BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

See preceding pages for earlier posts today, 2/16/10.



Tuesday, February 16

ST. GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM (England, 1083-1190)
Priest, Founder of the Gilbertines
Son of a Norman noble, Gilbert was sent to Paris where he studied theology and returned
to be a clerk with the local bishop. He started a school of children and soon attracted
a small community of men and women aspiring to be religious. Gilbert was personally very
ascetic. When he came into his inheritance, he used it to expand the community and its
work with schools, orphanages and hospitals. In 1130, with the help of St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, he set up the Gilbertine orders, witn an eclectic constitution, in which the priests
(canons regular) followed the Augustinian rule, and the nuns and lay brothers and sisters
followed the Cistercian (reformed Benedictine) rule. This was the only English medieval
congregation but it came to an end with the dissolution of monasteries that followed Henry
VII's break from the Catholic Church. The Gilbertines had 26 monasteries at the time. When
he was 80, he was imprisoned on suspicion of having helped Thomas Becket escape to France.
Although Becket did stay in Sempringham and escaped in the guise of a Gilbertine lay brother,
Gilbert did not deny the charges. In his 90s, he was denounced by some of his lay brothers
for being too strict with his Rule, but he was upheld by Alexander III. He died at age 108,
giving rise to an immediate cultus. Many miracles were attributed at his tomb and he was
canonized in 1201, just 12 years after he died.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021610.shtml



OR for 2/15/-2/16:

Visiting a Caritas hostel on Sunday, the Pope urges society to go beyond the profit motive:
'Charity and justice are forces for social development'

Other Page 1 stories: On the Pope - An editorial on his visit to Caritas, the first day of his meeting with Irish bishops, and his Sunday
Angelus message; pilgrim crowds in Padua for the weeklong exposition of St. Anthony's remains (photo, upper right). International news:
Collateral damage to civilians in the current anti-Taliban offensive by the coalition forces in Afghanistan; and how Japan is trying to stand
up against the economic challenge from China.



THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father concluded two days of meeting with the bishops of Ireland with a session from
9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. The Vatican Press Office has issued a statement about the meetings.


The Vatican also released the Holy Fahter's message for the 47th World Day of prayer for Vocations
to be observed on April 25, 2010.

ON THE MEETING OF THE HOLY FATHER
WITH SENIOR IRISH BISHOPS AND
HIGH-RANKING MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CURIA

---

On February 15 and 16, 2010, the Holy Father met the Irish Bishops and senior members of the Roman Curia to discuss the serious situation which has emerged in the Church in Ireland.

Together they examined the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy and religious.

All those present recognized that this grave crisis has led to a breakdown in trust in the Church’s leadership and has damaged her witness to the Gospel and its moral teaching.

The meeting took place in a spirit of prayer and collegial fraternity, and its frank and open atmosphere provided guidance and support to the Bishops in their efforts to address the situation in their respective Dioceses.

On the morning of 15 February, following a brief introduction by the Holy Father, each of the Irish Bishops offered his own observations and suggestions. The Bishops spoke frankly of the sense of pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame expressed to them on numerous occasions by those who had been abused. There was a similar sense of outrage reflected by laity, priests and religious in this regard.

The Bishops likewise described the support at present being provided by thousands of trained and dedicated lay volunteers at parish level to ensure the safety of children in all Church activities, and stressed that, while there is no doubt that errors of judgement and omissions stand at the heart of the crisis, significant measures have now been taken to ensure the safety of children and young people.

They also emphasized their commitment to cooperation with the statutory authorities in Ireland – North and South – and with the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland to guarantee that the Church’s standards, policies and procedures represent best practice in this area.

For his part, the Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image.

While realizing that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the Bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage.

He also expressed the hope that the present meeting would help to unify the Bishops and enable them to speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, encouraging a renewal of faith in Christ and restoring the Church’s spiritual and moral credibility.

The Holy Father also pointed to the more general crisis of faith affecting the Church and he linked that to the lack of respect for the human person and how the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors.

He stressed the need for a deeper theological reflection on the whole issue, and called for an improved human, spiritual, academic and pastoral preparation both of candidates for the priesthood and religious life and of those already ordained and professed.

The Bishops had an opportunity to examine and discuss a draft of the Pastoral Letter of the Holy Father to the Catholics of Ireland. Taking into account the comments of the Irish Bishops, His Holiness will now complete his Letter, which will be issued during the coming season of Lent.

The discussions concluded late Tuesday morning, 16 February 2010. As the Bishops return to their Dioceses, the Holy Father has asked that this Lent be set aside as a time for imploring an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church in Ireland.

---

Pope tells Irish bishops
to be honest over scandal
by FRANCES D'EMILIO



VATICAN CITY, Feb. 16 (AP) – The Vatican says the Pope is urging Irish bishops to be honest and courageous in handling the clergy sex abuse scandals.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said that resignations of bishops weren't discussed at a summit on the crisis. Two days of special talks between Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops ended on Tuesday at the Vatican.

The Vatican also defended the Pope's envoy to Ireland for refusing to testify to Irish lawmakers about decades of scandals and church coverups.

Ireland's bishops and the Pope wrapped up talks Tuesday aimed at regaining the trust of Catholics shaken by revelations of clergy sex abuse and cover-up, as new anger flared over the refusal of the papal representative to Ireland to testify before lawmakers there.

A second day of an extraordinary meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and 24 diocesan bishops was held behind closed doors in the Apostolic Palace.

The Holy See did not immediate react Tuesday to what appeared to be a new obstacle to regaining Irish Catholic confidence. Irish lawmakers denounced the refusal of Pope Benedict's diplomat in Ireland to testify to a parliamentary panel probing church cooperation with investigations into the abuse cover-up.

The papal nuncio to Ireland, Cardinal Giuseppe Leanza, who was among the summit's participants, told lawmakers in a letter published Monday he would not answer questions from the parliament's foreign affairs committee.

"I wish to inform that it is not the practice of the Holy See that apostolic nuncios appear before parliamentary commissions," he wrote in the letter dated Feb. 12.

[This is yet another failure in Vatican communications - terrible PR, in fact. At a time when the image of the Church is so negative in Ireland, why should the Pope's diplomatic representative In Ireland turn down the Parliament's invitation on the basis of a bureacratic reason that can - and probably should - be overlooked when it has to do with something as serious as this? Especially since he already ignored the Murphy Commission's letter earlier asking him to give his testimony during its investigations.

This bureaucratic pretext only makes it seem that he is hiding something, when, in fact, he probably could tell the investigators honestly that the Vatican had no knowledge of the abuses. Which would be very believable since the Commission shows what pains the bishops took to cover up priest's offenses and their own cover-up actions.

And what does Cardinal Bertone, who oversees all Apostolic Nuncios, have to say about this? Can the Secretariat of State allow their Nuncios to autonomously make decisions like this even when it has to do with a scandal? Or did Leanza do it with full knowledge and acquiescence of - if not on instructions from - the Secretariat of State? It's the kind of evasive action that is very much at odds with Cardinal Bertone's severe rebuke about the scandals in his homily to the bishops yesterday!]

Leanza has faced heavy criticism in Ireland for ignoring letters from two state-ordered investigations into how the church for decades suppressed reports of child abuse by parish priests and in Catholic-run residences for poor children.

The investigators said the cardinal did not reply to letters seeking the Vatican's assistance.

Irish lawmaker Alan Shatter said it was "not only deeply regrettable but incomprehensible" that Leanza would not explain the Vatican's noncooperation with Irish investigations, given that "it is acknowledged in Rome that members of the clergy in Ireland are guilty of abominable sexual abuse of children."

Benedict's top aide, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, welcomed the bishops to the Vatican on Monday with a stern call for sinners among their ranks to own up to blame in the fullness of truth.

The summit was also called to help the Pontiff prepare a special letter to the Irish people apologizing for church failures to protect thousands of children.

Irish activists are demanding much more, including resignations of all bishops who failed to inform police about reports of pedophile priests.

They also demand that the Pope accept in full [The Vatican, much less the Pope, has not criticized or rejected the report in any way!] the findings of the Irish investigations, which some Church officials in Ireland have criticized as unfair.


Obviously, much of Ireland is up in arms against the Church - though they seem to forget that all the wrongdoers in this situation were Irish - and critics of the Church will use Leanza's bureaucratic pettiness as evidence of bad faith by the Vatican - read the Pope - in dealing with this scandal! Why is the Vatican helping them by not addressing this simple question of Leanza's testimony promptly and directly?


Irish bishops tell Pope of 'shame'
over sex abuse of children



Vatican City, Feb. 16 (dpa) - In almost two days of unprecendented talks, Ireland's bishops told Pope Benedict XVI of their "shame" at a child sex abuse scandal involving priests that has shaken the Irish Church, the Vatican's chief spokesman said Tuesday.

The bishops also pledged their future cooperation with authorities in Ireland and, in a Vatican statement, said "significant measures have now been taken to ensure the safety of children and young people" involved in Church-led activities.

"There was a positive atmosphere," and the bishops came away from the meeting with the pontiff feeling "encouraged," chief spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

Lombardi was briefing reporters on the talks, which took place after Benedict, moving to address the crisis, summoned to Rome all 24 of Ireland's standing bishops.

In November, a commission headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy heavily criticized the church for its handling of over 300 sex abuse claims in the archdiocese of Dublin from 1975 to 2004

In Tuesday's statement, Benedict reiterated some of the remarks he has made in the past regarding the scandal.

The acts of abuse represented "not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image," the Pontiff was quoted as saying.

"He (Benedict) challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage," the statement added.

The Murphy commission concluded that bishops often protected abusers and were more interested in maintaining secrecy and protecting church assets than in helping victims.

However, Vatican statement made no reference to specific disciplinary measures to be taken against clerics implicated in the scandal.

Four Irish bishops have already resigned as a consequence of the so-called Murphy Commission's revelations, which were published in November. To date, Benedict has accepted the resignation of one of the clerics.

Asked about the remaining three cases and calls in Ireland for more bishops and other Church officials to quit, Lombardi said resignations "were not discussed."

"That is a separate procedure," he added.

The Vatican statement said the Irish bishops had "emphasized their commitment to cooperation" with the Irish authorities.

Lombardi referred to a draft pastoral letter addressed by the Pope to Ireland's Catholics as a possible way forward. It was "examined and discussed," in the talks.

The letter would be sent out, probably in March, and definitely before Easter (April 4)," Lombardi added.

He stressed that the meeting in Rome is "only a step of a long process."

The Irish bishops were scheduled to give a news conference later Tuesday.

There's a special poignancy in this message released by the Vatican alongside the communique on the scandals in the Irish Church involving priests and bishops - which also happened to have been disclosed in full by two major Irish government inquiries during the Year for Priests. Let us not forget to pray daily for our bishops, priests and religious everyday so they may be worthy of their vocation as men and women of God.



'WITNESS INSPIRES VOCATIONS':
The Holy Father's message for
this year's World Day for Vocations

February 16, 2010


On April 25, 2010, the fourth Sunday in Eastertime, the Church observes the 47th world Day of Prayer for Vocations, which this year has the theme "Witness inspires vocations".

Here is the message for the occasion by the Holy Father to all bishops, priests and faithful around the world:

---

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The 47th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, to be celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Easter – Good Shepherd Sunday – 25 April 2010, gives me the opportunity to offer for your meditation a theme which is most fitting for this Year for Priests: Witness Awakens Vocations.

The fruitfulness of our efforts to promote vocations depends primarily on God’s free action, yet, as pastoral experience confirms, it is also helped by the quality and depth of the personal and communal witness of those who have already answered the Lord’s call to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life, for their witness is then able to awaken in others a desire to respond generously to Christ’s call.

This theme is thus closely linked to the life and mission of priests and of consecrated persons. Hence I wish to invite all those whom the Lord has called to work in his vineyard to renew their faithful response, particularly in this Year for Priests which I proclaimed on the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars, an ever-timely model of a priest and a pastor.

In the Old Testament the prophets knew that they were called to witness by their own lives to the message they proclaimed, and were prepared to face misunderstanding, rejection and persecution. The task which God entrusted to them engaged them fully, like a "burning fire" in the heart, a fire that could not be contained (cf. Jer 20:9).

As a result, they were prepared to hand over to the Lord not only their voice, but their whole existence. In the fullness of time, Jesus, sent by the Father (cf. Jn 5:36), would bear witness to the love of God for all human beings, without distinction, with particular attention to the least ones, sinners, the outcast and the poor.

Jesus is the supreme Witness to God and to his concern for the salvation of all. At the dawn of the new age, John the Baptist, by devoting his whole life to preparing the way for Christ, bore witness that the promises of God are fulfilled in the Son of Mary of Nazareth.

When John saw Jesus coming to the river Jordan where he was baptizing, he pointed him out to his disciples as "the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29). His testimony was so effective that two of his disciples, "hearing him say this, followed Jesus" (Jn 1:37).

Similarly the calling of Peter, as we read in the Evangelist John, occurred through the witness of his brother Andrew, who, after meeting the Master and accepting his invitation to stay with him, felt the need to share immediately with Peter what he discovered by "staying" with the Lord: "We have found the Messiah (which means Christ). He then brought him to Jesus" (Jn 1:41-42).

This was also the case for Nathanael, Bartholomew, thanks to the witness of yet another disciple, Philip, who joyfully told him of his great discovery: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (Jn 1:45).

God’s free and gracious initiative encounters and challenges the human responsibility of all those who accept his invitation to become, through their own witness, the instruments of his divine call.

This occurs in the Church even today: the Lord makes use of the witness of priests who are faithful to their mission in order to awaken new priestly and religious vocations for the service of the People of God. For this reason, I would like to mention three aspects of the life of a priest which I consider essential for an effective priestly witness.

A fundamental element, one which can be seen in every vocation to the priesthood and the consecrated life, is friendship with Christ. Jesus lived in constant union with the Father and this is what made the disciples eager to have the same experience; from him they learned to live in communion and unceasing dialogue with God.

If the priest is a "man of God", one who belongs to God and helps others to know and love him, he cannot fail to cultivate a deep intimacy with God, abiding in his love and making space to hear his Word. Prayer is the first form of witness which awakens vocations.

Like the Apostle Andrew, who tells his brother that he has come to know the Master, so too anyone who wants to be a disciple and witness of Christ must have "seen" him personally, come to know him, and learned to love him and to abide with him.

Another aspect of the consecration belonging to the priesthood and the religious life is the complete gift of oneself to God. The Apostle John writes: "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and therefore we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 Jn 3:16).

With these words, he invites the disciples to enter into the very mind of Jesus who in his entire life did the will of the Father, even to the ultimate gift of himself on the Cross. Here, the mercy of God is shown in all its fullness; a merciful love that has overcome the darkness of evil, sin and death.

The figure of Jesus who at the Last Supper, rises from the table, lays aside his garments, takes a towel, girds himself with it and stoops to wash the feet of the Apostles, expresses the sense of service and gift manifested in his entire existence, in obedience to the will of the Father (cf. Jn 13:3-15).

In following Jesus, everyone called to a life of special consecration must do his utmost to testify that he has given himself completely to God. This is the source of his ability to give himself in turn to those whom Providence entrusts to him in his pastoral ministry with complete, constant and faithful devotion, and with the joy of becoming a companion on the journey to so many brothers and sisters, enabling them too to become open to meeting Christ, so that his Word may become a light to their footsteps.

The story of every vocation is almost always intertwined with the testimony of a priest who joyfully lives the gift of himself to his brothers and sisters for the sake of the Kingdom of God. This is because the presence and words of a priest have the ability to raise questions and to lead even to definitive decisions (cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, 39).

A third aspect which necessarily characterizes the priest and the consecrated person is a life of communion. Jesus showed that the mark of those who wish to be his disciples is profound communion in love: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35).

In a particular way the priest must be a man of communion, open to all, capable of gathering into one the pilgrim flock which the goodness of the Lord has entrusted to him, helping to overcome divisions, to heal rifts, to settle conflicts and misunderstandings, and to forgive offences.

In July 2005, speaking to the clergy of Aosta, I noted that if young people see priests who appear distant and sad, they will hardly feel encouraged to follow their example. They will remain hesitant if they are led to think that this is the life of a priest.

Instead, they need to see the example of a communion of life which can reveal to them the beauty of being a priest. Only then will a young man say, "Yes, this could be my future; I can live like this" (Insegnamenti I, [2005], 354).

The Second Vatican Council, in speaking of the witness that awakens vocations, emphasizes the example of charity and of fraternal cooperation which priests must offer (cf. Decree Optatam Totius, 2).

Here I would like to recall the words of my venerable Predecessor John Paul II: "The very life of priests, their unconditional dedication to God’s flock, their witness of loving service to the Lord and to his Church – a witness marked by free acceptance of the Cross in the spirit of hope and Easter joy – their fraternal unity and zeal for the evangelization of the world are the first and most convincing factor in the growth of vocations" (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 41).

It can be said that priestly vocations are born of contact with priests, as a sort of precious legacy handed down by word, example and a whole way of life.

The same can be said with regard to the consecrated life. The very life of men and women religious proclaims the love of Christ whenever they follow him in complete fidelity to the Gospel and joyfully make their own its criteria for judgement and conduct.

They become "signs of contradiction" for the world, whose thinking is often inspired by materialism, self-centredness and individualism. By letting themselves be won over by God through self-renunciation, their fidelity and the power of their witness constantly awaken in the hearts of many young people the desire to follow Christ in their turn, in a way that is generous and complete.

To imitate Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, and to identify with him: this is the ideal of the consecrated life, a witness to the absolute primacy of God in human life and history.

Every priest, every consecrated person, faithful to his or her vocation, radiates the joy of serving Christ and draws all Christians to respond to the universal call to holiness.

Consequently, in order to foster vocations to the ministerial priesthood and the consecrated life, and to be more effective in promoting the discernment of vocations, we cannot do without the example of those who have already said "yes" to God and to his plan for the life of each individual.

Personal witness, in the form of concrete existential choices, will encourage young people for their part to make demanding decisions affecting their future. Those who would assist them need to have the skills for encounter and dialogue which are capable of enlightening and accompanying them, above all through the example of life lived as a vocation.

This was what the holy Curé of Ars did: always in close contact with his parishioners, he taught them "primarily by the witness of his life. It was from his example that the faithful learned to pray" (Letter Proclaiming the Year for Priests, 16 June 2009).

May this World Day once again offer many young people a precious opportunity to reflect on their own vocation and to be faithful to it in simplicity, trust and complete openness.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, watch over each tiny seed of a vocation in the hearts of those whom the Lord calls to follow him more closely, may she help it to grow into a mature tree, bearing much good fruit for the Church and for all humanity. With this prayer, to all of you I impart my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican
13 November 2009

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In addition to the inspiration provided by the Holy Cure of Ars, I think bishops and priests would do well to look at the example of Benedict XVI himself, and how, above everything else, the fact that he is a priest is central to who he is. Everything he does and most of what he says is shaped by his persona as 'alter Christus' even before he is Vicar of Christ. So it was with John Paul II and the Popes before them, who were also exemplary bishops in their full and unswerving communion with the Church.

The CNS account of the Vatican summit on the Irish scandal is more comprehensive than the secular news agency reports:

Irish-Vatican summit on sex abuse
ends with call for courage, honesty
By John Thavis


VATICAN CITY, Feb. 16 (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said priestly sexual abuse was a "heinous crime" and a grave sin, and he urged Irish bishops to act courageously to repair their failures to deal properly with such cases.



At the end of a two-day Vatican summit on the sex abuse scandal in Ireland, the Vatican said in a statement Feb. 16 that "errors of judgment and omissions" were at the heart of the crisis. It said church leaders recognized the sense of "pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame" that those errors have provoked among many Irish Catholics.

"All those present recognized that this grave crisis has led to a breakdown in trust in the church's leadership and has damaged her witness to the Gospel and its moral teaching," the statement said.

"For his part, the Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image," it said.

"While realizing that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage," it said.

The Vatican said the Pope also had expressed hope that the Vatican summit would help the bishops unify and "speak with one voice" as they identify concrete steps to bring healing to those who have been abused and restore the church's moral credibility.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the meeting produced no specific policy decisions, nor was it intended to do so.

He said the encounter, which included 24 Irish bishops and 10 top Vatican officials, was aimed at dialogue and direction-setting, and in that sense was a success.

The recovery from the scandal will be "a very long process," he added.

Father Lombardi said he thought one of the most significant outcomes was the public recognition that there had been a failure "in leadership, in the governance of the church" in dealing with the sex abuse cases.

The spokesman said the meeting did not directly address some controversial aspects of the Irish situation, including the call for additional resignations of Irish bishops.

Nor did the meeting discuss the idea, suggested by some in Ireland, that Pope Benedict add Ireland to his planned visit to England and Scotland in September and meet with some of the abuse victims. [Which is, of course, out of the question, as you cannot just add another country to a papal itinerary planned at least a year in advance. But there is nothing to stop the Irish bishops from bringing over some victims to meet privately with the Pope when he is in the UK.]

The Pope convened the bishops in response to the continuing fallout from the scandal, following an independent report that faulted the church for its handling of 325 sex abuse claims in the Archdiocese of Dublin in the years 1975-2004.

The report said bishops sometimes protected abusive priests, and were apparently more intent on protecting the Church's reputation and assets than on helping the victims.

With the Pope presiding, each of the 24 Irish bishops spoke for seven minutes, in effect giving the pope an account of themselves and their own actions, and reflecting on ways to best bring healing. The Vatican participants included officials who deal with doctrine, church law, bishops, clergy, religious life and seminaries.

The Pope had earlier expressed his sense of outrage over the revelations, and was writing a special pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on the subject. Participants at the Vatican meeting discussed a draft of the letter, which was expected to be published during Lent, Father Lombardi said.

The Vatican statement said the Irish bishops had already helped put in place significant measures to ensure the safety of all children in church activities. It emphasized the bishops' commitment to cooperate with civil authorities in Ireland and with the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

But even as the Vatican meeting wound down, a new controversy was erupting in Ireland over the refusal of the Vatican's apostolic nuncio to the country, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, to appear before a parliamentary foreign affairs committee. One member of the committee called the archbishop's decision regrettable and incomprehensible.

Asked about Archbishop Leanza's refusal, Father Lombardi said an apostolic nuncio, like all ambassadors, may be precluded by the normal rules of diplomacy from answering parliamentary commissions. [But surely this is a case in which an exception should be made - even if the Vatican requests, for instance, that the testimony be made in private, or other such 'protections'. I think the Vatican is handling this fairly simple matter all wrong!]

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, set the tone of the meeting at an opening Mass Feb. 15 with the Irish and Vatican participants. He said the most difficult trials for the Church were internal ones, especially, as in this case, when the Church sees "some of its own men involved in particularly abominable acts."

The cardinal said renewal can be the outcome of this trial, as long as people take responsibility for their failings.

Cardinal Bertone compared the church to a ship in a storm, and said the prelates need to put their trust in Christ. The "more dangerous storm," he said, was "the one that touches the hearts of believers, shaking their faith."

There has been widespread indignation among Irish Catholics following the revelations of the sex abuse cases and the way they were handled by the bishops, detailed in a report last November by an independent commission headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy. Pope Benedict held a preliminary meeting with two Irish bishops in December.

Four bishops criticized in the Irish report have offered their resignation, but so far the Pope has officially accepted only one of them. Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway, also criticized in the report, has rejected demands by Catholic groups for his resignation.

Speaking on the eve of the Vatican summit, Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher said the meeting would not be a "cosmetic exercise" but a chance to tell the whole truth and lay everything on the table.

Bishop Duffy added that he was convinced that Pope Benedict was already aware of the gravity and complexity of the sex abuse cases.

"It's my information that the Pope is very well clued in on this whole issue, that even before he became Pope, he had access to the documentation, that he knew exactly what was in the documentation, and that he wasn't living in a fool's paradise," he said.

[I commented strongly about this quotation from Duffy yesterday. And Thavis should have caught on to this blatant misstatement as well, because Duffy is saying, in effect, that Cardinal Ratzinger knew specifically about the Irish scandals when he was at CDF and did nothing about it. He obviously did not, because the CDF has acted promptly and investigated the complaints brought directly to its attention, such as the Maciel case and a number of Italian priests.]

At a Mass for the Irish bishops in St. Patrick's Church in Rome on Feb. 14, Bishop Colm O'Reilly of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise said the prelates were especially aware this year of the Lenten call to confession and repentance.

"It is a time for undoing, insofar as this is possible, the damage our sins have done, for what is done and what we have failed to do. It is a time for a new beginning," he said in a homily.


And note the immediate 'reproach' to the Pope in this report by the New York Times:


Pope urges Irish bishops
to confront sex abuse
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and ALAN COWELL

February 16, 2010

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI urged Irish bishops on Tuesday to show “determination and resolve” in confronting the sexual abuse scandal convulsing the Roman Catholic church in Ireland, but made no explicit call for the punishment of those who perpetrated what he called a “heinous crime".

[The Pope is a pastor who is solicitous of all his flock, including the sinners. He is not a politician who will use any occasion to play to the grandstand in order to show his seriousness about dealing with this scandal. Does anyone doubt that he failed to lay down the line severely to the bishops during the meeting? All the admonitions in the Vatican statement today implied that severity. Early on, the statement refers to the damage caused by the scandals to the Church's 'witness to the Gospel'. A bishop who has been shown to cover up his priest's offenses cannot continue to be a convincing 'witness to the Gospel' - and one must assume he will be replaced and given some private penance, as I trust John Paul II must have given Cardinal Law when he moved him from Boston to the Vatican.]

After two days of closed-door conversations between the Pope and Irish bishops, a Vatican statement said the scandal had ignited a “grave crisis” which had “led to a breakdown in trust in the Church’s leadership.”

But the statement seemed unlikely to satisfy victims of abuse who had called for more resignations of senior clerics involved in covering up decades of sexual abuse of children and young people by priests.

Even as the Vatican talks were underway, John Kelly, a victim of abuse, wrote in a letter to the pPpe made public in London: “The secular powers in Ireland appear paralyzed to bring to civil justice some of those who carried out acts of horrific abuse as well as those who assisted by acts of omission or even outright collusion after the fact.”

“In addition the religious orders to whom those persons belong remain intact and continue to operate within and outside the state,” the letter said. [The Vatican cannot arbitrarily shut down religious orders because some of their members committed crimes!]

Four Irish bishops have offered their resignations in the wake of the scandal, but the Pope has accepted only one. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the issue of further resignations by bishops “was not addressed” in the talks at the Vatican, The Associated Press reported.

The Pope met individually with 24 Irish bishops following a report last November that said the Church in Ireland had concealed child abuse in Dublin for almost 30 years to 2004. A separate report in May described decades of sexual and physical abuse of children studying at Church-run boarding schools in the country. ['Church-run' is not correct - these institutions were run by religious orders, who are autonomous of the dioceses where they operate.]

The talks were a prelude to the publication of a pastoral letter from the Pope to Irish Catholics which, the statement said, would be issued some time in the next few weeks during the period of Lent starting Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday which falls this year on April 4. The document will be the first papal utterance of its kind dealing specifically with pedophilia, Vatican experts said.

[The story quotes more paragraphs from the Vatican statement.]

The report last November horrified many people with disclosures of serial abuse by priests.

Groups representing victims have expressed outrage that the abuse could continue for so long and have pressed for the pope to help bring perpetrators to trial in civil courts. The statement on Tuesday made no direct reference to such actions.

The disclosure of decades of abuse presents the Church in Ireland with a crisis of faith that could also become a financial crisis if victims seek financial redress for what the statement called “the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people.”


I wish the reporter had indicated the video and the photos he based this article on - a curious sidebar to the main event.


Pope's body language speaks
volumes at historic meeting
By John Cooney

Tuesday, February 16

THE body language of Pope Benedict when he finally came face to face with the Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, does not augur well for the former bible scholar named in the Murphy report.

The habitually aloof Bishop Drennan is eagerly stooping forward to greet the head of the Catholic Church, who has the sole power to remove him from episcopal office.

Note, too, how the usually formal bishop is offering the Pontiff not a steady handshake.

His gesture is not really a handshake at all. It is more like a quick finger-grasping greeting, worthy of a Dail politician.

But look at the even more significant sign of a less than cordial welcome from the Holy Father.

Pope Benedict's frosty stare and searching eyes are those of a boss weighing Bishop Drennan up.

Nor do they appear to be making any show of polite talk in this historic encounter at the Mass in the awesome crypt of St Peter's Basilica at the tomb of St Peter, the first Apostle. [But the Pope was not present for this Mass which was celebrated by Cardinal Bertone.]

An appropriate attempt to read their inner thoughts might have the makings of a script titled 'The Silence of the Tomb'.

The caption for the pontiff's lips might read: "So you're the guy that has been causing me such trouble."

In response, the media-shy Bishop Drennan might respond: "Forgive me Holy Father -- but I have not sinned."

But at least Pope Benedict got the opportunity of meeting the evasive prelate from the West of Ireland.

In sharp contrast, when Pope Benedict met the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, there was immediate eye contact between them.

The German pontiff, who knew Archbishop Martin from his student days in Rome's Teutonic College and often met the young Dublin priest after he joined the Holy See's diplomatic service, looks like a mentor meeting his former pupil.

Comfortable in each other's presence, they enjoy sharing a hearty handshake and a warm smile. Result: Archbishop Martin, one; Bishop Drennan, nil.

But even more intriguing is how when Cardinal Sean Brady was deferentially offering the Holy Father a two-handed grasp, Pope Benedict is looking distractedly past both the camera and the Primate of All Ireland, while in the background a bemused Archbishop Martin watches the pontiff's body language.

Other unforgettable vignettes at yesterday's Mass were Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, with his head down almost into his prayer book, but his counterpart in Cashel, Archbishop Diarmuid Clifford looking distracted from his prayer book as he curiously peers at a camera from behind his spectacles.

Note, too, the towering posture of the white-haired Noel Treanor, the Bishop of Down and Connor.

Bishop Treanor is tipped to succeed Cardinal Brady when he reaches 75 in three-and-a-half years time.

Even in the crypt of St Peter's, winners and losers can be spotted by the first apostle's successor -- and Bishop Drennan must realise that.

Anglican 'trads' move to form
Ordinariate in Australia
Feb. 15, 2010

An uncommented news release from Forward in Faith Australia (FiFA) shows how local Anglican communities are girding themselves for the move to Rome. FiFA was launched in Brisbane at Easter 1999, replacing the Association of Apostolic Ministry and Traditional Anglicans in Queensland.

---

A Special General Meeting of Members of Forward in Faith Australia Inc. was held on Saturday 13 February at All Saints Kooyong in Melbourne to consider the following recommendations from the National Council regarding the future direction of the Association:

o That this Special General Meeting of FiFA receives with great gratitude the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus” of Pope Benedict XV1 and directs the National Council to foster by every means the establishing of an Ordinariate in Australia. And furthermore this Special General Meeting reaffirms its commitment to provide care and support for those who at this time feel unable to be received into the Ordinariate.

o That we warmly welcome the appointment of Bishop Peter Elliott as delegate of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the project to establish a Personal Ordinariate in this country.

o That we note the formation of a working group with Bishop Elliott comprising Members of Forward in Faith Australia, the Traditional Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Church of Australia, to set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate.

o That we give notice as to the establishing of Friends of the Australian Ordinariate and invite members of Forward in Faith Australia and other interested persons for expressions of interest by provision of names and addresses at this meeting, or by contacting the Chairman, noting that this does not commit interested persons to joining the Ordinariate.

The Meeting passed each of these Resolutions unanimously.

The Right Reverend David Robarts OAM
National Chairman

---

For Benedict XVI's 5th anniversary
as Pope, first traditional Mass in
45 years at US national Basilica





On Saturday, April 24, 2010, at 1 p.m., the fifth anniversary of inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI will be commemorated in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC, by a Pontifical Solemn High Mass in the extraordinary form - commonly known as the tTraditional Latin Mass or Tridentine Mas” to be celebrated by Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos of Colombia.

This will be the first such Mass said at the Shrine’s High Altar in nearly 45 years. All Catholics are invited.

Cardinal Castrillón is the President Emeritus of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which he led for 21 years until retirement at age 80 last year.

The Paulus Institute in Washington DC is sponsoring the Mass.

“We are honored that His Eminence Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos will be celebrating this Mass at our invitation, especially on the anniversary of Pope Benedict’s inauguration and at the High Altar of the National Shrine,” said Institute President Paul King. “It is a privilege to recognize the Pope on this auspicious occasion and assist his call to give due honor to the 1500-year old Mass for its ‘venerable and ancient usage.’”

“We are inviting all Catholics to this Mass for the unity of the entire Catholic community, including those unfamiliar with it and particularly young adults and families.”

Cardinal Brady says Irish bishops
should restore credibility
by repentance in Lent





Rome, Feb 16, 2010 (CNA) - Five members of the Irish Bishops' Conference, led by their president and Primate of all Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady, addressed the media on Tuesday afternoon at Vatican Radio headquarters, following two days of what they called "intense" discussions with Pope Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia.

Cardinal Brady said in his remarks that the bishops should spend the penitential season of Lent doing penance to promote “a change of heart.”

Over "a very productive two days," 24 Irish bishops met with the Holy Father and Vatican officials on the topic of sexual abuse in the Irish Church over the last 40 years. Every bishop had a handful of minutes to speak individually during the meetings.



Present at the Tuesday afternoon press conference were Bishops Michael Smith, Joseph Duffy, Denis Brennan and Brendan Kelly and Cardinal Brady, who relayed some of the exchange between the bishops and the Pope, since the meeting was closed to the press.

Cardinal Brady said he used his time with Pope Benedict to speak of "the amount of support we got after the report from members of other churches" and "the impact this report had on people."

He also stressed that the bishops of Ireland need to listen better and should do this by further implementing the structures that already exist in the Church, referring specifically to parish/pastor councils and diocesan councils.

"These are structures which could be used more fully and more meaningfully to involve lay people in a more direct way in the running of our Church," Cardinal Brady said.

Bishop Brennan from the Diocese of Ferns spoke "about the culture that has emerged between the bishops, church leadership and Irish society" and the pain and concern he feels for the current situation of the Church, since "it came about because of a breach of trust between us and the people."

He elaborated on how the issue has affected the Church, saying, "people trusted us to do a better job in this area and many of them are disillusioned that we haven't … .”

"This is a long-term process and every day is a step along that road and what we are determined to do, and more determined after this, is to regain that trust of the Irish people," Bishop Brennan added.

Bishop Smith described the meeting as a very "clear, frank and open discussion," and said that each bishop was "listened to and... responded to."

"The Pope himself was there for all of the meetings, and there was tremendous engagement."

Cardinal Brady added that survivors were the "main concern" throughout the meetings, which he said also served "to help the Holy Father put the final touches to his letter, which will address victims... and address them appropriately.

"At the center of it all was concern about how to help victims heal completely," the cardinal stressed.

He called these meetings "one of many steps that will have to be taken" and said that Pastoral Letter from Benedict XVI will provide the Church in Ireland with a "message of encouragement to deal with this problem honestly and courageously," but that "then it will be up to us to continue this work.”

"It is a great problem, and at the center of it all must be the welfare of victims," the cardinal stated.

Speaking about the draft of the pastoral letter from Pope Benedict to the Irish Church, Cardinal Brady said that "generally, the pastoral letter was pleasing," although the Irish bishops did express some "reservations" to certain points which "were listened to very respectfully."

According to a statement released by the Press Office of the Holy See at the conclusion of the meetings the pastoral letter will be finished and presented during the Lenten season.

The Vatican statement also included the Pope's concern over a "more general crisis of faith" in the country, which he indicated as a contributing factor to the phenomenon of abuse, along with a lack of respect for the human person.

Cardinal Brady said that Pope Benedict had told them in the discussions that "at the heart of this is a renewal of faith because faith ultimately is the real and true protector of human dignity and that is the dignity of every human being, who is made in the image and likeness of God."

"That dignity," he continued, "has been wounded by sin and then there is the reality of Jesus who came into the world to heal the wound brought be sin and our job is to go back and continue to bring and preach and live the love of Jesus Christ in our own lives and to express that, especially to those who have suffered so previously as a result of these hideous crimes."

The Holy Father had emphasized the necessity of "a deeper theological reflection on the whole issue, and called for an improved human, spiritual, academic and pastoral preparation both of candidates for the priesthood and religious life and of those already ordained and professed," according to the Vatican statement.

Bishop Smith specified that Holy Father had told them that the Vatican-II Pastoral Constitution on "The Church in the Modern World", Gaudium et Spes, had been "totally misrepresented in some of the moral teaching and attitudes that came into theology."

He said the Pope called on them "to 'refind' the deep vision of humanity and the human person as contained in that particular document."

Bishop Smith also recalled that Pope Benedict has "spoken of it many times: that there is a poverty to the teaching of moral values and moral theology... in the Church.

Summing up the situation and the next step, Cardinal Brady affirmed, "Yes, there have been failures, of course, in our leadership," and "the only way that we will regain that credibility would be through our humiliation. Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent. It is a time of penance and we must begin with ourselves."

"Real penance," he said. "A change of heart."


A Vatican Radio report has more from the bishops' news conference:

The Pope, the Irish bishops
and episcopal responsibility



VATICAN CITY, 16 Feb 10 (RV) - Pope Benedict XVI has urged the Bishops of Ireland to resolve the crisis facing the church in their country with courageous and concrete steps.

According to a statement released at the end of a two-day extraordinary summit held at the Vatican to discuss the aftermath of the revelations contained in two reports into child sex abuse by clergy and religious in Ireland, the Pope spoke to the bishops of the “heinous crime”, of sex abuse which "offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person."



Speaking at a news conference Tuesday afternoon following the conclusion of the meeting between the Holy Father, Prefects of the Curia and twenty four of the serving bishops of Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, left no doubt about the issue at the heart of two days of talks.

He said “The question of the victims was a main concern throughout the meeting”. He added that the Pope listened attentively to all the bishops had to say.

Cardinal Brady was joined at the press briefing by fellow bishops Joseph Duffy of Clogher, Bishop Michael Smith of Meath, Bishop of Achonry Bishop Brendan Kelly and Bishop Dennis Brennan of Ferns.

But perhaps most importantly for the victims of sexual abuse and the ordinary Catholics in Ireland, a second issue was also discussed at length: the issue of episcopal responsibility in failing to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy and religious.

The bishops collectively reaffirmed that responsibility for the mishandling of the crisis ultimately rests with the national Church and its leaders.

Bishops Brennan said "there can be no doubt of the pain the revelations of abuse in Ireland have caused the Pope" as the Universal Pastor of all Catholics.

Speaking of the Irish bishops' responsibility he added “we all know that there is great anger out there and it is richly deserved. We haven’t handled this crisis well by any means, we accept that and we understand that”.

Speaking Monday and Tuesday to the bishops, Pope Benedict warned that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, but he also challenged the them to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage.

Echoing the Pope’s words Tuesday, Bishop Duffy of Clogher spoke of how ruptures in Irish Church leadership have affected their joint effort to resolve the crisis created in the wake of the Ryan and Murphy reports.

He said “you see, when we talk about the deepening of a sense of unity among bishops..., we are coming from a culture of secrecy and confidentiality which was admittedly overemphasised in the past, now in order to move [forward] from that culture of secrecy, we have got to share”.

Pope Benedict told the bishops that one of the main aims of the extraordinary two-day meeting was to help to unify the Bishops and enable them to speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, and encouraging a renewal of weakened faith in Christ’s Church in Ireland.

Cardinal Brady gave examples of these steps which he revealed are being drawn up in collaboration with the victims of abuse and the lay faithful, many of whom have also shown solidarity with the bishops in the difficult road ahead: “They said they are hanging in there, because they believe that Jesus Christ is with his church to the end. They want us to be out and about, to pray with them, because that is a great witness too”.

Departing from the Vatican Tuesday, on his return to Ireland ahead of the great Lenten period he underscored that one of greatest steps the bishops could collectively take together is one of penitence: “As one of the victims told us down in Maynooth, the only way we will really regain credibility will be through our humiliation, tomorrow is the beginning of Lent, a time of penance, and we must begin with ourselves”.

Cardinal Brady concluded that the bishops also discussed Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming pastoral letter to Iris Catholics, which Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi has confirmed will be published before the end of Lent.



I do not intend to post any more of stories like the following, since it is typical of the stories from victim groups we have read in the US and Australia. Without detracting anything from the real tragedy of the victims and the utter ignominy of those who have committed heinous crimes against them, media also unfortunately tends to foster and foment a perpetual sense of victimhood [it reaches its peak in the cult of the Holocaust] which is unforgiving, bitter and relentless. Of course, spilt milk can't be unspilt, and to such unforgiving victims, nothing that the other side - in this case, the Church - can do and say will ever be enough.


Irish groups slam Pope Benedict statement
on sex abuse by priests as a 'charade'
By KELLY FINCHAM, Editor



Irish groups have reacted angrily to the statement from Pope Benedict XVI on the Irish child sex abuse scandals.

Christine Buckley, who was raised in the infamous St. Vincent's Industrial School at Goldenbridge said she was “dismayed” by the statement which she called “a charade.”

Christine Buckley almost single-handedly dragged the darkest secrets of the Irish church out into the open. In February 1996, a documentary called "Dear Daughter," exploded onto Irish television screens. It told the story of St. Vincent's Industrial School, Goldenbridge where children were forced to work for their keep.

From the 1940s and 1960s, children made rosary beads according to a strict quota, 60 decades a day during the week and 90 decades on Saturdays. One of those children was Christine Buckley. Today, the Church has failed her - again.

Psychotherapist Maeve Lewis who directs an Irish support group called One in Four said the Vatican should have addressed the role the Irish church played in covering up the crimes.

Lewis said her group was appalled that “the Vatican has accepted no responsibility for its role in facilitating the sexual abuse of children. [See? That's the kind of pigheaded attitude that sees the Vatican dictating everything that local clergy do! They over-estimate the authority of the Vatican and do not realize the autonomy of many bishops who, since Vatican-II, have become convinced that being in the apostolic succession, they are therefore equal to the Successor of Peter, and can feel free to flout the Pope's rare directives to the Universal Church, such as Summorum Pontificum, with impunity.]


In the following article, the journalist chooses to paint the image of misbehaving schoolboys brought before a taskmaster who berates them for behaving badly but merely raps their knuckles in punishment. It also quotes criticism from victims' groups.


Pope Benedict scolds Ireland's bishops
over sex abuse scandal
By Nick Squires

February 16, 2010

Vatican City — In an unprecedented move, Pope Benedict XVI summoned all 24 of Ireland's bishops to the Vatican to discuss the fallout from two reports that Catholic priests in Ireland sexually abused children for decades and that church officials covered up the behavior.

All 24 of Ireland’s serving Roman Catholic bishops were hauled in front of the Pope to be told that the sexual abuse of children was a “heinous crime,” in what Vatican experts said was an unprecedented attempt to deal with a sexual abuse crisis that has roiled the church establishment.

The bishops were called to Rome for a two-day summit with Benedict XVI on Monday and Tuesday to discuss a scandal that has shaken once staunchly Catholic Ireland to its core – with recent revelations that for decades priests and other clergy sexually abused children while church and police officials sometimes looked the other way.

The Church’s covering up the sexual abuse of children had caused a “grave crisis” that had led to “a breakdown in trust in the Church's leadership," the pontiff told the bishops.

In unusually forthright language, he told the bishops that the sexual abuse of children was a “grave sin.”

He called on them to work hard to restore "spiritual and moral credibility” in the wake of two reports released last year which documented abuse and cover-ups in Church-run schools, workhouses, and orphanages over 50 years.

The Vatican has admitted that sex abuse scandals in Ireland, the United States, Australia and, most recently, in Germany, have gravely damaged the standing of the Roman Catholic Church and present a "hard and humiliating challenge."

Vatican insiders say the priority given to tackling the scandal was unprecedented.

“I know of no other case where the Pope has summoned all the bishops of a country to the Vatican for a crisis management session,” says Francis X. Rocca, the Vatican correspondent for the Washington-based Religion News Service.

“They come routinely every five years but this was to talk about this specific problem. The fact that the Pope met with them two days in a row is an extraordinary commitment of his time when you think of all the demands he faces.”

The sex abuse scandal broke in May last year when a report ordered by the Irish government revealed that the Catholic Church covered up almost four decades of sexual and physical abuse by priests and nuns against thousands of children in state care. Serial abusers were moved from parish to parish and school to school in a successful attempt to save the careers of clergy and keep the scandal under wraps, the report said.

That was followed by another report six months later, which revealed that pedophile priests had engaged in sex abuse between 1975 and 2004 and found that several bishops had mishandled complaints made by victims.

In a statement released Tuesday, the Vatican said the Pope and the Irish bishops had “examined the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy.”

At a press conference, five of the Irish bishops promised to implement “significant measures” to ensure that the abuse never happened again.

They said the two days of talks with the Pope had been “clear and frank” but dismissed suggestions that they had been subjected to a stinging rebuke.

“It was very, very painful for him to hear of these stories of abuse first hand,” said the bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan. “We all know that there’s great anger out there and it’s richly deserved. We accept that and we understand it.”

The failure to tackle decades of child abuse by priests had created a “rupture” between the Church and Irish society, he said. “We are determined to regain the trust of the Irish people but we know it won’t be quick or easy.”

The leader of the delegation, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of all Ireland, said the church realized that it had to show “real penance, a change of heart” in order to win back the trust of Ireland’s faithful.

"There have been failures in our leadership, and as one of the victim’s daughters said, the only way we will regain that credibility is through our humiliation," he said. He said he had spoken to the members of a parish in County Louth last week who had expressed their disgust over the decades-long scandal.

“They left me in no doubt about their disillusionment, anger, shame and sense of betrayal,” Cardinal Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh, said.

Victim support groups in Ireland and the US said the bishops had come up only with rhetoric rather than action, and called on Benedict to travel to Ireland to apologize for the abuse.

"The words coming out at the moment seem to be positive. Whether they will act upon them and whether they will go far enough is another matter,” said the founder of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, John Kelly. "We are entitled to expect that the Pope hold accountable those who committed crimes or covered up crimes, including bishops. Then he can come to Ireland and apologize," he said.

An American group dismissed the two-day summit as a meaningless public relations exercise.

"Does anyone honestly think that the very same men who ignored and concealed child sex crimes for decades will ... suddenly be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem?" asked Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Four Irish bishops have offered to resign over the scandal but only one, former bishop of Limerick Donal Murray, has so far had his resignation accepted by the Pope.

The Spanish journalist Jose Luis Restan has just written another poetic appreciation of Benedict XVI...


Benedict and his governance
by José Luis Restán
Translated from

16/02/2010


The news could have passed unnoticed in Spain. The great Cardinal Vlk, witness to the faith during the repression of the Prague Spring, left his position on St Vitus Hill [site of the Cathedral of Prague]. Named to replace him was Dominik Duka, a Dominican who also underwent arrest and worked in a Skoda factory while he taught theology clandestinely.

To choose a new Pastor for Prague was not a minor task for the Pope, one among so many others. The past week had been rather heart-stopping: the bitterness that followed the Boffo case; observing the World Day for the Sick; a vibrant lectio divina (without a prepared text) to the seminarians of Rome; and the Sunday visit to the Caritas hostel in Rome's Stazione Termini.

The cameras caught a tear in the Pope's eyes as he listened to a greeting from a homeless woman: "Dear Holy Father, may God give you the strength to remain serene, strong and full of hope as we are".

Benedict XVI could rightly say with tenderness that the hostel is "a place where love is not just a word or feeling, but a concrrete reality which lets in the light of God to the lives of men and the entire civilian community".

The Pope must have returned to the Vatican happy with the certainty that the Church has two great treasures: its poor who are radically open to the grace of Christ, and the faith transmitted by the apostles, and validated in the words and deeds of saints and Church teachers through the centuries.

He was not returning for a usual Sunday rest. Because he was facing a difficult task, since the following day, he would be receiving all the bishops of Ireland.

One last look perhaps at the latest files on the crisis provoked by priestly sex abuses on the island of St. Patrick, a review of the words he would greet them with, perhaps last-minute changes on the margins in his tiny neat handwriting.

As the winter light of Rome dimmed, the Pope may well have thought: "I could not do all this by myself, but I am not alone. I am sustained by the strength of the Risen Lord who sent forth Peter, by the Most Blessed Mary who is always with us, and I have the prayers of the simple, like the lady in the hostel who spoke to me for the Christian people".

So many things, nonetheless! The Curia, which is said to be ungovernable, as if he did not know all its twists and turns. He has been preparing crucial nominations, and he is well aware that the Church is not governed by decree but through witness, the discernment of communion. These are words that for him have great density but which are always crystalline and fresh in his sight.

They say he does not govern, he does not decide. He, who decided against all odds, to lift the excommunication of four Lefebvrian bishops in order to pave the way for the full inclusion of their faithful in the Church;who decided on a welcoming response for Anglicans who wish to return to Rome; who gave that powerful lecture in Regensburg; who forged ahead with his transcendetal pilgrimage to the Middle East when he was told on all sides, "Holiness, don't go!'

This is the Pope who first wrote a pastoral letter to the Catholics of China, who has set his sights on rapprochement with Mother Russia, who sounded the hour for Africa on the clock of the Church, who in Aparecida launched a new beginning for Catholicism in Latin America.

He who has just given a major change of direction to the Belgian Church, and who is preparing for a difficult trip to foggy England and Scotland. He who loves the Jews with reason and heart ]the phrase is beautiful in Spanish - 'con razon y corazon'] though he has made it clear that he will not put up with conditions nor attempts at blackmail [as in the matter of Pius XII].

Then before going to bed Sunday night, perhaps another look to check the commas in his second volume on JESUS OF NAZARETH, the face of Logos, the flesh of charity, the human form of the mystery who called Abraham and whom Moses followed in the desert. The Jesus who on a luminous day in the Cathedral of Freising, called him 'friend' - on a day when only he knew that the young man with the shy and gentle face would spend his life preparing for Peter's labors in the seemingly futile nights of the world. The Jesus he has followed as a simple and humble worker in the vineyard, but who wanted him to be in the center of the rough winds and storms of history.

He would have time for Complines, of course, the last office of the day - recited with the happy memories from the hostel and the ever-present awareness that he must correct and admonish, deal with the poverty that is nested in the human body of the Church.

Joys and sorrows, all part of the Yes he gave five years ago, after having asked, "Do not do this to me!" And now, he must continue to build, inspire, teach, correct and suffer with that human membership - its poor as well as its betrayers - whom the Lord loves in their every tendon and tissue.

The night is short for a man soon to be 83. Holiness, rest nonetheless because you carry our hope. And be strong every day with the strength of he whose omnipotence is total Love.

Wednesday, February 17
ASH WEDNESDAY

THE SEVEN FOUNDER SAINTS OF THE SERVITE ORDERS (Italy, 13th century)
They were rich young men in Florence at the height of the Cathari heresy and widespread political and moral breakdown. They belonged to a group of Marian devotees called the Laudesi (Praisers). It is said that in 1240, they had a vision of Mary who urged them to retire in prayer. They did, to a hilltop near Florence, where four years later, they would have another vision which prompted them to establish the order called Friar Servants of Mary (OSM, from the Latin name) - who follow the Augustinian rule, wear the Dominican habit and live like mendicant friars. Their goals are sanctification of each member, preaching the Gospel and spreading devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows. The Servites, as they are commonly known, now have a worldwide family that includes monasteries, religious and secular orders for both men and women, diaconates and secular institutes like the Pontifical Marianum, the leading institute on Mariology. The Seven Founders were canonized in 1888.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021710.shtml



OR today.

Illustrations: Jesus recruits Simon Peter and the first Apostles; Jesus calls the children to him.
The Holy Father's message for the 2010 World Day of Prayer for Vocations:
'Witness inspires vocation'
Other Page 1 stories: The Vatican statement following the Holy Father's two-day meetings with the bishops of Ireland; Lent in the Syrian Occidental tradition; anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan slowed down by enemy roadside bombs; the European Union looks into a report that US financial giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Chase helped the government of Greece hide the extent of its public debt. In the inside pages: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I's message for Lent; and an address by Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran "Against the fear of Islam". Also, two essays on a coming major Rome exhibit to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Caravaggio, with a new scientific discovery about his famous painting of The supper at Emmaus - that instead of the familiar dark background we see today, he had originally painted a doorway and a sunlit landscape in the background.


THE POPE'S DAY

General Audience - The Holy Father devoted his catechesis to the start of Lent today.

Ash Wednesday rites at Santa Sabina - The Pope was to preside at Mass this afternoon for the traditional Lenten
start, in Rome's first station church for Lent.

The writer of this essay is a priest and editorialist, and the newspaper he wrote it for is the organ of the Italian Socialist Party.


The Pope's earthly justice
by Filippo Di Giacomo

February 17, 2010


The Catholic Church as the world's 'great prostitute' is an age-old prejudice, at least for the past five centuries - one cultivated and amplified by Anglo-Saxon circles since the Protestant Reformation first, and then the Enlightenment, gave it a confessional and nationalistic character in a mix still favored by modern secular politicians.

Where should we start in order to comprehend the shame of the sexual abuses committed by some members of the Catholic clergy on children and minors, and why it seems to be the only true worldwide scandal, almost like a trademark of contemporary Catholicism?

Prejudices build up on other prejudices, and as the filthy tide of news about Catholic priests accused of pedophilia mounted, one has often read in the Anglophone media these past two decades that "The Church is the true pedophile".

It is a big blot [wrongly] attributed by the media to the celibacy rule for Catholic priests of the Latin rite, with potential application to the 400,000 priests of world Catholicism.

In fact, secular surveys have established the sexual offense rate for Catholic priests at 0.3% (about 1,200) of all priests - much less than the average rate for other professional categories, or for ministers of other religious confessions who, however, because they are not Catholic and work in Anglophone countries, often end up correctly in the civil justice system, but are never reported in the media, not even in Catholic media.

This week, the Pope, without hesitation, told Irish bishops that their offending priests should be turned over inexorably to civilian justice.

Although the Church has its own system of dealing with priests who commit criminal offenses, this has been hampered by excessive guarantees provided by present canon law, or interventions by those defined by John Paul II in a Maundy Thursday homily (on the day of the Eucharist and the priesthood, but also of Judas's betrayal) as 'betrayers of what is human in all of us'.

Not by chance, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger drew up specific instructions on the process of dealing with priestly crimes in a much faster and incisive manner than previously observed - the substantive norms accompanying John Paul II's 2001 Motu Proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela (Safeguarding the sanctity of sacraments)[B: Holy Orders is a sacrament]
www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/SacramentorumAndNormaeEng...
but its implementation has been hindered by Curial canonists who are reluctant to update the Church's canon law with juridical norms that are more consistent with the times and with contemporary Catholicism.

First in the United States and then in Australia, now in Ireland, Benedict XVI is achieving a Copernican revolution in Church justice - entrusting to, and therefore trusting in, civilian justice to expose and do justice to priest offenders, and imposing on the local Catholic communities involved, the onus of collaborating in ascertaining the truth and committing to 'the healing of the victims'.

Since 2005, he has been building - through his discourses and documents that are magisterial in structure and content - a spiritual teaching whose 'progressive' content has not been grasped by those who continue to speak and write of so-called Ratzingerian obscurantism which is weighing down on the Church. ['Has not been grasped' or more likely, something they refuse to see because it contradcits all their prejudices.]

In the past weeks, when even Catholics were indulging in nothing but lamenting the worst, the Italian media took no notice of the initiatives by Italian dioceses to protect existing jobs and to seek relaxation of stringent credit which is stifling small and medium industry.

As pointed out in the article entitled "Those hardhats who are led more by the Pope than by the labor unions" written for Il Giornale on February 4 by the economist Lodovico Festa - and following the guidance of the Pope's third encyclical (which has been the only 'labor platform' circulated in Italy in the past two years) - the presence, the actions and the voices of Church pastors have been constant and consistent.

As Festa noted, Caritas in veritate describes and contains operative instructions, as it were, similar to those which, in the United States, for instance, a powerful labor union like United Auto Workers (UAW) uses to negotiate with the White House or with external interests like Fiat, which sees workers as co-participants not only in the management of their enterprises but also in their productive renewal, including the need to close down some establishments [???].

Lent begins today for Catholics. And Italian Catholics in public life have a load of ashes to bear in penance this year.

Can this not be an occasion to call a truce in the media wars? A truce that is quiet enough to allow us to listen to the important and almost-always new messages in the pontifical and episcopal Magisterium inviting us to dialog, to work, with courage, political creativity and social solidarity.

As Don Luigi Ciotti [Italian activist priest deeply involved in fighting organized crime and caring for orphans, drug addicts and juvenile delinquents] reminds us, what is important is "to seek Heaven not beyond life, but on earth where we live, suffer and hope, and where we must pursue justice and peace".

Lent 2010: Pope Benedict's Ash Wednesday

His torment is the disappearance of faith.
His program is to lead men to God.
His preferred instrument is teaching.
But the Vatican curia doesn't help him much.
And sometimes it harms him.





Benedict XVI at the 2009 Ash Wednesday rites in Santa Sabina.

ROME, February 17, 2010 – Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent according to the Roman rite. And the bishop of Rome is entering it, as he does every year, with ashes on his head, with a penitential procession and Mass celebrated in the ancient basilica of Saint Sabina.

Lent has mostly faded today from the general mindset of the Christian West, where the Muslim Ramadan makes more of an impact. But Benedict XVI is visibly driven to restore meaning and vigor to this season of preparation for Easter.

This year, in addition to his annual Lenten message to the faithful and the homily for Ash Wednesday, Benedict XVI is also opening Lent with a double lectio divina. He held the first of them a few days ago with seminarians of Rome, and will hold the second tomorrow with the priests of the diocese.

Lectio divina is a reflection on the meaning of the Sacred Scriptures, done by selecting a biblical passage and commenting on it. Pope Benedict usually improvises them, in the style of the ancient Church Fathers and of the great theological masters of the Middle Ages, but always with an attentive eye on today's culture.

Last Friday, February 12, commenting on a passage from chapter 15 of the Gospel of John for the seminarians of Rome, the Pope referred to a letter written to him by a professor at the University of Regensburg, contesting the Christian view of God.

Benedict XVI said that he had recognized in the professor's objections "the eternal temptation of dualism, meaning that there is not only a good principle, but also a bad principle, a principle of evil, and that the good God is only a part of reality."

And he added:

"Even in theology, including Catholic theology, this idea is currently being spread: that God is not omnipotent. This is an attempt to find a justification for God, who in this way would not be responsible for the evil that we find so widely throughout the world. But what a poor justification! A God who is not omnipotent! Evil does not lie in his hands! And how could we trust ourselves to this God? How could we be sure of his love if this love ends where the power of evil begins?"

There is a striking similarity between these words of the Pope and statements by Robert Spaemann, a German philosopher he greatly admires, at the international conference on God organized in Rome last December by the Italian bishops' conference:

---

Those who believe in God believe that absolute power and absolute goodness have the same reference point: the sanctity of God.

The Gnostics of the first Christian centuries denied this equivalence. They attributed the two predicates to two divinities, an evil power, the 'deus universi', god and creator of this world, and a god who is light, who appears from far away in the obscurity of this world. [...]

It is important to emphasize this today, when even the priests, instead of invoking the blessing of almighty God upon us, speak only of the 'good God'. Talking about the goodness of God, about God who is love, obscures his disquieting side, if it goes unmentioned who it is of whom it is said that He is love, that is, if it goes unmentioned that He is the power that guides our existence and the world. [...]

If goodness did not belong to being, being would not be everything, it would not be the totality. [...] But the opposite also holds true: if goodness were powerlessness, then it would not be goodness tout court. Because the powerlessness of the good is not good.

Faith in the power of goodness is what allows us to abandon ourselves actively to reality, without needing to fear that in an absurd world, all good intentions would also be judged as an absurdity.

---

From the intense attention focused on this question, it is increasingly evident that Benedict XVI truly has taken on as a "priority" of his pontificate "to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God" (from his letter to the bishops dated March 10, 2009).

A priority he recently reiterated in the proposal to "open a court of the Gentiles" for all seekers of God.

What this means is that Ratzinger is increasingly manifesting the desire to concentrate his mission as Pope on preaching. A preaching of great doctrinal vigor, aimed at strengthening the foundations of doctrine and of "confirming" in the faith a Church strongly tempted by spiritualized and reductive visions of God, Jesus, and the Christian dogmas.

In this daring enterprise, however, it is astonishing that Pope Ratzinger has not been given adequate support by his curia.

The statement from the Secretariat of State last February 9 is the latest sign of this imbalance between the magisterium of the Pope and the operation of the Vatican machine.

Using the Pope as a shield [to deny the sending of documents from the Vatican to a newspaper, using a pontifical gendarme as a courrier, and the curial origin of an article with a fake signature] against the background of an affair that still remains intact in its substantial outlines of conflict between the Secretariat of State and the Italian bishops' conference – a conflict above which the Pope has always remained above and not implicated by either side – seemed to many an outrageous act.

Not only disconnected from, but in strident contrast with, the quality and content of the magisterium of Pope Benedict - in spite of his formal approval of the publication of the statement and his renewal of trust in his colleagues. [The statement was distinctly belligerent and devoid of charity to the real victim, as I have commented before. Which makes the use of the Pope's name to 'validate' it even more reprehensible.]

This affair was reported by www.chiesa a few days ago.

But to return to the "things that are above", read the Pope's Lenten message for 2010:
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20091030_lent-2010...


As I had occasion to comment yesterday, there is also a remarkable disparity between the very commendable and appropriately severe homily that Cardinal Bertone gave to the Irish bishops before they went in to see the Pope on Monday, and the lame bureaucratic excuse given by the Vatican as to why the Apostolic Nuncio in Ireland has refused to give testimony to - or at least, find some reasonable manner to communicate meaningfully with - Irish authorities investigating the abuses. Anyone with common sense can see how that appears to critics of the Church who will seize on every pretext to discredit the Church!

, the Spanish newspaper which started to carry the weekly Spanish edition of L'Osservatore Romano this year, has rather spectacular news today!


Pope to visit Barcelona this year
to consecrate 'Sagrada Familia'?



Sources at the Vatican have confirmed to La Razon that Pope Benedict XVI will visit Barcelona this year to consecrate the central nave of the Sagrada Familia temple (Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family).

On March 19, it will be 127 years since construction began on the still unfinished church, Barcelona's greatest tourist attraction (some 2.8 million visitors in 2008). Private donations have funded the construction, interrupted during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and not resumed until the 1950s.

Masses are offered in the crypt of the Church, but the central nave is expected to be ready for use by September, and which the Pope has been invited to consecrate. Final completion of the Cathedral is not expected till 2026.

The masterpiece of the great Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926), who is undergoing process towards beatification, it is believed Sagrada Familia has special importance to the Pope for its European, Christian and modern symbology.

Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo, who converted from Buddhism to Catholicism while working on one the temple facades and reading about Gaudi, said two years ago: "I believe that Europe today is like a new country no one imagined 100 years ago. Each country needs to have a cathedral. Sagrada Familia will the cathedral of Europe. If we look deeper, there are many coincidences between the construction of the new Europe and of this cathedral. The Founding Fathers of the new Europe thought like Gaudi."

The Pope, who has always advocated recovering the Christian roots of Europe and her culture could concretize this mission by making Sagrada Familia the 'symbolic cathedral' of Europe.

Antonio Gaudi, who lived in great austerity, died in 1926 after being run down by a streetcar. He died in the Hospital de la Santa Cruz for poor people, mistaken for a beggar.

The cause for his beatification was launched in 1994 by the then Archbishop of Barcelona, Ricard Maria Carles. The diocesan phase was completed in 2003, and 1,024 pages of documentation have been sent to the Vatican.

---

Some facts about Sagrada Familia

This monumental church dedicated to the Holy Family is Gaudi's most famous work, the finest example of his visionary genius, the worldwide symbol of Barcelona and the Cathedral of the third Millennium.

The architect undertook the task in 1883. He dedicated his life to carrying out this ambitious project which he left unfinished in 1926 when he died.

The Cathedral is a synthesis of his architectural knowledge with the complex system of symbolism and a visual explication of the mysteries of faith. The whole building was conceived as an allegory of the Christian religion.

Its three façades represent the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, and its eighteen towers symbolize the twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Christ (the tallest towere at 170 meters - about 550 feet).

The work was interrupted in 1936 when the crypt and Gaudi's studio were burnt in the early part of the Spanish Civil War. The project was resumed in 1952 using existing drawings and models.

The Sagrada would be able to accommodate more than 13,000 people, and its choir area could accommodate 1,200.

---

Left, 'Sagrada Familia' today; right, model of what the completed cathedral will look like. Anyone who has had a chance to visit Sagrada Familia knows that photographs cannot do justice to the awesome scope and amazing, incredibly original detail, even unfinished, of this magnificent architectural creation - a hymn to faith, a catechesis in stone, and a tribute to the indelible achievements of all the artists and artisans who built the great cathedrals of Europe.

GENERAL AUDIENCE TODAY


The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis today to the significance of Lent in the formulas used in the Ash Wednesday rites.

Here is how the Pope synthesized today's lesson in English:

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Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the Church’s Lenten journey towards Easter.

Lent reminds us, as Saint Paul exhorts, "not to accept the grace of God in vain" (cf. 2 Cor 6:1), but to recognize that today the Lord calls us to penance and spiritual renewal.

This call to conversion is expressed in the two formulae used in the rite of the imposition of ashes.

The first formula – "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel" – echoes Jesus’s words at the beginning of his public ministry (cf. Mk 1:15). It reminds us that conversion is meant to be a deep and lasting abandonment of our sinful ways in order to enter into a living relationship with Christ, who alone offers true freedom, happiness and fulfilment.

The second, older formula – "Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you shall return" – recalls the poverty and death which are the legacy of Adam’s sin, while pointing us to the resurrection, the new life and the freedom brought by Christ, the Second Adam.

This Lent, through the practice of prayer and penance, and an ever more fruitful reception of the Church’s sacraments, may we make our way to Easter with hearts purified and renewed by the grace of this special season.

---

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

NB: A note about translating one of the key words in this catechesis: the word 'convertire' - which means 'to convert', as in changing one's life or direction radically, but also 'to repent', as the Holy Father has used it in previous homilies and catechises. It is clearly 'repent' when it is used here in the Biblical admonition "Repent and believe in the Gospel", in the translation of the New American Bible]. So I shall use either term depending on the sense of the sentence in which it is used.

---

Dear brothers and sisters:

Today, Ash Wednesday, we begin the Lenten journey: one that will last for forty days and which will bring us to the joy of the Lord's Easter.

In this spiritual itinerary, we are not alone because the church is with us and sustains us from the beginning with the Word of God, which encloses a program of spiritual life and penitential commitment, with the grace of the Sacraments.

The words of the Apostle Paul give us precise instructions: "We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain...In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you" (2 Cor 6,1-2).

In fact, in the Christian view of life, every moment should be favorable and every day should be a day of salvation. But the liturgy of the Church uses these words in a very particular way in Lent.

We can understand that the forty days in preparation for Easter are a favorable time of grace from the appeal that the austere rite of the imposition of ashes addresses to us, and which is expressed in the liturgy with two formulations: "Repent and believe in the Gospel", and "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return".

The first appeal is for conversion, a word to be taken in its extraordinary seriousness, grasping the surprising novelty that it contains. The call to conversion, in fact, exposes and denounces the facile superficiality which often characterizes the way we live.

To be converted means to change the direction of one's life: not by a small adjustment, but with a true and proper reversal of course.

Conversion is to go against the current, where the 'current' is the superficial lifestyle which is inconsistent and illusory, that often drags us along, dominates us and makes us slaves of evil, or, at any rate, prisoners of moral mediocrity.

With conversion, one aims instead for the high standard of Christian life, we entrust ourselves to the living and personal Gospel who is Jesus Christ. His person is the final goal and the profound sense itself of conversion. He is the way to which all are called to walk in life, allowing ourselves to be illumined by his light and sustained by his strength which impels our steps.

In this way, conversion shows its most splendid and fascinating face: it is not a simple moral decision that makes our conduct of life right, but a choice of faith that involves us entirely in intimate communion with the living and concrete person of Jesus.

To repent (to be converted) and to believe in the Gospel are not two different things, or in any case, that they are somehow side by side; rather, they express the same reality. Conversion is the total Yes of someone who turns over his own existence to the Gospel, responding freely to Christ who offers himself first to man as the way, the truth and the life, as someone who can free him and save him.

And this is precisely the sense of the first words with which, according to the evangelist Mark, Jesus opens his preaching of the Kingdom of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mk 1,15).

This "Repent and believe in the Gospel" is not only at the start of Christian life, but it accompanies all its steps; it lingers, renewing itself; and it spreads, branching out in all its expressions.

Every day is a favorable time and a time of grace, because everyday calls us to give ourselves over to Jesus, to have trust in him, to remain in him, to share his style of living, to learn true love from him, and to follow him in the daily fulfillment of the Father's will, the only great law of life.

Every day - even when there is no lack of difficulties and hard work, of weariness and of falling down, even when we are tempted to abandon the way of following Christ and instead close up within ourselves, in our selfishness, heedless of the necessity to open up to the love of God in Christ in order to live the same logic of justice and love.

In my recent Message for Lent, I pointed out that "humility is necessary to accept the need for an Other to liberate me from the 'I", to give me 'his' gratuitously. This happens particularly in the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.

Thanks to the love of Christ, we can enter that justice which is 'greater', which is that of love (cfr Rm 12,8019), the justice of one who always feels in any case more debtor than creditor because he has received more than he can expect.

The favorable moment of grace in Lent also shows us its true spiritual meaning in the old formulation: "Remember that you are dust, and that you will return to dust", which the priest says when he imposes ash on our head.

Thus we are sent back to the beginnings of human history, when the Lord tells Adam after the original sin: "By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return" (Gen 3,19).

Here, the Word of God reminds us of our frailty, indeed of our death which is its extreme form. In the face of our innate fear of the end, much more so in a culture which in so many ways tends to censor reality and the human experience of dying, the Lenten liturgy, on the one hand, reminds us of death, inviting us to realism and wisdom, but on the other hand, it urges us above all to grasp and live the unexpected novelty that the Christian faith releases in the reality of death.

Man is dust and to dust will return, but dust which is precious in the eyes of God, because God created man to be destined for immortality. Thus, the liturgical formula "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return" finds the fullness of its meaning in reference to the new Adam, Christ.

Even the Lord Jesus wished freely to share with every man the destiny of frailty, particularly through his death on the Cross. But this very death, the peak of his love for the Father and for mankind, was the way for his glorious resurrection, through which Christ became a spring of grace for those who believe in him and are made participants of divine life itself.

This life without end is already under way in the earthly phase of our existence, but it will be brought to fulfillment after 'the resurrection of the body".

The small gesture of placing the ashes discloses the singular richness of its meaning: it is an invitation for us to experience Lent as a more aware and more intense immersion in the Paschal mystery of Christ, in his death and resurrection, through participation in the Eucharist and in the life of charity which is born from the Eucharist and in which it finds its completion.

With the imposition of ashes, we renew our commitment to follow Jesus, to allow ourselves to be transformed by his Paschal mystery, to conquer evil and do good, to let our old being die and allow the 'new man' to be born who has been transformed by the grace of God.

Dear friends, as we prepare to undertake our austere Lenten journey, let us invoke with particular trust the protection and help of the Virgin Mary. May she, the first believer in Christ, accompany us in these forty days of intense prayer and sincere penitence, in order to celebrate, purified and completely renewed in mind and spirit, the great mystery of her Son's Easter.

---

Meanwhile, another priest has been dismissed for sexual abuse that only the Catholic media seem to report.


Pope defrocks former vicar general
in Phoenix for sex offense
By Robert DeFrancesco

Feb. 16, 2010

A former East Valley pastor has been officially dismissed from the priesthood, officials for the Diocese of Phoenix announced Feb. 16. dale Fushek was recently notified of his dismissal from the clerical state, a process most often referred to as “laicization.”

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had been investigating the former pastor of St. Timothy Parish in Mesa and one-time vicar general for the diocese for his alleged sexual abuse of minors. The Vatican’s findings in that investigation resulted in his removal from the priesthood.

Pope Benedict XVI ordered the dismissal, according to a diocesan statement. This means Fushek is no longer bound to the duties and obligations he incurred upon ordination to the priesthood in 1978, and he no longer has the rights of a cleric under Church law. As a result, Fushek can no longer refer to himself as “reverend,” “monsignor” and “father.”

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted received the “Decree of Dismissal” in January from the Vatican congregation, notifying him that the laicization had been imposed on Fushek as a penalty for acts of sexual abuse of minors.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addresses “sexual sins” perpetrated by priests and deacons against minors, according to Church law.

Fushek, 57, currently faces charges on several misdemeanor counts of sexual misconduct in San Tan Justice Court. The findings by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith relate to Fushek’s status as a priest only, and have no bearing on any criminal or civil case that he may be involved in.

“The Catholic Church is very concerned about the welfare and spiritual health of the alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy,” said Fr. Chris Fraser, judicial vicar for the Diocese of Phoenix.

The investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was initiated a few years ago, according to Fr. Fraser, who is an expert on Church law. The Diocese of Phoenix cooperated with their investigation once the allegations were found to have credibility.

Fushek was made aware of the investigation and of his right to defend himself. He was also invited to have canonical counsel.

Fushek was excommunicated from the Church in 2008 for his continued involvement with a small, Mesa-based faith assembly called the Praise and Worship Center — a censure that carried with it the consequence of being forbidden from receiving the Eucharist, celebrating Mass or participating in other sacraments of the Church. He was also barred from representing himself as a priest.

Despite his dismissal from the clerical state, the penalty of excommunication remains in place, according to diocesan officials.

“There is no doubt that the Church has been scandalized by the abuse of minors by Catholic clergy,” Fr. Fraser said. “What makes this case unique is that there is an additional scandal related to the schismatic activities of the Praise and Worship Center. Consequently, those who support and promote Fushek’s public ministry must be mindful of the spiritual danger and grave harm their actions create by supporting and attending his services.”

Fushek gained prominence throughout the 1980s and 1990s for co-founding Life Teen, an international youth ministry program. Bishop Olmsted suspended his faculties in late 2004 after an allegation was made that Fushek engaged in inappropriate behavior in the presence of a minor at the Mesa parish in 1985. Fushek later resigned as the pastor on June 30, 2005.

In the diocese’s statement this week, Bishop Olmsted expressed his concern for Catholics who may be misled or confused by the continuing actions of Fushek, particularly as they relate to the Praise and Worship Center. Diocesan officials reminded Catholics that any ceremonies — baptisms, weddings, confessions, and the anointing of the sick — performed by Fushek or others at the Praise and Worship Center, are not legitimate sacraments for Catholics and would not be recognized by the Catholic Church.

The bishop asked for the diocese’s Catholics to pray for reconciliation and healing in this situation.

Fushek faces five trials on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and indecent exposure.

THE RITES OF
ASH WEDNESDAY




Libretto cover: The Temptation of Christ, from 'Vita Christi', Ludolphe le Saxe, 1507. Lyon Municipal Library.
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2010/20100217.pdf


At 4:30 p.m. today, a prayer assembly led by the Holy Father at the Church of Sant'Anselmo on the Aventine hill started off the traditional Roman rite in observance of Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

The prayer assembly was followed by a penitential procession from Sant'Anselmo to the nearby Basilica of Santa Sabina, the first of Rome's Lenten 'station churches'.




Taking part in the procession with the Holy Father were cardinals, archbishops and bishops present in Rome, along with the Benedictine monks of Sant'Anselmo, the Dominican priests of Santa Sabina and some faithful.

Pope Benedict XVI then offered the Ash Wednesday Mass in Santa Sabina, with the rite of the blessing and imposition of ashes taking place after the homily.



Cardinal Tomko, ranking Dominican in Rome and chief prelate of the Dominican community of Santa Sabina, placed ashes on the Pope's forehead, after which the Pope imposed the ashes on the others present.




As usual, the news agency photos are spare and hardly representative of the rites (for instance, no pictures taken at Sant'Anselmo).

Thanks to Vatican Radio's Italian service, which has posted the original text of the homily (so I do not have to wait till tomorrow noon when the Press Office posts it online as a bulletin, here is a full translation of the Holy Father's homily:

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"You love all your creatures, Lord,
and despise none of what you have created;
You forget the sins of those who repent and forgive them,
because you are the Lord our God". (Entrance antiphon)


Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate,
Dear brothers and sisters:

With this moving invocation, taken from the Book of Wisdom (cfr 11,23-26), the liturgy introduces the Eucharistic Celebration on Ash Wednesday. They are words which, in some way, open the entire Lenten itinerary, placing the omnipotence of God's love at its basis, his absolute mastery of every creature translated into infinite indulgence, animated by the constant and universal will to life. In effect, to pardon someone is equivalent to telling him: I do not want you to die but I want you to live - I will always and only want what is good for you.

This absolute certainty sustained Jesus during the 40 days he spent in the desert of Judea after his baptism by John at the Jordan. That long time of silence and fasting was for him a complete abandonment to the Father and his plan of love. It was in itself a 'baptism', namely, an 'immersion' in his will, and in this sense, an anticipation of the Passion and the Cross.

To go deep into the desert and remain there for some time, by himself, meant exposing himself voluntarily to the assaults of the enemy, the tempter who caused Adam to fall and whose envy caused death to enter the world (cfr Wis 2,24).

It meant engaging him in battle openly, defying him with no other weapon but his unlimited trust in the Father's omnipotent love: Your love is enough for me, my food is your will (cfr Jn 4,34). This conviction inhabited the mind and heart of Jesus during his 'forty days'.

it was not an act of pride, a titanic undertaking, but a humble choice, consistent with the Incarnation and the Baptism on the Jordan, along the same line of obedience to the merciful love of the Father who 'so loved the world as to give it his only-begotten Son" (Jn 3,16).

All this the Lord Jesus did for us. He did it to save us, and at the same time, to show us the way to follow him. Salvation is, in fact, a gift, it is the grace of God, but to have an effect in my existence, it requires my assent, an acceptance demonstrated in fact, namely, in the will to live like Jesus, to walk in his footsteps.

To follow Jesus in the Lenten desert is thus a necessary condition for taking part in his Easter, in his 'exodus'. Adam was chased out of the earthly Paradise, symbol of communion with God. Now, in order to return to this communion, and therefore, to true life, to eternal life, it is necessary to cross the desert, the trial of faith.

But not alone - rather, with Jesus. He, as always, has preceded us and has already won the combat with the spirit of evil. Here then is the meaning of Lent, the liturgical season which invites us every year to renew our choice to follow Christ on the way of humility in order to participate in his triumph over sin and over death.

In this perspective, one can also understand the penitential sign of the ashes which are imposed on the head of those who start the Lenten itinerary with good will.

It is essentially a gesture of humility which means: I know myself for who I am, a frail creature, made of earth and destined for the earth, but also made in the image of God and destined for him.

I am dust, yes, but loved, formed by his love, animated by his vital breath, able to recognize his voice and to respond to him; free, and because of this, also able to disobey him, yielding to the temptation of pride and self-sufficiency.

And that is sin, the mortal illness that entered soon enough to pollute the blessed land that is the human being. Created in the image of the Holy and the Just, man lost his own innocence, and now he can return to being just, only through the justice of God, the justice of love which - as St. Paul writes - is manifested "through faith in Jesus Christ" (Rm 3,22).

I used these words of the Apostle as a starting point for my Message addressed to all faithful for this Lenten season: a reflection on the theme of justice in the light of Sacred Scriptures and their fulfillment in Christ.

The theme of justice is present even in the Biblical readings for Ash Wednesday. Above all, the page from the prophet Joel and the responsorial Psalm - the Miserere - form a penitential diptych, which highlight that at the origin of every material and social injustice is what the Bible calls 'iniquity', namely, sin, which consists fundamentally of disobedience to God, which means a lack of love.

"For I know my offense", the Psalmist says. "My sin is always before me. Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight" (Ps 50/51,5-6).

The first act of justice is therefore to recognize one's own iniquity, and recognize that this is rooted in the 'heart', in the very core of the human person. The 'fasting', the 'weeping', the 'lamenting' (cfr Gl 2,12) and every penitential expression have value in the eyes of God only if they are the sign of hearts that have truly repented.

Even the Gospel today, taken from the Sermon on the Mount, insists on the need for practising one's own 'justice' - alms, prayer, fasting - not before men, but only in the eyes of God who 'sees in secret" (cfr Mt 6,1-6,16-18).

The true 'reward' is not the admiration of others, but friendship with God and the grace that comes from it, a grace that gives peace and strength to do good, to love even the undeserving, to pardon those who have offended us.

The second reading, Paul's call to let ourselves be reconciled with God (cfr 2 Cor 5,20), contains one of the famous Pauline paradoxes, which leads all reflection on justice back to the mystery of Christ.
He writes: "For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor 5,21).

In the heart of Christ, that is, at the center of his divine-human Person, the entire drama of freedom played out in decisive and definitive terms. God brought his own plan for salvation to its extreme consequences, remaining faithful to his love even at the cost of sending is only Son to death, and death on the Cross.

As I wrote in the Lenten message, "here divine justice reveals itself as profoundly different from human justice... thanks to the action of Christ, we can enter into that 'greater' justice, which is that of love" (cfr Rm 12,8-10).

Dear brothers and sisters, Lent widens our horizon, it orients us to eternal life. On this earth, where we are on pilgrimage, we do not have a stable city, but we are in search of that future spoken of in the Letter to Hebrews.

Lent makes us understand the relativity of goods on this earth, and thus this makes us capable of the necessary renunciation, and free to do good. Let us open the earth to the light of heaven, for the presence of God among us. Amen.

---

Pope presides at
Ash Wednesday rites



ROME, Feb. 17 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI is marking the start of the solemn Lenten season by sprinkling ashes on the bowed heads of faithful in a Roman Catholic tradition.

Ash Wednesday services for Roman Catholics worldwide usher in a period of penitence and reflection that leads up to Easter Sunday, this year being celebrated on April 4.

Benedict pinched a bit of ash from a silver-colored bowl held out to him by an aide, and then distributed the ashes to prelates, other clergy and lay people, including children, who approached him one by one in St. Sabina's Basilica on Rome's ancient Aventine Hill.

The Pope in his homily said that humanity needs to hope in a world that is more just, and described Lent as an opportunity for spiritual renewal of people.

This is a story I have only seen so far on the Jewish news agency JTA - and the headline certainly caught my attention, which immediately ran past the headline to find out who these 'scholars' were and how many there were! What a relief to find out there were only 18. and from three countries at that! Also, it must be significant that not a single scholar's name was deemed worthy of mention. Are they really scholars or only generally called that because they are probably university professors? But trust JTA - and those like the Jewish organization it mentions - to try and make the most of this near-trivia anyway.



Catholic scholars ‘implore’ Pope
to delay Pius sainthood

February 17, 2010

Catholic scholars from three countries have asked Pope Benedict XVI in a private letter to delay the proposed sainthood of World War II Pope Pius XII.

The 18 scholars from the United States, Germany and Australia said that Catholic-Jewish relations could be irreparably harmed if Pius achieves sainthood before the historical record of his actions on behalf of Jews during World War II is cleared up, Reuters reported Wednesday. The news agency saw a copy of the letter.

"Holy Father, we implore you, acting on your wisdom as a renowned scholar, professor and teacher, to be patient with the cause of Pius XII," the letter reportedly said.

Critics have long accused Pius of having ignored Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. The Vatican and other supporters of Pius say the wartime pope worked behind the scenes to save Jews.

"Currently, existing research leads us to the view that Pope Pius XII did not issue a clearly worded statement, unconditionally condemning the wholesale slaughter and murder of European Jews," read the scholar's letter, according to Reuters.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, in a statement issued Wednesday said, "This powerful and moving letter has suffused the Catholic-Jewish dialogue with renewed vigor and purpose. It is the proper response to those who are silent or indifferent where principles and conscience are at stake."

"The silence of Pius during the Holocaust was an abject moral failure; today's letter by Catholic scholars is an affirmation of the power and majesty of truth," the statement concluded.



P.S. CNS picked up the story today, but still does not have the full statement nor the list of the 'scholars', though it identifies two of them.


19 Catholic scholars want slow-down
of Pius XII's sainthood process
By Dennis Sadowski



WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (CNS) - Nineteen Catholic scholars of theology and history are asking Pope Benedict XVI to slow the process of the sainthood cause of Pope Pius XII.

Saying that much more research needs to be done on the papacy of the mid-20th century Pope, the scholars said in a Feb. 16 letter to Pope Benedict that "history needs distance and perspective" before definitive conclusions can be reached on the role of Pope Pius during World War II and the Holocaust.

[Which has nothing to do with his cause for sainthood! Even if he had kept completely silent about the Nazi persecution of the Jews, which he did not, it was a legitimate moral choice for a Pope that has nothing to with his saintliness. You would think theologians would know that intuitively! But I suspect these opponents are ideologues of political correctness first, before they are historians or theologians.]

Leading the effort are Servite Father John Pawlikowski, professor of ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and Holy Cross Father Kevin Spicer, associate professor of history at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. [Pawlikowski, BTW, was one of the very first Catholics quoted to be highly critical of Benedict VXI's Dec. 19, 2009, decision to proclaim the heroic virtues of Pius XII. I'll look up Fr. Spicer.]

In an e-mail to CNS sent late Feb. 17, Father Pawlikowski told Catholic News Service the scholars are not opposed to Pope Pius's canonization.

"We sent this letter because we feel that too often the issue of Pius XII is portrayed as one of Jewish concern," Father Pawlikowski wrote. "We wanted to make it clear that some Catholics who have worked on Holocaust issues have serious concerns about advancing the cause of Pius XII at this time."

[Yeah, right! Kumbaya, we feel your pain, Brother Jew! Has it never entered their p.c. minds that Jewish critics of Pius XII are exploiting the situation for purely
self-serving reasons? And that there has to be some reasonable limit to Holocaust victimhood!

Also, what exactly are those 'serious concerns' - do they have to do with historical fact (just because they claim to be historians does not necesssarily make them expert on the particular history of Pius XII) - and if so, do they have hard facts to support their 'serious concern' other than the standard 'he did not say enough' accusation - as if anyone else had said and did enough, let alone more than what Pius XII actually said and did!

Sometimes, I think bone-headed Catholic priests can be as despicable as the sex offenders. And I can't dispel my doubt that this could be just another ploy by dissenters to get headlines.]


P.S. The text of the letter and the signatories can be found on
cnsblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/catholic-scholars-ask-pope-benedict-to-slow-process-of-sainthood-cause-of-pope-pius-xii/#mo...

Contrary to the advance billing, all 19 signatories are from the United States except one from the University of Bonn.

I am surprised that only ZENIT presented this aspect of Fr. Lombardi's news conference on Tuesday, which appears to have been as selectively covered as Cardinal Sean Brady's, about which I still have to see a comprehensive coverage.

Unfortunately, the MSM narrrative of the Pope's meeting with the Irish bishops was that he was strong on condemnation but not believable - a line taken from victims' groups - because he failed to sack some bishops or even accept the resignations of some who have already submitted their resignations.

It's a familiar tactic, alas, from the Pope's critics in Jewish and homosexual circles, to name the two most persistent and virulent professional casters of doubt on Benedict XVI's sincerity.



Benedict XVI's condemnation
of sexual offenses by priests
By Mercedes de la Torre



VATICAN CITY, FEB. 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Throughout his pontificate, Benedict XVI has imparted a clear teaching regarding the sexual abuse crisis in the Church, founded on three clear principles of helping the victims, reestablishing truth and justice, and making sure it doesn't happen again.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, offered this analysis today during a press conference at the conclusion of two-day meeting between the Pope and the bishops of Ireland.

He explained that the Pontiff's thinking on this issue is clear from what he has said on seven different occasions in which he addressed the particular situations of Ireland, the United States and Australia.

On Oct. 28, 2006, the Holy Father addressed the Irish bishops on the topic upon receiving them in audience during their five-yearly "ad limina" visit. He said on that occasion: "The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged.

"In your continuing efforts to deal effectively with this problem, it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes."

[At that time, the Irish government had just begun to investigate the widespread complaints of abuses committed by the Irish clergy.]

On April 15, 2008, responding to a question by journalist John Allen during his flight to the United States, Benedict XVI spoke of his personal consternation regarding the crisis: "It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible for priests to fail in this way the mission to give healing, to give God's love to these children.

"I am ashamed, and we will do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen in future."

"The victims will need healing and help and assistance and reconciliation: this is a big pastoral engagement," he said before landing in the United States.

A day later, in an address to the bishops of the United States at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Holy Father urged the prelates "to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged."

He added, "Your efforts to heal and protect are bearing great fruit not only for those directly under your pastoral care, but for all of society."

Benedict XVI picked up the theme once more on April 17 during the Mass said at the Washington Nationals Stadium. He called on all Catholics "to love your priests, and to affirm them in the excellent work that they do. And above all, pray that the Holy Spirit will pour out his gifts upon the Church, the gifts that lead to conversion, forgiveness and growth in holiness."

Later that year, the Pope traveled to Australia to preside at the World Youth Day. During the flight on July 12, he answered a question on the abuse crises put forth by Australian journalist Auskar Surbaktiel. The Pontiff affirmed that "it is essential for the Church to reconcile, to prevent, to help and also to establish guilt in these problems."

"It must be clear," he explained, "it was always clear from the first centuries, that the priesthood, to be a priest, is incompatible with this behaviour, because the priest is in the service of Our Lord, and Our Lord is holiness in person, and always teaching us -- the Church has always insisted on this.

"We have to reflect on what was insufficient in our education, in our teaching in recent decades. There are things which are always bad, and paedophilia is always bad. In our education, in the seminaries, in our permanent formation of the priests, we have to help priests to really be close to Christ, to learn from Christ, and so to be helpers, and not adversaries of our fellow human beings, of our Christians."

The Holy Father noted that it is necessary to reflect on the sense of the word "apologize."

"I think it is better, more important to give the content of the formula, and I think the content has to say what was insufficient in our behaviour, what we must do in this moment, how we can prevent and how we all can heal and reconcile," he said.

On July 19, during his homily at a Mass said at the cathedral of Sydney, Benedict XVI pointed out that abuse of children and young adults is strongly rebuked by Christ in the Gospel.

Earlier this month, on Feb. 8, speaking to the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Holy Father took up the topic again: "Following Christ's example, the Church down the centuries has encouraged the protection of the dignity and rights of minors and has taken care of them in many ways.

"Unfortunately in various cases some of her members, acting in opposition to this commitment, have violated these rights: conduct which she does not and will not fail to deplore and condemn."

"The tenderness and teaching of Jesus, who saw children as a model to imitate in order to enter the Kingdom of God (cf. Mt 18: 1-6; 19: 13-14), have always constituted a pressing appeal to foster deep respect and care for them," he added. "Jesus's harsh words against those who cause one of these little ones to sin (cf. Mk 9: 42), engage everyone always to adhere to this degree of respect and love."

Here is how the UK Daily Telegraph reported the decision taken by Forward in Faith Australia earlier this week (my post earlier on this page was based only on the FiFA internal bulletin of the resolutuons they passed).


Australia's traditional Anglicans
vote to convert to Catholicism
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
and Martin Beckford, Religion Correspondent


Traditionalist Anglicans in Australia have become the first to vote in favour of leaving their national church and converting to Roman Catholicism.

Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs

Forward in Faith Australia, part of the Anglo-Catholic group that also has members in Britain and America, is setting up a working party guided by a Catholic bishop to work out how its followers can cross over to Rome.

It is believed to be the first group within the Anglican church to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented offer for disaffected members of the Communion to convert en masse while retaining parts of their spiritual heritage.

So far only the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has already broken away from the 70 million-strong Anglican Communion, has declared that its members will become Catholics under the Apostolic Constitution.

The Rt Rev David Robarts OAM, chairman of FIF Australia, said members of the association felt excluded by the Anglican Church in Australia, which had not provided them with a bishop to champion their conservative views on homosexuality and women bishops.

"In Australia we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"We're not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected."

Bishop Robarts, 77, said it had become clear that Anglicans who did not believe in same-sex partnerships or allowing women to be ordained as bishops had no place in the "broader Anglican spectrum".

"We're not shifting the furniture, we're simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed and we're not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalised by people who want to introduce innovations.

"We need to have bishops that believe what we believe."

Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs, he said.

On Feb 13th the group unanimously voted to investigate setting up an Ordinariate - an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church - in Australia.

It has formed a working group with a Catholic bishop, Bishop Peter Elliott, along with the breakaway TAC and the national church, ACA, to “set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate”.

Under the terms of the Vatican’s offer made last October, Anglicans who are disillusioned with the church’s liberal direction will be allowed to enter into full communion with the Holy See. But they may be able to continue using their old prayer books and church services, and will come under the pastoral care of a new bishop called an Ordinary.

Forward in Faith Australia, which is based in Melbourne, has up to 2000 members, but not all are expected to convert. The group said it was committed to providing “care and support” for anyone who felt unable to be received into the Ordinariate.

Bishop Robarts said his group was the first FiF branch to "embrace" the Pope's offer so strongly. Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England have welcomed the opportunity but are waiting to see whether they will be given significant concessions on the introduction of women bishops – such as a “men-only” diocese – before deciding whether to cross the Tiber.

The Anglican Church of Australia ordained its first women priests in 1992 but so far its governing body, the General Synod, has failed to approve legislation needed to introduce women bishops.

"It's the first step on the road, saying thank you, we are going to go along this particular track because the door has been closed to us by the Anglican Church of Australia over a long period of time,” said the bishop.

"I love my Anglican heritage, but I'm not going to lose it by taking this step."


Damian Thompson had a few short blogs on this and related issues in the past two days:

The exodus begins...

February 17, 2010

...in Australia where Forward in Faith has voted to join the Ordinariate.

We’re not talking about a large group, not everyone is going, and it’s led by a retired bishop. But the psychological impact of official Anglicans bearing the Forward in Faith logo voting to convert to Rome under the new corporate scheme will be significant...


And on the same day, this story about one Anglican bishop who has converted:

Church of England bishop converts to Rome

February 17, 2010


The former assistant Bishop of Newcastle, Paul Richardson, has been received into full communion with the Holy See, I am pleased to reveal. Richardson – also a former Anglican bishop in Papua New Guinea and diocesan bishop of Wangaratta in Australia – was received into the Church at the chaplaincy at Durham University last month.

He tells me that his conversion is not the product of recent controversies. “I would have become a Catholic even if the Church of England wasn’t ordaining women bishops,” he says. “In a sense I feel it’s what I’ve always been, so this is like coming home.”

Richardson, 63, is not planning to join the Ordinariate, but hasn’t ruled out ordination as a Catholic priest – “You can’t just jump in and say ‘I want to be ordained’. I think I have to let the Church guide me over that,” he says.

Here is Paul Richardson’s page on the website of the Anglican diocese of Newcastle, where the bishop chaired the diocesan board of education. He now lives in London, where he attends Mass daily at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. “I’m very happy just being an ordinary Catholic,” he tells me.

And I hope I speak on behalf of my Catholic readers when I say that we are very happy to welcome him.


And on his blog for today, Feb. 18, Thompson anticipates his op-ed article for the February 19 issue of the Catholic Herald. He gives us a realistic perspective of the situation, with consideration to practical problems on the part of Anglicans - and most importantly, that the interest is more on the part of Anglican bishops and priests than from their faithful.


Why it doesn't matter if the Pope's Ordinariate
for ex-Anglicans is small at first
By Damian Thompson

Issue of February 19, 2010


On Monday, Anglo-Catholics across England will be holding a day of prayer to help their bishops, clergy and laity decide how to respond to the Pope’s provision of a self-governing Ordinariate for former Anglicans.

Many members of our Church will be praying with them; in Oxford, Anglicans are joining the members of the Oratory for a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

There is a lot to pray about, and a lot to pray for. Anglo-Catholics interested in the Holy Father’s offer will be praying for gifts of discernment not only for themselves but for their fellow Anglican Catholics and Catholic Anglicans. (The two terms are not quite interchangeable, which gives you some idea of the complexity of the situation.)

But I’m guessing that top of the list of requests to the Almighty will be for the Catholic Church, in consultation with the Anglo-Catholic leaders, to get it right. That is, to offer a carefully designed model for the Ordinariate, together with detailed instructions for constructing it.

And they will have to be detailed, because people will be joining what is, in effect, a non-territorial diocese from different starting points, bringing with them different aspects of the Anglican “patrimony”, and – at least initially – different expectations.

In his address to the English and Welsh bishops earlier this month, Pope Benedict urged them to be generous in their implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus, the Apostolic Constitution that will create Ordinariates worldwide as a permanent provision for ex-Anglicans.

Why did he single out this subject? One rumour is that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is puzzled by the small numbers of members of the Church of England planning to join the Ordinariate, and are worried that elements in the Bishops’ Conference are pouring cold water on the project.

As it happens, there are prominent Catholics talking down the Ordinariate scheme, and they should be ashamed of themselves; but they certainly do not include Archbishop Bernard Longley, Bishop Malcolm McMahon and Bishop Alan Hopes, the three bishops on the Commission working out the details of the English scheme.

This seems to me to be an ideal trio of English bishops for the task, combining holiness, humour, intellect and, in the case of Bishop Hopes, the specialist knowledge that comes from having once been a leading Anglo-Catholic.

No: what is slowing things down is the fact that a divided, demoralised and confused Anglo-Catholic constituency is under pressure to make decisions about an offer that is not yet on the table. How could it be, when so much hangs on the attitude and decisions of the Church of England?

The General Synod will not outline its legislation for women bishops until its July meeting. So far as I can work out, there is a slim chance that the Synod may give traditionalists limited oversight by bishops who do not ordain women.

This would be no more than a fig leaf, and it is probably not going to be offered anyway, so how can Forward in Faith, the main Anglo-Catholic body, justify delaying its official response to Anglicanorum coetibus until the Synod is over? The Apostolic Constitution, remember, was drawn up following requests from traditionalist Anglican bishops for pastoral oversight; it was not intended as a last resort.

In the end, however, the Catholic Church has to face the fact that, in England more than any other country, history has bequeathed us an almighty ecclesiastical mess. Anglo-Catholicism is part of the established religion of England; it is here that a movement of clergy and their patrons adopted a Catholic (sometimes ultra-Catholic) style of worship that developed in opposition to the Church of England hierarchy, and has always been embraced more readily by priests than by lay people.

Not only are there fearsome legal barriers to vicars “taking their parishes with them” – the congregation does not own the building, as it does in other countries – but the men and women in the pew are often less diehard in their opposition to women priests and bishops than their pastors. Or, to put it another way, their objections are cultural rather than theological.

My impression is that the Ordinariate appeals most to the Anglican bishops who proposed it and to young, conservative Anglican clergy and seminarians. Older incumbents are split between those few who will move soon, with whoever follows them; those who never wanted to be “Roman Catholics” and will either stay put or move into a dissident Anglican sect or Orthodoxy; and a very large group who favour the Ordinariate in principle but will stay in the C of E for as long as it takes to persuade significant numbers of their flock that this is their only opportunity to carry on worshipping as Catholics (which is what they consider themselves to be). That will take time; the reality of women bishops will have to sink in.

The Catholic Church must not be too dismissive of Anglo-Catholic priests who stay to argue gently the case for the Ordinariate, as opposed to staying to fight the lost cause of classic Anglo-Catholicism.

Anglicanorum coetibus has no expiry date; some of its finest fruits may not be visible for a decade, when traditionalist laity overcome their natural fear and plunge into the Tiber.

For that to happen, it is essential that the first groups of Anglicans who enter the Ordinariate do flourish, on however small a scale. There have been predictions that around 20 parishes will leave the Church of England soon; I take those with a pinch of salt, so enormous are the legal and pastoral obstacles for a single parish to detach itself corporately from the Established Church.

It may be that the first English Ordinariate structure incorporates merged parishes using borrowed church buildings; that will not be a disappointing outcome so much as a realistic one.

In a sense, we should be glad that this experiment, unprecedented in English history, will be pioneered on a small scale. If the Church gets this right, I am confident that the Ordinariate will not stay small for long.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales is crying out for new talent, for a true “diversity” rooted in an English devotion that pre-dates the Reformation. But that discussion must wait for another day.

Sorry, haven't gotten round to devising a forum banner for this visit yet.


BBC invites the Pope to deliver
'Thought for the Day' during UK visit
by Patrick Foster, Media Correspondent, and
Richard Owen, Rome

February 18, 2010


The BBC is in talks for the Pope to deliver an edition of Thought for the Day, an executive revealed yesterday.

Mark Damazer, the controller of Radio 4, which includes the religious message in its morning programme Today, said that the corporation had asked the Pope to broadcast when he visits Britain this year.


[Is it not strange that a daily religious message
is not run on Sundays, which is the Christian Sabbath?]

Mr Damazer refused to disclose details of the negotiations but said that Mark Thompson, the Director-General, had raised the matter during a trip to the Vatican this month.

Mr Damazer said: “Mark knows of my aspiration. We’ve spotted the coincidence between my desire to have the Pope, and the Pope being here. We should be getting the top people in the English-speaking world on our shows. I won’t leave this job until I have got the Pope doing Thought for the Day.”

The Pope’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, told The Times that the proposal was “interesting and worthy of consideration”. He said that the Pope, who speaks good English, had not finalised the schedule for his visit. “If the Holy Father thinks it opportune to make the broadcast he will do so,” he said.

Thought for the Day has been a source of controversy for the BBC recently as secularists have campaigned for it to be abolished, while the Church of England expressed “deep concern” about a decline in religious programming across all broadcasters.

After complaints led by the National Secular Society, the BBC Trust ruled last year that Radio 4 was not obliged to open the slot up to non-religious groups.

Yesterday Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The Pope will have a three-minute slot to lecture us about morality, but no one will be able to challenge anything he says. Why won’t he be invited to take the 8.10am interview slot on the Today programme with John Humphrys – and let’s have a bit of finger-wagging the other way.”


The best service the BBC could do for the Pope is to air a program during his visit that allows a rebuttal of their hateful, hate-ful and lie-strewn PANORAMA documentary back in 2006. attributing all the cover-ups done by local bishops for priestly sex crimes to Cardinal Ratzinger.

In fact, an official retraction/correction should be done of their blatantly false allegation that Cardinal Ratzinger was responsible for a 1963 document from the CDF instructing bishops how to deal with priests who commit grave offenses against the sacraments, and falsely interpreting said document as an instruction to bishops to cover up such crimes if it involved sex offenses against minors.

It is a journalistic crime to state deliberate falsehoods, and with the obvious aim of reinforcing the journalist's biases.


Here's a spoof by a journalist who manages to capture the BBC's mania for political correctness:

That papal 'Thought for the Day' pitch

Pope Benedict may fill BBC Radio 4's religion slot when he visits this year.
What will he be able to get past the producers?

by Jonathan Bartley

Thursday 18 February 2010


BBC studio, some time in September 2010

Pope: "Good Morning. When my predecessor arrived in Britain he famously kissed the ground and later declared: 'This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard.' Now it seems it is turning back to pagan ways … "

Producer: Hold on. Could we think of an alternative to "pagan"?

Pope: But that's what JP said …

Producer: It's just that we don't want to run the risk of opening up the whole thing about whether religious minorities should be allowed to do Thought for the Day.

Pope: What if I say the word in Latin?

Producer: Great. Most of the Radio 4 audience did classics, and it'll sound more pious. It's a religious slot, after all. OK, do continue your holiness.

Pope: "The forces of secularism … "

Producer: Ah, we can't be seen to be bashing secularists.

Pope: "Dark forces"?

Producer: Could be misconstrued.

Pope: "The enemies of Christianity"?

Producer: Fine.

Pope: " … are demonstrating even now, with an agenda to change the laws of the land, and take away the rights of the one true church."

Producer: Yes, now the "one true" claim could cause problems for a couple of reasons. The overwhelming majority of contributors to this slot are Anglicans, and we don't want to undermine what they are saying. There's also the slightly touchy subject of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Pope: Yes, I was just coming to that.

Producer: Think we'll have to drop that bit too. Want to skip to the next part?

Pope: "The church will always be welcoming of all."

Producer: Now that's OK, but it can't be left unqualified.

Pope: Why not?

Producer: Well, 'Thought for the Day' is a slot with no right of reply, so you have to put the other side of the argument.

Pope: Sorry, I'm not really used to that ...

Producer: It's OK. There's a skill to this which only comes with practice. There are ways of being able to say what you want to say, whilst appearing balanced. Just add a few references about the odd person who some might suggest would not be welcome, say, all the time.

Pope: Like women priests?

Producer: Yes, and people in gay relationships. And perhaps a reference to contraception? And we should also mention the recent, er scandals. "Welcome to all" could be misconstrued. Now we need some theology in there too, otherwise we get accused of not being distinctive.

Pope: I used a great line for one of my encyclicals. "God is love". It fits in with the welcoming theme, don't you think?

Producer: Perfect. Much better than the tenuous "Jesus welcomed people once" approach which we always fall back on. Now we just need what we call in the trade "the pay off".

Pope: I thought the British taxpayer was covering my visit? It's a state visit you know – although you appreciate that I am doing this in a religious capacity?

Producer: No the "pay off" is the line at the end which draws it all together. How about a blessing?

Pope: OK, but usually papal blessings are reserved for special occasions.

Producer: We really appreciate it. It's a big thing for us. Quite a coup in fact. Right, at two and half minutes that's your lot. Last thing. I know you don't normally do this, but shall we run it past Lambeth Palace [ie, the Archbishop of Canterbury] as well?