BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Holy Saturday, April 7

Greek Orthodox icons: From left, Jesus is prepared for burial, with the Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, the Apostle John and Joseph of Arimathea; other icons show Jesus's descent to Hades.
Holy Saturday is celebrated with elaborate rituals in the Orthodox Church.

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Let us return once more to the night of Holy Saturday. In the Creed we say about Christ’s journey that he “descended into hell.” What happened then?

Since we have no knowledge of the world of death, we can only imagine his triumph over death with the help of images which remain very inadequate.

Yet, inadequate as they are, they can help us to understand something of the mystery. The liturgy applies to Jesus’ descent into the night of death the words of Psalm 23[24]: “Lift up your heads, O gates; be lifted up, O ancient doors!”

The gates of death are closed, no one can return from there. There is no key for those iron doors. But Christ has the key. His Cross opens wide the gates of death, the stern doors. They are barred no longer. His Cross, his radical love, is the key that opens them. The love of the One who, though God, became man in order to die – this love has the power to open those doors. This love is stronger than death.

The Easter icons of the Oriental Church show how Christ enters the world of the dead. He is clothed with light, for God is light. “The night is bright as the day, the darkness is as light” (cf. Ps 138[139]12).

- Benedict XVI, Easter Vigil homily, 2007

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Tonight the Holy Father presides at
EASTER VIGIL MASS
21:00 St. Peter's Basilica






Pope Benedict mourns death
of Cardinal Moussa, 81,
emeritus Patriarch of Antioch

April 7, 2012


Cardinal Moussa during his visit to the Vatican in 2009.

Pope Benedict XVI has sent a telegram of condolences to the Church of Antioch of the Syrians following the death of their emeritus Patriarch, His Beatitude Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud, who died today in a Rome hospital.

The following is a translation of Pope's telegram of condolence sent to the present Patriarch of Antioch (original in French):

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His Beatitude Ignace Youssif III Younan
Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians
BEIRUT

Having learned with sorrow of the death of His Beatitude Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud, Patriarch Emeritus of Antioch of the Syrians and Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, I would like to express my union in prayer with your patriarchal Church, with the deceased's family and everyone affected by this loss.

In these days when we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord, remembering the people of the region who are living through difficult times, I pray that He may welcome into his joy and his peace, the soul of this faithful pastor who devoted himself with faith and generosity to the service of God's people.

As a pledge of comfort, I bestow with all my heart my Apostolic Blessing upon you, Beatitude, as well as bishops, priests and faithful of the Patriarchate of Antioch of the Syrians, members of the bereaved family and to all persons taking part in hope at the funeral liturgy.

Benedictus PP XVI

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Born in 1930 in the Syrian village of Meskané, near Homs, Cardinal Doud was archbishop of that city, before being appointed Syriac Patriarch of Antioch by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

He was the first Eastern Church bishop to occupy the position of Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, between 2000 and 2007. He was created cardinal in the consistory of 2001.

Syriac Catholics now number about 150,000 in the world, and are principally found in Iraq, Syria and in the diaspora. The Patriarch resides in Beirut.

Ordained a priest on 17 October 1954, Cardinal Daoud graduated in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University in 1964. The Syrian Patriarchal Synod, meeting in Charfet (Lebanon) elected him bishop for the seat of the Syrians in Cairo (Egypt) in 1977, and was consecrated in September.

He was first a consultant, and later member of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Church (CCEO), and chaired the Commission for the Arabic translation of the CCEO.

The Syrian Patriarchal Synod promoted him to Archbishop of Homs of the Syrians on 1 July 1994. Elected Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians in the Syrian Catholic Holy Synod of October 13, 1998, he obtained from John Paul II "ecclesiastical communion" on October 20, 1998. He was consecrated and enthroned Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians the following Sunday on the feast of Christ the King Cathedral in Beirut.

On November 25, 2000, John Paul II appointed him prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. On January 8, 2001 he resigned as Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians. As prefect of this department he was also the Chancellor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. John Paul II created him a cardinal in the consistory of February 21, 2001.

With the death of Cardinal Daoud the College of Cardinals is now composed of 211 cardinals, of whom 123 electors and 88 non-electors.

Of the days in the Paschal Triduum, Holy Saturday is usually the 'neglected' day. In the Hispanic culture, we call it Sabado de Gloria, and in the Philippines, the tradition for children was to jump as high as they can because that would guarantee they would grow tall! But otherwise, there are no rituals for the day and Mass is not obligatory. Since the Easter Vigil Mass began at midnight, it was not considered part of Holy Saturday.

Benedict XVI has reflected a few times during his Pontificate on the significance fo Holy Saturday. Perhaps the most significant of this was his meditation upon visiting the Shroud of Turin in May 2010. Here is that reflection in full:




The Shroud of Turin:
Icon of Holy Saturday
by BENEDICT XVI
Meditation on his Visit to the Shroud
May 2, 2010

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Dear friends,

This was, for me, a much-awaited moment. I have been before the Holy Shroud on other occasions, but this time, I am living this pilgrimage and this occasion with particular intensity.

Perhaps it is because the passage of years has made me even more sensitive to the message of this extraordinary icon. Perhaps - I would say, above all - it is because I am here this time as the Successor of Peter, and I carry in my heart the entire Church, and even all of mankind.

I thank the Lord for the gift of this pilgrimage, and for the opportunity to share with you a brief meditation, the theme of which was suggested to me by the subtitle of this solemn Exposition, namely, the mystery of Holy Saturday.

One can say that the Shroud is the icon for this mystery, the icon of Holy Saturday. Indeed it is a burial cloth which wrapped the remains of a man who was crucified, corresponding in every way to what the Gospels say of Jesus, who, having been crucified at noon, expired around three in the afternoon.

When evening came, since it was Parasceve, or the eve of the solemn Paschal Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich and authoritative member of the Sanhedrin, courageously asked Pontius Pilate for permission to bury Jesus in a new tomb that he had ordered excavated not far from Golgotha.

Having obtained the permission, he bought a burial cloth, and after Jesus was taken down from the Cross, he wrapped him in that cloth and buried him in the sepulcher (cfr Mk 15,42-46). Thus says the Gospel of St. Mark, with whom the other evangelists concur.

Jesus remained in the tomb until the dawn of the day following the Sabbath, and the Shroud of Turin offers us the image of how his body lay in the tomb during that time - which was chronologically brief (about a day and a half), but immense, infinite, in its value and its significance.

Holy Saturday is the day when God was hidden, as one reads in an ancient homily: "What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps... God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled" (Homily on Holy Saturday, PG 43, 439).

In the Credo, we profess that Jesus Christ was "crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried; he descended into hell, and on the third day, he rose again from the dead".

Dear brothers and sisters, in our time, especially for those who have experienced the past century, mankind has become particularly sensible to the mystery of Holy Saturday. Hiding God is part of contemporary man's spirit, in an existential manner, almost unconscious, like a void in the heart that has grown increasingly larger.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Nietzsche wrote: "God is dead! And it is we who killed him". This famous statement, is clearly taken almost literally from the Christian tradition - we often say it in the Via Crucis, perhaps without fully realizing what we are saying.

After the two world wars, the lagers and the gulags, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our age has become increasingly a Holy Saturday: the darkness of that day challenges all those who ask themselves about life, and it particularly challenges us believers. We too have something to do with this darkness.

Nonetheless the death of the Son of God, of Jesus of Nazareth, has an opposite aspect, totally positive, that is a source of comfort and of hope.

This makes me think of the fact that the Holy Shroud is like a 'photographic' document, with a 'negative' and a 'positive' image. Indeed, it is precisely that: the deepest myetery of the faith is at the same time the most luminous sign of unbounded hope.

Holy Saturday is a 'no man's land' between death and resurrection, but into this 'no man's land' entered someone, the Only One, who passed through it with the signs of his Passion for man: Passio Christi, passio hominis.

And the Shroud speaks to us precisely of this moment - it testifies precisely to that unique and unrepeatable interval in the history of mankind and the universe, in which God, in Jesus Christ, shared not just our dying, but also our remaining in death - it is the most radical solidarity.

In that 'time beyond time', Jesus Christ 'descended into hell'. What does this statement mean? It means that God, having made himself man, reached the point of entering man's extremest and absolute solitude, there where no ray of love enters, where total abandonment reigns without any word of comfort: the underworld.

Jesus Christ, remaining in death, went beyond the door of that ultimate solitude in order to lead even us to surpass it with him.

All of us have felt at some time the frightening sense of being abandoned, and what we most fear about death is precisely that, just as when we were children, we were afraid to be alone in the dark, and only the presence of a person who loved us could reassure us.

This is exactly what happened on Holy Saturday: the voice of God resounded in the kingdom of death. The unthinkable had occured, namely, that Love had penetrated into the bowels of Hell. Even in the extreme darkness of the most absolute human loneliness, we can hear a voice that calls us and find a hand that leads us out.

The human being lives for the fact that he is loved and he can love - and if, love has penetrated the space of death itself, then even there, life has arrived. In the hour of extreme solitude, we shall never be alone: Passio Christi, passio hominis.

This is the mystery of Holy Saturday. Precisely from the darkness of the death of the Son of God, has emerged the light of a new hope: the light of the Resurrection.

And it seems to me that, in looking at this sacred cloth with the eyes of faith, we can perceive something of that light. In effect, teh Shroud was immersed in that profound darkness, but it is at the same time luminous.

I think that if thousands upon thousands of people come to venerate it - without counting those who contemplate it in images - it is because they see in it not just darkness but also the light. Not so much the defeat of life and love, but rather victory, the victory of life over death, of love over hatred.

Yes, they see the death of Jesus, but they also see his Resurrection. In the bosom of death, life now pulses insofar as love is present.

This is the power of the Shroud: from the face of this 'man of sorrows', who carries on him the Passion of man in every time and in every place, even our passions, our sufferings, our difficulties, our sins.

“Passio Christi. Passio hominis”. From this face emanates a solemn majesty, a paradoxical lordship. This face, these hands, these feet, this chest, this whole body speaks - it is itself a word that we can hear in silence.

How does the Shroud speak? It speaks with blood, and blood is life! The Shroud is an Icon written in blood - the blood of a man who was flagellated, crowned with thorns, crucified and wounded on the left side.

The Image impressed on the Shroud is that of a dead man, but the blood speaks of his life. Every trace of blood speaks of love and life. Especially that abundant stain near his rib, made by the blood and water shed copiously from a major wound caused by the tip of a Roman lance.

That blood and water speak of life. It is like a spring that murmurs silently, and we can hear it, we can listen to it, in the silence of Holy Saturday.

Dear friends, let us always praise the Lord for his faithful and merciful love. When we leave this holy place, let us carry in our eyes the image of the Shroud, let us carry in our hearts this word of love, and let us praise God with a life full of faith, hope and charity. Thank you.

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Pope names Cardinal Ouellet
to represent him at Dublin IEC




Pope Benedict XVI has appointed the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, to represent him in Dublin, Ireland, at the 50th International Eucharistic Congress this June.

Before taking up his post in Rome, Card. Ouellet was Archbishop of Quebec, Canada, which hosted the last Congress in 2008. In fact, Pope Benedict announced his choice of Dublin for the 50th IEC in a live video message broadcast to the closing mass of the 49th IEC on the Plains of Abraham just outside Quebec.

Welcoming the Pope’s appointment of Card. Ouellet, Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said it coincides with the launch of a new stage in the preparation for the Congress which runs from June 10th to 17th.

The final 50 days before the Congress will be celebrated as “The Archdiocese of Dublin in Mission”, an intense moment of renewal of every aspect of Church life.

The Archbishop said “he hopes “the Congress will be an occasion to showcase what is happening pastorally in the Archdiocese and to give a warm welcome to the thousands of guests coming from overseas. My hope is that anyone in Dublin during the week of the Congress will be taken up by the signs of renewal that are visible in the Irish Church”.

Archbishop Martin added that the Congress should not be seen as an isolated event but as an important moment in the renewal of the Church which is taking place now and will continue after the Congress.

Archbishop Martin said he was particularly pleased at the nomination of Cardinal Ouellet: “As Archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Ouellet had to face a very similar social and pastoral context to that which we have in Dublin, where traditional Catholicism was challenged by a rapid secularisation. He was a strong voice for the Church in that changing situation. The Quebec Eucharistic Congress, though low key, impacted on Church and society, fostering unity of purpose and renewing evangelisation. One legacy of the Quebec Congress is that fact, over 1000 Canadian pilgrims will be coming to Dublin in June.”

The quotation on the Havana archdiocesan site is that of the 19th century Cuban priest quoted by Benedict XVI in his Havana homily. Fr. Varela's cause for beatification was recently initiated.

GOOD FRIDAY IN HAVANA




Cuban Catholics flocked
to churches on Good Friday


HAVANA, April 7 (AFP) — Cuban Catholics flocked to churches on Good Friday, which was declared a holiday in the communist-ruled nation for the first time following a request from Pope Benedict XVI during his recent visit.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, led celebrations at the main cathedral in the capital -- an event broadcast live on Cuban television.




Among those in attendance were several members of the Ladies in White, the country's most prominent dissident group, which is seeking the release of political prisoners.

The Church played a key mediating role in the 2010 release of some prisoners.

"We are here to ask God to enlighten us, to protect us... we will continue this peaceful struggle we have begun for the freedom of our loved ones but also for a new Cuba," the group's leader Berta Soler told reporters.

There was also an evening procession planned between the cathedral and a shrine in Havana's old city.

During his visit to Cuba last month, the Pope asked President Raul Castro to declare Good Friday a holiday and appealed for an expansion of religious liberties in the country, the Americas' only one-party communist state.

"It must be recognized with joy that in Cuba steps are currently being taken to enable the Church to undertake its indispensable mission to publicly and openly express its faith," Benedict said.

"However, it is necessary to move forward and I would encourage the nation's government to strengthen what has already been achieved and advance along the path of authentic service for the common good of all Cuban society," he added.

Catholic processions were suppressed in Cuba in 1961 and Christmas was banned in 1969. They were restored after the first papal visit to Cuba, by John Paul II in 1998.

In the evening, the streets of Havana were full of Cuban believers. They ceremonially accompanied the statue of Christ bearing the cross. Many wore white dresses and followed the ceremony with lit candles and singing spiritual songs.


The photo showing the processions leaving the Cathedral of Havana is a videocap from a US-based Armenian TV station.


The so-called Via Dolorosa (Road of Sorrow) in old Havana is about 800 meters and stretches in the centre of the city’s historical part, which was included in the list of memorials under UNESCO’s protection in 1992.

The following two stories both reflect the habitual nonchalant ignorance with which mostly non-Catholic MSM journalists report onj Catholic events. Both give the wrong information that the Good Friday Catholic service is a Mass...

Cuba celebrates Good Friday
for the first time since 1959


HAVANA, April 7 (Reuters) - Bells rang from Roman Catholic churches throughout Havana as Cubans celebrated a holiday on Good Friday for the first time in more than half a century.

The day off, granted at the request of Pope Benedict XVI on his recent visit to the communist island, translated into quieter streets than usual, but only sparse attendance at a mass in the city's main cathedral presided over by Cardinal Jaime Ortega. [The service on Good Friday is not a Mass, which would explain the 'sparse attendance'. Also, Catholics are not obliged to go to church on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.]

About 100 people, a number of them tourists, showed up for the event, but many Cubans may have watched it on national television in a broadcast as rare for the church and country as the holiday itself.

The Cuban government ended religious holidays after the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

He reinstated Christmas as a holiday in 1998 at the request of the visiting Pope John Paul II, and his successor and younger brother, President Raúl Castro, declared Friday a free day following Benedict's trip to Cuba last week.

It was still to be decided if Good Friday would become a permanent holiday, the government said.

Ortega, who is archbishop of Havana and the leader of Cuba's Catholic church, gave a homily that was heavy on the importance of religion and devoid of obvious politics.

Relations between the Church and the Cuban government have warmed under Raúl Castro, who since succeeding his brother in 2008 has undertaken economic reforms that could bring increased unemployment and attendant social problems as he tries to remake the island's struggling Soviet-style system.

Benedict, who was in Cuba from 26 to 28 March, asked that the Church be able to expand its education and social programmes, which he said could help Cuba through its time of change.

The Church also wants more access to mass media, which is controlled by the state. For years, the Church was shut out from television, radio and newspapers.

People attending Ortega's service said a renewal of religion was occurring in the country, which was officially atheist for 15 years starting in 1976. The Church says about 60% of Cubans are baptized Catholics, but only 5% regularly go to Mass.

Compared to AFP and Reuters, AP's story is disparaging of the way the Cuban Catholics marked Good Friday...

Few Cubans go to church as country marks
marks Good Friday in concession to Pope
by ANDREA RODRIGUEZ


HAVANA, April 7 (AP) - Good Friday was an official holiday in Cuba for the first time in a half century, but few Roman Catholics on the island seemed to be using the day off to attend Mass.


Some of the Damas de Blanco (ladies in white) who attended the service in Havana Cathedral.

Cuba's Communist government declared the holiday to honor a request that Pope Benedict XVI made during last week's visit. Only a few more worshippers than usual were noted inside Havana's Catholic churches on Friday. [Since Catholics are not obliged to go to church on Good Friday, that in itself is unusual if the standard of comparison is Sunday Mass.]

Authorities were also allowing Cardinal Jaime Ortega's to transmit a Good Friday message on state television.

Magno Felipe Mitjans, a lay worker who described himself as "revolutionary, Christian and Catholic," said at his parish of San Juan de Letran, "We have received more people, including in comparison with other Good Fridays."

Good Friday is the day Catholics commemorate the death of Christ, but it is not an official holiday in the United States, most of Europe or even Mexico, the most Catholic of the world's Spanish-speaking countries.

Cuba removed references to atheism from its constitution in the 1990s and relations have since warmed with the church. Still, less than 10 percent of islanders are practicing Catholics. The country has large numbers of adherents to Santeria and evangelical Christianity.

"I'm not Catholic, but I respect them," said Gladys Ocampo, among Cuban workers who got the day off. "I'm happy to have a holiday I wasn't counting on."

Cubans' low-key commemoration of the day contrasted with observances in other parts of the world.

Roman Catholics and Protestants in the Holy Land commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus Christ with processions through Jerusalem's Old City, and thousands gathered in the Philippines to witness devotees nailed to crosses in a tradition discouraged by the church.

Processions were held around the rest of Latin America, including especially eye-opening ones in Guatemala where streets in some ciites were carpeted with flowers and colored sawdust.



News agency photos of Good Friday celebrations yesterday: Top panel, from left, Guatemala City; Costa Rica; San Salvador; bottom panel, from left: rural Tenosique, Mexico; and Quito, Ecuador.

Holy Week processions are a mixture of baroque excess and folk piety in the world evangelized by the Spaniards and Portuguese, and this is very much so in my country, the Philippines, which was a colony of Spain for 350 years.



The 'mother' and model for the baroque-style processions are the Semana Santa (Holy Week) processions in Sevilla, Spain, practised on a smaller scale in the rest of Andalucia. They are held on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

In these processions, enormous 'pasos' (floats) are carried around the streets of Seville by teams of 'costaleros' (bearers) followed by hundreds of 'nazarenos' (penitents). Many of these floats are religious works of art that date back as far as the 17th century, each showing a small part of the Easter story. [Some of these historic 'pasos' were brought ourside Sevilla for the first time to be used in the Via Crucis during World Youth Day in Madrid last year.).

Throughout the city thousands of people line the streets waiting to catch a glimpse of the processions, each of which takes many hours between leaving its parish and returning there after following a set route around the city. Each of over 50 brotherhoods (cofradías) have two floats so you can imagine the enormity of the occasion.



In the Philippines, quite a few cities and towns have their Good Friday procession modelled after Sevilla, in which the images borne in procession are generally owned, not by cofradias, but are family heirlooms that usually date to the 18th century. The one in San Pablo City not far from Manila is the most spectacular and attended by numerous pilgrims and tourists.

A less conventional tourist attraction is the other Good Friday tradition that the Philippines is known for - the crucifixion undergone by some penitents, who are actually nailed to a cross for a few minutes, usually in fulfillment of a vow. Some penitents do it year after year. Those who performthe nailing on the Cross are usually colorfully costumed as Roman centurions, and a thriving accessory Holy Week industry in many places in the Philippines is making a variety of helmet-like Roman centurion masks. (While I have gone to many Semana Santa processions, I never had the occasion (nor even the curiosity, I must say) to go and watch a crucifixion). Here are Western accounts of the crucifixions yesterday:

Good Friday crucifixions
in the Philippines


Left, A penitent flagellates himself in front of the cathedral of San Fernando, Pampanga province; center, man is nailed to the cross; and right, a long-haired penitent on the cross.

More than 17 people were willingly nailed to wooden crosses in the Philippines today in a Good Friday re-enactment of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

Under the watch of villagers posing as Roman centurions, the men were crucified for a few minutes as part of a religious reenactment that occurs yearly, the AP reports. Daily Mail writes that the 2012 Good Friday re-enactment drew an estimated crowd of 10,000 worshipers.

Participants such as Filipino carpenter Ruben Enaje, who has done 26 crucifixions, say they the event is an important sacrifice for them and produces genuine contrition in their hearts.

“This is a spiritual vow as a way of thanking God for sparing my life. Even if the Church bans it, we will still keep doing it,” Enaje is quoted as saying by the UK’s Telegraph.

But Filipino church leaders are opposed to the practice, in which shirtless men first trudge miles hitting their backs with sticks; some had cuts made on their backs to maintain a bloody appearance. After the ritual, the penitents are brought down from the crosses and their wounds treated at on-site clinics.

“We do not judge and condemn, but we discourage” the ritual, says an archbishop.

AFP considers the penitents 'fanatics' - and some may well be fanatic - but the tenacity with which they keep to their vow (panata) is nonetheless amazing. The crucifixion is generally preceded by a rite of self-lagellation, in which they beat their backs with sharp branches, chains or other instruments that inflict great pain.

Filipino fanatics nailed to the cross
in yearly Good Friday observance


SAN FERNANDO, Philippines, April 6 (AFP) —Roman Catholic fanatics in Central Luzon had themselves nailed to the cross in a bloody display of religious frenzy as the Christian world marked the day Jesus was crucified.

The gruesome real-life reenactments of the crucifixion, which are held every Good Friday, began in the farming region north of Manila at 11 a.m. They are frowned on by the Catholic church but have become freak tourist draws.

Faith healer Arturo Bating, 44, spread his arms and maintained stoic calm as neighbors hoisted him onto a wooden cross atop a sandy mound then drove 10-centimeter (four-inch) nails through his palms.

“This is a vow I had made to God, so that He will spare my family from sickness,” the penitent, swathed in a white robe, told Agence France-Presse after his ordeal, which lasted several minutes and was seen by hundreds of people.

“It was a bit painful, but bearable,” added the first-timer, who now intends to take part in the ritual every year.

Two other devotees were swiftly nailed on to the same cross in the village of San Juan, on the outskirts of the northern city of San Fernando.

Alex Laranang, 57, told AFP he had had himself crucified every year for the past 12 years.

“I had made a vow to do this every year until I die,” said Laranang, who sells snacks aboard buses for a living. “I do not expect anything in return. I do this for my God.”

Like Bating, he said the physical pain was a minor inconvenience. “I hardly feel any pain. The nerves have been deadened.”

He added: “After this, I go home, eat and go to sleep. After two days I go back to work.”

In the nearby village of San Pedro Cutud, local officials said up to 20 penitents would be nailed to crosses during the day.

A woman and four male devotees, including two who were doing it for the first time, were also set to be nailed to crosses during the day in Paombong town, Bulacan, said local official Reynaldo Sulit.

Archbishop Jose Palma, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said earlier this week that while the Church did not encourage the extreme show of worship, it does not fault those who would go through it.

“We do not judge and condemn, but we discourage it,” the Church leader said on Catholic Radio Veritas.

Crucifixions are the grisliest, but by no means the only extreme acts of penitence on show in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Catholic outpost where there are some 75 million Catholics.

Many Filipinos practiced more practical acts of piety like visiting a series of churches on foot to pray during the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday holidays.

But dozens of barefoot male devotees with black facial hoods whipped their bare backs bloody with strips of bamboo tied to a string as they went around the San Fernando neighborhoods on Thursday and Friday.

They were followed by groups of children who covered their faces as blood from the whips sprayed on to their clothes.

In Paombong, about a thousand spectators patiently waited for the crucifixions to start under the hot tropical sun.

“People here follow their own beliefs. We should not take that against them,” said Sulit, the local official who oversees the ceremony for the municipal government.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/04/2012 09:13]

EASTER VIGIL MASS


Libretto cover: Detail from Polyptych, Crucifixion and Stories of Christ and the Saints, Matteo di Giovanni, 1340. Sala di Sant'Ambrogio, Vatican Apostolic Palace.




Easter enlightenment:
The light of the Risen Christ

April 8, 2012

“On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light”, said Pope Benedict XVI Saturday evening as he led a congregation of thousands in the Easter Vigil at St Peter’s Basilica.

Since early morning, pilgrims had patiently queued for entrance to the basilica beneath foreboding skies, with many more following the liturgy on giant screens in the square.

In his homily Pope Benedict drew on the first act of the Easter vigil; when a basilica shrouded in dark slowly flickered to life as the flame of the newly inscribed and blessed Pascal candle passed through the central nave, and the faithful lit candles to the chant “Lumen Christi”. This was followed by the chanting of the traditional Easter proclamation, the Exultet.

The Pope said this ancient hymn reminds us that “in the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light”. But it also serves “as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world”.

During the ceremony the Holy Father welcomed 8 adults into the Church from Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Albania, Cameron, Turkmenistan and the United States of America. He said

“The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination”



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

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15,50).

On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994).

A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright.

At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy.

On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another.

Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3).

The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides.

Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love.

Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence through denial. It is a “no”.

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’s passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed.

Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies.

The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us.

The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil.

The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk.

Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify.

Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.

Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice.

The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light.

Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves.

“Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

The great hymn of the Exultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light.

But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light.

So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.

---

Benedict XVI is incomparable in pointing out to us the infinite significances of Easter, the central mystery of Christianity, and its rites. This is why a new book recently published in Italy puts together a collection of Benedict XVI's Easter homilies.



As usual, the news agencies had no photographs of the major parts of the Mass - none so far, at least, many hours after the event - and only one of the newly baptized, who were also confirmed and received their First Communion at this Mass.




Pope Benedict XVI leads Easter Vigil

Apr 7, 2012

Vatican City, April 7 (dpa) - Pope Benedict XVI entered a darkened St Peter's Basilica carrying a tall candle late Saturday in the Vatican to begin the annual Easter vigil.

The Pontiff, who turns 85 this month, used a mobile platform - a device to aid movement that he has used since late last year - and began making his way up the basilica's central nave.

Taking their cue from the Pontiff, the faithful in attendance lit their own candles, flames flickering inside the immense church. For Catholics, illuminating the darkness symbolizes the salvation brought about by Jesus's resurrection.

Outside, on a cool spring night in Rome, tens of thousands more watched the ceremony on several giant screens erected on St Peter's Square.

During the vigil, Benedict was to deliver a homily and administer Catholic sacraments of baptism, Holy Communion and confirmation to eight converts - nationals of Italy, Albania, Slovakia, Germany, Turkmenistan, Cameroon and the United States, the Vatican said.

On Good Friday, Benedict presided over the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession at Rome's Colosseum to commemorate the last hours leading to Jesus' crucifixion.

In his address, the Pontiff spoke of the 'trials and tribulations' faced by many families, including those caused by economic crisis.

In specially penned reflections read out during the ceremony, the faithful were invited to meditate on how Jesus suffered and died under the weight of human sins, including those committed within the context of family life. These included marital infidelity, divorce and abortions.

Since becoming Pope in 2005, Benedict has often reiterated Catholic teachings on the traditional family, based on marriage between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation. He has often spoken out against divorce, same-sex unions and abortion.

On Sunday, the Pope is due to deliver his Urbi et Orbi message and blessing 'to the city and the world.'

April 8, EASTER SUNDAY

The Resurrection, from left: Duccio, 1308; Fra Angelico, 1400; Titian, 1520; El Greco, 1590s; Di Giovani, 15th-cent.

Greek Orthodox and Russian icons; extreme right, Coptic icon.


WITH THE POPE TODAY

EASTER SUNDAY MASS and
'URBI ET ORBI' GREETINGS and BLESSING
St. Peter's Square


Lebanon's English newspaper today confirms the previously unofficial news of the Pope's visit to Lebanon in September.

Maronite Patriarch announces
papal visit to Lebanon Sept. 14-16


BEIRUT - Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai announced Sunday that Pope Benedict XVI would tour Lebanon on an official visit starting Sept. 14.

Rai’s announcement came during an Easter Sunday Mass held at Bkerke, seat of the Maronite Patriarchate.

The head of the Maronite Church said Pope Benedict’s visit would be between Sept. 14 and Sept. 16 and that he would meet top officials, including President Michel Sleiman.

A statement from Sleiman's office said the visit would affirm the depth of the “historical relations that tie Lebanon with the [Vatican] and will form an occasion to focus on Lebanon's position, message and role as a witness of freedom and coexistence."

EASTER SUNDAY MASS
Message and blessing 'urbi et orbi'





Libretto cover: The Resurrection, miniature from a mid-12th-century Evangelarium thought to have belonged to Mathilda of Canossa. AbBey of Nomantola, Modena.









Unfortunately, other than the incensing of the altar, the newsphoto agencies posted no pictures of the liturgy itself.

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass this Easter Sunday in St Peter's Square, after which he delivered his Easter message and benediction urbi et orbi - to the city of Rome and and the world - which it is tradition for the Pope to give at Easter and at Christmas.

The Holy Father's message to more than 100,000 gathered in St. Peter's Square focused on the radical and permanent novelty of Christ's resurrection. [Because the Easter message follows the Easter Sunday Mass, the Pope does not give a homily during the Mass.]

In his review of major international trouble spots at this time, the Pope urged the Syrian regime to heed international calls to end bloodshed and commit to dialogue.

He also voiced hope that Easter joy would comfort Christian communities suffering because of their faith.

He denounced terrorist attacks in Nigeria that have hit Christians and Muslims alike and prayed for peace in Mali which underwent a violent coup d'etat recently.

Following his address, Pope Benedict offered Easter greetings in more than sixty languages.

The Pope, who turns 85 eight days from now, struggled with hoarseness throughout the Mass. Only hours earlier he had led a three-hour nighttime Easter vigil inside St. Peter's Basilica.



Here is the Vatican's English translation of the Pope's Easter message:

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world!

“Surrexit Christus, spes mea” – “Christ, my hope, has risen” (Easter Sequence).

May the jubilant voice of the Church reach all of you with the words which the ancient hymn puts on the lips of Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the risen Jesus on Easter morning. She ran to the other disciples and breathlessly announced: “I have seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18).

We too, who have journeyed through the desert of Lent and the sorrowful days of the Passion, today raise the cry of victory: “He has risen! He has truly risen!”

Every Christian relives the experience of Mary Magdalene. It involves an encounter which changes our lives: the encounter with a unique Man who lets us experience all God’s goodness and truth, who frees us from evil not in a superficial and fleeting way, but sets us free radically, heals us completely and restores our dignity.

This is why Mary Magdalene calls Jesus “my hope”: he was the one who allowed her to be reborn, who gave her a new future, a life of goodness and freedom from evil.

“Christ my hope” means that all my yearnings for goodness find in him a real possibility of fulfilment: with him I can hope for a life that is good, full and eternal, for God himself has drawn near to us, even sharing our humanity.

But Mary Magdalene, like the other disciples, was to see Jesus rejected by the leaders of the people, arrested, scourged, condemned to death and crucified. It must have been unbearable to see Goodness in person subjected to human malice, truth derided by falsehood, mercy abused by vengeance.

With Jesus’s death, the hope of all those who had put their trust in him seemed doomed. But that faith never completely failed: especially in the heart of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’s Mother, its flame burned even in the dark of night.

In this world, hope cannot avoid confronting the harshness of evil. It is not thwarted by the wall of death alone, but even more by the barbs of envy and pride, falsehood and violence.

Jesus passed through this mortal mesh in order to open a path to the kingdom of life. For a moment Jesus seemed vanquished: darkness had invaded the land, the silence of God was complete, hope a seemingly empty word.

And lo, on the dawn of the day after the Sabbath, the tomb is found empty. Jesus then shows himself to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to his disciples.

Faith is born anew, more alive and strong than ever, now invincible since it is based on a decisive experience: “Death with life contended: combat strangely ended! Life’s own champion, slain, now lives to reign”.

The signs of the resurrection testify to the victory of life over death, love over hatred, mercy over vengeance: “The tomb the living did enclose, I saw Christ’s glory as he rose! The angels there attesting, shroud with grave-clothes resting”.

Dear brothers and sisters! If Jesus is risen, then – and only then – has something truly new happened, something that changes the state of humanity and the world.

Then he, Jesus, is someone in whom we can put absolute trust; we can put our trust not only in his message but in Jesus himself, for the Risen One does not belong to the past, but is present today, alive.

Christ is hope and comfort in a particular way for those Christian communities suffering most for their faith on account of discrimination and persecution. And he is present as a force of hope through his Church, which is close to all human situations of suffering and injustice.

May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights.

Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community.

May the many refugees from that country who are in need of humanitarian assistance find the acceptance and solidarity capable of relieving their dreadful sufferings.

May the paschal victory encourage the Iraqi people to spare no effort in pursuing the path of stability and development. In the Holy Land, may Israelis and Palestinians courageously take up anew the peace process.

May the Lord, the victor over evil and death, sustain the Christian communities of the African continent; may he grant them hope in facing their difficulties, and make them peacemakers and agents of development in the societies to which they belong.

May the risen Jesus comfort the suffering populations of the Horn of Africa and favour their reconciliation; may he help the Great Lakes Region, Sudan and South Sudan, and grant their inhabitants the power of forgiveness.

In Mali, now experiencing delicate political developments, may the glorious Christ grant peace and stability. To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of its citizens.

Happy Easter to all!

---

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/04/2012 15:37]

I think somehow there has been a lack of coordination between the Vatican and the senior Middle Eastern Patriarchs most involved in the Pope's coming visit to Lebanon. Usually, the Pope's visits abroad are officially announced by the Vatican first, when all the necessary groundwork has been laid both on the part of the host country and the host bishops' conference. Or in the case of his pastoral visits in Italy, simultaneously by the Vatican and the host diocese.

In this case, first the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said in a February homily that the Pope would be coming to Lebanon in September present the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the 2010 Middle East Synodal Assembly. And then in March, after calling on the Pope at the Vatican, the Patriarch of the Greek Melkite Church of Antioch confirmed the visit and even gave the dates at a news conference.

I was looking for a Vatican follow-up to the announcement made by Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai to his congregation this morning, but there was no Vatican bulletin, and not a line about it in the English service of Vatican Radio.

Then there were two news service reports - from AFP and an Australian news service - saying the Vatican had officially made an announcement. Looked again, and finally found a pertinent item - the number-4 story on the RV's Italian service online, as follows - which shows there was no announcement per se - only the Italian service making the most of having been caught off-guard....

Benedict XVI to make an apostolic
visit to Lebanon Sept. 14-16
Translated from the Italian service of

April 8, 2012

On the day when Benedict XVI had entrusted to the Risen Christ the destinies of the Middle East and the Holy Land, official news came from Lebanon of an apostolic visit that the Pope will make to that country from Sept. 14-16.

Both the President of the Republic of Lebanon and the Catholic bishops' commission for communications announced the visit today in two separate official notes.

One of the events mentioned in the bishops' communique is that Benedict XVI will preside at a Mass in Beirut at the end of the visit. During this Mass, the Pope will be giving the Middle Eastern bishops his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Special Synodal Assembly on the Middle East held at the Vatican held at the Vatican on Oct. 10-24, 2010. This is the central reason for the visit, the bishops' note says.

Benedict XVI will have an opportunity to meet with Lebanese youth, in addition to meeting with civilian and religious leaders.

The note from the Lebanese President's Office says that the Pope's visit would confirm "the profundity of the historical relationships linking Lebanon and the Holy See, and will allow a reaffirmation of the status, role and mission of Lebanon as a witness to peace and fraternity".


Here's the report from the Australia-based BigPond news (a shorter report was filed by AFP):

Pope Benedict to visit
Lebanon in September

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Pope Benedict will visit Lebanon from September 14 to 16, the Vatican announced on Sunday.

The trip will mark the second to the region for Benedict, who visited Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2009.

He will hand over an apostolic exhortation to bishops from throughout the Middle East, the Vatican said.

This 24th foreign trip undertaken by the Pope, who will be 85, comes against a background of violence in neighbouring Syria and at a time when Christian communities in the Middle East feel increasingly threatened by militant Islamism.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fuad Twal, warned on Sunday in his Easter homily of the plight of Christians in the region, saying the world was now 'less concerned' about the minority.

'I wish all of you a beautiful and holy feast of the Resurrection, in the knowledge that the events unfolding in the Middle East threaten our region, our people and our Christians, that add a sombreness to this Easter joy,' he said.

Twal, the most senior Catholic in the Middle East, evoked the 'fear' of Christians in the region in the traditional address, delivered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City.

Gregory III Laham, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, who last month had a meeting with the Pontiff said at the time he would 'come to support Christians so that they are united'.

Benedict will also bring a message of 'peace in the Middle East', he added.

Patriarch Gregory, who is headquartered in Damascus, heads the second-largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with 700,000 followers in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan and Syria.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati invited the Pope to visit in November last year during a visit to the Vatican.

About 35 per cent of Lebanon's population are Christians.

The original report from Lebanon this morning cited both Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai and the office of President Sleiman as sources:



Maronite Patriarch announces
papal visit to Lebanon Sept. 14-16


BEIRUT - Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai announced Sunday that Pope Benedict XVI would tour Lebanon on an official visit starting Sept. 14.

Rai’s announcement came during an Easter Sunday Mass held at Bkerke, seat of the Maronite Patriarchate.

The head of the Maronite Church said Pope Benedict’s visit would be between Sept. 14 and Sept. 16 and that he would meet top officials, including President Michel Sleiman.

A statement from Sleiman's office said the visit would affirm the depth of the “historical relations that tie Lebanon with the [Vatican] and will form an occasion to focus on Lebanon's position, message and role as a witness of freedom and coexistence."

In Easter homily,
Edinburgh cardinal urges Christians
to 'proudly' wear the cross daily


NB: The BBC filed an advance story, in which it used the future tense in all references to the cardinal's homily, but since he has delivered it, I have substituted the past tense accordingly.



Cardinal O'Brien and the Pope; right photo, he puts a tartan scarf on the Pope for his Popemobile ride down Edinburgh's High Street in September 2010; O'Brien commissioned the tartan design especially for the Pope.

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic Church cleric has called for Christians to wear a cross every day.

In his Easter Sunday sermon, Cardinal Keith O'Brien told worshippers to "wear proudly a symbol of the cross of Christ" each day of their lives.

The leader of the Church in Scotland voiced concern at the growing "marginalisation" of religion.

His comments come as a case is going to the European Court of Human Rights to allow employees to wear crosses.

In his Easter message, Cardinal O'Brien referred to remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 that Christians "need to be free to act in accordance with their own principles".

Former nurse Shirley Chaplin, from Exeter, and Nadia Eweida, from Twickenham, who worked with British Airways, are taking their call for all employees to be able to wear a cross at work to the European Court of Human Rights. Both women lost their discrimination cases in 2010.

An appeal court judgment upheld the Employment Appeal Tribunal's finding that banning Ms Eweida from wearing a cross was not discriminatory because Christians "generally" do not consider wearing a cross as a requirement of their religion.

Cardinal O'Brien said in his Easter Sunday homily at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh that many people wear crosses "not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work".

---

Just 18 months ago, Pope Benedict XVI stood in Westminster Hall in London addressing a vast audience of politicians, diplomats, academics and business leaders.

There he clearly stated that 'religion is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation'.

In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalisation of religion, particularly Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters.

---

The cardinal, who is the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, hopes increasing numbers of Christians will adopt the practice of wearing a cross in a "simple and discreet" way as a symbol of their beliefs. A lapel pin costs £1 - less than a chocolate Easter egg - and could be given as gifts, he said.

Mrs Chaplin is being represented by the Christian Legal Centre.

Andrea Williams, its director, said it was "time for Christians everywhere to mark their allegiance to the cross".

"I very much hope that in Europe there will be vindication for Shirley Chaplin," she said, adding that she hoped "some sort of common sense will prevail".

A Home Office spokesman said: "People should be able to wear crosses. The law allows for this, and employers are generally very good at being reasonable in accommodating people's religious beliefs."

The government says UK law "strikes the right balance" between employees' rights to express their beliefs at work and the requirements of employers.

The law, and its application in the workplace, centers on article nine of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The legislation backs an individual's freedom to act in accordance with religious beliefs but also recognises limitations "in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said Britain had a strong tradition of freedom of expression and tolerance.

She said: "It seems to me from a freedom of conscience point of view, from a freedom of expression point of view, you should be able to express yourself as long as you can do your job and as long as you are not harming anyone else.

"So of course, no one would say a brain surgeon should be able to wear a cross dangling over a patient in a sterile theatre but equally you should not ban symbols just because people don't agree with them."


My addendum:



Last year, the European court of Human Rights famously made this decision, which the Vatican called history-making, about the display of the crucifix in Italian schools:



That ruling overthrew an earlier 2009 ruling:

Ten European nations (Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Russian Federation, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Romania and the Republic of San Marino) joined Italy in appealing the above ruling, joined by several non-governmental organizations and 33 members of the European Parliament acting as group. Note that none of the Western European nations other than Greece and the tiny states of Malta, Monaco and San Marino (all 3 are Catholic), joined the Italian appeal, and that the other supportive nations represent countries of the Orthodox faith.

The Resurrection of Christ:
Four flawed theories and
the glorious truth
by Carl Olson

aPRIL 8, 2012

It is something of a tradition for magazines and newspapers to run articles about the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the weeks leading up to Easter. Scholars, pastors, skeptics, and ordinary people weigh in with their arguments and opinions. Some argue the Resurrection never took place.

Down through time there have been a number of arguments made about what really happened on that Sunday some two thousand years ago. Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli, in Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, outline the four basic theories used to explain away the Resurrection.

The first is that a conspiracy existed to misrepresent what transpired in the aftermath of Jesus’s death. The most ancient variation of this argument was concocted by the chief priests upon discovering the empty tomb: the body of Jesus was stolen by his disciples (Matt 28:11-15).

The second is that the apostles and other disciples — nearly mad with grief and deeply confused — experienced the world’s most dramatic group hallucination. Convinced that they had seen and experienced the impossible, they set out to convince the world of the same.

Another argument — the “swoon theory” — is that Jesus, tortured and exhausted, had not died, but had only passed out for a time until he was revived by his followers.

The final argument, which has a loyal following in different forms among atheists, skeptics, and theologically liberal Christians, is that the Resurrection is a myth. Some insist this does away with the meaning of the Resurrection, while others insist this actually provides a deeper, metaphorical meaning.

There are, of course, many problems with each of these theories. For example, how exactly would a group of frightened fisherman overwhelm Roman guards and move away a huge stone? And why would they, only weeks later, fearlessly proclaim Christ’s Resurrection and then, over the years, accept martyrdom, despite knowing Jesus was actually dead?

How is it that hundreds of people (cf., 1 Cor 15:3-8) experienced the same hallucination? How would Jesus, who was ripped to shreds and crucified by trained killers, appear shortly thereafter as physically whole, even glorious in appearance (Jn 20:19-29)?

But it is the theory of the mythical or metaphorical Resurrection that is most disconcerting, especially when embraced by Christians. In today’s reading from Acts, Peter is described stating bluntly, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us.” The story of doubting Thomas (Jn. 20:19-29) soundly rejects any such understanding.

And today’s Gospel readings all describe real confusion on the part of the disciples and the fact that this confusion was due to a physical Resurrection. “Do not be amazed!” the angel told the women, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here” (Mk 16:5-6).

The story of the two disciples journeying to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35) emphasizes how belief in the Resurrection is not, in the end, a matter of mere reason or facts, but of a real encounter with the Risen Lord. Having walked and talked at length with Jesus, they still did not recognize him. But when he took break and blessed it and gave it to them—that is, when Jesus gave them Eucharist - their “eyes were opened and they recognized him.” 



“The basic form of Christian faith,” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in Faith and the Future (Ignatius, 2009), “is not:'I believe something', but 'I believe you'.” It’s not that faith is unreasonable; rather, it is finally, in the end, above and beyond reason, although never contrary to reason.

It is ultimately an act of will and love. “We believe, because we love,” wrote John Henry Newman in a sermon titled, “Love the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition.”

“The divinely-enlightened mind sees in Christ the very Object whom it desires to love and worship,the Object correlative of its own affections; and it trusts Him, or believes, from loving Him.”



Apropos, I am posting two reflections by Benedict XVI on the Resurrection - the first is from a General Audience catechesis on March 26, 2008; the other is excerpted from JESUS OF NAZARETH, Vol. 2.

Catechesis on the Resurrection
by Benedict XVI
March 26, 2008

"Et resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas - On the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures".

Every Sunday, with the Creed, we renew our profession of faith in Christ's Resurrection, a surprising event which is the keystone of Christianity. Everything in the Church is understood on the basis of this great mystery which changed the course of history and becomes present in every Eucharistic celebration.

However, there is one liturgical season in which this central reality of the Christian faith is presented more vividly to the faithful, with its doctrinal richness and inexhaustible vitality, so that they may discover it ever better and live it more faithfully: it is the Easter Season.

Every year, in the "Most Holy Triduum of the Crucified, dead and Risen Christ", as St Augustine calls it, the Church relives the last events of Jesus's earthly life in an atmosphere of prayer and penance: his condemnation to death, his ascent to Calvary carrying the Cross, his sacrifice for our salvation, being laid in the tomb.

Then on the "third day" the Church relives his Resurrection: it is the Passover, Jesus's passing from death to life in which the ancient prophecies were completely fulfilled. The entire liturgy of the Easter Season sings the certitude and joy of Christ's Resurrection.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must constantly renew our adherence to Christ who died and rose for us: his Passover is also our Passover because in the Risen Christ we are given the certainty of our own resurrection.

The news of his being raised from the dead never ages and Jesus is alive for ever; and his Gospel is alive. "The faith of Christians", St Augustine observed, "is the Resurrection of Christ". The Acts of the Apostles explain it clearly: "God has given assurance to all men by raising him [Jesus] from the dead" (17: 31).

Indeed, his death did not suffice to demonstrate that Jesus is truly the Son of God, the awaited Messiah. How many people in the course of history devoted their lives to a cause they deemed right and died for it! And dead they remained.

The Lord's death reveals the immense love with which he loved us, to the point of sacrificing himself for us; but his Resurrection alone is our "assurance", the certainty that what he said is the truth which also applies for us, for all times.

In raising Jesus, the Father glorified him. In his Letter to the Romans St Paul wrote: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (10:9).

It is important to reaffirm this fundamental truth of our faith whose historical veracity is amply documented, even if today, as in the past, there are many who in various ways cast doubt on it or even deny it.

The enfeeblement of faith in the Resurrection of Jesus results in weakening the witness of believers. In fact, should the Church's faith in the Resurrection weaken, everything will come to a halt, everything will disintegrate.

On the contrary, the adherence of heart and mind to the dead and Risen Christ changes the life and brightens the entire existence of people and peoples.

Is it not the certainty that Christ is risen which instils courage, prophetic daring and perseverance in martyrs of every epoch? Is it not the encounter with the living Jesus that converts and fascinates so many men and women who from the beginnings of Christianity have continued to leave all things to follow him and put their own lives at the service of the Gospel?

"If Christ has not been raised", the Apostle Paul said, "then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (I Cor 15: 14). But he was raised!

The proclamation we listen to constantly in these days is exactly this: Jesus is risen, he is the Living One and we can encounter him; just as the women who had gone to the tomb met him on the third day, the day after the Sabbath; just as the disciples encountered him, surprised and dismayed by what the women had told them; just as so many other witnesses met him during the days following his Resurrection.

And after his Ascension, Jesus also continued to be present among his friends as he had promised: "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28: 20).

The Lord is with us, with his Church, until the end of time. Illumined by the Holy Spirit, the members of the early Church began to proclaim the announcement of Easter openly and fearlessly. And this announcement, passed on from one generation to the next, has come down to us and every year at Easter rings out with ever new power.

Especially in this Octave of Easter the liturgy invites us to meet the Risen One personally and to recognize his life-giving action in the events of history and in our daily lives. There is, for example, the moving episode of the two disciples of Emmaus is presented to us once again (cf. Lk 24: 13-35).

After Jesus's crucifixion, immersed in sadness and disappointment, they were going home dejected. On their way, they discussed the events that had occurred in those days in Jerusalem; it was then that Jesus approached and began to talk to them and teach them: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Lk 24: 25-26).

Then starting with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. Christ's teaching - the explanation of the prophecies - was like an unexpected revelation to the disciples of Emmaus, enlightening and comforting. Jesus gave them a new key for interpreting the Bible and everything then appeared clear, oriented to that very moment.

Won over by the words of the unknown wayfarer, they invited him to stop and have supper with them. And he accepted and sat down to table with them. The Evangelist Luke says: "When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them" (Lk 24: 30).

And it was at that very moment that the eyes of the two disciples were opened and they recognized him, but "he vanished out of their sight" (Lk 24: 31). And full of wonder and joy they commented: "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" (Lk 24: 32).

Throughout the liturgical year, particularly in Holy Week and Easter Week, the Lord walks beside us and explains the Scriptures to us, makes us understand this mystery: everything speaks of him. And this should also make our hearts burn within us, so that our eyes too may be opened.

The Lord is with us, he shows us the true path. Just as the two disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so today, in the breaking of the bread, let us too recognize his presence. The disciples of Emmaus recognized him and remembered the times when Jesus had broken the bread.

And this breaking of the bread reminds us of the first Eucharist celebrated in the context of the Last Supper, when Jesus broke the bread and thus anticipated his death and Resurrection by giving himself to the disciples.

Jesus also breaks bread with us and for us, he makes himself present with us in the Holy Eucharist, he gives us himself and opens our hearts. In the Holy Eucharist, in the encounter with his Word, we too can meet and know Jesus at this two-fold Table of the Word and of the consecrated Bread and Wine.

Every Sunday the community thus relives the Lord's Passover and receives from the Saviour his testament of love and brotherly service. Dear brothers and sisters, may the joy of these days strengthen our faithful attachment to the Crucified and Risen Christ. Above all, may we let ourselves be won over by the fascination of his Resurrection.


The following is excerpted from Chapter 9 of JESUS OF NAZARETH Vol. 2:

JESUS'S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD
by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:14-15).

With these words Saint Paul explains quite drastically what faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means for the Christian message overall: it is its very foundation. The Christian faith stands or falls with the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the dead.

If this were taken away, it would still be possible to piece together from the Christian tradition a series of interesting ideas about God and men, about man’s being and his obligations, a kind of religious world view: but the Christian faith itself would be dead.

Jesus would be a failed religious leader, who despite his failure remains great and can cause us to reflect. But he would then remain purely human, and his authority would extend only so far as his message is of interest to us.

He would no longer be a criterion; the only criterion left would be our own judgment in selecting from his heritage what strikes us as helpful. In other words, we would be alone. Our own judgment would be the highest instance.

Only if Jesus is risen has anything really new occurred that changes the world and the situation of mankind. Then he becomes the criterion on which we can rely. For then God has truly revealed himself.

To this extent, in our quest for the figure of Jesus, the Resurrection is the crucial point. Whether Jesus merely was or whether he also is – this depends on the Resurrection. In answering yes or no to this question, we are taking a stand not simply on one event among others, but on the figure of Jesus as such.

Therefore it is necessary to listen with particular attention as the New Testament bears witness to the Resurrection. Yet first we have to acknowledge that this testimony, considered from a historical point of view, is presented to us in a particularly complex form and gives rise to many questions.

What actually happened? Clearly, for the witnesses who encountered the risen Lord, it was not easy to say. They were confronted with what for them was an entirely new reality, far beyond the limits of their experience. Much as the reality of the event overwhelmed them and impelled them to bear witness, it was still utterly unlike anything they had previously known.

Saint Mark tells us that the disciples on their way down from the mountain of the Transfiguration were puzzled by the saying of Jesus that the Son of Man would “rise from the dead”. And they asked one another what “rising from the dead” could mean (9:9-10). And indeed, what does it mean? The disciples did not know, and they could find out only through encountering the reality itself.

Anyone approaching the Resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will then dismiss them as meaningless.

Rudolf Bultmann raised an objection against Resurrection faith by arguing that even if Jesus had come back from the grave, we would have to say that “a miraculous natural event such as the resuscitation of a dead man” would not help us and would be existentially irrelevant (cf. New Testament and Mythology, p. 7).

Now it must be acknowledged that if in Jesus’s Resurrection we were dealing simply with the miracle of a resuscitated corpse, it would ultimately be of no concern to us. For it would be no more important than the resuscitation of a clinically dead person through the art of doctors. For the world as such and for our human existence, nothing would have changed.

The miracle of a resuscitated corpse would indicate that Jesus’s Resurrection was equivalent to the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43 and parallel passages), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). After a more or less short period, these individuals returned to their former lives, and then at a later point they died definitively.

The New Testament testimonies leave us in no doubt that what happened in the “Resurrection of the Son of Man” was utterly different. Jesus’s Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it – a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence.

Therefore the Resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past, but it constitutes an “evolutionary leap” (to draw an analogy, albeit one that is easily misunderstood). In Jesus’s Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.

So Paul was absolutely right to link the resurrection of Christians and the Resurrection of Jesus inseparably together: “If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. . . . But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:16, 20).

Christ’s Resurrection is either a universal event, or it is nothing, Paul tells us. And only if we understand it as a universal event, as the opening up of a new dimension of human existence, are we on the way toward any kind of correct understanding of the New Testament Resurrection testimony.

On this basis we can understand the unique character of this New Testament testimony. Jesus has not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life – he has entered the vast breadth of God himself, and it is from there that he reveals himself to his followers.

For the disciples, too, this was something utterly unexpected, to which they were only slowly able to adjust. Jewish faith did indeed know of a resurrection of the dead at the end of time. New life was linked to the inbreaking of a new world and thus made complete sense.

If there is a new world, then there is also a new mode of life there. But a resurrection into definitive otherness in the midst of the continuing old world was not foreseen and therefore at first made no sense. So the promise of resurrection remained initially unintelligible to the disciples.

The process of coming to Resurrection faith is analogous to what we saw in the case of the Cross. Nobody had thought of a crucified Messiah. Now the “fact” was there - and it was necessary, on the basis of that fact, to take a fresh look at Scripture. We saw in the previous chapter how Scripture yielded new insights in the light of the unexpected turn of events and how the “fact” then began to make sense.

Admittedly, the new reading of Scripture could begin only after the Resurrection, because it was only through the Resurrection that Jesus was accredited as the one sent by God. Now people had to search Scripture for both Cross and Resurrection, so as to understand them in a new way and thereby come to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.

This also presupposes that for the disciples the Resurrection was just as real as the Cross. It presupposes that they were simply overwhelmed by the reality, that, after their initial hesitation and astonishment, they could no longer ignore that reality. It is truly he. He is alive; he has spoken to us; he has allowed us to touch him, even if he no longer belongs to the realm of the tangible in the normal way.

The paradox was indescribable. He was quite different, no mere resuscitated corpse, but one living anew and forever in the power of God. And yet at the same time, while no longer belonging to our world, he was truly present there, he himself.

It was an utterly unique experience, which burst open the normal boundaries of experience and yet for the disciples was quite beyond doubt. This explains the unique character of the Resurrection accounts: they speak of something paradoxical, of something that surpasses all experience and yet is utterly real and present.

But could it really be true? Can we – as men of the modern world – put our faith in such testimony? “Enlightened” thinking would say no.

For Gerd Lüdemann, for example, it seems clear that in consequence of the “revolution in the scientific image of the world . . . the traditional concepts of Jesus’s Resurrection are to be considered outdated” (quoted in Wilckens, Theologie des Neun Testaments 1/2, pp. 119-20).

But what exactly is this “scientific image of the world”? How far can it be considered normative? Hartmut Gese in his important article “Die Frage des Weltbildes”, to which I should like to draw attention, has painstakingly described the limits of this normativity.

Naturally there can be no contradiction of clear scientific data. The Resurrection accounts certainly speak of something outside our world of experience. They speak of something new, something unprecedented – a new dimension of reality that is revealed.

What already exists is not called into question. Rather we are told that there is a further dimension, beyond what was previously known. Does that contradict science? Can there really only ever be what there has always been? Can there not be something unexpected, something unimaginable, something new?

If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether? Is not creation actually waiting for this last and highest “evolutionary leap”, for the union of the finite with the infinite, for the union of man and God, for the conquest of death?

Throughout the history of the living, the origins of anything new have always been small, practically invisible, and easily overlooked. The Lord himself has told us that “heaven” in this world is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds (Matthew 13:31-32), yet contained within it are the infinite potentialities of God.

In terms of world history, Jesus’s Resurrection is improbable; it is the smallest mustard seed of history.

This reversal of proportions is one of God’s mysteries. The great – the mighty – is ultimately the small. And the tiny mustard seed is something truly great.

So it is that the Resurrection has entered the world only through certain mysterious appearances to the chosen few. And yet it was truly the new beginning for which the world was silently waiting. And for the few witnesses – precisely because they themselves could not fathom it – it was such an overwhelmingly real happening, confronting them so powerfully, that every doubt was dispelled, and they stepped forth before the world with an utterly new fearlessness in order to bear witness: Christ is truly risen.


I am still looking for the homily or catechesis when the Holy Father directly confronted those who claim that the Resurrection is mrely symbolic and not fact, because this has been quite a common 'heresy' with Catholics who think they are thinking 'modern' and 'scientific'.

If you cast the historical reality of the central mystery of the faith as mere symbolism, you would more easily consider that the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is mere symbolism, too, not real, as our faith professes. In some cases, 'revision' - which is really correction - of history is justified if conventional history has become so distorted as to obscure objective fact. But the tenets of the Christian faith cannot be revised. Divine revelation cannot be revised. As St. Paul told the early Churches, he was passing on to them exactly what had been taught to him. When he preached the gospel as it had been handed to him, he did not say, "Yes, but..." to add or subtract to it (or modify it) as he thought fit!

BENEDICT XVI'S EASTER
GREETING CARD, 2012

The Sunday issue (4/8/12) of L'Osservatore Romano featured the illustration from the Holy Father's Easter greeting card this year, which features a stunning depiction of the Resurrection (oainted 1763) by an 18th century German painter, Johann Heinrich Tischbein the elder. The caption provides the text cited by the Pope this year, from the Easter sequence in the Easter Sunday Mass, with which he also started the Urbi et Orbi message yesterday. (But it would have been preferable if OR had shown the entire card with the greeting portion).

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'Christus surrexit, spes mea' (Christ my hope is risen)

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I do not understand why the OR or the Vatican Press Office does not regularly provide the Pope's greeting cards at Christmas and Easter. I've had to search online all the time, and they are not always available. By now, we ought to have a series of eight Christmas cards and seven Easter cards for the Pontificate so far, and we have not seen half of it.

April 9, Monday in the Octave of Easter

ST. CASILDA DE TOLEDO (Spain, 950?-1050)
She was the daughter of the Muslim king Al-Mamun of Toledo, at the height of Moorish dominance in Spain. She is one
of the earliest saints of whom a version of the following legend is told: Casilda used to bring bread to Christian
prisoners in secret; one day, caught by her father sneaking out, he challenged her to show what she was carrying in
her basket. She did - and there were roses instead of bread. Later she fell ill with what is now believed to have been
uterine cancer; she went to the healing waters at a shrine to St. Vincent the martyr in Burgos province, where she
was baptized. She stayed on in the area living a life of solitude and penance. and was said to have lived to age 100.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/040912.cfm


WITH THE POPE TODAY

The Holy Father is in Castel Gandolfo for his usual post-Holy Week rest. This year, Holy Week was also
preceded by his apostolic visit to Mexico and Cuba. Last year, when Easter Sunday fell on April 24, he only
had three days of rest before returning to the Vatican for the busy weekend of John Paul II's beatification.

Today, the Pope led the Regina caeli prayers on Angel's Monday.




- Vatican Radio's Italian service reports on another papal event at Castel Gandolfo today, but betrays seeming ignorance about the book it reports on - which was the book edited by Mons. Georg Gaenswein entitled 'Benedikt XVI: Prominente ueber den Papst' (Famous people speak about the Pope) and presented by him in Munich last month, alongside former Minister President of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber.

Book of tribute
from famous Germans
presented to Pope
Translated from the Italian service of

April 9, 2012

Benedict XVI; Famous persons speak about the Pope [the report gives the title translated to Italian, without giving its actual title in German] is the title of a book published by the German publishing house Media Maria Verlag, and presented today to the Holy Father by the ex-governor Bavaria, Edmund Sotoiber. [The correct title for the 'governor' of a German state is Minister-President.]

The presentation took place after the Regina caeli prayer.

The book - conceived as a tribute for the 85th birthday of the Pope on April 16 - puts together accounts by famous German personalities who explain why they admire Benedict XVI.

Among those who contributed were Germany's most famous football icon, Frnz Beckenbauer, and the current German finance minister Walter Schaeuble.

The Pope thanked the delegation from Bavaria led by Minister Stoiber, who said this in an interview with Mario Galgano in our German section: "I was studying law in the 1960s but I followed with great interest the lectures of Fr. Karl Rahner [German Jesuit theologian] but then I discovered another theology professor, namely, Joseph Ratzinger. I was struck by the fact that his lectures were attended by so many students. And at that time - 1968 - that was not normal".

It's possible that none of the RV reporters or editors who had anything to do with the story may not have read at all about the book presentation that Mons. Gaenswein made in Munich last month, but they should at least have seen the book (or researched it online), in which Gaenswein's name appears on the cover as having edited the book.

This may seem like a minor fault, but considering the other 'minor' journalistic acts of omission and commission that I have had occasion to remark about Vatican Radio's reporting, it is distressing. One expects more professionalism from 'the Pope's radio' which has been in business for over 80 years now. Sloppiness must be deplored in a professional operation - it is the slippery slope to overall lack of professionalism.

As it is, the way the story is reported above, one would think that the book and the narratives it contained arose by spontaneous generation! No book is ever published without the name of its author(s) or editor(s) - but apparently the RV reporters don't even see that obvious lack of information in their report. Sloppiness is one thing; total cluelessness is something else!

I don't have the time just now to check out the original source for this story - will do so later.

Brother says Pope Benedict
to cut back on foreign trips
By Nick Squires, Rome

April 8, 2012

"I think he won't travel that much anymore, because it's more and more of an effort," Rev Georg Ratzinger said of Pope Benedict XVI, who has looked frail in recent weeks.

Rev Ratzinger, who is three years older than his brother, made the remarks during an interview with a Catholic news agency in Germany, KNA.

In a book published [in the UK] last week, he recalled how upset he was when his brother was made Pope because he was afraid the role would impose too much mental and physical stress.

In 'My Brother, the Pope', published in German and English, he said he was "crestfallen" and "depressed" over his brother's election as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

"I was seriously worried. I didn't think of the honours or the positive aspects, but only of the toil and the burden which that responsibility meant for my brother."

His duties last week included leading the annual Way of the Cross procession around the Colosseum on Good Friday and celebrating Mass on Sunday in St Peter's Basilica.

During his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" (Latin for "to the city and to the world") Easter speech he called for an end to the bloodshed in Syria and for a return to peace in Mali, which was recently hit by a military coup.

During his trip to Mexico and Cuba last month, he used a walking stick publicly for the first time, amid long-standing concerns for his physical wellbeing. [It was not during the trip, but as he was setting out for the trip, going to the airplane in Fiumicino airport, Rome.]

Instead of walking down the long central aisle of St Peter's, he travels on a platform on wheels which is pushed by Vatican aides.

The Pope, who succeeded John Paul II in 2005, has just one more foreign trip planned this year – to Lebanon in September, where he will celebrate Mass in Beirut.


Benedict XVI will likely continue to consider making foreign trips depending on the occasion for the trip, the travel distance involved, and what he perceives to be the pastoral needs of the host country - and of course, whether he feels he is physically able to. Perhaps two trips a year as this year will be the norm instead of three as it used to be.

I finally found the KNA interview with Mons. Ratzinger through a circuitous route that took me right back to KATHNET. The interview was all about the Pope's coming 85th birthday, and the statement cited in the Telegraph report [and others] was loosely translated and taken out of context. What his brother actually said, having been asked whether he thought the Pope would ever visit Bavaria again was:

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If he does [return to Bavaria], he will do so for pastoral reasons, for the sake of the Church. But I am convinced he will not come back to Bavaria. I believe that he personally does not want to travel much any more because it is increasingly effortful for him.

---

I read into that statement that the Pope may not personally be inclined to make these apostolic visits because they are increasingly a strain for him, but he will if he has to and if he is able to, as I surmised before I saw the actual interview..

Brother Georg still deciding
what to give the Pope for his 85th -
'He already has everything he needs'
An interview by Christoph Renzikowski


REGENSBURG, April 4 (Translated from kath.net/KNA) - On April 16, Pope Benedict XVI will turn 85. His brother Georg, 88, will be at the Vatican for the occasion.

But he told KNA that he still has no gift for him. He thinks that he wishes for his brother above all cannot be fulfilled.

KNA: Herr Domkapellmeister, your brother will mark in af ew days his 85th birthday. Are you all set for the trip to the Vatican?
Indeed. On April 13, I will fly to Rome and stay there a bit longer.

What do you wish him on his birthday?
A bit of peace. And of course, God's blessing so he can have more years, good health, and most of all, that his life will find its desired fulfillment in God.

In your family, birthdays were not particularly celebrated. Why not?
It was not usual in Bavaria - where we celebrated name days instead. It reminds us of our baptism and of the saints who ought to inspire our lives.

Did that mean that birthdays were ignored?
Not entirely. One would receive greetings and get some presents.

No children's party?
No. One didn't even think of inviting other children. Times were hard and one had to make every mark count.

What does your brother think when now the Bavarian President and bishops make their courtesy calls to him at the Vatican?
Onthe one hand, it is, of course, a joy for him to feel their acknowledgment and esteem for the Pope. That is always positive. On the other hand, he also asks himself why anyone should make so much fuss about him as a person.

What does Benedict really wish to achieve in the time he has left?
That I do not know. His role as Pope does not play a role in our conversations.

How does he deal with the exertions of something like his recent trip to Mexico and Cuba?
It did tire him out somewhat. But he goes back to normal after a couple of days. My brother has a rather resistant nature. He is used to being challenged. And he has a natural lifestyle - which means, getting enough sleep, not overdoing food and drink, but above all, a certain regularity.

How often do you see him during the year?
I go there for the Christmas holidays, and later, I spend August in Castel Gandolfo. Our brief time together is always limited because of his duties. In the mornings, we say Mass together; we are together at mealtimes, and in our afternoon walks to pray the Rosary. That is altogether not very much time, but that makes it all the more intensive and beautiful.

Do you still make music together?
No. He practically does not have time to indulge. His life is so full of duties. And when he does play music, it's for himself alone. However, he does love to listen to music.

What music?
It depends on the liturgical year and the season of the year. He loves to listen to Christmas carols, especially those that we grew up with as children, sung by the Regensburger Domspatzten and other choirs.

Herr Praelat, you are now both at an age when most persons would draw up a balance sheet of their life and settle their affairs. Do you speak to each other about what you would wish to do during your last stage of life on earth?
No. He has his mission to which he is fully bound. I do not know what the 'final phase' means concretely for him. In Regensburg, I am too far away from him. But it does not make sense to project these things. They will simply happen.

Has your faith changed in old age? Does your certainty increase or are there new doubts?
What one has practised one's whole life remains. One has experienced fulfillment and elevation. That is not always the case for everyone, but in hindsight, one sees that it was meant to be for many. In old age, certainty and hope grow, and also the interiority of faith. At least, that is my experience.

Is it possible that the Pope could travel once more to Bavaria, and if it had to be, for your sake?
For me alone, not at all! He cannot make private trips. He takes his position seriously and he knows that any papal travel involves many demands.

If he does [return to Bavaria], he will do so for pastoral reasons, for the sake of the Church. I am convinced he will not come back to Bavaria. I believe that he personally does not want to travel much any more because it is increasingly effortful for him.

Are you bringing him a gift?
Various individuals have given me things to bring him. I do not know what these are, as I would never check what is sent by people whom I know and value.

And are you keeping to family tradition and not bring him any present?
The family tradition finds an exception in this case. Birthdays in round numbers [i.e., ending in -5 or -0] are underscored. But it is so difficult to decide what to give him. The most necessary things in life - food, clothing and shelter - he was it all, as well as an abundance of books. It is very very difficult [to think of a gift]. I am still considering it.

"I am still looking for the homily or catechesis when the Holy Father directly confronted those who claim that the Resurrection is merely symbolic and not fact, because this has been quite a common 'heresy' with Catholics who think they are thinking 'modern' and 'scientific'."

I am almost certain that this is the address you are referring to.

--------------------------------------------------

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Saint Peter's Square
Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Octave of Easter

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today the usual Wednesday General Audience is imbued with spiritual joy, that joy which no suffering or sorrow can erase because it is a joy that springs from the certainty that Christ, with his death and Resurrection, has triumphed over evil and death once and for all. "Christ is risen! Alleluia!", the Church sings, rejoicing. And this festive atmosphere, these characteristic sentiments of Easter are not only prolonged during this week the Octave of Easter but extend over the 50 days until Pentecost. Indeed, we can say: the Paschal Mystery embraces our whole life-span.

The biblical references and incentives to meditation offered to us in this liturgical season so that we may acquire a deeper knowledge of the meaning and value of Easter are truly numerous. The "Via Crucis" [Way of the Cross] to Calvary that we walked with Jesus in the Sacred Triduum has become the comforting "Via lucis" [way of light]. Seen from the Resurrection we can say that this way of suffering is a path of light and spiritual renewal, of inner peace and firm hope. After the weeping, after the bewilderment of Good Friday, followed by the silence laden with expectation of Holy Saturday, at dawn on the "first day after the Sabbath" the proclamation of Life that triumphed over death resounded: "Dux vitae mortuus/regnat vivus the Lord of life was dead; but he is now alive and triumphant!". The overwhelming newness of the Resurrection is so important that the Church never ceases to proclaim it, prolonging its commemoration especially every Sunday: every Sunday, in fact, is the "Lord's Day" and the weekly Easter of the People of God. As if to highlight this mystery of salvation that invests our daily life, our Eastern brothers and sisters call Sunday, in Russian, "the day of the Resurrection" (voskrescénje).

Consequently, it is fundamental for our faith and for our Christian witness to proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as a real, historical event, attested by many authoritative witnesses. We assert this forcefully because, in our day too, there are plenty of people who seek to deny its historicity, reducing the Gospel narrative to a myth, to a "vision" of the Apostles, taking up and presenting old and already worn-out theories as new and scientific. For Jesus, of course, the Resurrection was not a simple return to his former life. Should this have been the case, in fact, it would have been something of the past: 2,000 years ago someone, such as, for example, Lazarus, was raised and returned to his former life. The Resurrection is placed in another dimension: it is the passage to a profoundly new dimension of life that also concerns us, that involves the entire human family, history and the universe. This event that introduced a new dimension of life, an opening of this world of ours to eternal life, changed the lives of the eye-witnesses as the Gospel accounts and the other New Testament writings demonstrate; it is a proclamation that entire generations of men and women down the centuries have accepted with faith and to which they have borne witness, often at the price of their blood, knowing that in this very way they were entering into this new dimension of life. This year too, at Easter this Good News rings out unchanged and ever new in every corner of the earth: Jesus who died on the Cross is risen, he lives in glory because he has defeated the power of death, he has brought the human being to a new communion of life with God and in God. This is the victory of Easter, our salvation! And therefore we can sing with St Augustine: "Christ's Resurrection is our hope!", because it introduces us into a new future.

It is true: our firm hope is founded on the Resurrection of Jesus that brightens the whole of our earthly pilgrimage, including the human enigma of pain and death. Faith in the Crucified and Risen Christ is the heart of the entire Gospel message, the central core of our "Creed". We may find an authoritative expression of this essential "Creed" in a well-known Pauline passage contained in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15: 3-8), in which, to respond to some of the communities of Corinth which were paradoxically proclaiming Jesus' Resurrection but denying the resurrection of the dead our hope the Apostle faithfully hands on what he Paul had received from the first apostolic community concerning the Lord's death and Resurrection.

He begins with an almost peremptory affirmation: "Brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and in which you stand firm. You are being saved by it at this very moment if you hold fast to it as I preached it to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain" (vv. 1-2). He immediately adds that he has transmitted to them what he himself had received. This is followed by the passage we heard at the beginning of our meeting. St Paul first of all presents Jesus' death and in this pithy text makes two additions to the information: "Christ died". The first addition is: died "for our sins"; the second is: "in accordance with the Scriptures" (v. 3). The words: "in accordance with the Scriptures" place the event of the Lord's Resurrection in relation to the Old Testament history of God's Covenant with his People, and make us understand that the death of the Son of God belongs to the fabric of salvation history and indeed makes us understand that this history receives from it both its logic and its true meaning. Until that moment Christ's death had remained as it were an enigma, whose outcome was still uncertain. In the Paschal Mystery the words of Scripture are fulfilled, that is, this death which comes about "in accordance with the Scriptures" is an event that bears within it a logos, a logic: the death of Christ testifies that the Word of God was made "flesh", was made human "history", through and through. How and why this should have happened can be understood from St Paul's other addition: Christ died "for our sins". With these words the Pauline text seems to take up Isaiah's prophecy contained in the Fourth Song of the Servant of God (cf. Is 53: 12). The Servant of God the Song says "surrendered himself to death"; he bore "the guilt of many" and, by interceding for the "wicked", was able to bring the gift of the reconciliation of men and women with one another and of men and women with God. Thus, his is a death that puts an end to death; the Way of the Cross leads to Resurrection.

In the verses that follow, the Apostle then reflects on the Lord's Resurrection. He says that Christ "was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures". Once again, "in accordance with the Scriptures"! Many exegetes see the words: "he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" as an important reference to what we read in Psalm 16[15] in which the Psalmist proclaims: "Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption" (ibid., v. 10). This is one of the texts of the Old Testament, cited frequently in early Christianity to prove Jesus' messianic character. Since according to the Jewish interpretation corruption began after the third day, the words of Scripture are fulfilled in Jesus who rose on the third day, that is, before corruption began. St Paul, faithfully passing on the teaching of the Apostles, emphasizes that Christ's victory over death happens through the creative power of the Word of God. This divine power brings hope and joy: this is ultimately the liberating content of the Paschal revelation. At Easter God reveals himself and the power of Trinitarian love that annihilates the destructive forces of evil and death.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow ourselves to be illumined by the splendour of the Risen Lord. Let us welcome him with faith and adhere generously to his Gospel, as did the privileged witnesses of his Resurrection; and as, some years later, did St Paul who encountered the divine Teacher in an extraordinary manner on the Road to Damascus. We cannot keep for ourselves alone the proclamation of this Truth that changes the life of all. And with humble trust let us pray: "Jesus, who in rising from the dead anticipated our Resurrection, we believe in You!". I would like to end with an exclamation that Sylvan of Mount Athos used to like to repeat: "Rejoice my soul. It is always Easter, for the Risen Christ is our Resurrection!". May the Virgin Mary help to cultivate within us and around us this climate of Easter joy, so that we may be witnesses of divine Love in every situation of our existence. Once again, Happy Easter to you all!

www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20090415...



THANK YOU, DAVID, for the research! I hope you had a blessed Easter and a blessed 2012 all in all.

TERESA


You are welcome. :) And I hope you had a blessed Easter too. - Here is another address where the Pope discusses the historical reality of the resurrection, which is sadly not on the Vatican website for some reason even though it is the Urbi et Orbi message of 2009 on Easter Sunday morning. Strange. You will find it on Sandro Magister's blog and on other sites.

------------------------------------------------

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world,

From the depths of my heart, I wish all of you a blessed Easter. To quote Saint Augustine, "Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra — the resurrection of the Lord is our hope" (Sermon 261:1). With these words, the great Bishop explained to the faithful that Jesus rose again so that we, though destined to die, should not despair, worrying that with death life is completely finished; Christ is risen to give us hope (cf. ibid.).

Indeed, one of the questions that most preoccupies men and women is this: what is there after death? To this mystery today’s solemnity allows us to respond that death does not have the last word, because Life will be victorious at the end. This certainty of ours is based not on simple human reasoning, but on a historical fact of faith: Jesus Christ, crucified and buried, is risen with his glorified body. Jesus is risen so that we too, believing in him, may have eternal life. This proclamation is at the heart of the Gospel message. As Saint Paul vigorously declares: "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." He goes on to say: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:14,19). Ever since the dawn of Easter a new Spring of hope has filled the world; from that day forward our resurrection has begun, because Easter does not simply signal a moment in history, but the beginning of a new condition: Jesus is risen not because his memory remains alive in the hearts of his disciples, but because he himself lives in us, and in him we can already savour the joy of eternal life.

The resurrection, then, is not a theory, but a historical reality revealed by the man Jesus Christ by means of his "Passover", his "passage", that has opened a "new way" between heaven and earth (cf. Heb 10:20). It is neither a myth nor a dream, it is not a vision or a utopia, it is not a fairy tale, but it is a singular and unrepeatable event: Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, who at dusk on Friday was taken down from the Cross and buried, has victoriously left the tomb. In fact, at dawn on the first day after the Sabbath, Peter and John found the tomb empty. Mary Magdalene and the other women encountered the risen Jesus. On the way to Emmaus the two disciples recognized him at the breaking of the bread. The Risen One appeared to the Apostles that evening in the Upper Room and then to many other disciples in Galilee.

The proclamation of the Lord’s Resurrection lightens up the dark regions of the world in which we live. I am referring particularly to materialism and nihilism, to a vision of the world that is unable to move beyond what is scientifically verifiable, and retreats cheerlessly into a sense of emptiness which is thought to be the definitive destiny of human life. It is a fact that if Christ had not risen, the "emptiness" would be set to prevail. If we take away Christ and his resurrection, there is no escape for man, and every one of his hopes remains an illusion. Yet today is the day when the proclamation of the Lord’s resurrection vigorously bursts forth, and it is the answer to the recurring question of the sceptics, that we also find in the book of Ecclesiastes: "Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’?" (Ec 1:10). We answer, yes: on Easter morning, everything was renewed. "Mors et vita, duello conflixere mirando: dux vitae mortuus, regnat vivus — Death and life have come face to face in a tremendous duel: the Lord of life was dead, but now he lives triumphant." This is what is new! A newness that changes the lives of those who accept it, as in the case of the saints. This, for example, is what happened to Saint Paul.

Many times, in the context of the Pauline year, we have had occasion to meditate on the experience of the great Apostle. Saul of Tarsus, the relentless persecutor of Christians, encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and was "conquered" by him. The rest we know. In Paul there occurred what he would later write about to the Christians of Corinth: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). Let us look at this great evangelizer, who with bold enthusiasm and apostolic zeal brought the Gospel to many different peoples in the world of that time. Let his teaching and example inspire us to go in search of the Lord Jesus. Let them encourage us to trust him, because that sense of emptiness, which tends to intoxicate humanity, has been overcome by the light and the hope that emanate from the resurrection. The words of the Psalm have truly been fulfilled: "Darkness is not darkness for you, and the night is as clear as the day" (Ps 139 [138]:12). It is no longer emptiness that envelops all things, but the loving presence of God. The very reign of death has been set free, because the Word of life has even reached the "underworld", carried by the breath of the Spirit (v. 8).

If it is true that death no longer has power over man and over the world, there still remain very many, in fact too many signs of its former dominion. Even if through Easter, Christ has destroyed the root of evil, he still wants the assistance of men and women in every time and place who help him to affirm his victory using his own weapons: the weapons of justice and truth, mercy, forgiveness and love. This is the message which, during my recent Apostolic Visit to Cameroon and Angola, I wanted to convey to the entire African continent, where I was welcomed with such great enthusiasm and readiness to listen. Africa suffers disproportionately from the cruel and unending conflicts, often forgotten, that are causing so much bloodshed and destruction in several of her nations, and from the growing number of her sons and daughters who fall prey to hunger, poverty and disease. I shall repeat the same message emphatically in the Holy Land, to which I shall have the joy of travelling in a few weeks from now. Reconciliation — difficult, but indispensable — is a precondition for a future of overall security and peaceful coexistence, and it can only be achieved through renewed, persevering and sincere efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My thoughts move outwards from the Holy Land to neighbouring countries, to the Middle East, to the whole world. At a time of world food shortage, of financial turmoil, of old and new forms of poverty, of disturbing climate change, of violence and deprivation which force many to leave their homelands in search of a less precarious form of existence, of the ever-present threat of terrorism, of growing fears over the future, it is urgent to rediscover grounds for hope. Let no one draw back from this peaceful battle that has been launched by Christ’s Resurrection. For as I said earlier, Christ is looking for men and women who will help him to affirm his victory using his own weapons: the weapons of justice and truth, mercy, forgiveness and love.

Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra! The resurrection of Christ is our hope! This the Church proclaims today with joy. She announces the hope that is now firm and invincible because God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. She communicates the hope that she carries in her heart and wishes to share with all people in every place, especially where Christians suffer persecution because of their faith and their commitment to justice and peace. She invokes the hope that can call forth the courage to do good, even when it costs, especially when it costs. Today the Church sings "the day that the Lord has made", and she summons people to joy. Today the Church calls in prayer upon Mary, Star of Hope, asking her to guide humanity towards the safe haven of salvation which is the heart of Christ, the paschal Victim, the Lamb who has "redeemed the world", the Innocent one who has "reconciled us sinners with the Father". To him, our victorious King, to him who is crucified and risen, we sing out with joy our Alleluia!

www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/b16urborbest09.htm

chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1338027?eng=y



Thanks again! Actually, the explicit content of that Urbi et Orbi message was the one I Had in mind. Also, FYI, I just checked - it is on the Vatican website, under 'BENEDICT XVI -> MESSAGES -> URBI ET ORBI -> 2009:
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/urbi/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20090412_urbi-easter...

TERESA

In an exclusive report on April 7 - that I missed seeing till now - the Austrian Catholic news agency KATHNET reported this - it's enough to make me weep, the paradox is so stark! Dissident bishops - or at least, ineffectual, indecisive ones (wimpy and wussy!)- are so much more dangerous for the Church than dissident priests.

Vatican asked Austrian bishops
weeks ago to do something decisive
about dissidents' disobedience call
Cardinal Schoenborn asks group
to stop using the word 'disobedience'


VIENNA, April 7 (Translated from kath.net) - Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna on Friday took a stand once more on the Austrian Pfarrer-Initiative by dissident Austrian priests and called on them Friday to withdraw their 'Call to Disobedience'.

On Maundy Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI openly denounced the call to disobedience. As far as KATHNET could learn, Schoenborn had not been informed beforehand that the Pope would speak about it.

In an interview with Austrian state broadcasting ORF on Friday, Schoenborn said that the Pope was 'very well-informed' about the situation.

Commenting on the Pope's Thursday homily, Schoenborn said: "He said unequivocally that he understands the concern that the Church may be out of touch with the present. But he has also clearly said that there are some points in the 'Call to Disobedience' that are simply out of the question - for instance, citing the clear statement made by John Paul II regarding women priests, when he said that 'the Church does not have the authority to change what has been handed down from Jesus".

But Schoenborn added: "I must make a clarification now regarding the 'Call to Disobedience'. We bishops have said from the start that the word 'disobedience' cannot be allowed to stand. I think we need a clarification on this - a public one - and I think we must get it soon".

{Well, fine time to say that! The 'Call' has been online since June 2011, and the movement itself active since 2006. Obviously, the dissident priests couldn't care less what the Austrian bishops think - the latter have let them get away with everything all these years, including open cohabitation with women on the part of many priests! The dissidents, led by Schoenborn's onetime Vicar-General in Vienna, obviously think they have the wind at their back, since Austrian Catholics are apparently cafeteria Catholics largely and will opt for whatever is convenient for them as against what the Church teaches.]

KATHNET has also learned that in recent weeks, the Vatican has done much more about this issue than what is publicly known - that, in fact, the Austrian bishops had received an explosive letter from the Vatican calling on them to undertake something decisive against the Pfarrer-Initiative, according to various well-informed sources.

[One might infer the sources are close associates of the bishops who have seen the letter, but it's frustrating when the report does not say who exactly from the Vatican wrote the letter. The CDF? The Congregation for Bishops? If the letter was indeed written, then one could interpret the Pope tackling the issue as publicly as he did - without informing Schoenborn ahead - that Benedict XVI has had it with the Austrian bishops. Remember what he once said that the most dangerous bishop was one who refuses to resolve a controversy but simply tries to please everyone. Perfect definition of Schoenborn!

Schoenborn and some of his fellow bishops were in Rome in January to discuss the issue with the CDF. Perhaps the Pope thinks that eight weeks is more than enough time to see some action. Instead, Schoenborn keeps cooing about opening a dialog with the dissidents. He's been saying that since last year, but they've only stiffened their disobedience. His ex-vicar Mueller's reaction to the Pope's homily was to say that his group does not agree with the Pope's statement that there are things the Church has no authority to change. He cannot get more basic than that about the irreconcilable gap between the dissidents and the Magisterium.

What does it take for Schoenborn to mount the pulpit in Vienna and say what the Pope said - something Schoenborn has apparently not done all these years - and go beyond as it is his pastoral duty towards his flock: You cannot disobey what the Church teaches and openly urge disobedience to the Church - especially not when you are a priest. And you, as Catholics, must decide whether you are to continue choosing to follow only what you wish to follow, because that is not being Catholic. (In other words, if you cannot stand the Church, go join some other religion more convenient to you - don't try to change the Church!)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has also said that he would much rather that the Church has less priests than bad priests, and is realistic enough to know that orthodox Catholics - as opposed to cafeteria Catholics - are increasingly in the minority in the Western world but that good practising Catholics can be the 'creative minority' for the renewal of the Church.

REGINA CAELI
AT CASTEL GANDOLFO

April 9, 2012




Pope Benedict XVI prayed the Regina coeli with the faithful gathered in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo today, Easter Monday – a bright, crisp, clear day, with an April breeze stirring the air.

[The event was telecast simultaneously to St. Peter's Square.]

Easter Monday – a day of rest and recreation in many countries, as the Holy Father noted at the beginning of his remarks - is a day in which people often take leisurely walks in the city, or visit the country, spending precious hours with friends and family.

The real reason for this holiday, though, is the resurrection of Our Lord – as Pope Benedict called it, “the decisive mystery of our faith.”

The Holy Father went on to note that the Gospel writers do not describe the Resurrection, itself. “The event,” he said, “remains mysterious – not as something unreal, but as something beyond the reach of our knowledge - as a light so bright the eyes cannot bear it.”

The narratives begin instead at dawn the day after the Sabbath, when the women went to the tomb and found it open and empty.

St. Matthew speaks of an earthquake and a bright angel who rolled away the great tomb stone and sat on it (cf. Mt 28.2). The women, when they had received from the angel the announcement of the resurrection, ran full of fear and joy, to break the news to the disciples – and it was in just that moment that they met Jesus, fell at his feet and worshiped him – and Jesus said to them, “Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee: there shall they see me (Matthew 28:10).”

The Pope went on to note the important role that women play in the Gospel accounts of the appearances of the risen Jesus, as also in His passion and death.

“In those days, in Israel,” said Pope Benedict, “women's testimony could have no official legal value.” Nevertheless, the Pope continued, “women have experienced a special bond with the Lord, which is crucial for the practical life of the Christian community, and this always, in every age, not only at the beginning of the Church’s pilgrim journey.”

The Holy Father then called the attention of the faithful to Mary, Mother of the Lord, as the 'sublime and exemplary model of this relationship with Jesus, especially in His paschal mystery".

Precisely through the transformative experience of the Passover of her Son, he said, the Virgin Mary becomes Mother of the Church, that is, of all believers and of their communities.

In English, he said:

---

I am pleased to welcome all the English-speaking pilgrims present today for this Regina coeli prayer. Today we continue our solemn Easter celebration, recalling with greater joy than ever our redemption from sin and death in Jesus Christ. May the Risen Lord pour out his grace upon us, and give us the courage to bring the Good News to others. I invoke Easter blessings upon all of you!

---

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's reflection:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

A good day to everyone! The Monday after Easter, in many countries, is a vacation day, on which one may take a walk amidst nature, or go visit relatives and be together as a family.

But I wish that Christians should always bear in their minds and hearts what this holiday means - the resurrection of Jesus, which the decisive mystery of our faith.

Indeed, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1Cor 15:14-15).

That is why, these days, it is important to reread the narrations of the Resurrection of Christ which we find in the four Gospels, and read them with our heart. These are accounts which, in different ways, present the encounters of the disciples with the risen Christ, and they thus allow us to meditate on this stupendous event which transformed history and gives sense to the existence of every man, of each of us.

The event of the Resurrection itself is not described by the Evangelists - it remains mysterious, not in the sense of being less real, but that it is hidden, beyond the reach of our knowledge. Like a light so dazzling that one cannot observe it with the eyes or it would be blinding.

The accounts start, instead, from when, on the dawn of the day after the Sabbath, the women came to the sepulcher and found it open and empty. St. Matthew describes an earthquake and a resplendent angel who rolled away the great stone sealing the tomb and then sat atop it (cfr Mt 28,2).

Having received the news of the resurrection from the angel, the women, full of awe and joy, ran to give the news to the disciples, and just then, came face to face with Jesus. They prostrated themselves at his feet and paid homage to him.

And he said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Mt 28,10).

In all the Gospels, the women figure a great deal in the accounts of the apparitions of the risen Jesus, as they did in the accounts of the passion and death of Jesus. At that time in Israel, the testimony of women could not have any official or juridical value.

But the women in the accounts had experienced a special bond with the Lord, fundamental for the concrete life of the Christian community, not just at the start of the Church's journey, but always, in every age.

The sublime model and exemplar of this relationship with Jesus, especially in his Paschal mystery, is, of course, Mary, the Mother of the Lord. Precisely through the transformative experience of her Son's Passover, the Virgin Mary also became the Mother of the Church, that is, of every believer and of the entire community.

Let us turn to her now, invoking her as the Regina caeli, Queen of Heaven, with the prayer that tradition has us recite in place of the Angelus during the entire Easter season.

May Mary obtain for us that we may experience the living presence of the risen Lord, spring of hope and peace.

---

Fr. Schall offers an unusual reflection on the Resurrection - and what it means for aborted children, for instance...

'Together behind locked doors':
On resurrection, abortion, and judgment
by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

April 8, 2012

---

“On the morning of the first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors, suddenly, Jesus stood among them and said: ‘Peace be with you,’ alleluia.”
— Antiphon, Evening Prayer, Easter Sunday.

---

I.

In the twelfth chapter of the twenty-second book of the City of God, St. Augustine gives us a remarkably up-to-date objection to the resurrection of the body, one that might be of rather unsettling concern to many of our contemporaries.

“It is the habit of the pagans to subject our belief in a bodily resurrection to a scrupulous examination and to ridicule it with such questions as, ‘What about abortions?’” Augustine tells us. “’Will they rise again?’ … Now we are not going to say that those infants (who die early) will not rise again: for they are capable not only of being born, but also of being reborn.” All persons capable of being born are capable of being reborn.

The fact that a significant percentage of the actual human race, though conceived, are not born, does not mean those unborn do not have the same destiny and purpose of those born. The pagan assumption is, of course, that, while those once born may perhaps rise again, surely not those who were never born but were instead aborted.

In our time, the number of those who were not born but aborted, on a world wide scale, is simply staggering — around forty to fifty million a year at a minimum. Yet, these too participate in the same end designed for all of us.

Contemporary pagans and others usually do not give aborted infants the honor even of worrying themselves about the final status of such infants. Or of considering their final status as participators, directly or indirectly, in decisions and actions that terminate actual lives.

But it is quite clear in this regard that the eternal status of aborted children is not a frivolous issue if their claim to humanness is as solid as that of anyone else, which it is.

II.

Why bring up at this time the same issue of aborted children brought up by the pagans in Augustine’s time? It is standard biological and Church teaching, on the basis of evidence, that an individual human life begins at conception. However lightly we want to dance around this fact, it remains true.

Everyone who ever came forth out of the womb had his beginning in the union of a male and female element. This new life is not “part” of the mother, nor is it unnatural to her body. That is where it belongs.

Moreover, aborted babies and babies who die in the womb before birth have the same destiny as the mother who carries them and the father who begot them. What it is to be a human being begins here.

Mortal life ends with death, whenever that occurs, be it by abortion at five months, be it by miscarriage at six months, be it by sickness at three years, heart attack at thirty, or Parkinson’s disease at ninety-five.

Now none of these human beings, however or whenever his death might occur, is caused solely by his parents or by himself. The ultimate origin of each human person is within the Godhead itself, within the Trinity.

Our initial origin is in the image of God in which our very possibility must first exist. This origin too is why we are all related to one another in our very being. To be a person is to be related to others. Our dependence on one another is based on trust of one another. And this trust must be freely accepted.

In this sense, all abortions are a violation of a trust that is ultimately rooted in that Trinitarian life in which we are to participate in God’s grace.

III.

Easter is our central feast, our fundamental doctrine. “If Christ be not risen,” Paul says, “our faith is in vain.” We grant that logic.

That Christ rose from the dead is known to us because the fact of it was observed by certain definite witnesses. They did not invent what they saw, but, with some astonishment, reported what they went on.

They were neither liars nor ideologues. They were not wishful thinkers or deluded mystics. Hard-headed fishermen and a tax collector, among others, were among them. Many of them died for their testimony.

But when the Apostles were gathered together behind closed doors, they were in fact being cautious. What they were claiming in public was in its day not “politically correct.” They were testifying to the fact of the resurrection of Christ.

Christ did not break down the doors to lead them out on a triumphant, overwhelming conquest. Rather, He appeared among them. He told them to be at peace.

I bring this Easter passage up to remind us that even the aborted children are at peace. Even if their lives were unjustly cut off, God’s grace is sufficient for them to reach the end for which they were initially created as images of God.

The real drama of the aborted babies of our time, or any other time, concerns rather those who aborted them. To remind our contemporaries of their responsibility in this area is perhaps one often reasons that Benedict XVI speaks so often and so earnestly of final judgment.

No human act is finally complete unless and until it is judged. Everything is done to keep the reality of abortions, what is actually done, from our eyes. They are in fact “behind closed doors.” But they bring no peace unless they are repented, and even then they unsettle our souls with the knowledge that members of our kind could justify such things.

And yet, Christ’s resurrection is an assurance that each of us, including those whose lives we cut short, will rise again, first to judgment.

The assurance of that fact is this: When Christ appeared to the frightened Apostles after the resurrection, He told them that His peace was with them. Easter is indeed the Day the Lord hath made. This is why we can rejoice and be glad.

It is not because whatever we do, including killing our kind as infants, makes no difference, but because it does matter. The peace follows the judgment of how we receive the gift of the image of God in which we are all, from conception to death, created.


More thoughts on the Resurrection:


The Resurrection, Jacopo Tintoretto, 1581.

The theological relevances
of Christ’s Resurrection
by Glenn B. Siniscalchi

April 7, 2012

No single dimension of the Resurrection provides a comprehensive understanding but in different ways, the central mystery of our faith is related to Catholic discipleship and common theological understandings.

The Resurrection of Christ by Jacopo Tintoretto

The Catholic faith is centered, undoubtedly, on the Resurrected Lord of all, Jesus Christ, Christus Victor! By no means could we ever hope to comprehend this mystery as the climactic point of human history; yet, we can apprehend something meaningful about it.

Because we cannot wrap our minds around this mystery, we are instead forced to think about it from different perspectives. There is no single dimension of the Resurrection that can provide us with a comprehensive understanding.

What follows are some different ways in which the central mystery of our faith is related to Catholic discipleship and common theological understandings. Ideas have consequences. Beliefs affect behavior; doctrine helps to determine devotion. It is my hope and prayer that we will be more conscious of Easter Sunday throughout the liturgical year. Let us now turn to Christ’s Resurrection, and its relevance for all of our beliefs and practices as Catholics.

First, the Resurrection is a necessary prolegomenon (the study of the preconditions which make theology possible) for the Christian faith. While it is true that “we believe in order to understand,” it is equally true to say that “the more we authentically understand, the more disposed we are to have faith.” Genuine knowledge can be used by God as a springboard for Catholic faith.

Whether one wishes to theologize on the Resurrection as an act of forgiveness, or as the commencement of the new future, or as the establishment of the Apostles’ proclamation, none of these are possible if Jesus’s body still remains in the tomb (cf. 1 Cor 15:12-19). That is why we need to defend the historicity of the Resurrection in order to make theology a genuine possibility.

The apologists’ concerns also act as a call to reinvigorate what the late Cardinal Avery Dulles has called the “herald model of the church.” The case for Christ’s Resurrection can be just one means through which the saints can become equipped to become confident in verbally sharing their faith (cf. Eph. 6:19; Col. 4:5, 6; 1 Pet. 3:15; Jude 3).

Apologetics reminds us of why we believe, and in whom we believe. Building confidence might help believers to share the things we believe with others, and to face the suffering that is often accompanied by these exchanges. By having good reasons for faith, we know that whom we believe can be backed with legitimate evidence.

The Resurrection appearances of Jesus from the dead are closely linked to the Church’s mission (thus the branch of theology known as “missiology”) to spread the good news. Not only did the first percipients see the Risen Jesus appear to them, they also sensed their newfound mission to inaugurate the reign of God.

As Kenan Osborne has remarked, “there is a mission and commissioning connected to the appearances of Jesus to his disciples, both men and women. . . . In other words, during his lifetime, Jesus did not ‘institute’ a church. He did not establish the twelve as bishops, nor did he establish a new priesthood. All of this hierarchical development arose in a post-resurrection milieu, and was brought about because of Easter faith.” (1)

In other words, all the mysteries of the Passion come to fruition only on Easter morning: the institution of the Eucharist, the sacred orders of Christ’s priests, the truth of Baptism as a “first resurrection,” makes sense today only because Christ defeated death for all time.

The Resurrection also has implications for Christian eschatology (the branch of theology concerned with the study of the “last things”). Human beings long for something else beyond their earthly lives.

Indeed, the Resurrection acts as the final exemplar of our own resurrection from the dead at the end of time. Therefore, it provides us with some idea of what our future lives will be like in the eschaton (cf. 1Cor 6:14; Phil 3:21; 1 Jn 3:3). Jesus’s Resurrection also serves as the forerunner to the new creation at the end of time (Rom 8:19-23).

It is well known that eschatology is intimately linked to one of the human person's ultimate questions: What can I hope for? In a world without immortality and God, life inevitably becomes absurd—no heaven to be gained; no hell to be shunned. By contrast, in a world in which our own resurrection becomes a live option, hope is reinstated for humanity.

According to the scholar and scientist, John Polkinghorne: “Resurrection hope is necessarily engaged with a tension between continuity and discontinuity. This follows from the fact that its picture of the new life to come is framed in terms of its being the eschatological transformation of the old life, and not simply the latter’s abolition and replacement.” (2)

Christ’s Resurrection also has connotations for pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit. The reign of God is larger than the Church. God the Holy Spirit is at work everywhere at all times. And, in this very way, the Resurrection vindicates the reality of the reign (Rom 1:1-4). The reign is akin to God’s great clean-up-work in this world. The reign, however, intimately works in the Church in a special manner. As Pope Benedict XVI once proclaimed at an Easter Vigil:

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The Resurrection is not a thing of the past; the Resurrection has reached us, and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firml,y even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another’s hands.

And we become one single subject, not just one thing. I, but no longer I: this is the formula of Christian life rooted in Baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer I: if we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a program opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and corruption. (3)

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The point to be underscored is that Christ is raised to gather a people, not individuals apart from one another. The Resurrection, the consummative act of Christ’s atonement on the Cross, happened for all — past, present and future — not just a few individuals (cf. Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 2:2). (4)

One cannot leave out these conclusions and fail to mention harmartiology, the theological study of personal, social, and structural sins. The fact that God had to become a human being (cf. Phil 2:5-11), die, and then be raised, shows just how far God has to go to get our attention. This ought to make us realize how much we are in need of clear instructions from God.

The unlimited God has to limit himself in our sinful condition in order to communicate effectively with the human race, according to C. Stephan Evans:

“However much we may obscurely desire God and sense a problem in our current condition, we lack both adequate sense of what God is like, what it would be like to properly related to him, and how far removed we are from having such an understanding of God and such a relationship to him.

It is in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that God reveals these things to us, and they cannot be achieved through any myth of human devising. Our salvation depends on a revelation from God; if it could be achieved through an imaginative construction, then we would not be the fallen creatures we in fact are.” (5)

What is more, Christ’s Resurrection has a bearing on ecumenical efforts (the sustained search by Christians to find agreement on the fundamentals of the faith). A cursory glance at the major branches of Christianity (Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism) should be able to persuade anyone how many believers from different Christian communities and persuasions have an interest in Christ’s bodily Resurrection.

The fact that Jesus was raised is a common point of reference that all Christians can agree on. As believers, we should start our conversations and debates on what we already agree on. It is only after we have settled upon what we agree on that we can begin to narrow our differences.

We cannot miss out on what Osborne has to say here: “Although the many dialogues that the ecumenical movement inspired did not focus on resurrection research, the issues these dialogues did raise have steadily asked each of the churches to delve into its ultimate meaning as a ‘Jesus’ church. If all our churches proclaim the message of Jesus, what is this message that so unites us? Naturally, this includes the very meaning of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.” (6)

Belief in the Resurrection can easily stir up the human imagination to generate a greater conviction of faith. Once people suspect that Jesus could have really been bodily raised from the dead, they will immediately begin to see how much of a privilege our faith is, and that our lives constitute a significant part of the grand story, making sense of human life.

All legitimate theological understanding is designed to do this (and explains part of the reason why J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton were so very popular in the twentieth century).

Though certain understandings of liberation theology are not so popular in certain quarters of the Church, there is a sense in which the Resurrection becomes a liberating tenet of our faith. Certainly, the Resurrection is God’s way of assuring the Church, and potential converts, that real victory will one day come to those of us who live with oppression (oppression that is akin to the murder of the Sinless One).

Many movements of liberation can draw from this insight, including those in civil rights, and protests against discrimination, and other forms of injustice. Similar to the concerns of the liberationist, death and Resurrection constitute a major motif with the nature-grace problematic.

The potential of the human body is brought to fulfillment in the final resurrection at the end of time. At this point, we will become more human than we could have ever imagined here on earth. There is no compromise on the goodness of created realities. Rather, grace builds upon what God has already created and brings it to its final destiny.

The providence of God is also exemplified once we begin to explore, in earnest, Christ’s Resurrection. This conclusion is derived from understanding the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), when God decisively revealed himself in Christ.

It also pertains to the fact that we have access to historical evidence for such an event — and remarkable evidence at that. This suggests that providence may want scientifically-minded persons to know more about such evidence.

Listen to Polkinghorne once again: “One of the most significant things about Jesus of Nazareth is that we have heard of him. He lived two thousand years ago in a not very important frontier province of the Roman Empire. He died comparatively young, painfully and shamefully executed and deserted by the band of close followers that he had gathered around him. He wrote no book that could have conveyed his message to future generations. Yet, everyone has heard of Jesus and, even from a secular perspective, he has been one of the most influential figures of the whole history of the world. We take our knowledge of Jesus so much for granted that we mostly fail to see how surprising it is.” (7)

The systematic study of protology — the study of the ultimate origins of creation — is also brought into full light, once we see the ramifications of Jesus’ Resurrection. The doctrine of creation out of nothing (Latin: creatio ex nihilo), was not originally formulated through the philosophical reflection on the impossibility of an infinite number of past events, and standard big bang cosmology.

Rather, it came into existence when the first Christians thought out the implications of the Resurrection. In the words of Ted Peters:

"The key points of continuity between redemption and creation is the idea that the future can be different from the past, i.e., the key is eschatology. More abstractly put, God does new things. . . .Turning to the New Testament, we can further reconstruct the movement from redemption to creation.

"Here, the Gospel is the experienced power of new life in the Easter resurrection that provides the foundation for our faith and trust in God, to fulfill his promise, to establish a new creation in the future. The world as we know it is replete with death, with the precedent that dead people remain dead. But, now, something new has happened.

"God has raised Jesus to eternity, never to die again, and God promises us a share in this resurrection when the consummate Kingdom of God comes into fullness.

"Now, we can ask: What does it take to raise the dead? What does it take to consummate history into a new and everlasting kingdom? It takes mastery over the created order. It takes a loving Father who cares, but who is also a creator whose power is undisputed and unrivaled. . . . The logic here is: the God who saves must also be the God who creates. Nothing less will do." (8)

Easter faith is also a reminder for all Christians that theological language is inevitably intertwined with the use of metaphorical language. The very use of the term “resurrection from the dead” is a metaphor used to describe something that actually happened to Jesus which we cannot describe univocally, and thus, one-sidedly.

According to Wolfhart Pannenberg, an ardent defender of the historicity of the Resurrection: “This is not a special expression for a reality which can always be experienced, but something which normally cannot be experienced directly and, therefore, must be described by a metaphor, in analogy to our rising from sleep daily.” (9)

Jesus’s Resurrection from the dead also has relevance for the Catholic theology of progressive justification, or what is sometimes called sanctification.

The Resurrection of Jesus must be seen not simply as life after death. More fundamentally, it is life in God, life with God, life in God’s love and peace, after death. It is this “in God” and this “with God” which characterizes the risen life far more than the ‘after death’ aspect.”

Thus, the Resurrection has implications for the way humans continuously respond to the divine in the life of faith.

Jesus’s Resurrection can provide a framework through which we can unify the rather disparate New Testament passages that speak of the Resurrection. Because we believe in the Resurrection, we can use that belief as a foundational point of departure when understanding the individual New Testament texts.

It is easy to take individual passages and interpret them one-sidedly, unless we already have some understanding of doctrine beforehand. The Resurrection is, therefore, relevant for biblical interpretation. Similarly, the reality of Jesus’s Resurrection is linked to a theology which urges believers that Scripture opens our eyes to the truths of the Gospel.

Conversely, belief in the Resurrection leads one to Scripture reading. As Frank Crüsemann says:

"With this unbelievable tale is contrasted the story that, as no other, makes the resurrection believable: the Emmaus story. It is the story of a way that leads from having closed eyes, from not perceiving and not understanding (cf. Lk 24:16), to having eyes and knowledge (v. 31).

"What affects this turnabout is presented in the clearest fashion: Scripture. . . It involves something that is found there from beginning to end and that demands faith and makes faith possible. . . . He can apparently be known only in this way, and he apparently wants to be known only in this way. No glory, no miracle, no overwhelming experience evokes faith and knowledge, but only the horizon that is opened by the interpretation of Scripture." (10)

According to Crüsemann, then, understanding the Sacred Scriptures becomes a necessary precondition for helping persons to develop faith in the Gospel.

The challenge of offering a response to why God would allow evil in the world — what is commonly called “theodicy” — is affected by Christ’s Resurrection. (11) In the Christian response to this primal problem, God does not stand aloof over creation, watching dispassionately and without concern. He enters this vale of tears and suffers on our behalf. And he conquers evil by being raised from the dead.

As Evans has written, “if the story is true, it can be taken as assurance that God cares about evil, and will act ultimately to redeem the greatest evil and bring about good. The story is not merely a claim that God cares about evil and suffering, but a concrete manifestation of that care. God himself chooses to suffer with his creation, and then triumphs through that suffering.” (12)

As for guidance in theological understanding, the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus reminds us that the most tense, theological position, a position that tends to be on a “razor’s edge,” tends to be the one that is true.

Those who usually have the truth tend to hold on to a view that is highly nuanced. To be more precise, it is much simpler to posit monotheism, or polytheism, than it is to argue for the Triune God. Yet, the latter is perfectly coherent, and probably the most rational. As the scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, has written:

"It seems to this writer that a firm grasp of the two elements of continuity and transformation, that spring from the New Testament itself, will prevent our approach to the resurrection from yielding to the two extreme positions that threaten all Catholic theology today: a liberalism that would completely rewrite revelation in terms of contemporary experience, without any real obedience to what has come down to us in the Bible; and a fundamentalistic conservatism that lacks historical sensitivity in considering revelation and its formulations." (13)

The Resurrection of Christ affects the forgiveness of human sinfulness, thus having relevance for soteriology, the study of salvation (cf. Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:17; Acts 13:38-39; Acts 5:30, 31; Acts 10:43; Lk 24:46-47). The Resurrection conquers sin and defeats death, but the consequences remain; these benefits are ours through being incorporated into Christ.

The disciples’ experiences of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are intimately connected to the early Church’s rationale in formulating certain ritual actions, over and against others. A case can be made that ritual behavior is affected by the encounters with the living Christ.

As Michael Welker explains: “These appearances are connected with symbolic, liturgical, or missionary acts that will all be constitutive for the life and the worship of the early church; for instance, the greeting, ‘Peace be with you!’ the breaking of bread, the opening of the Scriptures, the disclosure of the secret of the Messiah, the blessing and sending of the disciples, and other ritualized actions and signs.” (14)

With the physicality of the Resurrection body firmly established, Catholics have a firm basis for the sacramental principle, the idea that the Son of God can use physical things to convey and make himself, literally and visibly, present.

Sacraments nourish the physical and the spiritual lives of believers. The Church’s teaching is not based on the historical Jesus alone. It comes to us from the Risen Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father in the Spirit through liturgical and sacramental praxis. Jesus’s risen body is the basis on which we can say that sacraments have a physical aspect to them.

Jesus’s Resurrection from the grave is also relevant for the discipline of Christology, the study of Christ himself. Christ’s Resurrection vindicates his claim to divinity (cf. Rom. 1:1-4). It demonstrates that his claims about forgiveness and hope are, in fact, true. The Resurrection was exactly the proof the first Christians needed to say Jesus was divine and not merely a man.

The Resurrection, as a real event, also has implications for theology proper, the study of God as he is in himself. It shows that God is good, that God is personal, that he is willing to act in history for our sake, and that he is loving and concerned with our welfare as human beings. For how could there be a miracle unless there is a God who can perform such an act?

Further, Jesus’s literal rising from the dead to be with God has direct relevance for trinitarian theology. (15) Pope Benedict XVI pointed out the subtle connection between the Resurrection as an event and Trinitarian theology, in his homily at the Easter Vigil of 2006:

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What happened there? What does it mean for us, for the whole world and for me personally? Above all: what happened? Jesus is no longer in the tomb. He is in a totally new life. But how could this happen? What forces were in operation? The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an ‘I’ closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely united with him as to form one person with him. (16)

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On the more practical side of things, Jesus’s death and Resurrection serve as the model for Catholic morality. Every time we die to self for the sake of others, we rise again to new life in Christ.

Perhaps, non-Catholics can likewise realize salvation in Christ. Although they do not have a conscious awareness of the Savior, they can recognize the importance of sacrificing oneself for the betterment of others. In so doing, they can mystically participate in Christ’s sacrifice and Resurrection to eternal life.

In this very way, the Resurrection helps believers to understand the inner rationale of the Church’s view on salvation outside the church, or what is commonly called “the theology of religions.”

Finally, we can say that Christ destroyed the power of the devil through his Resurrection (cf. Col. 2:13-15) and in this sense, it also has a role for demonology and spiritual warfare.

Conclusion

The Risen Lord is available to us today. Not only was the Resurrection an event of history, happening in first century Palestine, but it also transcends time and space. As the Catechism remarks:

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Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles’ encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history. This is why the risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his disciples, ‘to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. (17)

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Because the Risen Lord is working in and through the Church Catholic in the power of the Holy Spirit today, Easter faith must be linked to almost everything we believe and practice as Catholics.

1. Kenan B. Osborne, The Resurrection of Jesus: New Considerations for its Theological Interpretation, (Mahwah: Paulist, 1997), 18. cf. 90, 123, 124. ↩
2. John Polkinghorne, “Eschatological Credibility: Emergent and Teleological Processes,” Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2002), 48. ↩
3. Pope Benedict XVI made this point in his Easter Vigil homily in 2006. ↩
4. Kenan B. Osborne, op. cit., 22. ↩
5. C. Stephan Evans, The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith: The Incarnational Narrative as History, (Oxford University Press, 1996) 60. For similar observations by Evans, see 63, 71, 72, 80. ↩
5. Kenan B. Osborne, op. cit., 26. ↩
6. John Polkinghorne, Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion, (New Haven: Yale University, 2005), 60. ↩
7. Ted Peters, “On Creating the Cosmos,” Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, ed. Robert Russell, William Stoeger, and George Coyne, (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 1988), 277. ↩
8. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?” Dialog 4 (1965), 129. ↩
9. Frank Crüsemann, “Scripture and Resurrection,” Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 92-93. ↩
10. Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate, (Oxford: Oxford University, 2003), 191; cf. 197. ↩
11. C. Stephan Evans, The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith, 169. ↩
12. Raymond E. Brown, “The Resurrection and Biblical Criticism,” Commonweal, vol. 87, no. 8, (Nov. 24, 1967), 236. ↩
13. Michael Welker, “Theological Realism and Eschatological Symbol Systems,” Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2002), 37. ↩
14. Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004),110-143. ↩
15. Pope Benedict XVI, Easter Vigil homily (2006). ↩
16. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §647. ↩

Glenn B. Siniscalchi is currently a Ph.D. student in systematic theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and adjunct instructor at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He has published numerous articles and book reviews published in academic journals, and has presented papers at national and regional conferences in theology and philosophy. Glenn also serves as associate editor of American Theological Inquiry: A Bi-annual Journal of Theology, Culture, and History.

This morning, April 9, the English service of Vatican Radio finally posted a report online about the Holy Father's September visit to Lebanon. As it is more or less a translation of what the RV Italian service posted on Easter Sunday (translated on this page earlier), there is no need to re-post it here. But the English service did have this commendable reaction story, which expresses the dilemma of the persecuted Churches in the Middle East, in which most Christians who have not fled the region must live their faith very discreetly, if not in secret, for sheer physical survival.:

The Maronite Vicar-General
speaks about the papal visit

April 9, 2012

The Vicar General of the Maronite Patriarchate, Archbishop Paul Sayah, shared with us some thoughts on learning of the news that Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon from the 14th to the 16th September 2012. [The report goes on to post what appears to be a transcript of the archbishop's comments made in the course of an interview):

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His visit to Lebanon is going to be first of all an opportunity for the Holy Father to incite the Lebanese once again to play the role they are expected to play in this part of the world.

You know Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian presence has really a significant impact on the country itself.

And I think the Holy Father will expect Lebanon to lead in the implementation of the Post-synodal Exhortation which carries the main ideas of the Synod, namely communion and witness.

Of course the Holy Father will ask the Lebanese and the Middle Eastern Christians to try to relive their Christian identity in depth. Because unless they are really anchored in their religion and in Christianity they cannot live communion and they cannot witness.

And I think this Post-synodal Exhortation coming at this particular time of the 'Arab Spring' is expected to offer something, a special message not only to Lebanon but also and specially to the countries of the region where the so called Arab Spring either has come to some kind of a conclusion although the conclusion is not yet clear.

And specially to a country maybe like Syria where unfortunately violence is still doing a lot of damage, a lot of killing, and this is a very tragic situation which I am sure the Holy Father will address in one way or another.

So we expect this visit to inject a new dynamism, not only in the Lebanese society and Christians in Lebanon but specially I would say in the region.

You know the Arab world now badly needs a word of encouragement, a word of hope. And also some directives to the local Christians as to how to approach this new reality, which is not an easy thing to deal with because minorities are always in a difficult situation when it comes to a revolution in a country.

Because the Christian minorities as a whole have always been, not necessarily with the regime, but at least they have been as they should be - good law-abiding citizens, trying to live their lives quietly and doing what they can for themselves and for their country.

So they may find themselves, and they do find themselves, in a bit of a difficult situation as to where to turn and how to go about approaching this new reality that is really causing a very sad havoc, creating a very very difficult situation, socially, psychologically, and especially, in terms of security.

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Another belated post, but powerful...

The Cross:
A supreme challenge to unbelievers
The Crucifixion is historical fact,
so how do atheists explain it?
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

Friday, 6 April 2012

Some years ago now, I remember watching a studio discussion on television in which the great and the good discussed Mel Gibson’s controversial film 'The Passion of the Christ'. It was a very interesting discussion (I cannot provide a link, I am afraid, but am recalling this from memory.)

The subject was whether the film was anti-Semitic. Was Mel blaming the Jews for the death of Christ? The panel seemed to think that he was, and that this was anti-Semitic, because the Jews clearly had nothing to do with sentencing Christ to death. I remember thinking: well, in that case, are they saying the film is anti-Roman, and doesn’t that bother them?

Then the token Catholic spoke up: it was clear that as Jesus died to redeem us from our sins, everyone was responsible for his death, because we are all sinners. But it seemed that this was even worse than the perceived anti-Semitism, as far as the rest of the panel was concerned. For once, the idea that we are all guilty (which is supposed to be a central tenet of bleeding-heart liberalism) was indignantly rejected.

After all, sin is such an offensive concept to modern people. It suggests that all is not well with us, that we do things wrongly. Moreover, when the Catholic explained about Original Sin the atmosphere became more or less indignant. How could anyone dare suggest that the human race was anything less than perfect? The fact that the Catholic Church had been teaching this for 2,000 years had escaped their notice.

But all this left me thinking. The Jews did not put Jesus to death, and I am OK with that. I think that, historically speaking, the case for Pilate’s guilt is overwhelming. [And I must point out once again since no one seems to do so, that the Creed we profess daily says that Jesus 'suffered under Pontius Pilate', and does not mention the Jews at all. Which means that all the so-called 'traditional' anti-Semitism among Catholics was obviously not the 'official line' but populist tradition.]

But the idea that came from that studio panel was that Jesus did not die to save us from our sins because we have no sins to be saved from.

Polly Toynbee once wrote: “Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?”

So why did Jesus die? Moreover, was his death the result of some sort of administrative error, some terrible misunderstanding, as opposed to the result of sin, either particular or general?

It seemed to me that this studio panel when confronted with the death of Jesus on the Cross saw the whole thing as terribly embarrassing, something they would much rather not think about, something they would love to deny ever happened, if that were possible, and something for which they themselves were emphatically not responsible.

But who was?

And why did Jesus let himself be killed when it is very clear that he could have avoided his death?

And why did they kill him?

Incidentally, I am taking the crucifixion of Jesus as a historically certain fact. And so it is, with tons of evidence to back it up, but space forbids me going into that right now. Rather, I want to ask this: it happened, so how do you explain it?

Recently I have been engaging with non-believers, talking about Aquinas, which is not really my cup of tea. Now, writing this on Good Friday, I’d like to invite the unbelievers to make sense of the Cross of Jesus.

It seems to me that such a request puts them in a bind. Either they acknowledge the divine goodness of Jesus who willingly went to his Cross, or they acknowledge a human depravity that knows no limit – the depravity that deliberately tortures an innocent human being to death.

Both of these, the goodness and the depravity, point to the same overwhelming conclusion: man without God is lost in the world. The existence of God is the only possible resolution to the paradox of the Cross, a paradox with which it would be impossible to live.

There was great evil on the first Good Friday, but great love too. And that is why we call this Friday good.

'URBI ET ORBI'
EASTER MESSAGE & BLESSING
Photo post-script

I failed to check out John Allen last Good Friday but he did file his regular column online and tackled something quite topical these days - after Benedict XVI's visit to Cuba. The original title for the column is 'Benedict XVI and the lament of the hawks', but I've replaced it with a more direct statement of what it's all about.

Reading the first part of the entry made me apprehensive as to where Allen was heading because he piles on all the harsh words that have been said by American commentators who wanted the Pope to make the dissident cause in Cuba the virtual focus of his pastoral visit there. Which would have given his visit a political character rather than the apostolic visit it is meant to be. Their argument was specious - how could he meet with the 'atheist/mass murderer/tramplers-of-human rights' Castro brothers and not with the dissidents?

Never mind that the Pope was visiting necessarily as a guest of the Castro government. And that his greater responsibility was to all the Catholics of Cuba, not to a few hundred activist dissidents, many of whom may not even care about religion. He did not need to meet with them in order to ask the Cuban government to observe human rights, which he did in more ways than one, publicly, and we can be sure that he must have done so in private, as well.

No, the dissidents and their propagandists in the West wanted him to meet with the dissidents so they could brandish the event as a propaganda coup, a red flag of defiance against the Cuban government, knowing full well that since they are still living in a totalitarian regime, that red flag would simply goad the totalitarian bull against them and the prisoners they are marching for.

In any case, one has little patience for those who try to foist a partisan political agenda on the Pope, knowing full well that he must be above politics. In large part, these are the same opinion-makers who also opposed his ecumenical initiative in Assisi and his attempts to bring back the Lefebvrians to full communion with Rome.

Allen, however, poses some responses to the hawks' criticisms of Benedict XVI - even if he hedges his bets, as usual - but good for him!

Catholic hawks take B16
to task for being a Pope
of detente not confrontation

April 05, 2012

Three decades ago, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger rose to fame as the architect of the Vatican's crackdown on liberation theology in Latin America, which he saw as a dangerous baptism of Marxist class struggle. That stance made Ratzinger a hero to anti-communist stalwarts everywhere, the perfect intellectual complement to John Paul II's muscular challenge to the Soviet empire.

Catholic hawks at the time believed that Pope Paul VI's Ostpolitik, meaning constructive engagement with Marxism, was finally dead and buried.

Today, those folks probably feel trapped in a B-grade slasher film in which the guy with the hockey mask and chainsaw keeps springing back to life. [EEEWWW, what grossly inappropriate colloquial talk!] That's because since his election as Pope, Benedict XVI has seemed less notable for his anti-communist audacity than his appetite for détente. [Hello! Could that be because there are only four Communist regimes left in the world (China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea), and each of them happens to be a special case, i.e., there is no one-size-fits-all approach to them? The Cold War is over, and no nation anywhere has shown any appetite for 'anti-Communist audacity' since then, let alone the Vatican which has no interests except to have the Church be able to survive and carry out her function wherever she is!]

Benedict's March 26-28 visit to Cuba, in which he met both the Castro brothers but none of the pro-democracy dissidents, offered the latest case in point.

One sign of the psychological dissonance: American Catholic writer William Doino posted a March 27 essay for First Things under the telling headline, "Has the Church Gone Soft on Communism?" Doino's basic answer was no, insisting that Benedict XVI is not an appeaser, but he also suggested that Church officials may require some "fraternal correction" about their soft touch on Cuba. [I posted the Doino article earlier with ample comments. What 'fraternal correction' might they suggest - other than advocating that the Pope should have met with the dissidents in Cuba when he was there? If they knew better, these critics, they ought to have succeeded at something by now to oppose the Castro regime - they've had 51 years since Cuba became officially a communist state to do it. But only the official US trade embargo on Cuba has really hurt the regime, although it has not caused anyone on either side of the Florida strait to mobilize enough to overthrow the Castros!]

Others were far less polite.

"I'm exceedingly disappointed," said U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican. (Diaz-Balart comes from a distinguished Cuban family, and his aunt was Fidel Castro's first wife.)

"[Pope Benedict] refused to meet with any members of the opposition," Diaz-Balart told The Huffington Post. "He refused to speak out in any real way against forced abortions. He refused to speak out against the human trafficking that is sponsored by the regime. He refused to condemn the human rights violations in any meaningful way. And it cannot be said that he's not aware of those issues ... He is aware of it because a lot of us have made him aware of it."

Writing for National Review Online, publisher Jack Fowler was even more critical, excoriating the trip under the headline "Benedict bombs in Havana."

Fowler called the visit "a failed and tone-deaf pastoral mission that did PR wonders for the Brothers Castro, but not much for the cause of freedom of the people they have tormented for nearly six decades." [What PR wonders? Does anybody in the Western world really think that the Castro brothers gained any propaganda points for the visit? They're more vilified than ever. And who in the world can and would say a few days after the visit that it has not done "much for the cause of freedom of the people they have tormented for nearly six decades" - only delusional fools who think that the Pope can work a political miracle and that the Cuban regime would overnight turn democratic!]

To be sure, Benedict did say that Marxism no longer corresponds to reality and warned of "irrationality and fanaticism," and he did extract a minor concession allowing Good Friday to be celebrated this year as a holiday. All that, however, seemed cold comfort for those seeking a more robust anti-Castro challenge. [Tell me, did these people demand from John Paul II in 1998 'a more robust anti-Castro challenge'? Both Popes visited Cuba with the good will - i.e., official invitation - of the Cuban government. Since their mission is apostolic, not political, they could accept the invitations in good faith. A civilized person does not even have to be a Pope to know that when you accept an invitation to visit someone in his house, you do not then start thrashing him for his faults, least of all, do it in public. What have Fowler and company done lately in the way of 'robust anti-Castro challenge' that has had any concrete effect at all?]

Cuba, however, is hardly the only example.

Benedict's China policy has also come in for withering criticism, beginning in 2007, when he issued an 18-page "Letter to Chinese Catholics" outlining his vision.

Among other things, the letter appeared to suggest that the future for China's underground "church of the catacombs," built on a foundation of unyielding resistance to communism, was gradual reunion with the government-approved Patriotic Association.

Most notably, Benedict XVI revoked previous directives and special faculties issued for the church in China. Those directives had advised Chinese Catholics to avoid receiving the sacraments from government-approved clergy and allowed underground bishops to ordain clergy without specific papal sanction.

At the time, traditionalist Catholic writer Marian Horvat bluntly charged that Benedict XVI had delivered "Chinese underground Catholics to communism," plunging them into "an enormous spiritual trial." [Who is Horvat, anyway, to speak thus for the millions of underground Catholics, many of whom have since followed the Pope's admonition that they can be good citizens and good Catholics at the same time?]

Such reservations have only grown with Benedict's recent induction of Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong into the College of Cardinals, making him the seventh Chinese cardinal and the only one under 80, thus eligible to vote for the next Pope.

In a recent interview with Italy's widely read 30 Giorni magazine, Tong declared himself a "moderate" favoring dialogue with the government, making him a clear contrast to the fiery anti-Communist rhetoric associated with his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen. In effect, Benedict found the perfect shepherd for the quiet diplomacy sketched in his 2007 letter. [Cardinal Zen is to be admired for his spirited anti-Communism, but the times call for a more pragmatic approach, represented by Cardinal Tong and Archbishop Hon Tai-fai in the Curia, who cannot be less in touch with the Church on the mainland than Cardinal Zen is.]

Earlier this year, renowned Italian Catholic writer Sandro Magister noted Benedict's "silence" on China in his annual address to diplomats, despite the fact, as Magister put it, that China "is the only country in the world in which two bishops have been imprisoned for their faith and never heard from again, the first for 14 years and the second for 11."

One could also throw Vietnam into the mix, another one-party state where Marxist-Leninism remains, at least officially, the ruling ideology.

It's also, to be sure, a place that doesn't exactly roll out the red carpet for the Catholic church. Just last week, Vietnam revoked travel visas for a three-member Vatican commission scheduled to collect testimony for the beatification of the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Văn Thuận, who spent 13 years in prison and under house arrest. Local Catholics say the government fears Văn Thuận's beatification will shine an uncomfortable spotlight on its human rights record.

Yet with Vietnam, too, Benedict XVI has preferred dialogue over confrontation.

After a meeting between the Pope and Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng in 2007, a "Joint Working Group" was formed to explore diplomatic relations. It's met three times, most recently in February, and each time, the Vatican issues polite statements hailing "significant progress."

In January 2011, Benedict XVI appointed his first envoy to Vietnam, a non-resident representative, who quickly pledged his "availability both in service and collaboration."

This rapprochement is unfolding, by the way, at the same time that international human rights monitors report "intensifying repression" of religious minorities in Vietnam. Last year, at least a couple dozen Catholics were detained by security forces, many of them linked to a movement of Catholic entrepreneurs pushing for reform.

So, what gives? How to reconcile Benedict XVI's dovish touch as Pope with his strong anti-Marxist stance as the Vatican's doctrinal czar? [There is a world of difference between opposition to the Marxist ideology as such, which can be absolute as the Church's - and consequently the CDF's - opposition is; and specific conflicts with a Marxist regime that the Church needs and wants to work out patiently through dialog, because she has no other means of achieving what it desires for the Catholics in the 'hostile' country!

Even John Paul II ostensibly went along with his ecretary of State Cardinal Casaroli's Ostpolitik - which was basically a modus vivendi with the Communist regimes of eastern Europe that began under John XXIII in return for mitigating persecution of the Church by those regimes. The obvious exemption with John Paul was his own country, Poland, where he could and did exert his direct influence to 'stare down' the regime, in effect. The progressivists of Vatican II surely welcomed the tacit understanding under Ostpolitik that the Church would not denounce Communism openly as Pius XII did - but do any of these current crop of anti-Communist hawks remember that time at all, which came at the height of the Cold War, when reproaching Benedict XVI?]

For one thing, comparing his approach to liberation theology with his diplomatic line today on Cuba or China is an apples-and-oranges exercise. His beef with liberation theology was basically intra-ecclesial; rightly or wrongly, he felt orthodox Christian faith was being hijacked in service to an ideology. How to handle dissident theologians inside the Church is, obviously, a different question than how to engage hostile governments outside the Church.

Benedict as Pope has to worry about the external fallout of whatever diplomatic strategy he adopts, especially for the Catholics who live in these neighborhoods.

In part, too, Benedict's line undoubtedly reflects the fact that we don't live in the same world as the Cold War era. On the ground in China, Cuba and Vietnam, the decision against classic Marxism has already been made. Each society is evolving toward something new, and Benedict's calculus is likely that the Church is better positioned to influence the transition by staying in the conversation.

Finally, Benedict's version of Ostpolitik confirms an insight that has sometimes been ignored or glossed over: This Pope may be a conservative, but he's hardly an American-style neo-con.

During his last foray into Latin America, in Brazil in 2007, Benedict issued a stinging critique of both capitalism and communism, insisting that both rest on false "ideological promises."

Back in 1988, in his book Church, Ecumenism and Politics, Joseph Ratzinger wrote that capitalism, communism and National Socialism all proposed false idols -- prosperity, the state and the Volk, respectively. Famously, Benedict's 2009 social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which included a call for global governance "with real teeth," left the ideological right cold.

While Benedict is not naïve about repression in places such as China and Cuba, he's also more inclined to sympathy for their protests against economic and geopolitical injustices than most hard-liners. Given that Benedict doesn't fully share the aims of Western hawks, it should come as no surprise that he also doesn't embrace their ways and means, including saber-rattling and using his trips to deliver a poke in the eye.

Whether that's admirable tact or lamentable weakness is open to debate. [It's neither tact, which hss nothing to do with the position he has taken, nor weakness - it is, very simply, prudence and pragmatic common sense.] The bottom line, however, is that anyone expecting Benedict XVI to turn into Dick Cheney in a cassock [EEEWWWW again!Cheney is hardly the first figure one is bound to think about in terms of fighting Communism!] is destined for disappointment.

{The Pope's American critics tend to forget that he is German, and that for decades, the East German Communist secret service Stasi spied on him not just because of his known anti-Communist firmness, but also because of his close association to John Paul II. He also lived under the Nazis - so his experience with totalitarian regimes is something his comfortable capitalist critics never had. They are in no position to lecture him on how to deal with the totalitarian holdovers. Besides, being an armchair diplomat/statesman/politician is hardly any match all to someone who actually has to bear the responsibility for the spiritual leadership of millions of Catholics who are living under totalitarian or otherwise Christianophobic regimes today.]