BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Other than sheer affection and uncontained admiration, I have no idea what occasioned this article by Renato Farina. It's too early to mark the fifth anniversary of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, but it feels very much like an anniversary piece. I may quibble with a couple of points, but no Benaddict can question the affection with which it is written. Thank you, Mr. Farina.


BENEDICT XVI:
A serenity that can change the world

A ‘simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord”.
A vineyard inherited from John Paul II and which,
in perfect continuity with his ‘trusted and beloved friend’,
Benedict XVI has cared for from the very start
with stubborn dedication and thoughtful attention.
He does not spare severe judgments on the world and the Church,
but afterwards, he lays down flowers of joy and friendship.
Karol the Great has given way to Benedict the Childlike,
which is another way of being great.
 
by RENATO FARINA
Translated from

January 21, 2009


We have become accustomed to Papa Ratzinger. He has become a constant presence, a gentle and candid background to our life, who does not stride into our homes with force nor take down the walls of our consciences with great fuss.

A bourgeois style in the highest and most serene sense possible: that red and white winter capelet of silk and ermine, that had fallen into disuse after John XXIII, the camauro and the red shoes said to be by Prada even if he may not know it – he would not have the time to know it if it was.

Benedict XVI has never tried to be different from his predecessor. He knows very well he is. And he accepts it. As he told some African children in Angola on March 21, 2009, “With somewhat different features, but with the same love in my heart, here before you is the present Successor of Peter, who embraces all of you in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for always”.

We could never get 'accustomed' to Papa Wojtyla. The Great Pole was a bit like Caesar, according to the definition by Lucan: “He bent fate and imposed on destiny”. John Paul strode on the world stage with a power unlike any in contemporary times.

In contrast, Ratzinger will change the world by osmosis, by his way of being rational and childlike at the same time.

Allow me a recollection. Piazza di Citta Leonina, #3. I had found his address in the Annual Pontifical Directory. I learned to watch out for him before 8 in the morning. I had no special reasons. I lived in a nearby hotel, and I wanted to see the candid face of faith in one of the most intelligent men in the world.

I would greet him and he would answer, “Buon ciorno!’ He held a black briefcase in his right hand and would walk briskly towards his (holy) office. Five hundred meters from his home. Not that I dared to walk with him all the way. But we would walk a few steps together, and then I would watch him walk off lost in his thoughts.

If I wanted to understand something, I would ask him a question. He always responded. And I can say this: In those years, he became my ambulant theology teacher.

He loved Saturdays. And he had a true devotion to Don Giussani [founder of Communione e Liberazione, to which Farina belongs], and in treating me well, it was as if he were giving him a caress.

Once in a while, I would convey greetings from Hans Urs von Balthasar, his colleague in theology, whom I would call at 5 a.m. in his home in Basel to ask for permission. Towards Balthasar, Ratzinger felt intellectual awe. Towards Karol Wojtyla, it was a mixture of total love and slight reproach [???].

For more than four years now, he has been Pope. And he has remained who he was. In the early days, he may have thought he was wearing robes too large for him, that his body and soul should adapt to these new immense dimensions.

But he has understood that it was him the Holy Spirit wanted – him, just as he is. Awkward with crowds, docile, truly a ‘humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord’.

As he said that April evening when for the first time he wore the white robes – but with the sleeves of a black sweater visible underneath. A minimal Pope. [Which I find a meaningless if not demeaning term. What does minimal mean here? That he is limiting himself only to the minimum that a Pope should do? But the minimum that a Pope should do is as maximal as it can be, because besides all his other temporal titles and responsibilities, he is also the Vicar of Christ on earth!]

If I may dare to say – and I know I am not wrong – we have in Benedict XVI the greatest intelligence in a childlike character. The temperament of that boy who could not play football and hid himself when it came time to form teams in the seminary so that he would not be a liability to the team to which he would be assigned! He says so in his memoir La mia vita – an autobiography written as the simple life of a simple man.

Ratzinger taught three things as a theologian. Faith is beauty, similar to music. Faith is rational. And Jesus is the peak of beauty and rationality. In him, reason and beauty are manifested as unity of being in a person, Jesus of Nazareth, “my beloved Lord, my Savior”.

In the book that he wrote as Pope and entitled, precisely, JESUS OF NAZARETH, all the commentators praised the fact that he had said he expected to be contradicted.

And how did he do it? In the book, one hears Jesus talking, praying, one sees him walking… today, now. For a theologian, it was the maximum achievement: to be the chronicler, the portraitist, the photographer, a friend of he who died for us, one who would die for him, enamored, as Peter was. As a Pope is.

The rationality of this Bavarian thinker culminates in how he proposes the question of God. Ratzinger’s rationality is enchanting, without frills, but baroque nonetheless. Bach and Mozart together.

As a cardinal and even as a priest, the Bavarian has always taught that it all begins with an encounter. And that one must learn to obey God’s will. Without ever excluding the use of one’s reason.

To that which Karol Wojtyla drew from poetic intuition and developed in concentric circles, Joseph Ratzinger gave linear geometric order, rounding the arches and consolidating the spires of the Petrine ministry.

That he loved the Pope is clear from the photographs. I sensed this in 1987 when in May I saw him in the airplane seated next to the Pope, like a child drawing affection from his father.

When he turned 75, Joseph asked to leave the paternal home. He had a house in Bavaria with his books, his piano, flowers in the front yard, cats perhaps, a nearby river, the woods. But John Paul II told him: “Stay, please, I beg of you!” in German – as they spoke to each other in German. The day before he died, Joseph received his thanks – and they exchanged words we will not know.

There were two times when I learned from him what love is between father and son, but also love between two friends. And what obedience means.

The first was on the 25th anniversary of the Polish Pope’s Pontificate. Ratzinger was the dean of the College of Csrdinals. As such, he gave the speech to mark the occasion. In St. Peter’s Basilica, everything seemed ready for the celebratory rhetoric.

Instead, we were all translocated to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Christ had risen – his side was pierced, his heart wounded. He asks Simon Peter: “Do you love me?”

It was a question Karol Wojtyla heard everyday, being Peter. His dearest friend, on that October of 2003, in the midst of war [Iraq was invaded by coalition troops in March], reassured him with loving tenderness.

He, the cardinal, could tell the Pope he had answered the Lord and well. “You have warned your children as a mother does. You have offered not only the Gospel but your very life to the world, to bring down the walls of hatred. You have allowed yourself to bear the Cross, to be consumed”.

Yes, in this society of empty consumerism, this Pope had allowed himself to be consumed like a can of soda, to give the world a bit of 'good water'. John Paul II, from his wheelchair, responded to his ‘collaborator and trusted friend’: “God, knowing my human fragility, encourages me to respond with trust. I have full confidence, Lord, in your mercy”.

Ratzinger seemed to be the Apostle John, by his Master’s side, as he sweated blood. He probably sensed that the call and the burden would pass on to him. The Pope had probably predicted it to him, even if Joseph did not wish it.

The second was the day of John Paul II’s funeral. It was Friday, April 8, 2005, and in St. Peter’s Square, the wind opened up the pages of the Gospel laid on the coffin of the man he kept calling ’our beloved Pope’.

Ratzinger was burying yet another friend. In February, it had been Don Giussani in the Cathedral of Milan. And now Wojtyla.

I look at my notes that day: “At 13:47, the crowd is reluctant to have the coffin taken away. They are waving handkerchiefs and their hands in St. Peter’s Square, but even in front of the jumbo screens outside Santa Maria Maggiore and elsewhere. They weep and applaud. They do not want to believe he is dead. But he is.”

Except that Papa Wojtyla had said the truth earlier - that death is only a transition from one life to another. But that is not easy to accept in time of sorrow, when death is felt as a tremendous laceration.

On that day, Cardinal Ratzinger said with certainty: “We can be sure that our beloved Pope is now at the window of the Father’s house, looking down on us and blessing us”. In his words, one felt the certainty of hope. As a physical carnal thing. Pointing his finger to the heavens.

But why then was the cardinal sad? Why did he weep? Wojtyla must have predicted his successor, advised the cardinals around him to elect Ratzinger. Even if the latter did not want it. And would do everything later to dissuade the cardinals, and God as well.

All the newspapers were againmst him. Editorial voices said he was on the outs, and this was quickly disseminated. I can tell you with certainty that the Sant’Egidio Community deployed all of its famed diplomatic resources to push the candidacy of Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan [arch-progressive and protégé of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini]. [Interesting revelation!]

I think the Bavarian cardinal may well have worked with them to avoid a responsibility for which he considered himself inadequate. [This seems highly unlikely! First, because as Dean of the College of Cardinals, he would never have taken sides openly. And second, because if he had any personal preferences himself, it certainly would not have been for a progressive with a track record of promoting the hermenetic of dicontinuity about Vatican II!]

I was in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Missa pro eligendo Pontefice, at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 18. This is the rite that precedes the entry of the cardinals into the Conclave.

Cardinal Ratzinger gave the homily. It was severe and pitiless. Certainly one that would drive off the votes of the timid, of all those who wanted a Pope who would be ‘soft’ with the world, who would be accessible and sympathetic to the advocates of inter-religious theologies and feel-good dialog.

He tells them that the Lord is good but is not a doting uncle. “The mercy of God is not a grace to be obtained cheaply”, And “Faith does not follow the waves of fashion”.

No one had spoken so frankly about the Church in recent decades. He described her as ‘a small boat battered on all sides’.

But inexplicably, he also used the words friendship and joy – strange words in the circumstances. How was it possible? After such harsh judgments on the Church and the world, to lay down these flowers of joy and friendship?

Now that some years have passed and Benedict XVI reigns over the tumult in serenity, I understand better. He believes in us.

On that April 19,2005, he stood before the world with the smile of a cherubin and the black sleeves of a sweater worn by someone who feels the cold. Was this the Grand Inquisitor, square and frigid, that the media had been describing for years?

On the contrary, from that day on and ad multos annos, he would fill the world with music, he would proclaim the Gospel with simplicity – yes and yes – and he would say the word ‘joy’ again and again, along with another: ‘truth’. [And love, and beauty, and reason…]

He had been portrayed as Torquemada, but his language is that of a lover: “It is beautiful - the story of love with Jesus”. In a world encumbered with the dictatorship of relativism, “the limit of evil is mercy”.

Yes, the small boat of the Church is tossed about, but “once past the dark valleys”, it will be possible to get back to the origins – to Christ as he looked at the rich young man who sought his counsel.

In these years, Benedict XVI has been the humble worker who came after the conqueror of continents. [Which does not prcclude the humble worker conquering continetns in his own way!]

John Paul II had beaten down the walls. Benedict VXI has been repairing the vineyard, caring for its withered plants. In perfect continuity with the man who called him ‘his trusted and beloved friend’.

But with a different style. We have gone from Karol the Great to Benedict the Childlike. Which is another way of being great.

Friday, January 22

Center photo: Sculpture of St. Vincent on the gridiron, Mseum of Valencia.
ST. VICENTE DE ZARAGOZA [San Vicente Martir] (Spain, d 304)
Deacon and Martyr, Patron Saint of Lisbon
Like San Lorenzo (Lawrence), the first deacon saint, Vincent was born in Huesca, northern
Spain, but served in Zaragoza, where he was ordained a deacon by Bishop (later Saint)
Valerius. In the Diocletian persecutions, Valerius and his deacon were imprisoned in
Valencia, but Valerius was later exiled, leaving Vincent behind. He is said to have
resisted many tortures, and when offered release if he would burn Sacred Scriptures,
he refused. He was then condemned to die on the gridiron, an element probably borrowed
from the story of St. Lawrence. His hagiography is based on the work of Prudentius
(348-413), a Spanish Christian, who wrote a book on the early Roman and Hispanic martyrs.
It is said Vincent's remains were protected by ravens until his followers could bury him
in what is now Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, the most southwestern point of the European
continent. His remains were exhumed and transferred by a 12th century Portuguese king
to Lisbon, an event commemorated in the city's coat of arms.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/012210.shtml



OR today.

Papal stories in this issue: The Holy Father's January 15 letter to
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on his 75th birthday, confirming him in
his position as Secretary of State; and the papal blessing of the
pallium lambs on the Feast of St. Agnes yesterday. Other Page 1
stories: Logistical difficulties continue to hamper rescue and aid
operations in Haiti; Cardinal Cordes of Cor Unum gives an overview
of Catholic assistance to the earthquake victims; the World Bank
seeks more financial aid to poorer countries trying to recover from
the worldwide economic crisis. In the inside pages, a long report on
relations with the Lutheran Churches, as a feature for this Week of
Prayer for Christian Unity.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father presided this morning at a meeting of all the heads of dicasteries in the Roman Curia.


In the afternoon he met with
- Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (weekly meeting).




Pope retains Bertone, 75,
as Secretary of State
Here is the English translation of the letter written by the Holy Father confirming Cardinal Bertone as his Secretary of State when the cardinal marked his 75th birthday on January 15.

---

To my venerated and dear brother
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone


With the fine sensibility that distinguishes you, upon reaching your 75th birthday, you offered to resign as Secretary of State. I wish, first of all, to thank the Lord with you for the good achieved in the many years of your priestly and episcopal ministry.

In the present circumstances, it with great appreciation, indeed, that I recall the long road of our collaboration, which started with your work as a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

I also have in mind the sensitive work that you carried out to set up dialog with Mons, Marcel Lefebvre, and I will never forget my visit to Vercelli [where Bertone was bishop] which became for me a renewed encounter with a great witness to the faith, St. Eusebius of Vercelli.

When you were called by my beloved predecessor to serve in the Roman Curia, you carried out with competence and generous dedication the office of Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Those were intense and demanding years during which documents of great doctrinal and disciplinary importance were born.

I have always admired your sensus fidei, your doctrinal and canonical preparation, and your humanitas which helped us a lot at the CDF to live in an atmosphere of authentic familiarity, coupled with a determined work discipline.

All these qualities were the reasons that made me decide in the summer of 2006 to name you as my Secretary of State, and are the reasons why today and in the future, I would not wish to do without your valuable collaboration.

I therefore desire at this time, Cardinal, to wish you every good, and prosperity in the Lord, invoking the abundance of divine grace on your ministry as my close co-worker.

In entrusting you to the special protection and intercession of Mary Help of Christians and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, I impart from the heart, with the hope of abundant divine compensation, the Apostolic Blessing that I gladly extend to the persons who are dearest and nearest to you.


From the Vatican
January 15, 2010

---

Benedict XVI is truly
the Pope of Christian Unity
Editorial

22 January 2010


When Jesus prayed that his followers may be one, He was praying for the unity of the Church whose leadership he entrusted to St Peter and his successors. He was not prophesying that this unity would be achieved by a particular model of ecumenism.

In the 20th century, the Church mapped out a route towards unity which focused on ever closer links with other Christian communities, such as the Anglican Communion; the aim was to achieve a corporate reunion.

Thus, the purpose of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), so far as the Church was concerned, was an agreement in which the Archbishop of Canterbury would once again become bishop of a historic see of the Church that Anglicans describe as "Roman Catholic".

Unfortunately, participants on both sides of ARCIC glossed over the fact that doctrines of transubstantiation and infallibility are unchangeable: one can do no more than tinker with the language in which they are defined.

Indeed, both sides implied that they could offer what were, in fact, impossible concessions. Many, if not most, Anglicans are Protestants: their objections to Catholic teaching on the Eucharist and papal primacy are fundamental.

ARCIC established some genuine common ground between the two bodies; but some of the convergence was illusory. And this was the case even before Anglicans took irreversible decisions to ordain women priests and (in many provinces) women bishops, too.

As a result of these latter developments, a tremendous gloom settled over the Church's official ecumenists. It has taken Pope Benedict XVI to show us that ecumenical dialogue can achieve the long-awaited goal of corporate reunion by another route.

Let us take the example of the Society of St Pius X. Those of its members who accept the Magisterium can be welcomed back corporately into full communion; as a prelude to this, the Holy Father took the necessary but controversial step of lifting episcopal excommunications (though no one, including the Pontiff, would claim that the Vatican executed this manoeuvre skilfully).

[But it was no maneuver at all. To call it that ignores Benedict XVI's carefully laid out explanation in his March 10 letter to the Catholic bishops of the world. Sure, many in the Roman Curia were at fault for various errors in communication at more than one level, and perhaps, all concerned have since learned their bitter lesson, because they handled the Vatican opening to the Anglicans appropriately.

One must consider that the lifting of the FSSPX bishops' ecommunication was the first time any such step had been taken by any Pope in recent memory, in much the same way that the opening to the Anglicans has been unprecedented. The Curia machinery in charge of communicating the news on the FSSPX to the world did not take its historical precedence into account and failed to prepare the world adequately for what the Holy Father did. But they should have done so. Instead, they simply assumed that the rest of the world would properly understand Pope Benedict's gesture.

But in reporting or commenting on the news, you never assume anything. You always have to give the proper historical and 'technical' context or explanation -i.e., make an issue and any other references, especially if it is arcane, understandable to the average lay reader - for a readership or audience hat is obviously not exclusively Catholic.

In this case, Catholics themselves had to be the first beneficiary, since most of us only have/had a vague idea of excommunication - the fact that it is a punishment for violation of a specific Church law or laws as codified in its Code of Canon Law, and not necessarily a moral judgment. or why only the Pope can lift it. When was the last time that lifting of excommunication made the news?]

The forthcoming group reception of former Anglicans is in some ways less controversial. Ever since the 1990s, the Holy Father has been convinced that orthodox Anglicans can be corporately received into the Church after detaching themselves from official bodies that have opted for the Protestant innovation of women's ordination.

This detachment need not be a source of long-term damage to Anglican-Catholic relations; from the Anglican point of view, it recognises an already existing ecclesial reality.

For Catholics, however, it is more than that. As the Pope emphasised in his address to the CDF last week, his Apostolic Constitution is that rarest of developments: an ecumenical gesture that increases the visible unity and the liturgical riches of the Church. Those Anglicans who accept the papal offer will be doing a wonderful thing - not just for themselves, but for us, too.

This is one of those John Allen pieces that sets me off from the very title of the article. He starts from a non-existent premise, on which he has been quite insistent all these years, although this Pope has never considered inter-religious dialog to be theological at all. He said so very clearly in his letter Preface to Marcello Pera's book. And still, commentators like Allen ignore it. As though he really does not mean it!

Nor should it take the Pope to say so, because it is obvious that inter-religious dialog - talking to the non-Christian faiths, whose belief set in terms of theology is very different from ours, even if certain ethical values are identical - is very different from ecumenical dialog - talking to other Christian denominations, who all share the Christian faith.

In the latter case, their theology has evolved in some essential ways away from the common Christian theology that was generally shared until the Great Schism, in the case of the Orthodox, and the Reformation, in the case of the Protestants. Therefore, if there is to be Christian reunification, the theological differences have to be reconciled first. So that's a necessity in the ecumenical dialog.

Not so with non-Christian faiths, because they are not into dialog with Christianity so that they can change one iota of their belief set! Nor does the Catholic engagement in inter-religious dialog imply any room at all for theological osmosis and syncretism!

Even the average Jew and average Catholic cannot possibly think inter-religious dialog is anything other than practical cooperation in doing good things. It would never occur to them that inter-religious dialog was intended to give a theological 'tweak' to their respective beliefs so that it conforms more to that of the others!



A theologian-pope
sidelines theology


January 22, 2010


If it's true that only a soldier can fully grasp the horrors of war, perhaps it likewise takes a theologian to appreciate the limits of theology.

That may help explain a striking paradox about the papacy of Benedict XVI: He's a true theologian-pope, yet a core element of his legacy will be to sideline theology as the focus of Catholicism's engagement with other religions.

[When was it ever the focus as such? Cardinal Ratzinger made it very clear from the time of the first Assisi 'kumbaya' that other faiths offering sacrifices at a consecrated Catholic altar was a questionable practice that does nothing to promote dialog, but could be taken as an encouragement towards syncretism - taking bits and pieces here and there from the different faiths that can be woven together and agreed on by everyone! Something like the 'world religion' that Hans Kueng would eventually propose and has been trying to promote - with little success, apparently. No one who has a profound conviction in his faith would settle for any syncretic substitute!]

Another chapter was added to that legacy this week with the Pontiff's Jan. 17 visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome, the first time a Pope made the trip since John Paul II's groundbreaking visit in 1986. [Of course it was "the first time a Pope made the trip etc...", because there has only been one other Pope after John Paul II! What a meaningless statement.]

Understandably, media attention was concentrated on debates over Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff whose alleged "silence" on the Holocaust is among the most polarizing issues in Catholic-Jewish relations. In late December, the Vatican announced that Benedict XVI had signed a decree of heroic virtue for Pius, moving him a step closer to sainthood.

On that score, the visit seemed to mark the birth of a new star in the Jewish world: Riccardo Pacifici, President of the Jewish Community in Rome, who had the rare opportunity to challenge the Pope in public.

"The silence of Pius XII on the Holocaust is still painful," Pacifici said in a speech welcoming Benedict to the synagogue. "Perhaps he could not have stopped the trains of death, but he could have transmitted a signal, a final word of comfort, for our brothers and sisters on their way to the ovens of Auschwitz."

{Di Segni and Pacifici availed of their status as the host for the affair - certainly not unexpected of them, and given their emotional hypersensitivity over anything that has to do with the Shoah, one cannot even reproach them for it. Rabbi Di Segni did avoid mentioning Pius XII by name, but his reference to the 'silences of humans' was obvious.

But Pacifici went all out to pose a direct, rather graceless challenge. Perhaps he thought that praising the actions of Italian priests and nuns who helped the Jews would 'balance' it off. But it does not. It makes it worse. Because he cannot credit the nuns and priests and yet deny any credit to their direct superior who obviously authorized (and financed) their activities - Pius XII was also Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy, not just the Pope.

Not to mention that the 'silence' hypothesis is prima facie fallacious, as I argued in my immediate reaction to Pacifici's accusation. A blatant fallacy that I would expect any Catholic reporter to rebut on the spot when reporting it! But to which Allen gives a pass!]

To be sure, Pacifici and the Pope's other hosts made it clear that Jewish-Catholic ties will survive tensions over Pius XII, and he acknowledged the courage of many Catholics in risking their lives to save Jews. (Members of Pacifici's family were sheltered by the Sisters of Martha in Florence).

Nevertheless, Pacifici's comments also suggest that prominent Jewish leaders do not plan to sit on their hands as Pius XII moves toward canonization.

[Does anyone expect them to? Of course, there will be a constant organized, as well as unorganized, Jewish lobby to block the beatification and eventual canonization of Pius XII! They are even more determined now, because they thought they had managed to prevent Benedict XVI from acting on the Pius XII cause after all their tantrums last year. But he surprised them because he only used the delay to order his own supplemental investigations, and once the results uncovered nothing negative, he did what he should.

I believe Allen was one of those who openly thought Benedict would leave the Pius 'hot potato' for the next Pope to deal with. That is why they all expressed 'surprise' when the Holy Father moved last December. They thought he would dodge the issue.

The cause for Pius XII is not in his hands now. Once the late Pope's postulators successfully make their case to the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood - including verification of a miracle - Benedict has no reason to stop or delay beatification just to placate the Jews.]

In his own speech, Benedict XVI offered an indirect defense of his controversial predecessor, asserting that during the war, "The Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way."

Yet a focus on what wags call the "Pius Wars" overlooks what is arguably the far more consequential element of Benedict's remarks last Sunday. In effect, Benedict blew past the doctrinal substructure of Catholic-Jewish relations [Not that it ever formally existed!] in order to propose a new platform for political and social action.

Some experts on Jewish-Catholic relations faulted Benedict's speech for its obvious theological lacunae.

[Why obvious? And why lacunae? Benedict XVI is an exquisitely refined man, with even more exquisite sensibility. He would never have betrayed the sense of the invitation to the Rome synagogue in order to bring up theological disputes! Even with the other Christian denominations, he does not do that directly. There are bilateral theological commissions for that purpose. ]

Fr. John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Union, for example, noted that Benedict's doctrinal remarks were largely a patchwork of quotations from John Paul II (and Vatican II), and that he never addressed the two thorniest doctrinal issues: the continuing theological significance of the Jewish covenant, and the legitimacy of missionary efforts directed at Jews.

[Pawlikowski is one of those critics who should know better but does not! First, what is wrong with citing Vatican II and John Paul II? It is established practice in the Magisterium to cite relevant precedents in the Magisterium itself to emphasize continuity. Second, why would he address 'the thorniest doctrinal issues' at such an occasion? Hardly the time and place.

After all, everything that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has written about Judaism is premised on the continuing validity of God's covenant with the Jewish People - distinct from and not superseded by Jesus's New Covenant with all peoples.

As for the legitimacy of missionary efforts directed at the Jews, both Benedict XVI and Cardinal Walter Kasper made it clear, through the language of the revised Good Friday prayer, that the hope expressed therein for the Jews is the eschatological hope expressed by Paul in the Letter to the Romans, not a missionary hope! When was the last time the Church had any missionary strategy at all for the Jews, anyway? Especially not after Vatican II!]

In effect, however, skipping such matters seems to have been the point. [DUH!!!!] After a declaration of "esteem and affection" for Jews, coupled with the usual pledges to fight anti-Semitism and to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, Benedict got down to business in sections six through nine of his speech. There, he proposed the Torah [No, not the whole Torah - but the Ten Commandments, explicitly] as the basis of a "great ethical code" for humanity, leading Jews and Catholics into "areas of cooperation and witness" on a cluster of issues:

•Resisting the siren song of secularism, "reawakening in our society openness to the transcendent dimension"
•Defending the right to life and the family
•Promoting justice for "the poor, women and children, strangers, the sick, the weak and the needy"
•Acting on behalf of peace, especially peace in the Holy Land

All this amounts to an application of what Benedict has described as a shift from "inter-religious" to "inter-cultural" dialogue. [That's a misinterpretation of what the Pope has said. Benedict's sense is that inter-religious dialog is primarily inter-cultural dialog because the substantive issues on which it is possible to work together are cultural and social, not religious.]

In 2008, Benedict penned an introduction to a book by his old friend, Italian politician and philosopher Marcello Pera, in which the Pope wrote: "Inter-religious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible without putting one's own faith into parentheses, while intercultural dialogue that develops the cultural consequences of the religious option … is both possible and urgent."

[So there you have it. Allen remembers - but in his dogged misconception that theological dialog is necessary or even possible with the non-Christian faiths, he chooses to ignore what the Pope has so clearly stated - and continues making an argument for theological dialog with the Jews and Muslims.]

Put in layman's terms, what Benedict is saying is that trying to find a lowest common denominator of theology upon which Christians and Jews can agree -- or, for that matter, Christians and Muslims, Christians and Hindus, etc. -- will inevitably result in a loss of identity on both sides.

[DUH, DUH, AND DUH! 'Trying to find the lowest common denominator in theology' is a definition for doctrinal syncretism, except that it sounds even more terrible! That's the province of new Age airheads. And of Hans Kueng who proposes a 'world religion' based on good intentions. It might just as well be the Boy Scout Code of Conduct. All very commendable, but not a religion.]

Given that bolstering Catholic identity is the stated priority of his pontificate, that's a no-go. The more profitable enterprise, in Benedict's eyes, is to elaborate a set of shared values, [With the Jews, these shared values are already there and obvious: The Ten Commandments, as the Pope specifically pointed out last Sunday. And what is there to elaborate further on the Ten Commandments? All the religious history and teachings of Christianity and Judaism are elaborations of it] and then to pool resources to apply those values in social and political debates.

"On this path we can walk together," the Pope said, "aware of the differences that exist between us, but also aware of the fact that when we succeed in uniting our hearts and our hands in response to the Lord's call, his light comes and shines on all the peoples of the world."

That effort to unite hearts and hands, not to blaze new theological trails, will likely be the "Benedictine legacy" in inter-religious affairs.

[Once again, it is not possible, nor is it necessary, 'to blaze new theological trails' between religions! Does anyone really expect to get the Jews to accept that Jesus is their promised Messiah, much less that he is the Son of God? Or the Jews and the Muslims to accept that Jesus is anything other than 'another prophet'? Or the Jews and the Muslims to accept the Triune God of Christianity? Give me a break! Any such 'conversions' will take place individually, not on a mass basis, and not through organized missionary effort!

As it happens, we already have an example of the Benedictine legacy in action. This week, the Mixed Commission of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and of the Holy See held its ninth meeting in Rome. The topic? Not Jewish and Christian perspectives on the Bible, or the significance of the Mosaic covenant, or respective attitudes about the Messiah. Instead, it was the effort to carve out a distinctively religious form of environmentalism in contrast to secular environmental movements. [I'd be curious to know what the topics in the first eight meetings were!]

"Humankind today faces a unique environmental crisis which is substantially the product of unbridled material and technological exploitation," a statement said at the conclusion of the meeting.

"While this challenge must obviously be addressed through the necessary technical means, as well as self restraint, humility and discipline, the participants emphasized the essential need for society to recognize the transcendent dimension of Creation that is critical to ensure sustainable development and progress in an ethically responsible manner."

Painting a spiritual shade of green [YECHHH! When will Allen drop this increasingly gangrenous metaphor?] is an example of inter-cultural dialogue at work, and under Benedict XVI, such projects appear to be the future of inter-faith relations.

This week, I was asked to write a piece for The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, explaining Benedict XVI's approach to Catholic-Jewish ties. Here's how I concluded the piece, which I think captures the lasting significance of Benedict's synagogue visit once the dust settles on Pius XII:

"Benedict's approach … boils down to this: 'Let's each of us be ourselves internally, and let's see what we can do together in the outside world.' [That has always been the sense of his interventions for inter-religious dialog. He wasn't saying it for the first time to the Jews, either. He says it to them every time he meets them in groups at the Vatican.]

It might not be everything some Jews (or Catholics, for that matter) would desire, but at this moment in Catholic history, it may well be as good as it gets.

[Does anyone really think that the average Catholic and the average Jew, who sincerely want better relations with each other, 'desire' anything but friendly relations, getting to know about each other's faith better, and perhaps practical cooperation among their leaders? Would they ever think that inter-religious dialog was ever going to result in changing anything in their articles of faith?]







Until I can open a thread for Pius XII and other Popes besides Benedict XVI, I will post these items on this thread to be sure they get attention!

The following comes from Haaretz, Israel's most influential newspaper (published in Hebrew and English editions) generally described as ultra-liberal or extremely leftists, but its op-ed pages are open to a spectrum of opinions, hence this pro-Pius XII article by an Italian-born New York writer.


Pius XII: Much-maligned pontiff
By Dimitri Cavalli
From the English edition of

Jan. 22, 2010


Some things never go away. The controversy over Pope Pius XII's actions during World War II was recently reignited when Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree affirming that his predecessor displayed "heroic virtues" during his lifetime.

When the Pope visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on Sunday, Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome's Jewish community, told him: "The silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done."

This was not the first time the wartime Pope, who is now a step closer to beatification, has been accused of keeping silent during the Holocaust, of doing little or nothing to help the Jews, and even of collaborating with the Nazis. To what extent, if any, does the evidence back up these allegations, which have been repeated since the early 1960s?

On April 4, 1933, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican secretary of state, instructed the papal nuncio in Germany to see what he could do to oppose the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies.

On behalf of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli drafted an encyclical, entitled Mit brennender Sorge ("With Burning Concern"), that condemned Nazi doctrines and persecution of the Catholic Church. The encyclical was smuggled into Germany and read from Catholic pulpits on March 21, 1937.

Although many Vatican critics today dismiss the encyclical as a light slap on the wrist, the Germans saw it as a security threat. For example, on March 26, 1937, Hans Dieckhoff, an official in the German foreign ministry, wrote that the "encyclical contains attacks of the severest nature upon the German government, calls upon Catholic citizens to rebel against the authority of the state, and therefore signifies an attempt to endanger internal peace."

Both Great Britain and France should have interpreted the document as a warning that they should not trust Adolf Hitler or try to appease him.

After the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected Pope, on March 2, 1939. The Nazis were displeased with the new Pontiff, who took the name Pius XII. On March 4, Joseph Goebbels, the German propaganda minister, wrote in his diary: "Midday with the Fuehrer. He is considering whether we should abrogate the Concordat with Rome in light of Pacelli's election as Pope."

During the war, the Pope was far from silent: In numerous speeches and encyclicals, he championed human rights for all people and called on the belligerent nations to respect the rights of all civilians and prisoners of war.

Unlike many of the Pope's latter-day detractors, the Nazis understood him very well. After studying Pius XII's 1942 Christmas message, the Reich Central Security Office concluded: "In a manner never known before the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order ... Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals." (Pick up any book that criticizes Pius XII, and you won't find any mention of this important report.)

In early 1940, the Pope acted as an intermediary between the British government and a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler. Although the conspiracy never went forward, Pius XII kept in close contact with the German resistance and heard about two other plots against Hitler.

In the fall of 1941, through diplomatic channels, the Pope agreed with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that America's Catholics could support the President's plans to extend military aid to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis.

On behalf of the Vatican, John T. McNicholas, the archbishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, delivered a well-publicized address that explained that the extension of assistance to the Soviets could be morally justified because it helped the Russian people, who were the innocent victims of German aggression.

Throughout the war, the Pope's deputies frequently ordered the Vatican's diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. Up until Pius XII's death in 1958, many Jewish organizations, newspapers and leaders lauded his efforts.

To cite one of many examples, in his April 7, 1944, letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Bucharest, wrote: "It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the Supreme Pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews ... The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."

The campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure because his detractors cannot sustain their main charges against him - that he was silent, pro-Nazi, and did little or nothing to help the Jews - with evidence.

Perhaps only in a backward world such as ours would the one man who did more than any other wartime leader to help Jews and other Nazi victims, receive the greatest condemnation.

Dimitri Cavalli is working on books on both Pope Pius XII and Joe McCarthy, the late manager of the New York Yankees.

Too bad there is so much information about what Pius XII objectively said and did, and the testimonials in his behalf, than a standard-length newspaper article can accommodate!.

Finally, a date for the Pope's visit to the Lutheran Church in Rome, announced last October.


Pope will visit Lutheran Church
in Rome on March 14
Translated from

January 22, 2010


On Sunday, March 14, Pope Benedict XVI will visit the Lutheran Church in Rome, known as the Christuskirche.

This was confirmed to Il Velino by both the Pastor, Jens-Martin Kruse, and Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director.

Kruse said the Pope was expected at 4:30 p.m. during which a Lutheran worship service will be held, with two homilies, one by the pastor, and one by the Pope.


Two photos online showing, left, John Paul II, on his visit to the Rome Synagogue in April 1987; and right, preaching at the Lutheran Church in December 1983. No better resolution available.

The invitation was extended last year in anticipation of the 25th anniversary of a similar visit by John Paul II (December 11, 1983).

"It is a great joy for us," pastor Kruse said. "It shows that ecumenism is alive in Rome".



The Lutheran community is composed of about 350, mostly Germans, "who are all married to Italians". Once a month, service is held in Italian.

Kruse says that they have 'good relations' with other Protestant communities in Rome, as well as many Catholic parishes in Rome, and with the movements like Sant'Egidio, Focolari, Schoenstatt, and the Benedictine community in the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls.

During this week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Lutheran Church of Rome is participating in many Vatican-sponsored activities. Last Sunday, they hosted the ecumenical delegation from Finland who visited Rome on the occasion of the annual Feast of St. Henry. The delegation was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict on Monday.

Next Sunday, the Lutherans will join an 'ecumenical feast' with Mons. Benedetto Tuzia, auxiliary bishop of Rome.

Cardinal Bagnasco presents book on
Benedict XVI's pastoral trips in Italy
Translated from
the Italian service of






ROME, Jan. 21 (ZENIT.org) - The bond between Benedict XVI and Italy is one of reciprocal affection, very much like between a father and his children, according to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa and president of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI).

Bagnasco spoke at the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See during the formal presentation of a book about the Holy Father's pastoral trips in Italy from May 2005 to September 2009, I Viaggi di Benedetto XVI in Italia, published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana in collaboration with the Italian embassy and edited by Prof. Pierluca Azzaro.

The cardinal underscored the "special closeness and affection of the Vicar of Christ for our nation and for the Church in Italy".

"The Holy Father's travels in Italy," he said, "must be seen in the wider context fof his many attentions to the land that has become for more than 30 years his adopted country, especially since he became Pope. He loves Italy as a father, and Italy reciprocates that with filial affection."

He pointed out that the dominant note of all the pastoral trips is the heart of the Pope's mission as Successor to Peter - "as the Lord said to Peter: 'I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers in the faith" (Lk 22,32).

"Does not every encounter with the Pope inspire such a profound perception? Of being confirmed in our faith in Christ, of being more convinced and more strong, of better savoring its beauty and its joy?"

The Petrine ministry, he said, is a charism "that resolves all possible barriers and mistrusts; is capable of building bridges because it is unarmed and disarming - a charism that comes from on high, from the God of peace and love".

"This is not a charism," he stressed, "that inspires transient festiveness that has more to do with folklore, but it unlocks sentiments and energies which at times, seem spent, but when unleashed can touch even the curious onlooker... and rekindle hope, through seeing this gentle being who asks us to look far in order to be able to see closely."

The Pope, he said, conveys to his flock with "the hope that speaks to us of God and of his Son Jesus Christ. He reminds us of the great and fascinating demands of Christian life, which manifests the beauty of the Church and shows the world the way to Heaven".

I didn't get to see this till today, but it's the only reaction I have seen so far in the Anglophone media to what the Pope said about liberation theology on the occasion referred to. Dr.
Gregg provides insight as well as new information.

What the Holy father tells the bishops who come to see him during their ad limina visits to Rome is often the best capsule presentation one can find about the state of the Church in single countries.


Not so liberating:
The twilight of liberation theology
by Samuel Gregg, D.Phil.







It went almost unnoticed, but on December 5th, Benedict XVI articulated one of the most stinging rebukes that has ever been made by a Pope of a particular theological school.

Addressing a group of Brazilian bishops, Benedict followed some mild comments about Catholic education with some very sharp and deeply critical remarks about liberation theology and its effects upon the Catholic Church.

See full translation of the address on Page 49 of this thread
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...

Apart from stressing how certain liberation theologians drew heavily upon Marxist concepts, the pope also described these ideas as “deceitful.” This is very strong language for a Pope. But Benedict then underscored the damage that liberation theology did to the Catholic Church.

“The more or less visible consequences,” he told the bishops, “of that approach – characterised by rebellion, division, dissent, offence and anarchy – still linger today, producing great suffering and a serious loss of vital energies in your diocesan communities.”

Today, even some of liberation theology’s most outspoken advocates freely admit that it has collapsed, including in Latin America. Once considered avant-garde, it is now generally confined to clergy and laity of a certain age who wield ever-decreasing influence within the Church.

Nonetheless, Benedict XVI clearly believes it’s worth underscoring just how much harm it inflicted upon the Catholic Church.

For a start, there’s little question that liberation theology was a disaster for Catholic evangelization. There’s a saying in Latin America which sums this up: “The Church opted for the poor, and the poor opted for the Pentecostals.”

In short, while many Catholic clergy were preaching class-war, many of those on whose behalf the war was presumably being waged decided that they weren’t so interested in Marx or listening to a language of hate. They simply wanted to learn about Jesus Christ and his love for all people (regardless of economic status). They found this in many evangelical communities.

A second major impact was upon the formation of Catholic clergy in parts of Latin America. Instead of being immersed in the fullness of the Catholic faith’s intellectual richness, many Catholic seminarians in the 1970s and 1980s read Marx’s Das Kapital and refused to peruse such “bourgeois” literature such as Augustine’s City of God or Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae.

Again, this undermined the Church’s ability to witness to Christ in Latin America, not least because some clergy reduced Christ to the status of a heroic-but-less-than-divine urban guerrilla and weren’t especially interested in explaining Catholicism’s tenets to their flocks.

Then there has been the effect upon the Church’s ability to engage the new Latin American economic world which emerged as the region opened itself to markets in the 1990s. Certainly much of this liberalization was poorly executed and marred by corruption.

Nonetheless, as the Economist recently reported, countries like Brazil – once liberation theology’s epicenter – are emerging as global economic players and taking millions out of poverty in the process. The smartest thing that Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva ever did was to not dismantle most of his predecessor’s economic reforms.

Unfortunately, one legacy of liberation theology is some Catholic clergy’s inability to relate to people working in the business world. Ironically, business executives are far more likely to be practicing their Catholicism than many other Latin Americans.

Yet liberation theology has left a residue of distrust of business leaders among some Catholic clergy – and vice-versa. Distrust is no basis for engagement, let alone evangelization.

The good news is that the Church in Latin America is more than halfway along the road to recovery. Anyone who talks to younger priests and seminarians in Latin America today quickly learns that they have absorbed the devastating critiques of liberation theology produced by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 1980s.

If anything, they tend to regard liberation theologians such as the ex-priest Leonardo Boff as heretical irrelevancies.

Indeed figures such as Boff must be dismayed that the Catholic Church has emerged as the most outspoken opponent of populist-leftists such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

As Michael Novak observed in Will it Liberate? (1986), liberation theologians were notoriously vague when it came to practical policy proposals.

But if any group embodies the liberationists’ economic agenda, it is surely the populist-left who are currently providing us with case studies of how to drive economies into the ground faster than you can say “Fidel Castro.”

As time passes, liberation theology is well on its way to being consigned to the long list of Christian heterodoxies, ranging from Arianism to Hans-Küngism.

But as Benedict XVI understands, ideas matter – including incoherent and destructive ideas such as liberation theology. Until the Catholic Church addresses the legacy of this defunct ideology – to give liberation theology its proper designation – its ability to speak to the Latin America of the future will be greatly impaired.

Does everyone remember how two years ago this month, a group of 60-something physics professors managed improbably to prevent Benedict XVI from addressing the opening of the academic year at Rome's La Sapienza University?

Entirely on the basis of an extremely prejudiced and manifestly ignorant objection to a statement on Galileo that they attributed to him from something they misread in a Wikipedia entry, for God's sake! Though Cardinal Ratzinger was merely quoting a 20th-century philosopher of science, and the speech they were quoting from was actually, in part, a defense of Galileo. The worst irony - and the height of the bigoted professors' ignominy and ignorance - is that the cardinal had delivered that speech in La Sapienza itself some time in the early 1990s!

One must ask just how and why this group of 60-odd maneged to impose their patently minority opinion on the university officials, because they all belonged to just one faculty out of 30 faculties in a university which has more than 2000 professors and 145,000 students (largest university in Europe)! I find that the university officials who caved in to the protestors were just as dastardly!



La Sapienza invites the Pope again
Translated from

January 22, 2010


ROME - Two years ago, the 'great rejection' by La Sapienza University to a visit by Benedict XVI. Yesterday, a new invitation from the rector, Luigi Frati, for a visit some time soon, extended through the Holy Father's Vicar in Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini.

The Cardinal listened with a smile, and after a Mass celebrated at the University Chapel, spoke to journalists about it.

"Of course, the decision is not mine, but I know that the Holy Father, as a pastor, loves Rome and all its entities. When he receives the invitation, he will evaluate it".

On January 17, 2008, Papa Ratzinger had been scheduled to give an address at the university - founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303, it became a public university in 1870 after Italian reunification - at rites to open the academic year.

But he decided to cancel the visit for security reasons, after those who protested his visit enlisted labor unions and other leftist elements to join them on campus to protest the Pope's presence. The Pope decided that not going would avoid clashes between protestors and police that could also involve innocent bystanders.

Cardinal Vallini recalled: "The speech that the Pope had prepared for the occasion was a speech on the role of the Papacy with respect to the university that could only unite everyone, as the words of the Pope do."

[The Pope sent a copy of the speech to the university on the day he was supposed to deliver it and it was read at the ceremony. The rector at the time (not Frati) had already capitulated to the protestors earlier by 'downgrading' the Pope's participation in order not to make him the main speaker, inviting the mayor of Rome to speak as well, and one of the professors to deliver the main address. That seemed to me insulting - and weak-hearted - enough on the part of the rector! The media of course thrived on the controversy and, as usual, gave full play to the protestors' objections.]

In his remarks greeting Cardinal Vallini before the Mass to inaugurate a new gate and public square in front of the University Chapel, rector Frati invited the Pope "to come to this chapel and say Mass and then meet with our researchers and students in the Aula Magna".


But the same troublemakers will make trouble again - nitwits so bigoted they betray the very function of a university and so arrogant as to challenge the right of a Pope to speak wherever he is invited.

Saturday, January 23

Right photo: Blessed Marianne's beatification rites in St. Peter's Basilica.
BLESSED MARIANNE COPE (b Germany 1838, d Hawaii 1918)
Virgin, Professed Franciscan of the Third Order, Missionary
Born Maria Anna Barbara Koob in Darmstadt, Germany. Her parents migrated to the United States when she
was a baby and settled in Syracuse, New York. She joined the Third Order Franciscan nuns and was taught in
schools for immigrants. She was assigned as superior to several places, during which she helped found
the first two Catholic hospitals in the US, gaining the experience she would later use in Hawaii. In 1877,
she was elected Mother Provincial of her order and re-elected in 1881. In 1883, she and some of her fellow
nuns answered a bid from the Hawaiian government to run a center for receiving leprosy patients in Maui.
In 1888, she went to Molokai to help Father Damien (now St. Damien) run the leper colony during his final
months. She took over after he died and served the lepers for the rest of her life, gaining fame for her
holiness as Mother Marianne of Molokai. It was considered a miracle that she did not catch the disease in
the 30 years she spent there. She was one of the first two persons beatified under Benedict XVI in rites
at St. Peter's Basilica on May 14, 2005.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/012310.shtml




OR today.

The papal story in this issue is on the new book documenting Benedict XVI's pastoral trips in Italy from May 2005 to
September 2009 - with the texts of the presentations made Friday by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Mons. Fernando Filoni
(deputy Secretary of State for internal affairs), and Gianni Letta, undersecretary of the Italian Prime Minister's cabinet.
Other Page 1 stories: The UN plans to transfer Haiti quake victims from shattered Port au Prince to tent cities on safer
ground; study shows that in 10 years, the emerging economies (China, India, Brazil, Russia, etc) will outgrow the
current G7 nations in GDP; and the US defense secretary tells Pakistani officials that the US is 'in for the long term' to
fight terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today's ecumenical feature is about relations with the Anglicans. And on
relations with the Jews, an interview with the director of a Jerusalem center for promoting these relations.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)

- Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar-General of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome

- Cardinal Jozef Tomko, Emeritus President of the Pontifical Committee for International
Eucharistic Cingresses

- Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, emeritus President of the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Workers

- Mons. Francesco Monterisi, Arch-Priest of the Papal Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls


The Vatican released the following papal texts:

- Message for World Day of Social Communications, 2010 (all offocial Vatncain languages)

- Message to the newly-elected patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Irinej of Pec (English)

- The Holy Father's letters on January 16 to the President of Haiti and the Chairman of the Haitian
bishops' conference expressing his condolence for the catastrophe caused by the earthquake (French).

Pope's communications message in 2010:
'New media in the service
of the Word of God'



At 11:30 today the Holy Father's Mesaage for the 44th World Day for Social Communications on May 16, 2010, was presented at a news conference Arcbishop Claudio Marcia Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The message was made available in all the official Vatican languages. Here is the English version:

---

The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World:

New Media in the Service of the Word

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The theme of this year's World Communications Day - The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word - is meant to coincide with the Church's celebration of the Year for Priests.

It focuses attention on the important and sensitive pastoral area of digital communications, in which priests can discover new possibilities for carrying out their ministry to and for the Word of God.

Church communities have always used the modern media for fostering communication, engagement with society, and, increasingly, for encouraging dialogue at a wider level. Yet the recent, explosive growth and greater social impact of these media make them all the more important for a fruitful priestly ministry.

All priests have as their primary duty the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, and the communication of his saving grace in the sacraments.

Gathered and called by the Word, the Church is the sign and instrument of the communion that God creates with all people, and every priest is called to build up this communion, in Christ and with Christ.

Such is the lofty dignity and beauty of the mission of the priest, which responds in a special way to the challenge raised by the Apostle Paul: "The Scripture says, 'No one who believes in him will be put to shame ... everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent? (Rom 10:11, 13-15).

Responding adequately to this challenge amid today's cultural shifts, to which young people are especially sensitive, necessarily involves using new communications technologies.

The world of digital communication, with its almost limitless expressive capacity, makes us appreciate all the more Saint Paul's exclamation: "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel" (1 Cor 9:16)

The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility on the part of those called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires them to become more focused, efficient and compelling in their efforts.

Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by putting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word.

The spread of multimedia communications and its rich "menu of options" might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled.

Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different "voices" provided by the digital marketplace.

Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.

Using new communication technologies, priests can introduce people to the life of the Church and help our contemporaries to discover the face of Christ. They will best achieve this aim if they learn, from the time of their formation, how to use these technologies in a competent and appropriate way, shaped by sound theological insights and reflecting a strong priestly spirituality grounded in constant dialogue with the Lord.

Yet priests present in the world of digital communications should be less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart, their closeness to Christ. This will not only enliven their pastoral outreach, but also will give a "soul" to the fabric of communications that makes up the "Web".

God's loving care for all people in Christ must be expressed in the digital world not simply as an artifact from the past, or a learned theory, but as something concrete, present and engaging.

Our pastoral presence in that world must thus serve to show our contemporaries, especially the many people in our day who experience uncertainty and confusion, "that God is near; that in Christ we all belong to one another" (Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2009).

Who better than a priest, as a man of God, can develop and put into practice, by his competence in current digital technology, a pastoral outreach capable of making God concretely present in today's world and presenting the religious wisdom of the past as a treasure which can inspire our efforts to live in the present with dignity while building a better future?

Consecrated men and women working in the media have a special responsibility for opening the door to new forms of encounter, maintaining the quality of human interaction, and showing concern for individuals and their genuine spiritual needs.

They can thus help the men and women of our digital age to sense the Lord's presence, to grow in expectation and hope, and to draw near to the Word of God which offers salvation and fosters an integral human development.

In this way the Word can traverse the many crossroads created by the intersection of all the different "highways" that form "cyberspace", and show that God has his rightful place in every age, including our own.

Thanks to the new communications media, the Lord can walk the streets of our cities and, stopping before the threshold of our homes and our hearts, say once more: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me" (Rev 3:20).

In my Message last year, I encouraged leaders in the world of communications to promote a culture of respect for the dignity and value of the human person.

This is one of the ways in which the Church is called to exercise a "diaconia of culture" on today's "digital continent". With the Gospel in our hands and in our hearts, we must reaffirm the need to continue preparing ways that lead to the Word of God, while being at the same time constantly attentive to those who continue to seek; indeed, we should encourage their seeking as a first step of evangelization.

A pastoral presence in the world of digital communications, precisely because it brings us into contact with the followers of other religions, non-believers and people of every culture, requires sensitivity to those who do not believe, the disheartened and those who have a deep, unarticulated desire for enduring truth and the absolute.

Just as the prophet Isaiah envisioned a house of prayer for all peoples (cf. Is 56:7), can we not see the web as also offering a space - like the "Court of the Gentiles" of the Temple of Jerusalem - for those who have not yet come to know God?

The development of the new technologies and the larger digital world represents a great resource for humanity as a whole and for every individual, and it can act as a stimulus to encounter and dialogue.

But this development likewise represents a great opportunity for believers. No door can or should be closed to those who, in the name of the risen Christ, are committed to drawing near to others.

To priests in particular the new media offer ever new and far-reaching pastoral possibilities, encouraging them to embody the universality of the Church's mission, to build a vast and real fellowship, and to testify in today's world to the new life which comes from hearing the Gospel of Jesus, the eternal Son who came among us for our salvation.

At the same time, priests must always bear in mind that the ultimate fruitfulness of their ministry comes from Christ himself, encountered and listened to in prayer; proclaimed in preaching and lived witness; and known, loved and celebrated in the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation.

To my dear brother priests, then, I renew the invitation to make astute use of the unique possibilities offered by modern communications. May the Lord make all of you enthusiastic heralds of the Gospel in the new "agorà" which the current media are opening up.

With this confidence, I invoke upon you the protection of the Mother of God and of the Holy Curè of Ars and, with affection, I impart to each of you my Apostolic Blessing.


From the Vatican, 24 January 2010
Feast of Saint Francis de Sales

---

And this is the take-home message of the news agencies from the Pope's text:

AP: Pope urges priests to blog to masses
AP: Pope to priests: Go forth and blog!
Reuters: For God's sake, blog! Pope tells priests
AFP was surprisingly less reductive:
Pope urges priests to make 'astute' use of Internet
CNA was factual but misleading:
Holy Father encourages online priestly ministry
[It implies the Pope was endorsing all kinds of ministry online, when he makes it very clear that he means using the Web for teaching and preaching, testimony and dialog - an Internet 'diaconate' - not for the Sacraments.

CNS was the most faithful to the message:
Pope asks priests
to get online, spread the Gospel



After quoting appropriate excerpts from the Pope's text, John Thavis adds statements made by Archbishop Celli at the presentation, which gives teh proper context to the 'go forth and blog' reduction:

...Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said the message once again illustrated the pope's mainly favorable view of new media.

"The Pope is aware of the limits of new technologies, but he wants to make the point that these new means of communication play a positive role, both in the wider society and in the Church," the archbishop said in a briefing with reporters.

Archbishop Celli said the message doesn't mean that the Vatican now expects every priest to open a blog or a Web site, but rather to make appropriate use as possibilities present themselves. He said that task will probably be easier for younger priests, who are already more involved in new media.


1/24/10
P.S. The ultimate secular reduction - and banalization - of the Pope's message is found in the AP's 1/24/10 version of its story - in its lead paragraph, at any rate, since the rest of the story is accurate and sensible, though far from complete.



Pope commands priests
to go forth and blog



VATICAN CITY, Jan. 24 (AP)Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.

The Pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.

The message, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs and Web sites.

The 82-year-old Pope has often been wary of new media, warning about what he has called the tendency of entertainment media, in particular, to trivialize sex and promote violence, while lamenting that the endless stream of news can make people insensitive to tragedies.

But Benedict has also praised new ways of communicating as a "gift to humanity" when used to foster friendship and understanding.

Here is a surprising commentary from a column in Panorama magazine by Italian journalist and TV news host Bruno Vespa, whose weekly program 'Porta a Porta' (Door to Door) carries interviews with people in the news and is considered so influential in the public discourse that it has been called the 'third house' of the Italian Parliament. He is a supporter of Prime Minister Berlusconi.

It is surprising because although he featured Cardinal Ratzinger on more than one occasion in 'Porta a Porta', our Italian sisters always complained that Vespa appeared to be snubbing him deliberately once he became Pope, featuring John Paul II on his program even when the occasion was a Benedict XVI milestone, and constantly making the unflattering comparisons that he denounces in this column. Famously, he did not see fit to do anything on the 80th birthday of Benedict XVI, choosing to do one instead of the birthday of the Queen of England. Who knows why he seems to have suddenly seen the light?

Vespa starts with some commentary on Ali Agca's recent release from prison and his bid to exploit his notoriety for as many bucks as he can get. He segues into this reflection about three Popes.



Benedict XVI: Like Jesus with the High Priests

Misunderstood, criticized, judged, whatever he does will never be enough for his critics.
And it is wrong to keep comparing his work to that of John Paul II.


John Paul II and Benedict XVI at the Great Synagogue of Rome.

by BRUNO VESPA
Translated from

January 22, 2010


…John Paul II’s extraordinary survival from Ali Agca’s ‘slalom-course’ bullet that miraculously missed any of his vital organs certainly contributed to the legend of John Paul II.

But with the passing of time, it is historically unfair to compare everything done by his successor to what John Paul II did. Consider the visit of Benedict XVI last Sunday to Rome’s Great Synagogue.

I had never before seen a Pope rise for a standing ovation that was not for him. Joseph Ratzinger did so to honor survivors of Auschwitz…. And one could not count the applauses from one side or the other on an afternoon that was memorable for both Jews and Catholics.

The actions and attitude of the present Pope towards the Jewish world have always been unexceptionable. In Cologne and in New York, he made it a point to visit a synagogue. On his first apostolic visit abroad as Pope, he visited Auschwitz, condemning rightly “the powers of the Third Reich… who sought to eliminate the Jewish people”.

As the French writer Bernard-Henri Levy noted in Corriere della Sera on Jan. 20, at every step of his visit to the Jewish ghetto and Synagogue, Benedict XVI "did what was his duty, but [the fact is] he did”.

And yet, to some commentators, anything Benedict XVI might say will never be enough. Forgive me for the daring comparison, but sometimes I seem to hear the high priests in the temple of Jerusalem who attributed to Jesus exactly the opposite of what he said.

The point of friction remains the verdict over Pius XII. Almost as if John Paul II had disowned him, and his successor is rehabilitating him wrongly.

[That is such an insightful remark! I had always wondered, when the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood approved the heroic virtues of Pius XII in May 2007 - why did it take 42 years for them to arrive at that, seeing as Paul VI first introduced the cause in 1965, and Pius XII was widely venerated even in his lifetime as a truly saintly man?

Was there an underlying history to explain the apparent lack of action during all of Paul VI's and John Paul II's Pontificates? Or was it a deliberate caesura in view of the escalating Jewish hostility against Pius XII? Was Benedict XVI, once he became Pope, responsible for 'resuscitating' the cause, such that the Congregation voted the late Pope's heroic virtues by May 2007?]

The opening to the public of the remaining archives concerning the Pius XII years will give the definitive word [Does anyone really think that? The anti-Pius XII Jews will always find a new pretext for protesting], but already historiographic research has regained a lot of ground for the defenders of Pius XII, whom Levy identifies as Pius XI’s co-author of the 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennenden Sorge. [I think it is widely accepted that the German-speaking Eugenio Pacelli drafted the encyclical.]

Was Golda Meir wrong to pay homage in the mid-1940s to ‘the voice of Papa Pacelli against the Nazi executioners'? Did the hundreds of religious establishments all over Italy who saved Jews during the war act contrary to Pius XII’s alleged ‘false prudence’ that made him a ‘fatal accomplice’ to the Nazis?

What price must Benedict XVI have to pay in the name of a Pope who has been so widely defamed and whose public persona does not help his cause?


[It is no more than the price he is continually asked to pay for every presumed 'misdeed' or 'mis-statement' that does not find favor with his detractors - part of the lot that falls to whoever is the Successor of Peter, one of the 'garments' that he must don when he first enters the Room of Tears after his election.]

How I wish there had been more reactions to the Holy Father's wonderful reminiscence shared with his fellow Frisingians!


The Pope remembers -
and we are nostalgic for
the hope of his generation
by Marina Corradi
Translated from

January 21, 2009


We who were not there can try to imagine that January day in 1946 in Freising. The city's seminary had reopened its doors to students.

Outside, the war was over, Nazism defeated, and Hitler's bunker in Berlin a pile of rubble. The soldiers - those who survived - had returned from the fronts or were coming back from POW camps.

Those who had survived the concentration camps were starting to tell a stunned world what had really happened, and it was only then that the West was getting an idea of the abyss into which the West had fallen - but had now re-emerged, utterly drained but free.

And yet, despite the ruins, the mourning and the hunger, in that new year of 1946 in Europe, for millions of men, that is how it must have been: hell had caved in, and it was the dawn of a new beginning.

In the Freising seminary, the seminarians were back. In cold communal dormitories and bare rooms, but "happy because we were free", Benedict XVI said, reminiscing, to city officials last Saturday, speaking to them in their native German, off the cuff.

And from the heart. The faces of his fellow Bavarians stirred up his memories of that January in 1946 and later of his ordination as a priest. And his life as a young professor-priest, living with his parents once again.

He was a grandfather recounting the past to grandchildren who were not there, and did not know how it was.

But there was a passage, in this affectionate rush of memory, which is very actual: Joseph Ratzinger and his contemporaries knew, in that defeated and burnt-out Germany, that "time and the future belong to Christ, that he had called us, he needed us, that there was a need for us [priests]".

In Freising they had professors who were authoritative scholars "but also teachers", he stressed: men who gave us "the essential, the good bread that we needed in order to receive the into ourselves".

And whoever reads the Holy Father's reminiscence must feel stirred. By the certainty that shows clear and firm through his memories.

In the mourning and shame of a defeated Germany, among the ruins of the thousand-year Reich that had lasted only 13, those young men in Freising were certain of those two essential things: that time and the future belong to Christ, and that the Lord needed them in that place and time. And they had true teachers who shared with them the bread that nourishes the soul.

The only things left to these adolescent heirs of a folly that had plunged the country into an abyss were the essentials necessary to a Christian life: unwavering faith in a God to whom human destinies matter, and teachers to lead them by the hand.

What many of our children today do not have. That which, although we may have given them so much materially, we have often failed to provide.

"We knew that we were needed," the Pope said. How many 20-year-olds today have any such awareness or certainty! And how many - worn down perhaps by unemployment or precarious labor or lack of goals, feel useless, their hopes down to a minimum, unable to do anything positive!

No, it is not envy that stirs us up about the Pope's memories. Because how could we envy them who had been children thrown into in the deepest abyss of our history, and whose brothers and friends had not perhaps survived the abyss?

But what we feel is a nostalgia for the hopes they felt in that dawn of the postwar-era, the hope one feels so poignantly in the memories of one who had been a boy 64 years ago. It was as if, after a terrible storm, the storm clouds recede in defeat, and the skies clear up again, bright and calm.

One imagines it must have felt that way on January 3, 1946, for the seminarians of Freising. With hell behind them, yet in the chilly corridors, the excited voices of innocent youth, eager to begin a new and different era. Audacious in their one certainty: time and the future belong to Christ.

Pope greets newly-elected
Patriarch of Serbia


The Vatican released the text of the letter sent Friday by the Holy Father to the new Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Irinej of Pec. The letter is in English.

---

To His Holiness Irinej
Archbishop of Peč
Metropolitan of Belgrade Karlovci
Patriarch of Serbia

I was glad to learn of your election as Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church and I pray that the Lord may grant you abundant gifts of grace and wisdom for the fulfilment of your high responsibilities in the service of the Church and the people entrusted to you.

You succeed Patriarch Pavle, our brother of happy memory, who was a Pastor both fervent and esteemed, and who bequeathed to you a spiritual inheritance that is rich and profound.

As a great pastor and spiritual father, he effectively guided the Church and maintained its unity in the face of many challenges. I feel bound to express my appreciation of his example of fidelity to the Lord and of his many gestures of openness towards the Catholic Church.

I therefore pray that the Lord will grant Your Holiness the inner strength to consolidate the unity and spiritual growth of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as to build up the fraternal bonds with other Churches and ecclesial communities.

Let me assure you of the closeness of the Catholic Church and of her commitment to the promotion of fraternal relations and theological dialogue, in order that those obstacles which still impede full communion between us may be overcome.

May the Lord bless our common efforts in this regard, so that the disciples of Christ may again be united witnesses before the whole world to his salvific love.


From the Vatican
22 January 2010

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Serbian Orthodox Church
enthrones new Patriarch




The powerful Serbian Orthodox Church enthroned a new patriarch Saturday in Belgrade's Cathedral Church, a move that could lead to closer ties with the Vatican.

Irinej Gavrilovic, 80, was elected patriarch on Friday and is considered a moderate, especially compared to some other high-ranking clergy in the church. He succeeds Patriarch Pavle who died last month.

Earlier in the week, he raised the prospect of a visit to Serbia by Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 [to mark the 1700th anniversary of Constantine's Edict of Milan; Constantine was born in what is now the Serbian city of Nis] and has called for closer relations with Roman Catholics, which have been strained in recent years.

In Rome, the Pontiff offered Irinej assurance "of the closeness of the Catholic Church" and proposed dialogue "in order that those obstacles which still impede full communion between us may be overcome."

Despite his moderate reputation, Irinej has said the church's top priority should be supporting the Serbian state in its efforts to recover the breakaway state of Kosovo.

Kosovo held its first elections since independence last November.

"Our first duty as a church is to safeguard our Kosovo, a holy and martyred land, to help our state to defend it from those who wish to seize it," Irinej said. "Kosovo is our holy land, our Jerusalem."

Saturday's ceremony in Belgrade was only the first part of the enthronement ritual. Part two is planned to take place at a historic church in the western Kosovar town of Pec, although a date has not yet been set.

Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence nearly two years ago and some 65 nations have so far recognized its sovereignty.

Most Serbs reject Kosovo's independence and see the region as their cultural heartland.

Pope Benedict invokes
'a future for Haiti'


Grief-stricken Haitians gathered yesterday for the funeral of Archbishop Joseph Miot of Port au Prince and his vicar, both of whom were killed in the earthquake and were found in the rubble of Haiti's cathedral. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York City was among the prelates who came to Haiti for the rites.


The Vatican released the texts of the letters written by the Holy Father to the President of Haiti and the president of the Haitian bishops conference last week, immediately after the catastrophic earthquake that levelled the capital Port au Prince, killed at least 200,000 and left two million homeless.

---

To His Excellency
Monsieur René Préval
President of the Republic of Haiti

Having learned with the greatest sorrow of the earthquake which tragically struck your dear land, I wish to assure Your Excellency of my profound sympathy and my fervent prayers for all the persons touched by this terrible catastrophe.

I ask God to welcome to the peace of his Kingdom all those who died in the earthquake and to give comfort to their families who have mostly been unable to give a worthy funeral for their dear departed.

I also pray that the spirit of solidarity may dwell in all hearts, and that calm may be kept on the streets so that the generous aid coming from other countries may bring relief to all and assurance to the persons who now lack everything that the entire international community will take concrete care of them.

I sincerely appreciate the involvement of all, Haitians and foreigners, who often at the risk of their own lives, have put all their efforts to find and help survivors, and I thank them from the heart for all their work.

I wish to assure Your Excellency that the Catholic Church, through its institutions, beyond the great emotion of the event, will be at the side of all those who are suffering under this trial, and that as far as it can, it will help them to recover their chances for a future that is open.

As a token of my affection for everyone, I impart with all my heart to the entire suffering people of Haiti a special Apostolic Blessing.


From the Vatican
16 January 2010

---

---

To Louis Kébreau
Archbishop of Cap-Haitien
and President of the
Episcopal Conference of Haiti


Having learned with the greatest sorrow of the earthquake which has just struck so hard the capital of your country, I wish to assure you, as well as all the faithful of the Church in Haiti, of my great spiritual closeness and my fervent prayers for all the persons affected by this catastrophe.

I ask God to welcome in peace to his Kingdom all those who died in teh earthquake, particularly Mons. Joseph Serge Miot, Archbishop of Port au Prince, who shared the fate of so many of his flock, among them priests, consecrated persons and seminarians.

In these dark hours, I call on Our Lady of Perpetual Help to be the Mother of Tenderness who will guide hearts so that solidarity may overcome feelings of isolation and each-man-for-himself.

I welcome the very prompt mobilization of the international community, unanimously moved by the fate of Haitians, and of the entire Church which, through its institutions, will not fail to bring its contribution to emergency responses and to the patient reconstruction of the devastated zones.

As a token of affection and spiritual comfort, I impart with all my heart to all the pastors and faithful of the Church in Haiti who are under severe trial a special Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
16 January 2010

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Hundreds gather in Port-au-Prince
to bury archbishop killed in quake
By Scott Wilson

January 23, 2010


PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Hundreds of the capital's Catholic faithful gathered Saturday to bury Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, killed with scores of parishioners when the Jan. 12 earthquake broke apart the cathedral where he worked and prayed.

For the service, wooden pews from the ruined church, where countless bodies remain entombed beneath pale pink rubble and shattered stained glass, were set out in the broad courtyard in front of the cathedral.

Amid blooming oleander bushes and the occasional pop of gunfire from the volatile business district nearby, politicians and diplomats, seminarians and novices prayed, sang and remembered Miot and Bishop Charles Benoit, the city's vicar general, who was also crushed to death in the quake. His body lay in a white casket, topped with a spray of bright flowers, next to the one holding the archbishop.

"If Monsignor Miot were alive, he would tell us to have courage, to be strong in starting over," said Marie-Andre Baril, 53, a bank teller whose home was destroyed in the quake.

"With my faith, I hope to have what he would want us to have. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here." The devout Catholic population of this city has lost the head of its church, a vivid example of one of the quake's cruelest outcomes. Many of those killed were the very people who, in times of tragedy, would be sought out for solace and explanation.

The Haitian government Saturday placed the death toll from the 7.0-magnitude quake at 111,000 and rising, the vast majority of the victims from the capital, where up to a third of the country's people once lived.

And Saturday, a day after the government called off the search for survivors, another was found.

Sunday, January 24

Third illustration from left, St. Francis de Sales with St. Frances de Chantal; extreme right, the statue of St. Francis in St. Peter's Basilica.
ST. FRANCOIS [Francis] DE SALES (France 1567-1622), Bishop, Writer, Doctor of the Church
Born to a noble family in Savoy, Francis had the best education possible in his time, with degrees from the universities of Paris and Padua. He chose to become a priest over the civil career his family expected him to pursue. Because of their connections, he was appointed Provost of Geneva by its bishop. Geneva was the center of the Calvinist movement, and Francis dedicated himself to converting Calvinists, writing catechetical pamphlets for that purpose. He was a spellbinding preacher, a gentle pastor and ascetic in his own life. At age 35, he became Bishop of Geneva but continued to preach, hear confessions and catechize children. He wrote two books, the Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God, along with many pamphlets and a vast correspondence. His writings, characterized by his gentleness, are addressed to lay people, to make them understand that they too are called to be saints. With St. Frances de Chantal, he founded the Sisters of the Visitation whose members can choose to do community work or a contemplative life. He was canonized in 1661, not long after his death, and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1877, In 1963, he was named the patron saint of writers and journalists. He inspired St. John Bosco who named the religious order he founded Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB).
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/012410.shtml




OR today.

Benedict XVI sends messages to the President of Haiti and Haitian bishops
The Pope prays that Haiti may have an open future
As the Church buries the Archbishop of Port au Prince and his vicar, Haiti officially stops rescue operations to concentrate on
bringing aid to the living. Other papal stories: the Holy Father's message for World Communications Day in May, and his letter
greeting the newly elected Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In international news: Afghan President Karzai plans
reconciliation talks with moderate Taliban. In the inside pages, OR wraps up its reportage on this week devoted to Christian
unity to essays about how the Orthodox churches are seeking to deal with modernity, 2009 as a turning point for the reformed
churches, and progress in the Catholic dialog with the World Ecumenical Council. Part of Cardinal Ratzinger's June 2004
address in Normandy on the 60th anniversary of D-Day on the 'just war' fought by the Allies is reprinted, in connection with
a review of a French book seeking to demythicize D-Day, also accompanied by an essay on how Hollywood has depicted D-Day.
Finally, a story on Cardinal Bertone in Mostar to ordain Bishop Vinko Puljic as Archbishop, who has been named the Apostolic
Nuncio to the Arabian Peninsula (including Yemen and the Gulf emirates).



THE POPE'S DAY

Sunday Angelus - The Holy Father commented on the reading from St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians
in which he likens the Church to the human body; recalled the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity with Vespers in St. Paul's Basilica tomorrow; and paid tribute to St. Francis de Sales, patron of
communications, on his feast day today.


NB: I apologize I got my days mixed up, and posted earlier a reference to the Vespers which will take place tomorrow not this afternoon!

ANGELUS TODAY

In his remarks today, the Holy Father commented on the reading from St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, in which he likened the Church to the human body; recalled the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with Vespers in St. Paul's Basilica tomorrow; and paid tribute to St. Francis de Sales, patron of communications, on his feast day today.

He also recalled the beatification yesterday in Barcelona of José Samsó i Elías, Cataln priest and martyr who was killed during the Spanish Civil War.

In English, he cited today's Gospel:

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In today’s liturgy, Jesus tells us plainly that he has been anointed "to preach good news to the poor" (Lk 4:18). Indeed, it is the poor whom God has chosen to be rich in faith and heirs of His kingdom (cf. Jas 2:5).

Dear brothers and sisters, may those in need take courage from the Good News, and may all of us be generous with God’s gifts to us (cf. Mk 4:24).

---

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

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

Among the Biblical readings in the liturgy today is the famous text from the First letter to the Corinthians in which St. Paul compares the Church to the human body.

He wrote: "As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor 12,12-13).

The Church is conceived as a body, of which Christ is the head, and she is one with him. But what the Apostle wished to communicate was the idea of unity in the multiplicity of charisms, which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks to these, the Church is a rich and vital organism, not uniform, the fruit of the one Spirit who leads everyone to profound unity, assuming diversity without abolishing it and realizing a harmonious ensemble.

The Church prolongs the presence of the Risen Lord throughout history, particularly through the Sacraments, the Word of God, the charisms and ministries distributed among the community.

That is why, it is in Christ and the Spirit that the Church is one and holy - an intimate communion that transcends and sustains human capacities.

I wish to underscore this aspect as we observe the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which ends tomorrow, feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Following tradition, I will celebrate Vespers in the afternoon at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, with the participation of representatives from other Churches and ecclesial communities who are present in Rome.

We will ask God for the gift of full unity of all the disciples of Christ, and, in particular, according to the theme this year, we will renew our commitment to be witnesses together of the crucified and risen Christ (cfr Lk 24,48).

The communion of Christians, indeed, would render the proclamation of the Gospel more credible and effective, as Jesus himself affirmed in praying to the Father on the eve of his death: "That they may all be one... so that the world may believe" (Jn 17,21).

Finally, dear friends, I wish to recall the figure of St. Francis de Sales, whose liturgical feast we observe on January 24. Born in Savoy in 1567, he studied law in Paris and Padua, then, called by the Lord, he became a priest. He dedicated himself with great success to preaching and the spiritual formation of the faithful, teaching that the call to sainthood is for everyone, and that each one - as St. Paul says in comparing the Church to the human body - has his place in the Church.

St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists and the Catholic press. To his spiritual assistance, I entrust the Message for the World Day of Social Communications that I sign every year on this occasion and which was presented yesterday at the Vatican.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, obtain for us that we may always progress in communion in order to transmit the beauty of being 'only one' in the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.


After the prayers, he said this:

Yesterday, in Barcelona, José Samsó i Elías, a Catalan priest and martyr killed during the Spanish Civil War, was proclaimed Blessed. A true witness to Christ, he died forgiving his persecutors. For priests, especially parish priests, he is a model of dedication to catechesis and to charity towards the poor.


He repeated the message in his Spanish greeting, after which he also said a few words in Catalan. To Polish pilgrims, he said:

In the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Christ the Lord once again prays for us: "That they may all be one!" Let us pray, too, to obtain this desired gift from God - that the Church and other Communities may unite in the spirit of faith, the civilization of life, peace and love. Nourishing the desire of communion among all who believe in Christ, let us build our daily lives on Christ and his Gospel.


In his final greeting in Italian he said this:

I address a special greeting to the families in the Movimento dell’Amore Familiare and all those who last night held vigil at the church of St. Gregory VII to pray for just and peaceful solutions to the problems related to immigration.

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A turning point with the Jews?
Translated from


January 24, 2009


"Benedict XVI's visit to the Synagogue of Rome was memorable, not only because it was a further step in that 'irrevocable' journey of dialog, brotherhood and friendship between Jews and the Church begun by the Second Vatican Council, but also for the points made by the Pope looking towards the future rather than back to the past", said the Vatican press director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, last week on Vatican Radio.

"To those who are not familiar with Benedict XVI's theological premises, let it be said that it was natural that he evoked them at the Synagogue by returning to the fundamentals - that is, the essential elements of the common heritage of Jews and Christians in terms of a vision of God, the world and man.

"The world created by God and entrusted to man's care; the Ten Commandments as a light for distinguishing good from evil, true from false, just from unjust, consistent with the dictates of right conscience in every person.

"These are ancient words but always very actual. Man, created by God, should be responsible to God for all Creation. And a man who is helped to know good from evil can find the right path even in the confusion of a pluralism that tends to lose every point of reference.

"Wise men among the Jews know this very well and must have been happy to hear the Holy Father's clear references to the most solid of our common foundations.

"Of course, we will continue to talk about the past in order to face our differences on the way to increasing our mutual comprehension. But that which we have in common at the very beginning is immense and stable as the heavens, and our common responsibility of service to Creation and the human family requires that we are in accord".

Meanwhile, the Jewish community is also assessing the outcome of the Pope's visit to the Rome Synagogue.

"We have said it clearly and we hope we have been understood," said Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni. "Before beatifying Pius XII, the Vatican must wait until the Vatican Archives [on the Pius XII Pontificate] are fully open - in order to verify all the possible data, and then decide. A delay will lead to clarity and cool passions down."

[Once again, Di Segni - who is obviously not a stupid man nor, I think, malicious, though he sometimes sounds it - is willfully and stubbornly ignoring the nature and the process of canonization.

And as much as the Jewish protesters disclaim that they are interfering in any way with internal Church matters, they are! If the situation were reversed, and the Church tried to intervene in any way with some internal Jewish affair, their first reaction would be "How dare you get mixed up in our business?" How can they not give the Church the same elementary consideration?

So yes, how dare they say :"Before beatifying Pius XII, the Vatican must wait until the Vatican Archives [on the Pius XII Pontificate] are fully open". Or, it may well be that Rabbi Di Segni is 'grandstanding' to mollify orthodox Jews and his militant followers to show them he is standing their ground.

Regardless, the Jewish objections are known to the Vatican and duly noted, but they have nothing to do with Catholic standards of who can be a saint. And the Vatican cannot hold up its own legitimate processes out of mere political correctness - for that's what PC is all about, walking on eggs to avoid offending anyone.]

No sooner had the Pope left the synagogue, then Di Segni was back on the subject of Pius XII.

"On a subject as controversial as this [controversial to the Jews and some liberal ideological Catholics, not to the Church in general!], "haste does not help". [So who is hurrying? The usual charge against the Vatican is that it moves at snail's pace on anything. Even so, the length of time it has taken so far for Pius XII's cause to move one step forward has been almost unconscionable, considering that as someone who was Pope for almost 20 years, there is little that was not known about him! Haste? If the medical and theological commissions verify the reported miracle in Castellamare, he will be beatified without unwarranted delay. It is reasonable to believe that can take at most two years.]

"There are those who say that Pius XII is a saint and that the archives can only confirm that. And there are those who say that he is a controversial figure and perhaps the archives will show something in his favor. In any case, a delay is useful because it can cool down passions", Di Segni pointed out. [Their passions, which they will not allow to cool off, and for which they are on perpetual alert for any pretext they can seize on to stoke it redhot instantly!]

However, he also says that "The Jewish-Catholic relationship cannot be reduced to the question of Pius XII". [That's very sensible, but his behavior - and that of other militant Jews - in the past two years has seemed to reduce it to Pius XII and the Holocaust itself.

I've said it often before, but it almost seems as though nothing will satisfy them unless Benedict XVI wears a sandwich board saying [or has his robes emblazoned with] 'NEVER FORGET THE SHOAH, AND MAY GOD FORGIVE THE GERMAN PEOPLE FOR THEIR PART IN THE KILLING OF SIX MILLION JEWS! AND PIUS XII FOR NOT RISKING HIS LIFE TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST HITLER' - because, in effect, that is what they want, with their reflex whining that 'The Pope did not say enough..." any time Benedict XVI says anything about the Shoah!]

Referring to the fact that the Pope did not mention the state of Israel during his visit to the Synagogue, Di Segni said: "Perhaps it's because the Pope came for a religious encounter, in a place of religious worship, among religious leaders, thus avoiding any political aspect".

{One of the most bizarre criticisms of the visit - by a Jewish-born Italian journalist who otherwise had no other criticism to make - was that the Pope had never once said 'Israel' (the state, not the Biblical Israel) in his address. Perhaps not so bizarre after all, since it is yet another indication of their nitpicking anything that Benedict XVi has to say about the Jews and the Holocaust! Why was it even necessary for him to mention Israel at the Synagogue?]

Di Segni concludes that overall, the Pope's visit was "positive, because it has a fundamental significance: it showed his intention to continue the journey begun by John Paul II. [He showed it in many ways long before the visit!] The dialog continues. It's the most important signal".



On the Pius XII issue: Some points cannot be repeated enough. The issue is so vast that many important elements are often left out when it is reported and commented on as news. This is how I see it.

Let the objectors stick to their guns, since that is clearly what they want. But the Church is not and cannot be bound by their objections, which are primarily ideological - and, I maintain, basically anti-Catholic, with Pius XII as the convenient symbol representing the Church.

They are free to object all they want, but they have absolutely no basis to expect that their objections could or would derail or further delay the beatification process of Pius XII. Just as the Church does not expect them to 'accept' Pius XII or anybody else as a saint! They can and probably will go ahead with their vilification campaign even after Pius XII is made Blessed or Saint. but they are entitled to free speech, and it is unlikely anyone in the Church will sue them for defamation and slander.

Has the Church interfered or intervened when ultra-orthodox rabbis and their followers take a defiant stand against Israeli forces themselves and invite Palestinian reprisal for occupying settlements in Palestinian territory? The ultimate result is unncessary deaths on both sides.

[For the same reason, however, the Arab Christian prelates of the Middle East are out of line to be so openly partisan in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And for their political views to define the shape of the coming Synod on the Middle East is simply wrong.]

The initial presentation of Pius XII's cause gained the unanimous approval of the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood in 2007, who confirmed and proclaimed the heroic Christian virtues of the late Pope - even if, inexplicably, it took the Congregation [and its changing membership over the decades] 42 years since Paul VI first introduced the cause in 1965, to go beyond this first step in the process. And it would take another two and a half years before Benedict XVI would sign the decree.

Because of the Jewish objections, Benedict XVI, unpublicized, ordered a review of available documentation on Pius XII in the Vatican archives by a German historian priest, who completed his review last summer. Thus it was that Pius XII's cause for beatification finally advanced one step in December 2009 at the same time as that of John Paul II, whose cause had opened in May 2005.

'Heroic Christian virtues' are not necessarily 'heroic' in the literal, vulgar sense, because in the right circumstances, prudence itself is heroic, as it was in the case of Pius XII's wartime actions.

Pius XII, a most holy man by all accounts, could easily have chosen to invite martyrdom . After all, the Nazis had made it no secret they were ready to kidnap him, occupy the Vatican, and make a mockery of the Church in general. As Pope, he would have known it was the certain path to instant beatification (bypassing the need for proving 'heroic virtues') - if his choice had been selfish in any way.

But for someone in his position, martyrdom would have been futile - it would not have mobilized anything significant in the midst of an unprecedented global war, to which it would have been nothing more than a momentary diversion.

He chose the more difficult but also more responsible way: having to weigh day to day his direct responsibility towards the Church in general and endangered Catholics in particular, against what he could safely, effectively and prudently do for endangered Jews.

Setting aside the many and amply documented concrete acts that Pius XII did for persecuted Jews - any single one of which would have earned him Jewish honor as a 'righteous Gentile - what moral law did he break by choosing discretion, 'the better part of valor'? Because that is the substance of the entire Communist-Rolf Hochhuth-militant Jew concatenation of blame heaped on Pius XII.

Martyrdom, like crime, is very much a matter of means, motive and opportunity. In the eyes of God and man, is Eugenio Pacelli less holy than, say, Maximilian Kolbe, who offered his life so that a fellow inmate in Auschwitz would not be executed?

Was Pius XII guilty of sinning by omission (not speaking out)? We cannot know. It would be sheer hypothesis. If he had 'spoken out' directly and publicly, would that have made any difference to the Nazi program of exterminating evryone they considered undesirable? The experience in Holland, after the Catholic bishops protested the Nazi persecution of Jews, showed their response was more of the same, only worse. If he had spoken out, and the Nazi response was similar, then perhaps the Jews would be blaming him now for provoking worse Nazi reprisal.

The way to sainthood is as individual and unique as each person is individual and unique. And yet since saints and candidate saints are human, each one has his share of human imperfections, and perfection is not expected nor required of them.

In the rivers of words that have been expended on Pius XII and the Holocaust, somewhere someone must have drawn up a timeline of the Jewish anti-Pius offensive that clearly dates and links it to the Western liberal embrace of the Soviet-Hochhuth black propaganda strategy against him.

I do not fault Pius XII's detractors for their passion - misguided and misdirected as it is - but for their dishonesty in blatantly ignoring 1) every bit of documented evidence that belies the Soviet-Hochhuth-militant Jewish image of Pius XII and 2) the unsolicited testimonials of prominent Jewish leaders in praise of Pius XII during the war and in the years following the war but before The Deputy.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/01/2010 09:31]

Monday, January 25

FEAST OF THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL
"On one such occasion I was traveling to Damascus with the authorization and commission of the chief priests. At midday, along the way, O king, I saw a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my traveling companions. We all fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad". and I said, 'Who are you, sir?' And the Lord replied, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Get up now, and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you have seen (of me) and what you will be shown. I shall deliver you from this people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been consecrated by faith in me." (Acts 25,12-21)
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/012510.shtml



No OR today.



THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- The Bishops of England and Wales, led by Mons. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster

This afternoon:

ECUMENICAL VESPERS
FEAST OF THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL
Conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
5:30 p.m., Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls

The Internet to spread God's Word:
Catholics should use its pros
to neutralize the cons
by VITTORIO MESSORI
Translated from

January 25, 2009


It would be wrong to feel alarmed after looking at the headlines dedicated to Benedict XVI's Message for World Communications Day in May, with buzz words like 'cyper-priests', 'digital Church' and 'Web Gospel' [or in the Anglophone media, "Go forth and blog!"]

Even among the non-observant Catholics - majority by now of Italian Catholics, though they are happy that the Church exists and that it remains familiar - there are those who are not happy with the image of an impersonal screen taking the place of the parish priest's face, or fearing perhaps that confessions may end up being done online!

Far from it. As Andre Frossard noted, "The God of the Christians can only count up to one", meaning that the message of Jesus is not to be considered like modern ideologies aimed at the masses, classes, a nation, a people or a party.

The Gospel is calibrated for each individual, it is never anonymously transmitted, it is intended to help all the children of a Father for whom each person has a name and identity, a unique story.

Human contact, face to face, listening and talking, are essebtial for the life of the Church and will never be minimized.

To begin with, an aspect of Christianity that is quite dear to Benedict XVI - a great intellectual who is the enemy of ideological abstractions - advocates constant rediscovery of incarnated faith, one that is concrete and 'tactile', starting with the liturgy which, he believes, must once again inspire a sense of the sacred,

What the Pope points out, in his 2010 Social Communications message, is that "even in cyberspace, God has the right of citizenship", that the Internet offers a great opportunity for evangelization, a new tool that is able to overcome physical frontiers and instantly reach everyone.

For centuries, the Church used the pulpit - elevated with respect to the congregation, and with a canopy to help project the [reacher's voice farther) and parchments written out by monks in their scriptoria. Then, there came the printing press and movable type, and later, as soon as technology made it available, electric-powered loudspeakers.

In Italy, the Church used film as much as possible such that the audiences reached in parish halls became the largest such audience in Italy. And then, of course, radio and television have been used to the mazimum.

The Church certainly did not greet the emergence of the Internet with dismay. On the contrary, the fervor of pastoral initiatives to get online was such that there are few Italian parishes now that do not have a website. And the continuous rise in the "Catholic sites' listed by search engines is truly impressive.

The traditional volunteer apostolate has displaced itself to the Internet, making a great variety of competences and talents available as a strong and widespread presence.

This is the dissemination that the Pope finds positive, exhorting the faithful not to step back their commitment, reiterating the importance of such work for the apostolate, and in general, for inter-personal relationships.

Of course, like every human reality, the Internet has two faces: for instance, it is possible to take part in the recitation of the Rosary, in your language of choise, from the Grotto of Lourdes, or you can dialog with members of, say, farflung Confraternities of St. Joseph.

But, with another click, one can also get to the largest space for pornography in the history of the world much of it free, so that publications and theaters specializing -in hard porn are steadily losing business.

The two-headed nature of the Web is exemplified by statistics on site visits, in which the two key words most sought by Internauts both have three letters: God and sex.

But to get back to the Catholic perspective, there is an aspect that has seemed to escape most observers: The Internet has favored the impetuous rebirth of a 'science' that seemed to have been forgotten in the Church itself, but which had always had a great role in evagelization.

And that is apologetics, the defense of the faith,through a defense of the harmony between faith and readon, between history and the Bible, between the Church and the Gospel.

After Vatican-II, the old manuals of apologetics disappeared from the seminaries themselves, since they were considered 'useless' in a world where the truth of the faith was to be witnessed to by social commitment, not by logical and historical reasoning.

But reasoning out the faith [DIM]8t[=DIM][St. Peter said to "be ready always to satisfy everyone that asks you a reason of that hope which is in you" (1Pt 3,15)] - has always been necessary, but today more than ever. And the Web has given a great increment to such reasoning.

At the same time, many websites, forums and blogs are dedicated to demolishing the historical bases of Scriptures and to polemics over the history of the Church. And they range from university studies to scattershot blasts from bigotted bloggers, from insidious criticism to outright blasphemies.

But the fact is, struck to the quick, Catholic Internauts (clerical anday, the latter in great numbers) have reacted, dusting off apologetics texts to reply to the stale but never retired list of accusations against the Church: the Gospel as nothing but an Oriental myth, miracles as baseless superstition, Galileo, the Inquisition, the Crusades, St. Bartholomew's massacre, the conquest of the Americas, women as second-rate persons, simony, the supposed bonds between Catholicism and totalitarianisms...

And on and on, a whole litany of black myths that have now acquired new and extraordinary visibility. But the Web is also seething with the defense of the accord between faith and reason, between faith and history.

A development that obviously pleases Joseph Ratzinger who has dedicated his life to these themes, as professor, as Prefect of the former Holy Office, and finally as Pastor of the Universal Church.

The Bishop of Rome as
'First among the Patriarchs':
How will the Orthodox
come to terms with it?


With Benedict XVI, for the first time ever, the Orthodox Churches have agreed to discuss the primacy
of the bishop of Rome, according to the model of the first millennium, when the Church was undivided.






ROME, January 25, 2010 – This evening, with Vespers in the Basilica of Saint Paul's outside the Walls, Benedict XVI is closing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

There are some who say that ecumenism has entered a phase of retreat and chill. But as soon as one looks to the East, the facts say the opposite. Relations with the Orthodox Churches have never been so promising as they have since Joseph Ratzinger has been Pope.

The dates speak for themselves. A period of chill in the theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches of Byzantine tradition began in 1990, when the two sides clashed over so-called "uniatism," meaning the ways in which Catholic communities of the Eastern rites duplicate in everything the parallel Orthodox communities, differing only by their obedience to the Church of Rome.

In Balamond, in Lebanon, the dialogue came to a halt. It hit an even bigger obstacle on the Russian side, where the Patriarchate of Moscow could not tolerate seeing itself "invaded" by Catholic missionaries sent there by Pope John Paul II, who were all the more suspect because they were of Polish nationality, historically considered enemies of Russia.

The dialogue remained frozen until, in 2005, the German Joseph Ratzinger ascended to the throne of Peter, a Pope highly appreciated in the East for the same reason he prompts criticisms in the West: for his attachment to the great Tradition.

First in Belgrade in 2006, and then in Ravenna in 2007, the international mixed commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches started meeting again.

And what rose to the top of the agenda was precisely the question that most divides East and West: the primacy of the Successor of Peter in the universal Church.



From the session in Ravenna emerged the document that marked the shift, dedicated to "conciliarity and authority" in the ecclesial communion.

The document of Ravenna, approved unanimously by both sides, affirms that "primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent." And in paragraph 41, it highlights the points of agreement and disagreement:

"Both sides agree that . . . that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs. They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium."

"Protos" is the Greek word that means "first". And "taxis" is the structure of the universal Church.

Since then, the discussion on controversial points has advanced at an accelerated pace. And it has started to examine, above all, how the Churches of East and West interpreted the role of the bishop of Rome during the first millennium, when they were still united.

The basis of the discussion is a text that was drafted on the island of Crete at the beginning of autumn in 2008.

The text has never been made public before now. It is in English, and can be read in its entirety on this page of www.chiesa:
> The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1341814?eng=y

The international mixed commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches started discussing this text in Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, from October 16-23, 2009.




It started to examine the preaching of Peter and Paul in Rome, their martyrdom and the presence of their tombs in Rome, which for Irenaeus of Lyons confers preeminent authority on the apostolic Roman see.

From there, the discussion continued by examining the letter of Pope Clement to the Christians of Corinth, the testimony of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who identifies the Church of Rome as the one that "presides in charity," the role of Popes Anicetus and Victor in the controversy surrounding the date of Easter, the positions of St. Cyprian of Carthage in the controversy over whether or not to rebaptize the "lapsi," meaning the Christians who had sacrificed to idols in order to save their lives.

The intention is to understand to what extent the form that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome had in the first millennium can act as a model for a rediscovered unity between East and West in the third millennium of the Christian era.

In the middle, however, there has been a second millennium in which the primacy of the Pope was interpreted and lived, in the West, in increasingly emphatic ways, far from what the Churches of the East are willing to accept today.

And this will be the critical point of the discussion. But the delegations from the two sides are not afraid to face it. Benedict XVI himself said this last January 20, explaining in the general audience to the faithful the meaning of the Week of Prayer for Christian unity:

"With the Orthodox Churches, the international mixed commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches has begun to study a crucial theme in the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox: the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of the Church in the first millennium, meaning the time in which the Christians of the East and West lived in full communion. This study will be extended afterward to the second millennium."

The next session is schedueled to take place in Vienna on September 20-27, 2010.

For all these years, the head of the Catholic delegation has been Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

Likewise, the head of the Orthodox delegation for years has been metropolitan of Pergamon Joannis Zizioulas, a theologian of recognized value and of great authority, the "mind" of ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, and highly respected by Papa Ratzinger, with whom he has a relationship of deep friendship.

Relations have also improved with the Patriarch of Moscow. In Ravenna, the Russian delegates had walked out because of a disagreement with the Patriarch of Constantinople on whether or not to admit Orthodox representatives from the Church of Estonia, which is not recognized by Moscow.

But in Paphos, last October, the rift was repaired. And now the Patriarchate of Moscow has friendly relations with Rome as well. Proof of this came a few months ago, the publication by the Patriarchate of a book containing the writings of Benedict XVI on the crisis of Europe, an initiative without precedent in history.

The initiative will soon be reciprocated by Rome, with writings by Patriarch Kirill collected in a volume published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

A meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow is now also in the realm of possibility. Maybe sooner than one might think.