BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding page for earlier entries today, 5/18/12.




British ambassador speaks
about visit to Vatican's IOR

May 18, 2012

As part of its ongoing effort to combat charges of secrecy and financial scandals, the Holy See’s IOR (Istituto per Opere Religiose ,a financial institution generally referred to erroneously as 'the Vatican bank') - this week invited a group of around 35 ambassadors to make a fact-finding visit this week.

The diplomats were encouraged to ask questions about the Institute and the services it provides, as well as about its response to money- laundering investigations and compliance with international banking standards.


Right, the circular Torre San Nicola housing the IOR, adjacent to and right beneath the Apostolic Palace; left, Ambassador Baker.

Among those who visited the Institute on Tuesday was Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, who talked to Philippa Hitchen about this important process of opening the bank up to very public scrutiny.

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SIR NIGEL: For some time ambassadors have been encouraging the IOR to open up their doors to help us understand them better. Very often we hear fairly justified complaints that there’s a lot of commentary about the IOR, the so called Vatican bank, that’s either ignorant or not well founded or very much based in the past.

So we’ve been saying for some time – and we had a chance as European ambassadors to talk to the board of IOR some months ago – well, we’d like to come and see for ourselves.

So they invited us to visit, to hear what they had to say, to see a presentation of what they really are up to now, their great efforts, stimulated especially by pope Benedict XVI, to improve their levels of transparency and compliance, particularly in relation to a range of international norms and the processes they’re going through to reach that and fundamentally to demystify their work.

We found it extremely useful, we had the chance to ask questions. and I understand they will be doing something also for financial journalists in the near future – which I encourage.

Do you think this will be enough to lay to rest the concerns?
Not immediately no, I think it’s a process. It’s only really been a year or so since new regulations have come into place improving the governance of IOR, improving its compliance with a range of recommendations of the international financial action task force.

It is only since last year that the Council of Europe’s expert committee - called Moneyval for short - on money laundering and financing of terrorism has had the chance to come to the Vatican to look at the IOR and other Vatican institutions that manage finances to see how they’re doing, to provide recommendations and advice and to rate them, later on this year, against a range of international norms.

I think that process will be bumpy because there will be some things where the IOR can’t yet say "we’ve reached full international compliance" and indeed other Vatican institutions. But there are other areas where they can say "we are absolutely compliant and get that validation for international standards".

I think it’s bold, it’s brave to enter into this, because inevitably the criticism comes up, inevitably as you become more transparent, people will remind you of your past and – as with any good bank - there will be moments when a story comes up about transactions or about clients that don’t fit in with the process of trying to improve transparency.

I think that’s something that everybody has to live with, but it doesn’t invalidate the process, quite the opposite – with transparency comes showing off a little bit of the dirty washing as well and that’s quite a normal part of the process.

It’s not just about the past though, just recently the US State Department listed the Vatican as being vulnerable to money laundering.
These are very real concerns and one of the reasons why my government really encourages this process is that even the most respectable, well run bank or financial institution in the world will have some vulnerabilities, there’s no such thing as an invulnerable bank or financial institution, as we’ve had to see recently on Wall Street and elsewhere.

So those who wish to abuse the system for money laundering or for financing terrorism, will always be looking for loopholes, so in a sense this isn’t a process that has an obvious end though there are staging posts along the way.

It's also fair to say that when these concerns are expressed, the same concerns are expressed about British banks, American banks and financial institutions, but this is where the boldness comes in - of course by going down this process you open yourself up to questions.

I think one of the objectives of the board, of IOR, is to show that they have modern procedures in place and they are as resistant as any other well run financial institution to being misused. It’s for others to judge whether they have reached that goal or not, but I think it’s very important that they are trying to go down that route.

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For IEC 2012:
Ireland carves a prayer
for healing in stone

May 17, 2012

In his 2010 Letter to the Catholics of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of his hope that the 50th International Eucharistic Congress would be part of the process of healing and renewal for the community in the wake of the abuse scandal.

When the week-long Congress opens in Dublin’s RDS arena Sunday, June 10th, a large granite rock hewn from the Wicklow mountains will be unveiled, engraved with a prayer composed by a survivor of clerical abuse.

It has been called ‘The Healing Stone’ and it will remain as a permanent reminder of the human toll of the abuse of children, a lasting memorial to the bravery and heroism of victims, a constant prayer for reconciliation within the Church in Ireland, carved in stone.

Fr Kevin Doran, Secretary General of IEC2012, told Emer McCarthy that “stone speaks of permanence. To say something is ‘carved in stone’ is to say that it is here to stay rather than just a passing thought. The stone represents the firm determination to work for healing and renewal.

Stone is highly symbolic in Irish culture. Megalithic monuments such as passage tombs, forts, dolmens, standing stones and stone circles are an integral part of Ireland’s landscape and testimony to past cultures, how they lived and how they worshipped.

The first missionaries to Ireland understood this and used the medium to teach the Irish about Christ and his Gospel message, giving birth to the iconic Stone, or Celtic Crosses, tall monumental sculptures that narrate Christ’s life, death and resurrection and which can still be seen today.

Moreover, when religious ceremonies were outlawed during Penal times (17th Century), Irish Catholics used stones from church ruins, with a simple cross carved on their top, to mark the rural locations for the clandestine celebration of the Eucharist. These became known as Mass rocks.

But, Fr. Doran adds, stone also has a deep significance in our Christian tradition: “The stone which covered the tomb of Jesus, symbolises both the end of His earthly existence and the fact of His Resurrection. We are conscious of the fact that, for many who have experienced abuse, either themselves or to a member of their family, the pain of abuse can sometimes be like a stone weighing heavily on them. It is a stone that, in some way or other needs to be rolled back so that they can be set free.”

The text of the prayer, which we be recited at the Opening ceremony by all participants, reads

:

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Lord we are so sorry,
for what some of us did to your children,
treated them so cruelly,
especially in their hour of need.
We have left them with a life-long suffering,
this was not Your plan for them or us.
Please help us to help them,
guide us, oh Lord. Amen.

---

Work on the Healing Stone project began in early 2012. Following consultation with various people, including abuse survivors, it was agreed that the stone would be an appropriate symbol for the Congress.

Fr Doran concludes: “It is planned that after the Congress, the Stone will be given a more permanent home on an accessible site, where people can pause and pray, and so that there will be a permanent public reminder of our need never to take safeguarding for granted.”

As expected, there's quite a barrage of commentary in the Italian media about the new batch of leaked Vatican documents, this time purporting to come from the Pope's own files. There's an interview with the author of the book that exposes these private files, but I have chosen the following item to translate first. Because it answers the first and obvious question that inexplicably, virtually all of the other articles and commentary have left out - which is: what exactly has been revealed and how much is there? The diligent Angela Ambrogetti, who now edits Korazym online, tells us in this interview with TEMPI:

What 'secret' letters to the Pope?
All of the facts disclosed have been known for some time:
These are just banalities that violate the law on private correspondence
by Leone Grotti
Translated from

May 18, 2012

Veteran Vaticanista Angela Ambrogetti tells TEMPI about the new book Sua Santita: Le lettere segrete del Papa": "No scoop at all - it simply recycles things that have been publicly known. And to publish private correspondence [without the consent of the persons who wrote them] is not journalism. It's madness".

"There's no secret revealed. These are all things that have been brought to light for some time. Nothing in it has not been published before in terms of content. And even the 'sources - faxes and letters to the Pope [or to Mons. Gaenswein] - anyone can write whatever he wants, and it all depends on his state of mind when doing so. What one writes when one is worked up is not necessarily the truth".

Excerpts from the book by Giancarlo Nuzzi were published in a special edition today of Corriere della Sera's Friday magazine, Sette, which says the book contains letters and files leaked from the Vatican Secretariat of State. [I must check this out, too, because this is the first indication that the origin of the leaked documents was the Secretariat of State, and not the papal apartment as the initial reports made it appear. My own speculation about who on earth in the Pope's own household would ever be so treasonous was based on the very naive assumption that the Pope's private files are necessarily kept in his private study. Obviously, they go into a papal documents archive in the Secretariat of State.]

Those secret letters previewed today in Sette...
No. Stop right there. What 'secret' letters? These are private letters published illegally. But I must say that as someone expecting find news, the 'documents' were a great letdown.

In what way?
These documents only contain things that were already known. Where are the scoops? That Pope Benedict defends the family based on marriage between a man and a woman? That’s news? [This has to do with a private dinner that the Pope had with the President of Italy in early 2009 when they discussed, among other things, they discussed proposed legislation that would equiparate de facto heterosexual unions and gay marriage with traditional marriage.]

What about the fact that the former editor of Avvenire. Dino Boffo, sent a fax to the Pope’s personal secretary…
Not even that. He was known to complain at the time that the editor of L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, had it in for him. And that he had communicated this to the Vatican. What we didn’t know was how he did it, but who cares?

We must instead recall that at that time, the Vatican issued a press statement, which specifically said it had been approved by the Pope – not a usual thing in Vatican press statements – in which the Vatican denied that Vian had anything to do with the Boffo affair. So where’s the news? These so-called secrets are nothing but banalities.

Nonetheless, these documents have now been published in a book, and excerpts are appearing in all the newspapers…
Now that’s the serious concern. How is it possible that a journalist can publish private letters that have been pilfered? Is he sending a message that he has documents that he can publish as he wishes? Or is it simply to sling mud at a Pope and a Pontificate that some people find ’bothersome’? A hypothesis that’s not improbable. If the letters were pilfered and leaked, it means someone gave them to him. This is serious. Even if we Catholics know that not everyone can be a saint.

But the Constitution specifically prohibits the [unauthorized] publication of private correspondence…
Exactly. But that the newspapers are doing it without a problem is insane. This is not journalism – this is something that the media associations should investigate. If only because these documents have not been authenticated…Moreover, as someone who works in the Vatican environment, I know very well that no one goes around giving you ‘news’…

But these documents were certainly handed to the author….
I didn’t get to finish the sentence. No one gives you any ‘news’ unless they want to use you for their own purposes.


Anticipating what the author of the new book says in the interview which I will translate in full later, this is what he says the documents are about, among other things:
________________________________________________________________________________________________

"These documents touch on events of all kinds - about the underground Church in China, the sufferings that mark the life of those people. Some of the private appointments of the Pope. Such as the one with a ferocious critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom the pope accused of interference in the Williamson case [The Pope most certainly did nothing of the kind! And how would these private meetings be reported anyway? There are no audio tapes, so there can be no transcripts! Anything else is speculation]

"Or the Pope's 'top secret' [Nuzzi uses the English words] with [Italian president] Napolitano, who is seen by the Vatican as a strategic interlocutor in relationships with the Italian government. Ot the efforts at transparency by IOR president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and the Pope's meetings with then Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti [whom everyone knows the Pope consulted when he was preparing Caritas in veritate]..."
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ooooh! Such lip-smacking goodies! I certainly hope Nuzzi doesn't get to con any significant number of bookbuyers who will do better to donate the euros they're willing to spend to some charity instead.

Author of book on the Pope's private files says
'For a year I lived in fear,
carrying the documents on a USB
from a chain around my neck'
by Pablo Marchese Ragona
Translated from his blog

May 18, 2012

Tomorrow, Gianluigi Nuzzi's new book entitled Sua Santità, le carte segrete di Benedetto XVI (Chiarelettere, 352 pp, 16 euro), will be in bookstores.

Nuzzi's book contains private documents, notes and letters addressed to the Pope and his secretary, Mons. Gaenswein, which deal with topics of all kinds: from the Boffo case to Mons. Vigano, from the IOR to the Vatican's relations with states. Not to mention the Legionaries of Christ, and the case of Emanuela Orlandi.

In this interview, Nuzzi tells us how the book was born, which he says is a natural sequel to his first book, Vaticano s.p.a., about Vatican finances and the IOR.

How did you get your hands on these documents?
One writes books when has the material. Having written Vaticano s.p.a. allowed me to come into contact with a whole range of sources with whom I was able to build relationships of trust that were concretized in the book.

It's not that I am out chasing stories about the Vatican, but for the first time in the history of the Church, private documents are available [which I will soon make available on my personal website]. In effect, we have been able to look into the Pope's desk, into his private study.

And who are these moles?
I would not call them moles - they are confidential sources, persons who wished to make public events that have always remained secret. [Big deal! Does the public really have a right to know what the Pope discusses with his dinner guests, or what other people write to him?]

I think that often, and wrongly, we read everything about the Vatican in terms of warring factions. And this is bad for the Church because there are people who believe in the Holy Father, people who believe in transparency. [1) Where is the rule book that says 'transparency' must include airing out all the petty rivalries within an institution and the scurrilous details associated with such rivalries? This is carrying the relatively new notion of 'transparency' to sanctimonious and truly invasive lengths. Why don't we just speak of the plain and simple virtue of honesty, and prudence? In which you don't make up anything about anything, but do not volunteer anything either that is no one else's business? 2) Find me anyone who has ever thought for a nanosecond that everything is a picture of perfect harmony within the Vatican - or within any large institution for that matter! Of course, there's always office infighting - people fight for perks, to get ahead in the pecking order, to be the boss's pet, whatever. Does anyone really expect this to be less in an institution that has been around for centuries and has a long and documented history of palace and court intrigue? Stop being so faux-naif, Nuzzi!]

This people see in him their leader and pastor. But instead they see too many merchants in the Temple. [Even Christ had to drive them out of the Temple. But the Vatican is not the Church. It's the all-too-human support institution of the Church, and it will have its share of misbehaving 'merchants', most of them, unfortunately, men of the Church. The question is not whether the Vatican under Benedict XVI has these merchants - they have always been there [What would Nuzzi call the prelates who played footsie with Maciel because he could ply them with material gifts?] - and no Pope has ever been without them. The question is whether they influence him in any negative way - and there is absolutely no reason to think they do, in the case of Benedict XVI, whose senses and faculties are still sharper than anyone around him!] Therefore my sources started meeting among themselves and decided to make these documents public. [Excuse me! What have they revealed that is not already substantially known to the public? And how does betraying the Pope by exposing his private files to the public help anyone in any way? Except perhaps Nuzzi who hopes to sell more books. I've never heard a lamer excuse for treason!]

So if they are not moles, can we call them crows?
It's also wrong to call them crows. A crow is one who disseminates anonymous fliers. Whereas here, there was finally a chance to have access to private files. [What kind of moral compass - let alone, knowledge of Italian law - does Nuzzi have if he does not see anything wrong with publishing private documents without authorization - just because they are available to him?]

At home, we say 'Carta canta' (paper sings), and it is interesting to see how everyone at the Vatican turn to the Holy Father, that this Pastor is at the center of the Church. [DUH! Did Nuzzi need the private files to tell him that? Of course, everyone runs to the Pope. They want him to be on their side, however improbable the circumstances may be! And of course he is central to the Church - he only heads it and is responsible for it!]

Sometimes, they turn to the Pope directly because, rightly or wrongly, they do not think that his closest advisors are as enlightened as he is.

Did you pay these persons?
I've never paid anyone. There are those who say so to discredit a book that is based on true documents. But I have paid for coffee or lunch for my sources.

What will readers find tomorrow in the bookstores?
I want to say that this should not be read as a book against the Church or against Bertone, as some may think. These documents touch on events of all kinds - about the underground Church in China, the sufferings that mark the life of those people. Some of the private appointments of the Pope. Such as the one with a ferocious critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom the pope accused of interference in the Williamson case [The Pope most certainly did nothing of the kind! And how would these private meetings be reported anyway? There are no audio tapes, so there can be no transcripts! Anything else is speculation]

"Or the Pope's 'top secret' [Nuzzi uses the English words] with [Italian president] Napolitano, who is seen by the Vatican as a strategic interlocutor in relationships with the Italian government. Ot the efforts at transparency by IOR president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and the Pope's meetings with then Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti [whom everyone knows the Pope consulted when he was preparing Caritas in veritate] There's even a farcical episode in which a Vatican car riddled with bullets is found outside a restaurant. [What does that have to do with anything???? That whoever owned the car was probably criminal?]

And then, there's the Boffo case all over...
I don't like it that I had to reopen the case. As a human being, I don't like it at all. But I was obliged to publish his letters because if I did not, then I ought to change my profession. I am a journalist, and I should publish everything. [No, you don't. No lives are st stake here - nothing but the reputation of a man already unfairly besmirched who has to be dragged through the mud again! But you know some topics are inherently titillating, and you weren't about to pass up the chance to throw in some titillating stuff in there, because what reader could get excited about the problems of the underground Church in China or what President Napolitano thinks of traditional marriage? Gimme a break!]

What are the documents that left even you with your mouth open in surprise?
Two in particular struck me. The first has to do with the Encryptment Office of the Secretariat of State [the office in charge of encrypting messages sent and received from the Apostolic Nuncios around the world].

The book contains an encrypted message from Cardinal Bertone sent to the Nunciature in Madrid, about the relationships that the Church in Spain ought to have with the ETA [Basque separatist terrorist group]. He tells them that they ought to avoid meetings in the Nunciature with representatives of the ETA at a time when the group was negotiating to give up their weapons. I was very curious about the role of the Church in this disarmament of a terrorist group, because no one knows about this. [Why should the Church make public all the delicate negotiations it may have to carry out in diverse circumstances? And what harm could be done to the Madrid Nunciature's relationship with ETA by this disclosure? What benefit does anyone get out of knowing this?]

The other is about the Pope's current account at the IOR.... [And Nuzzi had no qualms about making this public? That's despicable!] I'll leave it to the reader to discover the 'thrill' of reading about this in the book... [Dear Lord, he's made a sales pitch out of it! That's even more despicable. See, even the most jaded journalist would not write about it, whatever Nuzzi says in his book, out of delicadeza (a refined sense of propriety], and just because it's none of anybody's business - unless Nuzzi claims the Pope is laundering money in his private account for some gangsters and funding terrorists from it, or has accumulated sums unthinkable for a Pope, even if he is the first ever to earn millions in royalties, which he channels to various causes, including charities and scholarships!]

You also discuss the case of Emanuela Orlandi...
Yes, various letters have been sent to the Pope. From the documents I have seen, my impression is that the Holy Father knows nothing about the case. I think the Secretariat of State is paying much attention to it now that any knowledge or recollection of anything that has to do with the event belongs to only very few. I hope some light can be cast, and that the same attention can be paid to this as there was in creating a committee of cardinals to discover who my sources are. [Wait! I thought the commission was to discover the traitors responsible for the documents released to Il Fatto Quotidiano. Was Nuzzi then the direct source of that newspaper for those earlier 'exposes'? Well, that's right! He introduced each of those exposes first on his TV show before they came out in the newspaper the following day! And that's a snide and totally unfair remark about the committee of inquiry - if the Rome police are unable to find out any more about the Orlandi case, why should anyone in the Vatican do better - after a time lapse of 30 years - when even Nuzzi himself says that only very few have any knowledge or recollection of the events in 1983?]

You have said that with the publication of the book, you are no longer afraid. Afraid of what?
I was afraid, with a visceral fear. To carry around my neck a chain with a USB drive on it 24 hours a day, and to keep away the documents in a secret hiding place - these can cause great tension. During the past year, I have lived with a thing that's far greater than me! [Excuse me and oy veh! How melodramatic and egotistic! In the grand scheme of things, what he seems to have 'exposed' are relatively trivial - because they only concern some externals that do not necessarily convey the substance of what they are about!]

I don't want to sound like a victim, but when you have the Pope's private documents with you - and you're the only one who has them - then you would be a little tense, too. I even had to place indicators in my house in Rome to be able to check if tghere had been intrusions, because in the book, I also discuss some exploits by Vatican 007's on Italian soil. [More betrayal of matters that ought to be kept confidential!] And now that the book is out, I am far more tranquil.

The man is delusional, not far from being a megalomaniac. The traitors who made these files available to him have apparently given him this exalted and very wrong sense of self-importance... An editorial in Formiche punctures this self-ddelusion by Nuzzi and his sources that they are really rendering a service to the Pope and to the Church by this most abject action of betrayal. Betrayal is no less betrayal even when you clothe it in altruism, which is in itself preposterous!

Barking schismatics, brave Fellay
by David Mills

May 16, 2012

Speaking of traditionalist Catholics, the subject of William Doino’s earlier post, in the English weekly newspaper the Catholic Herald William Oddie notes that the FSSPX is apparently about to go into schism over its leading bishop’s plan to return to full communion with the Church. The dissenting group, which includes the notorious Bishop Williamson, have declared their “formal opposition” to any accord with the Catholic Church.

The leader of the FSSPX (the Fraternal Society of St. Pius X), Bishop Bernard Fellay, seems inclined to return if his group’s concerns are met and reportedly has a reasonable idea of what “met” will mean.

It will, for example, include the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council’s statements but not necessarily a particular and narrow interpretation of the ones, like that on religious liberty, that bother the SSPX. But, Oddie reports, “The three dissident bishops seem to me to be not only talking utter rubbish but to be actually barking, positively up the wall (Vatican II, they say, represents “a total perversion of the mind, a new philosophy founded on subjectivism. Benedict XVI is no better than John Paul II in this regard… he puts human subjective fantasy in the place of God’s objective reality and subjects the Church to the modern world”; you see what I mean)."

Oddie’s “barking,” as in “barking mad,” is hyperbole, of course, but when you read some FSSPX material, of which Oddie’s sample is representative, you do get that disorienting feeling of having fallen into someone’s alternative universe where everyone else sees things in a very distorted way. Like, say, describing Benedict as a purveyor of “human subjective fantasy.”

A schism within the movement if some portion accept Benedict’s offer was certainly predictable and several people, including me, did predict it. Once a group goes into schism, some part of it will never come back and the longer the schism lasts ,the more firmly some will remain where they are, especially when so much of their identity is built not only on being outside the supposedly bad thing but on being the only ones who truly see the truth about it.

And then there are the connections that hold people in place, the friends and jobs and relationships that a return to the body they left will upset and perhaps end. Human institutions are built to last and for good reason. And for the clerics and leading laymen in such groups, small as they are, there is also on the one side the prospect of losing sheep they’ve been given to shepherd, and on the other the prospect of losing the status they now have in the small body they’re in, though the Pope’s offer of a personal prelature may remove this impediment. [Precisely!]

These comments come from my experience, back when I was a conservative Episcopalian, with the various, no the many, groups that had left the Episcopal Church. As much sympathy as I had with the “Continuing Anglicans” and their reasons for leaving the Episcopal Church, and as theologically articulate as many of them were in explaining why they believed they had to do so, you didn’t have to spend much time talking with these groups to suspect that many were driven by a taste for battle and division, and this group included many in the clerical leadership — not to mention the clergy who wanted advancement (“purple fever,” it was often called, after the color shirt Episcopal bishops wear) denied them (sometimes for good reason) in the Episcopal Church and who thought they had a better chance in a much smaller and more conservative body.

Others left for cultural and political reasons, like those ex-Episcopalians I heard who complained that all the problems started when the Episcopal Church endorsed the civil rights movement and who were clearly still upset, and saw the church’s activism as justifying departure.

And yet many of them so driven were very nice, mild-mannered, traditionally pious people, when they weren’t dealing with things Episcopal. That’s one sign of the problem with breaking away, even when you think you really have to do it. It can be a nice place to live, the breakaway body, with nice people, so that they never want to go home.

There are good reasons, based in human nature and the nature of human institutions, that it’s hard to think of church schisms that were ever healed, other than by the breakaway group withering away or becoming something else. And that’s not healing, exactly, more like getting used to living without a foot or an arm. Or without the other lung, some would say.

Anyway, cheers and kudos to Bishop Fellay. Here are some quotes from his response to the dissidents. There are more in the article. Fellay, rites Oddie, accuses the dissidents for a “lack of a supernatural view and a lack of realism,” and then says:

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Your all too human and fatalistic attitude implies that we should not count on God’s help, his grace or the Holy Spirit. If Providence guides men’s actions, has it not been guiding the movement back to Tradition? It makes no sense to think God will let us fall now, especially since we only want to do his will and please him.

Likewise you lack realism, just as the liberals make the Council a superdogma, you are making the Council a superheresy. Archbishop Lefebvre made distinctions about liberal Catholics, and if you do not make them, your caricature of reality could lead to a true schism.

[Archbishop Lefebvre] would have accepted what is proposed; we must not lose his sense of the Church. . . . Church history shows that we only recover gradually from heresies and crises, so it is not realistic to wait until everything is sorted out. If we refuse to work in this field, we fall foul of the parable of the wheat and the cockle in which Our Lord warns us that there would always be internal conflict.

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As I say, cheers to Bishop Fellay.

I've finally translated those two letters - from the three dissident bishops to Fellay, and his response to them. They recapitulate better than anything the entire FSSPX dispute from a sensible viewpoint - Fellay's - and from the blindly irrational viewpoint of his fellow bishops.

First the dissenters' letter:

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Letter to the General Council of the FSSPX

April 7, 2012

To the Superior-General,
the First Assistant and
the Second Assistant,

For several months, as many know, the General Council of the FSSPX has been seriously considering Roman proposals with a view to a practical agreement, given that the doctrinal discussions from 2009 to 2011 proved that doctrinal agreement is impossible with Rome at the moment.

Through this letter, the three bishops of the FSSPX, who are not part of the General Council, wish to let you know, with all due respect, the unanimity of their formal opposition to any such agreement.

Of course, on both sides of the present division between the Conciliar Church and the FSSPX, many desire that Catholic unity be repaired. Honor to them, on both sides. But the reality that dominates everything, and to which all these desires must yield, is that since Vatican II, the officials of the Church have been separated from Catholic truth, and today they are as determined as ever to remain faithful to the Council's doctrine and practices. The discussions in Rome, the Doctrinal Preamble, and Assisip-III are clear examples.

The problem posed to Catholics by the Second Vatican Council is profound. In a lecture which seemed to be the last doctrinal testament of Mons. Lefebvre, given to the priests of the Fraternity in Econe about six months before he died, after having briefly reviewed the history of liberal Catholicism that emerged from the French REvoolution, he recalled how the Popes had always fought against this attempt of reconciliation between the Church and the modern world, and he declared that the FSSPX'S war against the Vatican II was exactly the same combat.

He concluded with these words: "The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II and their interpretation by Church authorities, the more one realizes that it is not about superficial errors nor some specific errors such as ecumenism, religious freeedom, and collegiality, but rather, a total perversion of the spirit, a new philosophy based on subjective relativism...This is very serious! A total perversion! It is truly frightening".

Now, is the thinking of Benedict XVI better in this respect than that of John Paul II? Just read the study done by one of us, La foi au peril de la raison (faith endangered by reason) to realize that the thinking of the current Pope is equally impregnated with subjectivism. It is entirely man's subjective fantsay instead of God's objective reality. It is the entire Catholic religion subjected to the modern world. How can anyone imagine that a practical agreement could resolve such a problem?

But, one can say to us: Benedict XVI is truly welcoming to the Franternity and its doctrine. As a subjectivist, he well may be, because liberal subjectivists can even tolerate the truth, but not if the truth refuses to tolerate error. He will accept us in the context of a relativistic and dialectical pluralism, provided we remain in 'full communion' with Church authority and other 'ecclesial realities'.

And that is why the Roman authorities would be able to tolerate that the Fraternity continues to teach Catholic doctrine, but they will absolutely not support that she condemns Conciliar doctrine.

And that is why even a purely practical agreement will necessarily silence progressively all criticsm of the council or of the new Mass on the part of the Fraternity. In ceasing to attack the most important victories of that Revolution [Vatican II], the whole Fraternity will necessarily cease to oppose the universal apostasy of our lamentable era, and she would sink herself. Ultimately, who would guarantee that we can remain as we are and protect us from the Roman Curia and the bishops? Benedict XVI?

One can well deny it but this slippage is inevitable. Don't we already see in the Fraternity a weakening in the Profession of Faith? Today, alas, it is the opposite that is considered 'abnormal'.

Just before the Consecrations of 1988, when many insistexd that Mons. Lefebvre enter into a practical agreement with Rome since that would open up a whole new field for apostolate, he told the four ordinands: "A vast field for the apostolate perhaps, but one in ambiguity, following two opposite directions at the same time, with the result that we would rot". How to continue and preach all the truth? How can we sign an agreement without the Fraternity 'rotting' in contradiction?

And when one year later, Rome appeared to show true gestures of accepting Tradition, Mons. Lefebvre continued to be distrustful. He thought they were "nothing more than maneuvers in order to separate from us the greatest number of faithful possible. That is the context in which they seem to yield a little bit more each time, and even to go rather far to do this. So we must absolutely convince our people that it is nothing but a maneuver, that it is dangerous to put ourselves into the hands of conciliar bishops and modernist Rome. It is the greatest danger that threatens our people. If we have been able to fight for 20 years now to resist the errors of the Council, it was not so that we could place ourselves in the hands of those who profess these errors".

After Mons. Lefebvre, the duty of the Fraternity is more than simply to denounce these errors by their name, but to oppose effectively and publicly the Roman authorities who are spreading them. How can one reconcile an agreement with this public resistance to the authorities, namely, the Pope? After having fought for more than 40 years, should the Fraternity now place itself at the hands of mondernists and liberals whose pertinacity we have noted?

Monseigneur, and fathers, watch out! You are leading the Fraternity to a point where it can no longer turn back, to a profound division without return, and if you do reach such an agreement, to powerful destructive influences which it will not be able to endure.

If the bishops of the Fraternity have been protecting it, it is because Mons. Lefebvre refused a practical agreement. Since the situation has not changed substantially, since the condition set by the Chapter meeting of 2006 has not been realized in any way (a doctrinal change by Rome that would allow a practical agreement), listen to your Founder. He was right 25 years ago. He is still right today.

In his name, we call on you: Do not involve the Fraternity in an agreement that is purely practical.

With our most cordial and fraternal greetings, in Christ and Mary,

Mgr. Alfonso de Galarreta
Mgr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
Mgr. Richard Williamson.

---

The reply from Mons. Fellay and his two asisstants in the General Council:

---

FRATERNITE SACERDOTALE
SAINT-PIE X

Menzingen
April 14, 2012

To Bishops Tissier de Mallerais, Williamson and De Galarreta

Excellencies:

Your joint letter addressed to the members of the General Council has merited our fullattention. We thank you for your solicitude and your charity. Allow us, in turn, with the same spirit of charity and justice, to make the following observations.

First of all, the the letter cites well the seriousness of the crisis that is shaking the Church and analyzes with precision the nature of the prevailing errors that cotninue to pullulate. However, the description is marred by two faults regarding the reality of the Church: it lacks the element of the supernatural just as it lacks realism.

On the lack of supernatural sense: Reading your letter, one must seriously ask if you still believe that the visible Church whose seat is in Rome is the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a Church that has certainly been disfigured horribly a planta pedis usque ad verticem capitis (from the sole of the foot to the top of the head), but a Church which still has Our Lord Jesus Christ as the head.

One has the impression that you are so scandalized that you no longe accept that this could still be true. In your opinion, is Benedict XVI the legitimate Pope? If he is, can Jesus Christ still speak through his mouth?

If the Pope expresses a legitimate will regarding us, good will, which does not order us to violate the commandments of God, do we have the right to ignore or return such goodwill with a slapdown? If not, on what principle are you acting this way? Don’t you believe that if Our Lord commands us, he will also give us the means to continue our work?

Now, the Pope has made known to us that the concern to resolve our status for the good of the Church is at the very heart of his Pontificate, and that he knows very well it would be much easier for him and for us to just leave the situation as it is. He has thus expressed a decisive and correct intention.

With the attitude that you advocate, there is no longer room for either the Gideons nor the Davids, nor for those who count on the help of the Lord. You reproach us for being naïve or afraid, but it is your view of the Church that is too human and even fatalistic: You see dangers, conspiracies, difficulties, but you no longer see the asisstance and grace of the Holy Spirit.

If one accepts that Divine Providence conducts the affairs of men, while allowing them full freedom, one must also accept that the developments in recent years in our favor are under His governance. They indicate a line – not very straight – but clearly in favor of Tradition. Why would this stop when we are doing all we can to keep faith and that we accompany our efforts with uncommon prayer?

Will the good God allow us to fall at the most crucial moment? This does not make sense. Especially since we are not trying to impose our will but that we are trying to discern through these events what God wants, being ready for everything, as He pleases.

At the same time, your letter lacks realism, both as to the intensity of errors [regarding the Council] and to their extent.

In terms of intensity: In the Fraternity, there is a tendency to make the errors of the Council into super-heresies – it has become the absolute evil, worse than anything else, just as the liberals have dogmatized this pastoral Council.

The faults are already so bad that one cannot exaggerate them (cf. Roberto de Mattei. Une histoire jamais ecrite, p. 22; Mgr. Gherardini, Un debat a ouvrir, p. 53; etc). You no longer make a distinction, whereas Mgr. Lefebvre several times made the necessary distinctions about liberals*.

This lack of distinction leads to an ‘absolute’ hardening. This is serious because it is a caricature that is no longer within reality and will logically end in a future schism [in the Fraternity]. It is perhaps why this is one of the arguments pushing me not to delay further in responding to Rome.

In terms of extent: On the one hand, you would clothe the present authorities in Rome with all the errors and all the evils one finds in the Church, leaving aside the fact that they have been trying, at least in part, to detach themselves from the most serious of these errors (the condemnation of the ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ denounces all too real errors).

On the other hand, you would claim that EVERYONE is rooted in this pertinacity (“they are all modernits”, “they are all rotten”). This is manifestly false. A great majority is still borne along by the [liberal] movement, but not everyone.

To the point that on the most crucial question of all – the possibility of surviving under the conditions of a recognition by Rome of the Fraternity, we have not come to the same conclusion as yours.

It must be noted in passing that WE HAVE NOT SOUGHT a practical agreement. That is false.

We did not refuse a priori, as you demand, to consider the Pope’s offer. For the common good of the Fraternity, we would much rather prefer the current intermediate status quo, but Rome will no longer tolerate it.

In itself, the proposed solution of a Personal Prelature is not a trap. It results first of all from the fact that the situation in April 2012 is very different from what it was in 1988. To pretend that nothing has changed is a historical error.

The same evils make the Church suffer, and the consequences are even more serious and obvious than before. But at the same time, one can see a change of attitude within the Church, with the help of the gestures and actions of Benedict XVI towards Tradition.

This new movement [owards Tradition], which began at least a dozen years ago, is getting stronger. It has reached a good number (but still a minority) of young priests and seminarians, and even a small number of young bishops who are clearly different from their predecessors, who have given us their sympathy and their support, but who are still fairly stifled by the dominant line in the hierarchy in favor of Vatican II.

But this hierarchy is losing steam. This objectively shows that it is no longer illusory for us to consider a struggle intra muros(within the walls), whose duration and difficulty we are well aware of. I have been able to observe in Rome how much the discourse about the glories of Vatican II, to which we shall be subjected, is still on the lips of many, but is no longer on everyone’s mind. They believe in it less and less.

This concrete situation, with the canonical solution proposed, is very different from that of 1988. If we examine the arguments that Mgr. Lefebvre gave at the time, we conclude that he would not have hesitated to accept the proposal made to us. Let us not lose the sense of the Church which was so strong in our venerated founder.

The history of the Church shows that the healing of the evils which afflict her has habitually taken place gradually, slowly. And that when one problem ends, another begins… oportet hereses esse. (there will always be heresies).

To wait until everything is settled before coming to what you call a practical agreement is not realistic. Seeing how things have been taking place, it will probably take decades [to resolve everything]. But to refuse to work in the field because it has bad weeds that could stifle and hamper the grass recalls a Biblical lesson: It is Our Lord himself who makes us understand this with the parable of the chaff, that we shall always have it in one form or another, as the bad weeds that we must pull out and fight within the Church.

You cannot know how your attitude – each in your own way – has been very difficult for us. It prevented the Superior-General from communicating and sharing his great concerns with you - concerns that you would have gladly shared – in the face of your strong and passionate incomprehension.

How much he would have wanted to be able to count on you, on your advice, in the course of taking this step which is so sensitive for our history. It is a great trial, perhaps the worst one of his leadership.

Our venerated founder gave his bishops precise tasks and responsibility. He showed very well that the principal element which unites our society is the Superior-General.

But for some time now, you have tried – each one differently - to impose on him your point of view, even in the form of threats, and publicly. This dialectic between truth/faith and authority is contrary to the priestly spirit. He at least expects you to try to understand the reasons that have made him act as he has done in recent years, according to the will of divine providence.

We pray for each of you, so that we may all find ourselves together in this struggle which is far from over, for the greater glory of God and for love of our dear Fraternity.

May our Risen Lord and Our Lady protect and bless you.

+Bernard Fellay
Niklaus Pfluger+
Alain-Marc Nely+

---

American rabbi and Holocaust refugee says
'Trust the Pope's judgment on the FSSPX'


Rome, Italy, May 18, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News) - A leading American rabbi and Holocaust refugee says people should trust Pope Benedict’s judgment when it comes to the Church possibly readmitting the Society of St. Pius X, which has a bishop who denied the scale of the Holocaust.

“Let me tell you this, I think that Pope Benedict XVI in many ways really understood the Holocaust because he was in the German Army. He deserted (the army), his family was anti-Nazi, I mean he was completely opposed to Hitler,” Rabbi Jack Bemporad told CNA May 16.

“Now, given the fact that he suffered under Hitler and that his family suffered under Hitler, how could he in any way accept or welcome someone who denies that Hitler did anything wrong?” he asked rhetorically.

The Society of St. Pius X broke with the Catholic Church in 1988 after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without the approval of Pope John Paul II.

One of those ordained, Bishop Richard Williamson, was fined $13,500 in Germany in 2010 after denying the extent of the Holocaust during a television interview. The Society subsequently issued a statement disassociating itself from his views. The conviction was also later quashed by the German appeals court.

Rabbi Bemporad, who currently serves as Professor of Interreligious Studies at the Pontifical Angelicum University, dismissed Bishop Williamson as “one person who is really crazy” and “knows nothing.”

He also believes that Williamson does not speak for the vast majority of Society members.

“The mistake is to take a few people and make them somehow representative of everyone without realizing that that just isn’t true,” he said. “I think it is only a small part of this group that is that radical. I think the vast majority are very happy and would love to be part of the Church.”

Earlier this week the Vatican announced that negotiations with the Society about reconciling the 1988 breach will now happen “separately and singularly” with three of the Society’s four bishops, including Williamson.

For his part, Williamson has made it increasingly clear that he is opposed to reconciliation with Rome. In a letter written earlier this month to his superior [It was not an individual letter, but written jointly with the two other dissenting bishops!], Williamson (and the two other bishops) suggested that reunion would cause the Society to cease opposing “the universal apostasy of our time.” He (they) also accused Pope Benedict of being “a subjectivist.”

“Now I don’t think that in trying to find a way of incorporating this group that they are going to accept in any way any of the extreme positions that Williamson stands for,” predicted Rabbi Bemporad.

The Catholic Church’s view of Judaism was formally set out for the first time in the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on relations with non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate. It rejected both anti-Semitism and the belief that present-day Jews are responsible for Christ’s death.

It looks like the Vatican has truly learned a good lesson from promptly and publicly opposing Benetton's disgraceful use of the Pope's image for an ad in very poor taste, to say the least, last November. Because now it has taken similar action against Gianluigi Nuzzi's publication of private correspondence to the Pope that had been pilfered and leaked from the Secretariat of State. Here is a statement from the Vatican this morning:

Statement of the Vatican Press Office
about the new publication of private documents
Translated from

May 19, 2012

---

The new publication of documents from the Holy See and private documents of the Holy Father is no longer a disputable - and objectively defamatory - journalistic initiative, but clearly takes on the character of a criminal act.

The Holy Father, as well as some of his co-workers and intermediaries of messages addressed to him, have seen their personal right to privacy and freedom of correspondence violated.

The Holy See will contine examining the various aspects of this acts of violation of the privacy and dignity of the Holy Father - as a person, and a the supreme Authority of the Church and of Vatican City-State - and will take the necessary steps so that those responsible for the robbery, acceptance and public disclosure of private data, as well as the commercial exploitation of private documents that were illegitimately taken and kept, can answer to justice for their acts. If necessary, the Holy See will seek international collaboration for this purpose.

---

The Vatican had to do this, since the Italian Constitution clearly guarantees the right to privacy of correspondence, and they had to do it, even clearly aware that it may well jack up sales of the Nuzzi book. But I certainly hope Italian law makes it possible for the Vatican to get a court injunction blocking distribution and sale of the book until the criminal issue is resolved... Nuzzi is probably beating his breasts now a la Tarzan, and his liberal colleagues in the media will probably start hailing him as a heroic exponent of 'truth', never mind that nothing in the documents appears to be any significant service to 'truth', given that most of the facts disclosed - about matters tangential to the mission of the Church - were already known and previously reported. It is the unlawful and improper violation of private rights that is the issue here, not truth.

Clearly, I myself was most remiss in calling attention to the criminal aspects of Nuzzi's transgressions, perhaps because none of the many articles and commentaries I have read in the Italian media even brought it up in direct terms (other than Angela Ambrogetti who called it 'illegal'). And surely, they ought to have seen it right away. I believe one follower of Lella's blog cited the provision in the Italian Constitution provision about right to privacy, and I filed it mentally. but now I must look it up concretely.

I can understand that the Vatican did not want to get into the criminal angle at the time Mons. Vigano's letters to the Pope and to Cardinal Bertone were made public, because it would have reflected somehow on Vigano himself who was a logical probable source of the documents. And clearly, the Vatican did not want to further undermine the public image of its Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.

It now appears that this 'document dump' in the form of a book constitutes the rest of the documents in his possession that Nuzzi's teaser acts on his La7 TV show 'The untouchables' (it is entitled with the English phrase, not its Italian translation!) and Il Fatto Quotidiano last January-February implicitly promised (or 'threatened'), as in "Don't think you have seen it all - I have much more to disclose when I want to!"

I truly hope some decisive judicial injunction at this time will start to rein in the unbridled and totally unscrupulous exploitation by the media of private files for obviously salacious and malicious commercial purposes. Even the most public of figures are entitled to an expectation of privacy when it comes to their personal correspondence, the pilfering of which is virtual 'home invasion'.

P.S. I am frankly surprised why there has been no mention of Nuzzi's book in the Anglophone cyberspace (which now encompasses all the traditional media) though this story broke two days ago in Italy. Even John Allen's Friday column says nothing about it and is devoted to the dispute at the Pontifical Academy for Life (P.S. I stand corrected: CNA did file a completely anodyne report about the book datelined May 18, merely giving information about Nuzzi and his role in the whole Vatileaks mess, as well as some general statements about the book's contents. No hint of outrage or that there was anything untoward - an indication of how we all have taken this kind of exposes, based on leaked documents, for granted , which we ought not to!]... More than three hours since the Holy See posted the bulletin, I have yet to see it reported by any Anglophone news agency...

PPS: Finally, here is a brief report from AP filed around 4PM, Rome time:
Vatican says new book on
leaked documents is 'criminal'


VATICAN CITY. May 19 (AP) — The Vatican has denounced as "criminal" a new book of leaked internal documents that shed light on power struggles inside the Holy See and the inner workings of its embattled bank, and warned that it would take legal action against those responsible.

Pope Benedict XVI has already appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the "Vatileaks" scandal, which erupted earlier this year with the publication of leaked memos alleging corruption and mismanagement in Holy See affairs and internal squabbles over its efforts to comply with international anti-money laundering norms.

The publication Saturday of SUA SANTITA ("His Holiness") by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, added fuel to the fire, reproducing letters and memos to and from Benedict and his personal secretary which the Vatican said violated the Pope's right to privacy.

[Surely, the AP bureau in Rome could have taken time off to check the specific provision in the Italian Constitution that guarantees the right to privacy, but given the short shrift it has given to the story, the AP apparently does not find it significant enough....BTW, I take exception to the translation of 'SUA SANTITA'. The title of the book, standing by itself, does translate to 'His Holiness', but Nuzzi said he took the title from the customary salutation line in letters sent to the Pope, in which case it means "Your Holiness", where the third-person singular pronoun is used as the respectful form of the second-person singular!]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/05/2013 01:03]

Saturday, May 19, Sixth Week of Easter

ST. TEOFILO (TEOFALU) DA CORTE (Italy, 1676-1740), Capuchin
Born to a noble family in Corsica, Biagio dei Signori joined the Capuchins at
age 17 on the mainland, and was first assigned to a retreat house in Subiaco.
Subsequently, he was assigned to establish Franciscan retreat houses all over
Italy, distinguishing himself by his preaching and missionary zeal. He was
always sickly, but he did not spare himself, serving the faithful in the
confessional, in hospitals, and at the graveside. He was canonized in 1930.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/051912.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father met with

- Fifteen US bishops of various Oriental rites on ad-limina visit

- Members of the Movimento Ecclesiale di Impegno Culturale (MEIC, Ecclesial Movement for Cultural
Commitment); the Federazione Organismi Cristiani di Servizio Internazionale Volontario (FOCSIV); and
the Movimento ]Cristiano Lavoratori (MCL, Christian Laborers' Movement). Address in Italian.

In the afternoon with

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

It was announced that yesterday, the Holy Father met with
- Mons. Mieczysław Mokryzcki, Archbishop of Lviv of the Latins (Ukraine)

Also announced, along with some episcopal appointments, was that the Pope has relieved Mons. Francesco Micciche
os his duties as Bishop of Trapani and nominated Mons. Alessandro Pilotti, emeritus Archbishop of Pisa, to be
the apostolic administrator of Trapani until a new bishop is named.
[No reason was given in the Vatican bulletin, but the Italian media say the action was taken because of charges that Micciche was involved in some questionable financial dealings by the diocese which was the subject of an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope. Mons. Micciche has issued a strong statement claiming he protests the papal decision, that he was never given the specific reasons for his dismissal nor even the findings of the visitation, and that he is being victimized because he has been denouncing the 'mafia-like' culture which exists within the Church.]

SEVEN YEARS, ONE MONTH AND COUNTING...

AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER!

- The preceding post has a translation of the Vatican statement on the illegality of Gianluigi Nuzzi's new book, out in Italian bookstores today, because of its significance as the right and proper step for the Vatican to take, and for the current practice of journalism. Although I have not yet seen any reaction by Nuzzi to the Vatican statement, it turns out he is the author of a 'scoop' published in Libero today about the Orlandi case.

Nuzzi reports that by 'direct order of the Pope', the parish priest of the Basilica Sant'Apollinario where mobster boss Enrico de Pedis was buried back in 1990 will now be interrogated by Italian police on what he may know about the Orlandi case as well as the circumstances udner which he allowed De Pedis to be buried in the basilica.

- Meanwhile, Dino Boffo, the ex-editor of Avvenire now back as head of the Italian bishops' TV network, has responded to Nuzzi's publication of his letters to the Vatican at the time (summer of 2009) an Italian newspaper falsely said that a local case about telephone monitoring for which he paid a fine had to do with his involvement in a homosexual triangle. He did not get into the contents of his published letters but pointed out two things: 1) In 2009, he chose to 'keep silent' about the false attacks levelled against him for strategic reasons; and 2) he did everything possible in recent days to convince Nuzzi directly not to proceed with publishing the book because of its violations of the right to privacy, obviously in vain.

- The third Italy-centered news on a 'big news day' is that the Italian bishops conference is set to approve their guidelines for dealing with cases of sex abuse committed by priests. It urges full cooperaiton with civilian justice authorities on these cases but does not oblige bishops to report such cases to the police, because Italian law does not require this. In states that do require it, the guidelines of the local Church say so, ut not otherwise.

- In terms of how the media report the Pope's public statements, sometime they extrapolate it so much I have to go back to the original text published online by the Vatican to see if I missed anything when translating! Case in point yestWrday - the mushrooming of headlines based on the Pope's address to US bishops on Friday , blaring first that "Pope supports amnesty for US immigrants" and 2) that "Pope offers olive branch to US nuns". WHAT?

He spoke about the problem of immigration in the US but he never said anything about amnesty, though he spoke of 'helping to regularize the situation' of those who are presumably in an irregular situation. Bishops and pastoral workers can help them get papers where it is possible, concretely aid those in material need, and actively help keep families together, perhaps even with legal aid. That's not amnesty, because obviously, only the government can grant amnesty.

And what olive branch? He said, "I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women in your country, and to join them in praying that this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the Church, as well as to their founding charisms". As in the 'pro multis' controversy, 'many' does not mean all, and he can hardly have meant the LCWR as 'an example of fidelity and self-sacrifice'! Altrocche, as the Italians would say - the LCRW are anything but that! But he is commending the faithful nuns who have not let their egos get the better of them and of their faith.

The Pope to Italian lay associations:
'True giving is at the heart of being Christian'

May 19, 2012






The Ecclesial Movement of Cultural Engagement, the Federation of Christian Organizations for International Voluntary Service and the Movement of Christian Workers are a group of Italian-based lay associations founded between 1932 and 1972.

Their mission is to spread the Gospel through volunteer work aiding the needy in Italy and in other countries throughout the world, as well as defending human rights, promoting social justice and education.

Speaking to the three associations gathered at the Aula Paolo VI on the occasion of their respective anniversaries, Pope Benedict underlined that fact that their establishment can be attributed to the inspiration of Pope Paul the VI who as a priest and then as Pope had been a vocal supporter of ecclesial associations such as these.

The Holy Father stressed the importance of the laity to the Church in both the private and public sphere of society, adding that their selfless contribution was vital in the promotion of cultural action, human dignity and aiding those in need.

The Pope also told those present that volunteer work in whatever field was an irreplaceable resource and the true meaning of being Christian.

True giving, said Pope Benedict, is not something laid down by law nor an economic transaction, but he said that both the political and economic sectors need people capable of mutual giving.

The Pope urged the associations to look to young people, who, he said, are seeking more than ever for ways of engagement in society that combine idealism and practicality.



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

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Dear brothers and sisters:

I am happy to welcome you today at this gathering together of the Movimento Ecclesiale di Impegno Culturale (MEIC), the Federazione Organismi Cristiani di Servizio Internazionale Volontario (FOCSIV), and the Movimento Cristiano Lavoratori (MCL).

I greet with affection my brothers in the Episcopate who support and guide you, your leaders and officials, your ecclesiastical assistants, and all your members and sympathizers.

This year, your associations are celebrating the anniversaries of your founding: 80 years for MEIC, 40 for FOCSIV and MCL. All three owe their existence to the wise work of the Servant of God Paul VI, who, when he was the National Assistant of Italian Catholic Action in 1932, supported the first steps of the Movimento Laureati (movement of graduates) in Catholic Action, and as Pope, recognized the FOCSIV and assisted at the birth of MCL in 1972. In memory of my venerated predecessor, we are thankful for the impulse he gave to these important church associations.

Anniversaries are propitious occasions to re-think your respective charisms with gratitude but also with a critical eye, mindful of your historic origins and the new signs of the times.

Culture, voluntariate, and work constitute an indissoluble trinomial in the daily commitment of the Catholic laity, who wish their belonging to Christ and to the Church to have an impact both in the private as well as the public spheres of society.

The lay faithful play a role whenever they act in these spheres, and when in their cultural service and their solidarity with those who are in need and have work concerns, they strive to promote human dignity.

These three spheres of action are bound by a common denominator: the gift of oneself. Cultural involvement, especially at the school and university levels, oriented towards the formation of future generations, is indeed not limited to the transmission of technical and theoretical ideas, but implies the gift of oneself with words and through example.

Volunteer work, an irreplaceable resource for society, means not so much giving things, but giving oneself while concretely aiding those who are in need. Work is not just an instrument for individual profit, but an occasion to express one's own abilities, exerting oneself, in the spirit of service, in professional activity, whether one is a laborer, a farmer, a scientist or any other occupation.

For you, all this has a special connotation - the Christian one. Your activities must be inspired by charity. This means learning to see with the eyes of Christ and giving to others much more than what they need externally - to give them the look of caring, the gesture of love that they need.

This is born from the love that comes from God, who loved us first; it is born from our intimate encounter with him (cfr Deus Caritas est, 18).

St. Paul, in his farewell talk to the elders of Ephesus, recalls a truth expressed by Jesus: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20,35).

Dear friends, it is the logic of giving, a logic that is often mistreated, but which you appreciate and bear witness to. To give your own time, your own abilities and competencies, your own education, your professionalism. In a word, to pay attention to others, without expecting any reward in this world. And I thank you for this great witness. Doing so, one does not just do good for others, but can discover profound happiness, according to the logic of Christ, who gave all of himself.

The family is the first place where one experiences free love. When this does not happen, then the family is denatured, it goes into crisis. When it is lived in the family, giving oneself without reservations for the good of others is a fundamental educational moment to learn to live as Christians - even in our relations with culture, with volunteer service and with the workplace.

In the encyclical Caritas in veritate, I wanted to extend the family model of the logic of gratuitousness and of giving to a universal dimension. Justice alone is not sufficient.

In order for there to be true justice, that 'something more' is necessary which only gratuity and solidarity can give: "Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place" (No. 38). Gratuitousness is not acquired on the market, nor can it be prescribed by law. Yet both the economy and politics need gratuitousness, persons capable of reciprocal giving (cfr ibid. 39)

Our meeting today proves two elements: the affirmation on your part of the need to continue to follow the way of the Gospel, faithful to the social doctrine of the Church and loyal to your Pastors; and on the other hand, my encouragement, the Pope's encouragement, who invites you to persevere constantly in your commitmento n behalf of your brothers.

This commitment also includes the task of pointing to injustice, and to bear witness to the values on which the dignity of persons is based, promoting forms of solidarity which promote the common good.


The MEIC cultural movement, in the light of its history, is called to renewed service in the world of culture, which presents urgent and complex challenges, for the dissemination of Christian humanism. Reason and faith are allied in the journey towards the Truth.


May the FOCSIV volunteers federation continue to trust above all in the power of charity that comes from God, carrying forward your commitment against every form of poverty and exclusion, and working in behalf of the more disadvantaged populations.


And may the MCL movemen bring light and Christian hope to the workplace in order to gain even more social justice. Moreover, may you look always at the world of the young who, today more than ever, are seeking ways of involvement that bring together idealism and concreteness.

Dear friends, I wish each of you to proceed with joy in your personal and associative commitments, bearing witness to the Gospel of giving and gratuitousness.

I invoke the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary upon you, and I impart to you the Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to all your members and to your families. Thank you for your commitment, thank you for your presence.

---

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/05/2012 13:04]

Forty years after his death,
Jesuit cardinal-theologian is rescued
from oblivion by new-movement priests
A seminar on Jean Danielou, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, sponsored by Opus Dei
and the C&L priestly fraternity, breaks the silence that the Jesuits have kept about him. He was ostracized
by his colleagues for criticizing the false interpretation of Vatican II in a 1972 interview with Vatican Radio



Left panel, Jean Danielou at the time of Vatican II, and as a cardinal.

ROME, May 11, 2012 – "Finestre aperte sul mistero" (Windows open to mystery) is the title of the conference held on May 9 at the Opus Dei's Pontifical University of Santa Croce, effectively breaking the public silence on one of the great theologians of the 20th century, the French Jesuit Jean Danielou, made a cardinal by Paul VI in 1969.

A silence that as lasted almost 40 years and began with his death in 1974. For many, the memory of Danielou had been reduced to the mystery of his death from a heart infarct on a May afternoon in the fourth-floor apartment of a prostitute in Paris. [His friends at the time said that he was visiting the woman on a charitable mission and that no one who knew him could ever think it was for other purposes.]

But the true mystery towards which Danielou had opened the windows as a theologian and spiritual man was that of the Trinitarian God. One of his most important books is called "Essay on the mystery of history" - a history that is not governed by chance nor by necessity, but filled insteaad by the magnalia Dei, the great wonders of God, one more stupefying than the other.

Today few of his books can be found in bookstores. But they remain works of extraordinary richness and freshness. Simple but very profound, as few theologians have been able to achieve in our time, other than he and that other champion of clarity, Joseph Ratzinger.

Danielou is akin to the present Pope more for the Biblical and historical orientation of his theology, rather than the philosophica; for his expertise in the Fathers of the Church (he was enamoured of Gregory of Nyssa, as Benedict XVI is of Augustine), and for the very central role that he attributed to liturgy.

Danielou, along with his Jesuit colleague and French compatriot Henri de Lubac, was the inspired creator in 1942 of the series of patristic texts entilted Sources Chretiennes which marked the rebirth of theology in the second half of the 20th century and paved the way for the best output from the Second Vatican Council.

In short, he is an author who must absolutely be rediscovered. At the same time, the questions about his death must be revisited.

Mimì Santoni, the prostitute, says he died falling to the floor face down while he was on his knees. She said "it was a beautiful death for a cardinal". He had visited her to bring money to pay a lawyer who could release her husband from prison. It was the last of the works of charity he had been performing in private for emarginated persons and those in need of help and forgiveness.

The Jesuits conducted closed inquiries in order to determine the facts. They ascertained his innocence. But then they kept silence about anything else about him that raised suspicions.

In fact, a rupture between Danielou and his fellow Jesuits in Paris and the rest of France was the true origin of the oblivion that fell over this great theologian and cardinal. A break that had preceded his death by at least two years.

In fact, since 1972, when Danielou, after decades of living there, moved out of the Jesuit residence of Etudes, the cutting-edge cultural magazine of tthe French Jesuits, to a nuns' convent, that of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.

The break was precipitated by an interview given by Danielou to Vatican Radio in which he harshly criticized the 'decadnece' that had devastated so many male and female religious orders because of "a false interpretation of Vatican II".

The interview was interpreted as an accusation against the Society of Jesus itself, whose Superior General at the time was Fr. Pedro Arrupe, who was also the president of the Union of Superiors-General of Religious Orders.

The Jesuit Bruno Ribes, who was the editor of Etudes, was among the most active in isolating Danielou through a scorched-earth strategy. In fact, their positions were antithetical.

In 1974, the year Danielou died, Ribes aligned Etudes among those in open disobedience to the teachings of Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae against artificial contraception.

Ribes collaborated with other progressivist theologians - among them, the Dominicans Jacques Pohier and Bernard Quelquejeu - in the drafting of the law which that very year introduced freedom of abortion in France, when Valery Giscard d'Estaing was president, Jacques Chirac prime minister, and Simone Veil, health minister.

In 1975, Ribes gave up the editorship of Etudes, subsequently leaving the Society of Jesus and then, the Catholic Church.

Below we reproduce the transcript of the interview that caused the Jesuits to ostracize Danielou. (It must be noted that after 40 years, the decadence of religious orders that he denounced then continues, as shown by the ultra-liberal Leadership Cofnerence of Women Religious in the United States).


'The essential origin of this crisis...'
Interview with Cardinal Jean Danielou

October 23, 1972

Eminence, is there truly a crisis in religious life and could you give us an idea of its extent?
I think there is a very serious crisis of religious life and one cannot speka of renewal but rather of decadence. And I think this crisis strikes the Atlantic area above all. In this respect, Eastern Europe and the nations of Africa and Asia present greater spiritual health.

This crisis is manifest in all areas. The evangelical vows are no longer considered a consecration to God, but seen in a sociological and psychological perspective. There is lip service about not showing any bourgeois tendencies, but on the individual level, poverty is not practised.

They have replaced religious obedience with group dynamics. With the pretext of countering formalism, every regimen for a life of prayer has been adbandoned, and the consequence of this state of confusion is, above all, the disappearance of vocations, because young people demand serious formation. On the other hand, there are the many and scandalous abandonment of the relgious life by priests and religious who have disavowed their solemn pledges to God and the people of God.

Can you tell us what you believe to be the cause of this crisis?
The essential origin of this crisis is a false interpretation of Vatican II. The directives of the Council onthe religious life were very clear: greater faithfulness of religious and consecrated persons to the demands of the Gospel as expressed in the constitutions of each order, while at the same time, adapting the modalities of these constitutions to the conditions of modern life.

The institutions that are faithful to this directive have seen true renewal and have vocations. But in many cases, the directives of Vatican II have been replaced by erroneous ideologies circulated by magazines, conferences, theologians.

Among these errors, one might mention:
- Secularization. Vatican II declared that human values must be taken seriously. It never said that we should enter into the secularized world in the sense that the religious dimension shall no longer be present in civilization!

It's in the name of a false secularization that relgious persons have done away with the habit, that they have abandoned their basic work in order to join secular institutions, replacing adoration of God with social and political activities.

Yet, among other things, this goes counter to the need for spirituality that is manifested in the world today. [The 1970s saw the flowering of New Age religions and practices in the West, most of them nominally based on traditional Eastern religions but devoid of their religious content.]

- A false conception of freedom that meant the devaluation of the constitutions and rules of the various orders, and the exaltation of spontaneity and improvisation. This is even more absurd since Western society currently suffers from the absence of any discipline in the exercise of freedom. Restoration of firm rules is one of the necessities for religious orders today.

- A false conception of the changes in man and the Church. Although the context has changed, the constitutive elements of man and of the Church are permanent, and the rejection of the constitutive elements of the statutes for the various orders is a fundamental error.

Do you see any remedies for getting out of this ?
I think the only urgent solution is to stop the false orientations adopted by a number of Catholic institutions. This means stopping all experimentation and all decisions that are contrary to the directives of the Council. To be vigilant against books, magazines and conferences in which these erroneous dieas are circulated. To restore in their integrity the practices prescribed by their statutes with the adaptations recommended by the Council.

And where this last is not possible, I think it should be made possible for those members who wish to remain faithful to their statutes and to the directives of Vatican II to constitute their own communities, since religious superiors are held to respect such a desire.

These communities should be authorized to have their own houses of formation. Experience will show if the vocations will be more numerous in the houses of 'strict observance' compared to those of 'selective observance'. And in cases where the Superiors-General oppose such a request, the petitioners should certainly have recourse to the Holy Father.

Religious life is called upon to play a great role in a technological society. The more this society develops, the more it will feel the need for a manifestation of God. And this is precisely the purpose of religious life. But in order to fulfill it, religious men and women must once again find its authentic significance and break radically with a secularization which is destroying it in its essence and prevents it from attracting vocations.

Amazingly prophetic words, which continue to be frighteningly actual! His description of the decadence of religious life is a veritable self-portrait of the ultra-liberal orders represented in the LCWR ['liquor' for short!, I say]. It testifies to the unapologetic modern heterodoxy of the Jesuits that they ostracized an eminent man for speaking the truth they do not want to admit. The 20th-century Jesuits - who live on in the priests who run America and Commonweal magazines and universities like Georgetown - unilaterally decided to ignore the fourth vow Igatius of Loyola asked his spiritual sons to observe: communion with Rome and the Succesor of Peter.

For more details on the figure of Jean Danielou, read the article by Fr. Jonah Lynch in the May, 2012, issue of Avvenire:
www.avvenire.it/Cultura/Pagine/danielou-la-verit%C3%A0-usurp...
Fr. Lynch is the vice-rector in Rome of the Fraternity of San Carlo Borromeo {the priesthood arm of Comunione e Liberazione] which forms priests destined to work as missionaries. The Fraternity co-sponsored the seminar on Danielou, along with the Pontitifical University of Santa Croce.


But Benedict XVI was ahead of the curve
in restituting Cardinal Danielou

I am surprised Magister does not make reference to the following news iten from 2007, which I found in an Italian forum which provides the link (now invalid) to papanews.it, its original source. Here is a translation:

---

Papa Ratzinger rehabilitates and pays tribute
to Cardinal Jean Danielou, a calumniated theologian

VATICAN CITY, June 2007 - Benedict XVI paid homage today to the memory of the great Jesuit theologian Jean Danielou (in the photo) [sic - which explains why I earlier used the photo they provided for the composite that illustrates this post- an error Flo kindly pointed out in a note below and that I have since corrected].

Danielou was created a cardinal by Paul VI in 1969, but a veil of oblivion fell over him after his death in 1974 at the home of a former prostitute. It was one of the places where he was doing his apostolate, and not for sinning, as the French media insinuated at the time despite the testimonies given at the time.

"He was a holy man and a brilliant priest," said, among many others, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, then superior general of the Dominicans, who said that under the circumstances, the place was "in some ways the ideal place for the death of a cardinal".

Poe Benedict said today, referring to the Jesuit theologian as "an eminent scholar of the Fathers of the Church": "Cardinal Danielou never tired of repeating that there is a mystery, a hidden content in history, namely, the mystery of the works of God which constitute authentic reality in time, hidden behind appearances... But this history that God makes real for man cannot be real without God. Yet to linger in contemplating the great works of God would mean seeing only one aspect of things. Men must also respond." [Unfortunately, the item does not state the occasion on which Benedict XVI said this, so I must research it.]

But Benedict XVI had earlier 'restituted Danielou', citing him in his book JESUS OF NAZARETH' [in Chapter 9, a reference from Danielou's The Bible and Liturgy].

Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriach of Venice [at the time], recently wrote of Danielou: "In the Catholic world, Jean Danielou deserves the credit for starting a theology that is more open to the phenomenon of religion, normally called as the 'theology of fulfillment' which postulates the fullness of religion in Christianity."

According to Danielou, Scola noted:
other religions are different from Christianity in this: in other religions, it is man who makes an effort to reach God; in Christianity, instead, it is God, the Mystery, who comes to man, who becoming man in Jesus, bridges the abyss that is otherwise unbridgeable, between man and God. But in general, other religions should not be undervalued: depending on the sincerity of adherence to such religions, they express a noble effort and testify to the inevitability of the religious sense. Nonetheless, all these religions, by their own admission, have not been able to reveal to man the face of the Mystery".

This is the theology of a 'dialog in truth' elaborated by the distinguished Jesuit theologian, accepted by Vatican II, and which Pope Benedict XVI wishes to relaunch today.

---

I find it strange that the April 2012 pastoral letter on religious freedom by the Canadian bishops' conference - which I discovered by chance two days ago while looking up their statement about the defrocked Bishop Lahey (and posted after that story) - appears to have come to the attention of both the OR and Vatican Radio equally late. There's a story about it in today's OR and Fr. Lombardi's weekly editorial reefers to it.

Freedom of conscience and religion

May 19, 2012

The Canadian bishops have released an important pastoral letter “on freedom of conscience and religion”, although the relevance of this letter extends beyond that of the Church in Canada.
http://www.cccb.ca/site/images/stories/pdf/Freedom_of_Conscience_and_Religion.pdf

In this document, the bishops refer to those issues which have inspired the Catholic Church community to give testimony and demonstrate their commitment to belief. Pope Benedict, as we know, has addressed these issues, such as in his messages for the World Day of Peace and in his speech to the Diplomatic Corps.

There are two main points of consideration here, the first referring to blatant violations of religious rights. A recent study conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life highlighted that “more than 70% of countries in the world impose legal or administrative restrictions which in practice annul the rights of individual believers or of some religious groups”.

Another report, put together by Aid to the Church in Need, states that “today more than 75% of religious persecution in the world affects Christians”.

The second consideration takes into account the far more subtle dangers caused by relativism, which has become so aggressive it is directed – as the Pope said – “against people who say they know where the truth and meaning of life are”.

This has become increasingly perceptible in western societies, such as is seen in the current debates over the United States health care system. It is not by chance, therefore, that this Canadian document addresses these dangers from all angles.

The document reiterates that religion has the right to intervene in the public sphere, to maintain proper relations between Church and State, to educate consciences in objective truth, and to protect the right to conscience-driven objection. The Catholic Church and its followers only seek the common good, and are able to do so without committing violence in the name of conscience or faith.

These are challenges that we must confront and reconcile to the cultural and social conditions unique to today. The Pope helps us to engage in open and constructive dialogue regarding the issues, and his speeches at Westminster Hall in London and at the Parliament of Berlin are good examples of this. Let us continue along this path.

Hi Teresa

Thanks for your post about cardinal Danielou. Concerning the circumstances over his death, no one now has any doubt about his innocence.

It is not him on the photo supposedly representing him as a cardinal.

I always read you with great pleasure.




May 21, 2012

Dear Flo...
Sorry for the delay in replying. I was tied up with some unavoidable duties yesterday and did not have time for the Forum apart from the pictures of the Regina caeli - I only posted my translation of the Pope's texts this morning.

Thank you for pointing out the wrong picture. I have replaced it in the original post with what is apparently the only picture of Danielou as a cardinal, which I found today in his biographical note in the Academie Francaise. For the wrong pic, I relied on the following which came up in my search for 'images' of Jean Danielou:

because it illustrated an Italian item about Pope Benedict paying tribute to Cardinal Danielou back in 2007, which I had meant to translate and add to the post (which I have now done). Sorry for the error! I did think that the cardinal picture looked quite different from his earlier pictures, but I thought maybe he put on weight and his face filled out!

Thanks for your kind words and friendship.

TERESA

May 20, Seventh Sunday of Easter
Some countries celebrate THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASCENSION today, instead of the Thursday 40 days after Easter as the Gospels say.

ST. BERNARDINO DA SIENA (Italy, 1380-1444), Franciscan, Preacher
The other great medieval saint of Siena was, like an earlier Franciscan, Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), considered the greatest preacher of his time, attracting as many as 30,000 to his sermons which he had to give in piazzas and open places because no church was big enough to hold his audiences. He was characterized by solid holiness, boundless energy and joy, and designed and popularized the trigram IHS to symbolize the Holy Name of Jesus in order to focus the attention of the faithful on Christ. Joan of Arc would use the trigram on her battle standard and St. Ignatius Loyola's Society of Jesus would adapt it for their symbol. Bernardino was born to a noble family and received the best education. When he was 20, Siena was afflicted by the plague. He and some fellow members in a Marian confraternity helped nurse patients in Siena's hospital until the plague broke. He contracted it himself bur recovered, Inspired by a meeting with the man who would become St. Vincent Ferrer, he joined the Franciscan Friars of Strict Observance (of which he would later become the Superior General) at age 22, then after his ordination, spent 12 years of solitude devoted to prayer and studies in theology and canon law, during which, it is said, he learned to preach by speaking to the country folk and learning the best ways to communicate to them, using their language and their images. In 1417, he was named vicar of Tuscany. This marked the start of his public preaching which soon took him to other major cities of Italy, also earning a reputation for conciliating feuding political factions (pro-Pope vs Pro-Holy Roman Emperor). He started the idea of the 'bonfire of vanities' during which he encouraged the faithful to burn objects of temptation. He was very outspoken against the practice of homosexuality. In 1527, a cycle of sermons he gave in Siena was meticulously transcribed and give a vivid idea of his eloquent preaching. Strangely, his advocacy of the trigram twice brought him to trial for heresy, first in Rome, in 1427, and then at the Council of Basel. Both times, he was acquitted. He impressed Pope Martin V so much that he wanted to name him Bishop of Siena, Bernardine refused, as he did later offers to become Bishop of Ferrara and of Urbino. Among his disciples were Giovanni (John) da Capistrano and Giacomo delle Marche, both of whom would become saints. Another four of his closest disciples have been beatified. He himself was canonized just six years after his death. He died of natural causes while on a visit to L'Aquila to settle yet another political feud. He is buried in L'Aquila in a basilica that his disciples Giovanni and Giacomo caused to have built soon after his death. He and Catherine are the co-patrons of Siena.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/052012.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Regina caeli - The Holy Father reflected on the Ascension of Jesus, and had a number of reminders and
special messages. First, the World Day for Social Communications today, about which he released
his message last January on 'Silence and words'; and the Feast of Mary Help of Christians on May 24,
which is celebrated most especially in the Marian shrine of Sheshan near Shanghai, and which, since 2008,
the Church marks as a day of prayer for the Church in China. The Pope then expressed his condolences and
prayers for the victims of the terrorist bomb planted at a school in Brindisi, southeastern Italy, yesterday,
killing a girl, Melissa, and wounding dozens of others; and for the victims of an earthquake that struck
north of Bologna, Italy this morning. He also greeted Italy's Movement for Life who turn out annually
for the Angelus or Regina caeli to publicize their movement.

Here's a re-post of the Holy Father's message for the 2012 World Day of Social Communications observed by the Church today, and released last January 24, on the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron of communications.

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As we draw near to World Communications Day 2012, I would like to share with you some reflections concerning an aspect of the human process of communication which, despite its importance, is often overlooked and which, at the present time, it would seem especially necessary to recall.

It concerns the relationship between silence and word: two aspects of communication which need to be kept in balance, to alternate and to be integrated with one another if authentic dialogue and deep closeness between people are to be achieved.

When word and silence become mutually exclusive, communication breaks down, either because it gives rise to confusion or because, on the contrary, it creates an atmosphere of coldness; when they complement one another, however, communication acquires value and meaning.

Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist. In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves.

By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself; and we avoid being tied simply to our own words and ideas without them being adequately tested. In this way, space is created for mutual listening, and deeper human relationships become possible.

It is often in silence, for example, that we observe the most authentic communication taking place between people who are in love: gestures, facial expressions and body language are signs by which they reveal themselves to each other.

Joy, anxiety, and suffering can all be communicated in silence – indeed it provides them with a particularly powerful mode of expression. Silence, then, gives rise to even more active communication, requiring sensitivity and a capacity to listen that often makes manifest the true measure and nature of the relationships involved.

When messages and information are plentiful, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary. Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected, to make evaluations, to analyze messages; this makes it possible to share thoughtful and relevant opinions, giving rise to an authentic body of shared knowledge.

For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.

The process of communication nowadays is largely fuelled by questions in search of answers. Search engines and social networks have become the starting point of communication for many people who are seeking advice, ideas, information and answers.

In our time, the internet is becoming ever more a forum for questions and answers – indeed, people today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware.

If we are to recognize and focus upon the truly important questions, then silence is a precious commodity that enables us to exercise proper discernment in the face of the surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive.

Amid the complexity and diversity of the world of communications, however, many people find themselves confronted with the ultimate questions of human existence: Who am I? What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?

It is important to affirm those who ask these questions, and to open up the possibility of a profound dialogue, by means of words and interchange, but also through the call to silent reflection, something that is often more eloquent than a hasty answer and permits seekers to reach into the depths of their being and open themselves to the path towards knowledge that God has inscribed in human hearts.

Ultimately, this constant flow of questions demonstrates the restlessness of human beings, ceaselessly searching for truths, of greater or lesser import, that can offer meaning and hope to their lives.

Men and women cannot rest content with a superficial and unquestioning exchange of skeptical opinions and experiences of life – all of us are in search of truth and we share this profound yearning today more than ever: “When people exchange information, they are already sharing themselves, their view of the world, their hopes, their ideals” (Message for the 2011 World Day of Communications).

Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer, meditation or sharing of the word of God.

In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives.

It is hardly surprising that different religious traditions consider solitude and silence as privileged states which help people to rediscover themselves and that Truth which gives meaning to all things.

The God of biblical revelation speaks also without words: “As the Cross of Christ demonstrates, God also speaks by his silence. The silence of God, the experience of the distance of the almighty Father, is a decisive stage in the earthly journey of the Son of God, the incarnate Word …. God’s silence prolongs his earlier words. In these moments of darkness, he speaks through the mystery of his silence” (Verbum Domini, 21).

The eloquence of God’s love, lived to the point of the supreme gift, speaks in the silence of the Cross. After Christ’s death there is a great silence over the earth, and on Holy Saturday, when “the King sleeps and God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages” (cf. Office of Readings, Holy Saturday), God’s voice resounds, filled with love for humanity.

If God speaks to us even in silence, we in turn discover in silence the possibility of speaking with God and about God. “We need that silence which becomes contemplation, which introduces us into God’s silence and brings us to the point where the Word, the redeeming Word, is born” (Homily, Eucharistic Celebration with Members of the International Theological Commission, 6 October 2006).

In speaking of God’s grandeur, our language will always prove inadequate and must make space for silent contemplation. Out of such contemplation springs forth, with all its inner power, the urgent sense of mission, the compelling obligation “to communicate that which we have seen and heard” so that all may be in communion with God (1 Jn 1:3).

Silent contemplation immerses us in the source of that Love who directs us towards our neighbours so that we may feel their suffering and offer them the light of Christ, his message of life and his saving gift of the fullness of love.

In silent contemplation, then, the eternal Word, through whom the world was created, becomes ever more powerfully present and we become aware of the plan of salvation that God is accomplishing throughout our history by word and deed.

As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, divine revelation is fulfilled by “deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them” (Dei Verbum, 2).

This plan of salvation culminates in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the mediator and the fullness of all revelation. He has made known to us the true face of God the Father and by his Cross and Resurrection has brought us from the slavery of sin and death to the freedom of the children of God.

The fundamental question of the meaning of human existence finds in the mystery of Christ an answer capable of bringing peace to the restless human heart. The Church’s mission springs from this mystery; and it is this mystery which impels Christians to become heralds of hope and salvation, witnesses of that love which promotes human dignity and builds justice and peace.

Word and silence: learning to communicate is learning to listen and contemplate as well as speak. This is especially important for those engaged in the task of evangelization: both silence and word are essential elements, integral to the Church’s work of communication for the sake of a renewed proclamation of Christ in today’s world.

To Mary, whose silence “listens to the Word and causes it to blossom” (Private Prayer at the Holy House, Loreto, 1 September 2007), I entrust all the work of evangelization which the Church undertakes through the means of social communication.

From the Vatican
24 January 2012
Feast of Saint Francis de Sales

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REGINA CAELI
May 20, 2012





At the Regina caeli prayers, the Holy Father reflected on the Ascension of Jesus, and had a number of reminders and special messages.

First, the World Day for Social Communications, marked every year on May 20, about which he released his message last January on 'Silence and words'; and the Feast of Mary Help of Christians on May 24, which is celebrated most especially in the Marian shrine of Sheshan near Shanghai, and which, since 2008, the Church marks as a day of prayer for the Church in China.

The Pope called on Catholics worldwide to join in prayer with the Church in China, so that believers thre may persevere in their faith despite all the difficulties and obstacles to the free practice of Catholicism in mainland China.

In a series of appeals following the midday prayers, the Holy Father also strongly condemned a bomb attack on a high school in Brindisi, southern Italy, on Saturday that left a young girl dead and others seriously wounded and called for prayers for the victims of a magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck just north of Bolonga early Sunday morning.

He had a special greeting for Italy's Movement for Life who turn out annually for the Angelus or Regina caeli to publicize their movement.



Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words today:

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Forty days after the Resurrection, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus ascebded to heaven. That is, he returned to his Father who had sent hom to the world.

In many countries, this mystery is celebrated not on Thursday (that is the 40th day since Easter Sunday] but today, which is the Sunday after that Thursday.

The Ascension of the Lord marks the full compliance of the work of salvation that began with the Incarnation. After having instructed his disciples for the last time, Jesus rose to heaven (cfr Mk 16,19).

But he has not not 'distanced himself from our lowly state' (cfr Preface for Ascension I). In fact, in his humanity, he has taken up mankind with himself to the intimacy of the Father, and has revealed the final destination of our earthly pilgrimage.

Just as he came down from heaven for us, and suffered and died on the cross for us, so he rose again and returned to the Father, who is no longer remote, but 'our God', 'our Father' (cfr Jn 20,17).

The Ascension is the last act of our liberation from the yoke of sin, as the apostle Paul writes: "He ascended on high and took prisoners captive" (Eph 4,8). St. Leo the Great explains that this mystery "proclaims not just the immortality of the soul but also that of the flesh. Today, in fact, we are not only confirmed to be the possessors of Paradsie. but we are also penetrated by Christ from the heights of heaven" (De Ascensione Domini, Tractatus 73, 2.4: CCL 138 A, 451.453).

That is why the disciples, when they saw the Master rise from the earth and towards the sky, they were not seized by desolation, but felt a great joy and felt themselves urged on to proclaim the victory of Christ over death (cfr Mk 16,20).

And the Risen Lord worked with them, distributing to each one his own charism, so that the Christian community in its entirety could reflect the harmonous richness of heaven.

St. Paul continues: "He gave gifts to men... And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers... for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the full stature of Christ" (Eph 4,8.11-13).

Dear friends, the Ascension tells us that in Christ, our humanity is carried up to God. And so, everytime we pray, the earth conjoins with heaven. Just as incense when it burns sends its smoke upwards with its gentle odor, so it is that when we raise our fervent and trustful prayer to the Lord, it reaches up to the Throne of God, where it is heard by him and answered.

In the famous work of San Juan de la Cruz [John of the Cross], Ascent to Mount Carmel, we read that "for us to see the desires of our heart fulfilled, there is no better way than to place the force of our prayers into that which pleases God most. Then, he will not just give us what we ask for, namely, salvation, but also what he sees right and good for us, even if we do not ask for it" (Libro III, cap. 44, 2, Roma 1991, 335).

After the prayers, he said:
Today, we celebrate the World Day for Social Communications on the theme "Silence and words: The path to evangelization". Silence is an integral part of communication - it is the favored place in which to encounter the Word of God and our brothers and sisters.

I invite everyone to pray so that communications, in its every form, may always serve to establish authentic dialog with others, one that is based on reciprocal respect, on listening, adn on sharing.

Thursday, May 24, is a day dedicated to the liturgical commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Help of Christians, venerated with great devotion in the shrine of Sheshan, near Shanghai.

Let us join in prayer with all the Catholics of China so that they may announce Christ who died and rose again, with humility and joy; that they may be faithful to his Church and to the Successor of Peter; and that they may live daily in a way that is consistent with the faith that they profess.

Mary, faithful Virgin, sustain the Chinese Catholics on their journey, make their prayers ever more intensely valuable in the eyes of the Lord, and let the affection and participation of the universal Church in the journey of the Chinese Catholics continue to grow.

I address a heartfelt greeting to the thousands of members of the Italian Movement for Life who are now gathered in Aula Paolo VI. Dear friends, your movement has always been committed to the defense of human life, according to the teachings of the Church.

Along these lines, you have announced a new initiative called 'Uno di noi' (One of us) to stand up for the dignity and fundamental rights of every human being from the time he is conceived.

I encourage you and urge you to always be witnesses and builders of the culture of life.

In his closing greeting to Italian pilgrims, he said:
Today, unfortunately, I must talk about the children at the school in Brindisi who were the targets yesterday of a vile bomb attack. Let us pray together for the wounded, many among them seriously, and especially for the young Melissa, innocent victim of brutal violence, for her family, and all those who are in grief.

My affectionate thoughts also go to the dear people of Emilia-Romagna stricken a few hours ago by an earthquake. I am spiritually close to all those who are being tested by this calamity. Let us ask God's mercy for those who have died, and relief in their suffering for those who were injured.

---

NB: The bomb planted in the Brindisi school was intended to mark the 20th anniversary of the ambush killing near Palermo by Mafia gunmen of a judge who was trying some Mafia cases, his wife and three bodyguards. It will be recalled that when Pope Benedict made a pastoral visit to Palermo in 2010, on his way to the airport afterwards, he stopped to offer a prayer at the roadside memorial to those Mafia victims... The magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck north of Bologna and has claimed six deaths so far.

On bended knee
A review of
Benedict XVI's Reform
The Liturgy between Innovation and Tradition
Bux, Nicola (2012-05-09).
Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
from the blog of
Mons. Thomas Gullickson
Apostolic Nuncio to the Ukraine
May 20, 2012

I wish to thank Ignatius Press for the timely publication in English of this new book by Nicola Bux, well known for his stance in promotion of the ideas of the Holy Father concerning the repair of the liturgical breach.

"Timely" is the right word not because there is anything particularly new in the book, which might throw the advantage in "battle" to either reform group whether it be to those favoring restoration of the Roman Rite and subsequent organic growth within the tradition going back to St. Gregory the Great or be it to the reform of the reform people.

Bux honestly and rightly makes his case for rallying to the standard of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. He speaks clearly and convincingly of his understanding of the Pope's will that the usus antiquior find more general use everywhere (in every parish?) of the Catholic Church, thus enabling it to be that mirror to aid the reform of the reformed liturgy.

Bux touches masterfully upon the unquestionable merits of the Mass of the Ages when it comes to fulfilling that which is liturgy's role in the heart of the Church. He argues certain points better than I have seen in the dozen or more books on the topic, which I've had occasion to read and reflect upon over the last few years. Well done! And, yes, timely, Ignatius Press! Thank you!

I find myself particularly sensitive to and in agreement with his arguments, quoting the Pope, concerning kneeling as a posture for both liturgy and prayer (not to limit discussion to the reception of Holy Communion):

---

If the Christian liturgy is not before all else the public and integral worship, the adoration, of God, the Apocalypse cannot be the typikon, the normative book. From where else would the various liturgical books have drawn their cogent force?

What the liturgy affirms and asks to be observed is a divine law, not a human one: 'The Christian liturgy is a cosmic liturgy precisely because it bends the knee before the crucified and exalted Lord. Here is the center of authentic culture — the culture of truth.

The humble gesture by which we fall at the feet of the Lord inserts us into the true path of the life of the cosmos.' We have chosen this gesture from among all others; it is the most important one, the one that sums up the spirit of the liturgy." (Bux, [Kindle Locations 1345-1350]. Ignatius Press.)

---

At various points in the book, Bux addresses the importance of recovering a common focus for worship, especially for the action of preparing the gifts and for the Eucharistic Prayer, facing Liturgical East, ad Orientem, toward Christ lifted up on the Cross.

From my experience of this last year in Ukraine with the Byzantine Tradition this call becomes ever more urgent and central to what is required for a genuine healing of the rupture provoked by post-Conciliar experimentation in the area of liturgy. Priests and Bishops need to reconsider their attachment to the face-to-face innovation of the last 40 plus years.

---

Looking upon the Cross: Until the Council, all Christians of the East and the West, including priests, prayed toward the apse, which, at least until the sixteenth century, faced east. In Western churches, as in those of the East, prominent in the apse were the cross, a painting of one of the Christian mysteries or the saint for whom the church was named, and the altar with the tabernacle.

The priest and the faithful did not doubt that in praying they both needed to face the same direction. The priest turned to the faithful only for exhortations, readings, and the homily. All Christians celebrated in this way from the first centuries. (Bux, [Kindle Locations 1362-1367]. Ignatius Press.)

---

I leave it to the reader to discover the other treasures which this book provides, especially concerning the placement of the Tabernacle. Happy reading!

Monday, May 21, Seventh Week of Easter

SAN CRISTOBAL MAGALLANES & 24 OTHER MEXICAN MARTYRS (d 1915-1928)
The anti-Catholic persecutions by the governments of Mexico in the early 20th
century resulted in many martyrs. Cristobal, a diocesan priest, and 24 others
(21 priests and 3 laymen) coming from eight states of Mexico were beatified in
1992 and canonized in 2000. They were all falsely accused of rebellion and
summarily executed without a trial. Born to a poor family, Cristobal was 30 when
he was ordained. After being a school chaplain, he became parish priest of his
hometown where he built schools, catechism centers, industrial shops and even
spearheaded the construction of a dam to provide electricity. He actively
evangelized pagan natives, and preached and wrote against armed rebellion.
Readings for today's Mass: usccb.org/bible/readings/052112.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

The Holy Father today had lunch with the members of the College of Cardinals present in Rome
at the Sala Ducale of the Apostolic Palace, to thank them for their good wishes to him on his
recent 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his Pontificate.


One year ago today...
Benedict XVI had a 15-minute conversation with the astronauts on board the international space shuttle.
broadcast live worldwide. Fifty years since the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin in April 1961,
it was a 'first' in papal history.

Bologna cardinal invokes Mary's
protection for earthquake victims
City draws strength from its patroness and
the Madonna di San Luca icon attributed to St. Luke
Translated from the Italian service of

May 21, 2012


The Madonna di Luca of Bologna - the icon was covered with a silver frame in 1625 to protect it, showing only the faces of Mary and Jesus. A photo of the full icon is reproduced in a panel at the bottom of this post. Below, the Basilica.


On Ascension Sunday yesterday, Cardinal Carlo Cafarra, Archbishop of Bologna, invoked the help of the Mother of God for the communities, mostly rural villages north of Bologna, struck by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the dawn hours.

He asked that the Madonna di San Luca - an icon said to have been painted by St. Luke - protect the people of the region from her shrine on the Colle della Guardia (hill of vigilance) overlooking the city of Bologna and that "she may be a living fountain of hope for those who are suffering on account of the earthquake, with churches that have been destroyed, and for homes which have become uninhabitable. May she obtain eternal rest for those who died and give the stricken communities the strength to rise again".

Cardinal Cafarra prayed "for our young people so that their ability to think and plan for their future may never be extinguished in their hearts; for married couples and their families so that they may not fail to appreciate the tenderness of true love, the serenity that comes with dignified work, the generosity of giving themselves for others; for the unemployed and those in risk of losing their jobs; for those who are alone and emarginated, humiliated and desperate; and for those who may think that life is becoming an unbearable burden; for those who administer our city so that they may never lack the courage to make wise decisions, courage for the common good".

In the afternoon, the venerated icon which had been brought down earlier to Bologna's Cathedral of St. Peter for the SolemNity of the Ascension, was borne in procession in the rain from the cathedral back to her hilltop shrine.

The icon venerated in Bologna, dated to the 12th-13th century (with a supposed painting underneath as early as the 9th-11th century, is said to have been brought to Bologna by a Greek pilgrim who received it from the priests of Santa Sophia in Constantinople to be brought to the 'Monte della Guardia' as inscribed on the icon. The Greek went to Rome where he learned that there was a Monte della Guardia right outside the historic center of Bologna. He brought it there around 1160 where a chapel was built to house it. In 1723, the present Basilica was built over earlier churches on the site. Before that, devout families in Bologna started building a series of about 700 arches that were roofed over to make a 3.5-km procession route from the center of Bologna to the church perched 300 meters above on its forested hill. The unique procession route is still used today.

The list of Madonna icons purporting to have been painted by St. Luke is more than you might expect (a complete list with illustrations may be found on this site - www.wherewewalked.info/Luke/lukeicons.htm



The best-known of these icons - all objectively dating back to the Middle Ages - are found (from left in the panel): in Bologna, Rome (the icon venerated as 'Salus Popoli Romani' in Santa Maria Maggiore), Czestochowa (Poland's Black Madonna), Russia (the Theotokos of Vladimir), and India (icon said to have been carried by St. Thomas when he evangelized India).

St. Luke painting the Virgin was itself the subject of some important paintings from the Renaissance era. Because Luke far more about events in the life of Mary than any of the other evangelists, it was believed that he got most of his information from speaking to Mary herself.

Of course, any sacred image that has been venerated by the faithful for centuries is no less powerful and worthy of veneration just because it was not painted by St. Luke, as local tradition would have it.

And now, more about the earthquake:

Damage in central Italy earthquake
more extensive than previously thought
Translated from the 3/21-3/22/12 issue of



For a change, an appropriate photo from the OR.

ROME, May 21 - Efforts continue to help the victims of the magnitude 5.9 (earlier reported as 6.0) earthquake that struck north of Bologna before dawn Sunday, and left at least seven dead, dozens wounded, and some 4,000 rural families homeless.

Four of the dead were night shift workers in two factories that collapsed in the villages of Sant'Agostino and Bondeno.

Italy, which was already struck Saturday by the merciless bomb attack on a girls' school in Brindisi, woke up Sunday to news of the earthquake.

Meanwhile, reports from Emilia-Romagna [the region of which Bologna is the capital] paint an increasingly dire situation. New tremors, the settling down of shaken ground, and heavy rain marked all of Sunday and the first night for those left homeless.

Hundreds of structures - including churches, towers, belfries, houses, industrial plants, municipal buildings and rural homes - are in ruins.

President Napolitano expressed the grief of the nation, the solidarity of the Italian people with the affected communities and mourning with the victims' families.

I love Bologna! A beautiful place!
I'll be there for my yearly visit (business) at the end of June.
I've walked the rather long way up the stairs to St. Luca before.
I was very happy to hear that there was no damage to the old city centre, which is beautiful! My colleagues are fine as well.
Thank you God!!

Pope's luncheon for the cardinals:
'History is a struggle between
love of oneself and love of God'
Translated from the 5/21-5/22 issue of



Sorry for the poor photo quality. The pictures are from thumbnails on RV (left) and on OR (right).

History is a struggle between two loves: love of oneself and love of God - a struggle in which it is important to have friends around.

Pope Benedict XVI said this to the cardinals present in Rome who attended a luncheon offered Monday by the Holy Father to thank them for the good wishes they extended on his 85th birthday and the seventh anniversary of his Pontificate.

He began his after-luncheon remarks by saying:

---

At this time, my words can only be of gratitude. Gratitude to the Lord first of all for the years that he has conceded to me. Years with so many days of joy, splendid times, but also dark nights.

Looking back, however, one understands that even dark nights are necessary and good, and a reason for thanks a well.

Today, the words ecclesia militans ('Church militant') are a bit out of fashion, but in fact, we can understand even better that it is true, that it carries the truth.

We see how evil is trying to be dominant in the world and that it is necessary to join this struggle against evil. We see how evil is working in so many ways, often bloody, with various forms of violence, but also masquerading as good and as such, destroying the moral foundations of society.

---

The Pontiff then recalled St. Augustine for whom all of history is the struggle between two loves: love of oneself to the point of spurning God; and love of God to the point of giving oneself in martyrdom.

"We are in this struggle, and in this, it is very important to have friends. As for myself, I am surrounded by friends from the College of Cardinals - they are my friends, and I feel at home. I feel secure in this company of great friends who are with me and all of us together with the Lord".

[How many of those cardinals present could have heard those words without flinching? As holy as the Holy Father is, I cannot help thinking he was also being ironic in a typically German way to say those words the week a book came out in Italy that exposed his private letters to the world - never mind if it is not he that comes out looking bad in any of it.

Vatileaks is a criminal and most despicable act of betrayal that is probably looked on favorably, if not with cheers, by some of these very cardinals, whose minions in the Secretariat of State are most likely responsible for actually handing out those documents to a journalist - and then claiming shamelessly that they were doing it for the good of the Church and the Pope!

What did those documents reveal that was not already known or that could even bring one iota of benefit to the Church and to the Pope? All that this has done is to show the world that sinners in the Vatican can be as despicable as the most notorious criminals in the news but for now, they have the advantage - temp[orary, one hopes - of remaining anonymous.]

In conclusion, the Pope expressed his thanks for that friendship. First addressing Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, he said: Thanks to you, Eminence, for everything you have done in this respect, and will always do. Thank you to all of you for your communion in joy as well as in sorrow.

Let us go forward. The Lord has said to us, "Take courage! I have defeated the world", and we are on the Lord's team, the winning team.
thank you to everyone, and may the Lord Bless you all. Let us drink to that.

As someone who has never understood why the post-Vatican II Church thought it was OK to move around a holy day as significant as the Ascension, whose timing is described precisely in the New Testament, I wholeheartedly share the sentiments expressed here, and I am grateful for the historical link to the novena...

Ascension to Pentecost
was the original novena:
Celebrating the Ascension on a Sunday
violates the 9-day Biblical interval
and ignores the concept of sacred time
By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

Monday, 21 May 2012

I hope all readers had a happy feast of the Ascension. For most people in this country [the UK] it was Ascension Sunday that you celebrated; but for me and a small minority it was Ascension Thursday.

I have been away on retreat, staying in a strictly enclosed Benedictine monastery. On arrival I asked what was happening on the Thursday, and this is what I was told: “Here we celebrate the Ascension on Thursday, by special permission. Celebrating it on Sunday would mean that the novena between Ascension and Pentecost would make no sense.”

Funnily enough, this aspect of the great question had never occurred to me. Given that Ascension is on a Thursday and the feast of Pentecost the Sunday after next, that means that there is a nine-day gap between the two, and this nine-day gap, traditionally the time when the Church waits in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit, is the reason we keep novenas. This is the original ur-Novena.

It says in the Acts of the Apostles, 1:12-14:

---

Then [ after the Ascension] they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

---

Not only was this the first ever novena in the history of the Church, and the pattern of all future novenas, it was also the most distinguished one in Church history, consisting of the eleven apostles, the holy women, and the Mother of God Herself.

Despite this, I have the distinct feeling that novenas are going out of fashion. It is time they were revived, and the same goes for Octaves too, the custom of marking the eighth day after a feast and the period in between.

The Easter Octave is still with us, but the Octave of the Assumption, which ends with the feast of the Queenship of Mary, is one celebration that I have never witnessed. As a child, I do remember making a novena before the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

I suppose what we are witnessing here is the disappearance of the concept of sacred time; this is a huge pity, for a tradition once lost can only with great difficulty be restored. We can hardly complain about Christmas concerts and Christmas parties in the first weeks of December when we ourselves go along with this creeping secularisation.

I asked last year about the restoration of the Ascension to the Thursday, and there was some talk of putting it back in its original place. Is it worth asking again?

43 Catholic entities file a federal suit
to stop Obama administration from enforcing
anti-religious freedom health mandate
Plaintifss include Archdioceses of New York
and Washington, DC, and Notre Dame University


WASHINGTON, May 21 (CNS) -- Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans.

"Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others," said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, diocesan Catholic Charities, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis and Our Sunday Visitor.

"They simply ask that the government not impose its values and policies on plaintiffs, in direct violation of their religious beliefs," it added. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, whose archdiocese is among the plaintiffs (as is the ARchdiocese of Washington DC), said the lawsuits were "a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty" and "a great show of the diversity of the Church's ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate".

"We have tried negotiations with the administration and legislation with the Congress -- and we'll keep at it -- but there's still no fix," the cardinal said. "Time is running out and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now."

Cardinal Dolan also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is not a party to the lawsuits.

Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced last Aug. 1 by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health coverage beginning as soon as Aug. 1, 2012.



Strange bedfellows... Notre Dame U sides with Catholic orthodoxy on this issue! Now it says NO-BAMA!, as did those who protested in 2009 when Notre Dame honored an openly pro-abortion President Obama by asking him to be commencement speaker.


Notre Dame files lawsuit
to block to HHS mandate

May 21, 2012

The University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit Monday, May 21, challenging the constitutionality of a federal regulation that requires religious organizations to provide, pay for, and/or facilitate insurance coverage for services that violate the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, the lawsuit names as defendants Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and their respective departments.

The federal mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching. It also authorizes the government to determine which organizations are sufficiently “religious” to warrant an exemption from the requirement.

Notre Dame’s lawsuit charges that these components of the regulation are a violation of the religious liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other federal laws.

“This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives,” Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, wrote in a message to members of the campus community.

“If we concede that the government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions."

Notre Dame’s lawsuit was one of 12 filed Monday against the federal government by 43 plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the regulation.

P.S. Last week, Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, became the first Catholic institution to drop its health plan for students by reason of conscientious objection to a most controversial law whose constitutionality will be decided by the US Supreme Court in June, and 2) because the new health mandate would raise the cost of insuring each student to $3000 per student the first year, and possibly double the next year.

A day later, Ave Maria University in Florida also announced it was considering to do what Franciscan U did.

(The consequences of Obamacare whose details not even the lawmakers who voted for it ever bothered to read ("You have to pass it to know what's in it," Nancy Pelosi infamously said on the eve of the vote] are becoming increasingly horrendous daily, with the net effect that 1) it will cause most employers to drop their health insurance plans; 2) it is already depriving Medicare and Medicaid of funding in order to pay for its other programs; 3) doctors are near-unanimous in saying this will mean less doctors accepting insurance payment, less doctors to serve a potentially greater pool of insured, and overall poorer health care; and 4) worse of all, it has already driven the cost of health insurance considerably. It's the law of intended consequences - while proclaiming the best of intentions (paving the road to hell) - gone totally haywire.