's good. In your intellectual journey, do not disdain dialog with faith.

I address to you the urgent appeal expressed in the encyclical Deus caritas est, "If reason is to be exercised properly, it must undergo constant purification, since it can never be completely free of the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests... Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly." (No. 28)

On the other hand, the very cultural matrix created by Christianity - rooted in the affirmation that Truth exists, and that the real is intelligible in the light of the Supreme Truth - made possible in the Europe of the Middle Ages, the development of modern scientific knowledge, knowledge which in preceding cultures had only remained in germination.

Distinguished scientists, all of you Academy members who are engaged in promoting life and human dignity, always keep in mind as well the fundamental cultural role that you play in society and the influence you have in forming public opinion.

My predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, underscored that scientists, "precisely because they know more, are called to serve God" (Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Nov. 11, 2002: AAS 95 [2003], 206).

People put their trust you who serve life, they trust your commitment to sustain those who need comfort and hope. Never yield to the temptation to treat persons by reducing them to a mere technical problem. The indifference of conscience to the true and the good represents a dangerous menace to authentic scientific progress.

I wish to conclude by renewing the wish that the Second Vatican Council addressed to men of thought and science: "Happy are those who, possessing the truth, continue to seek it in order to renew it, to know it more deeply, to give it to others" (Message to men of thought and science, Dec, 8, 1965: AAS 58 [1966], 12).

It is with this wish that I impart to all of you who are present and to your dear ones the Apostolic Blessing.

---

Pope urges couples to avoid
artificial procreation


VATICAN CITY, Feb. 25 (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday urged infertile couples to shun artificial procreation, decrying such methods as a form of arrogance.

Speaking at the end of a three-day Vatican conference on diagnosing and treating infertility, Benedict also reiterated church teaching that marriage is the only permissible place to conceive children. Matrimony “constitutes the only 'place' worthy of the call to existence of a new human being," he said.

The Pope pressed the Church ban against artificial procreation, saying infertile couples should refrain from any method to try to conceive other than sex between husband and wife.

"The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn’t consist in a 'product,' but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses, of their union, not only biological but also spiritual," Benedict said.

He told the science and fertility experts in his audience to resist "the fascination of the technology of artificial fertility. Benedict cautioned the experts against "easy income, or even worse, the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator,” an attitude he indicated underlies the field of artificial procreation.

Sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization are banned by the Church for its faithful.

The emphasis on science "and the logic of profit seem today to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation," the Pope said.

But he added that the Church encourages research into medical cures to infertility.

In the body of the article, I explain why I find Allen's use of the term 'Jacobin' applied to Popes as highly inappropriate... This is one of those Allen pieces that I thought one might reasonably read through without jumping every so often at something that cries out for a fisk, tout de suite, but it is not, and once more, I thank him for the chance of an argumentative workout!... His topic is not to my taste at all, but he has so many false premises and conclusions about Benedict XVI that I cannot possibly ignore...

Is it time for a Jacobin Pope?
Or for an American Pope?

February 24, 2012

As a thought exercise, ask yourself what period of time the following paragraph about the Vatican seems to reflect.

"For those who've seen the place in better days, the Vatican looks deeply troubled. In the absence of strong leadership, internal tensions seem to be bursting into view. Even at the height of his powers, the pope took scant interest in governance. As he ages and becomes more limited, a sense of drift is mounting -- a conviction that hard choices must await a new day, and probably a new pontiff."

Although it seems perfectly apt in February 2012 [To you perhaps, not to a more objective observer, and certainly not to a Benaddict! It sounds exactly like the badass grumblings of some petty media tyrant wielding malicious exaggeration to spice up his report, in the hope of imposing his personal opinion as fact in the mind of the reader! For Allen to cite the above as a snapshot of the Papacy is insupportably mean! And misleading, if not false. In the process, he also denigrates both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.], in fact, that paragraph was written in late 2004. That's the irony: Many cardinals who elected Benedict XVI thought they were buying an end to the crisis of governance in the twilight of John Paul's reign, only to find they'd simply traded it in for a newer model. [That is a rash assumption that seems to have no plausible foundation. Allen cannot claim that the cardinals who voted for Cardinal Ratzinger did so because they thought he was going to be the ideal administrator! They chose him for far more fundamental - spiritual - reasons, and they said so in more ways than one after the Conclave, namely: that he simply embodied best the qualities that are most appropriate for the Rock on which the Church must stand. Also, even in the primitive Church with its few adherents, Peter was not in charge of 'governing' - he had James in Jerusalem to do that, and aides like Stephen and whoever the apostles chose to replace Judas Iscariot as their pursekeeper.]

In the abstract, Joseph Ratzinger seemed the man to put things right. As the saying went, Ratzinger was in the curia but not of it -- he knew where the bodies were buried, but he was never the stereotypical Vatican potentate, forever building empires and hatching schemes. Plus, he's hardly the extrovert John Paul was, so it seemed reasonable he might invest more energy in internal business.[Depends what you mean by internal business! It's not as if he were ignoring that - how could he? If you mean administration, then say so, since Joseph Ratzinger has always openly said he is not an administrator!]

Facing what is, alas, merely the latest implosion in the last six years, the mushrooming "Vatileaks" scandal, one has to ask: What went wrong? (The latest chapter of that saga came Wednesday when Italian TV aired an anonymous interview with an alleged mole who claimed to be one of at least 20 insiders leaking documents.) {Yeah, but did he say anything that adds to the scant public fund of reliable facts, or even to clarify what has been alleged earlier? NO!, as Andrea Tornielli reported. But YES, it was another crappy chapter in a crappy saga that Allen knows better than to hype well beyond its petty parameters!

And it isn't exactly 'mushrooming', is it? So far it has amounted to - at most - a couple of Vigano letters, a couple of memoranda about IOR, that anonymous memorandum no one ought to even have paid attention to, and a couple more notes lately - all told, not even 10 documents so far (hardly 'mushrooming'), about whom the disguised 'mole figure' claims there are 20 of them responsible for passing them on. How many moles does it take to pass on 10 documents? And if these moles have fired their best shots, they have really been scraping the barrel, as Tornielli says. I wish Allen would be more disciplined about using the right words - his colloquialisms always end up being highly inappropriate.

As glib as Allen spins out his apparent analyses, they are usually flawed by arguing from the wrong premise. As in this case. One of Allen's pet theories about this Pontificate is that it has been 'distinguished' primarily by what he usually calls 'gaffes', which he has now now progressed in magnitude and order to 'implosion'. Let us not belabor his litany of gaffes, which he has spared us this time, thankfully. But consider the word 'implosion'. If this Pontificate had been subjected to a series of implosions, it would have been reduced to smithereens by now. An implosion is an exploding inwards - and as pesky or even embarrassing as the 'gaffes' and leaks have been so far, none of them have been major at all, in the sense of having had disastrous long-term consequences. The immemorial problems of Vatican bureaucracy and perceived internal intrigues are chronic ailments, after all, not life-threatening cancers.]

It's become commonplace to say that Benedict XVI sees himself as a teaching Pope, not a governor, and that's obviously true. [No, the commonplace is Allen's choice to frame his premise in such a reductive way! You'd think he has not read Light of the World, or any of the previous interview books, or that he had not written two versions of a Ratzinger 'biography'! Again, since when was Peter supposed to be Pontius Pilate at the same time, to mix metaphors?

Why doesn't some Vaticanista write an essay on the comparative records of all the Popes in modern times as administrators, so the public has a better picture? John Paul II, according to a commonplace Allen used, is routinely faulted for 'reigning' but not 'governing', Well, who among Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI reigned as well as governed? Please enlighten us, and not just lazily tick off John Paul II and Benedict XVI as if they are the bad exceptions !]

Still, Benedict actually has engineered a sort of limited reform inside the Vatican, and for those with eyes to see, it marks a real break with the past. {The first statement of objective fact so far, as opposed to impression and personal opinion!]

Not so long ago, it was taken for granted that the following was just what Vatican heavyweights do, [Not so long ago? These are still the assumptions upon which the past stories regarding the leaks were written!] to some extent reflecting traditional Italian assumptions about men of state: [Not so much traditional Italian assumptions, but habitual media assumptions about most governments in general, and the Vatican, in particular!]
- Use positions of power to reward allies and block enemies, thereby building a network of patronage and influence.
- Move money around without much of a paper trail, steering contracts and resources to one's friends and supporters.
- Turn a blind eye to the personal failings of people perceived as loyal to the Church, the Pope or influential figures in the hierarchy.
- Have a clandestine involvement in worldly politics and finance, justified as a way of advancing the interests of the Church.
{And who exactly does Allen mean by 'Vatican heavyweights'? Does he include the Popes themselves????]

Slowly, Benedict XVI has tried to move people who embody a more transparent and less nakedly ambitious way of doing business into key positions. The question is, Has this gradual reform hit a brick wall? If it's dying the death of a thousand cuts, as some believe, what's the next step -- to go back, or to move forward to a more aggressive phase? [Two contradictions here. If few are even aware of the administrative and financial reforms that Benedict XVI has instituted - and few are aware, because the Vatican reporters have not written enough. So, who is there to judge that the reforms have 'hit a brick wall or are dying the death of a thousand cuts'? Other than Summorum Pontificum (which has become openly instrumentalized in the intra-Church ideological war), has anyone documented a reform promulgated by Benedict XVI that is being openly defied and violated? In the absence of such evidence, shouldn't we give more time for some of the laws to be implemented in full before deciding that they are being blocked or sabotaged by attrition?... In the interests of providing relevant background, Allen might have cited Magister's articles on the Benedictine reforms and the recent book published about these reforms, putting together lectures at the University of Pavia on Benedict as legislator.]

To invoke an analogy from revolutionary France, is it time for the Jacobins to wrest control from the moderates? [It's hard to justify Allen's decision to use the term 'Jacobin' in this context, when all he really means is a Pope who can take drastic administrative action to 'straighten out the Curia' once and for all. It is joltingly inappropriate when he makes the analogy to revolutionary France, from which the term originated. In its blandest sense today, 'Jacobin' still is pejorative for radical left-wing or revolutionary. But in post-1789 France, the Jacobins were those who carried out the bloody Reign of Terror "as a means of destroying those they perceived as enemies within", in the name of consolidating the Republic. Is that really what Allen would want a Pope to do? Again, the problem is that Allen has a penchant for using words loosely without thinking the consequences through! Of course, the self-righteous revolutionary terrorists did not last long, and were thrown out within two years, but modern France owes them its legacy of militant, often bitterly anti-clerical secularism.]

Benedict's limited reform is based on setting a moral tone and the idea that "personnel is policy," rather than any violent purge or direct overhaul of systems and structures. [He has been consistent and insistent about that - no structural reform can be effective unless the individuals in these structures first reform themselves. Yet as someone who never paid attention to Vatican internal affairs until seven years ago, I am still appalled that apparently, from most accounts, not a few bishops and priests who work at the Vatican have no second thoughts about shedding their persona as men of God to become naked ambition clothed in cassocks!]

It began with the ultra-powerful Secretariat of State, where the stereotype of the "prelate as Renaissance prince" tends still to have the most legs. It's well known that Benedict's pick to run the place, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is an outsider known more for his personal devotion to the Pope than as an independent powerbroker. [But why would 'powerbroker' be the primary definition Allen chooses for a Secretary of State? CEO would be more like it.]

The new Sostituto [deputy secretary of state for internal affairs, meaning administering the Curia]] or chief of staff, Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, also never worked in the Secretariat, making him likewise a stranger to its palace intrigue. [He may never have worked in the Secretariat, but he had extensive experience over 20 years in 10 countries (including the UK, France and the US, but also some African countries and Cuba) as a diplomat whose activities are completely overseen and run by SecState! He could not have been that much of a 'stranger' to the intrigue!]

Becciu is cut from a different cloth in another sense, too. He's from the island of Sardinia, where people tend to think of themselves as quite different from mainland Italians --– quieter, more reflective, less given to schemes and theater. Supposedly, when Benedict XVI visited Sardinia in 2008, he quipped that "Sardinians aren't really Italians," which may be revealing in terms of what he thought he was doing by giving Becciu the job. [For what it's worth, I think Bertone picked Becciu for handling the preparations so well for Bertone's 2008 visit to Cuba that took on almost the scale of a papal visit but much longer (one assumes that they then worked together very well during the visit); not to mention Becciu's work in helping the Archbishop of Havana to broker the prisoner releases agreed to by the Cuban government].

Consider, too, the three longtime friends Benedict chose to lead what he regards as the most important other Vatican offices: American Cardinal William Levada, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Congregation for Bishops; and Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Congregation for Divine Worship.

Levada and Ouellet had some previous Vatican experience, but none represents the old guard. Nobody really suspects them of financial shenanigans or building their own ecclesiastical empires, and they spend precious little time in the limelight.

Levada, for instance, has been on the job since 2005, and Cañizares since 2008, yet even some full-time Vatican writers would struggle to pick either man out of a lineup because they've maintained such a low profile. [But none of Benedict's Curial appointees seek any attention unless they have something to say about a task the Pope has assigned to them. And that's as it should be. Humble, hardworking and holy should define the ideal Curial official.]

If the lone benchmarks of reform were a reputation for personal decency and not jockeying to be the next Pope, you could probably declare the job finished and go home. [What job? Limiting the possible succession to Levada, Ouellet or Canizares???] Unfortunately, that recipe leaves two vital questions unanswered:

- What about guys inside the system who aren't on the same page and who may take Benedict's detachment as carte blanche to pursue their own agenda? {'Benedict's detachment' How superciliously presumptuous! 'Detachment' here sounds accusatory, as in absolute lack of interest. Does anyone really think that a methodical and conscientious man like Benedict XVI does not have a checklist by which he keeps tabs on what's happening in each of the Vatican dicasteries? And that he does not ask questions at all?

BTW,I would think that in the various Curial dicasteries, where the staffs are relatively small (a few dozen at most), it would have to be the dicastery head and his secretary-general - and by now these men are all Benedictine appointees - to identify the troublemakers, and if they can't get rid of them for a variety of reasons, at least work around them and keep them from spoking their wheels. It's a bit more difficult at SecState, where the number of personnel may run to multiple dozens or even hundreds, and the enclaves have been staked out for decades, with an entrenched bureaucracy protecting their respective turfs. If Cardinal Bertone hasn't been able to make these bureaucrats his friends in six years, one would think that he at least set out to 'know the enemy'.]

- Prayer and purification are great, but at some point, doesn't somebody also have to make the trains run on time? [They are not mutually exclusive at all. Just think of the virtual army of Franciscan saints who became saints by just doing the menial daily time-consuming routines assigned to them as porter, cook, gardener, alms-gatherer, dispenser of charity, etc - but did not neglect prayer and purification! One must expect the same equilibrium in any Vatican official. Benedict certainly has it, but he cannot be expected to function as Secretary of State in addition to being Pope - Surely anyone with common sense can see that.]

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Benedict's attempt at reform has paid a steep price for not confronting those two points head-on. [Of course, it's EASY to avoid such a conclusion, if one does not start with false premises! What 'steep price' so far? The 'nine-day wonder' scandals that MSM have generated? I think it works in favor of the Vatican that the MSM has collective attention-deficit disorder, because they're always ready to move on to the next promising brushfire in other sectors the moment the forest fires they kindle around the Vatican exhaust themselves, usually within 2-3 weeks!

Facing that reality, three broad reactions seem possible. Each leads to a different conclusion about who might be the right choice when the time comes to elect a successor to Benedict XVI. [So all of the above was just a set-up to get on to the question of succession that is a barely masked obsession with Allen and his fellow Vaticanistas!... Also, the 'categories' created by Allen below all proceed from the wrong premise that a Pope must also perform the functions that his Secretary of State should do!]

First, one could decide the reform was a nonstarter from the outset. In the words of Michelangelo, there's only one statue in this stone -- the Vatican is always going to have its careerists and its schemers, it's always going to have a subtext of petty turf wars and personal squabbles, so the trick is to put someone in charge who knows that world and is capable of keeping it under control. In other words, don't waste energy trying to change the place; settle for making it work. [Nut isn't that just what realist Benedict XVI, 24-year veteran of the Curia, has been doing? It has worked for the most part, despite the inevitable glitches which have been grossly inflated by the media into Chicken-Little catastrophes. The sky has not fallen, Vigano did not become a cardinal (thank God!), Bertone may finally be learning his lessons, God's in his heaven! And Benedict has even managed some historic institutional reforms!]

If that's the logic, then a strong candidate for the next Pope might be Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, currently Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches. A veteran of the curia, Sandri served as substitute under John Paul II, where he had a reputation as a strong administrator. [Yes? Then why is John Paul accused of having neglected the Curia? And what about Cardinal Sondao who was Secretary of State for the last 11 years of the Pontificate? Does he bear no responsibility at all?]

As a bonus, he's an Argentine, so he could be presented to the world as a Latin American Pope. [Actually, Sandri is of Italian descent though he was born and raised in Argentina! Forza, Italia! And why do I get the feeling Sandri may have jumped out of his seat to learn Allen has just anointed him a papabile! Hey John, have you forgotten your favorite intellectual Cardinal Ravasi so soon?]

Second, in the spirit of thinking in centuries, one could argue that Benedict's reform simply hasn't had time to work itself out [DUH! That isn't just a reasonable conjecture but also practical thinking], and the key is staying the course. That seemed to be the spirit of a Feb. 13 statement from Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, on the Vatileaks mess.

When somebody starts launching attacks, Lombardi said, it's usually a sign that "something important is in play." The suggestion appeared to be that products of the older Vatican culture know the earth is shifting beneath their feet, and the leaks represent their way of lashing out.

Ouellet would be a compelling choice for that school of thought. He's very much like Benedict -- quiet, spiritual, given to the life of the mind. He's someone who would likely emphasize teaching and moral leadership over institutional dynamics. Without getting into this succession speculation, Oeullet was on the papabile list back in 2005, so no surprise that Allen names him. ]

Third, one might conclude that Benedict's reform has its heart in the right place, but needs to be backed up by a stronger hand on the rudder. You need someone at the top who can not only set a tone, but who has the mettle to make it stick. [Which is an indirect way for Allen to say that Benedict 'does not have the mettle to make it stick'! He didn't have the mettle to reform the way the Church deals with priest offenders and child abuse - which he has only been pushing hard and consistently since 2001???? He didn't have the mettle to punish Maciel and take his misguided Legionaries in hand? He didn't have the mettle to restore the traditional Mass, which John Paul II apparently never thought of doing in 26 years? He didn't have the mettle to remove Cardinal Sepe from Propaganda Fide? He didn't have the mettle to reconstitute the ecclesiastical and lay management of IOR from those who had been in charge for three decades? All that - and Benedict's spiritual, pastoral and moral leadership, not to mention all his papal texts and the JON books! From a man who is almost 85, that's not enough! And yet, it's only been less than seven years since he became Pope. The new laws on financial reform only took effect in June 2011. Judge again whether they stick when the first AIF 'transparent' financial report comes out.]

That seems a prescription for a Pope with strong credentials as a man of faith, but also experience at wrapping his hands around complex bureaucracies, with sufficient energy and fearlessness to take on the Vatican's entrenched culture. [No, that's not for a Pope to do directly. That's supposed to be for his Secretary of State and the latter's substantial administrative powers to do. Unfortunately, that has been the major weak link ('mettle fatigue'!) in this Pope's chain of command. Because of this, Cardinal Bertone needs all our prayers!]

Figure out which guy among the current crop of cardinals best fits that profile, and you'll have the "Jacobin" candidate.

* * *

On this side of the water, the take-away from the consistory of February 2012 has been that for the first time in living memory, the hot new commodity in the College of Cardinals is actually an American, Timothy Dolan of New York.

Of course, a cardinal's star can fall as easily as it rises. In the consistory of 2001, for instance, the landslide winner of the beauty pageant was Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a handsome, articulate fresh face for the church's burgeoning Latin American contingent. Yet he didn't have any traction as a papal candidate in 2005, and by now the smart money says his ship has sailed. [If the Holy Spirit listened to the 'smart money', Cardinal Ratzinger may never have become Pope! Allen himself did not include him in his list of papabile two days before the Conclave. In any case, It's sheer bad taste and arrogant presumption to rule out anyone so categorically! Maradiaga has not morphed into someone unqualified in the meantime.]

Still, given the way Dolan took Rome by storm, the "American Pope" question is in the air. Normally, the hypothesis gets knocked down almost as soon as it's raised on the basis of the longstanding taboo against a "superpower Pope."

Yet it's possible to flip the bias against an American around in two ways.

First, Vatican diplomats often grouse that the American government doesn't pay enough attention to their concerns. [They may grouse, but they also know that the US government decides on the basis of its national interests, not on the basis of Vatican concerns. This is a strawman argument.] That was the drumbeat in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and it's still said today across a range of matters, including the Middle East, development in Africa and the life issues.

Consider this: Can you think of a better way to get the attention of the White House -- no matter who the occupant might be -- than to elect an American Pope? [It still does not affect the national-interests argument - and they certainly cannot ignore any Pope, whatever his nationality. Anyway, a Pope of any nationality is a universal Pope and is not supposed to be influenced by his nationality.]

There is the risk, of course, that U.S.-Vatican relations could be hijacked by domestic politics under an American pope [HUH?], but it wouldn't have to play out that way. In any event, it certainly would ensure that Washington keeps Rome on the radar.

Second, one could argue that in ecclesiastical terms, it's the Italians who are the traditional superpower [I don't think even the Italian cardinals or Italian Catholics themselves think that way any more. Not after Poland and Germany have given the Church such outstanding Popes! Besides the term 'superpower Pope' that Allen uses refers not to the Pope but to the country he represents. Does anyone consider Italy a superpower in any sense at all?] not the Americans or anybody else. The real choice for a "superpower Pope" would therefore be putting the papacy back in Italian hands, while an American (or, for that matter, any non-European) would actually represent evolution toward a more "multi-polar" church.

Given the way papal politics works, cardinals won't be caught dead talking about specific candidates. In the months to come, however, it will be fascinating to track what they have to say in general terms about where the next Pope might come from -- and if the idea of an American seems to be growing in plausibility.

Yeah, well, Dolan gives Allen and company a pretext to indulge in Conclave speculation without using the health status of Benedict XVI as a news peg!

Just to exorcise all the bad taste in speculative articles like the above...

AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!


AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!


AD MULTOS ANNOS, BENEDICTE!

I think the curia needs a much more diverse spread of nationalities.
This might sound strange (or even arrogant) coming from a German, but I do believe that the lack of loyalty, obedience, prudence, work-ethics and resistance to careerism and the non-application of rationality during difficult situations will not change if the majority of employees (clerics and laymen) will remain as it is now.
Good luck to whoever is going to tackle that organically grown problem.



Mr. Allen never understood Joseph Ratzinger, and he never will. Besides, he seems to carry a few grudges from before Papal times.
I don't even think he understands what the Church actually is. Generally he gives me the creeps.





Dear Heike...

Sorry for the delayed reaction. About John Allen: He is even more insidious than his finding-fault-with-Benedict articles suggest. Going by what he says about his frequent speaking engagements everywhere, the man is venerated in many Catholic quarters almost like a modern prophet! And when even persons like Cardinal Dolan cite him in their writings as 'the number one American expert in Vatican affairs' or some such encomium, it raises serious concern. Intelligent people buy into him, and his 'reputation' somehow keeps them from considering what he says with the requisite critical eye.

He is an excellent, ever-resourceful reporter and more diligent than the run of the mill, but he is a terrible analyst because he lets his biases take the lead. And he seems to plunge ahead fearlessly without really thinking through his glib and smug assertions (in the same way he is mindlessly careless about some of the words he flings about with abandon, instead of using the right word in the right way). If he thought through his premises and conclusions (and favorite buzz words) more carefully, he wouldn't be so easy to fisk! It's gotten to a point where almost every sentence in his opinion pieces is disputable on a point of fact or a point of logic.

But when will someone have the courage to say the emperor is naked???? Or, at best, clad mostly in cliches and flaunting his banality?

As for the Curia, someone observed recently that there are far less foreign priests coming to work at the Vatican now because of the priest shortage everywhere - and dioceses are far less wiling now to allow their best young minds to serve in Rome when they are much more needed at home. That may be.

In any case, overhauling the entire Curial bureaucracy is like cleaning out the Augean stables or any of the other legendary labors of Hercules. If Bertone were Hercules, he would have started laboring six years ago! For now, it seems like the Holy Father has been careful to make sure that the prefect or president of a dicastery and his number 2 man (the secretary of the dicastery) are of different nationalities to set a basic check-and-balance.

As I had occasion to remark earlier, the Curial offices other than the Secretariat of State would seem to be far more manageable since they do not have large staffs. For example, if the CDF has about 50 personnel, how likely is it that other dicasteries with far more limited functions would have more? SecState is really the bureaucratic monster here, and to a lesser extent, the Governatorate, which, after all, has to keep the entire Vatican machinery physically running, and includes everyone down to the lowliest janitor at the Vatican and the most junior gardener in Castel Gandolfo.

In fact, none of the 20 other Curial offices, besides SecState and the Governatorate, have been implicated in the current round of 'scandal' - so it is unfair and wrong when 'the Roman Curia' is routinely crucified in general, but particularly so, in this case. Each office should be held accountable for what it actually does wrong, not discredited indiscriminately along with the rest of the Curia for what the Secretariat of State does wrong.

TERESA

February 26, First Sunday in Lent

Photos on the left and right from the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza.
ST. PORPHYRIUS OF GAZA (b Thessalonica 353, d Gaza 421), Bishop and Confessor
Born on the European mainland, he came to Jerusalem where he was ordained a priest at the age of 40.
Before that, he had spent much time living in the desert and in caves as an ascetic, and had a reputation
for generosity to the poor. At age 45, he was elected unexpectedly by the tiny Christian community in
Gaza to be their bishop. Gaza in the early 5th century was a center of paganism. With patient work,
Porphyrius tended his flock and preached to pagans, and some time in 401-402, he went to Constantinople
to ask the Emperor for a decree ordering the destruction of the pagan temples in the city. He served for
another 20 years. A Life of Porphyrius written by his deacon Mark survives today in modern
editions.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022612.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Sunday Angelus - The Holy Father commented on Mark's terse account of the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert
after his Baptism, where he was beset by Satan's temptations,and how he began his preaching after John the Baptist
was arrested, calling on the people to "Repent, and believe in the Gospel". The Pope said Lent is the time
to strengthen our relationship with God through daily prayer, acts of penance and alms-giving.

This evening, the Holy Father begins his seven-day annual Lenten spiritual exercises with the Roman Curia,
preached this year by Cardinal Larent Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo).
There will be no events for the Holy Father until Sunday, March 4, when he makes a pastoral visit to
the parish of San Giovanni Battista de La Salle in Rome, where he will celebrate the Sunday Mass.

ANGELUS TODAY



Pope starts weeklong
annual Lenten retreat

February 26, 2012



“The season of Lent is a time to renew and strengthen our relationship with God through daily prayer, acts of penance, works of fraternal charity”, said Pope Benedict XVI this Sunday before reciting the midday Angelus prayer with thousands of pilgrims and visitors gathered beneath his study window in St Peter’s Square.

The Pope also asked for the prayers of the faithful in the coming week. Over the next seven days starting Sunday evening, the Pope and cardinals of the Roman Curia begin their Lenten Spiritual Exercises in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.

The theme for the exercises this year is “The communion of the Christian with God," taken from the First Letter of John: "And our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ" (I John 1.3). This year the exercises will be led by Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo.

The exercises begin at 6 p.m. with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Evening Prayer, followed by meditation and adoration and Benediction. In the coming days, morning sessions will include the celebration of Lauds and the Terce , and the afternoon sessions wil conclude with Vespers, adoration and Benediction. The final session will be on Saturday morning, March 3.

The titles of each of the seven days of meditations are: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”; “Communion and Life”; “Communion and Mercy”; “Breach of communion, sin”; “God is love”; “Poverty, Chastity, Obedience and Prayer - The Holy Spirit”; and “Love and Faith.”

Pope Benedict XVI has no public or private appointments for the duration of the spiritual exercises. There will be no general audience this coming Wednesday.

Here is Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father's Angelus message today.

---

Dear brothers and sisters!

On this first Sunday of Lent, we find Jesus, after having received baptism in the River Jordan from John the Baptist (cf. Mk 1.9), tempted in the desert (cf. Mk 1:12-13).

The narrative of St. Mark is concise, devoid of the details that we read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

The desert of which we speak has different meanings. It may indicate the state of abandonment and loneliness, the "place" of man's weakness where there are no supports and certainties, where temptation becomes stronger.

But it may also indicate a place of refuge and shelter, as it was for the people of Israel who escaped from slavery in Egypt, a place where we can experience the presence of God in a special way.

Jesus "remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan" (Mk 1.13). St. Leo the Great says that "the Lord willingly suffered the attack of the tempter to defend us with his help and to teach us by his example" (Tractatus XXXIX, 3 De ieiunio quadragesimae: CCL 138 / A, Turnholti 1973, 214-215).

What can this episode teach us? As we read in the Book of the Imitation of Christ, "as long as he lives, man is never wholly free from temptation... but with patience and true humility we become stronger than any enemy" (Liber I, c. XIII, Vatican City 1982, 37), patience and humility to follow the Lord every day, learning to build our life not outside of Him or as if He did not exist, but in Him and with Him, because He is the source of true life.

The temptation has always been present in human history to remove God, to order our lives and the world on our own, relying solely on our own abilities.

Jesus proclaims that "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk 1.15), He announces that something new happens in Him: God speaks to man in an unexpected way, with a unique and concrete closeness, full of love, God becomes incarnate and enters the world of man to take sin upon himself, to overcome evil and bring man back into the world of God.

But this proclamation is accompanied by a corresponding request for such a great gift. In fact, Jesus adds: "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mk 1.15), it is an invitation to have faith in God and to convert our lives each day to his will, directing all our actions and thoughts towards good. The season of Lent is a time to renew and strengthen our relationship with God through daily prayer, acts of penance, works of fraternal charity.

Let us fervently beseech the Blessed Virgin Mary to accompany us on our Lenten journey with her protection and may She help impress the words of Jesus Christ upon our hearts and in our life, to convert ourselves to Him.

I also commend to your prayers the week of Spiritual Exercises that I begin this evening with my collaborators of the Roman Curia.

After the prayers, he said this for English-speaking pilgrims:

I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims present for this moment of prayer. In these first days of Lent, I invite you to embrace the spirit of this holy season, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

As we do so, may the Lord accompany us, so that, at the end of Lent, we may worthily celebrate his victory on the cross. God bless all of you abundantly!

---

The Pope is more severe with
the Church than his critics are -
and for the right reasons
by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from

February 26, 2012

[La Lettura is the Sunday magazine of Corriere della Sera.]

The Catholic Church is in crisis - so the media loudly proclaim, and the custodians of the temple admit it.

But what is the crisis? There are conflicting opinions among analysts as among the protagonists.

As are the opinions on the chattering of the crows from the Vatican in the past few weeks. Some speak of a crisis of the Christian faith in general. some of the decadence of the historical Church, or of the European Churches, or of t the Church leadership, or of Curial government. The newspaper are focused on the latter. [No news there! The media have an irremediable obsession with the trivial and the seemingly serious, and a chronic aversion for the truly serious.]

We have the curious situation of a Pope who says more about what's wrong with the Church than his own critics, who - like Hans Kueng or the 'We are Church' movement - say that things would never be so bad if only the Church had the courage to undertake some reforms - democratic processes of decision-making, a more active role in the Church for laymen and women; a more positive note in preaching, less preoccupation with the current trends in sexual and bioethical culture, less attachment to the old forms of the Church presence in politics and public life.

They speak of reforms and point to what they call a crisis of leadership and accuse Popes Montini, Luciani, Wojtyla and Ratzinger of scarce fidelity to the innovative spirit of Vatican II.

Those who sustain this thesis argue that in 1967-68, after the first round of Conciliar reforms, fear of internal divisions prevailed among the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican, which led, they claimed, to a halt in the Church's aggiornamento (keeping abreast with The world).

Instead, they claim, the most active components of the Catholic community were de-motivated, leading the Church to a progressive distancing from the vital world of man today.

Pope Benedict XVI however maintains that the crisis is far more profound, and that any changes in organization and preaching would not remedy anything unless there is a widespread renewal of the faith.

He spoke of this in the strongest terms when he addressed the Roman Curia last December 27. a Curia already all fevered up because of internal issues which would come to light a few weeks later by so many leaks of confidential documents. [Here, Accattoli falls into the usual unwarranted generalizing mode of MSM. What 'internal issues' were heating up the Curia in December 2011 that have not been present for decades, only taking different specificities with time, and therefore still assumed, probably quite unfairly, to be present today and tomorrow? And what earth-shaking disclosures have the few miserable leaked documents really brought to light? What catastrophes have they caused? More about this below, because it is a major element of the irrational and mindless Pavlov's-dog reflexes that have been the universal media response to these literally piddling leaks.]

Speaking of Europe, the Pope on that occasion asked his co-workers to observe "how the median age of persons who go to Church regularly is getting more and more old and that their number is diminishing continually, in keeping with the stagnation in vocations to the priesthood, and with how skepticism and disbelief are growing;".

His diagnosis was more severe than the denunciation: "The core of the Church's crisis in Europe is the crisis of faith. If we do not find a response ourselves, if the faith does not recover its vitality, to become a profound conviction and a true force resulting from the encounter with Jesus Christ, all other reforms will be ineffective".

Regarding the speed at which the Christians of Europe are aging, the Pope cited the 'joyous passion for the faith' which had comforted him greatly when he was in Africa last November, and before that, when he was in Madrid for World Youth Day: "Among them (young people and Africans), one could not perceive any sign of the fatigue of faith which has become widespread among us, none of that tedium of being Christian which has always been perceptible among us:.

'The tedium of being Christian': words to memorize. In the encyclical Spe salvi (2007), Benedict XVI, citing a 'prophecy' by Kant, asked whether Europeans still consider Christianity 'worthy of love'.

Tedium and disaffection: these are the two salient points in the theologian Pope's reflection on the de-Crhistianization of Europe. Few, I think, can have a more acute sense than he does of the crisis of faith.

Thus, this is the Benedettian concept: a reform of the Church through a recovery of faith. A recovery to be realized "through an encounter with Christ" - in prayer, penitence, conversion.

That is why he decreed a Year of Faith which begins in October on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Also in October, a Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization - that is, on the need to re-evangelize the European nations which had been among the first to be Christianized.

The German Pope's confidence in the "new way of being Christian' shown by young people and African Catholics is singular. He knows that the continent which has the largest number of churchgoing Catholics today is Africa, and he knows the projections by scholars that in 20-25 years, the number of African Catholics will surpass those of Europe.

He also knows that even today, the greatest number of 'active' Christians in the world are no longer those who belong to the historic churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Reformation Protestant) but to the pentecostal churches, or free churches, or non-denominational Christian churches .

His 'impolitic' reaction to the crisis leads him to look at enthusiastic, vital and charismatic forms of living the faith, such as that of young people and Africans.

It is a surprising development in a man who is so rational. But that which is surprising deserves to be understood.




Some reflections on mindless
media hype of Vatileaks, etc

The cacophonous chorus in the media - and therefore in public opinion - of Chicken-Little sky-is-falling reactions to Vatileaks is truly appalling because it seems so mindless. And because everyone is indulging in it, including names like Luigi Accattoli and Andrea Tornielli.

Haven't the Vaticanistas themselves all these past few decades accustomed the public to think of the Vatican as a perennially simmering devil's brew of career rivalries, petty intrigues and other unspecified irregularities and unspeakable acts, leaving the public to imagine the worst they can?

Surely, what the public has been imagining all these years about 'resident wickedness in the Vatican' is far more lurid and catastrophic than what these pathetic documents have revealed.

C'mon! Over-priced contracts, absurdly petty backbiting and backstabbing, as Mons. Vigano claims (even as he practices it himself); a loony anonymous memorandum whose principal purpose seems to be to trigger an open and unseemly premature war for the papal succession; and an exchange of documents expressing reasonable reservations about some provisions of anti-money-laundering regulations? That's what all this 'scandal' has amounted to so far.

The entire community of Dan Brown clones churning out their potboilers about unimaginable depths of Satanic evil in the Vatican must be splitting their sides laughing at the puniness of these allegations - which all of MSM as well as the Catholic media are blowing way beyond proportion! And let no one sanctimoniously claim 'it's the principle of the thing', not the actual magnitude (or lack thereof) of the alleged offenses/crimes/sins.

NO! Perspective matters too. Proportion matters. There is no Banco Ambrosiano scandal here that cost the Vatican $250 million to reinmburse bank clients who lost their funds in the bank collapse. No one has hanged himself from London's Blackfriars Bridge or in a jail cell over anything in Vatileaks. No Swiss Guard love triangle homicide-suicide. No innocent teenager abducted by the Mafia or Eastern European spy services to leverage the release of a would-be assassin.

The only assassinations committed so far have been character assassinations, and surely that exquisite black art was not invented in the Ratzinger Pontificate! Far worse slanders than those in Vatileaks were universally perpetrated against the person of the Holy Father himself in that hateful and hate-filled spring of 2010.

So please, can everyone - Vaticanistas first of all -just sit back and consider rationally how much ado about nothing this tragicomedy of errors constitutes? If the 'scandalized' media were really scandalized,
- They ought to have exposed and named the officials who awarded the overpriced contracts at the Governatorate, so they can be properly investigated and disciplined.
- They should have insisted that Vigano reveal exactly what corruption took place, since he threw the word around but did not substantiate it - did anyone get kickbacks or otherwise profit materially from all the cronyism, and who were they?
-- They could have done investigative work on the RAI executive whom Vigano names as a scurrilous and disreputable lay henchman, in effect, of Cardinal Bertone.
- They should have checked out Vigano's claims that Mons. Paolo Nicolini falsified invoices and had cash shortfalls when he worked at the Lateran University.
- They should have asked for the formal report of the internal Vatican inquiry that did investigate Vigano's accusations and concluded they were unfounded. (It wouldn't have hurt the 'accused' since their names and alleged offenses were already disclosed by Vigano, and the findings exonerating them or failing to establish their culpability would have been good for them.)

They did none of that. If such allegations by an inside source had been made about Italian government officials, verification checks would have been carried out promptly and energetically by the media. But because the accusations involve Vatican officials, everyone in media is willing to just accept Vigano's accusations as fact and take his letters as sufficient evidence for his allegations.

What's the worse that has happened to anyone here? A man who desperately wanted to become a cardinal more than anything else will probably never get to be one. Cardinal Bertone may find it even more difficult to get his act together and clean house in the Secretariat of State.

Oh, but think of the damage to the image of the Church, you might say! Get real! They'll pile up on her, anyway, with or without Vatileaks. The entire catalog of evil, human and subhuman, is already imputed to her. MSM would have easily found some other pretext to start a next round in their determined campaign to sink the Barque of Peter and topple the Rock.

And the Church is not going to lose more 'faithless' because of this - they already dropped out long ago. They have to be re-evangelized in any case, or given up as good riddance.

So, enough already with the pretend hand-wringing and faux outrage over 'the revelations of Vatileaks'. There is still no there there, and no one in MSM can get out of the herd mentality enough to say so. Or prove with facts that there is something here other than the customary dose of human fallibility and sinfulness that afflicts all of us.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/02/2012 17:19]

Here's someone - the first one, I believe - who has a clearsignted view of the fundamental dishonesty that underlies all the media stories and misguided commentary that have helped spin a dense web of public suspicion around the Vatican (and by implication, the Church and the Pope)....


Does the Vatican need
a Freedom of Information Act?
Opening up would be the best way to tackle
tedious but popular conspiracy theories around
By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

27 February 2012

Does the Vatican need a Freedom of Information Act? The Act supposedly gives us British citizens the right to know what information the government is holding about us, or indeed about other matters, with certain safeguards. [The US has a similar Act.]

It does have its disadvantages, I suppose: time-wasters can make a lot of work for civil servants in this way; however, freedom of information does mean that government is held accountable to the people, and it does help do away with the culture of secrecy that often seems to attach itself to government.

But why might the Vatican need to embrace a Freedom of Information Act? I can think of several reasons.

First of all, the current “Vati-leaks” scandal. According to this recent headline, the supposed whistleblower claims that the Vatican is “ruled by [an] ‘omerta’ code of silence”. This sort of language, which equates the chief organs of Church government with a criminal conspiracy, is pretty maddening for normal Catholics like myself. But if there were freedom of information, it would be much harder to claim that the Vatican was addicted to cover-up.

Then there is the matter of the Vatican refusing to release the secret files it holds on paedophile priests. You know 'the secret files'? The trouble with these secret files, which are often mentioned in internet comments, is that they are secret, and as such, may not exist at all.

Freedom of information requests, I assume, have to be specific; and a freedom of information act would mean an end to this misleading insinuation that the Vatican is sitting on mountains of information which may not, in fact, exist. [In other words, if you have to specify the documents you are requesting, as the petitioner must do in teh USA, then you can't use the Freedom of Information Act to go on a fishing expedition and simply describe these documents in generic, non-specific terms (as SNAP and Vatican-baiting lawyers do).]

If this were not enough, there is the endless stream of newspaper articles dealing with the Vatican’s refusal to release more supposed secret archives which someohow or another will reveal the truth about Pope Pius XII, the Nazis and the Second World War.

The trouble is that the Vatican secret archives are not really secret. They have been the subject of an exhibition (hardly the best way to keep a secret, I would have thought) and they are regularly opened to scholars who are doing research.

Disappointingly for conspiracy theorists, Wikipedia describes the Secret Archives as follows:

---

The use of the word “secret” in the title “Vatican Secret Archives” does not denote the modern meaning of confidentiality. Instead, it indicates that the archives are the Pope’s personal property, not belonging to those of any particular department of the Roman Curia or the Holy See. The word “secret” was generally used in this sense as also reflected in phrases such as “secret servants”, “secret cupbearer”, “secret carver”, much like an esteemed position of honor and regard comparable to a VIP.

---

In fact, credit where credit is due, the Vatican is a fairly transparent organisation considering most of its employees are Italians, and that Italy does not have a long tradition of public accountability.

Moreover, most Italians are less than enamoured of the supposed right of the public to know what they consider, with some justification, none of their concern. True, Italian has no word for privacy; but it does have numerous phrases, some of them rather robust, meaning the equivalent of “Mind your own business.” [The mildest literally says 'Get your butt out!"]

Even if transparency became the order of the day, and every request for information was answered fully and thoroughly, this might be no guarantee against the numerous conspiracy theories that are a staple of Italian life, and which have been popularised in the Anglophone world by people like Dan Brown.

Take the case of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage girl who disappeared in Rome in 1982. (There is a good Wikipedia summary in English). Reading the accounts, and given that witnesses saw the teenage girl get into a man’s car, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the 15 year old was the victim of a sex attacker who murdered her.

But because she was the daughter of a minor Vatican official and had, most unusually, a Vatican passport, her tragic disappearance has been spun into part of a huge web of intrigue, and numerous suppositions, some by people who have had no first hand knowledge of the affair, and who were in one case clearly mentally ill, have been allowed the status of quasi-unchallenged facts.

Given that so simple and tragic a case can become so bloated a tissue of monstrous supposition, and still exert its hold thirty years later, what hope is there that anyone will ever believe the Vatican, even when they tell the truth?

Monday, February 27, First Week of Lent

Today is the 150th anniversary of the saint's death and is being marked
with a year of commemoration at his shrine and burial place in the monastery of Gran Sasso.
ST. GABRIELE DELL'ADDOLORATA (St Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows), (Italy, 1838-1862)
Passionist seminarian, Patron of Young People
Francesco Possenti was the 11th of 13 children born to a well-off family in Assisi who later moved to Spoleto. From childhood, he was known for his piety and charity but he also eNjoyed the social scene, partying and girl friends. At least three times when his life was in danger (twice from illness and once when hit by a stray bullet while hunting), he promised to enter the religious life but did not. A number of family tragedies ending with the death of a sister from cholera finally pushed him into carrying out his promise, aided by a brother who was a Dominican friar. At age 18, he joined the Passionist order where he took the name Gabriele dell'Addolorata. However, he contracted tuberculosis and died before he could be ordained a priest. In the monastery of Gran Sasso, he was known for his joyful spirit, even after he fell ill. He was a perfect follower of the Passionist rule, and was an example to his fellow students, for his excellence in studies as well as for his spiritual life. He has left writings documenting his spiritual progress. Soon after his death, his fame for sanctity quickly spread among the people of the Abruzzo and among the Passionists. In 1891, his order initiated his cause for canonization. Present at his beatification in 1908 were one of his brothers, his Passionist spiritual director. and his closest friend at the monastery. He was canonized in 1920 and declared patron of Young People. His cult was particularly strong among the Italians who migrated to the United States in the early part of the 20th entury.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022712.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father is on retreat (Day 2).

The Vatican released a communique on the 12th Council meeting of the General Secretariat of the Bishops' Synod
which reviewed a draft of the proposed Instrumentum laboris, or working agenda for the XIII Ordinary
Synodal Assembly to be held at the Vatican next October, called by Benedict XVI to propose concrete measures
on the New Evangelization.


No OR today.

Benedict XVI's revolution
Translated from


February 27, 2012

Rarely in the mass media is there any mention of the 'revolutionary' import of this Pontificate.

But in the bimillennial history of the Church, this Pontificate will be remembered as that of the return to the roots of the Faith - to the Ten Commandments and to the Gospel.

In short, simple words, dense with significance, that find a profound echo in the hearts of men, in any time.

Bo not steal. Do not kill. Precepts that everyone can accept and make his own regardless of his cultural and social affiliations.

Joseph Ratzinger, besides being the 265th Pope, will pass into history as one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. As an academic and writer, the theologian-pastor-Pope has dedicated all his life to theology and preaching.

It is therefore highly significant that Benedict XVI has decreed a Year of Faith.

Today, the Holy See issued a clear-sounding note from the Secretariat of the Bishops' Synod on the most recent Synodal Council meeting preparatory to the Synodal Assembly at the Vatican next October.

Its contents have a pure Ratzingerian ring and constitute almost a 'mea culpa' from the universal Church for having focused its evangelizing mission on a premise that has been too intellectual and ever less evangelically understandable to the faithful.

And that is why the mission should start from the basics: the Ten Commandments and the Gospel. An appeal that is also an invitation to conversion, at a time when the Roman Curia appears beset by conflicts among rival groups and perceived financial scandals.

The Synod document today denounces "the unproductiveness of current evangelization, especially in the presence of influences from the current dominant culture which make transmission of the faith particularly difficult and also represent at a challenge to Christians and the Church".

In short, the crisis of the faith which so concerns the Catholic Church is also "a crisis in the transmission of the faith itself".

In this regard, the Year of Faith will be "a propitious occasion to examine more deeply the gift of faith received from the Lord,to be lived and transmitted to others".

And "the first place for the transmission of the faith should be the family, where the faith is communicated to the children who, within the family, should learn both the contents of the Christian faith as well as its practice".

Galeazzi joins a handful of Italian commentators who have, at one time or other, pointed out the quiet revolution that Benedict XVI is carrying out - among them, Sandro Magister, Mssimo Introvigne. Andrea Tornielli, Luigi Accattoli and Giuliano Ferrara. Those attentive to the constant, consistent and cumulative effect of the daily words and actions - spontaneous but also consciously (and perhaps subconsciously) directed at fulfilling Joseph Ratzinger's lifelong ministry as a priest, now magnified unimaginably by his Petrine ministry: to bring God to all men, and all men to God...

And if few have recognized, much less acknowledged, what he has done and sought to do in the past seven years, perhaps it is because his ways are simple, unspectacular, non-theatrical, low-key - everything that is bound to be easily overlooked and grossly undervalued in an age of show-and-tell, of image above substance, of abracadabra and smoke-and-mirrors, of relentless self-promotion...

Since he is Joseph Ratzinger, everything we have come to know about him says he does not care that the messenger is overlooked and undervalued - he does not need to be validated by others, only by his Lord - as long as his message hits home. God bless the Church, the Pope, his bishops and all his priests that they may work tirelessly, joyously and effectively to bring God and his message of love and salvation to the world today...

Here is the communique today from the Bishops' Synod:




Communique on the seventh meeting
of the XII Ordinary Council of the Bishops' Synod
Translated from

February 27, 2012

---

The theme of the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod, which will take place on October 7-26, 2012, at the Vatican, is "The new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith".

It is a theme that, in a certain sense, has its precedent in the Ordinary General Assembly In September37-October 26, 1984 on the evangelization of the modern world.

This was recalled by the Secretary-General of the Synod, Mons. Nikola Eterović, in his opening remarks at the seventh meeting of the XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat. It is not just a chronological and thematic coincidence, but rather a sign of continuity in the Church's concern to preach the Gospel.

For this reason, the Cburch will find valuable suggestions for her mission in the world today from the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nunziandi after that 1974 Assembly.

Those who took part in the Council meeting were: Cardinal Francis Arinze, emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (Vatican City); Cardinal Francis Eugene George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago; Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (Vatican City); Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (Vatican City); Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, S.D.B., emeritus Bishop of Hong Kong (China(; Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paolo (Brazil); Cardinal Walter Kasper, emeritus President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Mons. Thomas Menamparampil, S.D.B., emeritus Archbishop of Gujahati (India); Mons. Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin (Ireland); Mons. Mark Benedict Coleridge, Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn (Australia); and Mons. Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Archbishop of Manila (Philippines).

Unable to participate due to prior commitments in their respective home dioceses were Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (Honduras) and president of the Honduran bishops; conference;; Mons. Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo); and Mons. Florentin Crihălmeanu, Bishop of Cluj-Gherla, Claudiopoli-Armenopoli of the Romanians (Romania).

Also attending were the General Moderatpr and Secretary General, respectively, of the XIII Synodal Assembly, Cardinal Donald William Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.. and Mons. Pierre-Marie Carré, Archbishop of Montpellier (France); along with Mons. Salvatore Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization (Vatican City).

The primary item on the agenda was examining the draft of the Instrumentum laboris for the coming General Assembly, a text that had been sent to the Council members previously for review. This allowed the Council to finish its work on February 16, and for its cardinal members to take part in the pre-consistory assembly of the College of Cardinals with Pope Benedict XVI the following day, February 17.

There was a discussion first among all the Council members and then among members of the Italian and English working groups. Their conclusions were then presented to the final plenary session of the Council.

The parts of the draft that drew the most attention were those regarding the general literary structure of the text, and the addition of themes like the identity of those to whom the new evangelization is addressed, as well as the identity of the Christian in his relation to the Gospel and with Jesus Christ who is the Gospel himself.

Especially productive was the discussion about the primacy of faith in the present historical moment marked by a crisis of faith, which is also a crisis in the transmission of the faith.

They spoke about the "unproductiveness of present evangelization" in the face of influences from the dominant culture which make the transmission of the faith particularly difficult and represent a challenge for Christians and for the Church.

In this regard, the convocation of a Year of Faith will be a propitious occasion to study more deeply the gift of faith received from the Lord to be lived and transmitted to others.

The first place for the transmission of the faith is the family, where faith is communicated to children, who learn in their family experience both the content as well as the practice of Christian faith.

The irreplaceable work of the family is extended by catecheses received from ecclesial institutions, especially through liturgy, the sacraments and homilies; or through parochial missions, popular piety, ecclesial movements, and local Church communities.

The Secretary-General thanked the Council members, who had been elected during the XII General Synodal Assembly, for their work that demonstrated episcopal collegiality and for their indispensable collaboration with the Synod's Secretariat. in the context of their service to the ministry of the Holy Father Benedict XVI.

Recital of the Angelus ended the session, with an invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, Star of Evangelization, so that teh work of the coming Synod may be productive in fitting observance of the Second Vatican Council and in faithfulness to the Gospel in transmitting the faith.

---

Secularist attacks on Catholic faith get worse,
on both sides of the Atlantic:
In the UK, it's the trade unions, in the US
(where at least there’s a fightback), it’s Obama
Now, Mother Angelica has drawn her sword: watch out!


By William Oddie

Monday, 27 February 2012

The gulf widens, between the secular culture and the Catholic faith: and as it does so, committed secularists are becoming more and more inclined (especially where some aspect of Catholic belief to do with sexuality or “sexual identity” is concerned) aggressively to attack the faith and – where the secular law can plausibly be invoked – attempt to have this aspect of faith declared actually illegal.

I have two current stories, one on either side of the great pond. On this side of the Atlantic, no less a person than Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), has written to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, complaining that a booklet containing “homophobic material” had been distributed at Roman Catholic schools in the Lancaster diocese.

The booklet concerned – “Pure Manhood: How to become the man God wants you to be” by the American Catholic apologist Jason Evert, who spoke recently in Catholic schools throughout the diocese promoting chastity in accordance with Church teaching – claims that “scientifically speaking, safe sex is a joke” (this is true: condoms rupture: all that can be claimed is that sex using condoms is “safer”).

The booklet also expounds what you may find explained in any number of Catholic books and document including the Catechism of the Catholic Church (does Mr Barber want to ban teaching from that in schools, I wonder?) – that “the homosexual act is disordered, much like contraceptive sex between heterosexuals. Both acts are directed against God’s natural purpose for sex – babies and bonding.”

Invoking the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination against individuals, Barber wrote to Mr Gove in December insisting that “schools now have a legal duty to challenge all forms of prejudice. Such literature undermines this completely.”

Michael Gove replied: “The education provisions of the Equality Act 2010 which prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their protected characteristics (including their sexual orientation) do not extend to the content of the curriculum. Any materials used in sex and relationship education lessons, therefore, will not be subject to the discrimination provisions of the act.”

So, for the time being, our schools are safe from the likes of Mr Barber. But we have not heard the end of this one. One day, there will be another Labour government: and those who remember Ed Balls’s appalling Education Bill, (which would have required Catholic schools to teach children how to “access” contraception and abortion) – a Bill which fell at the election, having been opposed by the Tories but, shamefully, not by our own bishops – will not be confident that we are safe for the future.

Those who form public opinion in these areas are already sharpening their knives. The quangocrat Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said that religious rules should be left “at the door of the temple” and that religious institutions should give way to the “public law” laid down by Parliament. [NB: I've never come across the word 'quangocrat' before. It turns out it's from the acronym for 'quasi-autonomous non-government organization' a quintessentially UN term, and quangocrats are the bureaucrats who staff those QUANGOs.]

“Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules,” he said, “then it has to go with public law.”

The latest American secularist onslaught against the Church, of course, is Obama’s recent edict that under his administration’s healthcare reform any provider of health care (including Catholic institutions) must be prepared to supply artificial contraception (including drugs which, though labelled contraceptive, are in fact abortifacient).

I have recently written about this more than once. I now do so again to bring up to date anyone who has missed it, with one particular skirmish in the US Catholic fightback, that led by the redoubtable (and entirely admirable) Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN, who is now taking the fight against Obama to the courts.

You will remember that Obama tried to pacify Catholic resistance by saying that it won’t now be the Catholic institution involved who has to provide contraception: it will be their insurers. Yes, but who pays the insurer? It just won’t wash.

Michael Warsaw, the chief executive officer of EWTN, was allowed an opinion piece slot in the New York Times to explain why EWTN was going to fight this in the courts on constitutional grounds:

---

Earlier this month, in response to widespread opposition to the mandate, the president announced an “accommodation” for some religious organisations – like, potentially, EWTN – that would shift the responsibility for the coverage from the employer to the employer’s insurance carrier.

But this would do nothing to solve the problem. First, EWTN self-
insures, so we are the insurer. Second, even if we had an outside insurer, we would still be in the untenable position of facilitating access to drugs that go against our beliefs. And if we refused to comply with the directive, we could be hit with annual fines starting at around $600,000.

The administration’s supporters say that by opposing the rule, religious employers like EWTN are guilty of trying to coerce our employees and impose our values on them. But we are simply choosing not to participate in the use of these drugs. Our 350 employees, many of whom are not Catholic, freely choose to work here and can purchase and use contraception if they want to….

Instead, it is the government – which does not accept EWTN’s religious choice and can punish that choice by imposing fines – that is coercing us.

But under the Constitution and federal religious liberties law, we cannot be forced to give up our beliefs as the price of participation in the public square. That is why the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has filed a lawsuit on our behalf seeking to overturn this illegal mandate.

---

Watch this space, and how. This one is going to run and run. And with a bit of luck, Obama is going to lose. I have an interest to declare here: I have more than once appeared on EWTN and been deeply impressed by the whole dynamic set up. It’s from institutions like this that the renewal and future growth of the Catholic Church will come, and I don’t just mean in the US.

And now this splendid institution has declared war on the President. Mother Angelica versus Barack Obama: an epic struggle, or what? And this isn’t just a battle for the survival of a particular Catholic institution. It’s a battle for the faith against everything that is corrupt and bullying in the modern world.

We mustn’t just hope that EWTN wins; we must earnestly pray for it; for, this is our battle too.



And say a prayer, too, for the one and only Mother Angelica, who turns 89 this month. It is an absolute delight to catch her any time of day or night on EWTN speaking her mind timelessly, at various phases of her storied 'reign' at EWTN, with common sense. unfailing humor and solid faith.

When the full story of 20th-century communications is told, this remarkable nun will stand out head and shoulders above everyone as its most influential and inspirational communications mogul-star, man or woman, lay or religious. For pioneering EWTN alone, she already has a unique niche in history, let alone for what she has done with it! And founding a congregation for priests and for nuns, and building a church, a shrine and a monastery. On top of which, she will probably be proposed for sainthood eventually...

This item tells us nothing we have not already read before but it's a chance to re-post some special photos...

Teddy bears and tabernacles:
the Pope's childhood,
told by his brother



Perhaps one of the most endearing photos of Cardinal Ratzinger, sitting next to a teddy bear that seems to be wearing a pectoral cross. It's not hard to imagine a teddy bear or two perched on a papal couch in the Apostolic Palace.

ROME, Feb. 27 (CNS) -- Recounting their rural Bavarian childhood and subsequent lifelong friendship, the elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI offers a privileged look at the personal side of the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics.

"My Brother the Pope," scheduled for publication March 1 by Ignatius Press, is based on interviews with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger by German writer Michael Hesemann and was originally published in German last year.

Joseph, the future Pope Benedict, was "very slight and delicate" at birth, Msgr. Ratzinger says, and was "often sick" as an infant, with diphtheria among other ailments. Later on, Joseph's favorite toys were stuffed animals, and he was particularly attached to a pair of teddy bears.


Center photo is a pair of miniature cruets the Ratzinger boys used in their play Masses.

Msgr. Ratzinger describes family life with their parents and older sister Maria as free of any overt conflict, "since each one settled that himself and with God in personal prayer. We did not talk about such things. ... Such problems became a part of our prayer."

Glimpses of the boys' destinies came early on.

When a cardinal visited their small town in 1931, arriving in a black limousine, 4-year-old Joseph exclaimed, "I'll be a cardinal someday!" Nevertheless, Msgr. Ratzinger says, his brother was never ambitious, and external honors have been "always unwelcome" to him.

"My brother was somewhat better behaved than I," Msgr. Ratzinger says, yet he recounts a boyhood prank in which the two tricked a local farmer into losing track of his oxcart.

Recreation of a more edifying sort came when the boys played at being priests, using a toy altar made for them by an uncle.

"It was a really beautiful high altar, which he even equipped with a rotating tabernacle," Msgr. Ratzinger recalls. "Naturally we used water instead of wine for the make-believe consecration."


Notice the two tiny stuffed animals on the right on top of the piano - both are wearing a cardinal's biretta.

The future Pope Benedict, now a proficient amateur pianist and lover of Mozart, "did not take to music quite as spontaneously as I did," says Msgr. Ratzinger, who went on to become the choirmaster of the Regensburg, Germany, cathedral. His brother "was a little more restrained, although he is a very musical person," Msgr. Ratzinger says.

Recounting Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Germany, Msgr. Ratzinger says that their father regarded the dictator as the "Antichrist" and refused to join the Nazi party.

"But so as not to put our family completely at risk, he advised Mother to join the women's organization," Msgr. Ratzinger says, noting that the women "did not talk about Hitler but instead exchanged recipes, chatted about their gardens, and sometimes even prayed the rosary together."

It was only reluctantly that the two boys obeyed requirements to join the Hitler Youth and later served in the German military during World War II, Msgr. Ratzinger says. The pope's brother was present at the Allied bombardment of the monastery on Monte Cassino, Italy, in 1944.

Msgr. Ratzinger recounts anecdotes about their time together as adults: watching a German television series about a police dog named "Inspector Rex" and dividing tasks in the kitchen -- the monsignor washing dishes while his brother, by then a cardinal, drying.

In 2005, after the death of Blessed John Paul II, Msgr. Ratzinger was sure that his brother was too old to be elected pope. When he heard the new pontiff's name pronounced on live television, he admits that he was "disheartened."

"It was a great challenge, an enormous task for him, I thought, and I was seriously worried," Msgr. Ratzinger says.

The pope later confided that his election had "struck him like a bolt of lightning," Msgr. Ratzinger says.

Readers get a glimpse inside the papal household as Msgr. Ratzinger describes his brother's daily routine. On Tuesdays, for example, Pope Benedict listens to tape recordings and practices his pronunciation of the remarks in foreign languages that he will make at the next day's general audience.

Msgr. Ratzinger says that his brother has not been indifferent to the many criticisms that he has received during his career, as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as pope.

Pope Benedict is "personally very sensitive, but he also knows from which corner these attacks come and the reason for them, what is usually behind them," Msgr. Ratzinger says. "That way he overcomes it more easily, he rises above it more simply."


CNS exclusive excerpt:
Msgr. Ratzinger discusses
the Pope's routine


VATICAN CITY, Feb. 27 (CNS) -- Here is an exclusive excerpt from the English translation of "My Brother, the Pope" by Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, which will be released March 1 by Ignatius Press.

The book, originally published in German, takes the form of an interview, along with editorial commentary, by co-author Michael Hesemann.

---

How do you address him then?
I call him Joseph, of course; anything else would be abnormal!

Does he suffer intensely from the many attacks from the media also?
He is personally very sensitive, but he also knows from which corner these attacks come and the reason for them, what is usually behind them. That way he overcomes it more easily, he rises above it more simply. It is nevertheless true, too, that he most often meets with a lot of sympathy, again and again and wherever he goes.

Can you reveal to us his greatest wish?
Well, I really cannot mention one single specific wish. He simply hopes that he succeeds in completing his task as well as possible, that from the human side he can contribute his part to what the Holy Spirit is working from above.

In your view, what are the focal points of his pontificate?
The focal points result from particular situations to which he reacts, and therefore they are more reactive than active. But he is, of course, very concerned that the liturgy should be celebrated worthily and that it be celebrated correctly. Indeed, that is a genuine problem.

Our diocesan music director recently said that it is by no means easy nowadays to find a church where the pastor celebrates his Mass according to the regulations of the Church. There are so many priests who think they have to add something here and change something there. So my brother wants an orderly, good liturgy that moves people interiorly and is understood as a call from God.

Do you see continuity between the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, or is your brother focusing on different matters?
You cannot say that, because to a great extent pontificates are not defined by the will of the Pope but, rather, are reactions and responses to the events of their time. Of course, the events of our time manifest a certain degree of continuity; there are no major leaps or breaks but, rather, problems that develop continuously over the decades.

No doubt, John Paul II took his inspiration from my brother in many areas and, of course, was in ongoing contact with him; he set great store by his judgment. In that regard, then, there is a certain similarity, and the two pontificates do not differ in essential points.

What does the Pope's normal daily routine look like?
Now, I do not know what all is supposed to be confidential, but I think I can speak about this. Early in the morning around 7, he celebrates holy Mass in his private chapel, and afterward he makes a short meditation and, finally, prays the breviary until breakfast at around 8. Until then, we are together, when I happen to be visiting him; then we say goodbye at that point in time, and each goes to his apartment.

Then he prepares for the events of the day, for instance, for the visitors he will receive in a personal audience: Who are they and what is their concern or the request they come to make? That, of course, requires a thorough preparation and an equally careful follow-up.

On Tuesdays, there is also the preparation for the large audience on Wednesday morning. For example, he has to practice the pronunciation of the foreign languages in which he will greet the pilgrims and the pilgrimage groups -- of course, he does not speak them all fluently. For this purpose, he listens to the correct pronunciation on a tape and then practices it, so as to avoid making big mistakes and to be understood correctly.

At 1:15 p.m. on weekdays, the midday meal is served -- on Sunday, earlier at 1 -- and afterward, he takes a short walk through the garden on the roof of the Apostolic Palace, because "Post coenam stabis vel passus mille meabis" (After eating you should rest, or else walk a thousand steps).

Then comes the siesta, but he does not use the whole siesta time to rest; instead, he also writes letters and postcards and reads all sorts of things. I get the impression, in any case, that he works for part of the siesta time.

In the summer, we always pray the breviary at around 4 in the afternoon, while at 5 he takes a walk either in the Vatican Gardens or the garden of Castel Gandolfo, during which he prays the rosary together with his secretary, Msgr. Georg Ganswein. In the winter, on the other hand, when it gets dark early, this walk takes place at 4. Toward 6, the regularly scheduled audiences are held [his regular meetings with the Secretary of State and his deputies].

In the morning, there are the private audiences, in which he receives most importantly the bishops who come from abroad and heads of state, and so on, while the afternoon is reserved for the regularly scheduled audiences in which the heads of the various curial offices give their reports and offer suggestions in matters in which the Pope must make a decision.

The evening meal is at 7:30; at 8 he watches the news. At around 8:30, he takes another short walk on the roof or, in the winter, in the corridors of the house. Afterward, compline, the night prayer of the Church, is prayed, and with that his work day actually ends. Usually we sit down in the living room and talk for a while.

Do you also watch television together? Does the Holy Father have a favorite program?
Well, before the news, there used to be a television series "Inspector Rex." We always used to watch it, because we like dogs, too. [It's a very entertaining police detective series, in which the dog Rex plays an important role in helping solve the cases. I had a chance to watch it during the months I lived in Vienna.]

We are well acquainted with Herr Helmut Brossmann, the owner of the German shepherd Rex who plays the title role. He lives in the vicinity of Regensburg; he is also the manager of the Kastelruther Spatzen or the Augsburg Puppenkiste. He has even organized a few events for the Domspatzen. He is originally from the Sudetenland and converted to the Catholic faith a few years ago. A canon from the "Old Chapel" instructed him, and I was his confirmation sponsor.

He is a great animal lover, and besides breeding German shepherds, including both of the dogs who portrayed "Rex," he has a whole zoo; furthermore, he is co-owner of the famous kennel that breeds Saint Bernards at the Great Saint Bernard Pass in the Alps.

Other than that, my brother rarely watches television, at most a video film once in awhile that is related in some way to the Vatican or to a forthcoming canonization or beatification.

It is said that he reads aloud to you from the breviary since your vision is no longer very good, while you play music for him ...
That is right; he prays the breviary aloud: after Mass in the morning, vespers in the afternoon, and compline in the evening, because I can no longer pray them alone.

In the evening, before we go to sleep, he sometimes asks me to play a song for him. Then I play for him on the piano a hymn or a folk song, for instance, "Im schonsten Wiesengrund," or night songs like "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" or "Adieu zur guten Nacht," just very simple things. In Advent or the Christmas season, of course, I play Christmas carols instead, whatever suits the occasion.

Does he go to bed rather early?
Yes, actually after the evening meal he does not work anymore; that was always the case. He can concentrate phenomenally throughout the day and works very quickly and efficiently. But he is not at all someone who works at night.

What does it mean for you to be "the Pope's brother" now?
Ah, personally, little has changed; more externally than interiorly. It is true, of course, that I am suddenly interesting to many people for whom I was previously nobody important. So I get many phone calls, from the press and other media, too; people often visit me, and I have been able to establish contacts that I did not have before. At first this led to a certain unrest in my life but, fortunately, that has gradually ebbed away.

Otherwise, I must admit, not much has actually changed in my relationship with my brother, either. Only in prayer, then you present entirely different concerns to the dear Lord now. But still, the personal relationship has remained the same.

---

Tuesday, February 28, First Week of Lent

Panel shows the African Memorial Cathedral of Dakar, Senegal.
BLESSED DANIEL BROTTIER (France, 1876-1936), Spiritan Priest, Missionary, Wartime Chaplain, Worker of Charity
Daniel was ordained a diocesan priest in 1899 and started out as a teacher, but four years later, he joined the Congregation
of the Holy Spirit (CSSp) in order to serve as a missionary in Africa. He served in Senegal for eight years but had to return
to France due to poor health. However, he started to raise funds to build a cathedral for Dakar to honor Africans who had died
for France. [In fact, the cathedral was inaugurated just four weeks before he died in 1936, but he was too sick to attend]. In
1914, he volunteered to be a chaplain on the battlefronts, where he served the wounded and the dying for 52 months. He would
attribute his survival to St. Therese of Lisieux, in whose honor he built a chapel in Auteuil, the Paris suburb where he spent
the last 10 years of his life, which he dedicated to a foundation for orphans and abandoned children which continues flourish
today. Less than 50 years after his death, Fr. Brottier was beatified by John Paul II in Paris in 1984.
Reading for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022812.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father is on retreat (Day 3).

The Vatican released a joint communique on the third meeting of the Vietnam-Holy See working group
which met in Hanoi Feb. 27-28, aimed at eventual establishment of full diplomatic relations.




- Two new Vati-leaked documents published today by Il Fatto Quotidiano appear to provide a new embarrassment for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The general facts were reported in the Italian media last year - to the effect that Bertone wanted to take control of the Toniolo Institute but failed. The letters provide concrete details of the circumstances.

Is a letter faxed to Cardinal Dionigio Tettamanzi in March last year, when the latter was still Archbishop of Milan, Bertone dismissing him outright (although his term lasts till 2013), in the Pope's name, from the presidency of the Permanent Council of the Board of Directors of the Toniolo Institute, one of the premier commercial institutions run by the Church as a private foundationin Italy. (It owns the Catholic University of Milan, the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, universities in Brescia, Cremona, Piacenza, Rome amd Campobasso, the Vita e Pensiero publishing house in Milan, and other media venntures and cpommercial interests all over Italy.) Bertone also informed Tettmanzi that the Pope had named constitutional lawyer Giovanni Maria Flick, in his place. The second letter, dated two days after Bertone's letter, was Tettamanzi's to Benedict XVI, asking him directly if the Bertone actions were in fact approved or ordered by him. Shortly thereafter, the Pope granted an audience to Cardinal Tettamanzi, and according to Andrea Tornielli's reconstruction last August of Bertone's maneuvers to gain control of the Toniolo, the Pope froze any further action, on the grounds that he had not been given the whole picture previously. See http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/homepage/news/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/4617/ (Tettamanzi was accused of mismanagement by Bertone and his financial advisers in the Roman Curia, but he presented documents to refute the accusations made against him point by point.) Tettamanzi continues to head the Toniolo, and will presumably hand it over to the new Archbishop, Cardinal Scola, when his term expires.

Obviously, the letters made public today appear to be part of the systematic campaign to discredit Bertone and perhaps force the Pope to replace him as Secretary of State. Nonetheless, it raises another question mark about Bertone's 'style' of trying to assert his power.

The letter does not start by saying "His Holiness has asked me to inform you regrettably that..." No, there are several sentences suggesting that Tettamanzi may have stayed too long as President of the Permanent Council (even if his term does not end till 2013), and then, the sentence: "Now that the terms of some members of the Permanent Council have expired, the Holy Father intends to proceed to a renewsl, in connection with which Your Eminence is now relieved of this onerous burden". Rather disingenouous, what?

What's more, from the criterion of elementary decency alone, that is not the kind of letter you write to a brother Cardinal - who was Archbishop of Milan and once the Italian cardinal considered most likely to be elected Pope in 2005 - to dismiss him summarily without prior notice; and to make it worse, to fax him such a letter. (SecState's assistants never heard of scanning a document and then sending it by e-mail to better protect it? Or how about sending it by express messenger delivery?]

It is comparable in its effrontery to his letter to Cardinal Bagnasco right after the latter was elected president of the Italian bishops' conference, to inform him that as of that moment, the Secretariat of State alone would handle political relations with the Italian government - something that the Italian bishops conference had always handled, and quite effectively in the 16 years that Cardinal Camillo Ruini led the CEI. From all accounts, Bagnasco wisely ignored the letter.

Cardinal Bertone has never struck me as other than affable, pleasant and completely worthy of his rank, but a letter such as the one to Tettamanzi makes it easy for his enemies to portray him as ambitious and scheming and not above using underhanded means to advance his plans - which, if minimally true, is unworthy of the Pope's right-hand man. And there must be a rational reason, other than just the Pope's obvious affection, to explain how and why Bertone has been excused by the Holy Father for this unseemly maneuver against Tettamanzi. (After he rescinded another major maneuver attempted by Bertone last autumn - for the Vatican to buy majority control for at least 250-million euros of the vast but financially strapped San Raffaele complex in Milan, after which the Pope asked him to withdraw the bid.) Two major miscalculations hand in hand! What makes Bertone think he's suddenly Donald Trump and Mitt Romney rolled into one - with no prior record of financial management behind him? I can't wait to read what Sandro Magister may have to contribute to this discussion.

PAPAL PROGRAM FOR MILAN
June 1-3, 2012

Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, led a news confernece in Minlan today to announce the program for Benedict XVI's 3-day attendance from June 1-3 at the VII World Encounter of Families which takes place May 29-June 3. The theme is "The Family: Work and Celebration".




The detailed program is published on the website of the VII WEF, but only in Italian. Until I can translate it, here's the s summary, adapted from


The Holy Father will arrive at Milan's Linate airport at 5 p.m. on Friday 1 June, where he will be welcomed by the local authorities.

At 5.30 p.m. he will greet the citizens of Milan from the Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square).

At 7.30 p.m. he will attend a concert in his honor at La Scala opera house.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday 2 June, the Holy Father will celebrate Lauds with priests and religious in Milan Cathedral, and deliver a meditation.

He will then travel by car to San Siro stadium for a meeting with young people who are preparing for Confirmation this year.

In the afternoon, he will deliver an address before the local authorities.

At 8.30 p.m. he will move on to Milan's Parco Nord, site of the World Encounter events, for the Feast of Testimonies, in which some families participating in the Encounter will recount their stories.

On Sunday 3 June, he will preside at a Eucharistic concelebration in Parco Nord beginning at 10 a.m. in Parco Nord.

After praying the Angelus he will return to the archbishopric where, in the afternoon, he will meet with members of the "Milano Famiglie 2012" foundation and with the organisers of his visit.

At 5.30 p.m. the Holy Father will bid farewell to the authorities at Linate airport before boarding his return flight to Rome.

The World Meetings of Families trace their origins back to 1981 when Blessed John Paul II promulgated the Apostolic Exhortation "Familiaris consortio" and established the Pontifical Council for the Family.

The first meeting was held in Rome in 1994 and they have been taking place every three years since then. Their purpose is to celebrate the divine gift of family, to bring families together to pray, and to increase understanding of the role of the Christian family as a domestic Church and the basic cell of evangelisation.

Benedict XVI attended the V Encounter in Valencia, Spain, in July 2005, but skipped the VI Encounter held in Mexico City in January 2009 on his physicians' advice. Mexico City's 12,000-ft altitude would pose a health risk for the octogenarian Pope who has been taking medications for a heart condition since the 1990s.

NB: I believe this will be the first time a Pope will have gone to an opera house - and to attend a performance (though not of an opera).
Daniel Barenboim will conduct the concert.

P.S. 2/28/12 (PM)
CORRECTION to my my wrroneous supoosition above: An article in the Milan edition of La Repubblica says John Paul II came to La Scala in May 1983. And that the program for Benedict XVI in June will feature Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

---

ATTENDANCE OF THE HOLY FATHER

VII WORLD MEETING OF FAMILIES, MILAN

June 1-3, 2012

P R O G R A M

Friday, June 1

17.00 Arrival at Linate airport, Milan
Welcome by the authorities
The Pope travels by car from the airport to Piazza Duomo in the city center.

17.30 GREETING TO THE CITIZENS OF MILAN
Piazza Duomo
- Address by the Holy Father

The Holy Father then proceeds to the Archbishop's Residence.

19.15 Proceed by car to Teatro alla Scala

19.30 CONCERT IN HONOR OF THE HOLY FATHER
Teatro alla Scala

After the concert, he returns by car to the Archbishop's Residence.


Saturday, June 2

09.50 The Holy Father leaves the Archbishop's residence for the Duomo (Cathedral)

10.00 CELEBRATION OF LAUDS
with the priests and religious of the Archdiocese
- Meditation by the Holy Father

After Lauds, the Holy Father proceeds by car to
the Stadio di San Siro (Milan's football stadium)

11.00 MEETING WITH YOUNG PERSONS PREPARING FOR CONFIRMATION
Stadio di San Siro
- Address by the Holy Father

The Pope then returns to the Archbishop's Residence.

17.00 MEETING WITH CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES
Archbishop's Residence
- Address by the Holy Father

20.00 Proceed by car to Milano Parco Nord -Bresso Airport

20.30 MEETING WITH FAMILIES
FEAST OF TESTIMONIALS
Milano Parco Nord-Bresso

21.30 The Pope leaves Milano Parco Nord by car to return to the Archbishop's Residence


Sunday, June 3

09.15 The Holy Father leaves the Archbishop's Residence for Milano Parco Nord

10.00 EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION
Milano Parco Nord-Bresso
- Homily by the Holy Father

12.00 ANGELUS
- Message by the Holy Father

He leaves Milano Parco Nord by car to return to the Archbishop's residence.

16.30 Meeting with members of the Fondazione Milano Famiglie 2012 and
the organizers of the visit
Archbishop's Residence

17.00 He leaves the Archbishop's Residence and proceeds by car to Milan Linate airport.

17.30 The Holy Father bids goodbye to his hosts at the plane steps,
before boarding the plane for Rome

---

Because Tosatti wrote the blog entry below in a very informal manner, the post is not a literal translation of the blog, but summarizes its information and leaves out the circumlocutions.

Pope won't name
new CDF head
till after Easter
Adapted and translated from


It seems Benedict XVI has decided to put off till after Easter his decision on whom he will name to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to succeed Cardinal William Levada, who turned 75 this month and had informed the Pope earlier that he intended to retire upon reaching that milestone.

In recent weeks, the Pope has had a private audience with someone who has been thought a probable candidate to succeed Levada - Mons. Gerhard Mueller, Bishop of Regensburg.

It is a position Mueller would welcome, since he has apparently indicated that the other possibility - to succeed Cardinal Raffaele Farina as Holy Roman Librarian-Archivist - reportedly 'leaves him cold'.

But it is also possible that Mueller may be appointed Archbishop of Mainz, instead, to succeed Cardinal Karl Lehmann, who is suffering from poor health.

It appears that Benedict XVI is seeking an Anglophone cardinal to name to CDF, because the sex abuse problem has been most serious in two English-speaking countries, the United States and Ireland.

What Tosatti does not mention is that last month, AGI's Vaticanista Salvatore Izzo wrote an article in which he states that the Pope will likely name Cardinal Angelo Amato, now Prefect of Saints, has been pegged to succeed Levada. Amato was Cardinal Ratzinger's #2 man at CDF in his last three years at CDF. Izzo wrote this at the time Benedict XVI announced the new cardinals:

---

In fact, his nominations today must be seen from a different angle - that of an 84-year-old Pontiff who wishes to complete the arduous task of putting in place a completely revamped Roman Curia (different from what he inherited) largely made up of people he trusts.

This will become clearer in the near future with the arrival in Rome of the Bishop of Regensburg, Gerard Mueller, to be the new Librarian and Archivist of the Holy Roman Church, and with the changing of the guard at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where Cardinal William Levada, who takes canonical retirement next month, will be succeeded by Cardinal Angelo Amato, who in turn, will be succeeded at the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, now Arch-Priest of St. Peter's Basilica.

In short, Benedict XVI's fourth consistory is principally aimed at reinforcing the administrative heart of the Church, the Roman Curia.

---

[zzo's last point, of course - though fairly obvious to anyone following the Pope's Curial appointments - has somehow been overlooked by everybody else, including all his other his fellow Vaticanistas, who insist on criticizing the Pope's choices for his fourth consistory as being not representative enough and having too many Curial prelates.

ZENIT must be commended for this excellent and quite informative interview.

How 'My Brother, the Pope'
came to be written




PARIS, FEB. 27, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Speaking with Monsignor Georg Ratzinger revealed to Michael Hesemann two critical convictions: There must be 'a family secret' that explains something of the impressive trajectory lived by the two Ratzinger sons; and that Divine Providence laid the foundations for Joseph's path to the See of Peter before he was even born.

Last Friday, ZENIT published an exclusive excerpt from "My Brother, the Pope," Monsignor Georg Ratzinger's story as told to Hesemann. Ignatius Press is releasing the English translation of the book this Thursday. ZENIT asked Hesemann to tell us something of what he learned from his interviews with Monsignor Ratzinger.

Describe your personal experience with Monsignor Ratzinger and the process of transcribing this memoir.
When Benedict XVI was elected and announced he would come to Germany for the World Youth Day in Cologne, I was asked by one of my publishers to write a biography of the new Pope. Since I was only given two weeks for this project, I wasn't able to do any in-depth research, but I had the idea one day to interview the most important witness to the most incredible German career of the 20th century - from a village policeman's son to the spiritual leader of more than one billion Catholics -- his brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger.

Still, it was just an idea and I was sure that sooner or later someone who was much closer to him would do that job and write a book with him. I waited and waited, but nothing happened.

Then, six years later, I gave a workshop on Church history in a monastery near Regensburg, when a lady, representing the "Germany pro Papa" movement, told me she was invited for tea-time at Georg Ratzinger's house, and would I like to join her. Of course I accepted, since I always wanted to meet him.

We had a nice afternoon, obviously the respect was mutual, and having found him a wonderful person and a great story-teller, I frankly asked him if he would be willing to give me an interview. He agreed, even when I elaborated the idea that it could be "maybe for a small book", and asked me to contact him again in the new year, since it was then two weeks before Christmas and he would be flying to visit his brother, the Pope.

We stayed in contact. First, he had to undergo a knee operation, and when he recovered and felt good again, he agreed. So in May 2011, after extensive preparation, I spent a whole week in Regensburg, his home town, meeting him in the mornings and afternoons, recording about 10 hours of a rather long and detailed interview.

I got it transcribed, wrote the book. and met again with him a month later, when I read the manuscript to him in another week-long session. I had to read it aloud, since Monsignor Ratzinger has only 10% vision, due to age-related macular-degeneration (AMD) and could not make written corrections to the manuscript.

After corrections and additions, the manuscript was printed out, before he flew to Rome for another meeting with his brother. We both had agreed to let Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, the Personal Secretary of the Holy Father, have the final verdict. We would publish the book only when he agreed.

By early July I had a very friendly "nihil obstat" from Monsignor Gaenswein, so the book went to press, just in time for the papal visit to Germany in September 2011.

What is the most striking portion of the book from your perspective?
Honestly, what interested me most was the question of whther there is something like a fingerprint of God in the Pope's biography, some indication that divine providence played a role, or did he become the 265th Successor of St. Peter just by chance.

What I found was a "red thread" going through all his life and beginning even further back in the past, long before his birth. His grandparents married in a Pilgrim's Church in Austria, where a century before, the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared on one of the ?church windows. His parents met because his father advertised in the pilgrim's newspaper of Altoetting, the most important Marian sanctuary of Bavaria. He was born on Holy Saturday, was baptized with the newly-consecrated holy water, only five miles away from Altoetting.

And, what is even more important: He never had any personal ambitions after he became a priest. He was happy when he was a chaplain in a Munich parish, before he was called to teach at the seminary in Freising. He was happy to be a professor of theology, when he was called to participate in the Second Vatican Council.

He wanted to teach, live and die in Regensburg; he even built a house there and transferred his parents remains from Traunstein to Regensburg. Then he was made the new archbishop of Munich by Pope Paul VI [though he had spent the past 25 years of his life as a teacher]. When John Paul II called him to Rome, he refused and resisted three times, until the Pope literally ordered him to come. So he was looking forward to his retirement, he wanted to write some more books and see his brother more often, when he was elected Pope - an event he compared, in one of his first speeches, to an execution. In short, he was literally dragged up the career ladder until he reached the position that God has chosen for him!

Were there any parts of the book that it seemed were difficult for Monsignor Ratzinger to reveal?
Well, it was painful for Monsignor Georg to remember the tragic moments in their family life: The death of their beloved parents and their wonderful sister Maria, who literally sacrificed her life for Joseph, her youngest brother. At some moments, he literally had tears in his eyes, when he was deeply moved. It was obvious how much his family means for him.

What do you hope that readers take away from reading My Brother the Pope?
This book is not only an inspiration for young men who are called to the priesthood, but, first of all, a lesson for each and every one of us who lives in a family.

We all know how many families split today, suffer from mistrust, discord, divorce. The Ratzinger family is a model for every family, since it was and still is just based on love and mutual respect. This family was so strong that it overcame all the turbulences of a troubled time, the terror of the Nazis and the brutality of World War II.

They just resisted the "Zeitgeist"; they were obviously immune against the temptations and influences from outside. There is a secret recipe -- you can call it the "Ratzinger family secret" - to understand how they achieved this, and this secret is twofold: their deep faith in God and their deep roots in the Catholic tradition.

In the U.S. you say: "A family that prays together, stays together," and that's exactly what the Ratzingers have proven true. Of course they had all the problems every normal family has, like problems with different temperaments, little fights, worries, etc.

But whatever problem they faced, they solved it in their prayer. They just placed it at the feet of Our Lady, when they prayed the rosary, they called Our Lord and the saints for help, and they received this help and support. Their love of God enriched and strengthened their love for each other; their prayer was their power-source.

By attending the feasts of the Church, they sanctified their daily life, their whole year. And this is something every family can do. We all should re-discover the power of common prayer. We all should return to the Church, once again attend Holy Mass regularly, pay attention to the feasts of the Church calendar.

If we do this, if we indeed learn to pray together, if we spiritualize our family life, there will be no crisis, no fighting, no divorce. Try it! You have my guarantee it works!

This explains the biggest mystery of the Ratzinger family: How does it come about that rather simple parents, a country policeman, a kind of Bavarian sheriff, and a hotel cook, get two sons who are both geniuses in their own right: Georg Ratzinger as a world-famous choir-leader, musician and composer, who toured around the world from Japan to the U.S. with his Regensburger Domspatzen"(Regensburg Cathedral Boys Choir), and Joseph Ratzinger, first the greatest theologian of our time and now the Pope?

Certainly their parents, who belonged to the lower middle-class, were not their main source of intellectual and artistic inspiration, but they guided them to the best, the most inspiring source: the Catholic Church! The beauty, the richness, the spirituality and the teachings of the Church stimulated the minds of both of them and triggered their artistic and intellectual aspirations. What greater gift can parents offer their children than the richness of the Christian faith, the inspiring beauty of our Church?

How have you been impacted by this unprecedented experience?
Honestly, the weeks I was allowed to work with Monsignor Ratzinger on this book belong to the most beautiful ones of my life. I had not only the chance to learn more about the traditions, the richness and beauty of the Bavarian Catholicism (not being Bavarian, but Rhenish myself), but first of all I experienced a man who lives and personifies the best of our Catholic faith.

Georg Ratzinger is one of the most wonderful, warm-hearted, generous, humble and kind persons I have ever been able to meet in my life, and I will always treasure the privilege that I had of meeting him and working with him on this book.

Since I had the honor to meet the Holy Father several times, I can assure you that in this respect they are very similar -- humble, even a little bit shy, kind and warm-hearted.

It is always fascinating to see how the Holy Father unites the simple, down-to-earth rural faith of his childhood with his theological genius in such a harmonic way. This makes him special, even unique.

Benedict XVI is both a man of deep-rooted faith and a brilliant intellectual, one of the greatest minds of our time. After the great missionary John Paul II, the Church needed a teacher, someone who enforces its foundations.

Working on this book helped me to understand him better by learning about his roots, and I am sure my readers will have the same experience. You will understand why he is the right man at the right time for the See of St. Peter, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, indeed, one chosen by Divine Providence.


I was pleasantly surprised and quite impressed that a French publisher came out with the French edition of the book within a month of the original German edition last year.

Wednesday, February 29, First Week of Lent

Panel shows the Cathedral of Worcester which Oswald built.
ST. OSWALD OF WORCESTER (AND YORK) (d 992, England), Bishop and Confessor
A Dane by birth, St. Oswald studied in the household of his uncle, Archbishop Odo of Canterbury, who sent him to France to study. After being ordained a priesT, he returned to England in 959, he was later made Bishop of Worcester (962), by St. Dunstan. In this office, he worked hard to eliminate abuses and built many monasteries, including the famous abbey of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. In 972, St. Oswald became Archbishop of York, although he also retained the See of Worcester in order to promote his monastic reforms which were under attack by the King of Mercia. In addition to striving to improve the morals of his clergy, this holy man also labored to increase their theological knowledge - he himself wrote two treatises and several synodal decrees. St. Oswald was associated for most of his public life with St. Dunstan and St. Ethelwold and when he died in 992 popular veneration joined his name to theirs. He has been revered ever since as one of the three saints who revived English monasticism.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/022912.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father is on retreat (Day 4).

No major announcements from the Vatican today, other than one appointment of an auxiliary bishop in Brazil and pre-travel instructions for the media reps who will be travelling with the Holy Father to Mexico and Cuba.


Meanwhile, a historic
milestone today
for BXVI



Anura Guruga, who runs a fascinating POPES AND THE PAPACY site has been building up to this day for weeks. Graphics and figures cited here are from his site
popes-and-papacy.com/wordpress/
(and for now, I take his calculations on trust, because I don't have the time to go and do all the calculations myself, and because his site, which deals with a lot of these numerical comparisons, has been going on for years with no one disputing his computations, if that's any indication.)

Today, February 29, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI (#266) has lived 31,000 days - the same number of days that John Paul II lived on earth.

So, on Feb. 29, a leap year day, Benedict has reached John Paul II’s age at his death. Since 1400, John Paul II was the 6th oldest Pope when he died. Today, Benedict XVI ties him for that place, but tomorrow, the current Pope becomes the 6th oldest, and John Paul II slips down to #7.

And by October 31, 2012, Deo volente, B16 will become the 5th oldest.

Guruga put together the following chart of Benedict's 84+ years so far:



AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER!

That letter from Bertone!
Translated from

February 29, 2012

Dear friends, yesterday, Il Fatto Quotidiano, in its latest installment of Vatileaks - those confidential files from the Holy See which have been passed on to the media for the purpose of destabilizing the present leadership in the Secretariat of State - published two letters regarding the case of the Istituto Toniolo (which has been called the 'cash box' of the Catholic University).

The case is known in most of its details and sidelights, and you can read about it in an article I wrote for La Stampa on May 4, 2011.

What's new are the original letters themselves, both supposed to be confidential - the first one, from Secretary of State Tarciso Bertone to Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, then Archbishop of Milan; and the second is Tettamanzi's reply.

The story is easily summarized: Last spring, Bertone, in the name of the Pope, informed Tettamanzi [in a letter faxed to Tettamanzi on March 26) to leave the presidency of the Toniolo and to accept as his replacement former Italian Justice Minister Giovanni Maria Flick. The changeover was to take place fast and soon.

But why all the haste? Simple: Because at the time, everyone was expecting the imminent nomination by the Pope of a new Archbishop for Milan [to succeed Tettamanzi after his anticipated retirement when he turned 77] who would obviously have his say at the Toniolo, and would have been in the way of Bertone's plans.

[Bertone wrote the letter in March; it turned out that Benedict XVI did not announce the appointment of Cardinal Scola to Milan until the end of June! It somehow indicates Bertone really thought in March that the appointment would be made soon, which leads one to conclude there are certain things Benedict XVI keeps close to his chest, without necessarily pre-announcing them to Bertone (who had his own ideas about whom he wanted to be Archbishop of Milan). Probably that is why Benedict XVI kept his own counsel on the matter!]

But this particular power bid failed, and the Pope, after having spoken to Tettamanzi, agreed with him and blocked any further moves in the Toniolo until a new Archbishop was installed and could have his say. [The truly distressing element in this is that the Pope was apparently given a doctored version about Toniolo affairs, and only by the grace of God did Bertone pick on Tettamanzi who was not going to be a sitting duck, and had the documented facts to show the Pope that he had not been given the truth about Toniolo. How can we be sure that Bertone is not similarly misrepresenting the truth to the Pope on matters in which Bertone has a personal interest that is not necessarily in the Pope's best interest???]

So there is nothing new or not previously known about these two letters in terms of their content. But what struck me most in reading these two letters was the 'style' in which Bertone's letter was written.

Bertone in effect 'fires' the Archbishop of Milan ("Your Eminence is hereby relieved of this onerous responsibility"), saying he is doing so in the name of the Pope; specifies the date at which the administrarive council of the Toniolo should be convened {"I am asking you to set a meeting of the Permanent Council by April 10"); orders him to name "Prof. Giovanni Maria Flick, after notifying the Permanent Council, as your successor to the Presidency" of the Council; informs him that "the Holy Father has also decided that until the new President takes up his position, you are not to proceed to any provision or decision regarding appointments and responsibilities nor undertake any management activities of the Istituto Toniolo".

He goes on to say that "the secretariat of State has already informed Prof. Flick and obtained his consent".

Cardinal Tettamanzi was not consulted on any of this and received the 'dismissal' letter by fax.

I do not know which brain actually wrote the letter from Bertone, but it had a tone of imposition.It hints, it orders, it takes away, it lays down the law... {That's being too kind! It was rude and imperious, and every line rubbed in the subtext and context of "Just so you know who you're dealing with, you are completely at my mercy"].

And yet Bertone is addressing the head of an institution of the Church in Italy, not of the Vatican. [I am glad I understood that right, and said so in my remarks yesterday! It is most strange that after having spent years as a member of the italian bishops' conference, Bertone has come to believe that as Secretary of State of the Vatican, he can dictate to the Italian bishops!]

That should be a warning to Tettamanzi's successor, who is also a cardinal! [And one who has clear episcopal and cardinalatial seniority over Bertone by a good many years!]


But the most surprising thing about Bertone's letter - even more than its tone - is that his orders, supposedly authorized by the Pope, ended up producing no results.

Not because of an act of rebellion or disobedience by Cardinal Tettamanzi, but because the latter had a chance to explain to the Pope directly how things really are, and how the Toniolo had been managed in the past several years since he became Council president.

All the power deployed in the letter by the Secretary of State simply shattered to pieces after the audience given by the Pope to Tettamanzi.

The attempted power grab at the Toniolo failed - the new Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, would not arrive to find a fait accompli, and he has a chance to play the decisive role that is rightfully his.

And that is exactly what the Secretary of State had wanted to prevent.

[I find it disturbing that Bertone apparently feels so sure of the Pope's favor that he has not hesitated to directly oppose other Italian bishops whom the Pope esteems and likes (with good reason) - such as Cardinals Scola, Ruini and Bagnasco. Benedict XVI's innate fairness is obvious in having taken Tettamanzi's side regarding the Toniolo, even if he and Tettamanzi have always been on opposite sides of the ideological divide.]

Sandro Magister has not yet written a formal article on this issue but in his blog today, he waxes sarcastic about it, given the quite ironical opening yesterday of a major exhibit on the Vatican Secret Archives! This was announced last July, but the synchronicity of the event with the still ongoing Vatileaks is hewavensent for all who want to milk this situation of every bit of irony



'Lux in arcana':
Frederick II's 'bull' (edict)
and that of Cardinal Bertone
Translated from

February 29, 2012

“Lux in arcana. L’archivio segreto vaticano si rivela“. (Light in darkness: The Vaticah Secret Archives uncovered),

All we needed was this - a major exhibit with this title precisely at a time when so many confidential documents that ought to remain private have been pilfered from the Vatican offices and displayed for all the world to relish. [Please, specify the Secretariat of State! Cardinal Levada or Cardinal Ouellet, to cite the most sensitive offices outside of SecState, have not been the victim of inbred vipers so far! What documents of interest might be leaked from an office like. say, the Congregation of Divine Worship, or the Pontifical Counjcil for the Family, just to name two at random?]

But fact can outdo fantasy. And look who was the first to visit the exhibit before it even opened to the public this afternoon at the Campidoglio - none other than Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, who has been the most 'mistreated' - not without fault on his part - by the fevered fluttering of the pilfered pages from the Vatican.

Reading L'Osservatore Romano's presentation of the exhibit, one does not think just of the historical texts on exhibit, but of the most recent ones about the Vatican - "a nebulous or even obscure context"; "a reality that is mysterious because unknown"; "knowledge withheld from most persons"; "binder string that must be united"; "fictionalized settings and surroundings"; 'secret documents that are brought outside the Vatican for the first time"...

Among the most valuable documents in the Campidoglio exhibit is the Bull [from the First Council Council of Lyons that deposed Emperor Frederick II in 1245.

But si parva licet comparare magnis (if we can compare small things to big things), Cardinal Bertone's letter of March 26, 2011, to Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, was also a 'bull of deposition' meant to take away from Tettamanzi the crown jewel that the Istituto Toniolo represents. A bull that was made public on February 28 by Il Fatto Quotidiano. [Magister provides a link to the text of the letter published in IFQ].

And if in antiquity, the fiction of 'Constantine's donation' was invented to lay a basis for the temporal power of the Church, a fiction later unmasked by the humanists of the 14th century, today, we have Cardinal Bertone, who in his aforementioned 'bull' - citing the Pope's improbable endorsement - claims imperium over the Toniolo unto himself "according to a practice going back to the beginnings of the Institute".

Bertone's claim was unmasked as 'historically unfounded' by Cardinal Tettamanzi in his letter dated March 28, 2011, to the Pope himself, to protest and push back against the abusive attempt to dismiss him summarily. This letter too was published in full by the Fatto. (Magieter provides the link)

“Lux in arcana” offers the public till September 9 just a small sampling of the endless mass of documents kept in the Vatican Secret Archives.

But Vatileaks may be no less 'massive'. We have been given to understand that the few documents made public so far are just a preview of a vast array of pilfered files. To be released indefinitely. Without a time limit.

SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR LENT



Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Congo), was asked by the Holy Father to lead the spiritual exercises this year. Right, Mons. Painya at the 2010 Synodal Assembly on Africa.


The only photos I could find online of the current Lenten retreat by the Holy Father and prelates of the Roman Curia. There is a pre-retreat interview with Cardinal Pasinya in the Italian service of Vatican Radio. I have to translate it.

What starts out as something along the 'pious pattern' of most interviews with high-ranking prelates ends up being very direct
and provocative on the media-shaped culture of the day and its impact on Church affairs.

Cardinal Bergoglio on
careerism and vanity among men of the Church,
and the affliction of journalistic coprophilia
by ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from the Italian service of

fEBRUARY 29, 2012


A rare picture of Cardinal Bergoglio and Benedict XVI together.

VATICAN CITY - In the recent consistory, held in the midst of polemics over leaked confidential files from the Vatican Secretariat of State Benedict XVI had intended for the cardinals to discuss the New Evangelization.

And he called them back to the spirit of service and humility.

The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jesuit Jorge Maria Bergoglio, whose family came from Turin, is one of the leading figures of the Latin American episcopate. In his diocese, the Church has for some time now gone out into the streets, the public squares, bus and train stations, in order to evangelize and administer the sacraments. Vatican Insider asked him for an interview, to comment on the work of the consistory and the words of the Holy Father.

What do you think of the Pope's decision to decree a Year of Faith and to insist on the New Evangelization?
Benedict XVI insist on priority for the renewal of the faith, and presents the faith as a gift to be handed on., a gift to offer, to be shared in an act of free giving.

It is not a possession but a mission. This priority indicated by the Pope has a dimension of remembrance. With the Year of Faith, we remember the gift we have received. It rests on three pillars: remembrance of having been chosen, the memory of the promise that has been made to us, and the Covenant that God made with us.

We are called to renew that Covenant. our belonging to the people who are faithful to God.

What does evangelization mean in a context like that of Latin America?
The context is that which emerged in the fifth conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida in 2007, which called us to a continental mission. So the entire continent is in a state of mission. Programs are being carried out for this, but above all there is the paradigmatic aspect. all the ordinary activities of the Church are framed in this spirit of mission.

This implies a very strong tension between the center and the periphery, between the parish and the neighborhood. The Church must go out of itself towards the periphery. It must avoid the affliction of a self-referential Church - she becomes sick when that happens.

It is true that by going out into the street, as it is for a person,
we can meet with an accident. But of the Church remains closed in herself, self-referential, she ages. Between a Church exposed to risks which is out in the streets, and a Church afflicted with self-reference, we can only choose the first.

What has been your experience in Argentina, and particularly, in Buenos Aires?
We seek to reach out to those families who do not take part in parish life. Instead of being just a Church which receives those who come to us, we want to be the ones to go out towards the people, those who do not know the Church or who have stopped coming, who have gone away. in fact, or those who are simply indifferent.

We organize missions in the public squares, where people usually gather anyway - and we pray, we celebrate Mass. We offer Baptism which we administer after a suitable brief preparation. This is what we do in the parishes, in the entire diocese. We also seek to reach more people through digital communications and the Internet.

In addressing the consistory and later in his homily the next day, the Pope emphasized that the cardinalate is a service, and also that the Church is not built in isolation. What did you think of his words?
I was struck by the image evoked by the Pope, who spoke of James and John and the internal tensions among the first followers of Jesus over who among them should be first. This indicates that certain attitudes, certain discussions, have always been present in the Church, from her very beginnings, And this should not scandalize us.

The cardinalate is a service, not an honorific to boast about. Vanity, being vain about oneself, is an attitude of the worldly spirit, which is the worst sin in the Church. This is an affirmation that we find in the final pages of Henri de Lubac's Méditation sur l’Église.

Spiritual worldliness is religious anthropocentrism which has gnostic aspects. Careerism, the search for self-advancement, is very much po\art of that worldliness. I often say, to exemplify the fact of vanity: "Look at the turkey - how beautiful it is when you see it from the front. But if you take a few steps and look at it from behind, you see the reality". So whoever yields to self-referential vanity fundamentally hides a deep misery. [Mons. Vigano and so many other self-promoting prelates, are you reading this?]

What must the authentic service of a cardinal consist of?
Cardinals are not the agents of an NGO [non-governmental organization. perhaps one of the most unwieldy constructions - not just verbally but even conceptually - ever devised by the United Nations]. They are servants of the Lord, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who creates the distinctions among the various charisms, but leads them all to unity within the Church.

The cardinal should enter into this dynamic of the differences between charisms, and at the same time, look at their unity, knowing that the author of the differences as well as the unity is the same Holy Spirit. And I think a cardinal who does not get into this dynamic is not the kind of cardinal that Benedict XVI means.

This consistory took place during a difficult time. of great tension because of the documents leaked from the Vatican. How do the Pope's words help to deal with this reality?
The words of Benedict XVI help us to live through this reality from the perspective of conversion, changing heart. I was glad that the consistory was held on the threshold of Lent. It is an invitation to look at the Church who is both holy and sinful, to look at her shortcomings and sins, without losing sight of the holiness of so many men and women who are within the Church even today.

I should not be scandalized because the Church is my mother: I should look at her failings and faults as I look at my mother's failings and faults. And when I think of the Church, I remember above all the beautiful and good things she has done, not so much her failings and defects. We defend our mother with a heart full of love more than with words. And so I ask whether those who get too much into these 'scandals' have any love for the Church at all.

Can you tell me how the Roman Curia is perceived from the outside?
As far as I am concerned, I see and experience it as an organ of service, an organ that helps and serves me. Sometimes, one gets news that's not good, often amplified and even manipulated for scandal's sake.

Newsmen often run the risk of becoming afflicted with coprophilia [a morbid fondness for excrement], and thus encouraging coprophagia [literally, eating crap, excuse the language!] and that's a sin that afflicts many men and women today. Which is, to prefer to concentrate on the bad things and not the good. - [Thank God! Cardinal Bergoglio has hit upon the precise term for the worse-than-muckrakers, without the vulgarity of describing their muck as 'crap'!]

The Roman Curia has its faults, but it seems to me that only the bad is underscored, while ignoring the holiness of so many consecrated persons and laymen who work there.

Wise words from a man whom at least 20-30 cardinal-electors in the 2005 Conclave voted for as the 'non-conservative' alternative to Joseph Ratzinger.

BOOKS BY BENEDICT



Holy Men and Women Of the Middle Ages and Beyond
by Pope Benedict XVI
Now available from Ignatius Press


Pope Benedict XVI continues his exploration of the greatest teachers and role models in the history of the Church with these sketches of twenty-six men and women from the Middle Ages and beyond.

From the start of his pontificate, the Pope has used his Wednesday Audiences to present the timeless wisdom that has been expressed in
the writings and lives of holy men and women down through the ages.

He began with the Apostles and then moved to the Fathers of the Church. Next he presented the great Christian teachers of the late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages.

In this volume, he picks up the thread in the high Middle Ages with the inspirational St. Francis and St. Dominic, followed by some of the men and women they profoundly influenced, such as Clare, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas.

The collection goes beyond the Middle Ages and includes some Counter-Reformation saints, for example, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Robert Bellarmine. It concludes with a very popular saint closer to our own times who was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II: Thérèse of Lisieux.

The theme that unites these men and women across time is the constant need of the Church for renewal. In every generation, God raises up holy ones who challenge Christians to live as they ought-as true disciples of Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant theologians and spiritual leaders of our age. As Pope he authored the best-selling Jesus of Nazareth; and prior to his pontificate, he wrote many influential books that continue to remain important for the contemporary Church, such as Introduction to Christianity and The Spirit of the Liturgy.


Then, there's this book whose title I was seeing for the first time:


Since no blurb was available, I found this information online, with an outline summary of its contents:
alisonmorgan.co.uk/Ratzinger%2091.htm
The book contains talks given by Cardinal Ratzinger to a Communione e Liberazione retreat in 1986 at the invitation of founder Don Luigi Giussani. The English edition was first printed by Crossroads in 1989 and the again in 1991. The re-issue at this time is, of course, very timely for Lent.

Here's a customer review:

This book, which contains spiritual exercises on Faith, Hope, and Love, was first written by Ratzinger for a retreat he conducted in Collevalenza in 1986.

The meditations are very well documented scholarly pieces that
are more "lessons" than "exercises" - lessons written by a master teacher, a professor who enjoys keeping our focus by telling stories and introducing us to fresh insights into "old" concepts. I will relate a few of the ideas Benedict presents.

In the early pages he suggests that we need to learn the "skill of skills" or the "act of being human". Benedict posits that as people we are very good at making things and dominating the world that God gave us. We, however, are miserable in the art of existence. Somehow we have "lost" the art of how to live. We seldom even talk about what things and people "are", the very nature of "being".

In his section on Love, Cardinal Ratzinger begins to establish the view of love as Eros and agape being natural to the establishment of "real love" that is a true gift from God. This is a clear preview of the encyclical Deus Caritas Est that he wrote as Pope...