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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 23/08/2021 11:16
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26/09/2009 05:46
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All earlier posts for 9/25/09 are on the preceding page, including an interview with Cardinal Castrillon on the Williamson case and the second Swedish TV program.





I find this reflection by Cardinal Vlk very moving - it seems so heartfelt, and while he is realistic, he is also full of hope when he describes what has been possible for the faithful in a society where 66% say they believe in God but in a God that has left the earth to mankind as its new masters.


In Prague, a small flock
will welcome a great Shepherd

by Cardinal Miloslav Vlk
Archbishop of Prague
Translated from
the 9/25/09 issue of




The visit of the Pope to a local Church is always a great event, which is extraordinary and unique for all the faithful,

Communion with the Pope, which is realized daily in the Eucharistic Prayer, when we remember him by name, becomes concrete and tangible during such a visit.

The faithful of our country were able to welcome Pope John Paul II three times following the collapse of Communism. Everyone lived them with great joy.

During the Communist era, the figure of the Pope was regarded with contempt by the regime. The Pope, called 'an enemy of the people', was calumniated, attacked, and humiliated by the Communists. The Vatican was considered a collaborator with capitalist imperialism.

Perhaps because of this, the Pope became for the people simply the 'father'. Our dioceses were without bishops because they were under house arrest or in prison. The Church, priests and faithful were persecuted.

With this painful background, it was almost taken for granted that the Pope came to be considered the 'father' and 'bishop' of everyone. It is easy to understand, therefore, what meaning John Paul II's visit had after the end of Communism in 1990. The difficult past had caused a very special love for the Pope to flower among the people. A love that has remained intact in many faithful to this day.

We have been waiting for a visit from Benedict XVI since 2005, the first time we invited him. He had to wait for the right opportunity. Last year, when he received the new Czech ambassador to the Holy See, Pavel Vosalik, the Pope expressed his desire to visit us. It was the Jubilee year for St. Wenceslas, marking the 1100th anniversary of his birth.

St. Wenceslas, martyr, occupies a special place in the spiritual history of our land. He is saint and martyr, and at the same time, the prince, the regent, the principal patron of the Church in our country.

St. Wenceslas's grandmother, St. Ludmilla, was baptized by St. Methodius himself in 800. It was she who transmitted the faith to her grandson, who educated him and raised him.

When Wenceslas governed Bohemia, Christianity was closely and indissolubly linked to the life of the nation. Historical sources describe Wenceslaus as a ruler who was very attentive to the needs of his fellowmen, especially the poor, the marginalized, those who were threatened. He gave himself fully, and served without thinking of his rank. And that is how he bore witness to Christianity before his pagan contemporaries.

His way of living was an inspiration for others. It has he, 'the eternal prince', who left his precious crown, symbol of his faith, to all the kings who followed him. But he was and remains he who brought Christian values into the roots our nation.

The sacred hymn to St. Wenceslas, which was the national hymn till the 19th century, says, "You are the heir of the Czech homeland". St. Wenceslas is the symbol of our nation and our Church which found their link in him.

I am very happy that the Pope will be in our diocese on the feast day of St. Wenceslas, on Sept 28, our national day.

I wish to recall, in this regard, that in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, on the right side of the transept, is the altar dedicated to St. Wenceslas, accompanied by St. Cyril and Methodius, apostles of Slavic faith. And that is how our nation, which is small but rich in saints, is linked to the Church of Rome.

We have shared the preparation for Pope Benedict's visit with all the nine dioceses, especially the two which the Pope is visiting. We all worked together in the preparation of the program for him.

The way we proposed for the spiritual preparation of the faithful was based on three pillars of the faith: faith, hope and love. Each of us bishops prepared a pastoral letter which was read at the Sunday Masses. And the central themes were likewise faith, hope and charity.
The priests spoke further of these themes in their daily homilies.

Each faithful was given a brochure entitled 'Let us prepare for the visit of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the Czech Republic - Invitation and challenge to preparing for the encounter'.

It contains prayers, thoughts and inspirations for individual reflection, as well as for families and for communitarian use. We also distributed pictures of the Holy Father to everyone, with a prayer so that the visit may be experienced in an atmosphere of grace, in the hope that it may bring abundant fruits for the Church and for society.

In the last few days, all the parishes have been praying a novena. During this novena, the faithful are also able to attend prayers at the Archbishop's Palace at noon in order to pray together for the Pope.

The communications media of the bishops' conference and those of the dioceses, our Catholic radio Proglas, and our Catholic television Noe have been oriented towards the visit and will make possible the participation even of those who are physically unable to come to the events.

Even the secular media, radio and newspapers alike, have reported information about the visit which is, without a doubt, the greatest event of the year in the Czech Republic. That is why there is such attention from all sides.

Of course, those who will present themselves to the Pope as our ecclesial community are just part of his really 'small flock' here. In the 2001 census. some 19 percent of the country's 10 million inhabitants declared themselves Catholic, while 5% belonged to other churches.

The remaining 66% are not atheists in the true sense of the word, as they like to say in this country. Rather they are 'deists' - it means they accept that a God exists, but according them, that God does not concern himself with men, that he has left the earth to man who is now its master. It is a mentality that is difficult to detach.

After the fall of Communism, the Church enjoyed full freedom. But there are many problems continuing from the totalitarian era. For example, the State has yet to resolve the injustices carried out by the Communist regime. Above all, it has not returned the ecclesiastical properties confiscated by the Communists. They continue to be in the hands of the State.

The Church depends economically on the State, which pays the salaries of priests, contributes to maintain diocesan offices, and to some degree, it even helps in the maintenance of church buildings. But all this funding comes from the assets of the Church which are in the hands of the State.

Several years ago, two commissions, one on each side, prepared an agreement between the Holy See and the Czech Republic. Both sides signed the agreement but the Parliament has never ratified it.

Thus, even today, we live in a state of provisoriness, almost of precariousness. But we have been accustomed to living this way. At least, the life of this 'small flock' goes on, which was not all possible under Communist domination.

The lay faithful could not actively participate in the life of the Church. But now, they are working ever more actively in the parishes. Many, for instance, take part in Caritas, which is 'the face that our Church has for society'. Every year, we welcome new catechumens, among them many young people and converted adults.

However, in large strata of civilian society, the Church is kept at a distance. Substantially, one finds among them a negative opinion of the Church. They consider as to be on the edges of society, and see us only as a private association which is practically insignificant.

And that is why the visit of the Pope has a great significance for us. More so now when his beautiful encyclical Caritas in veritate has been published in Czech and widely distributed.

We are a small nation, and from the ecclesiastical point of view, our numbers are insignificant. The Pope has already visited countries which are far more significant in terms of number.

But that is one more reason for us to make of his visit to our nation, to our small Church, an event of great value. We, his small flock, beside him, will be considered - as we ourselves shall feel -an integral part of the universal Church.

We wish to welcome the Pope like Christ himself who told his Apostles: "Whoever listens to you, listens to me" (Lk 10,16) and "Whoever welcomes him whom I send, welcomes me" OJn 13,20).

The Pope comes with the power of the Word of Christ who told Peter: "And you...confirm your brothers..." (Lk 22,32).




A unique event in the history
of the diocese of Brno

by Mons. Vojtech Cikrle
Bishop of Brno
Translated from
the 9/25/09 issue of




For the first time since it was founded in 1777, the Diocese of Brno will receive a visit from the Successor of Peter.

The preparation for the Sunday eucharistic liturgy which the Pope will celebrate at the airport of Brno-Turany, in the presence of a hundred thousand faithful, was the fruit of broad cooperation among various religious and civilian organizations. This signifies how much the entire community shares the anticipation.

The celebration will take place near the international airport, in a wide natural amphitheater where the papal altar has been set up. It is a large covered stage, dominated by a 12-metere high metal cross which will later be transferred to the Cathedral of Brno as a permanent reminder of Benedict XVI's visit.

Along the road through which the Pope will be arriving by car is an 11-meter anchor which represents the theological virtue of hope, the principal theme of the celebration.

Next to the altar will be a statue of Our Lady of Turany, probably the oldest religious statue in all of Moravia. She is known as the Lady of the Thorns, from the bramble bush where she was found.

In past centuries, this Madonna attracted a great number of pilgrims. The faithful of the parish of Turany will accompany the statue as on a pilgrimage at dawn Sunday before the Pontifical Mass to bring it to the altar.

Many young people will be arriving in Brno on Saturday and will spend the night in a tent city set up for that purpose. The overnight vigil will be spent in prayer and reflection, as well as a 'Concert of Hope'.

The spiritual preparation for the Pope's visit was undertaken by the Czech bishops' conference in close collaboration with the Diocese of Brno. In Catholic churches across the land, five pastoral letters from the bishops were read. Two booklets were printed with prayers and meditations and given away to the faithful.

In the past few days, the parishes are praying a novena leading to the visit. In our diocese, many have welcomed the initiative we call 'Every day, an SMS from the Pope' which was prepared by our diocesan center for catechesis. The messages, sent to whoever wanted to receive them, are chosen daily from the Pope's three encyclicals. The participation was great - 8,000 registered in the first few days, and everyday since then, thousands more. For us, it was a source of surprise and joy, which also confirms the atmosphere of expectation that reigns during these historic days of vigil for the city.

I have also called on all the faithful of the diocese to come to confession before the Pope's visit. We have had to mobilize more confessors and to have them ready on demand even outside the usual hours.

What do we expect from Benedict XVI's visit? We know he is not coming to call attention to himself. He comes, in the fullness of his ministry pf service, to renew in us our consciousness of Christ's love, to remind us of the values of his Kingdom.

Spiritual life does not consist only in participation in liturgy, but above all, in a 'dialog with God". That is why the fruits of the solemn day which has been given us to live with him, will depend not only on the spiritual gifts that we may obtain, but also in how we develop them in our daily life afterwards.

So we expect to be encouraged to a life forged by the Holy Spirit in each of us, whhose fruits, are, according to the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians, "love, joy, peace, patience, benevolence, goodness, fidelity, gentleness and self-control"

Since the principal theme of the celebration in Brno is the hope that is founded on Christ, we also hope for new impetus in the search for hope in the civilian society and among persons who cannot manage to find it in a reality which, like that in our country today, does not allow any glimmer to come through.

We also hope the Pope's visit may bring many persons, even if they no longer call themselves believers, to ask themselves important questions on the sense to give to their lives, and to find in Christ and with Christ those answers that they have so exhaustingly sought.

I am sure that thanks to our meeting with the Pope, we will find ourselves more encouraged never to abandon this search and to persevere in it.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/09/2009 08:09]
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THE POPE TO BRAZILIAN PRELATES:
SUPPORT CHRISTIAN FAMILIES






VATICAN CITY, 25 SEP 2009 (VIS) - The family, "founded on marriage as a conjugal alliance in which man and woman mutually give and receive", was the central theme of the Holy Father's meeting today with prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (Northeast 1-4), who have just completed their "ad limina" visit.

In his remarks, the Pope noted how, in their reports to him, the bishops had highlighted the fact that "families are beleaguered and under siege". Yet, he pointed out, "despite all negative influences", the people of north-eastern Brazil "remain open to the Gospel of life".

"The Church", Benedict XVI went on, "tirelessly teaches that the family has its foundation in marriage and in God's plan". Yet "the secularised world is dominated by profound uncertainty on this matter, especially since western societies legalised divorce. The only recognised foundation seems to be individual subjectivity, expressed in a desire to live together".

"In this situation the number of marriages is falling because no-one wants to commit themselves on such fragile and unpredictable grounds, the number of 'de facto' unions is increasing and divorces are on the rise. It is in this fragile scenario that the drama of so many children is played out - deprived of the support of their parents, victims of apprehension and abandonment - and social disorder grows".

"The Church cannot remain indifferent before the separation and divorce of couples", Pope Benedict stressed, "before the break-up of homes and the repercussions on children, who need extremely precise points of reference for their instruction and education: in other words determined and confident parents who participate in their upbringing".

"This is the principle that is being undermined and compromised by the practice of divorce, through the so-called extended and mobile family which increases the number of 'fathers' and 'mothers' and leads to a situation today in which the majority of those who feel orphaned are not children without parents but children with a surplus of parents. This situation, with its inevitable ... crisscross relationships cannot but generate internal conflict and confusion that contributes to giving children a distorted idea of the family".

"The firm conviction of the Church is that the true solution to the problems which married couples currently face and which weaken their union is a return to the solidity of the Christian family, a place of mutual trust, of reciprocal giving, of respect for freedom and of education to social life".

"With all the understanding the Church feels towards certain situations, couples in their second marriage are not like those in their first; theirs is an irregular and dangerous situation which must be resolved, in faithfulness to Christ, finding, with the help of the priest, a way possible to rehabilitate everyone involved", the Holy Father said.

He then invited the prelates to encourage priests and pastoral care centres "to accompany families so as to ensure they are not seduced by the relativist lifestyles promoted by cinema, television and other communications media". And the Pope concluded: "I trust in the witness of families who draw the strength to overcome trials from the Sacrament of Marriage. ... It is on the foundation of families such as these that the social fabric must be recreated".




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OUR PRAYERS AND BEST WISHES

ON YOUR 13TH TRIP ABROAD, YOUR HOLINESS.

GOD BLESS YOUR MISSION AND THE CZECH PEOPLE.




Saturday, Sept. 26
SAINTS COSMAS & DAMIAN (born in Arabia, died in Syria 287)
Healers and Martyrs
Twin brothers beheaded under Diocletian




OR today.

Illustration: St. Wenceslas
Benedict XVI's addr3ess to Brazilian bishops on ad limina visit:
'The solidity of the Christian family is an answer to relativistic seductions'
Other Page 1 stories: A editorial on the Holy Father's trip to the Czech Republic which starts today (and three stories in the inside pages);
the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; and the UN Security Council dreams of nuclear disarmament.



APOSTOLIC VISIT OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC

September 26-28, 2009




PROGRAM


Saturday, September 26

ROME

09.20 Departure for Prague from Ciampino airport.

PRAGUE

11.30 WELCOME CEREMONY at International Airport of Stará Ruzyně
- Address by the Holy Father.

12.30 VISIT TO TBE INFANT JESUS OF PRAGE
Church of St. Mary, Prague
- Greeting by the Holy Father

16.30 COURTESY VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Presidential Palace.

17.00 MEETING WITH CZECH POLITICAL AND CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES
AND THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
Presidential Palace.
- Address of the Holy Father.

18.00 CELEBRATION OF VESPERS WITH PRIESTS, RELIGIOUS, SEMINARIANS
AND LAY MOVEMENTS
Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert.
- Address by the Holy Father.


Sunday, September 27

PRAGUE

08.45 Departure from the International Airport of Prague for Brno.


BRNO

09.20 Arrival at Turany Airport in Brno.

10.00 HOLY MASS at Turany Airport.
- Homily by the Holy Father.

ANGELUS
- Words by the Holy Father.

12.45 Departure from Brno airport for Prague.


PRAGUE

13.20 Arrival at the international airport.

17.15 ECUMENICAL MEETING
Throne Room, Archbishop's Palace
- Address by the Holy Father

18.00 MEETING WITH THE ACADEMIC WORLD
Vladislaw Hall, Prague Castle
- Address by the Holy Father


Monday, September 28

STARA BOLESLAW

08.50 Visit to the Church of St. Wenceslas

09.45 HOLY MASS
for the Feast of St. Wenceslas, Patron of the Czech Republic
Melnik Esplanade
- Homily by the Holy Father
ENCOUNTER WITH CHECH YOUTH
Melnik Esplanade
- Address by the Holy Father


PRAGUE

13.15 Lunch with the bishops of the Czech Republic and the papal entourage
Archbishop's Palace, Prague.

16.45 Farewell, Apostolic Nunciature of Prague


17.15 DEPARTURE CEREMONY
Stará Ruzyně International Airport
- Address by the Holy Father

17.45 Departure for Rome


ROME

19.50 Arrival at Ciampino airport.


NB: Italy and the Czech Republic are in the same time zone.




NB: From here on, all news and photos on the Pope's visit to the Czech Republic will be posted directly in the CZECH REPUBLIC thread.


Concert for the Pope
on October 8 in Rome

Translated from

Sept. 26, 2009


In connection with a joint Vatican-Germany project called '1939-2009: Seventy years since the outbreak of World War II', a concert sponsored by a group called Giovani contro la Guerra (Youth against war) will be held at the Auditorium on Via di Conciliazione on Thursday, Oct. 8, to be attended by Pope Benedict XVI.

Performing will be the InterRegionales JugendsinfonieOrchester (IRO) with the special participation of Michelle Breedt and Klaus Maria Brandauer. The conductors are Jochem Jochem Hochstenbach and Wolfgang Gönnenwein.

They will play music by Mahler and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, with texts by Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Paul Celan, Berthold Brecht, as well as two poems written by children who were interned in the Theresienstadt concetration camp.

The concert was organized by the Pontifical Council for Promoting christian Unity, the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism, the Embassy of Germany to the Holy See, and the Europäisches KulturForum Mainau e.V.

Cardinal Kasper and the German ambassador will hold a news briefing on the '1939-2009' project at the Vatican press hall on Thursday, Oct. 1.



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DEPARTURE FROM ROME

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi led civilian officials and prelates who sent off the Holy Father to Prague this morning from Rome's Ciampino airport.

Here is a report translated
from the Italian service of




Before leaving for Prague this morning, the Holy Father was greeted at Ciampiono airport by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who had just returned to Italy from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Berlusconi arrived at Ciampino before the Pope did. He conversed briefly with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and others who were there to see off the Pope, including Deputy Secretary of State Mons. Fernando Filoni; Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Pope's Vicar in Rome; and the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Antonio Zanardi Landi. Also present was Gianni Letta, undersecretary in the Prime Minister's cabinet.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director, told Vatican Radio that when the Pope arrived, the Italian Prime Minister greeted him and they had a brief conversation. Berlusconi told him about the G20 sunmmit, among other things, as he walked with the Pope to the steps of the Alitalia plane.








Italian PM and Pope Benedict
meet for the first time
since Berlusconi's sex scandal




ROME, Sept. 26 (AP) — Premier Silvio Berlusconi had his first meeting Saturday with Pope Benedict XVI since the Italian leader was linked to a sex scandal that broke last spring.

An Italian businessman arrested in Bari in a cocaine probe has told investigators that he paid young women, including a prostitute, to attend parties and dinners at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa and Rome residence. The prostitute has said in interviews that she spent the night with the premier.

Berlusconi is not under investigation in the scandal.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi says the Pope spoke briefly with Berlusconi on Saturday at Rome's Ciampino Airport. Lombardi says the two talked for two or three minutes with aides nearby and he emphasized "this was not a private meeting."

Berlusconi went out of his way to catch the Pope before Benedict took off for the three-day visit to the Czech Republic. The Italian news agency ANSA said Berlusconi's plane, bringing him back from the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, was supposed to land in Milan but switched instead to Rome so Berlusconi could see the Pope off.

Lombardi says he assumes the two exchanged pleasantries. Further details of their conversation were unavailable.

An Italian businessman who was recently arrested in Bari in a cocaine probe has told investigators he paid young women, including a prostitute, to attend parties and dinners at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa and Rome residence. The prostitute has said in interviews she spent the night with the premier.

Berlusconi has never been accused of paying women — allegedly including a prostitute — to attend parties at his residence. He has also denied ever paying anyone for sex.

Berlusconi, who has said he is "no saint," has denied ever paying anyone for sex and is not under investigation in the scandal.

Italian radio said the airport meeting was viewed as a way for the government to show that Vatican-Italian relations remain strong despite the sex scandal.



NB: During the Pope's trip, all news and photos about it are posted directly in the CZECH REPUBLIC thread.


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Navarro Valls: Benedict XVI is one
of the smartest Popes in history







Rome, Italy, Sep 25, 2009 (CNA).- Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who was the Vatican's official spokesman for 22 years, said in an interview that the Church currently has one of the brightest popes in history, and that one of the most unique aspects of Benedict XVI is his confidence in the rationality of individuals.

Navarro-Valls, who worked for almost two years with Benedict XVI, was interviewed by the Spanish daily El Mundo about his work at the Vatican and some aspects of the two Popes he served under.

Speaking about Benedict XVI, he said he considers him "the Pope with the largest and most brilliant personal bibliography in all of Church history. His conceptual wealth is fascinating. And I think people also outside the Catholic circles are aware of it. "

The former Vatican spokesman does not believe that the Holy Father is a cold person. "I would say the opposite. The manner in which he is moved — which is more frequent than believed — is to not react passionately in response to things,” he said.

He also found that the most unique aspect of Benedict XVI's Pontificate is his "confidence in the rationality of people, in their ability to seek the truth," and the great obstacle he faces is, "as he himself said a few days before he was elected Pope, the dictatorship of relativism."

Regarding his time with Pope John Paul II, which he has chronicled in some 600 pages of notes, Navarro-Valls said, "A year and a half ago, an American publisher offered me a $1.5 million to write that book. The problem is partly that in recent years I have accepted a number of professional commitments that have absorbed my time. I would have to set aside all of that and spend one and a half years locked in my room in order to write that book. For me it would be a moral imperative to write it, because John Paul was much loved but not entirely known,” he said.

According to Navarro-Valls, the late Pope’s “character and person were not sufficiently known.” For example, he noted, John Paul II “had a very great sense of humor. Even when we had to deal with tragic problems never lost his positive view.”

Regarding the cause of beatification of John Paul II, Navarro-Valls said that "from a strictly technical standpoint, it could be all set before the end of the year. The two steps that remain, technically speaking, are the decree on his virtues and the declaration of a miracle, several of which have been attributed to him, with one that is particularly clear. After that, everything depends on the Holy Father."

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For Italians, the news of the day was their Prime Minister's brief face-to-face with the Pope at Ciampino yesterday morning. Andrea Tornielli gives some detail, but a plausible analysis is offered by La Stampa.


The Pope to Berlusconi:
'Mr. President, what a joy to see you!'

by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from




NB: In Italy, the formal title for the Prime Minister is President of the Council of Ministers, that is why the Pope addresses Berlusconi as Mr. President.


"Mr. President, what a joy to see you! And you have just come back from the United States?"

"Your Holiness, I speeded through the skies to get here on time."

Those were the greetings exchanged by Pope Benedict XVI and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi yesterday morning in front of the car that had brought the Pope to Ciampino airport from Castel Gandolfo for his flight to Prague.

This encounter had been prepared for with great secrecy by Berlusconi's cabinet undersecretary Gianni Letta, but anticipated by us in this newspaper yesterday....

The rest of Tornielli's story is background. But the following analysis from La Stampa gives a better context.


An end to the tension
between the Vatican and Berlusconi

by AMEDEO LA MATTINA
Translated from

Sept. 27, 2009


ROME - More than whatever they talked about, the news was the meeting in itself, and the man who worked to make it possible.

The brief meeting at Ciampino yesterday between Pope Benedict XVI and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the first meeting between the two after the summer media storm that led to the resignation of Dino Boffo as editor of the Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire.

It lasted only as long as it took for them to walk from the car that brought the Pope to the airport, to the foot of the steps leading up to the Alitalia Airbus waiting to take the Pope to Prague.

For the Premier, it had a very precise significance: healing an injury.

"It means an end to the tensions between the Church and the government," Berlusconi's aides said, not concealing their great satisfaction at thus sweeping aside all the chatter by those who picture Berlusconi as persona non grata to the Vatican because of his personal life.

It may not have been an audience at the Vatican as the 'Cavaliere' would have wanted (which now becomes probable, according to those who liaison with the Vatican), but it confirms what Letta said in Viterbo 20 days ago after meeting with the Pope informally that "The relationship is firm and the atmosphere is serene".

Berlusconi himself, even after the summer media ruckus, has always maintained that "There is no distance between my government and the Vatican - we carry on a daily dialog as usual".

Above all, between Letta and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who have maintained a dialog that has never been interrupted. Also, notwithstanding the words said last week by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco denouncing the 'direct attack on the Church' [represented by the personal attack on Boffo by the editor of a national enwspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother], as well as on political degradation and the need for 'sober politicians'.

Those hundred steps taken together in Ciampino by the Pope and the Premier confirm that the Vatican considers dialog with the Prime Minister essential. A sign that Berlusconi is not a problem but an opportunity.

Italy is the last outpost in Europe - following the ultra-secularization of that once most Catholic of all nations Spain - where the word of the Church still carries enormous weight.

It is not accidental that there is now a parliamentary inquiry on the appropriateness of commercializing the abortifacient pill RU-486 in Italy, nor that a law giving juridical rights to forms of union other than marriage between a man and a woman has made no progress in Italy so far.

Right now, the Italian government (Berlusconi's) favors scholastic freedom - which means recognizing the role and rights of Catholic schools - as well as cost-of-living bonuses for legitimate famlies. It is also holding firm against any attempts to legalize euthanasia.

The lower House of the Italian Parliament is now debating a proposed law on biological wills that has been approved in the Senate in a version which the Church hierarchy has praised.

Berlusconi briefly spoke to the Pope about the outcome of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. In conversation with Cardinal Bertone before the Pope arrived, Berlusconi assured him of his government's commitment to measures in support of the family and in defense of life.

In short, it appears the Vatican has its priorities, notwithstanding gossip about Berlusconi, while Palazzo Chigi [the PM's office] knows that Berlusconi's Italy represents to the West and to the industrial world a bastion for the Church.

Internally, Berlusconi has shown his rivals that he has regained any ground he may have lost because of the lurid headlines about his personal lifestyle. His friends note that he has notably scaled down what the public sees of his lifestyle.

But this is also an achievement for Letta. The Vatican appreciates this dove par excellence compared to the hawks who sow discord and incite Berlusconi to answer each media attack blow for blow.

Berlusconi has known to listen to both sides and act according to contingent circumstances. One thing is sure. He is the only head of government in the world whose right-hand man, Letta, happens to be a bona fide 'Gentleman of His Holiness'.


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Sunday, Sept. 27

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL (France, 1581-1660)
Priest, Founder of the Congregation of the Missi0n(C.M.)
Patron Saint of Charitable Societies




OR today.

At the start of his trip to the Czech Republic, Benedict XVI reiterates the need
to bring back ethics and responsibility to the economy:
'An alternative to an economy oriented to profit only'

Because of a 3 p.m. deadline, the issue only reports the Pope's activities yesterday morning, and includes the full texts of his arrival address and his remarks at the Shrine of the Infant Jesus. Other Page 1 stories: Iran discloses a second secret nuclear plant, and announce 300 new centrifuges capable of extracting high-grade weapons-suitable uranium; and G20 leaders encouraged by recovering markets despite continuing high unemployment figures.


THE POPE'S DAY



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The Pope and his Jewish friends:
So near, and yet so far


Benedict XVI will visit the synagogue of Rome soon.
But the more progress is made in dialogue, the more the two faiths see how far apart they are.
One proof: Kippur. For the Jews, it is the most important feast of the year; for Christians, it is identified with Jesus.
[So how is that far apart? Wasn't Jesus all about the Son of God become man to atone for the sins of mankind?]





ROME, September 25, 2009 – On the eve of the Jewish New Year, which was celebrated on September 19 this year, Benedict XVI sent the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, a telegram of good wishes and friendship.

In it, he confirmed that he will soon visit the synagogue of Rome, "animated by the profound desire to manifest my personal closeness and that of the whole Catholic Church" to the Jewish community.

The synagogue in Rome will be the third one visited by Benedict XVI, after the synagogue in Cologne in August of 2005 and the Park East synagogue in New York, in April of 2008. Before him, John Paul II had visited the synagogue in Rome on April 13, 1986.

During that same time, there was also a renewed gesture of friendship between the Jews and the Italian Catholic Church. On September 22, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the bishops' conference, met with the rabbis Di Segni and Giuseppe Laras, the latter of whom is president of the rabbinical assembly of Italy.

And together, they decided to resume the common celebration of the day of Jewish-Christian reflection on January 17, in which the Jews refused to participate last time because of the misunderstandings following the Williamson controversy. [No!! The Italian rabbinical assembly backed out in Nevember 2008 over the Pius XII issues - the Williamson case didn't become public until late January 2009, after the Jan. 17 Day of Judaism! How can Mr. Magister make such a careless factual error?]

The theme of the next common day of reflection will be the fourth commandment in the Jewish numbering: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." [Previous years had used the first three, respectively, and successive years will presumably cover the rest of the Decalogue.]

The New Year, Rosh Hashanah, opens the cycle of autumn Jewish feasts. It is followed by Yom Kippur and the feast of Sukkot.

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Expiation, is the most important feast of the entire Jewish liturgical year. This year it will fall on September 28, the third and last day of the visit that Benedict XVI will begin tomorrow in the Czech Republic.

In Rabbi Di Segni's view, the feast of Yom Kippur not only expresses the heart of the Jewish faith, it also reflects the "irreconcilable differences" between this and the Christian faith.

The symbols of Kippur, in fact – the high priest, the temple, the sacrifice, the scapegoat, the absolution of sins – have taken on an entirely new significance in Christianity.

Di Segni explained the Jewish meaning of the feast and its inability to be reconciled with the Christian faith in an article published last year on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano, on the occasion of the previous feast of Kippur.

But after this, L'Osservatore Romano also dedicated space to the other side of the question. Meaning how the New Testament revolutionizes the symbols of Kippur.

The key text in the New Testament is the Letter to the Hebrews. In it, the new and definitive Day of Expiation is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The author of the analysis published by L'Osservatore Romano is an African priest and biblical scholar, Christopher Robert Abeynaike, a Cistercian monk, who wrote on the same topic in the thesis for his doctorate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, in 2008.

His analysis is highly academic, but also of rare clarity. And it brings to light the essential connection that the Letter to the Hebrews establishes between the sacrifice of Christ, the last supper, and the Eucharistic liturgy.

The following are the two texts on the Jewish and Christian Day of Expiation, by Rabbi Di Segni and by Fr. Abeynaike. An example of dialogue that goes to the heart of the two faiths, and precisely because of this is not afraid of illuminating their differences.

[In the absence so far of a thread on Judaism in this Forum, I am leaving the two articles within this post - I haven't gotten around to it, though I can see it is increasingly as important as keeping track of the Muslims insofar as they impact on Christianity and the Church.]
__________



Kippur, the Day of Expiation
by Riccardo Di Segni
Chief Rabbi of Rome

In the Jewish liturgical calendar, the day of Expiation – Kippùr or Yom Kippùr or Yom ha Kippurìm – is the most important day of the year; in Aramaic, it is yomà, "the day" par excellence, which provides the title for the treatise in the Mishnà that presents the rules for the feast. "The day" falls on the 10th of Tishri, the first month of autumn.

This day is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, and the main source is chapter 16 of Leviticus. There is described a complex ceremonial order presided over by the High Priest, who must cast lots to choose between two goats; one of these, dedicated to the Lord, is offered in sacrifice; the other receives, through a symbolic gesture, the burden of the sins of the whole community, and is then sent off to die in the desert. This is the origin of the expression and concept of "scapegoat." The same biblical passage concludes by explaining that on that day, it is obligatory to mortify oneself and not work, because "on this day atonement is made for you to make you clean, so that you may be cleansed of all your sins before the Lord" (verse 30).

Since the time of its biblical institution, Kippùr has been the day of the year on which sins are remitted and the future destiny of every man is established, after the judgment to which he was subjected in the days before the New Year. Rabbinical tradition has gone to great lengths to explain what sins can be remitted entirely or in part, or suspended, depending on their gravity. The expiatory power of Kippùr is commensurate with the main obligation of man in the days preceding it: the teshuva. Literally, it is the "return," and it is the term indicating repentance, in the sense of returning to the right path. This return involves the realization of having done wrong, the intention of not committing the wrong again, and public, collective confession. All of this is necessarily based on faith in a merciful and compassionate God who reaches out to the one who has done wrong. In any case, the remission of sins refers to those committed within the relationship between man and God; sins among men are remitted only by man. For these reasons, on the eve of Kippùr it is obligatory for everyone to ask forgiveness from the persons he has offended.

As long as the Temple of Jerusalem stood, the ceremonies of the day of Kippùr represented the most complex and solemn liturgical complex. It was only on that day that the High Priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. Respect for the prescribed details was essential, it demanded prolonged and painstaking preparation, and careful execution watched anxiously by the entire community gathered in the Temple. After the destruction of the Temple, only a nostalgic memory of all this remained, which in the liturgy of Kippùr takes place through the reading, in the morning, of the passage from Leviticus, and in the early afternoon with a long poetic evocation of the ceremony.

On this day, the liturgy in the synagogue calls for the highest measure of commitment: long and solemn prayers on the first evening, and a practically uninterrupted ceremony from the following morning until nightfall. The special moments are the reading of supplications, the morning reading of Isaiah 57, which describes true fasting as the practice of justice, and the afternoon reading from the book of Jonah, which is a grandiose representation of the divine mercy. Public attendance at the synagogues reaches its highest point of the year, especially at the most solemn moments of opening and closing.

Personal involvement is essential in Kippùr, especially with a total fast without eating or drinking anything for about 25 hours – from which the sick are exempted – together with other forms of abstention (from bathing, using perfumed creams, wearing leather shoes, sexual relations). Then there is the family and social dimension, in the meals preceding and following the fast and in family gatherings at the Synagogue to receive the priestly blessing, imparted by the Kohanim, the descendents of Aaron.

In spite of the austerity, the solemnity, and the forms of physical affliction that are imposed, Kippùr is lived collectively with serenity and joy, in the knowledge that the divine mercy will not fail.

At the conclusion of these brief explanatory notes, considering the authoritative and certainly unusual venue in which they are being published ["L'Osservatore Romano"], it may be interesting to propose a reflection on the meaning that Kippùr had, and can have today, in Jewish-Christian encounter. This is because in the formation of the Christian liturgical calendar, Jewish origins had a decisive role as a model to be taken up and transformed with new meanings: the moving of the weekly day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, Easter, and Pentecost. In some cases, the Church has even commemorated the observance of typically Jewish precepts (the feast of the Purification on February 2; in former times, the Circumcision on January 1).

But the entire autumn cycle, of which Kippùr is the most important day, has been practically eliminated. This is probably due to the fact that the symbols of Kippùr concern some irreconcilable differences between the two worlds. The themes of the high priesthood, the Temple, the sacrifice, the scapegoat, the remission of sins, which in the Jewish tradition come together in Kippùr, have been refashioned by the Church, but outside of their original unity. To simplify the opposing positions: a Christian, on the basis of the principles of his faith, no longer needs Kippùr, just as a Jew who has Kippùr has no need of the salvation from sin proposed by the Christian faith.

(From "L'Osservatore Romano," October 8, 2008).


The essence of the Eucharistic celebration
according to the New Testament:
Last supper and sacrifice

by Christopher Robert Abeynaike


The Letter to the Hebrews contains what may be considered a genuine commentary on the actions and words of Christ at the last supper. This statement may be surprising at first, since the author of the Letter to the Hebrews does not seem to make explicit and direct reference to the last supper.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is the only writer in the New Testament who attributes to Christ the titles of "priest" – or, rather, "high priest" – and of "mediator of the New Covenant." The author, as a Jew steeped in Old Testament thought, in fact reinterprets the salvific action of Christ in the context of two important events or ceremonies from the past: the inauguration of the first covenant by Moses on Mount Sinai, and the ceremony of the purification of the people from their sins carried out each year by the Levitical high priest on the great Day of Expiation, Kippur.

Both of the ceremonies were based on animal sacrifice. In the first, Moses ratified God's covenant with the people of Israel by sprinkling the people with the blood from the sacrificial victims, and pronouncing the words "Behold the blood of the covenant" (Exodus 24:8; Hebrews 9:18-22).

In the second ceremony, on the other hand, the high priest, after sacrificing the victims, took their blood and entered alone into the sanctuary – the "Holy of Holies" – where he sprinkled the blood, thus carrying out the expiation of the sins of the people (Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:6-10). But according to what our author says, "it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4), and therefore these sacrifices remained ineffective, not capable of giving the desired access to God, blocked by the awareness of sin (Hebrews 9:6-10).

The author of the letter to the Hebrews, in any case, found in the Scriptures the foretelling of:

- a new priest – "The Lord has sworn and will not waver: 'Like Melchizedek you are a priest forever' (Psalm 110:4);

- a new sacrifice – "Sacrifice and offering you do not want; but ears open to obedience you gave me. Holocausts and sin-offerings you do not require; so I said, 'Here I am; your commands for me are written in the scroll. To do your will is my delight" (Psalm 40:7-9);

- a new covenant – "The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers. For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

He saw Christ as this new priest, who would offer a new sacrifice consisting of his own body, thus inaugurating a new covenant.

So then, summing up the substance of his teaching, he says: "But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be [. . .] he entered once for all into the sanctuary [of heaven], not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. [. . .] The blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, [will] cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God. For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant" (Hebrews 9:11-15).

At this point we must pose a question. Where in the life of Christ could our author have seen him in the role of high priest, in the act of offering a sacrifice for the expiation of sins, and, at the same time, in the role of mediator of the new covenant in the act of inaugurating this covenant? In all probability, at the Last Supper, where Christ had pronounced the words: "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28).

In fact, in saying the words "This is my blood of the covenant," Christ manifested himself as the mediator of a covenant founded on his own blood, and therefore counterposed to the one inaugurated by Moses with the words "Behold the blood of the covenant" (Exodus 24:8).

In adding the words "shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins," he was implying that the covenant that he was inaugurating was precisely the New Covenant proclaimed by Jeremiah, in which the remission of sins would be assured: "For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more" (31:34).

Moreover, the words: "my blood shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins" – where the idea of a sacrifice for the expiation of the sins of the people is extremely clear – could not have helped but remind our author of the sacrifice offered by the Levitical high priest on the great Day of Expiation.

With the death of Jesus after this and his ascension into the invisibility of heaven – "He entered once for all into the sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:12) – the author would have been struck by the parallel with the action of the Levitical high priest, who after immolating the victims entered into the invisibility of the earthly sanctuary in order to carry out the expiation of sins by sprinkling the sacrificial blood.

We can therefore affirm that the last supper was precisely the moment in Christ's life in which the author of the Letter to the Hebrews could have recognized him as the new high priest, and, at the same time, as mediator of the New Covenant.

The words of Jesus over the chalice alone would have been sufficient for this. While the words over the bread – "This is my body" – must have reminded the author of the prophecy of the Psalms, of a new kind of sacrifice in contrast with the sacrifices of the Old Covenant: "you did not want sacrifice or offering, but a body you have prepared for me. Behold, I come to do your will, O God" (Psalm 40:7-9).

The author of the letter, in fact, comments in this regard: "By this 'will', we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).

Finally, the bread and wine of the last supper, the same gifts offered by Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), would only have confirmed for our author that the new priest, by manifesting himself in the offering of his body at supper, was precisely – in fulfillment of the prophecy of Psalm 110:4 – the priest "like Melchizedek."

In conclusion, we can say that when the author of the Letter to the Hebrews – in the heart of his epistle, in verses 11-15 of chapter 9 – speaks of the manifestation of Christ as the new high priest, through the offering of himself to God for the purification of the sins of the people, and, at the same time, as mediator of the New Covenant, he is referring to the words and actions of Jesus at the last supper.

The words immediately following confirm this: "For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant (diathéke): since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Now where there is a will (diathéke), the death of the testator must be established. For a will (diathéke) takes effect only at death; it has no force while the testator is alive. Thus not even the first covenant (diathéke) was inaugurated without blood" (Hebrews 9:15-18).

In these verses, the author is playing on the double meaning of the Greek word "diathéke," used in the version of the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word "berith," covenant, while in contemporary Greek it meant a will.

He is, in fact, using an example taken from everyday life. Just as a "diathéke," a will, becomes valid only at the death of the testator, so also the "diathéke," the covenant proclaimed by Jesus, had to be followed by his death for its ratification, just as the first covenant was dedicated with the sprinkling of the blood of the victims.

But beyond having in common the same Greek word "diathéke," a covenant and a will have something else in common: the concept of an inheritance.

Under the first covenant, the inheritance coincided with the possession of the land of Canaan. But under the New Covenant, the inheritance becomes the possession of the kingdom of God. Therefore, we find Christ who at the last supper manifests himself not only in the roles of priest and mediator of a New Covenant, but also in the role of testator who gives his apostles the promise of possessing the kingdom of God: "I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father" (Matthew 26:29; Luke 22:29-30).

Therefore, our author had grounds for saying: "For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant (diathéke): since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15).

As the result of our study, we can affirm that the last supper was:

- a sacrifice in which Christ "offered himself to God" (Hebrews 9:14) for the remission of sins;

- the promulgation of the New Covenant by Christ;

- the disposition of a will, in which Jesus left in "eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15) to his disciples the kingdom of his Father (Matthew 26:29; Luke 22:29-30).

For all three reasons, his death on the cross inevitably had to follow. All of the words and actions of Christ at the last supper were, in fact, predicated on their fulfillment in his death, without which they would have had no meaning or value.

But the death of Jesus did not have to be the end of his work of redemption. Just as, in fact, the culminating moment of the ceremony on the day of expiation was the entry of the Levitical high priest with the sacrificial blood into the earthly sanctuary in order to bring to fulfillment the expiation of sins, so also Christ in his ascension entered into the heavenly sanctuary "that he might now appear before God on our behalf." (Hebrews 9:24), "thus obtaining eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12). Precisely because Christ "through the eternal spirit offered himself" (Hebrews 9:14), his sacrifice has an eternal efficacy, and He remains "high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 6:20).

We therefore have, we might say, a "Day of Expiation" that lasts forever, to which the author refers when he says: "The blood of Christ [will] cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God" (Hebrews 9:14). And again: "Therefore, brothers, since through the blood of Jesus we have confidence of entrance into the [heavenly] sanctuary, and since we have 'a great priest over the house of God', let us approach . . ." (Hebrews 10:19-22).

On another occasion, the author speaks of Christians as a people who have approached "Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and God the judge of all, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood" (Hebrews 12:22-24). The "blood of Jesus" is for our author an overarching symbol indicating the fruits of the redemption, meaning those goods to which Christians have access, an access that from the context of these passages can be seen as referring to the Eucharistic celebration.

The enduring redemptive work of Christ, which the author of the letter to the Hebrews expresses with the symbol of the continual sprinkling with his blood, can be found expressed in another way in the liturgical prayer in which it is stated that every time the Mass is celebrated, "the work of our redemption is carried out" (cf. "Presbyterorum Ordinis" 13). In the passages referred to above, we can also note that, during the Eucharistic celebration, Christians in a certain way seem to transcend the boundaries of this world and approach, by means of Christ, God and the heavenly world.

Finally, the Eucharist is also a sacrificial banquet, to which our author refers in saying: "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat" (Hebrews 13:10). St. Paul clarifies the meaning of these words when, in the first Letter to the Corinthians (10:14-22), he compares the Eucharist to both the sacrificial meals in the Old Testament (Leviticus 7), and to those of the pagans, affirming that eating sacrificial flesh necessarily implies entering into communion (koinonía) with the divinity to which the sacrifice has been offered. He therefore prohibits Christians from participating in the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharistic table, and, at the same time, continuing to participate in the sacrificial meals of the pagans.

John, in his Gospel, further develops the Pauline concept of the communion with the body and blood of Christ, saying, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me" (6:56-57). By eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ, the Christian is assumed into the communion of life of the Father and the Son, right now, on this earth. It seems that this is the same concept that the author of the letter to the Hebrews is trying to express when he says – in the context of the Eucharistic celebration, using the language of the Old Testament – that Christians approach, through Christ, the heavenly sanctuary and the presence of God.

This study on the teaching of the New Testament concerning the Eucharistic celebration shows us how great and profound is the mystery that it contains. The Eastern fathers rightly called it "sacrificium tremendum."

It is clear that the manner in which the Eucharist is celebrated – the "ars celebrandi" – must always be in harmony with its true substance, and must fully reflect this to the participants. This is, in fact, the main preoccupation of Benedict XVI, and must also be the preoccupation of all the pastors of the Church, bishops and priests, in a particular way during the Year for Priests now in progress, since, as Vatican Council II reminds us, "Priests exercise their sacred function especially in the Eucharistic worship" (Lumen Gentium 28).

(From "L'Osservatore Romano," July 24, 2009)?

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Monday, Sept. 28

ST. WENCESLAS (b Prague 907, d Stara Boleslaw 936)
Duke-King of Bohemia, Martyr
Patron saint of the Czech Republic




No OR today.



THE POPE'S DAY




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PAPINO IS SAFELY HOME!

SIR reports that the plane taking him and his party from Prague landed at Ciampino airport in Rome at 19:36, and that after brief pleasantries with the civilian and religious authorities who welcomed him, he proceeded to Castel Gandolfo by car at 19:45.






IT WAS A GREAT #13, YOUR HOLINESS!

CONGRATULATIONS FOR A BEAUTIFUL AND SUCCESSFUL TRIP.

DEO GRATIAS! LAUDETUR JESUS CHRISTUS!

MORE POWER TO YOU... AND AD MULTOS ANNOS!!!!



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Thanks to Lella and her blog

for this item, which is notable for the quotation from Cardinal Cafarra at the end of the article. I have not succeeded in finding the original source for this quotation. Avanti is the daily newspaper set up in 1896 as the voice of the Italian Socialist Party. It is still associated with the Party but is now autonomous of it and speaks independently.


Ratzinger, the teacher Pope
by FRANCESCO ANTONIO GRANA
Translated from

Sept. 28, 2009


Benedict XVI has his spade well in hand. As a humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, he knows well that before one can sow the seeds and make them bear fruit, the land must first be tilled. And there are patches, within and outside the Church, whose hardness does not permit prompt sowing.

Nonetheless, Papa Ratzinger is not giving up. With that gentleness that is characteristic of him, he is working incessantly and meticulously so that the terrain, once it is ready for sowing, will be fruitful.

In the fifth year of his Pontificate, Benedict XBI continues to work with alacrity for ecumenical and inter-religious dialog, which is among his priorities.

The historical announcement of a special assembly on the Midddle East of the Bishops' Synod On Oct. 10-24 next year, came after four years of listening and dialog with all the religious leaders of the world.

Above all, it follows his intense journey to the land of Jesus where he called again and again for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, urging that the two-state soultion become reality instead of remaining a dream.

The theme that the Pope has chosen for the Synodal assembly is significant: "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and testimony", with the Biblical epigram, "Many who became believers were of one heart".

He certainly will not fail to invite contributions from outside the Catholic world, as he did with the Synodal assembly on the Word of God last year, in which the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople gave an unprecedented intervention. [As did the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Israel. And Benedict XVI has already invited at least one Muslim, the African director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, to address next year's assembly.]

One may almost be certain that the Pope will visit Vietnam next year - and it now seems possible that Beijing and Moscow cannot be that remote.

The letter that Benedict XVI sent in 1977 to the Catholics in China and the beginning, though still minimal, of dialog with the Beijing government, on the one hand, and increasingly profitable relations with the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate and its new leader, Kirill, on the other hand, are seeming to start bearing fruit, making the idea of a papal trip to Beijing and Moscow less utopic.

Equally important - especially in the light of the controversy over the lifting of the Lefebvrian bishops' excommunication because of Bishop Williamson's foolish statements on the Shoah - is the Pope's coming visit to the Synagogue of Rome which will take place this autumn.

"Benedict XVI," wrote Cardinal Cafarra of Bologna recently, "is the Pope of faith and liturgy. He is a teacher Pope. If the Church canonizes him eventually, he deserves the title of Doctor of the Church, for simply teaching us the faith of the Church".

That faith which needs witnesses and peacemakers and is capable of nothing without charity.


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Tuesday, Sept. 29

The Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael
By tradition, Michael is the protector Archangel,
Gabriel the messenger Archangel, and Raphael the healing Archangel.




OR for 9/28/-9/29:

The Pope leaves the Czech Republic after a new appeal for believers
to open up to dualog with other cultures and religions
'Christianity can offer much to Europe'
The issue contains the bulk of the OR's coverage of the Czech trip - from the first-day courtesy visit to the Czech
President to the Mass at Stara Boleslaw yesterday, therefore lacking only the departure story, with a front-page
editorial that sums up the visit. Other Page 1 stories: Angela Merkel triumphs in the German elections for a second
term that will be a center-right coalition unlike her first-term center-left coalition; Manila, capital of the Philippines,
suffers its worst flooding in 40 years.



No events scheduled for the Holy Father today.



The Vatican released the Holy Father's video-message to the current International Retreat for Priests
in Ars, France, Sept. 27-Octobeer 3. Address in French.


The Vatican has also anounced the theme chosen for World Communications Day in 2010:
"The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world:
new media at the service of the Word"


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With open arms
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from
the 9/28-9/29/09 issue of




The visit of the Successor of Peter to the lands of Bohemia and Moravia was a trip made with open arms - once more, it showed Benedict XVI's gentlest face, his authentic face.

In the Czech Republic, one of the European nations that is most highly secularized, the Pope was received with affection and cordiality, not only by the Catholic minority, which was obvious on many occasions, but also by the repeated presence of President Vaclav Klaus.

In this context, the papal trip was made more signficant in that it was meant to coincide with teh anniversary of former Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the peaceful developments 10 years ago that put an end to Communist oppression in most of central and eastern Euorpe.

The discourses addressed to the Czech people by Benedict XVI, principally centered on the concept of truth - a word which is synonymous with the name of God to Christians - were also words to all nations which had suffered under atheistic totalitarianism.

To the Pope's open arms, many responded - believers and agnostics alike - with joy and visible commotion, and in any case, always with exemplary respect, which was noted especially in teh ceremonies where music could express the profound sentiments of the Czech people.

Like the Te Deum of Antonin Dvorak during the welcome by the civilian authorities and diplomatic corps in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle. Or the songs of the choir of centuries-old Charles University at the Pope's meeting with the academic world.

On that occasion, in which some three-fourths of the professors and students present are self-declared agnostics or atheists, the consensus and warmth shown to Benedict XVI - who openly praised the role of intellectuals and students in the eventual liberation from Communism - brought to mind the intolerance in Italy which forced teh Pope to cancel a visit to La Sapienza University. Instead, it showed what an encounter between believers and non-believers should be - one carried out in reciprocal respect and in the search for the common good and for truth.

The Pope recurrently insisted on truth and the urgency that Catholics given testimony and voice to the truth in the public debate going on in all sectors of society.

In what used to be Czechoslovakia, Catholics joined seculars to defeat a dictatorship based on lies, in the words of Vaclav Havel - the intellectual who became a symbol of opposition to Communism and became the first President of the Czech Republic. Benedict XVI cited Havel often, first on the flight to Prague, and later met with him privately on the first day of the visit.

Started with a touching prayer to the Infant Jesus of Prague in his shrine, and ending at the site of St. Wenceslas's martyrdom on his liturgical feastday, the papal visit will be remembered, not only in the Czech REpublic, for liturgical celebrations distinguished by impressive dignity adn contemplativeness.

Just think of the long post-Communion silence amon gthe 150,000 faithful who attended the Mass in Brno - not just Czechs, but Slovaks, Slovenes and Poles.

The liturgies made it clear that Christian faith is not an idelogy but an encounter with a person, Jesus. Whom so many saints and martyrs from earliest times to the recent past bore witness to, in the lands of Bohemia and Moravia.

As today, the Catholic community of the Czech Repbublic, continues to bear witness to, in the face of materialism and relativism - and do so with open arms, as open as those of the Pope.



O.R. photos to illustrate
Czech visit reportage

From the 9/28-9/29/09 issue of





Courtesy visit to President Klaus and
address to Czech leaders and the diplomatic corps.
Prague Castle, 9/26/09




Veneration of relics and Vespers. St. Vitus Cathedral, 9/26/09





Mass at Brno-Turany airfield, 9/27/09.




Ecumenical meeting, Archbishop's Palace, Prague, 9/27/09.





Meeting with the Czech academic world. Vladislav Hall, Prague Castle, 9/27/09.





Stara Boleslaw: Visit to St. Wenceslas basilica, Mass and encounter with youth, 9/28/09.




The 9/30/09 issue of L'Osservatore Romano contains the concluding event of the visit to the Czech Republic - the departure ceremony, with the text of the Holy Father's remarks. Why it does not also carry the text of President Klaus's remarks - it was fairly short, and all the more impressive that it said so much in its brevity - is an editorial misjudgment that I find it hard to rationalize in any way.

But Mr. Vian offers another editorial. And anyone who read President Klaus's remarks knows that no editorial could be more eloquent than it was - not in terms of 'literary' value but for what it said concretely.

Moreover, Mr. Vian's editorial is entitled 'Il Papa Kafka e le lingue' (Pope Kafka and languages) which makes no sense - what is a 'Pope Kafka'? - and one must conclude a comma was inadvertently left out, i.e., "Il Papa, Kafka e le lingue" (The Pope, Kafka, and languages), which would make sense.

But, as you can see below, it also appears without a comma in the OR's online summary. So maybe I'm just dense - and nitpicking - but to agree with one statement Kafka made does not necessarily make Benedict XVI a 'Pope Kafka', or even a Kafkaesque Pope! (Despite touches of black humor in his best-known works, Kafka's recurrent theme was the absurdity and ultimate hopelessness of modern life.)



Translated from
the 9/30/09 issue of



A visit that was marked not only by evident success but which will have lasting effects. Thus did the Czech President Vaclav Klaus summarize the trip of Benedict XVI to his country.

An important acknowledgment from a non-Catholic political representative who showed respect and attention to the Pope's words in truly admirable fashion - representative in some way of the widespread attitude in the Czech Republic, thanks also to ample media coverage despite an insensitivity to the true significance of the Pope's itinerary.

Indeed, one must not forget that the trip of the Successor of Peter - after the three made to the same country by John Paul II - was intended to anticipate the twentieth anniversary of the end of European Communism which, in what was then Czechoslovakia, was called the Velvet Revolution.

It was an event that, after the dark decades of atheistic totalitarian regimes, involved large parts of central and eastern Europe and changed the face of the Continent.

But that peaceful change which put an end to an era of oppression - a change that was the outcome of common resistance by seculars and Catholics - was followed by a new situation in which atheistic materialism gave way to practical atheism.

And if the past dictatorship was based on lies - using Vaclav Havel's words cited by Benedict XVI - today's freedom must be founded on truth, in the search for which everyone is called on, without distinction, having the common good as the objective.

That is why the Pope's discourses repeatedly insisted on truth - and that is why his impassioned and committed words found an audience, even in the self-declared agnostic environment such as that of the Czech academic world, where the intervention of the "former professor, attentive to the right of academic freedom and to the responsibility for the authentic use of reason" was received with lengthy applause which was stunning.

Benedict XVI honored the history of the nation and its martyrs - from Duke Wenceslas to the victims of Communism - and exalted the cultural traditions of the Bohemian and Moravian lands, listening to Dvorak's Te Deum and choosing a beautiful sentence from Kafka in saying farewell to the Czech Republic: "Whoever keeps the capacity to see beauty will never grow old".

Language was used wisely in the discourses: from the brief statements made in Czech by the Pope (who delivered his texts mostly in English and Italian), to the German chosen by the student representative who welcomed him in Vladislaw Hall, and the Italian used by the Czech President at the airport.

The choices expressed the desire for encounter and dialog that are significant today for the European continent - whose Christian roots, Eastern and Western, call on it to a demanding responsibility in the international context.


Mr. Vian is no doubt well-meaning but he gives us prose that hardly sets anything afire!... And to make up in a littlw way for his failure to share President Klaus's truly remarkable remarks with OR readers, let me re-post it on this thread.



PRESIDENT KLAUS'S REMARKS
Departure Ceremony for Pope Benedict XVI
Prague International Airport
Sept. 28, 2009


Your Holiness,

Allow me first of all to thank you in the name of our whole nation for your memorable visit.

Your stay in our country; the message you left us in such a convincing manner; your invitation to mutual understanding, tolerance, and peace, and to the importance of reason, faith and ethical principles, have been conveyed very clearly and we understand. We will remember these and keep them in mind.

You have brought us - to use your words - a new hope! Your great faith, your courage in expressing positions that are not always politically correct nor shared by everyone, your commitment in favor of respect for idas and the fundamental principles of our civilization and of Christianity have given us all an example as well as encouragement.

Tens of thousands of Czech citizens as well as people from neigboring countries had the extraordinary opportunity to see you in person, and millions followed your visit hour after hour during these three days on their television screens.

I can say - convinced that this is not only my personal opinion - that your visit has been a success and will have a lasting effect.

The relationship between the Czech Republic and Vatican City state have been reinforced - and I am happy to say that these have been very good. I am convinced they will continue to be so in the future.



The only picture on the Pope's last day in the Czech Republic in the 9/30/09 issue of OR (it does not enlarge well):


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The Pope addresses atheist Europe
but Italian media only saw
a Berlusconi angle


Sept. 29, 2009


As has now become customary for him, even the thirteenth international trip of Benedict XVI - just concluded to the Czech Republic - was very intense.

In one of the world's most atheist nations, the Pope dealt with certain fundamental themes: freedom "which presupposes the search for truth", the dangers of 'inhuman and destructive cynicism' which would reject the greatnesss of such a search, the invitation to 'broaden the concept of reason" to open it to faith, because to exclude the transcendent perspective is to to "betray the grand formative tradition' which led to the birth of teh university in Europe.

Also, the lack of basis for those attempts "meant to marginalize the influence of Christianity in public life" when "the history of Christianity" is the "history of Europe itself".

"Radical secularization" which, in cutting itself off from truth, makes society "more fragile and less inclusive", finds it hard to "recognize what is true, noble and good".

The need for the Gospel - "which is not an ideology" but "transcends teh vicissitudes of this world and throws new light on the dignity of teh human being in every era" - in order to avoid "reason that is deaf to the divine", "incapable of entering that dialog among cultures of which our world has need".

What a pity that Italian media were rather obsessed with the Pope's encounter with Berlusconi [who saw off the Pontiff for Prague] and later, with a contrived [and flatly wrong] claim that the Pope had referred to politicians* in his homily at Stara Boleslaw yesterday.

[It started with the Italian news agencies claiming that the Pope had said "Today there is a need for politicians with credibility, who are ready to spread in every area of society the Christian principles and ideals by which their action is inspired" - when the Pope never once used the word politicians; the word he used in this sentence was 'believers'.

Yet the Italian media - mostly liberal and therefore anti-Berlusconi who is fairly conservative - chose to read the statement as an indirect reference to Berlusconi. Some of them corrected themselves after Fr. Lombardi immediately protested the misuse of the Pope's words, but some like Italian state TV's flagship channel RAI-1 have apparently persisted in the misquotation.

The blatant intellectual dishonesty of ideologues is just un believably stunning!]


Thus they lost sight of Papa Ratzinger urging an opening to faith to a nation that still ignored the painful signs brought on by materialistic constriction. Let the rest of Europe listen!


I am surprised Mr. Mastroianni is surprised the Italian media, by and large, chose to make Berlusconi and his standing at the Vatican as their news focus rather than Benedict XVI's trip itself.

The mostly liberal Italian media, discombobulated that Berlusconi had his few minutes of a cordial and informal tete-a-tete with the Pope, thus ruining their scenario of a serious rift post-Boffo, literally seized on a statement in the Pope's homily on Monday, and by simply and dishonestly changing one word - 'believers' to 'politicians' - made it appear that the Pope was sending an indirect message of chastisement against Berlusconi notwithstanding that airport interlude!

As usual, they were projecting their own secular and lay [as opposed to priestly] tendencies to a priest, the Pope himself, about whose holiness no one has a doubt. Not only are they making out a man of God to be as underhanded as they are and would be in a similar situation - they also insult the Pope by thinking he could be petty enough to use a homily in a foreign land, to Europe's most atheist nation, in order to castigate Berlusconi!

Besides, the Pope's discourses in the Czech Republic contained none of the buzzwords that get the media salivating - no reference whatsoever to hot-button social issues, only to the search for truth and the use of reason that is broad enough to accommodate the transcendent. Since when has the media considered 'truth' and 'reason' as newsworthy?

And how many of them saw the irony in the fact that the academics of Europe's most secular nation gathered in full medieval panoply and regalia in Bohemia's most venerable storied hall to listen to the head of the Catholic Church speak to them about truth and reason? When Rome's largest university, founded by a Pope, had allowed a tiny minority of dissident professors to successfully contest Benedict XVI's very presence on their campus last year?


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Words on Benedict XVI from a man who is as much a Benaddict in his own way as we are:


'The most intelligent mind in the world
sits on the Chair of Peter'

by James Schall, S.J.
From an interview with





I think the present Pope, as well as the previous one, were marvels of the Catholic mind, a mind that comes to grips with all things, yet with the light of grace and revelation. ..

What is peculiar to Catholicism, I have always thought, is its refusal to leave anything out. In my short book, The Regensburg Lecture, I was constantly astonished at the enormous range of the mind of the present Holy Father. There is simply no mind in any university or public office that can match his. He is a humble man, in fact.

It is embarrassing to the world, and often to Catholic "intellectuals," to find that its most intelligent mind is on the Chair of Peter. I have always considered this papal intellectual profundity to be God's little joke to the modern mind.

The modern mind has built up for itself theories and ideologies whereby it prevents itself from seeing the truth that a man like Benedict XVI spells out for it in lucid and rigorously argued terms – terms fully aware and familiar with all of modern philosophy itself.

But Benedict XVI is a messenger of the Logos.

We do not get around his mind. We only shy away from considering it.



The full interview with Fr. Schall has been posted in the NOTABLES thread.
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VIDEO MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER
TO THE INTERNATIONAL RETREAT FOR PRIESTS
Ars, France, Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2009

Translated from


This message was delivered in French.





Dear brothers in the priesthood,

You can easily imagine that I would have been extremely happy to be with you for this international retreat for priests on the theme, "The joy of the priest: Consecrated for the salvation of the world".

You are participating in great numbers and you will benefit from the teachings of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn [retreat master]. I greet him cordially, along with the other preachers, and the Bishop of Belley-Ars, Mons. Guy-Marie Bagnard.

I must content myself with addressing you through this video message, but please believe that through these words, I am speaking to each of you in the most personal manner that I can, because as St. Paul wrote, "I hold you in my heart, you who are all partners with me in grace" (Phil 1,7).

Saint Jean-Marie Vianney underscored the indispensable role of the priest when he said: "A good shepherd, a pastor after the heart of God - that is the greatest treasure that the good God can give a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy" (Le curé d’Ars, Pensées (Thoughts), presented by Abbé Bernard Nodet, Desclée de Brouwer, Foi Vivante, 2000, p. 101).

In this Year for Priests, we are all called to explore and rediscover the greatness of the Sacrament which has configured us forever to
Christ the Supreme Priest, and which has 'sanctified us all in the truth" (Jn 17, 19).

Chosen from among men, the priest remains one of them and is called on to serve them by giving them the life of God. It is he "who continues the work of redemption on earth" (Nodet, p. 98).

Our priestly vocation is a treasure which we carry in vessels of clay (Cf. 2 Co 4,7). St. Paul has felicitously expressed the infinite distance that exists between our vocation and the poverty of the responses which we can give to God. From this point of view, there is a secret link between the Pauline Year and the Year for Priests.

We keep in our ears and in the intimacy of our heart the moving and confident exclamation of the Apostle who said: "For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Col 12,10).

Awareness of this weakness opens us to the intimacy of God who gives us strength and joy. The more the priest perseveres in friendship with God, the more he carries on the work of the Redeemer on earth (Cf. Nodet, p.98). The priest is not for himself, he is for everyone (Cf. Nodet, p. 100).

And there lies one of the major challenges of our time. The priest, certainly a man of the Divine Word and of the holy, should more than ever be today a man of joy and hope.

To men who can no longer conceive that God is pure Love, he always affirms that life is worth living, and that Christ gives life all its meaning because he loves mankind, all men.

The religion of the Cure d'Ars was a religion of happiness, not a morbid quest for mortification, as some may believe: "Our happiness is too great: No, we will never understand it" (Nodet, p. 110).

Likewise, he wrote: When we are on the road and we see a belltower, this view should make our hearts beat the way the sight of the roof which houses his beloved makes the husband's heart beat" (Ibid.).

I wish to greet with very special affection those among you who have pastoral responsibility for several parishes and who give themselves without counting the cost in order to maintain the sacramental life in their different communities. The Church's acknowledgment to all of you is immense.

Do not lose courage but continue to pray and to ask others to pray that many young men may respond to the call of Christ call who does not cease to want the number of his apostles to grow in order to harvest his fields.

Dear priests, think of the extreme diversity of the ministries that you exercise in the service of the Church. Think of the great number of Masses that you have celebrated and will celebrate, rendering Christ present every time on the altar. Think of the countless absolutions you have given and will give, allowing sinners to feel relief.

You will then perceive the infinite fecundity of the sacrament of Holy Orders. Your hands, your lips, become, in the space of a moment, the hands and the lips of God. You carry Christ within you. You have, by grace, entered the Holy Trinity.

As the Holy Cure D'Ars said, "If one has faith, then one will see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass, like wine mixed with water" (Nodet, p. 97).

This consideration should lead to harmonizing the relationship among priests in order to realze that priestly community to which St. Peter exhorted (Cf. 1 Pt 2,9) in order to build the Body of Christ and build you in love (Cf. Eph 4,11-16).

The priest is the man of the future: he who takes seriously the words of Paul, "If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above" (Col 3,1).

What he does on earth is part of the order of means ordained towards the ultimate End. The Mass is the unique point of junction between the means and the End, because it already gives us to contemplate, under the humble appearance of bread and wine, the Body and Blood of He whom we adore for eternity.

The simple but dense statements of the Holy Cure on the Eucharist help us to better perceive the richness of that unique moment of the day when we live through the face-to-face that is vivifying for ourselves and for each of the faithful.

"One will not understand," he wrote, "the happiness there is in saying the Mass until we are in heaven" (Nodet, p. 104). That is why I encourage you to strengthen your faith and that of the faithful in the Sacrament that you celebrate, which is the source of true joy.

The saint of Ars exclaimed: "The priest should have the same joy (as the Apostles) in seeing our Lord whom he holds in his hands" (Ibid.)

In giving thanks for what you are and what you do, I say to you again: "Nothing will ever replace the ministry of priests in the heart of the Church!" (Homily, Mass on Sept. 13, 2005, on the Esplanade of the Invalides, Paris).

Living witnesses of the power of God at work in the weakness of men, consecrated for the salvation of the world, you remain, my dear brothers, chosen by Christ himself in order to be, thanks to him, salt of the earth and light of the world.

May you, during this spiritual retreat, experience profoundly the inexpressible intimacy of being perfectly united to Christ (Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11, BA 13, p. 383) so that you may announce his Love all around you and may be completely engaged in the service of sanctifying all the members of the People of God.

Entrusting you to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and of priests, I impart on all of you the apostolic blessing.



About the retreat



Ars, France, Sep 28, 2009 (CNA).- More than 1,200 priests from 75 countries are participating in an international retreat September 27 to October 6 in the hometown of St. Jean Marie Vianney at the Shrine of Ars as part of the Year for Priests.

The theme for the retreat is, “The joy of being a priest: Consecrated for the salvation of the world.” According to Bishop Guy Bagnard of Belley-Ars, the theme expresses “the positive nature of the meeting and the happiness that priests experience” in their vocation.

The shrine’s rector, Fr. Jean Philippe Nault, said, “The Cure of Ars is truly a great brother. Because of his testimony and his life, this saint resonates powerfully in the hearts of priests.”

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna will give the reflections during the retreat, and the daily Masses will be celebrated at the Church of Our Lady of Mercy by the prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston and Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon.



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Wednesday, Sept. 30

ST. JEROME (Greek ancestry, 340-420, d. Bethlehem)
Priest, Confessor, Doctor of the Church
First translated the Bible to Latin




OR today.

To the International Retreat of Priests gathered in Ars,
Benedict XVI reiterates the thanks of the Church:
'(Priests are) Men indispensable to everyone'
Translation of the Pope's videomessage posted above. An editorial on the Pope's
visit to the Czech Republic (also translated and posted earlier on this page).
The photo accompanies OR's final report on the papal visit to the Czech Republic,
with the text of the Pope's departure remarks Other Page 1 stories: Tehran's
latest missile tests cause concern to the US; in Conakry, capital of Guinea,
government troops shoot protestors gathered in a stadium, at least 120 killed.




THE POPE'S DAY

General Audience today - Held in St. Peter's Square. The Holy Father reported on his trip to the Czech Republic.
He reported to Castel Gandolfo afterwards.


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GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY





Pope Benedict XVI held his General Audience today in St. Peter's Square for the first time since the summer. He returned to Castel Gandolfo afterwards.

Here is how he summarized in English his catechesis today, which was a report on his trip to the Czech Republic on Sept. 26-28:


My Apostolic Journey to the Czech Republic last week-end was both a pilgrimage and a mission. It was a pilgrimage on account of the many saints who bore witness to Christ in the Czech lands through their holy lives, and it was a mission because, at the present time, Europe needs to rediscover the joy and hope that come from following the Lord Jesus.

I pray that our liturgical celebrations in Prague’s magnificent Cathedral, in Brno and in Stará Boleslav will have served to deepen the faith and enkindle the Christian commitment of the people of Central Europe, especially the young.

I am most grateful to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in the Czech Republic who made me so welcome, especially to President Václav Klaus and Cardinal Miloslav Vlk.

I was glad to have the opportunity to meet leaders of other Christian communities and to encourage them in the task of ecumenical dialogue.

And it was a pleasure to come together with University Rectors and leading figures from the world of culture. I spoke with them of the need for scholarship to be rooted in truth, an integral truth that shuns the limitations of relativism and determinism.

I ask all of you to join me in praying that this visit may bear abundant spiritual fruit for the Czech people and for the unity and peace of the whole continent of Europe.







Here is a translation of the Holy Father's report on his trip to the Czech Republic:




Dear brothers and sisters!

As usual after my international apostolic trips, I am availing of today's General Audience to speak of the pilgrimage that I made in recent days to the Czech Republic.

I do it, first of all, as an act of thanksgiving to God who has allowed me to make this visit which he has largely blessed. It was a true pilgrimage, and at the same time, a mission to the heart of Europe.

A pilgrimage, because Bohemia and Moravia have been for more than a millennium a land of faith and holiness. A mission, because Europe needs to rediscover in God and his love the firm foundation for hope.

It is not accidental that the evangelizing saints of those peoples, Cyril and Methodius, are patrons of Europe along with St. Benedict.

"The love of Christ is our strength": This was the theme of the visit, an affirmation that re-echoes the faith of so many heroic witnesses of the remote and recent past - I think in particular of the last century - but above all, it expresses the certainty of Christians today.

Yes, our strength is the love of Christ. A strength that inspires and animates true revolutions, peaceful and liberating, which sustains us in times of crisis, allowing us to rise again when freedom - so arduously recovered - risks losing truth itself.

The welcome that I received was heartfelt. The President of the Republic, to whom I renew the expression of my gratitude, was present at different occasions and received me and my co-workers in his residence, the historic Castle of Prague, with great cordiality.

The entire (Czech) bishops' conference, particularly the Cardinal Archbishop of Prague and the Bishop of Brno, made me feel, with great warmth, the profound link which unites the Czech Catholic community to the Successor of Peter. I also thank them for having prepared the liturgical celebrations with such great care,

I am thankful to all the civilian and military authorities and all those who, in various ways, cooperated for the success of my visit.

The love of Christ was first revealed in the face of a Child, Arriving in Prague, in fact, my first stop was at the Church of Our Lady of Victory where the Infant Jesus is venerated as 'the Infant of Prague'.

That image reminds us of the mystery of God made man, to the 'God with us', the foundation of our hope. Before the Infant of Prague, I prayed for all children and their parents, and for the future of the family. The true 'victory' that we ask of Mary today is the victory of love and life in the family and in society.

Prague Castle, which is extraordinary in its history and architecture, suggested a more general reflection; It encloses within its vast spaces multiple monuments, places and institutions, almost representing a 'polis', in which the Cathedral and the Palace, the public square and public gardens, coexist in harmony.

Thus, in that particular context, my visit touched both the civilian and religious spheres, not juxtaposed, but in harmonious closeness in their distinction.

Thus, addressing the political and civilian authorities and the diplomatic corps, I recalled the indissoluble link that should always exist between freedom and truth.

There is no need to fear the truth, because it is a friend to man and his freedom. Indeed, it is only in the sincere search for what is true, good and beautiful, that one can really offer a future to the young people today and to the generations to come.

Moreover, what is it that draws so many people to Prague but its beauty - a beauty that is not only aesthetic but also historical and religious, and human in the broadest sense?

Those who exercise authority in the political and educational fields must be able to draw from the light of truth which is the reflection of the Creator's eternal Wisdom - each one is called upon to bear witness to it personally in his own life.

Only serious commitment to intellectual and moral uprightness is worthy of the sacrifice made by those who paid dearly for freedom.

A symbol of the synthesis of truth and beauty is the splendid Cathedral of Prague, dedicated to Saints Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert, where Vespers was celebrated with priests, religious, seminarians and lay representative involved in various church associations and movements.

These are difficult times for the community of central and eastern Europe: The consequences of the long winter under atheistic totalitarianism have been amplified by the harmful effects of Western secularism and consumerism.

That is why I encouraged everyone to draw ever new energies from the risen Lord, in order to become evangelical yeast in society, and to engage, as they already have, in charitable activities, and even more, in educational and scholastic work.

This message of hope, based on faith in Christ, was addressed to the entire People of God in the two great Eucharistic celebrations that took place respectively in Brno, capital of Moravia, and in Stara Boleslav, the place of martyrdom of St. Wenceslas, the principal patron of the nation.

Moravia makes us think right away of Saints Cyril and Methodius, evangelizers of the Slav peoples, and therefore, of the inexhaustible power of the Gospel, which traverses history and continents like a river of healing waters, bringing life and salvation everywhere.

Above the portal of the Cathedral of Brno are the words of Christ: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11,28).

These same words resounded last Sunday in the liturgy, reechoing the perennial voice of the Lord, hope of peoples - yesterday, today and always.

Eloquent message of the lordship of Christ, a lordship of grace and mercy, is the existence of the patrons of Christian nations like St. Wenceslas, a young Bohemian of the 10th century, who distinguished himself by his exemplary Christian testimony, and who was killed by his brother.

Wenceslas placed the kingdom of the heavens ahead of the fascination of earthly power and has remained forever in the hearts of the Czech people as a model and protector through the alternating currents of history.

To the many young people who were present at the Mass of St. Wenceslas, some of them coming from neigboring countries, I addressed the invitation to recognize in Christ their truest friend who satisfies the most profound aspirations of the human heart.

Finally I must mention two encounters among many: the ecumenical meeting and that with the academic community.

The first, held at the Archbishop's Palace of Prague, gathered together the leaders of the various Christian communities in the Czech Republic, and the leader of the Jewish community.

Thinking of the nation's history, which has unfortunately known harsh conflicts among Christians, it was cause for sincere gratitude to God to be together as disciples of the one Lord, to share the joy of the faith and our historical responsibility together in the face of present challenges.

The efforts to progress towards a unity that is increasingly full and visible among us, believers in Christ, makes stronger and more effective our common commitment towards the rediscovery of the Christian roots of Europe.

This last aspect, which was very dear to my beloved predecessor John Paul II, also emerged in the meeting with the rectors of Czech universities, representatives of professors and students, and other outstanding personalities in the cultural field.

In this context, I wished to underscore the role of the university as an institution, one of the fundamental structures of Europe, which has in Prague one of the oldest and most prestigious universities of the continent, Charles University, named after Emperor Charles IV who founded it along with Pope Clement VI.

The university is a vital environment in society, a guarantee of freedom and development, demonstrated by the fact that Prague's Velvet Revolution had its beginnings in university circles.

Twenty years since that historic event, I reproposed the idea of integral human formation, based on the unity of knowledge rooted in truth, in order to oppose a new dictatorship, that of relativism coupled with technological dominance.

Humanistic culture and scientific culture cnanot be separated - they are the two faces of the same coin, of which once again, we are reminded by this land, homeland of great writers like Kafka, and of the Abbot Mendel, pinoeer of modern genetics.

Dear friends, I thank the Lord because with this trip, he allowed me to meet a people and a Church with profound historical and religious roots,which this year commemorates various occasions of high spiritual and social significance.

To our brothers and sisters in the Czech Republic, I renew a message of hope and the invitation to have the courage to do good, to construct the present and the future of Europe.

I entrust the fruits of my pastoral visit to the intercession of the Most Blessed Mary and all the saints of Bohemia and Moravia. Thank you.


In his plurilingual greetings later, the Pope thanked the Poles and Slovaks for their prayers on his behalf during his trip to the Czech Republic. He told them to invoke the intercession of St. Wenceslas so that the trip may yield abundant spiritual fruits.

To the Czech pilgrims, he said: "Dearest ones, I still feel vividly the moments of emotion I experienced during my apostolic visit to your beautiful homeland where I received an affectionate welcome. I entrust the whole nation to the protection of St. Wenceslas and I bless you from the heart".

To Italian pilgrims, he had special words for the faithful from the diocese of Sulmona-Valva (in the region of L'Aquila), "who are here in great numbers with their bishop, Mons. Angelo Spina, in memory of St. Celestine V".

He added: "My brother has told me so many beautiful things about his visit to Sulmona".

[Mons. Georg Ratzinger, during his August stay at Castel Gandolfo with his brother, had taken a day trip to Sulmona, to revisit a World War II POW camp where he stayed for a few hours as a young German soldier returning to Germany from the Italian front in 1945.]

Among the Italian groups singled out by the Pope were participants of teh international conference "on the 50th anniversary of the death of the Servant of God don Luigi Sturzo".

[Sturzo, 1871-1959, was an activist priest considered to have been the father of modern Italian Christian Democratic politics. He wanted to introduce Catholic social doctrine into the Italian Socialist Party. A committed anti-fascist, he was exiled in 1924, returning only after the Second World War. He continued writing, this time turning his criticism on the post-war Christian Democrats of Italy but was not otherwise politicallly active. He was made a senator for life in 1953. The process for his beatification was started in 2001.]

Benedict XVI expressed the hope that "the luminous example of this priest and his testimony of love, freedom and service to the people may be a stimulus and encouragement for all Christians, especially those who work in in the social and political fields, so that they may, through their consistent testimony, spread the Gospel and the social doctrine of the Church".





[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/10/2009 01:18]
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Sandro Magister's 'J'accuse':
The authoritative Vaticanista says
Bertone's Realpolitik is
not in tune with the Pope

by Nicoletta Tiliacos
Translated from

Sept. 28, 2009


There seems to be great confusion within the Church in Italy - if one goes by the news reports in the last few weeks, and the circumstances that led to the resignation of Dino Boffo as editor of the Italian bishops' newspaper, Avvenire.

More than just an impression, one has the 'certainty' of an intra-ecclesial conflict with few precedents in recent history. It is a conflict whose precise outlines are vague to most people but which actually exists. And longtime Vatican expert Sandro Magister confirms it in an interview with Il Foglio.

With his four-language site www.chiesa.espressonline.it, Magister represents one of the most important voices in the religious media, and not only in Italy, about what is taking place in the Catholic Church.

"More than confusion, I would call it a great disorder," he says. "The overall impression is that at the higher levels of the Church there are conflicting visions of reality, in Italy and in the world, which cannot easily be resolved. Indeed, the sides are often at daggers drawn, with an aggravating factor.

"Those, within the Church hierarchy, who set themselves up as critics of previous solutions which they would now consider not up to present circumstances, or not practical, are not convincing with their own vision, nor capable of delineating a new course to the hierarchy itself".

Would he be referring, where the Church in Italy is concerned, to the desire by part of the hierarchy to declare the so called 'Ruini era' over and done with for always? And who are the protagonists and plans that are in opposition during this far from painless process?
The battle being fought within the hierarchy of the Italian Church is only part of a wider battle which involves the entire Church."

Let me explain. When it is said, with reason, that there is a different view of things by the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Italian bishops, one must not ignore the fact that the same divergence of views exists between the Secretariat of State and many national bishops' conferences, which are not just of secondary importance.

Examples?
One of the most glaring examples is with the United States. There is no doubt that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has, in the last few years, changed its manner of dealing with the last two administrations, Bush then Obama.

Within one of the biggest bishops' conferences in the world, a strong nucleus has formed composed of bishops and cardinals who have been very critical of the administration, as we see now with Obama. The leader of this opposition is not a secondary figure but the most authoritative US cardinal today. That's the president of the USCCB, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who has always been one of the American cardinals most esteemed by Papa Ratzinger.

And in opposition to some of Obama's policies, at least 80 out of 250 have done so publicly. The points of conflict are well-known and all concern bioethics directly, especially abortion.

And yet, these far-from-secondary elements of the American episcopate have never been supported, but rather opposed, by the Secretariat of State and by its mouthpiece, L'Osservatore Romano.

Just consider that some of these bishops raised impassioned protests to the Secretariat of State to denounce some editorial positions taken by L'Osservatore Romano....These are facts that are well-known and were substantially publicized.

One element, for example, which angered many American bishops was the very positive editorial - even on matters of family and bioethical issues, that the OR published to mark the first 100 days of Obama in the White House.

Then there was the honorary doctorate to the new {resident from the University of Notre Dame - which was the subject of strong controversy, because an important Catholic institution of higher learning was conferring the honor [on someone who has one of the most extreme and radical records in favor of abortion on demand, even during advanced pregnancy].

In both cases, the critical mobilization of many American bishops against Obama was seen with disfavor by the Secretariat of state and by L'Osservatore Romano.


And is this conflict still going on?
Yes, it has not been healed in any way. The other example that we must not forget is the case of China. Here, too, it's a conflict of visions.

On the one hand, the extreme caution with regard to the Chinese government, by the Secretariat of State and Vatican diplomacy. On the other, the leader of a more combative vision, Cardinal Zen. yet another figure of great weight and great stature, who has never hidden his opposition to the Vatican diplomatic line.

Zen has written more than once, especially in the newspaper of the Hongkong diocese, where he is the emeritus bishop, that Cardinal Bertone has been a brake to pursuing the line inaugurated by Benedict XVI in his famous letter to the Catholics of China two years ago.

[What I fail to understand is this: Bertone was appointed by the Pope to run the administration of the Church for him. As the Pope's man, is Bertone not dutybound to carry out Benedict XVI's specific vision and intentions with regard to the Church? How can he act with apparent autonomy from the Pope?

Even if Benedict is an enlightened modern boss who gives his people maximum leeway and respects their freedom, how can he not be aware that his Secretary of State and the newspaper he controls have made a number of questionable judgments in the past months?

In February 2007, when Cardinal Bertone wrote that now-infamous letter to the then newly-elected president of the Italian bishops, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco - in which Bertone states clearly that from then on, the Secretariat of State would handle any political dealings with the Italian government - it seemed to me that the Pope may have given him a talking-to behind the scenes, because, until the Boffo case, he never again sought to assert himself over Bagnasco in matters affecting the Italian Church alone.

Especially since the Vatican Concordat with Italy governing relations between the State and the Church in Italy clearly recognizes the Italian bishops conference as the representatives of that local Church, not the Vatican Secretariat of State which cannot represent any local Church!

As for Obama, the Pope firmly made clear he wasn't giving the US President a pass on his abortion positions by ostentatiously giving him a copy of Dignitatis Personae at the Vatican, and having his own personal secretary, Mons. Gaenswein, inform the media on hand about it.

Normally, it would have been something for the Vatican Press Office to announce or disclose, but the Press Office is administratively under the Secretariat of State. So maybe the Holy Father wasn't taking any chances it would go unreported.]


Then, there's Vietnam, where for months, there has been a large-scale battle with hundreds of thousands of Catholics turning up in public squares and public vigils in the face of repressive measures taken by the government against them.

Yet, the Vietnamese Catholics have never received any substantial support from the Secretariat of State. On the contrary, Cardinal Bertone sent a letter to the bishops of Vietnam in which he counsels them, in effect, to just 'be good'. In fact, L'Osservatore Romano has never even dedicated a single line to these happenings.

[Thank you, Mr. Magister, for pointing that out. It is a glaring lack that I failed to note. If it were not for AsiaNews and UCAN, people following Church affairs would have been ignorant of what's happening to the Vietnam Catholics. I think it is morally indefensible for the Vatican newspaper to fail to report events that do not fit into the strategy - whatever it is - of the Secretariat of State.

The OR is falling into the same see-hear-speak-no-evil policy of the liberal media in the United States who only report what fits into their liberal world-view, unless something takes on hugely scandalous proportions they can no longer ignore it. Example: the massive corruption and blatant lawbreaking by Barack Obama's handpicked 'army to transform the United States', the now infamous Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN).]


Magister sees in all this what he calls a 'linea concordataria' {I can't think of an appropriate and precise English equivalent, but in effect, a 'conciliatory line', one that seeks not to ruffle any feathers] -

It consists of being 'good neighbors', courteous institutional relationships, which are used especially in those places where is no existing concordat to guide bilateral relations. And I don't think it is a line that comes up to the level of the master lines drawn out by the two great Pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.


Could it simply be a matter of Realpolitik, which would not be new in the life of the Church?
Certainly, realism has always characterized Vatican diplomacy. It is a realism based on calculations of what is possible, which reached its apogee, one might say - perhaps excessively celebrated -in the Vatican Ostpolitik carried out in the 1960s and 1970s by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli as Secretary of State, but which continues to be practised today.

And is that realism being applied in Italy as well?
Yesterday with Prodi, today with Berlusconi. With rather paradoxical results. Everyone can remember that during the Prodi years, Cardinal Bertone was the champion of the leftist media that opposes the Italian hierarchy whom they pictured as regressive, intransigent and fanatic.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot, in the very same newspapers. Cardinal Bertone has become the Church leader who insists that the Vatican has friendly relations with the Berlusconi government, whereas the CEI is praised for being critical of the Prime Minister.

The last 15 years before 2007 was marked by the leadership of Cardinal Camillo Ruini at the CEI. [Magister is a diehard Ruiniani and does not hide it.) The line embodied by Ruini struggled to establish itself, then to grow and impose itself in the life of the Church in Italy, having its peak in the years between 2004-2007, distinguished by the extraordinary feat in 2005 when the Church managed to 'defeat' a referendum initiative that would have liberalized Italy's law on assisted reproduction.

It was really a new thing that the Church in Italy had taken a clear political stand on its own. This culminated a process in which the Church in Italy declared its independence of any single political party [the Christian Democrats had been the party of the Church right after the Second World War up to the 1980s when it collapsed because of massive corruption disclosed about its leaders]. That put an end to the era of a 'Catholic party' or at least, one whose nucleus was formed by Catholic politicians who claimed to represent Catholic interests.

Ruini thought and acted in terms of the entire Italian nation, not just the Catholic world. With him, the positions of the Church in Italy on political and social issues were motivated not only by doctrine and faith, but were also aimed to be acceptable to the widest possible audience, including non-believers.


Could one see in that a harmony with the Ratzingerian idea of the use of reason that coud lead, on certain issues, to conclusions that are acceptable to the faith as well as to non-believers?
Without a doubt. Because it also had to dp with an extraordinary agreement, which continues to this day, between the Pope and Cardinal Ruini. The CEI Cultural Project which Ruini initiated is in itself something that acknowldges the singularity of Italy and Italian Catholicism, seen as an expression of a people's church.


And what vision is opposed to that?
There is an elitist reading, that has dominated Italian media in the past few decades, which looks at Italian Catholicism as rather crude and behind the times in general, balanced by the presence of a more educated layer that is also 'more truly Christian'. Somewhat like the older brother and the prodigal son.

But then, remember that someone like ARturo Parisi, who is above suspicion, has pointed out that it is the 'irregular' Catholics who are most affected by the phenomenon of Berlusconism.


In what sense?
In the sense that among the things he has managed to do, Berlusconi put an end to the Catholic question - which had been held to be the invincible or near-invincible separation of the Catholic world from the Italian political arena. The apparent absence of high-profile Catholics in his government and among politicans in training does not mean the Catholics are not there. On the contrary - Berlusconi has grasped the fact that 'normal' Catholics are widespread throughout Italy and that they have generally been ignored, because politicians always thought in terms of assiduous, observant Catholics, educated in certain schools, and who are to be found in movements like Catholic Action for the association of Italian labor unions.

In reality, there is an endless mass of Italian Catholics to whom that profile does not apply - and they are the backbone of Italian Catholicism.

And that explains the impressive figure of the 0.008 percent tax revenue for the Church (which comes from 90 percent of Italians who expressly declare themselves to be Catholic for purposes of determining which church their tax will support), as well as religious isntruction in Italian public schools [favored by 90 percent of Italian parents]. These are choices made even by non-observant Catholics.


But there is also continual talk about the 'insubordination' of many Catholics with respect to the teachings of the Church.
It has never been the case that the Cahtolic Church is necessaily listened to and followed in its precepts. But at the same time, this kind of Catholicism recognizes that it is the duty of the Church - more than just a right - to speak openly and proclaim its doctrine.

Cardinal Ruini's cultural project fully acknowledges this Italian peculiarity - which is looked upon with envy by other European bishops. Now the Spanish bishops have commited themselves to following the way shown by Cardinal Ruini when he was at CEI.

The cardinal undersood very well the great identification of the Italian people with the Catholic Church as well as its incipient sensibility to the issue of emerging human life. That is why they defeated the referendum on assisted reproduction [mostly by abstaining from voting, so that there were not enough voters to validate any refrendum result].

It was a victory for Catholics that was born from courageous steps - for example, the vote abstention campaign started as soon as Corriere della Sera made known it was leading the campaign for the amendment to liberalzie the assisted reproduction law.


The end of Cardinal Ruini's leadership has led to unprecedented conflicts within the Church and among its hierarchy, with media initatives and conjectures that rival the worst of Dan Brown, as this newspaper has commented. How do you see this ending?
I wish to say, first of all that the Cultural Project, which is alive and active, is not being carried forward with the same conviction by the CEI. The present leadership is visibly weak, despite the formal continuity with the previous one. It is weak from the point of view of authoritativeness and of the exercise of its jurisdiction.

Dissident voices from within surface regularly, and there was discocnerting evidence of this during the attack against Dino Boffo. The solidarity expressed for him was calibrated, both in the hierarchy and among the clergy. There are even obvious proofs that the case was used to underscore the end of the Ruini era.


And did they achieve that end?
The jury is still out. The Report on Education carried out by the Cultural Project revives the notion of a Church proposal addressed to the entire nation, not only to Catholics, by the Italian bishops.

Then there is the conference on God, which has a Ratzingerian imprint, scheduled in December. So the Cultural Project is alive and well. But at the same time, there has been an inexplicable coolness on the part of some in the CEI hierarchy.

In Cardinal Bagnasco's opening remarks to the session of the CEI Permanent Council last week, he never once referred to the Cultural Project, even if it was one of the principal targets in the tumultuous campaign to force out Boffo. Nor did he refer at all to the conference on God, which the CEI is sponsoring.


What does it mean?
That the CEI pesident, knowing the diversity of opinions within the Permanent Council, chose to hold to the least common denominator that would not touch on any controversial issue.


Can one say that the CEI is going through a phase of uncertainty which is reflected even on burning issues like the biological will?
There is an official line on this which is favorable towards the proposed law. But there are dissonant voicees like Cardinal Martini or Don Luigi Verze [head of Milan's San Raffaele University]. And some like, the president of the Catholic Physicians of Milan, also dissociate themselves from the CEI's choice. [All three named are representatives of the problematic Archdiocese of Milan which often acts as if the Ambrosian Church were separate and independent from the Church of Rome.]


But there were dissonant voices from Milan even at the time of the 2005 referendum, principally on research using embryonic stem cells...
Yes, but now, many things are much clearer. For example, in the Eluana Englaro case. Enzo Bianchi, the prior of Bose, wrote stinging words against those who defended her right to live, saying they were fanatics. Not to mention that the case was also the subject of a dispute between Avvenire [which spearheaded the save-Eluana campaign] and L'Osservatore Romano [which never reported on the various battles that surrounded the end of her life].


What will be the next steps in this intra-Church war, evidence for which it has become difficult to deny?
Much will depend on the decisions that will be taken about who is taking over the newspaper, radio and television enterprises of the CEI. Avvenire, with Boffo, was truly the instrument for translating the Christian message into populat culture, as stated by Lorenzo Ornaghi, the rector of Milan's Catholic University.

The attack on Boffo by Vittorio Feltri in Il Giornale accomplished what some groups hostile to Boffo, Ornaghi and what they represent - namely, the Cultural Project - sought to obtain by circulating anonymous defamatory leaflets.

There was also a lack of clear leadership on the part of the CEI on the matter of dealing with the private life of Berlusconi. Even in Avvenire, which did not join the fray until fairly late. It was prudent, and of the four commentaries which it published on the issue, only one was in favor of a public denunciation of Berlusconi's private iniquities.

Then there was the sudden change, on July 6, with the homily on St. Maria Goretti by the CEI secretary-general, Mons. Crociata. It was universally interpreted, with reason, as an attack on Berlusconi's private life. Crociata himself wanted it broadcast live on Sat 2000.

It was a premedeitated event, and given great play by the leftist [anti-Berlusconi] media. That was followed by a flood of letters and pressures on Avvenire which was accused of not having spoken enough against the Prime Minister's conduct.

Boffo did his best to hold the fort, but the readers of Avvenire had turned systematically against Berlusconi. It was rather unreal, but if Ruini were still in charge, it would not have happened.


So how will it end?
The battle to change the master lines of the Italian Church - and thus, to bury the Runini era once and for all - is still in progress. It will be expressed in forms other than thoser anonymous flyers, certainly but it will not have clear and persuasive alternatives.


I remember that a few months after Bertone became Secretary of State, Magister wrote an article entitled something like "The cardinal who is supposed to serve the Pope's interests' - but is not, being the rest of the hypothesis. And that he was the very first to report on Bertone's "I'm in charge here' letter to Bagnasco in 2007.

Magister's entire position begs the question - which the interviewer should have asked him, especially in view of the title to the article: Why then does Benedict XVI allow Bertone and the Secretariat of State to pursue their own agenda apart from his? Surely there is no question who has the upper hand in the relationship between the Pope and his Secretary of State. Why then is Bertone able to get away with his apparent 'autonomy'?

The implication is that the Pope does not mind, and that perhaps he does not see Bertone's actions and decisions [directly or as reflected in L'Osservatore Romano's editorial line] as in any way counter-productive to his, the Pope's agenda. And yet, the obvious errors of omission on the part of the Secretariat of State in the Wielgus and Williamson cases were certainly a disservice to the Pope and yes, counter-productive if not downright condemnatory of Church administration.

Yet by going to Romano Canavese last July, the Pope gave Bertone a resounding vote of confidence.

This is the one aspect of this Pontificate that troubles me deeply, and I was hoping Magister might have an answer. Too bad he was not asked, and he did not volunteer.



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/10/2009 00:38]
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Pope faces a crowded
post-vacation agenda

by Francis X. Rocca



VATICAN CITY. Sept. 29 -- Ending a two-month working vacation at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence in the hills southeast of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI returns to the Vatican next Saturday (Oct. 3) with a full to-do list.

Among the items on the Pope's agenda for this fall:

Synod for Africa
The day after his return, Benedict will open a special Synod for Africa, a three-week long gathering of bishops from around the world who will address the needs and challenges facing the Catholic Church in Africa.

Included on the agenda: the rapid growth in church membership and the priesthood in Africa; relations with Africa's Muslims; translating Catholic beliefs and practices into the terms of local cultures; and combating poverty and disease, especially HIV/AIDS.

AIDS became the focus of intense controversy last March after Benedict told reporters on a flight to Cameroon that "one cannot overcome the problems (of AIDS) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem."


Visit to Rome synagogue
The Pope will visit Rome's main synagogue, the spiritual home of one of Europe's oldest Jewish communities, sometime after the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

Benedict will follow his predecessor, Pope John Paul, whose 1986 visit to the same synagogue was the first by a Pope to a Jewish house of worship.

The Vatican's relations with Jews were strained earlier this year after Benedict lifted the excommunication of ultra-traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson, who had told Swedish television that no more than 300,000 Jews "perished in Nazi concentration camps ... not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber."

Benedict subsequently issued several condemnations of Holocaust denial, including at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial last May.


Reconciliation with traditionalists
Late October will see the start of reconciliation talks between the Vatican and the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), the schismatic group that counts Williamson among its members.

The SSPX is the largest and most vocal group of ultra-traditionalist Catholics who reject the modern reforms ushered in by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). [Not all the reforms; their objections are pretty specific and have alweays been! The important context here is that Mons. Lefebvre took part in the Council and signed all its documents. The FSSPX's active objections began after the liturgical reforms proved to be very radical.]

Seeking to end the schism, Benedict lifted restrictions on the so-called Old Latin Mass in 2007, then readmitted Williamson and three other excommunicated SSPX bishops earlier this year.

Benedict will not participate directly in the talks, but will be represented by a team of three prominent theologians. Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schonborn [clearly speaking out of turn] recently told a German newspaper the Vatican will make it clear to the SSPX that "dialogue with Jews, other religions and other Christian faiths" are "not negotiable" as conditions for reunification.


New U.S. ambassador
Benedict is also expected to receive the credentials of the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel H. Diaz. A Cuban-born professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, Diaz is both the first Hispanic and the first theologian to represent the U.S. to the Vatican.

Relations between the Holy See and Washington have been marked by harmony on major geopolitical and economic policies, including the Middle East and the environment, but strong disagreement on President
Obama's support of abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. Benedict personally raised the "defense and promotion of life" with Obama in their first meeting at the Vatican in July.


Artists symposium
Hundreds of A-list artists from around the world have been invited to join Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Nov. 21, as part of the Pope's effort to restore a historic "alliance" between the Church and the arts.

Prominent painters, sculptors, architects, writers, musicians, actors and dancers will hear a program of musical performances and a lecture [???] by the Pope.

U2 musician and humanitarian Bono and Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone are reportedly among the confirmed guests. Benedict has made reasserting the Christian roots of Western culture an important theme of his papacy.


Sainthood for Hawaii priest
At a ceremony in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 11, Benedict will canonize Blessed Damien de Veuster. The Belgian priest known as "Father Damien" spent more than 15 years caring for lepers in Hawaii before succumbing to leprosy himself in 1889. Damien is known as the unofficial patron saint of those with HIV/AIDS.

Last year, Benedict recognized as miraculous a Hawaiian woman's recovery from lung cancer after she prayed for Damien's intercession. Statues of Damien, who is also considered the patron saint of Hawaii, stand in both the U.S. Capitol and the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu.


New record
On Nov. 30, Benedict will join the ranks of performing artists when Geffen Records -- the label of Ashlee Simpson and Snoop Dogg -- releases "Alma Mater," an album of the Pope's chants and prayers to the Virgin Mary. A portion of the proceeds will support music education for underprivileged children around the world.


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