BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier 3/30/12 entries.




Cuba's official press was generous
in reporting on the Pope's visit
Adapted and translated from the report
by Lucio Capuzzi

March 30, 2012

Many of the reports also spoke of Raul and Fidel - especially the former, who is after all, the current President of Cuba - but the official organs of the Cuban Communist Party (Granma and Juventud Rebelde) carried generous reportage of the Pope's visit, with full texts of his addresses and homilies alongside those of Raul, and as many photos as the newspapers (each 8 pp daily, like the OR) could accommodate.

The reportage underscored the warmth and enthusiasm of the reception for the Pope. State TV broadcast both papal Masses live. Cuban radio transmitted news reports, analyses, interviews, and commentaries.

Rene Gomez, a dissident lawyer, said that the pre-visit publicity was very subdued compared to that which had preceded John Paul I's visit in 1998. But he pointed out that in 1998, Fidel Castro was anxious to end Cuba's isolation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whereas at this time, Raul Castro - who is moving towards a transition from Communism whose actual features few can predict, other than a freer economy - was fearful of 'disrupting' his transition process and therefore underplayed the papal visit in order to 'contain' any popular enthusiasm.

Until, Gomez said, the regime had to acknowledge the popular turnout for Benedict XVI in Santiago, and its official media went all out to report on it.

Not reported, however, were the Pope's inflight remarks enroute to Mexico that Marxism no longer responds to reality, nor any word about dissident Cubans who had sought to meet with the Pope, and some of whom were reportedly blocked physically by police from attending the papal Mass on Wednesday.


It's no exaggeration to say that the reportage of the visit in Granma and Juventud Rebelde was more extensive than that given by the OR itself to the visit... The newspapers do not have Sunday editions, so the pre-visit story was in the Saturday paper:


Saturday, March 24


Monday, March 26


Tuesday, March 27




Wednesday, March 28


Thursday, March 29



Right photo in bottom panel is the Friday, March 30, front page, reporting Benedict XVI's formal letter of thanks to President Castro.

(Here are the spreads from Juventud Rebelde, the party newspaper aimed at younger Cubans. It appears to have some detailed reports that may merit translation.]

Tuesday, March 27




Wednesday, March 28



Thursday, March 29
[I




It is not easy to speculate exactly why the Cuban government decided to fall completely - or almost - into the spirit of the Pope's visit, short of announcing new concessions for the Church, or making peace with the dissidents (not that the dissidents would make peace with them!). But the following article cites a Jesuit who has served in Cuba for ten years who explains the objective context that is most relevant to the Pope's visit and the government's good will:

Benedict XVI in Cuba
with a message of renewal
Translated from

March 28, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI is dealing with medium-range problems in Cuba at this time, not short-range objectives, says Mons. Luis del Castillo, S.J., a retired bishop from Uruguay who now works in Santiago de Cuba.

Commenting on the Holy Father's words upon arrival in Santiago, and on the homily at the evening Mass later, Mons. Del Castillo said: "He is telling the Church in Cuba that it must remain united, it should deepen its faith in Christ, and engage itself more in Cuban society," he said.

"At the same time, he is asking Cuban authorities to allow the Church more space to make its contribution to society for the good of all."

The bishop said he was particularly impressed by Benedict's invitation to all Catholics to revitalize their faith "so that they can live in Christ and for Christ... (and) armed with peace, forgiveness and understanding, they may fight to construct an open and renewed society, a better society, a more worthy humanity that better reflects the goodness of God ".

"We were hoping that with this visit, the Pope would reinforce the changes that have taken place within the Church in Cuba and in Cuban society together, and that is what he is doing".

He explains: "The Pope is asking the Church in Cuba to place God in the marketplace, as it were, because to make the world more human, we cannot leave God aside".

He noted that Benedict XVI pointed out how John Paul II's historic visit in 1998 had begun a new phase in the relations between the Church and State in Cuba, "in a new spirit of cooperation and trust, even if there remain many areas in which progress is needed, especially concerning the indispensable public contribution that the Church is called on to make to the life of society".

It is clear, he said, that the Pope is expecting the State "to allow a larger presence and participation of the Church in building a better society for all Cubans".

But he noted that "up tilll now, the private sector has not been active in local or national development, because planning, organization and management of all enterprises continue to be completely in the hands of the State".

Concretely, he said, "the Church would want to be 'present and active' in education, health care, especially for the indigent and the aged, as well as in the training of free-lance workers who may start small businesses, and in helping rural residents to address the chronic food shortage in Cuba".

It is important, he said, to view the Pope's expectations in the light of two events: the first was Raul Castro's address to the Cuban Parliament on August 1, 2011, which reflected a clear change in the government's position towards religion; and second, the overwhelming reaction of the Cuban people to the nationwide tour of the Virgen del Cobre in preparation for the current jubilee year.

"Some say that the Church in Cuba has become much too close to Rail Castro, but actually, it is Raul who has been seeking rapprochement with religious groups," says Mons. Del Castillo.

He pointed out how Raul recently visited a synagogue and has been talking with various evangelical groups, even if none of this drew as much attention as when he attended t\he reopening of a seminary in Havana, and his discussions with Cardinal Jaime Ortega which led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners.

"I believe that Raul is now convinced that opposition to religion - which is evident in many parts of the world - does not really benefit the nation, nor even the revolution itself, and that is why he has been trying to reverse the historical trend," he went on. "This attitude is most evident with regard to the Catholic Church since it is organized throughout the island".

As for the jubilee tour of the Virgen Mambisa, Mons. Del Castillo said it produced a manifestation of emotion and faith, in which all Cubans seemed to unite around the icon which has been a source of coherence in Cuban society, and represents, says Mons. Del Castillo, "a symbol that shows the way and gives Cubans hope for a better future".

Thus, he says, the visit of Benedict XVI should be seen against this double context, and that his words are "as much an encouragement for the government as well as support for the bishops as they undertake a new phase of mutual understanding and cooperation, in the hope that there will be progress in promoting human values and human rights even in a time of global instability".

Saturday, March 31, Fifth Week of Lent

Monastery of Mar Saba, Holy Land.
[I cannot find any online images of today's saint]
ST. STEPHEN OF MAR SABA (Palestine, 725-796)
Orthodox monk, Hermit
Stephen was the nephew of St. John Damascene who took him into the 5th century Mar Saba
monastery when the boy was 10 and educated him for the next 15 years. After John's death in
749, Stephen spent the next 8 years of his life passing on what he had learned from his uncle.
Then he decided he wanted to be a hermit, and was allowed by his superior to spend 5 days of
the week alone, but to provide spiritual guidance on Saturdays and Sundays. Towards the end
of his life, Stephen saw the Saracens invade Palestine and take over many of its cities.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/033112.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

- The Vatican released the text of a message sent by the Holy Father to the inmates of Rome's Rebibbia prison,
which he visited last December, on the occasion of their Via Crucis this afternoon presided by the Holy
Father's Vicar General for Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini.

- The Pontifical Council Cor Unum announced that Pope Benedict XVI has given $100,000 (US) for the charitable
work of the local Church in Syria. Monsignor Giampietro Dal Toso, Council secretary, was to meet with the
Melkite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Gregorios III Laham, President of the Catholic Hierarchy
in Syria, and other representatives of the local Church today, at which time he was scheduled to present
the donation of the Holy Father. The Catholic Church is active in charitable work throughout Syria, especially
in the area of Homs and Aleppo.


Cuba declares this Good Friday
a holiday in reply to Pope's request


HAVANA, March 31 (AP) - Cuba has announced it is declaring next week's Good Friday a holiday following an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Communist government says in an official communique that the decision was made in light of the success of Benedict's "transcendental visit" to the country, which wrapped up Wednesday.

The communique, printed in Saturday's Granma newspaper, says the decision only applies to 2012. The Council of Ministers, Cuba's supreme governing body, will decide later whether to make the holiday permanent.

Benedict made the appeal during a one-on-one with Cuban President Raul Castro.

Benedict's encounter with
the people of Latin America

March 31, 2012

A personal and direct encounter between the Pope and the people of Mexico and Cuba, indeed, with all the peoples of Latin America: this is certainly one of the most important meanings of the journey that has just ended.

In the eyes of hundreds of millions of Catholics of the American continent it was a crucial step – following the Pope’s participation in the Assembly of Aparecida in 2007 – confirming Pope Benedict’s care and concern for them.

It was a very clear message of encouragement to the Church in the two countries, an explicit request for greater room for its presence and for religious freedom – not to protect the Church’s privileges, but to enable it to serve, to contribute more effectively to the common good, to the building of a more fraternal, more just, more reconciled and more peaceful society.

The Pope is the chief pastor of the Catholic Church and it is primarily through the vitality of the Church that the service of faith passes into the life of the people. Seeing the spiritual heart of the journey as we watched Pope Benedict as a pilgrim before Our Lady of Cobre was a remarkable experience.

There will be those who continue to talk about meetings that didn’t happen: a visit to Guadelupe, meetings with Cuban dissidents or with the victims of Maciel…

The Pope cannot always do everything he would like to do in a very short trip; but those who listen to him understand his spirit and his intentions, those who follow him know the coherence and courage of his message.

The truly great encounter, that encompasses all particular meetings, has taken place, and it was profound, spontaneous and sincere. It is that service to faith, to hope, that the Pope wished to offer.



Thank you, Fr. Lombardi, for articulating the great truth that we often take for granted about the Pope's apostolic visits - that, regardless of the different groups he meets with directly, the trip itself is his way of communicating more directly with the people of a nation and of a region, much more intense and specific than when he speaks in general to all Catholic faithful around the world in his capacity as universal Pastor.

Personally, I always end up unable to compose a simple but worthy synthesis of each apostolic visit as it ends. It is as if I am paralyzed by the inertia of joy, content and pride one feels after living through a peak experience, as Benedict XVI's travels always are.

Pope sends message to prisoners
taking part in a Via Crucis
Translated from

March 30, 2012

"Today you will be with me in paradise" is the theme for the Via Crucis held Saturday afternoon at the new prison complex of Rebibbia in Rome.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Pope's Vicar General for Rome, presided at the Lenten rite held in the area in front of the prison chapel and attended by 300 inmates. They were joined by prison director Carmelo Cantone, the director of diocesan Caritas, Caritas volunteers, seminarians who carry out daily assignments in Rebibbia, and faithful from various Roman parishes.

The Holy Father, who visited Rebibbia last December 18, sent the prisoners a message for Holy Week.

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Dear brothers:

I was happy to hear that, in preparation for Easter, you will be giving life in Rebibbia to a Via Crucis to be presided over by my Vicar in Rome. Cardinal Agostino Vallini, with the participation of the inmates, the prison staff and groups of faithful from various parishes of Rome.

I feel particularly close to this initiative, because I hold vivid memories of the visit I made to Rebibbia shortly before Christmas last year. I remember the faces of those whom I met and the words I heard from them that have left a profound mark on me.

Therefore, I profoundly join you in prayer and thus give continuity to my presence among you, for which I wish to thank your chaplains.

I know that this Stations of the Cross also represent a sign of reconciliation. Indeed, as one of you said during our meeting, prison serves to raise you up after having taken a fall, to reconcile with your own self, with others and with God, in order to be able to re-enter society with a fresh start.

When, during the Via Crucis, we see Jesus fall to the ground - one, two, three times - we understand that he shared our human condition, and that the weight of our sins caused him to fall. But three times, Jesus got up again to resume his journey towards Calvary.

Thus, with his help, we too can rise again after we fall, and perhaps help someone else, a brother, to get up, too.

What gave Jesus the strength to go on? It was the certainty that the Father was with him. Even if his human heart may have held all the bitterness of abandonment, Jesus knew that the Father loves him - that it is this immense love, this infinite mercy of the heavenly Father, that consoled him and was greater then all the violence and insults that surrounded him.

Even if everyone mocked him and no longer treated him as a man, Jesus, in his heart, had the firm certainty that he was the son, the beloved Son of God the Father.

This, dear friends, is the great gift that Jesus gave to us with his Way of the Cross: to reveal to us that God is infinite love and mercy. He carries the weight of our sins to the very end in order that we can rise up when we fall, reconcile ourselves and find peace again.

And so, we too should not fear get on with our own 'via crucis', of carrying our cross along with Jesus. He is with us, and so is Mary, his Mother and ours. She remained faithful, following him to the foot of the Cross, and prays for our resurrection in the belief that even in the darkest night, the last word is God's light and love.

With this hope, based on faith, I wish that all of you may live the coming Easter int he peace and joy that Christ has acquired for us with his blood. And with great affection, I impart to you the Apostolic Blessing, extended it to your families and persons dear to you.

From the Vatican
March 22, 2012

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On the occasion of
the Year of St. Clare,
a message from the Pope -
especially for young people
Translated from

March 31, 2012

On the occasion of the Year of St. Clare (April 16, 2011 - August 11, 2012) commemorating the consecration and conversion of St. Clare of Assisi, Benedict XVI has sent Mons. Domenico Sorrentino, Bishop of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino, a message which was to be read Saturday evening, March 31, at the Cathedral of San Ruffino in Assisi, at the First Vespers for Palm Sunday.

---

To my Venerated Brother
Domenico Sorrentino
Bishop of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino

With joy I have learned that in this diocese, as among the Franciscans and Clarissians around the world, that St. Clare is being remembered with a Clarian Year on the eighth centenary of her 'conversion' and consecration.

This event, which has been dated to some time between 1211 and 1212, completed, so to speak, the 'female aspect' of the grace that the community of Assisi had received with the conversion of the son of Peter of Bernardone.

Just as it had happened with St. Francis, Clare's decision contained the seed of a new sisterhood, the Order of St. Clare, which has become a robust tree, and in the fecund silence of cloisters, continues to sow the good seed of the Gospel and to serve the cause of God's Kingdom.

This happy circumstance urges us to turn in our minds to Assisi, to reflect with you, venerated Brother, and the community entrusted to you, and likewise, with the sons of St. Francis and the daughters of St. Clare, on the significance of this anniversary.

Indeed, it speaks to our generation and is fascinating, especially to young people, to whom my affectionate thoughts go on this World Youth Day, which customarily the local churches celebrate on Palm Sunday.

About her radical choice in favor of Christ, the saint herself in her Testament, speaks of it as a 'conversion' (cfr. FF 2825). It is from this that I wish to start, in a way taking up from the thread of the discourse I made about the conversion of St. Francis when I had the joy of visiting your diocese on June 17, 2007.

The story of Clare's conversion revolves around the liturgy of Palm Sunday. Her biographer writes:

"The solemn day of the Palms was approaching, when the young woman went to the man of God (Francis) to ask him about converting - when and how she ought to go about it. Francis ordered that on Palm Sunday, elegant and appropriately adorned, she should come to the Mass amidst the people, and then, the following night, that she should leave the city, converting worldly joy into the grief of Passion Sunday.

"Thus, on that Sunday, with other ladies, the young woman, resplendent in festive dress, entered the church. There, in worthy presage, even as her friends ran forth to receive their palms, Clare remained prudently still, and the Bishop, descending the steps, came to her and placed a palm frond in her hands" (Legenda Sanctae Clarae virginis, 7: FF 3168).

It had been six years since the young Francis had undertaken the way of sanctity. In the words from the Crucified Lord at San Damiano - "Go, Francis, repair my house" - and in embracing lepers, the suffering face of Christ, he had found his vocation.

That led to that liberating gesture of 'stripping' himself of all his worldly goods in the presence of Bishop Guido. Between the idolatry of money proposed to him by his earthly father, and the love of God that promised to fill his heart, he had no doubts, and he declared vigorously: "From this moment on, I can freely say, 'our father, who art in heaven', instead of father Pietro di Bernardone" (Vita Seconda, 12: FF 597).

Francis's decision had disconcerted the city. The first years of his new life were marked by difficulties, disappointments and incomprehension. But many had started to reflect. Including the girl Clare, then adolescent, who was couched by Francis's witness.

Endowed with an outstanding religious sense, she would be conquered by the existential turning point of the man who had once been Assisi's king of feasting. Shee found a way to meet him and allowed herself to be infected with his ardor for Christ.

The biographer describes St. Francis instructing his new disciple: "the father Francis exhorted her to renounce the world, demonstrating in vivid words, that hope in the world is arid and can only bring disillusion, and instilled into her ears the words of marriage to Christ" (Vita Sanctae Clarae Virginis, 5: FF 3164).

According St. Clare's Testament, even before he received other young women to his community, Francis had prophesied the journey that awaited his first spiritual daughter and her future sisters. Indeed, as he worked on the restoration of the church of San Damiano, where the Crucified Lord had spoken to him, he announced that the church would be inhabited by "women who would glorify God with the saintly tenor of their lives" (cfr. FF 2826; cfr. Tommaso da Celano, Vita seconda, 13: FF 599).

The original Crucifix from San Damiano is now found in the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi. The eyes of the crucified Christ which had so fascinated Francis had become a 'mirror' for Clare. It is not by chance that the idea of a mirror became very dear to her, as she would write in her fourth letter to Agnes of Prague: "Look at this mirror every day, oh Queen, spouse of Jesus Christ, and in it continually scrutinize your own face" (FF 2902).

In the years that she met with Francis often to learn the way of God from him, Clare was an attractive young woman. But the Poverello of Assisi showed her a superior beauty that cannot be measured by the mirror of vanity, but develops in a life of authentic love, in the footsteps of the Crucified Jesus.

God is true Beauty! The heart of Clare was illumined with this splendor, and it gave her the courage to have her tresses cut off to begin her life of penitence. For her, as for Francis, this decision brought a lot of difficulties. While some of her family members did not take long to understand her decision - her mother Ortolana and two of her sisters almost immediately followed her example - others reacted violently.

Her escape from home on the night between Palm Sunday and Holy Monday, was somewhat adventurous. In the following days, her family sought her out in all the places where Francis may have given her refuge, and they attempted, sometimes with force. to make her turn back on her decision.

But Clare was prepared for this battle. Even as Francis was her guide, she also received paternal support from Bishop Guido, as more than one indication suggests. This was the same Bishop who had approached her on Palm Sunday to give her a palm frond, almost like a blessing for the courageous action she was about to take.

Without the support of Bishop Guido, it is difficult to imagine how the plan thought of by Francis and carried out by Clare could have been carried out, both in the consecration she made of herself at the church of Porziuncola in the presence of Francis and his brothers, as well as the hospitality that she received in the following days at the Monastery of San Paolo delle Abbadesse and in the community of Sant'Angelo in Panzo, before she finally settled in San Damiano.

Clare's example, like that of Francis, demonstrates a special ecclesial characteristic - an enlightened Pastor and two children of the Church who trust his discernment. Institution and individual charism worked together stupendously.

Love for the Church and obedience to her, which is so marked in Franciscan-Clarian spirituality, have their roots in this beautiful experience born from the Christian community of Assisi, which not only generated Francis and his 'plantlet' in the faith, but also accompanied them on their road to saintliness.

Francis had good reason to suggest that Clare make her escape at the start of Holy Week. All of Christian life - and therefore, even the consecrated life - is the fruit of the Paschal mystery as a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ.

In the liturgy of Palm Sunday, sorrow and glory are interwoven as a theme that will continue to be developed in the succeeding days, through the darkness of the Passion up to the light of Easter.

Clare, in making her choice, relived that mystery. We might say that she received the 'program' of her life on Palm Sunday. She then entered into the drama of the Passion, in cutting off her hair, symbolically renouncing herself to be the spouse of Christ in humility and poverty. Francis and his brothers now became her family.

But soon, sisters would arrive, even from afar, although the first seedlings, as with Francis, sprouted from Assisi itself. The saint would remain forever linked to her city, proving herself in many difficult circumstances, as when her prayers saved Assisi from violence and devastation.

At that time, she said to her sisters: "From this city, dearest daughters, we have been receiving many benefits every day. It would be very impious if we did not lend her help in the way we can when she needs it" (Legenda Sanctae Clarae Virginis 23: FF 3203).

In its profoundest meaning, the 'conversion' of Clare is a conversion to love. She would no longer be wearing the fine garments of Assisi's nobility, but rather the elegance of a soul that gave itself over to the praise of God and the gift of herself.

In the small space of the convent in San Damiano, in the school of Jesus in the Eucharist, contemplated with spousal affection, day after day, a sisterhood developed that was regulated by love of God and by prayer, by concern and service to others.

It is in this context of profound faith and great humanity that Clare became a definitive interpreter of the Franciscan ideal, claiming the 'privilege' of poverty - namely, the renunciation of possessing anything even in community - which left perplexed the very Supreme Pontiff who ultimately recognized the heroism of her saintliness.

How can we not propose Clare, along with Francis, to the attention of our young people today? The time that separates us from the life of these two saints has not diminished their fascination. On the contrary, we can see the relevance of their example in comparison with the illusions and delusions that often mark our youth today.

Never before have young people been made to dream of the thousand attractions of a life in which everything seems possible and legitimate. And yet, how much dissatisfaction there is! How many times has the search for happiness and realization led them down ways that lead to artificial Paradises, such as that of drugs and unrestrained sexuality.

And the present situation where it is difficult to find dignified employment and to start a family that is united and happy, adds more clouds to their horizon.

But we do not lack for young people even in our day who accept the invitation to entrust themselves to Christ and to face the journey of life with courage, responsibility and hope, and who even decide to leave everything to render total service to him and their brothers.

The story of Clare, along with that of Francis, is an invitation to reflect on the sense of existence and to find in God the secret of true joy. They provide concrete proof that whoever fulfills the will of God and trusts in him not only does not lose anything but finds the true treasure that gives sense to everything.

To you, venerated Brother, to the Church that has the honor of having given birth to Francis and Clare, to the Clarissians who daily demonstrate the beauty and fecundity of contemplative life in supporting the journey of all the People of God, to the Franciscans of all the world, to so many young people who are searching and who need the light, I address this brief reflection. I hope that it can contribute to an even greater rediscovery of these two luminous figures in the firmament of the Church.

With a special thought for the daughters of St. Clare in the Protomonastery, of their other convents in Assisi and the rest of the world, I impart to all my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
April 1, 2012
Palm Sunday

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ST. CHIARA (CLARE) D'ASSISI (Italy, 1194-1253), Virgin, Founder of the Poor Clares (Second Order of St. Francis)
Like Francis, her contemporary and eventual mentor, Clare was born to a noble family, but at age 15, she refused an arranged marriage, and at 18, escaped home to be given asylum, along with her sister Agnes, by Francis's friars. After putting them first in the care of Benedictine convents, Francis installed them in the San Damiano church which he had rebuilt, where other women joined them in a life of great poverty according to the Franciscan Rule, dedicated to prayer and serving the poor, the sick and travelers. They owned nothing and subsisted on daily contributions. She was to defend this decision for 'absolute poverty in joyous imitation of Christ' even against the order of Popes who thought their rules were too rigid. Francis made her abbess when she was 21, an office she carried out till her death, but the order itself, first called the Order of Poor Ladies, was not formally recognized until 1253. Two days later she died, having suffered from poor health the last 27 years of her life. It was said that Clare would come back from prayer with her her face so radiant it dazzled those around her. Until he died, Francis and Clare gave each other spiritual support and encouragement, and she took care of him during his last illness. She was canonized in 1255, just two years after her death. A basilica in her honor was built in 1260, to which her remains were transferred and venerated to this day. In 1263, her order was formally renamed the Order of St. Clare by Pope Urban IV.

PALM SUNDAY
XXVII WORLD YOUTH DAY
Outside of Holy Week, today would be the feast of St, Hugh of Grenoble:

Photos at right: Stained-glass showing St Hugh receiving St. Bruno of Cologne in France, and a painting depicting the dream in which he foresaw the arrival of Bruno
and six monks from Germany.
ST. HUGUES (Hugh) DE GRENOBLE (France 1052-1132), Bishop and Reformer
Pious and thoologically facile since childhood, he was a canon, not yet ordained priest, when the Council of Avignon named him bishop
in 1080 and assigned him the diocese of Grenoble during the reforms of Gregory VII, who ordained Hughes personally in 1080.
The Church was battling corruption and violations of celibacy within its own members, lay control of Church property, and general
religious indifference or ignorance. After two years, he wanted to resign and enter a monastery, but the Pope asked him to stay -
and he did for the next 50 years. He was reasonably successful as a reformer, was an eloquent preacher and fearless supporter
of the Papacy. In 1084, he welcomed Bruno of Cologne and six of his companions after seeing them under a banner of seven stars
in a dream. He installed them in the snowy heights of Chartreuse, where they founded the first Carthusian monastery. He died
in 1132 and was canonized just two years after his death.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040112.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father blessed the palms and presided at Holy Mass on Palm Sunday at St. Peter's Square.
He led the Angelus at the end of the Mass.


THE POPE'S PRAYER INTENTIONS
FOR APRIL 2012

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General intention:
That many young people may hear the call of Christ
and follow Him in the priesthood and religious life.

Missionary intention:
That the risen Christ may be a sign of certain hope
for the men and women of the African continent.

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PALM SUNDAY
XXVII WORLD YOUTH DAY


Libretto cover: Christ's entry into Jerusalem, from the Evangelarium of Turone (14th cent), Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona.






Pope Benedict XVI presided at Palm Sunday celebrations in St Peter’s Square today before thousands of people who carried palms and olive branches for blessing.

On a bright spring day in Rome, a solemn procession of cardinals, bishops and priests passed in the midst of the crowd and then surrounded the base of the obelisk in a giant circle as the Holy Father arrived on the Popemobile to lead the preliminary rites.

Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday and 3 deacons recounted Jesus’s passion, from the entry into Jerusalem to his death on the Cross.

In his homily, the Holy Father asked the faithful to consider " Who is Jesus of Nazareth for us?”

“What idea do we have of the Messiah, what idea do we have of God? It is a crucial question, one we cannot avoid, not least because during this very week we are called to follow our King who chooses the Cross as his throne. We are called to follow a Messiah who promises us, not a easy earthly happiness, but the happiness of heaven, divine beatitude."

Palm Sunday is diocesan World Youth Day, and the Pope addressed young people thus: "Dear young people present here today, this, in a particular way, is your Day, wherever the Church is present throughout the world. So I greet you with great affection! May Palm Sunday be a day of decision for you, the decision to say yes to the Lord and to follow him all the way, the decision to make his Passover, his death and resurrection, the very focus of your Christian lives. It is the decision that leads to true joy, as I reminded you in this year's World Youth Day Message - 'Rejoice in the Lord always'."

Here is the Vatican translation of the Holy Father's homily:

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Palm Sunday is the great doorway leading into Holy Week, the week when the Lord Jesus makes his way towards the culmination of his earthly existence.

He goes up to Jerusalem in order to fulfill the Scriptures and to be nailed to the wood of the Cross, the throne from which he will reign for ever, drawing to himself humanity of every age and offering to all the gift of redemption.

We know from the Gospels that Jesus had set out towards Jerusalem in company with the Twelve, and that little by little a growing crowd of pilgrims had joined them. Saint Mark tells us that as they were leaving Jericho, there was a “great multitude” following Jesus (cf. 10:46).

On the final stage of the journey, a particular event stands out, one which heightens the sense of expectation of what is about to unfold and focuses attention even more sharply upon Jesus.

Along the way, as they were leaving Jericho, a blind man was sitting begging, Bartimaeus by name. As soon as he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing, he began to cry out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47).

People tried to silence him, but to no avail; until Jesus had them call him over and invited him to approach. “What do you want me to do for you?”, he asked. And the reply: “Master, let me receive my sight” (v. 51). Jesus said: “Go your way, your faith has made you well.” Bartimaeus regained his sight and began to follow Jesus along the way (cf. v. 52).

And so it was that, after this miraculous sign, accompanied by the cry “Son of David”, a tremor of Messianic hope spread through the crowd, causing many of them to ask: this Jesus, going ahead of us towards Jerusalem, could he be the Messiah, the new David? And as he was about to enter the Holy City, had the moment come when God would finally restore the Davidic kingdom?

The preparations made by Jesus, with the help of his disciples, serve to increase this hope. As we heard in today’s Gospel (cf. Mk 11:1-10), Jesus arrives in Jerusalem from Bethphage and the Mount of Olives - that is, the route by which the Messiah was supposed to come.

From there, he sent two disciples ahead of him, telling them to bring him a young donkey that they would find along the way. They did indeed find the donkey, they untied it and brought it to Jesus. At this point, the spirits of the disciples and of the other pilgrims were swept up with excitement: they took their coats and placed them on the colt; others spread them out on the street in Jesus’s path as he approached, riding on the donkey.

Then they cut branches from the trees and began to shout phrases from Psalm 118 - ancient pilgrim blessings, which in that setting took on the character of messianic proclamation: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!” (v. 9-10).

This festive acclamation, reported by all four evangelists, is a cry of blessing, a hymn of exultation: it expresses the unanimous conviction that, in Jesus, God has visited his people and the longed-for Messiah has finally come. And everyone is there, growing in expectation of the work that Christ will accomplish once he has entered the city.

But what is the content, the inner resonance of this cry of jubilation? The answer is found throughout the Scripture, which reminds us that the Messiah fulfils the promise of God’s blessing,

God’s original promise to Abraham, father of all believers: “I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you ... and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:2-3).

It is the promise that Israel had always kept alive in prayer, especially the prayer of the Psalms. Hence he whom the crowd acclaims as the blessed one is also he in whom the whole of humanity will be blessed. Thus, in the light of Christ, humanity sees itself profoundly united and, as it were, enfolded within the cloak of divine blessing, a blessing that permeates, sustains, redeems and sanctifies all things.

Here we find the first great message that today’s feast brings us: the invitation to adopt a proper outlook upon all humanity, on the peoples who make up the world, on its different cultures and civilizations.

The look that the believer receives from Christ is a look of blessing: a wise and loving look, capable of grasping the world’s beauty and having compassion on its fragility. Shining through this look is God’s own look upon those he loves and upon Creation, the work of his hands.

We read in the Book of Wisdom: “But thou art merciful to all, for thou canst do all things, and thou dost overlook men’s sins, that they may repent. For thou lovest all things that exist and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made ... thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O Lord who lovest the living” (11:23-24, 26).

Let us return to today’s Gospel passage and ask ourselves: what is really happening in the hearts of those who acclaim Christ as King of Israel? Clearly, they had their own idea of the Messiah, an idea of how the long-awaited King promised by the prophets should act.

Not by chance, a few days later, instead of acclaiming Jesus, the Jerusalem crowd will cry out to Pilate: “Crucify him!”, while the disciples, together with others who had seen him and listened to him, will be struck dumb and will disperse.

The majority, in fact, was disappointed by the way Jesus chose to present himself as Messiah and King of Israel. This is the heart of today’s feast, for us too.

Who is Jesus of Nazareth for us? What idea do we have of the Messiah, what idea do we have of God? It is a crucial question, one we cannot avoid, not least because during this very week we are called to follow our King who chooses the Cross as his throne.

We are called to follow a Messiah who promises us, not a facile earthly happiness, but the happiness of heaven, divine beatitude. So we must ask ourselves: what are our true expectations? What are our deepest desires, with which we have come here today to celebrate Palm Sunday and to begin our celebration of Holy Week?

Dear young people, present here today, this, in a particular way, is your Day, wherever the Church is present throughout the world. So I greet you with great affection! May Palm Sunday be a day of decision for you, the decision to say yes to the Lord and to follow him all the way, the decision to make his Passover, his death and resurrection, the very focus of your Christian lives.

It is the decision that leads to true joy, as I reminded you in this year’s World Youth Day Message – “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4).

So it was for Saint Clare of Assisi when, on Palm Sunday 800 years ago, inspired by the example of Saint Francis and his first companions, she left her father’s house to consecrate herself totally to the Lord. She was eighteen years old and she had the courage of faith and love to decide for Christ, finding in him true joy and peace.

Dear brothers and sisters, may these days call forth two sentiments in particular: praise, after the example of those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with their “Hosanna!”, and thanksgiving, because in this Holy Week the Lord Jesus will renew the greatest gift we could possibly imagine: he will give us his life, his body and his blood, his love.

But we must respond worthily to so great a gift, that is to say, with the gift of ourselves, our time, our prayer, our entering into a profound communion of love with Christ who suffered, died and rose for us.

The early Church Fathers saw a symbol of all this in the gesture of the people who followed Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem, the gesture of spreading out their coats before the Lord. Before Christ – the Fathers said – we must spread out our lives, ourselves, in an attitude of gratitude and adoration.

As we conclude, let us listen once again to the words of one of these early Fathers, Saint Andrew, Bishop of Crete: “So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, or with the whole Christ ... so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet ... let us offer not palm branches but the prizes of victory to the conqueror of death. Today let us too give voice with the children to that sacred chant, as we wave the spiritual branches of our soul: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel’” (PG 97, 994). Amen!

---

Here is a translation of the Pope's Angelus messages:

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

At the end of this celebration, I wish to address a heartfelt greeting to all who are present: the Cardinals, my brother bishops, the priests, religious and all the faithful.

I address a special greeting to the Organizing Committee of the last World Youth Day in Madrid and to that of the next one in Rio de Janeiro, as well as to all the delegates to the International Meeting on WYD promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, represented here by its President, Cardinal Rylko, and by its Secretary, Mons. Clemens.

After the prayers, he said the following multilingual greetings - first, in Spanish:
I likewise greet all the young people and other Spanish-speaking pilgrims who are taking part in this Palm Sunday liturgy and this year's World Youth Day - particularly to the young people of Madrid accompanied by their bishop, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela.

At the start of Holy Week, I invite you all to take part with faith and devotion in the annual celebration of the mysteries of Christ's Passion and Resurrection and to experience the greatness of his love, which liberates us from Sin and death, and opens to us the gates to authentic joy. I wish you all a happy Sunday and a good Holy Week.

In Portuguese:
I now wish to greet the young people and other Portuguese-speaking pilgrims taking part in today's liturgy. In particular, I greet Archbishop Orani Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro, the Governor and the Prefect of that state and city, and other authorities and members of the committee that is organizing for World Youth Day next year.

In your preparations, I hope you will abide by the invitation stated in my message for WYD today: "Rejoice always in the Lord". In this way, the joyful and hospitable spirit that is inherent in Brazilians will be sublimated into the joy that is born from union with Christ, our only Savior.

In this way, you will receive with open arms - like the statue of Christ the Redeemer that dominates the Carioca landscape - the young people who will be arriving in your city from all parts of the world. I wish everyone a happy and blessed Easter.

In French:
Dear French-speaking friends, I am happy to welcome you on this Palm Sunday, when we also celebrate World Youth Day. I invite you all to open wide your hearts to Christ. This Holy Week, we shall contemplate Christ in his Passion - let us offer him the sufferings of our world, and entrust to him especially the young people who are ill or handicapped, and those who suffer moral distress, despair and uncertainties about the future.

May the Virgin Mary accompany each of you through life so that you may find in God a source of trust and comfort.

In English:
Dear brothers and sisters, today is Palm Sunday: as we remember our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, I am pleased to greet all of you, especially the many young people who have come here to pray with me. This Holy Week, may we be moved again by Christ’s passion and death, put our sins behind us and, with God’s grace, choose a life of love and service to our brethren. God’s blessings upon you!

In German:
I heartily greet all the German-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially the young people who are here for the 27th World Youth Day. The theme for this day is "Rejoice in the Lord always".

The desire for for joy and a fulfilled life is inscribed in every man's heart. Christ cares for us and gives us authentic joy through his presence.

In this Holy Week, let us look upon him, our Lord and King.Through his Passion and Cross, he ;liberated us from death so that we can have life in him. I wish you all a blessed Holy Week.

In Polish:
I greet the Poles, especially the young people present here and those assembled in their respective dioceses and parishes. The motto of today's WYD is St. Paul's call to "Rejoice in the Lord always".

Joy, which comes from our awareness that God loves us, is a central element of the Christian experience. In a world that is often marked by sadness and unease, joy is an important testimonial to the beauty and reliability of the faith. Be joyful witnesses to Christ. God bless you.

In Italian:
Finally I greet Italian pilgrims with great affection, especially the young people, among whom there is a huge delegation from the Diocese of Brescia. Dear friends, I pray that there may be true joy in your hearts, that which comes from love and which is not less even in a time of sacrifice. I wish everyone a good Holy Week and a happy Easter. Thank you.

---

A personal observation:
MSM has not been entirely truthful
about religious persecution in Cuba

One of the more regrettable aspects of the reportage on the Holy Father's recent apostolic visit to Cuba was the failure by the media - Catholic or otherwise - to use the opportunity in order to present the situation of religion in Cuba today, compared to the period from 1961-1992 when Castro's Cuba was officially atheist, to what took place afterwards when the Constitution was changed to 'recognize' all religions in that the Communist Party opened its membership to anyone, whatever his religion; and especially, after John Paul II's visit in 1998.

The general impression - if not explicitly stated, perhaps in deliberate error - given by news reports, propagandizing voluntarily for Cuban dissidents, was that Cuba has jailed hundreds if not thousands of dissidents simply because they are Catholic, whereas even MSM news reports before this visit was announced had never presented the status of Cuban political prisoners in religious terms. The best proof is that the political prisoners whose release Cardinal Ortega of Havana negotiated with Raul Castro in 2010 were not imprisoned for their religious beliefs but for political activity against the Communist regime - and none of them were probably practising Catholics at all.

From all the reports preceding the visit itself, I surmised that the dissidents who have been most actively and successfully propagandizing their cause with the Western media have in fact been fairly free in recent years to express their dissent in protest marches and similar activities with no more serious consequence than momentary detentions - not indefinite - for 'exemplary' purposes, i.e., the government has to make a show of 'cracking down' on dissidents. But for the most part, they obviously have been free to mount their limited protests. And more power to them!

Take the now-famous Damas de Blanco (Ladies in white) which was formed in 2003 after the so-called Black Spring when the Cuban government arrested 75 political dissidents (not hundreds, much less thousands) and sentenced them to jail terms of up to 28 years. Wives and other female relatives of the jailed dissidents protested the imprisonments by attending Mass each Sunday wearing white dresses and then silently walking through the streets dressed in white clothing.

Although going to Mass has become a part of their protest, they have not claimed at all that their protest in favor of imprisoned dissidents is about religion as much as it is against the fundamental violation of human rights. None of them has been tried and jailed for their activities. Shortly before the Pope arrived, 70 ladies were rounded up and then released without charges two days later - obviously as another 'exemplary' warning from the government; and a few of their members reported that on the day of the Pope's Mass in Havana, their homes were surrounded by the police to keep them from attending the Mass. Surely these nuisance actions by the regime are objectionable but at the same time, almost comical because apparently cosmetic (i.e., done for show).

I looked up how many dissidents have actually been imprisoned by the Cuban government because they are Catholics, but I cannot find any. Even Amnesty International defines the 75 persons arrested and sentenced in 2003 (and four more arrested at a protest rally in Havana in November 2011 released 52 days later without charges) as "prisoners of conscience... detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly".

It is true that Catholics were persecuted in the years immediately following the Cuban revolution by open discrimination against them at work and in school, as a consequence of which as many as 80 percent of Cuban priests left the country in the 1960s. That is probably the most 'benign' anti-Catholic record of any Communist regime.

None of the above is meant to be a defense of totalitarian repression of any kind, not even the Cuban version, but I believe it is a necessary perspective to take in the interests of truth and fairness. It is all too easy to demonize a regime as unpopular and as failed in many ways as the Communist regime in Cuba, but one must also be fair and truthful. Speaking the truth will not weaken the cause of the dissidents in any way.

As much as one must decry the fact that protesting against the government continues to be considered a crime in Cuba, there is no religious persecution per se, compared to the far more systematic (though increasingly arbitrary) and widespread persecution of Chinese Catholics who do not accept the 'official' Catholic Church set up by the regime. To set my mind at rest, I looked up the most recent US State Department report on the status of human rights in Cuba,
http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2010_5/168209.htm
from which I will simply lift the most definitive statement:


The Cuban Council of Churches (CCC) is an officially sanctioned umbrella organization that includes 27 religious organizations as full members, eight associate members, two with observer status, and 12 interfaith movements. Membership in the CCC is voluntary, and other officially recognized groups, including the Catholic Church and the small Jewish and Muslim communities, do not belong.

I do not think the US State Department, though it is far from infallible, has any reason to misrepresent the situation in Cuba, so I would take its assessment as fairly objective. If the situation were really bad, I am sure it would not have hesitated to say so.

With the above caveat, here is a commentary by Massimo Introvigne who, regrettably, takes the MSM line without, it seems, any attempt to look up the facts. That is so unlike his record so far.

The Pope's Latin American trip:
On natural law and religious freedom
by Massimo Introvigne
Translated from

30-03-2012

Something was lacking in the media commentary - including that in Italy - on the trip of Benedict XVI to Mexico and Cuba.

There was passionate debate about whether the Pope, between the lines, had broken his lance in Mexico in favor of the center-right PAN [the party of President Felipe Calderon] against the center-left PRI [which had monopolized power in Mexico for decades until the PAN under Vicente Foz broke that monopoly in 2000] in view of the coming presidential elections; whether he had in fact met secretly with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Cuba; whether the Cuban regime had gained more PR points from his meeting with Fidel Castro; or whether Fidel was 'one-upped' in his own country when he had to wait before meeting with the Pope [actually, he met with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone first upon arrival at the Apostolic Nunciature - in what was appropriate protocol since Fidel is no longer head of state or government, and also since they know each other from a two-0our meeting they had back in 2005 when Bertone visited Cuba and Fidel was still the Lider Maximo].

Political interpretations are always made about every international trip the Pope undertakes. This time, it is more understandable than usual if one considers that first, Mexico - with a fiercely secular regime in place for decades [One must distinguish, however, between the fiercely anti-clerical PRI which was in power from 1929 t0 2000 and the more Church-friendly though still staunchly secular governments under the two PAN presidents so far] whose heirs [the PRI] are still very present in Mexico's political life - and Communist Cuba, which became the theater for the worst persecutions that the Catholic Church has undergone in Latin America.

[I am greatly disappointed that Introvigne, of all people, should misrepresent the Cuban experience this way - not that he does not have access to the facts, but probably because of some deep-felt bias against the Communist government in Cuba. Nonetheless, our biases should not make us ignore facts. Quite apart from the widely misrepresented notion of religious persecution in Cuba as I tried to show above, Introvigne must surely know that in all of Latin American history so far, or even in the history of the Church in modern times, not excluding the Communist regimes in Europe, nothing can match the extent and severity of the anti-Catholic persecutions by the Mexican governments in the first half of the twentieth century epitomized by the Cristeros War of the 1920s in which thousands of Mexican priests and Catholic faithful were executed for their faith alone.]

Political activists of the center-right in Mexico and the anti-Castro dissidents of Cuba - in Cuba and in exile - would have wanted an explicit condemnation by the Pope of the Mexican left that has not renounced the bloody legacy of its secular rule, and of the Cuban regime.

But the style of Benedict XVI - as it was of Blessed John Paul II - has never been condemnatory. The Pope is always on a different plane - far above contingent problems - in order to reaffirm the great principles of Christianity that are already in and of themselves a judgment and condemnation of totalitarian ideologies.

The Pontiff often speaks of a dictatorship of relativism which has been the distinguishing trait of the 20th century regimes in Mexico which imposed 'by fire and sword' a politics of relativism, seeking to suffocate, in blood if need be, the voice of the Church.

As to the ideology of Fidel Castro, it is a tropical version of the aggressive relativism carried to extreme consequences that is typical of Marxism, where whoever expresses even the most timid dissent against a dictatorship ends up in jail or in a concentration camp. [Which surely has not been the case in Cuba in recent years - if we go by the Damas de Blanco experience as an example, they being the most visible and widely propagandized protest movement in the West. Benedict XVI, through his bishops in Cuba and other sources (even the Vatican reads the US State Department reports on human rights), is surely aware of the Cuban situation in its precise details, and how it has evolved in recent years.]

Without entering into specifics that would be incompatible with the diplomatic nature that even papal visits have, Benedict XVI condemned the practices of relativism in no uncertain terms.

Before the crowd of 300,000 in Havana, the Pope stressed the link between truth and freedom. "The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom. Many, without a doubt, would prefer to take the easy way out, trying to avoid this task. Some, like Pontius Pilate, ironically question the possibility of even knowing what truth is (cf. Jn 18:38), claiming is incapable of knowing it or denying that there exists a truth valid for all. This attitude, as in the case of scepticism and relativism, changes hearts, making them cold, wavering, distant from others and closed."

Without truth, there is no freedom: "The truth which stands above humanity is an unavoidable condition for attaining freedom, since in it we discover the foundation of an ethics on which all can converge and which contains clear and precise indications concerning life and death, duties and rights, marriage, family and society, in short, regarding the inviolable dignity of the human person".

These are the common rules in the 'game' that we call society, and they are valid even for the international society. Without such rules - which coincide with natural law - there cannot be peace.

The idea of natural law that reason can acknowledge and which is valid for everyone is the exact opposite of relativism. And to make it clear that he was targetting relativism - as in Mexican secularism and Cuban communism - in those who exclude God from society and states, Benedict XVI in his homily in Santiago de Cuba reiterated that God is a part of human history.

When ideologies exclude God, then they end up constructing a world which is not just hostile to God but also hostile to man: "When God is put aside, the world becomes an inhospitable place for man".

But even for States, as for individuals, it remains true that "Apart from God we are alienated from ourselves and are hurled into the void".

Against relativism, the Church - which is today the paladin for reason that has been largely obscured - proposes natural law as the basis for human rights, starting with the right to life and the right to religious freedom.

In Mexico, the Pope echoed the cry of the Cristeros, a slogan that had been forbidden and even omitted from Mexico's history books, when he recalled "the many martyrs who, with the rallying cry of 'Long live Christ the King and Mary of Guadalupe', gave a perennial testimonial of faith to the Gospel and dedication to the Church".

In Leon, he celebrated Mass at the foot of the Cristo Rey monument, which had been destroyed by government bombardment in 1926 and reconstructed in 1940, describing it as "a place emblematic of the faith of the Mexican people", speaking on a theme most dear to him - the kingship of Christ, gentle and peaceful, but which cannot but have a social character as well.

Other than his strong appeals for religious freedom in Cuba, even in Mexico, the Pope presented himself as a pilgrim for religious freedom. Natural law, he said upon arriving in Mexico, postulates "the incomparable dignity of every human being, created by God, and which no power has the right to forget or to despise. This dignity is manifested eminently in the fundamental right to religious freedon, in its genuine significance and in its full integrity".

Religious freedom, as the Pope presents it, does not just mean freedom of worship. The Church, he said at the airport in Leon, should be free to bear witness to faith, hope and charity. And this implies the right of Catholics - which is also a political right - to be "ferment in society, contributing to respectful and peaceful coexistence, based on the incomparable dignity of the human being..."

Even the specifically Mexican scourge of drug trafficking, which has often attacked and even killed priests, violates religious freedom - in a manner different from state persecution and discrimination - by seeking to prevent the Church from carrying out her mission.

So, the Pope has not given up diplomacy, which in Mexico seeks to heal old wounds and in Cuba helps prepare for a democratic transition (as slow as that may be) - celebrating its partial successes and adapting to its exigencies in his tone and in the meetings he held. [He could not possibly have visited Cuba and ignored his hosts, the Cuban leaders, who did make the visit possible by officially inviting him.]

But at the same time, he attacked ideologies where they are rooted, in the relativism that denies natural law and in totalitarianism which denied full religious freedom.

He reminded the bishops that these evils can be fought by forming faithful Catholics in the social doctrine of the Church, and that they are responsible for their priests (referring indirectly to the delicate subject of sexual offenses by the clergy) who should have the Catechism of the Catholic Church as their compass, an aspect which will be underscored during the coming Year of Faith.

P.S. to my comments about the religious situation in Cuba:
Neither Fidel nor Raul Castro have ever been accused of mental deficiency, so one knows that, as Fidel did when John Paul II visited in 1998, Raul this time was well aware he would hear 'unpleasant' truths from the mouth of the Vicar of Christ - who would be diplomatic as a courteous guest should be, but who would not thereby shrink from stating these truths to the faithful.

That nonetheless Raul chose to attend both Papal Masses in Cuba would seem to indicate that he has no problem hearing these truths from the Vicar of Christ (nor did his government have in reprinting all the papal texts in full in its official organs, or broadcasting the papal Masses), or at the very least, showing the world he has no problem with it.... Besides, I have this persistent sense that a cradle Catholic never really gives up his faith altogether, and that sooner or later, the Castro brothers, like Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders, will revert openly - and even piously - to the faith that they were born into.

I have to remark about the conspicuous dearth - if not outright lack - of commentary in the Anglophone Catholic blogosphere about the Pope's Latin American trip! It can't be for lack of reports in English. Of course, every once in a while, I have to remind myself that not all Catholic bloggers are Benedict-centered, but that's no excuse for virtually ignoring a major papal event and what it means in the life of the Church.

PPS - I actually found one commentary written on May 27, the day after Benedict arrived in Cuba, and it does seek to be fair, but obviously shares the MSM anti-Castro bias... It also poses a fallacious question that completely ignores the basis for the Ostpolitik - actually a policy of accommodation, i.e., compromise, with the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe - that the Church pursued from the time of John XXIII and, to some extent, in the early part of John Paul II's Pontificate, in which the Vatican avoided denouncing Communism publicly in return for mitigating persecution of Catholic clergy. And Doino, who is, among other things, a scholar of the Cold War, surely knows this.


Has the Church gone soft on Communism?
by Wllliam Doino Jr.

Mar 27, 2012

Has the Catholic Church gone soft on Communism? It seems an absurd question, given the Church’s record against it, but one might have thought as much, given some of the commentary leading up to Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba.

A week ago, Mary Anastasia O’Grady, the respected Latin affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal, reported on the “deep frustration” of Cuba’s human-rights defenders who feel abandoned by the Church. [I posted that terribly one-sided article and fisked it. Being an expert in anything should also mean being objective and fair in reporting about your area of expertise!]

She was followed by Senator Marco Rubio, who expressed fear that the Catholic hierarchy had “negotiated themselves a space of operation” in Cuba, “in exchange for looking the other way” regarding the regime’s crimes. [I admire Senator Rubio, but to say that the Church is 'looking the other way' about the regime's crimes is simply untrue! If it did, then why would Cardinal Ortega bothered to secure the release of some political prisoners who may not even be Catholic? The Church in Cuba is not looking the other way - just doing what it can to protect the rights of Catholics first and others who are oppressed, without inviting punishment from the regime.]

National Review, usually very supportive of the papacy, posted numerous threads criticizing Benedict and the local Church for not publicly embracing Cuba’s dissidents; and one Miami Herald columnist went so far to declare: “The Cuban Church hierarchy will go down in history as siding with the oppressors, rather than the oppressed. [But this is typical condemnation by opponents of any totalitarian regime who will refuse to see an iota of good in it and who will automatically become advocates for the dissidents without examining their claims more closely! Remember the dissidents they are standing up for are not so much those who are in prison but the dissidents who have been free in recent years to express themselves openly without being punished by the regime, except for the occasional harassment of temporary detention.]

What’s going on here?

Part of it is the legitimate frustration toward a regime that never has received the worldwide condemnation it deserves, particularly from certain celebrities, intellectuals and even, alas, Christians. [It is certainly not true that the Cuban regime has 'never received the worldwide condemnation it deserves"! Just because a handful of celebrities like Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte, along with the usual gaggle of leftist 'intellectuals' around the world, have praised the regime does not erase all the deserved condemnation that has been made universally against the Cuban regime for its totalitarian practices!]

After seizing power in 1959, “Fidel Castro jailed, killed, or exiled 3,500 Catholic priests and nuns,” reports Foreign Affairs [a liberal moutpiece]. [Very cleverly, the magazine - or at least, Doino - does not break down just how many of these 3,500 priests were jailed, killed or exiled - and it is very likely that most of them were exiled or went into exile.] “His regime confiscated seminaries and nationalized all Catholic properties. The first Cuban Cardinal, Manuel Arteaga y Betancourt, took refuge in the Argentinian embassy. From 1959 to 1992, Cuba was officially an atheist state.” [Nothing new there that everyone did not already know. Castro's Cuba went through all the imaginable excesses that every totalitarian regime indulges in, especially right after it gains power.]

Despite moderating somewhat after John Paul II’s historic visit to the island in 1998, Cuba is still a grim dictatorship by any civilized standard. In its 2012 Annual Report, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom detailed the country’s continuing suppression of religious liberty, and Amnesty International reports that “Cuba has intensified its harassment of dissidents and human rights activists. . . . there were 2,784 cases of human rights abuses between January and September 2011, which is 710 more than in the whole of the previous year.” [I know from personal knowledge of what they have been reporting about my country, the Philippines, that Amnesty International always exaggerates to make their point, and that again, cleverly, a claim is made for 2,784 cases of human rights abuses - which can mean anything from denying a permit for a protest rally to imprisonment without due process. And believe me, if there was any remarkable incidence of the letter, it would have reported so, let alone if there had been any execution! I just quoted earlier Amnesty's statement in 2011 claiming only four 'prisoners of conscience' in 2011, who it acknowledged were released after 52 days without being charged.]

The Church’s controversial response has been to adopt a diplomatic, rather than confrontational, stance, and to look toward a post-Communist future — even though Communism remains very much alive on the island. [And can anyone please say what a confrontational stance would mean for the struggling Church? It would lose all the concessions it has gained since John Paul II's 1998 visit. If the Cubans were ready to overthrow the Communists, they could have done so at any time in the past 50 years - if only they had 1) a charismatic leader who would mobilize the masses, 2) 'masses' ready and willing to be mobilized, and 3) massive external aid such as not even anti-Communist groups in the United States could muster during the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.. Until then, all 'confrontational' talk is sheer bluster and has no objective basis.]

The debate came to a boil recently when Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, frustrated by a standoff with dissidents occupying one of his churches, asked the authorities to remove them (after winning assurance the group would not be prosecuted). [And I have not seen any claims so far that they were subsequently charged!]

The Vatican has also announced that the pontiff has no plans to meet with dissidents or their relatives during his trip (perhaps fearing it would do no good and/or lead to even more reprisals).

These are questionable judgments, and the Church should be open to “fraternal correction” from those who have fought so long and courageously for freedom in Cuba. [The best judge of what can and cannot be done in Cuba are the Catholics themselves who have to live there and co-exist with the regime, not those living in capitalist ease in Florida. If the million Cubans now living in Florida have been unable to mobilize themselves enough to substantially challenge, if not overthrow, the Castro regime, what moral standing do they and their advocates have to criticise the Church for presumably failing "those who have fought so long and courageously for freedom in Cuba"?]

At the same time, and in fairness, Cardinal Ortega has had much better moments. As recently as 2010, the BBC reported how the Cardinal openly compared Cuba’s socialist system to a “Stalinist-style bureaucracy,” and “also urged the Communist authorities to free all political prisoners.”

[In fairness as well to Cardinal Ortega, he was ordained a priest in 1964, three years after Castro had officially declared Cuba a Communist state. That's hardly a non-courageous act. Moreover, published biodata online state that he spent 1966-1967 in a Cuban labor camp, one of many Catholic priests apparently so punished, but I have been unable to find more details. But he has done time, and his detractors cannot take that away from him, not even the Damas de Blanco. The sketchy Wikipedia entry on him says that "In September 1993 the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops, headed by Cardenal Ortega, published the message 'El amor todo lo espera', extremely critical of the Cuban Communist government and asking for a new direction of the country. In April 2010 he said that Cuba was in crisis". From the outside looking in, we can only imagine what it costs Cardinal Ortega to keep a balancing act between stating the truth and calibrating his language to make sure it does not become counter-productive to the Church.]

As for Benedict, he is hardly an appeaser of Communism. In fact, on the plane trip from Rome, the Pope consigned Cuban Communism to the ash heap of history (to recall Ronald Reagan’s memorable phrase), asserting: “Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality.”

Reuters reported that Benedict’s comments were surprisingly blunt, noting: “The 84-year-old pontiff’s comments reflected the Church’s history of anti-Communism and were more pointed than anything his predecessor John Paul II said on his groundbreaking visit to Cuba 14 years ago.”

Benedict added: “It is obvious that the Church is always on the side of freedom, on the side of freedom of conscience, of freedom of religion, and we contribute to this sense.”

Even after he made these bold comments, Ronald Radosh commented: “We do not have any evidence that the current Pope will follow in the tradition of John Paul II.” But, as just noted, Benedict actually went beyond his predecessor; and Blessed John Paul surely would have applauded Benedict’s first two speeches in Cuba.

“I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be,” Benedict said upon his arrival, specifically mentioning “their sufferings… those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need.” (emphasis added).

The reference to prisoners and their families was important, for critics had predicted Benedict would not raise a word about them, but they were mistaken. The statement is “likely to be well received by political dissidents on the island as well as Cuban American exiles in the United States,” said Reuters.

There was more: the Pope prayed for the future of Cuba “in the ways of justice, peace, freedom, liberty and reconciliation.”

The Miami Herald noted: “The word liberty, a politically charged word, was not in the prepared remarks that had been distributed to reporters in advance of the Pope’s arrival and was added by the Pope apparently at the last minute.” [But what an idiotic - and dishonest - thing to say! Spanish has only one word for both freedom and liberty - libertad. There could not have been an original in Spanish that read "justicia, paz, libertad, libertad y reconciliacion", as indeed the published text in the Vatican site does not - it contains only one 'libertad'. And the official English text reads "justice, peace, freedom and reconciliation". No 'liberty' there!]

Sounds like something a dissident might do. [No, Mr. Doino. Benedict XVI would not do anything 'underhanded'. You ought to have done a linguistic and fact check!]

In the solemn papal Mass Monday evening, Benedict, the master catechist, gave a magnificent homily on the Incarnation — tying it to the family and personal faith in Jesus Christ — and ended with an appeal for Cubans to “strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity, and which better reflects the goodness of God.” It was the first such homily that many oppressed Cubans had ever heard, bringing tears to their eyes. {Doino cannot possibly mean that the homilies of John Paul II in Cuba contained no such thoughts!]

When critics say the Church has sold out the anti-Communist resistance for limited religious freedoms, they overlook an obvious fact: religious celebrations like the one the Pope just led, which speak to the deepest parts of the human soul, are themselves massive acts of resistance against a tyrannical Communist state, and should inspire freedom-fighters everywhere. [But we can be sure Benedict XVI did not mince his words, either, in his private meetings with the Castro brothers. He is an expert at using language to make his points, and because he is gentle and soft-spoken, he can drive home hard points without sounding confrontational.]

We can debate the prudential acts of Catholic leaders toward the Castro brothers, but let us not doubt where the fundamental sympathies of the Catholic Church — and especially Pope Benedict — lie. [And again, any such debate by people who do not actually live in Cuba is futile and sterile - because compromise is often dictated by the sheer need to survive. And before the Church in Cuba can even begin to think of re-evangelizing Cubans, it must first survive.]

Reporting on the papal Mass in Santiago, the Herald revealed: “Politics, however, were not far away. Shortly after two white doves were released as the Mass began, a man charged the stage shouting in Spanish, ‘Down with Communism.’ He was quickly subdued, and none of it was visible to television viewers.”


All the TV feeds I saw carried it, and unless they all had cameras independent of Cuban state TV - and there was no ten-second time delay between action and transmission, the viewers on Cuban TV could not have missed it. It happened very fast, to begin with...

He may have been physically subdued, but his spirit was alive with the power of truth. That is the power the Church represents, and why it will outlive and vanquish its persecutors in Cuba, like it has everywhere else. [The Church through the ages has survived much more severe and extensive persecutions. There is no reason why it will not survive the Castro brothers.]

I must confess how disconnected I have become to popular culture - not only because I have stopped keeping abreast of new music or new movies, even of many new books - but because that choice has kept me ignorant of current worldwide crazes such as vampire books and movies, and now, the Hunger Games phenomenon, not to mention the mania for social networking and YouTube. But not of Harry Potter, whom I discovered early from a random purchase of its first volume at a London airport before it caught on virally, as they would say today; or Lord of the Rings, which I read long before anyone thought of making blockbuster movies of the series. [Imagine if some openminded producer would ever think of filming Thomas Mann's epic four-volume engrossing account of JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS - from Jacob siring 12 children, to Joseph's eventual destiny as right-hand man to the Egyptian Pharaoh, to the exodus from Egypt and Israel's liberation from bondage! I keep hoping some intellectual Jewish moneybags would see its fantastic possibilities.]...

Reading the reviews of THE HUNGER GAMES. many of them finding the movie excellent, has not made me want to go out and see it nor read the book, because I have never been a fan of apocalyptic fiction. But it has made me want to reread William Golding's 1954 Lord of the Flies - since I cannot imagine a work of fiction that surpasses it in its fierce and bonechilling power to depict what happens when well-educated English boys who crash on an island descend into all-out savagery when left by themselves - as they play out the eternal drama of civilized behavior versus will to power, selfish personal desire versus the common good, reason versus emotion, morality versus immorality. I have no idea what the literary quality is of Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games novels, but Lord of the Flies, the first novel by a man who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature 29 years later, reads very easily (at least for me, when I read it at age 13 or thereabouts) - so the publishers might consider re-issuing it. Anyway, here's one view of THE HUNGER GAMES from the always articulate Fr. Robert Barron:

Priest calls 'Hunger Games'
movie dangerously prophetic
By Hillary Senour


Chicago, Ill., Mar 31, 2012 (CNA) - Father Robert Barron says the storyline in the blockbuster film “The Hunger Games,” based on the widely popular young adult book, warns of what can happen when a society becomes totally secularized.

“There is something dangerously prophetic about 'The Hunger Games,'” said Fr. Barron, founder of the media group “Word on Fire” and host of the PBS-aired “Catholicism” series.

The movie, which has already brought in $214 million worldwide since its March 23 release, is based on the young adult book of the same title by Suzanne Collins.

Set sometime in the undefined future, “The Hunger Games” tells the story of sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen's struggle for survival after she volunteers to take her sister's place in her country's annual “hunger games.”

Ruled by the wealthy and authoritarian Capitol, the impoverished Twelve Districts within the country must annually offer its children as tributes to take part in a live television broadcast of an arena battle to the death. The gruesome killings between the children serve as a reminder of the Capitol's absolute power and as punishment for the Districts' failed rebellion decades earlier.

However, as the events in the arena unfold, Katniss and her teammate Peeta begin to rise against the Capitol through attempting to maintain their humanity.

In a March 29 interview with CNA, Fr. Barron said he thought the movie contained elements of modern French philosopher Rene Girard's theory of “human scapegoating.”

He explained that scapegoating has been used throughout history as a means of discharging “all of our fears and anxieties” by assigning blame to an individual or group of people.

This practice is seen as far back in history from civilizations such as the Aztec and the Roman empires and as recently as Nazi Germany.

However, Fr. Barron said, Christ undid the need for humanity's scapegoating by taking on the role of victim himself in his Passion and Resurrection.

“The Hunger Games” shows not only “how very consistent this theme is in human history” and in “human consciousness,” but also what can happen in a totally secular society.

“When Christianity fades away,” Fr. Barron said, “we're in great danger because it's Christianity that holds this idea at bay.”

Just as Christ's sacrifice was the ultimate “undermining” of humanity's scapegoating, Fr. Barron noted Peeta and Katniss' defiance in the arena is a disruption of human sacrifice in their own culture.

“Christianity,” the priest said, “is the undoing of the scapegoating mechanism which lies behind most civilizations.”

Some critics have said that the book's plot is too graphic for the young adult audience at which it is targeted because it focuses on children killing other children. As a result, much of the child-on-child combat is toned down in the movie.

Youth violence is unfortunately a “human reality,” Fr. Barron said, “it's called war.”

Although he does not think violence should be shown just for entertainment value, Fr. Barron said he thought that “there wasn't enough violence” in “The Hunger Games.”

He understood why the producers would want to make the film more age appropriate, “but there's something about revealing to people what's at stake here that I think is important.”

Muting much of the teen killings “was a bit of a weakness” on the part of the film makers, he added, because “it's actually good to let this violence be seen for what it really is.”

The film was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “intense violent thematic material and disturbing images – all involving teens.”

So what seems to be the primary attraction of HUNGER GAMES to the teen market? Is it the vicarious participation in a literal fight to the death that extends the 'heroic' imagery of gladiatorial combat to a post-modern extreme? Or is it the possibility of spiritual redemption even among those condemned to fight to the death that seems to be the trait most appreciated by the critics who rave about the film? Or maybe both. Some US critics say a major subtext of the film is criticism of big government, but is that something that teens and subteens would necessarily grasp or appreciate?

Whatever it is, any fascination with the possibility of spiritual redemption surely sounds much better than a fascination with vampires and romanticizing them in any way as in the Ann Rice vampire book/movies and the subsequent Twliight book/movies (about which all I know comes from reviews and commentaries about them, not from firsthand knowledge). I'd probably read a Dan Brown novel first if put to the gun, than a vampire novel (Bram Stoker's Dracula is the one vampire novel I have read, and I have no desire to read any other.)

Above is the heading for an article in this week's issue of the Italian weekly magazine OGGI, shared by Lella and Eufemia on Lella's blog


I must say I was apprehensive as to what this book might say on balance, since the author is the journalist who wrote the expose two years ago for Panorama magazine on gay priests employed at the Vatican and the double life they led as active homosexuals. But in this excerpt, he is at once more candid and more fair than most Italian journalists have been about the way the Vatican has dealt with the sex-abuse scandal...However, I am perplexed by the subtitle of the book, which I have translated literally. Since I don't understand exactly the sense of it, I can't even begin to find an idiomatic translation - I think he means that his investigation was akin to a secret journey shuttling between the worlds of the Church and pedophilia...And ignore the line in the subtitle given to the excerpt about 'the reasons for the turning point' which appear nowhere in the article. Italians write the most misleading subheads, and they love using them - sometimes as many as three for a single story!

A wounded Church/The crusade of Benedict XVI
RATZINGER: Pedophiles have no escape
New cases fill the news and the book GOLGOTA recounts an atrocious reality
which has in the German Pope a fearsome enemy. Here are the pages
that explain the reasons behind the 'turning point'...
by Carmelo Abbate
Translated from

Excerpted from the book
GOLGOTA: Viaggio segreto tra Chiesa e pedofilia
(Golgotha: Secret journey between Church and pedophilia)


I want to keep an open mind.

I want to understand if the victims are right when they portray the Pope as the mastermind behind a parallel and secret system which for years covered up for sinful priests.

If representatives of many associations as well as ranking politicians in the countries most affected by this scourge are right when they accuse the Holy See of having covered up investigations into pedophile priests with total disregard for the pain of the young lives that they abused.

Or if the observers are right who underscore emphatically the courageous political and personal positions taken by Benedict XVI on the issue of pedophilia in the Church.

A Pope who for the first time in papal history has met with victims of violence, embraced them, apologized to them in the name of the institution he represents, and expressed pain, shame and regret.

...And while I am doing so, I also lined up all the questions that remain open:
- The resistances of Karol Wojtyla to facing the problem.
- The presumed cover-ups by Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other ranking prelates on cases of pedophilia that were denounced to the Vatican, starting with the scandal over Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.
- The stand taken by the future Benedict XVI on the need to fight the scourge and the presumed obstacles to a desired clean-up by some in the Roman Curia.
- The delays of the Italian bishops' conference in dealing with the problem in Italy.
- The theory of a Judeo-Masonic complex driving the controversy that has been used to distract attention. [????First time I ever saw this crop up at all!]
- The attempts at a media counter-offensive by the Church.
- Errors of communication...

The strange case of Cardinal Law
It was May 27, 2004, when John Paul II named Cardinal Bernard Law as Arch-Priest of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Less than 18 months earlier, Cardinal Law had to resign as Archbishop of Boston following a sex abuse scandal in which the cardinal had ignored denunciations that he had started to receive against abusive priests since he became Archbishop of Boston in 1984. He had limited himself to transferring accused priests to other places, without opening any investigation into the accused and without informing civilian authorities of presumed crimes.

... But when in 2001, the scandal erupted in all its virulence, and the American media succeeded in breaking open the wall of silence that the Church had erected, the more responsible among the US bishops asserted themselves and asked the Vatican to apply 'zero tolerance' against pedophile priests and any bishops who may have covered up for them.

...In this atmosphere, Cardinal Law was forced to resign against his will. But after several months, John Paul II, in a surprise move, in effect guaranteed him both juridical cover and ecclesial prestige. He called him to Rome and entrusted to his stewardship the papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore...

For Law, there was no canonical process, no formal determination by the Church of his responsibility for the abuses committed in his diocese. The fact that he was a cardinal and was given a position of authority in an extra-territorial appendage of the Vatican guaranteed him total impunity, rendering inexecutable any actions that might have been taken against him by US judicial authorities. [IS THIS A FACT? I don't know where to begin checking it out!]

...But, as we often say, the Lord can write straight even on crooked lines. And so the cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel elected Joseph Ratzinger Pope, who as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had many doubts about the papal dispositions regarding Cardinal Law. Indeed, it was not accidental that Benedict XVI avoided as much as possible to set foot inside Santa Maria Maggiore in the presence of Cardinal Law... [I do not know if it was deliberate, but the fact is that during the traditional Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Santa Maria Maggiore that ends the annual Corpus Domini procession from St. John Lateran Basilica , I do not once recall the presence of Cardinal Law.]

'You have betrayed the trust placed in you...'
The story of Cardinal Law is important because it shows the difference in attitude between John Paul II and Benedict XVI with regard to the pedophile scandal.

But even in this case, in a very paradoxical way, the great majority of public opinion seem not to attribute to the Blessed Wojtyla any responsibility for the incidence of pedophilia among the clergy and to the inertia of the hierarchy in dealing with the problem.

On the contrary, Joseph Ratzinger has been denounced before the world as the scapegoat, although his actions as Prefect of the CDF and later as Pope, demonstrate a commitment and determination to combat the scourge of pedophilia in the Church decisively superior to that shown by John Paul II.

...Enroute to Portugal in May 2010, in fact, Benedict XVI offered a new and unexpected interpretation of the so-called 'third secret' of Fatima, which had been disclosed in 2000 at the wish of John Paul II. ...

The text of the prophecy made by the Virgin to the Portuguese shepherd children had been interpreted since 1981 as a reference to the assassination attempt on John Paul II by Ali Agca, and John {aul II himself was convinced of this.

But speaking to journalists on May 11, 2010, Papa Ratzinger had offered a different interpretation, relating it to the tragedy of pedophile priests... [Benedict famously said that the worst persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies but from within the Church itself.]

...Another important milestone was Benedict XVI's letter to the Catholics of Ireland, dated March 19, 2010... With his direct style, the Pope addressed the victims of abuse and their families...And he addressed the priests and religious who had abused children in their care: "You have betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent children and their parents. You must answer for this before God, as well as before duly constituted tribunals. You have lost the respect of the Irish people. and brought shame and dishonor to your brother priests"...

Shame and dishonor. For the first time, a Pope has labeled the scandal of pedophilia.


While I can almost infer that the book contains quite a lot of information, old and new, that are damaging to the Church, I hope the conclusions drawn by the author in this excerpt may counteract in some way the most unfair 'scapegoating' of Benedict XVI in the popular mind, since this book is aimed at the mass market, as Abbate's previous book was entitled 'Sex and the Vatican' based in part on his expose of the gay priests.

April 2, Monday in Holy Week

ST. FRANCESCO DI PAOLA(b Italy 1419, d France 1507), Franciscan, Hermit, Founder of the Minims
After accompanying his parents on a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, the young Francesco began to live as a contemplative hermit in a remote cave near Paola, on Italy's southern seacoast. Before he was 20, he received the first followers who had come to imitate his way of life. Seventeen years later, when his disciples had grown in number, Francis established a Rule for his austere community, founding the Hermits of St. Francis of Assisi, with Vatican approval in 1474. He would change the name of the order to Minims in 1492, to signify that they considered themselves 'the least in the household of God'. In addition to the triple religious vow, Francesco also added the obligation of a perpetual Lenten fast. Although he preferred the contemplative life, the future saint began to use his gifts for prophecy and miracles to minister to the faithful, especially the poor and oppressed. At the request of Pope Sixtus IV, Francesco went to Paris to help prepare King Louis XI for death. While at the French court, he mediated a local dispute between Paris and Brittany and persuaded the king to return disputed lands to Spain. He died at the French court. He was canonized in 1519, and in 1963, John XXIII designated him patron of Calabria, the Italian region where Paola is located.
Readings for today's Mass:http://usccb.org/bible/readings/040212.cfm

Today is the seventh anniversary of the death of John Paul II.

BLESSED JOHN PAUL II (Karol Jozef Wojtyla) (1920-2005)


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

At noon, the Holy Father held a special audience at the Aula Paolo VI for some 5000 young people from Madrid,
who had taken part in WYD 2011. They were led by Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid.
Address in Spanish by the Holy Father.


A news conference was held by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Cardinal Stanyslaw Rylko,
and the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Mons. Orano Joao Tempesta, to brief the media on preparations thus far
for the XXVIII World Youth Day to be held in Rio de Janeiro next year.




The traditionalist blogspot Rorate caeli made much of the following report from Austrian sources this weekend, and AP has now reported it. It's the latest liberal manifestation by the Archbishop of Vienna in a series of startlingly liberal, certainly unorthodox, sometimes bizarre initiatives taken in the past few years...

Cardinal Schoenborn overrules parish priest
to approve practising gay man for parish council

VIENNA, April 2 (AP) — Austria's cardinal has overruled one of his priests and is allowing a gay Catholic to serve on a parish council.

Florian Stangl lives in a registered domestic partnership. The 26-year-old was overwhelmingly elected to the council recently, but it was overruled by the priest — a decision initially backed by the archdiocese.

Such councils include lay people and discuss local church and parish affairs.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn changed his mind over the weekend after hosting Stangl and his partner for lunch, declaring Stangl to be "at the right place."

Despite his close ties to his one-time professor, Pope Benedict XVI, Schoenborn has voiced an open mind to such taboo issues as priestly celibacy.

Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," but that gays should be treated with dignity and respect.

I am sure every parish council has its share of persons who happen to have more grievous sins than most people, but would a parish council openly elect a known adulterer, a known bigamist, a known abortionist or abortion practitioner as a member? That would seem to be sanctioning and therefore perpetrating what the Church describes as a 'cause for scandal in the community' because such individuals are, in effect, living in a state of chronic sin. A homosexual living in a registered same-sex union would fall in the same category, wouldn't he, since the Church teaches that engaging in homosexual sex is a sin? Perhaps the good cardinal, after having lunch with the homosexual couple, gave the green light because he became persuaded that this union was a chaste relationship, and therefore not an occasion for sin. Forgive my cynicism, but pull my eyebrow down!

April 2, 2012

---

“Anyone who acts irrationally cannot become a disciple of Jesus. Faith and reason are necessary and complementary in the pursuit of truth. God created man with an innate vocation to the truth and he gave him reason for this purpose. Certainly, it is not irrationality but rather the yearning for truth which the Christian faith promotes. Each man and woman has to seek the truth and to choose it when he or she finds it, even at the risk of embracing sacrifices.”
- Pope Benedict XVI, Homily
Plaza de la Revolución, Havana, March 28, 2012.

---

I.

Cuba has been, in effect, a Marxist ideological dictatorship for half a century. It would be difficult to know how else accurately to describe it. Whether it can go on after the Castro brothers' deaths can be wondered about, but possibly.

The Cuban government controls the population of the relatively small island. Many who might have caused an inner revolt have usually managed to escape to other countries. The remaining population is kept passive by government aid and coercion.

Most of the methods of tyrannical control that are found described in Aristotle or Machiavelli have been successfully employed to keep power: keep people busy, control friendships and communication, and use force when necessary. Control of military, police, economy, education, health services, and culture have been in place. Chances of a John Paul II type peaceful revolt from within seem slim, though they also seemed remote in Poland also.

The Church in Cuba exists, with hierarchy and parishes, but the schools and other services fall under state control in one way or another. It is a difficult situation. Objectively, it is not free, but it is there. Do we go along the best we can or protest?

Protesting usually means long prison terms, as many brave Cubans know. Though there are sanctions designed to mitigate the severity of Cuban control, no one wants to bother doing anything rash. And so the Cuban establishment feels fairly secure in its own world. Outside powers have varying relations to Cuba, usually on its terms, depending on the political situation of the country involved.

The Cuban government likes to think — or at least insist — that its shabby economy and social conditions are rather a small Marxist paradise, long after most Marxists utopias have been shown to be what they are: human and transcendent failures. [Most Western political observers appear to interpret Raul Castro's incremental measures at economic reform as a tacit though much too-belated admission of the failure of socialist economics, somewhat akin to Deng Xiao-ping's much more resolute decision in the early 1980s to launch capitalism in Communist China. Without that decision, China would not now be the looming economic superpower that it is.]

Following the example of John Paul II, Benedict XVI also went to Cuba, a land of long Catholic tradition. It is the Jubilee Year of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre. Even Castro did not suppress that devotion.

When Benedict visited the Plaza de la Revolucion on Wednesday, March 28, the Mass was taken from the Lenten Mass of the day. He greeted the Archbishop of Havana, other bishops, priests, seminarians, religious, and lay faithful. He mentions also “civil authorities who join us.” Since no names were mentioned, we assume that no high official was allowed to appear; otherwise he would have likely been mentioned by name. [Fr. Schall is sadly misinformed, or he was not watching the coverage at all. Raul Castro was present, as he was at the Mass in Santiago.]

The Pope appropriately cited the passage from John 8 (v 32) in the Mass, the famous passage stating, “…and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” This is Benedict’s basic message to the Cuban regime. They are not free insofar as they oppose the truth. Who else could tell them this fact?

Benedict adds that Christ’s “teaching provokes resistance and disquiet among His hearers and He accuses them of looking for reasons to kill him.” The theme that those who uphold the truth will be killed is striking. It takes us right back to Socrates and Christ. The Cuban Marxists, no doubt, will say that, since they have the truth, this saying applies only to their enemies. But Benedict notes that Christ exhorted even those who would kill Him to believe.

Benedict next explains what truth indicates. “The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom.” Many do not want to face this relationship between freedom and truth. They are like Pilate who wanted to wash his hands of the whole mess.

They elevate Pilate’s cynical “What is truth?” to a philosophical principle: 'Truth cannot be known. Once we hold this version of skepticism or relativism, our hearts are “changed.” We doubt everything. All is permitted. Like the Roman governor, we do not take a stand'. But the Cuban rulers take a stand on their “truth.” They allow no one the public freedom to doubt it.

Benedict then takes up the question of those who have a fanatical version of truth. “They close themselves up in ‘their truth,’ and try to impose it on others.” This is hitting pretty close to home. Benedict is blunt. They are like the ‘blind Scribes” who yell “Crucify Him” (Jn 19:6).

The Pope then reiterates one of the principle themes of his whole pontificate and intellectual life: “Anyone who acts irrationally cannot become a disciple of Jesus. Faith and reason are necessary and complementary in the pursuit of truth.”

Of course, Benedict does not deny that even the best of our kind sometimes act irrationally. What he does mean is that what is irrational in principle cannot be Catholic, cannot be the faith that is directed to reason. This is the import of the “Regensburg Lecture.”

“God created man with an innate vocation to the truth and he gave him reason for this purpose.” The purpose of reason as a power is that we actually use it to know what is, to know the truth of things.

In much of modern society, all religion is defined to be “irrational” and potentially fanatical, no matter what it holds. This dubious theory happily justifies state control, as we are seeing every day in our own society and throughout the world.

The fact is that some religions do have fanatical elements that do need control. This is why Benedict stresses the distinctiveness of Christianity precisely here. It rejects irrationality, be it that of Marxism, relativism, skepticism, liberalism, pragmatism, or that found in any religion including Christianity.

II.
Looking at these principles to answer the objection that Christianity itself is “fanatical,” Benedict writes: “Certainly, it (‘man’s inner vocation to truth’) is not irrational but rather the yearning for truth which the Christian faith proposes. Each man and woman has to seek the truth and to choose it when he or she finds it, even at the risk of embracing sacrifices.”

Benedict is speaking clearly and profoundly here. It is a precise instruction on what we are about, to know the truth, and what to do about it, follow it, even at great cost.

Truth is not something we concoct for ourselves. We seek it; we discover it; we do not create it. “The truth which stands above humanity is an unavoidable condition for attaining freedom, since in it we discover the foundation of an ethics on which all can converge and which contain clear and precise indications concerning life and death, duties and rights, marriage, family and society, in short, regarding the inviolable dignity of the human person.”

This is a very insightful sentence. Truth is the same for all men. It “stands above humanity” to judge them all, not just Cuba, but Cuba too. Without truth about what God, cosmos, man, society, family, and the world are, we cannot deal with one another in the freedom in which we all understand the basis of truth.

Benedict is here speaking to all cultures, religions, and nations. He is upholding the universality of reason in all men and giving a foundation for its validity.

Yet, “Christianity, in highlighting those values which sustain ethics, does not impose, but rather proposes Christ’s invitation to know the truth which sets us free. The believer is called to offer that truth to his contemporaries, as did the Lord, even before the ominous shadow of rejection and the Cross.”

Again these are penetrating words. One wonders whom in Cuba, or elsewhere, is free enough of soul to ponder them. The Church proposes. What it proposes in the name of Christ can be rejected and has been rejected often from the beginning.

Men are free to reject the truth. But they are not free to avoid the consequences of their rejection; nor are they free to exclude responses to their claims against truth.

Christ, Benedict tells us, is the “true measure of man,” something John Paul II taught in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. “I (Benedict) wish to proclaim openly that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.”

The Church lives to make clear this truth, which it does not “make up” but receives from Christ to be handed down. This faith and truth are also “public.”

Benedict sees in Cuba steps being made to enable the Church “to carry out her essential mission of expressing her faith openly and publicly.” He asks the government to strengthen these apparently initial endeavors. To do so is a service to the “Cuban society.”

Benedict then reaffirms something he reiterates often: “The right to freedom of religion, both in its private and in its public dimension, manifests the unity of the human person, who is at once a citizen and a believer.” Believers also contribute to the good of society by being reasonable and rational persons.

Benedict ends with a tribute to Father Felix Varela, who once was a vicar in the diocese of New York and the founder of a newspaper in St. Augustine, Florida. He lies now buried in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana.

“He has taken his place in Cuban history as the first one who taught his people how to think.” That is no mean feat indeed! Varela gives us a way to think about how to “transform society.” We need to form “virtuous men and women in order to forge a worthy and free nation, for this transformation depends on the spiritual, in as much as ‘there is no authentic fatherland without virtue’”

The Pope is citing from Varela’s letter of 1836. He is telling Cuba, in other words, that there is a peaceful way.

Somehow, this phrase “No authentic fatherland without virtue,” itself sounds to me like a passage from Cicero. It is not in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. I also checked Google. I was amazed at how many times that passage from the Pope’s Havana address was cited, many dozens and dozens of times.

I suspect the reason for this attention to Varela’s striking passage is because it is directly pertinent to our “fatherland” and the struggle over virtue and religious freedom that we now face with the culture and the government.

“Cuba and the world need change,” Benedict finally tells us, “but this will occur only if each one is in a position to seek the truth and choose the way of love, sowing reconciliation and fraternity.”

Perhaps we can consider these words the last legacy of Fidel Castro to the world, to be the occasion of reminding us all, though the Pope of Rome and Father Felix Varela, that virtue and fatherland go together, that “truth stands above humanity,” that we cannot be free unless we seek and know the truth, and that we may well have to suffer if we do, even in our fatherlands, wherever they may be.



It was clear from his inflight statement enroute to Mexico - "The Marxist ideology no longer responds to reality" - that Benedict XVI would not shirk from speaking truth to power, as it were, when he got to Cuba. And he did not. From his arrival remarks in Santiago de Cuba and in every statement he made until he left Cuba, he did just that in as many ways as he could, and as only he could. In the Homily in Havana cited by Father Schall, he was literally speaking about Truth to power.

And Raul Castro listened to all that - something Jose Luis Zapatero in Spain never even considered doing. I do not know how much more Raul Castro could have shown his 'willingness' at the very least to listen to the truths he could not have doubted this German Pope would say, than the fact that in the Pope's whole Cuba program, the only event he was not present at was the visit to the Shrine of the Virgen del Cobre. He even showed up at the airport when the Pope made the inland flight from Santiago to Havana, a gesture that was not necessary.

Perhaps even more telling is the fact that not only did Cuban state TV broadcast the Pope's Masses but the regime's newspapers published all the papal texts in full! Some wags may say, "Oh, he could afford to publish the papal texts - after all, no one reads the official organs!" Not so - they happen to be the only national newspapers. [Granma is the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba; Juventud Rebelde is that of the Union of Young Communists; and Trabajadores, that of the Center of Cuban Workers.]

So, did Raul allow all that because he is so confident that the Pope's words would be above the heads of most Cubans or that 50 years of 'brainwashing' have rendered them impermeable to truth? Or is he perhaps initiating them into a separate phase of the transition from Castroism by exposing them to hard-hitting spiritual truths that he himself once professed growing up Catholic in Cuba?

But perhaps the most 'humble' gesture he showed to his people and to the world was after the Mass in Havana, when he ascended all those steps - quite a long flight - to the altar stage in order to greet Benedict XVI. The graphic image was startling and compelling! That was the third surprise he sprung - after showing up at the Mass in Santiago, then turning up at the airport in Havana to greet the Pope coming in from Santiago.

What could have motivated all this deference to the Vicar of Christ? We can rule out seeking to enlist his people's willing support for the regime (as opposed to what the outside world considers their enforced and resigned submission), for the simple reason that we are told by all the experts that much of Cuba continues to be atheist, so he would not gain points with that majority for being nice to the Pope.

So was this just part of his recent decision to seek rapprochement with the various religious groups in Cuba, especially the Catholic Church which, despite everything, does have a nationwide 'organization' compared to, say, the santeria groups?

Whatever it is, we cannot surmise from the outside looking in, with few facts at our disposal. But the Holy Father has eyes and ears on the ground in Cuba who keep him informed. And we can almost be 100% certain that the way he expressed himself in all his public addresses and private conversations with Raul and Fidel Castro was carefully calibrated according to the information and assessments provided to him beforehand by the Cuban bishops and by Mons. Becciu, now deputy Secretary of State, who was Nuncio to Cuba for many years.

Here's a news post-script from Cuba's most prominent Christian dissenter who attended the Holy Father's Mass in Havana:

'We opened our hearts to hope',
Cuban dissident says after papal visit


Havana, Cuba, Mar 29, 2012 (CNA) - Oswaldo Paya, a peaceful dissident and global director of the Christian Liberation Movement, said Cubans have “opened our hearts to hope” after attending the Mass Pope Benedict XVI celebrated in Havana.

In a statement posted on his website on March 28, Paya said that despite harassment and widespread surveillance by government agents, he was able to attend the Mass in Havana, “where the People of God heard the words of the Holy Father.”

Paya also denounced the recent arrests made by the Castro government to prevent dissidents from participating in Pope Benedict XVI’s historic March 26-28 visit to the country. [CNA does not add that, as reported by all the Western news agencies from Havana, the arrestees - 70 members of the Damas de Blanco - were released without charges the day before the Pope's visit.]

“Our first words are for hundreds of our fellow dissidents who were not able to be here because of the wave of fear. There was a great absence of precisely those of us who defend human rights,” he said.

“I speak of them and in the name of those who have no voice and have only suffered scorn and repression, and we must remember.”

“But we prayed with the Holy Father, we opened our hearts to hope,” Paya emphasized. “As John Paul II said: we have to be the protagonists of our history.”

“Liberation is a task for the Cuban people – now with greater hope because we are definitely on the verge, on the threshold of truth and liberation. That is our hope,” he said.

Although CNA has interviewed Paya on multiple occasions, the agency was unable to contact Paya via phone this week as the local operator claimed the number was incorrect.

Carlos Paya, who represents the Christian Liberation Movement from Spain, said Oswaldo Paya's number in Cuba “is being blocked” and that he does not have access to internet.

Carlos Paya said information about the CLM has to be published out of Spain because of the restrictions that exist in Cuba.

Of course, tor all the small concessions made by the Cuban regime, it continues to be a totalitarian government, so it is by no means a free society, and restrictions are the rule. Unless Raul Castro can restore a free society sooner rather than later, the Cubans need a non-Marxist and democratic 'Fidel', long overdue, who can lead them to 'force' that change peacefully! Does Oswaldo Paya have the potential to be that pro-active catalyst?

http://www.rio2013.com/pt

JPII'S inspiration continues as
World Youth Day heads to Brazil
By David Kerr


Vatican City, Apr 2, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News) - Seven years after his death, Blessed Pope John Paul II is inspiring those organizing the 2013 World Youth Day in Brazil.



“World Youth Day was an initiative by Pope John Paul II, who was born seven years ago into heaven, and so there is a big responsibility on us to move things forward in Rio de Janeiro,” Archbishop Orani João Tempesta said to CNA on April 2.

World Youth Day was initiated by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1984. He is now co-patron of the international youth gathering, along with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.



At a Vatican press briefing today on preparations thus far for WYD-Rio, the President for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, said that the Brazilian city authorities realize that “in a sense” World Youth Day “will be a more important event” that the two sporting competitions that follow it.

“Both the number of participants, and because young people today need first and foremost to be rooted in faith and in the great family of the Church to contribute more and better to the life of society,” he said.

Cardinal Rylko also praised World Youth Day as “a prophetic intuition of Blessed John Paul II,” which has “worked a revolution in the field of youth ministry.”

The preparatory meeting, he said, clearly recognized that “the primary mission of the Church” is “to train new generations of Christians to fully live the Gospel and to transmit it with joy.”

“At this World Youth Day in Rio we want to bring young people to the city to say that God loves all the young and that they have a lot of work to do in this world to make this world a little better,” said Archbishop Tempesta, who leads the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro.

The 61-year-old Brazilian cleric has been in Rome to participate in the first international preparatory meeting for those organizing the 2013 World Youth Day. The four-day summit concluded April 1 and was followed by an April 2 briefing for the media on the latest developments.

Archbishop Tempesta told CNA that organizers aim to “make the core events in the South Zone of the city,” while the concluding prayer vigil and Mass on Sunday “will be on the West Zone of Rio.” The final decision on the venues still requires final approval from a Vatican organizing team that will visit Brazil later this year.

The Rio archbishop added that official bookings for pilgrim groups will first become available in July 2012.

The six-day festival will take place July 23-28 and is currently estimated to bring 2 million pilgrims to the city. Archbishop Tempesta said that “the aid of 60,000 volunteers” will be required to marshal the event and that 16,000 have already been signed up.

The organizers have made an effort to make information available online and present on social media. The event’s website, www.rio2013.com, is available in five languages and its Facebook and Twitter accounts already have “over 600,000 followers.”

More than 200 entries were submitted for the official logo, with the winning design coming from 25-year-old artist Gustavo Huguenin from Rio de Janeiro. The heart-shaped logo incorporates the national colors of Brazil along with some of the symbols of Rio, including the city’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue.

The official hymn for the celebration will be decided on by this July. So far, 180 proposals for the text of the hymn have been sent in. The next step, the archbishop explained, “will be the competition for the melody for that chosen text.”

Archbishop Tempesta has been accompanied in his visit to Rome by a delegation of civic officials from Rio, including the city’s mayor, Dr. Eduardo Paes.

Although World Youth Day usually occurs every three years, the Rio de Janeiro gathering comes only two years after the previous event in Madrid. This was to avoid a clash with the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 which are both being hosted by Rio.

Archbishop Tempesta concluded his briefing by recalling the words of Cardinal Rylko at the end of their four-day meeting, “They say all roads lead to Rome. Now we say: All roads lead to Rio.”


On the anniversary of JPII's death,
the Vatican focuses on WYD
By Cindy Wooden


VATICAN CITY, April 2 (CNS) -- On the seventh anniversary of the death of Blessed John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI paid homage to one of his predecessor's innovations: World Youth Day.

Greeting an estimated 5,000 cheering young people from Spain April 2, Pope Benedict said they were "the protagonists and principal recipients of this pastoral initiative promoted vigorously by my beloved predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, whose passage to heaven we remember today."

The Spanish youths had come to the Vatican for the celebration of Palm Sunday April 1 and to thank the pope for visiting Madrid for World Youth Day last August. The Spanish delegation included the World Youth Day orchestra, which played during the papal audience.

While the Pope was with the young people, Vatican officials and representatives of the Brazilian bishops' conference were holding a news conference to talk about plans for the next international celebration of World Youth Day, which will be held July 23-28, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro.

Pope Benedict told the Spanish youths that the World Youth Day experience "can only be understood in the light of the presence the Holy Spirit in the Church," who continues to enliven the church and to push believers "to bear witness to the wonders of God."

He told the young people, "You are called to cooperate in this exciting task, and it's worth it to commit yourself to it without reservation. Christ needs you to expand and build his kingdom of charity."

Each and every person has a vocation, a call from God that is the key to each person's holiness and happiness, as well as being a call to create a better world, the pope said.

The missionary outreach of young people is set to be a key focus of WYD 2013 in Rio, said Vatican and Brazilian officials.

Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Pinheiro da Silva of Campo Grande, president of the Brazilian bishops' commission for youth, said the "days in the dioceses" that usually precede the main World Youth Day gatherings would be transformed into a "Missionary Week" when young Catholics from around the world travel to Brazil.

The youths' time in dioceses outside Rio will still include a chance to get to know local people and customs, but Bishop da Silva said organizers felt -- and the Vatican agreed -- that more time should be devoted to catechesis, spiritual experiences and encounters that would help young Catholics from around the world learn to share their faith with others.

The news conference was held after a March 29-31 meeting of representatives of bishops' conferences and movements from 99 countries. The meeting included a review of the Madrid experience and a discussion of plans for Rio.

Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which coordinates the youth gatherings, said one of the chief criticisms of the Madrid gathering was that the vast majority of young people -- about 1 million of them -- were unable to receive Communion at the final Mass. Organizers said they had to close the tents where the unconsecrated hosts were stored after a storm.

The Canadian representative, Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, who was director of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, said organizers must never forget that logistical problems at such an event have "pastoral and liturgical ramifications and consequences that last long after the event is over."

He said questions still remain about why it wasn't possible to get the hosts out of the tent, and even why so many young people with passes for the Mass weren't allowed in.

"Whatever the real, legitimate circumstances were that caused these situations, let us do everything we can to avoid them in the future," he told the meeting.

Cardinal Rylko told reporters the Madrid experience will help the Brazilians be even more prepared for the unforeseen and unpredictable, but he also said, "World Youth Day is a pilgrimage, and pilgrimages always bring challenges."

The cardinal also was asked about plans for the Rio 2013 Way of the Cross celebration, one of the key moments of World Youth Day.

With the event still 15 months away, details are still being worked out, he said; however, the prayer service traditionally has been connected to the local reality -- to the history, culture or suffering of the local people -- so one idea is to have at least one station inside one of Rio's "favelas" or poor neighborhoods.

Archbishop Orani Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro told reporters, "We're still looking at how to do that."


Instead of 'Days in the Diocese',
week of youth missions
to precede WYD Week in Rio


Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Mar 30, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News) - World Youth Day Rio 2013 will be preceded by a week of missions throughout Brazil before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims arrive for the global youth event next summer.

Father Jefferson Goncalves, director of pre-World Youth Day activities, said the country's traditional “Days in the Dioceses” will instead be a Missions Week to be held July 17-20 in 2013.

The weeks aims to give young people the chance to participate in spiritual activities, works of solidarity with local communities, as well as missionary and cultural events.

Organizer Raphael Fritz said families will provide hospitality for the young people taking part in the Missions Week to give them a more authentic experience of what life is like locally.

The decision to turn the “Days in the Dioceses” into a missions week was made by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, during his visit to Rio de Janeiro in February.

Fr. Goncalves said he hopes the event will “leave as a legacy to future World Youth Days this experience of leading young people into missionary discipleship.”

Last week, some 300 youth ministers from around the world met in the Italian city of Rocca di Papa to discuss the preparations for for World Youth Day Rio 2013.



The official promotional video for WYD 2013 can be seen here:
http://www.xt3.com/wyd2013/library/view.php?id=9275&categoryId=54

As the news briefing was being held on WYD 2013, the Holy Father met 5,000 veterans of WYD 2011 who had come from Madrid for this special reunion....

Pope recalls the grace of WYD Madrid
and looks forward to WYD Rio



The Holy Father with Cardinal Varela.

“Whenever I bring to mind the twenty-sixth World Youth Day in Madrid, my heart fills with gratitude to God for the experience of grace of those unforgettable days,” said Pope Benedict XVI Monday as he greeted thousands of young people, bishops and organizers of the Madrid event, held last August in the Spanish capital. The delegation was led by the Archbishop of Madrid and organizer of WYD 2011, Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela. Emer McCarthy has this report:

The 5,000-strong group that packed the Paul VI audience hall Monday, representing young people from Madrid and other dioceces of Spain, were also a visible presence at Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square on Sunday together with their Brazilian contemporaries who will host the next global youth gathering in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 - come together to celebrate the 27th WYD in the Pope’s diocese of Rome.

Pope Benedict told them that the huge success of the World Youth Day’s, the brainchild of Blessed John Paul II, “can only be understood in the light of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church”, which “continues to breath life into hearts”, and “brings us into the public square of history, just as at Pentecost, to witness the wonders of God”.

The Holy Father told the young people that they in particular “are called to cooperate in this exciting and worthwhile task”. He said “Christ needs you to extend your hand and build His Kingdom of love. This is possible if you have him as the best of friends and witness by leading a life according to the Gospel, with courage and fidelity”.

Pope Benedict said that some people “might assume that this has nothing to do with them or that it is a task that exceeds their capabilities and talents. But it is not so”.

“Do not fail to ask yourselves what the Lord is calling you to and how you can help. You all have a vocation”, he said, “to happiness and holiness”.

Here is a translation of the Pope's address:

---

Dear Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid,
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear young people,
Friends:

I am grateful for the kind words addressed to me by Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, delivering them in behalf of all present, and I greet with him with close affection, as I do the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Madrid, the Bishop of San Sebastian, and the officer in charge of pastoral ministry to the youth in the Spanish bishops conference.

And I am pleased to welcome to the See of Peter, those who make up this pilgrimage that you organized in order to thank the Pope for his visit to Spain for the World Youth Day celebrated there last August.

I greet all the authorities, organizers, patrons and volunteers, but most especially, the young people, who are the protagonists and principal beneficiaries of this pastoral initiative which was vigorously impelled by my beloved predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, whose passage to heaven we remember today.

Equally present in my thoughts are all the bishops of Spain and the diocesan youth representatives, who collaborated so much in the dioceses towards the happy execution of this significant ecclesial event.

I cannot fail to mention the men and women of the consecrated life and so many other persons and institutions who offered their valuable and generous contribution for the same end.

Everytime I recall the XXVI World Youth Da that I experienced in Madrid, my heart fills with gratitude to God for the experience of grace during those unforgettable days. From my arrival, demonstrations of welcome and hospitality followed one upon the other and multiplied, along with the faith and joy of the young people who made themselves eloquent signs of the resurrected Christ.

Dear friends, that splendid encounter can only be understood in the light of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. He does not cease to instill the breath of life into our hearts, and he continually takes us to the public square of history as at Pentecost to bear witness to the wonders of God.

You are called on to cooperate in this exciting task and it is worth your while to commit yourself to it without reservations. You need Christ by your side to extend and edify his Kingdom of love. This will be possible if you have him as your best friend, and you confess to him, while leading a life according to the Gospel, with courage and faithfulness.

Some might say that this has nothing to do with himself or herself, that it is an undertaking that is beyond his capacities and talents. But it is not so. In this adventure, no one is superfluous. That is why you should ask yourselves what is it that the Lord calls you to do, and how he could help you.

Everyone has a personal vocation that Jesus wishes to propose to you for your own happiness and holiness. When one is conquered by the fire of his gaze, then no sacrifice can seem too big to follow him and give him the best of oneself.

That is what the saints have always done, extending the light of the Lord and the power of his love, to transform the world until it can be converted into a home that is welcoming to all, where God is glorified and his children are blessed.

Dear young people, like those first Apostles, be, like them, missionaries of Christ among your family, friends and acquaintances, in the places where you study or work, among the poor and the sick.

Speak of his love and goodness simply, without complexes nor apprehensions. Christ himself will give you strength for this. On your part, listen to him and be in frequent and sincere contact with him. Trust him with your yearnings and aspirations, along with your sorrows and those of persons whom you see to be in need of comfort and hope.

Evoking those splendid days in Madrid, I call on you not to spare any effort so that everyone who is around you may discover Jesus personally and get to know him as a living presence, and his Church.

Yesterday, with the Solemnity of Palm Sunday, we started Holy Week, during which we shall follow the steps of Christ until the celebration of his Paschal mystery. We acclaim him as the Messiah and Son of David, waving, like the children and young people of Jerusalem, the palms of salvation and jubilation. At the same time, we contemplate his sorrowful passion and his humiliation unto death.

I invite you, during these holy days, to unite yourselves fully with our Redeemer, remembering that solemn Via Crucis at World Youth Day in Madrid. We prayed, much moved by those sacred images which expressed profoundly the mysteries of our faith.

I encourage you to carry your own cross, and the cross of the pain and sins of the world, so that you may better understand Christ's love for mankind. Thus, you will feel yourselves called to proclaim that God loves man and he sent his Son, not to condemn man, but so that he may achieve a life that is full and meaningful.

Dear friends, I am sure that you are already thinking of going to Rio de Janeiro, where many young people plan to gather together once more, in what will be yet another milestone in the journey of the Church, always young, who wants to broaden the horizon of the new generations with the treasure of the Gospel, strength of life for the world.

As we proceed with our eyes fixed on the imminent dawn of Easter, may the celebration of World Youth Day in Brazil be a new and joyful experience of the Risen Christ who leads all mankind to the clarity of the life that comes from God.

May the Most Blessed Mary, who stood silently at the foot of the Cross and patiently awaited the fulfillment of his promises, be always for you the Mother of mercy - your life, your sweetness and your hope.

Thank you, thank you very much, for your festive and joyful presence, dear young people. I bless you with all my heart.

---

Also Monday morning in the Holy See Press Office, a press conference was held to provide information on preparations for WYD 2013 to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from July 23-28 next year.

The conference was presented by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta O. Cist. of Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, and Msgr. Eduardo Pinheiro da Silva, president of the Brazilian Episcopal Commission for Youth.

In his remarks Cardinal Rylko expressed the view that "WYD truly was a prophetic intuition on the part of Blessed John Paul II, and marked a revolution in the field of youth pastoral care. ... And Benedict XVI has explained how WYD opens up a new way of being Christian". Hence the great efforts the Church makes in preparing these events, he explained.

With the Rio celebration, WYD is returning to Latin America, twenty-six years after the first international WYD, held in Buenos Aires.

Rio 2013 is seen as "part of the continental mission, which emerged from the meeting of bishops of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) at Aparecida in 2007. At the level of the universal Church, the Rio WYD will also be linked to this year's Synod of Bishops on the theme of the new evangelisation".

The cardinal also noted that the WYD will be taking place during the Year of Faith.

"The aim of WYD", the cardinal explained, "is to increase faith among young people and foment the mission. ... The main need of young people today is to be rooted in the faith and in the great family of the Church, in order to be able to make a greater and more effective contribution to the life of society".

In conclusion, the cardinal, referring to the theme of joy for this year's celebration of WYD at a diocesan level worldwide, said: "Joy is a characteristic of WYDs, and that is no coincidence because, if on the one hand young people seek happiness, on the other the Church possesses in herself the treasure of true joy, which arises from encountering Christ the Saviour".

Information on next year's WYD is available in five languages on the website: www.rio2013.com. The WYD page on Facebook and Twitter already has 600,000 followers, and bookings for pilgrim groups will be open as of July this year.

Papal liturgies for
the rest of Holy Week
by Edward Pentin
Adapted from


Holy Week at the Vatican this year will be as intense as usual for the Holy Father, who is scheduled to celebrate six Masses and deliver five homilies and addresses that will usher in the Solemnity of Easter for the Catholic Church.

The Vatican’s Holy Week began with the blessing of the palms, procession and holy Mass on Palm Sunday, April 1.

The Holy Father celebrates his next Holy Week liturgy on Holy Thursday morning, when he celebrates the Chrismal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Mass manifests the unity of the priests with their bishop through the blessing of three oils that will be used for liturgical rites throughout the year.

In his 2010 chrism Mass homily, Benedict XVI stressed that oils point to Christ’s anointing and serve “as an expression of the Church’s unity, guaranteed by the episcopate, and they point to Christ, the true ‘shepherd and guardian’ of our souls.”

The Pope added that the oils, used in four sacraments, including baptism and in the anointing of the sick, are “offered to us, so to speak, as God’s medicine — as the medicine that now assures us of his goodness, offering us strength and consolation, yet at the same time points beyond the moment of the illness towards the definitive healing, the resurrection.”

In the evening, at 5:30pm, the Holy Father will begin the Paschal Triduum with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Benedict usually devotes his homilies on Holy Thursday — both at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the Chrismal Mass — to the priesthood and the holy Eucharist, which were instituted by Christ on this day. The Pope also washes the feet of a select group of 12 Roman priests, commemorating Jesus's gesture to the apostles.

And as in every other church on Maundy Thursday, the altar of the basilica will be stripped as a reminder of how Jesus was stripped of his garments when he fell into the hands of the Romans and was exposed naked to their insults.

Throughout that evening, until midnight, the doors of the Lateran basilica and all of Rome’s churches are thrown open for pilgrims to visit seven altars of repose — a tradition that dates back to early Christianity.

The tradition is to visit Rome’s pilgrim churches: four patriarchal basilicas (St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. Mary Major), plus the city’s minor basilicas (St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, the Holy Cross in Jerusalem and the Shrine of the Madonna of Divine Love).

Most Romans, however, visit seven churches that are usually in close proximity. Many of them will spend time praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and every church will have chapels turned into tastefully adorned altars of repose. Some enjoy the tradition so much that they will visit far more than the traditional seven churches.

At 5pm on Good Friday, the Holy Father will preside over the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s, during which the homily will be delivered, as is the custom, by the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa.

Last year on Good Friday, the Pope took part in a pre-recorded question-and-answer session with seven people around the world, which was produced and broadcast by Italian state TV. That program was a first in papal broadcasting history.

At 9:15pm, the Via Crucis devotion (Stations of the Cross or Way of the Cross) will take place at the Colosseum. Commemorating the passion and death of Jesus Christ through the reading of meditations and prayers corresponding to 14 stations marking stages in Jesus's way to Calvary and his Crucifixion.

This year, the Holy Father requested Danilo and Anna Maria Zanzucchi, an octogenarian married couple and founders of the New Families Movement (part of the Focolari movement) to write the meditations and prayers for the Colosseum Via Crucis. The theme of their meditations is the family.

The Via Crucis at the Colosseum dates back to the 18th century and was revived in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. It has since become a worldwide televised event.

Also guaranteed to attract a large worldwide audience will be the Easter vigil Mass presided by the Pope on April 7.

Easter Day Mass will be celebrated in the morning in St. Peter’s Square, followed by the Pope’s message and blessing urbi et orbi (to the city of Rome and to the world).

This usual, intensive Holy Week for the Pope comes on the heels of his recent trip to Cuba and Mexico.

The Holy Father is therefore likely to do what he normally does after Easter: take a short, well-earned rest at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.




This year's Via Crucis texts
written by octogenarian couple

An elderly married couple asked by Pope Benedict XVI to write the texts for the traditional Stations of the Cross procession on Good Friday (April 6) at the Colosseum in Rome has chosen to tackle family problems such as marital infidelity and divorce.


Left photo: The Zanzucchis with one of their New Families groups.

Danilo Zanzucchi, 82, and his wife, Anna Maria, 83, who have been married for nearly 60 years and have five children and 12 grandchildren, are the founders of the “New Families” group, an offshoot of Focolare, a Catholic movement. They were among the first married couples to follow the spirituality of unity promoted by Focolare founder Chiara Lubich.

As well as being consultants on the Pontifical Council for the Family, Anna Maria and Danilo were directors of the New Families Movement for about 40 years and still actively continue to give their precious contribution to this branch of the Focolare Movement.

In the pastoral year dedicated to the family, during which the VII International Meeting of the Family will take place (Milan, 30 May – 3 June, 2012), the reflections that will accompany the traditional Holy Week appointment will therefore focus on the family. It’s the first time that the Holy Father has entrusted this task to a married couple.

The traditional Good Friday rite is led by Benedict and involves remembering and reflecting on 14 moments of Jesus's passion and death. Every year, the Pope asks a different person to write the meditations.

Issues familiar to families worldwide will feature prominently in the Zanzucchis' texts. They say that every family has to go through its own “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross) made of “illnesses, deaths, bankruptcies, poverty, infidelity, immorality, family quarrels and natural catastrophes.”

The couple reflects on the “pain” induced by adultery: “So many separations, so many infidelities ... Jesus, help us understand what is love and the meaning of forgiveness.”

The Zanzucchis also mention the difficulty of educating children in values such as “sobriety” and “sacrifice” in a society devoted to the pursuit of material wealth.

In an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, the couple said they have tried to make Jesus's passion “contemporary” through the lens of their family experience.

Alessandro Speciale writes for the Religion News Service.

April 3, Tuesday in Holy Week

Second from right, a fresco showing angels helping the saint in the kitchen, in the Palermo church where he is enshrined; extreme right, the saint's remains.
ST. BENEDETTO IL MORO (Benedict the Moor) (b N Africa, 1526, d Sicily, 1589), Franciscan
The son of Ethiopian slaves, he and his family were taken to Messina, where he was freed at age 18. He joined some hermits near Palermo, but since they
followed the Rule of St. Francis, Pope Pius IV ordered them to formally join the order. A lay brother, he began as cook in the friary in Palermo but later
became novice master and then its superior. Although he was uneducated, his understanding of theology and of Holy Scriptures was considered remarkable.
He also had healing powers. He developed a reputation for holiness and attracted such a following he could only go out at night, well-covered, to avoid
recognition and people trying to tear pieces off his garments. In the last years of his life, he asked to serve once again as friary cook. His cult was immediate
after his death, and today, he is particularly venerated in Brazil. He is considered the patron saint of black Americans. He was canonized in 1807. His incorrupt
body lies in Church of the friary where he served in Palermo.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/040312.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

No events announced for the Holy Father today.


The Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog released the Vatican message to all Buddhists
on the annual Feast of Vesakh/Hanamatsuri 2012 A.D./2555 B.E., on the theme "Christians and Buddhists:
Sharing Responsibility for Educating the Young Generation on Justice and Peace through Inter-Religious
Dialogue".
Vesakh commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Siddartha Gautama, the Supreme Buddha (583-463 BC), and is celebrated
on different days in countries with significant Buddhist populations: April 8 in Japan; May 5 in Sr Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Cambodia and Laos; May 6 in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Indonesia; May 28 in South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Tibet, China, HongKong
and Macau; and June 4 in Thailand.

Mons. Georg Ratzinger's memoir of his brother is now out in an Italian translation, following the French and English editions. La Repubblica sent its Vatican correspondent Marco Ansaldo to Regensburg to talk to the Pope's brother.

A mine of anecdotes about
the man who is the Pope
by MARCO ANSALDO
Translated from

April 3, 2012

REGENSBURG - A Pope who can wash dishes. Who uses his siesta time to write letters. Who chose his papal name for its spiritual meaning but also because it sounds well. Who, on Tuesdays, practices with a tape recorder to be able to pronounce well his multi-lingual greeting to pilgrims. Who watches the TV evening news but also films about the Vatican. Who is not happy about attacks against him but looks beyond them.



These are some of the details that Mons. Georg Ratzinger reveals about his younger brother Pope Benedict XVI, with the release of the Italian edition of his interview-book with Michael Hesemann, Mio fratello, il Papa.

A mine of anecdotes about the life of Benedict XVI, it is an important source to know him as a child, a young man, and finally as the cardinal who was elected head of the Catholic Church in 2005.

Georg Ratzinger, who turned 88 last January, lives in retirement in Regensburg, but he comes to Rome several times a year, as he will shortly to be at his brother's 85th birthday celebration on April 16.

"I look forward to seeing him," he said. "On the 19th [seventh anniversary of his election as Pope], there will be a concert in his honor, which I will attend with him".

Following are highlights of an interview with him:

Mons. Ratzinger, you say that your first reaction was sadness when your brother was elected Pope. Why?
After the 'Habemus Papam' introduction, when I heard the name Ratzinger, I was petrified. In all sincerity, I felt at that moment very discouraged.

Why?
I was concerned. I thought that it meant a great challenge for my brother. At that moment, I could not think of the honor, nor any positive aspects - only the weight of all the responsibility that it would mean for Joseph.

What did he tell you about the Conclave?
He said it came like a sudden bolt of lightning in a clear sky. But also that everything took place so fast with the balloting that it was evidently the action of the Holy Spirit.

Did he tell you other reasons for choosing the name Benedict, which is the name not only of the saint of Norcia and founder of Western monasticism, but also of the intellectual Benedict XIV and the Pope of Peace Benedict XV?
We spoke about this once [before Joseph became Pope] and he told me he thought Benedict was a beautiful name. We were talking about things in general, and we were not making any reference to anyone. He said he liked its sound as well as its meaning - 'blessed' by God, and a blessing to others. And he said it was very appropriate for a Pope.

Of course, he is very fond of the saint, and is well aware that the two other Popes have great stature. But he also chose the name for esthetic and etymological reasons.

How do you remember him as a child?
He was an excellent student. One time, my mother told me that he was one of the three best students in his high school, and failed to be the only best one because he did not have good grades in drawing and in physical education. But in academic subjects, he was always the best.

What were his passions as a child?
He loved stuffed bears. In 1928, in Marktl am Inn, he fell in love with a teddy bear in a shop window. He eventually received it for Christmas. He really loved that toy. Later, of course, he incorporated St. Corbinian's bear into his coat of arms, and it has become the symbol of his journey.

Did you ever fight?
It was always about little things. In general, we were one heart and one soul.

What was his favorite dish?
He loved the desserts that our mother made, like Kaiserschmarren.

[The word translates literally as 'the Emperor's trifle'. It is a light, caramelized pancake to which chopped fruits and nuts are added. This is all fried in butter, the pancake split into pieces and further shredded afterwards. It is sprinkled with powdered sugar, then served hot with apple or plum sauce or fruit compote.]

Much later, when he was Archbishop of Munich, and then as CDF Prefect, how often did you see him?
He would come to Regensburg three or four times a year. We would usually eat at his home. The sisters would leave food in the refrigerator, fortunately, since neither of us is a good cook. After meals, he would wash the dishes and I would dry them. Then we would take a walk and spoke about God, the world, the events of the day...

Has Joseph changed now that he is Pope?
He's just as before. All he wants is to be himself. He does not want to wear a mask. He continues to be kind and modest as he always was.

Is he displeased about the attacks that he gets especially in the media?
He is personally very sensitive. But as for the attacks, he knows what motivates them, and so he does not pay that much attention. He goes beyond them.

How does the Pope spend his day?
After the Mass at 7 and breakfast at 8, he prepares for the day's appointments. On Tuesdays, he prepares for the Wednesday General Audience. For instance, he learns the proper pronunciation of words in the multilingual greetings he will make. He listens to a tape recording to hear how the words should sound and he practises saying them. After lunch, he relaxes, but instead of sleeping, he writes letters and notes, and does as much reading as he can. In the afternoons, he takes a walk and prays the rosary along with his private secretary, Mons. Gaenswein.

In the evenings?
Dinner is at 7:30, and at 8, he watches the news. Then a short walk in the garden. He rarely watches TV other than the news, unless there's a film about the Vatican.

Here are two perspectives on the recent papal visit to Mexico and Cuba - which reflect two distinct attitudes in the media towards Benedict XVI.

One is by the Spanish commentator Jose Luis Restan, who is an unabashed 'Benaddict', if I may say so, but is nonetheless capable of thinking outside the box, to make arguments that are not simply about singing the praises of Benedict XVI, but which go to the heart of an issue.

The other is by Le Figaro's religion editor, Jean Marie Guenois, who blows hot and cold about Benedict XVI, and whose recent commentaries about the Pope one can only describe as 'undermining' Benedict XVI, at the very least, including those about the state of his health. In the blog entry I have translated here, he does even worse - going to a direct and unwarranted comparison of Benedict XVI with John Paul II, calling one a 'giant' and the other 'a good servant', i.e., superhuman/over-achiever versus human/under-achiever. (Just compare how Restan and Guenois make use of John Paul II in their respective arguments!) Read and judge....

Why does a Pope travel?
Translated from

April 3, 2012

I still remember my old friend, the priest Francesco Ricci, relating vividly to us the first homily of John Paul II in Warsaw's Victory Square.

Ricci had gone beyond the Iron Curtain a few times in the 1970s, and had made contact with various dissident groups, and knew perfectly teh strengths and weaknesses of the Church in every country of Eastern Europe.

"With one word, with one gesture, he could have caused the fall of the Polish regime, but he didn't do so, because that was not his mission. That is not the mission of the Church".

Evidently, passion made Ricci exaggerate, but then, it was certainly unusual to see a Pope surrounded by a million people om a Communist capital. A newspaper report at the time said "it was as if the Church was tolerating the regime, and not the other way around".

Evidently, that first visit to Poland and those that followed were not innocuous from the historical point of view. They contributed to generate an unstoppable wind of change, which was helped along by the 'liberalizing' tendency in Mikhail Gorbachov's Soviet Union.

But the Church did its part through announcing the Gospel, through the witness of a faith that illumined everything human, that marked out the path to freedom and the inviolable dignity of every human being.

One thing sure is that through the long years of the Communist era, the Church played a historical role of spiritual and cultural resistance, of moral opposition and denunciation, but it never fell into the temptation (and it would have been great) to play the part of a political agent.

Of course there were many Catholics who were engaged in the opposition movements, both in the labor unions and in political groupings, which had the understanding, encouragement and support in various ways of the local Churches. [And the Vatican itself brought not inconsiderable financial resources to help Solidarity.]

But it must be noted, too, that the dialog between the Catholic hierarchy in Poland and the Communist regime was never completely interrupted, not even when the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski, was jailed, nor when the Communists launched their repression of the labor movement, nor when the priest Jerzy Popieluszki was assassinated, nor even during the martial law imposed by General Jaruzelski.

During this last phase, John Paul II had to accept particularly harsh conditions to be able to visit Poland. For example, he was allowed only one meeting with Lech Walesa, who was in jail at the time, whereas he had to appear on two occasions with Jaruzelski.

But Papa Wojtyla knew that his presence alone was a breath of hope for the Catholic community in Poland, on whose strength and vitality everything else directly depended.

I have taken the Polish example for obvious reasons, but let us remember that John Paul II visited places like Zaire, governed with an iron hand by the satrap Mobutu; the Chile of Pinochet, the Argentina of Galtieri, the Pakistan of General Zia, the terrible Haiti of Duvalier and Syria under the Assad clan. The list is long.

But if the great travelling Pope had limited his visits to nations with a minimum democratic standard, he may not have achieved even half of what he intended to do.

Evidently, each trip involves conditional terms, equilibriums, contingent options, by which the Holy See can seek to do things right, more or less. That is something that only time will allow us to judge with calm and perspective.

We know what happened in Managua (Nicaragua) when hordes of Sandinistas threatened to disrupt the Papal Mass, or the compromising position that resulted from the Pope's appearance with Pinochet on the presidential balcony in Santiago (Chile), or the uneasy sweating of UN forces when John Paul II went to Sarajevo. Every one of them disputable and susceptible to analysis.

The Church lives under all kinds of situations and all kinds of regimes. Without a doubt, she cannot be indifferent to these circumstances, but the Gospel must be proclaimed, the sacraments celebrated, and charity exercised in any circumstance.

That this is the case can bring about the most lasting change - a social and cultural change which can sometimes seem like a cyclone as it happened in Poland with Solidarnosc.

But on other occasions, it is not so. Sometimes, it takes a steady rain that will soak the earth slowly and which will take time before it shows visible fruits, but sometimes, not even that. When very simply, the powers that be condemn Christians to stay on the sidelines, sometimes in the catacombs. That's the way it has been and that is the way it may always be in certain places for as long as the sun rises.

The Pope travels to a country when there exists a community that needs to be confirmed and encouraged in its faith, and when there are minimum conditions of security and freedom that can allow the Gospel to be proclaimed and indicate its consequences for human beings. That is why no Pope has yet been able to set foot in China.

But it could be done in Cuba as John Paul II did in 1998. In Santiago and in Havana, Benedict XVI explained the connection between faith, reason and freedom; he showed the way in which Christianity can contribute to build society; he championed freedom for all citizens, and postulated the way of dialog and reconciliation in order to achieve an open and plural society.

I would ask: Which international leader, what writer, entertainer, politician, could and knew how to say all this in the Cuban public square all these decades?

With his presence, evidently limited by what the regime allowed, the Pope rendered a true service not only to the Catholics on the island of Cuba - the people for whom he is most responsible - but to the entire Cuban society.

It is another matter altogether that the opposition in Cuba, unfortunately, is far from having the strength that Polish anti-Communist resistance could, and that the influence of the Church in the Pearl of the Caribbean cannot even be compared to what she always had in Poland even at the worst moments.

In any case, Benedict XVI is far wiser and also far more humble than his critics, and so he said, enroute to America: "Naturally the Church must always ask if enough is being done for social justice on this great continent. This is a question of conscience that we must always ask ourselves: what the Church can and must do, what she cannot and should not do. The Church is not a political power, nor a political party, but rather a moral reality, a moral force... The Church’s first thought is to educate consciences and thereby to awaken the necessary responsibility; to educate consciences both in individual and public ethics. And here, perhaps something is missing." [Media conspicuously failed to latch on to this most significant statement - "what the Church can and must do, what she cannot and should not do" - which was not even emphasized or even picked up in the first stories about the Pope's inflight Q&A. They ran with "Marxist idelogoy no longer responds to reality...'

In fact, these extemporaneous remarks by Benedict XVI are never ever appropriately mined by the media for the density of messages, concrete and philosophical, that he manages to get out. They generally write the original report on it, and then consign the entire Q&A to the archives. By this time, these inflight Q&As deserve to be compiled into a book which will yet be another unprecedented literary output in the history of the Papacy!]

In fact, something is always missing because the Church navigates in a sea full of obstacles. What has not been lacking is 'the audacity of faith' which the Pope has brandished. And that is something that some so-called wise men do not understand nor can understand, but which, miraculously, the simple folk understand!


Why Guenois chose to frame his commentary under the title it has makes his viewpoint questionable outright...

Should Benedict XVI have
undertaken such a trip?
by Jean Marie Guenois
Translated from

March 30, 2012

In Cuba, Benedict XVI was at the limit of his strength. But the days which awaited him in Rome are the heaviest days of the year for a Pope.

On Palm Sunday, he presides over the longest Mass in the liturgical cycle. Then there is the rest of Holy Week, packed with liturgical events. And on Easter Sunday, he will only be one week away from turning 85.

And yet, the Pope has held up well. With Fidel Castro, one year older, who came to visit him at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana just before he was to return to Rome, the German Pope said, "I'm old but I can still carry out my duties", as they made light about their age.

Once could well ask why Benedict XVI even undertook this trip under the circumstances. True, he 'owed' Spanish-speaking Latin America which he had not visited in seven years of his Pontificate, but he had no obligation to do so. If he had decided not to make the trip at all, the faithful would have forgiven him. [The faithful might have, but the media would never have forgiven nor forgotten - they would have used it as another club to hit him with at will!]

It is true that the two countries he visited, Mexico and Cuba, are both in serious trouble. The first harbors a home-grown violence that has become the normal condition, with 50,000 killed in five years, in one of the most murderous battles on the planet - that of drug-trafficking cartels among themselves and against the Mexican government.

On the other hand, Cuba is undergoing a transition in the form of a slow agony from a communist regime that was the most ideological in history, to a very uncertain future for which existing social fractures do not bode well, and is potentially violent. [???? Why assume the violence factor at all? The Cuban people, though they certainly have failed to 'shine' in any substantial protest against Castroism, would hardly turn to civil war in the event they managed to shake off the yoke of totalitarian tyranny after more than 50 years! They would probably proceed right away to construct a democratic free-market society, knowing they would have the generous help of their more prosperous one million brothers living across the Florida strait.]

Fidel's brother Raul, 81, holds the reins today. But he is surrounded by an octogenarian Old Guard who are keeping watch. Turbulence ahead! [Does anyone really think that any surviving Old Guard from Fidel's original rebel band - we can probably count them on two hands - have any interest at their age in fighting the inevitable? They've had their glory days - they probably just want to pass away in peace. Why do journalists imagine such unrealistic scenarios???]

For all this, the man in white is not supposed to be the one who puts out planetary fires. He has neither the desire nor the means to do so even if he wanted to. His spiritual, religious and moral authority has a relative hold on various kinds of people.

And he is not the type who imposes his ideas. Those who wish can listen. But sometimes his well-constructed texts are very high-flown, too high-flown. [I must disagree with Guenois, of course. Benedict XVI knows from long experience to tailor his words to his audience. He would not address the faithful on an apostolic visit with the intellectual structure of the Regensburg lecture or the address at the College des Bernardins. But he does not talk down to the faithful either - he elevates them with a helping hand to where he wants them to be so they can best avail of what he has to tell them, as he did in the three Mass homilies he gave in Mexico and Cuba. If only Guenois could have heard four excited Mexican girls, aged 8-12 perhaps, dsscribe to a TV reporter what they understood the Pope to have told them at that Mass in Leon, and how they started to cry with emotion, overwhelmed with what the Pope's message meant to them - that, for me, was a stunning lesson, if I already didn't know it, in Joseph Ratzinger's power to communicate, and probably the most memorable 'reaction' I have seen in all his travels!]

But many times during the six-day trip, he would recall that he was speaking to the faithful as a witness for Christ.

And that he defends human dignity at all cost. Which has nothing 'reactionary' about it, as his detractors are quick to label him. One speaks up for human dignity in a country like Mexico where assassins can be hired for as little as 50 dollars.

Or in Cuba, where the common folk are watched, spied upon, dossiered and checked serially, when one is not handcuffed for thinking or speaking freely. It's true, it's a crime to think for oneself.... [Yada, yada, yada... we know: all the horrors of a police state. Didn't the French invent the Reign of Terror when all that and worse was done????]

An additional handicap: This trip was that of a Pope who is heir to his predecessor. In Mexico, he discovered for the first time in his Pontificate [??? The faithful in Cameroon, Angola and Benin - not to mention the pilgrims in Cologne, Sydney and Madrid - were no less effusive and affectionate!] the intensity of passion for the Pope by the crowds of faithful in the world's second largest Catholic country. They gave him a celebratory reception 'worthy of John Paul II'.

[Perhaps in France, Catholics of Guenois's generation were not raised to venerate the Pope, any Pope. But when will he and the other Vaticanistas get it into their heads that cradle Catholics in the traditionally Catholic countries outside Europe, not to mention well-catechized new Catholics, consider the living Pope, any Pope, as Christ's Vicar on earth, the nearest thing we have to Christ on earth, and therefore we hail him as such!]

There were dense crowds everywhere for him, hardly any free space along sidewalks, with screams and chants, constant movement, By day, by night, a continuing feast. [So, Monsieur Guenois, what did that say about the 'heir' you claimed to be handicapped by that very legacy?]

In Cuba, he walked in the steps of John Paul II. [OK already, everything he does is bound to be 'in the steps of his predecessor', in the same way that his predecessor walked in the steps of Paul VI, the original pilgrim Pope of modern times. Why does the cliche have to be brought up all the time? It's in the nature of the Church and its institutions, including the Papacy, that we follow the rituals, the protocol, the Tradition of the past.]

John Paul II's only visit in 1998 has become legendary. [So, Guenois goes from one cliche to the next. Of course, every 'historic first' becomes legendary!] The symbolism was maximal when two giants of 20th-century history - the communist and the man who helped bring down Communism - first shook hands in Havana.

This time, it happened by proxy, one might say, on both sides. Benedict XVI, formerly #2 to John Paul II, met up with Raul, formerly #2 to Fidel. Both have since become Number 1. But History had been made before them. These two good servants, in effect, would have to finish the work that two giants before them had dared to undertake.[Guenois must be very proud of the analogy he has constructed. Quite an unnecessary exercise, though - and rather malicious. As if the fact of having been #2 and then succeeding to #1 necessarily means that they are 'inferior' individuals. And I do not see how Guenois could even put Fidel on the same plane as John Paul II - even if he is only referring to their common effort towards rapprochement.]

Again, not that Benedict XVI has any ambitions in this direction. [Namely, to be as great and historical' as his predecessor?] He has developed his own style. He has his own battles - beautiful liturgy and the reconciliation of faith and reason. [Guenois cites the derivative elements but omits the primary mission - to restore the faith in its essentials to every Catholic, in order to better purify the Church so she and her members may be living and effective witnesses to Christ for the rest of the world. Liturgy expresses that faith, and reason reinforces it.]

But he knows he succeeded a Pope whom he admired and that many of those who came to see and hear him, in Mexico and Cuba, still admire. {DUH! They more than just admire him - he's Blessed John Paul II now and they can pray to him! And far be it from Benedict XVI to set himself up in any way against a man he beatified and will probably canonize! It is Guenois however who seems to be pitting Benedict XVI against a superman, a legend and a 'santo subito'. Yet I never admired Benedict XVI so much as when I watched him preside over John Paul II's beatification and seek such utter self-effacement during that week of celebration.

Can any of us imagine what genuine humility - nay, saintliness - it takes for a man as exceptionally and even uniquely endowed by God as Joseph Ratzinger - who was always the brightest star in any firmament he occupied - to be constantly denigrated by those who do not like him simply by comparing him unfavorably to his predecessor?

He was obviously aware of what would come his way, with his first words to the world as Pope: "After the great John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord...", acknowledging the greatness of his predecessor and presenting himself the way he sees himself best, 'a simple humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord'. BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI.]

In any case, Benedict XVI never sought to play at being John Paul II. He is himself. [An adundance of graces, which is more than enough!]

The profound dynamic of this 23rd trip outside Italy by this Pope perhaps lies elsewhere. This witness to Christ is a witness from a world that is passing away. [Startling words to hear from an intelligent Catholic! Perhaps he meant 'witness to a world that is passing away'.]

Cuba was proof of this. One cannot see how the present regime can survive once the Castros are gone. They could place an immense cast-iron portrait, almost Christ-like, of Fidel on the facade of the highest building overlooking Revolution Square in Havana where the Pope said Mass - but this man after his death will not 'save' his people. Then, the real troubles will begin. [I really don't see any reason or place for Guenois's political prognostications about Cuba! They don't belong to an 'analysis' of the Pope's apostolic visit. And what qualifies him to engage in political speculation about Cuba, anyway?}

Likewise, in Mexico, a world is passing away. The chronic malady of this nation which is 'under the United States geographically and morally, can no longer presage a future. It is a melange of consumerism, schizophrenia (to use Benedict XVI's term) between visible public ethic and invisible personal ethic, and of the extreme exploitation of man by man.

The great curiosity is to see this old lady, the Catholic Church, worn out and maligned, with the great failings she has had over two millennia, looking with the fresh eyes of a girl at these two societies come to such a pass after great times of arrogance.

As though the Church were full of an energy that is not political and which has never been beaten down and one that always generates hope. One should have seen the look Raul Castro gave Benedict XVI after the Mass in Havana. Those eyes which had seen everything. including the worst, expressed a form of acknowledgment that is impossible to feign. {In fact, Raul acted out that 'acknowledgment' when, without hesitation, he walked towards the altar-stage and then mounted that flight of steps to reach the Pope, in a gesture that made me gasp!]

Such is the weakness/strength of the Catholic Church. Pluricultural and plurisecular (many centuries old), she is one of mankind's guardians. When this mankind, constructed on itself, becomes stifled till it can no longer breathe, than the Catholic Church can help make it breathe once more. She is not the only one who can do this, but she proved it during this trip.

The Archbishop of Philadelphia
rings a bell for liberty:
A wake-up call for Catholics
An NRO Interview
by Kathryn Jean Lopez

April 2, 2012



"Nothing guarantees that America’s experiment in religious freedom, as we traditionally know it, will survive here in the United States, let alone serve as a model for other countries in the future,” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia writes in the new e-book, A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America.

“The Constitution is a great achievement in ordered liberty. But it’s just another elegant scrap of paper unless people keep it alive with their convictions and lived witness,” he continues. In this interview, Archbishop Chaput talks about the threats to and future of religious freedom in the U.S.

So are we about to fall like Rome did?
People make history, and each human life is unique, so history never really repeats itself. Comparisons with Rome can be tempting, but they’re also pretty melodramatic. What’s true is that every great nation rises until the weight of its own success begins to pull it down.

I think it’s revealing that America’s “greatest generation” — the men and women who survived the Great Depression and fought the Second World War — gave birth to one of the most self-absorbed generations in American history, my own.

John Courtney Murray said that America’s “most striking characteristic is its profound materialism” and that it had “gained a continent and lost its own soul.” Is America anywhere near as awful now as Murray thought we were decades ago?
Murray wrote those words in 1940 — before network television and a hundred other consumer distractions. Are we more or less materialist as a culture? People can draw their own conclusions.

Your concern about religious liberty in America runs much deeper than the HHS-mandate debate. How important is this one regulation, and how do you see it playing out? If you’re compelled by the Gospel to provide charity, to do good works, etc., you’re going to continue to do them, state penalty or not, aren’t you? Or will you simply have to shut down hospitals and charities?
The mandate debate has serious implications. Shutting down services is very much a possibility if the circumstances require it. We can’t violate what we believe as Catholics in order to do good works as Catholics. That doesn’t make any sense.

Is there an element of anti-Catholicism driving the mandate and its supporters?
There’s clearly an indifference to religious liberty.

What about the fact that so many Catholics — however many — use contraception and are advocates of legal abortion in their political lives?
That’s the wrong question. Plenty of self-described Catholics also commit adultery and cheat on their taxes. That doesn’t make them right, and it doesn’t make their behaviors “Catholic.”

The central issue in the HHS-mandate debate isn’t contraception. Casting the struggle as a birth-control fight is just a shrewd form of dishonesty. The central issue in the HHS debate is religious liberty. The government doesn’t have the right to force religious believers and institutions to violate their religious convictions. But that’s exactly what the White House is doing.

How can Catholics save religious liberty in America? How can they work ecumenically — and with those of no faith — to do so?
The most important thing they can do is realize that constitutional guarantees are just scraps of elegant prose unless people fight to keep them alive. This country has no special immunity to anti-religious bigotry in our courts and legislatures. If we don’t press our lawmakers to defend the rights of religious believers and communities, then we’ll lose those rights. It’s already happening.

Why do you begin A Heart on Fire with a critique of news and entertainment media?
People need to understand the power that our mass media have in shaping and mis-shaping our perception of reality and the course of public debate. Journalists generally do a good job in examining the flaws of other institutions. They’re less gifted in examining the flaws of their own. A healthy skepticism, including skepticism toward our news and entertainment media, is simply the mark of mature citizenship.

How did “overconfidence” on the part of Catholics help create this hostile environment for religion that is emerging in the U.S.?
I think making their way into the mainstream led many Catholics into a false sense of security in this country. Important elements of our Catholic faith will always be in tension with America’s Protestant and Enlightenment roots, and especially with today’s secularist thinking. A lot of people in my generation apparently forgot that.

Does the Church have moral authority in the public square? Should Catholics even have a public voice given the clergy’s abuse scandals?
We don’t have a choice. We need to witness because Jesus Christ commands us to witness. His moral authority is unimpaired. The evil actions of some priests do not license the rest of us to be silent.

Why the Melville quote — “Truth is like a threshing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the way”?
The public discourse of Catholics needs to be guided by charity and respect for others, but above all by truth. The truth can be difficult, so we often want to soften its edges. But this just wastes time and compounds our problems. Candor can be uncomfortable in the short run, but it’s much healthier in the long run.

The point is this: We need to be frank with each other as Christian adults, frank in our public witness and frank in our own self-criticism. Again, we also need to be prudent and kind — but not at the expense of courage, and not at the expense of speaking the truth.

Do you feel that you have a particular or heightened responsibility to discuss civic issues now that you’re shepherd of the flock in Independence Hall’s backyard?
Philadelphia is very rich in American history, so that’s a special gift. But every bishop has the duty to speak about the public implications of the Catholic faith.

You have a reputation for being a more political, even a right-wing, bishop. How do you respond to such characterizations?
Christianity is a “political” religion only in the sense that it has wider implications than the individual. Christian faith is communitarian; it places both personal and social obligations on the believer. It requires certain actions. It’s never merely private. As for reputation: The only reputation that should matter to a bishop is a reputation for leading people to Jesus Christ. Beyond that, what people say about any bishop is unimportant.

How can Catholics prudently engage in politics without becoming inordinately wedded to a political party? Should that be a concern?
It certainly should be a concern, and the cure for political addiction is keeping an eye on our mortality. Life is short. We’ll be forgotten by everyone but God. Our home is heaven, and the politics of this world won’t matter there. Charity, justice, courage, mercy — these are the virtues, or their absence, that will shape our eternity. These are the things that really matter. So to the degree we remember where we’re finally headed, we remain sane.


I notice a link in Lella's blog to a lecture given by Mons. Chaput on evangelization and liturgy back in 2010 when he was still Archbishop of Denver. It's an excellent lecture, as all I have read of Chaput so far is, starting with the title "Glorify God with your life: Evangelization and the renewal of the liturgy. I posted it in June 2010 in the CHURCH&VATICAN THREAD of this forum:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8593...
Mons. Chaput's thinking reflects a harmony, affinity and identification with Benedict XVI that is evident in all of the so-called 'Ratzingerian' bishops whom Benedict has appointed to the major dioceses of the world.

It's Holy Week, but we can all take time out for a bit of Iinterfaithaconsciousness-raising with the release today of the Vaticna's annual message to all the Buddhists of the world on the occasion of Vesakh (claled Hanamatsuri in Japan). Vesakh is the major Buddhist holiday commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of Siddartha Gautama, the Supreme Buddha (enlightened one), born in Lumbini (Nepal) around 583 BC, and died in Kushinagar (India) at age 80 (463 BC). Vesakh is a moveable feast celebrated according to the full moon, generally in May. Japan and the countries adhering to the Theravada or Mahayana branches of Buddhism observe it on different days.


Extreme left icon shows all three events in one image, and the subsequent icons represent the events separately.


THE VATICAN MESSAGE TO BUDDHISTS
ON THEIR MOST SACRED HOLIDAY

Here is the annual message written in all the official Vatican languages to Buddhists of the world

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Christians and Buddhists: Sharing Responsibility
for Educating the Young Generation
on Justice & Peace through Inter-Religious Dialogue

Dear Buddhists Friends,

1. On behalf of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, I am happy to offer again, this year, heartfelt congratulations on the occasion of Vesakh/Hanamatsuri. It is my wish that this annual feast may bring joy and serenity to the hearts of all of you throughout the world.

2. Today, more and more in classrooms all over the world, students belonging to various religions and beliefs sit side-by-side, learning with one another and from one another. This diversity gives rise to challenges and sparks deeper reflection on the need to educate young people to respect and understand the religious beliefs and practices of others, to grow in knowledge of their own, to advance together as responsible human beings and to be ready to join hands with those of other religions to resolve conflicts and to promote friendship, justice, peace and authentic human development.

3. With His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, we acknowledge that true education can support an openness to the transcendent as well as to those around us. Where education is a reality there is an opportunity for dialogue, for inter-relatedness and for receptive listening to the other.

In such an atmosphere, young people sense that they are appreciated for who they are and for what they are able to contribute; they learn how to grow in appreciation of their brothers and sisters whose beliefs and practices are different from their own. When that happens there will be joy in being persons of solidarity and compassion called to build a just and fraternal society giving thus hope for the future (Cf. Message of World of Peace, 1st January 2012).

4. As Buddhists you pass on to young people the wisdom regarding the need to refrain from harming others and to live lives of generosity and compassion, a practice to be esteemed and recognized as a precious gift to society. This is one concrete way in which religion contributes to educating the young generation, sharing the responsibility and cooperating with others.

5. As a matter of fact, young people are an asset for all societies. By their genuineness, they encourage us to find an answer to the most fundamental questions about life and death, justice and peace, the meaning of suffering, and the reasons for hope. Thus they help us to progress in our pilgrimage towards Truth.

By their dynamism, as builders of the future, they put pressure on us to destroy all the walls which unfortunately still separate us. By their questioning they nurture the dialogue between religions and cultures.

6. Dear friends, we join our hearts to yours and pray that together we will be able to guide the young people by our example and teaching to become instruments of justice and peace. Let us share the common responsibility we have towards the present and future generations, nurturing them to be peaceful and to be peace makers.

Happy Vesakh/Hanamatsuri.

Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran
President

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Typical Vesakh celebrations. Below, colorful lanterns are part of Vesakh celebrations in Sri Lanka.