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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

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Earlier posts today, 10/21/09, on the preceding page.






GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY



The Holy Father addressed a crowd of at least 40,000 in St Peter's Square today on a sunny but blustery day, and spoke of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Here is how he synthesized the lesson in English:

In our continuing catechesis on the theologians of the Middle Ages, we now turn to one of the most outstanding, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard combined the austerity of the Cistercian monastic renewal with intense activity in the service of the Church in his time. Because of his great learning and deep spirituality he is venerated as a Doctor of the Church, and is often called "the last of the Fathers".

Together with his theological writings and homilies, including the celebrated Sermons on the Song of Songs, Bernard maintained a vast correspondence, developed warm friendships with his contemporaries, defended sound doctrine, and combated heresy and outbreaks of antisemitism.

His spirituality was profoundly Christ-centred and contemplative, and his celebration of the sweetness of Christ’s name won him the title of Doctor mellifluus.

Bernard is also known for his fervent devotion to our Lady and his insight into her intimate sharing in the sacrifice of her Son. May Bernard’s example of a faith nourished by prayer, study and contemplation, lead us closer "to Jesus through Mary" and grant us that wisdom which finds joyful fulfilment in the knowledge of the saints in heaven.







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



BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX,
DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH



Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I wish to speak about St. Bernard of Clairvaux, called "the last of the Fathers", because in the 12th century, he revived once more and made present the great theology of the Fathers.

We do not have details of his early years, but we know he was born in 1090 in Fontaines, France, to a large family which was modestly well off. As a youth, he excelled in his studies of the so-called liberal arts - especially grammar, rhetoric and dialectics - at the school of the Canons of the church of St-Vorles, in Châtillon-sur-Seine, and slowly matured his decision to enter the religious life.

When he was about 20, he entered Citeaux, a new monastic foundation which was more agile than the ancient and venerable monasteries of the day, and at the same time, more rigorous in the practice of the evangelical life.

A few years later, in 1119, Bernard was sent by St. Stephan Harding, third Abbot of Citeaux, to establish the monastery of Clairvaux. The young abbot was only 25, but here, he was able to refine his own concept of the monastic life and devote himself to translating it into practice.

Taking note of the [lack of] discipline in other monasteries, Bernard decisively stressed the need for a moderate and measured life - even in monastic food, clothing and edifices - while supporting and caring for the poor. Meanwhile, the community at Clairvaux became increasingly large and multiplied its own foundations.

In those years, before 1130, Bernard carried on a vast correspondence with many persons, important ones as well as those of modest social status. To the many letters of this period, one must add his numerous Sermons, as well as his Sentences[Judgments] and Tracts.

This period also dates the start of his great friendship with Guillaume (William), Abbot of St-Thierry, and with Guillaume of Champeaux, both among the most important monastic figures of the 12th century.

From 1130 on, Bernard started to concern himself with not a few grave questions of the Holy See and of the Church. Because of this, he had to leave his monastery more often, sometimes travelling outside France.

he also founded a few monasteries for women, and carried on a lively correspondence with Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, about whom I spoke last Wednesday.

He addressed his polemical writings above all against Abelard, a great thinker who had started a new way of theology, introducing the dialectic-philosophical method to the construction of theological thought.

Another front on which Bernard fought was against the heresy of the Catari, who held matter and the human body - and therefore, the Creator - in contempt.

He also felt it his duty to defend the Jews, condemning the increasingly widespread revivals of anti-Semitism. For this aspect of Bernard's apostolic activity, some decades later, Ephraim, Rabbi of Bonn, would pay a vibrant homage to Bernard.

During that same time, the holy abbot wrote his most famous works, such as the celebrated Sermon on the Song of Songs.

In the last years of his life - he died in 1153 - Bernard had to limit his trips without giving them up for good. He availed of the opportunity to review definitively all his Letters, Sermons and Tracts.

Worthy of mention is a particular book that he wrote at this time, in 1145 - when one of his pupils, Bernardo Pignatelli, was elected Pope, taking the name Eugene III.

On this occasion, Bernard, as the spiritual father of the new Pope, wrote to his spiritual son the text De Consideratione, which contained teachings on how to be a good Pope.

In this book, which continues to be convenient reading for the Popes of all time, Bernard indicates not only how to be a good Pope, but also expresses a profound vision of the mystery of the Church and the mystery of Christ, which is resolved ultimately in the contemplation of the mystery of the Triune and One God.

"One must pursue the quest for this God, who has not been sufficiently sought," he wrote, "but perhaps he can be sought better and found more easily with prayer than with discussion. Let us put an end here to this book, but not to the quest" (XIV, 32: PL 182, 808), on our journey toward God.

I wish now to dwell on two central aspects of Bernard's rich doctrine: they have to do with Jesus Christ and the Most Blessed Mary, his mother.

Bernard's concern for the Christian's intimate and vital participation in God's love embodied in Christ did not bring new orientations to theology on the scientific level. But in an even more decisive way, the Abbot of Clairvaux configured theology to the contemplative and the mystical.

Only Jesus, Bernard insisted, in the face of the complex dialectic arguments of his time, is "honey to the mouth, canticle to the ear, jubilation in the heart (mel in ore, in aure melos, in corde iubilum)".

Indeed, that gave rise to the title given to him by tradition of Dottor mellifluus - his praise of Jesus Christ, in fact, 'flows like honey'.

In the exhausting battle between the nominalists and the realists - representing the two philosophical currents of his time - the Abbot of Clairvaux never tired of repeating that there was only one name that mattered, that of Jesus of Nazareth.

"Every food for the soul is arid," he confessed, "if it is not drizzled with this oil, and insipid if it is not seasoned with this salt. That which you write has no taste to me, if you have not read Jesus". He concludes: "When you argue or speak, nothing has any taste to me, if you have not heard the name of Jesus" (Sermones in Cantica Canticorum XV, 6: PL 183,847).

Indeed, for Bernard, the true knowledge of God consisted in personal and profound experience of Jesus Christ and his love. This, dear brothers and sisters, is true for every Christian: Faith is above all an intimate personal encounter with Jesus - it is to experience his nearness, his friendship, his love. Only thus can one learn to know him ever better, to love him and to follow him even more. May this happen for each of us!

In another celebrated Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of the Assumption, the holy Abbot described in impassioned terms the intimate participation of Mary in the redemptive sacrifice of her Son:

"Oh holy Mother", he exclaimed, "truly a sword pierced through your soul!... The violence of pain pierced your heart to such a degree that we can rightly call you more than a martyr, because your participation in the passion of your Son surpassed by far the intensity and physical sufferings of martyrdom" (14: PL 183,437-438).

Bernard had no doubts: "Per Mariam ad Iesum" - through Mary, we are led to Jesus. He affirms with clarity the subordination of Mary to Jesus, according to the bases of traditional Mariology. But the body of that Sermon also documents the privileged position of the Virgin Mary in the economy of salvation, as a consequence of the most particular participation of the Mother (compassio) in the sacrifice of her Son.

That is why, one and a half centuries after the death of Bernard, Dante Alighieri, in the last canto of the Divine Comedy, places on the lips of the 'Dottore mellifluo' the sublime prayer to Mary: "Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,/Humble and high beyond all other creature,/The limit fixed of the eternal counsel..." (Paradiso 33, vv. 1ss.).

These reflections, typical of one enamored of Jesus and Mary as St. Bernard was, today continue to inspire in salutary manner not just theologians but all believers.

At times, it has been sought to resolve the fundamental questions on God, man and the world only with the powers of reason. But St. Bernard, solidly based on the Bible and the Fathers of the Church, reminds us that without profound faith in God, nourished by prayer and contemplation, by an intimate relationship with the Lord, our reflections on the divine mysteries risk being a vain intellectual exercise and lose their credibility.

Theology remands us to the 'science of the saints', to their intuition of the mystery of the living Lord, to their wisdom, a gift of the Holy Spirit, which becomes the reference point of theological thinking.

Together with Bernard of Clairvaux, we too should recognize that man seeks God better and finds him more easily "with prayer than with discussion". Ultimately, the truest figure of the theologian and of every evangelizing person remains that of the Apostle John, who laid his head on the breast of the Master.

I wish to conclude these reflections on St. Bernard with the invocations to Mary that we read in one of his beautiful homilies: "In dangers, in distress, in uncertainties," he said, "think of Mary, call on Mary. Let her never leave your lips, let her never leave your heart. And so that you may obtain the help of her prayer, never forget the example of her life. If you follow her, you cannot go wrong; if you pray to her, you cannot despair; if you think of her, you cannot make a mistake. If she supports you, you will not fall; if she protects you, you have nothing to fear; if she guides you, you will not tire; and if she favors you, you will reach the goal..." (Hom. II super «Missus est», 17: PL 183, 70-71).



Holy 'Father Superior'....


Or Archangel Benedict...






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Papal audience for
the foreign minister of Jordan


After the general Audience today, the Holy Father met with the Foreign Minister of Jordan, Naseer Judeh. (No communique yet from the Press Office.)







Look at that vagrant 'ciuffetto'!


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/10/2009 17:38]
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As there are already quite a few articles lined up to be added to this post entered earlier today on the preceding page, I am reposting it on this page to add to, as soon as I can.


THE DAY AFTER

For the rest of the world that still depends on newspapers for their news, yesterday's historic news is in the Oct. 21 editions for them to read. I will post the more significant and interesting reports and commentaries.

Beginning with the Christian Science Monitor, which is unequivocal and precise about its historic significance.



Vatican welcome to Anglicans
boldest move since Reformation

by Nick Squires




Vatican City, Oct. 20 - The Vatican launched an historic initiative Tuesday to make it easier for disgruntled Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic Church. The Church said the move was not a swipe at the Anglicans but it could nevertheless result in hundreds of thousands of churchgoers unhappy with openly gay and female clerics defecting to Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI gave his approval to a new framework to bring back into the fold Anglicans who oppose their church's liberal stance on gay marriage and the ordination of women priests and gay bishops while allowing them to retain some of their separate religious traditions.

The move comes nearly 500 years after Henry VIII's desire for a divorce led him to break with Rome and proclaim himself as the head of the newly formed Church of England in 1534.

The framework is the Vatican's most sweeping gesture toward any schismatic church since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century and the Thirty Years' War that followed it in the 17th century.

That war ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which acknowledged the right of monarchs rather than the Vatican to determine their national faiths, prompting Pope Innocent X to declare the document "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time."

Over the centuries, relations between the various Christian faiths have improved and both Anglican and Catholic leaders were at pains on Tuesday to say that warming relations between the two churches will not be affected by the new plan.

But both churches have been struggling to retain adherents in recent years, particularly in the developed world, with poorer countries their only growth spots.

Individual Anglicans have long been free to convert to Catholicism, as former British prime minister Tony Blair did after leaving office in 2007. But the so-called Apostolic Constitution will enable entire Anglican communities to transfer their allegiance en masse.

The Pope was responding to "numerous requests to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in various parts of the world who want to enter into full and visible communion" with the Catholic Church, Cardinal William Joseph Levada told a news conference. He is the American head of the Vatican's doctrinal body.

Vatican officials declined to say how many of the world's 77 million Anglicans might take the opportunity to convert to Catholicism.

The Traditional Anglican Communion, a vocal group of 400,000 conservatives who split from the Anglican Communion in 1991, are expected to move towards Rome.

"We have had requests from large groups, in the hundreds," said Cardinal Levada. "If I had to say a number of bishops, I would say it's in the twenties or thirties."

His American colleague, Archbishop Joseph Di Noia, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said after the press conference that he believed the number of bishops ready to convert was closer to 50.

They would come from the United States, Australia, and the island nations of the Pacific, he said.

Cardinal Levada was asked whether the Vatican's new policy weakened the Anglican Church's standing.

"I would not dare to make a comment on that. After the long years of the British Empire, and the work of Anglican missionaries, the Anglican Communion is a diverse and very varied worldwide communion."

Under the new constitution, married Anglican priests will be allowed to enter the Catholic Church but will not be ordained as bishops.

The initiative was in response to years of lobbying by Anglicans who had become disenchanted with Anglican liberalism, a dissatisfaction which reached a crisis point in 2004 when the Episcopal Church in the United States ordained the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

That move and other liberal shifts, such as a Canadian diocese's willingness to bless same-sex unions, have been fiercely opposed by more conservative Anglicans, particularly in Africa.

The new framework was announced simultaneously in Rome and in London, where the head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said he did not see the Vatican move as "an act of aggression."

Neither was it a vote of no confidence in the Anglican Church, he said, but a sign of maturity and understanding between the two faiths.

But Vatican commentators described it as a blow to the Anglican Communion. "For people who harbor the vision of Anglican unity, this will be a great disappointment," said Vatican analyst Francis X Rocca, of the Religion News Service.

"But it may also help to let off steam within the Anglican Church. If disaffected traditionalists leave, then they will lower the tensions over issues like gay marriage and women clergy."

Vatican expert John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in a blog post that while the opening by the Vatican had long been rumored, some Catholics feared "potentially negative repercussions in relations with the Anglican Communion – whose leadership might see it as 'poaching.'"

[That tired and patently fallacious argument again! Disaffected Anglicans knocked, and the Church is opening its doors. The readiness of the 400,000-strong TAC to move en masse to the Catholic Church is the best argument against the absurd idea that the Church is 'poaching'.]

BTW, I am still waiting for some commentator to call this initiative by Benedict XVI as the most signigificant papal initiative since John XXIII decided to convoke the Second Vatican Council. Doesn't it send shivers down your spine to think of it?

In many ways, Benedict XVI has been building simultaneously and patiently - brick by brisk, as Fr. Z likes to say - on the good fruits of the Council of Trent which was the Church's strongest action in thw Counter-Reformation, and which was a fecund renewal of tradition, as well as on the good fruits of Vatican II, which was the Church's way of fitting into the modern world - in keeping with his view of the Church as an 'ecclesia semper riformanda' and a continuum in time.



Meanwhile, this is how TIME chooses to headline a historic action in the most flippant way:


The Pope to unhappy Anglicans:
Come on in!

By Jeff Israely

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009


For Anglican leaders, the Vatican announcement is the latest minefield to manage in their ongoing effort to avoid a full-fledged schism within their 80-million-strong church, which includes 2.2 million American Episcopalians.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is juggling the gripes of Anglicans of all philosophical stripes and ecclesiastical sensibilities, most notably as battles over women and gay clergy have undermined that prized "communion" within Anglicanism for more than two decades.

In the more than four centuries since King Henry VIII pronounced the Church of England independent from papal authority, certain Anglican conservatives have always drifted back to Rome, "swimming the Tiber," as reverting to Catholicism was called. But in the past two decades, more and more seem to be doing so.

Benedict's latest ruling confirms and expands earlier ad-hoc decisions by Pope John Paul II to allow several married Anglican priests to convert and remain in the clergy.

Under the new structure, groups of Anglicans can move into a local Catholic Church that will be headed by former Anglican clergy, who can ease them into Catholicism without their having to kiss goodbye their own pastor or the rites they were raised on. Married Anglican priests who convert, like married priests in the Eastern Rite of Catholicism, will not be eligible to become bishops.

The Vatican's doctrinal chief, Cardinal William Levada, told reporters on Tuesday that Catholic leaders were simply responding to requests by certain Anglicans to find a comfortable home in Catholicism.

"We have been trying to meet the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in different parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way," said Levada, who would not specify how many Anglicans he expected to convert. [Why should he? The door is open - everyone is welcome.]

"With this proposal, the church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome."

In a joint written statement, Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury is the worldwide spiritual head of the Anglican Church, issued a joint statement with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, saying the decision "brings an end to a period of uncertainty" for those Anglicans who have sought to convert.

But while seeming to douse one flame, the opening of an officially recognized channel for reverting to Roman Catholicism could spark other conflagrations within Anglicanism, both from conservatives and progressives who are suspicious that Rome is poaching their faithful.

Indeed, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's outgoing chief of ecumenical, or intra-Christian, affairs, used a press conference last week to try to curb such fears, insisting that Rome was "not fishing in the Anglican lake."

The incoming converts, however, may offer a false comfort to Catholics that Rome is winning the battle for Christian hearts and souls in the West. [Benedict XVI is the last person in the world who needs to be reminded about this! He is generous and bold, yes, but never naive!]

Indeed, in the bosom of Europe, where traditional Catholicism became an immense political force, the Church is very much on the defensive. The Holy See's eagerness to find a home for the core of conservative-minded Anglicans follows the Pope's outreach earlier this year to the traditionalist breakaway movement founded by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which opposes the modern-minded reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

From Day One, countering Europe's supposed slide ['Supposed slide'? Is Israely disputing the slide???] into a godless secularism has been high on Benedict's agenda. Recently, that defense of the Church's values has been looking almost like a counteroffensive. [Of course, it is. It is Benedict XVI's version of the Counter-Reformation - only the principal enemy is secularization, and not far behind, the subversives within the Church itself.]

On Oct. 17 in Spain, the traditionally Catholic right turned out perhaps as many as 1 million people in the streets of Madrid to oppose plans by the country's center-left government to loosen abortion laws (allowing 16-year-old females, for example, to terminate their pregnancies without parental consent).

And on Tuesday, in a Vatican meeting with the new European Union envoy to the Holy See, Benedict chided those who deny the "Christian roots" of Europe.

Said the Pope: "Europe will not truly be herself if she cannot keep the originality that made her great. When the Church reminds Europe of its Christian roots, it is not looking for special status, [but] recalling the fact that the founding fathers of the European Union were inspired by Christianity."

Even Tuesday's news of the forthcoming arrival of like-minded Anglicans to reinforce the traditionalist ranks carries a built-in risk for the Catholic hierarchy.

Church liberals will point to the married priests leading Catholic masses as living proof that it's finally time to toss out the celibacy requirement for the clergy.

[This is the one apprehension that I immediately had, but the Apostolic Constitution will make it clear that the 'permission' for married priests will only apply to those who are Anglican priests now, not to those who will become priests as Catholics.

Besides, there was already precedent in the married Anglican priests who became Catholic under John Paul I's 'Apostolos Suos' - and the anti-celibacy advocates have not cited that precedent as an argument before today.

And I'm sure all those Anglican bishops and priests who have thought about rejoining the Church of Rome in the past few years have taken this consideration into account.]




A blog by Greg Kandra on

shares the reaction of Fr. George Rutler, a well known convert from Anglicanism who now works in the Diocese of New York, to yesterday's news. Fr. Rutler e-mailed it since he was not available for a personal interview:


A dramatic putdown
of liberal Anglicanism

by Fr. George Rutler
Oct. 20, 2009


It is a dramatic putdown of liberal Anglicanism and a total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism.

It basically interprets Anglicanism as a spiritual parimony based on ethnic tradition rather than substantial doctrine and makes clear that it is not an historic "church" but rather an "ecclesial community"' that strayed and now is invited to return to communion with the Pope as Successor of Peter.

The Vatican was careful to schedule simultaneously with the Vatican announcement, a press conference by the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and the deeply humiliated Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury to enable the Anglicans to save some face by saying that this recognizes the spiritual patrimony of Anglicanism and that ecumenical dialogue goes ahead. {I think, perhaps, Fr. Rutler should have been more charitable here! Things are bad enough for Archbishop Williams.]

That is like George Washington at Yorktown saying that he recognizes the cultural contributions of Britain and hopes diplomatic relations flourish.

The Apostolic Constitution is not a retraction of ecumenical desires, but rather is the fulfillment of ecumenical aspirations, albeit not the way most Anglican leaders had envisioned it.

The press, often uninformed and sensationalistic in matters of religion, will zoom in on the permission for married priests. They will miss the most important point: that this reiterates the Catholic Church's insistence that Anglican Holy Orders are invalid, and perforce so is their Eucharist.

These married Anglican priests have to be fully ordained validly by a
Catholic bishop. Following Orthodox custom, they are allowed to marry only before ordination and not after. And no married man may become a bishop.

(Thus, any Anglican bishop joining one of these "ordinariates" would no longer be recognized as a bishop. Under special provision, Anglican bishops would have some right to pastoral authority, but would not be bishops.)

It remains to be seen how many Anglicans (Epscopalians in the USA) will be received into the Catholic Church under these provisions, but it is a final nail in the coffin of the rapidily disintegrating Anglicanism at least in the West, and will radically challenge Anglicans in other parts of the world.

Perhaps most importantly, it sets a precedent for reunion with Orthodox churches whose Holy Orders the Catholic Church already recognizes as valid. [Ah, but the primacy of the Pope is a difficult fundamental issue with the Orthodox Churches - which have existed for centuries as autocephalous (self-led) - which is not an issue for the Anglicans who are coming in as individuals, even if en bloc, as they do not represent the Church of England as an institution.]



GOD SAVE THE POPE!

Can't resist adding this bit of clever whimsy here. On the Italian blog Cantuale Antonianum,
someone posted a video of a band playing 'God Save the Queen', below which he posted the ff. lyrics -
So, all together now! -


Thanksgiving Hymn for
the Apostolic Constitution


God save our present Pope,
Long live our holy Pope
God save the Pope!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Pope!

O lord God arise,
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their knavish tricks,
Confuse their politics,
On you our hopes we fix,
God save the Pope!

Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world ov'er.

From every latent foe,
From the assasins blow,
God save the Pope!
O'er him thine arm extend,
For Churches' sake defend,
Our Father, prince, and friend,
God save the Pope!

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On him be pleased to pour,
Long may he reign!
May he defend our faith,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Pope!


A m e n!

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I am posting this separately because it deals with the most striking fallacies in the early unsympathetic commentary on Pope Benedict's historic initiative. BTW the unsympathetic also do not see that it is historic in any way. The first remark about 'poaching' should apply to John Allen, as well, whose first blog entry ended with just such a suggestion!


Three dubious and curious conclusions
by CARL OLSON

Oct. 21, 2009


Yesterday's announcement from Rome was quite stunning and historical, and much ink is being spilled, opinions rendered, and spleens ruptured (at last metaphorically) as every stripe of Catholic, Anglican, human, and other biological life form takes aim, makes claim, and —i n some cases — cries, "Shame!" Amid the spilling, rupturing, and aiming, here are three negative, even sulking, pieces that caught my attention:

1. The Times of London ran the headline, "Vatican moves to poach traditional Anglicans," with an article by Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen that took wild aim at a target — the Vatican — few thought could move so swifty:

The Roman Catholic Church today moved to poach thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops.

This abuse of the word "poach" really annoys me, in part, because I grew up around hunting (my father is a gun maker and a superb hunter) and I knew a poacher or two. Poaching is, even among the natives of western Montana (where I spent my youth), a rather reprehensible activity because, as any decent dictionary indicates and good hunter knows, it is a violation of law and property.

It is, put simply, cheating — either by trespassing on private property or by breaking the laws that regulate hunting. But, of course, Gledhill and Owen never show — or even attempt to show — how Pope Benedict or the Vatican violated anyone's rights or property or broke any laws (secular or canonical).

It seems quite obvious the term "poach" — even stretched thin for effect — is an infantile and empty insult, both to the Pope/Vatican and to those Anglicans who will enter the Catholic Church under the provisions to be detailed in the yet-to-be-released apostolic constitution.

It suggests the Pope is a sly cheater and greedy grabber who is preying on naive, wayward sheep while the good shepherd of the Anglican Communion does whatever it is he does. Pathetic.

[For more of this fallacy, see
www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/10/pope_poaches_on_unhappy_ang...
in which the ultra-liberal National Public Radio cites Allen's assertion of 'poaching' and actually interviews him rather than a canon law expert to explain his contention that the Church is violating an ecumenical ground rule!]


2. AOL News ran a piece focusing on married priests:

The number of married Catholic priests could grow sharply as the result of the Vatican's epochal decision to welcome thousands of disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians into the Catholic church. ...

"It's a stunning turn of events," says Lawrence Cunningham, theology professor at Notre Dame University. "This decision will allow for many more married clergy in Western churches, and that's going to raise anew the question, 'If they can do it, why can't the priests of Rome?'" says Cunningham. "I can already picture the electronic slugfest on the Internet in coming days and weeks."

The Catholic church already allows clergymen who convert from Protestant denominations to remain married on a case by case basis, and married priests are common in the Eastern Rite, a group that uses Orthodox traditions but is loyal to Rome.

On one hand, this aspect is both interesting and legitimate. On the other hand, it is being needlessly sensationalized (yes, that was redundant).

Saying the number of "married Catholic priests could grow sharply" is rather misleading considering there are about sixteen million Eastern Catholics in the world, and most of the Eastern Catholic Churches allow married men to be ordained priests, just as the Orthodox Churches do.

The language in the article is a bit sloppy: that should be "Eastern rites" or "Eastern Catholic Churches", as there are 22 such rites; the term "group" has the sense of a sub-section of Catholics, which Eastern Catholics certainly aren't (they are just as fully Catholic as any Western rite Catholic); and those Churches do not "use Orthodox traditions"—they are Eastern Churches that were once Catholic, then were Orthodox, then returned to full communion with Rome (the Maronites were always in full communion).

Be that as it may, I think this focus on married priests is being blown out of proportion, especially since no priests — whether Eastern or Western — can be married after ordination. If a man wishes to be married and to become a priest (in that order, mind you) there is a simple solution: stay Catholic, go East, stop complaining.

3. TIME magazine has a piece that could be called the "Bu...bu...bu..." article, although its actual headline is: "The Pope to Unhappy Anglicans: Come On In!" Here are the three sections of interest:

At first glance, the surprising news on Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI has created a new structure to welcome some disenchanted Anglicans into the Roman Catholic fold — it was accompanied by a joint statement from his counterpart, the Archbishop of Canterbury — might look like a happy reunion. But the Vatican's establishment of new "Personal Ordinariates," in which Anglicans, including married priests, can practice Catholicism while maintaining much of their own identity and liturgy, reveals more about the growing internal rifts within each of the two churches than any sign of real hope for reuniting the fractured Christian communion.

I'm assuming the "internal rift" in the Catholic Church referred to is the one that sprang up a few years ago, in the late 1960s, and has been a gaping chasm for about, oh, forty years now.

Does it exist? Sure enough, but the author, Jeff Israely, never backs up his dubious claim that this news — involving, keep in mind, the most significant development in Catholic-Anglican relations since, oh, the 1540s — says more about "internal rifts" than about reunion.

In a real sense, the assertion completely misses a point that has been obvious to quite a few other reporters and commentators: such reunion was not going to be take place via endless official dialogue. That ship has sailed. Actually, it has mostly sunk.

But while seeming to douse one flame, the opening of an officially recognized channel for reverting to Roman Catholicism could spark other conflagrations within Anglicanism, both from conservatives and progressives who are suspicious that Rome is poaching their faithful. Indeed, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's outgoing chief of ecumenical, or intra-Christian, affairs, used a press conference last week to try to curb such fears, insisting that Rome was "not fishing in the Anglican lake."

See point #1 above about poaching, and then ask yourself: are these journalists capable of journalism and the correct, reasonable, and non-insulting use of the English language?

Strange, isn't it, how opening the borders of America to illegal immigrants is, for liberals, a matter of social justice, while opening the doors of the Church to spiritual refugees is a grave injustice. Go figure. As for Cardinal Kasper ... no comment: either from him or about him.

The incoming converts, however, may offer a false comfort to Catholics that Rome is winning the battle for Christian hearts and souls in the West. Indeed, in the bosom of Europe, where traditional Catholicism became an immense political force, the church is very much on the defensive.

There is a bit of truth here — the Church is on the defensive in many ways. [Here is where I differ strongly from Olson. The Church is not simply on the defensive - it is striking back but in the gentle Benedictine way, what I referred to earlier as Benedict XVI's version of the 'Counter-Reformation'.]

But it's important to keep in mind the Church is also leading the fight for a European identity that actually has identity, not to mention a bosom, a heart, and a future.

Alas, Israely seems dedicated to finding the black lining in every silver cloud, just as he mistakes the Pope for a poacher.


What the naysayers choose to ignore is that the Holy Father's initiative with respect to the Anglicans, as I commented earlier and as Olson points out, is a direct road to reunification that bypasses or at least curtails the difficult and possibly interminable ecumenical process through dialog, for the non-Catholic Christians who wish to rejoin Rome without waiting for their respective churches or ecclesial denominations to do so.

Also, we must be realistic and not expect an immediate influx of converts in massive numbers. Even the TAC, which has said it was ready to 'cross the Tiber' as early as 2007, must follow its own internal rules and must now get the formal consent of the national Bishops' Synods, in the countries where it is represented, to the concrete offer by the Church of Rome. Presumably, they will wait for the full text of the Apostiolic Constitution to be released - appropriate discretion, one might say, for such a momentous move on the part of an entire 'sub-Communion'. And, as the saying goes, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.

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With thanks, as ever, to Lella and her diligent 'scouts' on her blog

for these two articles by two 'fearless' commentators who say what needs to be said at this time that others, perhaps more qualified than they are as Church obsevers, have not dared to make this early.... The first is written by a name I have not seen before, and I have been unsuccessful so far in trying to get any information via Google. But who will argue with his observations?



This great Pope is just 'getting started'
on his universal mission


No other Pope has dared to address so clearly and directly
the spiritual, cultural and philosophical - and thus, religious -
situation of an entire continent adrift.


by Roberto Pepe
Translated from

Oct. 21, 2009

I wrote Cardinal Martini, who has his own column now in Corriere della Sera last June:

"The human being carries in his own genome the profound imprint of the, God-Love", Pope Benedict XVI said before the Angelus prayers in St. Peter's Square.

This Pope, who I believe will be one of the greatest rebuilders of the Universal Catholic Church, is leading it through theological philosophy, the substantia rerum [substance of things], a concept super materiam [supra-material].

He has used scientia, namely, decidedly logical deductive reasoning to demonstrate the Trinity... following the armgument of 'string theory' which purports to resolve the longstanding quest for the universal law that will unify all the laws on the forces of physical nature, from the smallest to the largest [from the submicroscopic to the cosmological].

With all due respect to his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI is proposing a philosophically conceptual Church in the face of the relativistic impoverishment caused, surely, by constant conflicts (including those of religious nature), but also by the exponential development that scientific knowledge and its resulting materialistic progress have achieved.

To utilize such reasoning to demonstrate the presence of the Absolute is an epochal fact.



I have repeated several times, underscoring it, the sensation that I had from the start of Benedict's Pontificate: that we are in the presence of a true 'philosopher-priest' who speaks not from political primacy nor as a ruler, leader or chief executive of worldwide religious bureaucracy, but essentially, with the simple words of pure evangelical doctrine, far and above the miserable annoying terrain of human pettiness and misadventures of the basest order.

Recall the lectio magistralis on faith and reason that he gave at the Uiviersity of Regensburg - an intervention of major importance in cultural history and in Catholic theology - though it aroused violent reactions in the Muslim world because of a citation by a Byzantine emperor that denounced the imposition of Islam by the sword.

Recall his recent address to the second Synodal assembly for Africa: "A 'virus' threatens Africa: religious fundamentalism, embroiled with political and economic interests... Groups claiming various religious affiliations are spreading in the African continent - and they do so in the name of God, although they follow a logic opposed to the divine, teaching and practising, not love and respect for freedom, but intolerance and violence".

Where Europe is concerned, never has any other Pope dared to speak so clearly and directly of the spiritual, cultural-philosophical and therefore religious situation of a continent adrift.

And recall how he dealt with the problem of Avvenire and the unfortunate Dino Boffo - by simply telling Cardinal Bertone and the CEI, in effect: "Look here! I am in charge. Get done with the problem now, because there are other more important tasks!"

And now, we may be witnessing one of the greatest revolutions in Christianity in half a millennium. He has approved an Apostolic Constitution which will facilitate the reentry to the Church of Rome of Anglican bishops, priests and lay faithful who have decided to leave the Anglican Communion.

The Church of England split from Rome when, in 1534, King Henry VIII could not have his marriage annulled by the Pope.

This great Pope today is carrying on his battle against that 'historical relativism' in the Church's sister confessions, like the Anglican, which has brought it to support liberal attitudes towards homosexuals and the ordination of women and homosexuals.

This great Pope Benedict, like all who are pure of heart and feeling, acting in his simple unequivocal way, will manage to shake up the world order and to affect even those who pride themselves in being outside the Church's universal embrace.

In time!


The second article is by Luca Volonte, a member of the Italian Parliament and of Comunione e Liberazione, with whose byline readers of this Forum will be familiar by now.


The defeat of Henry VIII
by a good shepherd and gentle lamb

by Luca Volontè
Translated from

Oct. 21, 2009


This Pope is a Good Shepherd, and as his recent encyclical shows, he states the Truth and is therefore capable of Charity.

Last January, followed by heated controversy, the Pontiff decided to open the way for the 're-entry' of the Lefebvrians into the Roman Catholic Church.

Yesterday, another piece of good news, for some time anticipated, and about which there had been positive speculations, for Anglicans who wish to convert to Catholicism.

At least a part of the schism that divides the Anglican Church from that of Rome, will be healed. Priests, bishops and lay faithful belonging to traditionalist persuasions in the Anglican Communion, who are spread in all the continents, will enter into full communion with the Pope, and those Anglican priests who are now married may continue to be priests once re-ordained in the CAtholic Church.

The canonical form under which such a community will be accommodated is called a 'personal ordinariate', similar to those which in each country are reponsible for the spiritual care of the military.

The Pope pays attention to everything, and whatever is true, good and beautiful is valued by the Church. That is why the proposed Apostolic Constitution for converting Anglicans "will seek to create an equilibrium between conserving the precious Anglical spiritual and liturgical patrimony, on the one hand, and the concern of these groups and their clergy to be incorporated into the Catholic Church".

This extraordinary event in the history of Christianity certainly was occasioned in part by the ordination of women and practising homosexuals as priests and even bishops in the Anglican Communion.

This brought an irremediable fracture within the Anglican Communion, which led the traditionalists to seek refuge in Rome and to now receive a formal welcome.

Since the 16th century when King Henry VIII declared the independence of the Church of England from the authority of the Pope, the Church of England formulated its own doctrinal confession, liturgical rites and pastoral practices, often incorporating ideas from the Protestant Reformation on the continent.

In a way, a true and proper application of the totalitarian principle: Caesar and God in the same hands.

An intermediate step in the reunification effort announced yesterday was the appoval in 1980 by John Paul II of pastoral provisions that allowed the reentry of an Anglican diocese in India and of some communities in the United Sattes thereafter.

Cardinal Levada said it best: "Union with the Church does not require uniformity which ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Our communion is reinforced by legitimate differences, and we can only be happy that these men and women will offer their own contributions to our common life of faith."

The true, the good, and the beautiful - a tradition of the Catholic Church [going back to the Greeks who first formulated it as the classic trinity of values] - and evoked in another historic step under the sure and welcoming leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, the Good Shepherd.

Some will certainly use this news of great joy for all faithful in order to re-ignite the tired polemic over the celibacy of Catholic priests. It would be the nth demonstration of not wanting to understand nor to appreciate a gesture that is fundamental and historic for the Church and all mankind.

Five hundred years after the 'obsessed wolf' Henry VIII got his way, notwithstanding the Pope in Rome, he has met his eventual defeat in the open arms of the gentle lamb, Benedict XVI.



Vittorio Messori speaks out:
On doctrinal chaos in London
and unhappy ecumenists

Translated from

Oct. 21, 2009


VATICAN CITY - Vittorio Messori is one of the most famous journalists and writers on the Catholic Church and religion. Among others, he was reponsible for the interview-book Rapporto sulla Fede [published in English as The Ratzinger Report] with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.


Is the re-entry of traditional Anglicans to the Catholic Church a success for the Church of Ratzinger?
Benedict XVI is surely happy about this, but I don't know about those in ecumenical circles - if everyone becomes Catholic again, then they will have no object to confront!


Does it mean there was no push on the part of Rome?
The Catholic Church did nothing. The requests came from various Anglican groups and individuals, many of them from outside England, where the dissent is greatest.


Is it the symptom of internal difficulties among the Anglicans? [What a question! The interviewer has not been reading the religious news in the past few years?]
The Anglicans have always been a sort of confederation, marked by doctrinal chaos, which has failed to resist the new ideological hegemony of the politically correct, even when it means acting contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Thus came the women priests, then the gay priests who have even become bishops. It has become a place of hypocrisy.


And so the traditionalists are in revolt...
These goings-on have been accepted by most British Anglicans, but not by the faithful found in other parts of the world, mostly former British colonies. That has led to them turning to Rome.


But will the re-entry of married priests create problems within the Catholic Church?
Absolutely not. There are priests with families in the Eastern churches. The problem could have been with their bishops, but it has already been made clear that they may be re-ordained as Catholic priests but not as bishops.


Will there be tensions now in the dialog between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church?
I don't tihnk so. The Anglican Church is exhausted. Just think that in London itself, more Muslims go to the mosque for Friday prayers than the Anglicans who go to church on Sundays. The mass exodus of even as many as half a million traditionalists is not going to change that trend - it will become even more marked.


But it has five centuries of history behind it....
It was born because Henry VIII wanted to remarry. The schism then brought heavy persecutions against Catholics - something that is often forgotten.

It is not a missionary church. Rather it is an imperial institution that must discuss its doctrinal questions in the Houses of Parliament, after which everything is still subject to the approval of the British sovereign.


In short, the Church of England has always had a progressive return to Rome looming in the background....
Of course, many have returned to Catholicism over time. Most famously, Cardinal John Henry Newman, whom I consider to be one of the greatest thinkers who ever lived.


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I completely failed to check out the Times of London yesterday for how it reported 'the news', so I am posting this story from them today, and then I will post, for the record, how they reported the news yesterday.


Hundreds of Anglican clergy
to meet on Vatican offer

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Oct. 21, 2009


Hundreds of Anglican clergy who oppose women bishops are meeting this weekend to discuss whether to abandon the Church of England for the Roman Catholic church.



About 500 members of Forward in Faith, the leading traditionalist grouping, will be in London to debate Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an Anglican “ordinariate” or diocese to operate under a new Apostolic Constitution.

Many are waiting for the publication of a Code of Practice by Rome to flesh out the detailS of what is on offer before deciding whether to go.

More than 440 took the compensation package on offer and left the Church of England, most for Rome, after the General Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992. Some subsequently returned.

The Pope has made it it significantly more attractive for Anglicans to move over this time by allowing them to retain crucial aspects of their Anglican identity and allowing them to set up seminaries which will, presumably, train married men for the Catholic priesthood.

But any serving clergyman would face a marked loss of income.

A job as a clergyman in the Church of England comes with a stipend of £22,250 and free accommodation. Catholic priests earn about £8,000, paid by their parish and sometimes topped up by a diocese.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams indicated there will be no compensation package on offer this time. It was only introduced at the last minute previously as a way of getting the whole women’s ordination package through the General Synod with the necessary two-thirds majorities.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Catholic who retired earlier this year as the Church of England’s Bishop of Rochester, today welcomed the Roman Catholic Church’s “generosity of spirit” and its recognition of Anglican patrimony.

But he made clear that many issues needed to be resolved before decisions about leaving could be made.

“Orthodox Anglicans should see this recognition of patrimony by another church as affirming the elements of apostolicity and catholicity in their own church, for which they have always stood.

“In the meantime, there is a need to build confidence in the evangelical basis of the Anglican tradition and to make sure that it survives and flourishes in the face of the many challenges it faces. However, before some fundamental issues are clarified it is difficult to respond further to what the Vatican is offering.”

The two “flying bishops” appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to care for opponents of women priests also said this was not a time for “sudden decisions”. [They do not belong to FIF].

Bishop of Ebbsfleet Andrew Burnham and Bishop of Richborough Keith Newton, who went last year to Rome to begin talks with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: “Anglicans in the Catholic tradition understandably will want to stay within the Anglican Communion. Others will wish to make individual arrangements as their conscience directs.

“A further group of Anglicans, we think, will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land.”

They suggested February 22 next year, the Feast of The Chair of Peter, as an appropriate day for priests and people “to make an initial decision as to whether they wish to respond positively to and explore further the initiative of the Apostolic Constitution”.


As much as the Times writer downplayed proespects in that story, here is what they report in another story today:


Pope's gambit could see
1,000 bishops quit Church of England

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent,
and Richard Owen in Rome

Oct. 21, 2009


As many as 1,000 priests could quit the Church of England and thousands more may leave churches in America and Australia under bold proposals to welcome Anglicans to Rome.

Entire parishes and even dioceses could be tempted to defect after Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to offer a legal structure to Anglicans joining the Roman Catholic Church.

His decree, issued yesterday, is a serious blow to attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to save the Anglican Communion from further fragmentation and threatens to wreck decades of ecumenical dialogue.

Dr Williams was notified formally only last weekend by the Vatican and looked uncomfortable at a joint press conference with the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, to announce the plan.

Anglicans privately accused Rome of poaching and attacked Dr Williams for capitulating to the Vatican. Some called for his resignation. Although there was little he could have done to forestall the move, many were dismayed at his joint statement with the Archbishop of Westminster in which they spoke of Anglicans “willing to declare that they share a common Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church”.

In a letter to bishops and clergy, Dr Williams made clear his own discomfiture. He wrote: “I am sorry that there has been no opportunity to alert you earlier to this. I was informed of the planned announcement at a very late stage.”

The Bishop of Fulham, the Right Rev John Broadhurst, chairman of Forward in Faith, which opposes women bishops, hailed it as a “decisive moment” and predicted that, based on his group’s membership, up to 1,000 Church of England clergy could go.

Christina Rees, of the pro-women group Watch, described the Vatican’s move as poaching. She said: “It is one thing to offer a welcome, but this seems to be a particularly effusive welcome where people are almost being encouraged. In the Anglican Church we like to operate with transparency. If this has not been done here that will add to the sense of this being a predatory move.” [To be uncharitable, NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH-NYAH!]

Pope Benedict wants to make Christian unity an enduring legacy of his papacy. He is due to visit Britain next year; Dr Williams will visit Rome next month. The Pope has already shown his determination to reunite Christendom at almost any price, welcoming back the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X despite a Holocaust-denying bishop in its ranks. [One Holocaust denier out of a million followers, c'mon! Anything to distort the picture, right?]

Under the plan, the Pope will issue an apostolic constitution, a form of papal decree, that will lead to the creation of “personal ordinariates” for Anglicans who convert to Rome.

These will provide a legal framework to allow Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving distinctive elements of their Anglican identity, such as liturgy. Clergy will have to be retrained and re-ordained, since Rome regards Anglican orders as “absolutely null and utterly void”, but they will be granted their own seminaries to train future priests for the new ordinariate.

This deal was done with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Inquisition [centuries ago] that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself headed before he became Pope.

The Council for Christian Unity was not represented at simultaneous press conferences in Rome and London, suggesting that the Pope has had enough of dialogue focusing on canonical moves towards unity. [NO, NO AND NO! Why can't people with common sense see that it is perfectly sensible to bypass the dialog route if one can proceed straight to reunification of desirous groups and individuals - though not entire confessions yet? Ecumenical talks will go on, and hopefully be infused with fresh lymph after this jolt! - but don't hold your breath! Meanwhile, whether it is s few hundred, or hundreds of thousands, of Anglicans crossing the Tiber soon, is a gift of the Holy Ghost that is not to be denied while He 'decides' when, where and how He will breathe fire into the ecumenical movement!]

Dr Williams was briefed formally only when Cardinal William Levada, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, flew to London at the weekend to tell Anglican and Catholic leaders of the plans. It is understood that leading members of the council and other senior Anglican and Catholic figures tried desperately to block the decree.

One result of the Vatican’s move is that women bishops are likely to be consecrated sooner rather than later in the Church of England. This is because Parliament and the General Synod will not sanction legal structures to “safeguard” opponents of women priests within the Church if Rome is offering an open door with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s blessing. [Like they would do this for spite????]

Dr Williams said that the announcement did not disrupt “business as usual” in relations between the two churches. It would be a serious mistake to view the development as a response to the difficulties within the Anglican Communion, he said.

It was aimed at people who had reached a “conscientious conviction that visible unity with the Holy See was now what God was calling them to”, he said. [That is a beautiful way to look at it. God bless you, Archbishop Williams.]

“It is not a secret that in this country the ordination of women as bishops is one of those test issues.”


Gledhill also wrote a commentary today that seems to give more context for the traditionalist bishops' revolt - in which everyone ends up somewhat villainous, starting with Rome, portrayed in bellicose terms ('parking its tanks' indeed!) - even though it was the passive protagonist in this drama; the bishops, and the Archbishop of Canterbury!


Desperate bishops invited Rome
to park its tanks on Archbishop’s lawn

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Oct. 21, 2009


Rome has parked its tanks on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lawn after manoeuvres undertaken by up to fifty bishops and begun two years ago by an Australian archbishop, John Hepworth.

As leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a breakaway group claiming to represent up to 400,000 laity worldwide, he went to Rome seeking a means to achieve full, visible unity for his flock.

As a former Catholic priest himself, divorced and remarried with three children, he would be unlikely to be recognised by Rome as a priest or bishop, even under the structures brought in by the new apostolic constitution.

He has nonetheless always received a warm welcome in Rome — in particular from Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who has made the running in Rome with the backing of his predecessor at the Congregation, Pope Benedict XVI himself.

In England, negotiations with the Vatican have been led by two of the “flying bishops” — the AngloCatholics sanctioned to provide pastoral care for opponents of the ordination of women as priests. The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Right Rev Andrew Burnham, and the Bishop of Richborough, the Right Rev Keith Newton, visited Rome at Easter last year for talks with Cardinal Levada.

Then in July last year Cardinal Levada wrote to Archbishop Hepworth assuring him and his flock “of the serious attention which the Congregation gives to the prospect of corporate unity” and promising that “as soon as the Congregation is in a position to respond more definitively concerning the proposals you have sent, we will inform you”.

Later that month, the by now desperate flying bishops appealed again to Rome for help. The General Synod of the Church of England had voted to consecrate women bishops without providing statutory protection for traditionalists. A synod revision committee overturned that this month, but too late to shut the gate.

At the start of this year Vatican sources began predicting that the announcement of some form of accommodation for Anglicans was close. But it never came, and less optimistic Anglicans assumed the whole thing was no more than a puff of grey smoke.

They dismissed the hopes of the traditionalists too soon. The reason for the delay was twofold.

Within the Vatican City’s frescoed ceilings and marbled corridors, in the Curia itself and in particular in the College of Cardinals, there were — and there remain — deep divisions about the appropriate response to Anglicans and former Anglicans seeking some form of corporate unity.

The liberals, among them Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who at the time was Archbishop of Westminster, were reluctant to open the door wide to the traditionalists, partly because of their “more Roman than the Romans” style of churchmanship, but also for fear of upsetting Anglicans and the Church of England in particular.

In the US, where a similar “Anglican usage” model has been in operation for years and will now be incorporated into the new ordinariate structures, there are 77 million Catholics alongside a mere 1.8 million Episcopalians. A few incoming conservative Anglicans have made little difference.

In England and Wales, the proportions are reversed, with 25 million baptised Anglicans but four million Catholics. Not only would a big influx of traditionalist ex-Anglicans undermine ecumenical harmony, it could challenge the identity of the Catholic community itself. Set against this, however, is the more confident American-style Catholicism that this initiative represents.

And while the shortage of Catholic priests would be alleviated by the influx of so many Anglicans, the acceptance of married clergy with families would inevitably shift the focus to a questioning of the insistence that cradle-Catholic priests be celibate.

The Orthodox Church, with which the Pope is also desperate to achieve unity, does not demand a celibate priesthood although its bishops cannot marry. Celibacy is a requirement that is becoming increasingly hard to justify. [Only to liberals. The historical and traditional reasons for celibacy in Catholic priests and bishops are solid. Besides, if a person wanting to become a Catholic priest believes he cannot keep the vow of celibacy, then he should not become a priest. The Church weill continue to pray for more vocations, and despite the painful priest shortage, it trusts that God will provide for His Church.]

So it seemed as though nothing would happen. But in May, with the retirement of Cardinal Murphy O’Connor, who is in Rome this week, Archbishop Vincent Nichols was installed as his successor.

Archbishop Nichols is a priest in the same mould as the late Cardinal Basil Hume, who led the moves to welcome in opponents of women priests back in 1994. It was predicted then that 1,000 would go but in the end a mere 441 took the financial compensation package on offer.

A priest of remarkable charisma, Archbishop Nichols could easily end up in a senior position in Rome himself, if not the most senior.

He was clearly “in charge” at the joint press conference at the Catholic Church’s Eccleston Square administrative offices yesterday, at one point interrupting to answer a question addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He appears to have no compunctions about unsettling a few Anglicans.

Many Catholics believe that their churches and cathedrals were “stolen” from them at the Reformation and want them back.

Although the established status of the Church of England means this could never be a straightforward process, Rome’s new move undercuts all that by allowing for unity to evolve upwards organically, from the grassroots, as forseen by an ecumenical report produced a few years ago.

Every church leader speaks about unity, but they all want it on their terms. Pope Benedict XVI is the first since the Reformation who seems to have hit on a realistic way of turning the clock back by moving it forwards. [Hmmm, that's a two-faced statement!]

As evangelicals defect in one direction and traditionalists in the other, and disestablishment beckons with the reform of the House of Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury faces being left with a dwindling number of liberals in the centre struggling to maintain a heritage of ancient, Grade I listed churches.

Church-sharing already takes place between Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, the Orthodox and others. The Catholic Church could, through its new Anglican ordinariate, find itself repossessing its churches, almost by default.

There was bewilderment yesterday among Anglicans as they struggled to make sense of Rome’s initiative.

It was left to the National Secular Society to say publicly what many Anglicans would only admit privately.

“This is a mortal blow to Anglicanism which will inevitably lead to disestablishment as the Church shrinks yet further and become increasingly irrelevant,” it said.

“Rowan Williams has failed dismally in his ambitions to avoid schism. His refusal to take a principled moral stand against bigotry has left his Church in tatters.”
[The 'bigotry' being that of the traditionalists? Well, Mons. Wiliams was equally remiss in failing to take a principled moral stand for what the Bible teaches, for that matter!]


So, from all the play they are giving the story, the Times appears quite shaken by this development, notwithstanding its feigned nonchalance! And it's cutting the established Anglican Church no slack. Mons. Williams certainly needs the prayers of all those loyal to his now badly frayed Communion.

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Pope sends message
to British bankers
studying his encyclical




VATICAN CITY, OCT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI sent words of encouragement to a group of leaders of the financial sector in London who participated in a private seminar to study Caritas in Veritate.

The seminar today at Schroders Bank was organized by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. It considered "Leadership in the Financial Sector; A Moral and Spiritual Challenge."

A message sent via the Pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, affirmed the Holy Father "is gratified to learn that leading figures in the world of finance are responding to the challenge to explore ways of building 'authentically human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity' within economic activity."

The Pontiff also expressed encouragement to always "promote the integral human development that is rooted in a transcendent vision of the person."

Among those attending the seminar were chairmen and CEOs from various banks and investment groups.

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Britain's Catholic Herald leads off this weak's issue with an article by the Archbishop of Westminster.


‘This is a response
and not an initiative’

by Mons. Vinent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster

21 October 2009


The announcement of this Apostolic Constitution has come as a surprise. So, too, has the generosity of its measures. It is important to understand its context as well as its content.

The Apostolic Constitution is the response of Pope Benedict to the approaches which have been made to the Holy See by groups of Anglicans, in different parts of the world, asking for full visible communion within the Catholic Church.

It is, then, a response, not an initiative, by the Holy See. It is a response designed to establish a provision which will be equitable and uniform in whatever part of the world it may be taken up.

It has a particular purpose: to permit those who wish to live their faith in full visible union with the See of Peter to do so while also preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.

So this is a response to those who have declared that they share the common Catholic faith and accept the Pope's ministry as something Christ willed for the Church.

In the words of Cardinal Levada: "For them, the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion."

As Archbishop Rowan Williams and I said in our joint statement: "The announcement of this Apostolic Constitution brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church."

Much work now opens up, not only for those who hold such faith and will have to consider carefully the formal response of the Holy See, but also for the Catholic community. In approaching this work, some important perspectives have to be kept in mind.

First, this response does not alter our determined and continuing dedication to the pathway of mutual commitment and cooperation between the Church of England and the Catholic Church in this country.

The foundations of all the joint work in ARCIC and the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission make clear the path we follow together. An Anglo-Catholic tradition will continue to be a part of the Church of England, nurtured by those who cherish this tradition while not ready to accept the current jurisdiction of the Holy See.

We also need to appreciate what this moment makes clear about the mind of Pope Benedict XVI. I believe this is another illustration of his desire to achieve reconciliation with those who are estranged from the Catholic Church and who show a willingness to be reconciled.

This desire is clearly one of the priorities of his pontificate. As he has written: "In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognise in a love, which presses 'to the end' (cf John 13.1) - in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen ... So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small." (Letter to Bishops, March 10 2009). Reconciliation, then, is a part of the proclamation of the Gospel.

Pope Benedict, we have to remember, is also ready to allow the breadth of the expressions of Catholic life to find their place in the Church. In that same letter he wrote: "But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas?"

The Holy Father clearly believes that legitimate diversity does not threaten the unity of the Church, a unity which is essentially of faith, expressed in visible communion and in the witness of life lived in conformity to the call of the Gospel.

While this Apostolic Constitution establishes a single framework for the universal Church, clearly much detail will have to be established locally.

Alongside the Constitution there will have to be agreements about the way forward and the practical steps by which Personal Ordinariates, if and when they are established, will be an integral part of the Catholic community, working in close unity with the dioceses of England and Wales. These matters are now to be considered both locally and in close consultation with the Holy See.

This is an extraordinary moment. It is a challenge and an opportunity on many fronts. I salute the courage and generosity of Pope Benedict who has again shown an open and loving heart, just as one would expect of a Holy Father.


The official reaction from


US bishops ready to
collaborate


WASHINGTON — Cardinal Francis George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued the following statement, October 20, following a Vatican announcement of a new provision concerning Anglican groups coming into the Catholic Church. His statement follows:

"Today the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has received word of the new Provision in the form of an apostolic constitution issued by the Holy See for the reception into full communion with the Catholic Church of groups from the Anglican tradition. The USCCB stands ready to collaborate in the implementation of that Provision in our country.

"This step by the Holy See is in response to a number of requests received in Rome from groups of Anglicans seeking corporate reunion. The application of the new Provision recognizes the desire of some Anglicans (Episcopalians) to live the Catholic faith in full, visible communion with the See of Peter, while at the same time retaining some elements of their traditions of liturgy, spirituality and ecclesial life which are consistent with the Catholic faith.

This Provision, at the service of the unity of the Church, calls us as well to join our voices to the Priestly Prayer of Jesus that ‘all may be one’ (Jn 17:21) as we seek a greater communion with all our brothers and sisters with whom we share Baptism.

For forty-five years, our Episcopal Conference has engaged in ecumenical dialogue with The Episcopal Church, which is the historic Province of the Anglican communion in North America.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States remain committed to seeking deeper unity with the members of The Episcopal Church by means of theological dialogue and collaboration in activities that advance the mission of Christ and the welfare of society.”



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Thursday, Oct. 22

Illustrations: Center, St. Juan Capistrano appearing to Pedro, Giordano, 17th-cent.;
Right, Ecstasy of Pedro Alcantara, 18th-cent. Peruvian painting
.

ST. PEDRO DE ALCANTARA (Spain, 1499-1562)
Franciscan, Reformer, Mystic
Contemporary of Sts. Ignacio de Loyola and Juan de la Cruz
Confessor of St. Teresa of Avila, inspired her Carmelite reforms
His reformed Franciscans of the stricter order eventually became
the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), main Franciscan order.
He appeared in a vision to St. Teresa after his death.




OR today.

Illustration: Funeral of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th-cent. French manuscript.
At the General Audience, the Pope proposes the teachings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux:
'God is found more easily through prayer than discussion'

Other Page 1 stories: Benedict XVI receives a copy of the 'Compendium eucharisticum' (right photo, upper panel) from Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship - a Church manual for study, meditation and prayer about the Eucharist, as provided for in the Pope's Post-Synodal Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis; an editorial commentary on how the African media have virtually ignored the current Synodal assembly for Africa, but local Catholics explain they will wait for their bishops to come home and tell them about it; and Israel will ask changes in the international conventions on war to regulate allowable conduct against terrorists who are not part of a national army.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with:

- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops

- Mons. Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts

- Mons. Zygmunt Zimowski, President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Ministry to Healthcare Workers

- Mons. Vincenzo Pelvi, Military Ordinary (Bishop) for Italy.


The Holy Father today made the following Curial nominations:

- Mons. Jean Laffitte, until now Vice-President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, as Secretary
of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

- Mons. Mario Toso, as Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, of which
he has been a member.

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A couple of reports and commentaries have referred to the Cardinal Newman connection in the Holy Father's historic opening to converting Anglicans. Damian Thompson spells it out a bit more.

With his daring scheme for Anglicans,
Benedict XVI fulfils the hopes of Cardinal Newman


October 22, 2009



Was Pope Benedict XVI inspired by Cardinal John Henry Newman, whom it is hoped he will beatify in England next year, when he suddenly threw open the gates of Rome to disaffected Anglicans on Tuesday morning?

The official website for Newman’s Cause hinted as much when it greeted the announcement with a reminder of Newman’s support for a proposal to establish an Anglican Uniate Church for converts, similar to that provided for Byzantine-rite Catholics.

The plan was conceived by Ambrose Phillips de Lisle, and Newman rightly guessed that it would be unworkable. But if it could be made to work, he said, he was all in favour. As he wrote to de Lisle in 1876:

“Nothing will rejoice me more than to find that the Holy See considers it safe and promising to sanction some such plan as the Pamphlet suggests. I give my best prayers, such as they are, that some means of drawing to us so many good people, who are now shivering at our gates, may be discovered.”

And now it has been, thanks to Pope Benedict, who I hope will name his great scheme after Newman. I am sure the Pope is familiar with the reference to “shivering at the gates”, which William Oddie quotes in his book The Roman Option, an account of the English bishops’ failure to meet Anglican pastoral needs in the early 1990s.

The then Cardinal Ratzinger is believed to have read the book, which reads as a dreadful reproach to a hierarchy which determinedly set up obstacles to Anglican corporate reunion. The bishops had no idea that those obstacles would be swept away with such force this week – and for a good reason: the Holy Father did not consult them.


As it is mainly a historical account of Cardinal Newman's involvement in the 19th-century back-to-Rome movement, I have posted the text of the Newman site's article in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread.

The initial commentary from the Spanish Vaticanista Jose Luis Restan also references Cardinal Newman.


The road back home
José Luis Restán
Translated from

22/10/2009

"Our first loyalty is to Christ, not towards the Anglican Communion. Jesus ordered us to be one single body... I feel committed to unity with the Bishop of Rome, and I have always hoped to die, even with any Catholic layman, with the rites of the Roman Church."

Those were the words of a young Anglican parish priest in Kent, southeast England, after the announcement by the Holy See, of the creation of a canonical structure to accommodate those Anglicans who have for years now sought full communion with the Catholic Church.

They are moving words that focus on the significance of this development.

It does not concern only the whims of a few thousand Anglican faithful because they oppose the decision of the Anglican Communion to ordain women and homosexuals. Nor is it a scheme by clever prelates in the Vatican to take advantage of the discontents in a Christian community that is in open decline.

It is much more serious and profound. Indeed, it has been over 150 years that deep tensions have characterized the Anglican churches. The great Cardinal John Henry Newman, whose beatification is expected to take place in 2010 (probably by the Pope himself), has left us a profound and sorrowful chronicle of his time that sheds light on what many Anglicans have understood and felt increasingly in recent years.

It tells of the growing consciousness that the treasure of the faith based on the Gospel and the tradition of the Fathers of the Church can only be found with full accommodation, defense and support, in the Catholic Church presided over by the Successors of Peter.

This consciousness has become more intense to the degree that the Anglican Communion itself has evolved its internal 'Protestantization', and to the degree that the professed faith as well as ecclesiastical discipline in essential matters has increasingly gone into the hands of liberal majorities in congregations dominated by political logic and the media's sense of the times.

The ordination of women and homosexuals as priests and bishops could well have been the fuse but it does not indicate the real root of the problem, as the Kent priest's words indicate.

After almost two decades of patient dialog with these Anglican brothers, Benedict XVI has expressed his openness to them in the form of Personal Ordinariates for Anglican converts, similar to the Prelature of the Opus Dei or military vicariates.

In this way, they may be inserted directly and fully into the Catholic communion, while keeping their liturgical and spiritual traditions.

It is a daring move which has not failed to elicit resentment in some Catholic circles and in the Church of England. But the Pope has once again decided on a valiant measure in the interest of unity, responding to the authentic desire and hazardous path chosen by those who have knocked on Peter's door.

And what will those critics now say who claim Benedict XVI does not govern?

It is not a path of roses that faces those thousands of faithful, priests and bishops who want to return to the mother house. They will be beset by criticism and incomprehension, and they will have to deal with practical problems that have to do with family, finances and their social life.

Most Anglican priests are married, but they may continue to be priests once they are re-ordained in the Catholic rite. But married bishops may not be Catholic bishops, since episcopal celibacy is the rule even in the Orthodox and Eastern churches.

But they will all have to profess their adherence to the totality of Catholic doctrine as it is spelled out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

With great humility, Archbishop John Hepworth of Blackwood, Australia - primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion - said: "This is much more than we dared to dream and to ask for in our prayers... It is an act of great goodness on the part of the Holy Fahter, who has dedicated his Pontificate to the cause of unity."

It is a day of joy for the universal Church, but in Lambeth Palace, residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, there is no hiding the bitterness - even if the Church of England recognizes the right of their members to find their own way and has declared that the development will not break its ecumenical dialog with the Roman Catholic Church towards eventual unification.

But it is obvious that this represents a further deterioration in the fabric of the Anglican Communion which Williams's mediation has failed to avoid. The wound caused by Henry VIII's schism has not been closed, but the damage it has caused has become more obvious.

With his paternal gesture, Benedict XVI has reached out to the hearts of thousands of Anglican brothers who, like Newman in his day, will be taking the road to Rome - the road back home - with humility and determination.

And that, even in Canterbury, they can well understand.


The Newman article I posted in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread refers to the fact that Pope Benedict XVI has been working on this more-than-rapprochement with Anglicans wishing to 'come home' for 20 years - I made a note to check that out - and also to a 1990s book by an English author about such a possibility.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, an ex-Anglican priest who now serves in the diocese of Charleston, North Carolina, who writes extensively for Catholic media, gives us the proper background and information on his blog today.



Ratzinger and the Anglicans
by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Oct. 22, 2009


For ten years I was an Anglican priest, and for ten years I was a Catholic layman in England. I worked for the St Barnabas Society - a charity that quietly assists convert clergy as they convert to the Catholic Church...

Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is dismayed that the Personal Ordinariate project was popped on him as a surprise move at a 'very late stage' it can't have come as much of a surprise. This thing has been cooking for years.

We can trace the development of it back to the early 90's when the Church of England was debating the ordination of women. When the CofE General Synod voted to ordain women in 1992 high level Anglicans were already in discussions with Rome.

The retired Bishop of London - Graham Leonard was not only in talks with Cardinal Basil Hume, but also with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the CDF. I believe Ratzinger was sympathetic to the Anglo Catholics even then, and I know that a personal friendship developed between Cardinal Ratzinger and (now) Mgr. Leonard.

At the same time the Catholic convert journalist William Oddie wrote a book called The Roman Option in which he argued for an Anglo- Catholic 'church' in communion with Rome which looks very like what we now have as the Personal Ordinariate.

Oddie also criticized the Catholic bishops in England for inhibiting such an option because it was 'unworkable' and 'damaging to ecumenical relations with the Anglicans'. Oddie was subsequently marginalized and treated as a pariah by the English Catholic establishment.

What has happened in the intervening seventeen years? First of all the Anglican Church has continued its slide into secular relativism.

I can remember discussing women's ordination with my Parochial Church Council (local parish governing body) in 1990. I said, "Mark my words. You are debating women's ordination now. In ten years' time you will be debating homosexual marriage." They were angry and incredulous.

As the Anglican Church was dominated by the feminist/homosexualist lobby the 'historic Christians' (my term for those who hold to the historic faith once delivered to the saints) became more and more marginalized. Increasingly they saw their true home to be either Rome (for the Anglo Catholics) or sectarianism (for the Anglo Evangelicals)

In the meantime Joseph Ratzinger ascends the throne of Peter. Realizing that it was the professional ecumenists along with the liberal Catholic bishops in England who stood in the way, he shifts the process to the CDF and away from Walter Kasper's ecumenical dicastery.

He waits for the retirement of the good, but ineffectual Cormac Murphy O'Connor - who was for many years a leading light in the establishment ARCIC (Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission) talks and, one of the old style ecumenists.

With Levada at the CDF and [having placed] Archbishop Nichols in Westminster [to succeed Murphy O'Connor] the time was right to move.


While Nichols was originally a protege of Cardinal Hume and an inside member of what Damien Thompson calls the 'Magic Circle' of liberal English bishops, Nichols (who cynics say knows how to trim his sail according to the wind) seems to have become more conservative--supporting new ecclesial movements in his time at Birmingham and ordaining (among others) the married former Anglican priest and theologian John Saward.

There are several other things that remain mysterious about the timing of the move. First of all, it is strange that an Apostolic Constitution should be announced at such short notice, and without the thing being ready for publication. [Cardnal Levada said it will be in two weeks. And I think the 'short notice' was because the Vatican has learned from the FSSPX fiasco in January that it is never wise to telegraph your intentions ahead of time - because the spoilers will certainly move in and hijack it, as they did with the excom recall. In that case, subsequent reconstruction of known facts and dates has apparently established that the leak came from Cardinal Re at the Congregation of Bishops who alerted his sources as early as September 2008 [a Spanish blogger friend of his blogged about it at the time], and that is why Swedish TV was able to lay the trap for Bishop Williamson in Germany in November 2008.]

We can only guess that the move was made when it was because Walter Kasper was out of town and it saved face for everyone. [Kasper is at the Mixed International Commission Theological session in Cyprus between the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church.]

Why was the Archbishop of Canterbury not consulted? Why was it a surprise move for the Anglicans too? Well, why bother to consult when you already know the answer?

Pope Benedict has been working with these people for decades. He knew they would only stall, ask for 'further clarification', dig in their heels and throw up endless obstacles. The Pope understands that there has been enough talk, enough diplomacy, enough listening and dialogue, and sometimes you have to act.


Benedict will be seen as a kind of Ronald Reagan of the Vatican. When Reagan got to the White House he discovered that the established way of dealing with the Soviets was detente, talk, talk, talk and more talk. He decided that victory was in his grasp and proposed a firm confrontation. "Mr Brezhnev, pull down that wall!" His professional statesmen and diplomats were shocked at his 'foolishness.' But it worked. Communism was already fragile all it needed was a puff of air to knock it down completely.

Pope Benedict's move this week will have similar impact in the world of Christian dialogue. With Personal Ordinariates, not only have the professional ecumenists been shown the way forward, but the duplicitous liberal Catholic bishops who would have stalled, moved it into 'discussion groups' and presented 'further obstacles' have also been very effectively gone around.

No longer will a gifted, willing and able convert priest have to wait years to be ordained and in the meantime be pushed from pillar to post by Catholic bishops who are driven by a liberal agenda that is actually illiberal.

Finally, the English and Americans should stop being so parochial and offended. Pope Benedict did not make this move to offend the Church of England or to poach people from the Episcopal Church. He was responding to pleas from people who have already left or are planning to leave the Anglican Church.

Furthermore, he is aware of the tremendous growth of both the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the developing world. I believe he has his eye on the faithful Catholics and Anglicans in Africa and Asia, and that he hopes this move will enable them to join together in a young, new and energetic alliance for the twenty first century.


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Pope receives 'Compendium Eucharisticum':
All about the Sacrifice of the Mass and
what Catholics, including priests, should know

Translated from
the 10/22/09 issue of






At the General Audience yesterday, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, presented to the Pope the Compendium eucharisticum (Vatican Publishing House, 2009, 467 pp) edited by his dicastery and published Oct. 19.

The need for such a book - a compendium of theology and spirituality on the Eurhcaristic Sacrifice - was indicated by the 11th Ordinary Assembly of the Bishops' Synod in 2005 on the theme of the Eucharist as the 'source and summit of the life and mission of the Church".

Responding to the suggestion by the Synodal fathers, Benedict XVI then ordered the publication of "a compendium that will assemble texts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, prayers, explanations of the Eucharistic prayers in the Roman Missal, and other texts that may be useful for the correct understanding, celebration adn adoration of the Sacrament of the altar".

This was Paragraph 93 in the Holy Father's post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis published on February 22, 2007. The Pope also expressed the hope that the Compendium may help "the Christian people to believe, celebrate, and to live ever better the Eucharistic mystery" and that it may inspire "every faithful Christian to make his own life a true act of spiritual worship".

The central idea of the book, therefore, is to find a unified approach to the Eucharist among theology, celebration of the Mass and Eucharistic adoration, and popular piety.

As indicated by the Synodal sssembly, the compendium offers material for study, prayer and contemplation.

[The first edition is in Latin, but it will be published soon in the other official languages of the Vatican.]


A CNA report based on the OR item presents the Compendium
as 'a manual on how to say the Mass'. In his blog entry today,

Father Z presents more details about the compendium



1.It is divided into 3 sections: doctrinal, liturgical, and devotional.
2.It has a number of appendices: Book IV of the Imitation; section of 1983 Latin Code; section of 1990 Eastern Code on the Eucharist.
3.The preface is by the Prefect of the Cong. for Divine Worship, Card. Canizares. It clearly speaks of both forms of the Roman Rite being of equal importance.
4.The doctrinal section contains excerpts from the decree of the Council of Trent on the Eucharist; Vatican II; the Compendium of the Catechism on the Eucharist; a commentary on the Four Eucharist prayers.
5.The liturgical section contains the Ordo Missae of the Novus Ordo; the Ordo Missae of the 1962 Missale Romanum; the Office of Corpus Christi from the Liturgia Horarum; the complete Office for Corpus Christi from the 1961 Breviarium Romanum; two Votive Masses of the Holy Eucharist; the Order of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; 7 Litanies; and a number of Eucharistic hymns.
6.The devotional part contains the prayers before Mass, the prayers after Mass, vesting prayers for the priest and for the bishop, and other devotional prayers.



Irrelevant P.S.: I have been wondering why Mons. Gaenswein was at the GA yesterday when his mother died on Tuesday. Is he not going home for a few days at least?

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This is the Times story today, and includes some parts they already reported yesterday in items also posted on this page - I have reduced them to smaller print in this post.




What's the Times's game? Yesterday its headline read 'Pope's gambit could see 1,000 quit Church' [encircled above), which
I immediately thought was deliberately playing it down. Now, they've swung around to 400,000, the original figure most cited
before Oct. 20, since it represents the membership of the Traditional Anglican Communion. Maybe they think by putting
the larger figure up front now, they will have a chance to say later 'Estimates were greatly exaggerated' if less than
400,000 make the move in the next few years!... Also, note the 'malicious' choice of pictures: Seen beside Rowan Williams's
look of chagrin, the Holy Father's beaming face looks like he is gloating (he seems to be clapping, too!) See the many ways
news can be slanted or commented upon....



Leaders of more than 400,000 Anglicans who quit over women priests are to seek immediate unity with Rome under the apostolic constitution announced by Pope Benedict XVI.

They will be among the first to take up an option allowing Anglicans to join an “ordinariate” that brings them into full communion with Roman Catholics while retaining elements of their Anglican identity.

The Pope’s move is regarded by some Anglicans as one of the most dramatic developments in Protestant christendom since the Reformation gave birth to the Church of England 400 years ago.

Archbishop John Hepworth, the twice-married Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, who led negotiations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, said he was “profoundly moved” by the Pope’s decision and would immediately seek the approval of the group’s 400,000 members worldwide to join.

He described the development as “a moment of grace, perhaps even a moment of history”.

As fully-fledged Anglicans also seek refuge from liberalism in the shelter of Rome, it is feared that the proposal could deal a deadly blow to the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion, which already faces schism over homosexual ordination.

Up to 500 members of Forward in Faith, the traditionalist grouping that opposes women bishops, are meeting this weekend to debate the Pope’s offer of a home for former Anglican laity and married priests.

Many are waiting for the publication of a code of practice by Rome to flesh out what is on offer before deciding whether to go.

Insiders believe that Rome’s new canonical solution to the Anglican crisis could tempt entire dioceses and possibly even a province.

More than 440 clergy took compensation and left the Church of England, most for Rome, after the General Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992. More than 30 returned.

The Pope has made it significantly more attractive for Anglicans to move over this time by offering a universal solution that allows them to retain crucial aspects of their identity and to set up seminaries that will, presumably, train married men for the Catholic priesthood.

But any serving clergyman would face a marked loss of income. A job as a clergyman in the Church of England comes with a stipend of £22,250 and free accommodation. Catholic priests earn about £8,000, paid by their parish and topped up by a diocese where the parish cannot afford even that.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, indicated that there would be no compensation this time. It was only introduced at the last minute previously as a way of getting the whole women’s ordination package through the General Synod with the necessary two-thirds majorities.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Catholic who retired this year as the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, welcomed Rome’s “generosity of spirit” in its recognition of Anglican patrimony. But he made clear that many issues needed to be resolved before decisions could be made. The two “flying bishops” appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to care for opponents of women priests also said that this was not a time for “sudden decisions”.

Andrew Burnham, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, and Keith Newton, the Bishop of Richborough, who went last year to Rome to begin talks with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: “Anglicans in the Catholic tradition understandably will want to stay within the Anglican Communion. Others will wish to make individual arrangements as their conscience directs. A further group will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land.”


In the US a writer for the Jesuit magazine America expressed fears that some newcomers would be “nostalgists, anti-feminists and anti-gay bigots”.

At Notre Dame University in Indiana, scholars forecast a migration of Catholics into the new Anglican Catholic rite because of the sudden freedom to marry that it would grant.

Professor Lawrence Cunningham called the Vatican’s move a “stunning” endorsement of the married priesthood, adding that it would have immediate repercussions for Catholics. It would “raise anew the question, ‘If they can do it, why can’t the priests of Rome?’ ”

Archbishop Robert Duncan, of the Anglican Church of North America, which broke away from the Episcopal Church over the ordination of the gay Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire, said: “We rejoice that the Holy See has opened this doorway, which represents another step in the co-operation and relationship between our Churches.”

In Rome, Vittorio Messori, who has co-written books with the Pope, said that the Anglican Communion was already losing followers because of female and gay priests.

“More Muslims go to the mosques in London than Anglicans go to church” he said. “The exit of half a million Anglicans to Rome will only confirm a trend.”



But the following lead paragraphs from a Times 'analyst', who has been known for her venomous attacks on the Pope and the Church before, has a truly twisted and preposterous hypothesis - to which one might remind her to look at the motto on the British royal coat of arms: Honi soit qui mal y pense!' [Shame on him who thinks ill of it). I am posting this only to show that the pitchforks and daggers and cyanide bombs are out... and that it can only get worse.


From The Times October 22, 2009
Converts may choke on
raw meat of Catholicism

by Libby Purves: Analysis

The welcoming of Anglican clergy into the Catholic Church highlights the differences, and difficulties, of approach.

Attack is the best form of defence. On the eve of another damning report on clerical abuse and cover-up in Ireland, that seems to be Pope Benedict’s tactic.

His sudden invitation to Anglican defectors will certainly take the spotlight off a continuing child abuse scandal fed, for decades, by the masculine and intimidating structures of authority in the Catholic hierarchy.
[As if anyone but the media themselves could turn the spotlight on and off anything they choose to!]

Words like “poaching” may seem harsh, but there is more than a whiff of power politics in this move. A “rush to Rome” would resolve Catholicism’s shortage of priests, win back some ancient church buildings annexed at the Reformation, and reduce Anglicanism to an anxious, liberal rump. Result! It is not, after all, so long since Catholics prayed weekly for “the conversion of England”.

But wavering clergy should beware. Apart from anything else, onlookers might accuse them of two opposing faults: an illiberal lack of elasticity over human beings — notably women and gays — yet a woefully pliable attitude to belief.....



There oughta be a law to muzzle bigoted, even evil, journalists.


Patrick Archbold at Cretive Minority Report has unearthed a quotation from St. Edward the Confessor (King of England, 1043-1066), which might be apropos today - not that 'the English people' are necessarily corrupt and wicked now, but simply too secularized perhaps, and cowed somehow by the Islamic presence among them.

The extreme corruption and wickedness of the English nation has provoked the just anger of God. When malice shall have reached the fullness of its measure, God will, in His wrath, send to the English people wicked spirits, who will punish and afflict them with great severity, by separating the green tree from its parent stem the length of three furlongs.

But at last this same tree, through the compassionate mercy of God, and without any national (governmental) assistance, shall return to its original root, reflourish and bear abundant fruit.



At the Telegraph, Damian Thompson filed a wrap-up story today with some new information:

The Vatican opens its arms to Anglicans:
Huge impact expected from Pope's
dramatic invitation to disaffected Anglicans

by Damian Thompson

Oct. 22, 2009


On Tuesday morning, Pope Benedict XVI sprang a big surprise on both the Roman Catholic Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. He announced the setting up of what amounts to a church within a church for Anglicans who reject the ordination of women priests and bishops and liberal teachings on homosexuality.

If they choose, these disaffected churchgoers will soon be able to worship together in full communion with Rome but with their own Anglican-flavoured liturgy, their own married priests and their own bishop or senior priest (an "Ordinary", to use the Vatican's arcane terminology).

The announcement was made at joint press conferences in Rome and London, the latter attended by the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Dr Williams looked uncomfortable at the press briefing: he said he was happy with the news, but his body language told a different story. And no wonder. According to reliable reports, the details of the Pope's very grand decree on the Anglicans, called an Apostolic Constitution, were communicated to him only a couple of days earlier (and they have still not been made public).

The Pope's chief doctrinal adviser, Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is thought to have paid a secret visit to Lambeth Palace to brief Dr Williams as late as Monday.

It cannot have been an easy conversation; sources in Rome claim that the Archbishop and his advisers had been "implacably opposed" to the Pope's scheme.

Yesterday came the headlines and media reports that Dr Williams dreaded. The position of the Church of England "has been dangerously weakened", declared The Times. Religious correspondents announced the end of the Anglican Communion – not as speculation, but as fact.

"The faces of many Church of England bishops have turned as purple as their cassocks," said one commentator. They knew nothing about this Apostolic Constitution in advance: the first official notification was a letter from Dr Williams published yesterday, in which he apologised for the short notice but explained that "I was informed of the planned announcement at a very late stage".

This anger is widely shared by Catholic bishops of England and Wales – and not just because they feel that the Anglicans have been insulted by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI decided not to consult the English Catholic bishops about his dramatic offer. Indeed, the Vatican's own professional ecumenists in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity were also kept out of the picture until "a very late stage".

But it is precisely the exclusion of liberal Catholic bishops that has delighted traditionalist Anglicans. It helps explain why, yesterday, Forward in Faith, the umbrella group for conservative Anglo-Catholics, welcomed the Pope's decision effusively.

They do not know how this arrangement will work in practice – "A lot depends on the fine print but so far there is no fine print," says Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith – but they know what it will not contain: any provision for a local Catholic bishop to make their services trendy and "relevant".

Anglican congregations who pride themselves on being more Catholic than the Pope will be able to carry on celebrating Mass in antique vestments, in sanctuaries behind traditional altar rails, to the accompaniment of motets sung by a professionally trained choir.

These details may seem trivial, compared to the mighty theological disputes that have divided Rome from Canterbury. They are not.

For well over a century, hardline Anglo-Catholics – many of them occupying grimy Victorian Gothic buildings in inner-city parishes rather than medieval rural churches with lovely rectories – have accepted nearly all the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Increasingly, as the authority of successive Archbishops of Canterbury has crumbled, they have been won over to papal supremacy.

The biggest stumbling blocks are not doctrinal; nor does the question of married priests loom large, since the Vatican is happy to ordain married former Anglican clergyman. Intriguingly, under the new arrangements, Rome may agree to ordain some married laymen – a startling departure from tradition, unknown in the West since the Middle Ages.

At a conservative estimate, about 1,000 of the Church of England's 12,000 serving priests have seriously contemplated conversion to Rome. (Many years ago, before he was ordained, Rowan Williams flirted with the idea himself.)

When you ask them why they have not taken the plunge, the most common response is: "The English Catholic bishops are more wishy-washy and liberal than our lot."

If they become "Romans", they have reasoned, they will no longer be able to worship God with the solemnity He deserves. On the south coast of England, in particular, Catholic bishops treat their own traditionalists with snooty disdain, and an influx of ex-Anglicans with similar tastes is the last thing they want.

Which is why Pope Benedict has effectively cut his bishops out of the picture. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he made friends with High Church Anglicans; he is the first Pope in history to understand their concerns. He watched in dismay as liberal Catholics and liberal Anglicans engaged in ecumenical dialogue that led nowhere: the Church of England voted to ordain women priests in 1992, and now seems certain to ordain women bishops, too.

Last year, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's chief ecumenist, desperately pleaded with the Lambeth Conference to pull back from ordaining more women bishops or openly gay men.

But Pope Benedict had already made up his mind. A succession of Anglican bishops had asked for a new home, free from interference by Catholic liberals. Now he has given them what they wanted – and more.

How will the Apostolic Constitution work in practice? No one knows: it is not even published, and even then the outcome will depend on local negotiations. Several hundred Church of England clergy are likely to join the scheme, but will their congregations follow?

"Some congregations will be divided, and you will get parishes where the vicar wants to go and the people don't, and vice versa," says Stephen Parkinson. "The dream solution is for St Aloysius-by-the-Gasworks to be received en masse, priest and people – but, even if there is total agreement, what about the church? Rowan Williams is always telling the American bishops to be generous to those who want to leave and take their buildings with them, but will he practise what he preaches over here?

"And what happens to institutions such as the Anglican shrine at Walsingham, which may well want to join the scheme? These are tricky issues, though I notice that Rome has not set any sort of deadline, so presumably people will have plenty of time to make up their minds."

The legal complexities facing Dr Williams will only add to the sadness he feels at the prospect of losing so many of his priests, and at least three Church of England bishops.

But as George Pitcher, The Daily Telegraph's religion editor and himself an Anglican priest, pointed out yesterday, the exodus of Anglo-Catholics opposed to women bishops will make unity on this subject easier to achieve across the Anglican Communion.

"Ironically, the Pope has given disaffected traditionalists the province they always wanted from the Church of England," he says. "But it would be a great pity if some Anglo-Catholics did not feel they could remain Anglicans, because that rich tradition has so much to offer us."

Some Anglicans are unimpressed by what they interpret as an attempt to park Roman tanks on the Anglican lawn. Professor Diarmaid McCulloch, a leading Church historian who also plays the organ at St Barnabas, Oxford, describes the Pope's offer as "a storm in a teacup, a gesture based on a fundamental misconception of how religion works in England".

But Forward in Faith [a worldwide federation which at the end of 2005, had 800 member parishes - and was organized soon after the Church of England approved women's ordination in 1992] is delighted by what it regards as an act of great boldness and imagination by the Pope.

Three of its bishops – John Broadhurst of Fulham, Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet and Keith Newton of Richborough – are likely to take up the Pope's offer, since they (unlike the Archbishop of Canterbury) seem to have had a very clear idea that it was coming, and helped frame its terms. Most traditionalists, however, are as surprised as anyone else.

"When we heard on Monday night that there were going to be joint press conferences in London and Rome, we thought it was something to do with the Traditional Anglican Communion [a small group of ex-Anglicans also seeking reconciliation with Rome]," says Stephen Parkinson. "We never dreamed that the news was going to be this big. It's Forward in Faith's annual conference on Friday and Saturday and I've just torn up the agenda, because the Holy Father has changed everything."

[I wonder how a communion that claims at least 400,000 adherents can be considered a small group - perhaps in relation to the 77 million total membership in the Anglican Communion.]

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George Weigel has a fresh insight into the forthcoming Anglican accommodation within the Catholic Church, and he gives persuasive evidence of it. It also places the entire ecumenical picture - with the Anglicans, at least - in a realistic light, so different from the rosy kumbaya visions offered by the 'professional ecumenists'.


Catholicism and Anglicanism:
the end of an era


Oct. 21, 2009


The first wave of reactions to the October 20 Vatican announcement of a new arrangement for receiving into the Catholic Church groups of Anglican clergy and laity who would retain distinctive elements of their spiritual and liturgical heritage tended toward the critical: Rome's move, it was suggested, was a new obstacle to Anglican-Catholic dialogue, an act of ecclesiastical "poaching," and a retreat from the ecumenical commitments of the Second Vatican Council.

What the Vatican intended as an act of ecumenical hospitality, however, was also bit of theological shock-therapy: a moment of clarification in a situation that had begun to resemble an ecumenical Wonderland in which well-intentioned people taught themselves impossible things before breakfast.

Many of the practical details of the new arrangement remain unsettled, for the text of the Apostolic Constitution that Benedict XVI will issue, creating "personal ordinariates" by which Anglicans can enter into full communion with Rome under the spiritual guidance of Anglican clergy who will be ordained as Catholic priests, has not been completed.

Nonetheless, the announcement does mark the end of an era in Anglica-Catholic relations, which began with a pioneering ecumenical dialogue led by the Belgian Cardinal Desire Mercier and the British statesman Lord Halifax after World War I. That era reached its apogee at Vatican II in the mid-1960s, when corporate reunion between Canterbury and Rome seemed to many an achievable, short-term goal.

As both Anglicanism and Catholicism sought to find their way through the cultural whitewater of late modernity, however, the theological premise on which an era of good feelings had been based - that Anglicanism and Catholicism both affirmed the binding character of apostolic tradition, which in turn led to a common understanding of the priesthood and the sacraments - began to seem less a given than a hope.

The tensions were evident more than twenty years ago, in a historic exchange of letters among Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, and Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, the veteran Dutch ecumenist then leading the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The Pope and the cardinal asked Runcie to explain the reasoning that had led certain parts of the Anglican communion to ordain women to the ministerial priesthood. Runcie replied in largely sociological, rather than theological, terms, citing women's changing roles in business, culture, and politics.

By the end of the exchange, in 1986, a parting of the ways had been reached: the highest authorities of the Catholic Church believed that apostolic tradition, not misogyny, precluded ordination to the priesthood, which Catholics understood in iconographic terms as a sacramental representation of the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
[What is it about this concept that advocates of women priests do not understand? Or refuse to understand. God chose to incarnate the Son as a man, male, like Adam, because he was the new Adam for the new humanity!]

Archbishop Runcie and those whom he represented believed that contemporary human insights into gender roles trumped apostolic tradition and necessitated a development of both doctrine and practice. Rome could not accept that as a legitimate development of Christian self-understanding.

Catholic authorities also feared that this approach to the authority of tradition would inevitably lead to an Anglican re-conception of the moral law on a host of issues, including the morality of homosexual acts. That, too, happened, fracturing the Anglican Communion in the process.

Now, Anglicans who have come to accept the Catholic view that what numerous Anglican authorities understood as a legitimate development of doctrine was in fact an abandonment of the very idea of "doctrine" have been offered a path into full communion with the Catholic Church that honors the distinctiveness of their spiritual and liturgical traditions.

Which, in the end, may actually clarify things.

The theological gulf between Rome and Canterbury had become wider, not narrower, since Vatican II. An honest recognition of that fact might lead to a more fruitful, less fantasy-driven theological dialogue, as well as to new and intriguing historical explorations of just what the English Reformation entailed, back in the 16th century.

Surely, Benedict XVI had all that background in mind when, last August, Rowan Williams made his decision to 'settle' the intra-Anglican dispute over women and gay priests by proposing that both sides should simply co-exist along two tracks, to wit :

On the one hand there would be those who adhere to biblical tradition, share a common vision of Anglican teaching and practice, and feel themselves part of a larger fraternity with the other Churches and Christian communities.

On the other hand would be those who give priority to the decisions of their own community [i.e., support women- and homosexual priests) and view the Anglican Communion as a free federation of independent bodies, with simply a common cultural history behind them.

He was desperate principally to keep the ultra-liberal Episcopalian Church (the US arm of Anglicanism) from breaking away. And he proposed that each of the Anglican Communion's 44 provinces worldwide (the US Episcopal Church is one province) sign on to which side they wished to belong, although individual members could choose their own side. How on earth did he expect that to work out in practice?

At which point, Benedict XVI must have had the signal he needed to go ahead with devising the Apostolic Constitution to assist Anglicans who felt they could no longer stay within the Church of their baptism
.


A quick summary of the above can be found in two posts in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=859...
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=859...



10/23/09
I started to post this item yesterday because it comes from the Wall Street Journal, and it was written by someone who had reported on the the immediate pre- and post-Conclave days for WSJ in April 2005.

But as I started to go through the article, so many factual errors came up - none of them insignificant - that I was appalled to realize how a prestigious newspaper like the WSJ (now the US daily with the largest circulation) could post such an article. I tried to get a background on Meichtry, but all I can get online so far is that he/she is a Dow-Jones reporter, Dow Jones being the financial agency that began the WSJ and owned it until NewsCorp acquired it last year.

I have decided to go ahead and post it - appropriately fisked -
as a prime example of the uninformed/misinformed reporting about the Church that takes place in the secular media, even at supposedly prestigious newspapers.



For the Vatican, new resolve
to expand the Catholic fold

By STACY MEICHTRY

Oct. 22, 2009

ROME -- Long regarded as a hard-liner on religious doctrine, Pope Benedict XVI also is emerging as the pontiff of interchurch, or ecumenical, relations.

The 82-year-old Pope's decision Tuesday to amend Vatican laws [He's not - he's issuing an Apostolic Constitution to govern the special case of Anglicans converting to Catholicism; and anything in it will presumably be consistent with existing canon law] to make it easier for Anglicans to become Roman Catholic represents his most aggressive attempt to bring more Christians into the Catholic fold.

The Pope's outreach to rival churches has spanned the conservative-liberal spectrum. [Because he is not reaching out to others on the basis of their ideological persuasion but on the basis of the common belief in Christ as the Savior.]

He has bolstered dialogue with Lutherans and other mainline Protestants. He met with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, regarded by some as the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Churches. [Not just by some: He is 'primus inter pares' among the Orthodox Patriarchs, by tradition and by consensus even today, and that is why his title is Ecumenical Patriarch, not just Patriarch.]

And he lifted an excommunication ban on the highly conservative Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X. [On four bishops of the FSSPX, not on the group, because none in the congregation was ever excommunicated.]

Few expected Pope Benedict to reach out to other Christian churches aggressively when he was elected in April 2005. [He pledged himself solemnly to the cause of Christian unity in his first homily the day after his election, as the writer notes in this article later! Did they think he was merely improvising? Or that he did not mean it? Here is what he said and how he said it:

With full awareness, therefore, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter bathed in his blood, Peter's current Successor takes on as his primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers.

This is his ambition, his impelling duty. He is aware that good intentions do not suffice for this. Concrete gestures that enter hearts and stir consciences are essential
, inspiring in everyone that inner conversion that is the prerequisite for all ecumenical progress.

The new Pope Benedict wrote this homily in Latin a few hours after his election, to be delivered to his fellow cardinals the following morning at his first Mass with them as Pope. Thee is no greater earnest of how he views his task to advance the cause of Christian reunification with 'concrete gestures that enter hearts and stir consciences'.

Yet the rise of secularism among European Christians and the expansion of Islam on the Continent in recent decades have influenced thinking within Vatican corridors.

In addition, this Pope considers divisions among rival Christian churches as a threat to Roman Catholicism's credibility in the market of ideas and faiths, according to Vatican analysts and advisers to the Pope.

"Anyone who thought he wasn't serious about ecumenical dialogue was seriously mistaken," said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, one of Pope Benedict's former students whom he occasionally consults.

Yet some Christians don't view Pope Benedict's latest move as an ecumenical gesture, and they warn that it risks derailing decades of formal dialogue between the Vatican and Anglican leaders. [Those are people who think of ecumenism as ecumenism for its own sake, to be pursued endlessly, not as the path towards actual Christian reunification, as it was and is meant to be!]

Much of Pope Benedict's reputation as a hard-liner stems from his days as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the late Pope John Paul II's chief enforcer of doctrine. Over two decades, the then-cardinal addressed controversial issues ranging from bioethics to birth control. While some other Christian churches began to ordain women, the Catholic Church resisted. [Not a question of resistance at all! It is simply standing by its doctrine and practice of two millennia.]

Some of his most contentious positions addressed the question of how the Catholic Church relates to other faiths and Christian denominations.

In 2000, his office issued the document Dominus Iesus, which outraged leaders [Some leaders, the less thoughtful ones - not all!] of other religions and Christian churches by asserting the Catholic Church was the only sure path to salvation*.

The document also said that divisions among Christian churches were undercutting the mission of Roman Catholicism as the universal church. [Oh, the many ways in which Dominus Iesus is continually being misrepresented by those who have apparently not read it at all!]

But that message was obscured by the document's confrontational tone, Vatican analysts say.

[Confrontational? Only one who has not read the document will say that. Or demagogues from the other Christian confessions who ignore that their 'churches' are all offshoots of the Catholic Church. How can ever-smaller twigs - that will never become tree trunks, to extend a metaphor - compare themselves to the original 'giant sequoia' out of which they came?

Anyone who bothers to look at DI, will see that as early as the third paragraph, the declaration itself says it is using "expository language...to set forth again the doctrine of the Catholic faith" regarding the uniqueness and universally saving mystery of Jesus Christ and the Church.

And of course, it states firmly what Catholics believe about the Church, and have always believed, from the time of the Apostles. To state firmly what one believes is not confrontational.

Because it was a straightforward exposition of a doctrine of faith, serious Protestant pastors and theologians were not outraged, unlike those who reacted like Pavlov's dogs, based on a mere reading of the misleading reduction with which the professional media - including the abovementioned 'Vatican analysts' [meaning people who analyze Vatican affairs', not 'analysts from the Vatican'] - reported DI and commented on it.]


For decades, Catholic officials have engaged in talks with other Christian leaders with the aim of reaching compromises on doctrine. [NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO! As Mons. Fellay recently said, "We are not looking for compromises" - for the simple reason that there can be no compromise on Catholic doctrine. There has never been, since the time of the Apostles.]

At the same time, Pope Benedict has said each church needs to defend its own doctrine, and rival Christian churches need to accept each others' differences. [Well, DUH!]

Pope Benedict signaled his intentions on the Vatican's ecumenical approach early in his pontificate. In one of his first Masses as pope, the pontiff said he planned to make ecumenical dialogue his "primary task."

He also has reached out to other religions, meeting with Muslim leaders in Turkey and paying a visit to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Israel. [COLORE][It's journalistic laziness (i.e., not having to look through the record) to reduce the Pope's outreach to other religions to two events which are not even the most emblematic!]

There still are few details on the new Apostolic Constitution that amends church laws to attract Anglicans. [No, it will not amend any Church laws. It will set forth new regulations based on existing canon law - Cardinal Levada said the two-week publication delay is to enable all the canon law involved to be thoroughly checked out.]

The new laws [more correctly, the Apostolic Constitution (specifically for returning Anglicans), which canon law allows a Pope to promulgate within the limits of canon law itself], will create church structures, called personal ordinariates, that will operate within local Catholic dioceses and be administered by former Anglican clergy who convert to Catholicism.

The ordinariates will allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Pope while continuing to practice a large part of their traditional liturgy, according to Vatican officials. The new structures also will recognize the ordinations of Anglican priests, including those who are married.

But the Vatican hasn't released the text of the new regulations that will govern how the ordinariates will function, leaving many Anglicans to question whether the Pope is genuinely carving out a space for Anglicanism within the Catholic Church. [Was this writer paying attention to Cardinal Levada's news conference at all? Or did he/she at least read the news reports on it? The Apostolic Constitution will be published in two weeks. At that time, ask the questions. And that last assumption, supposedly in the name of Anglicans, is just mindless!]

Some Anglican bishops have expressed concern over whether the proposed system will actually allow those who convert to keep their Anglican practices. [I do not think this is based on an actual bishop's concern. It's probably the writer's own assumption - apparently ignoring the fact that this has already worked out in practice in certain parishes in the United States whose activity is well documented in the religious media.]

One point of concern is that the Vatican has said that married former Anglican priests will never be able to become a Catholic bishop.

[And this, too, shows ignorance or forgetfulness or simply not reading what was reported of Cardinal Levada's news conference. Because it is established tradition in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches - one that has never been questioned, and one that any Anglican priest would have learned in the seminary. So how can it be a point of concern for them?

The Primate of TAC, Bishop Hepworth, is twice divorced and remarried, yet he led the lobbying with Rome for a mass crossover of his congregation. His statement welcoming the Pope's decision was a model of Christian gratitude and humility. If his interest was to remain a bishop, rather than a sincere conviction that it was time for him to return to the faith of his baptism, and to represent the sentiments of his vast congregation, would he have done that?]


The Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, a married Anglican cleric who is Bishop of Rochester, England, said the Vatican's announcement showed a "generosity of spirit."

But he questioned whether the new system would uphold Anglican traditions in the training of new priests. "Before some fundamental issues are clarified, it is difficult to respond further to what the Vatican is offering."


*I must add something more about Dominus Iesus, since I have an opening:

The simplistic, habitual and consensual charge that DI claims the Church is the only way to salvation ignores the qualifications that the document takes pains to spell out, e.g.,

... these separated Churches and communities as such, though we believe they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation.

For the spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church
”.

It continues that for those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church,

...Salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation.

This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit”; it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”.



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For what it's worth - you never know:


Iraqi state newspaper says
Pope coming to Iraq soon to visit
Abraham's birthplace in Ur

Translated from




The Pope to visit 'Abraham's dwelling' in Ur?

According to the state newspaper of Iraq, Al Sabah, it's a done deal and can even happen soon.

"Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Iraq soon to visit 'Abraham's dwelling' in the archeological site of Ur, in the province of Di Qar," it reports on Page 1 today.

It cites its source as the president of the regional council of the governatorate of Dhi Qar, Qusai al-Abbadi, returning from a visit to Italy last week.

Al Abbadi reportedly told the newspaper yesteerday that during a visit to the Vatican, he reiterated an invitation of the council that had previously been sent, and that he was told by a ranking Vatican official that "The Holy Father has accepted the invitation and will visit Dhi Qar in the near future".

Ur, the ancient capital of Sumeria, existed 2100 years before Christ. The site is barely 10 kilometers away from Nasiriyah [where the Italian military mission to Iraq was based, and about a dozen Italian soldiers killed in a 2004 terrorist attack], an archeological area called 'Old Babylon'.


Indulge me...I went to Al-Sabah online - it's in Arabic but it has the automatic translation feature, so I did locate the item on the Pope on Page 1- It was the last in a series of 10 Page 1 stories, and whether it comes to pass at all, I thought it would make an interesting image to share - Here's Page 1, the item (or the start of it) and the automatic translation:



10/22/09
P.S. So APCOM asked Fr. Lombardi, and reported simply:



The news of a visit by the Pope to Iraq is unfounded, according to Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press office director.






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OTHER ECUMENICAL NEWS

Out of sequence, but important sidelights from Wednesday's General Audience - unfortunately, I cannot find accompanying photos . (I do not generally have the time to look through the Vatican and Felici thumbnails, as I don't now.)....So, other ecumenical avenues besides the Anglicans...
10/23/09 P.S. In the main forum, Gloria has posted a photo showing Bishop Tichon with the Pope (not that you can see Papino's face!) which I am reposting here.



Bulgarian Orthodox leader
affirms desire for unity




VATICAN CITY, OCT. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A Bulgarian Orthodox prelate told Benedict XVI of his desire for unity, and his commitment to accelerate communion with the Catholic Church.



At the end of Wednesday's general audience, Bishop Tichon, head of the diocese for Central and Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, told the Pope, "We must find unity as soon as possible and finally celebrate together," L'Osservatore Romano reported.

"People don't understand our divisions and our discussions," the bishop stated. He affirmed that he will "not spare any efforts" to work for the quick restoration of "communion between Catholics and Orthodox."

Bishop Tichon said that "the theological dialogue that is going forward these days in Cyprus is certainly important, but we should not be afraid to say that we must find as soon as possible the way to celebrate together."

"A Catholic will not become an Orthodox and vice versa, but we must approach the altar together," he added.

The prelate told the Pontiff that "this aspiration is a feeling that arose from the works of the assembly" of his diocese, held in Rome, in which all the priests and two delegates from every Bulgarian Orthodox parish took part.

"We have come to the Pope to express our desire for unity and also because he is the Bishop of Rome, the city that hosted our assembly," he stated.


Pope invited to Croatia

After the bishop, Luka Bebic, speaker of the Croatian Parliament, addressed the Holy Father, inviting the Pontiff to visit his homeland and thanking him "for the support the Holy See has given our people since independence, during the war back then and now in the process that will lead Croatia to enter the European Union."

Benedict XVI next greeted members of the Association Rondine Cittadella della Pace [Citadel of Peace], which promotes dialogue and peace by bringing together students from conflict areas to live and study in community.

They shared with the Pope a concrete proposal titled "14 Points for Peace in the Caucasus" that was developed at an international congress the association organized in May.

The proposal was also distributed to the ambassadors of the Caucasus countries and to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Young people of all the ethnic and religious groups of the Caucasus were also present at the audience.

Members of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Cardinal Sancha, whose founder, Cardinal Ciriaco María Sancha y Hervas, was beatified Sunday in Toledo, Spain, also greeted the Pontiff.

Headed by their superior, Sister Maria del Carmen Dominguez, the religious expressed to the Holy Father their commitment to be faithful to their original charism "of service to the poor, orphans and the elderly."



And the latest 'tone shift' from Moscow is not quite 'Ho-hum' this time!


Moscow's cold again:
Hilarion gets specific
about Ukraine problem




Oct. 22 (Translated from ANSA) - Archbishop Hilarion, head of foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, said in Nicosia, Cyprus today, that no meeting was possible between Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Pope Benedict XVI until some conditions set by Moscow are met.

Hilarion, who is attending the meetings of the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialog between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, speaking to the TASS news agency, said that any such meeting can be organized "only after certain conditions that we have already expressed several times to our Catholic counterparts".

"A meeting can only be the result of certain positive changes that have to take place before the meeting, not the subject for the meeting," he said.

He cited in particular the situation in West Ukraine "where the relations between Catholics and Orthodox continue to be very tense, and where there are areas where the Orthodox don't even have a church they can pray in."

"Until such a situation persists", he concluded, "there can be no possibility of organizing a meeting between the Patriarch and the Pope.


That is the most specific complaint, as well as the most belligerent statement I have yet seen in four years of following Moscow blow hot and blow cold towards Rome, which makes for extreme skepticism about Moscow's intentions and words. Now that Hilarion has brought up the Ukraine, the skeptic in me has lost hope of any breakthrough in the foreseeable future!

The Ukraine problem is complicated. In brief: There are 5 million Ukrainian Uniates [Eastern Orthodox Christians who have recognized the primacy of the Pope since the 16th century] and 1 million Ukrainian Catholics of the Latin rite. During the Soviet regime, the Uniates had shifting fortunes until the regime banned them in 1946, forcing them to go underground.

After Ukraine became independent, the Uniates resurfaced, still loyal to Rome - for which the Moscow Patriarchate blames Rome!(and took it out against John Paul II, whom they also resented for sending Polish missionaries to Russia).

The Ukrainian Uniates (mostly foudn in Western Ukraine adjoining Poland) have since been involved in a festering property dispute with the Russian Orthodox Church which lays claim to their churches that the Orthodox used when the Uniates were underground! I suppose that's what Hilarion meant by saying the Orthodox don't even have churches to pray in.

But what can Rome do? The Uniates are autonomous like all Eastern churches are. They look to Rome only for spiritual leadership, but they are in charge of their own affairs.



Apropos, I find the following entry strange coming from the writer, who was a Methodist once and converted to Catholicism, wrote widely about Catholic matters, and then after covering the sex-offending priest scandals in the US, decided to convert to Orthodoxy in 2006! (What does it mean when you abandon your 'faith' because you are disgusted with the conduct of errant members?]

I've excerpted from his blog entry on 10/22/09, which takes off from the last line of Sandro Magister's initial commentary on the B16-Anglo initiative:

Today more than ever, with Joseph Ratzinger as Pope, the ecumenical journey seems not a pursuit of modernity, but a return to the terrain of tradition.


Benedict XVI's brilliant strategy
by Rod Dreher

10/22/09


Of course! Benedict knows that the only Christians who are going to survive intact over the coming decades are those communities firmly rooted in tradition.

Liberal Anglicans simply aren't going to make it, and not because they're bad people, but because there's precious little solid ground upon which they can stand as a distinctly Christian community against the strong currents of modernity.

Benedict is trying to gather in as many faithful traditionalists as he can. What a blessing it would be if he and the Orthodox patriarchs could come to an understanding that could pave the way for reunion.

Personally, I don't see how it could be done, given the wide divergence between Orthodox and Catholic theology since the Great Schism.

But with God, all things are possible -- and I think as a purely secular matter (that is, for the sake of establishing a united front for the preservation and growth of the faith against a de-Christianizing world), re-establishing communion between Eastern and Western Christianity would be great for both.

Long may this Pope -- and the ecumenism of tradition -- live and prosper!




Meanwhile, the Swedish Lutheran Church has approved homosexual marriages. This, after news that Benedict XVI is visiting the Lutheran Church in Rome early next year.

It has become obvious that the principal hindrance to ecumenical progress with other non-Christian communities is not so much theological differences and their understandable desire to keep the traditions and structures they have built up over time (these being the main issues with the Orthodox Churches), but their increasing secularization. It's happening with the Anglicans, it's happening with the Protestants. As it has happened with cafeteria Catholics for more than half a century now.

And it's a domino effect that is bound to leave the dominos down. Once a Christian community adapts itself to the secular world, it's hard to see how and when it will ever un-adapt itself. Accepting women and gay priests and now homosexual marriages - it's the proverbial slippery slope of de-Christianization. And yet, they will continue to preach in the name of Christ.

Let us pray.


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Friday, Oct. 23

ST. GIOVANNI DA CAPISTRANO [John Capistrano](b Italy 1386, d Croatia 1456)
Franciscan, reformer, preacher, papal nuncio, inquisitor, soldier
A brilliant preacher, he took his preaching to countries north of Italy, then was named
papal nuncio for special missions, mostly against 'heretics and infidels' including Jews.
At age 70, he led soldiers into battle against the invading Turks at the siege of Belgrade,
then died shortly after from the bubonic plague.



OR today.


No papal stories in this issue. Page 1 has an editorial commentary
on how the language of international diplomacy - terms like
sustainable development, holism, reproductive rights, and gender -
has amounted to the insidious cultural imposition globally of
the secular ethic. An African Union summit formulates a plan to
protect the continent's millions of refugees and displaced persons;
a UN report says opium profits in Afghanistan increasingly fund
the Taliban, criminality and terrorism; more civilian massacres
in Mogadishu; and Obama cuts allowable pay for top executives of
institutions bailed out by the government.



No events scheduled for the Holy Father today.

The final message of the Bishops Synod's Second Special Assembly for Africa
was presented at a news conference at the Vatican.




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The critics of the Church often completely ignore logic (and therefore reason) in their arguments. How can the Vatican be divisive in this matter, when the Anglicans were already seriously divided - and Benedict XVI's action is simply a response to one of the sides in that division?


Leftist critics say Vatican 'divisive'
in welcoming disaffected Anglicans

by Hillary White


VATICAN CITY, October 22, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The battle lines in the culture wars within both the Anglican and Catholic Churches have become clearly visible with the announcement of new provisions to bring traditionally-minded Christian Anglicans into the Catholic Church in groups.

Some are accusing the Vatican of having torpedoed the remains of the rapidly deteriorating Worldwide Anglican Communion with its surprise announcement by Cardinal Levada, the head of the Vatican's doctrinal office on Tuesday.

Although officially denied by the Vatican [??? In July 2008, Cardinal Levada's letter to the TAC acknowledging that the Vatican was studying the latter's request to rejoin Rome was being studied!], it is being widely acknowledged that the move has been in response to overtures by the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the largest of the "conservative breakaway" groups.

The TAC has objected to the Anglican Churches' decisions to ordain women to the clergy and episcopate and to embrace homosexual activity as equal to natural sexual relations, as well as other deviations from traditional Christian teaching.

After decades of apparently fruitless "ecumenical dialogue," observers have said the Pope has taken the matter into his own hands and offered a refuge to Anglicans who adhere to the tenets of classical, biblical Christianity.

The doctrinal orthodoxy in the TAC on life and family issues, as well as liturgical questions, give a clue to the true nature of the objections to the Vatican's move by both Catholic and Anglican "progressives," liberals and feminists.

Bishop Carl Reid of the TAC in Canada told LifeSiteNews.com, "When it comes to issues of morality, especially family and pro-life, our membership is very strongly on the same page as are Roman Catholics."

Commentators on the left are already saying the decision is "divisive," with Toronto's Globe and Mail, in an unsigned editorial on Wednesday, calling it "a Trojan horse" and a "one sided attempt to reconcile faiths." "It appears to enhance Christian goodwill while inflaming the doctrinal battles between and within the two churches."

While leaders of the disintegrating Anglican Church had no choice but to accept, "Catholics who look for flexibility from their own leadership for themselves, over doctrinal and moral questions - communion for divorcees, abortion, female ordination - get the party line," the Globe and Mail said.

At Tuesday's press conference at the Vatican, Catholic News Service (CNS) correspondent Cindy Wooden brought up the theme of "divisiveness," asking Cardinal Levada whether the decision could be "harmful to the ecumenical movement when you're saying to a dissenting segment of the Anglican Communion that they share the one true faith and you're saying to the rest of them, 'we still have a lot of work to do.'" {Just another instance when you wonder on which side CNS is!]

In the UK's Independent, Paul Vallely noted that the decision is not likely to gain much support from the Catholic bishops of England, who have been "reluctant to open the door wide to traditionalist Anglicans."

Such groups, Vallely wrote, because of their more traditionally orthodox stand on doctrine and liturgy, are "out of step with modern Catholicism" as it is practiced and preached by the largest segment of the bishops. [In many ways, the dissident bishops of England and Wales are even more insupportable than their German counterparts. They'll yet end up being the first Catholics to endorse sharia law everywhere!]

The Guardian, the voice of liberalism in the UK, wrote that the decision means the Pope has "launched a small craft to ferry the disaffected back across the Tiber, a move to asset-strip the Anglican communion of those bits the Vatican might find useful." The move, the editorial said, "ride(s) roughshod over 40 years of ecumenical work."

Damian Thompson, the Daily Telegraph blogs editor and the editor of the UK's Catholic Herald newspaper, has indicated that the objections to the forthcoming Apostolic Constitution, that will make the provisions official, are not only coming from journalists.

He wrote today that insiders at Lambeth Palace, the "Vatican" of the Anglican Communion, and the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, are "implacably opposed" to the new provisions.

Thompson reports that a "good source in Rome" has informed him that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams "put pressure on Vatican ecumenists to stop the Apostolic Constitution being issued."

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's chief ecumenist and long-time opponent of the former Cardinal Ratzinger, was notably absent from the Vatican's press conference.

The Apostolic Constitution is said to be entirely the work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to have largely left Cardinal Kasper out of the loop.

At the press conference in London, held simultaneously with the meeting in Rome, Rowan Williams said that the Vatican's announcement does not "disrupt business as usual" in the "mainstream" of ecumenical dialogues. "As we speak, preparations are going forward for further informal talks," he said.

He made the remarks despite the statement last year from Cardinal Kasper, who said that the decision by the Anglican Communion to ordain women as bishops had effectively brought the ecumenical process to a halt. [Kasper obviously laid down the line from the Pope, as on his own, he would never admit that. Only last week, he held a news conference at the Vatican touting a book by his dicastery on the 'rich harvest' of the ecumenical process so far! - apparently forgetting what he was presumably constrained to say at the Lambeth Conference.]

"Although our dialogue has led to a significant agreement on the idea of priesthood," he said, the decision "blocks substantially and finally a possible recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic Church."

Some observers have acknowledged what was said in the Vatican's own press release, that the move is plainly an outreach to Anglicans who reject the ultra-liberal direction on sexual issues of the Anglican Communion in the west.

Writing on the website of Catholic Culture, the pseudonymous blogger "Diogenes" said bluntly that the decision has enraged the "progressivists" because those coming into the Catholic Church "will be active in practice, theologically aware, and proportionately resistant to gay and feminist faddishness."

Philip Lawler, founder of Catholic World News, cautioned, however, that some Anglicans may not be looking across the Tiber with much enthusiasm. Also at Catholic Culture, Lawler wrote, "Conservative Anglicans might glance nervously at the Catholic parishes in their neighborhood, notice the theological novelties and the liturgical abuses, and wonder whether they might be leaving one untenable situation only to enter into another." [I am sure they are well aware of the widespread secular infection in the Catholic Church, and they're not doing this with any illusions. Yes, there are errant Catholics, but so far, the Church itself and the Pope have remained steadfast in the faith as handed down from the apostles. And that's something the Church of England no longer offers.]

Meanwhile, the feminist and homosexual "faddishness" of the most liberal sections of the Anglican Communion continues. This July, in defiance of an official moratorium, the Episcopal Church in the U.S. (ECUSA) approved a resolution to continue consecrating homosexual bishops. ECUSA is set to install a virulently pro-abortion lesbian candidate for the bishopric of Minnesota.



I meant to post this earlier, after I had lifted from it the quotation from St. Edward the Confessor.

Thoughts on the Anglican initiative
by PATRICH ARCHBOLD

Oct. 22, 2009


On History

It continues to be my belief that one day Pope Benedict the XVI will be remembered as the great unifier. The Pope who began a process that will eventually lead to one flock and one shepherd. There will likely be much pain between now and then but the day is coming when we will all be one again. When we get there, Pope Benedict will be widely regarded as the beginning.

On Ecumenism

One of the reasons PB will be regarded as the Father of Unity is that he has finally rejected the fruitless ecumenism of the past decades. Oh sure, much lip service has been given by the Vatican and Nichols and Williams to the ecumenical process, but the truth is that it had nothing to do with it.

In fact, in order to get this done Pope Benedict has to avoid all the usual channels. Archbishop Nichols and Rowan Williams didn't learn about it until about ten minutes before we did. But the most glaring evidence that the old ecumenism is dead is that Cardinal Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (our head ecumenist) was not allowed within 1000 yards of any microphone during this process. [We now know he was safely out of range in Cyprus, co-chairing the Catholic-Orthodox theological dialog that was supposed to get on with studying the role of the Papacy in the first millennium when the Church was undivided.]

If it had been up to the old ecumenical guard this never would have happened. So the Pope just bypassed them all. Sometimes its good to be Pope.

On the Press

As usual, the bulk of the press managed to misrepresent the whole thing. As usual, they are entirely focused on the married priests bit and about the politics of the whole thing and with anti-gay misogyny underlying the whole thing. That said, there were some bright spots.

One of those spots is a headline used by Ruth Gledhill. While unfair and inaccurate it did make me laugh. "Rome parks tanks on Rowan's lawn." Nice! And of course Damian Thompson continues to delight lovers of snark everywhere!

On Liberalism

Liberals in the Church are rightfully beside themselves. They have always pretended to be for ecumenism so they try to maintain the pretense that this is a good thing. But, as we all know, ecumenism in their minds meant that we become more like them, not the other way around. This has gotta hurt.

Fr. Rutler rightly says that this is "total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism" And liberal Catholicism I might add.

As a result we see some of the predictable whinings of the Catholic left, but this is merely the snorts and grunts of dinosaurs as they watch the giant asteroid come throught the atmosphere. [Great metaphor!]

On Names

My one problem with this whole thing is the term "personal ordinariates." I am sorry, this just won't do. I simply cannot say this term three times in a row with a blood alcohol level of .04 or above. We have to come up with a better term than this. I would even prefer non-geographical flying dioceses. NGFDs for short.

On Diversity

Why is it that the same people who love diversity in all its other shapes and forms, detest it when it applies to anyone or anything orthodox? You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Mr. Archbold ends with the Edward the Confessor quote, which he labels 'Prophecy'.]



And from Father Z, this excellent homage:


THE POPE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Oct. 22, 2009


My idea is that we should start to refer to Pope Benedict XVI as …
... the Pope of Christian Unity.

It becomes clearer each year that Benedict goes beyond his immediate predecessors, but always in continuity with them, in promoting Christian unity.

His efforts in this direction can be seen on several fronts:

1) with the Orthodox in general, and the Russian Orthodox in particular;
2) with the SSPX;
3) with the Anglicans.

I can hear it now.

"But Father! But Father!", my liberal readers will say, squirming. "Pope Benedict’s efforts with the SSPX and with the Anglican trads are not really about ‘Christian unity’! They aren’t even endorsed by many high-ranking Catholic prelates or conspicuous newspaper theologians!"

Exactly.

That is precisely why Pope Benedict is preeminently the Pope of Christian Unity.

Pope Benedict has been struggling against forces within his own fold to achieve Christian unity.

His is decidedly not the unity that liberals (Richard McBrien, Gerald O’Collins) have in mind when they think of Christian unity, with its watered-down version of Roman primacy, liturgy, catechesis, sexual ethics and church discipline. In other words, a Christian unity without a Christian identity (christian with a small ‘c’).

No, Benedict’s unity is real unity, true unity that costs something, that stretches people, but that does not compromise what is essential to the Church.

This is not Rahner’s "world church" where anything and anyone goes. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ Jesus.

Benedict’s true ecumenism is consonant with everything we are as a Church.

People are going to be stretched, but absolutely nothing essential will be given away.

You see where I am going with this.

Liberals want ecumenism only with those whom they want in their sort of church.

They want ecumenical dialogue with those who agree with the manifestos of, for example, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

But true ecumenism is not about compromise on essentials, giving away fundamental elements of our Catholic identity.

True ecumenism requires that we be stretched, to be sure, but that we submit. We stretch, but we give nothing essential away.

The liberal model of ecumenism gives nearly anything for the sake of bringing in their sort of compromised Christian.

Pope Benedict is the true ecumenist.

He is the Pope of Christian Unity.


The Wall Street Journal ran another woeful article today by Francis Rocca, who is identified the Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service, entitled "The Pope lets a thousand liturgies bloom It is well-meaning but has so many erroneous assumptions in it - Fr. Z actually fisked part of it, but not enough, I think - nonetheless, here is the link to the fisked article, posted 10/23.
wdtprs.com/blog/

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BAD NEWS ON THE ORTHODOX FRONT

I've been desperate for news in the MSM about the Oct. 16-23 meeting in Cyprus of the Mixed Internal Commission for Theological Dialog between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches - and now I have found a report on the final communique from an Orthodox blog - and it is very dispiriting. The Holy Spirit is not breathing on the Orthodox for now, it seems. I have posted the reports in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread.


And a personal insult
to the Holy Father


By a man who is not worthy to breathe the same air that Benedict XVI breathes, let alone tie his shoelaces. A man who fancies himself the Pope of secularism, whose soul must be so corroded by diabolical malice, bitterness, and envy to be able to write what he has been writing against the Church and against Benedict XVI. I see him as a creepy crawly yucky maggot beneath the red shoe of the Successor of Peter.

"...The people of God is one thing, ministers of worship and of souls another, and the members of the church hierarchy yet another. The Popes represent a phenomenon sui generis. There have been great ones, mediocre ones, vicious ones, exemplary ones. I would say that the last exemplary popes were John XXIII, Paul VI and Papa Wojtyla. The present one is a modest theologian who makes us miss his predecessors."

This is a paragraph that appears in a rather lengthy column for this week's issue of L'Espresso magazine by that odious bloatedly egocentric, narcissistic founder and first editor of the ultra-liberal La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, who deliberately threw in that single line to 'put down' Benedict XVI in the most dismissive way possible, with a phrase that also manages to disparage even his intellect, professional competence and reputation ['A modest theologian'???).


In case the reader is too obtuse not to realize that Bagnasco is used simply as stand-in for Benedict XVI, look at the photo they chose to illsutrate the column.

The column was ostensibly a tirade against Cardinal Bagnasco for insisting that Catholic religious instruction should be retained in Italian public schools (as provided by law, and as favored consistently by more than 90% of parents). But it is accompanied by the usual ballast Scalfari uses to pontificate, enumerating all the wrongs that the Church and the Popes have done down the centuries ("Yes, there have been saints, too, but on the whole, the Church has done far more harm than good to anyone").

The insult to Benedict XVI is so obviously absurd, and wickedly so, that it does not need to be answered. Moreover, who the hell is this maggot anyway?

I checked what Italian Wiki says about him. Compared to Joseph Ratzinger's 120+ books, he has written 12 (from the titles, they seem to be books of reportage, opinion and personal memoir - none of them underlined as a particular success), starting in 1968 with an 'investigation' into the Italian secret service undertaken with another journalist. One of the generals they wrote about sued them, they were sentenced to 16 months in prison, but avoided serving the sentence because the Socialist Party of Italy ran them for public office so they could gain parliamentary immunity. So he became a member of the Italian Parliament in 1968.

Born in 1925, he studied law and began as a newsman writing for Fascist newspapers before the war. After the war, he wrote for liberal newspapers. He helped found the Radical Party in Italy in 1955, and turned to the Socialists only because they 'saved' him. As editor at L'Espresso and Repubblica, he began engaging in ideological-cultural wars, particularly on the questions of divorce and abortion, although until then, his principal subjects were politics and economics. In recent years, he became fiercely engaged in advocating secularism and denouncing the 'interference' of the Church.

There is nothing to show why a convicted felon (presumably for having slandered a prominent person - do we see a pattern here?) should consider himself so high and mighty as to speak ex cathedra, with such violent animosity, about the Church and anything that has to do with it.


Yet this is the man who would look down at Benedict XVI! Someone like Giuliano Ferrara could squish him underfoot, in argumentation and in language, on any subject. (I like the image of 'the Elephant' -Ferrara's appellation - squishing the maggot.)

How can a supposedly intelligent man get to be 84 years old and be so relentlessly venomous, so full of himself and so petty? It is people like this I sincerely wish could rot in hell, as un-Christian as that thought may be.

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attack
I remember reading a line by then Car. Ratzinger when asked if he was bothered by hostile reactions against him in the press.
He said something like: "It doesn't bother me anymore, on the contrary; if it didn't happen, I'd really have to search my conscience."

Of course, it doesn't excuse the childish behavior of a self proclaimed intellectual; but I can actually picture the Holy Father getting a good chuckle out of this one.
I'm sure Eugenio Scalfari misses the last Popes to death. Especially Paul VI!!! Hilarious!!

[SM=g8113]

I appreciate the comment, Heike, thanks. But it is one thing to criticize someone for specific ideas or actions; to descend to ad hominem insults is not part of civilized discourse. Not that a maggot would know what that is, but Scalfari does not realize he is a maggot - whose only ultimate destiny is to be a pesky nasty insect - even though he postures as though he were Creation's designated intellect ueber alles!

TERESA



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Message from the Synodal fathers:
'Africa, arise and walk on!'

Translated from
the 10/24/09 issue of




A denunciation of the imbalances and egoisms that assail Africa. An appeal to the responsibility of local powers and the international community. A call to the continent itself so it may rise up and decisively undertake the way of justice, reconciliation and peace.

In the message that the Bishops' Synod is addressing to the People of God at the end of the special assembly for Africa, there is an awareness that Africa today is no longer on its knees, resigned to the challenges that encumber its future.

The fate of the continent, the Synodal fathers say, is still in its own hands. All that it asks is for some space to breathe, to grow, to prosper. That is why it asks to be treated with respect by the powerful in the world.

If only because, the message says, the poverty and conflicts that beset Africans do not come so much from natural catastrophes as from the decisions and actions of persons who have no consideration whatsoever for the common good, in a criminal complicity between local authorities and foreign interests.

Approved Friday morning, October 23, on the eve of the Synodal assembly's closing, the message reaffirms the choice made by the Church in Africa "to walk in solidarity with its people".

It therefore urges African bishops to consider the commitment for justice and peace as a priority in their pastoral agenda. Their dioceses, it is hoped, would be models of good governance and transparency, and of upright financial management. The priests, for their part, are called on to be examples of faithfulness and fraternity transcending tribal and racial barriers.

The Synodal fathers ask the lay faithful to be the visible face of the Church in the public space. They call for holy politicians dedicated to the common good.

The message has special words for African women as the backbone of society, asking them for greater participation in the life of the continent and a better appreciation of the role that they have in the Church and in the civilian community.

The fathers warn against ideologies which, behind the pretext of cultural modernization, threaten family values and the dignity of life.

On the specific problem of the fight against AIDS, they reaffirm that the Church is committed with all of its resources in the fields of prevention and of assisting AIDS patients.

As for the economic situation, the Synodal assembly calls for a true and proper change in the world order - not only possible but necessary for the good of all mankind - and asks that interventions against the economic crisis should be undertaken not only for the benefit of the rich nations.

They severely denounce the consequences of international debt which weigh most particularly on the poorer nations, and of the environmental devastation wrought on the continent by multinational corporations.

The Synodal fathers also condemned policies that foment wars and violence for the sake of getting greater profits - policies for which the responsibility lies mainly with local leaders who sell out the interests of their own people through the indiscriminate exploitation of their natural resources but also in the trafficking of arms.

And finally, an appeal to promote dialog among all believers in order to oppose religious fanaticism and a request to accommodate immigrants who come from Africa to other continents.

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